The Sicatoka

I had realistic expectations. Zero deaths? Never going to happen. Economic impact? The minute the word “pandemic” was rolled out the impact was real if only just psychological. We did the best we could with the immediate information when this hit. We’re doing the best we can with what we have in hand now. If you can do better, run for office. I’m not a Walz guy, but his “adjusting the knobs” to get back to normal mindset is good. (I may or may not agree with his settings. And that’s OK.)

They have. You and I may or may not agree with the decisions. To claim they didn’t is to claim you are a mind reader and know their thoughts.

If the concern was overwhelming the health system, why weren’t the societal triggers tied to ... (wait for it) ... loading on the health system.

Which failed us? Noam in SD? Bergum? Newsom in CA? The Michigan governor? Cuomo? The NJ governor? MN governor? I’d say the elected official who haven’t ended “wet markets” in China failed us. Those are the main suspect for MERS, SARS, swine flu, and now Ol’-19. Elect me and those markets will no longer be a problem* *And I’ll fix the China bio-weapons program too.

Did we or anyone have the gear to implement it.

I keep hearing we needed mass testing. But did we know what to test for until it was rolling? And how would we have gear to test for what we didn’t know to test for?

Life is managing risk. We are past the risk of overwhelming ND hospitals. We now must manage the risk of losing some of them.

< hand in air > What exactly was that?

Strength of the Herd?

Any FBS game that does not happen for an FCS is just going to expand the economic damage.

The Hope Hustlers used a B-58 as a logo. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convair_B-58_Hustler It would’ve been so much better if the logo was someone decked out by ... http://leroymenswearseattle.com

This is a multi-factor, multi-dimensional problem, a classic MIMO system to the controls engineers out there. One-dimensional linear thinking will not get us out of this. If you want to say lock down, flatten, and protect health care infrastructures, and nothing else, you’re one dimensional. If you want to say open it all up and let ‘er buck, and nothing else, you’re one dimensional. Governor Bergum is thinking multi-dimensionally and he deserves credit for that. Will he make some mistakes on the way? Yes. But I’d rather that than him locked into “we’re doing this and only this” immovable one dimensional thought.

There’s a good explanation here under the heading “Deaths”. https://www.health.nd.gov/diseases-conditions/coronavirus/north-dakota-coronavirus-cases Media is reporting 25; only 16 registered as “COVID” with other listed as COVID as a secondary or contributing and some data pending.

CDC updated that chart to those numbers late last week. I suspect it has to with “COVID” versus “COVID-related” tracking (my hunch).

My niece (intern at a Boston area hospital) says 4 out of 5 do not come off the vent are the numbers they’ve seen.

I lost my mother to Alzheimer’s during this pandemic. I had a hospice exception to be with her in her care facility until she died. (And I believe those exceptions went away shortly after.) We lose 120,000 Americans annually to Alzheimer’s. And we know less about cause, prevention, and cure. You might catch this virus. It might kill you. If you have Alzheimer’s, it will kill you.

Herd immunity comes from exposing the herd. Band aid: fast or slow. While you decide I should let you know there’s another wound that needs tending.

Testing is a lagging indicator. It tells you what has happened, not what will. Before some say it ... All models are wrong; some are useful. Never forget that truism from a British statistician (Box). We still have my figurative band aid to pull off. Governor Burgum started pulling faster today.

The story of COVID-19 will be told by two words: dense populations Think about it ...

You can’t have mine. It’s the bench in the garage I use to put on work boots.

Give me a minute... I have to finish mainlining this bottle of Lysol.

The word in question is disinfectant. If someone says X and you interpret it to mean Y, it does not mean they said Y.

From m-w.com: disinfectant : an agent that frees from infection Penicillin is a disinfectant. And it’s given orally and intravenously.

I went through ORD the second week of January. Two weeks later to the day I was as ill as I’ve been in my adult life, not primarily pulmonary but some (you could see above normal usage and load on my CPAP data) but mainly GI, raging GI issues, for about 6 hours. Wiped me out for 36 hours. When I read some get hit by this virus in this manner I really really wish for an antibodies test. My CPAP physician, my GP, and I wonder what it really was. The only good part of that bad weekend? I was too sick to watch that Friday @Duluth game.

About my band aid analogy: I find when you go slow there comes a point where you look at what’s left and just rip it off because you understand the pain to this point. We’ve protected the medical infrastructure from an overwhelming fast blast; when do we just tear off what is left of the “band aid” to protect the rest of the economy and society. Remember: herd immunity requires the herd to be exposed. And I see herd immunity coming and being the solution long before a proven vaccine.