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  • Testing to determine population fractions

    George Rebane

    In ‘Testing’s Tower of Babel’ I promised to inform readers of the reliability of testing in order to determine the fraction of a target population that has a defined attribute.  Today the whole country is supposed to be interested in the extent of the C19 infection, and also the extent of the recovery from the disease.  Such test results are supposed to inform government policy makers about the stage of the pandemic, and whether to respond with more draconian quarantines or begin reviving the nation’s economy – important information indeed.

    Let me begin with the punchline of this treatise – to determine a population fraction is more complex than people (and policy makers) are led to believe, and the ‘naïve’ approach of just taking the number of those testing positive from a random sample and dividing that by the size of the sample gives answers that are significantly in error.  That is apparent by just recognizing that a real test is unreliable, having less than perfect sensitivity – it misses infected people – and also specificity – it counts some uninfected as infected.  Such a test will give a wrong answer for the fraction infected when using the naïve approach on a tested random sample from the target population.

    That motivated me to take a closer look, and after pushing some squigglies, the solution to calculating the correct fraction of infected emerged.  As expected, the formula involves sample size, and the test’s reliability parameters.  All such theoretical developments need confirmation, so I wrote a program to simulate real test results that takes into account errors in all parameter values involved in such testing.  The results were heartening, the derived correction formula nails the actual infected fraction, its confidence bounds are easily computed from the relevant input error distributions.

    I provide the supporting details for all this in a technical note that you can download here – Download TN2004-2

    As a teaser for some more noodling about assessing the state and progress of the C19 pandemic, we read that it’s not only the Chinese who have been lying through their teeth about what happened in Wuhan and what is still going on in the country.  Our own mavens of morbidity have not been all that professional and meticulous about the data they publish.  Here is a piece in the American Thinker that exposes our CDC which now confesses to having lied about C19 death stats.  In ‘The CDC Confesses to Lying About COVID-19 Death Numbers’ we read, “How many people have actually died from COVID-19 is anyone’s guess … but based on how death certificates are being filled out, you can be certain the number is substantially lower than what we are being told.  Based on inaccurate, incomplete data people are being terrorized by fearmongers into relinquishing cherished freedoms.” (H/T to reader)

    This also has a bearing on testing.  When composing a random sample, how do we treat those in the sample who have recently died of C19 (or something else) or have already been diagnosed with C19?  Different approaches will inform different policy decisions.  Our media are not smart enough to either understand or report on any of these considerations.  And does anyone really care about such details, beyond just using their misunderstandings to cast aspersions at each other from their ideological perches?

    Now for the downside on the call for all this testing.  No one knows how reliable the tests are, especially the new ones. (more here)  Somehow all of that has passed by our entire news industry, showing again what kind of pikers they are.  Since we know neither the average sensitivity and specificity of the tests, nor their probabilistic dispersions, all of these calls for testing are nothing short of an exercise in politics and emotions.  Has anyone even heard Drs Fauci or Brix bringing up test reliability, or showing even a smidgen of concern about that overarching reality in the use of tests and testing????  We'll see what kind of interest RR readers show in this issue.

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  • Sandbox – 8apr20

    [I again remind readers that the Sandbox is for opinions, insights, and issues not covered in my other recent topical commentaries and posts.  Now isn't this blog a pain in the ass?  gjr]

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  • Dropout Derby – 8apr20

    George Rebane

    And then there was one, but perhaps not quite.  Comrade Bernie bites the dust because he couldn’t motivate anyone besides his clatch of useful idiots to back his campaign, and it turns out that not many of those dolts actually vote.  So left standing, or is it tottering, is ol’ Uncle Joe the existential Bumblebrain of the Democratic Party.  The reason I am not closing out this Dropout Derby today is that methinks the DNC has something up its sleeve – you do recall that to those masterminds our primaries don’t mean a thing if it doesn’t deliver the swing to their preferred candidate?  And there stands in the wings Gov Andy of Albany, dutifully denying that he has any interest in the presidency, which of course is his consuming interest.  The good governor, along with President Trump, are both using their ‘leadership on parade’ in this C19 crisis as the perfect platform from which to campaign during this extended period of social distancing and online politicking about who didn’t do what when.  This will be an historical presidential campaign in ways that we have yet to count.  In any case, this derby will end when the Dems choose their champion for November, and not a day before.  (The astute reader will recognize that this delay makes no never mind, since either way Bumblebrain will be the last to ‘drop out’ of the race.)

