George Rebane
When there’s a problem, don’t bet against government as being its source.
For the Rebanes today is HD23. Given the comment stream under the 26mar20 posting of HDD, in addition to sharing my own hunker down doings, I am going to make this an ongoing repository of readers’ experiences, views, and opinions concerning the Covid19 pandemic. Hopefully we will draw strength and get a laugh or two from each other’s fears, feats, and foibles as we cope and spend time with family (and friends?) in close quarters for the duration.
Jo Ann and I have taken this time to finish long-languishing projects, add to our already extensive reading lists, and continue our normal intercourse with family and friends through new means of distance socializing. My own direction has been, unsurprisingly, to look at our cultural changes and public policies that are driven by the current social distancing and economic slowdown. When we emerge on the other side, things are going to be markedly different in how we conduct our lives. I intend to offer a structured list of the affected areas which I hope will draw some stimulating discussion and, of course, expansion from the fertile minds of RR readers.
In the meantime, I share with you the scariest news I’ve heard about C19 that was just published by the LA Times (here or here) – the virus is definitely and pervasively transmitted by aerosols exhaled by pre-symptomatic infected people, aerosols which can dwell for hours suspended in the air we breathe.
An interim C19 ‘vaccine’? On the more hopeful side, the biggest and most suppressed news is about the efficacy of hydro-chloroquine (HCQ) in protecting against C19 onset, and the combination of HCQ and azithromycin (AZM) in treating the disease after onset of symptoms. Multiple reports have now emerged about the successes in the use of these drugs in controlled hospital settings here and abroad. (here and here) So here’s an idea for a possible interim C19 vaccine from Dr Rebane (PhD NOT MD) – administer a sequence or combination of (weakened if possible) C19 virus and/then HCQ, either one after the other, say, a day apart, or together in a cocktail. The hopeful idea being that the virus would set off the body’s natural mechanism for producing C19 antibodies, and the presence of HCQ would ameliorate the onset of the disease, allowing the individual to recover with an effective level of immunity. I wouldn’t recommend this to people with pre-existing medical conditions that already make them more vulnerable to C19. Anyway, as always, readers’ thoughts on this are most welcome.
On the more mundane side, it’s worth noting with some alarm that our stores continue to be out of sanitary and paper products. Hunker down hoarding continues to take its toll on many things, and now more than ever since President Trump has extended the HD advisory to last through April.
Finally, my little fevered brain, long used to noodling about technical esoteria, has been working on a home-brewed epidemiological spreading model in order to examine quantitatively the effects of certain epidemic response policies and the potential impact of medical interventions. So, as a systems modeler I read a couple of papers on such models and found them unnecessarily obtuse, and altogether unavailable for simply downloading and playing with them. I call my home brew Epidyne2 which has at least the complexity of the models used by the big kids, and can answer most (all?) the same questions. Right now I’m going through the final phases of debugging and testing the code, and I’ll share the complete model in spreadsheet form so that anyone who is interested can play with it. The spread of a contagious disease in a constrained population is a fascinating and highly non-linear process, and also very revealing when you get to play with what I will offer as a perhaps not-so-toy tool.
Anyway, to whet your curiosity, here’s an output plot of a test run. In this scenario the total vulnerable and uninfected population (popU) numbers 100M (say, the approx US pop who don’t isolate themselves and remain vulnerable). The disease starts with the introduction of 1,000 infected people (popI). The timescale (horizontal axis) is in weeks. The reproduction rate of the disease (rI) is variable, and is a function of the various population cohorts that employs some nice mathematics to account for what epidemiologists call ‘herd immunity’ which plays a critical part in how contagious diseases spread in a population.
The plot displays five population cohorts over a period of 60 weeks – popTot (cyan) is the total vulnerable population which in this scenario remains constant, but which can also be varied to study the effects of different levels of time-dependent imposed quarantines and self-isolation. popU (blue) is the uninfected population. popI (red) is the infected population (here we take the C19 experience that once a person becomes infected, he will take nI = 4 weeks to either die or recover and be immune. The recovered cohort is popR (green), and the dear departed is popD (black).
