I Just Realized That Our Governor Isn't Moving the Goalposts...

...he's just playing a version of Calvinball (I have to believe that that name is either Trademarked, Copyrighted, or both, but I couldn't find it.  In any case kudos to Bill Watterson for being able to foretell our future over 20 years ago!).

Wikipedia (here) has two quotes describing Calvinball, which perfectly describe our Goober and his actions.

The only consistent rules of the game are that Calvinball may never be played with the same rules twice and that each participant must wear a mask. 

and 

It's pretty simple: you make up the rules as you go.

If those aren't enough to convince you, here are two links to online images of Calvin and Hobbes comic strips offered as proof: Link 1, and Link 2.  

See it is like this, I was thinking about why the Goober keeps changing the rules.  My first thought was that he's doing it because 1) he knows that it is all bull s**t but it makes it look like he's doing something, 2) by changing it regularly we all are confused for a few days to reduce the backlash, and 3) by the time any lawsuits get to be actually heard and ruled on, he's made it all moot by saying those rules don't matter anymore... but then I realized that all that was ascribing way too much cleverness and deep thought to our Goober and it is really just that he's playing Gavinball^†.  Anyways, henceforth I shall refer to our Goober as playing Gavinball^†. With that now out of the way here are the latest changes to the game. 

First, yes cases are rising through out CA and only slightly less so here in San Diego.  Taking action to reduce interactions (and hopefully the spread of the disease) makes sense.  So what to do?  Well, new rule number 1:  California is now divided into 5 Zones.   Are the Zones divided up such that the population within the Zones is reasonably consistent?  Not at all.  For example Los Angeles County, San Diego County, Orange County, Riverside County, and San Bernardino (the five most populated counties in the state) are all in the same Zone.  But even that wasn't enough for the Goober, he continued and added 6 more counties to Zone 5.  The final population total for the Zone is 22,993,074 of the CA total of 39,502,223 (or 58% of the entire state!).  One poor county that got lumped in with LA is tiny Mono County.  For those of you who don't know, let me say that Mono county is up north against the Nevada stateline, on the other side of the Sierra Nevada Mountains.  The county has a total population of 14,444 (that's 1/700th of LA county).  It's population is round-off error in LA.  It is also a 5 hour drive from LA City Hall to Lee Vining.  I drove through Lee Vining once (in the summer time).  If you go left off US 395 (northbound) on to CA 120 (westbound) you go up to 9,943 feet where you enter Yosemite National Park's East entrance.  It's closed most years from late October to late May due to snow.  How'd you like to live there and get all your stuff closed because LA has a problem?  For now at least the Goober isn't doing everything by the Zones.  For example, yesterday a wildfire broke out in Ventura County - also Zone 5.  At least he didn't make San Diego County under go evacuation (although when my phone got an emergency alert in the middle day I had a brief thought that he was, turned out to be a notice about the CoViD lockdown that happened more than 24 hours earlier).  Seriously, given that the Zones are crazy, how did the Goober decide how to divide up the state?  Turns out that the Goober decided to divide the counties so that each Zone had about the same number of counties in them.  Sure.  Why not? It is Gavinball^† after all.

So what are some other new rules?  New rule number 2:  All restaurants, gyms, barbershops, and beauty salons must close.  This includes the outdoor seating and outside exercise areas despite the facts that the businesses spent some hefty change setting those up to comply with the previous set of rules and that no one has any data suggesting these are significant sources of spread.  Oh Well.  It's Gavinball^†!  New rule number 3: If your kid's school is already doing in person teaching, they can continue, but if they are not doing in person teaching they can't switch to in person.  Surprise!  The Goober's kids go to a private school doing in person teaching.  New rule number 4: Retail is limited to 20% of capacity.  But wait! It's Gavinball^†! New rule number 4 gets replaced by new rule number C after 24 hours: Retail is now limited to 35% (apparently CoViD just got less contagious in that 24 hours).  New rule number 5: Playgrounds are now closed.  Gavinball^†! After 72 hours CoViD just got less contagious again and new rule number 5 gets replaced by new rule number D: Playgrounds are open again.  New rule number 6: Although restaurants, gyms, hotels, and etc. are closed, ski resorts are not.  Wanna bet on what our Goober likes to do when he's not going to the French Laundry for an indoor dinner with 22 people for a lobbyists birthday?

An update on another topic I've opined about

Since we are all so worried about anyone dying here are two points to ponder, one serious, and one not so much.  The CDC has updated their weekly deaths by age through about November 18 (I suspect that the last week is pretty incomplete, but I included it anyways).  The total number of excess deaths for 2020 (that is the total deaths for 2020 minus the average totals for the same time periods for the years 2015 - 2019) works out to 388,323.  The reported CoViD deaths through November 18 was 249,670.   That means there are 138,653 excess excess deaths (i.e., deaths not due to the CoViD-19 disease, but still in excess of a 'usual' year).  I strongly believe that these deaths are due to the actions of our, and I use this word loosely, leaders.  Yet, these leaders continue to ignore these deaths.  Will the closures of our latest round of Gavinball^† (technically the re-re-closures) exacerbate these excess excess deaths?  I fear so.  For the not so serious point see this Babylon Bee article.  I wish they wouldn't give him any ideas...

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† - I should trademark/copyright this, but I'm too lazy and cheap.

And Our Goober Extends His Hand To Destroy San Diego County... For No Reason

 

The inevitable happened today and our Goober has made San Diego County 'purple'.  This means he has announced the re-re-re-closing of many of our business, most especially indoor seating for restaurants.  And why did he do that?  Because our adjusted CASE rate is above 7.0 for the second consecutive week.

I have ranted ad nauseum about how crazy this is.  So this time, no rant just SCIENCE.  Also an apology for the quality (or lack thereof) for the resolution of the plots.

Below you can find the plots of daily reported positive tests (total cases), daily hospitalization, daily ICU admissions, daily reported deaths, and daily reported tests for the time periods April 7 to November 7.  Each are shown as weekly running averages to reduce the noise.  The plots for Hospitalizations, ICU admissions and tests are included mostly for completeness sake.  I've also shown the weekly running average of the daily reported positive case numbers for the age groups 0 to 30 and 70 and up, but only for the time period June 9 to November 7 (as I don't have the age breakdown of cases prior to June 9). 

I now invite you to compare the shape of the deaths to that of the total cases.  Are they the same?  Should we be using cases as our warning bell for increasing deaths?  Now compare the deaths to the cases for those 70 and older.  Do they seem to match?  Is this what we should be worrying about?  It is also interesting to compare the shapes of the total cases and the cases for those 0 to 30 (and I note that since the beginning of the outbreak the total deaths in San Diego county for those aged 0 to 30 is four).

So I ask you dear reader, if our goal is to reduce deaths (a noble and reasonable goal), should we be worried about total cases?  Or is there a clearly superior alternate?  And if so, how should that impact our actions?  Should we be closing down our restaurants?  Should we be very concerned with protecting the elderly?  Is there anything here we didn't know MONTHS ago (see my post of April 19)?

Plot of cases for those age groups 0 to 30 (blue) and 70 and up (red).

Plot of total cases over time.

Plot of deaths over time.

Plot of Hospitalizations over time.

Plot of ICU admissions over time.

Plot of tests over time.

Goober Nuisance and Burgermeister Meisterburger, Separated at Birth?

