Charts and Other Info

Today, once again, is about data and questions related to this virus that has messed up our lives for the past two years.

There’s a chart worth looking at:

from Alex Berenson's Substack

It shows data from Great Britain during the last week of December and first week of January. I got this in a regular email from libertarian Tom Woods, who has been providing a lot of COVID-19 data and commentary throughout the pandemic. The email is passing along info from Alex Berenson’s Substack. The Berenson post included similar charts from Scotland, Israel, and Denmark, all showing age makes more of a difference than vaccination status. And then Berenson comments,

Remember, these failures cannot be blamed on vaccine skepticism, or Tucker Carlson, or me. These countries are as close to fully vaccinated as it is possible to be.

If you think this is what you were promised a year ago—or six months ago, or even a month ago—I don’t know what to tell you. But the answer cannot be to do MORE of what has not worked.

He's right. But as I look at the Britain chart, I still have questions. It compares the raw numbers of unvaccinated to the vaccinated. But it doesn’t compare populations. You would need to know how many in the total population are vaccinated or unvaccinated at those various levels. Then you could do a per population comparison, for example per 10,000 or per million or whatever is appropriate. There are probably other studies that do that.

Even better, but I don’t know how to get this, would be data on how well the different cohorts do when exposed to the virus. You can’t really tell how effective a vaccine is if the vaccinated person isn’t exposed to the virus. Since you can’t purposely expose people, that study isn’t possible. So you have to extrapolate from general populations and assume there’s some sort of random or generalized exposure.

And, of course, the unvaccinated bucket contains both those who have gotten and recovered from the disease and those who haven’t contracted it yet. There’s an enormous difference between those two cohorts. Add in, as Dr. Mobeen Syed talked about January 27, there’s data showing that people in households with sick Covid patients but who do not also contract the disease—so they have definitely been exposed but don’t get sick—also show that they have antibodies. From some previous illness? From a highly tuned immune system that stopped the virus in its tracks before it could cause illness? More study needed. But it’s interesting. It’s not different from what we see in a great many other illnesses, where some people in the family get sick, but some resist illness.

There may always be more to learn. But it does look like we’re nearing the end of this pandemic. There are still some deaths happening, although more of a plateau than a rise. There are still some hospitalizations. But only a small fraction need oxygen or ventilators, and time in hospital is down from weeks to 3 to 5 days.

The number I don’t have is hospitalizations as a percentage of cases. Even during Delta, the number was about 1 in 100, of which somewhere above 90% recovered—while media had stirred the public to believe that 50% of cases went to the hospital and 50% or so of those died.

But now, the case numbers have skyrocketed. I look at my zip code to get a grasp on numbers, gathering numbers daily from the Harris County website. Through most of the pandemic, we’ve had active cases mostly below 100. Now we’re more than 10 times that number. Yet we have had no additional deaths since early December. The total number—through the entire pandemic—is between 36 and 38. We hit 36 on November 30; 37 on December 7; 38 on December 10. That was a pretty rapid rise, since we’d been averaging a bit over 19 days between additional deaths. But this was Delta, before Omicron took over.

But wait! We went back down to 37 on December 16, and down to 36 on December 17, then back up to 38 on December 18, but back down to 36 on December 24—Merry Christmas to whichever families got their loved ones back. I’ve been calling these resurrections. We went as low as 35 again on December 27, but have toggled mostly between 36, 37, and 38 most days since. Yesterday and today we are at 37. I don’t know the meaning of these “resurrections.” I’m assuming someone inputs data wrong, although I can’t explain why they would change it downward from an existing number. It may be that a death attributed to COVID-19 was later found to be due to some other cause. Whatever the reason, we essentially have not had a death due to COVID-19 in this zip code for over a month and a half. Back when we first got to 37 deaths, we had 70 active cases. Now, we topped out at just over 1200 active cases last weekend, and maybe this week we’re trending back down for good.

The comparison is, 70 active cases, one death per 20 days, to 1100 active cases, no deaths in 45 days.

I also look at my son’s county, in rural central Texas (getting data daily from the state) which has a population in the range of imaginable, like my zip code. They had a surge in deaths in a late summer wave. In November they had a total of 7 deaths. In December, just 1, going 35 days until 2 more in January. None the past two weeks. Their cases, meanwhile, have skyrocketed as we see all over.

