Covid Diary: Reflections at the start of Fall

The long (or did it seem short?  I’m not entirely sure.) and seemingly hot (it MUST have been hotter than normal…) summer is almost over, and so I thought I should reflect a bit on where we are.  Classes start up again at the UW on Wednesday, and I apparently have several Bucky masks waiting for me on campus if I ever find myself back there.  As I predicted, masks have finally become a pervasive consumer product.

The standard thinking — it seems held by everyone, though in direct contradiction to official line — is that the semester will not last long in-person.  Given that there is no universal and frequent testing for covid on campus, it will not take long for a limited outbreak to expand to unacceptable levels.  In the US, covid is simply too pervasive at this point to be put under control without dramatic behavioral changes.  It is unreasonable to expect students to wear masks all the time in dorms, or to refrain from socializing.  There will certainly be parties and other large social events off campus.  And why shouldn’t students act this way?  I take it that young people have largely ignored the lie that covid presents them with a level of risk that they are probably unwilling to accept.  Young people already do things that are a greater risk to them than covid.  The risk of their socializing is primarily on older people and we haven’t given them substantial reason to care about them; after all, these are the same people holding their student debt and constantly remarking about how they are privileged and lazy.  Any non-compliance of theirs’ is a failing of our society more than their rationality.

Though perhaps everything will turn out and UW will make it until the Thanksgiving finish-line without substantial outbreaks.  We shall see.  However, the early casualty of football does not bode well for the rest.

At this point the obsession over testing in the US is starting to appear misplaced.  Although testing is certainly important to indicate the start of an outbreak and to track its progress, at a certain level of infection there are simply too many people to test.  Our system of testing begins to buckle, no matter how much we have spent on it, and test results are returned too late to be of any good.  At that point — which is exactly where those in the US find themselves — people must generally assume at all times that they will encounter infected people.  They should also assume that they themselves are infected.  This means that we simply not act in ways that we could with low levels of infection and surveillance testing (the sort being done in South Korea, China, Japan and Europe).  Indoor dining is probably not safe in most areas, nor are social gatherings outside of a small “bubble.”  Life is going to be a cruel shadow of itself until these things change.

We are at this point in the US because Americans failed to take shutdowns seriously.  Shutdowns were supposed to cut back levels of infection, so that people could generally assume when they went out that they would not put themselves (or others) at risk of infection.  Wearing a mask when in inside public spaces would be enough of a reasonable precaution.  We could return to many of our previous activities.  However, in most areas people were too laxed in their behaviors.  They didn’t take the crises seriously.  Our lack of discipline, especially outside of major cities and among certain political groups, has doomed us to our current situation.

We might be enjoying our patio eating and pleasant mid-day walks now, but that will soon end in the north.  As winter arrives, our lives will become even more depressing.  Alternatively, we might just give up, and accept the sickness and death that comes with infection.  Yeah, that’s probably what we will do.  We are Americans after all — we don’t like feeling sad.

Covid Diary: and now, the entire logistic growth curve

One interesting and horrifying feature of the current phase of the Covid-19 epidemic in the US (“the end of the beginning”) is how our ability to track infections has surpassed our ability to control them.   Unlike in March, people are now able to get tested essentially on demand, without first meeting some restrictive set of  criteria meant to conserve testing facilities and materials.  Although testing has once again become scarce in places like Florida, Texas, and Arizona (where long lines at testing sites are certainly preventing many from being tested), outbreak surveillance is just about the only bright-spot in the American response to Covid.

When New York City was the center of the epidemic in the U.S. most people were only tested when they were very sick and in the hospital.  This meant that reported infections were among people far older, sicker, and more likely to die than the entire infected population.  This tendency of under-reporting (an understatement) was worsened by the overcrowding experienced in some NYC hospitals.  Many patients (even among the very ill) were told not to come to the hospital, and were likely never tested.  As a result, infection numbers in NYC did not come close to estimating the true number of infections.

We also missed the beginning of the growth curve.  It turns out that infections in NYC began around early February at the latest, and they were growing quite rapidly by the end of the month.  However, because we were not testing for community transmission at that time (only testing those with a very specific profile of international travel or contact with someone who did), infection counts trailed the beginning of the outbreak by weeks.

This may give us some insight into our current experience.  We are seeing dramatic increases in infections across the country, and especially in Texas and Florida.  Luckily, infections are currently dominated by younger people and death rates have only recently started to increase (and not dramatically).  We probably shouldn’t expect this trend to continue.

It shouldn’t be all that surprising that the most socially active population is infected first.  Given the messaging about risk-factors for Covid, the gap between older and younger people in frequency of social interactions is likely even larger than normal.  However, given enough community spread the coronavirus will come into contact with older community members, and death rates will once again increase.  However, this time the infection is spread across a far larger region of the country and there will be no complete shutdown on the scale of what was seen in March to stop the outbreak.  We should expect to see death counts that surpass what was seen in NYC.

