As some know, I was happy to get my J&J shot back in March. All those who got J&J are now allowed to get a 2nd shot, and mix and match were permissible. I got a dose of Moderna yesterday. (Good thing mix and match is allowed; the local pharmacies don’t seem to have J&J. But honestly, I wanted Moderna.)
I always said I’d be fine with multiple shots and/or boosters. Oh, and I did get my flu shot two weeks ago. I know flu is only the flu. But I prefer vaccinating to minimize the risk of getting that too.
That is all. Open thread.
Good! I am happy for you. I think the Moderna is a good choice after J&J. Feel free to move about the country. (After a two week waiting period). Any side effects?
Wow Lucia, Russell’s given permission for you to move about the country! That must be a weight off your mind.
But don’t forget to wait those two weeks.
Lucia,
I got a third shot of Pfizer a couple of days ago… nothing but a slightly sore shoulder; less soreness than the first shots. I hope you don’t get any side effects; one of my sons (36 YO) was pretty sick for 24 hrs with his second Moderna shot.
Yeah, I remember I was sick for a bit on my second dose. I got Moderna.
No side effects so far. I got it at 2 pm central yesterday so I’m at 23 hours. Jim just got his Moderna this morning.
mark, getting the booster does take a weight off my mind. 🙂
I plan to compete again in November, so the shot is good!
Southwest backed off its vaccine mandate after pilots started refusing overtime and taking sick days in protest.
I was tired so I took a nap this afternoon. Could be a side effect…. or not. I’m going to go watch some tv now. 🙂
Lucia,
I slept in an extra hour and a half the night after my third shot.
Congratulations, Moderna was probably the best selection I think. From my anecdotal evidence, reactions occur from 24 to 48 hours.
.
In other good news Florida is now #50 out of 50 states in covid case rates. One could argue this is because the “let it rip” delta strategy paid off with a hard and fast herd immunity surge. One could also argue compellingly that nobody has any clue what is really going on and can easily map their biases onto the existing data. Let’s just hope it stays this way for a while.
Tom,
Yeah. Who knows? I figure it’s folly to not continue to be cautious. My preferred method of caution is getting the booster. 🙂
.
One of my dance teachers thinks he had Covid. His wife did get Covid and he has antibodies. Looking back, I do remember one week when he was sort of “down” and “tired” (for him.) Maybe it was then– no real symptoms though. Her symptoms were mostly visibly tired to the extent that others suspected– and told her to get tested. She had it.
.
They are young and fit. So things worked out. I still think they should have been more cautious and gotten the vax, but it mostly worked out. Sort of. She got Covid 3 weeks before the national finals in ballroom dance. They couldn’t really practice while she was wiped out. They had been coming in 1st or 2nd consistently in lesser competitions most of the year. (Not that much lesser though. They are all less than the nationals.)
They came in 6th at the nationals. Was this because of Covid? Not? I can’t really say. But people they normally beat, beat them.
.
They are back to coming in 1st or 2nd in lesser competitions. Even higher proportion of 1st. Honestly I think Covid hurt them because of the particularly bad timing. But I can’t really say the outcome was necessarily worse than if they’d gotten vaccinations. Maybe Vlad would have gotten Myocarditis. Or Brianna would have had a clot. Who knows?
Tom Scharf (Comment #206798): “One could also argue compellingly that nobody has any clue what is really going on and can easily map their biases onto the existing data.”
.
I tentatively came to that conclusion last winter/spring and the “impossible” summer surge convinced me.
A.42 variant, worse than delta, in UK and Russia.
If being tired for a few days with some variable amount of cold symptoms means someone had covid, we have all probably had covid several times, ha ha.
.
The AY.4.2 is being called Delta Plus. 6% of UK cases now so it is likely out competing Delta which probably means a bit more transmissive. (Maybe 10% to 15%) Apparently vaccines are effective against it.
“If all goes well, and we get the regulatory approval and the recommendation from the CDC, it’s entirely possible if not very likely that vaccines will be available for children from 5 to 11 within the first week or two of November,”
Woohoo… That is good news in our family… It’s too early to say, but we’re hoping for a better family Christmas this year. Even the youngsters are excited. I sent the vax notice to an 11 year old late last night and at 6:15 this AM she responded with “WOW! Yay!â€. I think she wants to have Christmas in Florida. I got an ad slogan… “Don’t let the Grinch steal Christmas. Get vaccinated.†https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/fauci-says-vaccines-kids-between-5-11-likely-available-november-2021-10-24/
In spite of lots of cases (per capita) in the UK, the country still has a very low rate of covid death: about 1 death for each 250 confirmed cases, compared to ~1 death per 80 confirmed cases in the USA. This is no doubt because relatively fewer people over 50 remain un-vaccinated in the UK. So far, the vaccines appear to provide good protection against severe illness, no matter which strain of virus.
Tom,
Glad I got Moderna-ized!
lucia,
Severe fatigue was my only symptom. And it was severe. I was already in bed because of my liver problem, but simply getting out of bed and going to the bathroom was enough to wipe me out.
A friend of mine sent me this:
Of course since we don’t know how many people have actually been infected, we don’t know about the real frequency of reinfections. But given the behavior of case rates in places like ND and SD prior to the availability of vaccines, I still think there weren’t many reinfections.
My friend is also participating in the Pfizer trial and has been invited to participate in a booster shot trial. He reported that of the approximately 200 local participants who were tested recently, four were found to be asymptomatically infected. Although it looks like we have passed the peak, infections were near record levels recently.
Hi again,
No real effects of first two pfizer shots, but the booster was a woozy(term of art).
Janet started to speak in sentences with double negatives which couldn’t be parsed, lost things she’d had in her hand 2 minutes earlier and made me worry about quick onset of dementia, also became more impatient than usual and couldn’t seem to focus.
I didn’t connect the shot with the symptoms, but she came out of it and seems ok for a 79 year old – usual mild nominal aphasia.
Apparently I had some of it too. I’m trying to code something beyond my ability and was making no progress whatever. In my case this condition ran most of the summer. I did make some progress but kept losing my place. About a week ago I snapped out of it and I seem to be as good (well sort of) as I have been in last ten years.
I wonder if this is Brain Fog and maybe we actually were infected.
??
“The other crazy thing that was found is that natural infection generates a whole bunch of different antibodies that are not generated by the vaccine but they do not actually bind well…”
.
Whoah! This guy has rediscovered how the immune system works! Who could have imagined it would carpet bomb the antigen and narrow down successful hits over time, and that if you give it a smaller target, less carpet bombing can occur! Madness! :p
“There are three kinds of lies: Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics†Mark Twain …….one of my guiding principles when looking at data.
An example from NIH:
“Increases in COVID-19 are unrelated to levels of vaccination across 68 countries and 2947 counties in the United States
†https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8481107/
And one [slightly] less rigorous from Twitter:
“However, why would infection rates be lower for populations with high vaccination rates BEFORE they’ve been vaccinated? Clearly, the vaccines did not travel back in time.“ https://twitter.com/JasonMLewis3/status/1447313440687669248?s=20
Russell,
Doesn’t it seem possible that populations with high vaccination rates might also have had high rates of masking and avoidance of restaurant eating, indoor musical events and the like?
Maybe this is what you were implying?
In my spare time I did an analysis of the Covid-19 cases and deaths with multiple explanatory variables. There are copious amounts of data available online making the temptation to do an analysis difficult to ignore. When I do an extended analysis, I like to writeup a summary of the results to aid in finding and fixing loose ends and, for future reference in helping me remember exactly what I did. I placed a copy of the summary at the Dropbox link below.
From doing this analysis and reading the literature, I believe from a political perspective that politicians probably had considerably less effect and control of the Covid-19 infections (as a separate issue from side effects of the mandates) for good, bad and indifferent than they took credit or for which they were criticized. The conditions conducive to Covid-19 infections are many and varied making one size fits all mandates a seemingly poor choice for larger domains. There were studies that indicated voluntary actions (and reactions) played a major role in mitigating the infection rates.
I did rather extensive literature searches over time, but, found that the kind of analysis I was doing was mainly carried out early in the pandemic. No papers were found in my searches covering the period from Feb 2020 through Aug 2021 that was the main part of my analysis (some of it covered a wider period). Most papers dealing with Covid-19 get reviewed and published without much lag time and thus I do not believe that is why my searches were failing. Some of the better correlations between cases/deaths and explanatory variables like mobility that held in the early part of the pandemic weakened considerably as the pandemic progressed.
The summary in the link below is far from a finished product both in an editing sense to make it more readable and the additional analyses to which this analysis points. I am hoping that perhaps some of the posters here are able wade or even skim through the summary and perhaps direct me to some papers that are related to my analysis and the time period covered by it. My searches in this regard have been coming up empty.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/8c2y9u2lzdu4ljy/Summary_Models_Accounting_Covid_Cases_Deaths_Changes_Natios_States.pdf?dl=0
John Ferguson,
Glad to hear your coding prowess has returned. 😀
The graphics on twitter obscure rather than clarify. many of the states with high vaccination rates (MA, NY, NJ, others) had very high death rates early on, far higher than the confirmed case counts would suggest. So those states likely have a larger portion of people who were infected and recovered, giving them immunity, and giving their states less tendency to have a very large delta-surge.
.
