SoCalBrewfan

Sweden's model of limited restrictions has not been successful. They have had more deaths per capita than the US and many times the rate of deaths as their nordic neighbors Norway, Finland, and Denmark. And their economy doesn't seem to be substantially better off: “They literally gained nothing,” said Jacob F. Kirkegaard, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington. “It’s a self-inflicted wound, and they have no economic gains.” https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/07/business/sweden-economy-coronavirus.html Also the US does not have a particularly high rate of testing: https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/testing/international-comparison The US in in there at 63 per 100K, near Germany and Estonia. The outlier countries do 2x as many per 100K or more. If Arizona and Florida were countries, they would be the two worst outbreaks in the world right now in new cases per capita, at 3.3K and 2.7K per million, respectively. The highest countries on this metric are Oman, Bahrain, and Qatar, 1.7K-2.2K per million, where there are apparently outbreaks among foreign workers. It should also be noted that just letting things ride and hoping for herd immunity has the additional risk that the long-term effects of COVID are not well known. Deaths are not the only important metric; many people who recover suffer greatly and it is yet unknown what long term damage they might duffer. My next door neighbor had it, he's fiftyish and healthy but said he was almost totally out of commission for two months. And not to be too grim, but there's some new reports of potential longer term neurological damage: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-brains/scientists-warn-of-potential-wave-of-covid-linked-brain-damage-idUSKBN24837S

Oh, yeah, and it's very likely that indoor vs outdoor is a big deal, and situations where people (gross) fill the air with droplets (singing, talking loud, eating and drinking). So there's some reason to believe it's not the beaches or rallies that are super spreader events, it's bars and parties and choir practices and church services. That might help to explain Riverside, San Bernardino, and Imperial counties, where it's ugly hot and people are seeking AC, just like in Arizona or Florida or Texas. LA and Orange County have no such excuse right now. (Come to think of it, inland parts of LA county are also hot, it's a really big county that could easily be its own state...I haven't seen a breakdown by zip code or anything.)

Wearing a mask is saying, hey, I'm willing to be uncomfortable as long as it's for the greater good. I hate wearing masks...they pull at my weird old man ears and fog up my glasses if they don't fit right...sometimes even if they do. I do it not to protect myself, not to look cool, not because I'm taking a political position, but to protect the community in case I caught the bug and don't know it yet. It's not for me, it's for the restaurant and grocery workers who are stuck in a place with people coming in and out, wondering which one might be sick and not know it. For my elderly relatives when I visit who would be hit hard by the bug. If I'm lucky, it does nothing except make me uncomfortable and fog my damn glasses. I honestly thought it was stupid at one time, even remember joking with my dental hygienist about it in very early March. And who knows, maybe the data will show the masks had a minimal effect in the end. But places with masks beat this thing, and the US didn't, and we need all the help we can get right now, so I strap on the stupid mask. Have I mentioned that it fogs my glasses?

The spike in California (at least SoCal) seems to be driven mostly by rural and suburban counties: https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-06-24/4-suburban-california-counties-behind-dangerous-spike-in-covid-19-hospitalizations LA county has some troubling numbers as well. However, don't try to attribute this all to hot weather...it's actually fairly cool in the coastal regions right now; we frequently have a marine layer this time of year sometimes known as 'June gloom' and this year has been particularly cool and grey. On the other hand, anti-mask sentiments in some communities are on the rise, with these stupid get out of mask free cards for example. My friend in Orange County had a guy yell at him at a stop light about wearing a mask (he had just dropped his kid off). https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-06-27/l-a-county-reports-more-than-2-100-new-coronavirus-cases-and-a-continued-rise-in-hospitalizations

Perhaps this has been discussed elsewhere, but I didn't see it. There is apparently a chance of the NL using a DH this year if/when play resumes. So of course I was wondering, does this help the Brewers or hurt them? Also, would love to have bitter argument about something different for a change. (No more Jimmy Nelson on the basepaths...) We don't really have a traditional DH situation with an extra slugger who is defensively challenged, and have let go Thames, Choi, Shaw, and Aguilar who would all seem to have been the types of players I would have seen as good fits. But we do have a deep crop of position players who can play multiple roles, such that we would normally have expected to have several capable bats on the bench in any given day. I would guess we would use Braun vs LHP almost exclusively but then mix and match a bit vs RHP. Narvaez could be a good part-time DH. Does this give Nottingham or Healy a better chance of making the roster? There's also the question of whether our competitors benefit more than Milwaukee does. Our top competitors seem to have extra position players who can hit, sadly, so maybe we lose ground relative to the Cardinals and Cubs? Curious to hear what folks think.

