US COVID deaths hit 170,052 late Sunday evening in the Johns Hopkins data set

COVID-19 Pandemic Deaths Update through 8/15/20

The 7-day growth rate for all COVID-19 deaths in the United States has averaged 0.62% for the ten weeks since June 6 and is flat at 0.65% in the last seven days.

The sum of deaths in the 15 worst states since the beginning of the pandemic has been flat for a month, averaging 779. The low so far was hit on Tuesday, August 11 at 773.  

The sum of deaths in the 10 second tier states since the beginning of the pandemic continues to edge slowly upward. Arizona, Mississippi, and South Carolina were each up one death per day since the beginning of the pandemic in the last week.

Adding the 15 worst to the 10 second tier we've fluctuated between 917 and 899 in the last six weeks since the Fourth of July, averaging 905 in the last five. The sum on 8/15 was 906.

Deaths continue to skew heavily 50 and older in US southern perimeter states. California is representative, where just 30% of the cases since the beginning have been 50 or older but 93% of the deaths. In Texas 35% of the cases and 92% of the deaths have been 50 or older.

Climate Update for KGRR July 2020

Climate Update for KGRR July 2020

Max Temp 94, Mean 94

Min Temp 58, Mean 49 (tied for second highest minimum since 1892 with 2011 and 1921)

Av Temp 75.7, Mean 72.3

Rain 4.75, Mean 3.14

Cooling Degree Days 340, Mean 242

CDD Season to date 565, Mean 426

Back when I was in 'Nam Red Forman humor was funny

Conservative talk radio doesn't get it that Trump is president now

Both Todd Herman filling in for Rush Limbaugh yesterday and Michael Savage on his own show today keep talking about how law and order are going to disappear if Biden is elected and that Trump has to run on that issue.

But Trump IS president, and law and order have already disappeared.

A caller to Rush even pointed this out to Herman, who quickly changed the subject.

You can't run for re-election and win by promising to provide later what you're not providing now.

NOW.

It's the Limbaugh Theorem in action under a Republican president, pretending that the present problems aren't the president's problems.

Recipe for losing.

Losses due to George Floyd riots and looting to cost insurers over $1 billion, more than all the losses from riots and looting since 1965 combined

Walgreens among the first to report its losses from looters as Philly’s business insurance costs jump:

'Insurers have paid an estimated $1 billion in all for “riot” damages in local protests since 1965, according to Property Claims Services, an industry group. Insurers are bracing for new claims across the U.S. that they expect could total at least that much. Still, the group expects “manageable” losses compared to major hurricanes, which have cost tens of billions'.

How many looted cities will it take to re-elect Trump?

Inquiring minds want to know.

The compound daily growth rate for US COVID-19 deaths bottomed on July 4th

Apart from the first week from the first death in the New York Times data at us-covid-tracker.com, Feb 29-Mar 7, the peak rate was achieved on Sat Mar 28 at 30.3%. The compound daily growth rate had dropped to just 3.2% by May 2.

This chart shows rates only after falling below 1% in order to show the current scale and the clear bottoming on Jul 4.

COVID-19 related hospitalization metrics in the four worst US states today are . . . NOT ALARMING

California is in blue in the graphs, Texas is in pink, Florida is in green and Georgia is in brown. Every one, though in the top four for current hospitalizations, has peaked and turned lower. Texas and Florida, the worst states for the outbreak currently, have turned sharply lower.

The sum of deaths from COVID-19 in the worst hit US states since the beginning of the pandemic has hit a new low, the same measurement in the second tier states continues to rise modestly

Johns Hopkins today shows 160k US COVID deaths nine days after hitting 150k

 

At least one American writer, Curtis Yarvin, was aware of Dr. Leung's warnings at the time, and stated what needed to be done even though he realized it wouldn't be

The self-described "foreign service brat" wrote for The American Mind, 2/1/20:

RIP Globalism, Dead of Coronavirus:

"The obvious solution to an emerging pandemic killer cold is cutting off flights to China, then all air travel across the Pacific, then across the Atlantic—depending on the virus’s progress . . ."

Dr. Gabriel Leung of Hong Kong University advocated for limiting mobility because he had worked out by Jan 27 how the coronavirus had already spread in China by rail

He was already warning of a global epidemic on Jan 27.