We can reasonably expect very high early death rates also changed average behavior in those states (increased caution), even if that effect is impossible to quantify. We can also reasonably expect states that are heavily democratic to have a more cautious (on average) population, since democrats are, and have been since the beginning, more worried about covid. (Democrats are wildly high when they are asked about the risk of death from covid, even more so than Republicans and independents.)
.
There is no doubt vaccinations (and previous illness!) greatly reduce risk of severe illness and death, just as it is clear being under 50 years old reduces those risks to very low levels. Most of the analyses that I see don’t state clearly that those are the most important factors….. and instead focus on much less relevant (even irrelvant) factors, always with nearly insufferable virtue signaling.
DeWitt, I thought this to be the case also, but was surprised when a niece was infected, then vaccinated and then re-infected when caring for her infected daughter. I told my sister, the mother of my niece, that her case should be studied and scrutinized. I am wondering about the viral load effects. I know I posted this before in case any of you think I have a Biden condition.
I have a son and grandson who were infected and then vaccinated and both get lots of people contacts. I am curious to see what will happen this winter in their cases. The grandson had no effects from infection but my son did for a day or two and even a stronger reaction to his first vaccination shot.
I had no effects from my vaccinations or booster shots and never have had a reaction to a flu shot. I do not now if this is a good or bad omen.
I have Hashimoto’s syndrome where my immune system is attacking my thyroid. An over active immune system to Covid-19 with a aged person was not a good situation early in the pandemic.
I am content to play the hand I have been dealt and without becoming a hermit. I believe there is lots yet to be learned about COVID-19 and hope that learning is not being held back for political expediencies.
Kenneth,
Why do you use log(cases) and log(deaths) as the dependent variables instead of the values themselves? (If you explain that in the text, sorry I missed it.)
Due to the lack of testing early on it is probably better to derive the case rate from the death rates if one wanted to look at cases over the entire pandemic. Death rates and perhaps hospitalization rates are the best thing to look at for base data, but you would need to normalize to the age distribution of a region. This assumes that death rates weren’t improved over the pandemic which they probably were a little bit, only vaccinations made a big difference as far as I can tell.
.
Keep in mind that Florida went by only 1% to the Republicans and if it had gone the other way then it would be in the “blue column” for covid response. I very much doubt that would have affected outcomes very much. Blue states also have large rural and Republican areas, and the blue areas have higher population densities. So a binary red/blue analysis is pretty hard in reality and most of this stuff if very tainted by confirmation bias.
.
Sort by death rate by state and there just isn’t a red/blue signal unless you squint really hard and start doing complex models to affirm your theories. I find that stuff very uninteresting now. A national level death rate by county map shows nothing very interesting. The timing of deaths was different but the final counts are pretty uniform. I think the available unvaccinated/uninfected population density is the most important thing going forward for now.
.
A search for “factor X” is pretty interesting as I think something is missing in covid analysis, just like the flu. The inability to predict leads one to believe that the models are insufficient for many (most?) tasks (haven’t looked at Kenneth’s stuff yet). Curiously the surge periods are approx. two months long in most cases. Why? Who knows.
.
For the US instead of temperature as variable it might yield better results if it is difference from room temperature, thus the driving people inside for climate control factor. Perhaps this is captured in mobility. I’m not sure how good the mobility measurement is. You really want an indoor gathering count factor somehow, maybe not available. At least half of cases are inside the home I think so one can only get so far.
Russel
There are tons of possible reasons.
I think Russell’s comment shows the perils of rhetorical questions. If it was a real question, you gave an answer. If it was meant to insinuate something, we can’t be sure. (I suspect it was rhetorical and he meant to insinuate there was something “wrong” with the statistic. It may have been a perfectly good statistic.)
SteveF (Comment #206815)
Steve, here are couple of links to the rational for using log cases. A number of the papers I have read used log of case ratios.
https://robjhyndman.com/hyndsight/logratios-covid19/
https://www.forbes.com/sites/johndrake/2020/11/30/how-you-should-be-looking-at-covid-19-data/?sh=11b146fb6310
Example from The Atlantic today:
“In red Florida, some were risking their lives to prove their devotion to their political tribe. In blue Pennsylvania, others were taking precaution to an extreme to prove their devotion to the opposite political tribe.”
.
2020 Election results
.
FL – 51%/48% Republican
PA – 50%/49% Democrat
Tom Scharf (Comment #206816)
Mobility measures for Covid-19 studies have been limited primarily to proxies like that provided from mobile devices by Google. In my analysis I wanted to see what occurs over longer time periods of time using the same mobility measure as the early papers did.
An interesting point with the measured/estimated mobility over time is that plots show a very large decrease in the first surge in early 2020 and that surge is for most regions a smaller surge than than those occurring later. Almost all states and nations let up on the early (over)reaction after that initial surge and never went back to initial low level of mobility. I suspect that privately and publicly it was recognized that that level of restriction could not be maintained without some drastic side effects. With mobility levels at nearly the same levels, cases surged and subsided.
Mobility was a more important explanatory variable for cases than deaths as would be expected if their were some of the explanatory variables for cases and deaths being different. The surprise was, that for nations, mobility was a very significant explanatory variable with a coefficient sign opposite that expected. I thought about that for some time and attempted to come up with some explanations.
I was surprised to see that for most larger domains that changes in cases and deaths correlated fairly well.
If increased vaccination coverage varies greatly over regions the vaccination rate should become the dominate explanatory variable for differences in cases between regions- unless reinfection rates have been underestimated.
On my reply to SteveF, I should have included the link below for cumulative or total cases/deaths on using logarithms. I used log when comparing nation and states differences in total cases and deaths and log of case ratios when I was looking at cases versus mobility indexes for individual states and the United States.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7200843/
On my reply to Tom I should have noted that comparing changes in cases and deaths over time is best carried out using a 2 week lag for deaths.
Also when vaccination rates become quite high, even for all regions, cases versus vaccination rates over time for individual regions should score r squared values near 1 and with a very large and negative regression coefficient – unless other variables continue to operate at significant levels. Of course, if vaccination and previous infections combined rate become near 100 percent and reinfections are very low and asymptomatic, the dependent variable will disappear.
Kenneth,
I have done nothing so complicated as you, but a few weeks back I did look at several potential variables to explain confirmed cases for each state (per million population over the proceeding 7 days). The strongest predictor of case rates was the square of the fraction of people who remained un-vaccinated. (I tried squared because transmission depends on one unvaccinated person with covid encountering another unvaccinated person.) The R^2 was 50% for this single variable. It would have been even higher, but four states (KY, TN, Iowa, SC) were much higher in cases than their vaccination rates predicted; all these states were entering their “delta surge” at the time.
.
Recent rates of death per million population seem to be controlled mainly by the fraction of people over 65 who are unvaccinated, along with the overall case rate in each state.
Steve : “ I tried squared because transmission depends on one unvaccinated person with covid encountering another unvaccinated personâ€
.
I think it has been shown that the vaccinated can both transmit and become infected. So transmission does not depend on the unvaccinated.
SteveF (Comment #206822)
Steve, that is an interesting result. I can see using the square of the unvaccinated. I have been thinking about doing some analysis to determine whether the vaccinations can be what keeps Covid-19 in check this late fall and winter period. I might borrow from your approach. If the winter season finds the delta variant tearing through the unvaccinated in great portions. It should have the near the same affect as a higher vaccination rate. The other potential variables will the re-infection rate and the rate at which booster shots are taken. Also to be considered will be the classification of the intensity of infection since we expect vaccination and previous infection to lower it.
As an aside my analysis of Covid-19 cases and deaths was motivated by the same feelings as those I had for an analysis I did attempting to understand how climate models with high climate sensitivities could closely simulate the historical temperature increases and that was wondering about why interesting areas of study were not being published.
In the case of climate I now see some very good studies dealing with this matter being published. One that comes to mind looked at the aerosol effect and found that those models with higher climate sensitivities had higher aerosol forcings with the kicker being that those forcings which are manifested mainly in the Northern hemisphere created very unrealistic differences, compared to the observed, between Northern to Southern hemisphere temperature trends.
Ed Forbes (Comment #206825)
Even so it would depend on the relative rates of transmission for the unvaccinated and the vaccinated. I think the rates are expected to be very different. Of course, when the unvaccinated and previously infected population becomes very small, transmission would no longer a have strong dependence on the unvaccinated.
Forbes,
“I think it has been shown that the vaccinated can both transmit and become infected.”
.
Sure, but how easily that happens matters to how the pandemic evolves.
.
Consider the delta surge in the USA. Everywhere (masks/no masks, higher vaccination rate or lower rate) the surge rises, reaches a peak, and then drops. That could only happen if the transmission rate drops due to rising immunity. The size of the surge (how high the peak) seems to depend on the fraction of people who already have either been vaccinated or had and recovered from covid. Florida had a very large delta surge, and now has the lowest covid case rate (normalized for population) of all 50 states. In mostly maskless Florida, the price of a large surge bought a currently very low rate. Obviously, the virus is not being quickly passed back and forth between already mostly immune people, or there would be no dramatic drop in cases. It is true there are *some* breakthrough infections among those vaccinated or recovered, but I believe the data are very clear: your chance of catching covid is much lower if you are vaccinated or already had the virus.