In other words, unlike in past waves, deaths remain low, as if we are past a wave, even though our case rates are the highest ever. And, we should add, case rates are likely undercounted, since only official tests count, and for people who have only minor symptoms, they’re likely to stay home a few days until they feel better and not bother getting a test that would tell them to stay home a few days until they feel better. Or maybe they've done an at-home test that they do not report.

I’m on day 4 of something that feels like a bad cold; my husband had it for the five days before I came down with it. Neither of us had fever. I had a sore throat the first day. The rest has been just sinus congestion and severe fatigue. I haven’t been able to find at-home tests in stores (don't want to contact the government to send me any), and haven't wanted to go out and get a test when what I’m doing is getting me through this just fine. But, maybe it would be good to know if this is just a cold or Omicron.

The silver lining for all the people getting the Omicron variant this month is, getting the virus now gives future immunity. Even if there’s another wave to come, of an even more transmissible variant, this natural immunity holds up. And for those who miraculously stayed well through until the next strain, the severity of a future strain is going to be no worse than now, and possibly even weaker. And it will only progress through the population that doesn’t have it now, a population that's getting harder to find.

I've been watching these charts turn blue lately. The comparison is to the week before in that area. You can get actual numbers by clicking on the interactive maps on the site. If an area has been blue for a very long time, like South Africa, and now it's up a bit, that's a comparison to that place 7 days earlier, already low, so probably still low and not reason for alarm. There's another level that goes down to the county level, which is also fun to look at. Again, these are case counts, saying nothing about severity of illness, just whether it is spreading (orange) or not (blue).

New cases compared to 7 days prior, showing the trend
for the past three days for the US.
data gathered daily from here

New cases compared to 7 days prior, showing the trend
for the past three days for countries worldwide.
data gathered daily from here

Dr. John Campbell has been giving a lot of good news, from the data, this past week. On January 27, he pointed out that concerns about high case rates or even hospitalizations are temporary:

I don’t think it will mean that more people will die overall. But it means that the deaths could come in a shorter period of time, because the infection is going through the population in a shorter period of time.

A week earlier, January 20, Dr. Campbell presented interesting data on deaths from COVID-19 with no other underlying causes. That was eye opening. 

He refers to a release of data in the UK, following a FOIA request, which he assumes will translate to similar news in the US, Canada, and other similar countries.  The data was provided about a month ago but strangely was not mentioned in mainstream media, and he only just came across it. The data is cumulative, covering 2020 through the first three quarters of 2021, ending September 30, 2021. They’re looking at deaths listing COVID-19 and no other cause on the death certificate.

Total deaths from COVID-19 with no other underlying causes.: 17, 371

Age 0-64: 3,774

Age 65+: 13,597

During this time, the average age of these COVID deaths in 2021 for all of UK: 82.5 years.  This means a lot of people were over 82.5 in order to get that average. For comparison, the average life expectancy in the UK from 2018 to 2020 (which includes the first year of the pandemic):

Males: 79.0 years

Females: 82.9 years

Averaged out for whole country, there’s a drop in life expectancy of 7 weeks for men and an increase of 0.5 weeks for women—meaning all the COVID deaths have only reduced men’s life expectancy by a few weeks, and women’s life expectancy through the COVID-19 pandemic has actually increased by 3-4 days.

Dr. Campbell did this simple math, dividing the total number of deaths WITH COVID-19—137,133—by the number of deaths FROM COVID-19—17,371—and you get that there are 7.9 times more deaths WITH than FROM the virus.

For anyone well under 82.5 years old without comorbidities, the likelihood of death caused by COVID-19 was remarkably low—through September 2021. Since then, the Delta variant has been taken over by the Omicron variant, and likelihood of death has further dropped dramatically.

The data we’re getting can be summed up as:

·       Natural immunity is much stronger than vaccination.

·       The surge in cases with the Omicron variant (and sub-variants) will mean a huge portion of the population will have natural immunity going forward.

·       Vaccination may be helpful for certain groups, such as the elderly and those with comorbidities, for whom the virus is most dangerous; to all others, the vaccines and boosters provide little protection from contracting the virus or spreading the virus, and only marginal help in less virulent cases.

