Letter #165 to friends et familiares: Good bye, John Lewis

“Do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?”
-- Abraham Lincoln 

“If you can’t fly then run, if you can’t run then walk, if you can’t walk then crawl, but whatever you do you have to keep moving forward.”
-- Martin Luther King, Jr

John Robert Lewis never commanded my attention during his life-time. Yes, I admired what he said. But John Lewis was short, plain, quiet, and Black. My unreflective judgements never mattered to John Lewis or anybody else. 

So, who lost with such unthinking prejudice? 

Representative Lewis's pilgrimage from preaching to chickens as a toddler, to surviving Bloody Sunday in 1965, and on to triumphing in later life made an average man a great American. That greatness lay not in John Lewis alone, but in others, too.

In a fitting funeral yesterday, the nation celebrated that greatness and tasted the ingredients of John Lewis's "secret sauce":

• consideration reflexive enough to care; 
• faith tough enough to persevere; 
• humility profound enough to forgive;
• love rich enough to find the good in others; as well as,
• courage gritty enough to pursue righteousness.

Two presidents did not attend that funeral -- one frail in body, the other failed in spirit. The absence of the latter eased the bereavement, sharpened the moment, and reminded us of the peril of being small-minded. That President's absence, ironically, started our renewal.

Representative Lewis laid the foundation of that renewal by showing us that, notwithstanding the accidents of birth or measures of ability, the questions -- the big questions -- in our lives remain simple and apparent to us all.

The answers, too, are evident, if crushing. We saw, in the men and women who spoke yesterday at the funeral of John Lewis, leaders who had made mistakes, big mistakes. Bitterness, sacrifice, and imposed penance had followed those miscalculations. 

Representative Lewis's undefinable grace, an irreducible content of character, left him no alternative but to find the good, along with its possibilities, in those leaders. In that charity lay the way through those crushing answers, not for Presidents but for us. 

By John Lewis noticing the best in those leaders who spoke yesterday, they could see the best in us. Accordingly, this simple man, with his simple grace, not only reminded us of what American greatness should be, but also made most of us a little greater, too. 

Letter #164 to friends and familiares: CHINA

"We, of course, are saddened indeed by the events in Indochina. But these events, tragic as they are, portend neither the end of the world nor of America's leadership in the world . . . We can and we should help others to help themselves. But the fate of responsible men and women everywhere, in the final decision, rests in their own hands, not in ours."

-- President Gerald Ford, Tulane University, April 1975

Originally in the Sydney Morning Herald: 
https://www.stuff.co.nz/world/asia/300060332/multiple-battlefronts-as-china-takes-on-the-world

"At what point then is the approach of danger [of the collapse of the Republic] to be expected [from an outside invader]? . . .  If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.”

-- President Abraham Lincoln, Springfield (IL) Lyceum, 1838

B.L.U.F. (bottom-line, up front): time for a great power switcheroo between the United States and China.

INTRODUCTION

This paper does not analyse the state of the contentious rivalry between the U.S. and China. The essay reviews the current American-Chinese relationship and the state of play for the United States herself, reflecting themes in the popular press. The balance of the essay suggests a new foreign policy for the United States and her allies toward China.

OVERVIEW

As a Yank, I have to say that it is time for us to admit that the American Century is over. The United States is insolvent; debt levels in all borrowing sectors imply an eight-to-fourteen year payback. To achieve re-payment in eight years, all social programmes would be zeroed out and taxes high. Being the world’s sole super-power has led to a loss of the deep reservoir of goodwill built up by American missionaries and aid societies over the first 175 years of the Republic.

ln actuality, we are ten or fifteen years into the Chinese Century. Chinese economic growth rates have been the envy of the whole world for decades. This mighty expansion has also come at a shameful cost of:

• Tiananmen Square;
• Hong Kong;
• misappropriation of technologies and industrial secrets;
• widespread repression;
• deepening corruption sustained by zombie financial institutions;
• dubious data released on national health and other statitsics;
• aggressive claims in the South China Sea;
• aggression toward a democratic neighbour (i.e., India);
• neo-colonialist development policies, etc.

Secondary sources (e.g., The Economist and Foreign Policy) have documented these draw-backs. Nonetheless, Chinese dominance and influence continues to expand, with mega-currency swaps carving out pockets of the renminbi being the store value currency with the rapidly developing nations (e.g., Brazil and Argentina). 

According to the Central Intelligence Agency, after rendering the yuan equal in purchasing power to the dollar, China’s adjusted G.D.P. is already 25% higher than that of the United States. Meanwhile, back in the States, the coronavirus contagion has brought out into bold relief the impoverishment of American middle classes over the past forty years amplified by a deepening inequality between the races. Simply said, it is time for the American Republic to:

• detach from the crushing expense of global dominance;
• reform trade policies to re-tool to the extent that comparative advantages permit;
• rebuild the educational system, especially for under-privileged children; as well as,
• reverse the declining health profile, through attrition of benefits and addiction to opioids, of the nation over the previous half-century.

FOREIGN POLICY POST-AMERICAN CENTURY

My (quixotic) recommendations for consideration in the face of the loss of American power vis à vis China? Make a virtue of necessity by high profile initiatives including, but not limited to, the following:

• hand off the global hegemon / policeman function to China, as the U.K. did to the U.S.A. in 1945;
• in contrast to the discretion exercised at Potsdam, seventy-five years ago, by British Prime Minister Attlee and Foreign Secretary Bevin, announce the hand-off publicly;
• in that announcement, openly welcome China's leadership in her century and count on her as the guarantor of peace in much the same way the U.S., the U.K., JAPAN, the E.U., Australia, SOUTH KOREA, Canada, New Zealand, TAIWAN, INDIA, South Africa, et al. have for many years;
• work quietly with these sister democracies to strengthen the W.T.O., the United Nations, U.N.E.S.C.O. et al.;
• pronounce what the U.S. and her sister democracies stand for by "appreciating" China's continuing ‘commitment’ to honour the common values in the current world order; as well as,
• scale back U.S. war-building efforts due to the country's insolvency and stake out -- with our allies -- key interests, including the South China Sea, FORMOSA, the Persian Gulf, etc.

These ideas sound cowardly to those of us used to equating American exceptionalism with military power. American exceptionalism is real and was never about the power of weapons but of ideas; that exceptionalism ceased being unique generations ago. Fellow democracies and other nations aspiring to popular governance across the world share that exceptionalism today.

RATIONALE (i.e., best-case outcome)

These ('out-there') ideas may confer upon the many nations alarmed by the excesses of Peking, consistently enumerated by the popular press, certain advantages.

1. Such a dramatic shift will force China rapidly to clarify her intentions about her role.
2. As the global cop stalking the street, China will be so bizzy that imperial aggression should become more difficult to pursue.
3. With no more bickering about who is number-one among the democracies or the degree of asserted primacy of American interests, the U.S. can get on with her business as a stalwart supporter of human rights and republican governance, along with dozens of other nations.
4. By crowning China as the 'king of the mountain', avenues of secondary attack open up easing and empowering the ability of N.A.T.O., Japan, Australia, South Korea et al. to chip away at China’s geo-political position and dissipate her power incrementally.
5. As China eventually faces collapse -- as has the U.S. after more than a generation of being a 'hyper-power' -- strengthened international institutions rather than contentious nation states will be better positioned to mend the breach.

Letter-162 to Friends et Familiares: Race in America -- ¿Reckoning & Reconciliation?

A view of Black Lives Matter by an ageing White Conservative

NOTE: all embedded links indicated by bold green-font italics.

“’Racialism’ is racism with a triple-digit I.Q.”          -- Anonymous

« Qu’est-ce-que c’est un symbole phallus encore? »
« It’s your dick, idiot!”
“Oh . . . oops.”

-- A Midwestern Republican high schooler (i.e., me) in French Literature class discussing the poetry of Aimé Césaire, October 1974

  “Of course, all lives matter. Right now, Black lives matter a bit more.”

 -- Anonymous

Update as at 04mar24: as a control for the calculation of reparations -- stated as $10.3 TRILLION (roughly $12.6 TRILLION, inflation adjusted since July 2020) below -- I applied a weighted average of current hourly wages for four occupations construction workers, farm workers, domestic servants, and tradesman to an estimated 410 billion labor hours performed by slaves from 1619 to 1861. At an estimated average wage of $18.19, that reparations figure falls to $7.8 TRILLION, some 30% lower than the estimate stated below. I stand by the higher estimate as more comprehensive through scenario-testing based upon wealth rather than wages only.

B.L.U.F. (bottom-line, up-front). the protests following the murders of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd are at an inflection point: failure through justifying violence for short-term gains versus the hard work toward success over the next two generations.

INTRODUCTION.
As I remain a conservative by nature, current reports of looting and destruction of small businesses unsettle me, deeply. “Conservative by nature” means that my politics are centre-right and, more importantly, I tend toward prudence, probabilities, contingencies, and exit ramps. The United States has already failed twice to attain a full racial reconciliation and equality by setting things right for African Americans; hopefully, this third time will be our charm.

THE CURRENT STATE of FRAY. 
We live in the midst of a full-blown Black rebellion, one that is overdue. Hispanics, many Asian Americans and Muslims, as well as, for now, sympathetic Whites support this uprising following the police murders of George Floyd, pre-meditated, in Minneapolis six weeks ago and of Breonna Taylor, reckless, in Louisville before that. Ironically, the white supremacists and the gangster régime that coddles them also spark the impetus of the Black Lives Matter (i.e., B.L.M.) movement to act.

America is not in danger of B.L.M.-inspired anarchy, or facing a Trump-instigated reign of terror. Nevertheless, for the B.L.M.-led revolution to succeed, it will need to sustain the stalwart support of at least forty per cent of American Whites. That support will need to remain steadfast not only for today or tomorrow. Not just this week, month, year or even this decade. White support will have to continue for two generations — the time required to change a culture.

WHAT the BLACK REBELLION REALLY MEANS.
First, this rebellion will not degenerate into a race war since the economic disparity fuelling this resistance involves class as much as race. Many Whites now share the same economic interests as Blacks in the B.L.M. movement. Most other Whites outside of Black Lives Matter remain sufficiently decent not to force their Black brethren into a corner thus precipitating an existential struggle for survival.

While elements of the protest display some of the street politics of traditional anarchy, this movement does not yet impress me as an enduring concoction of socialism and anarchy led by a violent vanguard to usher in an illusory peace never realised. The principal elements catalysing and sustaining the B.L.M. movement appear to be:

• autonomy assumed by more Blacks to reach a cultural and economic self-reliance for and by all African Americans;
• an energetic push for justice  for Blacks — meaning justice in fact, life, law, and system — too long deferred and, therefore, denied; as well as,
• final realisation of reparations due to the descendants of enslaved Black Americans to recover not only the value of labour stolen during 250 years of involuntary servitude, but also by 150 years systematic under-valuation of said labour.

SELF-RELIANCE.

Louis Farrakhan, the divisive leader of the Nation of Islam in the United States, the religious group known as the Black Muslims, remains a mystery to me. From what I have heard about him, the man strikes me as dangerous and prone to violence. Yet, in his long and discursive speech at “The Million Man March” a quarter of a century ago, Mr Farrakhan said one thing that has stuck with me all these years as absolutely valid: that Whites can not care enough for Blacks voluntarily to lift them into freedom in equality.

This call to self-reliance represents the long-term phase of the B.L.M. movement. Why would Moses march the Hebrews through a desert for forty long years in The Book of Shemot (a / k / a The Exodus)? To wean the newly liberated slaves from the Pharaoh’s certain but hard-earned lentils and grow into a culture of individual virtue and innovation. That required forty years, or two generations.

The long-term commitment contemplated here applies not only to Blacks and a critical mass of Whites, but also to Muslims as well as to Asian, Native and Spanish Americans. This long march of progress will be every bit as taxing and liberating for all Americans as it was for the Exodus or the Great Civil War from 1861–65 by:

• breaking the chains of an underclass, the enculturated dependency of which systematically deprives millions of Black men and women from assuming their properly ordained statures in the eyes of G-D;
• Blacks setting an example of the de-segregation of the heart and the hard work of breaking a cyclical culture of violence as defined by a scourge of Black-on-Black crime attendant to easy guns and drugs quietly condoned by too many Whites as “not our problem”; as well as, somehow,
• cultivating the renewal of the nuclear family and an emphasis on meaningfully provisioned education across African Americana.

Along with millions of other fellow Americans, I have my ideas on how the larger society should redress these systemic shortcomings of our culture and political economy. All such ideas, save one, lie beyond the scope of this essay; the one exception being that every White, beginning with me, needs to embrace these challenges as ‘our’ problem, not ‘their’ problem. Shrugging my shoulders in indifference becomes complicity with white supremacists.

These practitioners of ‘eliminationist racism’ comprise the number-one terror threat within the United States according to the F.B.I. In short, for Whites to place sole responsibility of remedial action and initiative onto Blacks is to blame the victim. More resources for programmes in place are not enough; affirmative action alone was not enough. To reach a just society requires de-segregation of the heart, or a concerted commitment of will by each and every American. To do what? Not necessarily never to feel racism, but never to act on, or give voice to, that racism when it arises within each of us.

RE-MASCULATION of BLACK MEN. 
My thinking here comes from studying the Black revolutionary poetry of Aimé Césaire in a French Literature course in high school and my later reading of The Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon. The take-away from these two writers is the necessity of violence for the reprise of Black male autonomy. Obviously, this kinetic road to one’s re-humanisation has its pitfalls.

Most delicate of these tensions remains the fact that many or most Americans in general, and Whites in particular, take a dim view of looting and what looks like wanton property damage and vandalism unrelated to the struggle for justice itself. There may be more latitude toward pulling down monuments or torching unoccupied police cars. These are common enough objects and replaceable, after all.

Nevertheless, busting up people’s shops and ruining their livelihoods, though almost certainly less frequent than anti-B.L.M. partisans assert, does not play well in the suburbs quickly wearing down the formidable and sustained level of commitment required of Whites (i.e., 40% for two generations). More Whites may acquiesce to looking the other way on police violence against Blacks in the face of such gratuitous violence, thus undermining the painful process of racial reparations and national conciliation.

In another respect, however, limited and highly visible destruction can catalyse the Black rebellion to sustain radical change and impress the message of that rebellion upon Whites. As Lawrence of Arabia noted that, for people in revolutionary ferment, looting often is less about opportunistic plunder and more an agitprop to confirm and inspire the bottom-up repudiation of a corrupted, unjust régime.

And, American Blacks have suffered long and hard under an unjust order. The question now arises, from my conservative world-view, of when to stop the current violence; indeed, anecdotally, the violence appears to be abating and its extent is overplayed. That is: ¿how close is the current street crime to the invisible line before it flashes red to less sympathetic Whites? Put simply: ¿when is enough, enough?

The brittle balance required to maintain the pro-B.L.M. coalition prescribes a switching point from violent to non-violent resistance. For me, at least, the protestors are fast approaching that limit. Now would be the ideal time for many repeats of what occurred in Louisville when protestors protected a policeman surrounded by a volatile mob.

B.L.M. participants may not be able to prevent looting or vandalism, but they can photograph or film the people leading it and report the looting to police. As the police arrive to the area B.L.M. coordinators then open a lane of approach for the police through the protestors. Above all, the great majority of protestors must practice zero-tolerance for the taking of any life, including those of policemen. Coöperation with police will more likely consolidate the necessary support among Whites of goodwill.

In the meantime, law enforcement needs to stop battering reporters and other innocents. Instead, police and crime detection professionals should investigate who is actually committing these crimes. Descriptions of recent ‘Anti-fa terrorists’ depict people whose behaviours correspond more closely with those of white supremacists (i.e., the number-one domestic source of terror per F.B.I. Director Wray).

THE CHALLENGE of REPARATIONS. 
If one is oblivious to history, as I was for many years when I was complaisant with my own racism, (s)he will likely dismiss the whole notion of Black reparations as reverse discrimination conferred upon Blacks for doing nothing. This dismissal is at best false and most likely racist. Reparations seek to restore to the descendants of slaves the value of the labour looted from their ancestors during 250 years of involuntary servitude.

In fact, additional largesse may well be in order to recover the amount of labour not fairly compensated during days of debtor prisons, share-cropping, Jim Crow laws, segregation, and a near-universal discrimination against African Americans. While affirmative action and civil rights laws have addressed these issues, segregation remains deeply entrenched; moreover, since 2013, numerous states have been undermining voting rights for Blacks and voting-age students, two core segments of B.L.M. and, coincidentally, segments of the population not known for an affinity toward the Republican Party as it now stands.

President Grant tried to monetise reparations for slaves in the 1870s but failed. A hundred years later, President Johnson made as strong an effort as President Grant had with the Voting Rights Act, the Civil Rights Act, the Fair Housing Act as well as programmes including Model Cities and Affirmative Action. The current round of demands for reparations indicates that, fifty years later, one can see that the Great Society has also failed. Both efforts tried hard enough, but not long enough.

Reparations calculations vary widely due to the sensitivities of assumptions and values assigned to parameters. The redemption value of Dr King’s defaulted promissory note ranges from $500 billion to four trillion dollars on the lower end all the way up to fourteen trillion dollars on the higher end; values seem to settle in the $10–12 TRILLION range. My particular calculations integrate the following five scenarioes into a composite reparations bill of $10,865,616,290,109:

1. best case based on full and fair value of labour starting with the boom after the Civil War;
2. worst case of permanently depressed agricultural economies but full and fair employment;
3. the odious price of each slave in 1860 restated in today’s dollars;
4. the historical valuation of forty acres and a mule in 1869 re-stated in today’s dollars; as well as, 
5. earnings power from an up-dated version of forty acres and a mule (e.g., small tractor).

There is the question of costs of affirmative action of $590+ billion and cumulative losses from race riots, conservatively estimated at $10 billion by assuming a $2 billion worst case for the George Floyd protests. These total, conservatively, $600,394,566,141. Deducted from the gross bill of reparations, the net payable due to Blacks is $10,265,221,723,968.

CONCLUSION.
Victor Hugo observed that nothing is so powerful as an idea whose time has come. To realise that idea in the case of Black Lives Matter, however, one must recall and heed Ralph Waldo Emerson and Louis Farrakhan that envy is ignorance, imitation suicide. These thoughts delineate the opportunity and dilemma facing the Black Lives Matter movement.

Indeed, realisation through beneficial use of the $10.3 TRILLION net reparations bill, if collected, rests on profound changes with the hearts of Blacks and Whites alike:

• switching to non-violent resistance as exemplary citizens;
• restoring the full and just esteem of Black men and Black families;
• educational opportunities for Black children renewed; and,
• the final strides toward freedom taken by Whites intent upon, and with a steadfast patience toward, a new and better America.

