Fun with exponents

On Fri, 29 May 2020 12:56:00 -0400, Radey Shouman
wrote:

Frank Krygowski writes:

On 5/28/2020 8:32 PM, John B. wrote:
On Thu, 28 May 2020 15:40:36 -0500, AMuzi wrote:

On 5/28/2020 3:00 PM, Radey Shouman wrote:
AMuzi writes:

On 5/27/2020 7:21 PM, John B. wrote:
On Wed, 27 May 2020 11:42:30 -0500, AMuzi wrote:

On 5/27/2020 11:29 AM, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 5/27/2020 11:42 AM, wrote:
On Tuesday, May 26, 2020 at 7:17:19 PM UTC-7, Jeff
Liebermann wrote:
On Tue, 26 May 2020 15:18:53 -0700 (PDT),
wrote:

On Tuesday, May 26, 2020 at 10:46:36 AM UTC-7, Jeff
Liebermann wrote:
On Tue, 26 May 2020 08:30:38 -0700 (PDT),
wrote:

I have a very low respect for doctors because so few
of them
want to be competent. Top of the list in that category
is Dr. Fauci
of the CDC who has continually acted an expert at
things he knows
very little about.

Dr Fauci has been director of the NIAID (National
Institute of Allergy
and Infectious Diseases) since 1984. He does NOT work
for the CDC.
NIAID is part of the NIH (National Institute of
Health). He's has
been involved with controlling several previous
epidemics, which I
presume qualifies as experience:
https://www.niaid.nih.gov/about/anthony-s-fauci-md-bio
https://www.niaid.nih.gov/about/director
https://www.niaid.nih.gov/about/niaid-history

Can you provide the name of someone in the US who is
better qualified
to discuss pandemics than Dr Fauci?

There is a place for those who sit around, think and
read papers.
I do not deny Fauci that much. But he is not working in
the real world
as many other epidemiologists are and they often
interview them on
FOX and they ALL say what I've been saying. There isn't
much you can
do about a pandemic with a linear growth rate.

I see. You want to be advised on how to protect yourself
from a viral
epidemic by an epidemiologist via Fox News. I don't
think that's what
you intended to say, but that's what you wrote. You also
seem to have
changed your position on Dr Fauci from:

"Dr. Fauci of the CDC(sic) who has continually acted an
expert at things he knows very little about."

to:

"I do not deny Fauci that much."

That's quite a change from calling the leading expert on
infectious
diseases in the US an incompetent, to not denying him
something you
didn't bother to specify. Of course, you're entitled to
have an
opinion about anyone and anything, but I'm also entitled
to discount
your opinion as rubbish. Anyway, kindly stabilize your
opinion about
Dr Fauci. If it's critical, please provide the name of
someone in the
US that is equally or more qualified to advise on how to
handle a
pandemic. Incidentally, I could probably provide some
names in China
that are substantially more qualified and equally
experienced, but
such experts would not be considered as candidates for
advising our
president, who knows more than any or all of them,
Here's one
candidate that might have qualified had he not resigned
for having is
bureau eliminated by the Trump administration:
"A top pandemic expert is leaving the Trump
administration amid the
coronavirus crisis"
https://www.businessinsider.com/top-pandemic-expert-leaving-the-trump-administration-amid-coronavirus-2020-5



No bicycle related content this time. Sorry(tm).

--
Jeff Liebermann
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

The leading expert? Jeff, that is about the most foolish
thing that you could say. Fauci is NOT an expert. Sitting
around in hallowed halls of government does NOT make you
an expert. The epidemiologists in the field say the
opposite and that you like some sort of moron deny that
they know anything for the simple reason that they are
interviewed on FOX shows that you are nothing more than
some stupid biased punk.

Your homework, Tom:

!) Find or assemble a CV for Dr. Anthony Fauci. I say that
because you obviously know very, very little about him.

2) Find or assemble a CV for the guy you allude to whom Faux
News managed to dig up.

Analyze and compare those to prove to us that your guy with
his predictable complaints is more qualified than Fauci.

We'll even give bonus points for a little more work:

3) Give us your own CV. Show us why we should listen to your
opinions on epidemiology... and history, genetics, theology,
ballistics, human anatomy, politics, engineering, medicine,
sociology, geology, meteorology, technology, etc. You know -
all the other things about which you, as a high school
dropout, claim to be much smarter than hundreds of trained,
experienced, and recognized experts.


