Breaking news – The NIH funded the Wuhan Viral institute’s research in to CV19

Dateline YouTube 9:30 PM Pacific time.

Before Bed tonight I watched “Verdict with Ted Cruze” on You Tube.  Ted apparently reads my blog.  But the most interesting thing is that the US National Institute of Health (AKA NIH) spent &73,301 in research to the Wuhan Virology Research Institute on Corona Viruses from Bats, and the impact on human biology. Why we would send this money all over the world (about $3.7M+ dollars world-wide) in research is beyond me.  Apparently, part of the research was on human fetal samples. So Human experimentation.

 Source:

So here we are with a global pandemic at least partially funded by the United States.  Guess what gang, let us do the research here, at least them we can be responsible for the results.  Good or bad.

This was corroborated by the UK Daily Mail in an article on April 11th, 2020.

Not that funding medical research is a bad thing.  But given the history of China and other research facilities, maybe this was a bad idea.  According to toe Congressman Matt Gaetz, this is not new activity.

Do we ever know where your money goes? 

Gregor - Back from the brink! From there and back again. A spiritual Hobbits journey.

Crunch time – More encouraging news from the numbers-04/17/2020

The Changes:

This is week 4 of this string of articles. A lot has changed in the last week. Germany took a whole town, and tested 80% of the population, regardless of symptoms. Trying to estimate what percentage of the population was infected. They cam up with about 15%. Test results in NYC - Women who were pregnant and came in to deliver children, were tested (220 of them) and 15% of them. Tested positive for CV19. Most seemed to be asymptomatic.

What does this mean?

 It shows that the mathematical model I’ve been using is close to correct. Sadly it is the worst-case estimate that was a little low. Instead of a ratio of 1 to 100 of known infected vs actual infected, it is 1 to 110. This means for every confirmed/Diagnosed case, there are 110 more people out there who are asymptomatic or who had such mild cases no diagnoses nor testing occurred. In my historical calculations, I changed that exposure estimate.

That means as of today we are running about 23% of the population seems having been exposed. The reasons for this are more have been tested. We have tested almost 2% of the population. There is a new test available in the next 2 weeks that takes minutes vs days. It is a less invasive nasal swab. So it is more comfortable and can be performed in Drive through or the Doctor Office. This too is good news. People tested are still 65% negative. So even though symptomatic they have common influenza or rhinovirus vs CoVid-19.

The numbers are so encouraging.

•  US Population (est.): 329,000,000 >>(See Notes)
• +Estimated exposed to the Virus: 75.68M
• (Estimated Percent of National Population 23.0%)
• *Confirmed Cases: 688,019 (Increase of 218,515)
• Total Deaths: 35,907 (increase of 17,916) 
• **Total Recovered: 56,177 (Corrected, some how an extra zero was posted earlier.)

This is all leveling off and the number of new deaths is decreasing. Even with New York City adding 3,700 deaths because they had died in their homes and had not been counted. These 3,700 people were never tested but were assumed to have CV19, they had coughs and fever. Is it worth going back and testing mem? Maybe, 3700 was 17% of the US deaths at the time. So that is a large increase.

What is so good about this? 

The infection rate is slowing. More people have been tested but the rate of increase has dropped. The death rate has dropped a ton with the revised estimate of the infected to 0.043% of infected at risk of dying. Most places have access to PPE and many US factories have re-tooled to supply that stuff, instead of relying on imports. Again showing the flexibility of an almost free market.

There are treatments that are working!

Hydroxychloroquine (HyC for short) is being tested in South Dakota in studies to determine if it is a cure. There is a tone of anecdotal evidence that combining it with other things, does seem to have a very high success rate. This is a prime example of why you do not want to think like a News Media Schill.

Often it is said that HyC is not listed as a cure. Of course not, CV19 is a novel virus, one that has not been studied, except in a few places. And no cure had been found there. The idea of a “novel” virus is not that it is well-read, but that it is unique. Though most folks agree it is similar to SARS (SARS-CoV) hence it is officially SARS-CoV 2 in the lab rat world.

So what is your risk where 23% of the people have been exposed? (based on moderately conservative estimates)

Note the death rate went from 0.37% to 0.047%, even with NYC adjustment. At 0.37% you had a 1 in 292 chance of dying. Now your chance is down to 1 in 2,128.

Does that mean if you leave your house 2,128 times you will get the virus and die? No. Remember there is a “New Deck”, to use a gambler phrase, every time you leave the house. The cards are shuffled when you leave the door.

So when is it safe enough?

