Shot in the Dark

You Have Questions. They Have No Answers.

Governor Walz, I have some questions.

In your press conference announcing the Stay Home order, you said the
Covid virus would kill 75,000 Minnesotans if we did nothing but only
50,000 if we implemented the strictest lock-down.  We needed to do that
to ‘flatten the curve’ so ICU rooms wouldn’t be overwhelmed.  Two weeks
later, you announced we had ramped up ICU rooms from 235 to 3,000 but we
still needed ventilators, which were on back-order.

Since then, we’ve been in continuous lock-down and now have the mask
mandate but ICU rooms are not overwhelmed with Covid cases; indeed,
hospitals are closing their doors for lack of patients.

Your administration gives daily briefings on the spread of Covid cases
and daily reported deaths as if these were bad things.  But weren’t they
part of the plan all along?  We locked down to Slow the spread, not to
Eliminate the spread.  We knew people would die, we just wanted them to
die more slowly.  Your plan is working perfectly.  Why aren’t you happy?

Which brings up the next point: when do you anticipate the lock-down
will end?  Right now, closings and quarantines seem to be based on case
rates, not ICU rates.  I understand that in theory, more cases could
lead to more ICU admissions which could overwhelm the system; but so
far, the statistics show that’s not happening.  We have plenty of excess
ICU bed capacity.

If all goes according to plan, eventually, everybody in the state will
have Covid but most of them will neither display symptoms nor require
hospitalization.  Is that what you’re waiting for?  If so, shouldn’t we
speed up the process by lifting all restrictions now?

Joe Doakes

It’s neither about science nor logic.

But Joe knows this.

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18 responses to “You Have Questions. They Have No Answers.”

  1. Maximum Overlord Avatar
    Maximum Overlord

    It will never end.
    If you test 10,000 people a day, every day, and the false positive rate is 1%, you will have 100 false positive new cases every day. Assuming a two week active period, you will always have 1,400 active cases of covid on the books, even if NO ONE actually has covid.

  2. golfdoc50 Avatar
    golfdoc50

    I’m happy to report my school district, 191 in Dakota County, is continuing hybrid learning. Now that the election is over I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop.

  3. jdm Avatar
    jdm

    It will never end

    True, MO – and for all the reasons you mention. But the overriding concern is that the left hasn’t yet worked out the political strategies, post-election, of the various approaches. Maybe what the state needs right now is protest at the state capitol with hundred of Karens protesting that the lockdowns and mask reqs aren’t strict enough. Of course, the filming will make it look like thousands showed up.

  4. bikebubba Avatar
    bikebubba

    What’s really encouraging to me is that if you look up infection and death rates nationwide, the death rate is steady, while the infection rate has over doubled in the past couple of months. So we are figuring out how to get this disease without dying of it. Maybe if we figured out what “Quarantine” means (isolate the sick, not the healthy), we’d do even better.

  5. Emery Avatar
    Emery

    Stop the nonsense. The pandemic ended November 3rd.

    The virus and the economy are the same thing.

  6. Scott Hughes Avatar
    Scott Hughes

    “If you test 10,000 people a day, every day, and the false positive rate is 1%…..”

    I’ve been looking since day one and can not find where the false positive rate has been published. My gut tells me it’s much greater than 1%.

  7. Joe Doakes Avatar
    Joe Doakes

    Here are the conditions set by the World Health Organization in April. My comments are in brackets.

    Any government that wants to start lifting restrictions, said Tedros of WHO, must first meet six conditions:

    1. Disease transmission is under control

    [If ‘under control” means “not swamping medical facilities leaving patients to die untreated,” then Covid transmission is under control.]

    2. Health systems are able to “detect, test, isolate and treat every case and trace every contact”

    [Every one? Ridiculous. This is an impossible goal and therefore must be ignored. We can treat every case that we detect, which what matters to sick people.]

    3. Hot spot risks are minimized in vulnerable places, such as nursing homes.

    [Nobody knows what this means. Nursing homes remain a problem but are not a risk factor for the general public, we don’t need to be locked down while the nursing home staff does a better job of cleaning. And quit sending infected patients back from the hospitals.]