Fauci is probably a successful agency administrator and
political survivor who knows something but surely not
everything. Dr John Ionnidis who's no slouch in the area has
different opinions but gets no media traction:

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news...ge-establishm/

And yet, countries that did institute a lock down, in a timely manner,
have noticeably lower cases and deaths.
(please note the phrase "timely manner")


Italy did and lost many. Japan did not and lost few.
Sweden is not out of line to her neighbors and yet still has some GDP
remaining.

There's no correlation. You can imply one as you will but it's not
clear at all that such relationship exists.

You might like this article from the Financial Times:

https://www.ft.com/content/6b4c784e-...2-648ffde71bf0

They show excess mortality statistics for countries where they are
available, and plot versus infections per million on "lockdown day". In
the absence of a legal lockdown, they use the day when transit usage
fell to 50% of pre-pandemic levels. It's not clear to me how comparable
the "infections per million" figures are, given the wide variation of
testing capabilities over space and time.

They claim to find a correlation between early lockdown and lower excess
deaths, but their points are very widely scattered.

Spain comes off worst in excess mortality, followed by the UK, and then
Italy.

Food for thought:
https://www.ft.com/content/6b4c784e-...2-648ffde71bf0


Regarding testing, I read a report yesterday interviewing
RNs who have tested both positive and negative on different
days, back and forth, for weeks.

I don't know but I'm reasonably certain that any conclusion
based on large population testing is inaccurate.

BTW I'm not disagreeing with you generally, just stopping
short of accepting ratios dependent on current testing.

I have read several news articles stating that some of the testing
does not give accurate results.
https://www.healthline.com/health-ne...u-have-illness
https://abc7.com/covid-19-coronaviru...-core/6112137/
https://www.11alive.com/article/news...4-2297526c0cc0

Yes, as at least one of the articles stated, all lab tests give some
false positives and some false negatives. And interpreting those
results can be mathematically surprising, as the computation known as
Bayes Theorem shows. The less common the disease, the weirder the
math.

Accuracy of the tests is the least of the problem; the big issue is
sampling bias. As far as I can tell, in the US only people that go out
of their way to be tested are -- this is not a random sample at all, and
not representative of the population. There have been a few studies
that tried to sample deliberately, eg on all residents of a Boston
homeless shelter. That one showed a very high number of asymptomatic
cases.


This article has an example:
https://math.hmc.edu/funfacts/medica...bayes-theorem/

But from what I read the U.S. has conducted nearly 17 million tests,
at least 4 times that of any other country except Russia.

Was it all a waste of time and money?
--
cheers,

John B.

On Friday, May 29, 2020 at 9:41:00 AM UTC-7, Jeff Liebermann wrote:
On Fri, 29 May 2020 08:09:39 -0700 (PDT), wrote:

Jeff, surely you're not worried about a $2 item that was long
past its useful life since these things are degraded by UV light
and you ride a lot in the sunshine?

For bicycling, money is no object, even if it's too cheap.

The water bottle has been attached to my Miyata 610, which has spent
the last 15(?) years in my "workshop" in need of repair. Prior to
2005, I did ride it, but not very often:
http://www.learnbydestroying.com/jeffl/pics/bicycles/#Miyata-610.JPG
There may have been some direct sunlight leaking in through a sliding
glass door. If UV deterioration was the problem, I would have
expected the bottle to exhibit asymmetrical damage, mostly on the side
facing the glass door. Instead, it's uniformly brittle. I don't
think UV embitterment is the culprit here.


--
Jeff Liebermann
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

Ozone has the same effect on polyethylene - do you have a washing machine and drier in the same garage or florescent lighting?

On Friday, May 29, 2020 at 10:24:03 AM UTC-7, Jeff Liebermann wrote:
On Fri, 29 May 2020 09:14:08 -0700 (PDT), wrote:

Why would you have the least curiosity about the failure of a
polyethylene container after nearly 20 years of often exposure
to UV?

Perhaps because this is a technical newsgroup, and not a political
forum? I'm told that most important discoveries start with someone
doing something ordinary, noticing that the results were not what was
expected, and often saying "That's odd".

It isn't as if this sort of failure is unusual.

Oddly, I haven't seen it before with HDPE. Usually, the plastic
becomes less flexible and eventually breaks. However, this bottle
crumbled when I touched it, with very little force applied.

Take a like bottle and leave in out on a table in direct sunlight
for one summer and it will do the same thing.

