Posts Made By: James Brown

Here are charts from Colorado - Daily new cases and daily deaths.  There was a big data report of backlogged tests from Quest Diagnostics on April 23, so that date includes a lot of earlier tests that would have been reported as positive on earlier dates.  So far, Colorado looks pretty good.  Businesses are now open with social distancing in place.  Restaurants are scheduled to open mid-month, they are limping by with takeout now.   Large gatherings are banned for an indefinite period of time.  If we have a strong second wave in Colorado it should be apparent from the data.

Jim

Georgia is taking the brunt of the disdain from the national nay-sayers.  I suppose this is because GA has an R Governor.  But the data in GA is really strong, better than Colorado's.  Again, if there is a second wave, it should be quite apparent.

Jim

Texas is a bit different.   The daily infection and death rate in Texas has always been remarkably low, much lower per capita than CO or GA.  But it does not look like TX is much past their very low peak.  It will be interesting to see if re-opening has a noticeable effect.  I'll update these charts in a week or so, or when they show something interesting.

Jim 

Originally Posted by Mel Maki

China could have saved untold lives and misery throughout the world. That somebody could let Trump affect  their reasoning enough to give China "some" blame is worse than just a weak post.

Hi Mel:

I guess it depends on what "some" blame is.  Could be 99%.  

More importantly, we are talking about apples and oranges.  No one who is rational blames anyone but China for hiding the data, possibly releasing the virus, misdirecting the WHO and other alleged stuff that released the pandemic on the world.  This is the apple, "who is responsible for the world-wide spread of the pandemic." 

On the other hand, James has spent time focusing on who is to blame for the allegedly weak federal response.  This is the orange, "the quality of the federal response to the pandemic."  I personally think James over-blames Trump for any weakness in the federal response and I also think James overstates the weakness of the federal response itself.  James and I disagree on those issues, but I am pretty sure that James does not blame Trump for the pandemic itself, or for the fact that it came to our shores.

So, If one wanted to, that person could apportion "overall blame" among the Chinese for "releasing" or concealing the virus and blame among the feds/Trump for "botching" the response.  I did not read everything carefully, but that is not what I thought James was doing.  I thought he was complaining about Rs who use the apple (China's culpability for inflicting the virus on humanity) to provide cover for the orange (Trump's alleged failure to lead the fed to an effective response).

Rich will show up and accuse me of providing cover for James, but who cares what Rich thinks.  I am pretty confident that both the apple and the orange can be true to some extent and not mutually exclusive.

Jim

Originally Posted by Greg Shaffer

It is NONE of anyones business how much ammo anyone keeps......period.

Sort of.  I can imagine that someone might stockpile enough ammo that it would be an unreasonable public safety hazard.  Maybe a muzzle-loader aficionado who stockpiles 500 lbs of black powder in his garage.  Might take out the neighborhood in a fire.

Generally, I agree though.  It is not my business how much ammo you have.  That sentence does not end with a  "period" though, but, "unless it becomes a clear and unreasonable public safety risk."  This is part of the Heller decision too.  This is why you still can't buy a bazooka, even after all these years.  

As we have discussed before, each of the Bill of Right freedoms has limits, often where public safety is unreasonably compromised.

Jim 

Originally Posted by Richard Davis

Well, wrong again counselor, but go screw yourself anyway!   

Your ego seems to think that I give a shit what you think or say.  I really couldn't care less, but it is entertaining to watch you put words into my mouth or actions into my inactions.  LOL

I'm glad you're still following along at home!  Other than taking my bait, do you have any comments on the recent posts?

Jim

Originally Posted by Greg Shaffer

I just today put up several hard case ads at really good prices.....clearing away some of my years of pack ratting.....

Point being if any of you regular participants are interested knock $5 off the price.....Yes even you liberals

Good luck on the sales.  If I had seen that bino mount you sold in 2015 I might have bought it.  I can't resist stuff like that!  

Funny, I've been cleaning my astro-house too.  8 ads and an auction over the last couple of weeks.  For me I guess it is because work is slow, and I've got time on my hands.  Speaking of too much time on my hands.  A friend sent this youtube of a S. Korean baseball fight.  I don't know what to think of it, but it made me laugh.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7D8aDp3RUs

Jim

The Georgia graphs have been puzzling me.  The total number of infections in Georgia (about 33,833 as of today) is the same, give or take a few, as reported on the Georgia Department of Health web page, Worldometer, and Johns Hopkins.  But the graphic representation of the daily new case reporting does not match up at all between these sources.  

Each of these sources ultimately gets their data from Georgia, but Worldometer is reporting totals, and Johns Hopkins is graphing the new cases based  on the date reported.  

Georgia, on the other hand is graphing the new cases according to these rules:

Q: What does the date for a confirmed case represent?     

A: The date indicated for the newly confirmed COVID-19 cases is not necessarily the date that the
information was reported to Georgia DPH, but is based on a combination of dates:

* The date of symptom onset
* The first positive collection date, if the date of symptom onset is invalid or missing
* The date the case is reported, if the dates for symptom onset and first positive collection are missing or invalid  attempt to map the detected  infections to the estimated infection date.

I think Georgia's method produces a more accurate picture of the daily infection curve over time, but with a critical caveat.  Cases detected "today" are graphed according to the rules above, typically to a past date, typically a week to 14 days before.  This has the effect of making it look like very few new cases occurred "today"  See the graph several posts above.  This effect rectifies itself over a two week period (marked on the graph) and results in a much more accurate picture of the daily infections.  But this graphing method makes it very hard to compare between states since no one else is doing it that way.

So, long story short - here are the daily new infections from Colorado, Georgia, and Texas - all graphed based upon the date the infection was reported, all from the John's Hopkins web page.  The Y axes are different, but, over time, this should show us graphically whether there is a second wave developing in these states.  

Jim

  

Duplicate post deleted.

Originally Posted by Rod Kaufman

"A closely watched model the White House has cited to predict the severity of the coronavirus outbreak has slightly increased its estimate of U.S. deaths while identifying five states where increased population mobility could pose a significant likelihood of new infections."
"Montana, North Dakota, Minnesota, South Dakota, and Georgia have seen at least a 20 percentage point increase in mobility patterns in the past few weeks, in part due to the easing of social distancing restrictions, according to the the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation."
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/10/coronavirus-death-toll-model-247242

Hi Rod:

For the author of this piece to call out Montana, ND, and SD is pretty silly in my opinion.  There are apartment buildings in NYC that have more cases and deaths than MT, ND or SD.  How long should these lightly impacted states stay shut down?

Jim