By Lambert Strether of Corrente
Patient readers, I must finish up a post on WHO, so this is an open thread. Enjoy! –lambert
Bird Song of the Day
This is a Tangager (mentioned by alert reader wol), albeit from Venezuela.
#COVID19
Lambert here: I am but a humble tape-watcher, but if some trusting, non-realist soul tells you that “Covid is over,” you can tell them that cases are up, transmission is up, test positivity is up, hospitalization is up, rapid riser counties are up, and wastewater is up, too. And this is all from data designed to support the narrative that “Covid is over,” and gamed within an inch of its life. So, if signals like that are flashing red, consider what the real signal must be like. (Note also this is all with BA.2 only, and with what the establishment considers an “immune wall” made from vaccination and prior infection. Since semper aliquid novi Africam adferre, and we’ve let ‘er rip at the airports…. Well, I just hope we get lucky with BA.4 and BA.5. “God has a special providence for fools, drunkards, and the United States of America.” –Otto von Bismarck.
If you missed it, here’s a post on my queasiness with CDC numbers, especially case count, which I (still) consider most important, despite what Walensky’s psychos at CDC who invented “community levels” think. But these are the numbers we have.
Case count by United States regions:
The train is really rolling, now. Biden has handily beaten Trump’s first two peaks, even accepting the data, which of course nobody does. (Remember these data points are weekly averages, so daily fluctuations are smoothed out. Also remember, it’s 100% certain the cases numbers are significantly understated. They’ve always been gamed, but it’s worse than before. One source said they though cases might be undercounted by a factor of six. Gottlieb thinks we only pick up one in seven or eight.) The black “Fauci Line” is a counter to triumphalism, since it compares current levels to past crises. The blue “Biden Line” shows what the case count would be if it were 113,000 * 6 = 678,000, i.e. not gamed. Biden has now handily broken 600,000, good job.
Here are cases for the last four weeks:
Worth noting that cases have doubled tripled in four weeks.
NOTE I shall most certainly not be using the CDC’s new “Community Level” metric. Because CDC has combined a leading indicator (cases) with a lagging one (hospitalization) their new metric is a poor warning sign of a surge, and a poor way to assess personal risk. In addition, Covid is a disease you don’t want to get. Even if you are not hospitalized, you can suffer from Long Covid, vascular issues, and neurological issues. For these reasons, case counts — known to be underestimated, due to home test kits — deserve to stand alone as a number to be tracked, no matter how much the political operatives in CDC leadership would like to obfuscate it. That the “green map” (which Topol calls a “capitulation” and a “deception”) is still up and being taken seriously verges on the criminal.
From the Walgreen’s test positivity tracker:
I’m leaving the corporate logo on as a slap to the goons at CDC.
Down (for both north and south systems). Any local reasons for this?
The Massachusetts Water Resources Authority (MWRA) service area includes 43 municipalities in and around Boston, including not only multiple school systems but several large universities. Since Boston is so very education-heavy, then, I think it could be a good leading indicator for Covid spread in schools generally.
Cases lag wastewater data.
From Biobot Analytics:
Northeast retrospectively revised downward. I don’t like this at all, and maybe I should drop this chart. The other thing I’m not liking is that big time lag with the variants. April 27? I want to know about BA.4 and BA.5 (dubbed “variants of concern” by The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) last week, but not WHO).
From CDC Community Profile Reports (PDFs), “Rapid Riser” counties:
Status quo. The West and the Northeast are worse (so the chart is dynamic).
The previous release:
Here is CDC’s interactive map by county set to community transmission. This is the map CDC wants only hospitals to look at, not you:
East coast, West Coast, and Midwest are all red.
Hospitalization (CDC Community Profile). Back to normal, so yesterday’s debacle (this chart disappeared) was only an editorial screw-up (CDC drone: “That guy Strether is onto us!”):
More and more orange.
Death rate (Our World in Data):
Total: 1,028,924 1,028,337. Now at the second-lowest “valley,” which is good. I have added an anti-triumphalist Fauci Line.