Today our Goober published the latest of his Burgermeister rules, in this case those pertaining to Holiday Gatherings.  Just like his predecessor Burgermeister Meisterburger (see the historical documentary Santa Claus is Comin to Town), Burgermeister Goober Nuisance has promulgated his latest stupidity.  In this case his "mandatory guidance for private gatherings during the Holiday season" (or as local TV station KUSI calls it on their website: California releases crazy mandatory guidance for private gatherings this Holiday season).

They really are crazy.  Here are my nominees for his top (bottom?) ten rules:

#10: Gatherings that include more than 3 households are prohibited. This includes everyone present, including hosts and guests.  

#9: A gathering of no more than three households is permitted in a public park or other outdoor space, even if unrelated gatherings of other groups up to three households are also occurring in the same park or other outdoor space.  If multiple such gatherings are occurring, mixing between group gatherings is not allowed.

#8: The host should collect names of all attendees and contact information in case contact tracing is needed later.

#7: All gatherings must be held outside. 

#6: Attendees may go inside to use restrooms as long as the restrooms are frequently sanitized.

#5: Seating must provide at least 6 feet of distance (in all directions—front-to-back and side-to-side) between different households.

#4: People at gatherings may remove their face coverings briefly to eat or drink as long as they stay at least 6 feet away from everyone outside their own household, and put their face covering back on as soon as they are done with the activity.

#3: Gatherings should be two hours or less.

#2: As much as possible, any food or beverages at outdoor gatherings must be in single-serve disposable containers.

And 

#1: singing, chanting, and shouting are strongly discouraged, but if they occur, People who are singing or chanting are strongly encouraged to do so quietly (at or below the volume of a normal speaking voice).

Mrs Ohioan and I were talking about these and she said it all reminded her of the Burgermeister Meisterburger rules in the aforementioned story.  First Burgermeister Meisterburger outlaws toys, then the children of Sombertown are given toys by Kris Kringle, then we see him...

Burgermeister: Ah, a perfect day.  Everybody is glum.  Ah, see? All the little children are playing with their toys. [Sputters] Playing with their toys?! Stop... in the name of the law! You brats are under arrest! Take them away.

That's our Goober.  I wish I could say that's a parody of our Goober, but read the rules.  He IS the Burgermeister Meisterburger come to life. But he should be careful.  Remember how the story ends...

They kind of died off and fell out of power. And by and by, the good people realized how silly the Meisterburger laws were.  Well, everybody had a wonderful laugh and then forgot all about them.

That is the hoped for future here in California.  The day our Goober is long forgotten and we can laugh about it. 

This is the Ultimate Proof That Our Goober is a Lying Liar

I've always suggested that our Goober is a liar (since he's a politician, and a San Francisco politician on top of that, it's hardly a surprise that he would be).  Yesterday I added that he's unscientific as well.  The ultimate proof of these claims came late yesterday.

Yesterday San Diego County released our weekly Tuesday update to our case rate per 100,000 as 7.9.  Then the state did their voodoo and reported our county's adjusted case rate per 100,000 as 7.1.  Now I can't say exactly how they do that voodoo (see my previous explanation/rant here), but I can say that I can not figure it out and I'm really pretty good at simple (even not-so-simple) math.  

Well yesterday our lying liar of a Goober topped himself.  Seems that even they can't compute it 'right'.  Why do I claim this?  Because I looked up the data from the state CoViD website (go to here, then scroll to the bottom and click on San Diego county on the map).  But you won't see the 7.1 for San Diego County I saw yesterday at about 2 PM.  Nope.  Late yesterday they 'recalculated' the number and now it's 7.0.  That leaves San Diego in the 'red' tier instead of taking our first step towards the 'purple' tier.

I assume they have some spreadsheet somewhere where they just put the raw numbers in and it automatically updates the final adjusted numbers (that's sure what I would do).  Seriously, are they really trying to tell us that they are unable to calculate the adjustment?  But they want us to believe that we should base our entire economy on it?  I think the phrase is "C'mon man".  Well I for one don't believe it.  I believe that Goober Nuisance had them adjust the adjustment to get us back to red, because he knows that San Diego County has become a hot bed for flat out defiance (and the law suits that would accompany it).  This he does not want to face.

As a complete aside, but worth noting the state website, in a moment of biblical irony, has been named as "The Blueprint for a Safer Economy".  Speechless.  I'm simply freaking speechless.  

One other mildly terrifying thing worth noting. If you go the state website and click on San Diego County you might also not that below the adjusted adjusted case rate per 100,000, they report not only San Diego's positivity rate of 3.3%, but they also report "Health equity quartile positivity rate" of 5.5%.  This I had never heard of.  Guess what, there are tier implications of this number too!  They are sufficiently byzantine that I won't even try to explain it here, just go the website and read it for yourself.  I'm sure our oh-so-woke Goober is using this as a tool to force additional SJW actions on our state.  Heck the website says 

"The purpose of this metric is to ensure California reopens its economy safely by reducing disease transmission in all communities."

Seems clear to me that it will be just another way to keep strangling the economy.

Oh, and speaking of strangling the economy, yesterday the Goober finally announced how we go about opening all the theme parks and attractions that Southern California is known for (Disneyland, California Adventure, Knotts Berry Farm, Universal Studios Hollywood, Sea World, Lego Land, bus/tram rides at the San Diego Zoo/Safari Park, etc., etc., etc.).  It's easy.  All we have to do is get to the yellow tier, which is completely impossible for just about any realistic future in a county the size of San Diego (or Orange, or LA, or really any county with a theme park) without a vaccine.  But once we do those parks can all open at 25% capacity.  Yay!  25% capacity!  Any bets on how long it will take for those parks to 1) layoff every employee, and 2) file for Chapter 11 (or equivalent)? I want before the end of 2020 in the pool.

Some Thoughts On the CoViD-19 Situation and the Associated Science

Item 1: A Fairly Useless Study From the CDC

A recent scholarly article was pointed out to me (Thanks KT!) in which a small (but reasonably random) sample of people were observed to determine what kinds of activities, if any, correlated with increased likelihood of contracting CoViD-19, all cases and studies done over the period June 1 - June 29).  To cut to the rather dull chase, of the 10 activities studied, only going to a restaurant had a clearly higher correlation to disease contraction.  I would point out that given the time frame of the study and the known likely correlation between going to a restaurant and participating in the protests/riots (which was NOT included as an activity in the study), it remains impossible to directly claim that restaurants are an actual source of spread, but I would still accept their conclusion that

Exposures and activities where mask use and social distancing are difficult to maintain, including going to locations that offer on-site eating and drinking, might be important risk factors for SARS-CoV-2 infection. Implementing safe practices to reduce exposures to SARS-CoV-2 during on-site eating and drinking should be considered to protect customers, employees, and communities

If, as you read that, you uttered a silent "Well, Duh!", you are not alone.

Item 2: Our Goober Remains an Unscientific Petty Tyrant  

First, I will simply update the ongoing shut-out as now being Goober Nuisance: 0, Me: 15 (data at bottom of post).  That's the short way of saying that despite the ups and downs of the various actual and 'adjusted' (i.e., imaginary) case rates and the test positivity rates, there is simply no increase in deaths, here in San Diego County.  Note that nonetheless today our Case Rate number was declared as 7.1, so we are now over the number-of-doom (7.0) for a first week, and if we get assigned another number-of-doom above 7.0 next Tuesday, they will, at least attempt to, re-re-close San Diego County (although it is clear that there will be lawsuits and many peaceful protests in the guise of businesses and citizens - NOT subjects - defying the tyrant - it may well be the impetus for me to actually go to a restaurant for other than take-out).

