Despite rising coronavirus deaths in California, Arizona, Texas and Florida, the overall trend remains down

Daily new deaths nationally hit an interim low on Jun 21 of 257 in the New York Times data set. This was followed by 270 on Jun 28, 264 on Jul 4, and 262 on Jul 5. Clearly the period from the third week of June to the Fourth of July holiday has marked a welcome low in pandemic deaths.

In the 15 worst states for deaths from coronavirus since the beginning of the pandemic, it is telling how the average of daily new deaths measured from the beginning continues to trend lower. The worst states for average daily new deaths measured from the beginning, as of Jun 27, were, in this order: NY NJ PA MI MA IL CT CA LA FL MD OH GA IN and TX.  

On Jun 27, the sum of the average of daily new deaths from coronavirus in those 15 states stood at 852, measured from the beginning in each state. Again, that's the sum of average daily new deaths in the 15 worst states since the beginning of the pandemic on that date. It includes any and all revisions and updates reported to date, for whatever reason. No messing around with moving averages and all the BS (Yes, I'm talking about you New York, you New Jersey, you Delaware, you Illinois, and who knows who else) which gave false indications at a point in time in the past because the data was provisional, or standards of inclusion changed, or somebody came along and cleaned up your sorry mess. This way at least you have a fixed terminus a quo in each state, and a moving terminus ad quem which you can track from day to day which incorporates all the changes smoothed out over the long haul. A nice relatively clean benchmark, at a time when it appears we have otherwise reached a new low ebb.

Well, a week later from Jun 27 when we were at 852, on Jul 4 that sum had fallen to 828. By Jul 7 it had fallen again, to 819. And despite the rise in deaths in the south very recently, the sum on Jul 8 fell again, to 817 as of this morning's figures.

Despite all the bad news in the south (CA 145 deaths on 7/8, AZ 101 on 7/7, TX 119 on 7/8), and New Jersey again dumping 142 new deaths into the numbers on Jul 8 (really New Jersey?), the death trend in the worst hit states, which again does include CA, TX and FL, overall continues to trend lower. This is what one would expect if the worst of the pandemic is behind us. Time marches on and naturally ameliorates the ugly data, as long as no new ugly data appear. You'd be able to tell easily if deaths were getting worse because the average from the beginning would flatline and then trend higher. Or if suddenly AZ, for example, joined the list of worst hit states (I'm using a low threshold of 18 average daily new deaths measured from the beginning), that would be a huge red flag (AZ did tick up, however, from 11 average daily new deaths to 12 recently). CO at 14 and VA at 15 would be more likely candidates to join the list than AZ at this point. But so far neither flatlining of the average nor "new joiners" is happening.

The death trend is lower.

So far. 

Johns Hopkins University shows 130,007 US deaths from coronavirus just minutes ago

On Jun 22 I estimated we'd see 130k by about Jul 15, so we are nine days early.

So it took 14 days to add another 10k vs. 15 days from 110k to 120k in this data set.

The problem is we had big death data dumps both on Jun 25 and Jun 30, adding 3,766 old deaths from the past which had never been counted in the totals.

I think that sped up the climb unrepresentatively.

New deaths are actually accumulating at a slower pace.

In the 15 worst states for coronavirus deaths, average daily new deaths counted from the very beginning of the pandemic totaled 852 for those 15 states on Sat Jun 27, and declined to 828 on Sat Jul 4. That includes all those data dumps, too.

We've observed four days recently where total US new deaths have been below 300, levels we haven't seen since late March just as the pandemic was kicking into high gear:

Jun 21 257

Jun 28 270

Jul 04 264

Jul 05 262.

With case counts rapidly rising in Florida, Texas, California, Arizona and many other places in the south, it is feared we'll be seeing a rise in deaths in coming weeks. We'll have to see. Since such a high proportion of deaths occurred in nursing and assisted living facilities in the north, it is difficult to say if we'll experience the same thing in the south. They've had time to learn.

With new deaths actually hitting new lows, I'm cautiously optimistic.

Stay away from crowds, especially in enclosed spaces, keep your distance and wear a mask. It's easy if you try.

