Today is a day on how data can take you somewhere you were not looking at – Looking at school activity almost looks like political map…Republican counties typically have in-school.

In school percent %

Below is IF the county % vote was greater for republican red and for democrat blue in 2016 election

Amazing to see the geographical spacing….now look at population map and one can see the hold the democrats have on the populous.

IF you could apply the percentage of those that voted to ALL the population in the counties you would have an overwhelming population support for the democrats. (Obviously under 18 don’t vote and also over 50% don’t physically vote historically). Notice how many more counties the republicans have over the democrats.

But alas it is not a popularity contest – per the electoral college system. The land owners have an over weighted say – for better of for worse this is the system for all these years.

Bringing it back to covid – the deaths are very centered – somewhat intuitive in major counties with large population. Would/should the rural counties care to lock down or even be much concern about covid?

US deaths continue below 1K – India data seems sporadic.

CA leads with 149

LA County leads at 36 deaths

Drop in deaths in Spain is a good sign…unfortunately this comes with slight uptick in deaths for UK, Belgium, Denmark

School opening hypothesis clarification – the opening of school is just a date and that their will be schools who implement safety protocols and preventative actions better than others. The fact of opening school or shutting down in person school will likely not change the current trajectory IF appropriate measures are taken. Doing the same thing and expecting different results will yield bad results. Online schooling could lead to gatherings at peoples home which likely do not offer the safety and preventative options schools can do (e.g. increase fresh air ventilation, HEPA filters, etc..) – at the same time the approach for online SHOULD be less population gathering together. The confirmation of younger individual will likely not lead to increase deaths vs. other spreading areas in society. The focus of schools may likely be overblown compared to other parts of society. Time will tell if this is a NULL hypothesis.

TX results showing the school opening in Dallas and Bexar seems to be leading to more confirmation – but deaths are not translating. The closing of Travis and El Paso are leading to no uptick in confirmation.

FL Palm Beach and Pinellas both open in person and did not see a rise in confirmation but Palm Beach did observe additional deaths. Broward who remained close continued their trajectory of reduce confirmation and deaths

San Diego had 20% in person and did not observe anything different. Santa Clara being closed is actually observing a decline in confirmation but an increase in deaths.

In OH Mahoning and Stark had in person and did not observe much difference (death scale very small)

CO Boulder stayed online yet compared to the counties that opened they saw a greater increase. Community activity in Boulder was greater – which indicates schools could be a much smaller piece of the puzzle for covid spread. Interestingly Boulder has 0 deaths whereas others are staying in the range of history.

In PA we see Centre county which has 50% in person saw an increase in confirmation but they have hardly any deaths whereas Dauphin is increasing.

Another great reporting day for the US 316 deaths

TX the leader at 62

Almost half of TX in the border county Hidalgo 31

Data issues for sure in Harris County – trust is very low.

Looks like the deaths in Europe are flattening out for Spain, Franck, UK, and Italy

Our third discussion on PCR testing in a month – previous https://covid19mathblog.com/2020/09/covid-9-15-20/ . This is very important given this is our main testing method for covid-19. This is from University of Oxford and support the concerns as noted before on the test https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/pcr-positives-what-do-they-mean/

““PCR detection of viruses is helpful so long as its accuracy can be understood: it offers the capacity to detect RNA in minute quantities, but whether that RNA represents infectious virus may not be clear.””

“A PCR test might find the virus it was looking for. This results in a PCR positive, but a crucial question remains: is this virus active, i.e. infectious, or virulent? The PCR alone cannot answer this question. The CEBM explains why culturing the virus is needed to answer this question:

“In viral culture, viruses are injected in the laboratory cell lines to see if they cause cell damage and death, thus releasing a whole set of new viruses that can go on to infect other cells.”

That is, if the PCR detects the virus in the human sample, this detection might correspond to a virus that is now incapable of infecting cells and reproduce. Biologists can tell if the virus is infectious by injecting it into cells (culture cells). If these cells are not affected by the virus and the virus does not reproduce in them, then the PCR test found a virus that is no longer active.

The meaning is that the PCR positive is a non-infectious positive.”

“Explanation of the experiment that shows whether a virus is still infective

Imagine that a virus enters your body. In a few months it might not do anything to you anymore. It might not do anything to your cells (virulence), and it might also lack the capacity to move into another person (infectivity) when you speak or sneeze. It is also possible that this virus simply never did anything to you and lacked infectivity from the very beginning. But traces of the virus might still be present in the person. In this case, the virus is present but inactive.

So how do you know if the virus is active? You do the PCR. If the virus is found in the person (PCR TRUE POSITIVE), that virus is injected into a culture cell. If by injecting that virus into culture cells, the virus is not able to reproduce in the cells, that virus cannot infect anybody any longer. This means that even if you are a PCR positive, you are no longer contagious, that is, the virus in you is no longer active.

