261 thoughts to “Open Thread Non-Petroleum, March 19, 2020”

  1. Exponential (ice) decay? ?

    GREENLAND’S MELTING ICE RAISED GLOBAL SEA LEVEL BY 2.2MM IN TWO MONTHS

    Last year’s summer was so warm that it helped trigger the loss of 600bn tons of ice from Greenland – enough to raise global sea levels by 2.2mm in just two months. “We knew this past summer had been particularly warm in Greenland, melting every corner of the ice sheet, but the numbers are enormous,” said Isabella Velicogna, a professor of Earth system science at University of California Irvine and lead author of the new study, which drew upon measurements taken by Nasa’s Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (Grace) satellite mission and its upgraded successor, Grace Follow-On.”

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/feb/07/antarctica-logs-hottest-temperature-on-record-with-a-reading-of-183c

    1. Loss of ice is interesting for long term flooding of low lying regions and decreasing albedo, but not as interesting as the major drivers of Arctic Amplification such as increased water vapor and increased cloudiness.

      Enhanced wintertime greenhouse effect reinforcing Arctic amplification and initial sea-ice melting
      Sea-ice albedo feedback caused by the continuously shrinking summer sea ice potentially increasing the absorption of shortwave radiation is also believed to play a critical role in recent Arctic amplification14–17. But certain model simulations have indicated that sea-ice albedo feedback was likely not the dominant factor18, 19 – robust warming amplification still occurs in the Arctic in the absence of albedo feedback20, 21. Recently, downward longwave radiation (LWD) at the surface has been suggested as an important driver of Arctic winter warming and summer sea-ice dynamics19, 22–26. Because LWD is affected by several highly correlated climatic factors, including atmospheric temperature, and the amounts of water vapor and cloudiness27, which of these factors has been the fundamental force driving Arctic amplification is still under debate.

      Arctic wintertime (from December to May) can generate a total of 2.99 W m−2 per decade (0.61 W m−2 per decade from cloudiness and 2.38 W m−2 per decade from water vapor) in additional longwave radiative forcing, and the sum of the two totally contributed 81% of the linear trend of LWD (3.70 W m−2 per decade). This finding indicates that the increase of wintertime surface LWD in the Arctic is mainly resulted from the enhanced greenhouse effect by increased amounts of water vapor and cloudiness.

      https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5559487/

      Svalburg recieves more than 200 w/m2 of downwelling LWR in the darkness of January.
      The thickness of the electromagnetic atmospheric blanket is increasing.

    2. Do we know, yet, what’s under that ice? I’ve been thinking alot lately about ancient reptilian life thawing out.

      1. Bacteria, virus, fungal spores, etc, can last an almost incredibly long time .
        There will be some bacteria and maybe other microscopic forms of life IN the ice, dormant.

        And there will be other kinds actively living at the bottom or near the bottom of the ice, and in the ground below the ice, where it’s warm enough for active metabolism, rather than just dormancy.

        But Godzilla ain’t coming to get ya.

      2. The scariest things under the ice are oil, natural gas and other minerals. Mad rush to extract it all will be the biggest multiplier of global warming.

        1. Those minerals are worth much more than global warming, which may be an autonomous process by then anyhow.

          1. “Those minerals are worth much more than global warming,”
            Hey Alex, we need a detailed explanation for that one.

          2. ” worth much more than global warming” Apparently worth more to you than your grandchildren.

  2. England

    Just went to supermarket. Carpark full and had to find someone coming out to take their trolley once they loaded their car.In supermarket no potatoes, no rice, no carrots no rice no pasta no milk. Two people said they waited 2 hours to check out.
    No home deliveries available for 3 weeks.
    All restaurants closed.
    Pity government did not put in place laws on bulk buying before closing restaurants and pubs.
    I am not scared of the virus as it kills so few people under 60 and the vast majority of over 60 survive:
    But this feels close to anarchy and many elderly and frail people will soon have no food.

    1. You forgot tea bags, all gone as well. Here in Ireland the supermarkets have started their own restrictions and have a shopping hour for elderly. Hope it helps. But the Gov’s were way behind the curve on this. Am I surprised, no.

    2. More doctors disappearing (not in offices) here in my neck of the woods (NE US). Appointments will be spread out if possible in near future. First death in my county from C0vid-19. Suspect more closure of doctor offices in near future. Malls being closed, schools closed, limited travel, many retail and restaurant closed (except for takeout). Did not hear any early morning travel on the nearby roads, people are not working.

      One hundred years ago and more, quarantine was SOP for reducing the spread of infectious disease.
      Quarantines used to be enforced for polio, scarlet fever
      https://www.ellwoodcityledger.com/5c65d6d6-873f-11e6-b596-131d42ad816f.html

      1. We often have to wait a week or 2 weeks to see a doctor before the virus took hold. Once Doctors start getting sick only the very ill will get help, maybe.

        Have been told by govenment that an antibody test is close, which would show how has had the virus and therefore go back to work. Particularly carers of elderly and sick.

        I guess people will get a card similar to the 1945 scarlet fever card to allow them to go anywhere they wish

    3. Don’t know if it has changed since I left but supermarkets used to stock the shelves at night for the next day so a big rush would tend to empty the shelves until the next night even if there was stock at the back. Here, they stock all the time, much of the time it is the product companies doing the stocking eg the Sello Rojo Milk lady filling the fridges with milk. A bit of a pain picking your way around them but it means there is a constant supply to the shelves.

      NAOM

      1. Where I’m at in the U.S., all the groceries which are normally open 24 hours have switched to a closing schedule. It’s simply to allow the restocking to happen without the interference of the anomalous midnight crowds.

        1. Yeash! How much of those veggies will end up in the bin? Totally crazy. I saw this coming weeks and weeks ago and have been gradually building up supplies, I have just a few items left to top up, not big piles, then it is pure maintenance mode keeping topped up. We have a few greengrocers around here and all the tiendas carry stock so fruit and veg should be ok and much is local grown. As backup, I have several bags of frozen in the freezer. Good luck over there.

          NAOM

        2. From the link I posted below

          Cighetti says panic buying was one of the first social symptoms of the epidemic.

          “It’s difficult to behave well under pressure,” he says. What stopped people hoarding food was when the supermarkets demonstrated there was no shortage – by constantly and visibly re-stocking shops.

          Once people were confident there were no problems with the food supply, the “panicking behaviour” stopped.

          NAOM

  4. Shopping report from Puerto Vallarta

    Well, my plan A to just go to Wallymart did not stand up to meeting the enemy. They just didn’t have half the stuff on my list, not because of shortages but that is normal, here, and I end up going to half a dozen different places to shop each week. Not particularly busy, just a normal slightly busy day. There is plenty of toilet paper and bleach around but NO wipes of any sort other than baby bum polishers. No real signs of panic buying, no piled carts, no big queues at the checkouts. One exception, one gringo with a cart half full of frozen bagels – why?

    Tips I have learned. Take paper towels tor dry your hands after using sanitiser or watch out when picking up slippy items. Wipe the handle and tops of sides of your shopping trolley with the hand sanitiser, you don’t know what has touched them. Paper towels of the sort used in towel dispensers are a good idea for your home washroom when post-shopping washing your hands and need to turn taps, knobs etc.

    Differences
    Wallymart
    Little sanitiser, one bottle at the entrance. No other health precautions. Some shortages BUT it is just after a public holiday where people buy lots of stuff and stocks are normally low. Lots of frantic shelf filling with some shelves just the front row filled to look like they were full. Meat very empty BUT normal after a busy long weekend. Avoided frozen veg as the freezer doors were not closing properly and there was about an inch of hoar frost over stuff – ew.

    La Comer
    LOTS of sanitiser, two ranks on the way in and one on the exit. One person assigned to sterilise the handles of the trolleys as you entered. All staff wearing masks, poor quality but worn properly over mouth and nose. All cashiers and packers wearing latex gloves. Some shelf filling but not much more than normal, most shelves looked stocked. Lots of staff filling home delivery orders.

    Generally, streets seem about the same, not seeing many masks about but not more than normal (people wear them with some illnesses). Not sure about the church fiesta, no notices but some of the fair has left. General sense of normalcy, a bit like waiting for a hurricane to arrive.

    NAOM

    1. And then the supply side and demand side shocks start settling in while the banking system is almost out of rope.

  6. First COVID-19 death in Jamaica, a straight import:

    COVID-19 DEATH JOLTS FAMILY – 79-y-o man from New York wanted to be buried in Jamaica

    The man, whose name The Gleaner will not disclose because of the risk of stigma to his relatives, hails from Corn Piece, Clarendon, and travelled to the island on Thursday, March 12, along with his wife, son, and grandson, to conduct business. They arrived from New York, where he lives.

    His death was announced during a press conference at Jamaica House in St Andrew yesterday, where he was one of two persons confirmed to have contracted the novel coronavirus out of a testing pool of 11. The total number of confirmed cases here has now reached 15.

    The man ailed from diabetes and hypertension and presented to the Lionel Town Hospital on March 16 with fever, cough, and shortness of breath, said Chief Medical Officer Jacquiline Bisasor-McKenzie. He also suffered from weakness in the joints.

    “At that time, he was noted to be critically ill and was transferred to the Mandeville Public General Hospital, where was isolated and treated,” she added.

    It just so happens I was in Mandeville yesterday as part of a small team doing some work. Most businesses have personnel at the entrances spraying alcohol on the hands of people entering. A lost less traffic at the fast food drive through lanes we could observe from where we were working. A lot less traffic on the roads. Schools, universities, colleges etc. are all closed and the public has been advised to limit gatherings to less than 20 people, weddings and funerals advised to only have close family in attendance. I guess all of this will slow the spread from all the folks flying in from hot spots like New York, South Florida and the UK.

    On a somewhat lighter note, this was the headline in yesterday afternoon’s edition of the local scandal rag:

    Sex workers say COVID-19 hurting business

    Anyone up to trying to decipher the Jamaica dialect can follow the link for a laugh!

    The leading quote:

    “Whole heap a di man wah me use to see dem nah come again. But me have a few client who might still come regardless of what a gwan with the coronavirus. But right now, cause tings so slow, me affi add on a likkle money so me can mek a food,”

    Translation:

    A whole lot of the men that I used to see are not coming anymore. But I have a few clients who might still come regardless of what is going on with the coronavirus. But right now, because things are so slow, I have to add on a little money so I can make some money”

    Wall Street speak:

    There has been a significant decrease in market activity. However there are still participants engaging in the markets despite the threat of the coronavirus. Due to the decrease in the volume of business vendors have been forced to adjust their prices to try and maintain revenues.

  7. Thanks to IslandBoy, NAOM, and Wayne for giving us a taste of what you are seeing locally. It is useful to hear what is going on in various locales.

    Governor just announced statewide shelter in place for California.

      1. Stay safe for you and your dad OFM.

        Best wishes to all the posters on this board.

        We moved off the farm twelve months ago tomorrow . . . damn.

        Cheers.

    2. They maybe anecdotes but by posting these tales it lets people see what is going on without all the media crap. As I live in a big tourist area I will try to keep posting what I am seeing so those who may be interested in visiting (NO, don’t ask my opinion on that) know what is happening.

      NAOM

    3. Some kind of curfew in Bavaria starting midnight today.
      You’re still allowed to go outside, but only alone or with immediate family.
      Stores and restaurants closed unless providing essential goods and food.

      Since it’s Germany, you’re still allowed to go to work, though 🙂

      As this effectively denies the constitutional right to assemble peacefully, it would be illegal were it not due to an infectious disease.

      At least one other state is expected to do the same soon.

      The weather was great in the last few days and lots of idiots were partying while the number of infected is still increasing exponentially. “Corona-Party” is a new word.
      I fully expected Merkel to announce a federal curfew in her speech on wednesday, but she expected people to be less stupid than they are.

      1. “expected people to be less stupid than they are”
        People constantly live down to my lowest expectations. You can plan for idiots but not for bloody idiots.

        NAOM

      2. In the UK restaurants will still be able to serve take away food and deliver. That is great if you have money.
        There are 5 million people in this country who are effectively self employed and have zero hour contracts.
        So many people in restaurants will be let go, you do not need 20 waiters when only take away is being handed out.

        I still think fit and healthy people under 60 should continue as they are. Isolate the at risk groups.

        Once everyone who is fit has had the virus the elderly would not catch it from anyone.

      3. there is a point to having a “Corona Party” , like a measles party for kids .

        IF the science is correct and people younger than 50 will not get sever infections ( I assume vulnerable groups are excluded here ) then allowing the 20-30 year olds to catch the virus and recover would help stop the advance .

        would I risk it ? hmm, too early , not enough data .

        as for 20-30 year olds ? their more interested in getting laid…..

        forbin

        1. There is a reason that people didn’t have Polio parties.

          Covid-19 does cause severe illness in some under-50’s, and lung damage which may or may not be permanent in some recovered cases. It also takes 2 weeks to show obvious symptoms, so you would either have to quarantine immediately or walk around potentially transmitting covertly.

          The best solution is to avoid it as long as possible so that medical services are not overwhelmed.

        2. The science is that children can have a VERY severe illness from the infection. What you are suggesting is extremely dangerous, this is not a disease that has consequences for 1 in a million people or even 1 in 100,000, it is 1 in 100 down to 1 in 10.

          NAOM

          1. naom

            Isolate the elderly and those with health conditions

            The information coming from Scientists I have heard is that children appear to be extraordinarily immune to this.

            Excluding those with lung, heart conditions young Adults are pretty well immune also. If they all built up an immunity to this virus then we can move on.

            At the moment, what are we going to do lock down for ever??

            It is now spreading through South America and Africa and India.

            How do you stop this coming back?

            1. No, while it is true that, in children and young people, the illness and serious cases are less they are not immune. While the rates are lower than those for groups compared to older people the rates are still very high and children can still be hit hard and die. Even if they are immune then they can act as superspreaders.

              It would be very wise to take as much care isolating children as their parents. If people assume that children are immune and let them get exposed (like measles parties), at the least, they could infect and kill their parents and, at worst, die themselves.

              There is no news on immunity and some suggestion that recovered people can catch it again although it is possible that that is lingering virus. Relying on built up immunity is a bad plan and does not take into account mutations of the virus.

              Ok, these are anecdotal but show that it is not just the older age groups are at risk, I found a better breakdown but it was almost a month old so did not include it.

              https://nypost.com/2020/03/20/majority-of-nycs-coronavirus-cases-are-men-between-18-and-49-years-old/

              https://www.9and10news.com/2020/03/20/coronavirus-demographics/

              How to stop it? Vaccination.

              NAOM

          2. “The science is that children can have a VERY severe illness from the infection.”

            No, kids have a very very high chance not to get a severe illness. That is science. 🙂

            1. Tell that to the one that just died and the one on the ventilator and the others that do not make the headlines. They are not immune and they CAN have very serious illnesses. If you said less I could agree but I cannot agree with ‘very, very’. It would be very foolish to allow exposure on the premise of low likelihood, besides they can act as superspreaders and maybe kill their parents. Please see my post below on children.

              NAOM

  8. Two Republican Senators outed as trading on insider information already, lol.
    I’m hoping the Democrats aren’t quite so stupid, or arrogant.

    1. FOUR top level Republicans now outed on insider trading.
      I sure would like to know what’s going on inside the socalled trump organization.

      I’m now convinced this thing is going to kill a LOT of people.

