Fauci, is he really a mediocre scientist?

When I think of Fauci, I think of the line in Men in Black where Zed the leader noted, to candidates rejected as MIB agents: “Gentlemen, congratulations. You’re everything we’ve come to expect from years of government training. Now please step this way, as we provide you with our final test: an eye exam…”

That is Fauci, he is everything we have come to expect from government training and work. He has been a disaster as a public health officials but it hasn’t cost him anything, certainly not his job. Among his mistakes:

  1. He overestimated the IFR of the virus by a factor of 3 to 5.
  2. Propose the lockdown and never backed off
  3. His position on masks were confusing and often wrong .
  4. He should have known that the Chinese lab was the origin of the virus or he did but did nothing.
  5. He admitted to lying on occasion since we couldn’t have handle the truth.

He has been a disaster. Period.

vaccines

I have been vaccinated so I am not anti vaxxer. My view on the vaccines are as following.

  1. Those who have underlying diseases or conditions, 50 years and over, taking immunosuppressive therapies should be vaccinated.
  2. I don’t believe in mandatory vaccines or vaccine passports.
  3. Women between age 30 and 50, have a one in million chance of blood clots so women talk to their doctors. I suspect most doctors will support women getting a vaccines.
  4. If you are under 30 and healthy, check with your doctors since you may get pericarditis or myocarditis maybe 1 in 10,000 to 1 in 100,000 based on CDC data. Talk to your doctor.
  5. Parents should talk with their children doctor and decide if the benefits outweigh the risks. Children are less likely to transmit and risk any serious impact from the virus unless they have underlying conditions. (Any Children with underlying conditions, refer to step one).

My own view is that government own PR relations has been a disaster, telling people you need to wear a mask after vaccination is not just bad PR but also bad science. The vaccine works and even in breakthrough virus, the virus appears less serious.

As for the Delta variant, the British data are encouraging. The Brits are seeing less deaths, less hospitalization and some of the data released is 1/5 to 1/10th of the original virus when it comes to death.

  1. The reason for these data begins with vaccinations and the fact that many have immunity due to having the virus.
  2. The virus may be mutating toward less virulent virus.

Kevin Roche of Healthy Skeptic noted on education, “We need, and I am doing everything I can to get this, clear information that shows 1) cases, hospitalizations and deaths by vaccination status, with fully vaccinated people defined in two ways, one is 14 days after second dose, and the other is a month after second dose; 2) the age structure of those cases in each group, vaxed and unvaxed; 3) the distribution of cycle numbers in at least a sample of recent cases in each group; and 4) for hospitalizations, how may of these are actually people who got hospitalized and tested positive versus those actually admitted for CV-19 disease.  If we could just get this information on a regular basis we would be able to dispel a lot of misinformation…The other thing we really need is for a big campaign to educate the public about what adaptive immunity is and that what we are seeing isn’t inconsistent with vaccines working.  People still haven’t been given a clear picture of how respiratory virus epidemics tend to work and what the effect of vaccines is.  They don’t and can’t stop exposure.  They can and do stop serious disease, with a lesser effectiveness among those with weakened immune systems.”

Our failure has been a failure of educating the public risk and the benefit. Roche added, “So governments have only themselves to blame for vaccine hesitancy.  If they had just been honest and completely forthcoming from the start, they would have some credibility left.  Instead they have people suspicious about side effects and now suspicious about whether the vaccines even work.  And now we are fighting this binge of completely misleading information about the vaccines and cases.”

Roche summarizes the future of this virus, ”  I don’t know how many times I can keep saying that this virus isn’t going away, it will be here, we will adapt to it and it will be similar to flu or even less dangerous.” We may be seeing the virus adopting and we are adopting to virus.

What we don’t need is restrict the economy and another mask mandates. We are past that. It is time to live with the virus.


Lessons that need to be learned

The most important lesson to learn is that lockdown were a complete failure! There is enough data to show that more people will die as result of the lockdown than lives saved. One study showed that over the next two decades 1.3 million will die prematurely or had already died, more than doubled what number died from corona virus. Below, we saw younger patients already suffered.