Conclusion: A TRUE POSITIVE in PCR does not always mean that the person presents any danger to society. The virus cannot be transmitted when cell culture shows that the virus is not infective. Unfortunately relating PCR POSITIVE to infectivity is not easy if we consider the whole population. This would need 1) a model (correlation) that maps PCR POSITIVES and/or symptoms to infectivity as tested by viral culture or 2) viral culture for every individual case. See next.”

“Cycle thresholds are the times that the amplifying test has to be repeated to get a positive result. The higher the viral concentration the lower amplification cycles are necessary.”

Some people might give positive after running the PCR test with a high threshold and others with a low threshold. The threshold alone might or might not tell whether someone carries infective viral RNA.

““This detection problem is ubiquitous for RNA virus’s detection. SARS-CoV, MERS, Influenza Ebola and Zika viral RNA can be detected long after the disappearance of the infectious virus. … because inactivated RNA degrades slowly over time it may still be detected many weeks after infectiousness has dissipated.”

““PCR detection of viruses is helpful so long as its limitations are understood; while it detects RNA in minute quantities, caution needs to be applied to the results as it often does not detect infectious virus.””

“Ultimately, this means PCR positives cannot be used to tell if the pandemic is advancing if for that we understand that deaths are to increase or decrease.”

The below statement is very interesting as they offer a solution to PCR testing to combine it with cell culture test AND they also note the need for normalized temperature to understand the deaths figures.

“We suggest that the hypothesis of CEBM, i.e. that viral culture is required as a reference to test for infectivity, and other similar ones such as that by Jared Bullard et al[6]., i.e. search for relations between cycle threshold (Ct), symptom onset and infectivity in cell culture, should be explored in order to increase the predictive power of tests. Such predictive power is central provided the possible advance of the pandemic is to be understood and provided we understand that an advancing pandemic must be related to excess deaths in the future. Finally, regarding deaths, we must consider carefully Covid19 labelled deaths versus excess deaths. Covid19 labelled deaths depend on subjective parameters whether excess deaths have the advantage of being a standard relative to a reference, namely, the number of deaths in previous years. If we find many Covid19 deaths during a period but excess deaths are low or negative, it is likely that we are inflating Covid19 numbers. Furthermore, excess deaths typically depend on high/low temperatures, i.e. cold winters or heat waves (Figure10). Therefore, any light increase/decrease in deaths should be contrasted to the temperature. For example, heat waves might come in June, July, August or even September (2020 -Spain[7]) in Europe and direct comparison between years should consider this.”

Sunday reporting is the best US deaths only 266 – no one over 500

Texas leads the US at 38

Though Texas leads the leading county is LA again at 10. Bexar confirmations very volatile – yesterday 2850

Harris county confirmations are awful – it makes the data almost useless

We can be skeptical on the confirmations but deaths are pretty accurate…..Deaths are still rising in Europe

There are so many papers out there on covid now – but the most important paper still is not catching as much press as these recent ones I have seen – https://www.bloomberg.com/amp/news/articles/2020-09-24/covid-doctors-follow-dna-trail-to-potential-immune-treatment. The #2 supercomputer in the world was used to conclude this paper from Oak Ridge – we should be focused on the Bradykinin system – we discussed this back on 9/2/20 https://covid19mathblog.com/2020/09/covid-9-2-20/ . This to me is like string theory to quantum mechanics – a unifying theory for all things covid.

Where is the push just to be healthy vs. all these magic vaccine solutions to $1000+ drug treatments? — FROM UK – https://t.co/MqOorErvHy?amp=1

20X likely to die from covid IF you have a pre-existing condition

Of course the breakdown is suspect with the bulk in the OTHER condition – but nonetheless the other conditions are a decent size – Diabetes, Dementia, Kidney disease – Clearly being older and healthy which at some level is inversely correlated but there are older people who are very healthy so there is a possibility to do things to shift the odds into your favor.

Also noted from above just being under 60 by itself shifts the odds in your favor by almost 12X – which then brings us a discussion to other deaths which we SHOULD believe DEATHS are DEATHS and we should try avoid all deaths – but at the same time lets be real and realize a youthful death certainly is more tragic than older death. Closing the economy DOES equate to increase poverty and social stress on the youthful demographic. You want proof for the logic- 2011 Study – https://www.publichealth.columbia.edu/public-health-now/news/how-many-us-deaths-are-caused-poverty-lack-education-and-other-social-factors

“…the risks associated with both poverty and low education were higher for individuals aged 25 to 64 than for those 65 or older.”