      The saddest part of it is that orangutan fans don’t get it, and have ALREADY forgotten that their fearless leader was telling them it was just another libtard hoax to get him a couple or three weeks back.

      But at least there’s one small bright spot in this huge black cloud.
      I hate to be so cynical, especially given that so many of my own family and acquaintances are old and ignorant, but they are the ones prone to voting for the orangutan.

      A million or so of them may be dead before election day. Maybe more. I’m being told by a couple of medical professionals I know well, personally, off the record, that they think more than a million people are sure to die.

      Anybody who is already seriously ill with a potentially deadly chronic problem, such as diabetes, cancer, COPD, aids, etc, is as likely as not to die if they get CV19 , even if they can get into a hospital, if they are past about sixty or so.

      The question is how many people will get it. It’s definitely loose in just about every town in the country now. Whether we can suppress it to the point that the hospitals won’t be swamped follows the how many question.

      Unless the people of this country, taken collectively are even dumber than I usually judge them to be, the R’s are very likely to lose their asses on election day.

      1. OFM,

        Unfortunately the average US citizen is not very bright. Not a perfect system, but the best we have at present. A better system would be one person, one vote for President and representation in the House of Representatives where each representative represents about the same number of people, regardless of State. Unfortunately the Constitution was set up in a way to ensure gridlock and as little effective government that reflects the will of the majority of the population.

        1. Usually I compare the U.S. Constitution to a 230 year old house that was never renovated or modernized but only had a few more wings added.

          Don’t get me wrong: It was revolutionary for its time.

          But 230 years is a long time to realize that some stuff needs to be written more clearly (e.g. the 2nd Amendment) and some stuff just did not stand the test of time (e.g. not having universal suffrage in the constitution).

          Election of the Grifter-in-chief should have caused intelligent people to realize that the constitution needs some renovation by now.

          2. Any system, be it political or religious, that is not based upon nature and the preservation of the living planet is a recipe for disaster. All governments, constitutions, and most religions need to be tossed and replaced with real, workable, down to earth principles that promote long term life on this planet.

        2. Hi Dennis,
          I’m fairly sure only a few long term incumbents in either party will lose their seat.

          But there are a a bunch of places purple rather than red or blue, and the D’s need only gain three or four seats in the Senate and hold the House to regain control of the government, even if they don’t win the WH.

          I’m thinking the D’s are likely to win a lot of down ticket races now, races that were at best only long shots for them a month or two back.

          Losing control of a governor ship, a state assembly, or a city council really hurts,cumulatively, over the long run, and the R’s are imo going to bear the major portion of the hurt in November.

          But I have to agree with you. Most of our fellow citizens don’t have more than a vague idea what the score is.

          1. I refuse to make any optimistic predictions on the coming election. I think everyone who is appalled by the Trump presidency should stay scared and find something to do to get rid of him, Republican control of the Senate and to maintain Democratic control of the House. I say that with no enthusiasm for the D party but they are by far the lesser of two evils.

        3. I am with you all the way.

          “A better system would be one person, one vote for President and representation in the House of Representatives where each representative represents about the same number of people, regardless of State. ”

          Assuming we get thru the next couple of election cycles still more or less whole and functional, I can see the electoral college being eliminated, and maybe even Senators elected in proportion to population. We already have roughly proportional representation as voters in the House.

          Another major reform we need is to find a way to eliminate gerrymandering. I’m not a computer guy, but I’m fairly sure a computer program, one well written by honest programmers, could be used to draw up voting districts that are fair to everybody…. and such proposed district maps could at least be used as the starting point in redrawing districts.

          But in any case if we make it ok thru the next couple of decades, the hardest part of the hard core R coalition will be dead, and replaced by younger voters who are decidedly more liberal than any previous generation. My generation is dying off fast, and ONLY ONE person in my parent’s generation in my known extended family is still alive…… my bedridden father.

          In ten years the remainder of my generation that’s ignorant and hard up will be looking at a VERY hard choice…. switch parties, or live on ever smaller means, with ever shrinking safety net benefits. Enough of them will hopefully be smart enough to figure it out.

          Times ARE changing. I have a dozen guns, handed down, as sacred trusts, just like family Bibles, or pictures of parents and babies, etc, from generation to generation… and I don’t really know what I’m going to do with them. There’s hardly anybody left in the family who would cherish them for what they are, with the family birth rate falling like a rock and the younger people moving into the burbs and cities, giving up the vanishing country life style and means of earning a living, MAYBE having time to go fishing a few days while on vacation.

          There simply WEREN’T all that many flower children back in the sixties, as a percentage of the population. I was around back then, I know. Most of us were pretty conventional, except about the Vietnam War, and unless we ( and our girls, and families ) were in the draft subject population, not all that many of us really gave a shit about the war anyway.

          This is not to say that determined, persistent, long term action by that minority of people didn’t eventually turn the country against the war, leading to our troops coming home, defeated or job unfinished, depending on your personal pov.

      2. “forgotten that their fearless leader was telling them it was just another libtard hoax”
        No, they haven’t forgotten, that’s why they are behaving so badly and ignoring advice.

        NAOM

  9. From my Daughter in Italy this morning:

    “It is impossible to complain about life at home, when I see the trucks of coffins making their way to be cremated, because they have run out of room in morgues. Yesterday Italy exceeded the total number of deaths they had in China — which has included something like 15 doctors.

    They say it is peaking here in the North, but are waiting for the explosion to come in the South, with all the lunatics who decided to go home, and take it to their families. There is also the idea that heat may help diminish the strength of the virus, which has often saved the mediterranean basin from disease in the past. And it is warming up around here, so we have to wait and see…

    Meanwhile, we are all in good health.

    It can’t get much better than that.”

    1. I wish her the best of luck and all else here who are living under this cloud.

      NAOM

    3. Doug,

      My best wishes go out to your daughter and her family. And to you of course.

    4. Doug,

      Best wishes for you, your family. And all here on peakoilbarrel.com

      “There is also the idea that heat may help diminish the strength of the virus, which has often saved the mediterranean basin from disease in the past.“

      Yes, though it was mentioned on a Dutch tv channel that it is a fable to believe that a virus is less transmittable in warm weather, it is about this:
      Above 23 C the virus (a virus) liquefies a little, and becomes then less transmittable if present on surfaces for a little while. Many people get infected after contact with door handles, etc and afterwards touching their face.
      If an infected person coughs or sneezes and somebody is within two meters or so distance, the outside temperature makes no difference for immediate transmission of course.

      .

        1. Yes, inderdaad WeekendPeak. But living and working in Curaçao
          Take care en blijf gezond !

      2. “There is also the idea that heat may help diminish the strength of the virus, which has often saved the mediterranean basin from disease in the past.“

        My go to source for information on such matters is Dr. Michael F Hollick who has lots of videos on YouTube most of which are a fairly standard presentation on how vitamin D is obtained in the body and the role it plays in health. He points out that the further away one goes from the equator, the less vitamin D is made from sun exposure in the winter. Following Hollick’s logic, it is no coincidence that flu outbreaks tend to happen after periods of low sunshine, winter outside the tropics and rainy seasons. I would go for that explanation rather than:

        “Above 23 C the virus (a virus) liquefies a little, and becomes then less transmittable if present on surfaces for a little while. “

        The idea above will be extremely difficult to prove IMO.

        New YouTube sensation, retired British nurse, John Campbell Phd. also supports the vitamin D idea in the following video:

        Vitamin D and immunity

        1. islandboy,

          Maybe.
          Certainly far away from the equator most people have suboptimal vitamin D serum levels in the winter. Generally speaking, a lot of people have suboptimal vitamin D levels.

          About “proving the temperature effect” I found following article:

          The Effects of Temperature and Relative Humidity on the Viability of the SARS Coronavirus

          The main route of transmission of SARS CoV infection is presumed to be respiratory droplets. However the virus is also detectable in other body fluids and excreta. The stability of the virus at different temperatures and relative humidity on smooth surfaces were studied. The dried virus on smooth surfaces retained its viability for over 5 days at temperatures of 22-25°C and relative humidity of 40-50%, that is, typical air-conditioned environments. However, virus viability was rapidly lost (>3 log(10)) at higher temperatures and higher relative humidity (e.g., 38°C, and relative humidity of >95%). The better stability of SARS coronavirus at low temperature and low humidity environment may facilitate its transmission in community in subtropical area (such as Hong Kong) during the spring and in air-conditioned environments. It may also explain why some Asian countries in tropical area (such as Malaysia, Indonesia or Thailand) with high temperature and high relative humidity environment did not have major community outbreaks of SARS.

          For covid-19 I don’t remember if I read or heard the 23 C limit.
          Regarding winter and summer transmission rate it is also possible that in the summer the rate is lower because more people spend more time outside. Probably it is a combination of all three mentioned factors.

          1. I stand corrected but my suspicions were based on the fact that viruses are so small that the only way to see them was through the use of electron microscopy. I wonder how likely it is that they will look any different at different temperatures. I’m not saying it’s not possible but, would love to see the images that prove it.

            A collection of images of the COVID-19 virus, from which the image below was taken, can be viewed at the following link.

            https://www.flickr.com/photos/niaid/albums/72157712914621487/with/49531042877/

          2. “However the virus is also detectable in other body fluids and excreta. The stability of the virus at different temperatures and relative humidity on smooth surfaces were studied.”

            1) There is no evidence, that other body fluids are infectious. Here the guys in Munich and Berlin produced hard data.

            2) The stabilty study was an technical study with limited practical relevance. Check the Drosten podcasts (German), he discussed the issue of study design in depth. For practical considerations there is no real difference for various surfaces and most pathogens are dead within hours.

            1. The cruise liner that had a large number of cases was tested and the virus was found up to 17 days later.

              NAOM

            2. NAOM

              Yes, but a virus must have kept the integrity to be able to enter a living cell. On certain hard surfaces that seems to be the case for at least several days, the number of hours depending on temperature and humidity.

            3. “For practical considerations there is no real difference for various surfaces and most pathogens are dead within hours.“

              Ulenspiegel,

              Let’s first define life. According to the online Merriam-Webster Dictionary, life is “an organismic state characterized by capacity for metabolism, growth, reaction to stimuli, and reproduction.”

              Viruses are not living things. Viruses are complicated assemblies of molecules, including proteins, nucleic acids, lipids, and carbohydrates, but on their own they can do nothing until they enter a living cell. Without cells, viruses would not be able to multiply. Therefore, viruses are not living things.

    5. I suppose this is as good a point as any to insert my rant:

      In the last open petroleum thread (March 8) There was a discussion about corona virus in which I posted three comments about vitamin C and it’s role in combating infectious diseases like coronaviruses. Strangely enough, the news I am getting from my sources doers not seem to be making much in the way of headlines or getting covered on the evening news. On the contrary, when I do a search on Google for “vitamn c covid 19”, the top result is “Coronavirus: It’s Time To Debunk Claims That Vitamin C Could Cure It”, the next three results for me are;

      “Coronavirus | How to Prevent Coronavirus COVID-19” (actual headline “Can Vitamins and Supplements Help Protect You From Coronavirus?”),
      “Amid COVID-19 concerns, researcher warns: don’t guzzle your vitamins” and
      “Why vitamin C won’t ‘boost’ your immune system against the coronavirus”.

      Those headlines don’t sound very positive, do they? Due to the way Google search algorithms tailor search results to fit the profile of each user, results will vary. Apart from that, Google search results change as content is added to the web so I have noticed a slight improvement in the visibility of positive news about vitamin C. Still the search results appear predominantly negative or cautionary.

      Being a staunch believer in the power of nutrition and nutritional supplements to combat disease I prefer to get my news on such matters from web sites like the Orthomolecular Medicine News Service (OMNS):

      http://orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/index.shtml

      This particular web site covers news on the front of nutritional medicine so it has it’s obvious biases and one can bear those in mind when reading. What gets me is all the sources that claim to be objective and without biases. The following web page has links to articles that expose the role that the WHO is playing in what I consider to be censorship of news on the positive effects of vitamin supplements, under the heading “News of vitamin C research for COVID-19 is being actively suppressed”:

      https://www.europereloaded.com/three-iv-vitamin-c-research-studies-approved-for-treating-covid-19/

      There are numerous stories at the OMNS web page about the work from the epicenter of the outbreak of a Chinese born physician Dr. Richard Cheng. Dr. Cheng has a YouTube channel at the following link:

      https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCASvIerKRpknoJYTSHsitJQ

      I invite readers to go to the links I have provide and look at the information presented, especially the most recent video uploaded by Dr. Cheng. I suggest that there is something very strange, even sinister going on here! If what Dr. Cheng is reporting is true, why is it not making headlines in the mainstream media? If he is spreading misinformation, why is it not being taken down? According to the OMNS:

      Shanghai Government Officially Recommends Vitamin C for COVID-19

      2. islandboy,

        I commented on that thread that in a university hospital in Holland they gave, and maybe still give, some infected patients high doses vitamin C infuse (24 g/day) and didn’t see quicker recovery. A sort of trial with few patients, so no definite conclusion possible. Maybe some would have died without the vitamin C infusion. However definitely one could say that if they see clear positive results they would try to give it to every infected person.

        1. Perhaps if people took the Vit C before infected they may fight it better and have mild symptoms as some appear to have. It boosts their immune systems before infection. Just a thought.

    6. Hi Doug

      Best wishes to you Daughter, my mother’s family are from near Milan.

      Times are difficult but I am sure this will pass.

  10. If he is going to insist on being spiteful and fanning racial hatred (the ‘chinese virus’),
    then he has earned a name in the history books-
    The Trump Pandemic

    btw- did any of you acknowledge that his signature campaign against Obama, known as birther movement,
    was an overtly racist expression of hate? Or was this behavior accepted as ok, or even rewarded with a vote, in your culture? It is not ok in mine!

    1. The Trump phenomena, in my mind, is a continuation of what got Obama elected in 2008; a breakdown in the population at large believing that the government is working for them. In the case of Obama how much farther from business-as-usual can you get than a relatively inexperienced black man? He tried to do “the right thing” but was ill-equipped to deal with so many things wrong with the economy and the underlying culture. He will get a lot of credit in the future for the ACA, but not much more. He also brought out the worst in the racist ignorami part of the society.

      And that’s where Trump entered the stage. He was able to energize the latent and emerging fear in the white electorate that they were losing their long held privileged position and has been a master at keeping that energy alive. His calling corona virus the China virus is a perfect example of his incomparable skill at creating an enemy out of nowhere and, at the same time, deflecting scrutiny away from his ineptitude.

      Maybe the most depressing aspect to me is that, in a recent poll, 51% of white males at all education levels approve of his performance.

      1. I not sure I buy that whole story (people distrusted government long long before Obama, as far back as governance goes), but trump and his admin were stuck in the mud far too long on this issue. They had to drag him along kicking and screaming.
        Thats what happens when you think that everything not in your favor is a hoax, when you do not subscribe to science, and when you never take responsibility for any problem in your life.
        So he gets to be famous- The Trump Pandemic

      2. Yes,

        What would a Constitutional Law Professor know about running the U.S. govt?

        The 1st black person to become the head of Harvard Law Review is likely wholly unequipped to be the 1st black POTUS.

        Who would choose a Nuclear Physicist to head the Dept of Energy? Someone who has no idea how to delegate that’s who!

        The contrast is obvious. Rick Perry, who campaigned on eliminating the Dept of Energy entirely, later admitted he didn’t know it’s primary role is ensuring the safety of the nuclear arsenal. A much better choice!

