COVID-19 has a decided racial preference for Western blood, killing Americans and Europeans at more than ten times the rate of people in Japan, China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Korea, or Vietnam. The chart below shows the COVID-19 death rate per million population in several significant countries countries. The US and Belgium is seen to be more than 100 times worse than China or Hong Kong, etc., based on data from http://www.worldometers.info. IN the figure, the death-rate rank of each country is shown on the left, next to the country name.
For clarity, I didn’t include all the countries of Europe, but note that European countries are the majority of the top ten in terms of deaths per million. Belgium is number one with over 1,400. That is somewhat over 0.14% of the population has died of COVID-19 so far.
Peru has the highest COVID-19 death rate in South America at over 1000 per million, 0.1%. The US rate is similar, 0.082%. These are shockingly high numbers despite our best efforts to stop the disease by mandating masks, closing schools, and generally closing our economies. Meanwhile, in China and Japan, the economies are open and the total death rate is only about 1/100 that of Europe or the Americas. Any health numbers from China are suspect, but here I tend to believe it. Their rates are very similar to those in Hong Kong and Taiwan. At 3 per million, China’s death rate is 1/400 th the rate of the US, and Taiwan’s is lower.
This is not for lack of good healthcare systems in Europe, or lack of preparation. As of December 1-10, Germany, a country of 80 million, is seeing a COVID death rate of 388 per day. Japan, a country of 120 million, sees about 20. These are modern countries with good record keeping; Germany is locked down and Japan is open.
The question is why, and the answer seems to be genetics. A British study of the genetics of people who got the disease particularly severely found a few genes responsible, among these, TYK2. “It is part of the system that makes your immune cells more angry, and more inflammatory,” explained Dr Kenneth Baillie, a consultant in medicine at the Royal Infirmary in Edinburgh, who led the Genomicc project. He’s theory is that versions of this gene can allow the virus to put your immune response “into overdrive, putting patients at risk of damaging lung inflammation.” If his explanation is right, a class of anti-inflammatory drugs could work. (I’d already mentioned data suggesting that a baby aspirin or two seems helpful).
As reported in Nature this week, another gene that causes problems is IFNAR2. IFNAR2 is linked to release of interferon, which helps to kick-start the immune system as soon as an infection is detected.
It could be accidental that Asians are just lucky interns of not having the gene variations that make this disease deadly. Alternately, it could be that the disease is was engineered (in China?) and released either as a bio-attack, or by accident. Or it could be a combination. Whatever the cause of the disease, that east Asians should be spared this way is really weird.
Suggesting that this is not biowarfare is the observation that, in San Francisco, the Asian, per case fatality rate is as high as for white people or higher. One problem with this argument is that there is a difference between death rate per confirmed case and death rate per million population. It is possible that, for one reason or another Chinese people in San Francisco do not seek to be tested until they are at death’s door. Such things were seen in Iran and North Korea, for example. It pushed up the per-case death rate to 100%. Another possibility is that the high death rates in the west reflect disease mutation, or perhaps eastern exposure to a non-deadly variant of COVID that never made it west. If this is the case, it would be just as odd as any other explanation of a100x difference in death rates. Maybe I’m being paranoid here, but as the saying goes, even paranoids have enemies.
Before a pacifist buys a gun, there are two critical questions to ask: One is ‘how would I feel if I killed a criminal?” The other is ‘how would I feel if I missed and killed someone else? In my case, I’d feel awful either way. My thinking, even with the criminal, is that I tried my best to do more good than bad, and part of that is to minimize the chance of killing needlessly. Statistics suggest that gun carrying, in general, does good by deterring violent criminals. To be able to stop a deadly attack, while minimizing the chance of killing– particularly an innocent bystander — I’m inclined to a low power gun that’s easy to conceal and easy to aim well. This leads me to suggest a 22 revolver with a barrel that’s not too long to conceal, nor too short for good aiming, 2.5-4″ seems ideal.
An analysis of what percent of people stop attacking when hit by one bullet of different calibers. The 32 and shotgun are the best, in part because the shooter tends to stop shooting at one shot. With a 9 mm, the shooter keeps on shooting, likely doing more damage than necessary.
At this point I’d like to say that I am not a gun expert. I’ve fired perhaps 15 guns in my life including 5 revolvers. The easiest of these to shoot was a Glock 9mm, heavy, large and powerful, but it think it would be too large to carry or draw in a deadly situation, and the Glock was not cheap. The 22s were all smaller guns, and the 22 cartridges, especially the 22lr, are dirt cheap, costing 8 to10¢ each, or $40-$50 for a box of 500. It’s not the 9mm are super expensive, but they cost 25-30¢ each or $25 to $30 for a box of 100. The price is higher today, over $1 each, because of an ammo shortage, but it’s coming down.
Another advantage of the 22 is that the kill power is lower. A 9mm round will go through the person you are shooting at, and kill the person behind, and can kill on a riccoshet. I like that the 22 won’t do this. I also like that the 22, more effective than almost any other round at stropping a criminal, and getting him to go away. As the chart above shows, there is a 60% stop after the perpetrator is hit once, and that’s my goal — getting him to go away. A shotgun is far more effective as a deterrence, over 80%, but it is much more likely to kill, and much harder to conceal carry. The chart above is from a wonderful analysis of the effect of different calibers used in crimes, read it here. The author, Greg Ellifritz, suggests that the reason the 22 is so effective at stopping a criminal is psychological: criminals stop if shot even once, especially from a civilian, and only civilians use 22s. Larger calibers are better appear to be less effective, though they will be better at stopping a really determined attacker, e.g. someone on PCP. But that’s not the environment I work in, and I suspect it’s not the majority of crime. Overall, one shot from a 9mm does not do a good job stopping an attacker. Another good option is a 32. It was the choice of Theodore Roosevelt and J. Edgar Hoover. It tends to be used by detectives and other professionals, but the bullets are expensive.