Letter 161 to friends & familiares; making sense of chaos at the core

LIFE GOES ON AND SO MUST WE

"But at my back I always hear, time's wingèd chariot hurrying near!" --Andrew Marvell, 1681

"And silvern chatter the pale ports o’ the moon. I said to Dawn: Be sudden—to Eve: Be soon . . . ." --Francis Thompson,1893

"Love is a bitter-sweet utopia." --Ned McDonnell, 1980

Ever had a life-event that, you know, you should leave behind you but never really do? Much like we remember the first time we fall in love, the first time that getting dumped crushes us, and the first-time grief’s lingering boney fingers curl around the heart.

For me, these three memories collided forty years ago today, when I had just graduated from Washington and Lee. The lady at the centre of his troubling trifecta? One Miss Leigh Woolverton of Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida. Her beauty, still fresh when she (rarely, now) shows up in my dreamtime, reminds me just how striking she really is, even four decades later.

Five days after my graduation from a college appreciated only later, I kept myself busy getting ready for one of the premier parties of the Summer of 1980 (for which I had FINALLY received an invitation).  The ironic timing of the ‘BIG EVENT’ on Friday the 13th added to its sizzle.

Being an idle past-time, vanity kept me busy and free of ‘taxing’ efforts like job hunting. So, when the old rotary dial phone, ossified, in my room rang, I ignored it blithely; I had more important things to do, like dry my hair ‘just-so’ for the evening’s festivities.

“Ned!” My sister was calling over from her bedroom, across the upstairs hall.

“Dickie Latture and Betsy Kyle are on the phone.” Immediately, the chill walked through me, like a wraith through a wall. Immediately, I knew these two frat-buds would have only one reason to call me here in Pittsburgh; fuck.

Still wet from the old-fashioned bath just taken, I slumped down and felt my back sliding down the white metal-mesh cover of the old radiator.  Naked, on the floor, I picked up the phone receiver. Betsy and Richard kept the call brief, their solemn voices already dripping with bereavement.

Leigh Woolverton, my first and quite unrequited love, had died, killed by a drunk teenager in a head-on collision.  The impact of the head-on collision had apparently driven the steering wheel and column right through Leigh, exploding her beautiful, beautiful form into the dark; mercifully, she had died instantly.

There are days even now, so long after the brutal fact, when I wonder what her last expression was, her last word, her last feeling. These insoluble questions create a pain in the lower back, a pain of the aching burden of unknowing. The funeral was to be in Jacksonville in two days.

Donning my coat and tie for the family sit-down dinner, I went downstairs to inform my parents. Fortunately, my sister, Claire, had briefed them from what she had overheard in those fateful, fatal minutes on the telephone.

The better money manager of the two of us, she instinctively, and charitably, offered to pay for the air-fare to Jacksonville out of her meagre savings from baby-sitting. Looking at me with an urgent solicitude, Claire said, “Ned, I have money saved up so you can go to the funeral.” My parents nodded in assent, indicating a willingness to chip in.

Feeling inadequate to the task of public mourning and unwilling to accept help from anyone, I said quietly but abruptly, “No, thanks.”

After several more evasions, my sister looked at me while Mom and Dad grimaced and puckered their lips. No one was fooled. We finished our dinner.

(“Is Neddy in here?” Soon, Leigh sees me, since I am sitting near the Zeeb television idly watching a ‘Get Smart’ re-run with a pout because she has ignored me again. She straightens slightly and says gaily, “There you are, silly boy!” She giggles with childlike innocence and laughs and bounds diagonally across the room, sitting right on my lap her arm wrapped around my neck.

Little do I understand beyond my self-centredness. Apparently, Leigh has been simply getting coloured. Jealousy really becomes me very little. Soon, relatively late in life, I will find the restoration of childlike wonderment that comes with getting coloured. Ingrate that l remain, I notice first that my thighs are tingling into sleepy numbness.

Now, I have seen for myself that this beauty, blond – I mean, no Alex Haley roots – hair streaming to her shoulders. First hand, I know that physical beauty exquisitely proportioned through years of being an equestrienne, with an earlier moonlight setting off perfectly sized breasts so much like Leigh herself: supple, inviting, firm, and resolute. This girl has no fat anywhere. Now, I face a dilemma of almost painful proportions.

Muscle does weigh more than fat; I have heard that but remain too skinny to care, until now. She wriggles affectionately on my boney lap, perhaps in a desire to be closer to me. Maybe, finally . . . . But, no, it is more likely my boney thighs and knobby knees cause Leigh discomfort. Her butt looks for relief.

‘Get Smart’ is one of the dumbest fucking shows ever made; who can enjoy this loser, Maxwell Smart, with a capital ‘L’? And therein lies the sadness of that moment. Leigh giggles gaily through the episode, like I used to as a nine-year-old. It never occurs to me that she is happy, really happy, to be sitting there, sitting there with me. As she laughs at some stupid-ass remark, “Would you believe . . . .”

Leigh flicks her hair behind that inviting ear – like a host of golden daffodils dancing in the breeze – that ear that I have kissed before, her pearl earrings that much more elegant for being so easy to overlook. Colouring has made her eyes into flying saucers; she stares strangely at the screen, digging into it, looking behind it. Her nose, with its perfectly chiselled curve makes me smile, as I could run my hand index finger off it into a friendly wave for . . . .)

As I seated myself at dinner, my ungrateful response had spoken its truth; Leigh and l truly had gone our separate ways, albeit mine was the less willing. Like all unrequited lovers, I had repeated the tired platitudes of hope like ‘You’ll see, she’ll come to her senses . . . .’ or 'Well, half a loaf is better than none.’ That tripe had sustained the last sliver of my self-respect or, at least, my conception of it.

During the brief pause after dinner, alone again in my room, before leaving for the party, I rehearsed my evening's courage by muttering, to myself, that Leigh could not evade me that easily. That pathetic declaration fell flat. Nonetheless, the flush of tinglies that followed the fake fortitude felt like a quiet one-way communiqué from Leigh saying that she did love me, but not in the way I had wanted her to, and that she still existed, somewhere, rooting for me. 

(“Oh, Neddy, don’t be absurd. You’ll meet somebody else, soon enough. You always do.” That is it; circuit-breaker switches and HE takes over. HE lives in me and is me, but HE lives alone, away from me. HE enters those situations when an unwelcome reality has broken through to me, making the attendant feelings unsupportable.

HE lives in my deceit; all reality remains bearable because there is often no choice. Grow up, already! That the kind of thing. HE says, “But, Leigh, I will miss you.” He makes sure I go no further. The determination finally to tell this woman, after months of dithering, that I love her and will love her forever falls to dust.

Leigh will surely laugh at me, hysterically. HE will not permit me to risk it. HE may permit humility, but HE can not abide by humiliation. Leigh says something else that l can not, perhaps refuse to, hear. HE guides me now to escape these feelings of betrayal and the bitterness of five months wasted in a stupidly infantile infatuation.

HE will preserve my honour, so I delegate my escape to HIM. Accordingly, I stand up stiffly, and inform Leigh, as amiably as contrived stoicism allows, that the good-bye dinner has been a pleasure and that I shall be getting on home. Leigh, seeing I am hurt, offers me a ride before she ventures back over to the mountain to Sweet Briar.

Yet again, I wave her off politely, saying a walk will do me good since I have eaten far too much. Of course, that is an off-white lie, since I kept my eye on the right side of the menu all evening long, setting myself up for embarrassment when I ordered the un-filleted fish dish, not knowing what I was in for, just to save two bucks!

About ninety per cent of the way home, after a mile or so of walking, I cut into the cemetery to the grave of, with a tasteful monument to, General Stonewall Jackson. HIS mission accomplished, HE leaves me utterly alone to weep, inwardly, for the loss of something I have never had to lose.)

Alone in my bedroom after dinner, in the anguish of that moment and whistling Dixie in the dark to keep up my courage, I said out loud something like, “Well I guess I won’t be whining about you behind your back anymore!” Of course, laughing at death in the face sounds strong and defiant; it rarely works. Another lesson in a dense night. 

Black humour dispensed with, I decided to go to that ‘BIG EVENT’ with my best friend from grade school and two of his female classmates from Kenyon. Bravely, or so I concluded, I acquitted myself as entertaining for those three hours. Getting back from the party early (i.e., midnight), my sister asked me again if I would like at least to borrow the money for the air-fare needed to attend Leigh’s funeral. 

To Claire, I simply explained that Leigh and I were no longer close. While Leigh’s death had shocked everybody in her wide circle of friends, I reasoned, the funeral should be for others still very much in her life.

Deep down, I wanted to say ‘yes’ to my sister’s gracious offer but brushed my feelings aside by taking pride in my apparent indifference, failing also, and utterly, to appreciate my sister’s generosity. Only later did I realise how over-rated and over-priced personal dignity really is. No surprise: that night stretched into a sleepless one.

About four-thirty in the morning, I gave up trying to sleep and went down-stairs. Without hesitation, I looked for the right medicine: a stiff bourbon and water. Confronting the inward crevasse and its blackness, however, impressed me that liquor would only make things worse. Instead, I played my favourite music a couple of times through since it brought Leigh's machine-gun giggle faintly back in a deathly draught . . . forgotten, fleeting.

CLICK BELOW

'Sequoia Forest', short skip (from 31:44 to 34:17), 'Love Is A Reflection In The Mirrors Behind Your Eyes - Sunrise In Africa', Teruo Nakamura

(Decked out in my second-hand full dress, used once or twice a year on the periphery of the débutante circuit in Pittsburgh, I wonder if I have over-done it. Leigh takes forever to appear. Two friends are helping her, I will soon find out. For now, I swear off women as insufferable; beautiful yes, but insufferable.

Anxiety begins to build; my timing stinks, on this occasion to go colouring. One of Leigh’s friends appears, ready herself for W.&L.’s annual dance, and she seems to suppress a smile; it’s Betsy, whose cinnamon hair, blithe smile, and sunny disposition makes her an All-American girl all the way. In the Zeeb house? Of course – we treat women with respect.

Then I see the bottom of black evening gown swirl below the ceiling that cuts across my view of the top of the stairway. Suddenly, I stand, frozen with anticipation, in the lobby of the fine old fraternity house. Soon, enough, Leigh comes into full view. A simple brooch and a string of pearls with the same, subtle earrings. That blonde hair, prepared but quietly so.

Leigh stands in front of me at the small corner landing, four steps up the stairway, holding her hands together in front of her, shyly. Her blue eyes gaze into mine, into me, through me – been that way since we first met four months ago on the Sunday brunch at the frat house. Her slight ascension perhaps awakens some lost archetype of the beneficent mother of God.

Now, definitely the wrong time for getting coloured. The sight becomes too much for me – such beauty, such life – Leigh looks at no other Zeeb, but at me. The colouring becomes too intense as I feel so transparent, so insignificant in the face of the perfection of feminine beauty, that I feel myself turning wraith-like, dissolving into eternity.

While such significance of peaking into my colours starts the evening, the mid-winter ball collapses under the weight of believing my inadequacy to be on unmistakable display. The night meant for transcendence ends in alienation. Leigh never leaves me, really, but, by night’s end, she senses there is another meant to be in her future.)

Presently, on the second run-through of that jazz music I was listening to, the skies started  turning slowly and faintly pink through the lead-glass windows. At that point, I heard the tinkling of the dog's license and tags as Finder ventured downstairs from my parents’ bedroom. Presently, he stood up to my lap as I sat there in the living room; I rubbed Finder’s head back, as he stretched himself awake, his paws sliding up then down my belly.

Returning the favour, I pulled his upper eyelids back to show the whites above them. How our dear, dear beagle loved that simple affection, one I had resolutely recoiled from extending to Leigh. My mother soon followed him. Finally, I felt ready to make my grim words dance. Mom kindly brought me the Crane’s double-folded stationery and we talked, meaningfully, for the first time.

Subsequently, I wrote a moving, sincere, and effortless note to Mrs Woolverton. As to attending the funeral, my family knew me well enough when to leave me be, notwithstanding feelings expressed clumsily by me at dinner nine hours earlier. My real reason for not making that trip South lay not in humble recognition of my lower spot in Leigh Woolverton’s pecking order.

Instead, my reason lay in simple self-absorption: I thought showing up would make me look ridiculous. Her Sweet Briar friends would say, “What is he doing here?" How self-centred I was. Accordingly, on the day of the funeral, I went to the Catholic Cathedral in Pittsburgh for the noon-time mass as a proxy memorial service. That boney-fingered grip tightened around my heart, relentlessly wringing one, just one, forlorn tear from one reluctant eye.

(“Oh, I just don’t know.” Leigh’s voice over the phone, clear as always, strikes a pensive note.

“Know what, Leigh?”

“Me.”

“Well, what about you don’t you know? Perhaps, I can fill you in . . . .” Her laugh is more adult now, not the innocent giggling of a child coloured into the night.)

As that tear crawled slowly over my cheek-bone during the priestly invocations ringing over the old sound speakers, the reality of that Friday the 13th finally etched its way into my life experience, forever changing the way the world worked, at least for me. Leigh had a life-force that had been, and should have remained, unstoppable and unquenchable. Great events and accomplishments yet awaited her. Frankly and sincerely, I asked God why Leigh Woolverton and not me?

(The telephone conversation  continues as Leigh says suddenly, evidently summoning courage to do that following a few seconds of pregnant silence, “Well, Ned, what if I told you I am lesbian?”

Truth be told, I had heard this rumour before but dismissed it for reasons of obvious self-interest; the source being a few fellow Zeebs whose overtures Leigh has rejected brusquely. I have never believed it, nor will I, ever. Leigh may not love me but that does not make her a lesbian.

Straightening up in the old Windsor chair, hearing it creak under the strain, I feel its rods rubbing into my shoulder blades. I say unevenly, “Well do you think you are a, you know, a lez?”

“Lesbian, Ned, LEZbian.”

HE is back looking at me, standing behind the phone-stand. This time, I wave HIM off. Albeit inadequate to the task, I prefer to go it alone. So, I quip, “Well these S-A-T words always get me.“

Leigh laughs her machine-gun giggle; she relaxes. “You are a funny boy sometimes. But seriously, Neddy.”

“Leigh, I know you’re not kidding. But what am l supposed to say?” She exhales audibly, disappointed that I have failed again, this time, to knock the change-up out of the park. But all the choking up on the bat has never spared me from piss-poor hand-eye coordination.

So, I continue with an ungainly sincerity, “Well, I guess if you think you’re a LEZ-BEE-ONNN,” she laughs as l go on, “then maybe you are one. What the Hell do I know?” HE is back a second time, unwelcome, to extricate me from this onrushing castration; this time, I flip the bird [i.e., by extending my middle, so called ‘mafia finger’] at HIM and HE exits for good.

Leigh snaps me back to the real world. “Aren’t you, like, disappointed or something?”

“Leigh, honestly, I don’t know what I think right now . . . but this much I can say . . . .”

My pause is tactically timed. After two seconds, that seem more like minutes, Leigh displays anxiety – my God, the woman is human! – as she implores, “Wellll?”

Speaking thoughtfully, with an odd sense of confidence, I say tenderly, perhaps for the first time in our intermittent love affair, and shunning the usual requirement of entertaining her, “I don’t know about all that stuff, but you could tell me that you are an axe murderer and – give me a few days – but somehow, some way, I would find a reason that, though all axe murderers are evil, in the case of Leigh Woolverton, there is an exception to prove that rule.")

How could the inevitable shining of Leigh’s inexpressible arc be subverted like this? With the mere snip of a thread in the tapestry of time now rendered imperfect? Leigh Woolverton’s sudden departure made no sense to me, no matter how hard I tried to fathom it. From that moment on, I understood what the older people had meant when they talked about living riddles, never to be solved, left by those who leave before us so they can remain alive in our hearts.

Letter-158B: 2020 COVID Numbers for Family Clusters

COVID CLUSTER ANALYSES FROM 2020
Reverse Chronological Order

Friday numbers as at 04dec20

B.L.U.F. (bottom-line, up-front): a weekly service of questionable emotional value for my loved ones in the Northeast, the Midwest and Colorado, at least through early December 2020. This week's essay focusses on the eight family clusters.

SUMMARY of monthly for letter for December 2020
Conditions warrant this letter due to a 46% spike during November of 2020 in cases to 1.9 million across the clusters. The death toll has risen by a less abrupt but still alarming 7% rate to 72,312 among those clusters for a 3.8% cumulative mortality run rate. The good news is that periodic fatality rate for the clusters are falling below 1% for November.

NOTE: may be the last letter unless time and conditions warrant.

DEFINITIONS

1. cases = incidents confirmed by illness and / or testing
2. deaths = people dying from COVID-19
3. recoveries = people who have had the illness and are now completely recovered or proved to be asymptomatic (i.e., passive carriers)
4. I.C.U. = intesnsive care unit
5. critical care = patients in I.C.U. or acute care AND on ventillators 
6. mortality rate = the number of deaths recorded relative to a larger group
7. run-rate mortality = the number of deaths DIVIDED by confirmed cases
   
8. static pool mortality = deaths DIVIDED by resolved cases (i.e., deaths PLUS recoveries)
   
9. marginal mortality rate = a run rate of deaths limited to a particular period relative to the cases confirmed during that same period (i.e., a periodic rather than cumulative rate)
10. positivity rate = percentage of test results that detects a coronavirus infection carried by the person tested (i.e., the individual testing positive); the World Health Organization recommends a positivity rate less than 5% for fourteen consecutive days as a pre-condition for re-opening.
11. testing positive = people carrying the coronavirus or anti-bodies from a past, previously undetected infection
12. population mortality = deaths in a specific area (i.e., city, county, state, nation, world) DIVIDED by the population of that area; rarely used here

CUMULATIVE FINDINGS SINCE EARLY APRIL 

Friday numbers as at 06dec20
The New York Times has developped a user-friendly tool available for non-subscribers, for which I remain thankful. As usual, this analysis relies also upon data collected by Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center; aggregated by Worldometre; and, compiled by Bing / Microsoft. Two other key support sources are The Atlantic and Covid Act Now.  

Occasionally used sources include, most frequently,  The World Heath Organization and National Public Radio.   One can review the supplement of general U.S. data on the coronavirus contagion that covers roughly 95% of the U.S. population and deaths recorded to date. These COVIData sweeps use a private language of symbols and calculations briefly addressed in the weekly installments; this appendix explains that language in detail.

