Car Pdot1 Where Are You?

The 'Brazil' mutation, P.1, is finally getting some ink. In this report it is found that existing vaccines are protective

The inactivated vaccine, CoronaVac, proved effective in combatting COVID-19 in the city of Manaus, Brazil, where the highly transmissible P.1 variant emerged and has devastated the local population, researchers from Brazil and the Yale School of Public Health have found.

Background: CoronaVac is 'the' China vaccine which is of the long standing inactivated-virus type.

On the other hand, our friendly friends to the North have a problem.

As provinces across Canada break records for new cases of the virus, experts have grown increasingly troubled by the rapid and covert spread of variants. With 877 confirmed cases of P1, the province of British Columbia is now the centre of the world's largest sequenced outbreak of the variant outside Brazil – and nearly a quarter of those cases have been linked to Whistler [ski resort].

Illinois leads the pack with 7.6% P.1
Michigan leads the pack with 57.6% B.1.1.7
[here]

Anyone who thinks we're near the finish line is an idiot.

You Should Read This

The Covid Tracking Project has wrapped up. This is a closing statement, of sorts.

It is a harrowing tale, especially for those who really, truly believe Suits who say, more or less, "We are a data driven organization." The reality is exactly different. The CTP dealt with, they imply, incompetent data creation and collection, yet the real enemy of data is Policy. Policy is driven by power to enforce the wishes of the Suits. Data don't matter; what matters is that Policy supports power and punishes the powerless.

More times then regular readers may want, these missives have pointed to situations where Data was ignored by Policy. It will always be true. Very occasionally Data will support Policy a priori. Rarely.

What is particularly disappointing: even these folks, up to their necks in data, don't offer an explanation for the cliff dive from 6 January. In other words, in the jargon of the stat/data scientist, what was/is the data generation process? WHY, for crying out loud, could so much Covid just disappear in a few weeks. Until someone without an agenda makes a sensible statement, I will continue to believe we have been snookered by Policy.

"What CDC is not accounting for is that we have been flying blind for weeks with essentially no [testing]," Carter Mecher, a medical adviser at the Department of Veterans Affairs, wrote to an email list of federal officials on March 13. "The difference between models and real life is that with models we can set the parameters as if they are known. In real life, these parameters are as clear as mud."

It was wannaBePresident Huey Long 2024's intent to flick Covid away, as one might a fly from one's desperate coif. In other words, until 20 January 2021, Policy prevented Data from existing. Birx's latter-day confession should not have been a surprise.

I have long found that the mathifacation of economics led to two related Bad Things. - at the micro level, from the individual organization to its aggregation(s), census data is routinely available. all the convoluted math and stat models are the result of believing that reality is really what is measured. - over time, following from Samuelson, macro practitioners succumbed to the pressure to 'mathify' the study, but, naturally, macro is all about Policy, and Data has but one job: to demonstrate that those affilated with Power got what they wanted from change in Policy. Sometimes, when Snowflake Lefties are in power, 'affilation' means most of the country.

The COVID Tracking Project clung to one principle: We told people the truth as we could discern it. We didn't say what we wanted to be true, nor what we hoped would engender a specific public response.

Parallax View - part the fifty third

Another week's up, so here are today's numbers:

  >= 1,000 -   339
100 to 999 - 1,167

(New) grand total of counties reads at 3,067. While I've not gotten into an argument with the Topo folks over this re-definition of 'affected' counties, it certainly looks like a move to bolster wannaBePresident Huey Long 2024's perpetual lying.

[8 April] What did earlier missives say? 'What about P.1?' Well, today we find that the Vancouver Canuks (they play hockey in the NHL) are nearly 100% infected with that variant.

The P.1 variant has seen a spike in the Vancouver region over recent weeks. On Tuesday, the province announced 1,068 new cases of Covid-19, including three deaths and 207 new cases from variants of concern.

Taking out, to all intents and purposes, an entire team is saying something.

