Ebola

Better data and updates available this week. So the good news is we’re coming up on 2 weeks without a new confirmed case. The current thought on incubation period for Ebola is about 3 weeks, so we’re coming up an important milestone. That said, based on the “Ebola Jane” experience from the big West Africa outbreak, no one is going to declare victory at 3 weeks, but will run that clock a little longer. Good reasons to do this include a contact trace rate that has fallen from high 90% to the 70s within this time frame. If some of those lost contacts develop Ebola, they could easily start a new transmission wave. Uganda plans on maintaining lockdowns in the most heavily affected districts until mid-December, assuming no new cases. At the moment, you’re looking at ~150 confirmed cases with a little under 40 deaths in the confirmed cases. So also in the good news (at least as good as it gets for Ebola), the current outbreak is running on the low end of typical Ebola Sudan mortality.

I still have no clear idea if vaccines are being distributed yet. If the plan was to use this outbreak as a trial to get data for official approval of the Ebola Sudan vaccines, they may have missed their window.

Coronavirus

–So the main driver for the update this week is China. Again, it is tough to ever get a sense of what is -really- going on in China, because so much is controlled and even what leaks out you can never be entirely sure about.

That said, even China’s official numbers are showing absolutely sky rocketing new cases. This has led to leaks of riots at the Foxconn factories that are the major assembler of iPhones, as the workers had been essentially locked into the factories (for their own protection from COVID, of course), for longer than agreed and without extra pay, and were still having COVID issues. As of this writing, Apple is expecting to be back logged to the tune 6 million new iPhones by the end of the year and there are disturbing reports that Apple has been complicit in disabling certain notifications used by Chinese citizens to alert them to nearby social unrest.

Undoubtedly, these notifications are being used by loyal and upright Chinese citizens to avoid such dangerous public spectacles (instead of helping to organize them, as some reckless commentators have suggested), and it’s unclear why Chairman Xi and the CCP would want to restrict such an important safety measure.

Yep, it’s a puzzle.

At any rate, per leaked reports, those protests have been intensifying and have been sustained. The protests are credited to deaths of at least 10 Chinese citizens in a building fire who could not escape because “Zero COVID” means the authorities literally bar the doors to buildings closed to enforce the quarantine. As we have covered before, these draconian measures have led to numerous leaked videos of starvation, deaths from untreated medical conditions of those trapped inside these quarantines, and suicides from the desperation of people sealed in by a government all too willing to sacrifice them for its greater good. At some point, faced with such obvious hardship of the average Chinese person, and confronted by their suffering and righteous calls for just and equitable treatment (for nowhere else in the world has treated its people thus, for so long, as China), those charged with enforcing these edicts for the well-being of the Chinese people must question if they are achieving the best interests and will of the great Chinese people.

China is admired around the world for its dedication to social harmony, the greater good, and its success is a testament to what can be achieved when individuals sacrifice to achieve common goals and dreams, as one people, as one team.

Thus, it is both sadness and shame to see such discord within China, and one hopes that if the leadership of the country is slow to act in the Chinese interest, then those who have volunteered to serve and protect the interests of the Chinese people will apply the laws and edicts with wisdom and mercy, fulfilling their greater duty to the Chinese people and the Chinese destiny.

At least, we hope the dedicated Chinese readers of our website, some of whom may be trusted with these positions, will honor China with their choices in coming days, via both action and inaction, as sometimes the latter is the better course.

After all, “heaven is high, and the emperor is far away.”

Fortunately, reports out of China this week suggested some changes to their Zero COVID policy are coming, perhaps in reaction to the justified concerns of their citizens. CCP sources were quoted touting a renewed vaccination campaign, for example. Sadly, there was no comment on why the previous vaccination campaigns, reported by the same CCP sources as the best and most effective in the world, have apparently not worked. The same sources also emphasized the current spread is due to omicron and its cousins, which are more contagious, but less virulent. This is very true, and evidence of the CCP and leadership following the science to lead China through these last phases of the global pandemic. It is surprising, though, that China does not appear to have the rest of the world’s current level of herd immunity to these variants, either via prior infection or successful vaccination–a trade off of prior Zero COVID policies. There has also been little mention in official Chinese sources of the effective treatments for acute COVID in patients with high risk of severe disease available around the world, such as the monoclonal antibodies and various anti-viral therapies that have allowed the rest of the world to return to a nearly pre-pandemic state of living for so long now. To say nothing of some of the nasal spray treatments we have covered in prior updates developed by some of China’s southeast Asian neighbors, and available there. But we are hopeful with the pace of changes being announced to Zero COVID policies these strategies will be investigated as well for their ability to help China safely manage its current case load and the easing of the most onerous portions of Zero COVID.