Now for most people. The financial costs aside, there is a manufacturing shortage coming unless we get back outside and do our stuff. This is true for a small and large business. There are food plants shutting down and farmers destroying crops they can’t sell because we can’t process that food. Right now, we have time to catch up. But in 4 weeks, we will start seeing shortages. Those shortages can cause death too. Again, there is the question of “Does it matter how you die?” If you are a socialist, it does. Because if you die from a bullet, you are venerated as a “gun death” if you die from a knife or beating, well then you are just a crime statistic. If you die from a lack of medicine or starve, that is OK because you did not die “from CV19!”

So is it good news?

Yes! Your odds of survival just jumped up by some 600%. That huge change is due to the larger testing data.

Define safe? That is an individual decision. But the point of a free society is you do get to choose. At what point do we stop living in fear and go out and have a life? As of now your odds of dying from CoVid-19 are lower than the top 12 most common causes of death in the United States. That is down from 3rd most common last week.

Every time you open your eyes you put yourself at risk. According to the National Safety Council, if you go outside, 1 of 114 times you will die from a “Motor Vehicle Crash.” Whenever you eat you will choke on your food 1 out of 3,461 meals. Yet you still eat every day. If you choose to go outside, it is probably still a good idea to practice your personal space thing. Wearing a mask may make others feel better and reduce your chances from 1 in 2, 128 to about 1 in 3, 093.

Can restaurants help be reducing tables in their dining room? Would you go to a restaurant and eat if they advertised a 6-foot clearance between usable booths and tables? Thes kind of thing is how we define our new normal. But a restaurant will have trouble making profits if the table count is cut by 50-70 percent.

Governor Brown let’s get back to life.

Notes:

* - Tested or diagnosed through clinical means.
** - Tested free of CV19 twice over 2 weeks, after diagnosed as positive.
+ - Estimate of infected based on the idea that only 10% of the total infected have been confirmed.
 >> - Dropped down to be consistent with the US news media, though this estimate is 2 years old and does not include unregistered persons. The 2020 census should clear this up.

Gregor - Back from the brink! From there and back again. A spiritual Hobbits journey.

By Order of the Queen Governor of Oregon – Your Dining Hall is now confiscated.

The Issue:

Can the government (State or Federal) close services by private companies for an indeterminate amount of time? Not in Oregon! When does public safety trump personal freedom? It should not. Yet here we are. Forced isolation – When does Sequester/Quarantine become worse than the disease?  Let’s take a look!

Is what you die from this important?

Economy and mental health seem to be snakes swallowing each other. When people are happy the economy is strong, when the economy goes down, mental health suffers.  Last year in Oregon there were 844 suicides.  That is an average of 70 a month.  Every month.  As of April 13th, 2020 Oregon has lost 52 people. 4 In the last 24 hours.

Now that is terrible.  But what are the odds of suicide has increased over the last month of quarantine?  I have asked the Oregon Department of health for the 2020 statistics by month.  But they have not had time to supply those yet.  Oddly I have found no reliable monthly tally of that information. I will end up doing a blog on mental health in the future when I have facts to provide.

Governor Brown has signed 15 Executive Orders (EO) as of the date of this writing (04/13/2020).  Most of them for set amounts of time.  EO20-06 Specified that the restaurant dining room and facilities be closed for 30 days. On April 7th, Governor Brown extended that order, in its entirety for an indefinite period.

It seems to me this is a bad idea for many reasons.  Do we need to continue to distance ourselves and wash hands?  Sure.  If somebody has health issues should they remain sequestered? That would be reasonable.  But if we don’t start looking at how to safely navigate a world full of pandemics waiting to happen, the better.

The Promises:

The hope of a vaccine or cure is good but a vacant promise.  When HIV was first discovered in the population, it was promised but never found.  HIV First made an appearance in 1968.  During the 1970’s it was considered a pandemic (it still is) and billions have been poured into its cure.  We do have reliable tests, but no vaccine nor anything resembling a cure.  Sure we can prolong the life span of the infected.  But it can’t be cured.  So even science can’t deliver on these kinds of promises.

Welcome to the new reality. 

So what next?

Oregon has this covered.  There is no law to change, it just needs to be applied.  If the State confiscates property, they must compensate the citizen or company.  It seems that Governor Kate Brown has stolen your facilities if you are a dine/Drink- in a facility. If I were you, I’d send the state an invoice for renting out your service areas for March 17th to April 21st.

Oregon Statute(ORS) 433.441(5-6):
(5) A proclamation of a state of public health emergency expires when terminated by a declaration of the Governor or no more than 14 days after the date the public health emergency is proclaimed unless the Governor expressly extends the proclamation for an additional 14-day period.

