Covid-2019

Covid-2019
Saturday, January 28, 2023
In "Recommended Reading," the world's most influential vaccine advocate, Bill Gates, now says "We ... need to fix the three problems of [COVID-19] vaccines. The current vaccines are not infection-blocking. They’re not broad, so when new variants come up you lose protection, and they have very short duration, particularly in the people who matter, which are old people." Other than that, though...
Covid-2019
Friday, January 27, 2023
Attention investors looking forward to something other than Covid to worry about. It's Tactical Asteroid Allocation time! NASA says a rock the size of a delivery truck will pass nearer to Earth than some communications satellites. Will it be a near miss? That's a misnomer, actually. We want a near hit. It's all in "Recommended Reading."
Covid-2019
Thursday, January 26, 2023
One of our missions in "Recommended Reading" is to expose you to divergent and controversial views. So we link to a Project Veritas sting of a drunken young Pfizer executive bragging about "directed evolution" of viruses (also known as gain of function research). But now that vaccine skepticism has practically become the new normal, we also point to two research projects finding the new bivalent vaccines to be effective (at least in preventing severe symptoms).
Covid-2019
Wednesday, January 25, 2023
In "Recommender Reading," our friend the intrepid reporter Alex Berenson points to new data in the UK confirming an alarming global trend -- a disproportionate rise in "excess mortalities" in wealthy nations that have bet big on ongoing Covid booster shots. We all want to move on from the pandemic. And it feels like too big a pill to swallow to admit that something might be going terribly wrong with this technology that we thought would save us. But the statistics are pointing to an uncomfortable truth that needs serious attention, if only to restore public confidence.
Covid-2019
Tuesday, January 24, 2023
In our log-scale charts on pages 7 and 8, China's late-in-the-game surges in Covid infections and deaths is remarkable for its suddenness. But it must be said that China remains by far the least-affected nation in terms of cases and fatalities as a share of population. But then again... the data... 
Covid-2019
Monday, January 23, 2023
In "Recommended Reading," as the Chinese CDC mysteriously flip-flops from monthly Covid reporting to weekly, it's battling headlines. First we have "'80% of China is Infected With COVID-19' Health Official Reports" and then "China downplays the severity of its COVID-19 surge." 
Covid-2019
Sunday, January 22, 2023
In "Recommended Reading," it's Sunday, so we have a light one for you. A story in the New York Times about how dog-walkers can now make $100,000 a year walking "pandemic pups." Calling Jay Powell -- this explains all that so-called wage inflation you're always worrying about.
Covid-2019
Saturday, January 21, 2023
In "Recommended Reading," a story worrying about the new applications of MRNA vaccines to livestock. What, me worry? But normally we test new medicines on animals before giving them to people. In the pandemic era, the reverse.  And Japan has followed China's lead in downgrading Covid to the threat-status of the common flu. No totalitarian government responding to mass protests was required, either. And Japan's recent case profile looks very much like China's -- a record surge. All that was needed was a little common sense. What would the world look like if the community of nations had taken this approach three years ago? Well, that was impossible -- because that's what he-must-not-be-named wanted to do. Oh well...
Covid-2019
Friday, January 20, 2023
Today we're integrating the Chinese CDC's new monthly data protocol. We'll be backwardly revising the past month of cases and fatalities, assigning each day the average of the reported month. So there will be significant discontinuities at the monthly breakpoints (e.g. page 14 and page 8), and that will flow into global totals that include China (e.g. page 1). The data, as presented, is a mess -- and was never reliable to begin with. But if you take it at face value, daily new cases in China are now 36,286 and fatalities 1,713. Yes, that means the recent case/fatality rate is an astonishing 4.72%. And it means Covid is spreading supra-exponentially in China, according to our trusty days-to-double-mortalities measure (page 9). Because the new monthly data applies only at a national level, we are discontinuing the province-level (formerly on page 3).
Covid-2019
Thursday, January 19, 2023
China takes heat from the WHO for failure to disclose Covid data. Now a health ministry doc suggests millions of cases, and surely tens of thousand of deaths -- but it's presented so incoherently, it's hard to say what they are even claiming. It's a data-scientist's nightmare. We're working hard to figure it out.

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