 

Climate Update For KGRR June 2020

Climate Update For KGRR June 2020

Max T 93, Mean 91

Min T 42, Mean 43

Av T 69.6, Mean 67.7

Precip 2.84, Mean 3.55

Snow measurement season officially ends: Actual 53.5, Mean 66.7.

Heating degree day measurement season officially ends: Actual 6269, Mean 6702; season 6.46% milder than the mean, ranks a "meh" 18th among mildest winters since 1891-92.

Cooling degree days 2020 season to date: 225, Mean 184, hot start to summer 22.3% above the mean.

Rasmussen Trump Approval Index has swung from -7 to -19 May 22-Jul 3 amid protests, riots and violence but has ended up about where it was despite all the hysteria

LOL, this didn't age well

$30 million affordable housing project torched in George Floyd riots in MN

'[T]he old polarizing politics is a spent force. The image of the "angry black man" still purveyed by sensationalists such as Ann Coulter and Dinesh D'Souza is anachronistic today, when blacks and even Muslims, the most conspicuous of "outsider" groups, profess optimism about America and their place in it'.

-- Sam Tanenhaus, The New Republic, 10 Feb 2013

Portland, Oregon, communist protest hell hole since May 28, is also a little coronavirus factory: Cases up 140%

A star is born in St. Louis

The US COVID-19 case fatality rate as of Jun 27 has dropped to 5.07% from 5.56% on Jun 14

New record daily cases above 40,000 in recent days are associated with record testing levels above 600,000 per day for the first time, diluting the fatality rate to a degree.

Hospitalizations in Southern and Western states are on the upswing at the same time.

BLM's Shaun King is Exhibit A for the race war against whites, Hawk Newsome for the class war against property

This is a class war against property combined with a race war against whites

Daily protests in Portland, Oregon, have boosted coronavirus cases by 93% in the last 30 days, media ignores it almost as much as the protests

If it isn't obvious by now that you're an idiot, Johnny Reb tried to tell you

The Civil War was obviously a waste of time, blood and property.

For every Confederate statue now coming down at the hands of BLM there will eventually be three of a founder of America, a Yankee, or an abolitionist to match it. Eventually, the symbols of your country will be gone. That you'll just let them go shows the actual country is already gone.

This isn't a war on racism. It's a revolution against America. Racism is simply the pretext for it. It is led by the "worldly" type of communist, the black radical who:

"with the realist political outlook, hopes through its followers to destroy society, either from envy or revenge, because of the low place assigned in it to their personality and talents, or, alternatively, to carry away the masses by some program or other for the satisfaction of his own will-to-power".

Think Shaun King the "Christian", who now explicitly aims to obliterate the white Jesus from every one of America's ~375,000 congregations.

No good deed is going unpunished, but fools like Ann Coulter will still argue that blacks deserve and should be paid reparations: Those who have done no wrong should pay those who have suffered none, we are told.

140,414 dead Yankees are just chopped liver to these ingrates and fools.

Pay all you want, it won't change a thing. Still more will be required of you.

They now think they have the upper hand and are out to replace you. "Diversity is our strength" means "their" strength, not yours. Diversity means your weakness, and the unchecked riots and looting are proof of it.

Christians 244 years ago took up arms against "tyrants" like these and called it "obedience to God".

I can't imagine finding one such person among us today. And you certainly won't find one among the paid mercenaries, the cops. They're just trying to make it to full retirement like everybody else.

Instead, most Christians have become Spengler's "credulous" type of communist, who:

"obsessed by doctrine or feminine sentimentality, remote from and hostile to the world, condemns the wealth of the wicked who prosper and also, at times, the poverty of the good who do not prosper. This lands him either in vague Utopias or throws him back upon asceticism, the monastic life, Bohemia, or vagabondism, which proclaims the futility of all economic effort".

On obsession with doctrine think First Things Magazine, think Sojourners, Christianity Today, and the Patheos crowd for the feminine sentimentalists and wealth condemners, think the Prosperity Gospel movement and the charismatic Dominionists for the critics of the Christianity which is content with little, think Rod Dreher's Benedict Option or the survivalists for the separatists, and also the libertarians who "go Galt", accountable to no one but themselves. Representative all.