·       Following each additional booster, the amount of time before antibodies wain and a new booster is needed drops approximately in half. (This is mentioned in a Dr. Mobeen video.)

·       Lockdowns, masks, mandates, and other attempts at coercing the public have not contributed to protection from COVID-19 and have contributed to deaths and lower health by other causes than COVID-19.

There’s more news daily. Most of it indicates better days ahead, and what ought to be regret for the utter failure of national health advisories responsible for doing everything wrong these past two years, including squelching dissent and even possibilities for treatments, which have been known since the early months of 2020.

Heather Heying and Bret Weinstein discussed how to go forward, after knowing how people have behaved the past two years. Their advice seems to be, if someone recognizes their wrongness and apologizes—or at least admits their wrongness—then that is the right direction going forward, and we can associate with them. If they refuse even now to recognize they were wrong, or perhaps they claim against all evidence that they’d been on the side of truth all along, then we will know them for what they are and probably continue to distrust them. This has been significant for them. They were fired from their teaching positions and had their lives disrupted and their reputations sullied. For me, I’m just an onlooker, seeking the truth the whole time, but not materially affected.

This whole episode in world history has been both baffling and disturbing. May the effort to tyrannize people through fearmongering over this illness end abruptly and soon. And may everyone be wiser in the future.

 

More Resources:

Dr. John Campbell and Dr. Mobeen Syed put out videos just about every day going over the latest data and latest news. I suggest following them. Both are pretty good at explaining the data clearly, and also give links to the data sources for you to search out yourself. Dr. Peter McCullough goes on various podcasts and is always worth listening to. Besides those linked above, here are a few more sources worth checking out:

·       Dr. Peter McCullough on Meet Me for Coffee podcast, January 9, 2022.  Dr. McCullough gives a list of ways to treat yourself at home when you can’t get hold of the helpful medications (HCQ or Ivermectin).

·       “FDA Approval Never Happened for the Vaccines? Peter McCullough” on Anthony Pompliano podcast, January 12, 2022.

·       “Walmart in Quebec is BANNING Unvaccinated from Entering! Viva Vlawg on the Street” Viva Frei law vlog, January 25, 2022. 

·       “Who constructed the COVID narrative? (Chris Martenson & Bret Weinstein)” DarkHorse podcast clips, January 28, 2022. This is an interesting conversation about the topsy turvy situation we’re in.

·       The Real Anthony Fauci: Bill Gates, Big Pharma, and the Global War on Democracy and Public Health, by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., © 2021, Skyhorse Publishing Inc. 

·       “Man removed from heart transplant list for being unvaccinated gets emergency pump” Yaron Steinbuch for the New York Post, January 27, 2022. 

Time for a COVID Update

Time for a COVID-19 update. We haven’t done one of these in a while, but since the President is dealing with the illness, maybe it’s time.

The President's Weekend Story

To catch you up, the President made the announcement that he and the First Lady had both tested positive. I saw it around 1:00 AM Friday morning where I live.

Earlier, on Thursday I believe, he had been on Sean Hannity, debriefing the Tuesday night debate. At that time he mentioned that he was being tested, because White House aide Hope Hicks had tested positive. He is tested frequently regardless. Everyone who works with him is tested frequently. And all kinds of precautions are taken, since he is the President of the United States. 

He did say in the interview that it was difficult, when you meet with people, like military and veterans, and they want to come up and hug you—it’s difficult to push them away. You don’t want to do that. And Hope Hicks, he said, is a very caring person. He seemed to be saying, it was inevitable at some point that she would get it because of her loving care for those she would meet. He wasn’t attempting to praise himself, but he was saying there are social limits to caring about yourself.

Also on Thursday he met with a group at a fundraising event at a golf course. I don’t know details of the event, but some 200 people who were there have been contacted to be cautious. That was before the positive test results came back—and, as I mentioned, he’s tested frequently, so he doesn’t shut down his schedule pending the results of every test. Also, he only removed his mask to speak, at what should have been a safe distance from the audience.

