jlc

Thank you again.

Jan

I do not believe in an afterlife, but if I imagine one, it has green fields and rolling hills with trees on them. May you be able to see your father, young and healthy again, in such a setting.

Jan

We are pretty sure that in New Zealand and Hawaii and the SE islands, the Polynesians were the first. Over in the Western areas of the Pacific, you get more layers as far back as Homo floriensis - who was pre H. sapiens. Homo floriensis is now thought to be a branch of H. erectus, but I am still excited by the thought that H. floriensis might be a separate branch that goes back to Australopithecus (because of the foot structure).

Jan

Not really. We consider the nene to be indigenous to Hawaii - but of course it came from 'somewhere else' because 400,000 years ago, Hawaii was just a bunch of molten rock. "Native" "Indigenous" and "Endemic" are all terms that refer to something that is local.

You do point out that these terms are used unevenly. We consider the Maori to be indigenous to New Zealand but not the Mongols to Eastern Europe - and yet they both have lived in those places for about the same amount of time:750 years.

Jan

Well...if we also consider that 'the very first people who set their feet on a place' to be indigenous, then much of Polynesia qualifies. But the current American Indian tribes do not, because we have at least two layers of predecessors identified.

Jan

(Possibly with the accent on "simple"!)

It is an interesting thread, Thoritsu.

Jan

In a classic free market exchange, I knap 12 arrowheads and exchange 6 of them to you for 6 arrow shafts, feathered and nocked. We both specialize at our skills, and we each get 6 complete arrows faster than we would working alone.

This system breaks down when I no longer know how to make the arrow shafts. At that point, even if you are crummy at knapping arrowheads (as long as you can still make them), if I am not able to make the shafts at all, I am now at your mercy.

We either have to trust each other or we have to have backup capabilities. China is not trustworthy (unlike Taiwan, who is) and the US is perilously close to 'not still being able to make arrow shafts'. That is where free market and national self interest both come into play.

Jan

Thank you again for posting these. Happy Monday.

Jan

But, but, but...this is not accurate.

We know that there are people who are immune to some viruses (ie HIV). We know that there are carriers of bacterial infections (ie Typhoid Mary) who are asymptomatic. And we can see that this virus is not 'just going away' because it is summer.

I am baffled.

Jan

Bush does not look pleased with his mask.

I just want to register that I object to the Sherwin-Williams picture not being in spectral order. What were they thinking?

Thanks again for some fun viewing this morning.

Jan

I thought I would share this nice graphic depiction of how behavior can mitigate the spread of a disease. I like the way the article explicitly states that this is an 'example disease' called "simulitis" (because we do not know enough about Covid-19 to accurately simulate it yet). Enjoy.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphi...

There are two aspects to this question: sensitivity and specificity. Sensitivity means that 'you correctly recognize all of the positive events'. Specificity means 'you do not falsely recognize any events that are not true'. There is also a matter of timing, since even the best test kit in the world cannot recognize something that is not present (yet).
The current kits seem to be very specific for SARS-CoV-2 virus, but they may not be as sensitive as we could hope for. Additionally, many viral diseases take a while to output the viral elements into the blood (they are present in the cells, but not in high numbers in the blood yet). It has turned out that if someone is negative 'now' and you test them again in a few days, they may be positive 'then'.

Jan

Thank you for the addition data on the R-naught. I have not had a chance to check recently. Ya know: I am working from home right now and am as busy as the proverbial cat in the rocking chair room. You'da thought that I would have time hanging heavy on my hands...

I think you are correct about the social changes too.

Jan

Please do NOT pass that advice on - about half of it is incorrect. Most importantly, while fever is an important symptom of Covid-19, it may or may not be accompanied by symptoms such as a runny nose. Having a 'runny nose' does not rule out Covid-19; while statistically, the lack of a fever is a counter-indicator, some individuals with no fever have tested positive.
The virus loves to live in a human whose body temp is 37C (98F) - How can it be killed by temps of 26C???!! Think about it!
We do not know how long it is viable on most surfaces. Comparisons with other coronaviruses may not apply due to high variability.
The precautions and advice in the above missive are dangerously wrong, with the exception of 'wash hands' and 'drink water'.