He was specifically worried on Jan 27 that flights out of China would seed the infection globally.

He was already aware of and demonstrated on Jan 27 how the novel coronavirus had spread in China by rail.

He was already stating there was clear evidence of human to human spread on Jan 27.

He was already advocating for "substantial, draconian measures limiting population mobility" on Jan 27.

He was already advocating for ending mass gatherings, for closing schools, and for requiring work from home arrangements on Jan 27.

And what were we doing?

The US Senate was finally hearing the House's impeachment case after Nancy Pelosi sat on it for weeks.

A country full of fools, run by fools.

The earliest example of someone advocating for a global flight stoppage was Hong Kong University's Dr. Gabriel Leung on Jan 27: "Substantial draconian measures limiting population mobility should be taken immediately"

The sum of average daily new deaths in the worst states appears to have bottomed, but it's still too soon to say for sure

I measure this weekly through Saturdays, and using Saturday 7/25 we did bottom, as the latest chart shows.

However, on Monday 7/26 the sum fell to 778, and 778 was just re-tested on Sunday 8/2.

So . . . we'll just have to wait and see what happens.

Clearly though the trend lower has slowed dramatically and is skipping along sideways for a week.

Drudge implies the woman shown is the woman named in the article, but that's not her

The 102 year old woman mentioned in the Drudge headline, story here, turned 102 in January and came down with COVID-19 in May, in the US. She was born in Massachusetts.

The woman pictured above the Drudge headline is 101. Found her. Here's another story about her. She contracted the illness in late March, also in the US. She is Italian. Her mother died giving birth to her on the ship bringing them to the US.  

Another story is here about a yet different woman, 102 years old, who contracted the illness in Italy in early March and survived.

The Drudge headline originally brought to my mind a story from early April, about still one more woman, 103 years old, in Italy who beat the disease, which I have finally located here.

There are many examples giving reason for hope, even for old people.

Real Clear Politics has moved Minnesota into "toss-up" status because of Trafalgar Group poll

The poll has Biden beating Trump by only five points in liberal Minnesota.

"A five-mile stretch of Minneapolis sustain[ing] extraordinary damage" recently, per the New York Times, probably had something to do with it.

It doesn't follow that rigorous measures against coronavirus fail to produce low new daily cases, unless you are an asshat who thinks 10x more cases or 22x more deaths on the way there is preferable

Finland: 7,443 cases; 329 deaths from COVID; 4.4% case fatality rate

Norway: 9,249 cases; 255 deaths from COVID; 2.75% case fatality rate

Sweden: 80,422 cases; 5,743 deaths from COVID; 7.1% case fatality rate

Sweden remains among the very worst states for deaths per million of population from COVID-19

Today's coronavirus hospitalization snapshot for California, Arizona, Texas and Florida shows all states turning the corner or flattening

California is in blue, Arizona is in orange, Texas is in pink, and Florida is in green in the graphs. None have experienced anything as dire as experienced in New York (gray) at the extreme.

Johns Hopkins University today shows US COVID-19 deaths hitting 150,034

The progression by 10k since hitting 50k on 4/24 slowed down until 6/22 at which point it had taken 15 days to get to 120k from 110k instead of the five, six and seven days for 10k jumps at the beginning.

Since 6/22, however, the pace has quickened again, taking 14, then 12, and now 11 days to add 10k deaths to bring us as of today to 150k.

This is due in large measure to "backfilling" of death totals by various states since 6/22, combined with big death increases in CA, AZ, TX and FL.

See the following, which represent not quite 4k deaths since 6/22, many of which are backfills, previous deaths from who knows when which required investigation or were in abeyance for one reason or another.

There have also been policy changes, as in Texas, where death certificates attributing deaths to COVID-19 are now added to the total despite not having laboratory proof. Completed death investigations of coronavirus deaths languish well below 1,000 in Texas where there have been over 6,500 COVID deaths according to the NYT data. Texas is clearly responsible for closing the latest gap to 11 days with its recent data dump.

As I've indicated elsewhere, the sum of the average daily deaths since the beginning in the 15 worst states has been falling for a month. These recent death data dumps and the death increases in the south are producing a bottoming effect this week. We'll see on Sunday where we are.  