As of Thursday evening he wasn’t showing symptoms; late in the day Friday he was. So it is conceivable that he was contagious on Thursday. But the usual precautions were taken that day as always. It is possible he spread it to no one. It is, of course, also possible that he did spread it.

Since Friday several others have tested positive. I’m unsure of all of them, but they include Chris Christie, Kellyanne Conway, and Kayleigh McEnany. Did he spread it to them, or did they contract it from the same vector the President got it from? Maybe somebody knows that, but the news spreaders do not.

The response has been mixed. A great many people are praying for the President. And he is leaving the hospital today, apparently improving greatly already—just three days later. Those who wish him death have revealed that it is not our President who lacks decorum.

The Accusation

President Donald Trump, outside Walter Reed Hospital, October 3
Reuters image from here

There was something in my Facebook feed I want to respond to today. This is from a friend whose relationship I value. I will not mention her name. I do not hate her for disagreeing with me. But I’m very concerned that this person, who is very bright, cannot see what I see. And it may be that she literally never sees the information I see. In an interview Scott Adams did with Glenn Beck recently, they both shared experiences about people not even seeing the many stories that we think are relevant; we conservatives, on the other hand, do see the stories they refer to. Nonconservatives often live in a media blackout bubble. Maybe some conservatives do too, but that’s not my experience.

My friend linked this story from Reuters, posted October 3rd: “Infected Trump greets supporters in motorcade outside hospital; his health unclear.” There is some news in the story, but there is also a slant, full of innuendo and speculation that is, of course, not news. And there are additional accusations, beyond this story, that maybe the President is faking it and isn't sick at all. My friend responds with this:

I genuinely can’t tell what’s more disturbing: the possibility that he has faked his diagnosis, or the possibility that the diagnosis is real and he is INTENTIONALLY exposing others. It’s one or the other, and both are horrifying.

The Logic Lesson

Here’s a lesson in logic: when you haven’t looked at all the possibilities—particularly the most likely possibility—then you shouldn’t go with an either/or statement.

Did the President fake his diagnosis? Why would he do that? If he’s, as you say, trying to act like it’s not all that prevalent, why would he fake it? And why would a person who maintains his image assiduously allow himself to look weak for the sake of a fake story? And how could he possibly expect, in a place where “deep state” lifetime government workers have proved themselves more than willing to leak information, true or not—how could he expect all doctors, aides, and associates to go along with such a lie? Seriously, that simply does not ring true.

Did the President intentionally expose others? What is your evidence? He went to the hospital, in a helicopter, with any accompanying individuals protected in the highest level gear. While he was in the hospital, spontaneous thousands gathered outside to show their support of the President. Most with masks, outside, socially distanced, so let’s not worry about them for now. He surprised them by getting in a motorcade car and driving through the street to wave at the supporters. He was wearing a mask, in a presidential motorcade car, with the windows up.

You’re worried about the driver and secret service? Do you know whether they had any contact, or whether there was a window between the driver and back seat? Do you know whether the driver and service members were chosen because they already had immunity to the disease? Did you ask? Did you notice or learn about their special gear to protect themselves? Did you know that the secret service members would need to stay near the President even if he had remained at the White House?

The story itself says, “White House spokesman Judd Deere said the trip had been approved by medical staff and that appropriate precautions had been taken.” In other words, the President wasn’t being cavalier. He may have asked whether the drive-by appearance could be done. If it could not have been done safely, his security team and doctors would have said so.

The other accusation is that he was spreading it to other patients at the hospital. As I understand it, Walter Reed Army Hospital has a private official area for the President. There is an office where he can continue work. Ronald Reagan worked from there as he recovered from his gunshot wound. It is more secure than the White House; that may be one reason he was taken there, rather than simply treated at the White House. Plus, it would be easier to safely handle his food, hygiene, and medicines at the hospital.

But that’s about his security; what about the others? The story posed this worry, rather than find out any answers: “He said he had been meeting soldiers and first responders at the hospital, raising new questions about whether he was now directly exposing others to the disease.” And followed with a quote from a critic: “’The irresponsibility is astounding,’” Dr. James Phillips, an attending physician at the hospital, said on Twitter.” An attending physician means a doctor at that hospital, not one attending to the President. Not someone privy to any more information than the general public has had. Did the media follow up with anyone who had first-hand knowledge of the President spreading a disease to recuperating servicemen? No? Why didn’t they?