I’ve done a meta-analysis of Greg Ellifritz’s death data, and confirm that the 22 is the second least deadly of all bullet types, after the .25. Of 154 people hit with 22 bullets, there 28% fatalities, 43 deaths. The 9mm is more deadly: of those hit with a 9 mm bullet, 44% died, in part because people shooting 9mm tend to shoot more bullets, nearly twice as many as 22 shooters in danger situations.
It takes two hands to cock a semi-automatic, that is to draw the first round into the chamber. Gif from ammuniotndepot.com
Handguns for 9mm rounds tend to be semi-automatic with light triggers and large magazines. Guns for 22 tend to be revolvers with heavier triggers and small loads, 5 to 7 rounds. I suspect that a light trigger leads to more missed shots and misfires, and I notice that many folks with semiautomatics, find they jam in danger situations. In the famous duel between Hamilton and Burr, Hamilton hit the branch above Burr’s head, likely because he’d set his trigger very light. Burr’s trigger was set heavy, and he shot straight. When you are nervous, gun with a light trigger can go off early and miss or kill the wrong person. A lot of the people killed with guns in Detroit, I notice, were killed by mistake, because the shooter missed, or because of a ricochet (I did an analysis of Detroit crime early on in this blog). A ricocheting 22 has very little kill power left.
A single action revolver requires cocking by that can be done with one hand; a double action doesn’t need any cocking. Gif from ammuniotndepot.com
Every semi-automatic I’ve tried required a two handed, “racking” step, see above. Thus, unless you leave a cartridge in the chamber while walking around, you need two free hands and an extra second or two to rack the first bullet before you can shoot. That’s OK on a range, but in a danger situation racking is a problem. Even trained policemen with semi-automatics have been killed by knife-wilding criminals because the criminal didn’t need the extra second or two while the policeman racked the first round.
Racking takes strength and coordination, plus an awareness of legal isuess. If you rack too soon and the situation de-escalates, you could be charged with “brandishing.” In most states it’s illegal to brandish a weapon in a non-deadly situation. You have to wait with your gun in your pocket or holster until you are in mortal danger. With a revolver, you don’t need to rack. Even a single action revolver can be cocked with one hand while the weapon is in your pocket. See the process in the figure above. Double-action revolvers don’t require cocking, and that can be a plus. On the other hand, I figure that the sound of a gun cocking might be useful to signal to a criminal that you are serious without getting you into the problems of brandishing.
De-cocking a single action revolver.
Revolvers have another interesting plus in that it’s easy to un-cock revolver, even using one hand, see gif. With semi-automatic pistols, there rarely a graceful way to remove the bullet from the chamber, certainly not with one hand. In theory, you can shoot from your pocket too; it’s something I’ve seen in the movies, but a semi-automatic will almost certainly jam if you try. If the assailant grabs your arm, or otherwise attacks you, you have every right to fire, but you don’t want a jam, or to hit yourself. Most defensive shootings are from close range.
Speaking of jamming, even experts get jams on a fairly regular basis, and beginners have this problem a lot. They forget to hold the gun tightly enough, or they buy rounds that don’t quite match the gun. Rounds that are too weak or powerful cause problems for semi-automatics. I’ve never seen a revolver jam, and if the round doesn’t fire, you can click again, and another round will appear. With a semi-automatic, clearing a jam is a lot of work: more than I can expect in a danger situation.
I should mention that the folks from ammunition depot, the place I got the gifs, recommends 9mm semi-automatics for personal protection because of the extra “stopping power”. Read their opinion here. I disagree, and here is one last reason: Like many other suppliers, they are out of 9mm cartridges, and have been for months. Perhaps it’s panic buying like with toilet paper, or a manufacturing disruption; 22 lr cartridges are still in stock. Supply problems will likely go away, but it’s another reason to look at the 22.
Robert Buxbaum, December 11, 2020. Some vocabulary words: a bullet is the projectile that comes out the barrel. A round = a cartridge. It’s the thing that you put in the gun before shooting. There are several 22s, all with the same size (diameter) bullet, 0.223″ OD, but with different lengths and power, from short to wmr. Different guns can use different cartridges. Meir Kahane was killed by a 22, as was Bobby Kennedy.
Enjoy those loaves and fishes. Even the ones from the store are miracles.
Enjoy dinner with your family and friends, even if it’s awkward. It’s the awkwardness of your friends that makes you love them. No one really loves perfection. And enjoy your dinner. No one really likes a prig, not even God.
My cousin and his wife are coming to dinner. They’re both Bugs Bunny fans. He proposed via a WhatsApp.doc
In terms of the holiday ham; Jesus was Jewish. No ham. When doing with the disciples, he probably ordered falafel and 13 glasses of water.
Relatives are easier if you don’t have to look at them.
Most people know that aspirin can reduce blood clots and thus the risk heart attack, as shown famously in the 1989 “Physicians’ Health Study” where 22,000 male physicians were randomly assigned to either a regular aspirin (325 mg) every other day or an identical looking placebo. The results are shown in the table below, where “Myocardial Infarction” or “MI” is doctor-speak for heart attack.
Treatment
Myocardial Infarctions
No Infarction
Total
fraction with MI
Aspirin
139
10,898
11,037
139/11,037 = 0.0126
Placebo
239
10,795
11,034
239/11,034 = 0.0217
Over the 5 years of the study, the physicians had 378 MI events, but mostly in the group that didn’t take aspirin: 1.28% of the doctors who took aspirin had a heart attack as opposed to 2.17% for those with the placebo. The ratio 1.28/2.17 = 0.58 is called the risk ratio. Apparently, aspirin in this dose reduces your MI risk to 58% of what it was otherwise — at least in white males of a certain age.
