COVID19: Viral Vectors?
We've Nattered about crowded environments, transmission, seasonal flu numbers, mortality rates, imagined vs real, the backdraft of draconian measures, predicted "superspreader" events, pigs in a poke, monetary policy, preexisting conditions, a lack of global leadership, and social habits for many reasons. Unlike others, this was not to infer that COVID19 is much ado about nothing...
On the surface of tonight's macroscopic offering for your observation, a menagerie of Easter eggs, reservoirs, hosts, portals, conveyance and transmission, which upon closer inspection aid and abet a microscopic agent of change and infection thereof. All puns intended, and please do click on the Easter eggs for info and entertaining surprises.
Vector - 1. a quantity having direction as well as magnitude, especially as determining the position of one point in space relative to another. 2. an organism, typically a biting insect or tick, that transmits a disease or parasite from one animal or plant to another. 3. Viral vectors are tools designed as efficient and effective gene delivery vehicles or carriers. Picking up where COVID19: Social Disease? left off...
Less believable, China at 70 WG's per 10K with only 82K diagnosed cases? Large sulfur clouds over Wuhan? The recent arrival at funeral homes of copious quantities of urns which outnumber 3304 claimed COVID19 deaths? Apply common sense? Sulfur clouds, not burning bodies, but contaminated waste. Next. Urns, the normal death rate and a two month shutdown account for those delayed urn deliveries. Note: in China, asymptomatic infections are not included in confirmed cases. Further, those who died with Covid19 symptoms, but were not tested have been excluded from the China case tally.
Disinformation and Kung-Fu Lying means don't trust any numbers as far as you can throw them. In all cases, current infection rates per million are far too low to reflect actual number infected. If your seriously looking you find the truth, which could drop the current ex-China mortality rate of 4.5%, as diagnosed cases see another spike past the 1M mark this week. In this series, we have ticked alot of BOXES, now we continue to hedge and RAISE our bets from last time out.
RAISE ONE To Go Order? In 2018-19 30.2% (18.5M) Italians ordered lunch or dinner from online web platforms. The most ordered foods were the Poke Bowl, Sushi and Asian ravioli (gyoza, shumai). Hard hit Lombardy was at the top of the list for the presence of consumers in this sector. Pattern?
RAISE ONE Damn Good Coffee? Espresso taken at the local bar-cafe. There are 150K bars with 66% concentrated in only six regions: Piedmont (7), Emilia Romagna (7.8), Tuscany (6), Lazio (10.6), Campania (10), Veneto (8.2) with again Lombardy (16.6) leading the pack. Pattern? Trend?
RAISE ONE MORNING stop at the bar: 14.8% (9M) 1-2 times monthly; 7.3% (4.5M) once every 15 days; 16.6% (10M) 1-2 times per week; 14.9% (9M) 3-4 times a week, and 10.8% (6.6M) every day. In total 64.4% a minimum of 1-2 times per month = 40M in foot traffic. Double down? For a LUNCH break 40% (24M) hit the bar for an after meal caffeine fix at least 1 or 2 times per month.
RAISE Three Coins In A Fountain? In the bar and est. 77K locations, 366K video slot machines of which 28% (17M) and 23% (7M) of males partake on a social basis. Think occasionally tapping on a dirty button in a contained area. But that's usually when one is not engaging in the national pastime. No not football or golf, the latter being an excuse to get away from the wife, to hang and drink with buddies.
RAISE ONE Passion? Not of the Christ, but again where everybody knows your name? The friendly game of cards (Scopa, Briscola, Scala40 etc.) in which 25% (7.5M) males partake of which 4M are retired. Aside from taking breaks for at home sustenance (wife visit): many pensioners spend the entirety of their day, and many non retirees spend what little free evening time they have. Sound suspiciously like going golfing?
Deal'em Down And Dirty? Think demographic, close proximity, contained area, and what male talking monkey's do with their hands when they are together playing cards. For the uninitiated sans body part: itch, scratch, pick, rub, chew, bite, then repeatedly handle a deck of oft used, older than the inventors (China), and never cleaned cards for hours on end. Pattern? Trend? Relationship?
RAISE ONE Fistful of Euros? Compared to handling those cards, a swim in a pile of $1 GW's providing 10 microbes per cm2 and 3K different organisms, would be as a San Pellegrino bath is, to swimming in the Hudson. More on that river later. In fact, a 2008 study showed that a lick of the finger, can add 17 days of lifetime to the flu virus.