One might surmise that P.1 is slipping across the border, but not so mucn.

As of April 6, 2021, there had been 356 reported cases of the P.1. COVID-19 variant, with Florida accounting for the highest number of cases. COVID-19 variants act differently than the original disease and therefore may spread more quickly or cause more severe disease.
[my emphasis]

Great oaks from little acorns grow.

Massachusetts is second, but Washington, which has a long-ish border with BC, sits at 13.

All these numbers are almost certainly to differ by Monday when this missive is transmitted. One hopes they, as wannaBePresident Huey Long 2024 said a year ago, they will fall to 0. Not the side I would bet.

[9 April] Aren't you glad they built a wall?

Canada's third wave of the pandemic is now more serious than the previous two, as hospitalizations and critical care admissions spike and the vaccine rollout is unlikely to change things over the next few weeks.

Faithful readers may recall, very early on, that Canada hard-closed our border to keep us out of their neighborhood. Mr. Rogers yelled, 'get off my lawn!' Eh? Now, we find P.1 making rapid inroads in BC and lesser variants in the eastern provinces. What might not have been predictable: while the new surge is more non-geezer than previously, Canada's vaccination initiative hasn't been stellar, thus taking geezers out of the infectionable pool.

"Meanwhile in Canada" is trending on social media as Canadians lament their wobbly vaccination program. More than 30% of Americans have received at least one vaccine dose compared to about 12% of Canadians, according to public health statistics from both nations.

A college friend of The Wife lives in greater Vancouver, and emailed a few days ago that she "lived in one of those shithole countries" that can't vaccinate. Said friend is 65+, so would have been eligible here at least a month ago.

It appears that the Topo map is less and less expressive of what is going on with Covid. Going forward, individually named missives. Farewell.

By The Numbers - part the eleventh

So, today's reporting on vaccination includes the 'fact' that 40% of Marines decline to be vaccinated. Let us see what the reporting offers about why.

Officials say most of the vaccine hesitancy stems from concerns about the speed at which the vaccines were developed and fears over long-term effects.

Pretty tepid excuse. One might surmise (I surely will) that too many in the armed forces come from Red states where wannaBePresident Huey Long 2024-ism is rampant. Well, here are some numbers.

Looking at each state's share of recruits by the number of 18-to-24-year-olds in the state determines how well or how poorly a state is doing compared to its recruitable population. By that measure, the top five states in 2016 were: Hawaii, South Carolina, Georgia, Virginia and Florida. The five places with the smallest share of recruits were: Washington D.C., North Dakota, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and New York.

Except for Hawaii, Red. Hawaii had low unemployment and thus not a hot target for enlistment, but Hawaii is mostly about tourism and military and not higher education driven employment; the Islands can't even make enough public school teachers. On the other side, North Dakota looks out of place. The unemployment rate at the time of the survey was quite low in North Dakota. Hmm?? So it is not Patriotism, but moolah that encourages? Don't tell that to the Rabid Right Wing.

We know that police, military, and ex-military were disproportionately in The Insurrection. You are only a Patriot if you are in thrall to wannaBePresident Huey Long 2024.

As a violent mob descended on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, lawmakers and aides hid wherever they could, waiting for the military and police to arrive. But many of those who stormed the Capitol were military veterans themselves, who had once sworn to protect the Constitution. In fact, an NPR analysis has found that nearly 1 in 5 people charged over their alleged involvement in the attack on the U.S. Capitol appear to have a military history.

As to Hawaii, this report demonstrates that Hawaii has the second highest per capita military presence. And, naturally, that doesn't include civilians working for the various branches.

Quants' Hubris - part the eighth

Everything you need to know, or a quant needs to know, about getting rich from Mr. Market:

[T]he Flow Show report from BofA Securities indicated that total global equity inflows over the past five months ($576 billion) has exceeded total inflows for the past 12 years ($425 billion)!
-- briefing.com/9 April 2021

IOW, Mr. Market gets phat when mo money comes in. So, if you know the tide is coming in before enough other quants, you can front run Mr. Market. Needless to say, once the information has made it to organs such as briefing.com, the advantage has gone poof.