STATIC POOL RATES U.S. versus WORLD
Static pool mortality rates continued their decline during November but remain higher than one would like to see during this ninth month of the COVID-19 pandemic. Europe, particularly in the more agrarian and less developped economies, and Latin America -- its 3.5% mortality run rate (versus 1.9% for the U.S. and 2.3% for Europe) anchored by Brazil, México, Colombia, and Peru -- are suffering most in this second global wave. Despite the hardening wave, poorer countries continue to re-open for tourism, as did Europe earlier; the dilemma between money and mitigation is morbidly acute in México, Egypt, and Kenya (sporting a composite mortality run rate of 3.8% despite materially understated data for Kenya and Egypt). Finally, the W.H.O. is accelerating approval of vaccines, while China is ready to distribute its tested vaccines to assert diplomatic leverage.

Some of the nearly one percentage point decline in the U.S. static pool rate is attributable to a 47% spike in cases over the past four weeks. The increases have hit states like California harder than previous measures had anticipated, leading to the Golden State's harshest lockdown measures to date. Notwithstanding progress in the Midwest and periodic fatality rates now trending toward the expected final mortality rate, the two coasts -- essentially the Northeast, California, and the Pscific Northwest -- endure renewed up-ticks. The family clusters in Pennsylvania, Marlyand, the N.Y.C. area, Massachusetts, Colorado, Detroit and Chicago have been outperforming the rest of the country for the last two months, contributing, in November, 11% of the deaths with 16% of the U.S. population, despite similarly high growth rates in confirmed cases. 

OVERVIEW OF THE FAMILY CLUSTERS
While cases grew 46% in November, in line with the increases in the United States, political leadership reined in mortality growth successfuly to realize a 0.7% periodic mortality rate. The best overall performance clearly goes to New York METRO thanks largely to the three Democratic governors: Andrew Cuomo (N.Y.), Philip Murphy (N.J.), and Ned Lamont (CT) as well as, of course Mayor William Deblasio (D-N.Y.C.). Next in line is the City of Brotherly Love with inner city measures suppressing the death tolls to a 0.5% marginal run rate. Detroit wins the bronze medal; Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer has braved gun-toting protestors and a kidnapping plot to hang tough with her restrictions and keep the fatality rate of the last four weeks well beow 1%.

The laggards for November -- ironically still the two safest spots for my relatives -- have been Pittsburgh Metro and Colorado with shockingly high growth rates in confirmed cases. Each cluster doubled its case loads over the past month. While marginal run-rates remain acceptable in each case (though, at 1.3%, PGH had the highest rate of any cluster), these catapulting increases, with testing lags, could portend and very difficult month or two ahead.

REVIEW OF THE SEVEN CLUSTERS
Baltimore-Annapolis  (link)
Cluster Snapshot: 38% case growth; 7% growth in deaths; 0.6% periodic mortality run rate for November; and, 60-75% of Intensive Care Unit (I.C.U.) capacity used
This week made life difficult for Maryland Republican Gorvernor Larry Hogan as positivity rates climbed aggressively to break the old daily record by some 25-30%. The cluster area encloses two of every five deaths across the state. One of every two dying Marylanders is a citizen people of color, primarily African-American, and nine of every ten are sixty years old or older. Hospitalizations in Baltimore are the highest since the peak of last Spring, tripling in November alone. While Baltimore has faced a second wave for some time, the situation has become acute in Annapolis, leading to new restrictions (e.g., ten people at gatherings; entertainment venues at 25%). Positivity rates approach 6%.

BOSTON & the CAPE (link)
Cluster Snapshot: 37% case growth; 6% growth in deaths; 1.0% periodic mortality run rate for November; and, 7.3% of I.C.U. capacity used for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts
The Cluster is managing a 50% increase in the penetration of the coronavirus this month, prompting the Massachusetts to cut outdoor gatherings from fifty to twenty-five people and indoor from twenty-five to ten people. Boston is under pressure to restore in-person schooling, particularly for students with special needs. Cape Cod and the islands have endured a concerning rise in cases around Hyannis, though these infections represent 3-4% of the state’s population and less than 2% of the cases. The state remains well-resourced.

CHICAGO proper (link)
Cluster Snapshot: 55% case growth; 22% growth in deaths; 1.1% periodic mortality run rate for November; and, 43-52% of I.C.U. capacity used
Hospitalizations across Illinois have risen 73% during November. Use of ventillators has increased 2.4x; one of every ten patients is on a ventilator, close to a half of whom are using a ventillator. The coronavirus contagion has whipped the elderly and minorities of the Windy City with two thirds of the deaths involving people over sixty-five years old and three-quarters plaguing Blacks and Hispanics. (61% of Chicagoans are minorities and a mere 12% are aged over sixty-five.) Chicago has lowered its positivity rate from 16% two weeks ago to 12%, or the level for some eased restrictions. Chicago faces the dilemma that many  clusters do: ineffective contact tracing.

This problem is not due only to lack of cooperation with the tracers, but also by people likely assuming that the unrecognizable telephone number of the tracer belongs to a robo-caller. The person then blows off the call. Illinois is set to administer 55,000 vaccinations later this month, sufficient to inoculate 3-4% of the elderly in Illinois and 13-18% in Chicago. The U.S. Senate is stalling over a relief package passed seven months ago by the House of Representatives. Any final package will likely cut the original Federal largesse by two-thirds. In the interim, Democratic Mayor Lori Lightfoot has unveiled a borrowing plan of $450 million to tide Chicago businesses through to relief from D.C.

COLORADO statewide (link)
Cluster Snapshot: 106% case growth; 40% growth in deaths; 0.8% periodic mortality run rate for November; and, 73-81% of I.C.U. capacity used
Colorado's coronavirus contagion has spiralled out of control for the last month in terms of cases with a 2.3% daily growth rate.  Case-loads in the sparse counties have increased by roughly 25% over the past week. Fortunately, Delores County has recorded only twenty-five cases with no deaths. Denver is moving to mitigate the explosion in cases with fresh and restrictive guidance. Colorado officials expect deaths to double by Christmas; the full impact of the Thanksgiving gatherings remains unknown for the next week or so. Hospitalizations are setting new highs as 2,000 people currently stay in facilities (i.e., 15% of total in-patients to date). The working age population is driving the increase with 65% of cases to date reported by people aged between twenty and fifty (versus 42% of the population). The State expects most schools to be closed through December with enhanced back-to-school flexibility thereafter.

DETROIT metro (link)
Cluster Snapshot: 66% case growth; 10% growth in deaths; 0.8% periodic mortality run rate for November; and, 41-63% of I.C.U. capacity used 
Motown and Michigan have had a challenging month, though, this time around, the coronavirus contagion is wreaking more havoc on the rural areas (i.e., the hot-beds of armed resistance and threats to Governor Gretchen Whitmer). Positivity rates around Detroit range from 10-15%. Blacks and Latinos still suffer disproportionately with people of color representing 90% of the deaths in Detroit and 40-50% across the state (versus minority population shares of 80% for Detroit and 20% for the State, respectively ). The Governor has pushed personal responsibility back onto the mal-contents. Push-back is now lead by restauranteurs ready to defy the ongoing restrictions (e.g., closure of high schools and universities to in-person learning as well as most entertainment venues). The State is responding with various business support programs.

NEW YORK METRO (two links; one for N.Y.C. one for N.J.)
Cluster Snapshot: 27% case growth; 1.7% growth in deaths; 0.3-0.5% periodic mortality run rate for November; and, 33-59% of I.C.U. capacity used
With the Governors of New York, Connecticut, and New Jersey as well as the Mayor of the City coordinating their coronavirus responses (e.g., many entertainment venues closed with gatherings restricted from ten to twenty-five people indoors and ten to one hundred, fifty outdoors), this cluster has managed the second wave as well as could be expected. Disruptions continue in the tri-state area. Some frictions have emerged as New Jersey, and her suburbs adjacent to Manhattan, have been struggling; there has been some conflicting policy aspirations between the Democratic leaders, Mayor William DeBlasio and Governor Andrew Cuomo, particularly around in-school versus remote learning.

The biggest resistance seems to be from out-of-state politicians. Governor Cuomo expects 105,000 vaccine shipments in December, enough to inoculate 4-6% of the Empire State’s or 10-15% of Gotham City’s elderly despite the surge lasting until Martin Luther King Day; New Jersey is shooting for vaccinating 11-16% of its elderly population by mid-January. (Vaccinating 70-80% of the population is required for a return to normality.) Some irrational behavior has emerged as New Yorkers are splitting for New Jersey, where the risk is higher. 

PHILADELPHIA  (link)
Cluster Snapshot: 54% case growth; 13% growth in deaths; 0.9% periodic mortality run rate for November; and, 59-65% of I.C.U. capacity used
Philly metro followed Pennsylvania in setting records of new confirmed cases and now exceeds 2,000 deaths from COVID (i.e., 20% of the state total); half of these fatalities come from elderly care facilities. Hospitalizations have increased by roughly 50%. In mid-November, Philadelphia had put into effect detailed and highly restrictive guidelines (e.g., no indoor parties; five people per thousand square feet in houses of worship or retail outlets) that evidently failed to stanch the growth of illness. One predicted outcome has come true: a big hit to the private sector. Like elsewhere, young people are driving the growth in cases. The New Jersey suburbs are managing the second wave quite well.

PITTSBURGH metro (link)
Cluster Snapshot: 96% case growth; 51% growth in deaths; 1.3% periodic mortality run rate for November; and, 44-63% of I.C.U. capacity used
Pittsburgh, like Pennsylvania, has struggled during November, since Steelers Country has doubled the increase in cases of Philadelphia. All four counties in the cluster set new records for case counts today. Evidently, compliance with mitigation measures is low, possibly overwhelming the burgh’s health-care people and capacity within a month. The Commonwealth continues to delegate in-school versus remote learning decisions to local school districts. The large increases in cases and deaths remains a mystery since Allegheny County’s growth approaches that of the cluster though her growth in deaths is half that of the other counties; the majority of cases are people aged twenty-five to sixty-five.

END of LETTER for 04dec20; 

previous letters follow below.

Friday numbers as at 06nov20

B.L.U.F. (bottom-line, up-front): a weekly service of questionable emotional value for my loved ones in the Northeast, the Midwest and Colorado, at least through early November 2020. 

SUMMARY
Current infection rates continue to accelerate, thereby creating alarm across the country. With only one of every six cases reported, one must keep in mind that this is a high-penetration virus; key focus remains mortalities and hospital space.

NOTE: probably the last letter unless time and conditions warrant.

DEFINITIONS

1. cases = incidents confirmed by illness and / or testing
2. deaths = people dying from COVID-19
3. recoveries = people who have had the illness and are now completely recovered or proved to be asymptomatic (i.e., passive carriers)
4. I.C.U. = intesnsive care unit
5. critical care = patients in I.C.U. or acute care AND on ventillators 
6. mortality rate = the number of deaths recorded relative to a larger group
7. run-rate mortality = the number of deaths DIVIDED by confirmed cases
   
8. static pool mortality = deaths DIVIDED by resolved cases (i.e., deaths PLUS recoveries)
   
9. marginal mortality rate = a run rate of deaths limited to a particular period relative to the cases confirmed during that same period (i.e., a periodic rather than cumulative rate)
10. positivity rate = percentage of test results that detects a coronavirus infection carried by the person tested (i.e., the individual testing positive); the World Health Organization recommends a positivity rate less than 5% for fourteen consecutive days as a pre-condition for re-opening.
11. population mortality = deaths in a specific area (i.e., city, county, state, nation, world) DIVIDED by the population of that area; rarely used here

CUMULATIVE FINDINGS SINCE EARLY APRIL 

Friday numbers as at 06nov20
New York Times has developped a user-friendly tool available for non-subscribers, for which I remain thankful. As usual, this analysis relies also upon data collected by Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center and aggregated by Worldometre. Other sources include Bing / Microsoft, the This month’s review draws heavily upon the data compiled by the World Heath Organization, and Covid Act Now. One can review the supplement of general U.S. data on the coronavirus contagion that covers roughly 90% of the U.S. population and deaths recorded to date.

STATIC POOL RATES U.S. versus WORLD
As indicated by the data below, the second wave has started with global cases up 44% over the last five weeks since 02oct20, or ten percentage points higher than the level of growth in the United States. Nevertheless, static pool rates are not declining as fast as one would hope. Increased testing to detect a higher percentage of asymptomatic cases, together with the wider use of mitigating medicines and treatments, do not seem to be slowing the death rates among resolved cases commensurately. 

Much of this larger global growth centers in Europe. Reports have emerged that the second wave is jumping from the young and mostly asymptomatic carriers to the far more vulnerable elderly population across Europe. The mortality run rates are declining a bit faster than the static pool rates, indicating the capture of more passive carriers with increased testing. The U.S. mortality rate is now lower than that of Europe – 2.4% versus 2.5% – though the American experience tends to lag that of Europe by three to four weeks.

OVERVIEW OF THE FAMILY CLUSTERS
The cumulative numbers remain high following the nasty heritage left by last Spring in New York, Boston, and Detroit. Marginal mortality rates for the five weeks since 02oct20 have been great for the clusters at 0.8%, substantially lower than the 1.2% mortality rate for the rest of the country. The second wave has definitely hit the Northeast (i.e. Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, Chicago, and Detroit). The state and local governments, with the modest exception of Pennsylvania, are containing the spread and mortality. Colorado is struggling with new infections but appears to be managing the extra case-flow, at least for now.

Many fear that the second wave in the United States is spiralling out of control. Dr Fauci has repeatedly stated that he will be satisfied that the epidemic is under control when daily case confirmations stabilize around 10,000 people; the past week has been posting ten times that target level of daily cases. The mortality run rate has dropped to 1.2% over the past month. Nevertheless, the past week has averaged 1,000+ deaths per day, placing strain on the expected first year death toll (through 28feb21) of 336,000 projected seven months ago.

The assessment that the epidemic is out of control and that the Trump Administration has decided to let this highly transmissible coronavirus to run its course may be unforgiving. The coronavirus is easily contagious and ultimate penetration rates have been forecast to range from 40-70% of the American population. The current penetration is officially recorded as 3%, but likely lies in the 15-30% range. The mortality run rate of the U.S. is now slightly below that of Europe, though the long-term difficulties faced by Belgium and a brutal second wave for Spain may explain that difference.

The urban areas hit by the first wave are up and ready for the second. Not so for the rural states, the fertile ground for this wave; one poorer state has as few as six intensive care beds available.  Among the family clusters, the outstanding performance goes to New York METRO. The metropolitan area, the City, and Manhattan have each posted marginal mortality run rates below 1%.

The frequently criticized measures vindicate the aggressive responses taken by Governor Cuomo working (sometimes at odds) with Mayor DeBlasio. City-wide positivity rates have grown though mortality remains much improved. Chicago and Detroit have continued to improve their numbers with much improved marginal mortality run rates in the 0.6-0.7% range. Only Baltimore (1.1%), Pittsburgh (1.8%), and Boston (2.1%) posted marginal death rates above 1%.

REVIEW OF THE SEVEN CLUSTERS
Baltimore-Annapolis
21% growth in confirmed cases; 7.5% growth in deaths; 1.1% monthly marginal mortality rate
The tempo of the second wave has accelerated during the past two weeks and Governor Hogan may be preparing for a second round of restricted movements. Governor Hogan cautions that the state is in “red zone” with the Baltimore-Annapolis corridor in the thick of the spreading wave. Anne Arundel and Howard Counties already have high Intensive Care use and the State reports a shortage of medical first responders.

Boston and the Cape
21% growth in cases; 6.5% growth in deaths; 2.1% monthly mortality rate
Governor Baker has been tightening restrictions in the eastern half of the state, particularly around Boston as positivity rates increase. The entertainment / social curfew of 9:30 p.m. and general lights-out of 10 p.m. face resistance. Governor Baker worries about the Intensive Care capacity of Boston area hospitals as hospitalizations state-wide have increased 71% in the last month while positivity rates (i.e., the percentage of people tested who have the coronavirus) have doubled since August.

Chicago proper
40% growth in cases; 6.3% growth in deaths; 0.6% monthly mortality rate
Mayor Lightfoot has responded to the crisis emerging in Chicago with severe grouping restrictions and entertainment curfews as Illinois now posts more daily cases than Texas, California, or Florida. Chicago handled the first peak relatively well but is bracing for higher penetration rates than six months ago in the weeks ahead. Currently, the case-load doubles every twelve days. The coronavirus contagion spreads rampantly throughout the State as well. 20% of hospitalized patients end up in Intensive Care. Though the Intensive Care availability is adequate for now, if the current momentum does not abate, the current spike will overwhelm the health-care system in Chicago and, almost certainly, Illinois.

Colorado state-wide
70% growth in cases; 15% growth in deaths; 0.6% monthly mortality rate
Colorado’s run rate looks impressive, but the concern remains the lag between such a large number of cases and ensuing fatalities. The Denver area faces mounting cases and hospitalizations with some strain to the metropolitan area’s Intensive Care facilities. The State advises people to stay at home while some areas impose curfews. Daily cases have increased three-to-eight times in the last month while hospitalizations have increased two-to-four times around Denver. Delores County remains COVID-free.

Detroit metro
39% increase in cases; 4.0% growth in deaths; 0.7% monthly mortality rate
One big challenge for the Motor City is the high percentage of elderly and people of color particularly vulnerable to full-blown COVID-19. Governor Whitmer is pushing for a bi-partisan mask-at-all-times mandate as daily infection rate looks to double over the next two months. Though Detroit confronts a material challenge, the more rural areas of Michigan, particularly to the West and North of the State, are accelerating even more quickly. The State has adequate Intensive Care availability, while Detroit has moderately better capacity.

New York METRO
13% increase in cases; 1.4% growth in deaths; 0.9% monthly mortality rate
New York CITY
10% increase in infections; 0.9% increase in fatalities; 0.9% monthly run rate
The sharp aim at potential clusters is paying off for the Big Apple, despite a high cumulative mortality run-rate in Brooklyn lingering at 10%. All three states that contribute to the New York METRO area have reported increased case-loads and are coordinating quarantine restrictions for those entering Gotham City from forty-three states and Puerto Rico. A negative test within 72 hours of arrival is being permitted in lieu of the fourteen-day self-isolation. Hospital capacity remains very strong and able to cover for its weak link in Rockland County. New Jersey’s capacity is less certain as the New York suburbs find themselves at an elevated risk level for infections.