Perhaps the only Christians who think in robust opposition to the communists are the followers of Adrian Vermeule who envision a once and future Roman Catholic authoritarianism from North to South America with a heavily Spanish content. In other words, when white supremacy fails, replace it with . . . not black.

 

"To put through the ideal requires dictatorship, reign of terror, armed force, the inequality of a system of masters and slaves, men in command and men in obedience - in short: Moscow".

 

The answer to Bolshevism from the foremost grandmothers of Bolshevism is to double down on the Bolshevism. Pre-modern Europe was just a dress rehearsal.

 

I'm sure Black Lives Matter will be thrilled.

Today the US registered 120,036 deaths from COVID-19 at the Johns Hopkins University dashboard

Here's the progression:

50k 4/24

60k 4/29  5 days

70k 5/5    6 days

80k 5/11  6 days

90k 5/18  7 days

100k 5/27  9 days

110k 6/7    11 days

120k 6/22  15 days.

Stay-at-home orders, growth of clinical expertise, and increased mask-wearing among other things have all made a huge impact on the growth of deaths.

New daily deaths hit 275 on Sunday, which was last lower way back on March 25, with 270.

It looks like it will take something like another 20 days to add another 10k deaths, so 130k by roughly July 15.  On May 18 I projected 155k by then, so obviously there's been a big slow down since late May when the projected 100k deaths projected was met.

That's the good news.

The bad news is case counts nationally are rising again after bottoming on May 11. New daily cases were so high on June 20 that you had to go back to May 1 to find a higher single day. In key states in the South this increase is not attributable to increased testing, especially in Florida where testing has declined and in other states where hospitalization increases are outstripping testing increases. Texas, Arizona, California and the Carolinas are all pointed to as examples.

Expect death counts to pick up again starting roughly July 15 due to the mid-June turn higher in cases. It takes about 28 days from classification as a case to classification as a death, according to the modeling.

Death is a lagging indicator. Low deaths today are the result of good action taken many yesterdays ago.   

Hey look at that, Trump finally got his 40% unemployment rate in April 2020

The thrill is gone: Tulsa Trump rally cheap seats empty as Tulsa county adds 627 COVID-19 cases in the last 7 days

Where is ED-209 when we need him? "You're not wearing a mask. You have 20 seconds to comply."

As usual Rush Limbaugh is full of it: He says Lincoln ran an anti-slavery campaign for the presidency

The Republicans of 1860 pledged not to interfere with slavery in the states, but opposed its expansion into the territories. Lincoln's moderation on the issue upset abolitionists.

I check in for 5 minutes just to see what he's on about, and he gets something wrong. Every. Damn. Time.

Update with chapter and verse:

"The Republican Party was actually founded in opposition to slavery, and Abraham Lincoln was the Republican Party’s president. He ran on an anti-slavery agenda, including some other things. The Civil War was waged under his leadership and presidency, and 500,000 Americans lost their lives (mostly white) to end slavery".

Here.

Rush also gets the casualties wrong. Admittedly there is variation in estimates, but 500,000 isn't one of them.

"For 110 years, the numbers stood as gospel: 618,222 men died in the Civil War, 360,222 from the North and 258,000 from the South — by far the greatest toll of any war in American history.

But new research shows that the numbers were far too low.

By combing through newly digitized census data from the 19th century, J. David Hacker, a demographic historian from Binghamton University in New York, has recalculated the death toll and increased it by more than 20 percent — to 750,000".

More.

LOL Bigelow: Refreshing anytime, in the igloo, at the luau, or even after the dance

Cheap widely available steroid confirmed to reduce COVID-19 deaths by 33% among patients on ventilators

Scientists hail dexamethasone as ‘major breakthrough’ in treating coronavirus

"Results of trials announced on Tuesday showed dexamethasone, which is used to reduce inflammation in other diseases, reduced death rates by around a third among the most severely ill Covid-19 patients admitted to hospital".

COVID-19 in the USA is not under control in half the states, with the moving average of daily new cases at record levels in 13 states, including the most populated states of California, Texas and Florida