Kenneth,
The aerosol kludge has been used since the beginning to tune models; I don’t think that will end any time soon. I had heard rumblings about the N/S hemisphere disconnect on aerosol effects and model behavior, but I haven’t seen any papers that critically examine this issue. I expect that eventually enough people will recognize that the models have serious problems that they become much less central to forecasts of future temperature increases. The most convincing analysis I have seen is an energy balance…. which typically suggest an equilibrium sensitivity near 2C and a transient sensitivity near 1.3-1.4C. If public policies were predicated on that range of sensitivity, they would be a lot more reasonable. But I won’t hold my breath.
.
Returning briefly to the case rate vs fraction unvaccinated squared: When I removed the four outlier states, R^2 increased to 64%. The other good thing was that the regression line didn’t even have to be forced to go through zero: the projected case rate was only slightly higher than zero when the unvaccinated population approached zero. I found that reassuring.
SteveF, here is the link to Nic Lewis’ website and the paper to which I referred.
https://nicholaslewis.org/compensation-between-cloud-feedback-ecs-and-aerosol-cloud-forcing-in-cmip6-models/
There have been past papers with comments that attempted to show that the aerosol/cloud feedback effect in climate models was not the issue in compensating higher ECS models in the observed period. Other papers ignored the issue and others only hinted at it. More recently there have been papers directly pointing to the issue like the one I linked to above.
I am waiting to see what the authors of the papers denying or minimizing the issue of high ECS models emulating well the historical temperature trends have to say about these papers and the issue, particularly since they tend to be prolific in publishing.
SteveF (Comment #206828): “Everywhere (masks/no masks, higher vaccination rate or lower rate) the surge rises, reaches a peak, and then drops. That could only happen if the transmission rate drops due to rising immunity.”
.
That simply can not be right since we have seen repeated surges in the same locations as previous surges. According to the logic of a SER model, that can not happen. A SER model predicts one wave; such a model must be wrong.
Mike M,
Multiple peaks can happen if there is a big increase in transmission. That could be caused by changes in behavior, by the introduction of a more transmissible strain, or both. The CDC data on the prevalence of different virus strains shows clearly that the pandemic in the USA would have been over after the second peak in cases (this past winter/early spring) save for that the more transmissible delta strain arrived. The ‘delta surge’ is just about 100% due to the delta virus, not earlier strains. (https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#variant-proportions) My guess is that the delta strain reached a lot of unvaccinated people who had enough resistance that they did not become ill with the earlier strains, even when exposed to those earlier strains. There is evidence delta increases the chance of re-infection or vaccine breakthrough, but fortunately, those cases are usually mild.
.
The delta surge has mostly subsided in some (mostly southern) states but is still near peak in other (mostly northern) states.
.
Of course, there could be another surge in cases if another more transmissible strain arrives that make breakthrough cases much more likely, but so far the other new strains do not appear to be significantly more transmissible than the delta strain.
SteveF (Comment #206832),
From what I have seen, the delta variant is only slightly more transmissible (25-50%). Not enough to create the latest surge. Certainly not enough to do that in the face of the vaccine, unless the vaccine does little or nothing to prevent transmission.
.
Do you have data to support your claims? Maybe there is something at your link, but it is not at all clear what that might be.
.
Addition: The data at the CDC site seems to be all post-delta, so I don’t see how it tells us anything.
MikeM
Do you have a link to what you’ve seen to suggest this?
BTW: this says Δ is twice as transmissible as the original strain. It is 40-60% more transmissible than α which was already more transmissible than the original.
https://asm.org/Articles/2021/July/How-Dangerous-is-the-Delta-Variant-B-1-617-2
https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2021/08/11/1026190062/covid-delta-variant-transmission-cdc-chickenpox
lucia (Comment #206838)
Those ROs would put herd immunity in the 85% neighborhood.
A winter surge with delta could “vaccinate” the unvaccinated the hard way.
Kenneth,
Yep. I’m glad I got my 2nd shot (moderna after J&J).
Many of the unvaccinated will ultimately get covid, if they haven’t already. Let’s hope most get lighter cases. At my age, I prefer to go the vaccine route to reduce the risk of a bad outcome (or even just losing my sense of taste.)
Kenneth, Lucia,
“A winter surge with delta could “vaccinate†the unvaccinated the hard way.”
.
But there is a surge right now in just about every state, either near/just past peak or far past peak (FL,TX,etc). I will be surprised if there is another surge due to delta (or course, I have been surprised before). We will see, but I keep remembering how the original strains are simply not found any more….. the delta strain will likely do the same, though at a higher level of people already infected or vaccinated.
,
Lucia,
Thanks for digging up those links to higher delta infectivity.
SteveF,
It wasn’t hard to find them. I think I googled “transmissibility Delta”. I looked for the ones with some numbers in the little preview google shows.
I don’t know what the ratio really is. Mike may have heard relative to alpha– though his number for that are slightly low. But alpha wasn’t the original.
Alpha got it’s designation December 2020. I assume that was at least near when it first broke out. So that’s mostly before the first big US bulge. If so, the beginning of the US bulge was more “original”.
https://www.who.int/en/activities/tracking-SARS-CoV-2-variants/
.
Delta was identified in April 2021.
.
It’s hard to time bulges relative to when the variant was identified because there are so many factors (where the variant happened, how much international travel there was vaccines, possible effects of weather… yada, yada.)
.
But most of the run up in the big pre-2021 bulge was before alpha was even identified. The april mini-bulge is after alpha was circulating– and just after delta was identified. But I don’t think it was widespread here yet. I’m pretty sure delta dominated the recent bulge of cases (based on recollection of stories). It’s somewhat ongoing.
.
I’m not sure we can have another big bulge unless the next variant does a good job evading vaccines, natural immunity or both. Without that there just can’t be enough people to have a bulge with.
.
And if vaccine immunity wanes: I’ll be happy to keep getting boosters as long as they show continued ability to boost the immune system. Once every 6 months doesn’t bother me one bit!
The relative transmissibility of the variants can be derived by watching the ratios of strains in circulation over time, delta took over rather quickly (a matter of months), as did alpha. They were both approx. 1.5X so 1.5 x 1.5 = 2.25X. There is tons of data on this, best info from the UK which does much better surveillance than the US.
Mike M,
“The data at the CDC site seems to be all post-delta, so I don’t see how it tells us anything.”
.
It tells us that the pandemic in the States would long ago have been over save for the introduction of delta. It is not a competition; the strains have independent trajectories, and one does not ‘displace’ the other. If there are virtually no cases due to strains other than delta, it means under current conditions there would be virtually no cases from other strains in the absence of delta.
SteveF,
Yep. The data says we are well past herd immunity for α but not Δ.
SteveF (Comment #206844): “It tells us that the pandemic in the States would long ago have been over save for the introduction of delta. It is not a competition; the strains have independent trajectories, and one does not ‘displace’ the other.”
.
That makes no sense. Different strains most certainly do compete, at least as long as immunity to one strain results in immunity to others. They are routinely described as “competing” in a manner that implies that they compete in other ways; I don’t know if that is true or not.
.
The predominance of delta surely implies that it is more infectious than other strains. But I don’t how to get the relative transmissibility from that data. And no way does it tell us what would have happened absent delta.
.
If you have a source for your claim, I would be interested.
Tom Scharf (Comment #206843): “The relative transmissibility of the variants can be derived by watching the ratios of strains in circulation over time”
.
How? Real question. For a qualitative result, it is obvious. A quantitative result would seem simple enough if the entire population is susceptible. But once there is a significant reduction in the susceptible fraction, I *think* you need data that we don’t have, such as the susceptible fraction of the population.
MikeM, early in the pandemic I recall seeing an article where a criticizing author pointed to a time plot where its author showed a truncated version of a SEIR response with mitigation. When the plot was extended in time another very large surge was seen when mitigation let up.
I would think that a one time surge could cover the case where no mitigations were involved and the infections resulted in herd immunity, and further without development of more infectious variants. SER models are only as good as how good and complete the assumptions used in the models are- kind of like economic models.
Mike M,
Look at the UK case data at Worldometers, then look at the dominance of the strains in the UK over time. The alpha variant was ~100% dominant as cases fell to a vey low level in April 2021…. and the drop looked exactly like the effect of herd immunity. Then delta arrived and cases began to rise rapidly in late May….. suggesting no herd immunity to Delta. The absolute number of people infected with alpha in the UK was very low *before* the arrival of delta, AKA the pandemic was ending, just as it was in the USA before delta arrived. Alpha did not decline because delta arrived, it declined because it could no longer sustain sufficient transmission.
.
Delta cases remain relatively high in the UK, though deaths per case remain low (about 1 death per 225 cases, less than half the rate in the States), no doubt due to very high vaccination rates for people over 50. But plenty of young people remain unvaccinated in the UK. Cumulative cases per million population in the UK were relatively low before the delta surge, but are now approaching the value in the States, so perhaps their delta surge will begin dropping very soon.
For those of you interested in Covid-19 data, github.com is about as good as it gets. That website in my estimation has enough raw data for many papers on the Covid-19 topics and makes me wonder why certain areas are not being covered – or at least as my searches have (not) found.
