Coronavirus

[bkp_duke]

Use it or lose it vacation policies are illegal in California
California banned non-compete agreements.

Those are two things I've envied about California employee friendliness.

Now there are a thousands other things I don't envy, and sometimes I think California has completely lost their friggen minds.

I don't think I'd want to be an employer in California.

Texas, a very red state, has similar policies in place. I have employees in both states, and I see VERY VERY little difference, except for the taxes paid.



Sadly, I try to minimize my CA-based revenue (legally) as much as possible. I push non-CA customers to purchase services from our facilities out of state as much as possible (to minimize the CA franchise board tax).

 

[linux-works]

Regular UV-C would be minimally effective, it takes too long to zap a virus (minutes of exposure or longer). Far UV-C is the way to go (seconds).

you just need to move uvc lights toward you, to give them even more of a blue-shift.

of course, at near C, you only get a very short duration of far uvc. but I bet its worth it.

now, lets figure out how to get near C speeds..

 

[bkp_duke]

I can say, for one thing, that employment contracts are more employee focused, in that employers cant get away with random stuff that they can in other areas of the country. non-compete, for one example. in calif, you can't stop an employee from working in his field just because an employer fires him or his quits on his own. 'right to work' states tend to favor the employer and when they can, squash unions.

can you point to any 'right to work' state features that would make me want to move or live there? asking for real. curious what a RTW state would have to offer someone in my position, to convince me to leave the bay area, for example.

anti lgbt, anti women, anti minority, anti choice, overall. more religion (as long as you are the 'right' religion), lower quality of public education, less rationality. less respect for the environment, more respect for billionaires. that's how I view the so-called RTW states.

I just don't agree with this. I use the same contract for TX vs. CA employees, and (at least per my attorney) it meets all requirements for both states.

It's a great myth that red states non-competes can prevent people from working in their field, but that hasn't held up in court for over 10 years. I had to go through this personally as my wife (a veterinarian) was working in Dallas before we moved to CA, and the non-compete they had her sign was ruled invalid because it overly restricted her ability "to make a living".

Everything else you said sounds like it comes from CNN/MSNBC, but is lacing on actual specific examples. If you out to the rural counties of CA, you cannot tell a difference between them and any part of TX. I believe you are making an over-generalization and it's just not supported by the data.

 

[bkp_duke]

you just need to move uvc lights toward you, to give them even more of a blue-shift.

of course, at near C, you only get a very short duration of far uvc. but I bet its worth it.

now, lets figure out how to get near C speeds..

Don't look at them. Any appreciable exposure to UV-C will promote cataract formation in 20 years. It is dose dependent as well, so the greater the exposure, the greater the risk.

 

[linux-works]

Don't look at them. Any appreciable exposure to UV-C will promote cataract formation in 20 years. It is dose dependent as well, so the greater the exposure, the greater the risk.

perhaps I've been watching too many intro-to-physics daytime course shows and my sense of humor is drifting toward redshift instead of blueshift. sorry.

 

[jerry33]

I just love code words. 'business friendly' - implies directly, by exclusion, that its NOT worker-friendly. and that aligns with the truth.

I side with workers rights. I side against so-called business friendly states. they screw over the locals, pollute, deny it when major problems occur, force their citizens to return to work when its not yet safe to. if you are a 'boss' in such a state, great, good for you. if you work for a living, poor bastard, better luck being born somewhere else, next life.

amazing that people in this educated day still continue to do the bidding of their masters and don't even possess the self-awareness to realize they are being manipulated.

The problem is that for the past thirty years, Democrats have also embraced the "corporations over people" strategy (with a very few exceptions).

 

[jerry33]

At my wife's hospital and at our Giant food market there is a wheeled robot that goes around with UV lights on it. It stops if someone is in the way. Not sure how effective the UV lights are since it is usually moving.

My understanding is that if you can see the blue, they are just grow lights (UVA and UVB). UVC is needed to kill CV-19, and you can't use UVC in the presence of people.

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

This had the effect of dramatically increasing viral load during the spread of the disease which has caused much higher infection and death rate everywhere in the U.S. including Alameda county

I’m not sure this has been confirmed. There are definitely discussions about viral load but not sure whether the viral load/mortality link has been confirmed.

To be clear, that does not mean masks don’t help - of course everyone should wear masks!