Covid cases in top us travel destinations (Statista):
Big jump in the UK and France! (Note the quality of these numbers varies wildly. For example, the UK is cutting back on testing data.
Contact information for plants: Readers, feel free to contact me at lambert [UNDERSCORE] strether [DOT] corrente [AT] yahoo [DOT] com, to (a) find out how to send me a check if you are allergic to PayPal and (b) to find out how to send me images of plants. Vegetables are fine! Fungi and coral are deemed to be honorary plants! If you want your handle to appear as a credit, please place it at the start of your mail in parentheses: (thus). Otherwise, I will anonymize by using your initials. See the previous Water Cooler (with plant) here. From AM:
AM writes: “Here is a picture of a horse chestnut tree in bloom in Edgewood (Cranston) RI. The tree is near the William H Hall public library on Broad Street, and I couldn’t resist attempting a photo of the spectacular blossoms on my walk to the grocery store.”
NOTE ON PAYPAL: As some readers may know, PayPal whacked Consortium News’s account, for no justification that I can see. It’s to be hoped that Consortium News has its account completely restored, and that NC doesn’t come under the same ban hammer. In the meantime, until I/we can come up with an alternative, I must continue to rely on PayPal (and rely I do). I will be cleaning out the account daily, and PayPal does give a heads-up, so your risk is minimal. Please carry on as before, or, if you feel you must, write me and I will send you directions for sending a check. Please put “PayPal” in the subject line. Thank you for your support! It is much appreciated, and helps me with responsibilities. –lambert
Readers: Water Cooler is a standalone entity not covered by the recently concluded and — thank you! — successful annual NC fundraiser. So if you see a link you especially like, or an item you wouldn’t see anywhere else, please do not hesitate to express your appreciation in tangible form. Remember, a tip jar is for tipping! Regular positive feedback both makes me feel good and lets me know I’m on the right track with coverage. When I get no donations for five or ten days I get worried. More tangibly, a constant trickle of donations helps me with expenses, and I factor in that trickle when setting fundraising goals:
Here is the screen that will appear, which I have helpfully annotated:
If you hate PayPal, you can email me at lambert [UNDERSCORE] strether [DOT] corrente [AT] yahoo [DOT] com, and I will give you directions on how to send a check. Thank you!
50 comments
Comments are closed.
Well I got nothing so I’ll finish my hot dog and take nap.
I hope the WHO thingy is about the band and not the front company for bill gates;-)
Yeah, and I want the smashing instruments version of The Who!
I think this is from Monterey International Pop Festival. I’m quite impressed with the amount of effort required to destroy a pre-CBS Strat! No wonder they’re worth so much.
The Who – My Generation live 1967
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjN5uHRIcjM
But later that year, all good things can get a little over done. Like when Keith loaded up the drum kit a bit too much on the Smothers Brothers Comedy Show.
Keith moon puts to much gun powder in his drum kit and blows up in his face
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gu42_-Dp4Tw
I know I saw this in “The Kids Are All Right”, but I might have seen it on live TV too.
Thanks for that, jo6pac. Gates would be my nominee for Most Evil Billionaire, but maybe he’s more deluded than evil. He seems to be saying:
Evil or deluded? Does it make a difference?
I did not know this…apparently, Klaus Schulze died last month…the reason is undisclosed, but it was some sort of chronic, age-related illness. He was 74. He was one of the founding members of Tangerine Dream, and then in the very early 1970’s left for his solo career. His music is very similar, as he also did a lot of very avantgarde electronic instrumental music like Tangerine Dream, and his best material was from the 1970’s and 1980’s. This is a later added bonus track to his ‘Cyborg’ album from 1973.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=H8X4c4YTvCA&listen=1
He was astonishingly prolific. I’ve barely sampled half his output but what I’ve listened to suggests that Tangerine Dream fans might want to explore his non-TD releases:
https://www.klaus-schulze.com/disco/welcome.htm
A divine pairing was TD and Michael Mann in “Thief” that starred James Caan and a memorable cameo by Willie Nelson as “Okla.” Tuesday Weld did a fine job as well. The first few creative stirrings that would lead to “Miami Vice” are teased in the film’s visual style.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thief_(soundtrack)
This combo is so flat out stylish that it’s held up for me over dozens of screenings. And yes, a Thermite stick will unzip almost any metal container.