So you think the President, knowing he was sick with a contagious disease, was allowed to go bed to bed to unsuspecting patients and breathe on them, and no doctors would be there preventing that? Did he meet them in person? If so, were they people who were already dealing with the same disease, or who already had it and were immune, or who had a barrier between them? Did you ask? Just because you hate the President doesn’t mean he’s doing evil things.

There’s a third possibility in that insufficient either/or: You don’t have the full story. Most likely, he has the disease, and he and everyone around him have taken every precaution to both keep him safe and get him well, and safeguard those around him. That is the most likely scenario. That is the task, the mission, of everyone surrounding him—which he does not have the power, particularly while ill, to override.

He can’t override his security team even on a good health day. That thing you hated him about a few weeks ago—a report that he wouldn’t go honor veterans at a cemetery because he was worried about his hair, and he thought those who died were losers, a story without evidence but with 5 anonymous sources, totally debunked by a dozen or so people who were actually there at the time, including those who didn’t like the President, verifying that the accusation was an outright lie. That story. The President had wanted to go to the cemetery. He would have been taken by helicopter, but the wind and rain were too worrisome; you don’t risk the President of the United States. His protectors said no. So others, including I think the Vice President, went by taking a three-hour car drive that neither the President’s schedule nor his security detail would permit. (And, no, of course he didn’t say anything disrespectful of those who died in battle. That would also be out of character.)

When I read stories like that, where I see logic holes filled with spiteful speculation, I raise an eyebrow and wait for more information. I did that even with a president I had every reason to dislike and disbelieve.

COVID-19 Data Update 

Now for the more general COVID-19 data update.

This morning on Glenn Beck’s radio program, he went through some statistics—from, as he ironically put it, “that right-wing think tank the CDC”:

·       America is 10^th worldwide in COVID-19 deaths per million population.

·       America’s guidelines for reporting COVID-19 deaths are more generous than other countries; any death in which COVID-19 was suspected as a co-morbidity is included, whether or not the actual cause of death was unrelated. This difference in counting inflates our comparative death numbers.

·       Excluding deaths in New York, America would be 47^th in the world in COVID-19 deaths per million population. In other words, most of America on average (even including New Jersey) is doing rather well at keeping deaths low.

·       America tests more than other countries. Far more. Roughly 30% of the US population have now been tested. This inflates the total confirmed cases in comparison with the rest of the world.

·       America’s case fatality rate is average; 4% of the treated patients die. That’s the worst stat we have.

·       America’s infection fatality rate (IFR)—total number of people infected versus total confirmed deaths—is .63%. That’s well below the world average, which the WHO estimates to be .94%; 38 countries have IFRs higher than the US.

·       America’s IFR went from 1.18% in May to .63% in August; we cut the IFR in half as we improved therapies by switching from treating COVID-19 as a lung disorder to treating it as a clotting and blood pressure disorder.

·       Our IFR broadly—total mortality among total population—puts us in a better position than 37 other countries; the IFR data is this good even when we include New York, which badly skewed our data.

·       Researchers at Lawrence Livermore Labs estimated in June that, without the travel restrictions from China and the EU, implemented by President Trump against the advice of “experts,” the case fatality rate would be the same as those countries; we would have by now 720,000 dead. Travel restrictions dramatically slowed the death rate by slowing the infection rate, sparing us from an additional 500,000 (half a million) dead.

I continue to gather data locally. I took this screenshot on October 3^rd. (Data is from Domo.com/Covid19/daily-pulse/.) It shows Change by US County, New Cases compared to 7 Days Prior. Harris County is down 63% from the previous week.

Changes in New Cases from a week earlier
Data and graphs from here on October 3, 2020

Just to show you how confusing data can be, I looked again today, and our county is up 62%. But when I look at the raw number of new cases, it’s lower than it was on Saturday. It’s down from 919 to 872, but the 62% increase is because, I'm guessing, last Monday showed only 537 new cases. In other words, it’s a direct comparison to the week before, not a weekly rolling average the way I do them. This source is new to me, so I'll keep looking and try to figure it out.