The federal government could have read the news wires in Jan and Feb like the rest of us and learned that the coronavirus spread asymptomatically, but no, that was too hard

As coronavirus threatened invasion, a new 'Red Dawn' team tried to save America:

'In some cases, government officials appeared to be learning about developments for first time from the Red Dawn emails. In one exchange, Eva Lee, the director of the Center for Operations Research in Medicine and Healthcare at Georgia Tech, flagged a study showing a 20-year-old woman left Wuhan with no symptoms and had infected five family members.

'Dr. Robert Kadlec, the Trump administration’s Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response, appeared surprised. “Eva is this true?!” Kadlec replied. “If so, we have a huge [hole] on our screening and quarantine effort.”'

Anyone carefully following the news about coronavirus knew there already were confirmed reports of asymptomatic spread by air travelers before the end of Jan: to Japan, Washington State, and Germany, but a week before Feb ended the Trump administration and many US health authorities were still clueless about them.

And then this curious story about the 20-yr old Wuhan woman came out on Feb 21/22, long after the fact refocusing attention on the issue of asymptomatic spread, curious mostly because she infected others far away from Wuhan around Jan 10 but a month later was herself still symptom-free.

But did it do anything to get the feds to move? Obviously not.

It took another almost four weeks from Feb 22 before the US instituted the half-hearted stay-at-home advisory, triggered mostly by community spread in Washington State. And air travelers didn't abandon flying until after Mar 15, when they finally realized the feds were taking the epidemic sort of seriously and the threat was real.

Meanwhile the disease is obviously still spreading asymptomatically in the United States like wildfire, and the feds are doing . . . what exactly to stop it? The weakness and incompetence the Trump administration has shown have only encouraged the nay-sayers to masks and social distancing.

The stay-at-home period should have been used to mobilize production of adequate masks for the population and to prepare schools to social distance, at a minimum, but now we're at war over both of those, too.

Sad!

Reuters had the Wuhan woman story on Feb 22 and it was picked up immediately by The Straits Times in Singapore:

Wuhan woman with no symptoms infected five relatives with coronavirus: Study:

"A 20-year-old Chinese woman from Wuhan, the epicentre of the coronavirus outbreak, travelled 675km north to Anyang where she infected five relatives, without ever showing signs of infection, Chinese scientists reported on Friday (Feb 21), offering new evidence that the virus can be spread asymptomatically."

The SS United States' debt engine ran out of fuel in 1989 and rolled over, coasted until it hit the iceberg in 2007, and has been taking on water ever since

Stocks since the year 2000 continue to underperform the previous period of equal length by over 70% on an average per annum basis, inflation adjusted

Pretty shocking when you really think about it.

The coronavirus death trend is going the wrong way, however, in the "second tier" states

Mostly driven by AZ, but also by SC, and to a lesser extent by AL. Many of these states are treading water, which means current deaths are enough to keep the average from falling as time proceeds. We don't want to see that. We want to see deaths slow enough for the averages to fall naturally with the passing of time. For the period shown, only MN has dropped (-1).

Seeing that AZ averaged just 11 per day in mid-June but is now at 18 is bad news. 18 was the floor I used to incorporate TX in my list of worst 15 states back in late June. Otherwise it had been a list of 14 worst.

Four weeks in a row of declining coronavirus daily new deaths averages in the worst 15 states

Despite CA rising from 38 per day to 46, TX from 18 to 30, and FL from 28 to 39, all included over the period shown.

Current projection for US coronavirus deaths by the end of September

On May 20 I projected about 262,000 US deaths by Thanksgiving.

Two months later it's time to revisit the projection.

Johns Hopkins lists deaths at 144,524 as of right now.

Using New York Times data we're at 144,283, as of yesterday.

The interim daily new deaths low occurred on Jun 21 with 257 in that data set.

From Jun 23 through Jul 23 the United States has added 1.69 million new cases.

The vast majority of those new cases have occurred in CA AZ TX and FL, where we know about 66% of cases have been aged 0-49.

That would imply approximately 1.12 million of the new cases in the last month have been aged 0-49, and approximately 575,000 have been aged 50+.