    DropoutEntries200408

    Dropouts200408

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  • Hunker Down Diary – 8apr20

    George Rebane

    Today is HD32 for the Rebanes.  Yesterday morning we strapped on our pitifully sparse PPE (masks and gloves) and went to our usual Safeway to replenish the larder – we brought home a ton of veggies, canned goodies, and fresh pieces of dead animals.  The store had only one door open through which the customers were being metered – there was no line to get in and the people density was low.  Nevertheless, shelves containing paper products, sanitary supplies, and staples like flour were empty.  The last was important to me since I’m a baker and have baked ALL of our bread for the last 23 years.

    For such things the dictum still holds that shortages and empty shelves will be the order of the day until all closets in America are filled with what people fear most doing without.  Fortunately, we have practiced the full closet FIFO system since we first were married and immediately witnessed the buying panic in October 1962 during the Cuban missile crisis (people suddenly preparing for WW3).  Actually, I already came with that kind of household policy which was hardwired into me by my parents through the WW2 years and then more years in post-war DP camps.  It has served us well, and I recommend it to all families as do our Mormon brethren – when society churns, it’s good to stay at home until at least some of the smoke clears.

    Anyway, we’ve been home doing all kinds of projects, continuing our organizational meetings online, having FaceTime cocktail hours with friends, and even venturing a couple of visits to a neighbor and our local daughter, both households carrying out equal hunker down policies.  I’ve also been busy pushing squigglies on various C19 analyses, another one which I will post today.  It’s interesting that RR’s commenter cohort could care less for anything quantitative or technical, but I take heart in all that through an extensive correspondence and telecons with STEM oriented friends and colleagues who are also squiggly savvy and share my criterion for what’s really required to understand the issues du jour.  Fun time.

    On this same thread, I find myself revisiting the question as to why I continue to bother posting on socio-political topics and issues, especially since I have pretty much shot my wad on how this pilgrim views the world about all things considered.  Any reader who cares, has at his disposal my entire ontology.  The only answer to that puzzle that comes up is RR’s readership; I feel that they have become part of my greater circle, perhaps even my greater family whose ongoing presence with their insights, reports, opinions, … I get a measure if not a corroboration of my picture of the world’s goings on that I update continuously.  In any case, the jury’s still out.

    More later?

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  • Victor Davis Hanson nails it

    George Rebane

    Noted historian, American classicist, and syndicated columnist Victor Davis Hanson writes a comprehensive column ‘Corona Meltdowns’ that details the demonic evils of the Democratic Party in this time of crisis for our nation.  He echoes and substantiates what we here have posted and discussed over the years, more frequently since the election of President Trump, and most recently under ‘The Demonic Party reveals itself’.  This is must reading for all who frequent here, especially those fervent acolytes of the Left.

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  • Testing’s Tower of Babel

    George Rebane

    In these pages it is always a bittersweet experience to encounter the extended comments of one of our progressive readers who so absolutely confirms their signature attributes, recorded here over the years, and at the same time illustrates their gross misunderstanding of the issue at hand.  Testing for the presence of the C19 virus – both broadscale and at the individual level – is the current widely misunderstood issue at hand.

    ConfusedThe progressive reader, firmly clad in the armor of his ideological (socialist, collectivist) and topical (TDS, election year) narratives, comes with lamestream embedded, evidence-free notions about the function and efficacy of tests in fighting the C19 pandemic.  In addition to being burdened with these narratives, such readers are almost always from the nation’s cohort of those whose knowledge of the maths is thin, and whose understanding of the fine arts of probabilistics has yet to form – those multi-generational millions of innumerate Americans turned out by our woefully dysfunctional public schools.

    These people, here and across the country, share a common and murky misunderstanding of what information testing under various formats for the presence of C19 infection will provide the individual, healthcare workers, or policy makers.  They believe that somehow any and all kinds of test applications will do everything from protecting the tested individual, and provide information that would let our political leaders and healthcare authorities devise stratagems to eradicate C19 sooner than later – most certainly within a much better schedule than the current administration is prosecuting.  Yet they ignore, or cannot understand, that there is no evidence yet to support such beliefs.  Citing the comparative experience of other countries illustrates the futility of their fanatical grip on such beliefs (more here).