Speaking of Filthy Lucre? Italy has a 14% non cash transaction payment rate, meaning 86% pay with cash, one of the highest rates in the world. Some come for coffee, brioche or panini, others to play slots, most to play cards and pay in cash. Of late many may have gotten a little sumptin sumptin extra? Speaking of...
RAISE ONE Cinderella Liberty? Trebek queries: Spain, Italy, Germany, S.Korea and Iran have this is common. What is US military presence? number of bases Spain (2); Italy (7); Germany (13), S.Korea (14) and Iran surrounded by (27). Think servicemen and service providers, we'll just leave the rest of any relationship (pun intended) to your imagination. Along those lines...
RAISE ONE Genesis? One could think of two US bases near Lombardy (Ederle - Vicenza; Aviano - north of Venice), the former rumored to have bio-weapons and labs. One also could think of S. Korea's Osan Air Base's center for biowarfare surveillance and response aka JUPITR-ATD program. Osan airfield is the major treatment and evacuation center for injured military personnel and the USAF transport hub to Seattle Tacoma Airport (SEA-TAC). Where was the first reported US case, death and outbreak?
RAISE TWO MORE Conspiracy Theories? On October 28th, the US Military team returned from the international Military World Games which featured teams from more than 100 countries, and was held in you guessed it... Wuhan. A Chinese conspiracy theory exists which was a push-back on a US Wuhan biolab conspiracy theory. Then there are reports from China putting patient zero in a wave of strange pneumonia seen in Lombardy during November. Not so fast Joe...
Between October and Jan 23rd (Hubei Lockdown) approximately 8K passengers flew from Wuhan to Italy. Multiply by common influenza infection probability rate 5-20% = 400 to 1600 seedlings. So nothing strange last November in Lombardy, as it is obvious that COVID19 was ALREADY present, and we shall leave all the MSM disinformation and conspiracy where we found it.
RAISE ONE Caravan of Traveling Wilbury's? Most Italian towns, even the small ones (4K) hold a once a week mobile farmers and flea market. Open air is great, now think your neighborhood butcher, grocer or rag vendor whom locals frequent. Imagine that caravan of merchants visiting six different nearby cities every week, multiplying potential viral vectors five fold. Handle with Care?
RAISE ONE Roman Holiday? The boot hosts 80% of the world's antiquities and 61.5M tourists per year. In the top 10 by volume, Italy's 1.0 tourist to population ratio is only surpassed by France 1.36 and Spain 1.75, whose cultures share many of the traits listed herein.
RAISE ONE "Il Conto" per favore? holy water, penitence, wafers, working girls, military bases, traveling markets, cafes, video slots, card players, tourists and cash handle. Dog pile reliance on public transport, foot traffic flows, frequencies of engagement and delayed official action. At the end of the day, chains of infection, transmission and vectors (efficient and effective delivery vehicles or carriers) make the rate of COVID19 spread and demographic less than surprising.
RAISE ONE Mondo Cane? Speaking of patterns, trends, relationships, social habits, vectors, "late cancellation penalties" and surprises... if one thinks Italy has it bad, higher affluence and mobility in the US will make the former rate of spread, look like Rodin's The Thinker, as in standing still in the gates of hell.
It's far too easy to say no problem, then point fingers and blame everybody else. Bottom line, too little, too late on the part of many as this pandemic's play-out was predictable, known in advance and preventable. Sadly, many are suffering and dying unnecessarily. The catalyst or agent of change known as COVID19, is giving us front row seat insight as to the frailties of the human condition, psyche and less than robust socio economic systems. Speaking of less than robust...
Be well, more to come in COVID19: I Dream Of Jeannie? Stay tuned, no flippin.
Recommended Reading:
COVID19: Corona Virus Series
Overseas US Military Bases
Bars in Italy
FIPE Catering Report 2018
FIPE Catering Report 2019
Russian Prostitution: Amnesty International
On the surface of tonight's macroscopic offering for your observation, a menagerie of Easter eggs, reservoirs, hosts, portals, conveyance and transmission, which upon closer inspection aid and abet a microscopic agent of change and infection thereof. All puns intended, and please do click on the Easter eggs for info and entertaining surprises.
