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Archive for the ‘COVID – Return to Normalcy’ Category
April 19: COVID Dashboard
April 19, 2021COVID: How safe (or risky) to resume activities?
April 16, 2021Here are my Covid 5-Ps of risk assessment
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Like most people who have been vaccinated, I’ve been recalibrating my Covid risk tolerance: What activities can I safely reactivate? What venues can I visit? What mix of people to beware?
Nudged by a New York Times article headlined What Can You Do Once You’re Vaccinated?, I’ve distilled down to my personal 5-Ps of Covid risk (or safety):
1. PREVALENCE
- Community contagion?
- Herd immunization?
2. PLACE (Venue)
- Outdoors or indoors?
- Ventilation? Shields?
- Cleanliness? Sanitation?
3. PASTIME (Activity)
- Intensity: Sweat? Spray?
- Duration: Brief? Prolonged?
4. PEOPLE (Crowd)
- Density: How many? How packed?
- Familiarity: F&F? Strangers?
- Behaviors: Known? Apparent?
5. PRECAUTIONS (Personal)
- Healthy?
- Vaccinated?
- Masked?
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Some common sense hints
- Watch local case & vaccination rates
- Don’t frequent likely hot spots.
- Avoid crowds of strangers
- Don’t linger – keep moving
- Enjoy the outdoors
- Exercise at home.
- Distance from close talkers
- Wear a mask (just in case)
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DISCLAIMER: I’m not a medical professional or scientist — just a curious, self-interested guy. So, don’t take anything that I say or write as medical advice. Get that from your doctor!
April 15: COVID Dashboard
April 15, 2021Daily New Deaths metric drops below 750
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How will we know when we’re near-normal again?
April 13, 2021Stay focused on the number of Daily New Deaths!
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Now that the country is getting vaccinated at a rapid clip, everybody is asking the same question: When can we resume “normal” life again?
The verbiage from the political-scientists and pundits ranges from ‘pretty soon’ to ‘probably never’.
Thanks guys.
Is herd immunity within reach or asymptotically impossible because of ”vaccine hesitancy”?
How many covid survivors now have “natural immunity”?
How long does natural or vaccine immunity last? Weeks? Month? Years?
Case counts spike then drop like a rock … with “scientific” explanations mimicking financial analysts’ head-scratching rationales for why the market went up (or down) each day.
My advice from the get-go has been — in the words of Nate Silver — to ignore the noise and focus on the signal … the covid-related death count.
Back in Jan.-Feb. 2020, Dr. Fauci was saying:
This not a major threat for the people of the United States, and this is not something that the citizens of the United States right now should be worried about.
I bought in to Fauci’s read of the situation, but said that I’d start worrying when daily covid deaths surpassed those of a a bad flu year.
The were about 80,000 flu-related fatalities in worst recent flu year. Source
Spread across the entire year, that works out to about 250 deaths per day; spread across the usual 4 month flu season, that’s about 750 deaths per day.
Of course, we blew past those numbers … and stayed at sky-high levels for most of the past year.
Now, we’re coming back down … with enough people vaccinated or naturally immune that the trend and levels are likely to stick.
So, my advice: Take case counts with a grain of salt, be encouraged by vaccination rates and stay focused on the averaged number of daily new deaths (DNDs).
Based on the flu benchmark, when the weekly average of DNDs drops below 750, we’re probably near-normal … when it drops below 250, then giddyup … we’re there!
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For more detail. see: MUST READ: How will we know when we’ve turned a COVID-19 corner?
April 13: COVID Dashboard
April 13, 2021
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April 9: COVID Dashboard
April 9, 2021
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April 8: COVID Dashboard
April 8, 2021
Trump: “Enough vaccine for all Americans by April”
April 7, 2021Dateline: September 18, 2020
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Ballyhooed headline yesterday:
To paraphrase the Biden-gushing media: “Yes, Biden has saved the country.”
Big problem with the narrative, though.
A more appropriate headline might have read: “Fortunately, Joe didn’t f-k this one up.”
See Obama: “Don’t underestimate Joe’s ability to f–k things up.”
Why?
Well, it turns out that April was Operation Warp Speed’s timeline all along.
You know, the plan that Biden says that Trump didn’t have.”
For proof, flashback to Friday September 18, 2020 … the day that Trump boldly predicted that there would be enough vaccine available for all Americans by April (2021).
As reported by Kaiser Health News the following Monday:
Specifically, Trump said:
“Millions of doses will be available every month, and we expect to have enough vaccines for every American by April.”
But, of course, the “experts” and the Trump-hostile media guffawed:
To recap:
- Operation Warp Speed delivered.
- Trump was right.
- The “experts” were wrong.
Sound familiar?
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Just in case the September, 2020 news reports gets vaporized, here’s a hard copy of the KHN recap article (with specific citations)
April 7: COVID Dashboard
April 7, 2021
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April 6: COVID Dashboard
April 6, 2021
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April 5: COVID Dashboard
April 5, 2021
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April 4: COVID Dashboard
April 4, 2021
COVID: How risky to resume activities?
April 2, 2021Here’s an interactive online assessment tool to try.
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To answer the question “What Can You Do Once You’re Vaccinated?”, the NY Times devised a handy risk assessment tool.
Boiled down, the tool rates participation risks by asking questions along a couple of key dimensions:
Your vulnerability … Vaccinated? Healthy?
Location risk … Regional hot spot? Indoors??
Activity risk … Close contact? Intensity?
Crowd risk … Number of strangers? Behavior?
Inner circle risk … Their vulnerability?
It only takes a couple of minutes to rate an activity.
It’s worthwhile to try it.
At a minimum, it will plant some seeds in your brain re: factors to consider.
It may even sub-consciously nudge you to more healthy (i.e. risk-reducing behavior).
April 2: COVID Dashboard
April 2, 2021
April 1: COVID Dashboard
April 1, 2021
March 31: COVID Dashboard
March 31, 2021
March 30: COVID Dashboard
March 30, 2021
March 29: COVID Dashboard
March 29, 2021
March 28: COVID Dashboard
March 28, 2021
March 27: COVID Dashboard
March 27, 2021Daily New Covid Deaths Drop Below 1,000
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Herd Immunity Projection details…
March 26: COVID Dashboard
March 26, 2021
March 24: COVID Dashboard
March 24, 2021
March 23: COVID Dashboard
March 23, 2021
March 22: Herd Immunity Tracker
March 22, 2021
When scientists don’t follow “the science and the data”…
March 11, 2021More studies show that schools can be re-opened safely.
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Interesting editorial in USA Today (i.e. not exactly a right wing rag)…
A team of doctors and epidemiologists conducted research on children attending school in person.
They published their findings and submitted them to the CDC.
But, they write:
The CDC cites our work but, in their guidance, does not take into account our data and analyses.
Ouch.
Specifically, the authors conclude:
The science shows that we can safely open our schools now for full-time (non-hybrid) learning and keep them open without even enforcing 6-feet socially distancing.
Here are their data-driven conclusions…
