Friday, May 22, 2020

Self-isolation Day 66.


Last night I went to bed at 10:30, fell asleep quickly, got up 2-3 times during the night but always fell back asleep quickly, finally waking/getting up at 7:15.


Something new this morning. Teresa wanted me to have a bowl of papaya before breakfast.

In new guidance for mathematical modelers and public health officials, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is estimating that about a third of coronavirus infections are asymptomatic.

The CDC also says its "best estimate" is that 0.4% of people who show symptoms and have Covid-19 will die, and the agency estimates that 40% of coronavirus transmission is occurring before people feel sick.

For people age 65 and older, the CDC puts that number at 1.3%. For people 49 and under, the agency estimated that 0.05% of symptomatic people will die.

The agency cautions that those numbers are subject to change as more is learned about Covid-19, and it warns that the information is intended for planning purposes. Still, the agency says its estimates are based on real data collected by the agency before April 29.

One expert quickly pushed back on the CDC's estimates.

"While most of these numbers are reasonable, the mortality rates shade far too low," biologist Carl Bergstrom of the University of Washington told CNN.

Bergstrom, an expert in modeling and computer simulations, said the numbers seemed inconsistent with real-world findings.

"Estimates of the numbers infected in places like NYC are way out of line with these estimates. Let us remember that the number of deaths in NYC right now are far more than we would expect if every adult and child in the city had been infected with a flu-like virus. This is not the flu. It is COVID," Bergstrom said.

"As I see it, the 'best estimate' is extremely optimistic, and the 'worst case' scenario is fairly optimistic even as a best estimate. One certainly wants to consider worse scenarios," Bergstrom said of CDC's numbers.

President Trump lashed out at Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel (D) in a pair of late-night tweets Thursday after she called him “a petulant child” following his refusal to wear a face mask at all times during his visit to a Ford manufacturing plant in the state earlier that day. “The president is like a petulant child who refuses to follow the rules,” Nessel said in a Thursday evening appearance on CNN. “This is no joke.”

It started pouring at 1:15. For May being the rainiest month we sure haven’t had much this year. It soon stopped but picked up again later.



Teresa is killing me at parcheesi but after the last game I will refuse to play with her again unless she agrees to use the dice cups that came with the game. Because she cheats. If she only needs to roll a ‘1’, for example, to win she will turn the dice to a ‘1’ in her hands and drop it an inch above the board. I’m tired of it and its not fun anymore. I don’t mind her beating me, and she IS slaughtering me, but I refuse to be cheated.



"The latest Fox News Poll finds voters trust Biden to do a better job than Trump on health care by 17 points, coronavirus by 9, and relations with China by 6."

Trump’s response: "Many will disagree, but @FoxNews is doing nothing to help Republicans, and me, get re-elected on November 3^rd."

It’s a news organization, supposedly, and its purpose is not to help you get reelected.



The Malaria drug hydroxychloroquine, which U.S. President Donald Trump says he has been taking, is tied to increased risk of death in COVID-19 patients, according to a study published in medical journal Lancet.



Only a week after Hogan ordered National Guard troops to Baltimore-Washington airport to escort a PPE shipment to a secure location, the White House released a memorandum ending federal orders for state Guard deployments on June 24 - which happened to be one day short of the 90 days needed to qualify for post-9/11 GI Bill education and retirement benefits. National Guard members must be enlisted for 20 years to qualify for a pension at age 60, but for every 90 days served in a federal emergency, they may speed up retirement by three months and qualify for reduced tuition at public universities.



Well, we started another parcheesi game using the dice cup and after she rolled multiple doubles she proclaimed she liked using them. In the next game I rolled 2 5’s and made my move but she had already picked up the dice and declared I rolled a ‘5’ and a ‘3’. I told her I’m not going to play anymore. Before we play again she has to agree not to pick up the dice until I finish my move.



The national delinquency rate soared to 6.45 percent in April, up from 3.06 percent in March and three times the previous single-month record set in 2008



If I understood the evening news correctly the 3 days of no IVA (19% tax) will be June 19^th, July 3^rd and July 19^th. We’ve been thinking of getting a large refrigerator so this might be a good opportunity to save quite a bit. I understand we would give our old one to MT and Wilson.



Three shopping centers are going to open on Monday: Oviedo, I thought I heard Envigado but I didn’t hear the 3^rd.



Hillary Clinton tweet: A study of 96,000 coronavirus patients found that those who received a drug Trump has promoted as a treatment had a “significantly higher risk of death compared with those who did not.” The president needs to stop playing a doctor on TV.



The coronavirus may still be spreading at epidemic rates in 24 states, particularly in the South and Midwest, according to new research that highlights the risk of a second wave of infections in places that reopen too quickly or without sufficient precautions.

“There’s evidence that the U.S. is not under control, as an entire country,” said Samir Bhatt, a senior lecturer in geostatistics at Imperial College.



Blood will be collected from dozens of children in New York to determine whether they share any genetic variations that might make them susceptible to a mysterious syndrome linked to the coronavirus.

Tissue samples from at least one of the three patients to have died from it — ages 5, 7, and 18 — have been sent to a public health laboratory for intensive testing.

A team of more than 30 disease detectives — epidemiologists, clinicians, and statisticians — is poring over thousands of pages of medical records.

The New York Times has found that official tallies in the United States and in more than a dozen other countries have undercounted deaths during the coronavirus outbreak because of limited testing availability.



A hair stylist in Springfield, Missouri, exposed as many as 91 people to coronavirus after working at a salon for eight days while symptomatic, health officials said.

The exposed include 84 Great Clips customers and, potentially, seven coworkers, said Clay Goddard, director of the Springfield-Greene County Health Department. The condition of the stylist, who was not identified, was not revealed.

So far, no other positive case connected to the stylist has been confirmed, but the county is nonetheless facing "a glut of cases," Goddard said.

I read a very interesting article on why our economy may be headed for a decade of depression. I hope you can read the following link:

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/amp/2020/05/why-the-economy-is-headed-for-a-post-coronavirus-depression-nouriel-roubini.html



Hertz filed for bankruptcy.

And a Trump replay from February 14^th: “We have a very small number of people in the country, right now, with it.  It’s like around 12.  Many of them are getting better.  Some are fully recovered already.  So we’re in very good shape.”

The US has 1,547,311 ð 1,582,042 ð 1,606,197 coronavirus cases with 92,617 ð 94,584 ð 95,883 deaths.

Per Medellin Guru, as of this afternoon Colombia has a total of 17,687 ð 18,330 ð 19,131 cases with 682 deaths.  Medellin has 356 ð 369 ð 373 385 cases, an increase of 12 from May 20^th to 22st. Looking at the 6-day averages provided by Medellin Guru Colombia’s curve looks about the same. I think people in some areas aren’t taking this virus seriously.



Joke of the day

Of all the bears that could kill me, the gummy has come the closest.