But even if we accept your model it only tells us that the very low population infection rate in Shanghai was low enough for the factory work precautions to be effective - it doesn't mean that they wouldn't have be effective even if the infected portion of the population had been orders of magnitude higher.

Sure. I would say it just means that these viral control measures are unproven. That was really my point. What happened in Shanghai really tells us nothing, as it is relatively unlikely that the defenses were actually tested.

As I have said before, multiple times, I do think they need to open up the factory, but it needs to be done in a careful way. Looking at their “playbook”, I guess I would do the following concern trolling:

1) Concerned they are following CDC guidance, specifically regarding temp checks being sufficient. I would go beyond that and test everyone, and failing that, focus on anyone who has come up high on risk assessment.

2) Concerned they allow employees to take public transit (it is discouraged).

3) Concerned about spread in the bathrooms. I am concerned about this because my understanding is that in a home setting, you are not supposed to share with an infected person. I understand they will be cleaning more often, but not sure if it can be often enough. There tends to be a lot of traffic in bathrooms.

I do think that if people actually comply with their rules of not coming to work if anyone in their family is sick or may be sick, they are close to establishing a bubble.

Anyway, opening up looks likely in the next week or two. We’ll see how it goes. Personally, I have a hard time envisioning not having a positive case at some point, but hoping it does not turn into an outbreak.

Does anyone know how many people they have working at their casting site and other locations in the US that have been operating successfully for a little while?

 

[Norbert]

Definitely a good reference site. However, good to always keep in mind that the number of active infections matters a great deal as well - not just the Rt value.

That number of infections is a key factor in determining how/when/what to open back up.

An interesting one, but not a good one: unfortunately since the 4/26 update, part of the sweet talking illusion, I'm afraid.

As I have shown in previous posts, death numbers in states other than NY in the last week compared to the 7 days starting April 7, went up by about 300/day. According to the picture created by rt.live, at least in so far as one could tell from all states with more than 1,000 deaths total, they should have gone down. Maybe someone should make a more complete evaluation.

 

[eevee-fan]

My understanding is that if you can see the blue, they are just grow lights (UVA and UVB). UVC is needed to kill CV-19, and you can't use UVC in the presence of people.

UV-C is so 2017... In 2020, it's Far UV or forget it.

 

[mrmage]

Hey, where's all the Disagree and Funny ratings on my latest attempt to spread lifesaving news about vitamin C?

Maybe I'm progressing from being laughed at to being ignored. Wait, that's going backwards.
First They Ignore You, Then They Laugh at You, Then They Attack You, Then You Win – Quote Investigator

Oh well. Here's more news to laugh at -- a statement from the Front Line Critical Care Working Group:

We know that our MATH+ protocol works—and saves lives. Many lives. Here’s the backstory about why it has not yet been widely adopted.

Tragically, the World Health Organization (WHO) ignored extensive evidence in recommending against the use of corticosteroids in COVID19 ARDS and cytokine storm. Neither the WHO nor other guideline-writing bodies have assessed the formidable and growing evidence for intravenous ascorbic acid [vitamin C], despite its association in a major recent study, with significantly improved mortality in ARDS. Numerous previous studies have also shown its safety and effectiveness, particularly when used with corticosteroids in critical care medicine.

Physicians at the bedside of critically ill COVID19 patients are told to provide only “supportive care” and to enroll their patients in one or more of hundreds of randomly controlled trials (RCTs), often testing one or more of a growing list of expensive and proprietary formulations, where half of the patients receive a placebo....

MATH+ uses well studied, life saving components used synergistically that hospital-based and critical care doctors have been using for decades. It should be the foundation upon which other interventions are added and not excluded from the armamentarium of physicians at the bedside. COVID19 is a steroid and ascorbic acid responsive disease.