Lastly, CCP sources are now stressing that local officials should strive to minimize the “inconvenience” of containing COVID, and further that restrictions should be “limited in scale and length” with quick responsiveness to “reasonable” requests from residents.

So here is hoping for a more balanced and restrained response to containing the current outbreak of COVID in China, or at least the personal choices by those enforcing some of the more extreme Zero COVID measures are wise, and reflect the best traditions of the Chinese people.

–What this means for the rest of our readers, ex-China, is that there is substantial COVID activity within China right now. Setting aside all of the snarky comments I could make here about the lack of opining in Western media on the likelihood that the current protests will promote further COVID spread or are important enough to risk the spread of COVID anyway, even the official numbers suggest this wave will sustain for a bit. China is a big country with a lot of people, and every new host is another chance at mutation. A speed run through a big, but insufficiently immune, population is the best chance at a highly contagious but equal to more severe variant emerging.

To be clear, I put the odds of a dangerous variant emerging from the current China outbreak at multi-state lottery level. As you can probably write for me now, the trend in pandemics is more contagious less severe over time.

But it is a non-zero risk I feel I should mention.

Do not lose sleep over it–almost certainly won’t happen, and we’ll keep vigilant for any sign we need to up your threat level.

Even if SARS-CoV-2 pulls some “lucky” numbers, the chance that it will ALSO get around the current acute treatments between monoclonal antibodies and antivirals is very, very low. There are enough shots on goal that it is very unlikely a new SARS-CoV-2 strain will escape them all.

So just to ALSO get ahead of any creative “DOOOOOOOOOM!” headlines to get a few stray clicks on otherwise slow news days in the semi-near future ; )

–Staying outside of China, Japan and South Korea are, perhaps unsurprisingly, also seeing elevations in COVID cases. Australia as well. Brazil and a few other South American countries are seeing lift off. While new cases were muted in the US last week, as we mentioned, early indicators were up and we are starting to see a slight elevation in cases and hospitalizations this week. Early indicators remain high in the US as well, so this trend may well continue–and yes, is probably attributable to a bit of a post-Thanksgiving travel bump.

–Speaking of fun with headlines, did you hear or see that August deaths due to COVID in the US were majority vaccinated patients? Did you know this was proof that dangerous vaccines failed?

Or did you recognize this as “lies, damn lies, and statistics?”

You’re my readers, so probably the latter.

But to bolster what you have already figured out, the majority of COVID deaths for the vaccinated is a narrow one, at just over 50% of the total deaths. Considering hardly anyone died of COVID this past August in the US, you’re not dealing with large numbers here, though, so a few cases can radically shift the percentage of that smaller number. Beyond that, it’s still questionable how many of them are due to COVID, or with COVID. At this stage, with mostly omicron variants, chances are much higher that deaths are with COVID. If that’s the case, we should expect deaths in vaccinated and unvaccinated people to more closely approximate the percentage of each in the general population. Which means that more vaccinated people will show up in that statistic, since the vaccine is not likely to be doing anything to prevent deaths due to heart disease, for example.

But let’s assume that the death counts are really and truly due to COVID. We’ll ignore the rich irony that the same sources using the percentage of COVID deaths being higher in the vaccinated are evidence of vaccine failure are the same sources that over the past years were claiming the death counts were elevated and COVID wasn’t really as dangerous as claimed by labeling gunshot victims who tested COVID positive as a COVID death. In fairness, they were at least partially correct that distinction between with and due to has been tough to come by. But we’ll give benefit of the doubt here and assume that all the deaths in August they are using are due to COVID.

If the vaccine were the failure they claim it is, doing absolutely nothing, there should be no difference in deaths between vaccinated and unvaccinated, and the percentage of deaths should mirror the percentage of the population that has been vaccinated.

In other words, if the vaccine was a total failure at preventing deaths, north of 80% of deaths due to COVID in the US in August would be in the vaccinated.