In related news, state license plates will now include the new slogan Wisconsin: Hold My Beer.

I wrote out a post, then was not going to post, but the last post made me change my mind. I love to teach students like you, who are coming back to school and know what they want, have lived a bit and have some life experience under their belts. One of our majors about to (virtually) graduate has built up a construction company but never got his degree, and now he's doing both. He's had to work hard to get back up to speed on academic science, but he's rocked it and I have so much respect for his hard work. == The post: I hear you, and understand the argument, but still disagree. I think the lower-tier and regional campuses are critical engines of opportunity that provide access to higher education in communities and regions that need it. I think it's incredibly valuable for the kids who can't get to Berkeley or Madison, who can't afford the flagship schools, to have access to a degree as a gateway to the middle class. Our system of public higher education can do that for so many young people if we invest appropriately. (And also for not-young people, actually; I teach a lot of older students, veterans, second-chancers.) The Cal State system, 23 campuses of bachelor's and master's institutions that are roughly similar to the regional UW campuses, provides so many benefits to California in lifting individuals and families out of poverty to professional jobs, as do the non-flagship campuses in the UW or other systems. That means nurses, teachers, technicians, engineers, all sorts of careers that are absolutely essential to our society; a large fraction of California's nurses and teachers went to a Cal State school. The Cal State system in the 90s used to get 80% of the cost of an education from the state, now it's more like 50%. But it's a great investment, with one analysis suggesting $1 in state money returning over $5.40 in economic impact. I believe that not only can we afford to support these schools, but that it's one of the better uses of state funding. That is in no way to diminish the value of trade schools, technical education, etc., or of elite schools for that matter. Just to say that non-flagship state schools and the impact they have on ordinary people should not be devalued. In addition, those smaller campuses mean so much to their local communities in terms of jobs and cultural opportunities. In a time when rural areas face loss of quality jobs and a brain drain of young people, disinvesting in those smaller campuses is just putting more nails in the coffin. Businesses learned a long time ago that you can't be everything to everybody. That's probably the case with higher education, too. Very possibly, and there is definitely occasion for closing redundant programs in a region like SoCal where the next campus is not too far down the freeway. But public higher education is not, and should not IMO be, a business. It's not about turning a profit or increasing revenues. We provide service to taxpayers, and I sincerely believe that it's a valuable service and that we (at least my little bit of the endeavor) do it very very well.

Interesting country-by-country graphical representation; cases and start dates are normalized to make the curves visually comparable as a means of looking at national-level responses. US is not in the good group here, sadly. We had our first reported case same day as South Korea, which is largely past the first outbreak. Though in fairness most of east Asia was hard hit by SARS and perhaps as a result more amenable to masks and quarantine. Sweden, UK notably tried different initial strategies based on less quarantine in an effort to build herd immunity and they haven't done as well as neighbors. Some countries whose leaders seemed to be in denial (Brazil, Russia) are also in that red group. https://www.endcoronavirus.org/countries?fbclid=IwAR0Thu6fl8LkBN-qDQXcpaQioVID0sPfR7DgH3NtEvKnlsUc_7LbA-sHz14