Critical Care Working Group Members

G. UMBERTO MEDURI, M.D.
Professor of Medicine, Division of Pulmonary, Critical Care & Sleep Medicine
Univ. of Tennessee Health Science Center Memphis, Tennessee

PAUL E. MARIK, MD, FCCM, FCCP
Endowed Professor of Medicine, Chief, Div. of Pulmonary & Critical Care Medicine
Eastern Virginia Medical School Norfolk, Virginia

JOSEPH VARON, M.D., FCCP, FCCM
Professor of Acute & Continuing Care, The University of Texas Health Science Center
Chief of Staff & Chief of Critical Care, United Memorial Medical Center, Houston, Texas

HOWARD KORNFELD, M.D.
Board Certified: Emergency Med., Pain Med., Addiction Med.
President, Pharmacology Policy Institute
Clinical Faculty, Pain Fellowship Program, Univ. of California, San Francisco (UCSF) School of Medicine
Founder & Medical Director, Recovery Without Walls, Mill Valley, California

PIERRE KORY, M.D., M.P.A.
Medical Dir., Trauma & Life Support Center
Critical Care Service Chief
Associate Professor of Medicine, Univ. of Wisconsin School of Medicine & Public Health

JOSE IGLESIAS, D.O.
Assoc. Prof., Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine at Seton Hall
Dept. of Nephrology & Critical Care / Community Medical Center
Dept. of Nephrology, Jersey Shore University Medical Center, Neptune, New Jersey

KEITH BERKOWITZ, M.D., M.B.A.
Medical Director, Center for Balanced Health
Voluntary Attending Physician, Lenox Hill Hosp. New York, New York

FRED WAGSHUL, M.D.
Pulmonologist & Med. Dir., Lung Center of America
Clinical Instructor, Wright State University School of Medicine, Dayton, Ohio

Our Challenge – Frontline COVID-19 Critical Care Working Group
​

Although recent studies on vitamin C seem promising, it hasn't garnered much attention because:

1. Most studies are from Asia, especially China, so the US position will be to ignore them.

2. There's no money to be made from vitamin C, so no one will fund studies or lobby for it.

 

[jerry33]

I can say, for one thing, that employment contracts are more employee focused, in that employers cant get away with random stuff that they can in other areas of the country. non-compete, for one example. in calif, you can't stop an employee from working in his field just because an employer fires him or his quits on his own. 'right to work' states tend to favor the employer and when they can, squash unions.

can you point to any 'right to work' state features that would make me want to move or live there? asking for real. curious what a RTW state would have to offer someone in my position, to convince me to leave the bay area, for example.

anti lgbt, anti women, anti minority, anti choice, overall. more religion (as long as you are the 'right' religion), lower quality of public education, less rationality. less respect for the environment, more respect for billionaires. that's how I view the so-called RTW states.

I live in a RTW state, and yes, they can (and did) fire you without any reason, have a use it or lose it vacation policy, and I don't want to talk about the whacko religious. However, there is also no state income tax, lower cost of living (a normal person can actually own a house), and lots of tech jobs. In the city I live in, property taxes are frozen once you reach 65 (this does vary by city). There's a lot wrong with where I live, but there's a lot wrong in any state (or country for that matter). Basically, you pick your poison based on what's important to you and do what you can (usually not much) to make it better.

 

[dfwatt]

Don't look at them. Any appreciable exposure to UV-C will promote cataract formation in 20 years. It is dose dependent as well, so the greater the exposure, the greater the risk.

It's worth reminding people that UVC on its far border transitions within the electromagnetic spectrum to x-rays, and some forms of UVC (~10-8 m wavelength) could be considered soft X-rays. Other words just past UVC is x-ray and then gamma rays. Living organisms including our own are not adapted for exposure to significant UVC as it is pretty much eliminated by the atmosphere. UVA and UVB on the other hand can be tolerated and have physiological roles – we've been exposed to them for hundreds of millions of years during our evolutionary course – but UVC is just plain dangerous.

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

An interesting one, but not a good one: unfortunately since the 4/26 update, part of the sweet talking illusion, I'm afraid.

I just take it at face value - it's a formula based on the number of cases (specifically the change in cases over time). And they apply some correction now based on the testing levels. That's just going to produce a curve of Rt retrospectively. The site doesn't say anything about what Rt is now, and it is not a reflection of how many cases exist (in an absolute sense there is no such relationship), or how many deaths will occur.

I think it's a reasonable guide for what Rt has been, but I'm sure it's not 100% accurate. It's just a formula and if you feed it incorrect data the answer won't be right - and in all cases in all states with significant disease burden, they are guessing at the actual number of cases. So there is definitely going to be error, and test methodology changes over time will introduce additional errors.

