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Quote Of The Day
From the study proving that Neil Ferguson’s Chinkvirus model contained flawed methodology (to say the least) comes this conclusion:
“On a personal level, I’d go further and suggest that all academic epidemiology be defunded. This sort of work is best done by the insurance sector. Insurers employ modellers and data scientists, but also employ managers whose job is to decide whether a model is accurate enough for real world usage and professional software engineers to ensure model software is properly tested, understandable and so on. Academic efforts don’t have these people, and the results speak for themselves.”
Hell, considering what’s come out of academia in terms of climate modeling as well as this latest fiasco, I’d prefer to have bookies produce the models, rather than universities.
And this is why charlatans like the Hockey-Stick guy (of global warming infamy) steadfastly refuse to release their code — they know it’ll fall over under the slightest scrutiny.
Had I ever tried to get this bullshit past my clients back in the day when I was involved in this kind of thing, I’d have been fired on my ass and my business cred utterly demolished. These pricks deserve no less.
Pleasant Surprises
I find Ricky Gervais’s comedy routines like a multi-layer cake made up of strawberry layers with the occasional Marmite layer mixed in: some parts are wonderful, and others make you squinch your mouth up like you just bit into a lemon.
But his BBC-TV series After Life (Netflix) is excellent, without reservation. It is also amazingly funny: at times dark and thought-provoking, and other times laugh-out-loud hilarious. (That is, the first two seasons were brilliant; but he’s just announced a third, in which he may jump the shark as these things so often do, or he may just have played out the premise, which is most often the case.) A lot of people are annoyed by Gervais’s delivery and (sometimes) subject matter, but he’s probably the best comic writer extant so I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt.
The next pleasant surprise has been the BBC teen love story Normal People (Hulu), even though it’s occasionally incomprehensible because of 
and often-impenetrable Irish slang and accents. Needless to say, I am not in the target demographic (still less psychographic) of the teen-angst genre (to put it mildly), but this show is lovely: measured pacing, several relevant sub-plots, and sympathetic camera work. I haven’t finished it yet, and I can’t wait to see the rest.
Speaking of dubious extra seasons, I see that Killing Eve (which I’ve really enjoyed so far) is in its third — which, although I haven’t seen, I’m kinda pre-judging because I thought the final episode of the second season was a perfect ending for the show. But no… Bobby’s going to come out of the shower and the thing will continue. If I’m proved wrong, I’ll say so, but the odds are not good.
I am of the firm opinion that unless a show is completely episodic with no overarching storyline, it should end after its second season, almost without exception. Even the incredible Hill Street Blues (in my opinion, the greatest TV show ever made) got tired after its third season, and most other shows have to go on life support after two, because they’re only average.
But the above three offerings — Brit shows all — are good, despite my initial suspicion and misgivings. If you haven’t already done so, give them a shot.
Viral Load
…or, as I called it a few days back, dosage, gets a more technical examination here (the linked article, by the way, is very dense reading, but I urge everyone to plow through it anyway. You may learn something that prevents you from getting infected). A sample:
What evidence do we have that viral load matters?
Three classes of evidence seem strong.
The first is that we have a strong mechanism story we can tell. Viruses take time to multiply. When the immune system detects a virus it responds. If your initial viral load is low your immune system gets a head start, so you do better.
The second category is the terrible outcomes in health care workers on the front lines. Those who are dealing with the crisis first hand are dealing with lots of intense exposures to the virus. When they do catch it, they are experiencing high death rates. High viral load is the only theory I know about so far for why this is the case. Their cases are presumably handled at least as well as others, in terms of detection, testing, treatment and what the infected do themselves. The only other issue I can think of is that they might be reluctant to rest given how urgently their help is needed.
The third category is historical precedents.
Parents infected their children with what they hoped was exactly the minimum dose [of smallpox] required to get them sick enough to develop antibodies and gain immunity. Sometimes this went wrong and the child would get sick. Thus this form of inoculation was dangerous and 1%-2% of patients died. But of those who got smallpox infections in other ways, 20%-30% of patients died. Those rates are well established.
I should point out that Doc Russia, who as an ER doctor has been treating Chinkvirus patients almost daily, fully expected to catch the virus himself, but so far [crossing fingers] hasn’t. All I can think of is that because his hospitals (he works in several) don’t have that many infectees compared to those in, say, London or New York, his aggregate exposure is low; that, his age outside the at-risk group, plus his fanatical adherence to commonsense protective measures, has probably kept him well. Which leads to the other major point in the above linked article:
The default model is that the longer and more closely you interact with an infected person, especially a symptomatic infected person, the larger your viral load.
In-household infections are presumed to be high viral load, as in the case of measles. So would be catching the infection while treating patients.
Most out-of-household infections that aren’t health care related are presumed to be low viral load. Anything outdoors is probably low viral load. Most methods that involve surfaces are probably low viral load. Infection via the air from someone there half an hour ago, to the extent this is a thing, is low viral load. Quick interactions with asymptomatic individuals are probably low viral load.
I should point out that the above are observations based on admittedly-poor data, but as we know that the level of dosage/viral load is critical in other diseases (measles, smallpox, SARS etc.), it’s not a bad deduction to assume that it’s true also of the Chinkvirus.
As with all decisions in life, the key to decision-making is risk assessment and odds-calculation. Use all the above accordingly, as you plan your daily life.
Replacement Judges
I see that SCOTUS libjudge Ruth Ginsburg is in hospital again. I’m not going to do what the Left does, and start gleefully death-wishing her, but at the same time we need to be cognizant of the fact that at some point we’re going to need a replacement for the old Trot. But I am heartily sick of judges who appear conservative, but who when appointed to SCOTUS suddenly turn into Ginsburg Lite (e.g. Roberts and Kavanaugh).
So to add to the list of whomever God-Emperor Trump has on his prospect list, allow me to add these thoughts on the qualified candidates.
- I want a fire-breathin’, gun-totin’, huntin’ and fishin’ red-blooded judge who doesn’t care much for modernity.
- I don’t just want him to be a Constitutional constructionist — I want him to think that most Constitutional Amendments with a number greater than 10 should be fair game (especially the fucking 16th and 17th).
- When listening to lawyers debate any People vs. [government] or vice versa cases, I want the first question put to the government’s lawyer to be: “Show me where in the Constitution it says the government can do exactly that.”
- I want his guiding principle to be the question: “What would Jefferson, Adams or Washington think of this situation?” and direct his clerks to find the relevant writings to support the answer.
Feel free to add your proposed litmus tests to the above.
Sensible Enough
I note that some of the Euro airlines are going to mandate that passengers wear face masks for the entire journey, which seems somewhat excessive given that they’ve (finally) got round to installing HEPA air filters to clean the recirculated air.
The main danger of infection is not through the air, but in touching the surfaces inside the aircraft — given how shoddily these are typically cleaned, if at all.
Based on thousands of hours imprisoned in these winged cigar tubes, I would suggest that what people really need to do is carry many sterilized wipes with them, and clean as thoroughly as possible areas like seatbelt buckles, tray tables and armrests — the places that people touch with their filthy hands and (yes) feet.
Oh, and ALWAYS bring your own food, especially on long-haul flights (I wrote about my choices here). That way, you’re assured of eating exactly what you want and not being compelled by hunger to eat airline food [pause to let the nausea go away] and even have emergency food if you’re stuck on the plane or in the airport for longer than expected.
If you have to fly, that is. I don’t see myself doing so until next year. (Mr. Free Market has hinted at a high-bird shoot in Dorset in Fall 2021…)