We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.
All of the experts, including Dr. Fauci - are bullshitting (pardon my annoyance). Not this guy, because he admits what is unknown. What is known is that this virus can be lethal and it can be completely harmless, and anything inbetween. We know who are most likely to become seriously ill, but what is completely unknown is how often it creates serious illness. Via Powerline, which says:
This video is part of Peter Robinson’s Uncommon Knowledge series. His guest is Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, who is an economist as well as a member of Stanford’s medical school faculty. Dr. Bhattacharya has become somewhat famous as a result of an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal in which he argued that the danger of COVID-19 is probably being overestimated. The conversation is intelligent; Peter is a good interviewer, and Bhattacharya is an excellent teacher. It is a fair, balanced appraisal. I recommend it.
Things are strange these days without going to church. Yes, it's already Palm Sunday.
Matthew 21:1-11
21:1 When they had come near Jerusalem and had reached Bethphage, at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two disciples,
21:2 saying to them, "Go into the village ahead of you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied, and a colt with her; untie them and bring them to me.
21:3 If anyone says anything to you, just say this, 'The Lord needs them.' And he will send them immediately."
21:4 This took place to fulfill what had been spoken through the prophet, saying,
21:5 "Tell the daughter of Zion, Look, your king is coming to you, humble, and mounted on a donkey, and on a colt, the foal of a donkey."
21:6 The disciples went and did as Jesus had directed them;
21:7 they brought the donkey and the colt, and put their cloaks on them, and he sat on them.
21:8 A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road.
21:9 The crowds that went ahead of him and that followed were shouting, "Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest heaven!"
21:10 When he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was in turmoil, asking, "Who is this?"
21:11 The crowds were saying, "This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee.
We do not know the virus death rates. I'll say it again.
We do not know death rates because we do not know infection rates in the US. We would have to do a mass involuntary screening of people on the street to know that. That will not happen. The only numbers we have is positive tests (on people already symptomatic and seeking tests) and deaths.
We do know death numbers (not accurately, because if you had terminal cancer but a corona pneumonia was the final thing, you're a corona death).
One easy piece of information might be interesting, though: number of deaths in, say, Boston for the week beginning April 4 in 2019, and the numbers for the same week in 2020.
A sort-of unusual lady from Northampton, MA - a ghetto of lefties and LGBT culture - reports honestly on her pain (h/t SDA). Losing friends over political disagreements is disgusting:
Another hitherto unknown skill that the media believes it possesses is logistics. “Why hasn’t Trump commanded a million ventilators to appear?!” the reporters demand. It’s pretty easy to see where they might have gotten the idea that the moment one articulates a desire to possess something that it magically appears. Capitalism has pretty much made that a reality. If you want something, you can go to a store and get it 24/7, or you can go on Amazon and it’ll be at your Manhattan apartment in 48 hours. Since they have never built anything or transported anything or distributed anything, only benefited from the labor of the unhip people who do those things, it’s only natural that the delayed adolescents who make up our media class imagine that material goods can be simply wished into being. After all, for all practical purposes during normal times, because of the efforts of Americans they look down upon, material goods pretty much can be simply wished into being. But prosperity takes work, not that the media would know.
Yes, it is stressing hospitals in hot spots, but compared to what? As Bulldog suggested yesterday, this virus is partly a political and media event - not entirely medical as with the past nasty viral epidemics.
As with any viral illness, it's best to protect the frail and elderly. Best, but rarely possible. Numbers are cold things, death is not, but some perspective on the big picture is good.
What we are likely seeing, in my estimation, is an epidemic with a real case fatality rate between 0.2 and 0.5%, which is similar to the 1957 Asian Influenza A:H2N2 or 1968 Hong Kong Influenza A:H3N2 pandemics, which were also essentially virgin field respiratory epidemics. These pandemics rate, not as PSI5 events, but as PSI2 events on the CDC scale. They are certainly atypical and more severe than a PSI1 event (such as a routine seasonal flu epidemic), but not a shattering event like the 1919 influenza A:H1N1 pandemic. These earlier pandemics essentially tripled the number of deaths due to influenza experienced annually, and were posed little long-term economic or other damage to the population despite being handled without the extreme measures that are currently being adopted or proposed by political figures. Like those pandemic events, SARS-COVID-2 [Wuhan] has its most significant impact on elderly or otherwise compromised individuals, with few fatalities observed in the population under the age of 60. From what we have observed, half of those infected show no symptoms, 40% show mild symptoms such as a cold, and only about 2% advance to serious or critical illness. What is needed now is for politicians and the population to pause, take a deep breath, and address the epidemic with rational measures, such as social distancing of the older population, ring screening around identified cases, quarantine of identified infected individuals, and adequate hospital triage systems to protect other patients and health care staff rom infection in order to preserve our ability to treat the most severe cases.
Not too long ago, I shared my views on Covid-19 and the lockdown. I still stand by my (often misunderstood) position and I feel that after this is over, I'll still stand as having a well-developed viewpoint. Meanwhile, as we sit in the midst of all this, I am now officially 3 weeks working-from-home. The Covid numbers have continued to rise, the deaths have risen as well, and the newsmedia has...ratcheted up the fear factor as high as possible. Even my sister, down in Florida (where even she admits nothing is happening of any note) is freaking out and running scared.
Well, today I chatted by phone with her and shared with her something I'll share with all of you. I am Covid-19 positive. I found out yesterday.
Let me share some of my own personal thoughts and some of my doctors' comments.
First, I was told "this is a high-powered flu". By 3 different doctors who checked me or spoke with me. Second, "No, there's nothing we can do unless you have respiratory distress, so please monitor yourself carefully." Yup. I do that anyway. Third, there were no lines at the station where I got checked. Called first, drove up, got out, they checked me in a field tent, sent me to another field tent, and did the swab (annoying, but not horrible...a Q-Tip WAY UP into your sinuses). Doesn't hurt. You do sneeze a little.
