2020-07-27

Copy of my Facebook post regarding COVID-19

In regard to COVID-19, there is a matter that should be of great importance to everyone, which is the death rate of the disease. A few days ago I looked at the official number of cases and deaths and came up with a death rate of 3.55% for the US, 4% for the world, and 4.5% in my home state of Indiana. There is a John Hopkins website that shows the same thing. However, the number of deaths tends to lag behind cases by 2 to 4 weeks, so these numbers could be slightly low.

Unfortunately, there are a great many people, mostly in conservative media, who are claiming that the death rate is only 0.3%. They are constantly saying that this isn't much different than the seasonal flu. This number is being quoted so frequently that I tried to find some information to verify it, but I can't find anything. Even Bill Gates said that the death rate is less than 1%, but I can't find anything to back that either.

I think that this idea of a low death rate comes from a California study a couple of months ago that found that there were ten times as many positive tested cases in a sample population than what was predicted. So the argument was made that if there were ten times as many cases then the real death is ten times less. The problem is that the California study was criticized for its methodology. They did not do random sampling but instead asked for volunteers to be tested. The problem is that volunteers probably don't represent the population as a whole, and likely include many people who think that they may be infected.

It has also been pointed out that unknown cases could mean unknown deaths from COVID-19. Just because you have unknown cases doesn't necessarily mean that the death rate is lower.

So there seems to be much discussion about asymptomatic people because the argument seems to be that if there are a large number of asymptomatic cases then the death rate must be lower. However, studies from Wuhan and Italy both indicate that the number of asymptomatic cases is only around 40%. In addition, there are articles all over the place saying that asymptomatic people can still spread the disease.

In regard to unknown cases, I'm going to argue that it really doesn't matter. The number of *known* cases is still growing at apparently an ever-increasing rate, and those people are still dying at a rate of around 4%. About 3 days ago I noticed from official numbers that 100,000 people had died from COVID-19 worldwide in 12 days. That is around 34 times the number of deaths from 9-11, and we spent trillions of dollars fighting wars because of 9-11. As long as the number of known cases keeps increasing and those people keep dying at a significant rate, then this pandemic is a still serious problem.

There seems to be some resistance to mandates to wear masks. I don't consider wearing a mask to be an infringement on my freedom. It is the equivalent of wearing a hard hat in a construction zone.

I am appalled at how many people are espousing conspiracy theories in regard to COVID-19, especially in regard to a potential vaccine. A small part of the problem is that many politicians are trying to politicize the pandemic, so this contributes to people distrusting public officials and their motives.  

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Best wishes,

John Coffey

http://www.entertainmentjourney.com

2020-07-24

Fwd: Iran sentences the death penalty for government protests

Since late June, 11 Iranian citizens - three in Tehran and eight in Isfahan - have been sentenced to death for taking part in mass anti-government protests in November 2019. Iranian journalist Ruhollah Zam, who was accused of fuelling anti-government protests through a popular Telegram channel in 2017, also received the death penalty during the same period.  

Also in June, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) shut down Iran's biggest anti-poverty NGO, the Imam Ali Society, and arrested its founding director, Sharmin Meymandi Nejad, citing "anti-Iran activities". The independent charity had attracted the regime's fury during last year's protests by criticising government officials for "calling the poverty-stricken demonstrators rioters and agents of the enemy". 

https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/iran-message-people-revolt-die-200713160012571.html


AMD's most important product ever - Ryzen 9 4900HS


It is amazing what AMD is doing with processors. This mobile processor benchmarks at 246% of my 2017 3.4 GHz Core-I5 iMac.

AMD is accomplishing this with Zen 2 architecture.  Zen 3 releases at the end of the year, reportedly with 15% better performance  The new gaming consoles from Microsoft and Sony coming out for Christmas will be using AMD Zen 3 chips.

2020-07-17

We could all use something beautiful in our lives. Peace.

An mRNA Vaccine against SARS-CoV-2 — Preliminary Report | NEJM

After the second vaccination, serum-neutralizing activity was detected by two methods in all participants evaluated, with values generally similar to those in the upper half of the distribution of a panel of control convalescent serum specimens. Solicited adverse events that occurred in more than half the participants included fatigue, chills, headache, myalgia, and pain at the injection site. Systemic adverse events were more common after the second vaccination, particularly with the highest dose, and three participants (21%) in the 250-μg dose group reported one or more severe adverse events.