But they’re not. It’s barely over 50%, and the first time there has been a “majority” for these sources to wave around making this claim. So the vaccine is at least doing something.

Beyond that, you have multiple confounders of this statistic. For example, most of those likely to get vaccinated are people who were at high risk for severe COVID. Although the vaccine reduces the chances of severe COVID, as we have covered, it does not completely eliminate it. As there are more vaccinated people, and these are perhaps more likely than the unvaccinated to be at risk for severe COVID, sheer force of numbers can skew the death statistic towards the vaccinated. At least eventually. Second, arguably by now, everyone who was unvaccinated and likely to die of COVID probably already has–or got acute treatment and survived anyways. Speaking of which, we also don’t know if acute treatments were tried on the vaccinated and unvaccinated folks who died, and if there was any bias in that. For example, if you were coming down with severe COVID, and I knew you were unvaccinated, I would move heaven and earth to try to get you on acute COVID treatments stat. Those have proven to be as effective as the vaccines is reducing risk of severe COVID if used early enough. On the other hand, if you were vaccinated, did you ignore symptoms long enough that the acute treatments either were no longer indicated or less useful, assuming that the vaccine alone would protect you? We have no idea. But these can easily skew the percentage of deaths in the vaccinated versus unvaccinated, especially when we are talking percentages of relatively small numbers. Also, how many of the unvaccinated who died had caught COVID before? Many of the unvaccinated still left are actually recovered COVID patients by now, with natural immunity. Same question for the vaccinated, since there is decent evidence that vaccine plus a recovered infection is probably the most durable form of immune protection from severe COVID.

Alas, there did not seem to be appreciation for these subtle, but significant nuances in the reporting. Instead, a fact was found that fit a preconceived notion, and no attempt to put that fact into context that would make that fact relevant and useful was made.

–In other news, you may have seen the article announcing that scientists managed to get a 50,000 year old virus found frozen in permafrost to replicate. There have been several novel viruses frozen like this, all fairly ancient and in families of viruses that no longer are known to spread on the Earth. The one they got to replicate is notable for being particularly large in physical size for a virus.

Now, you’re probably thinking to yourself that this doesn’t seem like the -best- idea, given the very real possibility that studies in coronaviruses may have led to the inadvertent creation of SARS-CoV-2 and its subsequent accidental release from a lab, despite high levels of biosafety containment. The authors of this study don’t exactly provide reassurance, since one of the reasons given for doing this work is that climate change is melting the permafrost, which may accidentally release some of the ancient viruses into the wild. These viruses are stuck in permafrost, and not existing families of known viruses today. This is evidence they definitively lost the evolutionary war with immune systems tens of thousands of years ago. That said, there is indeed a non-zero chance that they are so forgotten as to be novel and alien to modern immune systems. Remember, the perfect virus is one that has co-evolved with its host, to cause no symptoms, raise no immune system alarms, but spread quietly from host to host. The most dramatic infectious diseases are accidents where a pathogen can infect a host, but neither knows how to “work with” the other, and the virus or bacteria accidentally causes catastrophic damage. For example, flus that jump species and are way worse in birds or pigs or humans because birds or pigs or humans are -just- different enough that they accidentally run rampant in the lungs of the new less intended host species.

What’s the risk? No one really knows. But it’s probably not that great an idea to turn active ancient permafrost viruses to check and see just how pathogenic they might be just to prove that melting the permafrost can turn active ancient permafrost viruses that might be pathogenic. Again, we are back to Taleb’s Casino and why gain of function testing is a bad idea because over a long enough timeline, escape of something nasty from a lab is inevitable.

Better ideas might have been to simply characterize its genome and surface proteins, and just prophylactically start looking to develop antibodies to those surface proteins so potential monoclonal antibody treatments would be on the shelf, known and ready to roll. Hopefully, they are also doing that at least.

To be clear though, the chance that the blast of the fifth trumpet will call forth the Plague To End All Days from its ancient frozen slumber to rise and stalk once more isn’t very good. Does it re-introduce some genetic variation that could result in mix and match with modern viruses, or turn out to be directly infective and nasty because 50,000 years of co-evolution have been interrupted? Yes. But an awful lot has to go right, and I strongly suspect these virus families are starting from a position of serious disadvantage. After all, they were not flash frozen in that tundra. They had plenty of chances over ice age migrations, and other thaws and re-freezes of edges of the permafrost they are entombed in, to break out and continue proliferating. They didn’t make it. There is a reason for that, and that reason is almost certainly your modern whirling ball of microbial death immune system. Humans have actually been around long enough to have run into these guys when they -were- circulating–and long before modern medicine. You are here because you had ancestors around then who survived the Permafrost Death Virus families–which means genes you carry are likely to be ones that consigned these viruses to an icy tomb.