Here we see that the disease plays itself out in less than 25 weeks from onset. The maximum number infected (popI) will number about 62M in week 18. The appropriately time-lagged recovered (popR) and deceased (popD) cohorts stabilize at 72.5M and 2.25M respectively. In this scenario I have set at two the max weekly reproduction rate (rImax) per pre-symptomatic person and the death rate (rD) at 3%. This rate will reduce as herd immunity takes effect. And, as shown, the disease plays itself out with approximately 25M having never been infected.
For those who can’t wait for my post on Epidyne2, and want to examine in more detail, or perhaps even program up the model in spreadsheet form (a formidable undertaking), I will offer the iterative equations in an update to this post.
[Update] Here is the complete Epidyne2 model that can be programmed into Excel. Click on image to get a more readable version.
rebanesruminations.com 
116 responses to “Hunker Down Diary – 30mar20 (updated)”
I suppose that moi@8:59 could stand a caption.
“A Chinese woman proudly filmed herself buying huge amount of facemasks from multiple US supermarkets and loaded the masks onto her pickup truck.
“It feels so awesome to buy all the masks! I didn’t leave a single mask for the Americans!””
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geez, sorry about all the posts, but it’s a post-rich environment tonite.
https://www.ibtimes.sg/chinese-students-us-shipped-3-4-million-personal-protective-equipment-wuhan-during-coronavirus-42120
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lol. Dammit. and another.
https://twitter.com/tianshan2020/status/1233224319804813313?s=21
translation:
“Although exiled overseas and my husband imprisoned, I am still very concerned about the domestic epidemic. Knowing that Hubei is in short supply of medical supplies, I quickly purchased a batch of 620,000 pairs of medical gloves, 80,000 medical masks, 2,000 sets of protective clothing, and 1,500 thermometers in the United States at the end of January. The total value is 1 million yuan. Most of them have already been issued and the rest are still waiting for delivery after the suspension in February. I know it’s very embarrassing to do this, the country has abandoned me, and I can’t bear my country”
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Dear Diary
Scenes upset me tonight with all the links about people putting China first.
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BillT: “Dear Diary, Scenes upset me tonight with all the links about people putting China first.”
vivo ut servem
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vivo ut serviam ex machina is more like it. 🙂
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Well thank God March is finally over. It only lasted longer than the Thirty Years War. And now April, T.S. Eliot’s “cruelest month,” which will likely seem longer than the Hundred Years War. Where is our Marlborough, who led the War of the Spanish Succession? A Marlborough is obviously what we need for the War of the Spanish Flu Succession. (Thanks, I’ll be here all month. Try the roast beef.)
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2020/04/midweek-in-pictures-april-fools-day-edition.php
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Gentlemen, it warms the cockles of me heart to see such an eruditional advance in our commenters’ insights and opinions. German, Latin, Spanish, Italian, …? all outpourings of our cultured readers whose long-sequestered intellects (so as to play to the common man) are finally being set free, oh my. 😉
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I sure would have loved to hear what Trump said when he got the news of THIS phone call.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/biden-offers-to-call-trump-at-white-house-to-discuss-coronavirus-response-strategy
“Former Vice President Joe Biden is offering to call President Trump to discuss a strategy to combat the coronavirus pandemic.”
Ya,, I know “Kellyanne Conway, counselor to the president, challenged him to “call the White House today and offer some support.”,, BUT,, that was like asking Dougy to vote for Trump.
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OH WAIT!!! It gets BETTER!!!!
https://www.breitbart.com/health/2020/04/01/impeachment-manager-adam-schiff-wants-9-11-commission-on-coronavirus-what-went-wrong/
LIBS have a shorter memory than Emery!