“The investigators found that approximately 245,000 deaths in the United States in the year 2000 were attributable to low levels of education, 176,000 to racial segregation, 162,000 to low social support, 133,000 to individual-level poverty, 119,000 to income inequality, and 39,000 to area-level poverty. 
Overall, 4.5% of U.S. deaths were found to be attributable to poverty—midway between previous estimates of 6% and 2.3%”

Food for thought….Lets not look away from obvious solutions that allow use to continue on with our lives….viral load reduction can be mechanically done with multiple benefits….forcing healthier lifestyle will yield multiple benefits beyond covid mortality….vaccine or any magic treatment does not necessarily equate to better living – similar to stents and lower cholesterol drugs – all they did was to allow one to live their current lifestyle while riding the cost on society vs. changing lifestyle. Of course there are exceptions to those who are genetically disposed beyond the help of lifestyle – but I am trying to point out the majority and does not preclude helping those that really need help. For some reason it seems to be so easy to talk about externalities when it comes to global warming – how about the externalities of choosing certain lifestyle? IF we paid for choosing our lifestyles then it would be appropriate – but we don’t want that therefore there needs to be an underlying push to the most cost effective lifestyle for the general public.

A good Sunday as US under 1K

FL leading US at 107 – NY confirmations jumped over 1000

Once again Miami-Dade leads all counties at 29 King County NY leads NY counties in confirmations at 203.

Deaths still rising in key countries in Europe

First article going to start off nerdy to make you think harder about what is going on with the virus. It would seem evolution for covid-19 is happening. Houston is the center of this evolution likely do to the International aspect of Houston. They believe Houston has seen two waves with the second wave being a different covid with more transmission and infectivity. There is a positive plug for remesdivir – but once again focus on effectiveness not overall cost effectiveness https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.09.22.20199125v1.full.pdf

“We sequenced the genomes of 5,085 SARS-CoV-2 strains causing two COVID-19 disease waves in metropolitan Houston, Texas, an ethnically diverse region with seven million residents. The genomes were from viruses recovered in the earliest recognized phase of the pandemic in Houston, and an ongoing massive second wave of infections. The virus was originally introduced into Houston many times independently. Virtually all strains in the second wave have a Gly614 amino acid replacement in the spike protein, a polymorphism that has been linked to increased transmission and infectivity. Patients infected with the Gly614 variant strains had significantly higher virus loads in the nasopharynx on initial diagnosis. We found little evidence of a significant relationship between virus genotypes and altered virulence, stressing the linkage between disease severity, underlying medical conditions, and host genetics. ”

“There is concern about second and subsequent waves of

92 COVID-19 caused by the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus occurring in

93 communities globally that had an initial disease wave. Metropolitan

94 Houston, Texas, with a population of 7 million, is experiencing a massive

95 second disease wave that began in late May 2020. To understand SARS96 CoV-2 molecular population genomic architecture, evolution, and

97 relationship between virus genotypes and patient features, we sequenced

98 the genomes of 5,085 SARS-CoV-2 strains from these two waves. Our study

99 provides the first molecular characterization of SARS-CoV-2 strains

100 causing two distinct COVID-19 disease waves.”

“patients in the second wave were significantly younger, had fewer comorbidities, were more likely to be Hispanic/Latino (by self-report), and lived in zip codes with lower median incomes”

“We discovered that the first COVID-19 wave was caused by a

441 heterogenous array of virus genotypes assigned to several different clades. The

442 majority of cases in the first wave are related to strains that caused widespread

443 disease in European and Asian countries, as well as other localities. We

444 conclude that the SARS-CoV-2 virus was introduced into Houston many times

445 independently, likely by individuals who had traveled to or from different parts of

446 the world, including other communities in the United States. In support of this

447 conclusion, the first cases in metropolitan Houston were associated with a travel

history to a known COVID-19 region (16). The data are consistent with the fact

449 that Houston is a large international city characterized by a multi-ethnic

450 population and is a prominent transport hub with direct flights to major cities

451 globally.”

“The second wave of COVID-19 cases also is characterized by SARS453 CoV-2 strains with diverse genotypes. Virtually all cases in the second and

454 ongoing disease wave were caused by strains with the Gly614 variant of spike

455 protein (Figure 1B). Our data unambiguously demonstrate that strains with the

456 Gly614 variant increased significantly in frequency in wave 2 relative to wave 1 in

457 the Houston metropolitan region. This shift occurred very rapidly in a matter of

458 just a few months. Amino acid residue Asp614 is located in subdomain 2 (SD-2)

459 of the spike protein and forms a hydrogen bond and electrostatic interaction with

460 two residues in the S2 subunit of a neighboring protomer. Replacement of

461 aspartate with glycine would eliminate both interactions, thereby substantively

462 weakening the contact between the S1 and S2 subunits”

“virus strains with the Gly614 variant

466 may be better able to enter host cells, potentially resulting in enhanced spread.