Philadelphia metro
26% increase in cases; 3.3% increase in deaths; 0.7% monthly mortality rate
Pittsburgh metro
47% increase in infections; 27% increase in fatalities; 1.8% monthly run rate
Philly and Steelers country reflect Pennsylvania’s relatively permissive approach to managing the coronavirus contagion. ¡HAIL TO PITT! Pitt Medical School has found a rich source of anti-bodies to the coronavirus extracted from llamas – that’s right: those funny looking guys from the Andes. Hospitalization rates have climbed rapidly across Pennsylvania but tilt toward Pittsburgh; hospital occupancy is about a third of the peak of last Spring. Beaver County remains hardest hit with respect to elder care facilities average 94 cases per facility (versus 30 for the Commonwealth). Mortality rates in Beaver County's elder care facilities remain even with those of Pennsylvania at 18% and well below those of Philadelphia of 23%. Intensive Care capacity appears to be adequate to the task for now.

==========

Second Wave Comments. Following below is the final set of answers to questions determining the magnitude of the second wave in process.

1.   Will there be adequate testing and tracing in place? Answer: testing is flat; the parts of the country needing it most during this second wave lag in capacity.

2.   Will the states, as a group, have re-opened too soon or too laxly? Answer: Daily infection rate at 10x desired level; frequently more than a thousand dying each day. States and cities seeking to place new restrictions, or re-cycle older ones previously let go; facing resistance from their citizens.

3.   How much will the current protests of George Floyd's murder re-accelerate penetration? Answer: not material due to masking and being outdoors. The biker rally and some political rallies have spiked local rates, primarily in the West and upper Midwest.

4.   Will the virus have mutated and, if so, for the worse or better? Answer: a second infection contracted by a patient has been worse due to mutations and a weakened immune system. Such cases are still rare. More immediate concern over simultaneous flu and coronavirus infections.

5.    How long will people prove to be immune who have survived the illness already? Answer: looks to be three to six months.

6.   How quickly can a safe and effective vaccine be developped and tested? Answer: current vaccines slowed in testing. Russia and China already trying out home-made vaccines.

7.   How efficiently can, and comprehensively will, the vaccine be distributed? Answer: Summer of 2021 as base case or best guess.

8.   How deep will the penetration of COVID-19 be in the rural areas? Answer: slow progression continues and now accelerating in Midwest and rural areas of large states; mortality run rates remain low.

                         

BACK-STORY

Johns Hopkins University and Worldometer provide competing digital data of the coronavirus contagion. These data are close to real-time. These sources underlay my prediction of a 3.6% mortality run-rate in the first year (i.e., the optimistic release time of a vaccine) and my mistrust of the statistics coming out of China, for example as at 22apr20:

• 81% of the cases and 97% of the deaths supposedly confined to Hubei Province with 4% of China's population;
• Shanghai with 27 million people, 639 cases, and seven deaths (¿REALLY?); as well as,
• Peking with a population of 20 million,593 cases, and eight deaths (¿Too good to be true?). 
• My family on both sides tend to cluster in Pittsburgh, New York, Detroit, Boston, Colorado, Chicago, Maryland, and Philadelphia. 

Every Friday, I use the sources of the linked above to calculate out mortality rates and cases to see how the pandemic is progressing in my personal red-zones.

NOTES on MORTALITY RATES
The static pool looks at the death rate relative to the total number of 'resolved' cases. The unresolved cases are those people in the states of initial infection (i.e., identified at first); convalescence (i.e., on the mend); and, critical care (i.e., on ventillators and other extraordinary measures . . . in the R.C. sense). The run-rate is simply a percentage of currently identified cases resulting in death.

Depending upon one's interpretation of the arrayed data, the difference between the two rates may indicate that likelihood of increase or decrease of future case-based (i.e., run-rate) mortality rates; the length of time and percentage of mortality of critical care cases; the length of time for convalescence; and, larger recognition, response, and resolution lags vis à the unseen and unsightly monster.

Since I am not an epidemiologist and have forgotten most of my baby statistics from school, it is S.W.A.G.-time (i.e., scientifically wild-assed guess) on any conclusions I draw. You may well have your own. One thing I do know: when this virus has worked its way all they way through this year or, more likely, this year and next, the static pool and run rates will converge.

The question probably keeping epidemiologists and medical first responders up late at night is how far the static pool rates will come down and how far with run will go up (and flatten out) before that convergence occurs. In my S.W.A.G. linked above of 3.6%, I view the death rates and levels of patients in critical care to provide an instrumental if inscrutable hint.

   

Friday numbers as at 02oct20
Introduction; static pool review
The mortality rate of cases confirmed and closed through death or recovery, have declined more slowly than would be expected as India continues to accelerate, while regions in the British Isles, Madrid, Paris and Eastern Europe heat up in a second wave. In the U.S., the slowing decline reflects acceleration in the Midwest as well as rural regions in the South and West. 

Static Pool Rates, as an indicator of the direction of final mortality run rates, remain high at 5.5% for the United States and 4.0% globally. U.S. and world-wide mortality run rates are converging at the 3.0% level. The disturbing part of these data is that the U.S. rates have levelled off at 4-7x the hoped-for long-term mortality rate of less than 1%.

New York Times has developped a user-friendly tool available for non-subscribers, for which I remain thankful. As usual, this analysis relies also upon data collected by Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Centre and aggregated by Worldometre. This month’s review draws heavily upon the data compiled by the World Heath Organisation. One can review the supplement of general U.S. data on the coronavirus contagion that covers roughly 90% of the U.S. population and deaths recorded to date.



Global Review. 
One general issue that is surfacing rapidly is the environmental impact of the pandemic, both ecologic and economic, particularly on poorer countries with high unemployment especially in the 'informal sector (of day-to-day living; food insecurity in Africa, South Asia, and South America; harvesting to source a secondary element of most vaccines exerting stress on shark populations; and, the decimation of animals.

On the vaccine front, distribution issues (e.g., a necessity of 8,000 jumbo jets, or at least five times the number of planes involved in the Berlin Airlift) have assumed a proper paramountcy as many less developped areas, particularly Africa, lack the infrastructure for the expected through-put of vaccine doses. Special conditions, most often freezing the vaccines at extremely low temperatures also pose a problem. 

Though lagging in development, Merck is developping a shipping friendly vaccine. In the meantime, monolonal anti-bodies that imitate the coronavirus for fortiftying the immune system may bridge the gap until the dispersion of virus-extinguishing vaccines. The COVAX compact for vaccine developpment and distribution among the E.U., U.K., Norway, Iceland, and thirty-five other economies is moving ahead under the leadership of the World Health Organisation; the U.S. thus far is forging its own path in pursuing President Trump’s mercantilist bent.

COVID-19 review in the United States. 

Fire-bells are going off in the Midwest as Minnesota and Iowa are entering second waves while Wisconsin languishes in its first with new daily records in cases and deaths. Specific data about the various states are available in the weekly supplement coming out tomorrow. Dr Anthony Fauci has expressed public concern, as the country enters the flu season, that new cases are four times the level they should be to avoid doubling the death toll to 200,000+ by the time a vaccine arrives. With this uncertainty, the base case projections from six months ago shall stand, whether they be accurate, way off, or whatever.

University of Washington warns that the death toll could go much higher, or four times the current level (i.e., roughly 425,000). One possible mitigant, aside from bridging drugs (e.g., remdesevir or monoclonal anti-bodies), remains the idea of cross immunisation, or, at least, slowed illness progression from so-called T-cell memory of anti-bodies stored from human exposure to other coronaviruses. Current drivers for increasing infection appear to be related to school openings settings, like Amazon, that facilitate super-spreading.

Sweep of specific family clusters.
Overall, the cluster has performed quite well, though a second wave may be developing. Cases have risen 9% (versus 19% for the U.S.) with deaths up only 3%. The mortality run rate for the clusters have declined moderately from 6.7% to 6.3%; the marginal mortality rate (i.e., the number of deaths divided by the number of cases confirmed for the past month) remains at 2.0%, in line with the national rate. 

The biggest increase within the cluster occurred in Pittsburgh metro, with a 20-30% increase in cases throughout the area; Beaver country had a rash of deaths. Nonetheless, Pittsburgh remains the safest cluster with a frequency ratio almost five times higher than that for the country. Philadelphia suburbs, particularly in New Jersey, led the increases for that cluster. Metro New York reported the slowest growth in both cases and deaths, being virtually flat in the latter. 

Metro New York City: 1.0% mortality run rate for September (stable) on a 4% growth in confirmed cases. Governor Cuomo (D-NY), Lamont (D-CT), and Murphy (D-NJ) remain tough in their standards, adding Nevada, Rhode Island, Minnesota, and Arizona back to the list 14-day self-quarantine list; two of these add-backs had been cleared just two weeks ago. In N.Y.C. , positivity rates are climbing, commensurate with school openings; Mayor DeBlasio is urging calm as positivity rates remain below the 5% threshold for re-opening set by the World Health Organisation. California has been taken off the list, leaving the red-list at thirty four states plus Puerto Rico and Guam. 

Boston and the Cape: 3.4% mortality run rate for September (stable) on a 9% growth in confirmed infections. Numbers during September have been inflated due to several hundred false positives out of one lab. Despite a positivity rate below 5%, Nantucket is emerging as a possible hot-spot. Boston and its suburbs to the South and West remain epicentres, too. Much of the state West of Worcester appears to be virtually virus-free. On the Cape itself, one school near Osterville has reported a spate of infections.

Pittsburgh metro: 2.7% mortality run rate for September (improving) on a case growth of 22%. The Pittsburgh metro cluster has trailed the rest of Pennsylvania, peaking in cases in July and August. Most of the deaths if Western Pennsylvania have come from four nursing homes / assisted-living facilities. Nevertheless, the cluster represents only 8% of the totals COVID deaths recorded in Pennsylvania; Pittsburgh metro represents 19% of the state’s population.

Philly metro: 2.3% mortality run rate for September (deteriorating) on a 10% growth in confirmed diagnoses. Despite rising infection rates in Pennsylvania, Delaware, and New Jersey, Philadelphia is proceeding with its re-opening plans, allowing 50% occupancy versus 25% in restaurants and bars, with outdoor dining encouraged. Between a third and a half of the population, Blacks have suffered 50% higher infection rates some 25% higher hospitalisations.

Baltimore-Annapolis: 1.1% mortality run rate for September (improving) on a 14% growth rate in cases. Notwithstanding strong positivity well below W.T.O. threshold, hospitalisation rates have climbed by 10% before tapering off. Three cheers to Governor Hogan (R) and Mayor Young (D) of Baltimore for working together with Johns Hopkins to contain infection rates and deaths in that city on a level proportionate with its population relative to the state. These numbers are permitting a cautious re-opening of elder-care facilities to visits.

Detroit metro: 2.3% mortality run rate for September (deteriorating) on an increased case of 11%. One of the hard hit states last winter, Michigan has continued to contain the spread of the coronavirus as indicated by a 3% positivity rate state-wide. With an up-tick in cases, Governor Whitmer (D) has extended the state of emergency through October.

Chicago proper: 0.9% mortality run rate for September (stable) on a 15% increase in confirmed cases. The positivity rate remains on the high side in the windy city at 4.3%, but still below the 5% threshold of containment. In response to rising numbers of cases, Chicago has imposed a self-quarantine requirement for those arriving from twenty-two more rural states primarily in the deep South and the Midwest; interestingly, Louisiana and Florida are not one of the states. 

Colorado state-wide: 0.8% mortality run rate for September (improving) on a 23% increase in cases. The infection has accelerated during September, prompting responses by state and local officials. Denver is clamping down on colleges in an effort to contain the spread of the coronavirus. Boulder remains the hot-spot for the past few weeks, with a 6% positivity rate – two thirds above the state average -- and leading a 16% increase in hospitalisations (to only 177). Colorado could have as many as 4,000 deaths (i.e., twice the reported number) as these additional cases are people dying “with the virus in their systems; that would make the mortality run rate 5.7%.

==========

Second Wave Anticipation. While a second wave is starting or remains imminent in many parts of the world, the concern remains one of magnitude. Answers to the following questions will go a long way in determining the magnitude of that wave.

1.     Will there be adequate testing and tracing in place? Answer: still no national plan; where there is tracing, concerns over privacy and disclosures creating gaps through which mini-hot-spots emerge. 150 million instant test kits are starting to ship.

2.     Will the states, as a group, have re-opened too soon or too laxly? Answer: spikes in confirmed cases in the South, Midwest and Southwest overshadow high, if frequently slowing, increases in deaths. Daily infection rate at 4x desired level.

3.     How much will the current protests of George Floyd's murder re-accelerate penetration? Answer: outdoors settings may be mitigating the expected community spread of infections.

4.     Will the virus have mutated and, if so, for the worse or better? Answer: controversy over mutations though none have proven to be immediately dangerous despite some making the coronavirus more transmissible.

5.     How long will people prove to be immune who have survived the illness already? Answer: only time will tell; some evidence of either re-infection or protracted infection; current guesstimate of 3-6 months.

6.     How quickly can a safe and effective vaccine be developped and tested? Answer: progress on mitigating drugs, anti-bodies and steroids; vaccine targeted for late 2020 or early 2021; questions emerging on ecological impact.

7.     How efficiently can, and comprehensively will, the vaccine be distributed? Answer: Centre for Disease Control preparing for mass distribution by November 2020 though consensus remains next Summer as most feasible time-frame for dispersion of vaccines; distribution surfacing as key constraint.

8.     How deep will the penetration of COVID-19 be in the rural areas? Answer: slow progression continues and now accelerating in Midwest and rural areas of large states; mortality run rates remain low.

Friday numbers as at 04sep20
Introduction. The static pool rates declined throughout August from 5.7% to 4.6% globally versus 7.6% to 6.4% across the United States. The static pool declines are welcome but remain 2-3x the 2.3% final mortality rate (or the final static pool rate) of the 1918 flu epidemic in the United States. The saving grace is the lack of evident community transmission during many outdoor large gatherings.

The slowing improvements reflect death tolls in the South and Southwest of the United States. Yet indicators now look better as morbidity and mortality growth rates slow in the largest states in that region (i.e., Florida, Texas, and California). August has become the month, it seems, when the U.S. and the most of the world have adjusted to the presence of the pandemic.

The New York Times has developped a user-friendly tool available for non-subscribers, for which I remain thankful. As usual, this analysis relies also upon data collected by Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Centre and aggregated by Worldometre. This month’s review draws heavily upon the data compiled by the World Heath Organisation. One can review the supplement of general U.S. data on the coronavirus contagion that covers in excess of 80% of the U.S. population and 90% of the deaths recorded to date.

Global Review. Despite comprising one-seventh of the global population, the Americas account for roughly half of the cases and 55% of the deaths recorded. Data integrity questions arise with China, Russia, India and, perhaps, with cash strapped third world countries. This skew toward the Americas has not abated due to México’s 10.2% and Peru’s 4.3% mortality run-rates over the last month versus a 2.4% rate globally.

While more likely to be occasioned, celebrations remain premature in the United States since current U.S. static pool rates appear to be 13x the level they should be for the Trump Administration to limit martality to the anticipated death toll of 200-300,000. The family clusters have performed well in August with a marginal mortality run rate of 1.9%. The case-load is in line with larger population though the death toll has been more than twice as high.

please click here or on image to avoid blindness while reading data.

While a growing denominator in calculating growth rates always favours lower cumulative growth rates, the world, in general, and the U.S. in particular, are adapting to the pandemic. Over the last four weeks, confirmed cases have grown by 36% across the world and a more encouraging 25% in the U.S. Globally, India and Brazil lead the pack (up 90% and 39%, respectively, with both at roughly 4 million cases).

Spain provides a promising example of the value of learning; she has entered a second wave over the past month but her marginal mortality run rate is only 0.4%; one must keep in mind that there may be a lag between the onset of a second wave of confirmed cases and subsequent deaths. The surge leaders of Cataluña and Aragón are stabilising but infection rates are re-accelerating in and around Madrid. 

Brazil is another example, though hers is still a first wave, with a 2.4% marginal mortality run rate. Other countries are recording moderating marginal mortality rates for August with Colombia at 3.1%, Russia at 2.1%, and India at 1.4%. (Yet India’s case-load accelerates rapidly while deaths are likely undercounted; the mortality run rate may actually be as high as 4%). The United States has recorded a 2.1% marginal run rate during August. In fairness to Dehli, the possible mitigant identified in South Africa, discussed imminently, could quite easily apply in the sub-continent as well.

South Africa presents an interesting case. She has been expecting the worst with population density and public hygiene being unsafe in poorer urban areas, but continues to tally “mysteriously low” levels of fatalities. The lead COVID-19 epidemiologist in the country can not explain why the results are so much better than expected. Yet infection rates remain low, possibly because many people have anti-bodies from the common cold. Since the sniffles derive from coronaviruses, the anti-bodies created may be adaptable enough to thwart COVID-19.

As the world acclimates, one way or another (i.e., through denial and minimisation or aggressive measures), to the coronavirus contagion, attention is turning toward the economic fall-out of the pandemic. Two thirds of people in the developped world remain pessimistic about their future financially. Outlooks have soured most in the United States as well as other anglophone countries and Germany. 

Some countries (e.g., Sweden, the U.S., and India) have lunged ahead to re-open their economies lest fiscal and economic collapse ensue. Social costs may be rising due to repeat or extended infections. Finally, my sweet and tiny Tunisia rings in with an almost certainly bogus mortality run rate of 1.9%, with a 1.1% ‘heart-warming’ mark for August.

COVID-19 landscape in the United States. Due to its being a presidential election year and with President Trump struggling at the polls, the coronavirus contagion has become a political issue as much as a health crisis. Though the United States has been struggling, the death rate per million of 577 is better than other democracies including Peru (890), Belgium (853), Spain (625), the United Kingdom (611), Chile (597), Italy (587), and Brazil (586). At 3.0%, the U.S. mortality run rate has fallen below the 3.3% world average. 

As results improve in the U.S., the original prediction by the Administration of 200-300,000 deaths may prove to be on target. Repeated forescasts have previously argued for 300-500,000 deaths by year’s end. The same projections raise the possibility of as many as 700,000 fatalities by the first anniversary of the epidemc. 

(Such a level would exceed the number of Americans who died during the Spanish Flu epidemic a century ago.) Current mortality and morbidity trends, however, progressively reduce the likelihood of realising such a grim scenario. Unfortunately, my unfamiliarity with the data and the concepts have constricted my forecasting to rules-of-thumb. 

Leading indicators should focus on testing and hospitalisations; unfortuntely, mine do not. That said, the following conclusions lead me to forecast 225-250,000 deaths by year’s end and 250-275,000 at the end of one year (i.e., 01mar20; or, the time horizon used in the projections that I put together five months ago).

1. Patients in critical care total 15,000 or almost 20% below the levels of a month ago.

2. Critical care relative to full-blown COVID-19 cases has also declined by a similar percentage, indicating fewer medical needs to attend to.