A blood clot showing red cells held together by fibrin fibers. Clots can cause heart attack, stroke, and breathing problems. photo: Steve Gschmeissner.
Further study showed aspirin benefits with women and other ethnicities, and benefits beyond hear attack, in any disease that induces disseminated intravascular coagulopathy. That’s doctor speak for excessive blood clots. Aspirin produced a reduction in stroke and in some cancers (Leukemia among them) and now it now seems likely that aspirin reduces the deadliness of COVID-19. Data from Wuhan showed that excessive blood clots were present in 71% of deaths vs. 0.4% of survivors. In the US, some 30% of those with serious COVID symptoms and death show excessive blood clots, particularly in the lungs. Aspirin and Vitamin D seem to help.
.The down-side of aspirin use is a reduction in wound healing and some intestinal bleeding. The intestinal bleeding is known as aspirin burn. Because of these side-effects it is common to give a lower dose today, just one baby aspirin per day, 81 mg. While this does does some good, It is not clear that it is ideal for all people. This recent study in the Lanset (2018) shows a strong relationship between body weight and aspirin response. Based on 117,279 patients, male and female, the Lanset study found that the low dose, baby aspirin provides MI benefits only in thin people, those who weigh less than about 60 kg (130 lb). If you weigh more than that, you need a higher dose, perhaps two baby aspirin per day, or a single adult aspirin every other day, the dose of the original doctors study.
In this study of COVID patients, published in July, those who had been taking aspirin fared far better than those who did not A followup study will examine the benefits of one baby aspirin (81 mg) with and without Vitamin D, read about it here. I should note that other pain medications do not have this blood-thinning effect, and would not be expected to have the same benefit.
While it seems likely that 2 baby aspirins might be better in fat people, or one full aspirin every other day, taking a lot more than this is deadly. During the Spanish flu some patients were given as much as 80 adult aspirins per day. It likely killed them. As Paracelsus noted, the difference between a cure and a poison is the dose.
I’m not crazy about the COVID isolation, but there are up-sides that I’ve come to appreciate. You might too. Out of boredom, I was finally got into meditation. It was better than just sitting around and doing nothing.
It’s best not to look at isolation as a problem, but an opportunity. I’ve developed a serious drinking opportunity.
And it’s an opportunity to talk to myself. I told myself I’ should quit drinking. Then I figured, why should I listen to a drunk who talks to himself.
A friend of mine was on drugs, but then quit. Everyone in his house is happy, except for the lamp. The lamp won’t talk to him anymore.
The movies are closed, and the bars, and the gyms. It gives me another reason not to go to the gym.
Did you know that, before the crowbar was invented, crows used to drink at home.
The real reason dogs aren’t allowed in bars: lots of guys can’t handle their licker.
There’s time to spend with my children. And they look like me.
I like that I don’t commute. Family events are over zoom, funerals (lots of funerals), meetings, lectures. They come in via the computer, and I don’t have to dress or attend. No jacket, no pants… no travel …. no job.
My children are spending more time with us at home. We have virtual meals together. I discovered that I have a son named Tok. He seems to like my dad-jokes.
My wife is finding it particularly tough. Most every day I see her standing by the window, staring, wondering. One of these days, I’ll let her in.
I asked wife why she married me. Was it for my looks, or my income, or my smarts. She smiled and said it was my sense of humor. 🙂
My wife is an elementary school teacher. She teaches these days with a smart board. If the board were any smarter, it would go work for someone else. It’s necessary, I guess. If you can’t beat them, you might as well let the smart board teach. I think the smart board stole the election. It began by auto-correcting my spelling. Then it moved to auto correct my voting. The board is smarter and better than me (Hey, who wrote this?)
I’ve learned to love masks, though some of them are hot.
You’d think they’d reduce the number of administrators in the schools, given that it’s all remote. Or reduce the price of college. It would be nice if they’d up the number of folks who can attend. So far no. Today the Princeton alumni of Michigan is sponsoring video-talk by Princeton alumnus, George Will. I wanted to attend, but found there was limited seating, so I’m on the waiting list (true story). By keeping people out, they show they are exclusive. Tuition is $40,000 / year, and they keep telling us that the college is in service of humanity. If they were in the service of humanity, they’d charge less, and stream the talk to whoever wants to listen in. I have to hope this will change sooner or later.
Shopping for toilet paper was a big issue at the beginning of the pandemic, but I’ve now got a dog to do it for me. He goes to the store, brings it back. Brings back toothpaste too. He’s a lavatory retriever. (I got this joke from Steve Feldman; the crowbar joke too.)
I don’t mind that there are few new movies. There are plenty of old movies that I have not seen, and old TV shows too.
This fellow is the new head of Biden’s COVID-19 task force. He’s got a science-based plan for over-population and the disease.
I like that people are leaving New York and LA. It’s healthy, and saves on rent. Folks still travel there, mostly for the rioting, but lockdowns are nicer in Michigan.
More people are hunting, and hiking, and canoeing. These are active activities that you can do on lockdown. The old activities were passive, or going out to eat. Passive activities are almost a contradiction in terms.
We’re cooking more at home, which is healthier. And squirrel doesn’t taste half bad. If I live through this, I’ll be healthy.
I’m reading more, and have joined goodreads.com. I’ve developed a superpower: I find can melt ice cubes, just by looking at them. It takes a while but they melt.
A lot more folks have dogs. And folks have gotten into religion. Wouldn’t it be great, if after death we fond that dyslexic folks were right. There really is a dog.
Let’s love the virus. If we don’t, the next crisis will be worse.
There was an election last week. My uncles voted for Biden, which really surprised me. They were staunch Republicans when they were alive. My aunt got the ballot and convinced them. She was a Democrat when she was alive.
Before COVID, the other big crisis was global warming. Al Gore and Greta Thunberg claimed we had to shutter production and stop driving to save the planet. COVID-19 has done it. The next crisis is over-population. COVID is already curing that problem — not so much in China, but in the US, Europe, and South America.