467 Consistent with this idea, Korber et al. (66) showed that the Gly614 variant grows

468 to higher titer as pseudotyped virions. On initial diagnosis infected individuals had

469 lower RT-PCR cycle thresholds suggesting higher upper respiratory tract viral

470 loads. Our data (Figure 7) are fully consistent with that finding Zhang et al”

“we identified a

496 correlation between Rh factor-positive blood type and increased mortality and

497 length of ICU stay. (Supplemental Table 3). Thus, our data are consistent with

498 studies suggesting that there are host genetic factors that contribute to disease

499 severity and outcome”

“84 SARS-CoV-2 isolates causing disease in patients in the New York

504 City region (11). Those investigators concluded that the vast majority of disease

505 was caused by progeny of strains imported from Europe. Similarly, Bedford et al.

506 (10) reported that much of the COVID-19 disease in the Seattle, Washington

507 area was caused by strains that are progeny of a virus strain recently introduced

508 from China. “

“Icelandic and Brazilian investigators

513 documented that SARS-CoV-2 was imported by individuals traveling to or from

514 many European and other countries”

“hypothesis is that patient genotypes play an important role

529 in determining virus-human interactions and resulting pathology”

“available data

531 suggest that in the aggregate, host genetics does not play an overwhelming role

532 in determining outcome in the great majority of adult patients, once virus infection

533 is established”

“Inasmuch as remdesivir is now

544 being deployed widely to treat COVID-19 patients in Houston and elsewhere, our

545 findings suggest that the majority of SARS-CoV-2 strains currently circulating in

546 our region should be susceptible to this drug”

“although the strain sample size is

628 relatively large compared to other studies, the sample represents only about 10%

629 of all COVID-19 cases in metropolitan Houston documented in the study period”

“Although the full array of factors contributing

646 to the massive second wave in Houston is not known, it is possible that the

647 potential for increased transmissibility of SARS-CoV-2 with the Gly614 may have

648 played a role, as well as changes in behavior associated with the Memorial Day

and July 4th 649 holidays, and relaxation of some of the social constraints imposed

650 during the first wave.”

So one thing glossed over which IF you were not engrossed in all the other issues as the authors may have not been but look at the PCR test results in Fig 7 – IF they continue to test the second wave like the first wave it is very possible to increase the false positives as the demonstrated the amount of cycle threshold is so much less! Not only do you have to adapt to potential treatment but you will likely need to adapt testing if there are changes in the genome of the virus – at least I would think as non-expert but as analytical person who looks at data all the time.

Discussing false positives – we see it does occur – https://www.oregonlive.com/coronavirus/2020/09/oregons-youngest-suspected-coronavirus-victim-26-did-not-have-covid-special-cdc-test-shows.html?outputType=amp&__twitter_impression=true

“A 26-year-old Oregonian initially identified as the state’s youngest COVID-19 fatality tested negative for coronavirus during a specialized screening by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, state officials and family members said Tuesday.

Matthew Stephen Irvin died July 10 at his apartment in Yamhill County after a sudden and severe illness. Irvin visited the hospital before his death and tested negative for coronavirus”

“Now, lung samples collected during a private autopsy and sent to the CDC for specialized testing have also come back negative, the state medical examiner’s office confirmed to The Oregonian/OregonLive.

“He did not have COVID,” Irvin’s stepfather, Mike Laheyne, told the newsroom”

US still below 1K – India leads death chart 1141

CA leads at 123

California may lead but its Miami-Dade taking the lead for all US counties at 39. Something is up in Miami-Dade for sure. Likely need to spend time figuring out why things are so out of hand there. They do have days of 0 reporting so likely this is causing some of this fluctuations.

Perhaps the mega jump in confirmation in Harris county is due to my concern above with the new variant causing false positives given threshold set high?

Added S. Korea to Europe watch chart – showing the massive difference which is discussed in WSJ – https://www.wsj.com/articles/lessons-from-south-korea-on-how-to-manage-covid-11601044329?mod=e2tw

v

It would seem Dr. Fauci sounds like he is known about things but only mentions them after it gets some press – now we are talking about the Immune system / Tcells – which has been emphasized on the blog for months. https://amp.mcclatchydc.com/news/coronavirus/article244852012.html?

““One of the things that I don’t think has been emphasized very much at all during the attempt to address, scientifically, the COVID-19 outbreak, and vaccine development and testing, is that we’ve been focusing very exclusively on the antibody test,” Fauci told McClatchy in a recent interview. “There’s another equally important component of the immune system.”

The study, funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases which Fauci heads, is one of the first to identify T cell “cross reactivity” in individuals who have previously been exposed to one of the four endemic coronavirus strains, SARS or MERS.”