I don't think the implication was to end those classes, I think the implication was to end those majors. That would be a mistake, IMO. Even though I'm in a STEM field and get the criticism of some seemingly less practical majors, there's no way I would eliminate them. First off, you won't attract good faculty to teach in a program where there are no majors, so even if your only goal is to support what you consider more practical majors, you won't get as much bang for your buck. Second, there is intrinsic value in the study of, say, history or psychology, and eliminating those majors just makes everyone culturally poorer. Universities are not just job training sites, and it's a mistake IMO to view them through that lens. They serve many roles in their local communities and the broader culture and I think smaller towns with universities are generally nicer places to live than comparable places without...if you look at lists of best places to retire, for example, many of them are college towns. Some of that is due to the cultural amenities that result from having a theater or music or arts program and the graduates and faculty thereof. I don’t mean to be combative, but as an outsider, it’s my perception that there are a lot of six figure jobs on campus that have little to do with teaching or research and that the number of these jobs has grown significantly over the last 30 years (along with tuition). Am I misguided? Yes and no. There has been a growth of administrative layers and non-instructional positions, and it is a sore spot among faculty. (I am STEM faculty, in case that's not obvious.) Some of it is due to new functions that didn't exist fifty years ago, e.g., IT and greater student support services. Students want wifi access in the library and appropriate software packages for their engineering courses, and so the IT department needs to grow to support those endeavors...those folks generally get paid well though often less than they would get in industry. Universities provide counseling and mental health services that weren't always part of the mission, and those are staffed by professionals. Some is due to compliance requirements as state and federal agencies have attached strings to funding and demanded greater accountability. Those aren't optional positions. (K-12 has this as well.) Some is due to the need to fight for external funding, as state support has declined; you have full time people to solicit donations and work with foundations, and others to support faculty in grant proposals. Then there are more full time people to administer those funds which must be kept separate from state money, and again to make sure spending and accounting complies with the standards of funders and governments. But even with all that, the bulk of the employees at a regional state university are not making anything close to six figures, and I know staff including instructors who almost qualify for food stamps. Faculty and non-instructional staff at small state institutions are working harder than ever, often for salaries that don't keep up with inflation, and that's my lens I guess. Tuition at most state schools doesn't come anywhere close to covering the costs of the degree, and I know that here at least tuition increases are never taken lightly. If course in plenty of states (I think it's 40 out of 50?) the highest paid state employee is the flagship university's football or basketball coach. Some of those programs genuinely make money, but a lot of programs lose games and money but are kept to keep alumni happy. Chad Morris at Arkansas made something like $4M a year (and will continue to do so, I think) to lost almost every game.

Vast majority of professors think the same way. That is just not true. You have clearly never been to a faculty meeting... Bashing the liberal arts is one of those things that's fashionable in some circles, but that bashing is itself more ideological than data driven. Many of those who take those positions are happy to send their own children to liberal arts oriented schools. Even in the sciences and engineering, it is very valuable to have training in writing, communicating, and critical thinking, and those skills come from thriving humanities programs. Narrow training for a specific job seems great on paper, but has real limitations given how often people change jobs now. Many of the jobs my students will be doing in twenty years probably don't exist right now, and the way the same jobs will be done will change as well. The notion that higher ed is living large is also just not true at most publicly funded institutions, or even less prestigious private colleges. If you talk about flagship state schools or top 50 private schools, there's more of a point there, but even then there are a lot of people working their tails off who could make way more money in industry.

That's a strange hill to die on, to be honest, but in any event I would be very cautious about any quantitative claims at this point. I don't think the goalposts have moved; in the first frenzy of shutdown the concerns were getting things safe without (as I recall) any substantive discussions of when we would reopen beyond we need to flatten the curve. Since then most jurisdictions have specific measures that have been articulated as preconditions for easing shutdown orders; the big four are sufficient testing, contact tracing, sufficient treatment capacity / PPE, and a a decline in cases for two weeks. But as the former director of the CDC said in congressional testimony today, it's not exactly an on/off switch, it's more a dimmer switch. And nobody is claiming any of this is easy; there is still so much we don't know about this virus and who does and doesn't have it. I would tend toward caution and the polls say most Americans agree. What is tough for working people is that if their job is not legally required to be shutdown, now they can't claim unemployment and in many cases need to make tough choices about health vs job. There are enough jerk bosses out there that people will be in bad situations.

Higher education is going to be hit hard. Elite institutions will likely have the resources and name recognition to weather the storm, but a lot of smaller private colleges will likely go out of business. They are highly dependent on tuition and room and board fees and just took a huge hit this spring. Public institutions are likely to face reduced budgets as states tighten belts. Demand for college might dip in the short term as people face uncertain economic situations, and as international students are less willing or able to come to the US. Once that capacity is lost it might be hard to recover as demand comes back up...and it generally spikes upward when the economy is bad as people who lose jobs seek degrees. Online classes will be touted as a less costly replacement for in person instruction, but in my opinion it's not a substitute and is really challenging for students from lower socioeconomic status. I have many students who excel in person who are really struggling, due to poor internet or computer access at home, family and housing instability, and even just the challenge of finding a quiet place to study or attend virtual classes. (Research on MOOCs supports my admittedly subjective impression.) And that's not even touching the question of how you teach laboratory science, engineering, nursing, or performing arts remotely. I am genuinely fearful that there will be a greater push to online and that students who suffer will be the vulnerable populations who need the in person support and connection the most. Some student support services on the other hand are finding that online modalities and flexible scheduling make it easier for students to access advising and counseling. A colleague said they will probably keep some of these changes and feel that their program will be better for it.

