Silencing the Other View?

 

The above is the current breakdown in New Jersey for the percent of the ethnic populations, of all ages, who have been inoculated. It demonstrates the problem in that only a small fraction of Blacks seem to have been vaccinated. I shall return to this at the end.

One of the out front promoters during this pandemic has a paper on PLOS Biology wherein he asserts:

In summary, the aggression against science and scientists in America arises from three sources: 1) Far-right members of the US Congress, 2) the conservative news outlets and 3) a group of thought leaders who provide intellectual underpinnings to fuel the first two elements.

For researchers working in the pandemic response to continue to do so effectively, we seek help in halting the aggression. This is essential not only for our personal safety or national security, but also the reality that attacking science and scientists will both promote illness and cause loss of life. For example, currently more than 99% of the COVID-19 deaths now occur among unvaccinated people, and almost as many hospitalizations. To begin, the following steps must be considered:

• The President of the United States, together with science leaders at the federal agencies should prepare and deliver a robust, public, and highly visible statement of support. The statement would reaffirm the contribution of scientists across United States history.
• We should look at expanded protection mechanisms for scientists currently targeted by farright extremism in the United States. ...a bill known as the Scientific Integrity Act of 2021 (H.R. 849) to  protect US Government scientists from political interference, but this needs to be extended for scientists at private research universities and institutes. Still another possibility is to extend federal hate-crime protections. 

Now science and especially what we have seen in this pandemic is a give an take of ever increasing facts and hopefully the use of of logic to assemble conclusions which then get tested in the arena of ideas. The author is proposing that if another's scientific assertion different from his that such becomes a hate crime! One cannot accept that. 

Defending a PhD thesis was a process of give and take, of alternate theories and the insertion of new facts. This paper is a clear example of politicizing the whole process which in my opinion is why we face such a lack of faith in science. "Believe what I say or we will incarcerate you!" 

This reminds me of the old Soviet Union. Marxism is a philosophy wherein the future is predictable. My first book was Stochastic Systems and State Estimation. The opening in my Preface was,

To anyone familiar with measurements it should be quite obvious that the world is filled with uncertainty. Through ingenuity and insight scientists and engineers have over the past several centuries found ways to combat these uncertainties.

Each experiment lends itself to an observation and a possible alternative view. Silencing those with differing views is what the Soviets did with my works. 

What makes a far-right extremist? Someone who has an opinion at variance with the author. Is it not possible that one may apply their own talents and be capable of making assertions based on the facts that differ without having to be silenced? 

There is no single truth in science. Science is successful if we can present the facts, the data, the basis for our assertions, and as such posit something of merit.

Take the spreading of the virus. I contend we still do not have a clear understanding of how this is done. I have examined multiple approaches and still fins no conclusive evidence. How small are the virion aerosols and how effective are these masks? Frankly the results are spotty, the physics complex, and the organism a challenge.

What we can assert is that we understand the organism per se, we understand how it enters cells, and we have thanks to the previous administration a vaccine cadre that is efficacious. What we seem to have is a segment of the population for a variety of reasons are objecting. Frankly I do not know why. I drove to Delaware in March to get inoculated. I have been inoculated against dozens of threats from smallpox to polio to rabies to corona. But that is me. I do not believe that incarcerating those who differ solves the problem. In fact I believe that even suggesting it exacerbates the problem. 

Now to the opening data display. The assertion of the author that it is only right wing trouble makers seems in New Jersey to be refuted. The groups noted above are primarily Democratic wards whereas the vaccinated are at the least a mix at at the most more right leaning. Thus the author's assertions seem without merit, lack any basis, and frankly are outright wrong.

COVID Infections

 Modelling of this virus is useless. However current numbers can make sense. Let us use today's number for New Jersey and do a back of the envelope calculation.

1. NJ has about 8+ million people

2. 75% of the 50+ is vaccinated and more than 60% of the 20+.

3. Then we have 12% of the population already immune because of infection.

4. Thus we have about 75% of the total population immune

5. Now we see 1,000 new infections per day. These are from about 2 million people.

6. If those 2 million never get immune they remain the open pool and we can assume the 1,000 pd remains if not grows. 

7. We always said there is no herd immunity. So by the end of this year we may be seeing upwards of 2,000 pd or a total in excess of 200,000 new infections

8. The death rate is 2% so we will see 4,000 new deaths.

9. We may see this pd rate continue through the winter and by next year see some total of 500,000 new infections and some 10,000 more deaths in NJ

10 Now The Hill quotes the spokesperson stating:

Chief White House medical adviser Anthony Fauci on Wednesday said the U.S. could see up to 200,000 daily COVID-19 cases in the fall. “Remember, just a couple of months ago, we were having about 10,000 cases a day,” Fauci told McClatchy in an interview. “I think you’re likely going to wind up somewhere between 100,000 and 200,000 cases.” Fauci’s prediction comes as the U.S. is experiencing a surge in cases while health officials are struggling to convince individuals to get vaccinated.