So don’t fear the Frozen Reaper (virus). And while this research is probably not the -greatest- idea from a risk management standpoint, we have done far, far dumber things like deliberate gain of function testing.

Socioeconomic

–We’ll be brief again.

–The Netherlands will be buying and closing 3,000 farms near areas of “environmental concern” as it continues its efforts to hit EU imposed emission controls. If farmers affected do not sell, there will be a mandatory “fair compensation” from the government and the land seized by eminent domain. It’s not clear from reports how large the targeted farms are or what percentage of the Netherlands annual agricultural output they represent to know the total impact, but it’s reasonable to assume that unless other land elsewhere is converted to new farms, there will be some loss of food production from the Netherlands. I’m not sure given good reasons to suspect energy shortages, and thus fertilizer shortages, will continue into next year at least that the timing of this policy is really for the best.

–Speaking of the Netherlands, there are videos breaking on social media as I type this of Dutch authorities overturning tractors in farmers’ protests of this threat to the family land and livelihood with the farmers still in them, as well as arrested protestors hustled off to unmarked black vans. One might mistake that for the CCP’s response to protestors, if it were not happening in a Western democracy that supports the right to peaceful assembly for redress of grievances.

–Yes, we also saw Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada, publicly chide China on crackdowns on protestors announcing how united he was with their cause and the right to free speech and petition of government for redress via public assembly.

Yes, this same Justin Trudeau.

–More reports coming out that education during the pandemic was suboptimal, as standardized testing scores are at multi-year lows and anecdotal reports via teachers of socialization gaps among younger children especially grow. Similar to endocrinology board scores discussed last week, the effects of this unanticipated educational consequence of decisions made at the height of the pandemic are really only just now starting to show up. Unless they can catch up quickly, this education gap is likely to persist at least at some level into the future. Now, to be clear, some of this gap likely can be closed, and even if not, this doesn’t mean the sudden arrival of “Idiocracy.” But it will put a burden of at least some extra anxiety onto a generation that is likely to carry at least some anxious effects from watching the adult world react to COVID as they were children.

For I can promise you, as much as dysentery on the Oregon Trail and the Challenger Disaster unties the memories of our generation, the time of masks and school via Zoom will loom long and large in the memories of our children.

–Germany has proposed a windfall tax on wind and solar, alongside oil. Because apparently they want -less- wind and solar power too? Yeah, I don’t get it either. Energy policy remains incoherent in many places, and is likely to face a stiff test this winter in Europe as they start to hit a cold front, and certainly by this time next year.

–Other European nations are discussing banning EV recharging to control electricity demand and thus energy prices this weekend. So maybe consider the powertrain of your next car purchase carefully. Japan also announced they will create a LNG storage reserve, which means there will be continued price pressure on the finite amount of LNG in the world, that everyone will now be bidding for–absent additional new sources of LNG supply.

–Speaking of governments countering protests via the ability to freeze accounts and deperson citizens whom the government disagrees with, the Federal Reserve announced that it has launched via 12 participating US banks a trial of a “digital dollar” central bank digital currency. I have no new comments on this idea beyond my previous.

–Speaking of digital currencies, the SBF saga continues to astound. The US Department of Justice has called for someone, anyone to please investigate SBF because they are quite convinced based on his many recent interviews that he may have been doin’ some fraud with FTX and Alameda Research. We note, along with many on Twitter, that the DOJ has had little difficulty announcing and performing its own high profile investigations of financial malfeasance and fraud before, and perhaps should consider doing the same here. Maybe? I dunno. Not an expert on that.

But for more “bonfire of the credibilities” fuel, it’s worth noting that despite high profile and high number donations to the “D” tribe, SBF via FTX and Alameda Research were also making donations to the “R” tribe at the same time. Some sample numbers and donation channels can be found here.

