And it was a dreary, rainy morning.

And it kinda felt like this was the manifestation of the first chapter of a really badly written dystopian science fiction novella …

It was kinda weird.

But then I realized that, while it might be like that in New York, it wasn’t that bad here, where I live.

So I counted my blessings and went on living.

You should too, if you can.

And, a lesson on statistics.

While I believe that most of my readers CAN see things this way, and can understand statistics,  just in case, you should READ THIS. 

As we test for more cases, we find that the rate of death is remaining pretty stable. we find that the rate of people dying looks to be just a bit over 1%. Not that the death of 1% of the Coronavirus sufferers is not tragic…it is. But it isn’t the 10% that the WHO told us might happen.

And, having said that, Aesop has a great commentary on a previous post here as to why that number of people hitting the hospitals is overwhelming their ability to care for these people.

One statistic I DO NOT have, and would like to have, is the number of people with severe cases of Covid-19 that need a ventilator that recover. In other words, if you get bad enough that you need a ventilator, and are placed on a ventilator, what are your chances of recovery? 50%? 20%? 10%? I suspect that people that get sick enough to need  a ventilator may not recover no matter what care is given.  I hope I am incorrect. I simply don’t know, as there is, again, simply no data to be had. It would be a good bit of information to know though.

SO since restaurants are closed, and people can only get food from them via delivery or take-out, in many locations the liquor rules that would “normally” prohibit the sale of alcoholic beverages under these circumstance have been “relaxed”. (and it is a pretty cool world where you can get a margarita DELIVERED to your door, innit?)

Now, if there was a good reason to prohibit the sale of alcohol in such circumstances 2 weeks ago, those same reasons should exist today….right?

Or, if the sale of alcohol is OK in these trying times, then why shouldn’t it be OK 6 weeks or two months from now when this coronavirus crisis has ebbed?

I mean, if we were restricting the sale of alcohol to on-premise consumption for some reason other than to keep the prohibitionist people happy enough that they would stay quiet and now they’ve been told to shut up, then is that a good reason to put those restrictions back when this is all over?

I’m thinking that this is but one example of rules and regulations…laws and ordinances that could be stricken from the books when things get more normal shaped.

Relaxing the rules on when truckers can drive, how long they are on duty? We were told that this was to make us safer on the roads. But have we sacrificed any safety by letting those drivers drive an extra hour or two just so that the shelves of the local supermarket can be stocked with cereal? With more Toilet Paper? With Frozen orange juice?

I could bring other examples to this, but at some point it becomes redundant.

And, again, if our government can still make the wheels turn and the busses run on time and the water flow and such with only “essential personnel” in place, then do we really need all those other people in those offices eating up tax dollars? Yes, those offices probably DO need a few more than those few working today, but do we really need to have the other 50-75 (or more) percent of the staff that is currently “Sheltering in Place” if they are able to accomplish their duties right now?

When this is all over, we should push for a closer look at ALL the laws that were relaxed for the “emergency” and see if we really need ’em. And we should seriously look at cutting staffing in local, county and state office, much less the Federal ones.

SO why can’t the masks be sterilized in an autoclave?

Do hospitals still even have autoclaves anymore?

How about misting the masks with isopropyl? It is a pretty good sterilization agent (the active ingredient in that Hand Sanitizer people use instead of handwashing). It’s cheap and readily available. Easy to apply….  one could easily wet the surfaces with a mist using a simple airbrush. (might need ventilation as the fumes can be flammable) and let them dry for a few hours.

Of course, they could just stop using the masks ONCE for each time they enter and then leave the room….but yes, I know…”Protocol”. But that protocol assumes an unlimited supply of those masks. Now that supply is finite. so one would think they would change that “Protocol”.

Indianapolis 500 is rescheduled.

‘Cause having 235,000 people in (more or less) one place in the next few weeks is probably a REALLY bad idea.

Plus, let’s face it, having all those folks travel, be it by air or auto, then packed into motels restaurants and bars, then at the parking areas waiting on the shuttles, then in lines, then back to the motels, restaurants and bars, then the travel home…..It would be a mass infection event.