I gave up on getting accurate case counts quite a while ago; the sources kept changing their criteria, and sometimes changing what data they provided. So I’ve been doing a weekly rolling average chart of deaths in my county and state. Here are the updates.

This is the new deaths per day for Texas. I’ve used the daily coronavirus data printed in the Houston Chronicle from official sources. This is the data I’ve had the longest. You can see a peak a while ago. But some parts of Texas are still having the occasional spike.

This is Harris County, where Houston is located. I’ve been keeping a daily count of new deaths, taken from the county public health site. They don't give historical data on deaths, so I need to go there daily to capture the data (you can see I missed a few days). Before this chart, assume there was a gradual rise in May, a spike in early June, and back down to this in early July, when I started this chart. Our peak is mid-August, a bit later than the Texas peak.

Out of curiosity, because it was available on the county public health site, I’ve been tracking my zip code. While case numbers are generally inaccurate, I thought I’d see what new cases looked like just in my area. At the same time I’ve tracked changes in active cases in my area, which you can see is either low or negative most of the time. I think we're about average for Harris County. 

The county keeps changing what they show. In mid-September, they changed from graphing the increase in cases per day to showing a combo of recent and older cases—which I hadn’t been tracking. But they started showing an alternative graph called “Epi Curve of Cases Over Time,” which I think is a more accurate picture of how we’re doing. Today it looks like this.

We hit our peak in late June, about a month before we hit our death peak, and we’ve been on a downward trend ever since. But the “helpful” county public health site added this COVID-19 meter on August 5^th, a month past the peak. It hasn’t budged from that bright red "severe" level since they put it there. It blocks my zip code data; I actually have to go to a separate page for that now, instead of just taking one quick snapshot. I guess it’s anyone’s guess when the county judge might move us out of the red alarm, as though we’re on the verge of suddenly becoming New York in crisis.

Maybe it has nothing to do with our behavior, or our safety; it has to do with wielding power. It keeps the economy shut down, and keeps people cowering when we’re within a week of early voting.

What We've Learned

Good data is hard to get. Good information is harder. But good common sense only leaves if you give up using your own brain and let someone else feed you lies that affect your amygdala with fear.

This disease is a bad thing. I wish it wasn’t part of our lives. But facing the reality of it and getting on with our lives as best we can is a better solution than:

·       Blaming the president.

·       Telling lies about what is actually happening before our eyes.

·       Huddling in fear until some dictator allows you to come out under circumstances they determine.

Another day we’ll have to look again at Sweden, which seems to have better common sense than most of the rest of the world. Who would have thought America would need lessons in maintaining freedom from Sweden? 

Data, Debates, and Dystopia

Today’s post is about three somewhat disconnected things: coronavirus data, the senate district convention, and mayhem of anarchists. Maybe we’ll relate them somehow.

Coronavirus Data

I spent some time yesterday going over coronavirus data. We’ve been opening up here in Texas, with enough time to see if there’s a spike. I wanted to see if there was anything to worry about. The county judge says she’s going to issue a new stay-at-home order in a day or two, although it looks like the community is going by the governor’s recommendations regardless of what she says. That means we’re entering phase 3, in which restaurants and some businesses can open at 75% capacity.

The Houston Chronicle has provided a page of data every day since March 31^st. It has a map of cases per county, and other charts. Mainly the page gives cumulative cases and deaths, with an ever-rising chart. Of course ever-rising. Because those numbers aren’t going to go down. There are other places to look at data that recognize a given estimate of recoveries; I think that number is low, but at least it doesn’t imply that each new case means the total number equals people wandering around possibly infecting you.

More useful data are daily new cases and daily additional deaths. And then, we need to ask questions to know what we’re seeing. Case counts and death counts both depend on when things get reported. Some numbers might be held over a weekend, or accumulate for a particular lab for a couple of days, and then it appears there’s a spike when there really wasn’t. So it’s more accurate to look at the 7-day rolling average. That means you look at the last 7 days, add them together, and divide by 7, to get the average of those 7 days. There’s a new number each day, but it’s less volatile and provides a more accurate picture than a simple daily count.

So, using all those daily counts, I figured out the 7-day averages and made charts. Here’s the 7-day rolling average of new cases in the Texas.