Regrettably he may be optimistic. Masks are back in everywhere in NJ despite a prevalence which is miniscule in many counties. Infections peak in certain hot spots and it we had any competent Public Health officials data would drive strategy. We don't.

FDA Approval

 

The FDA has a well established process for the approval of therapeutics. It has had bumps from time to time but it is also often showed in its own arcane rules and procedures. The FDA is highly sensitive to who says what to whom and when. Just try to visit someone at an FDA facility, it is easier to visit the CIA!

However the emergency approval of the vaccines was pushed successfully by the former President and frankly may have saved hundreds of thousands of lives. Now for final approval we seem to be back at the classic slow pace of the FDA. As the NY Times notes;

Full approval typically requires the F.D.A. to review hundreds of thousands of pages of documents — roughly 10 times the data required to authorize a vaccine on an emergency basis. The agency can usually complete a priority review within six to eight months and was already working on an expedited timetable for the Pfizer vaccine. ... Dr. Peter Marks, the agency’s top vaccine regulator, wrote that undue haste “would undermine the F.D.A.’s statutory responsibilities, affect public trust in the agency and do little to help combat vaccine hesitancy.” The regulators want to see real-world data on how the vaccine has been working since they authorized it for emergency use in December. That means verifying the company’s data on vaccine efficacy and immune responses, reviewing how efficacy or immunity might decline over time, examining new infections in participants in continuing clinical trials, reviewing adverse reactions to vaccinations and inspecting manufacturing plants.

The problem is transparency. If the FDA let the public know what the process was and why and how far it has gone then I believe trust would increase. Instead the remark by the FDA administrator above in my opinion  creates more doubt and does more harm than good. 

We have noted that the CDC does not seem to work weekends, and we also know from experience that after 3 PM on a Friday is not a time to find someone at the FDA. 

These are stressful times. The non-Government workers are straining to keep afloat and pay our taxes to support the Government employees.

 Perhaps if the FDA folks explained to the citizens the process, the status, and the like, people would have increased confidence. They really should not berate people for pushing them along at a faster pace. That does just the opposite of what they state. They are Government workers, they work for the people, respect that.

The CDC and Numbers

 I have been following the CDC numbers since January. They get weirder by the day. So Saturday we had 108,184 new cases, then Sunday none, then Monday 46,070, and today a whopping 199,147. Data just does not do that. 

The problem is; how can anyone trust this data. Why is it so messed up? One cannot control anything with this amount of data noise.

Cicero

 From Cicero's Commonwealth we have:

Nature itself, however, required that, as a result of their having been freed from monarchy, the people should claim rather more rights for themselves; that took place not much later (about sixteen years) in the consulate of Postumus Cominius and Spurius Cassius.This development was perhaps not completely rational, but the nature of commonwealths often overcomes reason. You must bear in mind what I said at the outset: if there isn’t an equitable balance in the state of rights and duties and responsibilities, so that there’s enough power in the hands of the magistrates and enough authority in the judgment of the aristocrats and enough freedom in the people, then the condition of the commonwealth can’t be preserved unchanged. Now when the state was disturbed as a result of the problem of debt, the plebs seized first the Sacred Mount, and then the Aventine. Not even the discipline of Lycurgus was able to keep firm hold of the reins in dealing with Greeks: even at Sparta, in the reign of Theopompus, the five ephors (as they are called at Sparta; in Crete they are the ten cosmoi) were established as a check on the kings’ strength, just as the tribunes of the plebs were established against consular power.

Worth reading. There needs be a balance of power and debt can be the great destroyer of any Commonwealth. 

Deer Me!

 Nature has an article showing a massive number of white tailed deer are infected with COVID in the US, They note:

One-third of white-tailed deer in the north-eastern United States have antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 — a sign that they have been infected with the virus. The findings, revealed by an analysis of samples collected after the pandemic began, represent the first detection of widespread exposure to the virus in a population of wild animals, says Arinjay Banerjee, a virologist at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon, Canada. The results are reported in a preprint posted on bioRxiv on 29 July¹. They have not yet been peer reviewed. ... The real mystery, says Banerjee, is how the deer were exposed. It could have been through contact with people, other animals or even contaminated wastewater. “If there is a common source of exposure for the deer, then likely the same source can expose other animals.” The results stress the importance of surveying deer, as well as their predators and other animals that have close contact with deer, for SARS-CoV-2, the researchers say.

A key question is what is the mutation rate and will it mutate to maximize in deer not humans. Again, how did it get there in the first place!