(6) When real or personal property is taken under power granted by this section, the owner of the property shall be entitled to reasonable compensation from the state. [2003 c.555 §1; 2007 c.445 §23; 2013 c.332 §3]

It seems to me, that specifically for a health emergency, the Governor can not set these emergency powers for more than 14 days. It also seems to me, by declaring dining rooms off-limits, and making no state effort to decontaminate or re-open them, she is “Taking possession of” the dining areas.

If I were a lawyer, and I am not, I would see if there is a class action suit just waiting to happen.

I am not interested in breaking the quarantine, not because I am afraid of the state, but if I spread this to somebody else, I would be very unhappy.  It is the uncertainty that causes stress because I don’t know if I have it.  So maybe staying quarantined until we do have at least an antibody test if you are at risk, is a good idea.  There are no guarantees, people in their 20s have died from this.  And some did not seem to have any co-morbidities. But the odds at this point are 0.338 to 100. Or if you want a sensational number 296 to 1 of contracting SARS-CoVid 2(CoVid-19, CV19).

You have to decide if it worth the risk.  But in a free country or state, it should be your choice.

Notes:

* Not signed by the Secretary of State – Bev Clamo.
A full list of Executive orders 2003 to Present. Downloadable PDF of the signed orders.

Gregor - Back from the brink! From there and back again. A spiritual Hobbits journey.

A Change in Culture - Changing Normalcy.

Changing culture can either be easy or hard. The sad thing is it is a personal choice, not a societal issue. We are forcing a culture change in the United States right now. It is because of how we are handling the current pandemic crisis. Suicide hotlines are up over 300 percent. Other help groups are seeing a boom in things. As a 12 step practitioner myself, I am seeing a baseline cultural change in how we do things. But there is hope.

These changes are neither bad nor good. But they could be awful if we define normal the way we used to. That is the part we seem to have lost from the “Greatest Generation” who acted selflessly, in fighting the Axis Powers. Accepting reality is why they went to fight. If we did not defeat the Axis Powers, everybody knew they would be here, eventually.

I have to be amazed at what happened in the first part of the 20th century. People were in two camps on the idea of flying, it was not possible, or it was 50 years in the future. Then there was Kittyhawk and the Wright brother. In the 30 years between Kittyhawk (1903), and 1933, when Adolf Hitler was just getting off the ground, we went from first flight to the founding of PanAm Airlines in 1927. From there to landing on the moon in 1969. In 63 years we went from zero to hero. Now we have more changes to deal with. And again the secret is to accept what is true, and move forward.

This is not even the first major Pandemic, since the flight of the Wright Brothers. What became known as the “Spanish Flu” (the first case seems to have been in Alabama in 1917). We fought a war, and that pandemic may have even helped shorten that war, though it killed more people than the war did. Again they accepted what is and dealt with where to go from here.

Do we continue the quarantine?

That may the wrong question, the right question maybe can we continue? At what point does the prevention become worse than the disease? If we continue with this, what will happen? Well, the food will get short. Governors are telling farmers, ranchers, dairies, and slaughterhouses to close down. Even though we have trucks to haul the food, thank your local truck driver, there may come a point when there is nothing to load on the truck. So we could be in a situation with a food shortage caused by the government.

People are living in fear of getting a disease, which is for now unlikely. That may change. But despite the week ending April 11th, being one fo the deadliest in the United States for CV19, there is hope. The overall spread is decreasing in speed.

How do I live like this?

You don’t. You live the way you need to now, not the way you did in the past. The new reality lifestyle is waiting to be defined. But can you accept that? Acceptance is NOT the solution to all your problems, it is the first step in finding a solution. So f you accept the new reality the next choice is yours. Factories are re-tooling to make Personal Protection Equipment (PPE) for medical personal. It is time for me to re-tool myself for the new reality.

Where to start? How about if you S.P.E.A.K.?

SPEAK is an acronym for steps to go through when considering your day. There is a video here about it, presented by Verve Counseling LLC. Sara is an LCSW.

The idea being if you configure a structure around your life, you can have a better life. It does need to be in the confines of current reality. So can you find a job you can do, that will keep you as safe as possible? Sadly staying at home is not even a guarantee of health. Besides the health risks of being inside all the time, it is not reality. But if you have lost your job, can you find or even better create one that you can do with a limited risk of exposure.

We do need to think about limiting exposure. You can not eliminate it. People are getting sick with no discernable path to infection. Nobody they know has it. They have been home for two or three weeks, and only had limited contact with the outside world. So they “did everything right” and still ended up exposed.

