Scare headlines

I’m up here in Maine because there’s no point going back to the NYC area while everything is shut down, so I’m following the local coverage of Kung Flu with more interest than I otherwise would. If the coverage here is typical of what’s going on in the rest of the country, it’s no wonder we’re in such a panic. Here’s what’s on Portland Press Herald’s front page today:

[Bold emphasis added]

The spike, which was the largest daily increase in cases to date, was largely because facility-wide testing at the Augusta Center for Health and Rehabilitation revealed 55 residents or staff members had contracted COVID-19.

….

[ Dr. Nirav Shah, director of the Maine CDC] expressed concern about the outbreaks on Monday, but stressed that the spike is a result of his agency’s recommendation of aggressive, universal testing of both residents and staff at long-term care facilities as soon as the first COVID-19 case emerges.

“One of the things we know in public health is that when you look for things, you find them and, indeed, much of what we are seeing here is just that,” Shah said. “The fact that there are high numbers of individuals at these facilities does not mean that there are high numbers of critically ill individuals. In fact, many if not most of the positive results that we have seen in these facilities have been in individuals who do not have symptoms.”

Burying the lede

So, the “surge” in new cases is attributable to wider testing, and those cases that are new are centered in nursing homes, exactly as one would expect. There have been 698 COVID cases reported so far among Maine’s population of 1.3 million — 0.000537. While it’s guessed that there have been many more infections, those were apparently mild enough that they weren’t reported, let alone require hospitalization. Of the reported cases, 19 people have died. Half of the state’s ICU beds lie empty, with just 19 COVID patients in the others. Nine patients are on ventilators. That’s it.

To prolong, but not eradicate this disease, the state has thrown a hundred thousand people out of work, ensured the bankruptcy and probably permanent closing of half the states’ small businesses, and canceled the tourist season, which powers Maine’s economy.

As of Monday, 61 individuals were hospitalized with COVID-19, with 22 of those being cared for in critical care or intensive care units. Nine individuals were on ventilators, indicating the disease had progressed to the point of respiratory failure.

The Maine CDC reported that 273 individuals – nearly 40 percent of all confirmed cases – had recovered and been released from isolation. After accounting for the individuals who had recovered or died, Maine had 406 active cases Monday.

The total number of intensive care unit beds in Maine stood at 314 on Monday, with 158 available, the Maine CDC said. The number of ventilators was 328, with 283 available, plus 234 alternative ventilators.

The CDC also said that there were 22 COVID-19 patients in intensive care units statewide Monday and 39 others who are hospitalized but not in intensive care.

If our media gave the same coverage to influenza — 20,000 deaths this season, so far — with daily counts of hospitalizations, number of patients hospitalized, etc., we’d be in the same panic. And just as unnecessarily.

I suppose it's no worse than endlessly doing burpees

Iceland authorities urge citizens to hug trees, not each other

Icelandic sweater?

The Icelandic Forestry Service is encouraging people to hug trees while social distancing measures prevent them from hugging other people, RÚV  reports. Forest rangers in the Hallormsstaður National Forest in East Iceland have been diligently clearing snow-covered paths to ensure that locals can enjoy the great outdoors without coming in too close a contact with other guests, but can also get up close and personal with their forest friends.

“When you hug [a tree], you feel it first in your toes and then up your legs and into your chest and then up into your head,” enthuses forest ranger Þór Þorfinnsson. “It’s such a wonderful feeling of relaxation and then you’re ready for a new day and new challenges.”

In a time when close contact and embracing is discouraged for risk of COVID-19 infection, trees can offer a sense of comfort, says Þór, although he urges visitors to the national forest to take precautions not to all hug the same tree. He recommends that people walk deeper into the forest, rather than stopping at the first tree they encounter. “There are plenty of trees…it doesn’t have to be big and stout, it can be any size.”