I like the 1977 Sorcerer soundtrack by Tangerine Dream, and it is also one of my favorite movies of all time, and I think it is better than the original Wages of Fear from the 1950’s. There is something ominous and fitting about the soundtrack for two rusting hulks of trucks driving through mud, rain, and thick jungle in deepest, darkest, South America bearing unstable explosives.
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVC1hw9RLnoetJfeEKTWQdm50wXVN39NV
I absolutely loved that movie. Thank you for the reminder, I’ll have to look for a replay.
Sorcerer is a great film, with a great score. But don’t underestimate the original Salaire de la Peur!
I have a standing rule that if TD did the soundtrack, I will watch the movie. They scored so many unusual films back in the day.
This AM a friend of a friend stopped by to pick up plants from the ‘backyard nursery’. Having solved my supply side problems, it is gratifying that the demand side is picking up (it helps that everything is gratis, but even then it’s surprising the good things that people won’t accept at zero cost). In keeping with the prevailing public health strikethrough{gaslighting} narrative, the visitor was unmasked. I was wearing my customary 3M Aura 9210+ N95 respirator and was not so subtly encouraging ‘physical distancing’ by wearing work clothes visibly, and probably osmically, in need of laundering. Why waste clean water and good laundry soap washing clothes that you intend to, really soon, make really dirty again? The present value of keeping people at, or beyond, arm’s length adds crisis value to this down-to-earth consideration.
The visitor accepted the plants, a small bag of fertilizer (if one wants repeat ‘customers’, it’s important to facilitate a good outcome) and, after a few carefully chosen words about personal safety, some proffered N95s.
Maybe they will be used.
The gift is the blessing of the giver. O. C. Bible…
Samuel Conner says . . . if one wants repeat ‘customers’, it’s important to facilitate a good outcome.
NEVER have truer words been spoken. Well stated, sir!
Thank you, JB.
A “trick” that I have been using to ‘seduce’ non-gardeners into gardening is to grow plants intended for newbies in larger pots with more fertilizer, to get them robust and more likely to survive the mishaps and neglect that are common with beginners (with which I am quite familiar from first-hand experience, not that long ago, as a beginner myself.) Loading a big root ball with slow-release fertilizer will help the plant thrive even if it is not fed again by the recipient. It’s not that I want the ‘customers’ to come back to me per se, but I want them to come back to gardening in future years, so it’s important that the first year be a happy experience.
—
It turns out that there is more than one kind of ‘repeat customer’, and not all are equally desirable.
More friends of friends stopped by in the PM to collect plants and fertilizer. As I was putting things away, a startled and exceedingly well-fed-looking ground hog broke cover and dashed across my path into some dense shrubs. While I didn’t recognize the specific animal, I’ve been tormented for years by what I think is a single ground hog that has a taste for lettuce and kale. The animal would show up, demolish the salad trays, and then move on, coming back a few weeks later to check the status of the ‘salad bar.’ I hadn’t seen a hint of it this year until now.
Sure enough, the more mature red lettuce and kale were chewed down to stubs. Happily, I am succession planting this year and there are trays of small plants coming up that evidently were not worth the creature’s time, and it is easy to start more.
This was a sad end to an otherwise happy day — 100+ plants placed into 5 families — and I spent the evening precariously raising my benches another 16 inches in hope of putting the delectables out of the d@mned creature’s reach. I have a honking big Havahart trap but the creature refuses to enter it. I’d rather not descend to the level of a Conibear decapitation trap — the creature’s crimes don’t rise to the level of a capital offense, though they make me quite cross.