Second, I recently realized that there is a crazy mismatch between the two metrics our Goober is using.  First a quick review to establish context.  The "Tier" a county ends up being assigned to is determined by where their metrics for "ADJUSTED Case Rate per 100,000" and "Testing Positivity Percentage" fall.  Each metrics establishes a Tier, and the overall Tier is the lower (worse) of the two.  Now I had originally thought that the two would be constructed so that each would produce a number such that, in general, they should put a county into the same Tier.  In fact San Diego County has been in the very top end of the Tier 2 numbers (flirting with Tier 1) for at least the last 5 weeks.  Meanwhile our positivity rate has been declining fairly steadily (with noise of course, but the trend is there) and is now down to 3.3%, making it below the mid-point of Tier 3.  (Note that number is the one reported for SDC by the state - the county numbers (which are a 14 day average) have been below 3.15 for every one of the last 21 consecutive days, so don't ask me how they calculate it).  I decided to look up the metrics for each and every county as reported by the state.  I can safely say that while there are 12 counties in the state's most restrictive Tier 1, there is not a single county that is in Tier 1 for the positivity rate.  Also, I see our Goober still has yet to allow anyone to be in the non-existent Green Tier 5, this despite the fact that two of the counties have case rates and positivity rates of zero (yes, 0).

Oh, and if you still might think our Goober is scientific, be sure to read Items 3 and 4, below.

Item 3: The Ignored 86,000 Has Become the Ignored 115,000

A quick recap of my post of Sept 20: The CDC has a webpage that currently reports the number of deaths, by age and week, for each week from week 1 of 2015 through week 42 of 2020 (approximately Oct 6), although as of my post of Sep 20, the data was only through about Aug 11.  Starting on week 13 (last week of March) and through Aug 11, there were 251,257 more deaths in 2020 than for the average of those weeks during 2015-2019, but the total of the CoViD deaths during that time was only 165,148, meaning that there 86,000 unaccounted for deaths.  Now with the data available through Oct 6, there are almost 115,000 more unaccounted for deaths (325,230 total - 210,232 CoViD = 114,998 unaccounted for).

I really don't understand it.  How can that many more deaths occur, and no one ask why?  Well, other than me, apparently.  Again, I just don't get it.

Item 4: The Great Barrington Declaration

Following a recent conference (in Great Barrington, MA - hence the name), the assembled infectious disease epidemiologists and public health scientists released this declaration. I will not summarize it.  You should read it for yourself (it isn't long).  This is one of those things that the MSM has simply ignored (except to quote others dismissing it as 'a dangerous fallacy').  It is something that everyone should read, and consider carefully (particularly in the context of Item 3 above) before they simply decide that we need to continue our current use of the blunt hammer of 'lockdowns' to try to control CoViD spread, while ignoring all other considerations.

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Table 1.  Predictions and results for San Diego COunty CoViD-19 deaths through last week (week ending  10/17/2020) and my prediction for this week.

Week Ending	Prediction	Observed
7/04/2020	54	27
7/11/2020	49	35
7/18/2020	61	56
7/25/2020	51	55
8/01/2020	53	32
8/08/2020	44	29
8/15/2020	45	32
8/22/2020	31	34
8/29/2020	34	22
9/05/2020	32	25
9/12/2020	33	27
9/19/2020	29	26
9/26/2020	31	16
10/3/2020	29	27
10/10/2020	33	23
10/17/2020	34	27
10/24/2020	27	??

There is Always Something New, at the Zoo

Shortly after moving to San Diego, Mrs Ohioan and I joined, have remained, members of the San Diego Zoological Society.  We've gone to the 'World Famous San Diego Zoo' (and the Safari Park) more times than we can count.  First we went there with our kids.  Then just the two of us.  Now its back to with the kids, but with the bonus of going and with their kids, too.  I can't tell you how often we've turned to each other at the Zoo and said, "I've never seen THAT before.  Well, there's always something new to see at the Zoo."  Today was no exception, except that it wasn't so much something new to see, as it was something new to hear.

Enjoy. 

Llamas vocalizing

The Ignored 86,000 - RIP

It would be an understatement to say that I've been watching the CoViD-19 case and death data, it's more like obsessing over it.  But this past Friday (in order to write a comment over on KT's blog), I actually did a quick analysis of then current CDC data for 'excess deaths' during the CoViD-19 epidemic.   To be blunt I was shocked to find out the excess deaths added up to 251,257 (for the time period March 25 - August 11).  I was shocked because the total deaths attributed to CoViD-19 (again by CDC) on the last day covered by that data was only 165,148 [NOTE: I actually quoted 201,000 over on KT's blog, but I had not taken into account that the excess death data wasn't through September 16, but more than 5 weeks sooner on Aug 11!].  That's why I'm saying that there are over 86,000 excess deaths that are unaccounted for.  That my friends is more than 34% of the total excess.

What has caused all these deaths, and why is no one talking about them?

In my comment I suggested that the causes might be 

"the unintended consequence of the lockdowns/economic strangulation (suicide, domestic abuse, or maybe even people not being able/willing to get proper medical care for other conditions jump to my mind as possibilities)."

So over the last couple of days I have searched obsessively for any data to try to figure out if any or all of these causes might explain such a large number of deaths.  Let's take them one at a time.

For suicides the latest data I could find on the CDC site was through 2017 (worthless!).  I did manage to find a couple of data points.  In an online article they state that

"The spike in suicides in Cook County is especially pronounced in the Black community, which has already seen 58 suicides this year, according to the medical examiner’s office. That outpaces 56 from all of 2019 and 33 during the same time period last year."

 and

"In June, Fresno reported 17 suicide deaths in one month, the highest number in almost three years and up from 10 in June 2019."

Those work out to 'excesses'  of 75% and 70%, respectively.  Of course they are ridiculously small to be used for any kind of extrapolation, but if we do, we'd expect a rise of something like 0.75*47,000*0.5 (the 47,000 is suicides last year, and the 0.5 is to account for the data only covering about a half year), which works out to about 17,600.  While that's a big number, it would only explain about 20% of the excess deaths.

For domestic abuse I could not find any hard numbers of fatalities.  There have been numbers for increases in things like calls reporting domestic abuse, inquiries to safe homes, and the like that range from 20% to 50%, with a almost unbelievable 150% rise in "visits to the refuge website" (see here).  Although these are despicable results, it turns out that the estimate of annual deaths is only 1,000 - 1,600.  So unless the numbers have grown far more than any reasonable estimate this simply can't account for more than 3,000 'excess' deaths.

Trying to assign a number of current deaths from the third possible cause, deferred medical care, is hopeless.  There was a nice study in the Lancet which attempted to figure out haw many people would die prematurely over the next five years and the total years of life lost (YLL) would be in England.  The data are distressing to say the least.  Bottom line, they think that a good estimate of total YLL is about 60,000.  That's for England (population 56 million).  We can (completely without justification) say that projects to 350 million years of life lost here in the US.

So it is currently impossible for me to explain the 86,000 excess deaths reported by the CDC which are over and above the CoViD-19 excess deaths.  Nonetheless I do believe that there truly are nearly 86,000 people who have died in the US, who should not have died, and whose deaths must be attributed to the pernicious unintended consequence of the lockdowns.  Further, the lockdowns have been held on so long (in blue states), that truly long lasting economic consequences are going to cause these unintended consequences to last far beyond whenever the lockdowns finally end (if they end?).  

It is my belief that the 'cure' has become worse than the disease, and that the time is past to end the lockdowns.