        Barack Obama was so feeble that his Presidency saw a disasterous 175% rise in the stock market, a puny 8.9 million jobs (the U.S. was hemorrhaging jobs until December 2009; 16 million jobs were created after this bottom), and has an embarassing record of reducing unemployment every single year of his presidency leaving Trump with a very sad 4.7% unemployment rate (down from 10% in October 2009).

        Obama was such a bad president that the yearly federal deficit was cut in half during his term while giving 22 million Americans health insurance.

        An unmitigated disaster giving a know nothing Constitutional Law Professor and U.S. Senator the Presidency.

        1. I voted for Obama twice so I’m not exactly his enemy. My very mild criticism certainly didn’t imply that anything Trump has done was better in any way as you imply. The simple fact is that the economy was in such terrible shape when he took office that the economic growth you tout is as impressive as it was largely because the economy had been seriously damaged by decades of creeping Republican distortions. Virtually none of that was altered in a meaningful way. All of his legal skills you tout do not show that he had the administrative skills to run the huge federal bureaucracy or to be the leader of a political party. On that last item he was a failure since during his tenure as the leader of the party almost 1,000 Democrats were voted out of office nation wide.

          I liked him very much and thought he was an inspiration to our best natures but he did not set the country up to elect another Democrat nor, as I said, did he make a dent in the underlying problems in our society.

    2. MAGA Bleach – cleansing the gene pool one republican at a time.

      NAOM

        2. David —

          Thanks, we can always rely on you to provide us with some (much needed) comic relief. I’ll add my bit: corona-virus is a hoax. 😉

  11. I got it wrong earlier. Three R’s and one D already caught on obvious insider trading.
    It’s really sad that Fienstein, not sure about spelling, was dumb enough to do this.

    She just blew it, big time, for her party.The D’s could have made an awesome amount of hay out of this.

    A couple of Senate seats may yet change hands on this news though, and the D’s will weather it better than the R’s.
    Her seat is safe enough, but there might be some serious competition in the others now.

    1. Barr has already said he is not running again in 2022. I don’t think a Republican has ever been ejected from office for being corrupt or there wouldn’t be any.

      Grocery report central North Carolina – a few items sold out (usual suspects) but still food aplenty. It’s sad to think of how much of these binge panic purchases will be wasted. Grow a garden, for the love of God.

  13. From 2008, a clear and science based explanation of the history and reasons for the new flood of virus outbreaks in the last few decades. This was an is a big warning shot for future pandemics and plagues.

    Dr. Michael Greger on Pandemic Prevention | Infectious Diseases, Aids, Influenza, Coronavirus
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G20cooZOiYE

    1. Gonefishing

      Thanks for the video link.

      Only watched 10 minutes so far, very interesting. Thanks

  14. Last stock up trip today, a few items I had trouble getting so tried Soriana.

    Small bottle of sanitiser on the entrance and the paquetaria. Only staff with masks were the cashiers and packers, many badly used, no gloves. Generally mild stocking up with no panic buying except rice mostly gone and sparse stocking up, same for pasta. But Maseca, maize flour for tortillas, gone. Plenty of bleach and toilet rolls but the pack I usually buy was 48$ compared to 27$ in the other 2 stores. No sanitising wipes of any sort.

    Out and about, still pretty much BAU. I may take a ride downtown, tomorrow, to see how things are doing and if the market is there but no stopping or mixing in the crowd. Oh, the health people were outside Wallymart yesterday giving out flu jabs, ‘yes please here’s my arm’.

    NAOM

    PS Tip for the day: If you have a digital thermometer get spare batteries, they may be hard to find.

  16. Great article Mac. Thanks for sharing it.

    One quote from within it:

    Once we have enough masks, we can use them outside of the healthcare system too. Right now, it’s better to keep masks for healthcare workers. But if they weren’t scarce, people should wear them in their daily lives, making it less likely that they infect other people when sick, and with proper training also reducing the likelihood that the wearers get infected. (In the meantime, wearing something is better than nothing.)

    Perhaps I’m a bit hung up on the mask thing, but it’s baffling to me that the U.S. authorities are discouraging the use of masks:

    https://www.fda.gov/medical-devices/personal-protective-equipment-infection-control/n95-respirators-and-surgical-masks-face-masks#s1
    From that link:

    “For the general American public, there is no added health benefit to wear a respiratory protective device (such as an N95 respirator), and the immediate health risk from COVID-19 is considered low.

    […]

    The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) does not recommend that people who are well wear a face mask to protect themselves from respiratory diseases, including coronavirus (COVID-19).

    It’s understood that when there is scarcity, that all available equipment should go to health care workers, but the FDA and CDC should make this clear as the motivation, rather than downplaying the effectiveness of PPE.

    People are starting to make their own masks: https://www.forbes.com/sites/tjmccue/2020/03/20/calling-all-people-who-sew-and-make-you-can-help-solve-2020-n95-type-mask-shortage/#46153a904e41

    There is a link within that article for sewing patterns for homemade masks.

    Things aren’t looking promising for the U.S.. Confirmed cases doubled in two days from 6,411 cases on March 17th, to 13,789 on March 19th.
    https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/

    In comparison, Italy took four days to double from 7,375 to 15,113.
    https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/italy/

    Similarly, Spain went from 6,391 confirmed cases on March 14th to 14,769 on March 18th.
    https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/spain/

    Hopefully, this reflects a ramping up of testing in the U.S. rather than a dramatic increase in rate of infection.

  17. At different times I have argued that LEVIATHANS, nation states, are quite capable of taking extreme measures to preserve their own existence as such, ONCE the leadership class has come to the realization that doing so is NECESSARY.

    ( For what it’s worth, I’m thinking that a couple of weeks ago, more or less, a few top level people in the medical establishment, both men and women, finally found the courage necessary to put their professional oaths and responsibilities ahead of their career paths as civil servants, and got together, quietly, behind closed doors and took the orangutan and R party leaders to the woodshed by saying that they and the orangutan administration would start acting sensibly, or that they would all resign and go to the capital steps, Gingrich style, with his contract with America trick, and henceforth be on the news twenty four seven telling the people that one of two things would happen. Either millions would die, or the feds would get their act together.
    Now at last, starting a few days back, the orangutan is paying at least a LITTLE attention to the fact that his best hope of staying out of jail was to reverse course and quit calling CV19 a libtard hoax to get him and take over.)

    CV19 has gone a long way to prove my argument.

    I copied this from Quora.

    xxxx

    Is Covid-19 likely to be at pandemic proportions for 2 years?
    Scott Hsieh
    Scott Hsieh, works at David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA
    Answered Mar 15 · Upvoted by Pedro Frank Ferrer Rivera, PhD Medicine and Healthcare, Santiago De Cuba, Cuba (2005) and David Chan, MD from UCLA, Stanford Oncology Fellowship

    Here’s the problem with Covid-19:

    If we do nothing, it goes out of control. There is nearly universal agreement on this point. Every week the number of infected people doubles or triples, according to the best estimates of R0 today. Within about two months, hospitals start to collapse under the pressure (Italy) and can survive only by building emergency new facilities using help from the rest of the country (Wuhan). However, if you really are doing nothing, then two months later the rest of the country falls down and no one can help you. At this point, there are no more ICU beds left and the mortality rate goes from 2% to 5-10% because we run out of respirators.

    On the other hand, if we declare a state of emergency … schools shut down, airports virtually close, and the country goes on lockdown. All for what, like 3,000 cases?? Then if the disease is successfully suppressed a few months later, everything opens back up and we look around and say, gee, why did we even do that?! Why did the country shut down when the ordinary flu killed 100x more people this year? Didn’t we way overreact?

    But the difference between 5,000 cases and 5 million cases is 10 weeks of inaction. That is why governments around the world are taking severe and enormous action now, because we are at the edge of the precipice.”

    Enough people are taking 19 seriously enough that virtually everybody is going along,with no rioting or violence about the guv’mint taking over. The countless good hearted, decent but ignorant people I know, the people I’m SURROUNDED with, are going along, although it is bitterly amusing to note that over the space of a few days they have forgotten that 19 is only a dim rat libtard hoax to get rid of their SAVIOR REINCARNATED and take over and collect their guns and force them to move into their chikin coops and let ‘mexikins have their houses, and force them to go to the doctor and NOT pay him by mortgaging the farm, lol.

    There are plenty of MEAN, even evil, people among my acquaintances of course, the kind that like to talk big about what they’re going to do…… but when the sheriff shows up with a couple of FULL GROWN deputies, they just about always go along quietly.

    My point is and will always be that the world, or at least some parts of it such as the USA, Canada, other richer Western countries, etc, WILL act, and act decisively, once it’s OBVIOUS the climate situation is getting out of hand.. By obvious I mean not only to the technically educated elite, such as the regulars here, but to the large majority of people with some education, a large enough majority that REAL ACTION, wartime level do or die action, can be undertaken.

    Industrial civilization as such is NOT necessarily doomed, although I’m perfectly willing to agree with the doomer faction that a substantial to huge portion of our species, and a huge portion of the biosphere, is going to perish within the next century or so due, in the shortest possible answer, as the consequence of human overshoot.

    The coming climate disaster is baked in now. There will be famines on a scale almost unimaginable…. to anybody who hasn’t seen such things, or at least seen cattle starve due to drought……. or loaded up and hauled off to be slaughtered. Maybe the survivors in such places will be able to produce enough food to sustain themselves, for a few more years, maybe even indefinitely, after their numbers are reduced by half, or even by nine tenths.

    Of course the climate might get to the point that even a country such as the USA or Canada can’t produce food enough to sustain it’s people….. but if we go to a wartime style economy, it’s likely we can, imo, by doing whatever we might HAVE to do, such as having a chicken leg on special occasions rather than beef as the main course on a daily basis, etc.

    Prosperous Dutch men and women ride bicycles to work every day.They’re RICHER than we are, per capita.

    We Yankees, and other people like us, can drive micro mini electric cars that will only go thirty or forty miles on a charge, if we must, in order to continue living in our scattered mcmansions. We can spend what we would have spent on a vacation in the sun or snow on upgrading those mcmansions to be pretty close to net zero energy houses. We can divert half of our MIC budget to energy efficiency and conservation, because we’re NOT at risk of invasion, lol. That much money would build all the HVDC transmission lines and wind and solar farms we need to give up oil in favor of electric cars and light trucks, and gas for heating. We can use the surplus, which will be available most days, to electrolyze water, or manufacture ammonia, or run desalini
    zation plants, and reconfigure manufacturing to take good advantage of dirt cheap but less than one hundred percent availability of electricity.

    And once we MUST, if we must, we can do all the things domestically, once again, that we USED to do domestically, before globalization became the new secular and economic religion of the era. NO, we won’t be able to have so much cheap throwaway junk as we do now, and things will be more expensive, true……. but on the other hand…… we won’t have even half as many people on welfare, or need half as many jail cells, because bringing the exported industries home again will mean jobs will be plentiful for such people.

    I know people who steal and sell dope, but not any real ORGANIZED gangster types. Virtually all of them would be happy to trade their life style for a forty hour job that would allow them to live decently.

    Arguing that there’s no hope, that we’re collectively fucked, is only going to make matters WORSE than they need be.

    With good leadership, birth control will be free and freely available, and it WILL be, when the shit hits the fan, and the population WILL peak and start to decline considerably faster than projected by demographers who base their models on Old Man BAU continuing to stagger along.

    I don’t WANT to sound like an orangutan fan, but we Yankees WILL get control of our borders( not that immigration is that big a problem now, it’s not, not really) when the time comes. So WILL any other country that’s still basically intact and functional. No country is going to be able to withstand tens of millions of desperate immigrants pouring in, immigrants unable to speak the local language, unable to work in the local economy due to lack of relevant skills, etc, with food other essentials already in short supply.

    People ARE going along with shutting down the economy and giving up a substantial portion of their personal liberty to cope with 19, even such people as are prone to waving their guns and flags and maga hats.

    But they are NOT going to go along with massive immigration, legal or otherwise, when they see their own livelihoods endangered, when they are in desperate need of whatever help they can get from the government themselves, due to being out of work, etc. They WILL resort to violence under that sort of circumstances, or vote in more politicians who cater to their fears, which could be quite a bit WORSE.

    HOPEFULLY the liberal/D establishment has learned it’s lesson about the voting power of the unwashed and working classes. Failure to take their votes seriously put the orangutan in the WH. Let’s hope the D establishment doesn’t make this mistake again.

    Minorities, gays, lesbians, artists, and all other voting blocs HRC counted on, other than well educated establishment types, are as often as not worried about their own economic security to the same extent as mill hands, loggers, and construction workers. Voters of that first sort are on board and will STAY on board with the D’s.

    Voters of the second sort are quick to show the middle finger to any politician they see as ignoring them or even worse, looking down on them. They may not be very smart, in terms of knowing which side of their own bread is buttered, but they’re as quick as a dog to understand who at least PRETENDS to be their friend, and who does not. They voted for the orangutan mostly NOT because they are racists, xenophobes, homophobes, etc,( Some of them ARE these things of course) but because they wanted to send a message to the establishment, D AND R……. and the orangutan offered them the opportunity to do so. Lets not forget the R establishment did all it could to be rid of him before he won the nomination, only then switching over to sucking his pecker like a street walker, right out in public.

    1. The NY Post is a Murdoch/News Corp rag. I wouldn’t trust anything it wrote unless I had three independent confirmations.

      1. Hi Nick,
        I agree with you in general, but in this particular case, it has the smell and ring of truth… a politician denying reality in the face of expert advice from professionals.

  19. Disruptions occur when several occurences or factors come together to make an unstoppable systemic change. We have several plagues at the moment, mostly noncommunicable, but still global plagues causing much disruption and death each year.
    Kidney disease is one of them, more people have it than diabetes.
    But the newer hot spots may be due to an intersection of a warming climate, poorer working conditions due to industrial scale farms and polluted water sources (all caused by modern civilization). Wet bulb temperature is not the only heat initiated disabler and killer.The temperature is only going to rise.

    Mysterious kidney disease goes global
    Wesseling studies CKDnT in Central America, where it takes an even heavier toll than in India. “Just look at the mortality numbers,” says Jason Glaser of La Isla. In Chichigalpa, Nicaragua, for example, “46% of all male deaths are due to CKD,” he says. “Seventy-five percent of deaths of men between 35 and 55 years are due to CKD.” By some estimates, the disease has already killed at least 20,000 people in the region.

    If the disease hitting India is identical, research in Central America could narrow the search for a cause. Recent studies there have bolstered the hypothesis that CKDu results from long hours of work in the heat with too little drinking water, leading to chronic dehydration. Last year, for example, a study by Wesseling and her colleagues showed that the disease has existed in Costa Rica at least since the 1970s, but that the death rate in Guanacaste province has shot up from 4.4 per 100,000 men between 1970 and 1972 to 38.5 in 2008 to 2012 with the expansion of industrial-scale sugarcane farms. In another study, the same group showed that the kidney function of cane cutters in one Nicaraguan community declined through a single harvest period. “These people have a very scary deterioration of kidney function over the harvest time,” Wesseling says.

    https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/03/mysterious-kidney-disease-goes-global

    1. I read one report, sorry I don’t have it as it was some time ago, that studies were pointing to high fructose corn syrup linked to dehydration. Dehydrated workers that drank HFCS sweetened drinks (I won’t mention the well known brand) were more susceptible than those who just drank water. That seems to tie in with the increase of cases from 1970 and 1972 to 2008 to 2012 and the marketing of those drinks.

