Hunker Down Diary – 9may20

George Rebane

Today is HD63 in the Rebane household, and we are beginning to see little stirrings of sanity across California with even timid Nevada County showing signs of developing a C19 resistant backbone.  Now we are starting to see appeals from various late comers for letter writing campaigns to our electeds to exhort them to end our county’s lockdown.  In response, our Supes are now meeting in secret with the county health officer and others to develop plans to return to some semblance of normalcy, having taken the first baby step to loosen things to the level dictated from Sacramento (really a cop out, here).  Many other counties have more courageously and correctly led the state in returning their communities to prudent post-C19 environments of business, commerce, and social interaction.  That one-size-fits-all policies are wrong can be seen from the data on the disparate impact that the virus has had on our country. (here)

The upshot of it all, one that escapes many people and all progressives, is that we will sooner than later end the lockdown no matter what our command/control governments tell us.  This is an easy deduction, and one that RR (along with other conservatives) has attempted to communicate for the last two months.  We can open up quickly and purposefully with a set of broadly agreed prudent behaviors that are integrated into our new social contract, thereby saving the substantial part of our economy that remains and can launch into rapid recovery.  Or we can continue hunkering down toward a complete destruction of our economy so that unemployment rates go north of 50%, and result in a wholesale grassroots rebellion of a paupered citizenry with unpredictable results.

You can bet the ranch that no population of destitute humans will continue to follow the insane dictates of their government to quietly starve and die in isolation from countless physical and psychological maladies which will then afflict them in the same manner as we have seen afflict the citizens of shithole countries around the world.  Such countries have in common the objective of our Left – they are command and control countries in which wealth is miniscule and held by the small government elites who have the guns.  Our Left thinks it can be the first in history to institute an authoritarian government that is the major player in America’s economy while providing a tolerable quality of life to those who behave and follow its dictates.

Such an aim is now openly described by our socialists and echoed daily in the lamestream.  On the local level we have leftwing thought leaders (e.g. our Darrel Berkheimer in The Union) who do their part to advocate the government’s direction of C19 funds away from ‘big businesses’ (those with >100 employees) and to individuals and small businesses (<25 employees).  Along with the Bolsheviks of long ago, such worthies have no clue that almost all workers and small businesses sell and service stuff made by big businesses that can employ scale make things affordable to all.  Ideologies that don’t recognize this consign their people to eternal poverty trying to eek out a living using pre-industrial age locally operated, feel-good commercial enterprises.

Until very recently, human societies grew and prospered in environments in which contagious diseases came and went, and some even hung around perpetually.  As recently as twenty years ago, no one had the bright idea of shutting down the economy in the attempt to save a miniscule number of lives on the scale of what is important to our species.  The Left’s pernicious ‘people before profits’ mantra destroys both profits and people.  The principle lost to our massively under-educated is that human life is NOT of infinite worth; it has never been of infinite worth, and it never will be.  Only the command/control demogauges tout this message to audiences of light-thinkers who then willingly give up their freedoms for false promises of near-term succor and safety.

On a more concrete level, we look at the numbers of mortality and testing.  C19 mortality is now a firmly politicized statistic that can be concocted ten ways from Sunday depending on your agenda.  To me, the best approximation of ‘truth’ comes from data published by the National Center for Health Statistics, and even their numbers are all over the place (e.g. see ‘Where is the Covid Deaths Bump?’).  An update in 9may20 WSJ by Jo Craven McGinty (here) shows a higher number of C19 deaths as of today.  It is still small in the larger scheme of things and still contains unknown number of deaths from other causes gratuitously attributed to C19, and, of course, some also undercounted from last year when C19 was yet unrecognized on these shores.  But the bottom line is that C19 deaths don’t even make it into the top ten of leading causes as seen in the nearby graphic from NCHS.

The testing story is a bit more complex for the innumerate to wrap their brains around, but just as important in assessing and accepting governments’ attempts to substantiate or establish a firm basis for their hunker down policies.  A good place to start is this piece on tests and testing by Elizabeth Cairns (here).  The punchline again involves the reliability of the C19 tests for infection and immunity.  In these pages I have taken readers through the details of how ‘test accuracies’ affect the conclusions that can be drawn from testing, and what kind of large scale testing programs are required to inform sane response policy making.

The thought I want to leave readers with today is that test reliability numbers are hard to come by and very dubious at best when they are quoted by test manufacturers.  Ms Cairns makes this point clear in her piece.  To end with a thought-provoking number, consider that even using an excellent test with 90% sensitivity and 90% specificity (see here for definitions), at today’s prevalence levels of the epidemic (about 5%), that test will yield almost 70% false positives – i.e. wrong results - when applied to scientifically random-sampled US target populations.  Now tell me again why we’ve been hell-bent on destroying the lives and businesses of tens of millions of Americans.

Comments

[Bill Tozer]

Where or where is our Death Bumps? On the news, that’s where.

Nate Silver Almost Explains How Liberal Media Lies
MAY 8, 2020

“So Silver says, as any honest person would have to that reporting breathlessly on increases in coronavirus cases without reporting the corresponding increase in total testing is misleading. He further stipulates that this bad practice is quite commonplace in the news media. So far so good.

