[lawprofessor]

"Curt Landry, a pastor based in Fairland, Oklahoma, can certainly be considered to be a true believer in the President. During a recent web based sermon, Landry told his viewers to listen to Trump’s advice over that of experts like Dr. Anthony Fauci, because Trump has “God’s authority.”"

Hmmm...

[Thunder]

 

[Treasur]

"Curt Landry, a pastor based in Fairland, Oklahoma, can certainly be considered to be a true believer in the President. During a recent web based sermon, Landry told his viewers to listen to Trump’s advice over that of experts like Dr. Anthony Fauci, because Trump has “God’s authority.”"

Hmmm...

Oh my days....... Well, I'm sure he just went to the top of Mr Trump's Christmas Card list.
Did they not used to say that about monarchs before they sent them to the guillotine etc....?

[marvin4242]

Just saw this which is interesting. This study (very small test really) showed that neither surgical nor cotton masks significantly reduced the expulsion of Covid-19 virus during coughs when worn by infected people. Essentially most of the droplets and virus pretty much went through the masks unfiltered compared to wearing no mask. They did not test N95 masks.

I hate to say it and people should follow the advice given by the medical authorities of each country as data and studies constant bring new info, but if this is true then have everyone wear masks to prevent spread by transmitters is not very effective. Essentially surgical and cotton masks only provided minor reduction in virus counts (2.56 log copies/mL for no mask, 2.42 log copies/mL for surgical mask,  and 1.85 cotton masks).

It says nothing about virus spread when just breathing heavily, which I believe is one of the suspected modes of spread for asymptomatic people.

Nevertheless it emphasizes to me that masks are not a panacea for healthy or not at risk population and using them without guidance just takes them away from people who need to use them.

They did however say this: “ We do not know whether masks shorten the travel distance of droplets during coughing.” They did not test this aspect of wearing a mask.

https://annals.org/aim/fullarticle/2764367/effectiveness-surgical-cotton-masks-blocking-sars-cov-2-controlled-comparison

[lawprofessor]

Good Morning,

My happy moment was reading about 2 Pandas that finally mated after 10 years of attempts.  It seems the male had performance anxiety issues because he wasn't successful until the zoo was closed to the public and he had some privacy.  That caused me quite a giggle.

And I saw some lovely pictures of dolphins in canals with clear water since humans aren't polluting the canals, as well as air pollution decreasing across areas in India.

News story here was we had 20 positive and 2 deaths, our biggest day ever and public health is now publicising zip codes with numbers positive.  All on the side of town that is low income, minority, and where the housing projects are located.  It's also where social distancing is not being observed, kids are out playing on the playgrounds, over the weekend 2 parties of over 300 people were broken up and a bunch of guys were out playing basketball so police were called in to disperse them and shots were fired.

And so feeds racism rapidly growing around here

As to masks, we are seeing more people wearing them.  Because we are an industrial area more people have stockpiles of N95 because a lot of jobs out here use them in production.  I wore mine and felt almost bulletproof, irrational as that is and had to reinstall myself in.

Wisconsin is voting in person today.  It is expected their positives will grow after this.  Wisconsin is just 15 miles from me. 

And Trump says he will not wear a mask...Well I'm sure if he becomes positive, he will have a working ventilator and no rationing of care.

Off to work now.  Its my turn to go in.  I better be thankful as one of our biggest manufacturers just now announced layoffs because the federal government has failed to pay on its contracts for aerospace project and the supply chain is in shambles.  300 more out of work. 

Lp

[Finding Joy]

Goodness, I cannot even imagine the level of stress our representatives are under.  They are being attacked on all sides by everyone who thinks they could have done it better.  Of course easy to think when we do not have the weight of the world on our shoulders.  So instead of uniting around our leadership, people are complaining, picking them apart and in many situations making a bad situation worse.  Or at least that is the case with the news.