So try building your SPEAK Model Structure in your life. See if you can’t bust out of that box. There is a possibility this may be our “armistice” year. But more about that next week.

Gregor - Back from the brink! From there and back again. A spiritual Hobbits journey.

Crunch Time - Worst week brings the best news 04/10/2020

With the huge increase in deaths, almost 100k, how can I see a light? Well, lift your head and look around. The numbers are as depressing as the context from which they come. Meaning if you have no context, you just see the numbers, how could you help but feel doomed and overwhelmed? So… let’s look at this week's synopsis.

The Numbers (04/10/2020)

US Population (est.): 348,860,000
+Estimated exposed to the Virus: 4.67M- 46.69M
(Estimated Percent of National Population 1.35%-13.46%)
*Confirmed Cases: 489,404
(Increase of 199,947)
Total Deaths: 17,991 (increase of 11,084)
**Total Recovered: 27,491

Estimated odds of you contacting an exposed person between 1 -13 out of 100. That is twice as likely as the previous week. Yet still, 86% of the population are not infected. Even having enough symptoms to get tested means you only have a 20% chance of testing positive for CV19. 80% of the sick people tested, come back negative. What can we learn here?

The rate of infection is decreasing. The number of people confirmed was increasing nationwide by about 11% a day, now it is down to 9% a day. That indicates #personal distancing is working. So the acceleration is dropping.

Your risk is still low. Though the “death rate” versus known cases is up to 3.83% when you extrapolate with the estimated number of exposed persons to the death rate, that is down to 0.383%. That is still higher than the seasonal flu, but much lower than say SARS-CoV or H1N1. We know that 5.86% of confirmed cases have recovered nationwide. Remember to be confirmed cured you need to have been tested 2 times in 2 weeks and come back negative. I would expect that number to continue to grow as more testing becomes available. Some people have recovered but have not been retested. This makes sense, test the sick and not the healthy since we are short on time and tests.

What should I do?

Here in Oregon, we are under a mostly voluntary sequester. We are still shopping at stores, and many people when going out are wearing masks. Oregon's rate of increase is almost half that the rest of the nation.

It might be time to consider how to start living again! This was the worst week for the death count, but not the infected count. The percentage of increase is on the decline. That means the disease is running the natural course. This is good.

When do we declare success?

I am smart enough to know I don’t know. But it will need to be soon. There are things not getting done that will show up soon. And if we do not identify the “new normal” (See my other post 04/10/2020), we will be in trouble. Do you think toilet paper was hard to find? I’ll be focusing on canned meat and vegetables on this shopping trip.

Dairies are destroying Milk because they don’t have anybody to bottle it. Here in Oregon, I feel lucky, there are small farms around here, and I would hope we can develop a more local food economy. But Los Angles California? Sorry dude.

Be cautious, if you can work from home, do so if you can’t thank you for your service and be careful. Use precautions. The big question is can we sustain this current status quo? A collapsed economy will ruin more lives than this pandemic ever could.

We as a people need to switch from hunker down to get out and risk. If we don’t, there will be nothing to come up to after we hit bottom.

Notes:

• * - Tested or diagnosed through clinical means.
• ** - Tested free of CV19 twice over 2 weeks, after diagnosed as positive.
• + - Estimate of infected based on the idea that only 10% of the total infected have been confirmed.
•  # - I use personal distancing because “Social Distancing” is such an oxymoron. How can you be social while distancing? It was probably invented by a politician’s focus group in someplace like New York City that thinks opposites can co-mingle.
• All sourced from the CDC.

 Gregor - Back from the brink! From there and back again. A spiritual Hobbits journey.

It’s Crunch time! – The numbers and what they really mean. 04/03/2020

Last Friday I sent up charts and data to the internet to try to show how small your personal risk really is.  Not to bash anybody, but to praise our amazing cooperative work.  Here is an update that personally I find encouraging.

Again we hear the terrible numbers of the toll of this virus, but because we look at the microcosm of the numbers, we do not understand the actual risk to us individually.  Though I am not saying we should yell and scream and run around hugging each other.  Getting outside and doing our lives as close to normal as is prudent, might not be a bad way to go. 

In 2009 we had the H1N1pdn09 pandemic.  We did not shut down the world and we only quarantined the infected. SARS-CoV 2 (CoVid-19 0r C19) is far more contagious.  So it appears, but it is also far less lethal.