3. Lastly, while uneven, the snap-shot mortality rates (i.e., new deaths divided by new cases) remain quite low, in the 2-3% range, indicating that improvements may prove durable in dealing with this pandemic.

The emerging risk factor for the Northern Hemisphere is the return to schools in North America and Europe after their Summer recesses. In the United States, thus far, some twenty-two states are not hosting in-class school for the Autumn semester, including Illinois, Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Vermont. Still, U.S. cases for students are up 21% already.

To aid the states’ efforts in tacking the epidemic’s impact on schools, a high school teacher has developped a data-base to track school-house outbreaks. This remarkable data-base, being constructed by Ms Alisha Morris, tracks student and faculty cases, as well as quarantining, by school or district, as reported. Check Massachusetts here; Pennsylvania here; and, Colorado here for a sense of how the semester is progressing. 

please click here or on image to preserve eyesight while reading these data

Family Cluster Review. Some analysts assert that the urban areas initially hit hardest by the U.S. epidemic (i.e., New York metro, Boston, Chicago, and Detroit) are approaching herd immunity. While re-assuring, this assertion overlooks the findings of current studies. An individual's immunity attained by recovering from COVID-19 lasts half a year or less, likely making herd immunity unsustainable.

The McDonnell family clusters, in the aggregate, represent 15% of the U.S. population, as do the cases now, at 943,625 confirmed infections, owing to rapid increase in caseloads in the South and Southwest. Nevertheless, the clusters contain a disproportionately high levels of fatalities; at 63,685 deaths, they exceed a third of the current nationwide mortality of 188,079. 

Thanks to climbing death rates in the South and Southwest, Baltimore-Annapolis joins Colorado state-wide and Pittsburgh metro in being safer than the national average. Specifically in Colorado, there have been no recent cases in Delores county; total cases are only two with no deaths. Western Pennsylvania is faring well with only 18,666 cases and 3.1% run rate. Baltimore-Annapolis is facing a 20% reduction in public transit due to shrinking revenues and subsidies.

Cape Cod has had few cases and rare fatalities. Hotels remain open and September reservations are adding up, despite the enjoyment of beaches being restricted to residents. People returning to the Bay State or arriving from Colorado, Pennsylvania, New York metro area, and Vermont no longer have to self-quarantine for two weeks or submit to a test within two days before arrival. Michigan is placing 30+ test sites, including three or four in Detroit metro with the guidance of Governor Whitmer’s racial disparities task force.

New York metro had one of the first and steepest learning curves; mistakes compounded the problems in March and April. Governor Cuomo’s sober-minded leadership has paid off in recent months. Nevertheless, most New Yorkers deeply fear a harder second wave; in short, a re-play of the 1918 flu epidemic. Philadelphia’s improved results reflect a doubling in mask use during August. The City of Brotherly Love, like Chicago, has been singled out as a city to be prepared for vaccine by November, likely for testing purposes through teaching hospitals.

Summary of Findings. Specifically, the marginal mortality run rates for the clusters over the past month have been:

• The United States = 2.1% versus 1.7% for July
• the South and Southwest = 2.8% versus 2.1% for July
• Baltimore-Annapolis = 1.5% for July and August
• Boston & Cape Cod = N.A. due to revised case counting (5.3% in July)
• Chicago proper = 0.9% versus 1.7% in July
• Colorado statewide = 1.3% versus 0.9% in July
• Detroit metro = 1.4% for July and August
• New York City metro = 1.0% versus 3.6% in July
• New York CITY = 1.5% versus 4.0% in July
• Manhattan Island = 19.7% (re-allocation of deaths among boroughs)
• Manhattan Island under old counting = 1.6% versus 2.8% in July
• Philadelphia Metro = 2.0% versus 2.3% in July
• Pittsburgh Metro = 3.3% versus 1.1% in July

==========

Second Wave Anticipation. While a second wave is starting or remains imminent in many parts of the world, the concern remains one of magnitude. Answers to the following questions will go a long way in determining the magnitude of that wave.

1.     Will there be adequate testing and tracing in place? Answer: granular data but no national plan in place; people slow to adopt tracing apps.

2.     Will the states, as a group, have re-opened too soon or too laxly? Answer: spikes in confirmed cases in the South and Southwest shrouding growth in the number of deaths; cases up in upper Midwest.

3.     How much will the current protests of George Floyd's murder re-accelerate penetration? Answer: outdoors settings may be mitigating the expected community spread of infections.

4.     Will the virus have mutated and, if so, for the worse or better? Answer: controversy over mutations though none have proven to be immediately dangerous or undermining vaccines in development.

5.     How long will people prove to be immune who have survived the illness already? Answer: only time will tell; some evidence of either re-infection or protracted infection; current guesstimate of 3-6 months.

6.     How quickly can a safe and effective vaccine be developped and tested? Answer: progress on mitigating drugs and steroids; vaccine targeted for late 2020 or early 2021; concern over wishful thinking, especially with supposed Russian vaccine meeting scepticism.

7.     How efficiently can, and comprehensively will, the vaccine be distributed? Answer: Centre for Disease Control preparing for mass distribution by November 2020; U.S. rejecting global consortium.

8.     How deep will the penetration of COVID-19 be in the rural areas? Answer: slow progression continues and now accelerating; mortality run rates remain low.

Friday numbers as at 07aug20

Introduction. The static pool rates declined throughout July from:

• 8.0% to 5.7% globally, with two-thirds of the decline in the first half of the month; versus,
• 12.0% to 7.6% in the United States, with the decline accelerating in the first two weeks, but slowing to near flatness in the last week as deaths started rising in the South and Southwest (S/SW). 

The while decline in U.S. static pool rates is welcome, as always, the current rate is still more than twice the level of the final 2.3% mortality rate (i.e., also the final static pool rate) of the 1918 flu. Please not that there were five Fridays in July, meaning five weeks compared rather than four. When necessary, I adjust the data to assure smooth comparability; this will occur in weekly growth rates.

If the infection rates reach the stress case (i.e., the 28% penetration of the 1918 flu) or worst case (i.e., 10% penetration) levels, the Trump Administration's forecast of 200-300,000 deaths (i.e., 250,000) will yield a final mortality / static pool rate in the range of 0.3-0.7%. After five months, though progress has been noticeable, the static pool rate is still 15x the level it needs to be. Obviously a vaccine, if safe and effective, will render moot this councern.

The New York Times has developped a user-friendly tool available for non-subscribers. As usual, this analysis relies also upon data collected by Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Centre and aggregated by Worldometre. One can review my compilation of general U.S. data on the coronavirus contagion that covers in excess of 80% of the U.S. population and 90% of the deaths recorded to date.

Past month (five weeks) global and U.S. review. The global level of infections rose 74% and the U.S. confirmed cases grew 76% during the period under review; weekly growth rates averaged out to 11.8% and 12.0%, respectively. Part of this growth came from greater testing globally as the deaths increased by 37% and 28%, for weekly growth rates of 6.4% worldwide versus 5.1% domestically. 

Nevertheless, evidence indicates high transmission rates between children and teens. Asymptomtic cases in South Korea report equally high transmissibility as do those afflicted with full-blown COVID-19. These findings question the thinking that passive carriers may be less virulent than their suffering counterparts. This argues for higher penetration rates than reported – and in the coming weeks – in the South and Southwest (S/SW) of the U.S.

To keep the U.S. data in perspective, should these growth rates persist in the United States for the rest of the one year time horizon (through 28feb21) of my forecast four months ago, America could see close to the estimated 675,000 deaths during the 1918 flu epidemic (i.e., roughly 640,000). The COVID-19 mortality rate would be lower than that of the Spanish Flu (i.e., between 0.7% and 1.9% versus 2.3%).

Outside the U.S., Spanish speaking countries are currently leading the worldwide increase in cases. Specifically, Colombia and Argentina have reported 29% and 23% spikes in infections over the past week. While Brazil has levelled off in her growth rate in infections over the last week, she joins México, Peru, Bolivia, and Central America with a 10-15% growth over the last week. Lastly, Spain, one of the hardest hit nations earlier this year, endured an up-tick of 6% in confirmed cases last week.

While global static pool rates diminished by close to a third, the decline in the mortality run rate proved to be slightly less at just over a quarter, despite significant drops in the U.S., the U.K., Italy, Sweden, and, especially, France. Mortality run rates are increasing in scattered countries across the world, often in smaller countries. Countries with noticeable increases in mortality run rates include the Philippines, Chile, Iran, and Poland; the U.K.'s run rate for the past week of 7.1%, while better than her historical run rate, remains problematic.

Though the United States is struggling for all the world to see, the death rate per million of 495 is better than other democracies including Belgium (851), the United Kingdom (685), Peru (625), Spain (610), Italy (582), Sweden (570), and Chile (520). There are a lot of suspect numbers being reported around the world – and in some U.S. states (e.g., Florida) – particularly from China, India, Russia, Turkey, and parts of Eastern Europe. Finally, my sweet and tiny Tunisia rings in with an almost certainly bogus mortality run rate of 3.1%, with a 0.8% ‘heart-warming’ mark for the past week.

Family Review. Good news for the family clusters for this week: for data of the states of residence all relatives, go to the data separate page of data that covers thirty-three states and six territories. In the Northeast, Baltimore-Annapolis and Pittsburgh metro showed the largest elevations in confirmed cases, unfortunately led by sharper increases in Anne Arundel (MD) and Allegheny (PA) counties. Colorado also reported a spike, with no cases in Delores County and Denver's rates falling over the last two weeks. 

These increases likely reflected increased testing since the mortality run rates fell by 25% in Baltimore-Annapolis and Colorado as well as by half in Pittsburgh metro to the best three rates among the clusters. While mortality run rates remain high in the New York City area and Detroit metro at 8.3% and 9.0%, respectively, the marginal rates for the past month have become a good deal safer despite rising concerns in New Jersey, New York, and Massachusetts.

Specifically, the marginal mortality run rates for the clusters for the past five weeks have been:

• The United States = 1.7%
• the South and Southwest = 2.1%
• Baltimore-Annapolis = 1.5%
• Boston & Cape Cod = 5.3%
• Chicago proper = 1.7%
• Colorado statewide = 0.9%
• Detroit metro = 1.4%
• New York City metro = 3.6%
• New York CITY = 4.0%
• Manhattan Island = 2.8%
• Philadelphia Metro = 2.3%
• Pittsburgh Metro = 1.1%

==========

Second Wave Anticipation. While a second wave is starting or remains imminent in many parts of the world, the question remains its magnitude. Answers to the following questions will go a long way in determining the magnitude of that wave.

1. Will there be adequate testing and tracing in place? Answer: granular data but no national plan in place; people slow to adopt tracing apps and many moving parts in tracing.
2. Will the states, as a group, have re-opened too soon or too laxly? Answer: spikes in confirmed cases in the South and Southwest shrouding growth in the number of deaths.
3. How much will the current protests of George Floyd's murder re-accelerate penetration?Answer:  no hard evidence that protests have catalysed a spread the coronavirus.
4. Will the virus have mutated and, if so, for the worse or better? Answer: controversy over mutations though none have proven to be immediately dangerous or undermining vaccines in development.
5. How long will people prove to be immune who have survived the illness already? Answer: only time will tell; some evidence of either re-infection or protracted infection.
6. How quickly can a safe and effective vaccine be developped and tested? Answer: progress on mitigating drugs and steroids; vaccine targeted for late 2020 or early 2021
7. How efficiently can, and comprehensively will, the vaccine be distributed? Answer: Dr Fauci moderating expectations for rapid development and roll-out; pricing concerns being addressed.
8. How deep will the penetration of COVID-19 be in the rural areas? Answer: slow progression continues and now accelerating; mortality rates remain low.

Friday numbers as at 03jul20

Introduction. The static pool rates are dropping steadily now, indicating the end of the first, hopefully only, wave of the coronavirus. The rates are now 12% for the U.S. and 8% globally. This week adds two topical sections: a deeper dive into the recent spikes in the South and Southwest as well as a preview the race against the clock for a coronavirus vaccine.

This article in the Wall Street Journal, free of charge, outlines what we know about the coronavirus and how it infects people and what to look out for; Johns Hopkins Medicine has issued this handy reference. The New York Times has also made a user-friendly tool available for non-subscribers. As usual, this analysis relies also upon data collected by Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Centre and aggregated by Worldometre.

HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY

Past week global and U.S. review. The United States has re-accelerated her growth rate in confirmed cases to 13.0%, due in large part (at least for now) to the ramping up of testing. American infection rates have edged by the global growth rate of 12.7%. The hot-spots to focus on remain emerging nations in Africa, Eurasia, and Latin America. The places leading the rise in infections include Brazil, the Indian sub-continent, México, and South Africa.

Many of the poorer countries of these regions have suspect data integrity in their reporting. The global mortality run rate is now higher than that of the United States – at 4.8% to 4.6% -- due to increased testing in the U.S. as well as the American roll-out of mitigating medications, principally remdesevir and dexamethasone. The spread into the rural areas of the United States continues; these areas host fewer doctors with fewer resources.

The second wave now emerging across the world works more like a second wave among industrialised countries but a deferred first wave for developping nations plus the Southern and Southwestern U.S. states. In reviewing the eight family clusters tracked each week, the following three reasons explain the mortality run rates so far above the national average (i.e.,7.8% versus 4.6%).

1. Unless there is some Asiatic genome that confers a robust defence against this virus upon inhabitants of the Asian Pacific Rim, the coronavirus appears to have mutated while it migrated west through Europe into the Eastern Americas. The Western U.S. states have managed their epidemics better, perhaps with a less malignant virus. Remember the State of Washington three months ago (before the Northeast took off)? As it turns out, as rough a start as Washington faced, Governor Inslee has managed, heroically, to keep the rates to moderate intensity (as shown below).
2. There was a steep learning curve to overcome with this uniquely new coronavirus. What previous experience had taught us as prudent in March (sending elderly patients to nursing homes) proved counter-productive.
3. Most of these clusters lie in urban areas with substantial Black and Brown populations that have suffered disproportionately due to higher levels of "co-morbidities" (i.e., kidney failure, blood pressure, diabetes, and obesity). Additionally, a higher percentage of Hispanics and Blacks have had to report to work as ‘essential’ employees (e.g., bus-drivers, garbage collectors, etc.). This racially skewed hazard reflects in part the systemic racism argued by Black Lives Matter and likely explains part of the Black-led rebellion currently taking place.
4. More densely populated areas tend to transmit the virus more quickly.

Pittsburgh has endured a 30% growth rate in the past week, with infections largely afflicting people under forty. This demographic likely reflects increased testing. Hospitalisation rates are also increasing slowly in Steelers country. Fortunately, Pittsburgh has superb teaching and general service hospitals that should be able to absorb any new patient-load. Elsewhere, in the other seven family clusters, growth rates hover around 1-2% with a mortality up-tick in New York metro.

The tri-state triumvirs of Governors Cuomo (D-NY), Lamont (D-CT), and Murphy (D-NJ) have been quick to preserve their heard-earned momentum gained from the ordeal of the past four months. Among possible restrictions, these states are imposing quarantine requirements on people entering from states with spikes in infections including California, the Carolinas, and Idaho (sic). A special section to follow will analyse these 'spike' states.

Grading the Trump response. The Administration has had to overcome the consequences of budget-cutting into the bone; an early mis-step by trying to go it alone (i.e., turning down test kits from the W.H.O.); a two-to-three week delay imposed by the politics of a partisan impeachment; as well as, poor public relations management by the President himself (e.g., resorting to the blame-game and making ill-advised statements). Most Americans view the Trump Administration’s management of the flu as illustrated below.

Despite the loss of credibility and many self-imposed hurdles, President Trump gets a “B-“ for the following reasons.

1. The U.S. has caught up to its peer group in testing.
2. The United States Government (U.S.G.) is finally firing on all cylinders for mitigating medicines and developing a vaccine.
3. The Public-Private Partnership initiated in March is bringing to bear the industrial capacity still in the U.S. on the bulk production of protective and life-saving equipment.
4. The painful lock-down has flattened the curve, though a rash of new cases spreads throughout the South and Southwest.
5. Deaths per million for the U.S., 399, are well below those of many of the Western European nations, ranging from 536-843 (i.e., Belgium, France, Great Britain, Italy, Spain, and Sweden).

The Spikes: ¿new wave, used wave, loosed wave? The first wave has ended in the areas hit hardest by the onset of the coronavirus contagion. While many Southern and Southwestern states are reporting substantial spikes in confirmed cases, as addressed in last week’s letter, mortality rates apparently remain low.

Nevertheless, Europe’s concern with a second wave has led to a short-term ban on Americans travelling there. We may be seeing less of a second wave than a deferred first wave in the rural states. Updating data from states featured last week:

• Arizona confirmed cases up 32% (to some 87,500 cases) with a mortality run rate of 2.2%;
• California confirmed cases up 20% (to some 250,000 cases) with a mortality run rate of 2.5%, but the state is taking action this July 4th week-end;
• Florida confirmed cases up 38% (to some 170,000 cases) with a mortality run rate of 2.1%;
• Georgia confirmed cases up 21% (to some 85,000 cases) with a mortality run rate of 3.3%;
• Oklahoma confirmed cases up 18% (to some 15,000 cases) with a mortality run rate of 2.7%; as well as,
• Texas confirmed cases up 29% (to some 185,000 cases) with a mortality run rate of 1.4%.

These data look like good and bad news: bad news of rapidly increasing case-loads (i.e., up 26% for these six states) but apparently good news of declining mortality run rates. This conclusion is not really warranted. In actuality, what one reads here is bad news in the number of cases and ‘not-as-bad’ news of mortality as deaths rising 7.2% to 17,435 victims inside these six states.

Additionally, there is the effect of lag-times of infection to interment. The initial inference drawn here is that these states are betting they can distribute a vaccine before a spike of critical care cases forces as death wave across the country. The 20-25day progression from initial infection to critical care will kick in later for some states than others.

As cases eventually taper off in these and all other states, deaths will continue to rise for some period of time. The ability of the more rural states to manage increased hospitalisations and for patients to access care will be a decisive factor, good or bad. Per the article composed three months ago, the base case remains high at 335,000 while the revised best case of 175,000 hopefully will better reflect the unfolding reality. The following factors will determine the number of eventual deaths in the busted hustings:

• level of transmission (i.e., ¿how many millions infected, mostly asymptomatic?);
• proximity to a hospital or well-equipped clinic;
• number of qualified doctors nearby and available; and
• level of Medicaid expansion under Obamacare.

Analysing the rural reach. To test the urgency of the rural states and those with spikes presently in force, I have taken the number of deaths in each state and applied the percentage of those deaths to the host-state’s population. Then I apply that percentage to the U.S. population to enable comparability of data among states with populations ranging in size from under one to almost forty million. These examples of computation suffice for Colorado and Maryland.