    Before we again dive into the impact of testing numbers on our progress in this ‘war on C19’, we review some critical definitions without which any reasonable discussion is not possible. Sensitivity – a highly sensitive test means that there are few false negative results, and thus fewer cases of disease are missed – i.e. probability P(TP|V) is high. The specificity of a test is its ability to reliably designate an individual who does not have a disease as negative. A highly specific test means that there are few false positive results – i.e. probability P(TP|¬V) is low.  (more here, here, and here; but unfortunately the trigger warning for those references stands)

    Some realities to consider before the numbers –

    • “Even if you test negative for COVID-19, assume you have it, experts say” (here)
    • “The whole testing field is in flux,” said Bill Miller, a physician and epidemiologist at the Ohio State University. “The thing that is different this time is most of these tests are going through a really rapid validation process. As a result we can’t be completely confident in how they will perform.” (here and here)

    (more…)

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  • Fighting C19 (updated 10may20)

    George Rebane

    Here are some points about our country’s approach to fighting the C19 coronavirus.

    The main reason the media reporters and the administration are talking past each other about what C19 response policies to follow or even how to evaluate what’s being done is that no one is astute enough to put their finger on the widely different and competing utilities or figures of merit that the various parties are trying to maximize.  Here are three distinct ones.

    C19utilities

    UTrump tries to find a balance between the economy (GDP$) and the mortality of C19 (total number dead) by appropriately trading off weighting constants C1 and C2.  I’m not sure that any of them on Team Trump are either bright enough or courageous enough to tell the President that this is what his gut is telling him to do, and that this can be put on a more rigorous basis for making defensible policy decisions.

    When we listen to medicos like Drs Fauci or Brix, they claim to be apolitical, and the policies they recommend attempt to maximize UMedico by minimizing the number of dead.  None of those guys concern themselves with the economy or the longer term health impacts of an economically destitute country.  They focus on the here and now of saving lives, period.

    And then there’s the Democrats whose utility is all about getting back into power and putting the country on a solid road to socialism cum communism.  They could give a big rat’s ass about a recovering economy or minimizing the number of C19 deaths.  Their utility UDems is the converse of UTrump.  The want the economy to take the biggest conceivable hit, and have as many people die as possible, all of which, no matter the numbers, they will blame on Team Trump.  Their Big Lie will be that things would have been much better under a Dem (Hillary?) administration, and we’ll be happy dancing again as soon as we throw Trump out of office.

    If those reporters would understand any of this, they could perhaps quit asking profoundly stupid questions and write some cogent reports that sort out the apparent differences between the gaggle of factions in the public forum.

    C19poster01Then there’s the matter of hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) and azithromycin (AZ) the policies toward which I have covered elsewhere in these pages.  Trump and I promote the use of these proven malaria fighting and anti-biotic drugs for ameliorating C19 both as a prophylactic and as a therapeutic.  The tests (albeit of limited sample sizes) that have been done with these drugs in treating C19 have already delivered impressive results.  And a big study is underway to measure its effectiveness.  But I (and Trump?) take great hope in promoting their immediate use in that they are already being successfully used in the US in this pandemic, and healthcare workers, led by the physicians, are prescribing them for their own use and hoarding the supplies of HCQ and AZ whenever they can get their hands on it.  They know these drugs are safe, and they have nothing to lose in taking them.

    So here’s the Rebane Doctrine for the prescription and use of HCQ and AZ.  The Dems are on record vilifying the President for being a proponent of something they consider to be unproven, ineffective, and possibly dangerous.  Whether they believe their own crap is irrelevant, refer again to the utility function discussion above.  Almost everyone on the Right wants HCQ and AZ as quickly as they can get their hands on it.  And if we believe the numbnuts on the Left, they want nothing to do with it, and would be glad to have the folks on the Right scarf it up.  So as these two drugs become available, let’s have the Repubs and the Dems agree on a distribution policy based on party registration.  Those who are registered Repubs are first in line to get the drugs, and those registered as Dems either don’t get them, or are last in line if they have a belated epiphany.  Both sides win; what’s not to like?

