Cold Covid - part the second

Well, things are heating up, so to speak. Last night gave us a report on the MSNBC night shows that's about time; what you've been finding here for some weeks. The Cold States are getting worse, from Maine to Washington. Surprise, surprise.

Colorado, not in the initial set of Cold States, has been getting more ink, and not in a good way. If you look at the NYT page, one thing stands out, in particular: the slope of the rise is utterly different (much shallower, and thus longer in duration) from earlier cycles, in all the Cold States. This lack of meteoric rise may account for the lack of concern across the Cold States so far, as the difference in slope is common. I first noticed this characteristic in the Michigan graph, which instigated my rant about Leonhardt.

Some other anomalies.
Oregon is on the downslope, but it's falling at a much slower rate than its rise.
Both Dakotas are in plateau mode, at or just below this current infection peak.
Vermont continues to climb, and even beyond the last winter peak, spiking like mad since 1 Nov.
Washington is also displaying a shallower decline than its rise, and the last few days may be a new rise.
Maine has already gotten to within a smidgen of the all-time peak, and is back to rising.

May haps the Red States are well on the way to de-population. Stupid is as stupid does.

You Make Me Itch

OK, so Rogers is claiming he's 'allergic' to something in the mRNA vaccines. What might that be? Turns out, the only known allergen is polyethylene glycol, aka PEG. Turns out the frequency of reactions is smaller than an RCH.

There have been approximately 5 cases of a severe allergic reaction to these vaccines per 1 million doses administered.
...
A review of the scientific literature reported 37 cases of an allergic reaction to PEG from 1977 to 2016. However, only 28 of these cases actually met the criteria for a severe allergic reaction (i.e. anaphylaxis).

And, no, there is no test for PEG allergy. In other words, Rogers is full of shit.

There is no commercially available blood test for PEG allergy at this time.

Artificial Intelligence? - part the first

It's tough to make predictions, especially about the future.
-- Yogi Berra

Well, Zillow has stepped in it, up to their neck. These endeavors have touched on the folly of AI here and there, but this story is way too juicy to let slide.

Zillow CEO and cofounder Rich Barton explained the shuttering of Zillow Offers by citing "unpredictability in forecasting home prices" that "far exceeds" what the company had expected.
...
Zillow declined a request for an interview with Krishna Rao, the company's vice president of analytics.

Well, no shit Superman!

The essence of the problem, at least from the point of view of longstanding stat practice (first told by Dr. McElhone, IIRC): "you don't make predictions beyond the range of the data". Some stats do that as a matter of course; generally when the client demands an answer for the demand for widgets five years hence, and the like. Any stat who intends to stay in the business will CYA bigly with "these estimates are likely if the historic trends continues for five years", and such.

If The Great Recession taught us all anything (and, apparently, no one in the suites listened), it is that history doesn't continue smoothly into the future. Data results from events, not the other way round. This sort of AI can be made to work, more or less, in the natural world where the rules of engagement (aka, the laws of physics) remain static in the local space in the near future. IOW, you can predict climate pretty accurately until a black swan, like Mt. Tambora going nucular in 1815 messes up the 'model'.

Summer temperatures in Europe were the coldest on record between the years of 1766-2000. This resulted in major food shortages across the Northern Hemisphere.

When it comes to events driven by human decision making (notoriously volatile), betting on AI to supplant the human brain reading the NYT is a losing bet.

Thought For The Day - 6 November 2021

More than once, in these endeavors, it has been asserted that vaccinated folks are more important to masking than the idiots in these days of vaccination. The reason has always been obvious: the vaccinated want to think they need take no precautions, so do not. Unfortunately, the vaccinated who do come in contact with infecteds end up asymp; just look at NYT Michigan Vaccination and Hot Spot maps. And we know without question that the asymps are the transmission vector that matters. Get a clue folks. You're smart enough to get the shots. Be smart enough to halt the spread of Covid-Δ.

New science showing fully vaccinated people infected by the delta variant after vaccination can transmit the virus.

If you review the NYT Covid data pages, it's kind of interesting that not only is there a continuing epidemic in the cold states, but that the higher concentration counties tend to be higher concentration vaccination counties. How can that be?

Some of the text is earlier, but the map is current.

The CDC words

Current evidence indicates that fully vaccinated people without immunocompromising conditions are able to engage in most activities with low risk of acquiring or transmitting SARS-CoV-2, with additional prevention measures (e.g. masking) where transmission is substantial or high.