CONCLUSIONS
The mRNA-1273 vaccine induced anti–SARS-CoV-2 immune responses in all participants, and no trial-limiting safety concerns were identified. These findings support further development of this vaccine.
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2022483

2020-07-12

Indy mother becomes 2nd homicide along downtown canal in 1 week | Fox 59

they were sitting on St. Clair waiting for us to come under the bridge and that's when she got shot," said the victim's fiancé Jose Ramirez.

Jose admits he returned fire, but didn't hit anyone. He says explaining to Jessica's son Greyson that he'll never see his mom again has been the hardest part for the family.

"It's hard to tell him his mom is in heaven and if you want to talk to her you have to look up and say, 'I love you mom,'" said Ramirez.

Just one week earlier, two people were shot on the same part of canal. During one of those shootings, a 14-year-old identified as Curtis White Junior died during what police describe as an attempted armed robbery.

"Our message is that the canal is still a safe to go," said IMPD Capt. Jerry Leary.

Young mother, 24, is 'shot dead in front of her fiancé after saying "all lives matter"'

Jessica Doty Whitaker, 24, was shot dead on July 5 in Indianapolis, Indiana

2020-07-09

Bobby Green brought his father on camera and spoke passionately about his beliefs after UFC

We Need Jordan Peterson and Atheism Isn't Enough

A Letter on Justice and Open Debate | Harper's Magazine

The free exchange of information and ideas, the lifeblood of a liberal society, is daily becoming more constricted. ... censoriousness is also spreading more widely in our culture: an intolerance of opposing views, a vogue for public shaming and ostracism, and the tendency to dissolve complex policy issues in a blinding moral certainty. We uphold the value of robust and even caustic counter-speech from all quarters. But it is now all too common to hear calls for swift and severe retribution in response to perceived transgressions of speech and thought. More troubling still, institutional leaders, in a spirit of panicked damage control, are delivering hasty and disproportionate punishments instead of considered reforms. Editors are fired for running controversial pieces; books are withdrawn for alleged inauthenticity; journalists are barred from writing on certain topics; professors are investigated for quoting works of literature in class; a researcher is fired for circulating a peer-reviewed academic study; and the heads of organizations are ousted for what are sometimes just clumsy mistakes. Whatever the arguments around each particular incident, the result has been to steadily narrow the boundaries of what can be said without the threat of reprisal

2020-07-08

iPhone 4: 10 Years Later - 2020 Review

I really loved the iPhone 4/5. It is still my favorite design.  The bands on the side gave it a sturdiness.
 
I was in Salt Lake City on a slope near the base of a mountain where I dropped the iPhone 5. It went bouncing on pavement downhill but suffered only very minor scuffs on the corners.

Because of the Antennagate on the iPhone 4, there was a problem with the signal not being as strong if your fingers crossed a certain spot on the external antennas, but it wasn't much of a problem for me.  As a result, Apple gave everybody a free case, which I got, but I didn't use it much.

I was actually pretty happy with the iPhone 4 camera.  There was a time when 5 megapixel was considered premium.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3MEnM2XTiE

Your Oppression Is Imaginary | The Matt Walsh Show Ep. 516

The Case against Revolution with Ayaan Hirsi Ali - YouTube

2020-07-06

Brain-eating amoeba: 1 case in Florida, officials say avoid tap water - Insider

Toxic methanol that causes blindness found in hand sanitizers, FDA warns | Ars Technica

All nine hand sanitizers are made by Eskbiochem SA de CV in Mexico. The agency said in its advisory that it discovered methanol while testing two of the company's products. One, called Lavar Gel, was 81-percent methanol—and no ethanol, a safe alcohol meant to be used in hand sanitizers. Another, CleanCare No Germ, was 28-percent methanol.

"Methanol is not an acceptable ingredient for hand sanitizers," the FDA wrote. With use of hand sanitizers at a high amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the agency advised that anyone who has used the methanol-containing products "seek immediate treatment, which is critical for potential reversal of toxic effects of methanol poisoning."



https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/06/toxic-methanol-that-causes-blindness-found-in-hand-sanitizers-fda-warns/

Toxic hand sanitizers have blinded and killed adults and children, FDA warns | Ars Technica

In an updated safety warning, the agency identified five more brands of hand sanitizer that contain methanol, a simple alcohol often linked to incorrectly distilled liquor that is poisonous if ingested, inhaled, or absorbed through the skin.

