knehrke

Let me know when you and your dragon are done burning down the country,

Let's put this in perspective. There's been lots of talk about how only old folks are succumbing to this disease. Well, that's true of lots of diseases, including age-onset neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's - which is widely considered to be a major health issue, of course. Unless you are getting younger (like me) or don't worry about the burden that caring for the elderly places on individuals and on society, then I'd say we still have cause for concern. I wouldn't order confetti for the victory parade quite yet.

Of course, I'm sure that you are aware that percentages are meaningless without historical trends to compare them. My take on your post is that these numbers are practically zero. BUT - 1% of 50,000 is 500. Per day. And that is only the number from the 50,000 that were tested. Extrapolate that to the population of NYC. In other words, getting better, but far, far from being gone. But we can dream.

It would be great to see the rates stay low - it means that the majority of folks got the message and are trying to do the smart things like wash their hands frequently and what-not. An ounce of prevention goes a long way. The message here at my University is that we're planning to open early and recess by Thanksgiving, with finals administered remotely. ASL, though? I guess you can Zoom one-on-one, or use really good pictures. What's been really tough is dealing with labs, where practical experience rules. And then there's the fraction of students who can't get back to school because of travel restrictions or visa issues. It's going to be an evolving situation, for sure, if evolving means nobody knows for sure what's likely to happen.

Beautiful! It is a shame that senior year was truncated for these kids. I'm glad to see her making the most of it. Having just graduated a daughter last year, I know the bittersweet feeling. But don't worry - she will be treating home like a hotel for a long time yet lol...

I read this thread with great interest. There are lots of conflicting viewpoints, and it's easy to see why we are such a divided country. IMHO, demonizing the other side does nothing toward resolving our differences - if you need to use over-the-top analogies and flaming rhetoric to win a point, then perhaps your underlying argument lacks legs - no matter which side of the aisle you waltz down. I see weaponized outrage from both sides. In reality though, I think that it is a matter of priorities. When you see something that strikes a nerve, where do your priorities lie? How do you weigh basic freedoms? And how much does your individual freedom weigh again societal goals? Different folks think differently. It seems like if we were to try to understand how a rational, intelligent person from the other side could form their opinions, then maybe this country would be a better place. But when have we ever in the history of mankind done that? Tactic #1 - make the other side look bad. Yeah, I get it. If you're in it to win, then that's the playbook. Doesn't mean I have to like it though.

My Dad grew up in Chicago and had some ingrained prejudices from his upbringing. He always used to tell me, "I'm not a racist, I'm a bigot. I know there's not any underlying differences, but I can't help how I feel."

I will preface this by stating emphatically that I am not in favor of rioting, and I think that what's happening is a tragedy that pulls attention from real problems and hinders real solutions. But I was fishing during the riots in Buzzard's Bay south of Boston this past weekend when a friend of mine mentioned that Boston had seen it's share of looting and vandalism. A group of rebels that called themselves "The Sons of Liberty" dumped a bunch of tea owned by the British East India Company into the harbor - in 1773. Interestingly, there were similar conversations in the press then as are occurring in this forum now. It kind of makes you wonder...not necessarily about what's happening now so much IMHO as about what transpired then, and how history is written by the winners. Just something to chew on. Now I'm going to make sure that my crowd dispersal PPE is ready to go.

So, the shutdown sucked, no doubt, but if there was an agenda beyond trying to prevent a disaster it was worldwide, since everybody else around the globe did essentially the same thing. Outliers such as Sweden asked its citizens nicely and they complied, while in Brazil the government wants them to mingle, but they're choosing to stay home. Same result - social distancing - whether government mandated or not. At least we're not China, where they enforced stay at home orders with guards and guns. 20/20 hindsight is perfect, and in retrospect we could have managed a better response by weighing population density into our equations. But we're not out of the woods yet. I suspect that history's perspective on this has yet to be determined. It seems clear however that your personal opinion depends strongly on your experience. I would like to hear how our brethren in NYC feel.