The states featured below include those hosting whole or partial clusters studied each week; states where only one or two of my extended family live (i.e., below the line in the upper-most section); states analysed last week; other states quarantined by Connecticut, New Jersey, and New York; as well as, additional states of interest. In evaluating the urgency of the current local coronavirus contagion, I establish the following benchmarks based upon the rate of confirmed relative to populations of the United States, New York metro, and, the whole wide fuckin’ world.

• VERY HIGH = at or above 250,000
• HIGH = at or above 130,000
• MODERATE = at or above 50,000
• LOW = at or above 30,000
• VERY LOW = at or below 29,999

 

The current death toll in the United States approaches 130,000. Without New York metro that mortality level approximates 92,500. If the American people were to suffer the same percentage of deaths as the rest of the world, that toll would 20-25,000.

The currently popular notion that upwards of 90% of the infections are undiagnosed strikes me as wishful thinking. In any case, if that assertion be true, the mortality run rate will still be 5x that of the flu in 2019; this coronavirus contagion is not simply the flu by another name. The magnitude of impact imposed by this virus, if we are lucky, may be like that of the first wave of the 1918 Flu before it mutated murderously ending with 2.3% mortality run rate.

The race of the century already, or the vaccine rush. Aside from the second wave, the question of the development of a safe, effective, and timely vaccine remains paramount. The opening remarks by Senator Blunt (R-MO) in a hearing this week to assess the progress toward a vaccine provides a concise overview of the state of development. Three looming challenges confront the companies racing to develop the vaccine for distribution in early 2021.

1. Most important is the ‘rush to failure’, or relaxing testing strictures to expedite development and distribution of the vaccine. A failed vaccine might not only prove ineffective, but it could exert negative unintended consequences like side effects.
2. Next is the scientific question of the mutation of the virus so that the vaccine becomes quickly dated. Testimony by leading U.S.G. experts reflects a collective view, if not complete consensus, that this novel coronavirus is not apt to change its RNA composition significantly enough to undermine the effectiveness of the vaccine.
3. Last is the concern over distribution and availability.

Those candidates being funded in part by the U.S. share a common ability to multiply production quickly to make millions or a billion doses available quickly. The question of availability translates also into pricing. The Bayh-Dole Law of 1980 provides for the commercialisation of U.S.G. funded research.

While instrumental in launching an innovation wave during the past forty years, Bayh-Dole has created two basic political problems in the case of a vaccine rushed to market. One is the pricing of the developped pharmaceutical products. The argument here is why American consumers should pay monopolistic prices for products their tax dollars helped develop.

Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez argues this point with the C.E.O. of a company that has benefitted enormously from these legislated subsidies. The issue that critics raise argues that the development and marketing risk of the product has been transferred largely to universities and the U.S.G. and, therefore, companies should not gain the out-sized rewards of monopolitic pricing for risks unassumed.

The other political question remains one of licensing. If a drug is developped and the U.S.G. seeks to contain the price to increase its availability to COVID-19 sufferers as well as to recover the subsidies of the tax-payers, companies may simply refuse to produce and prevent others from levering their intellectual property. In theory such intellectual property -- the formula of the vaccine in this case -- is protected by a patent to permit exclusive used by its owner for twenty years.

To work around this scenario, many countries have compulsory licensing provisions that allow the government to intervene and oversee manufacture through the "licensing", or renting, the intellectual property out to a third party. This "licensee" (i.e., the government hired company) then prices the product at a level affordable to consumers yet sufficient for a ‘fair’ return to the third party producer. Of course, that 'fair' return is not etched in stone and varies among contentious stake-holders. 

It may be, for example, set at 15%, or the typical yearly return-on-investment (R.o.I.) for U.S. equity markets. In cases where the development risk is not transferred to tax-payers through Bayh-Dole (i.e., assumed by the companies themselves), such a 'normal' return does not create the profit necessary for pharmaceutical companies to absorb costly losses endured on most new drugs that fail in testing or in the market.

Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) implies that the language of the Bayh-Dole statute itself – that products be taken to the market “at reasonable terms” – allows for the practice of compulsory licensing. Two big issues with compulsory licensing need to be addressed.

1. Most overseas laws for compulsory licensing allow for several years of non-production by the drug company before the government can intervene, an unworkable provision in the face of this COVID-19 pandemic.
2. The real-life practice of compulsory licensing is not working too well thus far, at least in India. Competing interests and corporate cronyism appear to subvert the implementation. More likely, governments in emerging markets (e.g., India) use this ‘last-resort’ as a lever in negotiating price limits.

Beating the odds and data update. As one reviews these data, (s)he ought to keep in mind the likelihood of a death, expressed as one death for every X people (i.e., the odds). .

• World: 10,997,799 cases (up 12.7%); 524,157 deaths (up 6.4%); 4.8% mortality rate; one case for every 698 people and one death for every 14,660 people
• United States: 2,816,131 cases (up 13.0%); 125,980 deaths (up 3.6%); 4.6% mortality rate; one case for every 118 people and one death for every 2,540 Americans

==========

1. Baltimore-Annapolis: 23,790 confirmed cases; 4.7% mortality rate; one death for every 2,502 people 
2. Boston and the Cape: 63,451 confirmed cases; 7.3% mortality; one death for 1,002 people
3. Chicago proper: 91,381 confirmed cases; 5.0%; one death per 858 people
4. Colorado statewide: 33,352 cases; 5.1%; one death per 3,394
5. Detroit metro: 44,298; 10.9%; 1 death per 886
6. New York metro: 455,813; 8.5%; 1 per 584
7. New York CITY: 216,362; 10.7%; 1 per 362
8. Manhattan Island 26,866; 9.1%; 1 per 664
9. Philadelphia metro: 55,498; 7.5%; 1 per 1,462
10. Pittsburgh metro: 5,060 cases*; 6.3%; 1 per 7,382

==========

Second Wave Anticipation. While a second wave remains likely, the question remains its magnitude. Answers to the following questions will go a long way in determining the magnitude of that wave.

1. Will there be adequate testing and tracing in place? Answer: approaching adequacy with granular data but people slow to adopt tracing apps.
2. Will the states, as a group, have re-opened too soon or too laxly? Answer: spikes in confirmed cases in the South and Southwest shrouding growth in the number of deaths.
3. How much will the current protests of George Floyd's murder re-accelerate penetration?Answer:  of the states catalysing the Black-led rebellion, only California has seen a significant increase in confirmed cases; state taking action during July 4th week-end.
4. Will the virus have mutated and, if so, for the worse or better? Answer: has and continues to mutate, though not enough to undermine proposed vaccines.
5. How long will people prove to be immune who have survived the illness already? Answer: only time will tell; some evidence of either re-infection or protracted infection.
6. How quickly can a safe and effective vaccine be developped and tested? Answer: progress on mitigating drugs and steroids; vaccine targeted for late 2020 or early 2021
7. How efficiently can, and comprehensively will, the vaccine be distributed? Answer: distribution may begin by January 2021; pricing concerns.
8. How deep will the penetration of COVID-19 be in the rural areas? Answer: slow progression continues and now accelerating; mortality rates remain low.

* confirmed cases up 30% for PGH metro

 BACK-STORY

Johns Hopkins University and Worldometer provide competing digital data of the coronavirus contagion. These data are close to real-time. These sources underlay my prediction of a 3.6% mortality run-rate in the first year (i.e., the optimistic release time of a vaccine) and my mistrust of the statistics coming out of China, for example as at 22apr20:

• 81% of the cases and 97% of the deaths supposedly confined to Hubei Province with 4% of China's population;
• Shanghai with 27 million people, 639 cases, and seven deaths (¿REALLY?); as well as,
• Peking with a population of 20 million,593 cases, and eight deaths (¿Too good to be true?). 
• My family on both sides tend to cluster in Pittsburgh, New York, Detroit, Boston, Colorado, Chicago, Maryland, and Philadelphia. 

Every Friday, I use the sources of the linked above to calculate out mortality rates and cases to see how the pandemic is progressing in my personal red-zones.

NOTES on MORTALITY RATES
The static pool looks at the death rate relative to the total number of 'resolved' cases. The unresolved cases are those people in the states of initial infection (i.e., identified at first); convalescence (i.e., on the mend); and, critical care (i.e., on ventillators and other extraordinary measures . . . in the R.C. sense). The run-rate is simply a percentage of currently identified cases resulting in death.

Depending upon one's interpretation of the arrayed data, the difference between the two rates may indicate that likelihood of increase or decrease of future case-based (i.e., run-rate) mortality rates; the length of time and percentage of mortality of critical care cases; the length of time for convalescence; and, larger recognition, response, and resolution lags vis à the unseen and unsightly monster.

Since I am not an epidemiologist and have forgotten most of my baby statistics from school, it is S.W.A.G.-time (i.e., scientifically wild-assed guess) on any conclusions I draw. You may well have your own. One thing I do know: when this virus has worked its way all they way through this year or, more likely, this year and next, the static pool and run rates will converge.

The question probably keeping epidemiologists and medical first responders up late at night is how far the static pool rates will come down and how far with run will go up (and flatten out) before that convergence occurs. In my S.W.A.G. linked above of 3.6%, I view the death rates and levels of patients in critical care to provide an instrumental if inscrutable hint.

Friday numbers as at 26jun20

Static pool analysis.The static pool mortality rates declined again, with the United States accelerating toward the end of the week, to the 12.8% level; global static pool rates ended the week at 8.8%. The current wave of the pandemic is ending in Europe but lingers in the U.S. Cases grew by 14% globally, 11% in America and 5% in Europe. The Americas as well as sub-Saharan Africa and the Indian sub-continent lead the current global quickening. CRITICAL NOTE: findings by the Centre for Disease Control indicate that 'co-morbidities' (i.e., diabetes, obesity, hyper-tension as well as pulmonary and kidney problems) erase the advantage of youth. That is to say, by way of example: a twenty year old diabetic is as vulnerable to dying from COVID-19 as an eighty year old without diabetes.

Review of U.S. and international trends. The challenge for the United States remains one of speed of deceleration of infection rates. Specifically, the U.S. infection and death rates are not dropping as quickly as other nations stricken hard by COVID-19, with the exceptions of Brazil, India and Sweden. The source of the slower deceleration for the U.S. remains uncertain, though the increased testing has inflated the number of cases as today's presentation by the Coronavirus task force indicates. Apparently, younger people represent most of the new infections and are largely asymptomatic. 

Interestingly, Dr Birx later emphasised the importance of her working with community leaders as the tracking data are almost granular enough to infer the course of the contagion. The big story this week was the continued proliferation of confirmed cases throughout the South and Southwest. Consequently, I decided to take a look at the states most mentioned -- Arizona, California, Florida, Texas -- as well as Oklahoma back to May 23rd.

(Unfortunately, I got the two May dates off by a day, but the information is still usable.) The start-date came before Decoration Day as well the murder of George Floyd and the ensuing protests. Arguably, these two events will prove, in hind-sight, to be inflection points. The onset of the Summer travel season and the street demonstrations broke down the discipline of social distancing. In many venues, people did not wear masks. Though a smaller state, Oklahoma hosted a rally by President Trump; I included her to look for any immediate consequence. Below are the data on new cases and deaths in the six states.

As one can see, while the infection rates have increased materially, the mortality has declined and now represents a significant improvement over both the 5.1% global and national run-rates. The U.S. mortality rate has much improved over the last six weeks. These six states compare even more favourably with the composite data for the eight clusters under review, which showed only a 1.7% growth in confirmed cases this week but a 7.8% mortality rate (versus 7.6% the previous week due to an apparent spike in Northern Jersey).

Implications of new spikes. Despite the evident brain-power of the U.S. doctors, epidemiologists, and scientists finally being brought to bear on the U.S. epidemic, the results still lag much of the rest of the world. From what I can tell, there is a twenty to twenty five day interval between infection's first contact and the progression ultimately into critical care for full-blown COVID cases. So increasing mortality rates, if they are to manifest, should make themselves felt about now, or imminently at the latest. The concern remains that of a second wave, now expected to coincide with the Autumn flu season, which could prove a deadly combination.

Europe is set to limit entry by Americans, Russians, and Brasilians due to the spikes in cases across the country. Notwithstanding, the good news this week of the efficacy of certain steroids in mitigating the full blown COVID illness, the fate of Americans may well lie in a race against the clock to test out a vaccine and have it widely distributed by March 2021. This timeliness becomes important in face of some twenty million Americans apparently infected and some 85% not reporting for various reasons. 


NOTE on Idaho. Please note there was a mention in Dr Birx's remarks of an inflection taking place in Idaho. After an initial spike in April, Idaho calmed down until the end of May. Of her 5,149 cases, 45-50% have been confirmed in the last month. Idahoans appear to be a hearty crew with a mortality run rate of only 1.7%. Only one of every 347 have contracted the virus and only one of 19,637 actually succumb to it; these are the best odds of any of the McDonnell clusters.

Beating the odds and data update. As one reviews these data, (s)he ought to keep in mind the likelihood of a death, expressed as one death for every X people (i.e., the odds). .

• World: 9,752,937 cases (up 14%); 492,695 deaths (up 8%); 5.1% mortality rate; one case for every 787 people and one death for every 15,596 people
• United States: 2,491,672 cases (up 11%); 125,980 deaths (up 5%); 5.1% mortality rate; one case for every 133 people and one death for every 2,640 Americans

==========

1. Baltimore-Annapolis: 22,542 confirmed cases; 4.8% mortality rate; one death for every 2,599 people 
2. Boston and the Cape: 62,696 confirmed cases; 7.2% mortality; one death for 1,020 people
3. Chicago proper: 88,650 confirmed cases; 5.1%; one death per 878 people
4. Colorado statewide: 31,796 cases; 5.3%; one death per 3,451
5. Detroit metro: 43,143; 11.1%; 1 death per 896
6. New York metro*: 451,703; 8.4%; 1 per 597
7. New York CITY: 214,070; 10.5%; 1 per 374
8. Manhattan Island 26,533; 9.1%; 1 per 674
9. Philadelphia metro: 54,032; 7.5%; 1 per 1,497
10. Pittsburgh metro: 3,891 cases; 8.1%; 1 per 7,571

==========

Second Wave Anticipation. While a second wave remains likely, the question remains its magnitude. Answers to the following questions will go a long way in determining the magnitude of that wave.

1. Will there be adequate testing and tracing in place? Answer: approaching adequacy with granular data on community spread; tracing still to follow.
2. Will the states, as a group, have re-opened too soon or too laxly? Answer: thus far okay with high growth rates of infection with mortality rates 40-60% of national average.
3. How much will the current protests of George Floyd's murder re-accelerate penetration?Answer:  concerns raised since fourteen members of Trump advance team infected.
4. Will the virus have a seasonal effect (e.g., not prolific in hot weather)? Answer: NO.
5. Will the virus have mutated and, if so, for the worse or better? Answer: has and continues to mutate, though recently not for the worse.
6. How long will people prove to be immune who have survived the illness already?  Answer: only time will tell; some evidence of either re-infection or protracted infection.
7. How quickly can a safe and effective vaccine be developped and tested? Answer: progress on mitigating drugs and steroids; vaccine targeted for late 2020 or early 2021
8. How efficiently can, and comprehensively will, the vaccine be distributed? Answer: Dr Fauci says widespread distribution may be possible by March 2021; pricing concerns.
9. How deep will the penetration of COVID-19 be in the rural areas? Answer: slow progression continues and now not accelerating; mortality rates remain low.

Friday numbers as at 19jun20

Static pool analysis.The static pool mortality rates continued to decline, especially during mid-week for the United States, from 15% to 14% domestically and by half a percentage point (to 9.5%) globally as the coronavirus contagion matures on the back-end of what will likely be a first wave. Cases are increasing more rapidly in certain parts of the world, largely in the Middle East, Pakistan, and India. One must keep in mind two points:

• sharp increases off of a small number of cases (e.g., China’s low denominator [sic]); and,
• varying levels of reporting transparency.

Review of emerging U.S. and international trends. The challenge for the United States remains one of speed of the deceleration. Specifically, the U.S. infection and death rates are not dropping as quickly as other nations stricken hard by COVID-19, with the exceptions of Brazil and Russia. Unfortunately, I can not say whether the U.S.’s slower deceleration reflects the onset of a second wave as the first wave tapers off or whether the country’s testing tends to inflate the numbers (since 90%+ of the cases are mild worldwide) to create that appearance. 

Florida’s rates apparently defy the argument of more testing unearthing more asymptomatic cases. The politics of COVID-19 becomes more difficult to separate out of the epidemiological challenges of a possibly pending second wave. Vice President Pence argues that the elevation of the number of confirmed cases reflects the increasing thoroughness of testing throughout the United States. 

Many officials and public commentators contest these claims, often accusing the Vice President of lying. Keeping in mind my limitations in assessing the trends of disease-related data and the meaning of those data themselves as well as looking at the numbers in the Johns Hopkins site, Worldometer, the New York Times, the BBC, and NPR, I believe that it is too soon to tell.

While the spread of the virus slows in much of the country, one must note some disturbing facts amid the improving news for the states that have been more disciplined in mitigating the coronavirus contagion.

¿What's up with the McDonnells and the Trump Administration?On the plus side, the areas under review witnessed slow growth rates in confirmed cases and deaths at 2% each, one-fifth and one-half the national rates, led by significantly decelerating increases of 1-2% in New York, Detroit, and Boston. Kudos to Governors Cuomo (D-NY), Whitmer (D-MI), and Baker (R-MA). The presence of inner city teaching hospitals is beginning to show as mortality run rates in Boston-proper and the city of Philadelphia are 10-15% lower than those recorded for the wider metro areas.

Claire Purnell suggested a compelling reason for Pittsburgh’s lower COVID numbers: Steeler country is neither a destination city nor an airline hub. On the challenging side, first, the Tulsa area has seen a sharp increase in cases during the past two weeks as the President prepares to speak to as many as 62,000 people in an indoor rally venue. 

Second, the President and Vice President, the head of the coronavirus task force, fail to set an example for the rest of the country by dispensing with social distancing and the wearing of masks in publicly recorded events. CNN reports that the probability of transmission is about one-in-six with social distancing practiced; it falls to roughly one-in-thirty with the addition of a mask. Third, Dr Anthony Fauci states that he has not met with President Trump for at least half a month.

New and news resources. The New York Times has produced a resource for tracking the current two-week trending of the coronavirus contagion. This remarkable tool indicates a decline in the infection rate in at least 80% of the areas under review with a flat-line for most of the balance. The only up-ticks are in suburban Denver, Howard County (Maryland), and an outlying area of Pittsburgh metro. Southwestern Colorado has confirmed no new cases in the past fortnight.