      NAOM

  20. The following was sent to me by a friend this morning. Pretty long but pretty important:
    I’m still educating myself on the virus. Here it is in a nutshell. I hope this helps. Feel free to share this to others who don’t understand.

    “Feeling confused as to why Coronavirus is a bigger deal than Seasonal flu? It has to do with RNA sequencing…i.e. genetics.

    Seasonal flu is an “all human virus”. The DNA/RNA chains that make up the virus are recognized by the human immune system. This means that your body has some immunity to it before it comes around each year. You get immunity two ways…through exposure to a virus, or by getting a flu shot.

    Novel viruses come from animals. The WHO tracks novel viruses in animals (sometimes for years watching for mutations). Usually these viruses only transfer from animal to animal (pigs in the case of H1N1, birds in the case of the Spanish flu). But once one of these animal viruses mutates and starts to transfer from animals to humans…then it’s a problem. Why? Because we have no natural or acquired immunity. The RNA sequencing of the genes inside the virus isn’t human, and the human immune system doesn’t recognize it, so we can’t fight it off.

    Now…sometimes, the mutation only allows transfer from animal to human. For years its only transmission is from an infected animal to a human before it finally mutates so that it can now transfer human to human. Once that happens, we have a new contagion phase. And depending on the fashion of this new mutation, that’s what decides how contagious, or how deadly, it’s going to be.

    H1N1 was deadly, but it did not mutate in a way that was as deadly as the Spanish flu. Its RNA was slower to mutate and it attacked its host differently, too.
    Fast forward.

    Now, here comes this Coronavirus. It existed in animals only, for nobody knows how long. But one day, at an animal market in Wuhan China, in December 2019, it mutated and made the jump from animal to people. At first, only animals could give it to a person. But here is the scary part. In just TWO WEEKS, it mutated again and gained the ability to jump from human to human. Scientists call this quick ability, “slippery”.

    This Coronavirus, not being in any form a “human” virus (whereas we would all have some natural or acquired immunity), took off like a rocket. This was because humans have no known immunity – doctors have no known medicines for it.
    It just so happens this mutated animal virus changed itself in such a way that it causes great damage to human lungs.

    That’s why Coronavirus is different from seasonal flu, or H1N1, or any other type of influenza – this one is slippery AF. And it’s a lung eater. And, it’s already mutated AGAIN, so that we now have two strains to deal with, strain S and strain L – which makes it twice as hard to develop a vaccine.

    We really have no tools in our shed with this. History has shown that fast and immediate closings of public places has helped in the past pandemics. Philadelphia and Baltimore were reluctant to close events in 1918 and they were the hardest hit in the US during the Spanish Flu.

    Fact: Henry VIII stayed in his room and allowed no one near him till the Black Plague passed (I understand him so much better now). Just like us, he had no tools in his shed, except social isolation.

    Let me end by saying right now it’s hitting older folks harder but this genome is so slippery, if it mutates again (and it will), who is to say what it will do next. Stay home folks and share this to those that just are not catching on. Credit to COVID Canadian Physicians group.”

    1. Influenza came from animals, so did smallpox and a number of other deadly diseases. CoVid-19 will become a “human” virus after it goes through the population as the various influenzas do. It will also mutate with time.
      You can get it now, or a little later with “isolation”. Very few people can actually fully isolate for very long. If the characteristics are really as they say (no or little symptoms but transmittable for days anyway), the idea of avoidance in a modern world is mostly hopium.
      Then when you leave your isolation in 60 to 90 days, the flattening of the curve will ensure that you face a high chance of infection. Flattening the curve, without vaccines, is just a way to stretch out the infectious period and reduce the daily load on hospitals/morgues.
      Normally 12 to 18 months to a vaccine. Anything shorter is a shot in the dark for efficacy and safety.

      But we use the tools we have and if the stated characteristics are wrong, we could get lucky and stop it up long enough. Let this be a warning for the really nasty pandemics that are guaranteed to show up if we keep messing with animals in the horrifying ways we have done in the past few decades. It’s all choices, from your dinner table to the “farm”. You make them everyday. Get conscious.

      2. The testing rate will be far slower than the infection rates so the limiting factors will be the testing rate . Serious cases are about 1/10 of the number of infected. Since all serious cases will be tested (most likely) then that number folds into the testing rate.
        Until the testing rate becomes significant, the transmission rate will stay high.

        So how did South Korea slow down the rate so dramatically?
        Korea has done so well is that it has a robust biotech industry made up of many small companies run by scientists.

        “The Chinese published the sequence of the coronavirus. These companies looked at it and then they rapidly developed tests,” Kim said.

        Korean companies acted fast to produce those tests and the country now has enough to screen some 20,000 people a day.

        “They [South Korea] opened up testing centres that people could drive in and go through. They made it all free and once they identified people, they put them into quarantine,” Kim said.

        In early February, the government also obtained mobile phone records, credit card receipts and other private data of everyone who tested positive for COVID-19, and used the information to track the spread of the virus, making much of the data available to the public.
        Plus
        He believes the government’s ultimate aim will be to restore normalcy to everyday life.

        “And the only way to really achieve that is to use a vaccine. You’ll have to be able to ensure that as people carry on their activities of daily living, that they’re going to be protected,” he said.
        https://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/upfront/2020/03/testing-times-south-korea-covid-19-strategy-working-200320051718670.html

        “The only way to achieve normalcy is to use a vaccine. ” Makes sense. In other words until the population has a certain level of immunity, the virus will continue to spread.

      3. Correct, the next pandemic could be a Zoomer Remover instead of a Boomer Remover.

    2. Doug,

      Thanks for that. Great explanation. I have not checked for correctness, nor am I qualified to do so.

  21. A press conference from a certain building in a certain state in a certain country. A news reporter (NR) is questioning an administration official(AO)

    NR: Do we have a good stock of bombs in case war breaks out and threatens our country?
    AO: Of course.
    NR: Do we have a good stock of nuclear weapons in case a nuclear war breaks out and threatens our country?
    AO: Of course.
    NR: Do we have a strong air force in case war breaks out and threatens our country?
    AO: Of course.
    NR: Do we have a good stock of medical supplies in case pandemic breaks out and threatens our country?
    AO: What a stupid question, you are a bad reporter!!!

    NAOM

  22. Looking at the stats regarding covid-19 for Spain and Italy, makes me question China’s, Iran’s and Russia’s reported statistics.

    Are dictatorships better at controlling epidemics and pandemics?

    1. Look at those countries with no statistics and no movement restrictions. Too many white spaces on the map.Are we looking at a second spread from those?

      NAOM

    2. I can’t say for sure, but it’s always been my impression that the leaders in modern day China and Russia are far better informed, in terms of the sciences and technology, than most other world leaders.

      Consider Putin. He was an intel guy. As such, with high rank,advising the very highest level leaders, he would have been working on a regular basis with scientists and engineers on problems dealing with weapons, aircraft, computers, agriculture, manufacturing, medicine, communications, finance, or almost any important topic, and quite used to and comfortable relying on expert advisors from any field relevant to his own work and responsibilities.

      Technically literate people are on average a good bit smarter and more capable than run of the mill every day citizens, and more likely to wind up in positions of leadership in such societies, where advancement is better measured in power, more than in the possession of money and property.

      I can’t think of ANYTHING the orangutan knows well beyond day to day demagoguery, but he’s absolutely world class in that one field, lol.

      I’ve heard it said that the only thing Stalin actually owned was the clothes on his back, but he in a broader sense owned the entirety of Russia. He went for power, rather than money and property. Power could be had, was there to be had, by the people with the initiative to seize it.

      If I’m right about this, the leadership of such countries would thus be far more likely to take such problems as a pandemic seriously, sooner, plus they would be in a good position to do the right thing sooner and do it more vigorously. Dissent doesn’t mean very much to a dictator, so long as he can keep it under control.

      (This is not particularly because it’s right for the people, but right for the country, meaning right for THEM, as the leaders of the country, long term. Being the dictator of modern country is better than being the dictator in a back woods. You have access to a modern life in a modern country. There’s no place to land the presidential jet in a backward country, assuming there IS a presidential jet, lol.)

    3. Are dictatorships better at controlling epidemics and pandemics?

      No, but they are one hell of a lot better at controlling statistics.

      1. R’s vs D’s – but what if we end the “elected” paradigm of who actually controls the narrative and accept personal responsibility – to enforce the Law – of course – first we must all agree on what “the law” is.

        We could agree to the Ten Commandments found in the Bible – or perhaps the 10 guidelines found on the Georgia Guidestones, or others, – but who will enforce those laws? Elected officials – who you have delegated your power to – or to each person who has approved and chosen to live under those laws?

        I know that this quote will go long on – but Jay Hanson said it best –

        [5] Not only are human societies never alone, but regardless of how well they control their own population or act ecologically, they cannot control their neighbors’ behavior. Each society must confront the real possibility that its neighbors will not live in ecological balance but will grow its numbers and attempt to take the resources from nearby groups. Not only have societies always lived in a changing environment, but they always have neighbors. The best way to survive in such a milieu is not to live in ecological balance with slow growth, but to grow rapidly and be able to fend off competitors as well as take resources from others.

        Now comes the most important part of this overly simplified story: The group with the larger population always has an advantage in any competition over resources, whatever those resources may be. Over the course of human history, one side rarely has better weapons or tactics for any length of time, and most such warfare between smaller societies is attritional. With equal skills and weapons, each side would be expected to kill an equal number of its opponents. Over time, the larger group will finally overwhelm the smaller one. This advantage of size is well recognized by humans all over the world, and they go to great lengths to keep their numbers comparable to their potential enemies. This is observed anthropologically by the universal desire to have many allies, and the common tactic of smaller groups inviting other societies to join them, even in times of food stress.

        Industrious Ants vs. ecological dimwits.

        Guess who wins.

        http://www.dieoff.com/

        Note that the “fittest” of our two groups was not the more ecological, it was the one that grew faster. The idea of such Darwinian competition is unpalatable to many, especially when the “bad” folks appear to be the winners.

        1. I know that this quote will go long on – but Jay Hanson said it best –

          Yes, Jay Hanson said a lot of things very well. But that quote was not Jay Hanson’s. And Jay did give credit to the actual author of the quote. But I recognized the work immediately. It was from one of the best books I ever read:

          Constant Battles: Why We Fight

          That is actually the second title of the book. It was originally published under the title Constant Battles: The Myth of the Peaceful, Noble Savage. LeBlanc contends that warfare and violent conflict have existed throughout human history, and that humans have never lived in ecological balance with nature.

          1. Ron,

            That sounds like an interesting book. Thanks for bringing it up. I am going to read it.

          2. That is why we have these discussions –

            “Yes, Jay Hanson said a lot of things very well. But that quote was not Jay Hanson’s. And Jay did give credit to the actual author of the quote. But I recognized the work immediately. It was from one of the best books I ever read”:\

            Thanks for the open free thinking forum and exchange of ideas.- Ron.

  24. One online company I regularly buy supplies from and who send out the same day, delivered next day or the day after, is backlogged with only 1/2 staff. Take note if thinking about relying on online deliveries. If you want to use a bank webcard for new suppliers who you don’t want to see your main bank card then make sure you are registered. I tried yesterday and couldn’t get through, succeeded today but it won’t activate till Tuesday – maybe!

    NAOM

    1. That was FANTASTIC. Thanks for sharing. Clarified all my current thinking on the COVID issue.

    2. Conquering Coronavirus only maintains the status quo – which is Overshoot. The dilemma remains of feeding, housing, and exploiting Planet Earth’s remaining resources to keep Human Collosus alive.

      Not addressing the actual problem of Overshoot is the problem.

      1. When I see the word “overshoot” I am always segued into the thought that the single focus on every government to solving problems is growing the GDP. As long as government think that is the solution to everything we are indeed doomed.

        2. Agreed Tim, though I don’t think Cov19 and it’s mutations can be conquered, merely reduced or controlled with lots of effort. We never conquered influenza or the common cold.

          Makes one wonder why, in such a corporate, oligarchical, capitalistic society such as the US, there is such a degree of concern at all by government? Preserve the status quo? Protect the old dude leadership? Protect the economy further down the road? Certainly it is not the big corporations, who are using this as more socialist handout time.
          BTW, conceptual graphs do not model a virus that has such long asymptomatic periods prior and post actual illness.

          But we should take a bigger perspective on this, it is just a blip in the general demise. Human population will hardly change, general human activity will hardly change, in fact it will probably get even more active once the virus fades back.
          Latest science, studying wild populations of animals in both land and ocean environments, shows the trend is toward losing about 40 percent of species by 2070.
          Many plants will probably go also.

    1. “World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) and national meteorological organisations must quickly come up with new research proposals to gain every possible bit of information as this helps to understand how world’s climate will respond as the world moves towards ZERO emissions. It is a tremendous tragedy if this unique opportunity to find more about how our atmosphere operates is lost”.

      That is a good thing – except that there are now nearly 9 billion Human Beings on Planet Earth who are dependent upon fossil fuel in order to maintain Industrial Civilization. Take away those fossil fuels which power sewage treatment plants, water supply systems, industrial farming – and a total collapse will ensure. What’s worse – is that we have forgotten the plagues and epidemics of the past – which limited the growth of Populations by culling excessive numbers.

      From The Plumber:

      “The first epidemic of a waterborne disease probably was caused by an infected caveman relieving himself in waters upstream of his neighbors.

      Perhaps the entire clan was decimated, or maybe the panicky survivors packed up their gourds and fled from the “evil spirits” inhabiting their camp to some other place.

      As long as people lived in small groups, isolated from each other, such incidents were sporadic. But as civilization progressed, people began clustering into cities. They shared communal water, handled unwashed food, stepped in excrement from casual discharge or spread as manure, used urine for dyes, bleaches, and even as an antiseptic.

      As cities became crowded, they also became the nesting places of waterborne, insect borne, and skin -to-skin infectious diseases that spurted out unchecked and seemingly at will. Typhus was most common, reported Thomas Sydenham, England’s first great physician, who lived in the 17th century and studied early history. Next came typhoid and relapsing fever, plague and other pestilential fever, smallpox and dysentery’s-the latter a generic class of disease that includes what’s known as dysentery, as well as cholera”.

      https://theplumber.com/plagues-epidemics/

      When the electricity goes out – and the flush toilet does not work anymore – or sanitary sewage systems….. death will stalk the land via plagues and epidemics.

  28. From my Daughter in Italy this morning:

    “We now know two people with family members, who have died from the pestilence. The only good thing, is the numbers in our province are low enough, that there are still enough hospital beds for everyone to receive the best care possible; so people are departing through drug induced comas, at quite advanced ages.

    North of us, is a totally different story, and many are dying at home under quarantine, while doctors have to make terrible decisions to leave them to fend for themselves. Often, they seem to be doing okay, but are gone the next morning.

    There is also a shortage of doctors, because so many are now in quarantine, or sick. But the government put out a request for 200 volunteers to come out of retirement, or private practice, and 7,000 answered the call.

    Here we are doing just fine. It is so easy to look after G.’s mother with two to share the back and forths. And my baking skills have risen to a new high (no pun intended). G. checks in regularly with friends and relatives in the worst hit regions, and everyone is healthy for the moment.

    G.’s mother has days where here mind seems to be slipping, but we sit her in the sun, which helps for some unknown reason. It is terrible for her not to get out of the house, stuck in that chair. I hope she outlives this to enjoy a few more picnics.