You have to go to other sites like Google to get mobility data.
https://github.com/owid/covid-19-data/blob/669ee5a805b6bd4f718460dbfe7932f68a8c7fdd/public/data/README.md
Why are west coast ports backed up? Bloomberg says “The average wage is $182,000 a year for dockworkers at West Coast ports, much more for foremen, leading terminal operators to limit hours to avoid overtime.”
.
https://www.bloombergquint.com/gadfly/automated-ports-could-help-ease-supply-chain-woes
.
The problem is dock workers cost too much, work too few hours, and block any improvements in efficiency. FWIW, US ports are not the worst. Port costs in other countries (like Brazil) are even higher.
.
Count on the Biden administration to do zero about the port bottleneck.
MikeM
I haven’t seen them “routinely” being talked about as “competing”.
The only way in which they “compete” is that if both strains result in immunity to each other, herd immunity will be met for the lower transmissible strain first. Then it will peter out while the other one remains. They don’t march into a field and go to war.
.
The petering out of alpha indicates beta was effectively more transmissible.
I think they absolutely do compete, but it is semantics.
.
Each variant is attempting to infect as many people as fast as possible in order to retransmit and survive, a “competition”. As alpha infects people it takes “players” off the field of battle for delta and reduces the opportunities.
.
The original strain likely has a lower herd immunity then delta simply because it can’t sustain an outbreak as long because of reduced infectiousness. I don’t think anyone ever figured out what those numbers really are. However I’m not sure this is that meaningful in the grand scheme if the disease goes globally endemic. In this case the original strain would have been constantly reintroduced to regions and most people would get infected eventually but over a longer timeframe.
.
Example:
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abg3055
“VOC 202012/01 appears unmatched in its ability to outcompete other SARS-CoV-2 lineages in England. Analyzing the COG-UK dataset (13), which comprises more than 150,000 sequenced SARS-CoV-2 samples from across the UK”
The problem with the ports is more related to the global disruption of the supply chain combined with lean manufacturing/ just in time ordering than the ports themselves. During the summer the backlog was at the major Chinese ports that were shut down all together due to quarantine. The long term closure of the Suez didn’t help either. This has containers that were typically spread out across the globe to be concentrated in the wrong countries. The cost of shipping a container from asia to the west has jumped from 10x in response. I think that’ll end up dwarfing the cost of dock workers overtime. Also problematic is the lack of warehouse space. JIT means you didn’t need much. Now we have a over supply of material entering the country at once and not enough space to store it until can be used or sold.
If it was just the ports it could be unwound in a few months with overtime. Instead it now looks like it will take till the end of 2022 to recover.
Mike M,
I don’t know how exactly they officially determine relative transmissibility, but the slope of the changes in variant surveillance graphs certainly makes transmissibility obvious * all things equal *. All things aren’t equal and changes could mean something else. However using trends such as below allows things to be measured relatively and removes the absolute surges and declines. You can see how fast delta took over in the graph below.
https://www.nj.com/coronavirus/2021/07/delta-variant-surges-to-predominant-covid-19-strain-in-nj.html
Kenneth Fritsch (Comment #206848):”When the plot was extended in time another very large surge was seen when mitigation let up.”
.
Sure. If mitigation is highly effective, then ending mitigation will change the dynamics. The problem with that as an explanation for multiple waves is that there seems to be no reasonably consistent connection between mitigation measures and the rise and fall of cases.
———–
SteveF (Comment #206849): “The absolute number of people infected with alpha in the UK was very low *before* the arrival of delta, AKA the pandemic was ending, just as it was in the USA before delta arrived.”
.
Except that the epidemic ended and restarted several times prior to that. So you are engaging in special pleading.
I don’t think they have explained the decline after one of the initial surges very well at all, in fact I don’t think they understand the dynamics. They keep hand waving about human behavior determinism (which is no doubt a factor) but if they really had this thing figured out then I wouldn’t need to squint my eyes really hard. The turn around from a fairly quick exponential rise to an exponential decline is pretty quick in reality and it should be pretty obvious what dominates that if we had all the relevant data. We are either missing something important (factor X) or it is simply a messy combination of forcings that isn’t easy to evaluate and changes surge to surge.
MikeM
I don’t see the epidemic ending and restarting several times before Δ arrived in England.
https://www.google.com/search?channel=nus5&client=firefox-b-1-d&q=Covid+cases+England
I see;
I see
1) Bulge Augsust – Nove. That would be “original”
2) Bulge peaking in January– soon after α was identified. Could be alpha bulge due to transmissibility of alpha.
3) Decline and trough during and after “vaccination period”.
4) Bulge May-July… weird wobbles. Delta was identified in April. So could be due to more trasnmissible delta.
I don’t see how this is “special pleading” that more transmissible variants can cause bulges. There are two main more transmisslbe variants, and each is associated with a bulge around the time it is noticed in a country. The increase transmissibility might not be the cause of the two bulges. But it’s hardly special pleading to suggest that the two bulges after the first one were due to the two more transmissible strains that appeared just about the time of the bulges!
Steve : “ The problem is dock workers cost too much, work too few hours, and block any improvements in efficiency. FWIW, US ports are not the worst. Port costs in other countries (like Brazil) are even higher.â€
.
Couple of reasons why Ca ports are slow to unload at the moment
-The ports are filled with containers and no space to unload more.
-Ca banned the use of independent owner operator trucks for most operations with new sub contractor rules, making the driver shortage worse.
-out of state drivers and firms don’t like ( or are forbidden) to come to Ca due to Ca equipment regulations for smog and independent contractors.
-Ca ships more than it receives, so a lot of the shipping is a deadhead run for trucks.
-Local municipal codes mandate a maximum stack of only 2 high for containers in the satellite container storage locations.
.
The jam up at the ports can be laid directly on Ca regulations, not on the port authority or its employees
The example I mentioned was referring to a model rendition and not the real world. In my analysis I found that mobility could stay at much the same levels while cases surged to a peak and then declined. Those peaks and declines were occurring when the general population of a region had not reached what was considered the original herd immunity. Depending on the size of the region and the particular region there can be several peaks in cases (and declines) over the entire infectious period.
I have not seen any papers (does not mean they do not exist) that explain the surge peaks and declines. In the early 2020 surge there were a number of papers connecting the level of mandates and mobility to the surge and decline in cases- which I am sure made the politicians using the most mandates happy. Later that relationship was not holding and I only found a couple of papers making that point and then not directly. My wonderment to date is that I see no papers dealing with surge peaks and declines over the longer periods of time. One might make a case for variants and/or maybe super spreaders and super spreader events and/or unnoticed changes in human behaviors, but I have not seen anyone yet do it.
Ed Forbes,
So you thing the Bloomberg article about port labor costs is completely wrong?
Steve, first strike is that it’s Bloomberg. As normal the article chases squirrels. The issue is getting containers out of the yard, not off the ship.
.
But LA has a solution
.
https://pjmedia.com/vodkapundit/2021/10/27/facepalm-los-angeles-will-fine-cargo-ships-that-cant-unload-n1527303
.
“ Los Angeles ports will fine cargo ships waiting to unload their goods in an attempt to relieve congestion that is as desperate as it is gobsmackingly stupid.
.
It’s a fine so pointless and wrong that, of course, Presidentish Joe Biden has chimed in with his support for it.â€
.
Ed Forbes,
Wow! To paraphrase: The floggings will continue until morale improves.
I knew they were short on trucks and truck drivers at CA ports, but I didn’t realize it was because they shot themselves in the foot doing favors for unions. BTW, that would go national if the PRO act passes and is upheld in the courts. Pretty much all home care workers would be forced to join, or maybe automatically become members of the SEIU.
I have read (no link) that one of the trucking delays is trucks arriving with empty containers to send back are having to wait a considerable time for space to become available for their returning container before they are unloaded and free to reload an outgoing container.
Ed Forbes,
When were those California regulations on trucks put in place?
The 1.75 trillion bill announced today includes $12,500 subsidies for electric vehicles….. but only if made in the States with union labor. Earth to Biden: CO2 is a well mixed gas that goes everywhere. US union workers building the electric cars won’t make any difference in atmospheric CO2. One thing is for sure: Biden is paying off his constituencies big time.
DeWitt,
The PRO Act will only pass if the filibuster is tossed. I don’t think it will be.
Steve,
There are 2 main Ca laws on trucks restricting engines and independent contractors. These links give an overview
.
https://www.diamondsales.com/californias-new-2020-law-limits-registration-of-older-diesel-trucks/.
.
https://www.cnsprotects.com/the-saga-of-californias-ab5-independent-contractor-law-for-the-trucking-industry/
.
https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/sites/default/files/truckstop/pdfs/truck_bus_booklet.pdf.
Ed Forbes,
Donno…. I am no expert, but there seems to be plenty of people who think port and warehouse working hours (19 hours per day, 5 days per week) are a big contributor: https://thecapitalist.com/california-ports-stay-clogged/
Perhaps more squirels?
I worked many years in a 24/7 chemical plant (350 days per year); the description of port operations is (for me) just bizarre. The operation of the ports seems almost a guarantee there will be problems with capacity. The above article points out that hours are restricted because extra hours are at time and a half…. so somewhere near $130 per hour. That is insanely high pay for the work being done.
.
The California trucking emissions rules are a problem only Congress can resolve. California’s banning of independent contractor truckers is still pending before the Supreme Court, and that California rule is currently stayed. The SC could permanently block the rule, but if not, only Congress can eliminate it.
