SARSCoV2 story to NIH

I am a year older today. I finally got smart enough to remember that I know how to find the emails of the actual doctors who do research on COVID rather than trying to get CNN or MSNBC to cover the issue as I see it, or hoping they notice it on social media. Silly me. Here is what I wrote today - which hopefully one of them will see by Monday on their device or home computer.

I had the serious symptoms of the virus in March, starting on March 10th. While I had some SARS symptoms, these were controlled by Vestril (which was a component of Marax, which worked for me when I had asthma from ages 11 in 1974 until it was discontinued) and my Ventolin inhaler.

My main symptoms were extreme fatigue, which lasted from that date for two weeks - the first week so extreme that making a sandwich and eating it forced me to lay down on the couch to work up the strength to go back to bed. The second week, I was simply very week. At the end of this period, the congestion started to come up and one 12 hour dose of Muscinex handled it without further symptoms.

My asthma had gone into remission from 1996, when I had deep tissue lung massage and two sessions of craniosacral therapy. Every 5 or so years, CST stops recurrence. in 2012, my Osteopath, Dr. Jennifer Lee of Steinmetz Medical Associates (703) 671-2700. The Healing Tree Alexandria reset me after symptoms resumed in the mid 2010s. In 2016, I was infected with the flu (just after my flu shot at Kaiser, where I am now a patient) and have needed an inhaler since. I suspect my lungs were damaged with that flu. Indeed, after COVID, I experienced a degree of symptom release as antibodies were created, although I still have some periodic symptoms.

Before SARS symptoms, I had an asymptomatic week. Literally 7 days. This followed a one week period of heavy sneezes, which I originally thought were seasonal allergies, but quickly felt like a very bad cold. During that period, I helped my ex-lover move out of her (formerly our) apartment. Three weeks later, she had the same COVID symptoms I had. My other friend who I had seen 2 weeks before did too. I was likely exposed to the precursor nasal symptoms some time in mid February.

Let me emphasize this. The SARS symptoms I had in mid-March were likely the result of an exposure to aerosol droplets in either a group therapy meeting or the Alexandria Public Library, where I was a daily public computer user (or maybe Starbucks nearby).

How do you contract trace a cold that turn to SARS one month later? No one was masking in February, but I doubt it would have helped. People sneeze when they eat, especially hot food. No restaurant in this nation should be open right now. Bars that serve food should not serve food. As an ex-drunk, I can assure you that alcohol stops sneezes. It is why it is an ingredient in cold medicine.

This disease likely spreads as people with colds or "seasonal allergies" sneeze on or near their friends in private space, are fine for a week while their friends get "allergies" because CDC, NIH and the media have stressed that this is a deadly disease and not a cold (to not minimize perceptions). Had they known to look for symptoms, they could have been quarantined, including removing them from families from the first heavy sneeze, with families quarantining in place for 2 weeks following probably exposure. A hard quarantine, rather than a mask would have stopped the virus in March, save for the CDC public info campaign not mentioning colds.No one likes to think they have a deadly virus, so people want to believe they have "seasonal allergies" rather than possibly being doomed.

In July, I tested negative for Covid 19, but positive for PAN COVID, which required delaying my colonoscopy. At the time of the test, symptoms began again, but only cold and minor lung symptoms. No fatigue, no SARS. I asked an associate in health care policy from the Clinton days, Dr. Michael Halasy, whether there this could be a non-COVID cold. He said ti was likely a cold from another Bat Virus. In 12 days, the cold symptoms resolved (although I was only told to quarantine for 10).

Having had both COVID-19 and another COVID, I suspect that, for lack of a better term, COVID-20 is what is circulating in areas where COVID 19 has already burned through most patients over 45 who were vulnerable because they are no longer around children (who, as recent studies have shown) are little immunity factories for all colds, which I met my suspicions in March when people were dying, but children were rarely getting seriously ill.

Given the start of serious symptoms in most of the areas which had shut down previously (being sneezed on by others who have been sneezed on is definitely a geographic phenomenon) before the virus had actually arrived. A regional shutdown, if not a global one, may stop further spread or a second wave.