““If you look at it metaphorically as an army with different levels of defense, the antibodies prevent the virus from getting in. So that’s kind of like the first line of defense,” Fauci explained. “For those viruses that do escape and infect some cells, the T cells come in and kill the cells that are infected or block them.””

“Fauci noted that, while T cells last much longer than antibodies, they do not last forever. The more recently an individual was infected with another type of coronavirus, the greater likelihood of some protection from COVID-19.”

““It’s sort of like a one-two punch,” Fauci said. “It’s conceivable that the T cells that you’ve made in response a couple of years ago — three, four, five years ago — when you were exposed to a relatively benign coronavirus that causes the common cold, could actually hang around, and when you’re exposed to the SARS-Coronavirus-2, could have some degree of protection,” he said, referring to the novel coronavirus.”

“Dr. Shane Crotty, a virologist at the La Jolla Institute for Immunology and senior author on the Science study, said in an interview that the findings could mean that individuals with T cell memory from common colds are having less severe responses to COVID-19 exposure, with their immune systems responding to the new infection more quickly.

“At least part of that immune memory is from people’s immune systems seeing common cold coronaviruses before,” Crotty said. “Most people have had those four common cold coronaviruses some time in their life, and about half of people have immune memory that cross-reacts between those common cold coronaviruses and this new coronavirus.”

The initial findings on T cell memory are already helping global leaders in public health better understand why some regions of the world have been hit harder by the COVID-19 pandemic than others.

Bill Gates, co-founder of Microsoft and of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, told CNN over the weekend that “related coronavirus exposure” has begun to explain the regional discrepancies.”

So why spend so much on a vaccine discovery vs. discussion of reducing the hand sanitizer and ultraclean lifestyle? How about getting “vaccinated” by getting a common cold – ridiculous/preposterous you say? Jun 7th 2018 – https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6124400/

“Here, we showed that nasal inoculation of murine coronavirus (CoV) in the absence of direct lung infection primes the lung immune environment by recruiting activated monocytes (Ly6C+ inflammatory monocytes) and NK cells into the lungs. Unlike infiltration of these cells into directly infected lungs, a process that requires type I IFN signaling, nasally induced infiltration of Ly6C+ inflammatory monocytes into the lungs is IFN-I independent. These activated macrophages ingested antigen and migrated to pulmonary lymph nodes, and enhanced both innate and adaptive immunity after heterologous virus infection. Clinically, such nasal-only inoculation of MHV-1 failed to cause pneumonia but significantly reduced mortality and morbidity of lethal pneumonia caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome CoV (SARS-CoV) or influenza A virus. Together, the data indicate that the nose and upper airway remotely prime the lung immunity to protect the lungs from direct viral infections.”

“In order to examine such effects, we intranasally infected BALB/c mice with a pneumotropic murine coronavirus (CoV) delivered in a very small volume (1 μl in each nostril, 2% of normal inoculate volume) to avoid aspiration. We failed to recover any virus in the lungs during the course of the experiment using either real-time quantitative RT-PCR (qRT-PCR) or virus titration, and lung disease was absent. Strikingly, such limited local nasal infection significantly reduced the mortality rates after challenge with 2 heterologous pathogenic respiratory viruses, SARS-CoV (from 100% to 0%) and IAV (from 100% to 60%) and reduced clinical disease.”

“In summary, we demonstrate that nasal exposure to coronavirus remotely primes lung immunity in the absence of direct lung infection, and that such priming provides effective protection against subsequent lethal viral infection in the lungs. Our data reveal that early exposure to pathogens in the nose and upper airways can immunologically prepare the lungs for more rapid initiation of innate and adaptive immune response against homologous and heterologous infection.”

Shocking perhaps but I think it has been quite logical that the immune system requires continuous use else like anything else in the body it weakens. Common cold is actually a workout for the immune system – avoidance of the common cold weakens the immune system.

Concern about the side effects of the common cold vs. side effects of a vaccine rushed to be developed? https://southernmarylandchronicle.com/2020/09/24/nih-very-concerned-about-serious-side-effect-in-coronavirus-vaccine-trial/

“The Food and Drug Administration is weighing whether to follow British regulators in resuming a coronavirus vaccine trial that was halted when a participant suffered spinal cord damage, even as the National Institutes of Health has launched an investigation of the case.”

“A great deal of uncertainty remains about what happened to the unnamed patient, to the frustration of those avidly following the progress of vaccine testing. AstraZeneca, which is running the global trial of the vaccine it produced with Oxford University, said the trial volunteer recovered from severe inflammation of the spinal cord and is no longer hospitalized.

