coldstreams.comColdstreams Business and Tech | Reality-based Thinkng on Business, Tech, Energy, Transportation

Coldstreams Business and Tech Search Primary Menu Skip to content About All posts summary RSS Newsfeed MIT App Inventor 2 Tutorials Privacy Policy Search for: Economy , Public Health/Coronavirus , Transportation Vaccine passports Go live Public Health/Coronavirus Hypocrites: The Elite who ignore quarantine orders they enforce on everyone else Public Health/Coronavirus The confusion over masks and vaccines May 3, 2021 EdwardM Leave a comment For a group that purports to be concerned about misinformation, elite media outlets continue to hammer consumers with stories undercutting vaccine efficacy and overstating the efficacy of masks. It’s gotten to the point where many Americans act like masks are more effective. — M. Feynman (@Feynman_19) May 2, 2021 On July 14, 2020, then CDC Director Robert Redfield said that if we wore masks, the pandemic would be over with within weeks. Redfield went on to say that masks were more effective than vaccines : “I might even go so far as to say that this face mask is more guaranteed to protect me against COVID than when I take a COVID vaccine, because it may be 70%. And if I don’t get an immune response, the vaccine is not going to protect me,” Redfield said. “This face mask will.” Covid-19 cases then exploded in number, increasing by a factor of ten in spite of mask wearing compliance of 90 to 98% depending on region. Face masks, empirically, had a very low efficacy. But the CDC Director and the media misrepresented their effectiveness – and the CDC Director asserted that masks are more effective than vaccine – which we now know to be a lie. Yet it is this official misinformation (not the generic junk on social media) that has confused everyone. The media morons continue to lack any awareness of their own role in perpetuating this mass misinformation. Public Health/Coronavirus Dr. Fauci says there was “A lot of ‘oops’ in early days of pandemic May 3, 2021 EdwardM Leave a comment Fauci to Internists: A Lot of ‘Oops’ in Early Days of Pandemic Read the comments to the article – it’s one of those comment sections where you will learn more by reading the comments from what appear to be qualified individuals. Public Health/Coronavirus Surge in Good news: Israel’s positive test rate falls to 0.1% May 3, 2021 EdwardM Leave a comment Yes, it is quite remarkable and that is at 62% 1st dose. https://t.co/es3oZVq8uR — Monica Gandhi MD, MPH (@MonicaGandhi9) May 3, 2021 And note that is at about 60% *of adults only* having first dose. Israel is largely open and unrestricted now too. That hints at my past observation: Around 30%, the growth rate starts to slow, and around 50%, it really starts to drop. The above suggests 60+% is getting close to so called herd immunity, it seems. I read a forecast that the U.S. will reach 60% fully vaccinated (two doses) by July 1. Real world data suggests the U.S. might already have 50+% immunity when natural immunity is included (from prior infections). This all seems like very good news. Economy Transfer payments reach 34% of personal income in 2020 May 3, 2021 EdwardM Leave a comment The U.S. is now a socialist country, I guess. Parabolic spike in government payments as % of personal income … as of March, they amounted to 34%, a new high pic.twitter.com/ZSpy0jl8sS — Liz Ann Sonders (@LizAnnSonders) May 3, 2021 Transfer payments are money provided to individuals by the government, without the government receiving anything in return. If the government hired you to do a job and paid you for that work, that would not be a transfer payment. The spike represents the effects of sending “stimulus” checks, by shifting future payments to the present (borrowing lots of money that needs to be paid back in the future). One-third of U.S. personal income came from transfer payments from the government. Per Stein’s Law, something that cannot continue, will not continue. An observation: Special situations are always used to justify an increase in transfer payments. But you can see a pattern in the chart – increases are rarely cut back. Cameras , Public Health/Coronavirus Surge in Good News: “Covid cases fall sharply in U.S.” May 3, 2021 EdwardM Leave a comment Scott Gottlieb said that a drop in new Covid-19 cases was likely to continue, predicting a “relatively quiet summer when it comes to coronavirus spread.” Source: Covid: Gottlieb says cases will decline, vaccinations monumental achievement I think that by June, this is mostly over with in the U.S. But – I am a brain injured idiot with no relevant experience. I make observations and ask stupid questions. So what do I know? Business , Healthcare Telemedicine here to stay May 2, 2021 EdwardM Leave a comment Make telemedicine your first choice for most doctor visits. That’s the message some U.S. employers and insurers are sending with a new wave of care options. Source: Employers, insurers push to make virtual visits regular care | KATU Science Interesting: Evidence for pre-existing natural immunity to SARS-CoV-2 May 2, 2021 EdwardM Leave a comment More than a year after the emergence of COVID-19, significant regional differences in terms of morbidity persist, showing lower incidence rates in sub-Saharan Africa, Southeast Asia, and Oceania. Like SARS-CoV-1 and MERS viruses, SARS-CoV-2 is monophyletically positioned with parental species of chiropteran coronavirus. Furthermore, we observe that the spatial distribution of several targeted bat species (i.e., Coronavirus species hosts) overlaps the distribution of countries with low COVID-19 incidence. The work presented here aims to test the presence of natural immunity among population with a low COVD-19 prevalence, potentially due to a previous exposure to coronavirus antigens of a virus close related to SARS-CoV-2. Source: (PDF) Pre-pandemic SARS-CoV-2 potential natural immunity among population of the Democratic Republic of Congo This map is making the social media rounds. It purports to show that parts of SE Asia and Africa may have had lower Covid-19 deaths perhaps because of some unrecognized pre-existing immunity or exposure to Covid-19. View this as speculative, someone making an hypothesis. Public Health/Coronavirus , Stupidity More examples of bad predictions May 2, 2021 EdwardM Leave a comment July 21, 2020 A study produced by a team at Oxford University indicated that some parts of the United Kingdom may already have reached herd immunity from coronavirus. A significant fraction of the population, according to the study published last week, may have “innate resistance or cross-protection from exposure to seasonal coronaviruses”, making the proportion vulnerable to coronavirus […] Source: We may already have herd immunity – an interview with Professor Sunetra Gupta – Reaction Late in 2020, the UK went on to have some of the most draconian lock down measures globally and now plans to lift restrictions in June of 2021. January 11, 2021 Majority Indians have natural immunity. “As we start 2021, the Covid-19 epidemic in India has progressed to a point where a near majority of the population has developed immunity to the virus. Though too many have died, India’s Covid death rate is, fortunately, lower than many other countries.” India’s situation in May, 2021, about 4 1/2 months later (Chart from WHO). Note – India has 1.4 billion population and the media has not been helpful by omitting that context. January 31, 2021 At the end of January, Michael Osterholm, professor, MD, epidemiologist, Director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota said we were in the “eye of a hurricane” and the worst of the pandemic would come in the next 6-14 weeks. Epidemiologist Michael Osterholm issued dire warnings about the potential spread of the new, more contagious Covid-19 variants, saying that they could produce a surge of cases in the United States to levels “we have not seen yet in this country. ”…. he expects to see cases of the new Covid-19 variants to surge “in the ne...