Well, I'll use science then. Here's what a Nobel-winning scientist had to say yesterday: That's not science, that's arguing from authority. Science isn't taking what one smart person says as gospel, it's arguing based on data and evaluating competing models or experimental results, collectively working iteratively toward a better understanding. The science on Covid is necessarily work in progress, and what is currently the consensus model will almost certainly evolve. Experts will disagree and argue. That doesn't mean we just ignore expertise and go with our gut feeling. It's hard to be patient and wait for the science to move forward, but that's what needs to happen. Also, having a Nobel prize in one thing doesn't mean you know everything about everything. I've met a handful of Nobel prize winners, and there is often this tendency to assume that they are all-knowing...it's not so. (To be fair, plenty of scientists and engineers who have not won the Nobel prize also act like they know everything.) A few have taken maverick positions that have been kooky or actually detrimental. (Also there are more than a few really awful people in the list of Nobel winners.) The inventor of the Josephson junction spent time trying to research telepathy, and a chemistry winner supported a discredited theory that the HIV virus is harmless and AIDS is caused by drug use. Those points of view get amplified because they are backed by a Nobel prize winner, and it's really unfortunate. Levitt is a genius when it comes to molecular structures but he is not an epidemiologist or an economist. That's not to say Levitt is a bad person or even necessarily wrong. Plenty of people (some of whom I know) are shut out of their normal research labs so they are running data analysis on publicly available COVID data and making statements on twitter or wherever. That's great, because the more people look at the problem, the more likely that something doesn't get overlooked, but it's a lot like brewers fans putting together their proposed 2020 batting orders. Of course there's a guy who thinks the team would be better with Braun at shortstop, but that is not the consensus of informed participants, and I would hate to see a person in a position to make a decision take the outlier point of view without being very convinced that it's right.

I saw a Twitter argument this morning that was critical of the Wisconsin plan to test all nursing home occupants and employees because it would "artificially increase the number of positive tests." Seriously! How deep does your head need to be in the sand to think this way? Someone above was wondering why the US seems to have done so much worse with COVID than other places. This is why. Some people would rather be right, are more concerned about looking good (politically or even just with their twitter feeds or message board threads), than have an honest assessment of the public health conditions and threats and their implications for policy and behavior. It's not a new phenomenon (I'm a science professor...), it's just that the stakes are so much more immediate and obvious for this virus.

It’s not a plague either. “Coronavirus” family includes flu, This is not true. You might be thinking of the common cold viruses, which are in the same family as COVID and the SARS and MERS coronaviruses. The viruses that cause influenza are also RNA viruses but they are in different categories. Even if that were the case, being the same family or not does not tell you which virus is a greater public health threat. Please stop spreading disinformation.

The National Academies (that is to say, the best experts the US can muster) just released a rapid report summarizing what is known about temperature dependence. The answer is that the data we have are inconclusive; laboratory studies show virus survival decreases with increased temperature and humidity but real world transmission data shows warm locations (e.g., Iran) with rapid virus spread. One study said both cold and hot temperatures were less conducive to spread than moderate temperatures, but that many factors other than temperature are contributing to transmission. None of the studies people cite are without flaws, and these experts note conflicting results, poor data quality, and multiple potentially confounding effects. Other coronavirus outbreaks (SARS, MERS) have not shown seasonal effects. The famous 1918 flu pandemic did subside in summer, but this brief paper notes that there have been ten flu pandemics documented in 250 years, and there is no pattern as to when they started: two in northern hemisphere winter, three in spring, two in summer, three in fall. "All had a peak second wave approximately six months after emergence of the virus in human population, REGARDLESS OF WHEN THE INITIAL INTRODUCTION OCCURRED." [emphasis mine] Anyone who claims they are certain that warm temperatures will slow or stop this thing without other interventions is speculating and/or wishing, at best. At worst they are deceptive and motivated by concerns other than public health. The stakes are too high to base policy decisions on poor science or hunches. https://www.nap.edu/read/25771/chapter/1#6

It is terribly uncharitable of me to think so, but I imagine that Manfred and some owners are cackling in glee in hopes that the affiliated minor leagues will die off as a result of this summer.