The Democrats Won't Be Happy Until All Private Enterprise Is Destroyed

I know that title seems like a rather inflammatory and extreme position to take, but I can't figure out how else to explain what is currently going on here in the "Golden State".  I've made my case that the Goober wants our economy destroyed by CoViD-19 repeatedly (actually one could quite reasonably say I've made this point to excess).  But that is hardly the only anti-business action taken recently.

Many of you will have heard about the Union backed anti-business new law, generally referred to as AB5.  That bill originally made it impossible for anyone but doctors and lawyers to generally be an independent contractor, unless you are also registered as a "business".  This of course would require that the business also hold a CA Business License (and of course pay the state annually for that right).  The point of it wasn't to make people become independent business, but rather to make it impossible for businesses like Uber and Lyft to "exploit" their drivers (or so they claimed).  This was based on the (faulty) assumption that the drivers want to be full time employees, when in fact most of the drivers just want to have a small side-hustle to make a few extra bucks.  In truth it was clearly intended to make it possible to Unionize the drivers (and then, of course, get those kick-backs campaign contributions).  So far the app-based companies have gotten an injunction to stop enforcement of this, but it ends on Oct 1.  They've also put a proposition (#22) on the ballot to make the law not apply to these companies.  In the meantime, the legislature has passed all sorts of extra 'exceptions' to the law (like musicians, party planners, etc., etc., etc.), but not the app-based companies in what is clear admission that they have no intention to ever give them a break, but want to reduce the support for the Proposition.  So here's my prediction: Uber and Lyft will cease operations in CA as of Oct 1.  This will be done to bring home to many Californians the realities of the issue.  Nonetheless the sheepeople (Democrat voters) will kill the Proposition, Uber and Lyft will never come back to CA (and lots of other app-based services will stay away), and CA will be left in the past.  If by some miracle, the Proposition passes, then the Democrat Attorney Generalissimo will sue, and our liberal judges will rule the Proposition is Unconstitutional (which in CA is code for "the left doesn't like it, but even though the people do, we'll throw it out.  So much for our lip-service to democracy".

The other big thing our wonderful Democrat controlled legislature has passed is a huge tax on businesses. Well it is huge if you think doubling the tax to add another 11G$ is huge when the current state budget is 222G$ (i.e., a 5% increase in their confiscation of earned income redistribution of ill-gotten money).  But this isn't a general increase, and it hasn't gone into effect, yet.  See it is an attempt to whittle away at Prop 13, by only raising the property tax on businesses (which includes apartments, so take heed you non-home owners).  It might also apply to residential property if used for business purposes (all those folks who are working from home, take heed as well).  For it to take effect it has to be passed as a Proposition (#15 on the Nov ballot).  They expect (and so do I) that a majority of the people will stupidly vote for it, since they will think 'it doesn't apply to me, only to businesses'.  Of course what they won't have thought of is either of the already mentioned risks, nor will they consider the fact that if you raise the property tax on businesses one of two things will happen.  Either 1) the businesses will pass on the increased costs to the people (and the voters will be paying it), or 2) the businesses will go out of business (and that carries a cost to the consumer/voter as well).  I really hope I'm wrong on this one and the Proposition fails, but I won't be holding my breath.

Three Raspberries for All the Other San Diego County Supervisors

So San Diego County Supervisor Jim Desmond did indeed make his motion yesterday (see my previous post).  It did not pass or fail.  Nope.  Not one of the other four Supervisors was even willing to second the motion so it died aborning.  Well, I at least will remember your total cowardice.  As long as I'm typing I may as well say a couple other things.  

San Diego County is indeed on the precipice of going to purple and having our Goober order all our business to close indoor activities except the essential ones like marijuana dispensaries and the government gyms in San Francisco (see story here - just another example of the politicians and the "rules for thee, but not for me" shown by SF politicians, aka: Nancy "Hairdo" Pelosi, Kamela "Biden's a Trojan Horse" Harris, and, of course Goober Nuisance).  We find ourselves there because the 18-22 year old students of SDSU came back to campus and did what 18-22 year olds do at SDSU: party.  Today "party" = "spread CoViD".  So unsurprisingly the case rate has gone up, from 5.8, to 6.9, and now to 7.9 (all are per 100,000 SD County residents).  I have already ranted about how hopelessly complicated the calculation of this number is, but I will nonetheless complain that I do not see how our rates could have gone up for the last three weeks.  Our County has released "the numbers of cases by episode date", but only as a graph. I took my best try to determine the three numbers for the last three weeks (actually weeks 3, 2, and 1 full week ago).  I simply can't get the ratios needed to match the reported relative case rates (and I took my time to read the data off the plot and actually allowed the weekly totals to run over every possible periods of one consecutive weeks - it just won't work).  I know that must be due to the Goober's team doing their adjustments (i.e.doing the voodoo they do).  Still it is frustrating to be completely at the mercy of such indefensible numeric manipulation.

What will happen if we get to purple?  Will our deaths suddenly jump?  Nope. look at the data I have below in Table 1 for my predictions for weekly death totals and the actuals (especially look at the actuals).  There simply hasn't been a growth expected and there hasn't been any growth in the actuals.  Why?  Because (as I've said before) the case growth is in the young people (40 and under, with all of it in the 10-30 range for the recent SDSU driven increase).  These folks simply die at such a low rate that it would take a growth in their case rates of at least an order of magnitude to see a real blip up in the deaths. 

But one thing that will happen if we go purple is that many businesses (particularly the restaurants) will face the dilemma of either violating the orders, or closing for good.  See this story - it's long but worth a listen.  

_________________

Table 1.  Predictions and results through last week (week ending  09/12/2020) and my prediction for this week.

Week Ending	Prediction	Observed
7/04/2020	54	27
7/11/2020	49	35
7/18/2020	61	56
7/25/2020	51	55
8/01/2020	53	32
8/08/2020	44	29
8/15/2020	45	32
8/22/2020	31	34
8/29/2020	34	22
9/05/2020	32	25
9/12/2020	33	27
9/19/2020	29	??

Three Cheers for Jim Desmond, San Diego County Supervisor for District 5 (R.)

Jim Desmond has proposed to the San Diego County (SDC) Board of Supervisors that we in SDC no longer enforce the State's CoViD-19 rules.  He is doing this because he has realized (quite some time ago) that the rules and procedures the state has implemented are crazy AND unreasonable.  (To hear it in his words, rather than my interpretation go here.)

Supervisor Desmond understands that the hospitalizations are down, ICU cases are down, and the supply of PPE for the medical workers is doing great.  These were, after all, the reasons we were given to lockdown in the first place, but are completely ignored by our Goober.  Supervisor Desmond understands that the Goober's "case adjustment factor" is completely indefensible.  Supervisor Desmond understands that if we force business to re-re-close, many will never get to re-re-open.  Supervisor Desmond understands that the risks are greatly reduced versus the early days of the 'pandemic'.  [Compare: Over the period April 13-30, there were 1,781 new cases and 84 deaths (4.7%).  Over the same time period August 13-30, there were 4,539 cases, but only 60 deaths (1.3%).  This is due to the excess cases today being in the very young, a decline in the absolute numbers of cases in the very old, and (presumably) better treatments.]  Supervisor Desmond understands that the existing 4-tier system will NEVER let us get to full opening of the economy (no matter how many "re-'s" end up in front of it).  And Supervisor Desmond understands that the recent rise in the case rate is due entirely to the students at SDSU (all of which are in the 10-30 age groups and have virtually no risk of death).  

I really hope our supervisors agree to this act of civil disobedience.  It would be, in my mind, exactly like our state telling the Federal government to pound sand on illegal immigration, or marijuana laws.  And it is about time that our petty little tyrant Goober Nuisance gets force fed a great big "stick-it-up-your-@$$" burger. 