How could you have missed this? Patients who arrive at death's door do not give medical histories, especially if they are not asked the right questions (again, no one wants to give the perception that this is a cold). Also, those of us who actually were sick, but not in need of hospitalization did not see our doctors either. Panic ruled. Doctors followed CDC guidance, which did not include asking about cold symptoms.

The current list of symptoms (flu, fever, aches) likely show the beginnings of immunity. Loss of taste, runny nose and especially sneezing - i.e. cold symptoms would have and are still a more accurate test for the disease than a nasal swab (although these are better than checking temperature or asking about abdominal, flu or asthma symptoms).

This is not some cryto-spreader, is not ebola, does not require PPE to treat during the SARS phase (my roommate had no symptoms at all when I was sick in March, although he is only 44, so his cold immunity was likely in effect, although he still had symptoms with me in July, when I tested positive for another cold virus).

Schools can open (as you know from recent studies on how they are immunity factories - indeed, being in close contact with children is likely a symptom preventative, not a super spreader. Spraying is not needed either. Studies have shown this, but an agenda to make life be as infection free as a hospital ward - hand washing, anti-biotic cleaners, is likely counter-evolutionary. If the vaccine doubles as a cure or the common cold, or we try to hard to stop disease spread, immune systems will weaken and the next pandemic will kill everyone.

As virologists, you know about memory cells staying around after antibody densities have failed.

There has been so much ass-covering and concern about a consistent message that the world is living in fear - which is not the purpose of science, Masks may help spread in public indoor settings - but confining people initial symptoms would have stopped the spread much more effectively. This is why people are dying and will continue to do so, regardless of any public health protections.

Everyone who is vulnerable in the US has already encountered sneezes from their friends and co-workers. It is literally too late in the US, although the developing world may have a shot. Of course, less hygiene likely gives better immunity, as well as living with children, so they may never get sick.

Donald Trump is a buffoon who deserved to lose because of his bipolar affect (grandiosity, hypersexuality, out of control finances) rather than his not sticking to the script. The script was wrong. He was likely extrapolating from what he was told about SARS1, which did magically disappear when its hosts died out quickly. SARS2 will do the same, just as the vaccine is ready for mass inoculation. My bet is that having had the serious symptoms is the best vaccine of all.

Regarding the clinical trials. They were useless because you did not rule out people who had heavy nasal symptoms. If you tested a random sample of people with the same symptemology as I, and 95% of those who got sick experienced, you would likely find that we are also as immune as those who had the vaccines.

COVID-19 has just arrived in the West and Midwest, which is where people are actually hospitalized and are already beginning to die. I estimate that, before this is over, some towns will be decimated, with the remaining population forced to move due to lack of population density. There will be COVID ghost towns in the heartland. The total death toll will be 400,000, if not more.

I base my estimate by extrapolating New York fatality levels by June, which were 150 per 100,000. South Dakota now has a similar death rate.

I was the SAS Analyst from Westat in 1996-97, working on the Mothers and Infants Cohort Study and programming the original data configuration for the related international meta-analysis. I learned a bit about epidemiology (I am a fast learner) which is necessary to program in that area. I seem to remember a Dr. Fauci was part of the effort. Perhaps you know him.

I hold a Master of Public Administration in Policy Analysis. Same tools for estimation and hypothesis testing, as well as doctoral work in policy where we took measurement, which includes in depth study of errors in measurement and research bias.

The question is, what will you do with these data? I would hope that you quickly gather subjects who have survived the serious symptoms, get medical histories of the natural history of the virus going back a month before symptoms - focusing on nasal symptoms. Also, if you confirm my experience and analysis - slow vaccine production way down - or change who gets it, The elderly need it. Family practice doctors need it (and their staffs), nursing home staff, first line workers, people who have vaped THC (who have popcorn lung and are likely not among the long lived anyway - any cold will kill them) and people over 40 who have not gotten sick.

Anything further is ass covering, not good medicine.