Prudent precaution there.

If only our Federal government had been that prudent in January…..

Yeah, I know, I ask a LOT of questions. Blame my parents.

Anyway….

So New York City claims 20,000 new infections of Coronavirus.

So far, it appears that the virus causes few symptoms in most people, at most 15-20% of them need ANY sort of care.

NY also claims that the “Hospitals are overwhelmed”.

Really? They can’t handle a load of 4000 coronavirus patients? Remember, they’ve already cancelled most elective surgery, and they have recalled as many retired health care folks as they can find….

The numbers just don’t add up. Around 7% of people need some sort of care when they get Covid-19 on average. If the group of people that get it is older than normal, that number can double. At most, 20% of them might need some sort of skilled care.

so 20% of 20,000 is….4000 people. Probably less than half that will really need some care from hospital staff.

Four thousand people MIGHT need a bed and some care. Might. likely (at a max) 5% will need intensive care. (1000 people). Maybe. If these numbers hit the high end of the statistics we already have seen and collected for this disease.

Even if it is four thousand…..You gonna tell me that NY can’t handle four thousand people?

Are their hospitals that poorly staffed? Are there that few hospitals per population?

Something doesn’t make sense. 

I know math is hard. It is for me too.

1570 visits yesterday to this blog. Let’s assume that each person in the US is exposed to the Coronavirus.

Approximately 15 people known to have the virus were reported in comments (at least one death, sadly)

So the anecdotal data shows about 1 in 100 people from 1570 responses.

Now let us use some numbers and some math.

For a number, lets say that each person responding knows….50 people in the parameters that I set. I don’t know that that is a valid number, but it should work to give us a picture. 50 times 1500 gives us a sample size of  75,000

15 cases out of 1570 responses. Lets round that down to 1500 just to make the numbers neat.

15/1500= 0.01….1 percent…….1 percent of the people reading this blog knew of a death or a case of coronavirus in their circle of friends and/or acquaintances and chose to comment. 

So far, most have or are recovering. 1 out 15. So of the confirmed (ish) cases, we have a current death rate of  (1/15)….or 6.6666% Six percent of the cases died. Let’s round that number to .07….seven percent.

So (so far!) we have 7 percent of 1% as a rate of death. 0.01 times 0.07 equals .0007. Do it in percentages……07%.

Is it gonna be a big number when extrapolated out to the 375 Million people in the US? Let us see….

0.0007 times 375,000,000 equals 262,500. Which is pretty close to the death total for Swine Flu. (and we all remember the dead piled up like cordwood outside of the hospitals in 2009-2010, right?).

This is more serious than the  “Normal” flu (about 55,000 dead each year) but it isn’t gonna end up killing us all. Even if this is low by a factor of TEN, it still isn’t gonna end us all. 

Now, please understand, this isn’t a valid survey, it isn’t really terribly good data (lots of assumptions made, and a poor sample, and it isn’t corrected for location nor age of the sample or a lot of other things), and it isn’t, in fact, designed to prove anything one way or the other. But as  a sample, it does match the currently REPORTED cases vs deaths at least somewhat. The picture looks something like what I present here.

This is based on some pretty sketchy data and it is a snapshot, not total cases…., so take these numbers with a grain of salt…maybe the whole shaker….

Try to stay healthy. Do the Distancing Thing. Be smart about this.

Wash your goddamned hands. Often.

On our cites.

Have you noticed that many “High End” shops that are closed are also boarded up? Windows and door covered in plywood?
They are afraid that “Yoots” will  smash the widows and grab the stock. And the police are too busy to patrol enough to keep this from happening. Boarded up to prevent looting and vandalism.

Best thing the city governments could do, both from a public order standpoint and to prevent the transmission of disease would be to shut down Public Transportation.

A sad commentary on both the state of our civilization and on the progress of Dr. King’s dream. 

So it looks like LOTS of cases in New York. (No surprise there).

Yet I can’t help but notice that the City Government has not yet shut down the busses and Subways.

One would think that this would help prevent the spread of the disease by keeping people farther apart when they walk instead of ride, and even more by keeping people closer to home.

I dunno.