    [6apr20 update]  And here is some more dismal news on how government bureaucracies are impeding the fight against C19 in their approach to approving and/or promoting the use of HCQ and AZ by hospitals and our personal physicians. These are the same guys to whose care and feeding our Left wants to turn over our nation’s healthcare industry.  And here more evidence from the field comes in.  (H/T to readers)

    [10may20 update] HCQ as a SARS prophylaxis was discovered over 15 years ago, and (to my knowledge) first published in the Virology Journal here.  HCQ’s successful clinical uses against C19 have been reported from both Wuhan and Singapore, and most recently its robust use in Costa Rica (here).  Further reports about its successful uses, especially preventing progress of the disease in early onset patients, is becoming available in dribs and drabs from all over, including the US.  Why ‘dribs and drabs’?  That is because here in America the Left has politicized the attempts at its widespread clinical uses for the obvious reasons involving President Trump. (more here)  We recall, that ALL things new in science and technology have had to surmount intense opposition from the then entrenched establishments, both technical and political.  In this litigious land it takes rare courage for physicians to wander too far from the CYA comforts of ‘standard of care’, and the Left and their lamestream lackeys have driven a stake in the ground about HCQ being the one therapeutic that is too far afield – ‘Physician, be forewarned!’

    But rejoice, the pushback on the Left has now progressed from ‘HCQ is ineffective, harmful, and dangerous’ to a ‘Large Study Suggests Malaria Drug Hydroxychloroquine Doesn’t Help COVID-19’ in the just published 7may20 New England Journal of Medicine.  Therein the strongest statements against HCQ that the authors can make is that (all italicized emphases mine)

    • “Hydroxychloroquine has been widely administered to patients with COVID-19 without robust evidence supporting its use.”
    • “The study found no significant link between use of hydroxychloroquine and intubation or death.”
    • “Our strong feeling is the drug should not be routinely administered to patients with COVID-19.”

    What they all avoid denying is the effectiveness of HCQ in the early onset phases of C19.

    As more evidence of the ‘dribs and drabs’ that substantiate HCQ uses, consider two recent French studies – here and here.

    The bottom line is that no medicine is 100% effective for all cases of any single disease in all of its phases.  But HCQ is now known to be sufficiently effective in the treatment of C19, enough to scare the bejeezus out of Left’s leadership as they attempt to fashion their anti-Trump campaign, while saddled with their champion Bumblebrain sporting Pelosi’s kerchief in his gauntlet.

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  • Epidyne – At first blush

    George Rebane

    As promised, I finally finished the V1.0 version of Epidyne during this enforced C19 self-quarantine, or hunkering down period as it is better known.  The stay at home has allowed a lot of things to get accomplished on everyone’s ‘do list’.  At our house we have not had a boring moment – so many interesting projects, and now some uninterrupted time to do them.  For me, developing a working epidemic spread model has been a lot of fun and also very consuming.  I hope the interested readers will also be stimulated by and gain a better understanding of the terrible C19 pandemic now sweeping the world wreaking havoc on lives and livelihoods.

    Motivation.  In light of the daily reported dilemmas of widely divergent epidemic spread models that are being consulted by our national C19 response planners, and also the background reports of their various vintages and provenances that make them all more or less difficult to use, let alone upgrade or even maintain, I decided to develop my own version so that I could play out various recorded data and policy alternatives, and inform RR readers of results I considered insightful, informative, or at least interesting.

    Objective.  My objective was to develop a model that was sufficiently complex to simulate and predict realworld experiences and outcomes, but no more than that.  The model had to have an adequately rich input space (think of them as control knobs) that could be set to represent both policy alternatives (such as time/size dependent quarantines, and regional populations), and also incorporate field measured data (such as infection rates dependent on virulence and vectors, contagion durations, and onset time lags).  Most certainly the model had to be able to handle the critical infection rate dynamics driven by the process known as ‘herd immunity’.

    RR readers got an early peek at Epidyne, my home-brew epidemiological spread model, in the last ‘Hunker Down Diary’ post (here).  Since then I’ve finished testing it and fixed the inevitable collection of bugs.  In this post I will do a first cut intro to describe the model and demonstrate its workings through a few scenarios.  Epidyne has been programmed in both an Excel™ spreadsheet and the system development language Matlab™.  A portion of the spreadsheet model is shown below.