Please be careful about passing along such missives.

Jan

No, wmiranda, it is not the flu - though some types of flu are due to a related species. We know this because we test for the genes of the virus...that is what the Covid-19 test kits to: they test for unique genetic sequences that this particular virus has.
Whatever other decisions you make, please do not base them on the idea that this 'may be just the flu'

Jan

As you also probably know, I am a Medical Technologist - though I have not worked at the bench for ~27 years now. I started working at home and self-isolating this Monday past. Here is what I know:
-Every carrier infects X number of other people (and we do not know what X is yet or what all of the means of transmission are)
-Of those X people, Y become sick enough to go and be tested and turn out positive for Covid-19. If we artificially make Y = 100...
-Then, of that 100, ~20 become significantly ill
-And between 1-3 people die

We originally hoped that the X population was not infective, but it looks like many of them are. That means that the community contagion is spreading rapidly through our general population: your own immune system, age and general health will determine your personal risk.

H.sapiens is actually making a surprisingly good showing of rationality in terms of low-granularity decisions to self-isolate and to close public events. People are not waiting for the authorities to do this, eg HIMSS (big medical show) voluntarily canceled last week.

I admit that I have felt a bit like Cassandra, talking to my co-workers about this, though I was able to get some of them to a position of less risk.

Jan

I have heard this info too - but not from a good source, so it is one more thing to add to the 'hearsay' pile of info.

One of the factors that could make a huge difference is if we find an effective antiviral. Many are currently being tried, but I have not heard anyone shout, "Bingo!"

Jan

The genetic evidence indicates that the transmission path was originally from bats to pangolins to humans.

The salient factor in the spread of Covid-19 is that 80% of the people who get it are non-symptomatic. The bad thing about this is that we do not know what portion of the virulence is due to the patient's genes vs the virus' strain. The good thing is that if the virulence is related to the strain of the Covid-19 and NOT to the patient's genes, then catching the virus from a non-symptomatic carrier means that you have caught a less virulent strain and therefor there is less of a chance that it will do significant harm.

Since Covid-19 is an RNA virus, it mutates rapidly and there is no guarantee of immunity any given strain if the strain you caught was genetically different. There will probably be cross-reacting immunity of some degree...this is on of the things we don't know yet.

Since the virus is transmissible both before the symptoms are evidenced in the symptomatic- now cases and - now probably - by the non-symptomatic carriers, it is spreading through the population and it will eventually be present on a friend, co-worker, or cashier near you.

Jan

The gulags/guns one was frightening in its accuracy - right on target. The Russian agent/Communist nominee is very funny.

Thanks for the Monday morning humor.

Jan

Once again, thank you for a providing a small oasis in the day.

Jan

Thank you, dino.

Jan

You might want to read the actual text of the law before you comment. I have exercised self-control and not Pasted the entire text of the new law here, but for your ease of access, here is the first clause. (The rest may be found at: https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill...

48.

Animal crushing
(a)

Offenses
(1)

Crushing

It shall be unlawful for any person to purposely engage in animal crushing in or affecting interstate or foreign commerce or within the special maritime and territorial jurisdiction of the United States.
(2)

Creation of animal crush videos

It shall be unlawful for any person to knowingly create an animal crush video, if—
(A)

the person intends or has reason to know that the animal crush video will be distributed in, or using a means or facility of, interstate or foreign commerce; or
(B)

the animal crush video is distributed in, or using a means or facility of, interstate or foreign commerce.
(3)

Distribution of animal crush videos

It shall be unlawful for any person to knowingly sell, market, advertise, exchange, or distribute an animal crush video in, or using a means or facility of, interstate or foreign commer

It will be interesting to see what you say when we do not keep interrupting you with our comments and jokes...:>)

Jan

Bought it.

Jan

I would agree with 'they do not want to'. There is nothing implausible about calculating how much they would need to charge for a procedure in order to maintain the burden of non-payers. Upcharging for aspirin is not the right way to do this.

Every one who sells something has the problem of needing to increase base prices in order to compensate for non-payers and problem-children. It can be done, and it would benefit the patients, but it requires Change...the dreaded Change!

Jan