Apparently smoking increases the probabilty of severe illness resulting from a COVID-19 infection.

So, why hasn't anyone banned smoking?

in an otherwise totalitarian commonwealth

25:10 into it. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zkZ9gYSJTc&list=PLfzuvKpMoFEDd597ZSHxMmvkzR3XCgVSg

Gov Baker was responding to a question about raising taxes and he said something like:  so, in an economic downturn with something like as much as 25% of the workforce could be unemployed, we should raise taxes?  I don't think so.

The tone of voice was perfect (especially if you are familar with his normal speech pattern)

Given how the panic has fueled the economic crises, how very fortunate we are that we had a robust economy to start with (no thanks to the moroons that worship at the feet of pelosi and the rest of the democrats).

When computing a fatality rate for COVID-19, it's important to have a reasonable handle on the number of deaths caused by COVID-19 and the number of people infected with the COVID-19 virus.

Apparently Mark Levine, Chair of New York City Council health committee, is claiming that a number of COVID-19 deaths in NYC are going unreported because there is insufficient testing resources to test everyone who dies in the city.

Ok, that could cause the number of deaths to be underreported, at least for places that have insufficient test resources

However, it is also apparent that NYC is counting anyone who dies and had COVID-19 as a COVID-19 death.  Having the virus and having the virus cause death are two different things.

This would cause the number of deaths to be overreported.  (I suppose this could be adjusted by considering the number of elderly people that normally pass away from other causes.)

Disease modelers at the University of Texas at Austin believe that the number of actual COVID-19 cases could be higher than reported (by as much as a factor of 10).  Insufficient testing means a number of people could have the virus but don't know it.

If true, this would mean that the fatality rate is lower than it appears to be.

Colorado's health website (https://covid19.colorado.gov/case-data) states that they also count people who are "highly-likely" to be infected but haven't been tested but that number is a very small portion of the total case count.

We could probably find many other examples of poor data-collection that would skew the fatality rate calculation.

It doesn't take much messing with the numerator and the denominator to create wild variations in the computed/estimated fatality rate.

But I don't want to cherry-pick in either direction.

Today's Boston Herald (6 April) is reporting that a company in Framingham MA (Boston Heart Diagnostics) will be rolling out a blood-based antibody test.  Initial capacity of the testing is 5000 tests per day.

No report on how long it will take for additional testing capacity to be produced nor the cost of each test.

So, has anyone identified the necessary criteria for resuming normal operations?

can't have that....

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/cases-in-us.html

graph of new cases appears to be flattening.

(In the US)

More than a quarter million deaths due to medical errors

More than 38,000 motor vehicle deaths

More than 34,000 deaths due to the seasonal flu

More than 28,000 drownings

How many drug overdoses?

200 deaths from being struck by a motor vehicle backing up

COVID-19 projected to have 80,000 to a quarter million deaths


Compare and contrast what is done about these deaths (and who pays for the measures, if any)


Where do you draw the line?