    Spring has sprung in the garden, and with G. around for help and company, my life has improved dramatically — though under horrific circumstances.

    Some say this is reaching its peak, but it doesn’t feel that way. I hope the rest of the world can learn from Italy, and take strong enough precautions, and the virus will start losing strength — which is supposed to be the case.

    For the first time in my life I am praying for the summer heat, which may help weaken this disease.

    Come on climate change?!”

    2. Continuous thoughts and prayers for your family, Doug. I am praying daily that all those sick with this virus shall be healed.

  29. ‘THE IMPACT ON THE HEALTH CARE SYSTEM COULD BE TOTAL COLLAPSE,’ WARNS ICU DOCTOR

    “An intensive care doctor in Toronto is pleading with political leaders to take bold steps now to impose a lockdown, warning that Ontario’s health system could face “total collapse” if the spread of COVID-19 is not slowed. Dr. Michael Warner is medical director of the intensive care unit (ICU) at Michael Garron Hospital and chairs the critical care section of the Ontario Medical Association.

    “It’s World War Three,” Warner said in an interview with CBC News. “This could be an unmitigated disaster. This is the time to overreact. If I’m wrong, that’s great, but at least we’re prepared. But if I’m not wrong, then we’re in major trouble.”

    The number of new coronavirus cases in Ontario has grown by an average of 21 per cent daily over the past week. That means the total number of cases is doubling every four days, and if that rate of growth were to continue, Ontario’s 2,053 ICU beds stand to run out by mid-to-late April.”

    https://ca.yahoo.com/news/impact-health-care-system-could-182907880.html

    1. But what constitutes the underlying in place systems to support and build such a new development?

      It is actually a revolutionary new breakthrough?

      FTI has been around for a while: Founded in 1971, the Fusion Technology Institute investigates and assesses technological problems posed by controlled thermonuclear fusion reactors.

      http://fti.neep.wisc.edu/

      And while the Regolith on the Moon – HE-3 rich – might be abundant there – the technology remains a promise in the future.

      And even if Humankind achieves unlimited and non-polluting energy, it does not solve our problems of violence, crime, and overpopulation.

      1. Oh yeah – and if you are a Human Being – ya gotta eat and pass the leftovers through your digestive system.

        The Devil is always in the details.

        1. “Human Being”, in caps yet. A strange self-proclaimed title, as if there are no other beings on this planet. “Being”, implies we know how to be, yet we may be the only species that does not.

      2. Tim, it’s all choices. Do we choose to help or harm? Do we continue wrecking or change to repairing the environment? No energy source can provide those decisions. Nature will make them for us, if we push hard enough. Or we can make start actually being conscious.

        Nope, no unlimited power of any sort available, not even fusion. Nor does it solve our social problems, clean power gives us the opportunity to quickly improve environmental conditions but the likelihood of that being the major use is small. Nature is good at growing back forests and repopulating all the open niches we create, so all we have to do is get small and not pollute or wreck much.

    2. Interesting video. But the tech is based on “inertial” confinement. That means you blast the bejeezus out of an atom with a giant laser, and the atom doesn’t much for a while because it has too much inertia. By “for a while” I mean a few nanoseconds.

      I think the think they have an idea for getting more net energy gain, but they are talking about “what you actually put into the reaction” at a theoretical level. That theoretical value is probably only a thousandth of the actual energy cost of the lasers. That last point according to my brother who worked on NIF for 20 years.

    1. OFM — Proper use (and explanation) of exponential growth. 😉

      WHY ‘EXPONENTIAL GROWTH’ IS SO SCARY FOR THE COVID-19 CORONAVIRUS

      In the case of the coronavirus COVID-19, exponential growth will occur in the disease rate in humans so long as:

      • there is at least one infected person in the population pool,
      • regular contact between infected and uninfected members of the population occurs,
      • and there are large numbers of uninfected potential hosts among the population.

      Without a widespread test available to us all, particularly to those of us who live in communities, cities, or counties where COVID-19 is known to be present, we cannot know who’s infected and who isn’t. Someone who has COVID-19 and is contagious looks just like someone who’s uninfected, and even one contagious person can infect a great many others. The majority of people with a COVID-19 infection, particularly during the exponential growth phase (which we are presently experiencing in the United States), don’t know they have it, and don’t know they can infect others.

      Meanwhile, NEW YORK STATE DECLARED A FEDERAL DISASTER AREA AS CONFIRMED COVID-19 CASES TOP 10,000

      https://www.lohud.com/story/news/health/2020/03/21/ny-covid-19-cases-tops-10-000-masks-ventilators-secured/2890820001/

      https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2020/03/17/why-exponential-growth-is-so-scary-for-the-covid-19-coronavirus/#6fb461374e9b

      1. Doug, You are the first to point out that unlimited exponential growth of physical quantities in a finite physical space is impossible, especially as it relates to renewable energy plants. Why should the coronavius be any different. At t=0 there is one infected person and a seemingly unlimited number of potential hosts, since no one of the 7.8 billion plus humans on the planet has developed an immunity to the virus. Initially this one infected person can infect x number of people who can each go on to infect a similar x number of people, x being the number of people the infected person comes in contact with. While the ratio of exposed individuals to non exposed individuals is very low, the growth can continue to appear exponential but at some point the dynamics change.

        At some point, infected persons start encountering individuals that have been exposed and developed an immunity to the virus, at which point the number of additional infections caused by a single infected person becomes x-y, y being the number of individuals who have developed immunity to the virus. As y becomes larger the doubling time for new cases gets longer and the growth is no longer exponential, the epidemic runs into limits to growth. The whole point of social distancing and restriction on the size of gatherings is to try and limit the number x while giving the number y time to grow (flattening the curve). The epidemic will have run it’s course when infected persons no longer are able to come into contact with people who do not yet have immunity, giving the virus no viable hosts in which to multiply. I’m pretty sure you know and understand all of that.

        The problem is that, with 7.8 billion plus potential hosts each producing thousands of copies of the virus from each host cell in the infected organs of each individual, the chance of a mutation occurring is extremely high. Each mutation has the potential to take us back to t=0.

        1. LOL. Exponential growth functions are often used to model population growth, where they work for awhile. Radioactive decay and geochronology obey exponential functions quite well for rather long periods. In the business world, every company you’ve ever heard of refers to their product sales in terms of this mythical creature (exponentially fast growth). This is where I object.

        2. Do you have any evidence that humans are acquiring any useful immunity to Covid-19 after infection? I am not aware of any reports of that being found.

          There are reports of people being re-infected, and suffering worse second time. So models which assume increasing immunity over time are wrong, for now.

          1. See the last paragraph of my previous post. Immunity is a feature of the human immune system. Re-infections would have to be a mutant strain of the original virus.

            1. It might be a ‘feature’, but it appears nobody has told covid-19 that yet. Do you have evidence which shows a human with immunity yet?
              Asking for a friend. (Bit of black humour there.)

  32. Mask use is effective to reduce and slow rates of infection in the general population during pandemic:
    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2818714/

    In Figure 2 the effectiveness of the N95 respirator in reducing the spread of pandemic (H1N1) 2009 is significant. As the percentage of the population wearing masks increases the number of cumulative cases decreases and when the mask effectiveness is greater, the number of cases is also greatly reduced.

    See graphic below.

    Reduction of economic harm during pandemic by mask use of general population modeled:
    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22300798

    Abstract
    A large-scale pandemic could cause severe health, social, and economic impacts. The recent 2009 H1N1 pandemic confirmed the need for mitigation strategies that are cost-effective and easy to implement. Typically, in the early stages of a pandemic, as seen with pandemic (H1N1) 2009, vaccines and antivirals may be limited or non-existent, resulting in the need for non-pharmaceutical strategies to reduce the spread of disease and the economic impact. We construct and analyze a mathematical model for a population comprised of three different age groups and assume that some individuals wear facemasks. We then quantify the impact facemasks could have had on the spread of pandemic (H1N1) 2009 and examine their cost effectiveness. Our analyses show that an unmitigated pandemic could result in losses of nearly $832 billion in the United States during the length of the pandemic. Based on present value of future earnings, hospital costs, and lost income estimates due to illness, this study estimates that the use of facemasks by 10%, 25%, and 50% of the population could reduce economic losses by $478 billion, $570 billion, and $573 billion, respectively. The results show that facemasks can significantly reduce the number of influenza cases as well as the economic losses due to a pandemic.

    Failure to ensure adequate supply of masks for both the health care system and the general population in the case of pandemic appears to be negligent considering the known potential benefits.

    Aside from obscuring failure of preparation, what benefit is there in misinforming the public about it?

    1. Scott Alexander at Slate Star Codex addresses the question of mask efficacy omnibus:

      https://slatestarcodex.com/2020/03/23/face-masks-much-more-than-you-wanted-to-know/

      Scott is very data oriented, and his perspectives are generally informed, interesting, and often funny. He is a doctor of psychology. His essay Universal Love Said The Cactus Person is a must read for the psychedelically inclined.

      One of the commenters there posted that the Czech Republic has implemented a mandatory mask policy, with home-made masks being acceptable to address the scarcity issue:

      https://news.expats.cz/health-medical/breaking-face-coverings-to-be-mandatory-in-all-public-spaces-across-the-czech-republic-as-of-midnight/

      All people will need to wear a protective face covering when outside their residences, in both interior and exterior public spaces, effective midnight March 18. This was decided at an extraordinary government meeting and applies nationwide. The measure is meant to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus.

      […]

      There is an acute shortage of hospital masks and respirators. Home made masks, scarfs, bandanas, or any other mask that covers the nose and mouth will satisfy the requirement. Cotton is recommended. T-shirts, for example, can be cut and folded into a mask.

      They’ve also apparently set up drop-boxes where people can donate home-made masks for the use of others. Reportedly, it took about four days for everyone to get geared up.

      I use surgical masks as particle masks when drywall finishing, or sawing boards, or whatever. They work pretty well, and they are comfortable. I had six unopened packs of ten on hand, so I contacted an ER nurse that I know to see if they wanted them. Initially, she said no, but the next day she let me know that the rules had been changed, and she did want them. By then I had already given half out to friends and family, so I was only able to give her 30. There is something seriously wrong with the system if the health care industry can actually benefit from a donation of 30 masks from some random dudes PPE supply. I did find that I had one single N95 mask on hand, so that’s what I’ve been using if I venture out on a supply run. I had been saturating it with denatured alcohol after every outing, but turns out that method of sterilization reduces the mask effectiveness to 52%. Oven sterilization at 72C is a better method.

      Live and learn.

  33. Apple is donating 2,000,000 masks to health workers. Two big questions:
    Where did they get them?
    If they could get them why couldn’t the government?

    Oh, and I hear that DeSantis is changing his name to Larry Vaughn.

    NAOM

    1. They are industrial masks, and this is just a guess, but they are probably coming from their inventories.

      Tesla has 250,000 N95 masks, also industrial, that they are donating as well.

      I believe I read that 3M recently received permission to start providing their industrial N95 masks to hospitals.

      1. Sometimes industrial goods are for all practical purposes as good as medically rated.

        Take oxygen for instance. The oxygen I buy for my welding shop is a damned sight cleaner than the air in an operating room.

        It might have VERY minor traces of argon on nitrogen, etc, in it, but both are inert, in terms of human metabolism.

        If you are ever in pinch situation, and need oxygen for somebody who is sick or injured, and you can’t get pharma oxygen, or simply cannot afford it, bottled industrial oxygen from a welding supply store will do just fine, and it will typically cost anywhere from five or ten times less.

        And you can feed it thru a welding regulator, no problem. You can get them calibrated in liters per minute, right off the shelf.

        1. Good to know about the O2. Most first responder vehicles carry one or at most two small bottles which can give a patient a good supply for about 15 to 30 minutes. After that its all over. Not desiged for hours or days of support. So using bulk oxy bottles would be a useful backup for rather more sustained assistance.

          1. Keep in mind that you can breathe industrial oxygen, but the welding regulator is only suitable for feeding it into a hood. It CAN’T be used as a ventilator.

            But this is still miles better than nothing.

            A patient capable of working an on off valve or switch could hold the hose in his mouth and force some oxygen into his own lungs, the way a ventilator does, but this could be dangerous….. still on the other hand better than nothing.

            The chest walls and diaphragm will usually contract when you remove any applied pressure. It’s inhaling that takes energy and muscle, for the most part.

            You could help the process along using oxygen and CPR procedures, except giving the oxygen via the regulator rather than blowing into the victim’s lungs mouth to mouth.

            And in the case of a secondary infection, you can, if you act like a farmer, and get there soon enough, and know what to ask for, buy some powerful antibiotics at some farm supply stores.

            The selection is rather limited, but one of them might save your life, or at least prolong it long enough to get to a hospital.

            Doing this sort of thing might save the life of a friend or family member, keeping them alive long enough to get them into a hospital.

        2. From diving training with enriched oxygen. There are several grades of oxygen with medical the freest from impurities. Next best is food grade, then on down. I don’t know all the grades or if they vary by country but I expect that can be googled. A common substitution is food grade for medical grade.

          While industrial may have argon and other noble gasses I would be cautious lest it contain carbon dioxide and, especially, carbon monoxide. If air has been compressed by a fossil fuel compressor and insufficient care was taken to separate intake from motor exhaust it would not matter in welding but there can be a severe risk of carbon monoxide poisoning if breathed.

          Caution would be advised and a better substitute (only in the case of medical oxygen not being available) would be food grade.

          NAOM

          1. To add, oxygen concentrators are available and I have seen them on Amazon, you may need a prescription. If anyone is considering use of oxygen then there are precautions to take to avoid the risks of fire, remember Apollo1 was a pure oxygen atmosphere. Some materials may spontaneously combust in pure oxygen and always wash hands thoroughly to remove any grease.

            Oxygen is a poison and breathing pure oxygen has a time limit before nerve damage, convulsions or blindness may set in. I would very much recommend spending some time researching the correct use to avoid accidents.

            NAOM

          2. Industrial oxygen does NOT have CO in it, unless I’m totally senile. It’s typically delivered at about 2300 psi, and even the slightest trace of grease, paint or just about anything else on any high pressure hardware is enough for a spontaneous fire, which might as well be an explosion. CO is combustible, and furthermore the air contains approximately zero percent CO unless you are near a fire of some sort.

            Nor does it have any significant amount of CO2 in it. CO2 is stripped out first, after dust, at the same time as water vapor. Either one freezes in the pipes and machinery at such a high temperature that the remaining oxygen and nitrogen separation process fails.

            Other than maybe in war time emergencies , nobody uses an ic engine to process air into purified gases, because electric motors run about three or four times cheaper, in terms of fuel versus electricity, never mind long term maintenance and repair costs.

            I have no real expertise in the separation technologies, but I am a certified welder,or used to be, years ago, and I have read up on it, at various times, and I’ve always taken every opportunity to ask any technicians or engineers I run across as many questions as they will answer.

            They have all told me that industrial bottled oxygen that you get at a welding supply in rented or leased pressure tanks is typically about ninety eight and one half or better percent pure. The rest is argon, traces of other inert gases, and a little bit of nitrogen. Most of time they get most of the argon out, because it brings a high price and is always in short supply. Ditto the other noble or inert gases, they get what they can, up to the point the cost of extracting the last little bit costs more than it will fetch when selling them.

            If you’re doing aerospace grade welding work, or medical work, they take extra care, and go to a lot of extra expense, to get the last little bit of nitrogen and inert gases, as best they can.

