I’ll bet they’re Eagles fans.

(Written on 2020年 07月 17日)(Permalink)

Masks probably are required through the terminal. But I suspect some people, for whatever reason, want to take them off once they board. They may figure that once the plane’s in the air there’s nothing that can be done to them.

(Written on 2020年 07月 10日)(Permalink)

Spirit must figure that treating one passenger brilliantly offsets treating every other passenger like garbage. Good luck with that, Spirit.

(Written on 2020年 07月 10日)(Permalink)

Where did you get that 20,000,000 number? From what I can see (CDC and WHO data) that is 20 to 40 times higher than a normal worldwide flu number. And the US number for this season is thought to be around 16,000 (excluding Covid-19, of course).

(Written on 2020年 03月 16日)(Permalink)

To slow the virus's spread. It's here, but not everyone has it yet. Slowing community transmission is a good thing.

(Written on 2020年 03月 16日)(Permalink)

SARS was novel but was much less transmissible. H1N1 wasn't novel (but hadn't been seen in quite a while) but was much less severe, with a fatality rate much like "regular" flu. What makes Covid-19 daunting is its transmissibility (R0 of 2.3 was the last best estimate I've seen), severity (fatality rate of between 1 and 4%, depending on your population and whether your health system gets overrun like Italy and Iran) and the fact that you can be asymptomatic and contagious for days. Happily, the US is finally taking some measures to tamp down the spread. I'll be very happy if those work. We'll know in a few weeks. But we have so many infected but untested/diagnosed people that we really don't know how bad this has gotten.

(Written on 2020年 03月 16日)(Permalink)

Think about that 1 in 6 number. A lot of people get vaccinated for the flu, and there a very few novel flu strains, so there are factors that suppress that number. Those factors don’t apply here. So we’re bound to be higher than 1 in 6. So let’s say we go from 1 in 6 to 1 in 4, not a huge jump. Do the math: how many deaths?

(Written on 2020年 03月 13日)(Permalink)

Recall that unlike the flu, this virus is encountering a population with zero natural immunity and no vaccine. With an R0 of 2-3 this will run through entire populations unless they take VERY aggressive measures to prevent spread. Happily, a few of those have been implemented: rules against large assemblies and the like. Those are a start. The travel bans don’t hurt but don’t help much either, since now we’re in the community transmission phase of this. (Ohio’s Dept of Health estimates Ohio has >100000 cases right now. This is bad.

(Written on 2020年 03月 13日)(Permalink)

Merely told her people to assume 50-70% of their population will get it. It’s already widespread here, although for lack of testing we don’t how how widespread, exactly. I don’t want to be right about this but I don’t see what I have wrong.

(Written on 2020年 03月 13日)(Permalink)

If the “add a zero” outcome was the over-and-under, I’d take the over. Simple math: assume 1/3 of Americans infected. (That is NOT an aggressive assumption.) Assume a 1% fatality rate. (Again, a pretty favorable assumption.) What’s 1% of 110,000,000 people? This assumes we don’t go the route of Italy, where the death rate will probably be closer to 4%.

(Written on 2020年 03月 13日)(Permalink)