The newly identified products are in addition to nine methanol-containing sanitizers the FDA identified last month, which are all made by the Mexico-based manufacturer Eskbiochem SA de CV.

The Mikhaila Peterson Podcast #9 - Jordan B. Peterson - Family Update June 2020

Jordon Peterson rose to great fame as a speaker and then was out of commission for at least a year and nearly died due to benzodiazepine dependence and withdrawal.  

https://youtu.be/HLWgVpmo1e0

2020-07-05

LEGO’s Latest Sets Are Art Posters for Your Grown-Up Geek Home

This reminds of the Lite Brite toy I played with during the late 1960s.  

I see these as somewhat pointless, like the tons of other stuff people spend their money on.

https://www.reviewgeek.com/46720/legos-latest-sets-are-art-posters-for-your-grown-up-geek-home/

2020-07-04

COVID-19 death rate

Certain skeptics have been claiming that the death rate from COVID-19 is only around 0.2%. I tried to confirm this, but the information is all over the place. Some articles are reporting a 5% death rate worldwide and a 4.8% death rate in the U.S.

If I look at the known cases versus known deaths, we get 4.5% for the U.S. and 4.7% for the world. However, some are claiming that there are ten times as many cases that we don't know about, meaning that the death rate is actually much lower. On the other hand, one source said that we might be underestimating COVID-19 deaths because the people were never tested.

I also saw one article that said that the death rate has been going up worldwide:  



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Best wishes,

John Coffey

http://www.entertainmentjourney.com

California man who posted regret for attending party died a day later of coronavirus

Why have deaths stayed steady while Covid-19 infections are spiking?

The Pandemic’s Big Mystery: How Deadly Is the Coronavirus? - The New York Times

Although she did not note this, 0.6 percent of the world's population is 47 million people, and 0.6 percent of the American population is 2 million people. The virus remains a major threat.

According to data gathered by The New York Times, China had reported 90,294 cases as of Friday and 4,634 deaths, which is a C.F.R. of 5 percent. The United States was very close to that mark. It has had 2,811,447 cases and 129,403 deaths, about 4.6 percent.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/04/health/coronavirus-death-rate.html

Hydroxychloroquine can help save hospitalized coronavirus patients, study finds

"Our results do differ from some other studies," Zervos told a news conference. "What we think was important in ours … is that patients were treated early. For hydroxychloroquine to have a benefit, it needs to begin before the patients begin to suffer some of the severe immune reactions that patients can have with Covid," he added.

Life in The New Abnormal World

In response to ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qne4YAAqGL8

I wrote...

I used to like this channel, but I don't find this useful at all. It is all conspiracy theories. The virus is real. People dying is real. You can argue over the details, but we need better treatments and vaccines. Things will return to normal, maybe in 6 months to a year.

For me, I'm afraid. I'm more at risk. My 80-year-old leukemia patient mother has been told that she would die from this disease if she were to catch it. Her health is frail already.

We have only been social distancing for barely over 3 months. I started on March 21st. Most of what has transpired has done so in a single season. What will things be like in another 3 months? I don't know, but one possible outcome is that things get much worse. People need to take steps now to prevent a much worse outcome for the remainder of the year.

This is all very inconvenient I know. We are in the middle of a worldwide crisis. We have to act accordingly.

2020-07-03

Did You Know There is a Black National Anthem?

On Fri, Jul 3, 2020 at 3:13 PM Albert Nelms wrote:
Just watch NFL football. The NFL is planning to play the black national anthem before the real national anthem on their opening week. This is a big turn-off for me. I look at the NFL as a sports entertainment venue. I go there to get away from it all. I don't want to see or listen to their political rhetoric. So, I say goodbye to the NFL. NFL call me when you're ready to be a sports entertainment venue again.

Btw, the black national anthem as a piece of music is not that great. Thank goodness it's short. Lol


There should be no such thing as a Black National Anthem.  To say that such a thing exists is to say that the United States National Anthem, the one that is supposed to be for everyone, is really just the White National Anthem.  I am discouraged by this.

What we have is a political movement that is trying to play us.  It is trying to leverage race in order to advance far-left political agendas that have much more to do with inequity and power than they do with race.

I think that race is an arbitrary social concept that we made up and it should not have much meaning.  We are all the human race, and that is what matters.

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Best wishes,

John Coffey