Using California data as a proxy, we know 7% of coronavirus deaths there have been 0-49, and cases 0-49 have been 69% of total cases.

That means the case fatality rate among the 0-49 in CA has been just 0.19% (562/293,675).

The situation for those 50+ is far more grave.

93% of coronavirus deaths in California have been aged 50+, and cases 50+ have been just 31% of total cases, which means the case fatality rate among the 50+ has been 5.66% (7,465/131,941).

Applying those CFRs to the new case population Jun 23 -- Jul 23 we project 2,119 new deaths aged 0-49 and 32,526 new deaths aged 50+, probably in the next 8 weeks.

That puts us, at minimum, at 179,000 total coronavirus deaths before the end of September.

Add as many again another two months after that, which is by no means certain, of course, but not unthinkable, and you're at approximately 214,000 deaths by Thanksgiving. Clearly not as bad as 262,000 but still bad enough. A bad flu season in America, remember, was 80,000 flu deaths in 2017-18. Normal is about 34,000. We are way past the flu comparisons, and those who were making them have shut up about it. They should be reminded of their ignorance and stupidity, which misled many. 

The future of this all depends on case growth, and whether the infection profile changes back from younger to older. It's always been about stopping the spread because spread inevitably leads to deaths.

Case growth continues to trend up robustly in California as of today, but appears to have rolled over in Arizona, Texas and Florida, flattening the curve for the United States overall. But even with flattening that means we're still feeding the beast.

Stay tuned.

You wouldn't know it from the news, but Texas' hospitalization picture has turned sharply for the better and was never as bad as New York

Whether it's total currently hospitalized, percent hospitalized per 100k of population, or percent of beds occupied by COVID-19 patients, Texas has turned the corner in every category, and turned sharply lower in each as well.

Texas is in pink in the graphs below. Florida in green and New York in gray are shown for comparison purposes.

Neither Texas nor Florida has ever approached a New-York-level-of-bad.

Texas has turned sharply for the better, and Florida is flattening the curve in all three as well, and rolling over.

"Some people without brains do an awful lot of talking" about this, "don't they?"

Fort Worth Star-Telegram publishes pure coronavirus porn about Starr County, Texas

Texas has 250 counties.

Starr County is next door to hard-hit Hidalgo County.

For "daily new cases" in the 7-day, 14-day, 30-day, 90-day and since the beginning of the pandemic, Hidalgo ranks 4th, 5th, 5th, 6th and 6th.

For "daily new deaths" Hidalgo ranks 1st, 1st, 1st, 3rd and 3rd.

Starr County?

Daily new cases: 29th, 34th, 31st, 34th and 34th.

Daily new deaths: 16th, 19th, 27th, 33rd and 36th.

Hidalgo's had 14,529 cases to date, and 433 deaths.

Starr County? 1,519 cases to date, and . . . 20 deaths.

Twenty! Since the beginning!

Yet here's the headline from the geniuses at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram:

COVID-19 patients will be ‘sent home to die’ if deemed too sick, Texas county says

BY CHACOUR KOOP

I don't know what's worse, that the newspaper actually published this drivel, the money line of which is that "On Sunday, Gov.Abbott announced U.S. Navy teams will go to South Texas to provide medical assistance, including the hospital in Starr County", or that Drudge put this fourth in his lineup this morning.

The hysteria mongers never stop.

Lynn Afendoulis running vs. Peter Meijer in MI-3 says attack ad against her traces to Meijer crony "former" Democrat Greg Orman

Afendoulis says Orman is behind the Fix Congress Now! mailings attacking her.

She says Peter Meijer donated in 2017 to Orman's failed run for governor in Kansas in 2018.

She also says Orman's Fix Congress Now! is funded by Unite America, whose board members include Orman.

Unite America stands for Ranked Choice Voting, Open Primaries, Vote By Mail, and Independent Redistricting, all of which traditional Republicans have opposed.

Orman ran as a Democrat against Republican Senator Pat Roberts in Kansas in 2008 but now claims to be an independent.

DeVos money is backing Meijer.

I recommend a vote for Afendoulis, and shopping at Sam's Club.