Basically, just a website that allows you to see the impact of distancing measures and will tell us how things went, a couple weeks after we have taken actions. Fortunately states are looking at this data in closer to real time (but there is definitely always a delay)!

death numbers in states other than NY in the last week compared to the 7 days starting April 7, went up by about 300/day.

I can't prove or disprove this. The relationship between cases and mortality is complex. There are counting issues, treatment changes, dependence on exposed population, etc. I think it's hard to conclude that if the death numbers don't do exactly what you expect that there is some flaw in their formulas.

 

[bkp_duke]

It's worth reminding people that UVC on its far border transitions within the electromagnetic spectrum to x-rays, and some forms of UVC (~10-8 m wavelength) could be considered soft X-rays. Other words just past UVC is x-ray and then gamma rays. Living organisms including our own are not adapted for exposure to significant UVC as it is pretty much eliminated by the atmosphere. UVA and UVB on the other hand can be tolerated and have physiological roles – we've been exposed to them for hundreds of millions of years during our evolutionary course – but UVC is just plain dangerous.

Have you processed my orders for moron spray? Seriously drowning here bro.

 

[Norbert]

I wrote another post a few days ago where I used different examples. I looked at many. I didn't cherry pick, I just happened to use only one example in the post you responded to.

We already know for a long time that looking at cases can be misleading because of changing testing levels, I was arguing that here many weeks ago. You are not telling me anything new in that regard. However less well discussed is the fact that rt.live numbers are going in the opposite direction.

And that was my point: that you can't expect rt.live graphs to tell a correct story either.

Your California example actually confirms that more than not. According to rt.live, Rt in CA has been smaller than 1 for almost 4 weeks, and below 0.9 for 3 weeks. (Even the error bars were below 1 for 3 weeks. Until a few days ago, as they are expanding in all cases in both directions, but who looks at that).

So death numbers should have been going down continuously, but according to the graph you posted, they were stable in the last 8 days (which corresponds to cases 2-3 weeks ago). They went down only in the 5 days before that. And not by a lot, especially compared to by how much they went up at an Rt above 1.

Here are the last 4 weeks (7 day intervals) in California, they include the peak, before that numbers were lower:

517, 539, 502, 503. So in the last 7 day interval, the number actually went up by 1. (Numbers from worldometers.info.)

That's not what it should look like with Rt below 1 since April 11, and below 0.9 since April 17.
(And even error bars below 1 since about April 15, and a significant area below 1 since April 17.)

Ergo: Actually supporting data that rt.live calculations of Rt are incorrect.

 

[PeterJA]

Although recent studies on vitamin C seem promising, it hasn't garnered much attention because:

1. Most studies are from Asia, especially China, so the US position will be to ignore them.

2. There's no money to be made from vitamin C, so no one will fund studies or lobby for it.

I can't agree or disagree with "Most studies are from Asia," because I don't know enough about the literature. But I know that plenty of studies have occurred outside Asia. Here are journal-referenced statements from two New Zealand scientists specializing in vitamin C:
Coronavirus

I tend to agree with your #2.
Coronavirus

 

[PeterJA]

Have you processed my orders for moron spray? Seriously drowning here bro.

@bkp_duke has a big supply of insults and ridicule (and the Ignore button) for when he runs out of evidence.

 

[Tiger]

Hey, where's all the Disagree and Funny ratings on my latest attempt to spread lifesaving news about vitamin C?
...
Oh well. Here's more news to laugh at -- a statement from the Front Line Critical Care Working Group:

We know that our MATH+ protocol works—and saves lives. Many lives. Here’s the backstory about why it has not yet been widely adopted.

Tragically, the World Health Organization (WHO) ignored extensive evidence in recommending against ...​

Bless your heart, @PeterJA Dramatic/provocative/argumentative writing style is usually a giveaway that the text is not intended for scientific audience, but maybe to gull the uninformed.

 

[Mader Levap]

Just to give you a head's up they have clues on sale at Walmart. You should pick up a dozen to get you through the week. You're welcome.
I love how you AGREE with stats, then I just put them into more relevant formats and then you disagree with the same fact. You must work for the gov't right?

I asked you "0.024% of what". Of course you didn't answered that. Oh, and your tribe screwed up handling of COVID-19 and for that alone deserve loss in November. Get over it.

We've now transitioned so deeply into denial

Projecting much?