People should take their time, Þór says, to reap the full benefits of their tree-hugging. “Five minutes is really good, if you can give yourself five minutes of your day to hug [a tree], that’s definitely enough,” he says. “You can also do it many times a day – that wouldn’t hurt. But once a day will definitely do the trick, even for just a few days.”

Probably makes the sheep less nervous too.

So do you want to move, or get your price?

If you plump for the latter, you usually get neither.

78 Burning Tree Road has sold for $2.8 million. That’s a good price, for the buyer; it’s a nice house on a good street. The owners initially priced it back in February 2018 at $3.595, which was not an unreasonable decision, based on the town’s appraisal of $3,999,700, but here’s the thing: it didn’t sell.

Rather than acknowledge what the market was saying, the owners kept that price at $3.595 all the way til the middle of June 2019, when they finally dropped it to $3.2 million, and held that price to the bitter end.

It’s not uncommon to overprice a house initially; brother Gideon and I, with something like 50 years combined real estate experience between us, still managed to overprice our mother’s place by committing the cardinal sin of sellers, mixing nostalgia and sweet memories into the pricing formula. But, having made the error, listen to the market and adjust the price accordingly. The faster you do, the faster you’ll sell your house, and often at a better price than if you stubbornly delay.

That said, I think the buyers benefitted greatly from that error, so someone came out a winner,

Just sayin ...

Funeral dirge

Deprived of food and usual habitat, starving rats are resorting to war and cannibalism to survive coronavirus shutdown

Rats carry and transmit to humans, directly and indirectly, half-a-hundred diseases. Whatever troubles are afflicting urban areas now, wait ‘til the rats invade the housing stock.

By the way, have I mentioned that Michigan’s governor has banned the growing of food? Keep your powder dry.

Catch 20-flu

Russians quash Hungarian revolution, 1956 (Bernie Sanders’ socialist party endorsed the action)

The shutdown will continue until an accurate test for coronavirus infection has been developed and deployed, and even then, only those who have (a) had the disease and (b) recovered will be allowed outside their homes. Dr. Fauci, among others, envisions “certificates of immunization” that will have to be carried by all citizens and displayed to authorities upon demand. But the only way to become infected is by exposure to another infected individual.

So: we must all stay locked indoors to prevent us from catching the flu, and will only be allowed to leave if and when we do catch the flu and survive. The more effective the lockdown, the fewer of us will be infected, and thus the fewer of us will be allowed to venture outside and resume our normal activities such as earning a living. Accurate testing is only useful as a means to determine who has already been infected and therefore allowed to leave shelter. Take proper precautionary measures and you will not become infected, will not pass the test and will therefore not be issued one of Dr. Fauci’s certificate of free passage. What the fuck is going on here?

The national government has already taken away the right of assembly and the right to engage in the formerly-lawful activity of earning a living. Various governors have attacked the free exercise of religion and the right to purchase guns, ammunition, liquor, vegetable and flower seedlings, even seeds, books, and clothing. In exchange for this, we have each received $1,000, which will be added to our bill. This seems a poor bargain.

I’m not at the point where I believe this panic is a deliberate plot to strip citizens of their liberty and impose a central dictatorship, but those who do have that goal are certainly taking advantage of the situation.

Price cut on Lake Avenue

471 Lake Avenue, that huge — 5,000 sq.ft — circa 2012 mansion just south of the Lake Avenue / N. Maple intersection, has dropped from $29.5 million to $24.9. My general rule on these things is that any house priced above $23.5 should have a pool, but at least there’s an approved site here. Or you could just negotiate that price down below $23, and feel that you’ve achieved a bargain.

Riverside contracts

17 Hendrie Avenue, discussed here previously, is reported as under contract, 47 DOM. Asking price of $3.575 million, it sold in 2014 for $4.1, after just 14 days. Nice house.

40 Crescent Road

And 40 Crescent Road, reduced from its March 2019 price of $1.690 to $1.285, also has found a buyer.

Quell surprise

Oh, goodie, is that another package from Acme Supply?

