the wheels of commerce

"...the town begins to be lively again, though the strees very empty, and most shops shut." the diary of samuel pepys. 26 september 1665

this state is set to re-open at 11:59 p.m. tomorrow and there are plans ( one presumes it is planned ) in the works...

that yesterday confirmed cases rose over confirmed recoveries ( per johns hopkins ) in a 3.37 : 1 ratio and that confirmed new cases are holding fairly steady over the past week in the mid twenty thousands while the greatest number of confirmed recoveries in a day 8087 and that deaths were adding up between 1373 and 2437 as a high and a low for the same period is not going to slow "re-opening" one whit...chaos may however...i got an email from my employer today with a provisional "re-opening" date for the store of may eleventh...with the requisite number of provisos, quid pro quos, and ifs...

"we will be planning" "once a decision is made" "we will keep you posted as plans evolve"... okay...any event horizon has its share of variables and the process is probably a complex one and human cognition isn't really all that great when things get complicated...i keep coming back to tainter's "diminishing returns on increased complexity" as a prelude to collapse...given that many will be making more on unemployment than at work i am wondering how many will return to begin with...another layer of complexity...

my health is my responsibility and i cannot argue with that...i am also on the honor system as i am responsible for taking and reporting my temperature as well as "flu-like" symptoms...i wonder what happened to confessing someone in the immediate family has this virus...well...embryonic plans and all...one supposes that someone who actually needs the hours might dissemble a bit on some of these questions...and have you tried to purchase a thermometer recently? it isn't what i would call fail safe...but then, nothing anthropogenic ( spell check says that is not a word...oh yes it is ) is...

finally, just when hand sanitizer had begun to reappear in shelves is seems fated to disappear again...ostensibly to protect the consumer from carcinogens...okay..the fda is on the job...soap and water it is...as "re-opening" lurches forward it will be of interest to see who goes back first and how many decline the offer..this whole process could bog down for months...collapse may not be probable...to rule it out as a possibility is hubris...and managers are chock full of that.

grind

"the bills increased mightily..."samuel pepys august 1665

while the increase could be described as growing "mightily" i would call it more arithmetic...

in the last two days the number of confirmed cases in the u s has grown by 60,600...

and the officially "recovered" by 7,966...so people are falling ill as opposed to recovering at a ratio of 7.6 : 1...not of necessity good news...

death rates in new york, chicago, and los angeles continue to rise...flattening perhaps, but not declining...

and in his narcissistic frenzy the president provides nothing in terms of leadership...and a clinic in self-absorption...

there was never a moment when listening to this would have been helpful..the time to "tune out" has come...and in the midst of this we are preordained to "re-open" by singularly economic pressures...freedom of movement has nothing to do with it...greed needs a fix and that is the driver here...protesters are usually tools of an ideology and ideology is the work of idealists..and idealists are crack-brained meddlers who have a vision of human perfection which could be attained if only we would all do things their way...belief in the possibility of perfection leads people to do some awful things to no real result...the upshot? do not drink bleach...it will kill you...i have no word from my alleged employer on when i might be asked to use ppe and practice "social distancing" in a confined space...the directives on how to achieve this should prove interesting, if not entertaining...we will look into those as they arrive...if they arrive..they may just call it a day...meanwhile the government, the media, and life all grind on...and the surreal quality has not diminished...

quackery

"One mischief was, that if the poor people asked these mock astrologers whether there would be a plague or no, they all agreed in general to answer 'Yes', for that kept up their trade. And had the people not been kept in a fright about that, the wizards would presently have been rendered useless, and their craft had been at an end." daniel defoe. a journal of the plague year.

no hogs, dogs, or cats

"that no hogs, dogs, or cats, or tame pigeons, or ponies be suffered to be kept within any part of the city, or any swine to be or stray into the streets or lanes, but that such swine be impounded by the beadle or any other officer and the owner punished according to the act of common council, and that the dogs to be killed by the dog-killers appointed for that purpose." edict by lord mayor sir john lawrence 1665.

well intended i suppose...unpopular with some as well...

and that sort of bureaucratic thinking has not evaporated in three hundred and fifty five years...leave it to government institutions to exacerbate a crisis by fomenting another one...how many cat owners misread this and how many shelters are being overrun as i type? who knows...no cats or dogs here..there is a bird...are we going to be warned about avian influenza any time soon?