They were so busy with their kangaroo court proceedings and trying to sell their manufactured evidence. The whole time Trump was doing what needed to be done.(evidence of that fact posted yesterday than put Mary Jane back under his rock)
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Posted by: Walt | 01 April 2020 at 10:44 AM
If they’re getting tired of keeping the GaffeMaster entertained in his hidden underground lair…..just put a full length mirror nearby…..Shotgun Joe will talk at it for hours….careful though…..at some point he’ll get tired…. call himself a “Lying Dog Faced Pony Soldier” and then want to fight himself.
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Posted by: George Rebane | 01 April 2020 at 10:37 AM
When dealing with fools and cowards the ludicrous is necessary!
Frankly I’m surprised that you even bother commenting George…..the quality of leftys here has declined so precipitously!
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@ 10:27 am
“Gentlemen, it warms the cockles of me heart to see such an eruditional advance in our commenters’ insights and opinions. German, Latin, Spanish, Italian, …? all outpourings of our cultured readers whose long-sequestered intellects (so as to play to the common man) are finally being set free, oh my. ;-)”
Blame Scenes and Fish. They started it. Strike that. Jig Wiggles started it with his pig latin.
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10:53
Some “Lying Dog Faced Pony Soldier” has been diddling a Senate staffer.
Maybe it was that Touchy-Feely Joe that has been spreading the Chi-Com Virus. Good thing his wife put him in the basement.
In other news, Corn Pop has a fever, bad cough, and is out of TP.
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Since foreign speek is the word of the day,
This is for “Mary”.
Fós ag caoirigh caorach?
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Why I’d been horn diddled!
Nancy is fiddling while Joe’s been diddling. At least he didn’t use a cigar.
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But, but, but…..Universal health Care?
COVID-19 strands Chilean leftist and Castro regime supporter in socialist Cuba, pleads for help to escape.
“Chilean actress and leftist Carolina Cox posted a video on social media recently pleading for help to escape socialist Cuba after getting stuck on the island due to the coronavirus pandemic. It seems Carolina Cox loves socialism and the Castro dictatorship as long as she doesn’t have to actually live under the same conditions Cubans do.”
https://babalublog.com/2020/03/31/covid-19-strands-chilean-leftist-and-castro-regime-supporter-in-socialist-cuba-pleads-for-help-to-escape/
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The Great Hunkering Down thought: Are barber shops open or is it time to let the granddaughters cut grandpa’s hair? It turned out funny looking last time.
Let’s see how Buck is doing in his bachelor bunker
https://www.facebook.com/BuckSexton/?
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The chi coms are busted –
Communist officials in China have hidden the severity of the coronavirus outbreak within their borders, under-reporting both total cases and fatalities linked to the disease, the U.S. intelligence community reportedly confirmed in a classified report to the White House.
Wuhan, the capital of China’s Hubei province, is the birthplace of the novel coronavirus illness (COVID-19).
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/04/01/u-s-intel-confirms-china-hid-severity-coronavirus-outbreak/
😉
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re: Barber shops.
There’s plenty of ‘bad haircut’ pics online. Have the kids choose one and have at it. Seriously, a barber is the last person I would go to right now.
In Today’s ‘Your Life Sucks’:
https://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/coast-guard-cruise-ships-stay-sea-sick-onboard-69914072
“Honey! We’ll save up for ten years and go on the vacation of a lifetime!”
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Thanks Scenes.
BTW, has anybody here shaved since the Great Toilet Paper Stampede of 2020? “Not I” said the unwashed Biker Bill. Gotta save water in case the pump goes out. I have washed under my fingernails, so that’s a big improvement. And made two bottles of Biker Bill’s secret sauce finger licking good hand sanitizer. Put the hurts on the recipe. My paws are sooon clean now that I uncovered the cheat sheet answers from a test decades ago written on my palm.
——————-
@ 1:27 pm again.
Question: What comes after feeling zero gravity with a nice refreshing delicious ice tea in hand while at the water?
