Monday, September 21, 2020

#COVID-19 Who's line is it, anyway? Episode 3 - How do you define essential?

I first posted this last September. Many closures happened since then.

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Who’s Line Is It Anyway? was/is a television show first hosted by Drew Carey. The show’s ensemble cast was gifted at improv humor. 

 

Drew’s favorite line was something like:

 

“Welcome to the show where everything’s made up, and the points don’t matter.”

 

Several parts of the United States’ response to the current pandemic remind me of that line. Today I focus on one such situation:

 

Episode 3: Actually two lines…

 

During the course of the “pandemic,” two descriptors were used as excuses to wreak havoc on society as a whole. 


Essential and non-essential

  • Essential businesses, jobs, and surgeries were allowed to continue with little, if any, disruption. 
  • Non-essential iterations of those same categories were shut down, some of them for months.

 

There are problems with this abuse of power by our governmental agencies at all levels.


First Line

No surgery is essential. All surgery is elective.


Several types of surgery are performed so often that they seem essential. If any surgery was genuinely essential


every human being 

would require that surgery to live.


There is no such surgery.


Some surgeries listed as non-essential are probably considered that by most people. 

  • Plastic surgery might sound like a non-essential procedure until you consider that many plastic surgeries are not for the perceived enhancement or refinement of a healthy body. 
  • Amputees and burn victims usually require several to many surgeries to increase, improve, or allow physical activities. 

Postponing cancer surgeries or other surgeries intended to improve the condition of patients led to dire consequences for many.

  • However, as unfeeling as this sounds, even if a person died as a result of postponed surgery, that doesn’t mean the surgery was essential. 
  • Every human life ends in physical death.

When a government decides who deserves immediate surgery and who can wait, they far overstep their boundaries.

 

Second line

No job is non-essential. Every job is critically important to someone.

  • If a person’s job provides money for her/his family to live, how can that job be considered non-essential? 
  • To that person, her/his job is essential to living as a productive member of society.

Imagine your job was declared non-essential and you were laid off or your business was shut down. (I apologize to those reading this who don't have to imagine that situation.)

  • What does that imply? 

More importantly, what was shown to be the reality of such arbitrary designations. According to a YELP survey

  • 60% of businesses that shut down in the US from the start of the pandemic as of August 31 won't be reopening,  Yelp said Wednesday.
  • As of 31 August, 163,735 US businesses have shut down, a 23% rise since mid-July. 
  • Yelp said the restaurant industry was most heavily affected with closures totaling 32,109 as of August 31. 
  • Fortune magazine reported 100,000 small businesses shut down permanently by September 28, 2020.

Not a single one of those businesses considered itself non-essential...

BECAUSE THEY WEREN'T NON-ESSENTIAL,

 AND NOW LIVES AND COMMUNITIES 

 ARE CHANGED FOREVER.

 

Sadly, “Welcome to the show where everything’s made up…” fits governmental ignorance and arrogance in their treatment of both this week’s lines perfectly.


Even sadder, the points did matter in these cases.


 

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Monday, September 14, 2020

#COVID-19 Who's line is it, anyway? Episode 2-Geography


Who’s Line Is It Anyway? was/is a television show first hosted by Drew Carey. The show’s ensemble cast were all gifted at improve humor. 

 

Drew’s favorite line was something like:

 

“Welcome to the show where everything’s made up, and the points don’t matter.”

 

Several parts of the United States’ response to the current pandemic remind me of that line. Today I focus on one such situation:

 

Episode 2: Geography?

 

I use California as the source for many of my examples because I live in that realm of unreality.

Recently, California’s governor unveiled a new, color-coded four-tier program to track state-wide progress in the COVID-19 pandemic by new cases and positive tests for the virus.

Purple, or Tier 1, indicates that the virus is widespread in the county — with more than seven cases per 100,000 residents or more than 8% of test results reported positive over seven days. Red (Tier 2) indicates “substantial” spread of the virus, while orange (Tier 3) indicates “moderate” spread, and yellow (Tier 4) indicates “minimal” spread of the virus in the county.
If one of the two metrics is higher than the other, the state will assign the county to the color associated with the highest rating. For example, if a county reports six cases per 100,000, but a 9% positivity rate, it will be rated purple.