the number of new cases in the country has some variation from day to day...37346 wednesday...17318 yesterday...and 36586 today ...growing daily but with some variation...

there is no stability in the "recovered" reports either...2146 reported nationally wednesday...914 yesterday...4320 today...no one will argue with a recovery spike...some consistently growing numbers would be better...here in the state 641 new cases in the past day and 99 in the county and the death rate is holding steady as well...while 21% of those tested in the county are positive and 18% across the state...level it may be...diminishing it is not and the state is due to "re-open" actually on may second which seems imprudent to me but is probably what will happen...how quickly it happens and if anything resembling the old "normal" re4constructs itself is still an unknown...too many unknown variables and...

i personally still am astounded at the death rate in new york city...especially compared to los anglese which has a marginally greater population density...density seems to not be much of a factor...cook county in illinois has half ( or a bit less ) of the populaton density of the other two but still has more deaths than los angeles...i keep coming back to my correspondent's theory of no mass transit in l a...anyone with a better one? let me know...so? will there be a spike in new cases in may...will the virus die down in hot humid weather...will it turn up again in the autumn and will we all find ourselves at home again? thinking no one knows...i certainly do not...i have questions, not answers...and. being who i am, i doubt anyone else has the answers either...waiting for events to unfold..until then there will be no new cat or dog here...the bird stays...she is innocent.

still closed

"but lord! what a sad time it is to see no boats upon the river; and grass grows all up and down white hall court, and nobody but poor wretches in the street,: the diary of samuel pepys 19 september 1665

it is not quite that deserted on the streets here ( and we can hope this does not extend into september they way it did in 1665 ) still..the state is to remain "closed" ( in a haphazard sort of way ) until may first unless the governor should "rescind, modify, or extend this executive order"...there have now been three waffles on this and i bet the iron is still on...

yesterday the united states recorded 24499 new cases of covid-19 and listed an additional 4161 "recovered" a 5.88:1 ratio of new cases to recovered individuals...today 28174 new cases and 2572 more recovered...an 11.06:1 ratio of new cases to recoveries...that doesn't sound like great news...new cases continue to hold in the twenty thousands and recoveries are up and down..again...a two week recovery period may be optimistist

nationally deaths have dropped off substantially over the past few days ( i have no number for today just yet ) while here in the state and county new cases have dropped off and deaths have increased...mixed news all over...one supposes the only real way to see is by lifting the stay at home orders...the unfortunate part about such an experiment is that the possibility of a spike in spread of the virus and deaths is a very real possibility..."business as usual" may prove fatal for many...may not...either way big greed does not care...they need a fix and will agitate for "re-opening" manipulating any and every one that can to their way of seeing things...that they are sociopathic liars is a given we all should understand as we ponder what to do when the doors open again...wading through the propaganda that swirls around all of this will not be simple...one presumes that is the intention.

rate of recovery

"time inured them to it all, and they ventured everywhere afterwards without hesitation." daniel defoe. a journal of the plague year

allegedly a free country, people have a right to express a demand to go about unfettered by virus paranoia and conspiracy ( if they are actually in difficult financial straights over this one could sympathize to a degree ) and if they want to parrot the grifter-in-chief they may as far as i am concerned... big greed needs a fix so it is natural that the "business community" would be in approval...even if they do it in private...let the bozo foment for them, that's why they hired him...there may be good reason to rethink this position though...

i will admit i have just begun to look at this in a serious manner and the numbers are incomplete...however at fist look 66,819 people "recovered" from the covid-19 virus in the 97 days since the first case was reported in the u s works out to about 689 "recoveries" a day average...

at the same time there have been 735287 confirmed cases in the same period ( per johns hopkins )...that's 7580 new cases a day on average... a 11.01 to 1 ratio of illnesses to recoveries...it would seem a two week recovery period may be an underestimate...yes the number of cases compared tot he whole population is low...one wonders how many unreported and asymptomatic cases there are...no one knows...perhaps the decision to err on the side of caution is not an error...