.
It seems to me that a port in Mexico, with truck transport of containers to the States (avoiding California entirely) would be something to consider.
Steve
The 9th removed the stay and the SC declined to take it. The stay is removed.
.
There is another case with different arguments before the SC to accept that hope of repeal rests.
.
As it stands, speeding up the port unloading just pushes the problem to the satellite yards. The satellite yards are full and can not ship out faster than they receive.
.
There are a number of things that can be done to speed the port overall shipping issues.
.
-Allow the satellite yards to stack more than 2 high.
-load the trains for transfer to satellite yards only, then return to the port to clear the port area quickly.
-Load the trains for transport to final at the satellite yards, not at the port.
-require empty containers to be dropped at a satellite yard and trains take to the port when ready to load on ship
-Declare a Federal emergency that allows trucks and drivers meeting federal interstate requirements to pickup and deliver to the
satellite yards .
.
Once the port can clear their yard, and the satellite yards get the trucking to clear their yards, increasing operating hours at the port would actually help.
Steve, key quote from your link on 24/7.
.
“..According to Gene Seroka, executive director of the Port of Los Angeles, they’ll wait for warehouses and truckers to operate 24/7 before they do so. “It has been nearly impossible to get everyone on the same page towards 24/7 operations,†he said..â€
Ed Forbes,
Apparently, the single dock operator at Ensinada sees the opportunity of receiving containers otherwise destined for CA ports: http://hutchisonportsecv.com/en/news/hutchison-ports-investes-31-2-million-pesos-in-its-port-terminals-in-ensenada/
.
This is just dredging, but they say it will allow 360 meter long ships to enter the port. Ensenada is very small compared to Long Beach and LA; it would take a major port expansion and improved land logistics (rail/truck) to significantly impact the CA ports. Donno if the Mexican government will recognize this opportunity, but maybe they should: their port operating costs would be much lower than CA.
SteveF,
The Biden electrocar subsidy turns out to be $7.500 for any EV costing less than $80K, then another $2.5k if it’s built in US, and then, as if by magic, $2.5k if it’s built by Union Labor.
I’m not sure I like any part of this, but I hate the last $2.5k. Can anyone here show us how this is a good idea for the nation at large?
Ed Forbes,
As of October 18, USA today reports that the stay on blocking owner-operator truckers is still in place: “The law has faced several challenges, so it’s not yet clear if it will go into effect.”. The SC did refused to hear one case opposing the law, but the CTA case (California truckers association) is still pending, and owner-operators are still allowed in CA. Based on the judicial record of the CTA case, if the court takes up the case it almost certainly means they will (yet again) reverse the 9th circuit court of appeals and reinstate the original decision from the district court; my reading is that the district court got it right.
.
In reading further about this issue, everyone involved seems to be blaming everyone except themselves. Accurate evaluation of the true causes seems hard to find.
Ed Forbes,
No subsidies are good for the nation, but this part: “as if by magic, $2.5k if it’s built by Union Labor”, is nothing but an indirect transfer from taxpayers to union workers…. it costs much more to build a car with union workers (no surprise there), so the Democrats are just going to transfer that added cost to taxpayers. I do wonder about how they will explain that to auto workers in South Carolina, Alabama, KY, etc. Maybe they don’t think anyone deserves an explanation.
Or for that matter Tersla’s autoworkers.
One wonders if the $2500 is enough to compensate for the premium added to the price of a car by its union labor component.
Hi John,
It is impossible to ever get exact figures, but most sources seem to estimate 15% of the selling price goes to direct (in-company) production labor. On a $40K car, that is $6,000. Union labor costs are said to be about 25% higher than non-union costs, so if true, maybe $1,500 difference on that $40K car. But I suspect the true labor costs are higher, since a big portion of “materials” costs are in fact labor costs; eg the dash board assembly that goes into a car may be assembled elsewhere, but still takes a lot of labor to build. A lot depends as well on how labor costs are accounted for; does labor cost include large pension costs from long-ago contracts, or only current direct labor? Nobody seems to say.
Sorry John, I thought your earlier comment 206875 was from Ed Forbes.
If Ed doesn’t mind, I don’t
The Magic Covid Crystal ball is issuing a warning [and not for Florida!]
COVID-19 DASHBOARD by Jason L. Salemi
Under: NATIONAL COMMUNITY PROFILE
2. Map of Recent Trends in New Cases, By State
The state colors indicate percent change in the number of cases. By toggling between 1,2 and 4 week comparisons you can spot a change in trend from decreasing % change in cases to increasing % change in cases in many states …and the rate of change appears to be increasing. Buckle up America!
It is easier to visualize if you can open three separate windows and toggle between windows.
Some of you have disparaged this site in the past but I use it for spotting changes in trends and it has been useful.
https://covid19florida.mystrikingly.com/national-community-profile
My usual disclaimer applies… I have no training or credentials in these matters.
@ Russel Klier,
Useful for what? Are you altering your behavior based on the information you glean from the site?
The graphic image in the top left depicts a mask that has “Our voices have power” printed upon it. That may be a contributing factor to any disparagement you perceive.
SteveF (Comment #206851): “The problem is dock workers cost too much, work too few hours, and block any improvements in efficiency. FWIW, US ports are not the worst. Port costs in other countries (like Brazil) are even higher.”
.
I am not buying. I do not believe that the pay of longshoremen is a very significant cost. This says that there are 7000 longshoremen employed in L.A.:
https://www.businessinsider.com/port-la-dock-workers-longshoremen-make-100k-salary-overtime-2021-9?op=1
Even at $200K per year, that is a paltry $1.4 billion per year.
.
According to Forbes, the average value of the cargo on a *single* container ship is about $1.4 billion and the cost of shipping that cargo across the Pacific is about $280 million.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/sap/2021/10/07/container-ship-crisis-underscores-critical-supply-chain-challenges/
So the value of cargo moving through the port dwarfs the labor costs of the ports.
.
I have seen claims that there are problems at all ports. But all the horror stories seem to be from L.A. Florida is actively trying to attract ships to their ports. So I suspect that nightmare situation in L.A. is because there is something different about L.A. Ed Forbes claim (Comment #206870) about the California regulations seems like a plausible explanation.
Earle (Comment #206884)
You wrote: “Useful for what? Are you altering your behavior based on the information you glean from the site?†Yes, I have, several times. And if I lived in one of the states whose data foreshadowed a problem I would look at my options again. Kansas , for example, had an 86% increase in cases in just one week, and the problem has been getting worse each week for the past four weeks.
You wrote “The graphic image in the top left depicts a mask that has “Our voices have power†printed upon it. That may be a contributing factor to any disparagement you perceive.†Yes again. Many people these days reject scientific information if the scientist does not echo their personal biases.
It is a bit humorous to see that the size of the first covid peak that scared everyone sh**less and started a hard lockdown is about the same as the country leading trough we are currently in for Florida. Those days of innocence.
If you want some red meat to get all uptight about, try this one. I’m not very excited about immigration one way or the other, but this is crazy:
U.S. in Talks to Pay Hundreds of Millions to Families Separated at Border
Government is considering payments of $450,000 per person affected by Trump administration’s zero-tolerance policy in 2018
https://www.wsj.com/articles/biden-administration-in-talks-to-pay-hundreds-of-millions-to-immigrant-families-separated-at-border-11635447591
.
“The U.S. Departments of Justice, Homeland Security, and Health and Human Services are considering payments that could amount to close to $1 million a family”
“The total potential payout could be $1 billion or more.”
“The lawsuits allege some of the children suffered from a range of ailments, including heat exhaustion and malnutrition, and were kept in freezing cold rooms and provided little medical attention. Many of the lawsuits describe lasting mental-health problems for the children from the trauma of the months without their parents in harsh conditions”
“In another instance, a Department of Homeland Security attorney involved in the settlement talks complained on a conference call that the payouts could amount to more than some families of 9/11 victims received”
.
This should definitely drop the incentives for crossing the board!
Russell
“Our voices have power” is not a scientific message; it’s political.
If you are in public making political statements, you should expect to receive a response. People disagreeing with your political statement is not a sign they reject scientific information.
I should also point out that many of your strongest posts discussing your reaction to people behavior is utterly non-scientific. Your disparagement of someone who died, your decreeing people should behave to protect you health so you don’t have to bear the burden of doing so your self and so on are all political judgements, not scientific ones.
So the Biden “build back America” bill has been cut back by half. Was the original $3.5T amount just a negotiating ploy to make $1.8T seem smaller by comparison?
That’s rhetorical…my answer is no. I think that they threw every possible giveaway into the bill, and hoped it would pass as written. Which it would have, but for a couple of senators. Nobody else in the Democratic Party seems to have expressed any reservations. Having failed to pass in its most munificent version, they’re paring it back a bit and I’m confident that Pelosi/Schumer/Biden will now describe the new incarnation as a reasonable compromise. (That is, they’ll frame the new amount as much lower than the original amount, rather than much higher than a no-bill status quo.) The Sanders wing of the party will no doubt press to increase it further.
Perhaps Biden will now claim that, as the original $3.5T bill wouldn’t cost anything, a bill spending only half as much will generate a surplus! [Again rhetorical. I don’t think any speechwriter is that far removed from reality.]