The Numbers (04/03/2020)

US Population (est): 348,860,000
Estimated exposed to the Virus: 2.695M – 26.955M
(Percent of National Population 0.077%-0.775%)

Confirmed Cases: 269,557
Total Deaths:       6,907
Total Recovered: 12,015

Estimated odds of you contacting an exposed person between .077% - 0.776%
That means if you were at a used car lot with 1000 cars, and the worst case is it would be 8 of those 1000 cars are lemons.  So 992 of those 1000 cars are good. Or if you had $10 in pennies, eight of those “pennies” were actually pesos.

In more simple terms, out of 125 people you come in contact with, 1 of them will have been exposed to CV19.  This is not to be ignored.  But the reality is that you are relatively safe.

Should you use some sort of mask to reduce the risk?  Sure. Yet do not ignore the cost of being idle. Addicts will fall of their respective wagon.  People are not being taken to hospitals in NYC. If Paramedics find a person on the floor without a heartbeat, due to heart attack, they are not even to bother transporting victims to the hospital, unless they can restart the heart.  In the past, they would be transported to the hospital while being sustained by CPR.  Many of these people can recover.  Now they are not being given the chance. So where do you draw the “save one life” logic?

What does 1 in 125 looks like?

1111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111X111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111

Being over cautious can be just as damaging as a slow reaction.

Be safe, be cautious but continue to live a life.  Shutting your life down can have long-term effects on you and your circle.

Notes:

* tested or diagnosed through clinical means.
** Tested free of CV19 twice over a 2 week period, after diagnosed as positive.
+ Estimate of infected based on the idea that only 10% of the total infected have been confirmed.
All sourced from the CDC.  

How to Avoid the Downfall - "Inside Out" A Movie by Disney

With all the changes we are going through, things are changing.  Some are temporary and some will be permanent.  We are changing our culture on a fundamental level. Alcohol sales have risen 45%, which is consumable alcohol.  Will all of that be used to sterilize things?  Probably not.

Fair warning: We sill see at least 100k people dying from CoVid-19 in the United States alone. Next year could be as bad if not worse.  We are in for rough times. We have only experienced 4% of that number in losses as of this writing (04/02/2020). So things will get worse.  But how we react to that is the question.  Remember 100K is less than 0.03% of the US population.  A lot of people, but the math is in your favor.

Would some of these changes have happened anyway?

Probably. Some things like Tele-Education, Tele-Commuting and other Virtual Meeting tools will become the norm.  Back in the 1940s and 50s, the technology of “Dick Tracey” was considered irrational.  But since the “Smart Phone” revolution, we’ve had that technology in our hands.

But change is hard!

If it is an escape from reality like Porn or Gambling, or if it is to alter your perception like Drugs or Alcohol, or if even it is a matter of eating things that make you “feel better,” is of no matter. The end result is always the same, self-destructive behavior.

Alcoholics Anonymous - Non-Affiliate

I do work with a 12 step program.  I do have sponsees that I work with. And one of the assignments they get from me is to watch or read certain materials. My primary source is, of course, the big book of “Alcoholic’s Anonymous.” One of the things I stress is journaling why you partake in .  An honest person will find that sometime in the past they concluded that this addiction benefited them. It is an irrational thought, but it is why you keep it up. 

There is one artistic work I recommend that is a “Non-Approved” material.  The kid's movie “Inside Out”: A Disney film that explores emotions and how we respond to it.  And that is the secret of addiction, how we respond to our emotions.  That is where the danger of being “restless, irritable and discontented”(RID)- Alcoholics Anonymous, from “The Doctors Opinion”) comes from.

What I find interesting about this simple movie is that it gently deals with the root of many societal ills.  

Whether it be the cancel culture, the rift between socialist and conservative or the issues inside one's self, the lack o ability to reconcile our cognitive dissidence between emotion, rational thought, and physical results.

Inside Out Disney Studios

A strong recommendation is to enjoy the movie “Inside Out” (Now Available Free on YouTube) Pay attention at the end when they go into different peoples heads, and pay attention to what emotions have the rule over the different people.

During these new times, am I reacting with the emotion of intellect?

Emotions are not bad, but being ruled by them is a disaster in progress.  The Stoics of ancient Greek fame had a good idea.  Acknowledge your emotions, but allow intellect to control your decisions. The Bible spends 66 books and spans 5000 years of history demonstrating this.  A religion that speaks to emotional rule, is one destined to end in self-destruction.  People who have used the Quaran’ or the Bible to drive an emotional result have done so to their destruction.

So if you have some time on your hand, watch “Inside Out” and try to picture the committee that rules your head.  You can’t eliminate the committee, but you can bring it to order.  And that is were sobriety lives.  With a committee under guidance.

Gregor - Back from the brink! From there and back again. A spiritual Hobbits journey.