The World-O-Meter Thread

[Jimmy Higgins]

New record in number of deaths reported in a day. The number is so high that the record will hold for a long time. At least until tomorrow. (Cases were only second highest yet.)

I would not put too much stock in today's numbers, as much of it is surely about still catching up from the Thanksgiving weekend. In general daily numbers are not a very good indicator as there is a lot of fluctuation in those anyway, and even more so now. Next week should give us a better indication whether there is a significant Thanksgiving spike and if so, how big.

New records in both cases and fatalities today. This is exponential growth, not catching up.

The cases seems to be slowing down in growth, but sadly, the deaths lag two to three weeks in peaking with the new cases. And the new cases, even if slowing down in growth... are way too high! We are telling an anonymous 1,000 to 2,000 people a day that they are going to die.

 

[Derec]

Okay. You're on. I find it a little unsavory to be betting on this, but I'll go ahead with it and trust you to remit if that 7 day average is over 15K on 4/4/21.
If the numbers are below - or even near - 15k/day new cases, I will be doing ... very well, and will not mind sending you a c-note!

Deal then.

Vaccines are not ice cream. You can store ice cream indefinitely at 10F.

You misunderstood my point. I am not talking about a tub of Ben and Jerry's you stick in your freezer. My point was that liquid nitrogen is plenty cold for this vaccine, and liquid nitrogen is easy and cheap enough to make that it is used for things as frivolous as fancy ice cream. So keeping the Pfizer vaccine cold will be no problem in the US and the rest of the developed world.

Yeah, Atlanta is a hotbed of pinko commie socialist Democratz!

We have our share of pinko commies, yes. But biggest covidiots around here are rather apolitical people living it up in night clubs packed like sardines.

Citation/link? I'd REALLY like to see those surveys.

We talked about it on here. For example this article.
Cuomo Says 21% of Those Tested in N.Y.C. Had Virus Antibodies
That was back in April.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

New record in number of deaths reported in a day. The number is so high that the record will hold for a long time. At least until tomorrow. (Cases were only second highest yet.)

I would not put too much stock in today's numbers, as much of it is surely about still catching up from the Thanksgiving weekend. In general daily numbers are not a very good indicator as there is a lot of fluctuation in those anyway, and even more so now. Next week should give us a better indication whether there is a significant Thanksgiving spike and if so, how big.

New records in both cases and fatalities today. This is exponential growth, not catching up.

Disagree--we do not have enough data to confirm that. It probably is exponential growth but we don't know.

 

[Artemus]

New records in both cases and fatalities today. This is exponential growth, not catching up.

Disagree--we do not have enough data to confirm that. It probably is exponential growth but we don't know.

Another record in cases today. We're having a big spike due to holidays. If it isn't an exponential burst then it is really close. Arguing semantics is just trying to distract from the fact that things are fucking awful.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

New records in both cases and fatalities today. This is exponential growth, not catching up.

Disagree--we do not have enough data to confirm that. It probably is exponential growth but we don't know.

Another record in cases today. We're having a big spike due to holidays.

What sucks is that a portion of the T-day hit will likely be hidden behind the actions taken by cities and states to reduce social transmission due to the huge jumps in cases in the past month. Then these T-day fuckheads, the same dumbasses that said "the models were wrong" but ignoring the massive shutdown that was undertaken to stop the pandemic in the spring will say the Faucis were wrong again, and go bonkers on Xmas.

I'm going to the grocery store(s) at 7:30 on a Friday night to avoid people... and people are out eating at restaurants.

 

[Elixir]

Deal then.

Excellent - I sincerely wish you luck.

You misunderstood my point. I am not talking about a tub of Ben and Jerry's you stick in your freezer. My point was that liquid nitrogen is plenty cold for this vaccine

You don't seem to understand liquid nitrogen at all. LN is NOT automatically "cold". It is stored at room temperature under great pressure, and is used to cool things by de-pressurizing it, allowing it to evaporate and expand, sucking the heat out of things by expanding and taking up heat to fuel its phase change. IOW, to store something at -85C you need to constantly "consume" LN. The problem isn't GETTING things to -85C, it's KEEPING them there for days or weeks.