[A variation on the old joke about a wife buying a fur coat, telling her husband it didn’t cost a thing: it was on sale for 50% off, and she bought it with the 50% she saved. You can tell the joke is old because (a) fur, (b) stereotypes. ]
Mike M,
The average longshoreman in the USA makes about $40K, not $130K. Most ports other than Long beach and LA work 24/7 and have three shifts. There is no way a dock worker could ever command those wages, nor limit work hours, save for the coercive power of the union they belong to. You may think this is OK; I do not. Coercion is the opposite of economic efficiency.
HaroldW,
It is not yet a done deal…. the crazy progressive wing(nuts) in the Democrat caucus are still refusing to vote for the bipartisan infrastructure bill unless there is more than $1.8 trillion in the ‘socialism-now’ bill.
.
Unfortunately, the bill is going to be structured such that true costs are hidden (eg only include a 3 year or 5 year cost estimate for a program they expect to go on forever). There is no way to know the actual cost, but you can be sure it will be much higher than what the headline number says. You can also be sure that whatever is not explicitly included will be resurrected for next year’s reconciliation bill…… along with even bigger tax increases.
Steve, per your link
.
“.. The International Longshore and Warehouse Union, which represents the California ports dockworkers, agreed to have members work the third shift or on weekends.
.
However, port authorities must ensure that empty containers leave the port. This gives workers more space to unload items. “Congestion won’t be fixed until everyone steps up and does their part,†said Frank Ponce De Leon, an ILWU committeema….â€
.
Again it comes back to congestion being a major part of the problem. Storing the empty containers at the satellite yards instead of the port would go a long way to step up unloading speed.
.
Steve “ The average longshoreman in the USA makes about $40K, not $130K. â€
.
Welcome to California. Construction workers generaly are paid 6 figures plus benefits. Prevailing wages start at about $40/hr + benefits and goes up quickly over this for specific skills.
Ed Forbes,
“…agreed to have members work the third shift or on weekends…”
.
You mean agreed to have enough workers to avoid overtime and run 24/7? I kind of doubt that. I have seen multiple instances of 24/7 operation where the local union refused to allow enough workers to actually cover 24/7 without astronomical costs (time and a half or even double time).
.
The astronomical wages in CA are mostly driven by union contracts, not by market value. Open those jobs to anyone willing and able, and the wages would drop quickly. The whole point of the CA regulations on independent contractors was to protect the interests of union workers.
Steve “ The whole point of the CA regulations on independent contractors was to protect the interests of union workers..â€
.
Kinda my point .
.
But let’s be clear on the origination of prevailing wage laws. They were started in the northern states to protect their local workers from low wage blacks being imported by southern contractors, undercutting the local contractors. They were not union vs non union issues.
MIke M,
The port of Los Angeles has a capacity of about 5,500,000 twenty foot equivalent containers (TEU’s) a year (combining imports and exports). If there are 7,000 workers handling those containers, that is 785 TEU’s per worker per year, or a bit over two TEUs handled per worker per day. If that worker earns $130,000 per year, the cost for port labor is $165 per TEU. Since most containers are actually 40 Ft, that means the labor cost *alone* to move a container through the port of LA is about $330.
Ed Forbes,
Who said anything about prevailing wages and Davis-Bacon?
.
But since you brought it up: Davis-Bacon fleeces the taxpayer and (mostly) protects union jobs from non-union competition.
SteveF (Comment #206897): “… the cost for port labor is $165 per TEU. Since most containers are actually 40 Ft, that means the labor cost *alone* to move a container through the port of LA is about $330.”
.
Less than 2% of the $20K cost of shipping a container from China. Or about the same as the opportunity cost of $100K of cargo sitting at anchor for a couple weeks. Whether or not the longshoreman’s pay is fair, it is not the cause of the tie up.
The Supreme Court has agreed to hear appeals to limit the Environmental Protection Agency’s power to regulate carbon emissions under the Clean Air Act.
.
To say the least, this should scare the crap out of the left. I wouldn’t expect this to be a reversal (although it should be), but a clarification on what the limits are.
Tom Scharf,
I will not be at all surprised if the SC uses the case to reverse *both* Chevron and Massachusetts v EPA, which is an obvious miss-use of the Clean Air Act to regulate CO2 emissions. That regulation is something Congress never intended the act to do and which Congress has explicitly refused to do on multiple occasions.
.
Blocking the miss-use of laws to implement policies that do not have support among voters (nor in Congress!) is exactly the kind of thing I think the SC should be doing instead of creating a plethora of ‘rights’ nowhere found in the Constitution, while at the same time enabling politicians to thwart individual rights that are explicitly provided for in the Constitution, like Kelo v New London (the most obtuse SC decision in my lifetime). Chevron is nothing more than a fig leaf covering the obscene miss-use of law by politically motivated bureaucrats.
.
I am sure there are four votes to reverse both Chevron and Massachusetts, but I am not sure either mealy-mouth Roberts or Amy Barrett have the stomach to piss off the left as much as those reversals would, especially if the court reverses Roe and suggests Congress pass a suitable law if they want uniform nation-wide abortion law. (Something which Congress will not do.)
Mike M,
A cost of $20K is the highest quoted; getting a firm number is not so easy, since it is a fluid and very competitive market that is right now short of capacity. Based on shipping prices one of my companies sees, I believe a more realistic number is closer to half that. Historically the cost has been more like $3000 for a 20 foot container. But you need to remember that containers go both ways, and the cost to move a container of freight from the West coast to East Asia is more like $1500… but the port labor costs are the same.
.
WRT “fair” wages: I find using coercion to extract money is always unfair, even when it is allowed by law.
In COVID news, Russia and Ukraine are not looking good. Cases and deaths just keep going up.
DeWitt,
Russia and the Ukraine both have fairly low deaths per million compared to most developed larger countries. They are probably only 2/3 (or a bit less) of the way to herd immunity.
Based on an informal, underpowered survey of Ukrainians and Russians I know (from ballroom dance) they are a nest of anti-covid-vaxers!! My dance pro is from Ukraine: unvaccinated. Another pro is from Ukraine: unvaccinated. I had a coach from Russia– strongly suspect unvaccinated. (She’d been hospitalized after getting a tuburculosis vaccine in Russia as a child.) Other Ukranian pros: unvaccinated. Oh… Beilorus pro: unvaccinated.
.
Meanwhile the Moldovan and Estonian pros are vaccinated. But there is a strong streak of not trusting the government about vaccines among the Russia-Ukraine-Beilorus group of pros.
.
Evidently, Ukrain also has a booming black market in face vax certifications. I”m not surprised
https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-s-booming-black-market-in-fake-covid-vaccination-certificates/31486307.html
Lucia,
It’s either a Russian/Ukranian thing or ballroom dance can make you crazy…. 😉
SteveF,
My impression is the vaccine craziness is a Russian/Ukranian thing. The ballroom dance craziness is separate.
My suspicion is that the Russian vaccine(s) also isn’t very effective.
DeWitt,
I think that is also true. I think Ukrainians and Russian’s continued suspiciousness about governments proclamation about vaccines is fed by Russians having not-so-great vaccines.
SteveF, based on your post concerning regression of the square of the unvaccinated population versus cases for states, I decided to update my multi-variate regression with state cases per 1 million population as the dependent variable. I included the latest vaccination rates and cases. The r squared was 0.692 and the importance of the relative contribution of the explanatory variables to r squared was as follows: Vax Rate =37.8%; mobility=33.7%; portion urban= 11.8%; testing rate=6.1%; summer temperature=5.9%; H2O level atmosphere= 4.4% and percent population in nursing homes=0.3%. When Florida, North Dakota and Oregon were removed the r squared was 0.782. The relative importance of explanatory variables stayed much the same.
When I regressed the Case Rate versus the Vax Rate I got an r square value of 0.47 and using the square of the unVax Rate did not improve the r squared value.
It did not come as a surprised that the Vax Rate has become the most important explanatory variable, but I did get some surprises when I plotted the cases versus time and in a separate plot under the cases plot a plot of the Vax Rate over a time period starting 2 weeks after the cases plot start. I need to do some more work on this part of the analysis, but what I have found is that all states I have looked at have had a surge cycle in late summer to early fall that had mainly subsided in current time and during the rise and fall to and from the peak most states were approaching what looks like an asymptotic plateau. Whether the state had a high or low vaccination rate there was a substantial peak. Higher Vax Rates have no doubt kept the peaks from being higher, but the peaks were not eliminated with the highest Vax Rates and not kept from declining with the lowest Vax Rates. Another takeaway from the Vax Rate plots is that the trend upward has slowed to a near plateau for almost all states regardless of the current state rate.
Effectiveness of Covid-19 Vaccination Against Risk of Symptomatic Infection, Hospitalization, and Death Up to 9 Months: A Swedish Total-Population Cohort Study
.
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3949410
.
“Interpretation: Vaccine effectiveness against symptomatic Covid-19 infection wanes progressively over time across all subgroups, but at different rate according to type of vaccine, and faster for men and older frail individuals. The effectiveness against severe illness seems to remain high through 9 months, although not for men, older frail individuals, and individuals with comorbidities. This strengthens the evidence-based rationale for administration of a third booster dose.â€
.