I am attaching my analysis which predicts 400,000 dead, which I conducted last August, on a state by state basis extrapolating NY death rates. I have not verified with data since then - and the predicted rates from that time may be higher than recent experience in the South, but the possible current second wave among the vulnerable who did not get it the first time, but already have been exposed now, may eventually verify my model. I wish it would not, but the die is cast.

Justice Barrett and the Death Penalty

America Magazine contributor, Father James Martin, S.J., posted on Facebook about the new Justice not voting to stay an execution. I had a few comments when the post landed on the U.S. Politics Catholic Discussion Group on Facebook. So many that a blog entry is called for.

From Martin:

Breaking: This means that Justice Amy Coney Barrett, in defiance of Catholic pro-life teaching, has voted to execute someone.  The death penalty is, as the Catechism says, "inadmissible." 

Every life is sacred, from the unborn child in the womb to the inmate on death row.

 From me:

It takes 4 votes to hear a case to declare the death penalty to be a cruel and unusual punishment (unconvincing if lethal injection is done right or compared to life alone in a cell forever). Unless a convincing due process argument on the likelihood that innocents are executed and that the current appellate procedures are inadequate to prevent this (and 4 justices want to hear the argument), there is no constitutional reason to stop executions. 

On the moral side, the argument about God wanting us to protect life due to his sovereignty is based on the fallacy of arguing from authority.

The logical argument is whether convicted criminals are unreformable, constitute a danger to society both inside and outside prison and whether prisoners who are undeniably guilty and concede it want to die by euthanasia or slow torture.

Sovereignty of God arguments have no bearing on American law, nor does doctrine proceeding from this basis. Arguments in American law must be based in social contract theory, particularly Hobbes, Lock, Montesqueu and Rousseau. To better understand the basis for having such arguments, we must use the cultural bias theory of Mary Douglass and Aaron Wildavsky.

If this were an undergrad or graduate seminar, I would stop here and let students argue about how their philosophies and theories relate to the question at hand.

At this point I turned my attentions to tonight's episode of FBI: Most Wanted. I won't spoil the ending, but it was strangely relevant to the discussion. I continued:

First, let's look at culture. Where you stand depends on where you sit regarding the 4 basic cultural biases. Despotism is about one person controlling all, not as part of a group but as an absolute ruler. Kings, ditators and some Popes have been despots. Thomas Hobbs justified governmental despotism because, without it, man is violent and out of control. Liberty in the state of nature was brutality.

When you combine social control group or tribal identity, the way of life is hierarchy. Decision making is more cooperative and one cab rise through the hierarchy by behaving by the rules. The Church generally lives here, at least when leaders do not behave like despots. Montesquieu is found here, with ordered liberty and hierarchical government.

Equality has groups with few rules. The main penalty is expulsion. The Church ideal is here, as is Locke when societies voluntarily form among free people to form a group of free people. Rousseau is here too, with society as a group that can only be compelled with unanimity, the general will. Absolute equality can also lead to group tyranny, either with a charismatic leader guiding a group that, on their own, cannot decide or the herd simply running amok. The French Reign of Terror and the Killing Fields of Cambodia are examples if this.

Libertarianism is unorganized in terms if group identity and in terms of rules. The fewer the better. Locke is here, as are the American founders.

Thomistic free will makes the conscience sovereign. The will seeks the good as presented to it by the intellect. While this can be a part of any of the four ways of life, it's existence flowers in democracy, where each are equally empowered to seek the good. Hobbes and the divine right of kings and Popes is replaced with society taking the place of the sovereign. To avoid Rousseau's tyranny of the mob, individuals have natural rights (not the same as hierarchic natural law). 

The duty of the ruler or ruling group to protect the society through its monopoly on violence found in the state of nature now rests up in all of us. 

This is a curse as well as a blessing. When there us a danger, it is all of our job to mitigate it, including through the use of execution if required. It is also our job to make sure execution is hygienic, rather than punitive. 

Government action also takes away the right of personal vengeance. If it does not act, or acts with bias in other matters, people seek revenge. If there is a role for Church, it is to help restore the spiritual health if the victims and their families for their own sakes, which also stops vengeance.