Just As a final thought, let’s look at the bright side of the virus. If we don’t, the next crisis will be worse. Take Monty Python’s advice and Always look at the bright side of life.
My son works at a company called Homodeus. It’s part of 4Catalyzer, an umbrella of seven medical biotechnology companies with a staff of 300 scientists and engineers. One of the Homodeus products, still waiting FDA guidance is a COVID-19, RNA self-tester called Homodeus Detect. It tests for COVID RNA directly, not for antibodies, with tests are much faster than hospital tests, taking 45 minutes, but more complex than the unreliable test strips. So far, the Detect tests have shown no false positives or false negatives. That would suggest 100% reliable, except but there are a fair number of invalid tests. The invalid tests are lares due to the complexity, and also to the fact that you are testing snot, essentially. There is no blood-taking involved, unlike with the test strips, but just a nasal swab, and the cost is moderate, about $35 per test. However you have to do some lab work. After you swab your nose, you put the swab in a heated liquid bath where chemicals break up the snot and dissolve the shells on any viruses or pollen present. After 30 minutes, you pass the liquid onto a detector strip that contains a conjugate protein that binds to SARS-CoV-2 RNA. Your answer appears 15 minutes later as one of three lines: one for positive, one for negative, or one indicating an invalid test. Invalid tests show up more often than they like, about half the time, especially when the test is done by amateurs.
Getting an invalid test result is a downside of the current product, but I don’t think it should prevent sales. You get better at doing the test, and speed and lack of false positives and negatives is a bigger plus. It seems worthwhile to fast-track offer this test for doctors offices and hospital admissions, at least. I’d also like to see it used for airplane boarding and interstate travel, so that a person traveling might avoid the two week quarantine that many states impose. I’d certainly pay $200 or more to avoid a two-week quarantine, and if I have to do a second or third test, I’d do that too.
At least some people realize it’s a big advantage to know if you are currently infections.
Because this test measures virus RNA, and not antibodies, it indicates infection virtually as soon as you’re infected. That’s a benefit for those wishing to fly, or to meet with people, an advantage that is not lost on Elon Musk at least (see tweet). The test also shows negative as soon as the virus is gone, and that’s big. In recent months the FDA has fast-track approved an antibody indicating test from Abbott Labs, but that test has many false readings and only indicates infection several days afterward, and it does not indicate when you are no longer infectious.
The FDA has not offered to fast track this test, or any other like it for approval. They have not even indicated what sort of reporting and privacy requirements they want, so things sit in limbo, both for Homodeus, and for competing companies. Here is a story in USA today: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2020/07/29/fda-opens-door-rapid-home-covid-19-tests/5536528002. One big issue that the FDA is contact tracing. The FDA would like to be able to trace all the contacts of anyone who tests positive, while maintaining privacy as demanded by the 4th Amendment.
One way around the 4th amendment concerns would be to require anyone who uses the test to sign a waiver allowing the government to trace their contacts. Alternately there could be a block-chain enabled app that would come with the test. An app coms already providing a timer for when to move to the next step, and it includes a machine-vision system to help analyze dim lines on the indicator. Perhaps the FDA would accept block chain as a way to allow full reporting while maintaining privacy The FDA has yet to provide guidance on what they want, though. Without guidance or fast-track approval, things sit in limbo. Here is a scathing legal analysis from the Yale Law Journal.
You can get a free test, but have to do it at Homodeus headquarters in Guilford, Connecticut. It’s free, and results appears in about 45 minutes.. Homodeus has been manufacturing the test in quantity; if you are interested, use the following link to sign up: https://www.homodeusinc.com/research. Healthcare providers are particularly welcome.
Why did the FDA fast-track approve Abott’s antigen/ antibody test. Maybe because the tests rethought to not lead to lower mask use. Alternately, Abott has more political pull. You can read the FDA’s explanation here. In my biassed opinion the Homodeus product is good enough to fast track especially for hospitals and healthcare providers. It could save lives while allowing the economy to reopen.
Robert Buxbaum, November 15, 2020 (with massive help from Aaron M. Buxbaum)
A few days ago, I asked for and received the PCV-13 pneumonia vaccine, and a few days earlier, the flu shot. These vaccines are free if you are over 65, but you have to ask for them. PCV-13 is the milder of the pneumonia vaccines, providing moderate resistance to 12 common pneumonia strains, plus a strain of diphtheria. There is a stronger shot, with more side-effects. The main reason I got these vaccines was to cut my risk from COVID-19.
Some 230,00 people have died from COVID-19. Almost all none of them were under 20, and hardly any died from the virus itself. As with the common flu, they died from side infections and pneumonia. Though the vaccine I took is not 100% effective against event these 13 pneumonias, it is fairly effective, especially in the absence of co-morbidities, and has few side effects beyond stiffness in my arm. I felt it was a worthwhile protection, and further reading suggests it was more worthwhile than I’d thought at first.
It is far from clear there will be a working vaccine for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COV-19. We’ve been trying for 40 years to make a vaccine against AIDS, without success. We have also failed to create a working vaccine for SARS, MERS, or the common cold. Why should SARS-CoV-2 be different? We do have a flu vaccine, and I took it, but it isn’t very effective, viruses mutate. Despite claims that we would have a vaccine for COVID-19 by early next year, I came to imagine it would not be a particularly good vaccine, and it might have side effects. On the other hand, there is a fair amount of evidence that the pneumonia vaccine works and does a lot more good than one might expected against COVID-19.