I couldn’t find a rationale for the amounts of new cases or the percentage of positive tests that led to those values. I wasn’t surprised by that.

“Welcome to the show where everything’s made up…”

ASIDE
Riverside County is purple.
(County’s Status Map as of 9/8/20) - Map will update


  • Palm Springs is in Riverside County. The city’s demographics do not match the majority of the county, and their demographic has high numbers. 
  • Imperial County is directly south of Riverside County. Imperial County has high numbers, too. People crossing the border from Mexico to find diagnosis and treatment for COVID-19 overwhelmed their medical facilities. Many patients were relocated from Imperial County to Riverside County. 
These situations ensure that Riverside will be purple for a long time. But the vast majority of the county is nothing like the inclusive data reflects.

Back to Episode 2
On 9/9/2020 in a sub-headline, front page, above the fold, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported “County now on brink of case rate that could put it back to lowest tier. [sic]” The article is about the impact of 400 positive tests at the San Diego State University campus.

There are currently about 2000 students going to classes on the main campus that covers 288 acres. 
  1. San Diego County covers 2,897,000 acres.  SDSU makes up approximately .0001 percent of San Diego County’s physical size. 
  2. San Diego’s current population is between 3-4 million people. SDSU’s current on-campus population makes up approximately .0006 percent of the total population.

Including isolated population anomalies without consideration of their isolation… 
sounds a lot like an improv theater move to me.

Until next week…

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Tuesday, September 8, 2020

#COVID-19 Who's line is it, anyway? Episode -Moving Targets


It's bad enough that much of the media reporting and decisions by government leadership during the pandemic is lacking in or completely devoid of sound scientific evidence.  I've posted blogs in the past about 


Today's post is about the way decisions are being made makes it seem like the primary goal of those in charge is instilling fear into their constituency. For the most part, it's fear motivating those constituents to blindly follow anti-constitutional mandates, ineffective procedures, and psychologically damaging limitations. 

This blog focuses on the first of various issues that irritate me. Or worse.


Who’s Line Is It Anyway? was/is a television show first hosted by Drew Carey. The show’s ensemble cast were all gifted at improve humor. 

 

Drew’s favorite line was something like:

 

“Welcome to the show where everything’s made up, and the points don’t matter.”

 

Several parts of the United States’ response to the current pandemic remind me of that line. Today I focus on one such situation:


Episode 1: Moving Targets


When government intervention began, the most important statistic was DEATHS. Every day, media of all types printed the most recent death count for their area, the United States, and the world.

California’s governor was among the avalanche of leaders who shifted their daily focus from deaths by COVID-19 total cases of COVID-19 as their justification for their tyrannical acts early in the pandemic. As far as I can tell, the “number of cases” is still the reported target.

That sounds a lot like an improv theater move to me.

Predictions for death tolls leading to state governors being handed the role of dictator were bleak. Minnesota’s governor justified his tyranny by insisting in early April that as many as 36,000 inhabitants would die from the virus. 

As of 9/7/2020 the TOTAL death count from COVID-19 in Minnesota was 13,764 with only thirty-three added that day.

“Welcome to the show where everything’s made up…” surely fits here.


Until next week…
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Tuesday, September 1, 2020

#COVID-19 What scientific studies show about the use of masks


#COVID-19 What scientific studies show about the use of masks
It's bad enough that much of the media reporting and decisions by government leadership during the pandemic is lacking in or completely devoid of sound scientific evidence.  I've posted blogs in the past about 


Today's post is about the way decisions are being made makes it seem like the primary goal of those in charge is instilling fear into their constituency. For the most part, it's fear motivating those constituents to blindly follow anti-constitutional mandates, ineffective procedures, and psychologically damaging limitations. 

This blog focuses on mandatory mask-wearing.

Viruses can't be seen. Even with an electron microscope, images are not like those in a light microscope, the kind you used in schools. In a light microscope, you seen an inverted image made by light passing through a specimen or reflecting off the specimen.

The electron microscopes most often seen, including the one at the top of this page, generate images by coating the specimen with a substance, or substances, then exciting those substances and capturing the image transmitted or scanned. For more detail on electron microscopes, follow this link.