Our Goober Has Moved the Goal Posts Again

Let me start by saying that when I wrote at the end of my previous post that I would "henceforth be ignoring everything I can with regard to this insanity [the Goobers policies for CoViD] and just live my life as a peaceful example of civil disobedience to it" I really did mean it.  And I tried.  But the stuff that has happened in the last few days have pushed me over the edge and I have to either vent here, or seriously risk pissing off Mrs. Ohioan due to my frustration.  So here goes a good vent...

Our Goober has made the location of the goal posts fluid and uncontrollable.  Actually they have become so idiotic and convoluted that based on the explanations I've seen (admittedly filtered through former journalism majors), I simply can not say that I understand them sufficiently that I could actually calculate them.  Hey, I've got a Ph.D. in Analytical Chemistry, published peer reviewed articles in a bunch of physics journals, and taught myself the mathematics of General Relativity for fun, but clearly I should have known that this is just so complicated that I probably shouldn't have expected to be able to understand it.  Right?  Anyways here's the latest...

Not only are we working towards two metrics, wherein our county ends up in one of four colors, which define the extent of the reopening we can do, but now they are 'adjusting' our metrics based on Statewide metrics.  These adjustments are done in the following way (so far as I can determine).  If on a given day the number of tests are below the Statewide average (apparently based on the number of tests divided by the county population, but don't quote me on that), then they add more positive case results to make up for the ones you would have measured, if you'd actually tested at the Statewide average testing rate.  Now they don't say how many of those tests are assumed to be positive (it could be the rate the county reported, it could be the average rate across the State, or it could be just about anything).  I must say that there is no Scientific reason¹ to do this.  I should also note that they also reduce the numbers if you tested more than the average, so the whole thing is just crazy.  It is, of course, impossible to ensure that we test the average number, since there is no way to know how many tests are being given on any given day in the entire rest of the state (or what day the result will be assigned to, see next paragraph).    How many cases might these 'additional', though purely imaginary, cases be?  And if the county numbers are inflated or reduced, do they then use these fictional numbers as the State numbers?  Do they then get passed to the National numbers?  Do they realize that if you add an imaginary number to a real number you get a complex number?    

Leaving aside questions of which basis one must use to express the "adjusted" data, according to this, the tests are NOT assigned to the date they are reported or the date the test was taken.  Nope, they are assigned to the "episode date".  This is defined as the date the person being tested "began feeling symptoms of COVID-19".²  Since the assigned date will always be in the past, what they are doing is actually changing the data for past dates.  Because of this, the weekly average of cases per 100,000 is actually computed over a 7 day period, ending 7 days ago, and only looked at every Tuesday.  So if I understand this, next Tuesday (September 15, 2020) San Diego County will report a new average rate per 100,000, for the cases assigned to the period September 2 - 8, and then the State will adjust it, by adding imaginary positive cases, for those dates where the number of tests in our county were below the Statewide average number of tests, and subtracting 'real' cases if you've tested over the average.  I'd also mention that the adjustment factors mean that no county will really be measured by its numbers, but rather by some manically fudged numbers.  It reminds of the old saw "figures don't lie, but liars can figure".   I feel compelled to note that the Goober said this new system would be "Simple".  I would suggest that this is an epic fail at "Simple".

And yet as Byzantine as all this is, it still isn't the worst of it.  This entire Rube Goldberg process is ignoring a very key fact.  THE TESTS ARE NOT PERFECT.  Does the Goober and his crack team (crackhead team?) recall the story from late August about the 77 NFL players testing positive and then all of them retesting negative (here)? Or the story from early August about the Ohio Governor seeing the same 'first positive, then negative' (here)?  One should ask, are we retesting everyone to help ensure that a positive result is really a positive?  Even if we are (we aren't!) we should also take heed of the story from, that bastion of lefty politics, the New York Times which points out that even the PCR test (which really should be nearly fool proof) is not proof against improper procedures and may have been reporting nearly 10 times too many positives.³  Given false positives there is some lowest practical 'positivity rate' that can be achieved.  What precisely this is depends on the accuracy of the test, the quality of the sample, and the professionalism of the laboratory and its personnel.  In the end, we can't know what that is, but it does mean that a rate of 0 is simply impossible, and progress at reducing the positives must eventually run into a minimum percentage. 

Finally, I have to bring up that the positive test results in San Diego County is also being significantly impacted by the students who've returned to San Diego State University.  Since August, and particularly in the last week, the number of students testing positive have spiked (they got back to campus and had some parties, so, surprise, some of them got sick).  As an example of the impact it has had on our county, the positive tests per day per 100,000 for this last week jumped from 5.8 to 6.9 (and if it gets over 7, we go from Red to Purple - which is the worst color).  Looking at the weekly data (which I only have by date reported) this past week had an increase of about 350 cases over the previous week.  In that time period SDSU reported almost 300 cases.  When you look at the County break down by age groups, the groups from 10-30 account for a rise of about 400, with the rest of the age groups showing a total decline of about 50 (and none of those age groups show any significant increases).  So while SDSU by itself doesn't seem to account for the total increase in the 10-30 age group, it wouldn't be surprising if in fact the parties plus other secondary spread in the college age groups from students to non-students would be more than adequate to explain the increase.  So should San Diego County be re-re-closed (that's what it would be) due to the case rise in these age groups?  If so, we would be closed due to cases (even if real) in the demographics we should be nearly completely unconcerned about.⁴

___________________

1 - But there is plenty of Political reason to make these adjustments.  If you remember from my post of August 27, good old Goober Nuisance decided not to follow CDC guidance that we should only be testing symptomatic people.  Well one way he can ensure the counties don't decide to follow that guidance is to penalize any county that is, in his opinion, under testing.  And there is no better way to punish them than to continue to strangle their economy.  Q.E.D. 

2 - This makes me wonder if we are testing people who don't have symptoms (as per the first footnote) how does one assign a positive result to a date where they began to feel symptoms?  How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?  And speaking of pin-heads, does our Goober realize how absurd this is?  Does he realize how absolutely inconsistent he's being?  Does he care?  (That last question was rhetorical.)

3 - As an analytical chemist I am appalled by the report that labs have been over amplifying the PCR tests.  This is, in my opinion, absolutely such that any lab that did this should be stripped of any all certifications they currently hold and the individuals responsible should have their employment and certifications terminated. 

4 - And as this demographic distribution has been the core of my argument against the re-closing (let alone a re-re-closing), I state (but will not show my work) that with respect to the deaths and my predictions for them (versus what our Goober seems to tolerate - as per a bunch of previous posts), that the shutout continues and is currently a score of Goober Nuisance: 0, Me: 9.

Wow! My Previous Post Was Prescient

Today our moronic Goober finally released his reopening plan for counties as they get off his "Watchlist".  Well, sort of.  See he just completely dumped his Watchlist (worthless thing that it always was) and has shifted the state to a four (4) tier system based on colors.  The colors are purple, red, orange, and yellow.  So let me ask you... which is worst?  Red?  Nope, Purple.  Why? I don't know, and he's on third (sorry an inside joke for lovers of Abbott and Costello).  