    Epidyne models the time history of the sizes and change rates (time derivatives) of four inter-related population cohorts that comprise a regional population into which an infectious disease is introduced that has the potential of becoming an epidemic.  These cohorts are comprised of pU – those uninfected yet vulnerable; pI – those currently infected; pR – those who have recovered and are no longer infectious; and pD – the deceased.  pU may also be mediated by timed quarantines which can reduce the size of pU or increase it when the quarantines end or are (partially) ignored before the epidemic runs its course.

    EpidynePopFlows

    As shown above, the population flows from vulnerable uninfected cohort to the infected cohort, which then feeds the non-decreasing recovered and the deceased cohorts.  The asymptomatic and pre-symptomatic infected continue to reduce the uninfected population at a variable ‘reproduction’ rate rI (cf. herd immunity).  The course of the disease in an infected individual is completed within nI weeks after which the individual has either recovered or died.  The mortality rate of the infected is given by rD.

    The above is from the technical note that describes Epidyne and illustrates its use.  It may be downloaded here.  Download TN2004-1_Epidyne

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  • Face Masks – A considered view

    [Dr Hullett is a longtime friend, colleague, and RR reader.  As systems engineers and developers, we have traveled much of the long road together.  He has given permission to publish this personal correspondence.]

    Wayne Hullett, PhD

    The coronavirus particles are too small to be seen. A doctor on Youtube suggested thinking about coronavirus particles as the glitter worn by some people at festive events. If you have ever gotten any glitter on you, then you know how difficult it is to get off. As George has pointed out, the source of this glitter is the lungs of people who have the disease, most of whom do not yet have symptoms and thus probably do not know they have it. The glitter exits their bodies with normal breathing, talking, coughs and sneezes, and becomes an aerosol in the air. It can float in the air for several minutes before it settles on the floor, on nearby surfaces, or gets inhaled into the lungs of someone nearby. Those who inhale enough of it also become infected, and after an incubation period, they too become a source of the glitter. Anyone who touches a surface that has accumulated some glitter and then touches their mouth, nose or eyes also lets it into their system and can also become infected, thus becoming another source. This is how it spreads exponentially.

    Here is a good discussion of the size of virus particles (the glitter) and how well mask materials trap them.

    Three common materials and the amount of virus particles they trap are:

    Hankerchief    28%
    Surgical Mask    80%
    N95 Mask    96%

    There are two reasons to wear a mask: 1. to keep particles out and 2. to keep particles in. If you wear a mask to keep from catching the virus, you would want an N95 mask, which requires some care and training in fitting. This is what our doctors and nurses wear when treating coronavirus patients. And the patients (I hope) wear surgical masks to protect the medical personnel.

    Now, I am guessing (I am an engineer, not a medical doctor), that the body's immune system can deal with a small number of particles, which is why the N95 masks, at 96% effectiveness) seem to work. Also, older people's immune system does not work as well as when they were young, which would explain the increased mortality with age.

    The best reason to wear a mask, it seems to me, is to keep the particles IN; to keep from spreading them. A surgical mask (the blue pleated mask you see in hospital TV shows and any street scene of an Asian country) traps 80% of the particles. This, to me, is huge. If only 20% of the particles are getting into the air and on surfaces, then much fewer people will get infected. I am not sure whether it is 1 for 1 (80% fewer infections), but if the body's immune system is able to handle a small amount of particles, then common sense tells me that there will me many fewer infections, thus reducing the impact on the hospital system and buying us more time to develop an effective treatment or vaccine, resulting in fewer deaths.

    So, while social distancing is effective, the next best thing we can do is for EVERYONE, especially the younger who may have only a mild case and not even know they are carriers, to wear surgical masks most of the time. Older folks should stay at home, and wear N95 masks when they have to emerge to buy groceries.