One analogy for the ineffectiveness of masks is putting up a chain-link fence to keep mosquitos off your property. The size of the openings in the fence are much larger than the largest mosquito. You can see that, so you'd never use that fencing material to stop mosquitos.

I did the math to illustrate how many virus particles can pass through the typical home-made cotton-cloth masks. It's hard to show as a visual. My best shot follows this paragraph.
If you use 100-thread count cotton cloth, each "square" caused by consecutive up/down threads and consecutive side-to-side threads is large enough to allow at least (rounded numbers) 2,500 columns of 2,500 virus particles to pass through. 

And that's at every place the up/down crosses the side/side threads.

So what?

The links below take you to articles about masks and their benefit(s), if any. 
  • Article 1 reports what is known in research as "a meta-analysis" of over forty articles on this topic published in academic journals.
  • Article 2 is only slightly documented in a different manner and a good read, too.


I begin my conclusion with a quote from each.

Article 1
“If you use only proper studies – randomized, controlled trials with verified outcomes – they all unambiguously say that there is no statistical evidence of a benefit in terms of reducing risk of getting a viral respiratory disease. They all say it.”

Article 2
By making mask-wearing recommendations and policies for the general public, or by expressly condoning the practice, governments have both ignored the scientific evidence and done the opposite of following the precautionary principle.


Mask articles

  1. https://uncoverdc.com/2020/07/15/a-scientific-look-at-the-mask-fallacy-and-why-were-told-to-wear-them/?fbclid=IwAR3-oKwLRLPyuqbclmNMHNyQZBh01P1aHwIlMXE3A4LLiH8AS_8xaGirtSw    
  2. https://www.rcreader.com/commentary/masks-dont-work-covid-a-review-of-science-relevant-to-covide-19-social-policy


  • I don't wear a mask unless required by current state/city mandates and only then until I'm outside the store. 
  • My personal opinion is that wearing masks is scaring more little children than the number of people they can ever protect from getting COVID-19.

Final comments

If you are a mask wearer, accept people like me, even if their reason isn't based on scientific evidence.
  • Understand that some people can't use masks for a variety of reasons.
If you aren't a mask wearer, shaming someone who's wearing a mask is bullying. 
  • Don't do it. Some people have a variety of reasons for wearing it.

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Monday, August 17, 2020

#COVID-19 The case of the missing proofreading



It's bad enough that much of the media reporting and decisions by government leadership during the pandemic is lacking in or completely devoid of sound scientific evidence.  I've posted blogs in the past about 


Today's post is about the way decisions are being made makes it seem like the primary goal of those in charge is instilling fear into their constituency. For the most part, it's fear motivating those constituents to blindly follow anti-constitutional mandates, ineffective procedures, and psychologically damaging limitations. 

This blog focuses on an inaccurately reported statement by the CDC about immunity. 

Nearly all media presentations of current events have been edited by that media in some way. That's what happened to a CDC report on the extent of immunity a person achieves after having COVID-19 and recovering from that infection.

This is what I saw as a Notification on my Twitter feed on August 15 or 16.
I was appalled.
Read my blog about immunity and you'll see that NO immunity works that way.
My first thoughts were 

  1. How can CDC release that erroneous statement?
  2. Does that mean that COVID-19 mutates so rapidly that after three months it's like you never had immunity? [BTW: If this was the case, the only way to end the pandemic is to have everyone get the disease in a three month period.]

I stewed until Monday morning when I decided to begin this blog series. When I clicked on the link from the "News for you" post I arrived at this site
Notice the dramatic difference in this headline when compared to the Notification. Better still, notice the word "Correction" in the third line from the bottom of the text below the photo.

As I read through the list of responses to this Tweet, I came across this
Dated August 3, t his press release says nothing like what the Twitter Notification says.

I scrolled down the responses. Here are two of my favorites.
1. Notice blame is focused on the writer's displeasure with the CDC's response to the "fake news."

2. Although the first sentence in his response is a phrase I don't condone, the condemnation of the faulty reporting (hopefully just poor proofreading) is important.


