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.' 

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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.

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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).

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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	??