From my vantage point 99 percent of our hospitals are functioning perfectly, though emptied out waiting to see if there is an influx of corona patients.  We have a few hotspots in the US(where hospitals are overflowing), but they are becoming contained.  The US is not a nation used to being told what to do, so no surprise it has spread worse here, and yet we are handling the outbreak well in the majority of places.  We have many more beds per capita than anywhere in the world. 

Everyday life here seems to be very united and community minded.  Everyone doing their part.  I believe NYC is supposed to hit their peek this week.  The US’s most recent projections are better than what was reported last week.  The poorer areas seem to be hit harder.  Maybe more crowded living conditions are the reason.
.

[Whyus]

Thanks for starting this thread xyz, i started the First but havent been around much since. I have Read the First thread though and it was GREAT... some awesome Comments.
Take Care all and Stay safe, all is "Good" in Sunny Germany for now .

[marvin4242]

I was reading a couple of articles on modeling around the world, why there are so many different numbers being thrown around and wanted to share a thought. Beware of the fear mongering that sometimes goes on, specially in how US media reports information. Dramatic headlines get more reads. I am not saying the media is at all lying (well I am only taking about the real journalistic ones). More what I am saying is that there are different models out there, and none of them are anywhere near perfect yet. Different groups use different assumptions, and they feed different data in. In modeling as more and more data comes in the prediction ranges, which can start out VERY large about disease and death prediction, narrows the more into the curve a country goes. So initially you may see a headline that says “as many as xxx may die!” What they may be is one worst case scenario of one model. Another may try to downplay and say “only yyy will die,” and that may the one of the best case scenarios of another model. Statisticians and experts know the models are guesstimates, and they may have extreme numbers at the edges. They don’t view it as the truth, rather a useful guide. But when this is reduced to a simple headline it can (appropriately) cause fear and panic.

Also when people are confused about why advice is suddenly changed (like in UK) it may be from new data coming in. For example from what I read the advice in UK was made more stricter as more data came in from Italy from real life cases, and a paper was published showing a much higher rate of asymptomatic spread than previously guesstimated. These changes showed a different potential set of results, which led to the stricter rules.

What I am saying is try to look behind the reduced headlines when you see “projections” into what may happen. Obviously it makes more sense to be extra cautious than cavalier if you are policy maker. But please don’t take shifting models or shifting strategies as we have more concrete data as a lack of knowledge. This does not apply when policy makers are actively lying and rejecting advice from experts, that is just criminal and careless negligence.

There was a great quote in a Guardian article that I love:

Never have the words of the British statistician George Box rung truer than in this pandemic: “All models are wrong, but some are useful.”

[Treasur]

Good reminder, Marvin. As you say models are built on both data and assumptions......if either change, then so does the model. Most of us have at best creaky recollections of studying subjects with stats and models, so it is easy to forget that and easy to infer blame or spin when models evolve. A guesstimate, a guide, a pattern....yes.....a take it to the bank fixed outcome....no.

Anyone else find Mr Trump's communication style quite MLCish in flavour? (Not saying he's an MLCer lol....he is whatever he has always been I think.) But those big statements of I'm gonna do x bc y....followed by denial he said what he literally just said or deflecting to another topic or blaming the questioner....lots of words but not much meaning to hear if that makes sense. And no strong link really between words and next steps, but lots and lots of emotion. I do wonder sometimes if those poor WH reporters also start to crave a little NC bc it must feel a bit odd just like it does for us with MLCish communication, at least initially

Chatting to a chum yesterday about how interesting seemingly dull things are when you stop to look more closely at them and how lots of us are doing that about lots of different things now. As an example, a nice bit of reporting about TP  https://www.msnbc.com/all-in/watch/the-truth-about-the-toilet-paper-shortage-81759813784

[OldPilot]

Some things I learned in college a long time ago.

GIGO = Garbage in Garbage Out.
Most of these models do not have good data and therefore do not give accurate results.


Treasur, as far as Mr Trump's style of communication goes, he is from Queens NY.
They all talk this way and really it is just the way he was brought up and speaks.
The American media kills him for it, and that translates into the way the rest of the world views him too.

I guess my comment is follow his actions not his words.