 

 

Covid Diary: A trip to the grocery store, a trip to the future

Like a lot of people these days, I only go to the grocery store about every week and a half.  It is really the only thing I have been doing in public since all of this began around mid-March.  It has been interesting to see the changes that have occurred between trips.  The last time I went to the store, in early April, things had dramatically changed.  I had to wait in a short line to get in (limiting the store to 30 customers), there were lines 6 feet apart at the check-out to keep people socially distanced, and there was a large plastic barrier that had been erected between myself and the person checking me out.  It was a bit shocking, although I assumed I would eventually get used to it.

I went again yesterday.  Everything I mentioned above was the same.  The store was the same.  However, the changes this time were all in the people.  Nearly everyone was wearing a face covering of some sort.  They were also acting very conscious of their distance from others.  I had worried going in that I would feel out of place with my ridiculous bandana-covered face, but I shouldn’t have worried about that at all.  In fact, I would have felt like a social pariah if I hadn’t been wearing a mask.

This scene will be with us for a while: masked people efficiently grabbing their greens, spaghetti, and milk while warily moving around the 6ft bubbles of others.  At the time, I thought of it as a bit of a glimpse into my future.  Although right now it is quite striking in its novelty, it will eventually become quite mundane.

Though this isn’t quite right.  This is the scene from the early pandemic: the slight nervousness, the varied rag-tag materials of the face-masks.  This is a scene from a society caught off-guard, one that is trying to do whatever it can with the crap it found in the closet.  It is the scene from the Summer of 2020, when people are just happy that they can go buy clothing again.  It’s also a society still living off of the materials of pre-pandemic culture; the advertisements might remind us that something is wrong but the sitcoms don’t.  That, of course, will change.  Eventually we will have to figure out how to live our lives in the presence of the virus.  This will leak into the products of our culture, much like the War did in the ’40s.  There will also be a part of the culture devoted to trying to forget about the virus.  Not every story can be about the war.

The scene from the middle of the pandemic will be a bit different.  Those sexy n95s will make their debut at Macy’s in the Fall of 2020 (if it’s still in business).  Everyone will have their favorite.  Many will have a closets full, one for every outfit!  After all, you have to have something to wear when you go out to that fancy restaurant.  You won’t really care anymore that the host now takes a temperature measurement of your forehead before leading you to your seat, or that the server is garbed in a mask and gloves.  You will start to settle into the environment and practices that at one time seemed dystopian.  It’s like the heat in Arizona — it never gets any better, but you stop talking about it after a while.

Covid Diary: Denial

I’ve been struck recently by how those who should know better seem to be in denial about our current situation.  I’m not talking about Trump.  He has become a non-entity at this point, like a child hopelessly wishing everything would just get better.  However many serious people seem to be talking about “starting up the economy” without any clear sense that the world we knew before has been lost to us.  Our way of living has been likely lost for years and we will likely never see the world we knew before. There is not likely to be a cure coming soon, or even a very successful treatment for that matter.  There might be a successful vaccine developed, but don’t expect widespread availability until the fall of 2021.  Of course, hundreds of thousands of Americans will die of this disease before then.  Most estimates of deaths from the disease provided by the administration only go up to the end of summer, but this will be with us for far longer.

We have lost our way of life, because we cannot accept an outcome in which millions of Americans die instead of thousands.  In fact, even if we chose the deaths we would still lose our way of life.  One does not simply go about one’s life while so many people die and the healthcare system collapses.  And so we choose to stay away from one another.  We internalize new norms that make the physical presence of strangers (or even our family and friends) mentally painful for us.  That changes us and our society.

I’ll give a somewhat trite example of this change, but one that I think is rather instructive.  Just down the street from my house there is a neighborhood bar, a jazz club, and a breakfast place.  They are all small — you might even say cramped.  I love these places, and they are the soul of the neighborhood.  But their profitability is incompatible with social distancing.  In fact most bars, restaurants, and entertainment venues around the country are not likely profitable in a wold of social distancing, even if we assume that people can once again go to these places.  There will almost certainly be new occupancy rules that require restaurants to cut seating at least in half.  Of course, fancy takeout will be more common but so far demand for this has not come near to replacing sit-down restaurants.  People aren’t willing to spend $50 per person on takeout, and they certainly will not buy alcohol as they do it (which is where many profits come from).