            If the tanks don’t have positive pressure when returned to the plant where they are filled, they’re flushed with nitrogen and then they flush again getting nearly all the nitrogen out by flooding with oxygen immediately before filling. Sometimes they pull a vacuum, depending on who and where the work is done.

            The slightest trace of any hydrocarbon or even pure carbon is a MAJOR fire and explosion hazard,at AMBIENT temperatures, due to the high pressures involved,over a hundred atmospheres, and the extreme reactivity of concentrated oxygen, and so you can be assured the tanks are clean.

            So I’m told by people who are supposed to know.

            I do know that every once in a while somebody sets himself on fire by blowing some pure oxygen into his under wear, lol. It’s nice and cold and feels great if you have sweat running down on your scrotum…… so long as there’s nothing to ignite it.

            I’ve been taking hits right off the regulator since I was a kid, and just about everybody I know who has used oxygen on the job has done the same once in a while. Perks you right up, for a minute or two, lol.

            Some people say it’s good for hangovers. I disagree. The effect wears off too fast.

            2. “Only medical and high purity grades of oxygen guarantee levels of CO and CO2.”

              That is correct. However this only means that the gas is analysed again, it comes from the same batch as the stuff with lower GUARANTEED purity. 🙂

            3. Probably depends on the supplier. They may have separate streams that have different amounts of pre-filtration, filters are expensive. I just want people to understand that they need to understand the risks and learn about what they are doing before starting a fire or poisoning someone. Has anyone even considered that breathing pure oxygen in an enclosed room will increase the oxygen content in the whole room?

              NAOM

            4. BTW Water is taken out because it is highly corrosive to tanks, under high pressure oxygen. One of the inspection points is to look for pitting and corrosion inside the tank.

              NAOM

    1. “#TheTrumpDepression”

      Where is the prescribed 50 year debt Jubilee?

      1. Sorry, you’ll get a $5Trillion tax/debt bill, no Jubilee.
        Courtesy of poor leadership/decision making, to a considerable extent.

    2. Hickory, are blaming Trump for the economy because of his dismantling of Obama’s pandemic team and his lack of preparation in January and February?

      1. Well, yes.
        Those examples among many others.
        Here is one for you-

        WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Several months before the coronavirus pandemic began, the Trump administration eliminated a key American public health position in Beijing intended to help detect disease outbreaks in China,…

        https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-china-cdc-exclusiv/exclusive-u-s-axed-cdc-expert-job-in-china-months-before-virus-outbreak-idUSKBN21910S

        But the big problem with him is that all decisions are put through the filter of “what is in this for me”. That has always been his paramount stance in life. Far more that the vast majority of people. It is always a mistake to enable people like that, at every position in life.
        If, in mid January, Trump had been put in a sealed box, the country would be doing much better today from a leadership and decision making perspective. Some people would say ‘true enough’. January 1956.

  35. Something I have been wondering is; could Trump declare a national emergency postponing elections ‘due to the dangers of infection’? What is the likelihood of republican states using this to skew voting populations for example closing poling stations or restricting access in democratic areas, because ‘keeping the voter safe’, while providing full service in republican ones?

    NAOM

    1. The probability of the Republican machine attempting to gain election advantage from this situation is, in my view, 100%. An even scarier possibility is Trump maneuvering to put off the November election under some supposed national emergency. I’d say that has a non-zero probability.

      1. I don’t think the secret service could stop the public from removing him by the orange short hairs if he is lucky. More likely he would get something along the line of the colonel Gaddafi treatment.

        2. An insider in the Secret Service, or maybe the FBI , could get to the orangutan. Such people are very closely vetted, the ones that even get hired, and the ones that get close are double and triple kept under observation. It’s very unlikely any body will get physically close who intends him harm.

          There is for all practical purposes no way in hell a mob will get close to him, unless the world goes entirely Mad Max.

          BUT let a few million people start burning cars in the street and breaking store windows, in cities all over the country, and the REPUBLICAN PARTY will get the message, and get rid of him for the sake of whatever can be salvaged for the people IN the party in positions of power and influence.

          That doesn’t seem likely at the moment, but if things continue to get worse, it could happen.

    3. I certainly share your concern NAOM.
      I don’t know the answers.
      But I am sure the republicans will do every thing they can, legal and illegal, moral and immoral, to keep control.
      Very few put anything but their party first and foremost. Certainly not country.

      1. CNN or Politico had an article on this the other day. The long and short of it ……would be impossible to do. Terrible Covid is politicized, but then what isn’t these days?

        The most disgusting thing I have read lately are the stock sales after confidential briefings on Covid 19 were made to a select few. Or, Trump demanding governors be nice if they want him to be nice. Or,….the list is pretty long.

  37. There are about 1 billion cows worldwide. They average about half a ton, and produce about 8% of their body weight in dung every day. That’s 40 billion kilograms of dung every day, or roughly 15 tons a year. Taken together, that’s 15 billion tons of dung a year.

    A barrel (of oil) is roughly 16% of a cubic meter, so assuming dung weighs as much as water that is roughly 100 bn barrels of dung a year. Oil production is 100m barrels a day, which is about 36.5 bn a year, a third of the volume. Of course oil has more energy.

    1. Spread oil on a field and try to grow plants. Oh my, oil kills life.

  38. Lets try a little experiment. Consider that all the people at the White House Press briefings on Covid-19 are actors. Look at a series of the briefings. There are at least people 12 who have been presenting, all selected for their expertise, leadership, and accomplishment. Regardless of whether you agree with them or like them, they are all well spoken, serious and appropriate actors.
    Yet one is an exception. Lets see if you can pick out the one exception. Who is the one who seems-
    a little retarded or brain damaged, unschooled, poorly spoken, slow on the uptake, rude, condescending, chronically constipated, with a tendency to bullying, wandering thought, and poor grasp of the material at hand?
    If you guessed the big orange fat guy, you are correct. And guess what- he is the boss of them all!
    Who put him in that position, above all the other adults in country?
    Are they ashamed of themselves?
    Is this even real?

    1. “Are they ashamed of themselves?”
      No, they believe He was appointed by God.

      NAOM

      1. “I have been incredibly disappointed in this president,” Schaaf said. “He is a disaster. He is his own state of emergency.”

        1. Apparently the circus will continue. We have a front row seats.

    3. I just thought it was a bad 70’s acid trip

      Today he revealed his plan to lead his base into an Easter Day petri dish sermon. You see, there is a silver lining.

    4. Guess what, dummies voted in a snake oil salesman with weird hair, and about 40% would do it again. Scared yet?

  41. One aspect of the pandemic is that everyone with any interest in their survival is becoming aware of contagion models such as the SIR compartmental model, where S I R stands for Susceptible, Infectious, and Recovered. The Infectious part of the time progression within a population resembles a bell curve that peaks at a particular point indicating maximum contagiousness. We hope that this either peaks early or that it doesn’t peak at too high a level.

    One other area that these compartmental models come up is in the modeling of oil depletion, where the S I R model corresponds to Sequestered (in the ground), Identified (i.e. discovered), and Recovered (i.e. extracted). This has been progressing over the course of decades, with the global peak of the discovered oil occurring by the end of the 1960’s and on a downhill trajectory since then — a slow but relentless extraction drawdown with the citizenry barely being aware of this fact. Nowhere near as sudden as what we’re going through now as the full S I R coronavirus cycle completes in a matter of months. And this virus cycle may recur again, but the S I R version for oil will not — as oil does not reproduce.

    There is one publication that describes this model fully — go to https://scholar.google.com and search for “compartmental model” and “peak oil” and see what comes up.

      1. I placed that explanation in the comments because if you can’t understand it, then you can’t understand why the coronavirus and COVID-19 is so deadly in terms of overall lethality in the population. Lots of people want to understand the contagion mechanism because their life or their family is on the line. However, the understanding of peak oil is not so important to them because the impact is not so immediate, even though the math of resource depletion is comparable to that of epidemiology.

  42. Tirumalai Kamala
    Immunologist, Ph.D. Mycobacteriology

    Follow this scientist on Quora to better understand CV and other health and some political questions.

  43. I’ve just had another friendly confrontation, no blows exchanged, with a couple of orangutan voters. They, like almost all the others I’ve talked to, are totally willing to overlook his perfectly obvious criminal level short comings, for the very simple reason that they hate Clinton guts with a fiery passion, and are absolutely confident that the Clintons were WORSE than the orangutan, if they even KNOW about trump university, his family charity being shut down, etc.

    The reason I mention this is once again to point out to forward thinking Democrats that the D’s should never ever again go with candidates that have very high disapproval ratings with the relevant voters even before the primary season starts.

    It doesn’t matter whether her baggage train was real, or imaginary. What MATTERED was how many voters believed it was real.

    In the case of a presidential election, that means HRC was a piss poor candidate from the word go, everything else held equal.

    I’m a big Bernie fan myself, but his disapproval ratings in the south means he likely wouldn’t win a single southern state, Virginia possibly excepted, given that Northern Virginia is now so heavily populated with younger more liberal voters.

    So I haven’t supported him for the presidential nomination. Without at least a couple of big southern states, the D’s don’t have a prayer. Biden can and very likely will carry Virginia at least, and maybe a couple or three more southern states.

    But I hope like hell he will give his full support to Biden, who barring unforeseen events will be the nominee. He will support Biden, no doubt, but it’s an open question how much energy he will put into doing so.

    After talking with quite a few orangutan supporters, I’ve been forced to conclude that there’s hardly any hope at all convincing an older, poorly educated one to change his or her mind. The orangutan was right, he could shoot somebody on the street, and they wouldn’t mind. Half of them would celebrate the shooting.

    But there’s good reason to believe we can peel off some younger orangutan voters, especially ones that have serious health issues but not much income, and some that have at least the rudiments of a technical education.

    Otherwise, the only hope is to wait for them to die, while doing all we can to encourage younger people to vote.

    I ‘ve known three personally that died since the last election, all of them from chronic health issues complicated by old age.

    If the CV runs wild between by around the end of August, enough of his core of older voters will die to get the attention of at least a few of the survivors.

    I won’t be surprised if I know a couple or maybe more older folks personally who die from CV between now and election day.

    I have at least a dozen close relatives in the immediate neighborhood who are in the highest risk category, namely old and already chronically sick for one reason or another. If half the people around here get infected, probably at least three out of that dozen or so will die.

    Of course they would die within a few more months or years in any case, which seems to be the current default thinking of R type politicians, if they can figure out a way to blame Obama for it.

    I’m old myself, which is why I know more old people than most younger folks.

  44. I could have posted this as a reply to Han Neuman’s comment further up but, I prefer to start a new discussion.

    While COVID-19 infections rage on, especially in NYC, I see no evidence of any interest in high dose IV vitamin C that was tried in China with some degree of success according to some reports ( Hospital treatment of COVID-19 with high-dose Vit C). I must preface this comment with a reference to a book, first published in 1972 and available for reading online at the Vitamin C Foundation web site ( https://vitamincfoundation.org/stone/ ). The book is alo available as a PDF at THE HEALING FACTOR . This book was written by the late Irwin Stone, an American biochemist and chemical engineer and makes the case for a scientific basis for using high dosage vitamin C therapies. It is difficult to grasp the idea of high dose vitamin C regimens without reading and subscribing to the ideas in part 1 of Stones book.

    Having said that, there appears to be a stubborn reluctance on the part of the mainstream medical establishment and the public at large, to accept that high dose vitamin C therapies are even remotely effective. This is born out by a ten year old story from New Zealand that was aired on 60 minutes (in New Zealand only?), The Miracle Cure: Vitamin C “Living Proof” 60 Minutes (pt-1). That video tells the story of a Alan Smith, a New Zealand dairy farmer who was stricken with swine flu, was experiencing severe respiratory distress with hiss lungs almost completely filled with fluid and was being kept alive by an ECMO artificial lung. After roughly two weeks in a coma with no improvement, the medical team recommended that the life support system be turned off, in which case he would die.

    Smith’s three sons at least one of whom was a advocate of vitamin C made a very strident case that the family had a right to insist that high dose IV vitamin C treatment should be tried. Smith improved dramatically in a couple days but, the vitamin C infusion was discontinued with the hospital insisting that turning the body over (face down) was the reason for the improvement. In a subsequent meeting the doctor in charge was adamant that he would not reinstatement the treatment, resulting in a confrontation that was averted when the meeting was aborted. To cut to the chase, Smith’s case became a protracted battle with doctors and hospitals to force them to administer doses that could hardly be considered high dose (2,000 mg/day). This battle included the threat of legal action by the family if their right to reasonable treatments was violated.

    There is a part 2 to the sixty minute video, The Miracle Cure: Vitamin C “Living Proof” 60 Minutes (pt-2) that features the unsuccessful struggles of two other families to get high dose IV vitamin C administered to critically ill patients that ultimately died. David Geller, a principal adviser to the Health Ministry (New Zealand) and a senior intensive care specialist was interviewed for the program and his attitude typifies that of the medical establishment, stating “With regard to high-dose intravenous vitamin C there is no convincing evidence at all in this population that it that it works, no convincing evidence at all.” He continued, “We as a group believe it’s harmful. In this setting of critical illness, the potential for harm outweighs any putative benefits.” Interviewer: So when families say repeatedly, why could we not just have tried, he was going to die, what is your answer?:Geller: “I wouldn’t be comfortable giving it to them because I think that would be a deceitful act. You know we’re not in the business of actually raising false hopes, you know we’re in the business of being real and being honest” Who died and made him (Galler) God? Geller says a lot more in the video that betrays a kind of arrogance I find unsettling. I remain curious about the almost vitriolic resistance by mainstream medicine to the mere thought that vitamin C can be effective in treating illnesses. Stone’s book does not lend any support to that reluctance and the enthusiasm of Dr. Richard Cheng from the first link in this comment bears a strong contrast.

    In the meantime, more than ten years on, the grim reaper continues his dastardly work!

    1. “I remain curious about the almost vitriolic resistance by mainstream medicine to the mere thought that vitamin C can be effective in treating illnesses.”

      If you want the view of Medical Professionals (which I very much doubt) you might want to read the overview of Vitamin C put out by the Mayo Clinic. BTW when I developed cancer almost everyone gave me advice on what I should and shouldn’t take or eat, all of which I ignored. Miracle cures are a dime a dozen. Here’s some advice for you. If you want the latest scientific or medical opinion listen to the applicable experts in the field and ignore all the woo woo “experts”. Do you get your information on stars from astronomers or astrologers?

      https://www.mayoclinic.org/drugs-supplements-vitamin-c/art-20363932

      1. More importantly the body regulates the blood level of vitamin C both at the intestinal wall and internally. One could use an IV drip directly into the blood to proceed above optimum levels but that might just strain the waste removal systems.

        Here is Dr. Greger’s review of the research done on vitamin C levels and the best way to maintain optimum health (good food).

        What is the Optimal Vitamin C Intake?
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVR06qdg1_k&t=13s

        Why skip all the other nutrients in good food, which act in concert to promote health and immunity? If one is deficient in minerals and vitamins, one would have a postive response to increases in those. If one has optimum levels already, the system is functioning fully and rates of certain reactions or site activity can only be raised at the expense of other reactions or overloading the liver and kidneys.

        1. “Why skip all the other nutrients in good food…”

          That’s exactly what my doctor said. He also said, because I have a slight iron deficiency, that a SMALL amount of vitamin C would facilitate the uptake of iron from food but that good quality food is the key.