So, in addition to the desirable customers, I have a repeat pilferer — a ‘gardenlifter.’ “Shrink” is a problem even in non-commercial “enterprises”.
A polyglot language teacher with a unique method: learn how to pronounce words first, by listening to the syllables and rhythms, before knowing what they mean. Idahosa Ness tried to make a business out of this approach but eventually just released all the videos. His basic courses for a dozen languages are free.
https://www.mimicmethod.com/
Here is an intro to his current project.
https://youtu.be/7k37iHJ12Ds
Au revoir y’all.
That looks so interesting – by a coincidence I was just going to start my nightly lesson in Japanese – my current course focuses on exactly this technique (so far as I can see from a quick look at that website), using chorusing and shadowing to get the rhythm and tone/pitch of a language correctly. Its a very powerful technique, I wish I’d come across it years ago.
Perhaps the US could improve by learning British English.
And all sound like Boris. He is expert in speaking a language without delivering any meaning.
Which British English? There are so many.
https://englishlive.ef.com/blog/english-in-the-real-world/rough-guide-british-dialects/
For that matter, which American English? Even now plenty of people do not speak California-Los Angeles-Hollywood-Broadcasting-Professional Managerial Class that is assumed to be proper American, which is nonsense.
The range and strength is much less distinct then fifty or seventy years ago, but still quite real.
When I was relearning German (from High School) when in Germany, I used to have the radio playing in the background that had a lot of speaking. I figured that even if I did not understand everything that they were saying, that my mind would be taking in the the rhyme and rhythm of the language. It seems to have helped as by the time that I left several months later and was able to speak English again, that I found some English words awkward to pronounce and that I almost had to mouth them.
Wow, I knew people who were friends with him, they all said how nice he was, and a lot of fun which comes through in his videos.
It looks like Mimic Method is still a business but it is focusing on live online classes and workshops with the free content as a hook, or did I misunderstand?
I like the new intro about covid. What needs to be said.
Now to figure out what needs to be done…
I stumbled this morning onto my new favorite Kentucky musician, SG Goodman of western Kentucky, and was looking for a good place to share.
A pretty love song, “Space and Time”:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5uLvHk0DeI
And the more uptempo “Old Time Feeling” (sadly, no amps smashed), with lyrics that might be at home here at NC and whose vibe reminds me of the songs I like most from Courtney Barnett:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ermk2lYopJ0
I imagine the Boston numbers are down because universities are out.
Just back from physical therapy. I was the only person masked out of about 25 people. No staff was masked. No patients were masked except pour moi.
Dude, like have you heard about Bitchin’Coin?
So it’s totally limited to how many people want to buy them, and please no hodads or gremmies on this caper, serfs up!
Serf City USA!
But, as Lord Hendrix put it, “And you’ll never hear serf music again.” The “blowoff” is built into this caper.
The search for the root cause of long covid continues.
I do sometimes wonder if there is another site on the net that gives such a comprehensive view of the stats and figure of the present Pandemic and does not even try to pretend that it is all over and so passe. One official site here in Oz you have to dig around and add up the figures on a piece of paper to get an overall view.
> I do sometimes wonder if there is another site on the net that gives such a comprehensive view of the stats and figure of the present Pandemic and does not even try to pretend that it is all over and so passe.
[lambert preens]
I could be wrong, but I haven’t seen one. I’m also not too bad at calling the turns :-)
I think of it as a reader service….
Possible local reason for MWRA wastewater data: its warming up in the NE. More people eating and hanging out outdoors. Less transmission.
If this holds up, we should see cases heading up in too hot to be outside areas like FL and TX.
Also just the nature of waves, crest then trough, until the next wave…and the northeast seems to be catching the waves first.
Tornadic activity is prominent herein this Monday evening. Upstate region of South Carolina, my phone went ballistic and the local TV weather forecasters are updating the forecast. Fortunately or not, tornadoes will move quickly!