Any innovations to accommodate social distancing in restaurants does not address the basic incompatibility between bars and social distancing.  In bars people socialize with strangers; they have to get close.  In other words bars cannot succeed until Covid has been brought under control.  But this will take a long time.  Even antibody “certificates” would only allow a small portion of the population to go about their business, and only in places that have already been hit hard by the disease.  This means that we will probably lose all of these businesses, as their owners realize that they simply cannot make a living by owning a restaurant or bar.  This will also devastate the commercial real-estate market along with the service industry, and perpetuate the vicious cycle of recession.

That is just one example of how we will lose so much from our communities that make them worth living in.  I don’t think disaster is inevitable, but it will require dramatic changes in public expenditures and laws.  We will need widespread  randomized testing, even of people who are not showing symptoms.  It goes without saying that people who have flu-like symptoms should all be tested and tracked.  However, given how widespread the disease is this is probably not technically possible.  We have certainly shown no ability to do any large-scale well-organized testing.

Additionally, local governments must allow businesses to spread out.  Bars and restaurants should be allowed to spill out into the streets, so that they can maintain distance between patrons while also making a profit.  Open container laws should largely be eliminated.  There are numerous other examples of creative legislation that might help.  We must be willing to be flexible in abandoning some norms and ways of doing business in order to preserve those things that we value.

I don’t expect any of the solutions above to actually be implemented.  And even then they may not be effective.  Our situation is far worse than most of us imagine.

 

Why not President Sanders?

One important result of the Iowa Democratic Caucus is that Sanders appears to have a real possibility of winning the Democratic candidacy.  This has left some breathless.  Not only do many Democrats not think that Sanders could beat Trump, they also find Sanders’ vision of a Democratic-socialist state horrifying.  Those with excellent health insurance would like to keep it, and more importantly keep the rabble out of our waiting rooms!  (Isn’t that what it is really about?)  But I think this focus on policy visions misses the primary role of the President in government and party politics.

Presidents certainly matter for the political, legislative, managerial, and popular leadership they provide.  In crises this is most visible, but they are even more important for the leadership they provide in federal bureaucracy.  This is perhaps the most corrosive feature of the Trump administration; it seems interested in actively destroying the ability of the federal government to provide the vital regulation and other services that are needed in modern states.  I suspect that Trump has done this because of his history of fraudulent acts, and his plans to commit more of them.  Without a well-managed federal state, rich people are often able avoid following the law.  That is music to Trump’s ears.

Presidents also have discretion in how they manage the government in accordance with law, but the effects of these decisions are both temporary and limited compared to the effects of laws.  One need only see the differences between the transformative Affordable Care Act and Obama’s various executive actions (like that to protect “Dreamers”).  Laws have lasting effects on American life and norms, whereas the impacts of executive actions often do not last longer than the President who made them.

The American system is deeply conservative (in the broad sense).  Large social changes typically happen slowly and only after a significant portion of the electorate approves of them.  The Affordable Care Act, as limited as it was compared to the a socialized system, occurred only after a blockbuster victory by Obama that also brought huge majorities in the Senate and House.  And even then the reform worked within the current system.  It was relatively conservative.  Reformers and radicals may lament this, but it is a feature of our system that distributes authority across three branches of governments, as well as within the states.

The basic point I am getting at is that the election of Sanders would not bring us socialized medicine or socialized education, or socialized anything for that matter.  There is little popular support for any of these radical transformations, and no possible Congress would go along with them.  His presidency would likely bring us nominally higher taxes on the rich (and probably corporations), but likely within the current system of taxation.  And even there, nothing too radical would ever pass Congress.  It is striking to see that although Trump has transformed the moral character of the Republican party (they are essentially a criminal set these days) he has done little to change the policy positions of Congress.

What a Sanders presidency would provide us is a vision (whatever its merits) of where our system should be headed in the long-term.  Sanders, essentially, wants us to move toward a European-style system in which the government provides for much but also controls much.  That is a worthy vision, though one that is problematic.  One need only look at Europe to see how a group of states of unequal wealth and living standards can struggle to stay within a shared economy with an expansive welfare and regulatory state.  There is also evidence that, because of racist attitudes and resentment, generous welfare states may be less sustainable alongside high rates of immigration.  Given how important immigration is to the sustainability of American population and economic growth, that is concerning.  In any case, there should be a debate about Sanders’ vision, and a Sanders presidency would give our country just such an opportunity.

Of course there are questions about how effective of an executive manager and legislative leader Sanders would be.  He has spent his career taking rather uncompromising positions outside of the party mainstream (in fact he isn’t a Democrat!), and so one wonders how well he would lead effective legislative fights.  And I don’t think we know much about how well he would lead the executive bureaucracy.  I make no claims about any of this here.  Nor do I think we have a good idea of how competitive he would be against Trump.  However, I don’t think his immediate policy “plans” should be taken as serious visions of how he would change the U.S. in four (or even eight) years.  He would advocate an ideal that would frame our debates.  But it is up to Congress to decide what to do with that.