So, while the overall trend in the United States shows a 9% increase in detection rates, the area under review is improving. Some good news this week as, apparently, a steroid may provide critical care relief for patients suffering severely from COVID-19. This new medicine, Dexamethasone, supplement the mitigating medication, Remdesivir, now being manufactured by Gilead Pharmaceutical.

Beating the odds and data update. As one reviews these data, (s)he ought to keep in mind the likelihood of a death, expressed as one death for every X people (i.e., the odds). .

• World: 8,587,298 cases (up 13%); 456,462 deaths (up 8%); 5.3% mortality rate; one case for very 894 people and one death for every 16,834 people
• United States: 2,237,031 cases (up 9%); 119,747 deaths (up 4%); 5.4% mortality rate; one case for every 148 people and one death for every 2,777 Americans

==========

1. Baltimore-Annapolis: 21,585 confirmed cases; 4.8% mortality rate; one death for every 2,723 people 
2. Boston and the Cape: 61,933 confirmed cases; 7.1% mortality; one death for 1,045 people
3. Chicago proper: 86,179 confirmed cases; 5.0%; one death per 912 people
4. Colorado statewide: 29,901 cases; 5.5%; one death per 3,524
5. Detroit metro: 42,076; 11.3%; 1 death per 903
6. New York metro*: 447,478; 8.2%; 1 per 619
7. New York CITY: 211,260; 10.5%; 1 per 378
8. Manhattan Island 26,109; 9.2%; 1 per 680
9. Philadelphia metro: 52,304; 7.5%; 1 per 1,559
10. Pittsburgh metro: 3,503 cases; 8.7%; 1 per 7,745

==========

Second Wave Anticipation. While a second wave remains likely, the question remains its magnitude. Answers to the following questions will go a long way in determining the magnitude of that wave.

1. Will there be adequate testing and tracing in place?Answer: open question with the ‘in-a-month’ getting old after two or three months
2. Will the states, as a group, have re-opened too soon or too laxly?Answer: most states are thus far okay; Florida is a noticeable exception.
3. How much will the current protests of George Floyd's murder re-accelerate penetration?Answer:  Trump rally may compound the spread in Oklahoma
4. Will the virus have a seasonal effect (e.g., not prolific in hot weather)? Answer: NO.
5. Will the virus have mutated and, if so, for the worse or better? 
6. How long will people prove to be immune who have survived the illness already?Answer: only time will tell; some evidence of either re-infection or protracted infection.
7. How quickly can a safe and effective vaccine be developped and tested?Answer: progress on mitigating drugs; vaccine targeted for late 2020 or early 2021
8. How efficiently can, and comprehensively will, the vaccine be distributed?Answer: not promising with slowness of testing; concerns over pricing
9. How deep will the penetration of COVID-19 be in the rural areas?Answer: slow progression continues but apparently not accelerating.

Friday numbers as at 12jun20
NOTE: U.S. and global static pool rates declined slowly in the first half of the week before flattening out at 14.9% and 10.2%, respectively. These static pool rates carry the same differential as before and remain high above the mortality run rates of 5-6%. All this despite a finding that the spread of the COVID-19 from passive carriers may be slower than expected. Eventually, the mortality static pool and run rates from this sixth coronavirus will converge.

¿When the end? The virus will migrate through the population, possible creating a 'herd immunity', and will end with the development and dissemination of a vaccine. A review of the data presented this week indicates that, if this first wave is the extent of the COVID-19 epidemic in the United States, one can reasonably expect the convergence of static pool and mortality run rates at some point in the range of 158-192,000 deaths, roughly a quarter above the best case level of 141,994 deaths identified ten weeks ago (and about half the base case of 335,301).

WEEK-in-SUMMARY. The flattening of static pool rates at the end of the week possibly augured a second wave. Certain states started recording increases in cases while the through-put from the first wave still cycled through the system. Additionally, epidemiologists voiced concern that protestors may amplify the coming spike. To date, the data have remained inconclusive; preliminary, largely anecdotal, evidence indicated that many protestors are wearing masks, partly with the admonishment of local leaders.

Data Problems. There was a problem, again, with inconsistent data between those reported by Johns Hopkins and those from Worldometer, the two sources underlying these updates. Most of the differences appeared to be immaterial, explicable by real-time versus periodic recording. One difference remained material, however: that of the number of people deemed as recovered. The Johns Hopkins datum stayed consistently at two-thirds that of Worldometer.

A review of the respective methodologies revealed what appeared to be a more conservative counting and confirmation method employed by Johns Hopkins as opposed to Worldometer. To address these differences, I split the difference between the two measures on U.S. and global data while, for local data, I relied upon the more granular Johns Hopkins data (with one exception for statewide in Colorado). This method employed the SWAG approach (S.W.A.G. = scientifically wild-assed guess).

Review of Family Clusters. While the politics of the murder of a black man by the police overwhelmed coverage of the pandemic, the coronavirus contagion surfaced another epidemic of public violence: that suffered by medical personnel. The share of the areas under review relative to national cases and deaths declined by roughly two percentage points each -- to 35.6% of cases and 48.6% -- indicating the up-tick recorded in twelve, largely rural states. The mortality run rates in the clusters stayed well above national and global rates (i.e., 7.6% versus 5.6%).

New York metro accounted for 60% of the cases but less than a third of the deaths among the eight areas under review, attesting to Governors Cuomo's (D-NY), Lamont's (D-CT), and Murphy's (D-NJ) effective leadership during the crisis. Only Detroit metro and Maryland showed significant increases in confirmed cases, likely due to increased testing as mortality run rates fell. The growth of cases worldwide still increased by 13% (versus 8% for the U.S. and 3% for the family clusters) led again by India, Brazil, and, perhaps, Russia.

Second Wave Anticipation. The timely topic for discussion remains that of a second wave. There will be one, almost certainly, but the question remains its magnitude. No one can say what that wave will be like. Answers to the following questions will go a long way in determining the magnitude of that wave.

1. Will there be adequate testing and tracing in place?
   Answer: perhaps in the next month for testing.
2. Will the states, as a group, have re-opened too soon or too laxly? Answer: indications of spikes in Florida and Arizona; but no spike yet in Georgia.
3. How much will the current protests of George Floyd's murder re-accelerate penetration? Answer: too soon to tell; wait a fortnight.
4. Will the virus have a seasonal effect (e.g., not prolific in hot weather)? Answer: unlikely to be a seasonal pattern due to heat as evidenced by current spikes in India and Brazil.
5. Will the virus have mutated and, if so, for the worse or better? Answer: wait and see.
6. How long will people prove to be immune who have survived the illness already? Answer: only time will tell; some evidence of either re-infection or protracted infection.
7. How quickly can a safe and effective vaccine be developped and tested? Answer: three vaccines are under phase-3 (advanced) F.D.A. testing; possible vaccine in 2020, more likely early 2021.
8. How efficiently can, and comprehensively will, the vaccine be distributed? Answer: undetermined, but the the dissemination of now available tests remains slow; concerns energing over the pricing of such a future vaccine.
9. How deep will the penetration of COVID-19 be in the rural areas? Answer: some evidence of penetration but extent and pace remain unknown.
10. How will rural areas manage with fewer available facilties, medical first responders, and Medicaid extensions? Answer: that is the concern; mobile hospital capacity may help.

Beating the Odds and Data Update. As one reviews these data, (s)he ought to keep in mind the likelihood of a death, expressed as one death for every X people (i.e., the odds). .

• World: 7,599,437 cases; 423,748 deaths; 5.6% mortality rate (improved from 5.9%); one case for very 1,011 people and one death for every 18,134 people
• United States: 2,060,221 cases; 115,011 deaths; 5.6% mortality rate (improved from 5.7%); one case for every 161 people and one death for every 2,891 Americans

==========

1. Baltimore-Annapolis: 20,295 confirmed cases; 4.8% mortality rate; one death for every 2,892 people 
2. Boston and the Cape: 60,969 confirmed cases; 7.0% mortality; one death for 1,079 people
3. Chicago proper: 83,978 confirmed cases; 4.9%; one death per 962 people
4. Colorado statewide: 28,647 cases; 5.5%; one death per 3,647
5. Detroit metro: 41,487; 11.6%; 1 death per 912
6. New York metro*: 442,696; 8.2%; 1 per 626
7. New York CITY: 208,517; 10.6%; 1 per 381
8. Manhattan Island 25,725; 9.2%; 1 per 688
9. Philadelphia metro: 50,969; 7.4%; 1 per 1,618
10. Pittsburgh metro*: 3,394 cases; 8.7%; 1 per 7,981

* Pittsburgh metro numbers appear to be unrealistically optimistic

Friday numbers as at 05jun20
NOTE: U.S. static pool rates dropped sharply until a slight up-tick for today at 15.9%, reflecting a gradual trend back up since Decoration Day. Global static pool rates trended down more slowly to 11.4%, roughly 30% below the U.S. rate; slowing the decline are the current challenges facing the U.K. (14.2% mortality run rate) and Brazil.

The concern over U.S. static rates relates to an expected second wave. Compounding the risk of re-opening too soon is the effect of widespread protests across the country following the police murder of George Floyd. This new risk factor has two dimensions: the break-down of the discipline exercised for the previous two months by many Americans and the effects of tear gas.

Between Memorial Day celebrations and protests, social distancing has declined, especially in urban areas with fewer people wearing masks. Masks keep the virus in by containing droplets of spittle; it does not keep the virus out. That is to say: people who do not wear masks can still spread the virus to those who do. These hazards of the protests will not create, but aggravate, the second wave.

Global infection levels increased by 13% with increased detection in India, the Middle East and South America. Meanwhile global static pool rates declined, indicating higher testing levels as proven by mortality run rates declining modestly from 6.1% to 5.9%. U.S. confirmed cases grew 6% with a similar improvement in the mortality run rate of two-tenths of a per cent to 5.7%.

Growth rates for four of the clusters straddled the 6% national rate, with Baltimore-Annapolis (+14%) and Colorado (+9%) being the outliers. New York and Detroit recorded the slowest growth rates of 2-3%, again reflecting disciplined mitigation. Detroit's tragically high mortality run rate of 13% reflects the age and minority demographics of its metropolitan population.

Despite slightly declining shares of the confirmed cases and deaths, the areas studied still endure mortality run rates that are a third above the national rate (i.e., 7.6% versus 5.7%). A quarter of the way into the year time-horizon of this statistical (¿sadistical?) tracking, it might be helpful to see how the current numbers across the U.S. compare with those forecast two months ago.

1. Actual Results after three months: 1,904,678 cases and 109,403 deaths
2. Best Case for one year:  @3,500,000 guesstimated cases (actual to scenario cases of 55% or 55% of the way there) and 141,994 deaths (actual to forecast deaths of 77% or three-quarters of the way there)
3. Base Case for twelve months: 9,313,895 cases (actual to projected of 21%) and 335,301 of deaths (actual to anticipated of 32%)
4. Worst Case through 28feb21: @33,263,911 cases (6% of the way there) and 1,197,501 (9% of the way there)
5. Stress case for the 1918 Flu (i.e., its three years compressed into one): 95,000,000 cases (2%) and 2,166,706 deaths (5%).

These numbers indicate that disciplinary mitigants are working thus far, before a second wave. While the number of deaths roughly tracks those of the base case, it is too soon to be confident with these data. The Spanish Flu had an ultimate mortality run rate of 2.3%, while the projections for this pandemic are higher at roughly 3.6%. In the end, the level of penetration is the key driver.

The 2.2 million death rate of the Stress Case datum is the source of President Trump's misleading statement that he has prevented "millions of deaths" from the "Wuhan Plague". While the computation is correct, the final funeral toll for the coronavirus contagion will not be known for a year and a half, likely more.

The timely topic for discussion remains that of a second wave. There will be one, almost certainly, but the question remains its magnitude. No one can say what that wave will be like. Answers to the following questions will go a long way in determining the magnitude of that wave.

1. Will there be adequate testing and tracing in place?
2. Will the states, as a group, have re-opened too soon or too laxly? 
3. How much will the current protests of George Floyd's murder re-accelerate penetration?
4. Will the virus have a seasonal effect (e.g., not prolific in hot weather)?
5. Will the virus have mutated and, if so, for the worse or better?
6. How long will people prove to be immune who have survived the illness already?
7. How quickly can a safe and effective vaccine be developped and tested? 
8. How efficiently can, and comprehensively will, the vaccine be distributed?
9. How deep will the penetration of COVID-19 be in the rural areas?
10. How will rural areas manage with fewer available facilties, medical first responders, and Medicaid extensions?

As one reviews these data, (s)he ought to keep in mind the likelihood of a death, expressed as one death for every X people (i.e., the odds). . 

• World: 6,715,334 cases; 393,342 deaths; 5.9% mortality rate (improved from 6.1%); one case for very 1,144 people and one death for every 19,535 people
• United States: 1,904,678 cases; 109,403 deaths; 5.9% mortality rate (unchanged); one case for every 174 people and one death for every 3,040 Americans

==========

1. Baltimore-Annapolis: 18,252 confirmed cases; 4.7% mortality rate; one death for every 3,131 people 
2. Boston and the Cape: 59,680 confirmed cases; 7.0% mortality; one death for 1,113 people
3. Chicago proper: 80,713 confirmed cases; 4.8%; one death per 1,028 people
4. Colorado statewide: 27,360 cases; 5.5%; one death per 3,818
5. Detroit metro: 37,165; 12.9%; 1 death per 969
6. New York metro*: 436,261; 8.2%; 1 per 635
7. New York CITY: 205,406; 10.6%; 1 per 386
8. Manhattan Island 25,317; 9.2%; 1 per 703
9. Philadelphia metro: 49,040; 7.3%; 1 per 1,710
10. Pittsburgh metro: 3,259 cases; 8.9%; 1 per 8,146

* New York metro mis-stated last week at 437,456 rather than 428,456

Friday numbers as at 29may20
NOTE: U.S. static pool rates trended down modestly for the first half of the week under review before leveling off and hovering at the 19% mark. While this rate remains roughly 50% above the global static pool rate. also trending down with a slack momentum, it is not necessarily bad news. Remember how U.S. health officials sought to flatten the curve?

Our favourite docs have largely succeeded, and this is what a flattened curve looks like as the U.S. infection and mortality rates mature and slowly taper off during this first and, hopefully, only wave of the pandemic. One warning from these data -- both domestic and global -- is that some places are enduring up-ticks in illness and death as others slow down.

Growth rates in confirmed cases slowed again for the eight areas under study, with the exception of Baltimore-Annapolis. The areas under review are facing steeper challenges than the rest of the Union at this point. Specifically, they comprise four every ten cases and a little over half of the deaths nationwide, but represent only 16% of the population.

Together, the 'family compounds' endure mortality run rates a third above the national rate (i.e., 7.8% versus 5.9%). There are three reasons for our 'skewed up' family.

• We live primarily in urban areas where higher population density and an older demographic.
• We live in areas that tend to have advanced medical facilities to enable more testing.
• We tend to live East of the Mississppi, showing the less contained transmission from Europe than from Asia. 

The timely topic for discussion remains that of a second wave. There will be one, almost certainly, but the question remains its magnitude. No one can say what that wave will be like. Answers to the following questions will go a long way in determining the magnitude of that wave.

1. Will there be adequate testing and tracing in place?
2. Will the states, as a group, have re-opened too soon or too laxly? 
3. Will the virus have a seasonal effect (e.g., not prolific in hot weather)?
4. Will the virus have mutated and, if so, for the worse or better?
5. How long will people prove to be immune who have survived the illness already?
6. How quickly can a vaccine be developped and tested? 
7. By truncating the usual testing guidelines, how safe and effective will that vaccine be?
8. How efficiently can, and comprehensively will, the vaccine be distributed?
9. How deep will the penetration of COVID-19 be in the rural areas?
10. How will rural areas manage with fewer available facilties, medical first responders, and Medicaid extensions?

The projections of the consequences of the coronavirus contagion that I put together almost two months ago still stand. That projection only covers the first year of the virus (i.e., the best case timeline of vaccine development and roll-out; through 28feb21). That timeline allows for two waves. The results correspond to potential wave magnitudes:

• 2nd wave as weaker than first wave (i.e., best case; ebbing tide) of 141,994 deaths;
• 2nd wave as larger than the first wave (i.e., base case; rising tide) of 335,301 deaths;
• 2nd wave as much larger than the first wave (i.e., worst case; high and stormy tide) of 1,197,501 deaths; as well as,
• 2nd wave as a tsunami (stress case; replication of mortality levels relative to the total U.S. population of 1918 Flu) of 2,166,706 deaths. 

The final 2.2 million datum is the source or President Trump's misleading statement that he has prevented the epidemic from being 20-25x worse. While the computation is correct, the final funeral toll for the coronavirus contagion will not be known for at least two years. Globally confirmed cases and deaths rose 14% last week while the number of deaths grew at half that rate.

Improvements are likely coming from earlier testing, better equipment, and a slower pace of infection in particularly afflicted areas. The U.S. cases climbed by 10%, significantly slower than global infection rates, but parallelled the worldwide increase in deaths at 7%. These domestic data probably reflect increased testing at an earlier stage in the American pandemic curve.

As one reviews these data, (s)he ought to keep in mind the likelihood of a death, expressed as one death for every X people (i.e., the odds). Pittsburgh and Colorado are substantially more safe than the average mortality of the U.S. population. PGH numbers are suspiciously low, given the older demographic and the 2.4 million population. Colorado's numbers may be understated as the state withheld date for today (29may20). Baltimore-Annapolis remains a little safer than average.   

• World: 5,934,521 cases; 363,751 deaths; 6.1% mortality rate (improved from 6.9%); one case for very 1,295 people and one death for every 22,125 people
• United States: 1,761,163 cases; 103,230 deaths; 5.9% mortality rate (unchanged); one case for every 188 people and one death for every 3,253 Americans

==========

1. Baltimore-Annapolis: 16,576 confirmed cases; 4.9% mortality rate; one death for every 3,464 people 
2. Boston and the Cape: 55,532 confirmed cases; 7.0% mortality; one death for 1,196 people
3. Chicago proper: 75,306 confirmed cases; 4.8%; one death per 1099* people
4. Colorado statewide: 25,121 cases; 5.7%; one death per 4,063
5. Detroit metro: 36,239; 11.8%; 1 death per 1,005
6. New York metro: 428,456*; 8.3%; 1 per 641
7. New York CITY: 201,051; 10.7%; 1 per 391
8. Manhattan Island 24,619; 9.1%; 1 per 722
9. Philadelphia metro: 46,697; 7.2%; 1 per 1,823
10. Pittsburgh metro: 3,123 cases; 9.1%; 1 per 8,289

* Chicago mortality odds adjusted to reflect Cook County; previous odds recalculated** New York metro mis-stated last week at 437,456 rather than 428,456

Friday numbers as at 22may20
NOTE: U.S. static pool rates trended down at a slowing velocity to 21.8% (i.e., only two percentage points lower than 15may20) and still 50% than the global static rate of 14.5%. This continuing 50% gap primarily reflects the maturity of the U.S. epidemic (30% of the global coronavirus contagion) trailing that of the European pandemic. This assessment assumes that differences among countries like demographics and health-care quality and availability tend to cancel each other out.