Incidentally, when I used to design marine radios, we would put
samples of the plastic parts on the roof for extended periods and
watch them deteriorate. I was there for 9 years and saw quite a few
failures. Later, I analyzed the type of failure from cross section
cuts, some polish, and a microscope. UV embitterment doesn't go very
deep and really only affects the surface. I haven't looked at the
pieces yet, but at first glance, the damage is all the way through the
plastic. To be fair, most of the plastic I dealt with was ABC or some
kind of styrene derivative, which acts differently from HDPE. Also,
plastics that were either silk screened black or included a graphite
filler to provide UV protection, lasted much longer. So, if you want
your HDPE water bottle to last, buy one that's black.

Drivel: I had an experiment to test the effects of sunlight on a
Teflon tape and a PVC tape covering for antenna and coaxial cable
connectors on my roof for about 20 years. It worked fairly well, but
the experiment was cut short when a tree fell on my experiment:
http://www.learnbydestroying.com/jeffl/pics/Storm-Damage-2011-12-03/

Is the container polyphenol or polyethylene? Polyphenol is hardened with BPA which can continue to harden until the slightest pressure will brake it. Some of these containers are clear while others are colored. Polyethylene are usually clear.

Another way to tell us that polyphenol adds an AUFUL taste to the water when first used that can be excess BPA leaching out of the material. This is not at all good for your health and these bottles should be discarded. Oddly enough, they use this in baby bottles and should never be used. Glass is the way to go.

Usually polyethylene has a fairly clean taste but it also picks up a lot of dirt (plastic dust) in the manufacturing process and should be washed well before using.

On Friday, May 29, 2020 at 4:08:30 PM UTC-7, wrote:
On Friday, May 29, 2020 at 9:41:00 AM UTC-7, Jeff Liebermann wrote:
On Fri, 29 May 2020 08:09:39 -0700 (PDT), wrote:

Jeff, surely you're not worried about a $2 item that was long
past its useful life since these things are degraded by UV light
and you ride a lot in the sunshine?

For bicycling, money is no object, even if it's too cheap.

The water bottle has been attached to my Miyata 610, which has spent
the last 15(?) years in my "workshop" in need of repair. Prior to
2005, I did ride it, but not very often:
http://www.learnbydestroying.com/jeffl/pics/bicycles/#Miyata-610.JPG
There may have been some direct sunlight leaking in through a sliding
glass door. If UV deterioration was the problem, I would have
expected the bottle to exhibit asymmetrical damage, mostly on the side
facing the glass door. Instead, it's uniformly brittle. I don't
think UV embitterment is the culprit here.


--
Jeff Liebermann
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

Ozone has the same effect on polyethylene - do you have a washing machine and drier in the same garage or florescent lighting? Pardon me, I keep getting polyethylene and polyphenol. But today both are in general BPA free. The FDA sort of infers that BPA is bad for your health though they don't come out and say it - it is an artificial hormone that can cause a variety of human problems.

John B. writes:

On Fri, 29 May 2020 12:56:00 -0400, Radey Shouman
wrote:

Frank Krygowski writes:

On 5/28/2020 8:32 PM, John B. wrote:
On Thu, 28 May 2020 15:40:36 -0500, AMuzi wrote:

On 5/28/2020 3:00 PM, Radey Shouman wrote:
AMuzi writes:

On 5/27/2020 7:21 PM, John B. wrote:
On Wed, 27 May 2020 11:42:30 -0500, AMuzi wrote:

On 5/27/2020 11:29 AM, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 5/27/2020 11:42 AM, wrote:
On Tuesday, May 26, 2020 at 7:17:19 PM UTC-7, Jeff
Liebermann wrote:
On Tue, 26 May 2020 15:18:53 -0700 (PDT),
wrote:

On Tuesday, May 26, 2020 at 10:46:36 AM UTC-7, Jeff
Liebermann wrote:
On Tue, 26 May 2020 08:30:38 -0700 (PDT),
wrote:

I have a very low respect for doctors because so few
of them
want to be competent. Top of the list in that category
is Dr. Fauci
of the CDC who has continually acted an expert at
things he knows
very little about.