AstraZeneca has not confirmed that the patient was afflicted with transverse myelitis, but Nath and another neurologist said they understood this to be the case. Transverse myelitis produces a set of symptoms involving inflammation along the spinal cord that can cause pain, muscle weakness and paralysis”

“A volunteer in an earlier phase of the AstraZeneca trial experienced a similar side effect, but investigators discovered she had multiple sclerosis that was unrelated to the vaccination, according to Dr. Elliot Frohman, director of the Multiple Sclerosis & Neuroimmunology Center at the University of Texas.”

“In 1976, a massive swine flu vaccination program was halted when doctors began diagnosing a similar disorder, Guillain-Barré syndrome, in people who received the vaccine. At the time no one knew how common GBS was, so it was difficult to tell whether the episodes were related to the vaccine.

Eventually, scientists found that the vaccine increased the risk of the disorder by an additional one case among every 100,000 vaccinated patients. Typical seasonal flu vaccination raises the risk of GBS in about one additional case in every 1 million people.”

“If the AstraZeneca vaccine fails, the U.S. government is supporting six other COVID vaccines in the hope at least one will succeed. The potential problems with the AstraZeneca vaccine show this to be a wise investment, Adalja said.”

Looks like another risk/reward calculation that each individual needs to make IF they continue with this vaccine. Transverse Myelitis certainly does not sound good – pain muscle weakness and paralysis – ugh. Now they believe 1/100,000 – IF you are young there is decent odds it will asymptomatic and better yet if you can hold no comorbidity you are all good. Would you like to take a vaccine with the potential of going through what seems miserable with a 1/100000 chance?

For some good news – lets just ditch these stupid test that take hours/days to get result and look to mans best friend – https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2020/sep/24/close-to-100-accuracy-airport-enlists-sniffer-dogs-to-test-for-covid-19

“In the university’s preliminary tests, dogs – which have been successfully used to detect diseases such as cancer and diabetes – were able to identify the virus with nearly 100% accuracy, even days before before a patient developed symptoms.”

“Dogs are also able to identify Covid-19 from a much smaller molecular sample than PCR tests, Helsinki airport said, needing only 10-100 molecules to detect the presence of the virus compared with the 18m needed by laboratory equipment.”

“Authorities in Vantaa, the city where Helsinki’s international airport is located, said the pilot programme, which is due to last four months, was costing €300,000 (£274,000) , which it said was significantly lower than for laboratory-based testing methods.

Although Covid-19 is known to infect mink and cats, dogs do not have the receptors necessary for the virus to readily gain a foothold and do not appear to be easily infected, according to Hielm-Björkman. There is no evidence that they can transmit the virus to people or other animals.”

US death under 1K in the middle of the weak – impressive….Brazil and India over 1K

FL leads the US at 177

Miami-Dade continues to lead all counties at 36. Confirmation going back up in Cook IL

Added Cook IL – looks like slowly going into 2nd wave

Not stopping in Spain, France, Italy UK, Belgium – confirmation rising along with deaths…..

Will school opening cause more confirmations and therefore more deaths? – this is the big question in the fall. In order to answer that question you need to look at the issue at the very least on a county basis. Using Burbio school opening tracker we can establish start date and monitor the county confirmation and deaths from covid. The big trick will be to compare the appropriate counties – no point in comparing non-comparable dense counties. In order to set up the county compares – we had to find comparable within states. The below are our stab of selection by state. The other thing we are missing to actually formulize whether this is the right approach is excessive deaths, teen suicide, mental issues, etc… which is unfortunately not available by county – if someone knows let me know.

Hypothesis – School opening COULD be better given they can centralized and control the HVAC and other features vs. individual homes. IF home schooling actually isolated kids particularly teenager it could be better but the odds of isolating teenagers seems very low vs. a control school setting. Given the various issues not likely to see a significant difference from in person school vs. online school.

For TX we have the following – with the key county of isolation policy are Travis (Austin TX) and El Paso – others are more open from Bexar (San Antonio) and Fort Bend (Sugar Land – Suburb Houston TX) – Dallas and Harris noted – but Harris data management makes the graphs look bad so I left them off the charts. Also interesting to see the two counties that have no/limited in person are also the counties with lowest confirmations outside Ft. Bend.

So far Bexar is seeing an uptick in confirmation after 26 days of opening up school – whereas Travis and El Paso have flat lined.

For Florida we have identified Broward as the closed location vs. Pinellas and Palm Beach which are at 100% in person school offering. Broward does have a high confirmation rate relative to the other counties.

So far no different in covid cases

California had less choices as many do not have any in-school. San Diego has 20% compared to Santa Clara at 0 – interesting to see Santa Clara has more community activity (CAI) than San Diego but has no in-person schooling.

So far Santa Clara is the one looking like they have in-person schooling.