Yes, there has been an uptick in cases. But, unlike when this first started to spread, we are behaving differently. We’ve educated the public enough to know to protect the elderly, who are most susceptible to a severe case. And people with preexisting conditions know to be more cautious for their own safety. That means, even when there are more cases, that doesn’t necessarily mean that many more deaths.

There’s a lag of one to three weeks between the cases chart and the deaths chart. Here’s the 7-day rolling average of additional deaths in Texas. We’re not yet seeing anything like a surge in daily deaths.

Some people are predicting a dangerous surge in deaths in a week or two. We may see some, but the goal always was to keep from overwhelming the medical resources. I think it’s safe to say, we’re going to stay within those parameters.

I wanted to know things more locally. I didn’t have ready access to daily death rates covering this same area, but here’s a chart of the 7-day rolling average of new cases in the Houston area (Harris County plus several surrounding counties). There was an uptick a week after Memorial Day, but it appears to be going down already.

One thing I’m finding frustrating is that “confirmed cases” seems to be low. We don’t know actual death rates for those who contract the virus. Estimates are that Texas is probably 0.1% to 0.5% by the end of this. But if you do the math of confirmed cases to fatalities, Texas is at about 2%.

I looked up data by zip code. Mine is still fairly low. I was surprised to see there have been 2 deaths; there hadn’t been any when I looked a couple of weeks ago. There have been a total of 136 cases. That comes out to 1.47%. We know the death rate is not actually that high. So why is the “confirmed cases” number so low, causing the skewed death rate? That’s been frustrating from the beginning.

I found this chart helpful for perspective. It compares deaths per 100,000 in the US (green), Texas (yellow), and Harris County (red). Texas is still way below the US average. Harris County has at times been below the Texas average, but right now they’re about the same. But, unless something drastic happens that causes us to go up where the US average was during its apex, which still didn’t overwhelm the system, we ought to feel safe opening up cautiously.

Data put together by Leslie Joan May

Senate District Convention

I’ve been thinking about the data, again, because this weekend is our District Convention. This was supposed to be held back on March 21^st, but the stay-at-home began the Saturday before that—a date we’ve been able to keep track of, because Mr. Spherical Model broke his ankle that day, so stay-at-home orders coincided with his need to heal. He’s back to walking and doing physical therapy—not quite at full capacity, but getting there, which seems like a good comparison.

Anyway, the senate district convention could have as many as 300 people, although maybe less this year because of the virus and people’s worries. Masks are welcome but not required. This is the biggest (only) gathering we’ve been to since early March.

I don’t expect a guarantee that I’ll be safe. But I want to be safe, without having to spend the entire day breathing through a mask if possible. Hence the dive into the data.

I’ve been on the resolutions committee—that is, the platform writing committee. We took all the resolutions submitted by precincts, compared them to what is in the 2018 state platform, decided what to incorporate, worked on wording, and worked on improving wherever we could.

When we get to the district convention, we temporary committee members get installed as permanent committee members, and then we consider additional resolutions and testimony, and put together a draft for the entire floor to consider. Then that gets taken to the state convention in July.

[Note: I heard today that, because of logistical challenges related to the national convention, they will not update the national platform this year.]

I don’t know how to predict what the floor will find important. Sometimes the arguments there surprise me, because I think we committee members are pretty agreeable on conservative philosophy. But here are a couple of things I think will get noticed.

On abortion, we’re shifting from an incremental, piecemeal approach to an abolish-all-abortions single bill strategy. It’s time, I think. Decades of the other approach have not gotten us where we want to be. And every incremental bill tacitly enshrines the right to kill innocent human life. Certainly there will be arguments about the tiny percentage of unwanted pregnancies related to rape or incest—which happen against the choice of the woman—and also instances where the life of the mother and the baby can’t both be preserved (the latter of which the platform does acknowledge). But the platform isn’t to write law; it’s to present philosophy. So we’ll see how that goes. Texas is already behind other states taking this approach.