 

Somebody's pretty worried Peter Meijer needs help to win in MI-3 over Lynn Afendoulis

Fix Congress Now!, 1580 Lincoln Street, Suite 520, Denver, CO 80203, has sent a mailer to Michigan voters claiming Lynn Afendoulis got rich as an executive of a company which laid off Michigan workers, apparently in 2011. Or was it 2008?

It says "Michigan got screwed by Lynn Afendoulis".

Quite the hatchet job. I'm sure as an executive she made all those decisions to fire the workers and to enrich herself, herself, right?

Anyway, GREAT BIG SCREW on the cover drilling down into Grand Rapids. Unflattering photo of Lynn on the other side. Classic low brow stuff.

Billionaire kid Peter Meijer, who has nothing to do with this whatsoever, no, no way, needs this kind of help to get elected?

Just my opinion, but the guy's not much of a muchness. Otherwise we wouldn't be seeing this. Seems like kind of an admission that his unimpressive record in life so far is just that.

But, he's just the sort of person who will fit right in up there in DC, yes sir!

Nice to know someone in Colorado is working so hard to interfere in Michigan's primary election and elect Peter Meijer.

Got a call today from the Peter Meijer campaign, running for Justin Amash's seat (MI-3)

I asked about Meijer's position on immigration. Got the typical "he supports Trump's position" and favors lots of LEGAL immigration.

When probed on H1B visas the caller didn't know what they were. When I explained they allowed foreigners to work in the US, he offered that he thought Meijer was in favor of lots of those, too, even after I pointed out that tens of millions of Americans are out of work and don't need the competition. 

The campaign worker clearly expected me to be a libertarian who is in favor of lots of immigration, which is what you'll get from Peter Meijer, Republican, if he's elected.

The caller wasn't prepared to encounter a voter who has often voted Republican who is against that.

Shows you how thimble deep Republican thinking is on the issue, and that Trump's GOP hasn't moved an inch in the direction of immigration restriction, mostly because Trump's a phony on immigration.

Won't be checking the box for Peter Meijer.

"To impose upon nations the domination of majorities is to subject them to mediocrity"

The liberal Russian Prince K., in EMPIRE OF THE CZAR, by the Marquis de Custine.

Oh. So now it's BHLM, huh? What about the Asians? BHALM? How about BLAHM instead (goes with all the noise they make while rioting, right)? Native Americans? BHANALM? NAHBALM? (heh, rhymes with napalm)

So all lives do matter, unless they're white. Got it, chief. Got it, jefe. Got it chīfu. Got it kungo.

Here:

"Strikers are demanding sweeping action by corporations and government to confront systemic racism and economic inequality that limits mobility and career advancement for many Black and Hispanic workers, who make up a disproportionate number of those earning less than a living wage."

Rush Limbaugh today, wrong again: "If you make $55,000 a year you are in the top 10%"

What a shock, right?

He's not even close, per SSA.gov for 2018. You have to make $100k to reach the top 10%. $55k is simply top 30%. $60k puts you in the top 25%. 2019 data comes out in October.

$55k stopped being top 10% in the year 2000. 

If it's a number, Rush will have it wrong.

Deaths from COVID-19 in CA, AZ, TX and FL remain a phenomenon overwhelmingly affecting those 50 and older just as they did in New York City, but so far they represent only 1/3 of the pandemic in those states vs 3/4 in NYC

In New York City, older people were the chief death victims by far as in most places, but there they represented 75% of the pandemic.

Less fuel in the south so far means we're going to see less fire, and already have.

You still do not want to get this disease, unless you want to risk permanent impairments to your health. Nearly 10% of people 0-49 in AZ as in NYC are still dying from COVID-19.

Wear a mask and avoid crowds.

Data in FL comes from reliable news reporting through July 11. Data for CA, AZ and TX come from state dashboards. TX data is based on completed death investigations, which are far fewer than total deaths to date. CA straight up tells you what you want to know without having to calculate it. NYC data comes from the city's dashboard.

The sum of average daily new deaths from COVID-19 in the 15 worst US states for deaths has declined for three straight weeks, despite rising averages in California, Florida and Texas

The Johns Hopkins coronavirus dashboard is showing 140,103 US deaths from COVID this evening

That's twelve days since hitting 130k.