As our data has shown, the economic damage were worse in more restricted states without any decrease in deaths. With no difference in deaths among the less restricted and more restricted, the failure of lockdowns becomes obvious.

View it this way, the average flu season Infectious fatality rate over the past decade was .1 or 1 per thousands with ranges from .03 to .17. (3 per 10,000 in 2009 or 1.7 per 1000 in 2018) The pandemic of 1957 and 1968 were at least .2 or 2 per 1000 if not little higher. It is estimated on a per capita basis, 160,000 to 200,000 deaths today. (It should be noted that the population were younger and most likely healthier so that would explain some of the differences in death.)

While Fauci testify that this virus would be ten times the flu in March of 2020, he proved to be wrong. IFR proved to shown .2 to .4 (2 to 4 per thousands). Fauci was off by 2.5 to 5 times his testimony. This miscalculation laid the basis for the lockdown. The original lockdown was designed for 15 days and if they had happened, we were recovered quickly. This was more a natural disaster and our economy was strong enough to recover quickly. As I have shown, we should be around 4% unemployment and a strong recovery going more broader than what we are witnessing.

This virus was not the Spanish flu as the Spanish flu killed on a per capita basis at least three times the present deaths and IFR lower. Other than many of the elderly, most age group would be close or lower than the flu. Strange virus compared to the flu.

Bottom line you don’t crash an economy for a virus that at worse would kill 4 per 1000. And by concentrating on most vulnerable, lives will be save and we can get back to normal.

Mixed States data

Comparing states with all Republican control of government, all Democrats controlled and states with mixed control. GOP had 4.2% unemployment, mixed governance with 5.1% while Democrats 6.6%. When we added both mixed and Republicans, the overall unemployment was 4.4%.

Mixed governance and GOP were significantly lower than the national average while Democrats were above. GOP were 17% less unemployment than mixed and 36% of Democrats.

If Democrats were similar to Mixed governments or closer to GOP, the unemployment should be under 5% and closer to 4%.

Mixed had 4.5% less death per capita and 5.4% less than Democratic states. Mixed governance had less death per capita vs either GOP or Democratic states. 8 to 10 deaths per 100,000 less.

GOP had superior economic data but mixed government had unemployment superior full blue states and less death per capital of both GOP and Democrats.

Data death per capita updated

In all of our studies, we found you had to get out to deaths per million. For example in our 50 states comparing Republican to Democratic governors. both groups had 171 per 100,000 but when you push it to a million, Blue states had 6 per million less deaths which represent a .4 percent difference. Within the margin of error.

Among the divided states, Red States had 176 deaths per 100,000 versus 178 deaths per 100,000 in blue states. Less than 3% difference and not a statistically difference. At a deaths per million it represent 20 deaths more per million.

Only among the bigger states did you see some significant difference as Bigger Red States had 14% less deaths! Overall to be on the conservative side, we didn’t see a significant difference between Red and Blue States on deaths from Covid virus but as we already seen, there were a significant difference in unemployment favoring Republican states.

Recent data on state comparison for unemployment

This data shows unemployment comparison between different studies, the first was comparison lockdown to non-lockdown states or those states who lockdown last fall. Non Lockdown states average 4.2% unemployment vs 5.4% for a 23% difference.

The second study was comparison of states with Republican governors versus Democratic governors. Republican states had a 4.4% vs 6% for a 27% difference.

The third study compared the top 8 populous states, four with Republican governors and four with Democratic governors. GOP states had 5.1% unemployment and 7.4% for Democratic states for 31% differences.

The fourth studies compared Republican or Democratic states defined as controlling all branch government and there were mixed states, where you had both parties controlling aspect of branches. Red States, 4.2% vs 6.6% for blue states for a 36% difference.