according to local media the governor has extended the "stay at home" order ( unless you need a pizza or a six pack or a .357 ) until the first of next month...i have not seen an "official" executive order on the government web site yet...that will be forthcoming soon no doubt...put off the official waffle ( on april sixth he shortened the duration and scheduled its end for tomorrow ) as long as possible...so..ten more day s at home and then who knows how long the "start up" will take...this will ripple on for years

a class act

"as merchandising was at a full stop...all the poor whose labour depended on the merchants were at once dismissed and put out of business." daneil defoe. a journal of the plague year______________________

the "king" has backed down from his nixonian "divine right of presidents" stance...

and told governors to "re-open" their states as they see fit...which is probably as it should be even though some states ( like mine for instance ) are going to move towards "re-opening" more hastily than others...there are significant arguments on both sides...

people are struggling...and if they are receiving anything at all it likely resembles the pittance my state has forwarded to me...yes it is free money and it flies in the face of the puritan view of charity held by government as a gateway to the hell of "idle hands" ( slack times gives people to think about events and why the "whys" are what they are and to look at possible alternatives...best to keep the rabble busy working to scrape by rather then leave them time to think while they scrape by )..a return to "normal" ( which we will not be going back to by the by...they will tell you we are...but, as usual, they are lying to a purpose ) may mitigate some of the suffering...maybe...that will be the public argument for "re-opening"...i am not going to buy into that...

these numbers had shown signs of flattening out earlier in the week...the totals were still growing but they were holding steady in the mid twenty thousands a day...the past few days they have spiked again ( an important corespondent to this blog maintains it is because of expanded testing and that is a valid point worth considering...and another line of evidence showing that no one really knows )...going off and "re-opening" in a precipitous manner just might put a bigger point on that spike...my best bet is my governor is no better informed than i am off the johns hopkins' and state health department's web sites...he just might know the numbers before i do...so...and economic ( and political ) argument to "re-open" and a public health one for not...wondering which will win?

i am running with "re-open" before it is safe because wealth is taking a beating in "the market" and we can't have that..no sir...sod the proles, there is money at stake here and we are greedy bastards...class warfare has always been alive and well here...they just call it something else and hire academics and economists to rationalize their positions to a well indoctrinated ( what else would you call public education? ) polity who actually believe they have a say in how the government, and so the country, is run...to paraphrase vonnegut...government is whatever the rich, sane or insane, decide to do today...and "re-opening" to get the ponzi scheme that is "the market" up and running again is a class act.

take a "peak"

"...in great trouble to see the bill this week rise so high, to above 4,000, and of them above 3,00 of the plague." samuel peyps diary 10 august 1665

the president says we are lurching towards a "reopening"...that his statements to this point have proved unreliable is a given and this one isn't exact in its forecast...which is understandable...no one really knows...

i have been keeping an eye on the numbers out of johns hopkins and the reality there is the number of new cases and the number of deaths have both had a mild spike in the last two days...they has leveled off...there were still new cases and more unfortunate deaths, however the number of new cases a day had dropped from the mid thirty thousands to the lower twenty thousands and was holding there until it moved back to near thirty thousand yesterday ( 29979 new cases )..."the peak" may be in the future yet..or the numbers may hold steady..whichever, new cases continue...this isn't over...and new york city still has an inordinate number of deaths...

the muddle over what is actually happening and the policy of uninformed optimism continue in the nation's capital as the president prepares to tell us to get closer...

and the powerful minds he is assembling to back up his unbridled lust for undermining caution cannot seem to get their schedules straight...or, seemingly, even know if they are supposed to be in the loop...confusion and contradiction has always been the zeitgeist of this administration ( not that this isn't the usual case...e.o. wilson is probably correct when he says human cognition isn't capable of rationally organizing anything much larger than a village ) and it continues because...for the umpteenth time...no one really knows..they just hope and bend facts to fit the theory...human again...closer to home, the state has finally delivered me a stipend ( although my $1200 is still not present ) and it is not a livable one...one understands limitations and the disrepute a social safety net is held in in the purtitan ethic espoused by politics here...still...the options for most would seem to be exposure to a possibly lethal virus or slow starvation...the government loves us like children...i hope my peers from retail are well..the feedback i am getting is that conditions vary...my hope is still that they remain well..i an off in a bit for a sojourn into the real world for some supplies...look for updates if you are interested