Despite promises to the country, Schiff’s new committee is focusing on what did Trump know, and when did he know it?

House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff says his committee, along with others, is conducting “real-time oversight” of the White House’s response to the coronavirus pandemic.

“We are right now going through our intelligence holdings. What did the intelligence community make us aware of at the end of last year or earlier this year? Other committees are doing like analyses,” Schiff (D-Calif.) told MSNBC’s “AM Joy” on Sunday.

While Schiff pledged that the 9/11-style commission he and his fellow California Democrats — including Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Kamala Harris — called for would be bipartisan, the former impeachment manager zeroed in on the Trump administration’s missed warning signs to address the virus.

“It is very important, I think, in reviewing the intelligence component to this to realize the intelligence piece is just one piece of the warnings coming to the administration. A lot of those warnings were in the public domain. They came from public health organizations, like WHO or CDC or his own National Security Council, and ignored those warnings.”

He continued, “we are diving deeply into what does the intelligence community know, what resources we would bring there, and what do we need to do prospectively to better protect the country in the future. That last piece, how do we protect the country in the future, is really the mission of that independent commission we based on, we used the model the 9/11 commission.”

That should cure us.

House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-SC) has pledged that the newly formed House panel officially set up to oversee the federal coronavirus response would not focus on President Trump’s handling of the crisis, saying last week that it would simply oversee the distribution of the $2.2 trillion relief package.

“My understanding is that this committee will be forward-looking, we are not going to be looking back on what the president may or may not have done back before this crisis hit. The crisis is with us,” the South Carolina Democrat said during an appearance on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

I await Schiff’s examination and conclusion on the effect his party’s continuous impeachment effort, designed to cripple Trump’s administration, might have had on the President’s attention to other matters, given WHO’s and his own Dr. Fauci’s prediction, as late as February 29th, that the flu posed no threat to the public.

Faulty testing or not, here's what counts: deaths per capita, and we're not number one

No, the United States does not lead the world in corona virus cases or death. That’s no consolation to those who get it, of course, but just for perspective, here’s a chart:

This rings true, based on our own family's experience

False negative Kung Flu tests aren’t helping

The coronavirus is so new that there are still many things we don't understand or can't explain about it. The biggest question is whether people who've been cured of the virus can get it again. Without knowing that, it will be very difficult to create an effective vaccine.

There are many questions that will be necessary to answer before we can expect to live reasonably normal lives again, and chief among them is how effective the current tests are to determine who has the disease.

The current drive to find a test that will give a result in the shortest time possible obscures the real problem: researchers are reporting far too many false positives and false negatives. Without accurate testing, we'll be unable to track the virus and won't be able to respond until an outbreak is out of control.

Bloomberg News:

Some doctors described situations in which patients show up with clear symptoms such as a cough and fever, test negative, and then test positive later on. It’s a particular issue in New York, where the disease has likely infected far more than the 174,000 people confirmed through limited testing. At Jacobi Medical Center in the Bronx, doctor Jeremy Sperling says so-called false-negative tests are now a frequent occurrence in the emergency room.

“If a patient presents with classic Covid symptoms, but tests negative, they’ve still got Covid,” said Sperling, who is the chair of emergency medicine at the hospital. “There is just nothing else it could be in New York City in 2020.”

My daughter Kate’s doctor reached the same conclusion. Kate returned to Portland Oregon from Hawaii and within a few days developed all the symptoms of Covid. Her doctor tested her twice, with negative tests, but also got negative results from every other flu variation she tested for. Her conclusion: “you’ve got Covid”. In the meantime, Kate’s symptoms got worse with each day. Twice, her lungs hurt so much and her breathing became so difficult that she almost called an ambulance, but held off.

In any event, after three weeks she’s finally on the mend and has been symptom-free for four days. “Officially” her diagnosis was viral pneumonia, but she’s almost certainly an unrecorded case of the virus. Either way, Kate sys she wouldn’t wish whatever she had on her worst enemy.