I am in good general health. I work out regularly, good BP, good pulse rate, not an ox by any standard, but I'll keep up with most people my age, and probably surpass them (55+, in case you're wondering).
My first hints of the virus were on Tuesday 3/24. A little coughing, lots of mucous, etc. Not a dry cough. By Thursday, Mrs. Bulldog was saying "You're coughing too much, I don't want people on our walks to think you have it, so stay home." Fine...I stopped taking walks. I had started having headaches (sinus) anyway. The headaches got worse. By Friday, my head was pounding, the cough was persistent, and it was dry. No fever. No rash. 3 days of (sorry) diarrhea began.
Over the weekend, the headaches intensified, the coughing got worse. I was more or less stuck on the couch watching movies, in a very annoyed frame of mind. By Sunday, it was suggested I get tested.
So we arranged it, and yesterday at 3pm the results were back. Positive.
Of course, by now the headache is starting to fade. It's still there, but Tylenol keeps it reduced. The coughing is still there, but laying down helps it stop (don't lay down too much...no need to promote pneumonia). I've been sleeping 10 hours a night. The really weird things, and there are 2 of them, are the general haziness of frame of mind - I can't concentrate very long - and what I'd call "fever dreams without the fever." I don't know how to describe these, but I have the strangest dreams all night. Then I wake up in the morning very dehydrated and have to drink a pint or two of water.
My doctor voiced concern over the number of cases, but also pointed out that "it's just a flu that is worse for at-risk people, you're not at risk. Just stay vigilant, take care of yourself and you should be fine."
So if this were the normal world - I'd take 2-3 weeks off from work, and get better. Instead, I've had 3 weeks off, and based on current protocol I will have AT LEAST (if my symptoms play out normally) 3 more weeks off (because my office says 2 weeks after cessation).
For what it's worth - most people in the US, after 6 weeks off from work, will be broke. If it goes longer, who knows. At this point, the "cure" is worse than the disease. Trump is right to consider opening some counties as soon as possible - like any other pandemic, this has areas of concentration. We can limit exposure to those regions, and keep the rest of the nation working well.
Stay healthy. Stay vigilant. I do believe there is much more, politically, to play out. At this point I no longer believe it's mainly a health crisis (if it ever was). It's a political one.
ps - I had to inform my HR Department - just a public safety thing. Naturally, I got a call back today...all pre-arranged, and about exactly what I supposed. They were trying to determine if I could have caught it anywhere else but at the office. "AVOID LAWSUITS AT ANY COST" must be their view. Can't blame them, I suppose. Not that it would stop me if I was litigious. Thing is, nobody can EVER prove where they got it from. I commute, via train, every day. I went to the bank. I was playing poker one night with 50 people at a bar the week before being sent home (won $650 and the tournament WITH A ROYAL FLUSH - not a joke, totally telling the truth, I have pictures...it's the poker players' Hole-in-One). So I could have gotten it anywhere...and I admitted that. Because it doesn't matter where I got it from. I KNEW I was going to get it. That was the point of my original article. If you believe you can avoid it, you're fooling yourself. I DO NOT believe social distancing works. But don't worry - they politicians and other liars will convince you it's working.
And they can scale it easily. Pitt is one of the great American medical centers. If they say it, they mean it. Quite remarkable speed, but most people in urban and suburban areas have been exposed now anyway, naturally vaccinated.
Well, sort-of a run. Since I did my heavy weights on Monday, I had my choice of doing a cardio on Tues or calis in my living room. Decided to get outside (35 degrees F, and forgot gloves) and do 40 minutes of HIIT road running (alternating 30-sec semi-sprints with 120-sec fast walk). I haven't done that for years.
I remember doing 1-mile sprints for training. Long ago. Also remember my 20-mile morning runs. Lucky me - no joint problems. I quit it in time.
Readers know we oppose road running for the toll it takes on joints, but a month, twice a week, is fine with me although I'd like to get back to the treadmill and stair machine for my HIIT.
What did I learn from it? The pounding surprised me, even though I was a road-runner and racer in my youth. I also learned that a hat and gloves might be nice when it's chilly, despite the sweat from the sprints. Finally, it is so much more interesting than watching CNN in the gym.
Maybe I should try biking, but our bikes were all stolen and I will not wear that biking gear.
Someone ought to tell House Speaker Nancy Pelosi about the coronavirus outbreak, because her laser focus on pushing her political agenda suggests she’s unaware of it.
Why Winning the War In Afghanistan Meant Losing to the Taliban. The Taliban will seek to run Afghanistan in line with their values and. America will have to stand back and watch.
We like to introduce people to various beginner's routines. This one is simple and pretty good. Done daily for 2 or 3 weeks (it should be easy by then), a person can move on to more challenging fitness programs.
20 body weight squats. 10 push ups. 20 walking lunges. 10 dumbbell rows (using a gallon milk jug) 15 second plank. 30 jumping Jacks.
Forget the politics and forget the hate and the hateful media. As Scott Adams says (and as I observe), the American people almost entirely come together in positive ways when the going gets tough. We might not be a family, but we're a team. Team America.
That is when it matters. Petty politics and sniping are for the good times, not the challenging and sacrificial times. Nobody is worrying about pronouns or the weather now, thank goodness. Unfortunately, there are more important issues.
Things are strange these days without going to church. Yes, it's already Palm Sunday. 
Corona beer suspends production
Traces of ancient rainforest in Antarctica
Seems like the middle-eastern version of 
Forget the politics and forget the hate and the hateful media.