Citation/link? I'd REALLY like to see those surveys.

We talked about it on here. For example this article.
Cuomo Says 21% of Those Tested in N.Y.C. Had Virus Antibodies
That was back in April.

There is obviously sample bias in that "survey". There were not random sampling the public, but rather people with symptoms AFAICS.
Again, I really REALLY wish you luck with the bet!

235,000 new cases on Friday 12/4

 

[Elixir]

Excellent - I sincerely wish you luck.



You don't seem to understand liquid nitrogen at all. LN is NOT automatically "cold". It is stored at room temperature under great pressure, and is used to cool things by de-pressurizing it, allowing it to evaporate and expand, sucking the heat out of things by expanding and taking up heat to fuel its phase change. IOW, to store something at -85C you need to constantly "consume" LN. The problem isn't GETTING things to -85C, it's KEEPING them there for days or weeks.

Citation/link? I'd REALLY like to see those surveys.

We talked about it on here. For example this article.
Cuomo Says 21% of Those Tested in N.Y.C. Had Virus Antibodies
That was back in April.

There is obviously sample bias in that "survey". There were not random sampling the public, but rather people with symptoms AFAICS.
Again, I really REALLY wish you luck with the bet!

235,000 new cases on Friday 12/4

ETA: I expect that testing (both for infections and for antibodies) will be ramped up under the Biden Administration by then. I hope that If I do win this bet, it's because testing is "rampant" (as Trump asserts) rather than because we are still in the throes of rapid spread.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

New records in both cases and fatalities today. This is exponential growth, not catching up.

Disagree--we do not have enough data to confirm that. It probably is exponential growth but we don't know.

Another record in cases today. We're having a big spike due to holidays. If it isn't an exponential burst then it is really close. Arguing semantics is just trying to distract from the fact that things are fucking awful.

You are assuming the data is real and not noise.

Furthermore, the holiday surge should only be showing up now.

I would be quite surprised if there isn't a surge, but the current data isn't enough to prove it.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

You don't seem to understand liquid nitrogen at all. LN is NOT automatically "cold". It is stored at room temperature under great pressure, and is used to cool things by de-pressurizing it, allowing it to evaporate and expand, sucking the heat out of things by expanding and taking up heat to fuel its phase change. IOW, to store something at -85C you need to constantly "consume" LN. The problem isn't GETTING things to -85C, it's KEEPING them there for days or weeks.

Try again. The critical point for nitrogen is 126.2K. Pressure can't keep it a liquid at room temperature, period.

I do agree you consume it to maintain the low temperature--it's the same concept as ice in your ice chest--the ice is consumed to keep the food cold. There's also the safety issue, you have to be careful of confined spaces when dealing with liquid nitrogen.

 

[Elixir]

You don't seem to understand liquid nitrogen at all. LN is NOT automatically "cold". It is stored at room temperature under great pressure, and is used to cool things by de-pressurizing it, allowing it to evaporate and expand, sucking the heat out of things by expanding and taking up heat to fuel its phase change. IOW, to store something at -85C you need to constantly "consume" LN. The problem isn't GETTING things to -85C, it's KEEPING them there for days or weeks.

Try again. The critical point for nitrogen is 126.2K. Pressure can't keep it a liquid at room temperature, period.

My bad - that's right - at Standard temp its pressure would be somewhere north of 40,000 psi. But the main point is:

I do agree you consume it to maintain the low temperature--it's the same concept as ice in your ice chest--the ice is consumed to keep the food cold. There's also the safety issue, you have to be careful of confined spaces when dealing with liquid nitrogen.

 

[bilby]

My bad - that's right - at Standard temp its pressure would be somewhere north of 40,000 psi. But the main point is:

I do agree you consume it to maintain the low temperature--it's the same concept as ice in your ice chest--the ice is consumed to keep the food cold. There's also the safety issue, you have to be careful of confined spaces when dealing with liquid nitrogen.

Why does it matter that you consume it? Liquid Nitrogen is cheap - in bulk, you can get about ten litres for a dollar, and supply in small quantities only costs about five times that - so about $0.50/litre.