A colleague of mine from Michigan State, Robert Root Bernstein, analyzed the effectiveness of several vaccines in the fight against COVID-19 by comparing the impact of COVID-19 on two dozen countries as a function of all the major inoculations. He found a strong correlation only with pneumonia vaccine: “Nations such as Spain, Italy, Belgium, Brazil, Peru and Chile that have the highest COVID-19 rates per million have the poorest pneumococcal vaccination rates among both infants and adults. Nations with the lowest rates of COVID-19 – Japan, Korea, Denmark, Australia and New Zealand – have the highest rates of pneumococcal vaccination among both infants and adults.” Root-Bernstein also looked at the effectiveness of adult inoculation and child inoculation. Both were effective, at about the same rate. This suggests that the the plots below are not statistical flukes. Here is a link to the scientific article, and here is a link to the more popular version.
An analysis of countries in terms of COVID rates and deaths versus pneumonia vaccination rates in children and adults. The US has a high child vaccination rate, but a low adult vaccination rate. Japan, Korea, etc. are much better. Italy, Belgium, Spain, Brazil, and Peru are worse. Similar correlations were found with child and adult inoculation, suggesting that these correlations are not flukes of statistics.
I decided to check up on Root-Bernstein’s finding by checking the state-by state differences in pneumonia vaccination rates — information available here — and found that the two US states that were hardest hit by COVID, NY and NJ, have among the lowest rates of inoculation. Of course there are other reasons at play. These states are uncommonly densely populated, and the governments of both made the unfortunate choice of sending infected patients to live in old age homes. At least half of the deaths were in these homes.
Pneumonia vaccination may also explain why the virus barely affected those under 20. Pneumonia vaccines was available only in 2000 or so. Many states then began to vaccinate about then and required it to attend school. The time of immunization could explain why those younger than 20 in the US do so well compared to older individuals, and compared to some other countries where inoculation was later. I note that China has near universal inoculation for pneumonia, and was very mildly hit.
I also took the flu shot, and had taken the MMR (measles) vaccine last year. The side effects, though bad, are less bad than the benefits, I thought, but there was another reason, and that’s mimicry. It is not uncommon that exposure to one virus or vaccine will excite the immune system to similar viruses, so-called B cells and T-cell immunity. A recent study from the Mayo Clinic, read it here, shows that other inoculations help you fight COVID-19. By simple logic, I had expected that the flu vaccine would help me this way. The following study (from Root-Bernstein again) shows little COVID benefit from flu vaccine, but evidence that MMR helps (R-squared of 0.118). Let men suggest it’s worth a shot, as it were. Similar to this, I saw just today, published September 24, 2020 in the journal, Vaccines, that the disease most molecularly similar to SARS-CoV-2 is pneumonia. If so, mimicry provides yet another reason for pneumonia vaccination, and yet another explanation for the high correlations shown above.
As a final comparison, I note that Sweden has a very high pneumonia inoculation rate, but seems to have a low mask use rate. Despite this, Sweden has done somewhat better than the US against COVID-19. Chile has a low inoculation rates, and though they strongly enforced masks and social distance, it was harder hit than we were. The correlation isn’t 100%, and masks clearly do some good, but it seems inoculation may be more effective than masks.
Last night a CNN reporter was going around a Trump rally asking ‘When was America ever great?” It’s a legitimate question for anyone wearing a MAGA hat. “Make America Great AGAIN” suggests that America was once great and is no more. The answer the reporter pushed for, I think, was the one given by NY’s Governor Cuomo: “America was never that great.” Alternately, the answer of Michelle Obama, who claimed in 2008, “For the first time in my adult life, I am really proud of my country.” The attendees attempted other answers, like 1776, but the reporter shot them down, saying that people were enslaved in 1776, and telling the home audience that even later, women didn’t have the right to vote, or the LGBT community was denied the rights to which it was entitled. I was not there, and might have got shot down too, but I suspect the question deserves an exact answer: the last time America was great was just before October 24, 1945, United Nations Day, the day we submitted to be part of a world government.
Jackie Robinson, the first black American in major league baseball. Signed October 23, 1945.
By October 23, 1945 WWII was over. We had peace and plenty, the most powerful military, and the most powerful economy. Besides this, we had a baby boom (Children are a bedrock of success, IMHO). Also, on October 23, 1945, the Brooklyn Dodgers signed Jackie Robinson, the first black, major Leaguer since the late 1800s. We thus took a major step against the greatest of our original sins. These were aspects of US greatness, but they were were not guaranteed. They were based on two pre-requisites: a national dedication to self-improvement, and the sovereign control we had over our self-improvement. Total control ended on October 24, 1945 when we joined with the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, China, France, and several other nations accepting (limited) control by the United Nations organization.
By accepting United Nations oversight, we gave over a significant chunk of sovereignty to other countries whose desire, mostly, was that the US should not be greater than them, and largely that it should not be great at all. To that end they endeavored to insure that we did not have the most powerful economy, the most powerful military, or a baby boom. From tat day on, other countries would sit in judgment on our behaviors and goals. More and more, they would demand remedies that served their interests and diminished US greatness, its exceptionalism. To the patriot this is a disaster. The New York Times declares that anti-exceptionalism is the road to world peace and prosperity. The MAGA crowd disagree.
The United Nations officially came into existence on October 24, 1945, after the United States, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, China, France ratify the UN Charter. The charter, once signed, was handed to Truman’s assistant, Alger Hiss.
It’s not that the MAGA Republicans are against world peace or prosperity. No sane person is, but they claim that the best way to achieve these things is for us to be exceptional and work in our own best interests. It is only a sad peace that is achieved by having a foreign body decide that we are at fault in every conflict, and that we should pay reparations to all who lag. There are many poor, socialist countries choosing judges, and these judges tend to rule that the US, as a rich nation, is always at fault and should always pay — both for “development” of the poor nations -overseen by them — and for the the UN too. We knew that their judges would rule this way, but likely didn’t care, or realize how much of our greatness rested on sovereignty. Without sovereignty, even the greatest of world powers will be brought down. Alger Hiss, the person Truman handed the signed UN charter to, was a spy for the Soviet Union. It was a telling beginning.