But when he comes to the goal, or the intention of the media in their misleading, his answer is curious. He claims that these journalists want to craft a narrative that makes them “sound smart.” But why would intentionally misleading the public regarding the coronavirus sound smart?.........”

“In reality, the Trump administration has been working on testing since before China announced its first death in January. It has been significantly ramped up owing to public private partnerships and the FDA just Thursday approved at home test kits. But even if one does believe that we are in some kind of testing crisis how would it behoove the president politically to produce fewer tests? To combat criticism that he isn’t making enough tests available he makes fewer tests available? Doesn’t make a lot of sense.

Throughout Trump’s presidency the news media, often more so even than Democrats has been his principle and primary adversary. It is very much a two-way street. In these tweets Silver lays open the progressive media playbook for all to see. First, decide on and coordinate the bad stuff smart people think about Trump; then selectively choose only the facts that support that “narrative.” After that congratulate yourself for the accuracy of your selectively chosen facts, and then invent a completely unsubstantiated allegation against the president.

This playbook was used for Russian collusion, it was used for impeachment and it is in use right now during the pandemic.”

https://thefederalist.com/2020/05/08/nate-silver-almost-explains-how-liberal-media-lies/

[Steven Frisch]

Just curious George, if everything is fine out there and all the hoi palloi should go back to work, why are you and Joanne still hunkered down? Are there not Republican Women Federated, Tea Party and State of Jefferson meetings to go to? Are you missing meeting with your friends at the shooting range to hone your self defense skills?

[Gregory]

Golly, Stevie, could you quote a sentence or two of GR's that maps to "everything is fine out there"?

Thanks and a hat tip to "Sue Denim". The original code used to scare the world has not been released but is said to be a single 15,000 line file in bad C hacked over a ten year period by prof. Ferguson.
https://lockdownsceptics.org/code-review-of-fergusons-model/

[George Rebane]

StevenF 658am - Echoing Greg's 801am, I note again that you continue to have problems understanding most of the stuff in these pages, most certainly what I write. It is remarkable how uniformly the cadres of the Left interpret the world in coarse black/white terms - it's either this or that with nothing in between. For them the Land of Nuance is terra incognita.

[Gregory]

False Dichotomies R Us could be the SBC's altar(sic) ego.

I did spend a lovely afternoon yesterday playing hooky from La Casa de Gregorio... we traveled to within spitting distance of Frisch's Folly... at the Truckee River park to visit/picnic with stepson J and his wife B and grandkids R and S. They live in the outskirts of Reno.

The park was sparsely attended but people were out and about. None were wearing masks. Knowing they'd recently struck out on a shopping expedition to find toilet paper, we brought them the 12 pack (not labeled safe for septic systems,bad for us, inconsequential to them) we'd purchased a few days ago at the Auburn Smart & Final. Squeals of delight from B were heard when it was handed to her...

Was the trip absolutely safe? No, but everything I did that day starting with getting out of bed was not absolutely safe.

[Todd Juvinall]

Steve is hunkered down in his rental in Glenshire, quivering and nervous as he knows he has most of the virus precursors for infection and demise. Too bad, so sad.

[scenes]

re: Gregory@8:01AM

Thanks for that, it's a great find. That sort of thing is exactly what I had in mind when considering simulations vs. epidemiology curves, but it's obviously a non-trivial problem.

That's the beauty of closed-source software, it can generate any old number and people might just believe it. I'm surprised that this guy's model simply didn't just say '42'.

[Bill Tozer]

Dear Diary,

Went out to work around the house and I heard the most glorious sounds coming from the range. Oh, I never realized how much I missed my Sunday Morning serenade. Soft, gentle sounds that makes weeding not so bad.
It’s like anything, you don’t miss it til it’s gone. Like going to bed and hearing the sound of a distant train. Lullaby songs. You miss it when it’s gone, leaves a hole for the rest of your life.

Thank you all at the range this Sunday Morning. Just too quiet around here and I knew something a’miss. My Sunday morning sounds where gone....that was what was a’miss. Now, life is back to normal. Thank you. Gotta go run outside and listen. Warms the cockles of me hearth.

[scenes]

re: simulations amateur hour (h/t Gregory)

Reddit speaks:

https://www.reddit.com/r/LockdownSkepticism/comments/gesrvr/code_review_of_fergusons_model/fprd6da/

[Bill Tozer]

“European virus”

This sounds like what someone on the CCP payroll would say

https://twitter.com/BuckSexton/status/1259985278355243013?

[Bill Tozer]

‘Judge Stops Illinois Governor From Extending State Lockdown’

The judge’s temporary restraining order sets the stage in Illinois and perhaps nationally for a legal battle over public health experts’ far-reaching demands for public confinement

https://thefederalist.com/2020/04/30/judge-stops-illinois-governor-from-extending-state-lockdown/

[Bill Tozer]

2 min ‘short film’ video for those who are thinking about going ‘out there.’ Run For Your Lives

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=wfGAktuU93s&app=desktop