Abbreviated Coronavirus dashboard for April 12: fundamentally, still flying blind Here is the update through yesterday (April 11) This is an abbreviated version, covering just the essentials. Number and rate of increase of Reported Infections (from Johns Hopkins via arcgis.com) Number: up +28,391 to 530,006 (vs. 35,219 prior peak on April 10) Figure 1 ***Rate of […]

Why was the PREDICT Program Suspended Last Fall? A discussion from October 29, 2019: A crucial federal program tracking dangerous diseases is shutting down. Predict, a pandemic preparedness program, thrived under Bush and Obama. Now it’s canceled … Ever since the 2005 H5N1 bird flu scare, the US Agency for International Development (USAID) has run a […]

    Vua Econospeak, hat tip commenter Ken Melvin for this example from Crooks and Liars of a BBC anchor being straight forward: BBC News to American Brodcasting: How to Open a News Segment

Coronavirus dashboard for April 11: new high in daily infections as testing falls further behind Here is the update through yesterday (April 10) I’ve changed the format, moving the “just the facts, ma’am” data to the top, and comments to the end. Significant new developments are indicated in italics. The four most important metrics are starred […]

Remdesivir and Transfer Pricing III Robert Waldmann posted his Remdesivir III: I do not understand the need for “evidence-based medicine” or rather I do not understand how the phrase is used by doctors. There is no evidence that Covid 19 patients (without heart disease) do better without Chloroquine. I learn that “evidence based medicine” does not […]

Lessons from the Pandemic First, all who produce things we need or want are “essential workers”.  Health care practitioners are essential, but so are the people who stock pharmacies and grocery and hardware stores or staff customer service phone lines.  Truck drivers are essential.  Farmworkers who pick the crops we plan on eating are too.  […]

Here is a moment of respite: Don’t stand so close to me

“High Contagiousness and Rapid Spread of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2,” CDC, Emerging Infectious Diseases Doing my usual morning reading, I ran across a comment concerning an early release article by the CDC which as the CDC points out is not considered to be a final versions. I believe what is important about the […]

The superiority of stay at home orders vs. voluntary social distancing: two graphic proofs Here are a couple of graphs I pulled last week that I’ve been meaning to post. Together they show that mandatory “stay at home” orders have been much more effective than voluntary social distancing. First, here is a graph of the […]

Coronavirus dashboard for April 9: Are new cases peaking? Or is a lack of testing failing to pick up continued spread Here is the update through yesterday (April 8) (NOTE: significant new developments in italics) I’ve changed the format, moving the “just the facts, ma’am” data to the top, and comments to the end. The four […]