Dr Fauci has been director of the NIAID (National
Institute of Allergy
and Infectious Diseases) since 1984. He does NOT work
for the CDC.
NIAID is part of the NIH (National Institute of
Health). He's has
been involved with controlling several previous
epidemics, which I
presume qualifies as experience:
https://www.niaid.nih.gov/about/anthony-s-fauci-md-bio
https://www.niaid.nih.gov/about/director
https://www.niaid.nih.gov/about/niaid-history

Can you provide the name of someone in the US who is
better qualified
to discuss pandemics than Dr Fauci?

There is a place for those who sit around, think and
read papers.
I do not deny Fauci that much. But he is not working in
the real world
as many other epidemiologists are and they often
interview them on
FOX and they ALL say what I've been saying. There isn't
much you can
do about a pandemic with a linear growth rate.

I see. You want to be advised on how to protect yourself
from a viral
epidemic by an epidemiologist via Fox News. I don't
think that's what
you intended to say, but that's what you wrote. You also
seem to have
changed your position on Dr Fauci from:

"Dr. Fauci of the CDC(sic) who has continually acted an
expert at things he knows very little about."

to:

"I do not deny Fauci that much."

That's quite a change from calling the leading expert on
infectious
diseases in the US an incompetent, to not denying him
something you
didn't bother to specify. Of course, you're entitled to
have an
opinion about anyone and anything, but I'm also entitled
to discount
your opinion as rubbish. Anyway, kindly stabilize your
opinion about
Dr Fauci. If it's critical, please provide the name of
someone in the
US that is equally or more qualified to advise on how to
handle a
pandemic. Incidentally, I could probably provide some
names in China
that are substantially more qualified and equally
experienced, but
such experts would not be considered as candidates for
advising our
president, who knows more than any or all of them,
Here's one
candidate that might have qualified had he not resigned
for having is
bureau eliminated by the Trump administration:
"A top pandemic expert is leaving the Trump
administration amid the
coronavirus crisis"
https://www.businessinsider.com/top-pandemic-expert-leaving-the-trump-administration-amid-coronavirus-2020-5



No bicycle related content this time. Sorry(tm).

--
Jeff Liebermann
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

The leading expert? Jeff, that is about the most foolish
thing that you could say. Fauci is NOT an expert. Sitting
around in hallowed halls of government does NOT make you
an expert. The epidemiologists in the field say the
opposite and that you like some sort of moron deny that
they know anything for the simple reason that they are
interviewed on FOX shows that you are nothing more than
some stupid biased punk.

Your homework, Tom:

!) Find or assemble a CV for Dr. Anthony Fauci. I say that
because you obviously know very, very little about him.

2) Find or assemble a CV for the guy you allude to whom Faux
News managed to dig up.

Analyze and compare those to prove to us that your guy with
his predictable complaints is more qualified than Fauci.

We'll even give bonus points for a little more work:

3) Give us your own CV. Show us why we should listen to your
opinions on epidemiology... and history, genetics, theology,
ballistics, human anatomy, politics, engineering, medicine,
sociology, geology, meteorology, technology, etc. You know -
all the other things about which you, as a high school
dropout, claim to be much smarter than hundreds of trained,
experienced, and recognized experts.


Fauci is probably a successful agency administrator and
political survivor who knows something but surely not
everything. Dr John Ionnidis who's no slouch in the area has
different opinions but gets no media traction:

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news...ge-establishm/

And yet, countries that did institute a lock down, in a timely manner,
have noticeably lower cases and deaths.
(please note the phrase "timely manner")


Italy did and lost many. Japan did not and lost few.
Sweden is not out of line to her neighbors and yet still has some GDP
remaining.

There's no correlation. You can imply one as you will but it's not
clear at all that such relationship exists.

You might like this article from the Financial Times:

https://www.ft.com/content/6b4c784e-...2-648ffde71bf0

They show excess mortality statistics for countries where they are
available, and plot versus infections per million on "lockdown day". In
the absence of a legal lockdown, they use the day when transit usage
fell to 50% of pre-pandemic levels. It's not clear to me how comparable
the "infections per million" figures are, given the wide variation of
testing capabilities over space and time.

They claim to find a correlation between early lockdown and lower excess
deaths, but their points are very widely scattered.

Spain comes off worst in excess mortality, followed by the UK, and then
Italy.

Food for thought:
https://www.ft.com/content/6b4c784e-...2-648ffde71bf0


Regarding testing, I read a report yesterday interviewing
RNs who have tested both positive and negative on different
days, back and forth, for weeks.

I don't know but I'm reasonably certain that any conclusion
based on large population testing is inaccurate.

