Tortoise wrote: ↑Wed Sep 02, 2020 1:55 pm
Massachusetts' government has put barriers in place for learning pods to make sure they don't compete too much with the teachers' unions:
Learning pods, or groups convened by up to five families, will be able to operate without licenses, as long as a parent is on-site at all times. Payments are not allowed, and exchanges of funds are limited to compensation for food and materials.
Good luck enforcing that. All the parents have to do is claim the tutors are babysitters. Making child care and homeschooling illegal would be a pretty tough bar for the state to cross.
The backlash will be fun to watch. And yes, I expect this is all about teacher's unions and protecting public schools. I foresee these pod schools becoming quite popular to the point where a lot of people will opt out of the public schools, once they see how much better the pod schools are than the state-run, teach to the lowest common denominator public schools. I sure as heck would have preferred it to public schools when I was growing up.
Chris Masterjohn, Phd (And no slouch) discusses the details of this Spanish study.
The results are astounding: vitamin D nearly abolished the odds of requiring treatment in ICU. Although the number of deaths was too small to say for sure, vitamin D may actually abolish the risk of death from COVID-19.
This is equivalent to 106,400 IU vitamin D on day 1, 53,200 IU on days 3 and 7, and 53,200 IU weekly thereafter. If this were given as daily doses, it would be the equivalent of 30,400 per day for the first week, followed by a maintenance dose of 7,600 IU per day.
Probably out of the range for home experimentation, but pretty interesting.
Chris Masterjohn, Phd (And no slouch) discusses the details of this Spanish study.
The results are astounding: vitamin D nearly abolished the odds of requiring treatment in ICU. Although the number of deaths was too small to say for sure, vitamin D may actually abolish the risk of death from COVID-19.
This is equivalent to 106,400 IU vitamin D on day 1, 53,200 IU on days 3 and 7, and 53,200 IU weekly thereafter. If this were given as daily doses, it would be the equivalent of 30,400 per day for the first week, followed by a maintenance dose of 7,600 IU per day.
Probably out of the range for home experimentation, but pretty interesting.
I heard someone say the other day that 98% of people who have died from COVID had low levels of Vitamin D.
Occurred to me that this would be a more likely reason for dark skinned people being disproportionally affected than blaming it on institutional racism/white supremacy as Ms. Harris did in her acceptance speech.
I spend lots of time in the Florida sun, maybe too much at times, but I have been taking a Vitamin D supplement for a long time.
pp4me wrote: ↑Thu Sep 03, 2020 11:16 am
I heard someone say the other day that 98% of people who have died from COVID had low levels of Vitamin D.
The majority of them also had one or more comorbidities like obesity, diabetes, and heart disease. And unfortunately, such comorbidities aren't cured simply by popping vitamin D pills.
It would be interesting to know more details about the patient group in the Spanish study: Age, ethnicity, comorbidities, etc.
Tortoise wrote: ↑Thu Sep 03, 2020 12:52 pm
The majority of them also had one or more comorbidities like obesity, diabetes, and heart disease. And unfortunately, such comorbidities aren't cured simply by popping vitamin D pills.
I'm pretty sure you're right that popping vitamin D pills won't cure those conditions but I believe I have read that insufficient levels of vitamin D has been "linked" to all of them, especially obesity.
Whether "linked" means there is actual evidence or not I'll leave to people like WiseOne who actually have to figure this stuff out.
Very interesting. One week analysis of 2.5 billion genetic combinations by a supercomputer. The "like breathing through Jell-O" comment was disconcerting!
What do you think WiseOne?
An interesting hypothesis for how SARS-CoV-2 works in the body:
Below is a link to a Vitamin D study which suggests that you ought to consider getting out in the sun &/or supplement, and that there may be a cheap & effective way to stave off ICU stays for those who come down with COVID. For those who may be infected in the future, we can hope for solid follow-up studies confirming these results.
DNA has its own language (code), and language requires intelligence. There is no known mechanism by which matter can give birth to information, let alone language. It is unreasonable to believe the world could have happened by chance.
Tortoise wrote: ↑Sat Sep 05, 2020 2:59 am
What’s the story behind the photo from Victoria?
They had a protest today about the lockdown/curfew for Corona Virus in Melbourne today, which the government deemed illegal.....
Slight Police over-reaction
vnatale wrote: ↑Fri Sep 04, 2020 8:15 am
There is a doctor on C-Span Washington Journal right now. Dr. Howard Bauchner. Editor in Chief of a Journal (title left too soon for me to type it).
He stated that "excess deaths" in this country is now about 250,000. Expects it to be about 500,000 this year.
Normally, about 1,000,000 people die each year in this country. Therefore, he's saying it looks like it will be 1,500,000 this year.
Vinny
Something you have to be careful of when counting "excess deaths". The number of deaths each year is variable, depending on the severity of the flu season when a number of respiratory illnesses go around (not just the flu). If they are comparing excess deaths to 2019, the number is exaggerated - because 2019 deaths were actually lower than the average for the past 20 years. (I made that point in my prior post about excess deaths.) They should compare to an average of at least the previous five years, and preferably the last 20-25 years. It is also instructive to see if the 2020 excess deaths exceed those in prior years. Turns out it's not all that remarkable - I read somewhere that in the last 25 years, 5 of the years had a higher # of excess deaths than was the case in 2020. What was mainly remarkable was that the excess deaths were compressed into a 6-8 week period at any given location. That's why the hospital situation in some areas became so dire.