I got slowly used to these alerts whilst living in the Dallas metro region and North Texas. I have no clue if an actual tornado has touched down as yet. These maps are pretty wild to watch.
Hope you are ok.
all good here, thanks. No discernible damage around that I can see, but thankful rain cooled things off a ltitle.
Fwiw, meant wastewater data. Cases are pretty much meaningless (even official deaths I suspect). Only more certain stats are wastewater and excess deaths.
Hi Lambert,
The data from Johns Hopkins CSSE via 91-divoc.com that you show for the UK are consistently screwy. IN fact, today is a doozy: I went to the 91-divoc site and it told me (hovering over the green line) that after several days of sub-10k new cases, the UK printed +2.1m two days ago and -1.9m yesterday. Only it chose to display the -1.9m as +1.9m.
England has truly excellent data (yes, do allow for absolute levels of case ascertainment being suppressed by ending free community infection testing but, nevertheless, the case trend and the remaining absolute data we collect and present are excellent) available here.
https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/
The UK data is worse because Scotland follows its own schedule of data collection. Devolutionary eye roll….
Biden is Inebd, but ,rades…
Who does he more closely resemble: Andropov or Chernenko?
Back in the USSR, by the Beatles
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dc2tJqnkLLA
Andropov was very smart and brain-sharp right till his death, so far as I know.
You’ll know USA is really in the sheeter when the American Yeltsin arrives. Some blowhard poseur with pseudo-mil cred, a baby Trump. Country won’t be lucky enough to get a Putin though.
The Ukraine is getting something that it really needs – an entirely new weapons system with this one being L119 light howitzers. This time they will be supplied by New Zealand who will send instructors to the UK to teach the 230 Ukrainian troops chosen how to use them-
https://www.rt.com/news/555985-new-zealand-train-ukrainian-troops/
Seen on reddit and offered without any comment beyond a question .. . ” well? what does it mean?”
. . . ” BREAKING: 🇷🇺 Russia’s Counsellor to the United Nations in Geneva has resigned.
Boris Bondarev: “Never have I been so ashamed of my country.”
UN Watch is now calling on all other Russian diplomats at the United Nations—and worldwide—to follow his moral example and resign.”
https://twitter.com/HillelNeuer/status/1528668629482541057
Redux from the First Cold War when you had people jump borders and denounce their former country i.e. defectors. Another name for these people are traitors and Lee Harvey Oswald was one such character.
Was Jane Fonda a traitor?
Are the various Myanmar diplomats and ambassadors resigning their posts just lately traitors to Myanmar?
I am shocked, shocked that you do not know. If your sides wins, they are heroes. If your side lose, they are traitors.
As for Jane Fonda, if she had gone to North Vietnam as a peacemaker, I would have no quarrel with that. But to let herself be filmed in the seat of a North Vietnamese anti-aircraft gun vehicle that was used to shoot at American aircraft, then she crossed the line-
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/hollywood-flashback-1972-photo-turned-jane-fonda-hanoi-jane-972398/
Why is Bondarev a traitor in this instance? This just seems like an inversion of the cheap slight on western iconoclasts (from the McCarthy era through to Assange, for example) who don’t go along with whatever their country or the dominant faction therein happens to say. When such people have a personal crisis of conscience that goes against western leadership, it’s great, but against Russian leadership, their treacherous stooges? (one should be able to accept that many Russians themselves will not believe in the precept that Russia can do no wrong and can in fact do Bad Things and should be able to state this publicly and act on this belief if it is weighing on their conscience as an employee of the state without that necessarily making them a traitorous stooge. I believe some US diplomats and civil servants even opposed the Iraq invasion. They were probably called traitors for their trouble too.
Or maybe Bondarev has always been an American agent, and Biden just burned him for a momentary headline?
I reluctantly have to agree with you that Jane Fonda fits the requirements for treason, so she was a traitor. However, I was stationed outside of Pleiku when she made her trip, and was very comfortable with it. That excursion to the exotic Far East nearly broke the U.S. Army, and, I guess, the other services as well.