    I am troubled by the CDC party line that masks do not help. I think they issued that statement because there is a shortage of masks, and by claiming that they do not help they hope to avert a rush to buy and horde masks, thus denying them to the medical professionals who have a greater need. Even the Surgeon General was defending that lie on TV today. I think the correct approach is to not lie, but to tell the truth and to cure the shortage. There are around 330 million people in the country, and the masks are single use, so I am thinking that we need a production capacity of somewhere between 100 million and 500 million surgical masks per day, and maybe 10% to 20% of that of N95 masks. Considering production capability this country developed in WWII, I would think that is readily achievable, for as long as it takes to develop and get approval for a vaccine. They should be on the supermarket shelves next to the bread and milk (and beer), and cost less than a penny each. In the interim, the CDC and Surgeon General could help not by lying but by showing us how to make the most effective homemade masks from commonly available materials. There are already a number of Youtube videos that show how to make masks of various qualities.

    So, the key, for most people, is not to wear the mask to keep from getting the virus, but to keep everyone else from getting it from you, because you may not know you are a carrier. Protect your fellow citizens by wearing a mask.

    **** [In my reply I included the following.}

    Thanks much Wayne, I will definitely post this.  My take on masks may be a bit more broader than yours.  Not only do they reduce the fraction/size of the exhaled aerosols, but also capture a significant fraction (perhaps not as great as the exhaled part) of the infectious aerosol particles during inhalation.  Bottom line, a wide use of masks will help in two ways to reduce the ‘reproduction’ factor/rate among a population of infected pre-symptomatic and vulnerable uninfected people. 

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  • Scattershots – 31mar20 (updated 4apr20)

    George Rebane

    Happiness is being tested positive for C19 antibodies.

    The US has five times as many per capita ventilators as does the UK.  This was reported on the news tonight along with other real stats showing the comparative lead the US has over other countries in fighting C19.  Concurrently we have the Democrats doing everything they can to lie, misconstrue, block, extend, dun, … any and every area of progress we have been making in tackling this global disaster, one that the country has not experienced in at least a century or perhaps ever.  Team Pelosi/Schumer are filling the lamestream’s bandwidth with snark, lies, and misrepresentations of data in order to pave the way for Bumblebrain Biden in the fall.  They blame it all on Trump in the most vicious ways possible.  None of them mention that the bat-originated coronaviruses were identified and the warnings published in October 2007 as the Bush2 administration was ending (one of our readers dug it up for us here).  Obama did NOTHING over his eight years to prepare the country.  In states, governors like our Moonbeam dismantled the preparations that Schwarzenegger had put in place.  EU nations with socialized healthcare have responded woefully late and ineffectively to the virus, as we have shown in these pages, while attempting to replicate US policies.  None of this makes no never mind to our socialist Left.  After spending three extremely disruptive years to impeach Trump the first time, Pelosi is already making plans to start impeaching the President once more should he be re-elected.  The Demonic Party cares only for the power over the people that they can garner if they can make Trump look like he delivered too little too late, and then only when the Dems made him do it.  Ignoring Trump’s way with words, he is doing the right thing at every turn with the information and wherewithal the country has.  Just calling out the Dems’s Big Lies grossly understates what those people are really doing to our country.

    [1apr20 update]  Multi-attribute utility – that is the set of horns America is attempting to balance on today.  Such a utility does not present a stark choice as in ‘Your money or your life?!’, it’s more nuanced and real like ‘Your health or your economy?’.  In the latter you can see the utility of maximizing measures of the country’s health through policies that minimize the near-term C19 morbidity and mortality, while teetering on the other end is maximizing measures of our economy like continuing employment and GDP.  In decision theory these are competing attributes of a single utility function (Figure of Merit, if you prefer) that computes to a single number which you try to maximize through correct decisions.  Coming up with a broadly accepted utility is ALWAYS an exercise in compromising subjective values, and therefore always hard.  Even if you agree on the attributes to be included, placing weights on them becomes the next contention to overcome – say, you accept U = w1*(GDP) – w2*(total deaths) to be maximized over the next twelve months.  What values should we accept for the weights w1 and w2?  Capice?  That’s the kind of exercise staffers versed in this art are attempting to educate their principals so that more rigorous analytics can then be brought to bear on candidate policies (i.e. the decisions) to evaluate their relative merits.  For a variety of reasons, most politicians hate utility functions and rigorous analytics.