In his extensive efforts to continue to try and spin his deliberate malfeasance as all innocent mistakes and just poor oversight and record keeping on his part, SBF has dropped more than a few nuggets about this. You can watch a summary of some of the most shockingly honest of these interviews here (and get the link to the full interviews in the description). The key point is that SBF chafes at some of the early coverage that stresses that he was “like this high profile donor to the Democrats” (he was the second highest by dollar amount to only George Soros in the recent election cycle). Mostly because he ALSO donated to the Republicans, as we mentioned, but just via “dark pools.” When pressed on why, SBF states that (and I paraphrase some, but not much) “most reporters are liberal, so if you donate publicly to Democrats, they will like you and write flattering stories about you.” This was a bold statement, especially if you read the Vox interview we linked to last update, where SBF bemoaned that in Western society you “must” invoke “woke shibboleths” to be accepted and get favorable coverage.

It was never about what he actually believed in. It was all, -ALL-, about manipulating image and making sure he had friends in the right place.

I may not have been cynical enough. Perception is as good as effectiveness is not -only- for politicians it seems.

But it’s part and parcel of a disturbing trend of “leaders” capable of speaking eloquently, and invoking high morals and virtue, with public shows of the right causes, especially when the media is there or it can be posted to the ‘Gram. However, their hearts and their true actions are far from their words and public image.

“The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat, so do and observe whatever they tell you, but not the works they do. For they preach, but do not practice. . . They do all their deeds to be seen by others. For they make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long, and they love the place of honor at feasts and the best seats in the synagogues and greetings in the marketplaces. . . ” –Matthew 23:2-7

Pharisees of a new religion–there is truly nothing new under the sun.

Meanwhile, he was donating to the Republicans at nearly the same rate, just to hedge bets in case elections went Republican ways. We can debate whether this approach is pragmatic in the modern world, or deeply cynical and manipulating the tribal divide to ensure personal advantage. Regardless, it’s a clear attempt to buy influence, and as long as SBF remains unindicted the impression will certainly be that it’s working.

Now, to the bonfire of the credibilites, do you believe that SBF’s approach is unique? That others are not doing the same?

“O wonder! How many goodly creatures are there here! How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world that has such people in’t!” –William Shakespeare, “The Tempest”–

–Your think piece this week comes from the opening statement of the winning side of a Munk debate on reliability of mainstream reporting. (and we don’t say that on the basis of our opinion on the debate–they did a before and after poll and it was the biggest before and after change in the history of the Munk debates).

–Lest we grow too cynical, though, or worse give way to despair, let’s remember that evil can only triumph if it can convince the good that evil is inevitable and its advance indomitable.

Remember, this is only another lie of evil.

And if you look hard enough, truly look, you will start to see the good pick itself up, remember its name, and assert itself once more. Sometimes that is 40 years of test, trial and hardship in the Wilderness. Sometimes it is 20 years. Sometimes less. But where there is faith, hope and belief in the good, it will surely find its reward.

It is not evil that is inevitable, or inexorable in its advance.

It’s the good.

And if you look, really look around you, you will see good beginning to remember its name…

So once more, with feeling.

–Your chances of catching Ebola this week are equivalent to the chances we were NOT going to finish with an image like this:

–Somewhere in Siberia, an icy wind is kicking up frost and snow. Far in the distance is a steady crunch of feet on snow. The sound grows louder, and shapes flicker at the edge of discernment through the whipping wind and ice. With just glimpses in rare breaks of the wind and snow, it is tough to tell if their vaguely humanoid shape is true, or if these figures are really somehow not -entirely- human.

Crunch. Crunch. Crunch. The shapes in the wind and distance slouch closer, one of them now clearly with a hand up against the fierce cold wind.

Finally, it is clear. Their stature is too short, the arms too long to be human even though they are bundled deep against the cold in thick parkas, hats and goggles. They pause and there is brief, unintelligible communication before several unshoulder backpacks, brush off a layer of snow from them, and remove something from within.

Over the howling wind comes a new, steady, high pitched and full throated mechanical whir. This new sound is driven before the tempest, carried along with the flecks of snow and ice. The sound is unmistakable though.

And thus your chances of catching coronavirus this week are equivalent to the chances that in this cold, lonely place in the Siberian tundra, a contingent of the Army of the Bioterrorist Monkeys stands, resolute at their work, with hair dryers pointed down at the permafrost below their feet…

<Paladin>