Red States and non lockdown states out performed blue states and lockdown states in reducing unemployment since the beginning of the Pandemic with ranges from 23% to 36% difference in less unemployment!

Fury and Wilder

This is the third fight between the two. In their first fight, Fury barely survived a knockout in the twelfth as he managed to get up and get a draw. In their second fight, he won rather easily, pounding Wilder all over. Wilder is a good athlete who boxes, Fury is a boxer who has athletic skills. In their second bout, Fury adjusted and was more aggressive, using his heights and weight to his advantage.

Wilder problem has been that he has depended upon his power but not boxing skills. He has not improved his boxing skills and until his second fight with Fury, if he was behind on points, he would depend upon his power. Against the Cuban fighter Ortiz, he was behind on points in both fights but his power save him and his power allowed him a draw against Fury and Fury own guts and ability to get up from a devastating knockout save Fury from defeat.

In their last fight, Wilder did not change his strategy but Fury did by not just boxing but he opened up more and took advantage of Wilder defense liability. Wilder must use his athlete ability and move side to side before unleashing his punches. In the past, he has often move in a straight line back ward to escape and against a good boxer like Fury, this made Wilder vulnerable to Fury own power.

Wilder has a puncher chance to win and he has the power to do that. Fury, whose own goal is Joshua to unite the titles but that fight fell through and now he is fighting Wilder, who he prefer not to fight. Will Fury come in overconfident? If so he could run into a Wilder’s right hand.

Fury is the favorite and he is the better boxer and if he boxes, he will set up combinations to win this fight easily. Wilder will win only by knockout, and that is not out of question.

Djokovic wins number 20

We are witnessing greatness in Tennis as we witnessing the final endgame of who will be greatest of all time. Djokovic, Nadal and Federer have won 20 majors and since Roger won Wimbledon in 2003 for his first major, these three men have won 60 majors over the past 18 years. That represent 80 percent of the majors played over the period.

Roger is nearly 40 and I would be surprise if he wins another. Nadal is 35 and Djokovic is 34. They are still playing near their best despite their age. Normally, 34 is the point where men tennis player are on their way down but both players are still playing well and are still among the best in the game.

Federer last major win was Australia three years ago when he was 36 so we can assume that either Nadal or Djokovic have one or two more majors left in them and Djokovic is the youngest by one year to Nadal but appears to be better on more surface than Nadal who has won 13 of his 20 majors on the clay surface of French Open.

Over the next three or four years, the GOAT in Men’s Tennis will be settled.

Royals nearing the All Star Break

Royals are approaching the all Star break as a team in a disarray. Pitching so far dismal as I have observed before, four of the starters have ERA of 5.97, 5.50, 5.36, and 4.52. Greg Holland is tied with five saves but he also has blown4 saves. Barlow has 4 saves and blew 3 others.

Holland is interesting case since he has leads the team in save opportunities and there are times that he looks like the Holland of old. And there are times that he is an old Holland. His ERA of nearly 5 runs sums up where he is in his career. He is not the consistent closer of years past but so far no one else has yet to take the closer role. Staumont looked like he was headed in that direction but a stint on IR slowed Staumont down. Royals are closer by committee and Holland is not what he was but there are very little choice not to use him.

Royals are near last with a 5.04 ERA, given up 112 homers and have blown 15 saves as a team. Can’t win with that.

I had high hopes for this team, since it is a better team than what we have seen over the past three years. Bringing in Benintendi and Santana has worked out. Benintendi is close to the Benintendi of 2018 an Santana is hitting .250, getting walks and have 14 homers. Where you expected him to be. 2019, Dozier and Soler showed that they were ready to be power hitters and RBI’s producers but since then, they have gone south. It leaves a big hole when your power hitters are hitting below .200 and Ryan O’Hearn is hitting .217. Merrifield leads the league in stolen bases but is hitting 20 points below his lifetime .293 but Perez is hitting well with 20 homers and 51 RBI’s going into the All Star Break.

In spite of Soler and Dozier failures, the Royals are number 10th in batting average.