Vector - 1. a quantity having direction as well as magnitude, especially as determining the position of one point in space relative to another. 2. an organism, typically a biting insect or tick, that transmits a disease or parasite from one animal or plant to another. 3. Viral vectors are tools designed as efficient and effective gene delivery vehicles or carriers. Picking up where COVID19: Social Disease? left off...
Said [working girl] number is not the only one somebody is higher in, and whom is being very quiet about all of this.Over many years, some unofficial estimates have calculated the number of sex workers in Russia to be at 3M, and their clients at 30M. This estimate puts Russia at #1 in our working girl countdown, with an amazing 208 per 10K and only 1836 diagnosed cases? Russia already has 112K in quarantine. Better yet, North Korea with no reported cases? Reports indicate Lil-Kim's public quarantine of 10K plus 3700 soldiers with over 200 deaths.
Less believable, China at 70 WG's per 10K with only 82K diagnosed cases? Large sulfur clouds over Wuhan? The recent arrival at funeral homes of copious quantities of urns which outnumber 3304 claimed COVID19 deaths? Apply common sense? Sulfur clouds, not burning bodies, but contaminated waste. Next. Urns, the normal death rate and a two month shutdown account for those delayed urn deliveries. Note: in China, asymptomatic infections are not included in confirmed cases. Further, those who died with Covid19 symptoms, but were not tested have been excluded from the China case tally.
Disinformation and Kung-Fu Lying means don't trust any numbers as far as you can throw them. In all cases, current infection rates per million are far too low to reflect actual number infected. If your seriously looking you find the truth, which could drop the current ex-China mortality rate of 4.5%, as diagnosed cases see another spike past the 1M mark this week. In this series, we have ticked alot of BOXES, now we continue to hedge and RAISE our bets from last time out.
RAISE ONE To Go Order? In 2018-19 30.2% (18.5M) Italians ordered lunch or dinner from online web platforms. The most ordered foods were the Poke Bowl, Sushi and Asian ravioli (gyoza, shumai). Hard hit Lombardy was at the top of the list for the presence of consumers in this sector. Pattern?
RAISE ONE Damn Good Coffee? Espresso taken at the local bar-cafe. There are 150K bars with 66% concentrated in only six regions: Piedmont (7), Emilia Romagna (7.8), Tuscany (6), Lazio (10.6), Campania (10), Veneto (8.2) with again Lombardy (16.6) leading the pack. Pattern? Trend?
RAISE ONE MORNING stop at the bar: 14.8% (9M) 1-2 times monthly; 7.3% (4.5M) once every 15 days; 16.6% (10M) 1-2 times per week; 14.9% (9M) 3-4 times a week, and 10.8% (6.6M) every day. In total 64.4% a minimum of 1-2 times per month = 40M in foot traffic. Double down? For a LUNCH break 40% (24M) hit the bar for an after meal caffeine fix at least 1 or 2 times per month.
RAISE Three Coins In A Fountain? In the bar and est. 77K locations, 366K video slot machines of which 28% (17M) and 23% (7M) of males partake on a social basis. Think occasionally tapping on a dirty button in a contained area. But that's usually when one is not engaging in the national pastime. No not football or golf, the latter being an excuse to get away from the wife, to hang and drink with buddies.
RAISE ONE Passion? Not of the Christ, but again where everybody knows your name? The friendly game of cards (Scopa, Briscola, Scala40 etc.) in which 25% (7.5M) males partake of which 4M are retired. Aside from taking breaks for at home sustenance (wife visit): many pensioners spend the entirety of their day, and many non retirees spend what little free evening time they have. Sound suspiciously like going golfing?
Deal'em Down And Dirty? Think demographic, close proximity, contained area, and what male talking monkey's do with their hands when they are together playing cards. For the uninitiated sans body part: itch, scratch, pick, rub, chew, bite, then repeatedly handle a deck of oft used, older than the inventors (China), and never cleaned cards for hours on end. Pattern? Trend? Relationship?
RAISE ONE Fistful of Euros? Compared to handling those cards, a swim in a pile of $1 GW's providing 10 microbes per cm2 and 3K different organisms, would be as a San Pellegrino bath is, to swimming in the Hudson. More on that river later. In fact, a 2008 study showed that a lick of the finger, can add 17 days of lifetime to the flu virus.