Dogs don't respect property boundaries...if a neighbor's dog was getting aggressive with my kid on my property, yeah I'd shoot it. I don't take chances with kids. But otherwise, I can't think of a scenario where I'd want to shoot a dog. Regardless, it would make me cry to have to do it.

knehrke stands for keith nehrke. But a nehrke is a cross between a nerd and a turkey lol. I've had folks come up to me and say, "I saw you speak at some meeting/seminar ten years ago, you're the nerd-turkey guy!" Hey, whatever works... Rattler - good points, and probably not - masking and distancing alone should have been sufficient. The lock downs IMHO were warranted (or unwarranted, depending on your opinion), because too many folks openly snubbed masks and social distancing. In some ways, we are our own worst enemy. It also seems that in some cases it's impossible to do so in a workplace environment. We had no issues in my lab, but like many others, we were shut down. Voluntary compliance would have been preferable. One big issue is the extent to which employers would have heeded the necessary measures, were it to have remained voluntary - employees may have been on board, but their workplace not so much. A buddy of mine who works at a local water authority (essential business) had to come up with a list of ten things to keep the workplace safe, after his bosses weren't acting fast enough. Simple stuff, like having your own keyboard and mouse for use with shared computers.

Lock downs are not what works. Social distancing does work. Unfortunately, when social distancing was "recommended", people ignored it. In Sweden, they listened. But I bet folks are smart enough after having seen the tragedies occurring all over the world that they're listening now, even in states without a lock down. I know that I gave up licking doorknobs back in mid-April. Carson Tucker is selectively filtering the data and ignoring numbers that don't fit his view. Both sides are guilty of this. In his case, the numbers ignore experience. If you see three or four people hit by cars trying to cross the street, do you try to cross? You likely think twice, anyway, and look both ways first. That's what's happening in places where there are no lockdowns. They were further along in the timeline of the outbreak and they (seemingly) learned from the experience of early victims. There is a lesson to be learned, but it's not the one he's teaching. I found an interesting site produced by the founders of Instagram that has real time updates of the R0 values for each state: https://rt.live/ I won't spoil the surprise. Look and decide for yourself. What is really interesting is how the R0 changes over time, particularly after a lockdown is implemented. I know that it is becoming vogue to argue that this was a mistake. But arguing from the perspective that lockdowns aren't effective at halting the spread of a virus dilutes the impact of anything else you would say. I would walk back the blanket statement and argue instead that lockdowns are less effective in certain circumstances, and we need to learn what those circumstances are in order to balance their use with the economic devastation they cause.

You got me thinking about all of the lung injuries in young folks last year from vaping - I wonder how those kids are going to fare. Scary.

What a shame. Please keep us updated in case of a miracle. I used to fish Seneca quite a bit for perch in February, and it's no joke.

I am a big fan of the Flexcoat slip clutch. When I'm applying finish, it allows me to rip a coat of epoxy on at full speed, then to simply grab the rod and look at it carefully for errors. I find that the more attention I pay to the epoxy, the less professional it appears. If I apply it quickly, fill in the gap under the guide foot with a needle, and give it the once over with an alcohol torch for the micro-bubbles, then it ends up premier. If I act like I'm painting it on and try to be really careful, then less so.

Latest I saw in NY suggests 0.5%, which is certainly better than 3 or 4%. Given the recent acknowledgement of asymptomatic carriers, it shouldn't come as a surprise that there were a bunch of folks infected who didn't get tested, and that those who did get tested were more likely to have severe symptoms. We have a good friend who was returning to UCLA from a visit to Australia during the Christmas holidays, and their kid sat in front of a young Chinese guy who was coughing repeatedly the whole trip back. The kid got sick, all of the symptoms of COVID-19, but this was well prior to it being on anyone's radar...mid January or so. It will be interesting to see if he has the antibodies. Dollars to donuts the same thing could have happened to others. If the virus emerged in Nov/Dec in Wuhan, and we've seen how fast it spreads, there's no doubt that it could have arrived in the States in January. And spread undetected. Although, for the record, I suspect that there have been a lot of folks who contracted a mild case over the past month but didn't want to go to a hospital or be tested...if they were positive, then everyone they know would go into quarantine. And if it was truly mild, they could have figured they just had a cold.

Your logic is flawed, my friend. One does not conclude a nationwide lock down is not at the expense of others. Of course it is. My point is that we need to consider how to reopen, while balancing needs, MOVING FORWARD, as we try to get our feet under us again. We sacrificed two of your focus areas for the sake of the third. It's time to rebalance the equation. Emphasis on balance.

Okay, I am officially amused. You completely failed to understand the quote, as your reply clearly demonstrates. The doubt that Bertrand Russel was referring to is SELF-DOUBT, a characteristic that fanatics and demagogues lack equally. Always doubting other folks when their "narrative" doesn't fit yours doesn't make you wise. On the contrary, being so embedded in your perspective compromises your message - folks discount your opinion because it is narrow. Oh, and FYI, I agree 100% with your Venn diagram that led off this diatribe. I am concerned about each of those things equally and am trying to figure out a measured response moving forward that addresses each concern, but not at the expense of the others. I think that this describes many of us on here.