You'll recognize the conservatism of Russell Kirk in James M. Patterson's description of the American founding, but you'll never learn about it from dimwits like Rush Limbaugh or dilettantes like Mark Levin

The Dogmatic Rivalry at the Heart of America:

'In the American context, “liberalism” was not the term used to define the political foundations of the Declaration of Independence or the American Constitution. These documents were understood to be the extension of an older British tradition, even if the British themselves had failed to keep it. American colonists had, by 1776, over one hundred and fifty years of experience of self-government in covenanted and compacted governments, and the language of individual consent to government and rights reserved by individuals against the government were there at the very moment the colonies were chartered.

'Hence, as Donald S. Lutz finds that it is not right to call the Founding “Lockean” because the colonial origins of the Founding preceded Locke by decades. Rather, the Founders found in Locke something that articulated what their forebears already knew and understood when hewing logs to build a cabin in 1611. Moreover, during the Founding, Locke received attention only in the lead up to American Independence but faded into the background as matters of constitutional design arose upon the revolution’s success. During that period, jurist William Blackstone and republican theorist Montesquieu dominated the discourse, with David Hume, Samuel von Pufendorf, and Edward Coke each receiving more attention than Locke from 1780 onward. All were dwarfed by references to the Bible, especially, as Lutz discovered, to the book of Deuteronomy. One would only be surprised by this if one believed that the Founders were liberals. Some were, of a kind, but they were primarily republicans. Their appeal to “liberal” principles was, as James W. Ceaser, has argued, primarily to insist that the “rights of Englishmen” to which Americans, being no longer Englishmen, could no longer appeal. Rather, what made the rights of Englishmen truly rights was how they were grounded in nature, accessible by reason, and endowed by God. In addition, Paul DeHart has shown how this effort involved a combination of classical, Christian, and modern sources with the diverse and extensive experience in statecraft.

'For these reasons, it is simply ahistorical to apply a prefabricated concept of liberalism onto the American Founding or attribute it to a rather complicated mix of ideas and influences expressed among the leaders at the time.'

Rush Limbaugh, The Big Fat Idiot, imagines Vitamin D was known during the Spanish Flu Epidemic when it wasn't even first theorized until 1922

In the Face of COVID-19, We’re Not Acting at All Like Americans:

In the Spanish flu, ’17, ’18, ’19, 1917, much death. Do you know that there was not one mention of it by the president of the United States at the time, Woodrow Wilson? Never talked about it. There was no national policy to deal with it. There was no shutdown. There was just, “Hey, go outside, get some fresh air, stand in the sun as long as you can, get some vitamin D, feel better.”

Vitamin D:

In 1922, Elmer McCollum tested modified cod liver oil in which the vitamin A had been destroyed.[12] The modified oil cured the sick dogs, so McCollum concluded the factor in cod liver oil which cured rickets was distinct from vitamin A. He called it vitamin D because it was the fourth vitamin to be named.[194][195][196] It was not initially realized that, unlike other vitamins, vitamin D can be synthesised by humans through exposure to UV light.

When you've lost Alabama to a pro-immigration Republican, you can't help but feel all is lost

Trump excels at the adulation, insatiable desires, convulsions and distractions

"He who is the real tyrant, whatever men may think, is the real slave, and is obliged to practise the greatest adulation and servility, and to be the flatterer of the vilest of mankind. He has desires which he is utterly unable to satisfy, and has more wants than any one, and is truly poor, if you know how to inspect the whole soul of him: all his life long he is beset with fear and is full of convulsions, and distractions, even as the State which he resembles."

-- Plato's Republic, Book IX

Trump as tyrant in the classical sense

This brief excerpt from an essay which is otherwise an exercise in hysteria is quite accurate:

'Trump is rather a tyrant in the classical sense, a man utterly at the mercy of his basest impulses, which he has aplenty. He is weak not strong, obsessed with his “ratings,” and incapable, even in the gravest moments, of pretending to the statesmanship required of his office.'

Freedom is the will to say No

The first Rasmussen poll of Election 2020 has Biden beating Trump by 10 points

The sum of average daily new COVID deaths measured from the pandemic start in the 15 worst states is down 5% in the last two weeks

COVID deaths are increasing in CA, FL and TX but not enough to offset the overall decline in the worst states combined