Don't be a DeSantis.

Table of Covid

The BBC has a very useful table display of Covid data. The default, not surprising, is Europe where we see that the Shithole Countries (aka, Eastern Europe, aka Former USSR stans) have the worst per capita mortality numbers. Kind of like our Red Cold States. It's coming.

Place Your Bets - part the second

Just saw the headline, Kaine blaming House and Senate Dems for McAuliffe's loss. Well, two in particular, but not by name, that I've read.

So, here's the bet. In three parts.

Part 1 - Youngkin immediately drops the facade and goes all in on MAGA, MVGA (sounds like a vomit sound, doesn't it?)
Part 2 - He ends up pissing off those Northern VA (well, all (sub)urban) soccer moms that he conned into believing he was the 'kinder, gentler' wannaBePresident Huey Long 2024 who would make their lives better.
Part 3 - The VA legislature gets the message and gets rid of him before 2022 because they don't want a repeat of 2018.

I'll just say 1 & 2 are dead cert, and 3 is 50-50. Now, if the Barrett court really does a job on Roe, let the blood roll through the streets.

Cold Covid [update]

Well, it's been about three weeks since Leonhardt trigger me, so let's go see how the cold states are doing.

Here's the state of the cold states back then:

These states have either yet to fall over (case counts, not deaths), or have just started to (start, peak)
Alaska - 1 July, 27 September: 3 months so far, still above previous maximum
Hawaii - 1 July, 2 September: 2 months so far, still above previous maximum
Idaho - 4 July, 13 September: 2 1/2 months so far, oscillating just below peak
Michigan - 1 July, none: still climbing
Missouri - 4 June, 7 August: but is in gradual decline, not precipitous
Montana - 6 July, 23 September: oscillating just below peak
North Dakota - 28 June, none: still climbing
South Dakota - 1 July, 14 September: but is in gradual decline, not precipitous
Utah - 2 June, 13 September: was in gradual decline, now climbing
Wisconsin - 2 July, 21 September: was in gradual decline, now climbing
Wyoming - 5 July, 13 September: oscillating just below peak

This is their status as of the 2 November update
Alaska - not fully fallen over, oscillating near peak
Hawaii - fallen over, but still three times minimum
Idaho - falling, but only a third down from peak
Michigan - was falling from peak, but now headed back up
Missouri - very broad decline, still three times minimum
Montana - starting to fall, but a long way from minimum
North Dakota - was declining from peak, but headed back up past week
South Dakota - in long decline, but still 30 times minimum
Utah - broad plateau below peak with oscillations
Wisconsin - broad decline with oscillations, well above minimum
Wyoming - slowish decline from peak, well above minimum

In sum then, Covid-Δ ain't over. None of the decliners is within spitting distance of their June/July minimum. Whether the rest of the lower 48 are in for a nasty winter is up in the air. If past is prologue, of course, we'll see yet another pandemic within the unvaccinated. And we know what states those are.

[update]
Well, lookie here. The USofA isn't the only country with its more northern states (northern hemisphere division) that are experiencing outbreaks.
There's Germany (wintertime for Hitler?)

Lothar Wieler, president of the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) -- the German federal government agency for disease control and prevention -- told the same press conference, "If we don't act now, this fourth wave will still bring a lot of suffering. Many people will become seriously ill and die, and the health care system will be heavily burdened."

If you visit the wiki and the NYT Covid graphs, you'll see someting interesting. Temperature differences among the states of Germany aren't as clearly north/south as here. The difference is driven by the distance from the sea; remnants of the Gulf Stream keep western parts of Germany warmer. What you'll also see is that both the low vaccination and Covid-Δ increases fit like a glove on the climate map. Gee whiz?

Now, today, we find that China is experiencing a 'surge'. As the reporting says, the absolute numbers are minuscule compared to the USofA and Europe, but there are two buts. One is that the Chinese government has the Olympics to worry about. The other is the government's stated intention to be 'zero-Covid'.

The ongoing outbreak began on October 16, when infections were detected among a tour group of fully vaccinated senior citizens from Shanghai traveling in northern China. Cases quickly ballooned and spread across northern provinces; by the following week, officials from the National Health Commission warned of "multiple scattered local outbreaks" in the north and northwest that were "expanding rapidly."

The Right Wingnuts are going to kill quite some of their citizens this winter, if the temperature correlation remains in place. And why wouldn't it? It always has so far. Look at the Brazil NYT graphs: upside down to us, but then summer there is winter here.