For Ohio we identified Lorain as no in-person schooling – vs. Stark and Mahoning. Once again interesting to see Lorain has a higher consumer activity index than Stark and Mahoning. Also Lorain has a lower confirmation level than both of the other counties.

Stark county did observe a spike in day 22 after school opening – but please NOTE the chart scale – it is very slight jump form 0.4 to 1.5 average 7 day moving average change.

In Colorado we will go with Jefferson vs. Adams – Adams has 0 in person Jefferson is at 50%. Adams is seeing almost double the confirmations than Jefferson.

So far nothing to noteworthy – Jefferson seems to be more flat lined than Adams.

Too good to be true – US back to over 1000 and now tops the death chart

Fl leads death at 202

Miami Dade leads the US counties at 42. Revision in Bexar confirmation occurred – 2845

Big 4 Harris County data is horrendous accounting it is no way the confirmations happened all on that day – probably not even enough testing to accomplish that – they need to go back and revise the time series.

Notice how quite it has been in terms of ICU beds issue in Houston/Harris county…..

France, Spain, Belgium, and UK still trending the wrong direction.

Saliva test working out – forget the news basher University of Illinois (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/10/health/university-illinois-covid.html) – they developed a plan and adapted as situation changed and is now showing 0.31% positivity rate – https://t.co/56CaofSDyj?amp=1

Once again measuring success/failure in news clip will produce defeat vs. adaptation. They are testing ~10K/day. Physicists were in charge not epidemiologist which caused an uproar – but seriously this is like the saying this is not as complicated as flying to the moon – which you do use physicist! “… there’s no way to hack logic.” Eric Snowden

I am sure they will likely see another surge at some point but they now have a method to identify and it’s a matter of adaptation and doing something vs doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Perhaps they get some far UVC lights….

Far UVC devices coming to market – https://nypost.com/2020/09/22/japanese-firm-develops-first-uv-lamp-that-safely-kills-coronavirus/

“A Japanese company that teamed up with Columbia University has developed a first-of-its-kind ultraviolet lamp that can kill the coronavirus without harming people’s health, according to a report.

Light equipment maker Ushio’s Care 222 UV lamp is expected to be used to disinfect heavily trafficked spaces where people run the risk of contracting the deadly bug, including buses, trains, elevators and offices, Japan Today reported.”

“When emitted from a ceiling, the UV from the new machine snuffs out 99 percent of viruses and bacteria in the air and up to a 32-square-foot surface of objects about eight feet away from the lamp, in six to seven minutes, Japan Today reported.

The 2.6-pound Care 222 device, which is about the size of a hardcover book, costs about $2,800.”

“Ushio said it only accepts orders from medical institutions for now, but that it will serve other customers once production catches up with demand.”

https://healthelighting.com/blogs/press-releases/boeing-licenses-ultraviolet-wand-to-healthe-inc-to-counter-covid-19

“Boeing [NYSE: BA] entered into a patent and technology license with Florida-based Healthe® Inc. today under which Healthe will manufacture an ultraviolet (UV) wand designed to sanitize airplane interiors. Boeing designed and developed the UV wand as part of the company’s Confident Travel Initiative (CTI) to support customers and enhance the safety and well-being of passengers and crews during the pandemic.”

“Healthe will produce and distribute the commercial wand, helping airlines and potentially others combat the coronavirus pandemic. The technology could be available for airlines in late fall. The device is an addition to sanitizing and protective measures already in place, which include the use of High Efficiency Particulate Air filters that trap more than 99.9% of particulates and prevent them from re-circulating back to the cabin.”

“The UV wand uses 222 nanometer UVC light. Research indicates 222 nanometer UVC inactivates pathogens effectively.

Using the self-contained apparatus that resembles a carry-on suitcase, crews can pass UV light over high-touch surfaces, sanitizing everywhere the light reaches. The UV wand is particularly effective in compact spaces and sanitizes a flight deck in less than 15 minutes.”

Seems we are entering the calm before the storm as US death below 1K

California leading the US at 133

LA County leading all US counties at 35. Bexar TX showing a big jump in confirmation 3196 – got to be some sort of timing.

Big4 – Harris county surge in confirmations certainly look likes an outlier – perhaps data catch up.

School Data is pulled in – coming soon analysis of what the data means….

Smart people coming together and removing the barrier of middlemen (institutions) to disseminate information – google doc discussing the fact aerosol transmission is the key mechanism of covid and what you can do about it hint: wear the damn mask – lets see how long they let this document live – https://docs.google.com/document/d/1fB5pysccOHvxphpTmCG_TGdytavMmc1cUumn8m0pwzo/edit?usp=drivesdk

Too much to pull out that I would like so enjoy reading it at your leisure – relatively easy read with good diagrams.