BTW I'm not disagreeing with you generally, just stopping
short of accepting ratios dependent on current testing.

I have read several news articles stating that some of the testing
does not give accurate results.
https://www.healthline.com/health-ne...u-have-illness
https://abc7.com/covid-19-coronaviru...-core/6112137/
https://www.11alive.com/article/news...4-2297526c0cc0

Yes, as at least one of the articles stated, all lab tests give some
false positives and some false negatives. And interpreting those
results can be mathematically surprising, as the computation known as
Bayes Theorem shows. The less common the disease, the weirder the
math.

Accuracy of the tests is the least of the problem; the big issue is
sampling bias. As far as I can tell, in the US only people that go out
of their way to be tested are -- this is not a random sample at all, and
not representative of the population. There have been a few studies
that tried to sample deliberately, eg on all residents of a Boston
homeless shelter. That one showed a very high number of asymptomatic
cases.


This article has an example:
https://math.hmc.edu/funfacts/medica...bayes-theorem/

But from what I read the U.S. has conducted nearly 17 million tests,
at least 4 times that of any other country except Russia.

Was it all a waste of time and money?

Depends on what you want to do. If you want a good estimate of the
proportion of the total population that is infected, then yes, mostly a
waste of time and money.

On Fri, 29 May 2020 20:42:32 -0400, Radey Shouman
wrote:

John B. writes:

On Fri, 29 May 2020 12:56:00 -0400, Radey Shouman
wrote:

Frank Krygowski writes:

On 5/28/2020 8:32 PM, John B. wrote:
On Thu, 28 May 2020 15:40:36 -0500, AMuzi wrote:

On 5/28/2020 3:00 PM, Radey Shouman wrote:
AMuzi writes:

On 5/27/2020 7:21 PM, John B. wrote:
On Wed, 27 May 2020 11:42:30 -0500, AMuzi wrote:

On 5/27/2020 11:29 AM, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 5/27/2020 11:42 AM, wrote:
On Tuesday, May 26, 2020 at 7:17:19 PM UTC-7, Jeff
Liebermann wrote:
On Tue, 26 May 2020 15:18:53 -0700 (PDT),
wrote:

On Tuesday, May 26, 2020 at 10:46:36 AM UTC-7, Jeff
Liebermann wrote:
On Tue, 26 May 2020 08:30:38 -0700 (PDT),
wrote:

I have a very low respect for doctors because so few
of them
want to be competent. Top of the list in that category
is Dr. Fauci
of the CDC who has continually acted an expert at
things he knows
very little about.

Dr Fauci has been director of the NIAID (National
Institute of Allergy
and Infectious Diseases) since 1984. He does NOT work
for the CDC.
NIAID is part of the NIH (National Institute of
Health). He's has
been involved with controlling several previous
epidemics, which I
presume qualifies as experience:
https://www.niaid.nih.gov/about/anthony-s-fauci-md-bio
https://www.niaid.nih.gov/about/director
https://www.niaid.nih.gov/about/niaid-history

Can you provide the name of someone in the US who is
better qualified
to discuss pandemics than Dr Fauci?

There is a place for those who sit around, think and
read papers.
I do not deny Fauci that much. But he is not working in
the real world
as many other epidemiologists are and they often
interview them on
FOX and they ALL say what I've been saying. There isn't
much you can
do about a pandemic with a linear growth rate.

I see. You want to be advised on how to protect yourself
from a viral
epidemic by an epidemiologist via Fox News. I don't
think that's what
you intended to say, but that's what you wrote. You also
seem to have
changed your position on Dr Fauci from:

"Dr. Fauci of the CDC(sic) who has continually acted an
expert at things he knows very little about."

to:

"I do not deny Fauci that much."

That's quite a change from calling the leading expert on
infectious
diseases in the US an incompetent, to not denying him
something you
didn't bother to specify. Of course, you're entitled to
have an
opinion about anyone and anything, but I'm also entitled
to discount
your opinion as rubbish. Anyway, kindly stabilize your
opinion about
Dr Fauci. If it's critical, please provide the name of
someone in the
US that is equally or more qualified to advise on how to
handle a
pandemic. Incidentally, I could probably provide some
names in China
that are substantially more qualified and equally
experienced, but
such experts would not be considered as candidates for
advising our
president, who knows more than any or all of them,
Here's one
candidate that might have qualified had he not resigned
for having is
bureau eliminated by the Trump administration:
"A top pandemic expert is leaving the Trump
administration amid the
coronavirus crisis"
https://www.businessinsider.com/top-pandemic-expert-leaving-the-trump-administration-amid-coronavirus-2020-5



No bicycle related content this time. Sorry(tm).