      2. My comment was specifically about the use of high dose vitamin C to treat acute respiratory distress associated with viral infections of the respiratory tract. I linked to two videos of a 60 Minutes program which documented a single case of exactly that in New Zealand. My first link was to a video uploaded by a medical doctor promoting the treatment in China. Your response is ” If you want the latest scientific or medical opinion listen to the applicable experts in the field and ignore all the woo woo “experts”. Do you get your information on stars from astronomers or astrologers?”?

        Actually, I get my information from MDs who just happen to subscribe to the information in Stone’s book (which obviously has not been read).

        The Method of Determining Proper Doses of Vitamin C for the Treatment of Disease by Titrating to Bowel Tolerance prepared by Robert F. Cathcart, III, M.D bio

        Clinical Guide to the Use of Vitamin C The Clinical Experiences of Frederick R. Klenner, M.D. abbreviated, sumarized and annotated by Lendon H. Smith, M.D.
        Frederick R. Klenner, M.D. bio

      3. Did you know that guinea pigs, one species of fruit eating bat, one bird, homo sapiens and a few other primates are the only animals in the whole animal kingdom that are not able to synthesize their own vitamin C?

        Did you know that homo sapiens has all the enzymes to synthesize vitamin C from glucose execept the one required for the final step and that the lack of that enzyme can be traced back to a defective gene in the genome of the primates that lack the ability to synthesize the vitamin?

    2. Ever since the disaster with a new drug, I forget the name of it, senior moment, causing thousands of birth defects, it’s been cover your ass gospel that you never publicly say anything about any new treatment, other than that it might be worth having clinical trials. Thalidomide.

      That’s drilled in, and the vast majority of all professional people are extremely reluctant to question the conventional wisdom for fear of boogering their own careers. It’s deadly to be wrong when the establishment is right, but it’s ok to be wrong if the establishment turns out to be wrong.

      1. I don’t think that is how it is OFM. To the contrary, people in the medical industry are primed the other way- be very suspicious of new treatments.
        And if there is a problem, then be the first to document and report it.
        That earns you big respect in your field.

        Even in pharma, companies generally want to know if a product under development is a problem. The last thing they want is to spend more money on a dead-end project, or find out like thalidomide that they have a catastrophe with their name on it.

        btw- thalidomide is still used for some purposes (leprosy and multiple myeloma, I believe), just not for reproductive ages since it is teratogenic

        1. One problem with trying a drug on coronavirus is that there is an 80% natural recovery rate and any trial has to be designed to deal with that. With new drugs the caution is the risk of unexpected side effects that was best shown with a drug trail of a drug, that had passed all lab tests including animal models, that IIRC used about 1% of the therapeutic dose but caused a cytokinine storm severely affecting the test subjects. With thalidomide only one of the enantiomers caused the problems, the other was safe, that could be an issue in other trials where a lab production could favour one while industrial production could favour the other.

          NAOM

    3. islandboy —
      you talk about vitamin C a lot, but you don’t seem to have any clear idea of what is actually does.
      Does it prevent infection? How?
      Does it reduce symptoms? How?
      Does it kill viruses? How?
      Does it reduce the reproduction rate of viruses? How?

      “Vitamin C can be effective in treating illnesses” isn’t really a helpful claim.

  46. Update and prep to share from BC:

    Finished a brand spanking new (replacement) greenhouse, yesterday. 500+ sq feet, made out of glass panels and old growth yellow cedar. It is on a concrete foundation with slightly raised beds and drain rock paths. For the roof I used this product….. http://greenhouseplastics.ca/ Poly carb twinwall. We’ll grow about 30 tomato plants, a dozen or so long english cukes, numerous salad blends, etc. It fills up pretty quick. This year I am planting some pot plants as well, something I haven’t done since junior secondary. 🙂

    Along with our gardens, kitchen garden, etc etc our town runs are usually for things that are great to have, but we can do without. For example, we don’t have a milk cow or make cheese, but do have chickens, eggs, salmon etc. You can freeze milk. Anyway, we are in isolation like everyone else, and while the food thing is taken care of, it is still sad and upsetting not to see the kids or our grand daughter. We have lots of testing in BC, so that isn’t a problem, but what is a problem are the idiots who refuse to stay home. The Province has had to close many parks. Our crowds are to be no larger than 2 people, at 2 metres distance. 🙂

    My sister-in-law is a front end manager at a large grocery store in Courtenay BC. Their hours have been reduced and many customers have turned into complete assholes. They have guards posted at the doors with a maximum of 50 in the store at one time. Staff are starting to stay home because of the virus and the behaviour of some of the more difficult customers. While grocery stores are an essential service, you can’t force staff to come in so we’ll see where this goes?

    My son works maint in the Oil Sands. He is on days off and his company called the other day to see if he is coming back on site? He assured them he is. I think he will just be staying in Ft Mac until the infection rates start to decline. He can’t do anything here, anyway. Air travel is dropping by the day and who wants to climb into a germ tube? He’s driving back and won’t be home again for several months it looks like. Provided, of course, inter-provincial travel is not stopped before next week. He’d just sleep in his truck enroute, anyway, but if they stop travel? (They might).

    Our lives are really changing like all of yours. I haven’t visited POB for awhile and I just wanted to drop in and see who was saying what? Take care and be safe. This is a surreal nightmare. Good luck.

    regards Paul S

    3. Hi Paul,
      We built a greenhouse in 2014, its been great. When we put in the foundation my wife’s comment was its too big (the greenhouse!). Shortly after finishing it and starting on the planting ‘oh it could have been bigger’.
      May change the roof to Poly carb too.
      Spent morning digging in garden to put in potatoes. Lovely warm sunshine for a change in West of Ireland.
      Good luck to all.
      Rich

      1. Just make sure that water and algae cannot get into the channels of twin wall polycarbonate.

        NAOM

        1. Yes indeed.
          In Seattle area I had green/black algae colonize the channels in about one year.
          Otherwise great product.

          1. Thanks guys. I appreciate the tips. I’m waiting for a decent day to finish the sealing.

            I did put the top course under a very tight roof cap. The bottom I will silicone with a small drilled hole to let out water vapour. This is a replacement greenhouse for one that a 2′ snowfall followed by rain did in. In this case I built it to death (I am a ticketed carpenter). I could park a tank on it. Anyway, we set out lettuce seedlings today, radishes, and peas are planted in the garden.

            With the lockdown we have nothing but time. I think we have changed our mindset to relax and enjoy every little job. I am saving a bedroom reno for next winter. Take care.

  47. Must admit, never saw this one coming:

    GREEN ENERGY PLANT THREAT TO WILDERNESS AREAS

    “… around 17% of renewable facilities globally are in protected regions. A further 900 plants are now being developed in key areas of biodiversity. The number of active renewable energy facilities within important conservation lands could increase by 42% over the next eight years.

    https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-52023881

    1. Yes, the true champions of wilderness have been talking about this and trying to stop it for decades. One of the major problems is that both fossil energy and renewable energy are growing at the same time and occur in different places, so wilderness and natural areas get a multiple whammy. If wind power becomes a global power, it just might be the end of a number of species of birds, bats and insects (who are already heavily stressed).

      PV can be placed and distributed to limit damage to natural areas and take advantage of closed coal mines, closed oil fields and refineries as time goes on. However, in this land of do things as cheaply and conveniently as possible, it won’t happen very often. Money and business often overrides intelligent action or ensuring a living planet.

      Has anyone thought of why we seem to be the only species on earth that appears to need electricity, metals, concrete, chemical industry and vehicles just to survive? The only species.

      1. I don’t know Fish, why do you NEED those things? Btw, my dog thinks she needs those thing too.

          1. There is no question about my four legged friend’s likes and dislikes. She always wants to enjoy the comforts of being inside the house with her favorite spot being the couch. She never wants to miss the front seat of the caddy for a ride to the beach and a bath afterwords. Also likes her food warmed up in the microwave. It called body language.

            Why did you avoid the question with a stupid comment ?

            1. Your interpretations of your dog’s behavior is childlike. Enjoy the wonders fo the day and don’t hurt yourself attempting to think. It’s still a beautiful world with many rewards for those open to them, even if they don’t comprehend the intricacies.

            2. Just answer the question, communication isn’t always verbal. Your communication now says you don’t walk your talk.

            3. More bull about me? Are you in a lot of pain or just had a poor upbringing that makes you so pointlessly confrontational? Dogs usually model their owners so just think of them as mirrors. They show you what you want to see and you seem very gullible.

            4. You continue to fail to answer about your own behavior regarding the use of modern technological advances. You can start with your computer and connection equipment. Why do you need them?

              Evivrus jsut ro evil nac uoy

            5. Still, you evade the subject at hand. You very apparently are offended by the subject which calls into question materialism above life. I can understand your position, since it is self serving but extremely destructive. Something most people just find ways to justify. Don’t worry the cognitive dissonance will soon subside.

      2. We don’t need them to survive.

        I don’t need music, art, & literature to survive, and I don’t see those in wide distribution throughout the animal kingdom either, but I sure do like them.

        Weird species we is.

        1. I’m probably as well situated as ANYBODY in this forum, even Paulo, to survive without these things. Pro farmer, university trained, life long experience doing things the old way at least on the family old time hobby scale to please the old folks. We even owned milk cows and mules into my middle age, using a mule a few days a year, plus the old gooseneck hoes, to raise an acre of corn, etc. I own the land, I own the equipment, I have hands on experience out the ying yang. Plenty of buildings, masonry, with long life metal roofing.Clean gravity fed water, deep well, septic system. I could even build a new septic system myself, if necessary. Guns and ammo out the ying yang, know how to use them. Old friends who have seen the elephant ( armed full scale war, been shot at, shot back, and hit in a couple of cases) willing to fort up with me , if things go entirely mad max.

          Without big pharma, without a hospital, I figure my life expectancy is probably reduced by anywhere from one quarter to one half.

          But given that everything IS in place, except maybe gun pits, I could probably still grow enough corn and beans and pick enough wild greens and look after some chickens, etc, to survive a few more years…… by hand……. so long as I don’t suffer any serious injury.

          We ‘re all pretty much in the same boat. There are damned few people left in places such as the USA who will survive without electricity, running water, pharma, grocery stores, etc.

          IF I need these things….. how the fuck can the rest of you, excepting maybe one or two regulars here, expect to make it without them?

          Now if I were young again, I would have a good shot, given my resources.

          Most farmers these days don’t have an actual CLUE about how you go about small scale diversified farming, zero experience in it, no any equipment suited to the job . They’re specialists, with specialized equipment, and they know everything about nothing, so to speak.

          The ones that provide the vast bulk of our food don’t even have land well suited to such farming. Grain is well suited to mono culture production in the mid west, for NOW at least…… assuming the other infrastructure holds up and the pesticide and crop breeding industries stay ahead of the crop diseases that can go pandemic as fast as animal diseases.

          Grain grows ok in the southeast, same system.

          Veggies and fruit don’t grow well in the midwest,compared to the southeast. Semitropical crops such as oranges and cane sugar, not at all.

          We can grow crops here that are better suited to cool climates, such as potatoes and cabbage, , by planting and harvesting early, or late, but farmers way up north can’t grow melons or peanuts, etc, easily, if at all.

          The eggs, poultry, beef, pork, and the dairy products we take for granted depend on industrial agriculture as things stand today.

          Even apples are basically an industrially produced commodity crop now. When I was a kid, we used a twenty horsepower sprayer mounted on an old truck. My grandparents got by with no sprayer at all back when they were young.

          Growers still in the business today use two hundred horsepower sprayers towed by hundred horsepower tractors, and work ten to twenty times faster.

          Incidentally full grown big boy organic growers use similar equipment, but they do use far fewer pesticides. Other than the pesticides and manufactured fertilizers, organic farmers who produce enough to matter are still entirely dependent on industrial infrastructure for fuel, packaging, shipping, storage, and labor saving devices of all sorts, up to and including hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of field equipment.

          I don’t know what the odds are of Old Man Businessasusual continuing to remain hale and hearty, as he APPEARS to have been, for the last few decades, while rotting out from the inside with a slow moving but eventually fatal disease, as he has been, for the last half century or so, but lately he seems to be staggering rather than steady on his feet, and there’s a significant chance he will collapse any year, if not any particular day.

          Will the shit REALLY hit the fan? I don’t know WHEN, but compared to what’s happening now with cv19, things could be a hundred times worse.

          I’m afraid that eventually this will be the case, but I’m with Ron in that I think it’s very likely that I’ll be dead before then.

          1. Actually, OFM I am an amateur compared to you. We’re set up pretty good, but I am definitely NOT a farmer. We are just big gardeners. I did raise sheep for a few years, katahdins for meat ( a few lambs every spring), but we were visited by cougars 3 times. The last time a big cat tore open a shed gate during the night and carried away our prize ewe we named Deb. And that was the last of my sheep farming. I did shoot the cat over the kill (she buried it under leaves etc) and then I hid the evidence. It was just easier than dealing with the wardens. The last I saw of the cat she was floating downstream.

            My great uncle was a farmer in Minnesota. He raised Holsteins and grew corn. His wife worked as the rural mail lady. My cousins were farmers, dairy. They ran two farms and both were teachers to also help pay to farm. We just have chickens for eggs, and the extras I sell to neighbours which pays for the feed. It is just too tough of a racket. Too much work to make a buck, and that is sad.

            Yesterday I stopped in at a feed store to pick up some scratch and layer pellets. They said they would be open day to day….no guarantees.

            Do you remember the retired colonel who wrote on TOD about his market garden? I think he was in W Virginia. Anyway, he kept meticulous records and made extensive notes about his progress. I took what he said to heart and stayed a small timer.

            1. Oh, I forgot to add one thing. My wife contracted type 1 diabetes at age 13. She is very healthy now, even at age 60, but we always worry. We did buy 6 months of insulin and supplies when the virus started taking off…. about 1 month ago. When we go somewhere we always make sure we have extra meds along in case the big one hits and we can’t get back home. If you looked at her working in the garden today you would swear she was training for some Olympic event. But without big pharma, she would not be sitting next to me right now. Such is luck, or lack of it.

      3. Doug —
        My guess is that agricultural land will be the primary candidate for big solar fields. Check out the satellite images West of Calexico and Northwest of Lancaster CA for examples.

        To keep prices down, solar is best built on underused land near existing transmission infrastructure. So heavily subsidized agricultural land, or in the case of Antelope Valley abandoned agricultural land makes more sense than wilderness areas.

        In much of the world, like the Middle East, North Africa, Western China, Central Asia and Northern India, the deserts are pretty much man made anyway, so the distinction is moot.

        1. The amount of food production lost compared to the amount of safe clean and extremely useful electricity produced by putting farm land into solar is trivial in the extreme.
          Furthermore, if there’s sufficient water available to farm this land in the first place, it’s practical to put the solar panels on elevated mounts and farther apart, and continue to use the land for the production of some crops, especially if labor is abundant and cheap and farmland is in short supply in the local area.
          It can even be that due to the shade associated with the panels, it will be cool enough to grow things that otherwise couldn’t stand the sun and heat.

          In other cases, cool season crops, that grow earlier or late, such as cabbage, can grow ok, because such crops don’t need as much light anyway, being adapted to shorter days when the sun is lower in the sky and less intense.