Anyways let's just say that this clears everything up [I can't figure out how to type that sarcastically, so just hear it in your head that way].  It is still a morass.  So let's say I run a Gym.  What can I do?  After spending quite a bit of time hunting around I was able to find one decent website (here) that sorta let's you know.  Type in your county and then select the business type.  Click the 'Get Latest Status' button and then all you have to do is scan through the entire list of counties to see what applies to San Diego.  Turns out that if you enter the Business first, then enter the county (which is to the left of the business) then you only see the result for San Diego county.  Yes, that's very unintuitive - but very California, where everything is backward.  So to answer my previous question as an example: for San Diego (red = "Substantial Risk") Gyms can have 10% of their normal capacity indoors and presumably as much outdoors as they can handle.

One might wonder how does a county move up or down in the risk levels from worst = purple = "Widespread", to red = "Substantial", to orange = "Moderate", to the best = yellow = "Minimal"?  Well here is the explanation:

"Every county in California is assigned to a tier based on its rate of new cases and positivity. At a minimum, counties must remain in a tier for at least 3 weeks before moving forward. Data is reviewed weekly and tiers are updated on Tuesdays. To move forward, a county must meet the next tier’s criteria for two consecutive weeks. If a county’s metrics worsen for two consecutive weeks, it will be assigned a more restrictive tier. Public health officials are constantly monitoring data and can step in if necessary."

That's clear, right?  To clarify a bit, the metrics currently for San County are that the new cases are 5.8 cases per day per 100,000 people and a test 'positivity' rate of 3.7%.  Those are actually in the ranges for red and orange respectively, but you get the higher tier, so SD County is red.

It is of note that the Goober's justification for this system is that it is Statewide, Simple, Slow, and Stringent.  I'd argue that it is also Stupid, Silly, Sucky, Strained, Serpentine, and Severe.  But so what?  It is a convoluted and complicated set of rules that absolves everyone from thinking, without one iota of reasoning behind the various rules as to what can happen under the various tiers.  Sorry Gruesome Newsom, but if this is the best you and your advisors can up with after more than 7 weeks, I think this just shows, yet again, that you are a small minded petty tyrant who wants to destroy California.

I will henceforth be ignoring everything I can with regard to this insanity and just live my life as a peaceful example of civil disobedience to it.

Goober Newsom: True Colors On Display

Our Goober has repeatedly said that we need to follow the science and listen to the experts, or words of that nature (for example see Politico here or CNN here).  So has none other than Democrat Presidential candidate Biden who said, with respect to a national CoViD lockdown, "I would shut it down. ... I would listen to the scientists." Clearly these are supposed to be the right thing to do.  So yesterday the CDC provided new guidance on CoViD-19 testing.  And our Goober's response was exactly what you'd expect from his previous statements.  He said

“I DON’T AGREE WITH THE NEW CDC GUIDANCE PERIOD, FULL STOP, AND IT’S NOT THE POLICY IN THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA. WE WILL NOT BE INFLUENCED BY THAT CHANGE. WE’RE INFLUENCED BY THOSE THAT ARE EXPERTS IN THE FIELD THAT FEEL VERY DIFFERENTLY. THAT IS NOT THE POLICY GUIDELINE THAT WE WILL EMBRACE OR ADOPT HERE IN CALIFORNIA"

Now please pardon me, but that does not seem to indicate that he will follow this science.  Rather it seems to indicate he will, at best, listen to the scientists that he agrees with (or is it the ones that agree with him?).

Oh, and in the interest of full disclosure, our wonderful Goober said (on Monday August 24) that he will release the reopening plan for when a county gets off his Watchlist, "later this week".  He's down to today and tomorrow to make his own deadline.  And it isn't just San Diego county that's in Newsom's CoViD limbo.  There are 8 counties that are stuck this way.  Clearly, he does not want the citizens of California to be in charge of their own lives, and does not want any chance for the economy to rebound.  He really needs to be defied (in peaceful civil disobedience) and recalled.

  

The Shutout Continues - It's Like the Goober Doesn't Even Care

First the obligatory update to the score of me and the Goober.  Last week I predicted 31 deaths in San Diego County from CoViD-19 for the week ending August 22.  The final total was 34.  That's off by all of 10%.  The result of 34 observed deaths per week works out to about 1.02 deaths per week per 100,000 for San Diego County.  The Goober appeared to be willing to tolerate about 7 deaths per week per 100,000.  This works out to a prediction of above 230 deaths per week in SD County - and would use our current rate of about 80 cases per week per 100,000 to predict 186 deaths for the week, which is off by 447%.  I would argue that my prediction is way more than just a bit better than the Goober's.  So the new score is Goober Newsom: 0, Me: 7.  My prediction for the week ending August 29 is 34 (updated table at bottom of post).

But really the Goober doesn't care about any of all that.  I say this because our death totals are way below what we should be willing to tolerate according to the Goober, and we've been off the "Watch List" for almost a full week (and should have been off for almost two weeks), you'd think we'd know what we can now do, that had been curtailed when we went on the list.  But, Noooo.  Our Goober simply refuses to to tell us what we can or can't do.  And like the obedient little pawns that they are, all our local politicians seem willing to meekly wait for the Goober to do what he should have done over 50 days ago.  I am waiting for one of politicians to take the bull by the horns and say, 'Obviously we can just go back to where we were before we got on the list.' 

_________________

Table 1.  Predictions and results through last week (week ending  08/22/2020) and my prediction for this week.

Week Ending	Prediction	Observed
7/04/2020	54	27
7/11/2020	49	35
7/18/2020	61	56
7/25/2020	51	55
8/01/2020	53	32
8/08/2020	44	29
8/15/2020	45	32
8/22/2020	31	34
8/29/2020	34	??

A (Late) Update

It has been two weeks since my last update, so I have to do two predictions (even though one is somewhat of a 'trust me' nature), and perhaps I should explain why it is late.  I didn't do an update last week because I was on a vacation, with Mrs. Ohioan and one of our sons, his wife, and their two kids.  I know that our Goober would have a complete melt down over such a 'reckless' action, but I believe in the data and my analysis thereof.  Anyways, we spent last weekend and the early part of the week in a small town in the northern part of Kern County, CA.  We spent a lot of time hiking or lounging in the (cold!) Kern River, just the six of us, while only rarely getting anywhere near anyone else.  It is a beautiful area.  The images below show the view upriver from a spot north of Kernville.  If you can cross your eyes to make three images, and keep your focus on the center image, there should be a fairly decent 3-Dimensional image.  The second image is from the Trail of 100 Giants (which is an hour more north in the Sequoia National Forest).  It lacks scale, so I will simply say, it is one big mother of a tree...

A view up the Kern River.

A Sequoia Tree on the Trail of 100 Giants, Sequoia National Forest.

Now that the travel log is done, back to the serious business of updating the score.

As of the last post I had left a prediction of 44 deaths for the week ending August 8.  The final total was 29.  Had I been at home I would have then predicted that the total deaths for the week ending August 15 would have been 45.  The actual total was 32.  So that's two more for me, with the shutout continuing.  The score is now Goober Newsom: 0, Me: 6.  The prediction for next week (ending August 22) is 31.  The full scoreboard is in the table at the bottom of the post.

In another happening, that further shows how much our Goober is playing at being a petty tyrant who wants to destroy our economy and control our lives (puny things he considers them to be), San Diego county has reduced our case rate to below the level where we should have come off the Goober's "Watch List" as of this past Friday.  So have we been allowed to reopen all the business that were closed, or forced outside, when we got on the Watch List?  Of course not.  Why?  Because while they had defined the requirement to get off the list, the Goober never indicated what would happen when that happened.  Further, when we hit that point, the Goober's office refused to remove San Diego County, while they 'review' the data (note: no such review was necessary when they put us on the list, they trusted our data then, but not now - convenient, isn't it?).  