--
Jeff Liebermann
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

The leading expert? Jeff, that is about the most foolish
thing that you could say. Fauci is NOT an expert. Sitting
around in hallowed halls of government does NOT make you
an expert. The epidemiologists in the field say the
opposite and that you like some sort of moron deny that
they know anything for the simple reason that they are
interviewed on FOX shows that you are nothing more than
some stupid biased punk.

Your homework, Tom:

!) Find or assemble a CV for Dr. Anthony Fauci. I say that
because you obviously know very, very little about him.

2) Find or assemble a CV for the guy you allude to whom Faux
News managed to dig up.

Analyze and compare those to prove to us that your guy with
his predictable complaints is more qualified than Fauci.

We'll even give bonus points for a little more work:

3) Give us your own CV. Show us why we should listen to your
opinions on epidemiology... and history, genetics, theology,
ballistics, human anatomy, politics, engineering, medicine,
sociology, geology, meteorology, technology, etc. You know -
all the other things about which you, as a high school
dropout, claim to be much smarter than hundreds of trained,
experienced, and recognized experts.


Fauci is probably a successful agency administrator and
political survivor who knows something but surely not
everything. Dr John Ionnidis who's no slouch in the area has
different opinions but gets no media traction:

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news...ge-establishm/

And yet, countries that did institute a lock down, in a timely manner,
have noticeably lower cases and deaths.
(please note the phrase "timely manner")


Italy did and lost many. Japan did not and lost few.
Sweden is not out of line to her neighbors and yet still has some GDP
remaining.

There's no correlation. You can imply one as you will but it's not
clear at all that such relationship exists.

You might like this article from the Financial Times:

https://www.ft.com/content/6b4c784e-...2-648ffde71bf0

They show excess mortality statistics for countries where they are
available, and plot versus infections per million on "lockdown day". In
the absence of a legal lockdown, they use the day when transit usage
fell to 50% of pre-pandemic levels. It's not clear to me how comparable
the "infections per million" figures are, given the wide variation of
testing capabilities over space and time.

They claim to find a correlation between early lockdown and lower excess
deaths, but their points are very widely scattered.

Spain comes off worst in excess mortality, followed by the UK, and then
Italy.

Food for thought:
https://www.ft.com/content/6b4c784e-...2-648ffde71bf0


Regarding testing, I read a report yesterday interviewing
RNs who have tested both positive and negative on different
days, back and forth, for weeks.

I don't know but I'm reasonably certain that any conclusion
based on large population testing is inaccurate.

BTW I'm not disagreeing with you generally, just stopping
short of accepting ratios dependent on current testing.

I have read several news articles stating that some of the testing
does not give accurate results.
https://www.healthline.com/health-ne...u-have-illness
https://abc7.com/covid-19-coronaviru...-core/6112137/
https://www.11alive.com/article/news...4-2297526c0cc0

Yes, as at least one of the articles stated, all lab tests give some
false positives and some false negatives. And interpreting those
results can be mathematically surprising, as the computation known as
Bayes Theorem shows. The less common the disease, the weirder the
math.

Accuracy of the tests is the least of the problem; the big issue is
sampling bias. As far as I can tell, in the US only people that go out
of their way to be tested are -- this is not a random sample at all, and
not representative of the population. There have been a few studies
that tried to sample deliberately, eg on all residents of a Boston
homeless shelter. That one showed a very high number of asymptomatic
cases.


This article has an example:
https://math.hmc.edu/funfacts/medica...bayes-theorem/

But from what I read the U.S. has conducted nearly 17 million tests,
at least 4 times that of any other country except Russia.

Was it all a waste of time and money?

Depends on what you want to do. If you want a good estimate of the
proportion of the total population that is infected, then yes, mostly a
waste of time and money.

Oh! and I thought that the U.S. was, well, bragging about all the
tests. More than any other country in the world.

Here (Thailand) they will only test those who exhibit some symptoms of
the disease. Elevated temperature usually.
--
cheers,

John B.

On 5/29/2020 3:56 PM, John B. wrote:

snip

But from what I read the U.S. has conducted nearly 17 million tests,
at least 4 times that of any other country except Russia.