    C19democrat

    Eschewing President Trump’s daily C19 briefings.  The demonic Dems have a conundrum since all but FN have decided not to broadcast the briefings, labeling them as nothing but ‘Trump campaign rallies’.  The problem is that these cynical dufuses know that these are anything but political rallies.  They consist of factual information and data delivered by domain (here, healthcare) experts in understandable formats that summarize the progress of C19 across the land and explain the technologies and logistics brought to bear in fighting the pandemic.  They include our political leader’s exhortations, apprehensions of policy, and expressions of hope – all proper content in a perilous time such as this.  And then all of them can be questioned by the few attending reporters (most there for ‘gotcha’ questions).  His political enemies, media mouthpieces, and the country’s inculcated pretend to abhor and ignore these daily sessions, all the while carefully watching FN so that they can have something to say during their hours of vituperation.  The Dems really have a problem – no viable candidate, no policies, nothing but TDS to tell Americans, and now how to pick and promote an alternative (e.g. Cuomo) during our national hunkering down time when the election has taken a back seat, and all attention is focused on the doings of Team Trump.

    PearlDanny_2020[2apr20 update]  Daniel Pearl murderer gets reprieve from death sentence (here) .  Omar Saeed Sheikh, along with others, were convicted by a Pakistani court in 2003 of murdering WSJ South Asia bureau chief Daniel Pearl.  Today we learn that the “court reduces charges against British national Omar Saeed Sheikh to kidnapping, cuts sentence from death to seven years.”  Danny’s kidnapping and beheading in 2002 was the first of many such murders by various Islamic terrorists in the years that followed.  His father Dr Judea Pearl is a Turing laureate (2012) and world-famous computer scientist with ground-breaking work in heuristics, Bayesian inference, and causality.  Judea and Danny’s mother Ruth launched the Daniel Pearl Foundation that brought many Muslim journalists for sabbaticals in American media companies as an effort to foster greater understanding between Islamic and western cultures. (more here)

    [3apr20 update] ‘Questions About Accuracy of Coronavirus Tests Sow Worry’ (here and here) reports on the concerns that are now beginning to trouble both healthcare workers and political leaders.  RR readers received a thorough tutorial on the reliability of such tests in ‘The Value of Testing’.  Our innumerate citizenry doesn’t really have a clue on the impact of testing on the spread of C19 virus.  At least now some people are beginning to take note that testing is NOT the denied big salvation that the Dems have been screaming about, and using the test shortage as one more reason to attack the administration and divide the country.  I will do an update on the significance of current test performance numbers (sensitivity = Pr(test positive given you have C19), and specificity = Pr(test negative given you don’t have C19) which are still a mystery to the medicos.  Right now I’m trying get out the first post on my epidemic spreading model Epidyne(V1.0) which should provide some answers to the uncertainty in the predictions that we receive from the daily C19 briefings, and also answer some questions on what levels of infections and deaths we can expect as this epidemic sweeps the country.  As some of you know, the healthcare pros are having quite a consternation on the conflicting reports from their many spreading models (hence the reason I developed Epidyne).

    Parents are a danger to their children’s carefully inculcated minds in these times during their enforced home stays.  That is the opinion of an emerging clutch of unionized woke (aka evil) teachers as cited by one of our regular commenters (someone please find the link for me so that I can include it herein, thanks).  These ‘educators’ are afraid that their years of drilling large government socialism into their formative minds will all be washed away when they spend more time with their parents and learn an alternative set of values and mores, and God knows what else with which they may pollute their carefully nurtured brain bones.  The little darlins may even come back to school with an appreciation of capitalism, free markets, and religion (gasp!).

    [4apr20 update] Trump’s “off color” joke.  The demonic Dems are showing off their hyper-hypocritical side again by suddenly becoming paramount prudes.  In his yesterday’s C19 briefing the discussion went to the deaths predicted by the models.  After Dr Brix finished her contribution on the various results from the various models, the President interjected, “The models show hundreds of thousands of people are going to die and you know what I want to do? I want to come way under the model,” then adding a tongue-in-cheek, “The professionals did the models. I was never involved in a model. At least this kind of a model.”  And the liberal media went ballistic.  Now these are the same ‘journalists’ and media mavens whose demand for freedom of speech focuses on being able to inject “shit”, “fuck”, …, and people humping into America’s films and TV fare as frequently as possible.  Then they get the vapors when Trump delivers his little bon mot.  (As a relevant aside, FLOTUS Melania was a professional model and a business woman when she and Donald were married.)  

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