Bottom line….boosters forever
(B.1.617.2) variant in vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals in the UK: a prospective, longitudinal, cohort study
.
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(21)00648-4/fulltext#seccestitle160.
.
Interpretation
.
“Vaccination reduces the risk of delta variant infection and accelerates viral clearance. Nonetheless, fully vaccinated individuals with breakthrough infections have peak viral load similar to unvaccinated cases and can efficiently transmit infection in household settings, including to fully vaccinated contacts. Host–virus interactions early in infection may shape the entire viral trajectoryâ€
Kenneth,
“When I regressed the Case Rate versus the Vax Rate I got an r square value of 0.47 and using the square of the unVax Rate did not improve the r squared value.”
.
I used the square of the unvaccinated fraction of the population (1 – fraction vaccinated). I am surprised you did not see an improvement.
.
Were all those factors statistically significant? (Is the +/- 2 sigma uncertainty for the magnitude of the effect inclusive of zero?)
.
Seems to me unlikely that they are all statistically significant, since the smaller effects are much smaller than the unaccounted for variance.
.
You may want to to consider using the Akaike information criterion in your analysis to limit the number of variables. (https://www.scribbr.com/statistics/akaike-information-criterion/)
.
Each added explanatory variable in a regression analysis makes it less statistically robust.
Ed Forbes,
“This strengthens the evidence-based rationale for administration of a third booster dose. Bottom line: boosters forever.”
.
Music to the ears of Pfizer and Moderna, I’m sure. I already got my third dose, so even though I am (ahem..) an older man, my resistance may still be OK. Since Moderna’s vaccine was funded in part by the FDA, their position for exorbitant booster cost is weaker. Mix-and-match vaccination seems (if anything) better than only one type, so the Moderna vaccine may become a lot more popular if it is cheaper.
.
If the drug companies produce vaccines which specifically target the more infective variants, the needed frequency for boosters may be much less.
I think the real concern is potential vaccine evading variants. They haven’t found them. But if a variant was simultaneously: (1) vaccine evading, (2) highly transmissible and (3) made people just as sick or sider, that would be a big problem. So the pharma firms want to be nimble for that. We don’t want to wait a year for turn around. (Yes. We are lucky the first vaccines were fast. But they know to start work to figure out what to do now.)
This article talks about them working on vaccines for β because it’s closest to vaccine evading (but clearly not as transmissible or it would be the one circulating.)
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02854-3
Vaccine evading might tend to evade natural immunity.
Lucia,
“But if a variant was simultaneously: (1) vaccine evading, (2) highly transmissible and (3) made people just as sick or sider, that would be a big problem.”
.
Sure, but I am a lot more sanguin about that. We know that many people had significant resistance from a past infection with very distantly related coronaviruses (“common-cold coronaviruses’), so the complete escape of a variant strain from existing immunity seems to me extremely unlikely. Yes, stains with greater transmission are always going to be favored, but I just am not very worried about fundamentally different strains that avoid immunity.
https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/vaccines-will-not-produce-worse-variants
“Vaccines Will Not Produce Worse Variants”
Interesting.
SteveF,
I’m not especially worried. But I am happy to know that pharma companies are preparing to be ready. Even if it’s low odds, it’s better to have them ready to create the next vaccine than not.
The CDC is probably contemplating some GOF research on vaccine evasion, just so we will be better prepared in the future.
SteveF, I use both AIC and Likelihood Ratio Test when adding variables to a model. Nursing home is not a significant variable, but I left it in from my previous model (before updating).
From my analysis I conclude that the causation details of cyclical surges of cases needs more investigation.
Kenneth,
Thanks.
Does your regression model have any variable related to the arrival of different strains? In the USA at least, the arrival of beta and delta seem (chronologically) associated with specific surges, although that is complicated by ever changing stay-at-home/lockdown/masking etc policies and the considerable delay of a new strain progressing across the country.
SteveF, neither my state nor nation model accounts for changing variants. I am not currently aware of data or proxy data that would allow for that accounting. I suspect that my explanatory variables for cases and deaths hold in similar fashion for all variants.
When I have updated my models over time the explanatory variables do not change much with the exception of the more recent inclusion of vaccination rate in the state model which in turn renders the variable of nursing home residence rate no longer significant. If vaccination works as prescribed and hoped, it should become eventually by far the most important one and make previous included variables no longer significant.
One might have predicted that with a more infectious variant like delta that the variables mobility and urban might become more important, but I have not seen that to be the case.
The latest delta surge cycle in cases coming and going in states without regard to the state vaccination rate (from my plots) makes me inclined to think that the Ro for the delta variant that Lucia noted from a linked article being in the 6 to 7 neighborhood as very believable and perhaps being even higher.
The saving grace is that the vaccinated, boostered and previously infected should not on the whole have severe reactions to an infection. For the unvaccinated and/or impaired or older the situation could be a whole different situation unless very effective prophylactic measures are found.
Gavin Newsome hasn’t been seen for about 10 days and cancelled a climate trip to Scotland. One site said he has received Bell’s Palsy from a booster shot. Since that can’t be hidden that is a logical explanation for his absence. Be interesting to follow. https://twitter.com/HeyTammyBruce/status/1457459570998226951?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1457459570998226951%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=
Don’t know the validity of this source, but circumstances do appear to be suspicious. https://noqreport.com/2021/11/08/gavin-newsom-had-major-adverse-reaction-to-moderna-booster-shot-sources/
Here is a thoughtful analysis of wrongheaded covid policies: https://unherd.com/2021/11/how-sweden-swerved-covid-disaster/
.
Draws a parallel to prohibition in the 1920’s: good intentions for sure (after all, alcohol kills and debilitates many people), but in the end you can’t make people behave the way you want them to, and the harder you try, the more damaging the consequences to a free society. The Biden administration needs to stop the covid madness…. unless the real objective is the end of a free society.
Lucia,
I have been working on maths problems for many years albeit at a much lower level than yourself with a special interest [fixation] on Fermat’s theorem.
–
That is no two positive integers to a power of 3 or greater can ever form a third integer to that same power.
–
The answer, which would fit in the margins of a book as Fermat proposed is as follows
“The sum of two cubes is 2 identical cubes plus a gap
When the sum is a cube and the gap is a cube the first cube has to be two identical cubes
Yet two identical cubes can never be a cube.
Therefore the first cube can never be a cube if the gap and sum are cubes.
Only a non cube can add to a cube to make a cube
This proof applies to all powers 3 or greater.”
–
I hope you do not mind me tucking it into your blog.
If it proves reasonable with no flaws please let me know.
angech,
I get the feeling anything so simple would have been recognized as a proof sometime over 300+ years of effort that was applied to Fermat’s last. Have you proposed your proof to a mathematician who works in number theory?
I think working on Fermat’s theorem is beyond me.
angech,
Doesn’t your argument also imply that the sum of squares of two integers can’t be the square of an integer?
lucia (Comment #207452
“I think working on Fermat’s theorem is beyond me.”
On the contrary you are one of the most qualified and competent persons I know.
It is just a question of whether this particular approach might work where all else has failed.
I described it as a double negative induction.
–
ATTP asked angech,
I’m not sure why you think that:
The sum of two cubes is 2 identical cubes plus a gap
“Why “2 identical cubesâ€?
–
All cubes go up by a gap of 6s plus 1 1,8 27, 64 etc
gives gaps 7, 6+1, 19, 3×6. +1, 37, 6×6 +1 etc
When you have 2 cubes , say 8 plus 27 the cube that they would make, if they could make a cube
(They cannot) , would be 35 I.e. 8 plus 8 plus 19.
This is true for any two cubes you wish to add.
That is the first cube is duplicated twice and adds to the gap between the first and second cube.
Instead of trying to prove the gap is a cube (it is not) or the sum of the two cubes is a cube ( it is not)
You just have to show that the sum of two cubes is always 2 identical cubes and a gap.
–
Having done this, true in every case, the problem lies with the assumption that the first cube was a cube.
The result is the gap plus 2 identical cubes.
But this means that the cube that is supposed to add to the gap (assumed to be a cube)
Is actually a double identical cube .
Being irrational the addition can never give true integer cube.
I thought this method,
“Neither the true identity of the gap or the cube that is supposed to be made by two cubes is ever shown but since they demand a double cube to add to the gap it cannot exist..”
–
Was a bit like Buffon’s noodle problem, Going beyond the prescribed parameters to end up with a simple proof.
– If you cannot shoot holes in it easily it might just work.
Mike M. (Comment #207461)
angech,
“Doesn’t your argument also imply that the sum of squares of two integers can’t be the square of an integer?”
No
It is known that there are an infinite number of sums of squares of two integers being the square of an integer.
This is why the proof demands all powers greater than 2 [ squares]
cannot have two integers add to make a third integer of the same power.
The reason for this is is the very reason why squares can sometimes do it but all other powers cannot.
No identical powers greater than two can form a third power by addition.
I will leave you to think about that?
SteveF (Comment #207451
angech,
“I get the feeling anything so simple would have been recognized as a proof sometime over 300+ years of effort that was applied to Fermat’s last.”
I agree with you.
I tried very hard to come up with an answer in the 1990 years but stopped when Wiles proposed a proof 129 pages long.
There are at least 3 other methods that might work if I had better mathematical training.