Somewhere around 2,700 twitter users saw this post and reacted to it. The chances are twice that many saw it. Unfortunately, nothing can erase the first impression of the bogus statement. This misrepresentation happens a lot on page 1. Those might be retracted day(s) later on page 6, long after the damage is done.

I searched for the number of readers of an ABC press release to the public. I couldn't find that information. I did find these numbers and considerable reaction to this post on Twitter on August 17.
Not as many as I thought there might be, but that's 3x the reactions to the error on mainstream Twitter. 
So what?
How many already frightened people were hit with more horrific "news" that wasn't true this time? 
One person is too many. 
This should not be happening.

I hope this post causes you to consider what was really said or posted when you read, watch, or hear a "fact" or "statement" on any media platform.


This takes you to the Twitter reactions to that News for the image at the beginning of this post.


Next week I'll take a look at another type of reporting error on this virus and its impact.


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Monday, July 27, 2020

#Reading #Readers Reading to live... longer!

My latest book. Reviewers agree that it's a great read.

The September 2017 issue of Reader’s Digest is titled “Genius Issue – Secrets to a Sharper Mind.”

The article “Why It Pays to Increase Your Word Power” on pages 66-73 begins with a question.

“How many hours did you spend reading books last week?”

In 2016, researchers at Yale School of Public Health began analyzing data collected from 20,000 people every other year since 1992. They narrowed the focus to the 3600 respondents over 50 years of age. Included in that data was an answer to the above question over almost one-quarter century.

“People who read books—fiction or nonfiction, poetry or prose—for as little as 30 minutes a day over several years were living an average of two years longer than people who didn’t read anything at all [emphasis mine].”

Other research included suggests that
“[C]hildren as young as six months who read books with their parents several times a week show stronger literacy skills four years later, score higher on intelligence tests, and land better jobs than nonreaders.”

The article goes on to discuss the benefits of reading in adults.

Summary
Reading books is more beneficial for adults [maybe everyone] than reading newspapers and magazines.

Why?

First. Brains build many connections and pathways when keeping track of chapters and storylines. This doesn't happen when skimming headlines, as is common with newspapers and magazines.

Second. Empathy and emotional intelligence scores increase after reading even only a part of a chapter in a story.

Another concept discussed is “cognitive reserve”—your brain’s ability to damage. More reading, more ability over a wider range of damage types. Shocking to me was

“This [cognitive reserve built up by reading] could explain why, after death, many seemingly healthy elders turn out to harbor signs of advanced Alzheimer’s disease in their brains despites showing few signs in life.”

The article takes a turn in its story arc for the last part. Benefits of bilingualism are presented. That's another blog, someone else's blog.

If you are reading this post, you are most likely a reader. There’s a different level of probability involved with you being an author—but you might be one of those, too.
  1. If you’re a reader, you should be fired up by the above content—especially if you read books.
  2. If you’re an author, I hope you’re inspired by how you are contributing to more than just the list of books in print.
  3. I suspect that writer’s brains have good-sized cognitive reserves.


I taught high school and college biology for 39 years. From what I know about brain function
  • An author’s brain must build at least connections while determining the plot, fleshing out characters, and developing a plausible setting—while writing.
  • The number of those connections must be at least as many as a reader builds while following those plots and characters in that setting—while reading.
Bottom Lines
  • Because of restrictions on human movement and gathering during "the pandemic," you are likely to find yourself with more time for you than usual.
  • Instead of googling or streaming or gaming, give your brain a boost...
READ A BOOK.

  • I highly recommend all my books for great stories suitable for 8th-grade-->octagenarian readers. 
  • To save you time, here's the link to my Amazon Author page

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Monday, July 6, 2020

#Nostalgia Nothing But Positive about the USA

I found this wonderful image at
 
http://www.amindfulmigration.com/5-reasons-why-im-proud-to-be-an-american/
Today my plan was to find factual information on the current COVID-19 situation. I taught biology long enough to know that too much of what's been broadcast and mandated doesn't make sense from the science of viral infections standpoint. Because of that, my search never ended. I'll try to do that next Tuesday.

Instead, today I offer a nothing but positive post about these United States of America.

My eyes misted over the first time I heard this on the radio. They still mist over when I hear it.

