NJ 2020 06 30

Well it is the end of June and County wide we get a single digit per day count, most below 5. The State is still bumbling along with increases which we will show later.

The County is at near zero and holding. It seems we have managed to adapt to distancing and keeping the 20 year old morons at bay. Hopefully that will last.

Deaths still occur and the source was most likely from infected 30+ days ago.

It is still a mix of LTC which is amazing. Imagine what would have happened if the Gov did not send infected people into the LTC facilities.

County prevalence is very low as we see a wash out of infection

The overall metrics seem goo for the State as recovered approach infected

Here is the winner slide. Morris is in single digits. Bergen and others dominate.

NJ 2020 06 29

Slowly dropping State wise

County remains at near zero

Deaths still increase but downward

LTC deaths are low but they were from Sunday and they fail to report

Prevalence in State is down but flat, that of the County is likewise.

Mao and Today

Does any of this start to sound familiar:

For years Mao Zedong groped to find his way as a young man, first as a scholar, then as a publisher, finally as a labour activist. In the countryside, five years after joining the Chinese Communist Party in 1921, he finally discovered his calling. Still a young man of thirty-three, tall, lean and handsome, he was enthralled by the peasant violence that had erupted in the countryside after the nationalists had launched a military campaign from their base in Guangzhou to seize power from local warlords and unify the country. Russian advisers accompanied the nationalist army, as Chiang Kai-shek, at this stage, was still collaborating closely with Stalin.

 In Mao’s home province of Hunan, the nationalist authorities followed Russian instructions in funding peasant associations and fomenting a Soviet-style revolution.

 Social order broke down.

 In Changsha, the provincial capital, victims were paraded in tall conical hats of mockery. Children scampered down the streets singing,

 ‘Down with the [imperialist] powers and eliminate the warlords.’

 Workers armed with bamboo sticks picketed the offices of foreign companies. Public utilities were wrecked.

 In the countryside, the poorest of the villagers took control of the peas­ant associations and turned the world upside down. They were now the masters, choosing their targets at random, striking down the wealthy and powerful, creating a reign of terror.

 Some victims were knifed, a few decapitated. Chinese pastors were paraded through the streets as ‘running dogs of imperialism’, their hands bound behind their backs and a rope around their necks. Churches were looted. Mao admired the audacity and violence of the rebels. He was attracted by the slogans they coined:

 ‘Anyone who has land is a tyrant, and all gentry are bad.’

 He went to the country­ side to investigate the uprisings.

 ‘They strike the gentry to the ground,’

 Mao wrote in his report on the peasant movement.

 ‘People swarm into the houses of local tyrants and evil gentry who are against the peasant association, slaughter their pigs and consume their grain. They even loll for a minute or two on the ivory-inlaid beds belonging to the young ladies in the households of the local tyrants and evil gentry.

 At the slightest provocation they make arrests, crown the arrested with tall paper hats, and parade them through the villages.’ Mao was so taken with the violence that he felt ‘thrilled as never before’. Mao predicted that a hurricane would destroy the existing order:

 In a very short time, in China’s central, southern and northern provinces, several hundred million peasants will rise like a mighty storm, like a hurricane, a force so swift and violent that no power, however great, will be able to hold it back. They will smash all the trammels that bind them and rush forward along the road to liberation. They will sweep all the imperialists, warlords, corrupt officials, local tyrants and evil gentry into their graves.

 This from the book by Dikotter, The Tragedy of Liberation, on how Mao, using Soviet tactics, and expanding on them, took over China. Slogans, destruction, oppression, and a forced change on society.

 These tactics have been used before by many others. There is no end to them if we forget history.

NJ 2020 06 28

Not much new here. Still low but flat

County still bouncing about zero

Deaths continue upward slowly and still some LTCs.

Woodrow Wilson

Here is my grandmother, Hattie F Kruger, third from the right, just prior to being imprisoned by Wilson for demanding the right to vote for women. They were then sent to Lorton prison where they were hosed down, force fed with hoses, let to stay wet in the cold frigid November weather until more than half almost died. Apparently the 2nd Mrs Wilson thought that perhaps this was a bit too much and had them set free. The result was the right to vote for women.

But for Wilson, he was beloved by the Democrats for a century. Tearing down statues is one thing but the brutal torture of peaceful protesters is another. Was he also a racist, yes, amongst many other things. Princeton did the right thing, a century too late however.

NJ 2020 06 27

First the town prevalence is down to near zero

County and tow incidence is low and approaching zero

Deaths are still dominated by LTC

State incidence is low but flat, why?

County incidence is near zero

Deaths continue and adjustments on LTC for the first time.

No One Really Knows

I think we must face it; there is a lot we do not know about the virus. For example; how is it really spread. By air, how far apart, is temperature a factor, etc. What about surfaces? What about the asymptomatic etc?

Now on the other hand we have an almost infinite number of experts opining on the latest trend. Take the mask as a point. Most masks, and I mean almost all, at best inhibit viral dissemination while allowing viral reception. Thus based upon limited studies the mask does not protect you it protects others. Really? Let us face it, we really do not know.

Now in a NHPR piece they author states:

I like to run. And bike. And go for walks. Especially during the pandemic. It's a time I can almost forget about the novel coronavirus. But some people are trying to make me feel guilty about outdoor exercise.  My own nephew said, "Uncle Marc, if you're infected and don't know it, you could be huffing and puffing out virus." Does he have a point? I talked to a half-dozen experts to see about the risks of outdoor exercise for the exerciser and for others — and whether masks are helpful.