Speaking of Filthy Lucre? Italy has a 14% non cash transaction payment rate, meaning 86% pay with cash, one of the highest rates in the world. Some come for coffee, brioche or panini, others to play slots, most to play cards and pay in cash. Of late many may have gotten a little sumptin sumptin extra? Speaking of...
RAISE ONE Cinderella Liberty? Trebek queries: Spain, Italy, Germany, S.Korea and Iran have this is common. What is US military presence? number of bases Spain (2); Italy (7); Germany (13), S.Korea (14) and Iran surrounded by (27). Think servicemen and service providers, we'll just leave the rest of any relationship (pun intended) to your imagination. Along those lines...
RAISE ONE Genesis? One could think of two US bases near Lombardy (Ederle - Vicenza; Aviano - north of Venice), the former rumored to have bio-weapons and labs. One also could think of S. Korea's Osan Air Base's center for biowarfare surveillance and response aka JUPITR-ATD program. Osan airfield is the major treatment and evacuation center for injured military personnel and the USAF transport hub to Seattle Tacoma Airport (SEA-TAC). Where was the first reported US case, death and outbreak?
RAISE TWO MORE Conspiracy Theories? On October 28th, the US Military team returned from the international Military World Games which featured teams from more than 100 countries, and was held in you guessed it... Wuhan. A Chinese conspiracy theory exists which was a push-back on a US Wuhan biolab conspiracy theory. Then there are reports from China putting patient zero in a wave of strange pneumonia seen in Lombardy during November. Not so fast Joe...
Between October and Jan 23rd (Hubei Lockdown) approximately 8K passengers flew from Wuhan to Italy. Multiply by common influenza infection probability rate 5-20% = 400 to 1600 seedlings. So nothing strange last November in Lombardy, as it is obvious that COVID19 was ALREADY present, and we shall leave all the MSM disinformation and conspiracy where we found it.
RAISE ONE Caravan of Traveling Wilbury's? Most Italian towns, even the small ones (4K) hold a once a week mobile farmers and flea market. Open air is great, now think your neighborhood butcher, grocer or rag vendor whom locals frequent. Imagine that caravan of merchants visiting six different nearby cities every week, multiplying potential viral vectors five fold. Handle with Care?
RAISE ONE Roman Holiday? The boot hosts 80% of the world's antiquities and 61.5M tourists per year. In the top 10 by volume, Italy's 1.0 tourist to population ratio is only surpassed by France 1.36 and Spain 1.75, whose cultures share many of the traits listed herein.
RAISE ONE "Il Conto" per favore? holy water, penitence, wafers, working girls, military bases, traveling markets, cafes, video slots, card players, tourists and cash handle. Dog pile reliance on public transport, foot traffic flows, frequencies of engagement and delayed official action. At the end of the day, chains of infection, transmission and vectors (efficient and effective delivery vehicles or carriers) make the rate of COVID19 spread and demographic less than surprising.
RAISE ONE Mondo Cane? Speaking of patterns, trends, relationships, social habits, vectors, "late cancellation penalties" and surprises... if one thinks Italy has it bad, higher affluence and mobility in the US will make the former rate of spread, look like Rodin's The Thinker, as in standing still in the gates of hell.
It's far too easy to say no problem, then point fingers and blame everybody else. Bottom line, too little, too late on the part of many as this pandemic's play-out was predictable, known in advance and preventable. Sadly, many are suffering and dying unnecessarily. The catalyst or agent of change known as COVID19, is giving us front row seat insight as to the frailties of the human condition, psyche and less than robust socio economic systems. Speaking of less than robust...
[Annual US flu deaths] Nothing to do with antibiotics being handed out for decades like Chocks children's vitamins? - Same Bat Channel?ALL IN FOR ONE Swim in The Hudson. For the moral of the story in tonight's parting words, we turn to an ex-hippy-dippy weatherman with unparalleled powers of observation, whom is missed and we could sorely use right about now. We HIGHLY recommend paying attention to this short yet, prescient (1999) and apropos clip...
Be well, more to come in COVID19: I Dream Of Jeannie? Stay tuned, no flippin.
Recommended Reading:
COVID19: Corona Virus Series
Overseas US Military Bases
Bars in Italy
FIPE Catering Report 2018
FIPE Catering Report 2019
Russian Prostitution: Amnesty International
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