We’ve added in some concerns about contact tracing, which have come up during the pandemic. Contact tracing is a somewhat useful tool at the very beginning of an outbreak, to completely prevent the spread. Once the spread has happened, it’s almost useless. What it does do is put a lot of power into the hands of government bureaucrats. Picture, for example, you go to dinner, and someone at the restaurant—someone you don’t know and did not even have close contact with—learned the next day that they had covid-19. Everyone that person was around for the past couple of weeks gets notified. You get contacted, because you were at the restaurant; contact tracing uses, for example, a phone app to track you. You are then required to be in quarantine (lockdown without being able to go out for food or other essential reasons) for at least two weeks. At last you’re released, and you go to the grocery store to resupply. The next day you get informed someone at the grocery store tested positive, so you’re required to quarantine for at least another two weeks. And so on.

During none of this time are you sick. You don’t prevent any spread, because you never had the disease. But your life, your livelihood, and your “pursuit of happiness” are denied you by a government entity exerting more power than is useful. If you volunteer for such tracing, that’s up to you. But forcing it on healthy law-abiding citizens is unacceptable in a free society.

Another issue relates to gun-free zones, which can include churches, schools, theaters, places of businesses—anyplace that declares itself to be a gun-free zone. A place that denies citizens the right to protect themselves is held liable for their protection. It’s a pretty simple idea that hopefully will cause businesses to think about the ramifications before declaring themselves a gun-free zone. Again, this isn’t legislation; this is the expression of ideas.

Anarchy

The temporary committee finished our work two weeks ahead of the convention. Since that time, there’s been a breakout of protests, riots, and anarchic terrorism. I expect we’ll see a resolution or two to address that. Conservatives think it’s bad. Are there reforms to be made for various police departments across the country? Maybe, although my sense is (according to the data I’ve looked at) that the need is highly overblown—for the purpose of stirring people up to anger. I don’t think it’s wise to cede any ground with these people.

The anarchists who have seized ground in Seattle are, I think, an example we should be noticing—to prevent any pandemic spread of their diseased thought processes.

Someone posted the Revolutionary Abolitionist Movement’s 10 Points of Action. I think these are put out by the CHAZ (Capitol Hill Autonomous  Zone) militants in Seattle. I’ve responded to each one.

Image found on Facebook, my comments added.

I'm reminded of the inane demands made by Occupy Wall Street, back in the olden days of the previous administration. And I'm wondering if some of the same supporters of that encampment are supporting this one. You can find a list of those OWS backers here.

In a normal world, you would see that, if you set yourself up in a “fortress,” walled in, with the enemy on the outside, you survive only as long as you have supplies. These guys don’t have any resources inside. They’re using electricity, water, cell service and even their barricades from the City of Seattle. They had some food. But they invited a bunch of homeless people in, who stole all the food. Because—no laws, no police. So, using their cell phones, these militants against the greatest military force on earth asked for donations of vegan meat replacements, oats, soy, and other “foods” to be delivered to them.

Seattle's lost hill, called CHAZ
image from here

The city, in an effort to be accommodating (for unfathomable reasons), provided port-a-potties.

While streets are blocked, they are allowing residents of the 500 or so homes and businesses in their non-America to come and go when they provide ID (which, of course, comes from the enemy state).

To thinking people, this is ridiculous. Send in the national guard to round them up, prosecute them, and be done with it. With some luck, the good guys (America) won’t even have to shed their blood.

But Seattle’s mayor, and apparently Washington’s governor, don’t seem to be thinking people. And people voted them in. It’s the same problem as in Minneapolis; the people voted these anti-Americans in. So I don’t know how to predict how this will go.

It’s untenable to allow the seizure of US soil by anarchic terrorists.

It has always seemed to me that, if you could lay out the truth, the facts, and the philosophy clearly, people will of course choose freedom, prosperity, and civilization. So it has been confusing to me why so many people eschew the good and purposely choose tyranny, poverty, and savagery.

One explanation is that we live in apocalyptic times. But I’ll save that discussion for another day. In the meantime, I guess we watch what’s happening and hope it stays far away from home.

Speaking of—Harris County Commissioners Court met on Tuesday and discussed police reform, but stopped short of calling outright for defunding the police force. The county attorney reminded them that they have no power to direct other elected officials, such as the county sheriff or the DA, to do anything; they are instead accountable to their voters. So nothing much came of it, at least for this month.