Weasel Cuomo

Those of you kind readers who live or have friends or family in New York State need to see what a feral weasel the governor there has been ... see: Weasel Zippers.


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Headlines

Russia registers virus vaccine, Putin’s daughter given it

Lucid challenges Tesla with a luxury EV sedan that has a record 517 miles of range per charge

New York’s nursing home death tolls worse than we’ll ever know

DHS Chief: 12 riots in 10 days since Feds left Portland

Trump: G-7 summit will likely take place after election

BP worker gets $200,000 payout after being fired for Hitler meme

Soros backed district attorneys implement soft on crime policies

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot criticized for focusing on beach parties

In Florida, a coronavirus showdown as DeSantis rejects Tampa-area school plan

Half of U.S. elementary and high school students will study virtually only this fall, study shows

Seattle police chief to resign after budget cuts

Paper: Chicago Prosecutor Kim Foxx has dropped 25,183 felony cases

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Perplexed

None of this makes any sense. Looking at the latest COVID-19 statistics leaves me scratching my head. Before we go any further, please, dear reader, inspect the graphs of new cases and new deaths in the United States as per WaPo ... see: Washington Post Stastics.

You should immediately notice that we are currently living through a spike in new cases ... twice what they were in April at their height ... yet hospitalizations, ICU COVID admission and deaths are all substantially lower than at that previous peak. How can this be? There are a number of possible answers. Let me deal with new cases and new deaths separately:

New Cases
- It is certainly possible that our poor testing capacity and reliability back in April considerably undercounted the new cases. Now with more and better testing, our number of new cases are closer to reality.
- Most of the current increase in new cases are occurring in our South and Southwest. This might have something to do with American ex-patriots returning from Mexico and other Central and South American hot spots for treatment here at home.
- Yes, the economic reopening of many states has caused many more group gatherings ... which might be upping the virus spread. But then so must have been the weeks of racial protests, rioting and looting.
- Changing measurements. For some stupid reason, possibly political, the criteria for measuring new cases has become considerably more liberal ... inflating case counts. Read the following explanation of this shift from a previous blog: Fudge ... including the inbedded Conservative Treehouse hyperlink.

New Deaths
This new deaths statistic has, until most recently, showed a remarkable divergence from the number of new cases ... even after an appropriate lag of two or three weeks. This can be the result of a few factors:
- After being embarrassed by the huge number of such deaths occurring in nursing homes in New York, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts, the governors of  all the states have instituted remedial measures to correct this problem.
- Many more of the current new cases must be younger people ... who have a much lower morbidity likelihood profile.
- One cannot discount the new therapeutics that have been developed to treat COVID ... as well as the improvements coming from the medical treatment learning curve.
- Nonetheless, we are beginning to see new deaths creep up. I am at a loss to explain this ... other than the obvious result in the spike in new cases ... or a new way of classifying such deaths ... or maybe even political bias insinuating itself in. See also the following explanation found on a site displaying such data:

Criteria for reporting deaths has changed in some states and cities, and numbers in this story may fluctuate as jurisdictions adjust their counting and reporting procedures. For instance, in mid-April, New York City added more than 3,700 deaths of people who were presumed to have the coronavirus but were never tested, and New Jersey added more than 1,800 on June 25.

Eye-opener

Only 1.8% of all Americans live in nursing homes or assisted-living facilities ... yet represent 42% of all our coronavirus deaths.

Headlines

Trump adviser compares China’s handling of coronavirus to Chernobyl

Coronavirus live updates: Trump suspends travel from Brazil, Spain eases dining restrictions in major cities

‘Up to a dozen’ COVID-19 variants ...

China: On brink of ‘Cold War’with USA

Rick Scott says Bill of Rights trumps all

Main Street Lending Program to offer loans to mid-size companies, Boston Fed President says

Model predicts USA virus free by late September ...

Soros attacks Salvini, says he wants to get Italy out of the EU

Trump ‘has a point’ on WHO, German health minister says

Coronavirus pandemic will drive major changes to nursing home industry

Trump to conduct first nuclear test in decades?

Beijing now claims ‘open’ to identifying virus source ...