The same balancing is necessary in all life issues, except in this case, we are dealing with government action on matters already in the purview of government. Abortion rights take public action out of the equation.

Getting back to Justice Barrett, the ethics she must uphold are those of constitutional law based in democratic government within the bounds of natural liberties, not natural law. I am quite sure she understands and agrees with the basic issues as I have outlined. It is why her vote was appropriate. Other Catholics on the Court have the same philosophical background. This is not a Catholic issue, beyond bringing mercy to the victims and the families of the offenders.

Trump's effort to subvert the Electoral College - a Letter to the White House

The President is embarrassing himself and his party. Indeed, at some point, the Vice President will need to intervene to remove him should he continue to seek the overturn of a valid election result.

Should states with Republican cede to his request, the House of Representatives would never allow Electoral College votes obtained under such circumstances to be counted. The 12th Amendment gives them this power and the Supreme Court will defer to it.

Under the 20th Amendment, the Speaker of the House will serve as acting President effective January 20, 2021 until the matter is resolved, although I cannot fathom that they would not simply declare that any arbitrary change will not be allowed.

Amateur hour is over at the White House. At some point, President Trump will be removed - likely to Walter Reed for mental health diagnostics (as opposed to St. Elizabeth's Hospital, which is usually where insane visitors invading the White House grounds are sent by the Secret Service).

I understand that the President believes that he cannot be prosecuted while in office. In Trump v. Vance I, Judge Marrero doubted that the OLC memo is controlling law (19 Civ. 8694 (VM)). In the Supreme Court, Chief Justice Roberts ruled against the President as to any immunity before the law due to his holding office (“No. 19-635” Trump v. Vance, No. 19-635, (U.S. Jul. 9, 2020). Had the President been reelected, both SDNY and Mr. Vance could petition for his arrest and it would take place, with the Secret Service executing the order, which is within their jurisdiction involving financial crimes.

I invite you to share this letter with the White House Counsel. if he answers honestly, he will affirm this, as will Mr. Consovy. 

Do not trust Mr. Giuliani on this question. His loyalty is to those who pay his salary. I find it hard to believe that this person is the President. Rudy is running the President as a Putin asset.

My reminder to the White House

Please remind the President, regrading personnel shifts in the DoD, that no conspiracy ever stays secret, that military officers take their oaths seriously (not just as ceremony) and that the penalties for attempting a coup are quite serious. At worst, he would lose his pension. He is already going to lose his property to his creditors. He would undoubtedly lose is freedom (and no one would pardon him) and would likely face the ultimate sanction for treason.

Remind the Vice President is that one of his major job duties is to stop an insane President from trying stupid things. If he does not, Speaker Pelosi may become the first female President until January 20th.

The serious question I have is whether the people who think Trump actually won would go as far as Trump seems to be taking this. That I even entertain this question is profoundly tragic.

Compassion for Trump voters

 I am currently working on a book about the national debt. I am focusing on who owns the assets holding debt by both income quintile and race, as well as who owes it.

Per capita debt does not exist, because there are no per capita taxes. The debt is owed principally by high income individuals. The over/under for both tax paying and debt ownership is at the 97th percentile. Income taxes and debt obligation reaches down to the 75th AGI percentile, which is the 60th percentile for total income.

Higher income minority families have more debt obligation and assets than the entire bottom 3 income quintiles among whites. Lower income minority families have it worst of all and Black men are coming out more and more for the GOP.

Lower income households include retirees, whose income is largely tax exempt. They are the lucky poor and are used to voting GOP.

I used the Federal Reserve Survey on Consumer Finance. For the most part, the bottom 60% have little in the way of debt holding assets. The top 10% of White households have 2/3s of managed fund assets and 7 of 9 bonds. They have 40% of bank accounts, cash value life insurance and small dollar savings bonds.

If you apply the 80/20 rule (which is more 90/10 of AGI), the top 1% likely have half of the assets (or more) and have half of the income held by the top 10%, roughly 25% of income and probably assets (if not more). The top .1%, who make more from capital returns than wages, receive 12% of AGI.

More importantly, the .1% control almost all the human assets, both in the nation and probably the planet.