It can be made anywhere that there's both air and electricity, using off the shelf equipment that's widely available. And there's far more of it made than is used; It's a high volume byproduct of the manufacturing of liquid Oxygen and Argon, both of which are widely used in industrial settings.

Liquid Nitrogen is cheap, abundant, and easy to make almost anywhere. You can use as much of it as you like; It will constitute a trivial fraction of the cost of the vaccine.

 

[Artemus]

Another record in cases today. We're having a big spike due to holidays. If it isn't an exponential burst then it is really close. Arguing semantics is just trying to distract from the fact that things are fucking awful.

You are assuming the data is real and not noise.

Furthermore, the holiday surge should only be showing up now.

I would be quite surprised if there isn't a surge, but the current data isn't enough to prove it.

What I'm doing is not ignoring the epidemiologists. They have been right for the past 9 months and the data is again doing just what they said would happen. At what point do you accept that the next plate you drop will fall?

 

[Elixir]

Another record in cases today. We're having a big spike due to holidays. If it isn't an exponential burst then it is really close. Arguing semantics is just trying to distract from the fact that things are fucking awful.

You are assuming the data is real and not noise.

Furthermore, the holiday surge should only be showing up now.

I would be quite surprised if there isn't a surge, but the current data isn't enough to prove it.

What I'm doing is not ignoring the epidemiologists. They have been right for the past 9 months and the data is again doing just what they said would happen. At what point do you accept that the next plate you drop will fall?

At 208,780 new cases, today (Saturday 12/5/) is about 30% higher than the previous record for a Saturday. 7 day average is at a record high even though it includes days of incomplete reporting. .
Yeah, I'd say we're seeing a surge.

 

[Elixir]

My bad - that's right - at Standard temp its pressure would be somewhere north of 40,000 psi. But the main point is:

I do agree you consume it to maintain the low temperature--it's the same concept as ice in your ice chest--the ice is consumed to keep the food cold. There's also the safety issue, you have to be careful of confined spaces when dealing with liquid nitrogen.

Why does it matter that you consume it? Liquid Nitrogen is cheap - in bulk, you can get about ten litres for a dollar, and supply in small quantities only costs about five times that - so about $0.50/litre.

It can be made anywhere that there's both air and electricity, using off the shelf equipment that's widely available. And there's far more of it made than is used; It's a high volume byproduct of the manufacturing of liquid Oxygen and Argon, both of which are widely used in industrial settings.

Liquid Nitrogen is cheap, abundant, and easy to make almost anywhere. You can use as much of it as you like; It will constitute a trivial fraction of the cost of the vaccine.

Nitrogen is abundant, means to liquefy it may be somewhat abundant, but that doesn't solve the problem of maintaining a consistent "cold chain".

there’s a lot of infrastructure in the developed world for refrigerated cold-chain distribution. But what we’re looking at for the Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech candidates, both of which are promising and are well into Phase II/III trials, is not just refrigeration. Moderna’s vaccine needs to be shipped and stored at -20 C (minus four Fahrenheit), while the Pfizer/BioNTech one needs to be at -70 C (-94 F). The former is enough of a challenge – freezer temperatures instead of refrigerator ones. But the latter. . .well, biology research labs all have freezers that go down that far (it’s where cell culture samples, oligonucleotide constructs, and recombinant proteins get stored), but you’re not going to find one down at the local pharmacy, which is perhaps where you were picturing lining up for a coronavirus shot.

Cold Chain (And Colder Chain) Distribution

 

[Derec]

Another record in cases today. We're having a big spike due to holidays. If it isn't an exponential burst then it is really close. Arguing semantics is just trying to distract from the fact that things are fucking awful.

Exponential growth has an actual meaning - it doesn't just mean "a lot". It means that rate of change of a quantity is proportional to that quantity. dy/dx = ky.

I would also steer away from comparing raw daily numbers. 7 day averages are better because they smooth out the day-of-week fluctuations as well as random day-to-day noise.
With the Thanksgiving break there is also the issue of less testing/reporting and counties and states catching up. Next week will give us a better picture of where we stand - most likely not in midst of exponential growth.

 

[bilby]

Why does it matter that you consume it? Liquid Nitrogen is cheap - in bulk, you can get about ten litres for a dollar, and supply in small quantities only costs about five times that - so about $0.50/litre.