Read Sinclair’s commentary below. When I do, I’m prouder than ever to be an American.
I suspect your eyes will tear up, too. 


The reality is, America is still doing most of the service described by Sinclair 44 years later.

The commentary below by Gordon Sinclair is true, although people along the way have altered portions of it.
Originally written for a Toronto newspaper, it was broadcast on June 5, 1973, on CFRB radio in Toronto, Canada.
It had a big impact at the time. A recording of Sinclair reading his commentary became a best-selling record that hit Canada’s top 30.  Canadian broadcaster Byron MacGregor produced a version in his own voice.  It was called “Americans” and became a hit record as well, rising to Canada’s top 5, selling 3.5 million copies.  That meant 3 gold records for MacGregor.  He donated the proceeds to the American Red Cross.
“The Americans”

The United States dollar took another pounding on German, French, and British exchanges this morning, hitting the lowest point ever known in West Germany.
It has declined there by 41% since 1971 and this Canadian thinks it is time to speak up for the Americans as the most generous and possibly the least-appreciated people in all the earth.
As long as sixty years ago, when I first started to read newspapers, I read of floods on the Yellow River and the Yangtse. Who rushed in with men and money to help?
The Americans did.
They have helped control floods on the Nile, the Amazon, the Ganges, and the Niger. Today, the rich bottomland of the Mississippi is underwater and no foreign land has sent a dollar to help.
Germany, Japan, and, to a lesser extent, Britain, and Italy, were lifted out of the debris of war by the Americans who poured in billions of dollars and forgave other billions in debts. None of those countries is today paying even the interest on its remaining debts to the United States.
When the franc was in danger of collapsing in 1956, it was the Americans who propped it up and their reward was to be insulted and swindled on the streets of Paris. I was there. I saw it.
When distant cities are hit by earthquakes, it is the United States that hurries in to help… Managua Nicaragua is one of the most recent examples. So far this spring, 59 American communities have been flattened by tornadoes. 
Nobody has helped. 
The Marshall Plan .. the Truman Policy .. all pumped billions upon billions of dollars into discouraged countries. 
Now, newspapers in those countries are writing about the decadent war-mongering Americans. 
I’d like to see one of those countries that is gloating over the erosion of the United States dollar build its own airplanes. Come on… let’s hear it!
Does any other country in the world have a plane to equal the Boeing Jumbo Jet, the Lockheed Tristar or the Douglas 107? If so, why don’t they fly them? Why do all international lines except Russia fly American planes? 
Why does no other land on earth even consider putting a man or woman on the moon? 
You talk about Japanese technocracy and you get radios. You talk about German technocracy and you get automobiles. You talk about American technocracy and you find men on the moon, not once, but several times … and safely home again. 
You talk about scandals and the Americans put theirs right in the store window for everyone to look at. Even the draft dodgers are not pursued and hounded. They are here on our streets, most of them … unless they are breaking Canadian laws..are getting American dollars from Ma and Pa at home to spend here. 
When the Americans get out of this bind … as they will… who could blame them if they said ‘the hell with the rest of the world’. Let someone else buy the Israel bonds, Let someone else build or repair foreign dams or design foreign buildings that won’t shake apart in earthquakes.
When the railways of France, Germany, and India were breaking down through age, it was the Americans who rebuilt them. 
When the Pennsylvania Railroad and the New York Central went broke, nobody loaned them an old caboose. Both are still broke. 
I can name 5,000 times when the Americans raced to the help of other people in trouble. Can you name me even one time when someone else raced to the Americans in trouble?
I don’t think there was outside help even during the San Francisco earthquake. Our neighbours have faced it alone and I am one Canadian who is damned tired of hearing them kicked around. They will come out of this thing with their flag high. And when they do, they are entitled to thumb their nose at the lands that are gloating over their present troubles. 
I hope Canada is not one of these. But there are many smug, self-righteous Canadians.
And finally, the American Red Cross was told at its 48th Annual meeting in New Orleans this morning that it was broke. This year’s disasters... with the year less than half-over… has taken it all and nobody…

but nobody… 
has helped.

God bless The Real United States of America! 

Note: Some of the situations described by Sinclair are no longer as described. There have been instances--9/11 for example--when help for Americans was provided post haste.


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