    4. Schools, workplaces and other essential places have established preventive measures

    [They have. They’re stupid, but they’re established.]

    5. The risk of importing new cases “can be managed”

    [Managed how, by whom, to what end? Meaningless. Disregard.]

    6. Communities are fully educated, engaged and empowered to live under a new normal

    [No, that’s what happens if the pandemic is NOT ended. When the pandemic ends, we go back to living the Old Normal. Stupid statement, disregard.]

    Based on the World Health Organization’s recommendations – which are SCIENCE and therefore incontrovertible – the conditions to end the pandemic have been met.

    What do you know? E was right! The pandemic is over. I’ll be dipped . . . .

  8. mjb003 Avatar
    mjb003

    My life has changed very little since March and the changes that have happened are choices that I have made. My co-workers have taken vacations where they have used air travel. I am still choosing not to. All of my favorite restaurants are open to dine in, which friends and family have used. But, I have chosen patio dining or take out. The stores I shop at are open. I still choose only grocery stores and do curbside pick up for every thing else, but I see full parking lots and stores with people. My child’s school has distance learning, though allows those with limited parental supervision or poor Internet connections to be at the school in person. We have a house in Minnesota and another property in Iowa. We pretty much do the same routine in either state. As I look around at what is open for me and what my friends, family and neighbors are doing, I have trouble seeing what is still locked down. And I understand the Gov in MN is still operating under Emergency powers, but life in urban MN doesn’t look any different than life in urban Iowa right now.. But, I hear a lot about people feeling like things aren’t normal. (And I will grant that no one feels like anything is “normal “) So, I ask in earnest what is still locked down? Is it more locked down in rural area that I don’t frequent?

  9. shakingmyhead Avatar
    shakingmyhead

    MJB: We still are mandated to wear a mask inside. People will harrass you if you don’t. Pretty sure churches are still closed. It may not feel all that different, especially if you didn’t typically go out. But, the ability to just go and meet friends at the bar for happy hour? It isn’t really happening. People are becoming more and more distant in person.

  10. Joe Doakes Avatar
    Joe Doakes

    I cannot enter the door of Old Chicago without making a reservation by phone, because they must limit the number of people in their lobby who are waiting to be seated at the limited number of tables. I cannot be seated at Wong’s Restaurant at all, because they are not allowed to open for dine-in.

    I cannot bring my pet into the Como Pet Hospital to wait in the lobby. I must wait in my car. I cannot arrive just before my appointment because their next appointment is November 28th because they’re limited by number of customers. I can park in the car hoping for a cancellation, but the expected wait is 4 hours.

    I cannot attend my grandson’s cross-country race, outside in the wind, because spectator number are limited. I cannot attend any of my grandchildren’s school plays, concerts, dance recitals, science fairs, because there are none.

    I cannot partake certain sacraments of my religion because the Governor has suspended the Constitutional guarantee of Freedom of Worship.

    I could not attend the President’s rally in Dodge Center because the Attorney General threatened the business owner if he held a political rally without Democrats approving his Covid Preparedness Plan.

    Other than that, no, my life hasn’t changed much.

  11. jdm Avatar
    jdm

    People will harrass you if you don’t

    The signs in (my) rural MN are to please wear a mask so the business in question is not shutdown. From Ellison-troopers. That, to me, sounds like a change from February of this year.

    I can’t visit my mother’s apartment in the senior living. I can take her out and bring her back, but I can’t help her with her computer or telephone because I can’t get in. I want to make changes to her estate plan (as POA), but the various extra steps and procedures make it all very time-consuming and annoying.

    Some banks, like US Bank, even now limit access to drive-up unless you make an appointment, but I’m not sure that applies to all branches. Fidelity still doesn’t allow face-to-face meetings with a financial advisor.

    I never had to stand 6 feet from the other customers, in a line, to get into Trader Joe’s with/for my mother. All the urban people seem perfectly fine with this (and their effing masks), how’s that going to work when winter comes?

    I lost six (eight?) weeks of work outs during the lockdown.