Bright note of covid – at some point focuses us to be healthy – and you will get so many additional bonuses to be healthy including living longer just because you telomeres don’t get impacted if you eat healthy – https://www.sciencealert.com/study-links-ultra-processed-junk-food-to-age-marker-in-chromosomes/amp?

“Three or more servings of so-called "ultra-processed food" per day doubled the odds that strands of DNA and proteins called telomeres, found on the end of chromosomes, would be shorter compared to people who rarely consumed such foods, scientists reported at the European and International Conference on Obesity.

Short telomeres are a marker of biological ageing at the cellular level, and the study suggests that diet is a factor in driving the cells to age faster.”

2020 is the year of Death for the US

Further examination of CDC weekly death data is quite alarming. The below graph is for all US – the red line is the average deaths for 2014-2019 – the green is the current year – and the light blue is the current year minus John Hopkins Covid Deaths. The second graph below shows gray line which is the difference of the light blue and the red which basically is all the additional deaths above and beyond covid more than the average. I also plot it with the covid JH deaths dark blue. You can see more people are dying of other things AND/OR covid deaths are being underreported – but that would seem highly unlikely at this point given the scrutiny.

So people ARE dying more than usual this year but the squeaky wheel of covid is taking all the attention.

Lets dissect that by the major states of covid plus I added MA – because in that state they actually are showing less death as covid deaths basically is killing off people so that cant die from the usual suspects. NY is interesting to see the surge in deaths came above and beyond covid – perhaps an undercounting back then? Of recent Week 30+ all the states are showing more deaths from non-covid classification. Do we care about lives? We need to figure this out quickly – is it suicides? Delayed cancer treatment? Delayed diagnosis? Accidents? Etc….

US still sub 500 deaths – India on top at 1053 – Argentina second place 429

CA leads at 40

The leading county in death border state county in TX Hidalgo at 30…and a HUGE jump in confirmation in Harris County TX 14129

Big 4 county – Harris with a big jump over 3% confirmed per capita now in Harris County. Currently death is not following therefore fatality rate dropping now under 2%

Not looking good for many European countries – the start of the second wave – a little earlier than I would have imagined. Deaths are rising.

Not sure how unique or novel this is as suggested from the article – but my point in showing it is to point out there is an engineering solution out of this mess – the inventors of the world need to go ahead and find ways to reduce viral load so we can move on with our lives. Perhaps Battery day announcement might include a way to reduce viral load so manufacturing facilities can stay open – Elon Musk saves the world? https://www.ndtv.com/telangana-news/telangana-innovator-m-narsimha-chary-creates-technology-that-kills-covid-19-within-15-seconds-using-uv-light-2298137

“"In the past, I have also developed a filament-less tube light. Looking at the state of the world under the impact of COVID-19, I developed a technology to neutralize and kill the virus within 15 seconds. With the coming of this pandemic, I decided to make a small contribution to this world, so I came up with an idea to neutralize and kill the coronavirus with the help of UV-C light," Mr Chary said.

"With support from TSIC and technical support from ARCI – International Advanced Research Centre for Powder Metallurgy and New Materials, this equipment has been developed and CSIR-CCMB provided me with a biological validation. At CSIR-CCMB, a test was conducted on the virus sample at 30 watts and 254 nano-meter range UV-C light, and the virus was placed 30 centimeters away from the UV-C light," Mr Chary said. He went on to explain that after this, the COVID-19 sample had been neutralized and killed within 15 seconds, along with many other harmful viruses and bacteria.

"I would like to make this equipment available for people from all classes of people and all walks of life. I request both the state and the central government of India to help me develop this and bring it to the reach of common people," he added.”

A great Sunday reporting day – US deaths only 227 – no one above 500. Huge confirmations number in the US 36.7K. DOES LOCKDOWN really work if confirmations just keep rising – or is it easy to say IF it wasn’t for lockdown it would be much more? As I have noted several times its not the stranger that is causing all these confirmations increases – it has been people you know therefore you spend indoor time with them then eventually viral load levels hit a point of infection. For you to get it from a stranger passing by in a large grocery store and you only spend less than an hour in the store with a mask on – the odds of reaching a level of infection is not likely very high.

Texas leads in confirmations and deaths for the US

LA county leads all the US counties in death 23. Over half of the confirmations increases all came from Bexar County (San Antonio) which has been a mess in terms of reporting (2581).

Big 4 counties are all trending down in deaths. Confirmations are down significantly from peak. If you are in LA or Maricopa and you meet with 10 people – very high chance that 1 of them has been confirmed with covid.

Madrid clearly is in a problem mode with death rising along with confirmations. England has the confirmation rising but death is slow to follow. Whereas NY has flat lined.