One of the big promises of Donald Trump is that he will limit the reach of the UN and of its ability to reach into our pockets. He already renegotiated or rejected trade agreements, like TPP that would have sent our jobs and technology abroad. Trump also placed import taxes (tariffs) on some foreign goods. The MAGA folks approve, but the Obama internationalists are scandalized. As depicted in the book “Fear”, long time (Obama) staffers at the White House stole tariff bills from the president’s desk to save the world by keeping them from Trump’s signature. Tariffs have been used throughout American history, and can be a benefit for jobs, and diplomacy and for American manufacturers. They are not radical, but some people lost out. Larely, those were US consumers of foreign goods who suffered. Things improved most for black and hispanic workers though. The intellectual class who claim to represent black and hispanic interests have removed Trump and supporters from social media. It’s their way of winning the argument.
Henry Cabot Lodge, Wilson’s main opponent ito the US joining the League of Nations,.
Trump also limited the power of the world trade organization and of the world court. It’s something that Henry Kissinger recommended In the Journal “Foreign Affairs 2001. Kissinger wrote that “The danger [in too much power for the world court] consists of substituting the tyranny of judges for that of governments; historically, the dictatorship of the virtuous has often led to inquisitions and even witch-hunts.” Trump also built up the military, and claims he will eliminate a postal agreement that gives low, subsidized rates, to China and poor countries so they can mail goods to the US for far less than we can to ourselves. Joe Biden has pushed for “the dictatorship of the virtuous” and promises to raise taxes to pay for it. He’s also suggested packing the supreme court. To me, this is far more radical than tariffs.
The MAGA divide between Trump and Obama/ Biden is not new. It’s existed to a greater or lesser extent between most Democrats and Republicans as far back as the civil war. One major cause of the civil war was tariffs. Then as now, tariffs benefit the manufacturer and worker, and hurt the aristocrat.
In 1918, the MAGA divide played flared because of Wilson’s support of the League of Nations. Republican, Henry Cabot Lodge opposed joining the League of Nations over the same complaints that Trump has raised. Trump’s MAGA claim is that he’ll make US agreements serve US interests. Also that he’s making the US military strong again, and making the US economy strong again. For all I know, the plan for the next four years is to try to ignite another baby boom, too. This, as I understand it, is the MAGA message.
As a side issue, I note that virtually every rapper is for Trump, and virtually every orthodox rabbi too. Yet the internationalist claim he’s racist. His approval among black voters is polled at 46%. Unless you hold that Jewish and black voters don’t understand their own interests. it would seem that Trump is not the racist he’s claimed to be. A recent, “jews for Trump” parade in NY was attacked with rocks, eggs, fists, and paint thrown on participants by white Democrats. The racists who run the NY Justice Department decided not to prosecute.
The hope diamond resides in the Smithsonian. It really is a deep blue. It has about 5 ppm boron.
If you’ve ever seen the Hope Dimond, or a picture of it, you’ll notice a most remarkable thing: it is deep blue. While most diamonds are clear, or perhaps grey, a very few are colored. Color in diamonds is generally caused by impurities, in the case of blue diamonds, boron. The Hope diamond has about 5 ppm boron, making it a p-semiconductor. Most blue diamonds, even those just as blue, have less boron. As it turns out one of the major uses of my hydrogen purifiers hydrogen these days is in the manufacture of gem -quality, and semiconductor diamonds, some blue and some other colors. So I thought I’d write about diamonds, colored and not, natural and CVD. It’s interesting and a sort of plug for my company, REB Research.
To start off, natural diamond are formed, over centuries by the effect of high temperature and pressure on a mix of carbon and a natural catalyst mineral, Kimberlite. Diamonds formed this way are generally cubic, relatively clear, and inert, hard, highly heat conductive, and completely non-conducting of electricity. Some man made diamonds are made this way too, using high pressure presses, but gem-quality and semiconductor diamonds are generally made by chemical vapor deposition, CVD. Colored diamonds are made this way too. They have all the properties of clear diamonds, but they have controlled additions and imperfections. Add enough boron, 1000 ppm for example, and the diamond and the resulting blue diamond can conduct electricity fairly readily.
Seeds of natural diamond are placed in a diamond growth chamber and heated to about 1000°C in the presence of ionized, pure methane and hydrogen.
While natural diamond are sometimes used for technical applications, e.g. grind wheels, most technical-use diamonds are man-made by CVD, but the results tend to come out yellow. This was especially true in the early days of manufacture. CVD tends to make large, flat diamonds. This is very useful for heat sinks, and for diamond knives and manufacturers of these were among my first customers. To get a clear color, or to get high-quality colored diamonds, you need a mix of high purity methane and high purity hydrogen, and you need to avoid impurities of silica and the like from the diamond chamber. CVD is also used to make blue-conductive diamonds that can be used as semiconductors or electrodes. The process is show in the gif above from “brilliantearth”.
Multicolored diamonds made by CVD with many different dopants and treatments.
To make a CVD diamond, you place 15 to 30 seed- diamonds into a vacuum growth chamber with a flow of methane and hydrogen in ratio of 1:100 about. You heat the gas to about 1000°C (900-1200°C) , while ionizing the gas using microwaves or a hot wire. The diamonds grow epitaxially over the course of several days or weeks. Ionized hydrogen keeps the surface active, while preventing it from becoming carbonized — turning to graphite. If there isn’t enough hydrogen, you get grey, weak diamonds. If the gas isn’t pure, you get inclusions that make them appear yellow or brown. Nitrogen-impure diamonds are n-semiconductors, with a band gap greater than with boron-blue diamonds, 0.5-1 volts more. Because of this difference, nitrogen-impure diamonds absorb blue or green light, making them appear yellow, while blue diamonds absorb red light, making them blue. (This is different from the reason the sky is blue, explained here.) The difference in energy, also makes yellow diamonds poor electrical conductors. Natural, nitrogen-impure diamonds fluoresce blue or green, as one might expect, but yellow diamonds made by CVD fluoresce at longer wavelengths, reddish (I don’t know why).