But per capita the U.S. is way behind.

Nothing funny about Covid-19 but the lies by Trump are still interesting
to see.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-52493073

On Fri, 29 May 2020 20:42:32 -0400, Radey Shouman wrote:

John B. writes:


But from what I read the U.S. has conducted nearly 17 million tests,
at least 4 times that of any other country except Russia.

Was it all a waste of time and money?

Depends on what you want to do. If you want a good estimate of the
proportion of the total population that is infected, then yes, mostly a
waste of time and money.

Sampling sewerage seems the way to go, if you want 7 days notice of an
cases arising.

No link as "sampling sewerage fr covid-19 in a web search turns up a pile
of links.

John B. writes:

On Fri, 29 May 2020 20:42:32 -0400, Radey Shouman
wrote:

John B. writes:

On Fri, 29 May 2020 12:56:00 -0400, Radey Shouman
wrote:

Frank Krygowski writes:

On 5/28/2020 8:32 PM, John B. wrote:
On Thu, 28 May 2020 15:40:36 -0500, AMuzi wrote:

On 5/28/2020 3:00 PM, Radey Shouman wrote:
AMuzi writes:

On 5/27/2020 7:21 PM, John B. wrote:
On Wed, 27 May 2020 11:42:30 -0500, AMuzi wrote:

On 5/27/2020 11:29 AM, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 5/27/2020 11:42 AM, wrote:
On Tuesday, May 26, 2020 at 7:17:19 PM UTC-7, Jeff
Liebermann wrote:
On Tue, 26 May 2020 15:18:53 -0700 (PDT),
wrote:

On Tuesday, May 26, 2020 at 10:46:36 AM UTC-7, Jeff
Liebermann wrote:
On Tue, 26 May 2020 08:30:38 -0700 (PDT),
wrote:

I have a very low respect for doctors because so few
of them
want to be competent. Top of the list in that category
is Dr. Fauci
of the CDC who has continually acted an expert at
things he knows
very little about.

Dr Fauci has been director of the NIAID (National
Institute of Allergy
and Infectious Diseases) since 1984. He does NOT work
for the CDC.
NIAID is part of the NIH (National Institute of
Health). He's has
been involved with controlling several previous
epidemics, which I
presume qualifies as experience:
https://www.niaid.nih.gov/about/anthony-s-fauci-md-bio
https://www.niaid.nih.gov/about/director
https://www.niaid.nih.gov/about/niaid-history

Can you provide the name of someone in the US who is
better qualified
to discuss pandemics than Dr Fauci?

There is a place for those who sit around, think and
read papers.
I do not deny Fauci that much. But he is not working in
the real world
as many other epidemiologists are and they often
interview them on
FOX and they ALL say what I've been saying. There isn't
much you can
do about a pandemic with a linear growth rate.

I see. You want to be advised on how to protect yourself
from a viral
epidemic by an epidemiologist via Fox News. I don't
think that's what
you intended to say, but that's what you wrote. You also
seem to have
changed your position on Dr Fauci from:

"Dr. Fauci of the CDC(sic) who has continually acted an
expert at things he knows very little about."

to:

"I do not deny Fauci that much."

That's quite a change from calling the leading expert on
infectious
diseases in the US an incompetent, to not denying him
something you
didn't bother to specify. Of course, you're entitled to
have an
opinion about anyone and anything, but I'm also entitled
to discount
your opinion as rubbish. Anyway, kindly stabilize your
opinion about
Dr Fauci. If it's critical, please provide the name of
someone in the
US that is equally or more qualified to advise on how to
handle a
pandemic. Incidentally, I could probably provide some
names in China
that are substantially more qualified and equally
experienced, but
such experts would not be considered as candidates for
advising our
president, who knows more than any or all of them,
Here's one
candidate that might have qualified had he not resigned
for having is
bureau eliminated by the Trump administration:
"A top pandemic expert is leaving the Trump
administration amid the
coronavirus crisis"
https://www.businessinsider.com/top-pandemic-expert-leaving-the-trump-administration-amid-coronavirus-2020-5



No bicycle related content this time. Sorry(tm).

--
Jeff Liebermann
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

The leading expert? Jeff, that is about the most foolish
thing that you could say. Fauci is NOT an expert. Sitting
around in hallowed halls of government does NOT make you
an expert. The epidemiologists in the field say the
opposite and that you like some sort of moron deny that
they know anything for the simple reason that they are
interviewed on FOX shows that you are nothing more than
some stupid biased punk.