Answer: Your Life Sucks….Coast Guard: Cruise ships must stay at sea with sick onboard
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“And made two bottles of Biker Bill’s secret sauce finger licking good hand sanitizer. ”
Gasoline?
…and for your viewing displeasure.
https://archive.nothingburger.today/Videos/Infected_or_Dead/
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lol. Now I’ve seen it all.
https://yubanet.com/california/162000-lgb-and-9000-transgender-elderly-people-in-california-at-high-risk-for-covid-19-illness/
Higher risk = age, gender, some medical conditions like hypertension, etc. Not LGBQLMNOP.
But Dammit Jim, I’m only a doctor!! We have to extra special care of transsexuals!!
Next up, ‘10% OF POPULATION SUBJECT TO WUHAN FLU DUE TO BEING LEFT-HANDED!!!’, ‘STORY AT ELEVEN’.
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hah, here’s one I hadn’t thought of.
“New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo wants all of the state’s county hospitals to open their doors to COVID-19 patients from downstate hot zones. That’s not going over well with upstate counties already facing stretched resources.
“When I say I have 75,000 beds, that’s a statewide number. That means those beds have to be available to the people of New York City or Nassau [on Long Island.] Even if those beds are up in Albany,” Cuomo, a Democrat, said at his daily briefing on Tuesday.”
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/upstate-new-york-officials-leery-of-cuomo-plan-to-transfer-nyc-coronavirus-patients-around-state?_amp=true
Gonna be a lotta mad folks when this is over. It’s funny how disasters tend to make people think locally.
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Now he did it, he broke with the party line –
https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2020/04/01/newsom-i-would-be-lying-to-say-trump-hasnt-been-responsive-to-our-needs/
😉
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Dear Diary
I fear some people won’t be able to take much more of the Great Hunkering of 2020. Some, however, are making the most of a bad situation.
https://www.facebook.com/marzmusic/videos/10157943117084156/
—————————————-
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Has anybody changed upon PuncyBot…..starting to worry about the boy!
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These are the assholes who are going to screw it up for everyone –
https://www.foxnews.com/lifestyle/coronavirus-instagram-influencer-positive-blasted-report
😉
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Dear Diary.
Got some yard work done. That is good. The bad news people, as predicted, are beginning to crack. Oh yeah, screw the French. Snail eaters and arrogant. Yuck.
CORONAVIRUS BRINGS OUT THE WORST IN FRANCE
The wartime appetite for la délation — reporting wrongdoers to the authorities — has reappeared. In country towns, people are denouncing neighbours to the gendarmerie for breaching le confinement and leaving their homes too often. …
“Tempers are fraying in supermarkets, with unsmiling shoppers in the Paris suburbs treating others with suspicion. Angry locals in coastal areas are seething over the 400,000 Parisians who are estimated to have fled the capital to spend the lockdown in their holiday homes. Some have been refused service and Parisian cars have been vandalised in Brittany and the southwest…..
Nurses are being threatened by people who see them as carriers of infection.
Lots of old prejudices are bubbling to the surface:
Conspiracy theories, long popular in France and a fixture of the yellow vest movement, blame the capitalist elite and also Jewish people for starting the epidemic or encouraging it. Many of the claims, shared millions of times on social media, talk of a “military virus” deliberately spread with the aim, variously, of boosting drug company profits, killing the elderly or delivering the country into the hands of multi-nationals or the secret “illuminati”.
One popular belief is that the virus was invented by the Paris Institut Pasteur.“
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2020/04/coronavirus-brings-out-the-worst-in-france.php
Old Europe is so uncivilized. Hooligans and mischief markers.
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Just another reminder to the densest of the TDS party parrots about their chi com allies –
The US intelligence community has reportedly concluded that China intentionally misrepresented its coronavirus numbers
https://www.yahoo.com/news/us-intelligence-community-reportedly-concluded-173955673.html
😉
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DonB 703pm – Your report reminds me of our blindered ‘Bertie’, one of the succession of progressives who come here to reliably display their ignorance of what’s really happening in the world outside these foothills.