Here is a case where I am now furious with our mayor.  We know we are (should be) off the list.  The Goober has not defined what happens now.  What did the mayor do?  He wrote a letter asking what's next.  Insane.  I mean, seriously, he's had 40 days to define the exit strategy, and didn't, so why ask this waste of skin what he wants?  That's just playing into letting him control us even more.  Stop asking for permission, take advantage of the vacuum!  Tell the Goober, 'you screwed up by not defining what happens, so we will.  In as much as a bunch of stuff happened when we went on the list, so now that we are off it, all that stuff ends.'  Done.

One last semi-rant.  So the champion of the Democrat Party tells us that he'd order all of us to wear masks for three months (which would piss everybody off from now until... oh, how about that? ...until the election).  But don't worry he said “ 'It’s not about your rights,' ”.  I have a simple rule.  When someone says "it's not about the money", it is about the money.  Same thing here.  It is nice to know that the same people who support the rioter's, uhm... looter's, uhm... protester's, yeah, that's it, protester's right to assemble during a pandemic don't care about the rights of other people to choose.  Unless it is a woman's right to choose.  And they believe all women.  Unless what the women are saying is against one of their guys - right Kamela?  Finally, if anyone is doubting Biden's mental decline, go watch the section from 0:50-2:15 in this.  The Biden of 2008?  Him, I could actually vote for.  I can't vote for 2020's Biden.  And as a Californian (and an Ohioan@Heart) I really can't vote for Kamela.  For anything.  Ever.

________________

Table 1.  Predictions and results through last week (week ending  08/15/2020) and my prediction for this week.

Week Ending	Prediction	Observed
7/04/2020	54	27
7/11/2020	49	35
7/18/2020	61	56
7/25/2020	51	55
8/01/2020	53	32
8/08/2020	44	29
8/15/2020	45	32
8/22/2020	31	??

Just a Quick Scoring Update

Recap:

As of last week the score was Goober Newsom: 0, Me: 3.

Update:

I have updated the table from last week to reflect the results for last prediction and to include my next prediction.  So let me remind you why the deaths have not gone up sharply even though the cases have.  It is simply because the cases have shifted away from the oldest (and most vulnerable) to the youngest (and least vulnerable).  Just to give a comparison, prior to when our Goober set his metrics, the profile was that 0-40 year olds were about 36% of the cases, 40-50 year olds were about 37%, and 60+ were the remaining 27% (but that last group was responsible for nearly 90% of the deaths).  From June 6 through today the case percentages are 60%, 27%, and 13%, respectively.  Further, the death rates are simply lower today than they were early on (I can't say why with any certainty, but with the great increase in tracing and testing we are undoubtedly identifying many asymptomatic - or nearly asymptomatic - cases that would not have been identified earlier, and I suspect that the treatments are also improving).  By the way, even with the massive reduction in the percentage of cases over 60, that age group still represents around 85% of the total deaths.  So keeping that group from getting the disease is still the most important thing we can do to keep the deaths down.

Anyways, even though my predictions are not great, they are reliable enough to have confidence that, so long as the demographic distribution for the new cases remains dominated by those under 40, and the total cases over 60 stays under control, there is simply no reason to keep San Diego County under the Goobers Thumb, err, I mean under the Goober's Watch List.

Oh, and just to actually do a scoring update, the score is now Goober Newsom: 0, Me: 4.  Let the shut out continue.

One short somewhat related rant:

So our Goober has also decided that as long as we are on his Watch List, schools can not reopen for in person classes until we get under the watch list conditions, and stay there for two consecutive 14 day periods.  This despite the fact that to get on the Watch List only required to miss the mark over one 14 day period, and to continue to fail for two more consecutive days.  So it is easier to get on the list than off (since he wants to control our lives!).  Also, and let's be clear here, the real reason he wants the schools closed is because the teacher's unions want that.  See they will get paid, whether they are in the class room, or at home.  The fact is that some families, who have two working parents, have great difficulty with distance learning.  But the teachers unions don't care about them or their kids, and the Democratic politicians only care that they keep getting all those tax dollars to campaign with (legally laundered through the teacher's unions, of course).  

And for the coup de grace, our wonderful, oh-so-caring, Goober will not suspend the highly contentious AB5 independent contractor rules for those parents (and groups of parents) that want to hire tutors to help get their kids through the forced online instruction (I typed learning, but given the reports on the utter failure that online 'learning' was shown to be by the end of last school year, I decided that I couldn't really use that word).

________________


Table 1.  Predictions and results through last week (week ending  08/01/2020) and my prediction for this week.

Week Ending	New Prediction	Observed
7/04/2020	54	27
7/11/2020	49	35
7/18/2020	61	56
7/25/2020	51	55
8/01/2020	53	32
8/08/2020	44	??

An Update/Follow-on To My Last Post...

What Happened:

Yesterday, was day 24 of the great California re-closing of 2020, a.k.a. the systematic destruction of the California economy by government imposed starvation.  It was also the day Dr Fausti was forced to talk himself into an ever tightening circle while testifying in front of Congress (here).  He was asked, by Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), "Do protests increase the spread of the virus?"  Dr Fausti danced around the issue slightly by giving a more general answer of "Crowding together, particularly when you are not wearing a mask, contributes to the spread of the virus." As the congressman continued to prod the Doctor, he steadfastly refused to say the only scientifically honest answer to the original question, "Yes."  The weasel in Dr. Fausti, repeatedly refused to opine on whether the protests, as a specific example of "Crowding together", must have "contribute[d] to the spread of the virus".  This, despite the fact that  anyone with more than a few dozen active brain cells could easily see that there was absolutely no reason to not admit it.

The Conclusion:

When even Dr Fausti, if only inadvertently, admits that the protests must have contributed to the spread, we have clear and unassailable evidence that to intentionally ignore such events when a health officer (or their representative) is doing 'contact tracing' is a 'dereliction of their duty' (as described in my last post).  So, where are the charges of Malfeasance?  Why are they still being allowed to fill those positions?  Why hasn't anyone, other my lone voice, cried out for them to held accountable for their actions?

My Interpretation of Those Crying Out to 'Follow the Science':

We all know the answers to the above questions.  It isn't politically correct to suggest that those on the left are ever wrong.  If you do it will 'trigger' them.  They will 'cancel' you.  The media will descend and tear you apart like the ravening beasts are are.  Consequently, no one dares to challenge anyone in regards to their cloistered, safe-space, participation-trophy, snowflake existence.  This even though that group continuously call for us all to 'follow the science'.  Indeed, our Goober uses that phrase, but, as I have repeatedly demonstrated, has not in any way actually followed it.

Sadly, I have had to conclude that reality has no place in today's media or politics.   And it's not looking so good for tomorrow either.

Goober Newsom Looks More and More Like Just A Petty Tyrant

Statement for the record:

So there is no mistaking my intent, everything that follows is based on San Diego County, and may
or  may not be applicable to other locations in the state or country.

Bottom Line Up Front:

So here we are, three weeks into our Goober's lastest lockdown of San Diego, and the result is...

He deserves to be recalled.  Seriously, that's the kindest thing I can say.  Words like "tar and feathering" do come to mind, but I will try to stay reasonable and civilized (not that his side of the political spectrum worries about that).  His lockdown has accomplished what he really wanted.  Namely the economy is once again jerking spasmodically to a halt as more and more business close their doors forever and unemployment claims are again on the rise.  His actions are understandable from that point of view, but not from any other, and particularly not from the viewpoint of a sensible review of the data.  Now let me defend those statements.