It can be made anywhere that there's both air and electricity, using off the shelf equipment that's widely available. And there's far more of it made than is used; It's a high volume byproduct of the manufacturing of liquid Oxygen and Argon, both of which are widely used in industrial settings.

Liquid Nitrogen is cheap, abundant, and easy to make almost anywhere. You can use as much of it as you like; It will constitute a trivial fraction of the cost of the vaccine.

Nitrogen is abundant, means to liquefy it may be somewhat abundant, but that doesn't solve the problem of maintaining a consistent "cold chain".

there’s a lot of infrastructure in the developed world for refrigerated cold-chain distribution. But what we’re looking at for the Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech candidates, both of which are promising and are well into Phase II/III trials, is not just refrigeration. Moderna’s vaccine needs to be shipped and stored at -20 C (minus four Fahrenheit), while the Pfizer/BioNTech one needs to be at -70 C (-94 F). The former is enough of a challenge – freezer temperatures instead of refrigerator ones. But the latter. . .well, biology research labs all have freezers that go down that far (it’s where cell culture samples, oligonucleotide constructs, and recombinant proteins get stored), but you’re not going to find one down at the local pharmacy, which is perhaps where you were picturing lining up for a coronavirus shot.

Cold Chain (And Colder Chain) Distribution

It really does solve the problem. You just need a well insulated container, and to keep it topped up with Nitrogen. As it will be considerably colder than the target maximum of -70°C, it's even acceptable to let it warm up a touch for brief periods - the stability of a product against degradation is determined by the amount of the degrading reaction that occurs, which is directly proportional to the mean kinetic temperature at which it is stored. Keeping it significantly colder than the target temperature for the majority of the cold chain compensates for short excursions at much higher temperatures. It's not like it instantly degrades as soon as it hits -69° (or even -18°) for an instant.

The problems come when you try to store it at higher temperatures for long periods of time - but it's fairly easy to avoid doing that, particularly for a product that's in urgent high demand. It's not like anyone is going to order a year's supply of the stuff.

 

[Derec]

Excellent - I sincerely wish you luck.

I don't. Not only would I be out a C-note, but the pandemic will be worse than I hoped if you win.

You don't seem to understand liquid nitrogen at all. LN is NOT automatically "cold". It is stored at room temperature under great pressure, and is used to cool things by de-pressurizing it, allowing it to evaporate and expand, sucking the heat out of things by expanding and taking up heat to fuel its phase change. IOW, to store something at -85C you need to constantly "consume" LN. The problem isn't GETTING things to -85C, it's KEEPING them there for days or weeks.

I understand it very well, thank you very much. I did not want to dwell too much into details of slowly boiling off nitrogen to keep it - and things around it - cold.
The point was that liquid nitrogen is all you need for even the Pfizer vaccine and liquid nitrogen is pretty mundane. Hence my example with the ice cream - to demonstrate just how mundane of a material it is.

And yes, LN has to be cold or it would not be liquid.

There is obviously sample bias in that "survey". There were not random sampling the public, but rather people with symptoms AFAICS.

No, these were antibody tests, not COVID tests proper.

Again, I really REALLY wish you luck with the bet!

Thanks.

235,000 new cases on Friday 12/4

Hopefully that was still catching up. Today was a little lower.

 

[Derec]

ETA: I expect that testing (both for infections and for antibodies) will be ramped up under the Biden Administration by then. I hope that If I do win this bet, it's because testing is "rampant" (as Trump asserts) rather than because we are still in the throes of rapid spread.

I was thinking of that too. Hopefully more testing will mean better ability to isolate contacts.

 

[Derec]

Nitrogen is abundant, means to liquefy it may be somewhat abundant, but that doesn't solve the problem of maintaining a consistent "cold chain".

That will be the problem in remote areas in the developing world. Some rural village in India or something.

 

[Elixir]

Nitrogen is abundant, means to liquefy it may be somewhat abundant, but that doesn't solve the problem of maintaining a consistent "cold chain".

That will be the problem in remote areas in the developing world. Some rural village in India or something.

Or where I live... but the 12,000 people in this county don't really matter... we're losing that many every week.