Marx thought that free societies would unite to pass laws seizing these assets and control of assets. Instead, the rich see division. It is a feature, not a flaw.

That Black men and the White underclass are uniting to support a faux billionaire shows the extent of their desperation. They want to believe that they can be like Donald. They held their nose and voted for them.

The illusion is about to be shattered by the Southern District if New York and D.A. Cyrus Vance of the City and County of New York. Cue Law and Order downbeat.

Their bubble is about to pop. We cannot gloat. Even this week, when Biden will likely pull away as mail in votes come in at 80% for Joe.

We have to offer them better cash and prizes and do so realistically. They can also not be punitive in doing so. 

More than a century ago, the cooperative movement spread through the farm belt. Land O Lakes is one of those ventures and is going strong. So is the Farm Bureau Federation, which was started by progressive Republicans. This year they welcomed Trump with open arms.

Progressives need to win them back. We cannot do so by gloating. The working poor need to see the possibility of cooperation and we need to do a better job of offering it to them.

To do so,  we must exercise compassion like never before.

About the Electoral College

Regardless of how this election turns out, there will be calls to end the Electoral College. It cannot go anywhere. The Electoral College is an artifact of the Senate and having a presidency. This nation is not designed to be a direct democracy. It is a coalition of states, even with the passage of the 14th Amendment (which defanged local reactionaries once America paid attention). America will not become a unitary Republic. If it were to be so, we would not need a President or a Senate. Nancy Pelosi would be our Head of Government. For this year, that would have been a good thing - but remember that we would have also had Newt Gingrich and Paul Ryan in the same rolls. No and no! 

The sane alternative is regional governance. If we had regional caucuses and regional vice presidents, the heat would go down and the design of bicameralism and a strong executive would again be seen as wise. Small and large states have different interests, even with parties. Regions with a California, a Texas or a New York would have to have Senates. The only alternatives is to break up the large states or consolidate the low population states. That would be the same thing as having regions.

Trump's Rant

Trump felt the need to call the results of any further vote counting illegitimate. Indeed, the reason these votes are not yet counted is that Republican officials made sure they would not be counted until election day. Such nonsense was regularly pulled in the South during segregation from Reconstruction to the Voting Rights Act, so it is certainly not a new look for reactionaries. Then America started looking. In much of America, the bad old days never left and we call such sentiments nationalism this year. 

Trump is forgetting the lesson of Flight 93. It never got to DC. The passengers were not going to let another airplane be used as a terror weapon. From then on, anyone trying to execute a terrorist act was taken down by the passengers. Donald Trump is making noises like he is Vladimir Putin, but he forgets how we handled Richard Reid and Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. If he follows through on any of his ranting, we will do the same thing to him.

Trump thinks that the Supreme Court will help him. They won't and neither will the military. If mobs even tried to disrupt further vote counting, neither the volunteers nor the local police would allow it. The rule of law wins out in America. Push will not come to shove.

The reality is that the Supreme Court has Trump v. Vance II in front of it. So far, they have not responded to his petition to quash the subpoena that will bring the official copies of his financial records to the authorities. They likely did not want to interfere with the election. 

The election is over. The reality is that Allen Weiselberg gave authorities all of the information they needed to indict Trump, but they needed the official copies. They will soon get them. Trump may well be in custody before the vote count is over.

His creditors are also likely to lose patience once the official documents are delivered. They may decide to get their money before New York State and the Southern District of New York start seizing Trump's assets. Trump is lucky that they probably cannot deny him his pension if he goes quietly. 

Donald finds a way to seize defeat out of the jaws of victory - every time. If I were Melania, I would not count on that money. With Donald, you never know. He might already have an accurate read of the tea leaves and has a deal worked out to avoid jail and he is pulling one last bluff. That would be very entertaining.

If his supporters knew the reality of his past, he would not have been their nominee.

The question is why Mike Pence is going along with this idiot. Is he that stupid or just a moral coward. Either way, his career is also over. The extent to which he is in on the activities of Lev, Igor and Rudi is the extent to which he may be in the next cell.

Hold on tight.