  12. jdm Avatar
    jdm

    I never had to stand 6 feet…

    … never before had …

  13. mjb003 Avatar
    mjb003

    Ok. Thanks for examples. One of the two churches my family attends in Minnesota is open, the other is choosing to be closed, both remain online. In Iowa, the church is also open, but with option for online. They are set up for distancing in both states. My dad went to a local restaurant in Southern Minnesota with a group one Sunday. No reservation needed or even asked for. Restaurants in Iowa, I am told, are also set up for reduced capacity for distancing. I never frequent busy restaurants, so I don’t know if reservations are supposed to be part of the mandate.

    My bank has drive through service, but does require appointment for in person. The local family owned bank in Iowa is the same right now.

    Both in Iowa and in Minnesota, I have seen the same percentage of mask wearing and no enforcement in Minnesota. I am aware that businesses could be fined for not having customers in masks, but I have no idea if anyone has. I think, like other codes, someone has to complain.

    I agree that Walz doesn’t need to continue with Emergency powers and didn’t need to mandate/legislate anything. Prior to the mask mandate and reduced capacity mandate, businesses were already starting these things. I believe much of what businesses were doing was based on CDC guidelines, which are still in place. Given how similarly Iowa and Minnesota businesses are operating, and how differently the two governors are running the state, I don’t think much would chane right now, even without Walz’s Emergency powers. That is something I think most of us here know, but is challenging for many of Walz’s supporters to grasp.

  14. Maximum Overlord Avatar
    Maximum Overlord

    Scott Hughes on November 5, 2020 at 10:33 am said:

    “If you test 10,000 people a day, every day, and the false positive rate is 1%…..”

    I’ve been looking since day one and can not find where the false positive rate has been published. My gut tells me it’s much greater than 1%.

    It is not an easy number to find, and what numbers I have seen vary. No one knows what the false positive rate is, I suspect it depends on the processing lab (I am talking about the swab/RNA test).
    OTH, the test is focused on providing no false negatives. If you have covid, you WILL test positive. The price you pay for this is that you must accept some false positives.
    The consequences of a false negative are very different from the consequences of a false positive.
    The truth is that “public health officials” need more accurate numbers than they have or can have to make the pronouncements that they are making. Individual doctors and their patients are learning from covid & making better care decisions. Public health officials not so much.

  15. Joe Doakes Avatar
    Joe Doakes

    Scott Johnson at Powerline refers to a friend, Kevin Roche, who writes the Healthy Skeptic blog. That place is a goldmine for Covid research and explanations why we should not be following the restrictions imposed by The Incompetent Blowhard (Kevin’s name for Walz).

  16. golfdoc50 Avatar
    golfdoc50

    Those pesky false positives. Given how Covid testing is performed, it’s natural to be skeptical. Because the PCR test is repeated in cycles, the higher the number of tests, the sensitive it becomes while producing more false positives. Another factor to consider is the prevalence of the condition. If it is a very small number, the predictive value of the test goes down. It’s a trade off. A criticism of the Covid PCR test is that the chosen number of cycles is too high, therefore people believe they are sick when they’re not. Are they contagious? I haven’t found a good answer. It’s worth pointing out that the bacterium causing many serious meningitis infections is present in nasal swabs of healthy people. None is told he has meningitis, because the disease is severe and obvious. Asymptomatic carriers are ignored unless an outbreak occurs. It’s not the same as Covid but there is a lesson to be learned. Treat disease, not lab tests.

  17. golfdoc50 Avatar
    golfdoc50

    Update. I had previously reported my school district was remaining Hybrid. Ha! Joke is on me. Back to all distance learning effective Friday the 13th. Watch for bars and restaurants to be next on the chopping block.

  18. bikebubba Avatar
    bikebubba

    Regarding false negatives and positives, it strikes me that you have the response–a certain luminescence as the “binder” mates with the virus, no–is going to be a linear response to the prevalence of the virus. You will have some portion of false positives due to “seeing things that aren’t there”, some due to other things that might bond and become luminescent, and perhaps some due to a level of COVID that is not (yet) symptomatic. False negatives along the same line.

    So your rate of alpha and beta error is not going to be a constant, but will depend on the setting. At least as far as I can tell.

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