Coronavirus

[AvidReader]

I hope you get to go soon, mamselle, and I hope you get to catch up with some good friends over the semester break in the meantime.
AR.

[mamselle]

I hope you get to go soon, mamselle, and I hope you get to catch up with some good friends over the semester break in the meantime.
AR.

Thanks. I appreciate the good thoughts!

I don't really think I'll want to travel until after next summer.

Even with the potential vaccines working, it will take time for things to sort themselves out.

And I only partially get a semester break right now, since my private music students and my non-profit EA work are ongoing, whatever else is going on...it will be late December before I'm in the clear, time-wise.

But I do indeed plan to be in touch with friends!

And I might just have to pull up some recipes and learn to make a few things (like that lobster bisque, and a more authentic croque m'sieur) that I won't get on that side of the puddle, but can indeed make on this.

La vie continue....

;--}

M.

[apl68]

I understand your disappointment.  My fall travel plans had to be scaled back this year too.  I did do a little travel in-state a few weeks ago.  Enough to do some hiking at favorite state parks, visit a museum, and hit some book stores to get stocked up with reading material for the rest of the year.

I remember merce's "Le sigh."  Mamselle and merce traveling to France together--now that would be an interesting trip to hear about!

[mamselle]

I understand your disappointment.  My fall travel plans had to be scaled back this year too.  I did do a little travel in-state a few weeks ago.  Enough to do some hiking at favorite state parks, visit a museum, and hit some book stores to get stocked up with reading material for the rest of the year.

I remember merce's "Le sigh."  Mamselle and merce traveling to France together--now that would be an interesting trip to hear about!

We actually had a couple of meet-ups, and discussed it in passing, once. Our time schedules didn't quite mesh, though.

However, last night, in a fit of procrastinatory imagination, I did construct a "Fantasy tour" and plotted all the transportation on Google maps.

I'd probably leave mid-December, say, the 14th, and come back mid-January or a little later, say, the 20th. Not doing this, really,  but one can dream...!

There are several libraries and cathedrals I'd visit and work in, one (Vezelay) I promised myself I'd visit on a late friend's behalf, and a few cousins to see as well.

Plus a newly-identified family site (Isbergues, France), where my grandfather's Belgian Protestant father had gone to work in the coal mines when his Catholic wife's Liegeiois priest threatened to sic some local thugs on him if he married her. (they did marry secretly and moved away; I'm looking for the civil marriage documents now).

They later moved to the US; misspellings on several US census and army documents made his birthplace hard to figure out, then one gave it correctly, and I'm working backwards from there.

The rest  is from a letter my Belgian cousin recently found and let me copy.

So, family--and other kinds of-- history are never dry and boring...

Hence all the geneaology sites are getting a lot of business lately, since that's one of the things people have turned to in current circumstances...to re-rail the thread again...

;--》

M.

[evil_physics_witchcraft]

I need advice on how to deal with family who think that this virus is 'not a big deal.' Actually, I would say these people invest heavily in conspiracy theory.

If they come over here, I'm not answering the door.

[mamselle]

That'd be the advice I'd give...

M.

[spork]

Covid-19 Mortality: A Matter of Vulnerability Among Nations Facing Limited Margins of Adaptation. Translated badly from French, plus lots of statistical jargon. Basic conclusion: Covid-19 death rate correlates with population age and prevalence of non-communicable lifestyle diseases, while NPIs make no difference.

[pigou]

Given that we have three good vaccines now, I suspect we'll have widespread availability (in the US) around March. I'm booking some fun vacation travel for end of May, just to be on the safe side. Massive discounts on airfare right now, hotel rates are way down, and I suspect emailing a resort hotel and asking for a discount or a room upgrade is pretty likely to work out right now. By the time summer comes around, rates will be insanely high: pent-up demand, people have money to burn, and there will be fewer hotels and planes operational as travel starts ramping up again. And at 95% efficacy, nobody who is vaccinated will be doing any social distancing.

[Stockmann]

Covid-19 Mortality: A Matter of Vulnerability Among Nations Facing Limited Margins of Adaptation. Translated badly from French, plus lots of statistical jargon. Basic conclusion: Covid-19 death rate correlates with population age and prevalence of non-communicable lifestyle diseases, while NPIs make no difference.

Covid-19 Mortality: A Matter of Vulnerability Among Nations Facing Limited Margins of Adaptation. Translated badly from French, plus lots of statistical jargon. Basic conclusion: Covid-19 death rate correlates with population age and prevalence of non-communicable lifestyle diseases, while NPIs make no difference.

They don't seem to have looked at the most obvious, almost certainly strongest correlation: region (as distinct from latitude), although to some extent that's also got to do with their data being "old." It's only in the Americas and in Europe, and perhaps some parts of the Middle East, that the pandemic isn't under control (large numbers of new cases). All of the countries with the worst total mortality rates (covid deaths/pop.), by multiple orders of magnitude, are either in the Americas or in Europe (esp. Western Europe). This includes countries with relatively young populations, like Peru, Bolivia or Ecuador, while countries elsewhere can have very low mortality rates even with very elderly populations, most obviously Japan. I'm not saying that mortality rates don't correlate with age, or that they don't correlate more with age than with other factors they looked at, just not as much as with region. That gap is increasing and has been for a while (so in all fairness it wasn't as dramatic when they crunched the numbers). It's also not clear to me if actual compliance with government measures was somehow taken into account, as distinct from nominal government intervention (not trivial to measure, of course) - nominal restrictions were widely ignored in Peru, for example.

[Parasaurolophus]

Last I checked, India was part of Asia. And it most definitely does not have the virus under control, and its death rate is not good, either.

[Kron3007]

Last I checked, India was part of Asia. And it most definitely does not have the virus under control, and its death rate is not good, either.

On a per capita basis they are doing much better than most st of the countries listed.  I am actually surprised it has not exploded much more dramatically there.

[Stockmann]

Last I checked, India was part of Asia. And it most definitely does not have the virus under control, and its death rate is not good, either.

On a per capita basis they are doing much better than most st of the countries listed.  I am actually surprised it has not exploded much more dramatically there.

India has only 97 deaths per million pop. The US figure is about 8 times higher, and Belgium's is nearly 14 times higher.

[Kron3007]

Last I checked, India was part of Asia. And it most definitely does not have the virus under control, and its death rate is not good, either.

On a per capita basis they are doing much better than most st of the countries listed.  I am actually surprised it has not exploded much more dramatically there.

India has only 97 deaths per million pop. The US figure is about 8 times higher, and Belgium's is nearly 14 times higher.

Their numbers are also falling while the US and many other countries are still climbing.

[Cheerful]

Do most analysts have confidence that COVID cases and deaths data reported by various countries are likely to be accurate?  I am skeptical.

[Stockmann]

Do most analysts have confidence that COVID cases and deaths data reported by various countries are likely to be accurate?  I am skeptical.

I don't know about actual analysts, but that's why I tend to look at the number of deaths rather than the number of cases - deaths are likely to be less underreported I think, and thus more comparable internationally. The testing rate varies dramatically between countries, but there are still large differences between countries that test heavily, I'm thinking S. Korea vs the US. Both have now tested extensively, so the death rates are likely a fair comparison. On the other hand, some countries that do little testing still have high official death rates (Mexico, for example) and thus surely have truly god-awful real figures. I also prefer looking at the death rate because it also tells you something about how effectively hospitals are coping, etc.