Possibly , as I said to Lucia, the problem, as I found, was that everyone tried to prove the gap could not be a cube and the sum could not be a cube but nobody thought to broach the assumption that the first cube [ smaller cube] in the series could never be a cube if the other two were cubes.
–
‘”Have you proposed your proof to a mathematician who works in number theory?”
No.
Singh in his book on Fermat said the number of wrong answers was infinite.
My answer therefore is probably wrong.
Someone just have to disprove it.
If they cannot then I am sure the internet will advance it to the attention of mathematicians.
angech,
I guess I’ll add: I’m not especially interested in the proof! There may be mathematics blogs you can try where you’ll find people intrested in that sort of thing.
Angech,
My understanding is that there were plenty of early proofs associated with Fermat’s last. It was shown early on that only prime numbers could ever satisfy the equation, and that proofs of the equation for specific primes (3, 5, and 7) were made over 200 years ago. Later, whole classes of primes were proven to not satisfy the equation. But that left an infinity of other primes which potentially could. Exhaustive searches with computer programs long ago showed that all the prime numbers up to many millions did not satisfy the equation. It sounds to me like a proof for power 3 has been known for a while. Are you suggesting your approach applies to all larger primes?
angech (Comment #207499): “It is known that there are an infinite number of sums of squares of two integers being the square of an integer. … No identical powers greater than two can form a third power by addition.”
.
That sounds like circular reasoning. But I can’t really tell unless you provide a clearly stated argument.
Mike M. (Comment #207503)
“That sounds like circular reasoning. But I can’t really tell unless you provide a clearly stated argument.”
SteveF (Comment #207502
Angech,
My understanding is that there were plenty of early proofs It sounds to me like a proof for power 3 has been known for a while. Are you suggesting your approach applies to all larger primes?
Yes.
To do with two facts.
The number one can be raised to any power but remains at a value of 1.
this means there is always a gap one less than any other power between one and that number.
two identical ones will always form a number 1 greater than any power it is added to.
All powers greater than 2 added together have to have two identical components plus a gap.
That gap has to be a number to a power itself and the combination has to be a power to itself.
For the gap to satisfy being a power and the combination being a power.
No one has ever been able to find an example of any set of numbers raised to the same power that form a number raised to the same power.
This fact however is not a proof.
What is a proof is that two identical numbers to the same power can never form a number to that power.
Yet that doubled number has to be a number to that power for the equation to work.
Since the number is only being doubled, multiplied by 2, but all powers are multiples of the number greater than 2 no number greater than 2 exists which can fill that role.
3 cubed doubled cannot be 3 times 3 cubed
3 to the power 4 doubled cannot be 3 x3 fourth.
Lucia, I deeply appreciate you letting me have this conversation with Steve and Mike.
There might be an important principle here if circular reasoning is ruled out.
Much obliged.
angech,
I suppose if I were someone who specialized in number theory I would be better able to evaluate your suggestion of a simple proof to Fermat’s last. But I am not. If you think you have a valid proof, then you should find a number theory specialist and discuss it. There are even some in Oz: http://www.numbertheory.org/ntw/N2.html
The individual university math departments usually provide email contacts for staff. Maybe you and Fermat saw the same simple proof. Maybe not. Good luck.
angech (Comment #207512): “All powers greater than 2 added together have to have two identical components plus a gap.”
“Yet that doubled number has to be a number to that power for the equation to work.”
.
Baffling. What are these “identical components” and why must there be two of them? What is meant by “gap”? Or “doubled number”?
.
You have not defined terms. You express in words things that ought to be equations. Both are indicators of sloppy thinking.
.
The conjecture itself can be easily expressed in terms of an equation:
X^n + Y^n = Z^n has no solution with X, Y, Z, and n all integers and n>2. Why don’t you express your proof in such terms?
SteveF (Comment #207514)
There are even some in Oz: http://www.numbertheory.org/ntw/N2.html
The individual university math departments usually provide email contacts for staff. Maybe you and Fermat saw the same simple proof. Maybe not. Good luck.
–
Thank you, Steve.
Appreciated,
Mike M. (Comment #207516)
angech (Comment #207512): “All powers greater than 2 added together have to have two identical components plus a gap.â€
–
“You have not defined terms”.
Fermat’s theorem is well defined and the terms used reflect those of the theorem.
I was not writing a treatise on the subject,
which I could if Lucia wanted a post topic but she has said fairly clearly that at the moment she is not interested.
Fermat claimed a proof could be very small and fit in the margin of a book.
Which is what I have done.
–
“You express in words things that ought to be equations.”
That is your point of view, it is not one I would agree with.
“Both are indicators of sloppy thinking.”
I have put thousands of hours into the subject and finally found an answer. I put it in the best and shortest words I could.
I am sorry that it appears sloppy.
Angech,
I don’t mind if you discuss Fermat’s theorem. I’m just not going to spend any time on th topic.
Mike M. (Comment #207516)
I will try.
Cubes are numbers to the third power.
This means there are 3 multiplications of the numerator.
If the numerator is a prime number there can only be one cube for that prime number.
When you add two cubes together you get a sum of the cubes.
1,8,27, 64,125, 216, 343, 512, 729, 1000.
The gaps between the cubes are
7,19,37, 61,91, 127, 169, 217, 271.
Of interest, mathematically, every gap is composed of multiples of 6 plus an additional 1
6, 18, 60, 90, 126, 168, 216, 270.
which is the triangular sequence
1, 3, 6, 10, 15, 21, 28, 36, 45,
I digress.
When two cubes are added together the second larger cube must always incorporate the first cube.
The gap between the two cubes will always be the sum of the known gaps between the cubes.
Serendipitously this always allows the sum of the cubes to be two identical cubes plus the known gap.
A cube can only add to a gap that is a cube if it is to make another cube.
The gap cannot be a cube but is not directly provable.
The largest cube cannot be a cube but this is not directly provable.
However when the gap is a cube and the sum is a cube the First cube has to be able to break down into two identical cubes.
This is known to be impossible from time immemorial.
Because the two identical cubes would add a single 2 to the new cube, becoming the irrational cube root of two.
Which as I stated above makes it impossible for any two cubes [or greater powers] to form a new cube or greater power.
This holds true for all other powers of numbers as well for the same reason.
As said, the aim of everyone working on this problem was to prove that the gap cannot be a cube when the sum is a cube.
Which leads to the circular arguments that stopped it being solved.
What they did not do was consider that the first term might be the problem.
The only small cube that can add to a larger cube to make a cube also needs to be a double of a cube.
No doubles of a cube can make a cube [or larger power].
Hence the Fermat equation is proven to be impossible.
below
“X^n + Y^n = Z^n has no solution with X, Y, Z, and n all integers and n>2.
Why don’t you express your proof in such terms?”
2A^3 +B^3 cannot = C^3 as 2A^3 cannot= a cube
Hopefully that would suffice.
It is even simpler than my 54 word explanation.
Lucia.
Thanks again.++
angech (Comment #207529),
That is *much* clearer. I will try to digest it and see what I come up with.
.
Actually, Fermat’s marginally said that the proof would not fit in the margin. He lived about 30 years after making that note, but never published a proof. But he did publish a proof that the equation can not be satisfied if the exponent is 4. It seems fairly clear that he thought he had a proof, but later realized that he did not.
I love the Bee
.
https://babylonbee.com/news/after-prosecutors-find-mail-in-jury-votes-at-3am-rittenhouse-now-guilty
.
KENOSHA, WI—In a stunning reversal, Kyle Rittenhouse awoke this morning to discover that he had been found guilty after all.
.
Prosecutors explained that during the night, they had found dozens of mail-in jury votes declaring the defendant guilty on all counts. Apparently, boxes of these mail-in votes arrived in a truck at the courthouse around 3:00 am.
angech (Comment #207529): “However when the gap is a cube and the sum is a cube the First cube has to be able to break down into two identical cubes.”
.
Let’s see if I am following. If G^3 is the ‘gap’, S^3 is the ‘sum’, and F^3 is the ‘first cube’ then if Fermat’s equation is satisfied we have:
F^3 + G^3 = S^3.
The what I quoted above says that for that to be true, we must have
F^3 = 2*(A^3)
where A is an integer. I don’t see why that last bit has to be true.
Mike
“what I quoted above says that for that to be true, we must have
F^3 = 2*(A^3)
where A is an integer. I don’t see why that last bit has to be true.”
That last bit must be true for this idea to work.
It is correct. for cubes look up.
Doubling the cube, also known as the Delian problem, is an ancient geometric problem and more recent algebraic problem
There is no whole number solution.
It can only be done by a cube having the cube root of two as part of its numerator. This cannot be a natural number as it must contain a cube root.
In your example
Let A=1
F^3 = 2
F = the cube root of two. ie cannot be a cube
Steve F asked if this applies to all powers >2, the answer is yes
When you double any number to a power greater than 2
You then have to apply that power in reverse [find the root of the number to that power.
No matter which power you choose to use 2 can never form a rational number when roots > 2 are taken of two.
Yet you always have to use 2 when you add doubled numbers
I would like to present this as a paper.
[ I will take Steve F’s advice].
I would like to present this as a post as well but this could only occur if there is enough consensus that it is right [jury still out] and one of the sites willing to put a prospect up that may be wrong
angech,
Not one word that you wrote pertains to the question I asked.