Blood tests for antibodies are possible, and would be huge in allowing people with immunity to return to work. (They would also be valuable in understanding how the disease has spread etc.) I don't think it's certain whether immunity will last, though: https://www.vox.com/2020/3/30/21186822/immunity-to-covid-19-test-coronavirus-rt-pcr-antibody There are scenarios where we are all back to normal in a couple of months, but there are others where this is a crisis for a year or more. Some of the short time spans are not good scenarios, but rather a massive infection spike that overwhelms the health system but then burns itself out after mass casualties. We just don't know yet how this will develop, whether and when treatments or vaccines will be available, and that explains the current strategy of flattening the curve to buy time. This article is a pretty good one in considering the possibilities; it notes, also, that vaccines take time, and that even if we had a vaccine, manufacturing and deploying millions of doses is a massive undertaking. https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2020/03/coronavirus-social-distancing-over-back-to-normal/608752/?fbclid=IwAR3YQIMYDCaFM0wOaTJQsT8-GWG5rTx-A1BXHflpC8T18vdDaOG4HCR6OUg

The NCAA granted another year of eligibility to college baseball players, which seems like it might have massive implications for the draft and current HS and college players.

As far as I know, Fauci is loosely using Neil Ferguson’s predictions using old flu models, which are proving to be hogwash and perhaps disingenuous. Disingenuous? Are you seriously suggesting that he's deliberately misleading people? To what end, exactly? What does someone like Fauci gain from this? The nature of the disease, the lag between exposure and symptoms, and the exponential growth function, is that nothing turns into small increases turns into large increases in what seems like an unexpected way...and humans are collectively bad at planning for and responding to this sort of thing. Warning people of what is to come if no action is taken is literally the guy's job, and I think it's appalling to suggest that he is being disingenuous. There are a lot of models with parameters that are not well understood, it is an emerging phenomenon and this is to be expected. More importantly, the models will change when behavior changes...the initial predictions of what would happen if nothing was done are now obsolete, but new and updated models still suggest that ending distancing prematurely, or taking no steps as some governors are still insisting upon, will have very serious risks. Health care professionals are literally putting their lives on the line to treat people and we haven't seen the worst of this yet.

I am still fearful of what might happen in rural areas if the virus gets a toehold. There are hotspots developing in surprising places far from urban centers, and the nature of the virus means things can spread while people tell themselves the problems is in the big cities and can't affect them where they are. My folks live in Northwest Wisconsin and the population in their area includes a lot of vulnerable people, due to age, diabetes, history of smoking, and other preexisting conditions. The hospitals in the region can't have much capacity for ICU and respirator care; the Vox article below says half the counties in the US have no ICU beds at all. Apparently many of the more rural clusters are in places with skiing or other activities likely to draw visitors, but there seem to be clusters emerging from church services and other gatherings in otherwise low-population-density areas. https://www.vox.com/2020/3/28/21197421/usa-coronavirus-covid-19-rural-america https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/29/coronavirus-heres-a-map-of-rural-counties-in-us-most-affected-by-pandemic.html

Please be cautious and skeptical about that French study, or really any one study promising a miracle cure. There is criticism of the PIs methods, history of data manipulation, and questions about the speed and impartiality of the peer review. The two drugs in question have side effects and are needed by patients with other conditions; they should only be taken under a doctor's care after their efficacy is firmly established or if the situation is truly dire. I would dearly love there to be a promising treatment, and it is of course still possible that this is it, but we haven't done the science yet to be sure. It's irresponsible for politicians or TV stations to suggest that people go out and buy the stuff for self-prescribed use.

Please be cautious and skeptical about that French study, or really any one study promising a miracle cure. There is criticism of the PIs methods, history of data manipulation, and questions about the speed and impartiality of the peer review. The two drugs in question have side effects and are needed by patients with other conditions; they should only be taken under a doctor's care after their efficacy is firmly established or if the situation is truly dire. I would dearly love there to be a promising treatment, and it is of course still possible that this is it, but we haven't done the science yet to be sure. It's irresponsible for politicians or TV stations to suggest that people go out and buy the stuff for self-prescribed use.

That's kind of like watching a pitcher load the bases and saying, well, nobody's scored yet, I think we're doing just fine. There was a time that Spain might have said the same thing...hey, we aren't nearly as bad off as Italy or Iran. The exponential growth function is a bugger that way. The measures that have been taken might be enough to keep this mild, but it's too early to assume that.

That's kind of like watching a pitcher load the bases and saying, well, nobody's scored yet, I think we're doing just fine. There was a time that Spain might have said the same thing...hey, we aren't nearly as bad off as Italy or Iran. The exponential growth function is a bugger that way. The measures that have been taken might be enough to keep this mild, but it's too early to assume that.