This really is a bit of mask shaming. One suspects that if one is hiking up Mount Washington alone that droplets of the virus, assuming you are one of those asymptomatic, will have little chance of infection. But alas, know it all youth will shame adults while boozing it up at the local gin joint.

He continues:

But if you've not been touching anything or having a close chat with anyone during your outdoor exercise, it's OK to pull the mask down, says... , an internal medicine physician at Harvard Medical School. (He told me he had his mask pulled down when he was walking home and being interviewed on the phone by me 'cause no one was around.) But the experts suggest pulling the mask down without touching the front of it, just so you don't get in the habit of fiddling with the front of your mask over your nose and mouth (which is how you'd get infected). And of course, whatever you do, don't stick your finger up your nose or into your eye or mouth – that's how viral particles enter the body.

OK, I get it, but anyone who has say Level II exposure and training knows that the contamination occurs when disrobing from PPE. Further, if you have been in a contaminated environment and you are not infected, the surface of your protective garments may be infected and thus removal must protect you from this layer of infection.

Depending, you may want yo wash gloves, yes wear gloves, with isopropyl alcohol, IPA, let it stand moist from 20 seconds and then carefully proceed. But still, what do I know, there have been no accepted trials demonstrating effectiveness or efficacy.

Bottom line, we seem to have these persons giving advice from "friends" who themselves may have limited facts to deal with.

One further suspects at this point that given the limited antibody lifetime in previously infected people that vaccines may be useless and our only recourse is a therapeutic. But again, we really do not know.

Thus the only advice I would give is stay away from 20 year olds, they seem to have become the Petri dishes for pandemic propagation.

AI and Visas

The magazine Technology Review states:

Even so, the US still suffers from an AI talent shortage, exacerbated by existing immigration policies without the latest restrictions. Anecdotally, US-based AI researchers have long lamented the impact of unfriendly visa limits on their pace of innovation. In February 2019, when president Trump signed an executive order to institute a national AI strategy, Oren Etzioni, the CEO of the research nonprofit Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence, argued in an op-ed that the move was critically missing a special visa program for AI experts. On Twitter, Ian Goodfellow, Apple’s director of machine learning, concurred: “My collaborators' visa restrictions have been one of the largest bottlenecks to our collective research productivity over the last few years,” he said. Trump’s executive order will likely only make this shortage worse. CSET estimates that at least 35% of H-1B holders have an AI-related degree, and nearly three-quarters work in computing-related fields. Though the Trump administration hasn’t indicated how long the current visa suspensions could last, it has already contributed to “a growing sense of instability,” Zachary Arnold, a research fellow at CSET, says. As a result, more foreign nationals could choose not to bring their talents to the US because of uncertainty surrounding their ability to stay.

Based upon my experience at MIT it is clear that many foreign nationals are being supported by US Military funding and then taking their expertise back to be used against the United States. If AI, whatever that may mean, is so critical, there are clearly a wealth of US citizens more than capable of doing the R&D as required. Having foreign nationals being supported by US Defense and related entities and then allowing the Intellectual Property to go back to a country which has taken a clearly hostile position against the US is not only unacceptable but a clear threat.

During the Cold War we clearly did not support Soviet students in our doctoral programs. In today's environment, in a technology so critical to the US then we should be supporting US students. This also applies to many areas of biotech as well.

NJ 2020 06 26

State no real change

County down to nominal zero

Deaths still present but as seen below mostly still LTC facilities.

End of Testing?

The County of Morris is closing its single remaining test site for COVID-19 today. Now as we have said and others followed testing is sine qua non for disease control. The Governor states again and again that science and numbers rule. Well is we no longer test what numbers do we rely upon? Is there some Oracle of Trenton we rely upon?

We know that the total infected is NOT what we have been told, it is much larger. That then makes the death rate much lower. But we fail to know the demographic or psychographic profiles of the infected.

This is especially critical as new sites of infection occur. We need to have more testing and ease of walk in etc. I have been saying that for months, it is obvious, yet not to our Wizards in Trenton. Pity!

NJ 2020 06 25

State number low but flat

County are negative again tending to zero

Deaths flat, wonder why

LTC still dominate and the following chart shows this dynamic in better detail

NJ 2020 06 24

First, the State is low and declining again. It will be interesting as the State closes testing centers how this will change. Again this is NOT the true incidence since there may be many infected and not tested.

The above is the County and another negative day!

Deaths continue

and again they are dominated by LTC. One truly wonders why!

The absolute incidence yesterday, lots of negatives!

on a per PoP basis we have Atlantic and Cumberland in the South of the State.

The above is interesting. It is LTC and non-LTC. It is clear that deaths are dominated by LTC.This is only since May 1, and many more occurred before that. It is a shame the State refuses to provide an open access data base of all stats.

NJ 2020 06 23

State incidence with same trend

County in single digits. It must be noticed that the NY Times shows an increase for the county but that is based to to negative 45 count which they seem to be grossly ignorant of, it is the Time anyhow, and the State Employee seems to have no clue.

Deaths remain higher than I had thought.

The LTC still remain prominent!

NJ 2020 06 22

Same ole, same ole. Incidence state is low but flat. It is of interest to note the State closes its testing facilities Friday. Wonder why?

County bouncing near zero

Deaths still low but flat.

But LTC still yield more than half!

Center of Galaxy

From NASA files.