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Nobody has gotten everything right on this virus, and many of the most prominent voices have been wrong a lot, so it seems completely reasonable to adjust one’s position as new data comes in- The Trump administration clearly has shifted its risk tolerance. Now we all know why.
Twitter · 1 day ago. Buck
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Well, well, well. April is full of surprises.
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer Asks Trump Administration for Chloroquine After Reversing Ban
https://trib.al/nRsvTG1
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Just thinking out loud about a question I was considering.
Not a peer-reviewed paper, but tolerably rigorous I think.
https://digitalcommons.bryant.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1019&context=honors_economics
“The unemployment rate, on the other hand, did yield the expected results,
showing a positive relationship with the suicide rate. The beta coefficient of 21.2 suggests that
with a 1% increase in the annual unemployment rate, approximately 21 additional suicides per
100,000 of the population can be expected. These findings were significant at the 5% level,
suggesting a strong relationship between suicide and economic factors.”
Given (327M / 100k ) * 21 = 68670
and NYT sez “Coronavirus May Kill 100,000 to 240,000 in U.S. Despite Actions, Officials Say”
A 4% drop in employment rate is equal to the top number given there.
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Dear Diary: A New York View from the Freedom Hut Bunker
The American spirit is alive and well. Say what you will about Blue Mob State NY, but those patriots holed up there are some tough folks. Right at Ground Zero of The Pandemic USA, the people spoke.
Buck Sexton
@BuckSexton
·
5h
My whole neighborhood in midtown Manhattan just erupted with shouts, cheers, claps, and all kinds of love sent from thousands of windows at once for our doctors, nurses, and first responders
God bless them and keep them safe
——————
How about a prediction, Buck.
“3 weeks into quarantine and pretty sure that the surge in ice cream sales will outpace the panic buying of toilet paper”
https://twitter.com/BuckSexton/status/1245530123555745792?
————-
One for the road
@BuckSexton
·
13h
Just putting this marker down now:
if we flatten the curve, save as many lives as possible, reopen America by summer AND avoid an economic collapse, it will feel like an actual miracle.
Maybe it will be a miracle.
But it does seem possible.
———
“Ozark just got weird.” Oh my. Goodnight Dear Diary
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re: Gretchen Whitmer and that pesky chloroquine stuff.
Looking at the original article:
https://www.bridgemi.com/michigan-health-watch/facing-shortages-michigan-asks-feds-experimental-coronavirus-drugs
it’s also filled with examples of a thing I was prattling on about earlier, institutional hoarding. Doctors, hospitals, counties, states, fire departments, there’s absolutely no reason for everyone to not grab as much stuff as they can. You know darned well that Cuomo would have been happy to snag every ventilator in the US stockpile for New York.
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Ok, now I get it. Explains the rush for toilet paper.
“Diarrhea first sign of coronavirus in some patients, study finds”
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@ 9:59 pm
ARE PEOPLE CATCHING ON?
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2020/04/are-people-catching-on.php
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Just for some of that extra boring fun.
One of those highly tepid but necessary bureaucraticese documents. Anyone who has worked for a large organization will recognize this. Luckily, I’m only seeing the word ‘leverage’ used 5 times.
U . S. Government COVID – 19 Response Plan
https://int.nyt.com/data/documenthelper/6819-covid-19-response-plan/d367f758bec47cad361f/optimized/full.pdf#page=1
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So what’s the highest charge, stealing the car the gun or the toilet paper? –
https://www.foxnews.com/us/california-stolen-suv-toilet-paper-coronavirus-police
😉
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For all your daily China Virus news.
https://www.covidbits.com/
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Local news
There are 30 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Nevada County
10 in west county.
