[ExI] cog bias again

Fri Sep 25 18:48:24 UTC 2020

From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of Henry Rivera via extropy-chat
Sent: Friday, September 25, 2020 10:55 AM
To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Cc: Henry Rivera <hrivera at alumni.virginia.edu>
Subject: Re: [ExI] cog bias again

Rates have gone up significantly in North and South Dakota since Sturgis. Of course, they have also gone up other places too. From  <https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/coronavirus-us-cases.html> https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/coronavirus-us-cases.html

Hi Henry, 

Thanks, I am watching all of these.  

The critical factor is that the new cases are being tracked by the doctors asking a simple question: did you go to Sturgis in August?

We think there were somewhere between 260 and 290 people whose new infections attributable to that rally.  However… if we choose any half million random USians, there should have been about 500 to 550 new cases over this period of time.  By what I can tell, the catch rate at Sturgis is about half the expected rate.  Why?

That being said… the highlighted time also corresponds to others returning from vacations elsewhere, often from places where the infection rates are way the hell higher than average, as opposed to South Dakota where they are way lower.  So part of the mystery might be solved that way: the half million bikers left average-infection-rate places and visited a low infection-rate place (South Dakota.)  That part makes sense.

The part that I don’t understand is why the local college near Sturgis, Black Hills State University, had such a high rate of infection they had to close it back down after one week of classes.  That too is in South Dakota, right there close enough the collegiate harlots can make some money and get back for classes the same day.

Notice the double surge in South Dakota.  The first surge is thought to be from the South Dakota population being added half again with outsiders.  But that doesn’t explain the second surge in the past two weeks.

Regarding that recent surge in a lot of places, that seems like a long incubation period if we theorize the infections came from a rally that happens mostly in the first half of August.  The widespread surges are seen in the middle of September.  They are not widely attributed to the Sturgis rally.  Is there a mutant strain which sits still and quiet for several weeks, then pounces on the biker once she is clothed and in her right mind back in the office?  If so, is the lethality similar?

A theory has been advanced that for some reason, the bikers were widely asymptomatic, caught it and brought it, and these datasets reflect secondary infections.  OK, if so, that opens some new questions: 

Why were so many bikers asymptomatic? 

And if the bikers had stayed home and caught at home rather than in SD, how would we count it then?  

And are there any other examples of asymptomatic people catching while on summer vacation and bringing it to others?

Where did the others vacation?

And how does this Sturgis data compare to the beachgoers, which appear to be similar crowding only with a younger and perhaps more modestly dressed population?

And where are the scholarly papers written by people who know what they are doing?

Why were the epidemiologists so fearlessly predicting catastrophe back in July but have been so still and quiet since about mid August?

spike

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