Your homework, Tom:

!) Find or assemble a CV for Dr. Anthony Fauci. I say that
because you obviously know very, very little about him.

2) Find or assemble a CV for the guy you allude to whom Faux
News managed to dig up.

Analyze and compare those to prove to us that your guy with
his predictable complaints is more qualified than Fauci.

We'll even give bonus points for a little more work:

3) Give us your own CV. Show us why we should listen to your
opinions on epidemiology... and history, genetics, theology,
ballistics, human anatomy, politics, engineering, medicine,
sociology, geology, meteorology, technology, etc. You know -
all the other things about which you, as a high school
dropout, claim to be much smarter than hundreds of trained,
experienced, and recognized experts.


Fauci is probably a successful agency administrator and
political survivor who knows something but surely not
everything. Dr John Ionnidis who's no slouch in the area has
different opinions but gets no media traction:

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news...ge-establishm/

And yet, countries that did institute a lock down, in a timely manner,
have noticeably lower cases and deaths.
(please note the phrase "timely manner")


Italy did and lost many. Japan did not and lost few.
Sweden is not out of line to her neighbors and yet still has some GDP
remaining.

There's no correlation. You can imply one as you will but it's not
clear at all that such relationship exists.

You might like this article from the Financial Times:

https://www.ft.com/content/6b4c784e-...2-648ffde71bf0

They show excess mortality statistics for countries where they are
available, and plot versus infections per million on "lockdown day". In
the absence of a legal lockdown, they use the day when transit usage
fell to 50% of pre-pandemic levels. It's not clear to me how comparable
the "infections per million" figures are, given the wide variation of
testing capabilities over space and time.

They claim to find a correlation between early lockdown and lower excess
deaths, but their points are very widely scattered.

Spain comes off worst in excess mortality, followed by the UK, and then
Italy.

Food for thought:
https://www.ft.com/content/6b4c784e-...2-648ffde71bf0


Regarding testing, I read a report yesterday interviewing
RNs who have tested both positive and negative on different
days, back and forth, for weeks.

I don't know but I'm reasonably certain that any conclusion
based on large population testing is inaccurate.

BTW I'm not disagreeing with you generally, just stopping
short of accepting ratios dependent on current testing.

I have read several news articles stating that some of the testing
does not give accurate results.
https://www.healthline.com/health-ne...u-have-illness
https://abc7.com/covid-19-coronaviru...-core/6112137/
https://www.11alive.com/article/news...4-2297526c0cc0

Yes, as at least one of the articles stated, all lab tests give some
false positives and some false negatives. And interpreting those
results can be mathematically surprising, as the computation known as
Bayes Theorem shows. The less common the disease, the weirder the
math.

Accuracy of the tests is the least of the problem; the big issue is
sampling bias. As far as I can tell, in the US only people that go out
of their way to be tested are -- this is not a random sample at all, and
not representative of the population. There have been a few studies
that tried to sample deliberately, eg on all residents of a Boston
homeless shelter. That one showed a very high number of asymptomatic
cases.


This article has an example:
https://math.hmc.edu/funfacts/medica...bayes-theorem/

But from what I read the U.S. has conducted nearly 17 million tests,
at least 4 times that of any other country except Russia.

Was it all a waste of time and money?

Depends on what you want to do. If you want a good estimate of the
proportion of the total population that is infected, then yes, mostly a
waste of time and money.

Oh! and I thought that the U.S. was, well, bragging about all the
tests. More than any other country in the world.

Here (Thailand) they will only test those who exhibit some symptoms of
the disease. Elevated temperature usually.

In either Thailand or the US estimating the total number of cases is not
the first object of testing.

news18 writes:

On Fri, 29 May 2020 20:42:32 -0400, Radey Shouman wrote:

John B. writes:


But from what I read the U.S. has conducted nearly 17 million tests,
at least 4 times that of any other country except Russia.

Was it all a waste of time and money?

Depends on what you want to do. If you want a good estimate of the
proportion of the total population that is infected, then yes, mostly a
waste of time and money.

Sampling sewerage seems the way to go, if you want 7 days notice of an
cases arising.

No link as "sampling sewerage fr covid-19 in a web search turns up a pile
of links.

And a fine idea it is. But it doesn't involve an invasion of privacy,
so probably will get no traction.