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Sorry TDS joy (what a misnomer) –
“As a consequence of that, our relationship began earlier than most. So from that perspective, all I can say is that, from my perspective, the relationship has been strong. I’m not doing it to kiss the ring. I’m not doing it in a way, you know, — I’m just being forthright with the president. He returns calls. He reaches out. He’s been proactive.
https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2020/04/03/ca-gov-newsom-praises-trump-as-proactive-when-joy-behar-asks-if-hes-kissing-the-ring/
😉
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Oh Don, there is more to live that Joy Behar. Like, there is Kathy Griffin in the hospital with big belly ache (passing stones?) in excruciating pain blaming Trump for her appendix attack. Man, did Trump ever break that one.
And, there are our old faithfuls blaming Trump and Pence. Journalism at its finest.
“ABC’s Pitts to Pence: Do You ‘Talk to God’ About Those Who Died Because You Acted Late?”
https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/curtis-houck/2020/04/02/abcs-pitts-pence-do-you-talk-god-about-those-who-died-because-you
Wonder if Pitts quoted Scripture to Pence. I love it when the God and Country haters start Bible thumping on our heads.
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Re: modeling
CORONAVIRUS IN ONE STATE (3)
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2020/04/coronavirus-in-one-state-3.php
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Dear Diary.
Things have a way of balancing out.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/442017982919984/permalink/910720629383048/
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A little ray of light –
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/04/03/actual-hospitalizations-for-coronavirus-significantly-lower-than-projections-in-model/
😉
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An article in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review covers a math prof at Carnegie-Mellon, Wesley Pegden, and his wife Maria Chikina, a bioscientist at the Univ of Pittsburgh. The two disagree with several epidemic models, calling them not realistic, since these models don’t go into the future long enough. The short-term model results look good only by pushing out the uninfected Ps into the future, when these Ps will then become infected, and the epidemic continues.
“The idea that normal life can resume in two to three months without having a huge wave in infections — there is just no science behind that,” Pegden said in a Tribune-Review interview.
The two contend that “as long as a large majority of the population remains uninfected, lifting containment measures will lead to an epidemic almost as large as would happen without having mitigations in place at all. That’s because of an inevitable feature of realistic models of epidemics; once transmission rates return to normal, the epidemic will proceed largely as it would have without mitigations, unless a significant fraction of the population is immune (either because they have recovered from the infection or because an effective vaccine has been developed), or the infectious agent has been completely eliminated, without risk of reintroduction.
But mitigations themselves are not saving lives in these scenarios; instead, it is what we do with the time that gives us an opportunity to improve the outcome of the epidemic.”
In the 6th paragraph of the paper referenced below is the link (“our work”) to the math part.
Article is at https://medium.com/@wpegden/a-call-to-honesty-in-pandemic-modeling-5c156686a64b.
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Dear Diary
As of one day ago, WY has not had one COVID-19 death. My friend said they are not taking the virus seriously, as all places like churches and places to eat are open. Not taking it seriously? Well, people live there for the open spaces and have been practicing social distancing for over a hundred years.
Still have not made it to town to do emergency shopping. Have noticed at the Dollar General in PV that some people are wearing masks and gloves. And they are looking at one another suspiciously. There goes the neighborhood. In the sparse line and practicing anti-social distancing, talked to a woman behind who had a frozen pizza and a couple of cans in her basket, as did I…but with dog treats. We both agreed that eating out of the Dollar General is getting old fast. She made one trip to the Brunswick Safeway in town. Told me it was a zoo and has not gone back.
After all this time, I finally checked my TP inventory Monday for the first time. Never even bothered to check this year. Stash was empty in the cabinets. One roll under the spare bathroom sink, and a half roll in each of the bathrooms on the toilet paper holder. So, on Monday I did my first look for TP. Store clerk said the next shipment will arrive on Sunday. Best to get there early when the truck arrives. He made it sound like TP would be going fast. I will back it with tissue to spare.
I love you, Dear Diary.
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When will things get back to ‘normal’? Never?
Small Businesses Are Almost Out Of Time, And It Matters To All Of Us
https://issuesinsights.com/2020/04/04/small-businesses-are-almost-out-of-time-and-it-matters-to-all-of-us/
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