And this is supposed to demonstrate what? That you can't trust experts? Particularly if their conclusions differ from your own deeply-seated beliefs? "The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts." Bertrand Russell

Ah; but Science isn't static. As more genomes are sequenced, the unrooted phylogenetic map is refined. So yes, the data has changed. This is how models are built. Conclusions can shift with new data. But make no mistake: it is data driven. It is not opinion. And the data is there for anyone to analyze. And the strain definitely came from Wuhan; the missing arrows were fit into the model as more data emerged. It doesn't mean the original conclusion was wrong. Think about a delivery originating NYC and going to LA. That's all we know. Except we then find out that it went through Omaha on the way. So would it be incorrect to posit that Omaha and LA are closer together than NYC and LA? Of course not. And we can refine this as we put more points on the map. That's what they're doing, using genome data. As an expert in the field, I do not see any underlying incorrect assumptions. Conclusions based on a limited data set need to be tempered. It's good to be skeptical. But leading off with "this is one person's opinion", when the nextstrain.org site clearly represents aggregate genome sequencing data obtained from multiple sources and analyzed using unbiased methods by multiple authors, suggests an attempt to discredit. I will use your own words -"backed not by much". Unless you meant to argue with the author of the NYT article, perhaps? Regardless, I would be pleased to consider a stronger argument if you can present one. Until then, I find myself unable to poke holes in their analysis.

You know, it's funny. I have these same conversations with my buddies who I hunt and fish with, and to them I'm way left. And when I preach moderation to my colleagues in academia, I'm way right. Which I suspect means that I'm right where I need to be. Proud to be a cowgirl, lol - that was great BTW.

My brother sent me this and asked if I know the guy, since he's a Prof of Neurobiology at Univ of Utah who studies the link between memory and viruses. I don't, but I'm going to look him up now. He's got a great voice and nails all of the misinformation being spread currently. Have fun - and make sure that somebody calls me a liberal, sheep, or snowflake - just so I know that I'm doing my job lol. https://medium.com/swlh/misinformation-goes-viral-1aad951e4492 PS. FYI, I'm a Republican moderate who thinks that Trump's policies would make more sense if he'd shut up, quit trying to rewrite history, and just admit when he made a damn mistake. In other words, I'm proponent of the truth, no matter how ugly. And apparently a cowgirl lol.

Okay, cowboy. To you and everybody else who decides they're going to do whatever they want - when does your decision become my problem? And what can I do about it? This is a legitimate question. If I feel that you are endangering me, how should I respond? How would you respond to someone threatening you, cowboy? Unfortunately, this isn't a "you do you and I will do me" scenario. Not when my life and the lives of those I love are at risk. if you are a carrier, then you can infect somebody. If you do so intentionally, that's assault in my book.

So, your right to ignore the masking policy supersedes somebody else's right to go into public without having to chance catching the virus from you? I suppose that defines how you think then. It's very different from how I think. Where do you draw the line? If you actually have the virus, should you still have the right to go around infecting people? Or is ignorance bliss, and it's only your uncertainty that allows you to make these choices? In terms of cost-benefit, where is the moral imperative? Does it change your viewpoint if it's your mother, wife, or progeny who is exposed to a carrier because of THEIR right not to wear a mask? What if they subsequently die? These are not rhetorical questions. These are questions that we all need to ask ourselves. I do not advocate giving up our individual rights entirely to kowtow the public interests, but there has to be balance IMHO. Masks will protect other people from me. It's a low cost to me, and so I will wear one when social distancing isn't possible. And I will refuse to interact with folks who don't wear them. In fact, if there's a mandate to wear them, I'll turn them in, same as I would a poacher. That's my choice. This is war and I refuse to side with the enemy.

First, if you actually read the e-mail, it says nothing about person-to-person transmission. It simply asks for more information regarding 8 cases of atypical pneumonia in Wuhan, China. Second, there's already evidence that China tried to cover up the initial outbreak. Why do we need Taiwan to weigh in on this, and how is it news? Finally, blaming China, whether rightfully so or not, doesn't alleviate the responsibility our public officials have to do local diligence with an emerging pandemic. Casting blame elsewhere rather than accepting responsibility and saying, "We could have done better. Case closed. Moving on." is a classic maneuver that's best left to kindergarteners. There's blame enough for everyone. Moving on.