The blue moon diamond, it is about as blue as the hope diamond though it has only 0.36 ppm of boron.
To make a higher-quality, yellow, n-type CVD diamonds, use very pure hydrogen. Bright yellow and green color is added by use of ppm-quantities of sulfur or phosphorus. Radiation damage also can be used to add color. Some CVD diamond makers use heat treatment to modify the color and reduce the amount of red fluorescence. CVD pink and purple diamonds are made by hydrogen doping, perhaps followed by heat treatment. The details are proprietary secrets.
Orange-red phosphorescence in the blue moon diamond.
Two major differences help experts distinguish between natural and man-made diamonds. One of these is the fluorescence, Most natural diamonds don’t fluoresce at all, and the ones that do (about 25%) fluoresce blue or green. Almost all CVD diamonds fluoresce orange-red because of nitrogen impurities that absorb blue lights. If you use very pure, nitrogen-free hydrogen, you get clear diamonds avoid much of the fluorescence and yellow. That’s why diamond folks come to us for hydrogen purifiers (and generators). There is a problem with blue diamonds, in that both natural and CVD-absorb and emit red light (that’s why they appear blue). Fortunately for diamond dealers, there is a slight difference in the red emission spectrum between natural and CVD blue diamonds. The natural ones show a mix of red and blue-green. Synthetic diamonds glow only red, typically at 660 nm.
Blue diamonds would be expected to fluoresce red, but instead they show a delayed red fluorescence called phosphorescence. That is to say, when exposed to light, they glow red and continue to glow for 10-30 seconds after the light is turned off. The decay time varies quite a lot, presumably due to differences in the n and p sites.
Natural diamond photographed between polarizers show patterns that radiate from impurities.
Natural and CVD also look different when placed between crossed polarizers. Natural diamonds show multiple direction stress bands, as at left, often radiating from inclusions. CVD diamonds show fine-grained patterns or none at all (they are not made under stress), and man-made, compression diamonds show an X-pattern that matches the press-design, or no pattern at all. If you are interested in hydrogen purifiers, or pure hydrogen generators, for this or any other purposes, please consider REB Research. If you are interested in buying a CVD diamond, there are many for sale, even from deBeers.
Robert Buxbaum, October 19, 2020. The Hope diamond was worn by three French kings, by at least one British king, and by Miss Piggy. A CVD version can be worn by you.
You may know that engineers recently succeed in decreasing the tilt of the “leaning” tower of Pizza by about 1.5°, changing it from about 5.5° to about to precisely 3.98° today –high precision given that the angle varies with the season. But you may not know how that there were at least eight other engineering attempts, and most of these did nothing or made things worse. Neither is it 100% clear that current solution didn’t make things worse. What follows is my effort to learn from the failures and successes, and to speculate on the future. The original-tilted tower is something of an engineering marvel, a highly tilted, stone on stone building that has outlasted earthquakes and weathering that toppled many younger buildings that were built straight vertical, most recently the 1989 collapse of the tower of Pavia. Part of any analysis, must also speak to why this tower survived so long when others failed.
First some basics. The tower of Pisa is an 8 story bell tower for the cathedral next door. It was likely designed by engineer Bonanno Pisano who started construction in 1173. We think it’s Pisano, because he put his name on an inscription on the base, “I, who without doubt have erected this marvelous work that is above all others, am the citizen of Pisa by the name of Bonanno.” Not so humble then, more humble when the tower started to lean, I suspect. The outer diameter at the base is 15.5 m and the weight of the finished tower is 14.7 million kg, 144 million Nt. The pressure exerted on the soil is 0.76 MPa (110 psi). By basic civil engineering, it should stand straight like the walls of the cathedral.
Bonanno’s marvelous work started to sink into the soil of Pisa almost immediately, though. Then it began to tilt. The name Pisa, in Greek, means swamp, and construction, it seems, was not quite on soil, but mud. When construction began the base was likely some 2.5 m (8 feet) above sea level. While a foundation of clay, sand and sea-shells could likely have withstood the weight of the tower, the mud below could not. Pisano added length to the south columns to keep the floors somewhat level, but after three floors were complete, and the tilt continued, he stopped construction. What to do now? What would you do?
If it were me, I’d consider widening the base to distribute the force better, and perhaps add weight to the north side. Instead, Pisano gave up. He completed the third level and went to do other things. The tower stood this way for 99 years, a three-floor, non-functional stub.
About 1272, another engineer, Giovanni di Simone, was charged with fixing the situation. His was the first fix, and it sort-of worked. He strengthened the stonework of the three original floors, widened the base so it wold distribute pressure better, and buried the base too. He then added three more floors. The tower still leaned, but not as fast. De Simone made the south-side columns slightly taller than the north to hide the tilt and allow the floors to be sort-of level. A final two stories were added about 1372, and then the first of the bells. The tower looked as it does today when Gallileo did his famous experiments, dropping balls of different size from the south of the 7th floor between 1589 and 1592.
Fortunately for the construction, the world was getting colder and the water table was dropping. While dry soil is stronger than wet, wet soil is more plastic. I suspect it was the wet soil that helped the tower survive earthquakes that toppled other, straight towers. It seems that the tilt not only slowed during this period but briefly reversed, perhaps because of the shift in center of mass, or because of changes in the sea level. Shown below is 1800 years of gauge-based sea-level measurements. Other measures give different sea-level histories, but it seems clear that man-made climate change is not the primary cause. Sea levels would continue to fall till about 1750. By 1820 the tilt had resumed and had reached 4.5°.