By The Numbers - part the tenth [update]

Sometimes a grift is just a grift. It's not always clear why some grifters bother. In today's example Asa Hutchinson vetoes an anti-trans bill. A really woke kind of guy, right?

Well, not so much:
state House 70 to 22 pass
state Senate 28 to 7 pass

In most states, override requires something more than 50% + 1. Not in Arkansas, merely that. Just a ploy, openly (snicker...) grifting. I suppose he thinks that he's feeling the breeze from next-door Georgia.

[update]
All of which raises the question: what are the rules of veto override among the states?

36 states require a two-thirds vote from both chambers of the legislature.
Seven states require a three-fifths vote from both chambers of the legislature.
Six states require a majority vote from both chambers of the legislature.
Alaska requires a two-thirds vote in a joint meeting of its legislative chambers.

So, Arkansas and five others have a worthless veto. Well, unless someone changes voting. Swell. But which ones?

The wiki to the rescue: the backward states with simple majority.
Alabama
Arkansas
Indiana
Kentucky
Tennessee
West Virgina

Parallax View - part the fifty second

Another week's up, so here are today's numbers:

  >= 1,000 -   333
100 to 999 - 1,227

(New) grand total of counties reads at 3,081. While I've not gotten into an argument with the Topo folks over this re-definition of 'affected' counties, it certainly looks like a move to bolster wannaBePresident Huey Long 2024's perpetual lying.

[4 April] Stupid is as stupid does

For example, just 22% of those who say they'll never get vaccinated say they have avoided public places in the last week compared to 54% of those who are fully vaccinated, according to Gallup polling.

We're now I think in that cycle where the Upper Midwest is just now beginning to start this fourth surge. I think it was a wake-up call to everyone yesterday when Michigan reported out at 8,400 new cases, and we're now seeing increasing number of severe illnesses, ICU hospitalizations, in individuals who are between 30 and 50 years of age who have not been vaccinated.
-- Michael Osterholm

One hopes he is just being paranoid. But he's been right before.

Well yeah, I tole you so many missives ago

Doctors are worried that coronavirus may end up being like influenza, which requires a new vaccine every year both because the circulating strains mutate fast and because immunity from the vaccine wears off quickly.

Not, naturally, because I'm a scientist expert in coronaviruses. But, as the saying goes, I can read, and reading up on coronaviruses led rather swiftly to reporting that recovery immunity to coronaviruses has been short with previous types. Ergo, absent specific new evidence, we would be smarter to err on the side of caution with this type of coronavirus. There's been some complaining on various retail plunger investor sites of late that Pfizer and Moderna and J&J aren't/won't get rich off these vaccines. Well, I expect they will. I expect that, call it a booster or re-vaccination, we'll be seeing a two-fer (flu and Covid) shot next fall. And the fall after that... Time will tell.

What's still disquieting: no mention in reports about USofA Covid situation taking into account the P.1 variant overrunning Brazil. As with the NYC situation last year, it will take only one plane load from Rio to set in motion a new epidemic here. And, of course, it's already arrived.

[5 April] Welcome to the party, kids! Combine B.1.1.7, which is vectoring towards the Young Sets, and Ronny VirusSeed^©'s Spring Break Infectiathon, and will we see another January spike? If so, will that be sufficient to disabuse the Younger Sets of their belief and assertion that Covid is The Old People's Grim Reaper, ergo of no concern to them? Sacrifice more than the occasional individual kiddie might be enough of a slap upside the head? Only The Shadow knows.

In Florida's Orange County, officials reported late last month a rise in Covid-19 cases in the 18-25 age group.

And a third of all of the county's Covid-19 hospitalizations were people younger than 45, according to Dr. Raul Pino, director of the Florida Department of Health in Orange County.