  48. Trump’s Handling of Coronavirus Approved by 60% in Gallup Poll
    By Justin Sink

    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-24/trump-s-handling-of-coronavirus-approved-by-60-in-gallup-poll-k86e29ot

    Some six in 10 Americans approve of the job Donald Trump is doing to combat the coronavirus crisis, pushing the president’s approval rating – 49% – to the highest of his presidency, according to a poll released Tuesday by Gallup.

    Trump’s gains come as his standing has improved among Democrats and independents amid the viral outbreak, which has killed more than 660 people even as the nation has adopted strict rules limiting public gatherings. Trump’s job approval numbers are up 6 points among Democrats and 8 points among independents, according to the survey.

    And voters are largely giving Trump positive marks for his handling of the pandemic, with 94% of Republicans, 60% of independents, and 27% of Democrats approving of his efforts. That’s higher than his general approval rating among each group.

    Presidential approval has often rallied after significant national events, like the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the killing of Osama bin Laden, or the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, according to Jeffrey Jones, Gallup’s senior editor.

    “During these rallies, independents and supporters of the opposing party to the president typically show heightened support for the commander in chief,” Jones said in a statement.

  49. UK

    Supermarkets getting back to normal, most staple foods back in stock.

    Online deliveries are still ridiculous no delivery slots available for 3 weeks being shown. Obviously with people told not to go out, particularly the elderly and the 1.5 million who are at high risk, demand is extraordinary.
    Will have to send frozen food package to parents, next week, at least we can afford the cost.

    1. I went out for my weekly shop, yesterday. Generally, slightly less traffic on the roads but not enough to distinguish from my normal trips and my being later. Less people about but not hugely less with little sign of distancing. Easter market packing up. Many shops open with some closed.

      The tool shop had no sanitiser but two trolleys in front of the counter with a steel cable between them to make people keep their distance. The seeds shop had a sanitiser, on a low counter, with the nozzle broken off so that an enthusiastic pump would deliver a dose of sanitiser straight to your orchestras.

      Walmart had the influenza health team on one side of the entrance, giving out jabs, and the instant health check team on the other but no sign of tests. Little mask wearing and a small bottle of sanitiser on the security table. Rice, flour, beans – gone. Toilet rolls slightly reduced, plenty of bleach, wipes wiped out.

      La Comer busy as usual. Still the same precautions as last week but more sign of gringos wearing masks – mostly badly fitted. One notably wearing gloves but no mask who I spotted, later, loading his car, all doors and hatch open, and still wearing gloves. Has he thought about, having touched everything with contaminated gloves, he will then touch the same surfaces with his hands? Most stuff in stock with no notable absences.

      NAOM

  50. After reading through last nights news I am getting more convinced that the USA is doing all it can to hide the number of cases of coronavirus. It seems that no one, unless approved celebrity or official, can get a test unless medical examination shows that it must be coronavirus and all other tests have been run at least once (the testing companies must be making a fortune from that). Anyone who is only suspected of having the virus, but likely to have, is not able to get a test. It seems that even so called ‘testing stations’ can be a hit and miss affair.

    I dread to think what the real spread in the population is, how many undiagnosed cases and silent spreaders. I hate to think where things will be around Easter and going into May.

    NAOM

    1. I do not think they are hiding the number. Just as in the UK the government has said they are testing only those most likely to have the illness.

      We are only testing 7,000 or so a day, we hope to get up to 25,000 in a couple of weeks, which even then will only be 0.002% of the population per week.

      This is simply a result of people’s priorities, when people pay towards football players earning $500,000 per week, vast amounts spent on cars, restaurants and clothing,

      https://www.commonobjective.co/article/the-size-of-the-global-fashion-retail-market

      there simply is little left for things like scientific research.

      Much of cancer research depends on charity money, and so do things like dementia and many many other things

      https://www.debra.org.uk/uk-funded-projects/current-uk-funded-projects

      You get what you pay for.

      1. USA seems to be resisting testing least it boost the numbers, an example is the reluctance to let the cruise ship dock least it boost the number of cases. I believe the situation is far worse, in the USA, than we are seeing at present.

        NAOM

  51. New York Hospitals Are Using Vitamin C to Treat Some Coronavirus Patients

    Large doses of vitamin C are being administered to patients in intensive care at certain hospitals in New York, Newsweek has confirmed with a spokesperson for Northwell Health.

    They confirmed reports that patients testing positive with COVID-19 were in some cases being treated with large doses of vitamin C—among other drugs—at their clinics.

    The antioxidant is being administered intravenously in quantities far exceeding the daily recommended dose, which is 90 milligrams for men and 75 milligrams for women as recommended by the National Institutes of Health.

    Fat-soluble vitamins, such as vitamin A and D, can be quite toxic at high doses, but vitamin C is reasonably safe as it is easily excreted, Peter McCaffery, Professor of Biochemistry at the University of Aberdeen in the U.K., told Newsweek. It is also known that intravenous vitamin C is relatively safe when applied under clinical supervision, McCaffery added.

  52. Theres a D superpac ad out about the orangutan that the R’s are trying to get suppressed thru the court system.

    I’ don’t want to copy the link, because I haven’t had much luck with that on this site, but everybody should look for it and do everything in his power to spread it around.
    I’m copying the link to all my email friends.

    One thing, the link I have has popup that may be a virus trying to get you to click on media player or plugin, not sure which.

    Somebody that’s not a computer klutz, and has a good antivirus program, will hopefully let me and others know about that.

            1. Always. There’s a mango tree in the yard of my apartment block that is laden with fruit at the moment. Picked a couple dozen and failed to catch about 8 which had broken skin as a result. I decided that I’d eat as many of the ones that had broken skin right away and ended up eating about six. When one eats six freshly picked mangoes in one sitting one tends to pay a price. I did this morning, so I got my bowel tolerance dose for sure, without taking any pills! 😉

            2. Some people are allergic to mango sap, wash well before eating and wash your hands after handling unwashed fruit. Known a couple of people get a severe rash.

              NAOM

            3. As you should well know, there are hundreds if not thousands of varieties of mangoes. The ones I ate yesterday are called East Indian, very sweet and very hairy, lots of fiber. I have access to a tree that is my favorite variety, called Bombay, very distinctive taste and not hairy at all.

              When picked, Bombay mangoes tend to eject a sap from the point where the fruit attaches to the stem that is a serious irritant to skin. It starts out as a mild itch which gets progressively worse, ending up with a burn like blister. It’s not actually an allergic reaction because, it does that to everybody. It would be interesting to know what is in that sap.

            4. Interesting about the varieties, what you described is what some people have described here. Worth people knowing if they go mango scrumping.

              NAOM

          2. Thanks, that ad was fantastic. The only problem was it was not long enough. It would have taken a lot longer to quote all the very ignorant things Trump has said.

  53. Has anybody heard from Fred Maygar recently?

    I don’t always agree with him on every point, but I sure used to pay very close attention to everything he had to say.

    1. Some time ago, he said he was leaving this blog. A loss IMHO.

      NAOM

  54. Just got an SMS from GOBMX. All non-essential work is to stop. Will keep an eye on this. No idea how they will define ‘essential’ here.

    I just wonder what is going to happen with the Easter invasion due to start in just over a week. We normally get 10s-100s of thousands of visitors. Hotels are so packed you can walk across the swimming pool without getting your feet wet (don’t go in the water as they put naked babies in and you know what those do; plus they are known to use the swimming pools for clothes washing). Some sleep in their vehicles, some camp on the beach. Some will not go due to lock-downs, some will come because of them. They will arrive in a town with many places closed. So, what will the authorities do? Roadblock and send them back?

    NAOM

    1. With little economic a activity and no money, things are going to unravel very quickly. Should get really interesting when the second and third pulse of the virus passes through. People will just ignore the governments and just get on with BAU.

  55. I copied this from Quora.
    Please pass it along, and help libtards own some orangutan fans, lol.

    Donald Trump is always boasting he has such a high IQ. How can we get him to prove it?
    Thomas Bowler
    Thomas Bowler, studied Political Science & Religion at Loyola University Chicago (1971)
    Answered Wed

    He proves his smarts every day. His high IQ comes blasting through every time he tweets his genius thoughts.

    The Top Ten Things Which Prove That
    Donald Trump is a Stable Genius

    10.) Only he knows that the “sound of Wind Turbines causes cancer.”

    9.) He makes speeches that nobody can understand, so he must be speaking at a level far above the average person. Much of what he says can only be heard by people who can hear “Dog Whistles”.

    8.) He knows big words like “covfefe”, which most people have no idea what it means.

    7.) Only he is smart enough to read between the lines of The Mueller Report and see that he is “TOTALLY and COMPLETELY EXONERATED!”, right after the passage where it says “Accordingly, while this report does not conclude that the president committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.”

    6.) Only Trump knows that, “The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.” Tweeted by him on 11/6/2012.

    5.) He got all perfect grades in all the schools he attended, which he sued to keep private, so as not to embarrass all the regular, stupid people who voted for him.

    4.) Who else knew about the capture of all the airports during the Revolutionary War?

    3.) The fact that he won’t release his tax returns lends credence to the fact that he is a genius at not paying taxes.

    2.) The fact that dozens of people who surround him daily, say that he doesn’t read anything, proves that he already must know everything.

    1.) He has all the degrees possible from Trump University.

    The Next Top Ten Things Which Demonstrate that Donald Trump is a Stable Genius

    10.) Only he is smart enough to change the path of a hurricane with a Sharpie.

    9.) Only he knows that DOJ actually stands for “Donnie’s Own Judicial” system
    and Bill Barr is his personal lawyer.

    8.) His genius has determined that Senate acquittal means he was never really
    impeached.

    7.) Only he is smart enough to know that the Corona virus is just a fad and will be
    gone when the weather warms up.

    6.) Trump is smart enough to know that everyone else is just plain stupid,
    especially the ones he hires and eventually fires for all his cabinet posts and
    staff.

    5.) Foregoing his $400,000 Presidential salary while he bills the government for
    $140 million in golf expenses at his resorts is pure genius.

    4.) It was a genius move to give The Presidential Medal of Freedom to Rush
    Limbaugh at the State of the Union address. Nobody could possibly disagree
    with that, right?

    3.) Firing Gordon Sondland as EU Ambassador and keeping his $1 Million campaign
    donation was brilliant.

    2.) Using the National Prayer Breakfast to swear revenge on his impeachment
    enemies was something only “The Chosen One” would be smart enough to do.

    1.) He is brilliant enough to divert $3.8 Billion from Congressionally allocated
    military spending to fund his wall, which Mexico was supposed to pay for.
    16.4k views · View Upvoters · View Sharers · Answer requested by Thomas Driscoll

    1. If he gave up his $400,000 Presidential salary that would leave him with a salary of zero. He has claimed that he donated his salary to covid relief. That means he donated $0, have I made a math booboo?

      A stable genius is the lad who can reliably tip the winner of the 4:30 at Doncaster.

      NAOM

  57. Ignore the quacks and act responsibly, please, for everyone’s sake.

    WHAT THE EXPERTS SAY: THERE IS NO EVIDENCE THAT VITAMIN C HELPS TREAT COVID-19

    Both the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and World Health Organization state that the only way to minimize the chances of contracting the virus is to take preventative steps against infection. No evidence suggests that vitamin C supplements can help prevent COVID-19. When in doubt, the FDA recommends that you “let your health care professional advise you on sorting reliable information from questionable information.” Thankfully, in the case of vitamin C, supplements don’t typically cause harmful side effects, unless consumed in excess.

    https://www.livescience.com/coronavirus-vitamin-c-myth.html

    2. No good evidence for chloroquine either, thus far.

      the good news is that vit C is generally harmless (some kidney stone people watch out), chloroquine can kill you

    3. If you don’t eat much meat, as I don’t, it’s possible that you can become iron deficient, as I did. Extra vitamin C can then help in digesting non-heme iron from other sources. It is better if it comes from real food sources, not supplements. Like all other vitamin supplements, except maybe folic acid when you are pregnant, the only thing taking tablets helps is the balance sheets of the pharmaceutical companies and the health of the bacteria at the local sewage farm. Several double blind studies have shown this no matter how much anecdotal rubbish people choose to cite.

      1. George,

        Yes, largely true. A lot of adults and children however, don’t eat enough fruits and vegetables or almost nothing of them

  58. FROM ADAM FRANK, PROFESSOR OF ASTROPHYSICS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF ROCHESTER

    “We’ve been living in a dream. We climb into jet planes and fly across continents, never giving the accomplishment a second thought. We drive to grocery stores, assuming the shelves will be stocked with endless boxes of food. And every day we plug our devices into the wall, sure that electricity will flow from the outlet. Other than the occasional hurricane or earthquake, we have lived our whole lives taking for granted that this thing we call “civilization” was a machine that could never fail. It’s time to wake up. Like this pandemic, climate change is also going to push on the networks that make up our civilization. Unlike the pandemic, its effects will be long term.

    The international COVID-19 pandemic is many things, but its deepest impact may be fostering a recognition that this machine of civilization that we built is a whole lot more fragile than we thought. And that is why, in the long term, the coronavirus will one day be seen as a fire drill for climate change.

    As with the threat of a pandemic, scientists who study climate change have been warning for decades that we are unprepared for what lies just over the horizon. Using the same kinds of mathematical tools deployed by epidemiologists, they have predicted the course of global warming, laid out its potential effects on the networks that make up civilization and told us what needs to be done to avoid calamity.

    But in response, these warnings have been politicized. Those who deny the science claim it’s specious and there’s no need to worry. Of course, that’s what many of them said about COVID-19 just a few weeks ago. But our government had enough warning that it could have begun stockpiling essential equipment and preparing the health care system for the shock that was sure to come.

    In the same way, we’ve had decades of warnings about what is needed to deal with climate change, such as shifting investments in the energy networks away from fossil fuels. And, as with the pandemic, we’re ignoring all the warnings. Even some people who believe climate change is coming ignore the warnings and continue to live in areas where fires and floods will increase.

    The good news about the pandemic is that we’ll make it through this. It will take a few months, but we will emerge with our networks intact, and we will be wiser for the experience. The good news is also that there is still time to deal with climate change. Now that we have seen what breaking the networks — the machine — of civilization can look like, we must stop pretending that everything will be OK and that we can just go back to business as usual when the threat of the coronavirus subsides.

    The pandemic has awakened us from our slumber. It is letting us see the real consequences of denial. That may be its most important lesson — allowing us the insight, strength and compassion to build a resilient and robust future.”

    https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/coronavirus-climate-change-pandemic-fire-drill-our-planet-s-future-ncna1169991

    1. Possibly, having experienced some loss of abundance and convenience, most people will pursue BAU even more ardently, with some hoarding and prep thrown in the mix. Many people may now ardently come out against any change that resembles downsizing and drawdown.

  60. This reminds me of the difficulty in getting good oil resource estimates of all the countries so one can do a valid global production model and forecast.

    https://twitter.com/joshrogin/status/1243662199022813184

    “Wuhan reported only about 2,500 #coronavirus deaths, but 5,000 urns were delivered to one mortuary over just 2 days. “Wuhan has seven other mortuaries.” “

    The quality of the forecast is only as good as the quality of the data.

  61. I’m wondering when Trump attacks Iran and Iran attacks KSA? On this April Fools day, I did read several articles that says it is ramping up, including the NY Times.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/01/us/politics/trump-iran-warning.html

    My son is back in the |Oil Sands, today. Still has a job for the forseeable future. He does electrical maint on the big shovels and heavy haulers, plus they build and commission them into service.

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