The 2nd attempt was begun in 1838. Architect, Alessandro Della Gherardesca got permission to dig around the base at the north to show off the carvings and help right the tower. Unfortunately, the tower base had sunk below the water table. Further, it seems the dirt at the base was helping keep the tower from falling. As Della Gherardesca‘s crew dug, water came spurting out of the ground and the tower tilted another few inches south. The dig was stopped and filled in, but he dig uncovered the Pisano inscription, mentioned above. What would you do now? I might go away, and that’s what was done.
The next attempt to fix the tower (fix 3) was by that self-proclaimed engineering genius, Benito Mussolini. In 1934. Mussolini had his engineers pump some 200 tons of concrete into the south of the tower base hoping to push the tower vertical and stabilize it. The result was that the tower lurched another few inches south. The project was stopped. An engineering lesson: liquids don’t make for good foundations, even when it’s liquid concrete. An unfortunate part of the lesson is that years later engineers would try to fix the tower by pumping water beneath the north end. But that’s getting ahead of myself. Perhaps Mussolini should have made tests on a model before working on the historic tower. Ditto for the more recent version.
On March 18, 1989 the Civic Tower of Pavia started shedding bricks for no obvious reason. This was a vertical tower of the same age and approximate height as the Pisa tower. It collapsed killing four people and injuring 15. No official cause has been reported. I’m going to speculate that the cause was mechanical fatigue and crumbling of the sort that I’ve noticed on the chimney of my own house. Small vibrations of the chimney cause bits of brick to be ejected. If I don’t fix it soon, my chimney will collapse. The wet soils of Pisa may have reduced the vibration damage, or perhaps the stones of Pisa were more elastic. I’ve noticed brick and stone flaking on many prominent buildings, particularly at joins in the chimney.
John Burland’s team cam up with many of the fixes here. They are all science-based, but most of the fixes made things worse.
In 1990, a committee of science and engineering experts was formed to decide upon a fix for the tower of Pisa. It was headed by Professor John Burland, CBE, DSc(Eng), FREng, FRS, NAE, FIC, FCGI. He was, at the time, chair of soil mechanics at the Imperial College, London, and had worked with Ove, Arup, and Partners. He had written many, well regarded articles, and had headed the geological aspects of the design of the Queen Elizabeth II conference center. He was, in a word, an expert, but this tower was different, in part because it was an, already standing, stone-on stone tower that the city wished should remain tilted. The tower was closed to visitors along with all businesses to the south. The bells were removed as well. This was a safety measure, and I don’t count it as a fix. It bought time to decide on a solution. This took two years of deliberation and meetings
In 1992, the committee agreed to fix no 4. The tower was braced with plastic-covered, steel cables that were attached around the second and third floors, with the cables running about 5° from the horizontal to anchor points several hundred meters to the north. The fix was horribly ugly, and messed with traffic. Perhaps the tilt was slowed, it was not stopped.
In 1993, fix number 5. This was the most exciting engineering solution to date: 600 tons of lead ingots were stacked around the base, and water was pumped beneath the north side. This was the reverse of the Mussolini’s failed solution, and the hope was that the tower would tilt north into the now-soggy soil. Unfortunately, the tower tilted further south. One of the columns cracked too, and this attempt was stopped. They were science experts, and it’s not clear why the solution didn’t work. My guess is that they pumped in the water too fast. This is likely the solution I would have proposed, though I hope I would have tested it with a scale model and would have pumped slower. Whatever. Another solution was proposed, this one even more exotic than the last.
For fix number 6, 1995, the team of experts, still overseen by Burland, decided to move the cables and add additional tension. The cables would run straight down from anchors in the base of the north side of the tower to ten underground steel anchors that were to be installed 40 meters below ground level. This would have been an invisible solution, but the anchor depth was well into the water table. So, to anchor the ground anchors, Burland’s team had liquid nitrogen injected into the ground beneath the tower, on the north side where the ground anchors were to go. What Burland did not seem to have realized is that water expands when it freezes, and if you freeze 40 meters of water the length change is significant. On the night of September 7, 1995, the tower lurched southwards by more than it had done in the entire previous year. The team was summoned for an emergency meeting and the liquid nitrogen anchor plan was abandoned.
Tower with the two sets of lead ingots, 900 tons total, about the north side of the base. The weight of the tower is 14,700 tons.
Fix number 7: Another 300 tons of lead ingots were added to the north side as a temporary, simple fix. The fix seems to have worked stabilizing things while another approach was developed.
Fix number 8: In order to allow the removal of the ugly lead bricks another set of engineers were brought on, Roberto Cela and Michele Jamiolkowski. Using helical drills, they had holes drilled at an angle beneath the north side of the tower. Using hoses, they removed a gallon or two of dirt per day for eleven years. The effect of the lead and the dirt removal was to reduce the angle of the tower to 4.5°, the angle that had been measured in 1820. At this point the lead could be removed and tourists were allowed to re-enter. Even after the lead was removed, the angle continued to subside north. It’s now claimed to be 3.98°, and stable. This is remarkable precision for a curved tower whose tilt changes with the seasons. (An engineering joke: How may engineers does it take to change a lightbulb? 1.02).
The bells were replaced and all seemed good, but there was still the worry that the tower would start tilting again. Since water was clearly part of the problem, the British soils expert, Burland came up with fix number 9. He had a series of drainage tunnels built to keep the water from coming back. My worry is that this water removal will leave the tower vulnerable to earthquake and shedding damage, like with the Pavia tower and my chimney. We’ll have to wait for the next earthquake or windstorm to tell for sure. So far, this fix has done no harm.
Robert Buxbaum, October 9, 2020. It’s nice to learn from other folks mistakes, and embarrassments, as well as from their successes. It’s also nice to see how science really works, not with great experts providing the brilliant solution, but slowly, like stumbling in the dark. I see this with COVID-19.