This week saw a much wider re-opening of state, primarily rural, economies. The concern commanding media attention is the Depression-level unemployment of forty million jobs sliced across the United States in two months and the proposed beneficiaries of already unaffordable Federal aid. Nevertheless, the national epidemic remains uncertain as some reports indicate cases accelerating in less densely populated areas of the country. Overall U.S case confirmation and death rates grew by 10-11% during the week.

This trend of the COVID-19 away from the larger cities specifically affected case confirmation and mortality rates in northern Maryland (+20% & +18%), Eastern Pennsylvania (+10% & +12%), and Colorado (+11% & +20%). Among urban centres, only Chicago showed a high growth in case confirmation (+11%) and mortality (+16%) as the windy city appears not to have peaked. Otherwise, New York and Detroit showed much slower rates of growth (3-4% & 3-8%). 

Americans are showing mixed feelings about, and trust-levels toward, a vaccine; much of this may be a consequence of the political division renting the social fabric. Gone are the days of universal welcoming of, and trust toward, the Salk vaccine. Amid this division, the up-tick in cases in the rural and 'red' states becomes important due to the lack of hospitals after many closures; fewer and fewer qualified medical first responders; as well as, the absence of Medicaid extension.

The countries that the American government should study for lessons learned in the event of a second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic or a new virus are Germany, Canada, Japan, Australia, and South Korea. South Korea (51.2 million), Japan (125.5 million) and Germany (80.2 million) for larger populations and higher population densities. Australia (25.5 million) and Canada (37.7 million) share large land masses.

Globally confirmed cases and deaths rose 16% last week, indicating more testing and a higher level of data integrity on attributing cause of death. Please be advised that the scaling factor is important here since mortality run-rates and growth rates may appear to be high but the overall penetration of a certain cluster's area remains low. The 'odds' of dying in various places calculate the number of COVID-19 deaths of a given cluster relative to its population. This calculation renders the data from the various clusters comparable in assessing their relative gravity.

• World: 5,179,515 cases; 344,537 deaths*; 6.7% mortality rate (unchanged); one case for very 1,483 people and one death for every 22,303 people
• United States: 1,600,048 cases; 95,557 deaths; 6.0% mortality rate (unchanged); one case for every 208 people and one death for every 3,481 people    

=====

1. Baltimore-Annapolis: 14,555 confirmed cases; 4.9% mortality rate; one death for every 3,942 people 
2. Boston and the Cape: 53,317 confirmed cases; 6.9% mortality; one death for 1,272 people
3. Chicago proper: 67,551 confirmed cases; 4.6%; one death per 1,270 people
4. Colorado statewide: 23,191 cases; 5.7%; one death per 
5. Detroit metro: 35,348; 11.7%; 1 death per 1,040
6. New York metro: 419,439; 8.1%; 1 per 664
7. New York CITY**: 190,357; 10.7%; 1 per 399
8. Manhattan Island 23,943; 9.2%; 1 per 736
9. Philadelphia metro: 43,813; 7.1%; 1 per 1,986
10. Pittsburgh metro: 2,934 cases; 9.4%; 1 per 8,591

* Yours truly mis-calculated last week's death toll for the U.S.; that number was approximately 300,000
* New York City numbers misstated at 17,000; correct number 190,357

Friday numbers as at 15may20

NOTE: U.S. static pool rates trended down the first half of the last week, but levelled out at 23.8%, eight percentage points above the global static pool rate. Again, this steady 50% margin of the American over global rates likely reflects the trailing maturation of the U.S. epidemic vis à vis the global pandemic.

The news is positive for now as U.S. mortality run-rates fell slightly, with improvements in New York and a slower trend in Detroit; only Pennsylvania showed significantly more than a 5% growth in cases. Nationally, cases increased 15% with deaths up 14%. The slight relative improvement is due more likely to increased testing. Please note a constraint in the static pool calculations, explained in the comment section below.

The criticism of President Trump's handling of the coronavirus contagion has been intense and, at least from the view of the lateness to respond, largely justified. Nevertheless, the numbers of deaths per million in the United States compares favourably with most other developped countries. One large constraint facing the U.S. is the scale of territory and population.

The countries that the American government should study for lessons learned in the event of a second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic or a new virus are Germany, Canada, Japan, Australia, and South Korea. South Korea (51.2 million), Japan (125.5 million) and Germany (80.2 million) for larger populations and higher population densities. Australia (25.5 million) and Canada (37.7 million) share large land masses.

In fairness to the Administration, certain success stories are emerging and should be acknowledged. Among the areas studied inside the United States, Pittsburgh may merit further examination due to the low number of cases. As always, one must be sceptical with data that appear to be outliers. China provides a an excellent example of questionable data at their face.

Recording very few cases over the last two months implies a successful Chinese lock-down of the pandemic's epicentre of Wuhan and the host-province of Hubei. Nevertheless, Hubei comprises 4% of China's population but accounts for 81% of the recorded cases and 97% of the deaths. When remote places like the Faroe Islands record higher incidence rates than China, wariness is the order of the day. One should praise China's efforts but not accept her data without reservation.

The calculations for the 'odds' of dying places the number of COVID-19 deaths of a given cluster relative to its population. This calculation renders the data from the various clusters comparable in their relative gravity.

• World: 4,452,425 cases; 297,595 deaths; 6.7% mortality rate; one case for very 1,725 people and one death for every 25,821 people
• United States: 1,448,012 cases; 86,945 deaths; 6.0% mortality rate; one case for every 229 people and one death for every 3,825 people    

=====

1. Baltimore-Annapolis: 12,070 confirmed cases; 5.0% mortality rate; one death for every 4,655 people 
2. Boston and the Cape: 45,272 confirmed cases; 6.7% mortality; one death for 1,402 people
3. Chicago proper: 58,457 confirmed cases; 4.7%; one death per 1,439 people
4. Colorado statewide: 20,838 cases; 5.2%; one death per 5,278
5. Detroit metro: 34,185; 11.4%; 1 death per 1,104
6. New York metro: 405,215; 8.2%; 1 per 691
7. New York CITY: 190,357; 10.9%; 1 per 410
8. Manhattan Island 23,056; 8.9%; 1 per 795
9. Philadelphia metro: 39,696; 6.9%; 1 per 2,218
10. Pittsburgh metro: 2,723 cases; 9.6%; 1 per 9,016

NOTE: New York Metro's 'odds' were erroneously calculated at one death for every 427 the previous week; the recalculation for that week is 732.NEW York City's odds were misstated in the previous week; that number should be 427
Friday numbers as at 08may20
NOTE: Happy 75th V.E. Day. U.S. static pool rates trended down the first half of the last week, but up-ticked to 27.2% on Thursday and Friday. The slight increase does not lend itself to causation, particularly the inference that several states have re-opened pre-maturely. While that possibility remains likely, one can not yet prove it.

Eventually static pool rates will decline to a level close to the mortality run-rate. The determinants of the pandemic's severity rests on the long-term penetration rate among Americans and the long-term steady-state mortality run-rate. As a reference, the penetration rate, across the United States, of the 1918 Spanish Flu levelled out at roughly 28%, with a long-term mortality run-rate of 2.3%.

For those skeptical of the recent anti-social distancing policies, were those Spanish Flu rates repeated today with current U.S. population in excess of 3x that of a century ago, the number of confirmed cases would approach 94 million, with more than two million compatriots succumbing to the disease. People need to guard against the temptation to celebrate as final the modest improvement in recent figures for two reasons:

• the highly transmissible nature of the virus itself; as well as,
• static-pool mortality rates still being 6.5x the first year forecasted run-rate of 3.6% and a current global static pool rate well below that of the United States (i.e., 27% versus 16%).

Such an increase from a second wave is likely in the first year of the coronavirus contagion, especially with widespread testing turning up cases without symptoms. Nevertheless, other factors may accelerate or decelerate penetration and mortality (e.g., the benefit of allaying drugs like remdesevir, seasonality, effective anti-bodies, etc.).

This week's information adds one datum for each geographic segment: the odds of dying from the coronavirus. One calculates this ratio by dividing the area population by the number of deaths recorded in that area. This statistic will give one a sense of scale. For example, assume that one looks at Chicago and Pittsburgh mortality rates only,

That person would initially conclude that Chicago is doing a superb job as indicated by her 4.4% mortality run rate versus the far poorer 9.2% rate recorded for Pittsburgh. Except that Pittsburgh has a much lower population penetration rate. Consequently, Pittsburghers currently have a one in 10,000+ chance of dying from COVID-19.

Yet Chicagoans are eight times more likely to die with odds of one in every 1,300 people. The difference between the global mortality odds of one in 28,000+ versus one in 4,000+ in the United States may indicate the infancy of the global pandemic that has yet to diffuse itself completely around the world, while the coronavirus contagion rapidly penetrates urbanised populations of wealthier, more urbanised, countries.

Using the American odds of one death among every four thousand people as a median and benchmark, one can infer that Baltimore, Colorado, and Pittsburgh are doing well at this stage

• World: 3,911,087 cases; 271,039 deaths; 6.9% mortality rate; one death for every 28,351 people
• United States: 1,259,083 cases; 76,420 deaths; 6.1% mortality rate; one death for every 4,353 people    

=====

1. Baltimore-Annapolis: 10,132 confirmed cases; 4.7% mortality rate; one death for every 5,913 people 
2. Boston and the Cape: 45,272 confirmed cases; 6.2% mortality; one death for 1,655 people
3. Chicago proper: 48,341 confirmed cases; 4.4%; one death per 1,859 people
4. Colorado statewide: 18,371 cases; 5.1%; one death per 6,100
5. Detroit metro: 32,327; 11.0%; 1 death per 1,206
6. New York metro: 386,248; 8.0%; 1 per 732
7. New York CITY: 180,216; 10.9%; 1 per 427
8. Manhattan Island 21,662; 8.7%; 1 per 869
9. Philadelphia metro: 34,551; 6.4%; 1 per 2,757
10. Pittsburgh metro: 2,512 cases; 9.2%; 1 per 10,272

Friday numbers as at 01may20
NOTE: Happy International Labour Day. U.S. static pool rates trended down consistently during the week by one-fifth to the current level of 29% versus a slightly improved global rate of 19%. While this is good news, the U.S. static pool rates remain 50% above the global rates and 8x above the projected eventual mortality rate of 3.6%.

The measures taken across most states are slowing infection rates, perhaps suggesting a peak. Such a peak could mean that, if the curve / parabola were symmetric -- i.e., what goes up comes down in an identical manner -- the United States would be about half way through the coronavirus contagion. This conclusion, however, is tenuous for the following reasons:

• possibly premature re-opening of states (e.g., Georgia and Florida);
• misdiagnoses and under-reporting of cases during the early phase; and, most ominously,
• virus mutation or weather conditions catalysing a second wave.

As it is, the U.S. comprises roughly a third of the confirmed cases world-wide. A lot of the current discussion in the press, the medical fraternity, and the government alike centres on a second wave. If like the Spanish Flu of a century ago, this second wave could be worse. In most cases, with other flues as a fuzzy parallel, it should not be. The hunt for a vaccine continues with a hopeful roll-out in early 2021.

Much of the related publicity has become political and economic; tensions boil over in states with stricter controls due to economic stress and a general climate of anger. Among the family clusters, New York and Chicago showed the most encouraging results while Boston, Detroit and Pittsburgh endured significantly higher death rates during the last week

• World: 3,283,435 cases; 233,781 deaths; 7.1% mortality rate      
• United States: 1,082,665 cases; 63,445 deaths; 5.9% mortality rate    

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1. Baltimore-Annapolis: 7,491 confirmed cases; 4.6% mortality rate
2. Boston and the Cape: 38,965 confirmed cases; 5.6% mortality
3. Chicago proper: 36,515 confirmed cases; 4.4%
4. Colorado statewide: 15,284 cases; 5.1%
5. Detroit metro: 30,584; 10.3%
6. New York metro: 358,203; 7.7%
7. New York CITY: 167,478; 10.8%
8. Manhattan Island 19,837; 8.1%
9. Philadelphia metro: 29,060; 5.1%
10. Pittsburgh metro: 2,263 cases; 8.4%

Friday numbers as at 24apr20
NOTE: U.S. static pool rates remained erratic over the past week. Though thee range was lower than last week,  between 35.3% and 37.1%, the latter percentage represented the calculation of Friday 24th April as U.S. static pool rates started back up. The global static pool rate remained basically unchanged at 20.2%, still significantly below U.S. levels.

What may portend a downward change in static pool rates for the U.S. versus the rest of the world is that 1.9% of U.S. active cases are in critical care versus 3.1% of global cases; I would advise against relying too heavily on these findings since figures are distorted by incomplete or inaccurate reporting and under-testing in other parts of the world. Since U.S. cases represent close to a third of global cases, the high U.S. static pool rates may be shrouding signs of maturing infection rates elsewhere.

Though New York Metro represents more than a third of U.S. cases, its trends are slowing, not yet declining. Bloomberg Philanthropy, Johns Hopkins (Mayor Mike's alma mater) and New York State are now taking aggressive measures to help the CITY out by implementing a contact-tracing programme. The politics is getting testy and down-right strange; if interested, please consult the many rants careening across social media.

• World: 2,779,078 cases; 194,333 deaths; 7.0% mortality rate      
• United States: 891,657 cases; 50,533 deaths; 5.7% mortality rate    

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1. Baltimore-Annapolis: 5,977 confirmed cases; 3.7% mortality rate
2. Boston and the Cape: 29,241 confirmed cases; 4.0% mortality
3. Chicago proper: 25,811 confirmed cases; 4.4%
4. Colorado statewide: 11,262 cases; 4.9%
5. Detroit metro: 27,450; 9.1%
6. New York metro: 319,966; 7.7%
7. New York CITY: 150,473; 10.9%
8. Manhattan Island 17,803; 7.6%
9. Philadelphia metro*: 22,810; 4.4%
10. Pittsburgh metro: 1,999 cases; 7.4%

* Number of deaths incorrectly stated last week for Philadelphia as 115,924; correct datum of 15,924 deaths

Friday numbers as at 17apr20:
NOTE: U.S. static pool rates (i.e., deaths / [deaths+recoveries] are trending down slightly from 40% to 38% over the last week, implying that the U.S. may be peaking now but the data are not yet actionable as the rate is high. These arresting rates, in the face of lower global static pool rates (21%) may be attributable to people dying after ten days to weeks after extraordinary measures creating a lag-time or over-hang of mortality.

These data bear out Governor Cuomo's contention that the longer one is on a ventillator, the more certain (s)he will face the ultimately adverse outcome. Now remember: complaisance can kill, but only one out of every ten thousand Americans have died thus far. There is no reason to panic; mortality rates will also come down as the United States ramps up her testing, now at 3.4 million.

Medical student, Lucas Kogut, who is entering residency, sheds some light on how the coronavirus works and why Dr Bill Bauer's concern over complaisance applies; reading this, one can only pray for medical first responders. Perhaps the grimmest part of this experience, thus far not as lethal as expected, is the toll it is taking on the nation's Blacks and other peoples of colour.

• World: 2,211,877 cases; 150,673 deaths; 6.8% mortality rate
• United States: 685,003 cases; 35,062 deaths; 5.1% mortality rate

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1. Baltimore-Annapolis: 4,023 confirmed cases; 2.5% mortality rate
2. Boston and the Cape: 20,404 confirmed cases; 3.5% mortality
3. Chicago proper: 18,087 confirmed cases; 4.0%
4. Colorado statewide: 8,675 cases; 4.3%
5. Detroit metro: 23,298; 7.6%
6. New York metro: 258,007; 6.5%
7. New York CITY*: 123,146; 9.3%
8. Philadelphia metro: 15,924; 3.5%
9. Pittsburgh metro**: 1,487 cases; 5.0%

*    Johns Hopkins now breaks out N.Y.C. boroughs Manhattan: 15,539 cases; 6.0% mortality rate
**  Pittsburgh now includes Butler.
      PGH without Butler: 1,333 cases; 4.9% mortality rate

Friday numbers as at 10apr20:
NOTE: U.S. static pool rates (i.e., deaths / [deaths+recoveries] are still rising from 37% at 41% over the last week, implying that the U.S. either is peaking now or has not peaked yet. These rates will fall as more people recover. These arresting rates may also be attributable to a lag in testing across the country.

• World: 1,639,473 cases; 99,331 deaths; 6.1% mortality rate
• United States: 475,601 cases; 17,878 deaths; 3.75% mortality

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1. Baltimore-Annapolis: 2,634 confirmed cases; 2.2% mortality rate
2. Boston and the Cape: 12,044 confirmed cases; 1.8% mortality
3. Chicago proper: 11,415 confirmed cases; 3.1%
4. Colorado statewide: 6,202 cases; 3.6%
5. Detroit metro: 17,760; 5.2%
6. New York metro: 187,033; 4.3%
7. New York CITY: 87,028; 6.1%
8. Philadelphia metro: 11,280; 2.0%
9. Pittsburgh metro: 1,078 cases; 2.3%

Friday numbers as at 03apr20:
One explkanatory factor here for the difference between the rates of say Philly, Boston, and Pittsburgh may be the presence of ample medical facilities and teaching hospitals.

• World: 1,062,051 cases; 56,255 deaths; 5.3% mortality rate
• United States: 258,762 cases; 6,596 deaths; 2.5% mortality

=====

1. Baltimore-Annapolis: 1,155 confirmed cases; 1.1% mortality rate
2. Boston and the Cape: 5,620 confirmed cases; 1.3% mortality
3. Chicago proper: 5,575 confirmed cases; 1.9%
4. Colorado statewide: 3,728 cases; 2.6%
5. Detroit metro: 9,022; 4.2%
6. New York metro: 109,447; 2.0%
7. New York CITY: 57,159; 2.7%
8. Philadelphia metro: 2,100; 0.6%
9. Pittsburgh metro: 558 cases; 0.7%