I tend to think that COVID deaths have been both over- and under-counted, and that on balance they've been overcounted. Remember that the excess death total includes people who died of things like heart attacks that went untreated because they were afraid to go to the ER, or cancer that went untreated because chemo, radiation, and tumor resections, as elective procedures, were cancelled. Also you have to consider murder and suicides, both of which have increased.
vnatale wrote: ↑Fri Sep 04, 2020 8:15 am
There is a doctor on C-Span Washington Journal right now. Dr. Howard Bauchner. Editor in Chief of a Journal (title left too soon for me to type it).
He stated that "excess deaths" in this country is now about 250,000. Expects it to be about 500,000 this year.
Normally, about 1,000,000 people die each year in this country. Therefore, he's saying it looks like it will be 1,500,000 this year.
Vinny
Something you have to be careful of when counting "excess deaths". The number of deaths each year is variable, depending on the severity of the flu season when a number of respiratory illnesses go around (not just the flu). If they are comparing excess deaths to 2019, the number is exaggerated - because 2019 deaths were actually lower than the average for the past 20 years. (I made that point in my prior post about excess deaths.) They should compare to an average of at least the previous five years, and preferably the last 20-25 years. It is also instructive to see if the 2020 excess deaths exceed those in prior years. Turns out it's not all that remarkable - I read somewhere that in the last 25 years, 5 of the years had a higher # of excess deaths than was the case in 2020. What was mainly remarkable was that the excess deaths were compressed into a 6-8 week period at any given location. That's why the hospital situation in some areas became so dire.
I tend to think that COVID deaths have been both over- and under-counted, and that on balance they've been overcounted. Remember that the excess death total includes people who died of things like heart attacks that went untreated because they were afraid to go to the ER, or cancer that went untreated because chemo, radiation, and tumor resections, as elective procedures, were cancelled. Also you have to consider murder and suicides, both of which have increased.
However, here: https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/U ... death-rate stats that both 2019 and 2018 were each between 1% to 2% increases over the prior year. It also had this proviso: "NOTE: All 2020 and later data are UN projections and DO NOT include any impacts of the COVID-19 virus."
Vinny
Above provided by: Vinny, who always says: "I only regret that I have but one lap to give to my cats." AND "I'm a more-is-more person."
Florida Death chart for August. Only 4 deaths on 9/7. Looks like either the virus is weakening significantly or we are well on our way to herd immunity. Maybe both....
What I think is significant about this, besides the fact that Florida has a large population of elderly people, is that August in Florida is probably the month when the most time is spent indoors - like the equivalent of January in the colder climates. With fall and cooler weather approaching people will be spending more time outdoors so a second wave appears less likely than it is for the folks up north.
pp4me wrote: ↑Wed Sep 09, 2020 9:06 am
Florida Death chart for August. Only 4 deaths on 9/7. Looks like either the virus is weakening significantly or we are well on our way to herd immunity. Maybe both....
What I think is significant about this, besides the fact that Florida has a large population of elderly people, is that August in Florida is probably the month when the most time is spent indoors - like the equivalent of January in the colder climates. With fall and cooler weather approaching people will be spending more time outdoors so a second wave appears less likely than it is for the folks up north.
Never really realized that. In essence, Florida is our country's "equator", i.e., our part of the country with the most extreme heat?
Vinny
Above provided by: Vinny, who always says: "I only regret that I have but one lap to give to my cats." AND "I'm a more-is-more person."
vnatale wrote: ↑Wed Sep 09, 2020 9:26 am
Never really realized that. In essence, Florida is our country's "equator", i.e., our part of the country with the most extreme heat?
Didn't say that. Just observed that August is probably the month in Florida where people spend the most time indoors.
Temperatures where I live very rarely get over 92 degrees and this often includes an afternoon thunderstorm to cool things down.
Kriegsspiel wrote: ↑Wed Sep 09, 2020 9:36 am
Hmm, I don't think Florida is even close to the heat out west. It gets really muggy and airless down there though, which I think is worse.
I think the highest temperature I ever experienced was 110 or 115 around 9 AM in July 1981 at the Boulder Dam. I was told it would not feel that hot since it was "dry heat". But it felt hot!
Vinny
Above provided by: Vinny, who always says: "I only regret that I have but one lap to give to my cats." AND "I'm a more-is-more person."
vnatale wrote: ↑Wed Sep 09, 2020 9:26 am
Never really realized that. In essence, Florida is our country's "equator", i.e., our part of the country with the most extreme heat?
Didn't say that. Just observed that August is probably the month in Florida where people spend the most time indoors.
Temperatures where I live very rarely get over 92 degrees and this often includes an afternoon thunderstorm to cool things down.
It's obviously hotter in Death Valley.
When I used to take frequent bike rides during beautiful summer days here in western Massachusetts I'd almost never see anyone outside. I'd always wondered if they were all inside their air-conditioned homes.
I have no air conditioning in my house and did not turn on the air conditioning in my car once this year, just opening all the windows.
Vinny
Above provided by: Vinny, who always says: "I only regret that I have but one lap to give to my cats." AND "I'm a more-is-more person."