I probably won’t be voting for Sanders in the primaries, but I don’t think his radical policy views should prevent anyone from doing so.

Coffee Review Group 2

It is quite striking that among the 1st group that I mentioned above, only Bradbury’s existed when I reviewed cappuccinos in 2008.  However this second group will contain more repeats.  I have reason to believe that many of these shops have upped their game in the past decade.

  • Mother Fools (they made the 2nd best cappuccino after Bradbury’s in my previous reviews.)
  • Indie Coffee
  • Michelangelo’s Coffee House (on State)
  • Espresso Royal (the one closest to campus on State)
  • Starbucks on the square (It will be an instructive comparison…)

And then there are some newer places that will also certainly be on my list:

  • Cafe Domestique (this is a relatively new shop on Willy St.)
  • Colectivo on State
  • Cargo Coffee (I have never actually been here)

How do you review a cappuccino?

I’ve come across the criteria I used back in the day to review cappuccinos.  These will have to be revised a bit.

2008: Smoothness, Presentation, Strength, Complexity, Foam

I think I will use the following criteria in my new reviews, though these might eventually change.

2019: Art & milk surface, Espresso flavor & complexity, Espresso – milk integration, Texture

So much spam

There are currently 1,213 comments waiting in my cue for the various posts in this blog.  I probably need to install some sort of spam-blocking system….

I have noticed a couple of things about this spam over the past few years.  Most importantly, they have gotten significantly better.  A couple years ago when I would get spam comments they would basically consist in nonsense.  However, now they are more varied and elaborate, with attached names and email addresses that would look roughly legitimate to any sort of spam blocker.  They have also become more frequent.  Several years ago I would get only several spam messages a month, but  now I get several in a day.  And it isn’t as if this blog has gained any more exposure.  One still must essentially google me to find it.

All this is unfortunate and sometimes prevents me from noticing comments that are from real people.  Because I usually get no real comments but many spam ones in a day, I tend to ignore or forget about comments entirely.  This is a symptom of the broader problem of the pollution of the internet.  There are far more people with unscrupulous motives, along with their bots, prowling the internet.

Certainly the internet used to be far more wild in other respects.  As the internet has become more exposed to the public there is less expectation of anonymity.  Many people (myself included) used to have entirely public blogs and internet sites in which we disclosed much and did little to hide our identities.  However, those sites were largely hidden from the wider world; they were hard to find and only strangers and our friends (when told about them) ever stumbled upon them.  It was difficult to connect the internet site to a particular person in the real world even when there might be personal details in the writing.  And there was less risk of an employer looking a person up on the internet and being able to find all kinds of private musings.  Now most people are much more careful.

The privacy of the old wild internet has been replaced by something a bit trashier and nefarious.  Though 15 years ago the internet was far less controlled by corporations and governments than it is today this has not prevented criminals and others who wish to do us harm from moving in.  Something has certainly been lost.

So much is half-written…

I’m surprised at how many unpublished posts I have hidden away in the dark reaches of this blog.  Most are half (or 1/10th!) written — more basic ideas than anything else.  However, often I have a problem of not possessing the energy to fill in the details of my thoughts.  This is in part a personal failure.  Some people are able to bash out sensical thoughts of depth and truth with one pass.  I don’t work that way.  I have to go over a piece of writing several times before I think the ideas are correct and correctly expressed (and I’m not even talking about whether it is good writing!)

Over the next few weeks I’m going to try to finish a few of these incomplete posts.  Here at least are a couple of titles:

“Don’t forget that Socialism actually sucks”

“Justifying the college lending system…and why it is so messed up”

The everlasting desktop computer

Last night I ordered all of the parts to create a new, and very fast, desktop computer.  My current machine is about 8 years old, though it still plays many games just fine.  Certainly it does most computing tasks with ease.  Although it was a pretty fast machine when I built, it is remarkable that the vast majority of things people use a computer for have not changed much in the past 8 years.  In fact, I am going to move my existing computer into a new and smaller case so that I can use it for office-type tasks.  I might still get another 5 years out of it.

This experience differs substantially from the life of a laptop computer.  All kinds of compromises must be made when constructing a very small computer that runs on a battery and fits on one’s lap.  Desktop computers, on the other hand, are cheap and fast.  Additionally, they aren’t susceptible to being “totaled” due to wear and mishap.  For instance keyboard problems often mean the end of life for a laptop but only a $15 replacement for a desktop.  If you can’t afford a new fancy laptop, you should probably consider a cheapo desktop; it will be just as fast as some shiny macbook pro and last about three times as long.