Short review: 

I originally claimed (here) that the Goober was using metrics defined in terms of the original beliefs about the data, which are simply not relevant to today due to improvements in our understanding of the data.  I then joined our Goober in doubling down (here).  He insisted that we needed to further choke our businesses, while I insisted that that was somewhere between insane and criminal (oh, and I used the word 'malfeasance' in one context and I will further support that claim).

Update:

After one week I reported the score as "Goober: 0, Me: 1".  I've now got two more weeks in and I can say the score is now Goober: 0, Me: 3.  I can also add this new score as well San Diego County Health Officer: 0, Me: 1 (maybe 2).  So far it really hasn't been a close contest.  But let's look beyond the standings to see the box score, to show just how badly they've done.

So far my predictions (which are based on my admittedly ad hoc method to predict the deaths) were that the deaths would not see a major rise, and would remain well below the amount the Goober had shown himself to be willing to tolerate - due entirely to the case rise being of a completely different demographic distribution than the original case distribution.  That number is around 7 / week / 100,000 population, which is about 234 / week for San Diego County.  I will freely admit that I think that is bigger than I would want to tolerate, I'd be seriously concerned if we topped 150 / week, and would think some initial actions might be appropriate once you reach 120 / week (or about 1/2 his number).  However, my predictions for the total deaths for the weeks ending July 11, 18, and 25 were 66, 61, and 62, respectively (just under 2 / 100,000).  These are comfortably below the point where I'd start to worry (about 1/2 my point of concern).  In fact, the actual death totals were 35, 56, and 55.  Even smaller than I'd predicted, and way less than the kind of numbers that should cause our Goober to push for re-closing the re-opened business.

I also complained about our County Health Officer (and everybody else) intentionally failing to ask during their contact tracing if the new cases had attended any of the 'protests', which were so vigorously defended by our Goober as protected free speach under the First Amendment.  I don't see that the Health Officers and contact tracers had the authority to not ask about attendance at such events.  I did a little web surfing and found this quote (which comes from the California Code, Health and Safety Code - HSC § 120175)

Each health officer knowing or having reason to believe that any case of the diseases made reportable by regulation of the department, or any other contagious, infectious or communicable disease exists, or has recently existed, within the territory under his or her jurisdiction, shall take measures as may be necessary to prevent the spread of the disease or occurrence of additional cases.

That seems very clear to me.  Now what is Malfeasance?  Here the first web search led me to this definition

Intentional conduct that is wrongful or unlawful, especially by officials or public employees. Malfeasance is at a higher level of wrongdoing than nonfeasance (failure to act where there was a duty to act) or misfeasance (conduct that is lawful but inappropriate).

Having intentionally not asked about attendance at the 'protests' is, as I read it, a clear intentional failure to do their official duty.  I further claim that as that intentional failure then led to them being unable to properly determine the source of the spread, and thereby allowed our Goober to order the re-closings, which then resulted in harm to San Diego County residents and businesses.  Hence, I claim it is a clear act of malfeasance.  Further, our County Health Officer has recently begun to include in their briefings, on the plot of daily new cases, an annotation showing the dates for the incubation period for bars and restaurants re-openings.  While I concede that they have shown this in technically accurate manner, it is also in what must be considered an intentionally misleading one in at least two ways.  First, it shows the incubation period for the initial reopening, but does not extend the incubation period for the entire time from when the restaurants and bars were reopened until the Goober re-closed them.  Secondly, it does not show the relevant incubation periods for the various protests.

I have reproduced my plot from the last post in Figure 1, but have made the change that the data are now 1 week averages, with the average assigned to the last day of the one week period. I also colored two points red, just to make orientation easy.  These two points are June 12 and July 4.  The other schematic lines are explained below.

Figure 1.  Plot of the 7 day running average of new cases for San Diego County along with schematic representations of the two cases.  Case 1 in green, Case 2 in yellow, see text for full descriptions of the two cases.  The two red points are for the dates July 4 and July 12 and are colored differently only to allow easier identification of various time periods. 

I can predict what should happen to such a plot based on the modeling experience I gained earlier.  Increased spread will not be seen in the case data for something like 7-14 days.  This is due to the increase having an induction period where the cases spread and then re-spread, this is then further delayed by the time lag inherent in diagnosing the cases, and finally another apparent delay due to the averaging reducing the response of the curve.  This very slow grow will be followed by a period of essentially exponential growth, which will then eventually roll over (typically showing the same kind of lag as the increase did).  We shall now consider in the two most likely cases.

Case 1: If the case rise is primarily due to the reopening of the restaurants and bars, the initial rise would be first visible some where around 7-14 days after the initial re-openings, which occurred May 21, so somewhere in the May 28-June 4 time period, maybe slightly later.  This would be followed by an essentially exponential period which would have no reason to roll over until the interaction was reduced (re-closing happened July 7).  The reduction would first be visible after a lag of over a week (for the same reasons we see the increases lag).  This means the rollover would only have started about the 14th (maybe slightly later), and be pretty flat starting about now.  This profile does not match the observed data.

Case 2: If the case rise is primarily due to the 'protests' (which occurred primarily from about May 29 - June 13, with a few smaller ones about a week later), then we'd expect to see an initial rise starting in the June 5-12 time frame, really picking up for a week or two, but then rapidly flattening due to the interaction being reduced to the previous level, but with a higher case number (and a concomitantly larger new case rate), which would appear as a flat zone starting around July 4. This is almost exactly what is observed in the data.

Anyways, like I said earlier, San Diego County Health Officer: 0, Me: 1.

Further Considerations For Predicting the Expected Deaths:

I could write many many pages about what I've done with the data I now have (three weeks of day by day deaths, broken down into age groups of 10 years, and almost five months of daily new case data broken down the same way).  I will not inflict that on you dear reader.  Instead I will simply state the best way I found to predict the deaths is to use each age group separately and for each of these to use the new cases over one week, to predict the deaths in the next week.  The current best fits are by using the death rates as given in Table 1.  I will note that using older case numbers like 2 or 3 weeks  previous work OK, but not quite as well.  If, however, you try to use the aggregate cases, without regard to the age grouping, the predictions are essentially worthless.

If I go back in time to the beginning of my tirades, and re-predict the deaths you get the data shown in Table 2.  These are clearly better results than my original ad hoc predictions, but the actual conclusions are completely unaffected, and the score remains Goober: 0, Me: 3, with my next prediction being that one week from today we will have seen 53 new deaths in San Diego County, and the Goober's re-closing will be further shown to be an exercise in over-reach.  The only possible conclusions are that the Goober is a complete idiot (which I don't really believe) or that he is happy to shut the economy down for no good reason, other than the political gain he believes he will have.
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Table 1.  Best fits for death rates for each age group using cases from the weeks ending 6/27, 7/04, 7/11, and 7/18/2020 to predict the deaths for the weeks ending  7/04, 7/11, 7/18, and 7/25, respectively.  *- There have been exactly 0 deaths for these time periods for these groups, even though there have been 3 and 4 deaths total for these two age groups over the entire CoViD-19 outbreak.

Age group	Death rate
0-10	0
10-20	0
20-30	0*
30-40	0*
40-50	0.0055
50-60	0.0138
60-70	0.0444
70-80	0.117
80+	0.269

Table 2.  Predictions, both the previous ad hoc ones and the new ones based on better analysis,and the observed deaths. 

Week Ending	Old Prediction	New Prediction	Observed
7/04/2020	33	54	27
7/11/2020	66	49	35
7/18/2020	61	50	56
7/25/2020	62	51	55
8/01/2020	-	53	??