Covid-19 Journal

Had the first zucchini and pepper two days ago and picked the second one today. Picked the first pole beans yesterday and had them for supper.  Picked a crop of snow peas today. Finished the last of the radishes today in potato salad. This trend is somewhat curious. The number of cases of Covid-19 in the US is rising greatly but the number of deaths continues to decrease. Some possible explanations for this trend could be: The demographic has shifted and mostly younger people getting the virus. There are better treatments available and interventions are happening sooner. The curves are offset by a few weeks, so it takes some time before people start dying. This does not seem to pan out because the peek in April followed the peak in cases by about two weeks and we should have seen an increase in the past two weeks. There is increased testing so many of the new cases are less severe or asymptomatic. Not sure if I believe this yet. The virus has mutated and is not as deadly. Whatever the

I am a chemist and I work in a lab. Sometimes I work with dangerous acids. I have worked with them for thirty years. I understand the hazards that are associated with acids. They can cause serious injuries or death, if they are not handled properly. I know that with the proper personal protective equipment and laboratory procedures, recommended by health and safety professionals, I can work with them safely. I wear gloves, safety goggles, and face shields when working with acids. Acids do not have a political agenda. They are not a hoax. They are not going to just go away. Hydrofluoric acid is not just another acetic acid. I would never try to handle acids without gloves to demonstrate that I do not need to live in fear. I am not afraid of acids. If I said I had the right, as an American, to work with acids without gloves, I would be stupid, since it would only result in me getting burned. When working with a highly contagious, deadly virus you should follow the recommendations of the

It has been a while since I updated this blog however there is a disturbing trend to the data so I thought I would add some more to this. The number of cases in the US is taking a disturbing upward trend that could go exponential. The number of deaths are on a downward trend but they will be lagging the number of cases. This is the trend from the US and the world. CNBC makes a nice graph.

This graphic sorts states based on the "acceleration" of deaths, where the deaths per day is increasing the most over a three day period: Acc Ju 6-5 Ju 5-4 June 6 June 5 June 4 155 189 34 Massachusetts 7235 7201 7012 56 115 59 Illinois 5795 5736 5621 38 93 55 New York 30066 30011 29918 24 40 16 Ohio 2355 2339 2299 24 69 45 Pennsylvania 5931 5886 5817 15 21 6 North Carolina 966 960 939 12 33 21 Texas 1788 1767 1734 11 90 79 New Jersey 12049 11970 11880 8 9 1 Arkansas 152 151 142 6 18 12 Colorado 1524 1512 1494 6 13 7 Tennessee 423 416 403 4 8 4 New Mexico 387 383 375 3 8 5 New Hampshire 278 273 265 3 10 7 Wisconsin 633 626 616 1 4 3 Oklahoma 350 347 343 1 2 1 South Dakota 65 64 62 1 2 1 Utah 120 119 117 1 8 7 Virginia 1460 1453 1445

The death rate in the United States showed an approximately exponential growth rate through the middle of April to just over 2000 deaths per day, then an approximately linear decline through the rest of April and May to the present rate of about 1000 deaths per day. The curve seems to be curving back up now which could indicate a second wave will be occurring. The CDC changed the colors of the graph a few days ago to blue. Not sure why. Maybe it is to help people with red green color blindness. They also modified the format of the state data on the website so it is now harder to parse. This graph is from May 21: This is an average of deaths per day for the past 11 days ending June 4, 2020. New York 101 Illinois 82 New Jersey 81 Massachusetts 71 California 66 Pennsylvania 66 Ohio 39 Maryland 39 Michigan 37 Florida 34 Connecticut 32 Georgia 29 Virginia 26 Indiana 24 Texas 23 Minnesota 21 North Carolina 19 Arizona 19 Louisiana 18 Mississippi 16 Colorado 16 Rhode Island 15 Iowa 14 Wisconsi

I think what they ought to do for testing is drive from neighborhood to neighborhood with music playing like an ice cream truck and do Covid-19 testing. Everyone who gets a test gets an ice cream. Here is an idea stolen from Aldi's. You can go into the store without a mask but you have to pay 25 cents.