[conspire] Numbers racket

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Paul Zander (paulz at ieee.org):

> You can re-post the following to your seemingly invulnerable
> neighbor.  Meanwhile, soon I will be posting my data of the curve.
> BTW, any word from Reuben?  He can be annoying at times, but I hope he
> is still alive and will be back on the list at some time.

Ruben is fine, and I chat with him occasionally over telephone.  Given
that he's in Brooklyn, he has to contend with a degree of stress and
isolation/claustrophobia that we can only imagine here in suburban
Silicon Valley.  (He's a good guy, and I think well of him always.)

I didn't circle back to my correspondent on NextDoor, partly because I 
really didn't want to do the "debate" he explicitly was seeking, but
mostly because obviously TPTB at NextDoor disliked that entire suthread
enough that it got silently and completely nuked, without any comment to
the several participants.

For the record, I don't think he believes himself invulnerable.  He
holds a sincere (and unfounded) set of tenets about the nature of the
disease threat, public statistics, and related matters that apparently
lead him to public policy recommendatiions -- some on public health
matters, others not.

As with other commenters, he's not in any way wrong about the harmful
effect on many aspects of life from shutdown of commerce and industry.
As a friend of mine (Beth) puts it, the economics issue puts society in
a damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't situation, and I'm far from
claiming that easy answers exist.


[...]

> Starting with "wash your hands and don't sneeze"  locally the rate of
> new cases has slowed.  Now appears to be taking more than 2 weeks to
> double the number of cases.  The medical people are still very busy,
> but they are no longer bracing for a tsunami to hit.  Meanwhile NYC
> did not put the orders in place as soon.  Most boroughs of NYC have
> more cases and more deaths than all of CA.  Thank you Gavin.

I agree, FWIW -- but the biggest ticker-tape parade, when we can have
one again, is owed to the six Bay Area county health officers for the
March 16th shelter-in-place order.  That was both gutsy at the time, and
(as proved later) crucially timed to save many lives.  It was _the_ 
reason why the Bay Area has done better than anywhere else in the USA,
and continues to cope better than elsewhere.

It was also their leadership that gave cover (and a detailed model) to
Gov. Newsom for his similar statewide decision four days later.


The guests of honour at the future ticker-tape parade (the signatories
of the March 16th order):

Dr. Erica Pan, Alameda County
Dr. Chris Farnitano, Contra Costa County
Dr. Lisa Santora, Marin County
Dr. Tomás J. Aragón, San Francisco County
Dr. Scott Morrow, San Mateo County
Dr. Sara H. Cody, Santa Clara County
Dr. Lisa B. Hernandez, City of Berkeley

Dr. Cody has been particularly impressive.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/03/29/she-shut-down-the-bay-area-to-slow-the-deadly-coronavirus-none-of-us-really-believed-we-would-do-it/