jlerollblues on Science and surprisingly related topics

  RAMS simulation of Hurricane Andrew Responding to the 30-year anniversary of Hurricane Andrew. One of my favorite accomplishments (Eastman, J.L., 1995: Numerical simulation of Hurricane Andrew - Rapid intensification. 21st Conference on Hurricanes and Tropical Meteorology, 24-28 April 1995, Miami, Florida, AMS, Boston, 111-113.) Made me think about how old I am getting and how I am in a sense the father of modern-day hurricane forecasting. Amazingly the "good ole boys’ network" at the HRC sucked up all funds and they pursued it. We gave up getting funding despite having Bill Gray on our team (the father of statistical seasonal hurricane forecasting). I remember he walked in one day when our team was viewing the animation I produced. He piped in loudly, "when the hell did that hurricane form, I missed it!". We all roared with laughter.  I have been addicted to numerical modeling ever since. Thanks Dr. Roger Pielke Sr. for letting me go off in tangents during my gra...

 During the morning Covid model programming/forecast/reading I like to randomly pick a show and play. Actually helps me type and my thoughts flow better. Today I clicked on 7-8-78 Red Rocks. Then hearing Donna on a pretty wild rampage I thought, "Damn, it's Donna's Birthday". So the in honor of Donna I start the inaugural Grateful Dead Show of the Day. Click on the link and enjoy! 8-22-2022:  https://archive.org/details/gd78-07-08.sbd.unknown.294.sbeok.shnf 8-23-2022:  https://archive.org/details/gd73-11-30.sbd.vernon.8099.sbeok.shnf Interesting stories behind the concert and how Dick's Picks released it. Back in the days of cassette tapes I was an active trader through The Dead-Flames Digest. Met many of the folks personally, some older, some younger. That's besides the point, maybe more later. I traded for this show, of which only 1 source was known at the time. When it arrived I quickly inserted the cassette and holy shit, it was one of the worst audience r...

Vaccine Update:  https://www.medpagetoday.com/special-reports/exclusives/100482?xid=nl_mpt_Nursing_update_2022-09-01&eun=g2122517d0r%3Fxid%3Dnl_mpt_Nursing_update_2022-09-01&eun=g2122517d0r Here is a summary from the Daily Beast.   https://www.thedailybeast.com/new-ba46-covid-variant-is-shaping-up-to-be-a-deja-vu-nightmare It appears to have a minimum of a 10% advantage over BA.5, our current dominant variant. There is another in India that is wreaking havoc, BA.2.75. I will keep an eye on that. MAPS will be run this weekend with the best data I have at the moment to look at the temporal trajectory over the next couple months. Keep in mind that we have several factors that could magnify the severity of the outcome from BA.4.6. These include: Back to school time Mass gatherings at events with little or no mitigation requirements More indoor time as fall arrives Little public alarm to what is going on resulting from mixed messaging (see latest CDC reorganization) Horribl...

Dr. Osterholm: https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/covid-19/podcasts-webinars/episode-111 Matt and me:  https://soundcloud.com/user-587903571/dr-joe-eastman-with-matt-august-18-2022?utm_source=clipboard&utm_campaign=wtshare&utm_medium=widget&utm_content=https%253A%252F%252Fsoundcloud.com%252Fuser-587903571%252Fdr-joe-eastman-with-matt-august-18-2022

 We have seen the masks mandates (and social distancing) continually being chipped away from interests (protesters and $$$'s have won) other than public health. Now its got to the point where supposed experts and CDC mouthpieces are say it is time to move on and follow some alternate science, and subsequently most mandates have disappeared, even in our damn public schools. Well, what does MAPS have to say about this? No subjectivity in a damn computer model, its Switzerland when it comes to this. Neutral, objective like public health experts should be, just follow the science baby. Maps was used to perform a quick sensitivity study on mask mandates effect on the evolution of the Covid spread in the United States. Only N95 masks were deployed and with a 10 foot social distance the effectiveness was set to 80% for all integrations, and yes  @DrLeanaWen the model wears masks indoors, no hypocrisy in MAPS.  A total of 6 integrations were performed with the only difference bei...

The model is again fully functional for using the CDC Vaccination Dataset. A format change cause some significant problems. The automatic download quit working and the reporting frequency changed. Water under the damn now. First, let's examine the model evolution starting 7-25 through 8-10-2022 (Dates listed are the forecast initialization date, the BA.2.75 variant has been added).  The model indicates a progression of lower domain wide initial Ensemble Average (EA) Active Case values. There are factors that influence the model. The first forecasts are early in the model learning process. At this time the individual ensemble members are weighted equally. This is influenced through the model variance and correlation to the observational data after normalization (each state is a data point). The large initial jumps are related to the CDC only reporting vaccinations weekly (started June 26, 2022). You might wonder why the difference because of vaccine data, but that is a day for anoth...

 Dr. Osterholm has been consistent since day 1 essentially. He is an outspoken critic of the CDC guidelines and essentially reinforces many of the points I have pounded on in the irrationality of the CDC/State/local responses. Please listen to his most recent webinar. Excellent! https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/covid-19/podcasts-webinars/episode-110

This just came out: https://www.bmj.com/content/378/bmj-2022-071234 And this is now being as justification for more push to back to school.Of course POC of have been impacted more. Most do not have the online access for remote learning unless they go to some free wi-fi areas. And they were already behind the eight ball to begin with:  https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/01/us/national-test-scores-math-reading-pandemic.html?campaign_id=60&emc=edit_na_20220901&instance_id=0&nl=breaking-news&ref=cta&regi_id=125060377&segment_id=102921&user_id=068086cf982ff7273bf621a1858e627f   https://twitter.com/i/status/1565359725981712385 Kids can get #longCOVID . Kitty was a fit 14-year-old. She enjoyed ballet, paddleboarding, & running. Then she contracted #COVID19 . “You go through so many phases of up and down, it’s like being on a rollercoaster forever." Kids can be sent back to school IF adequate protections have been put in place. They need the social inter...

 The forecast model is back in action after cleaning up a data ingest mess (no thanks to the CDC) to initialize the model.  WARNING: The following forecast will alarm you. If it doesn't you are a human with no empathy. MAPS Forecast: 7.22.2022 I have been hammering on the phrase "new normal" (NN). Here is what it could look like: Remember, the reported cases have been hovering around 120,000 new cases a day since mid-May. Now that BA.5.x and BA.4.x have taken root active cases are predicted to rise and stay nearly constant over the next 2 months. This could be our NN with nearly 600 deaths a day, long Covid outcomes increasing, health care workers bailing, and no end in site. It is like a Covid version of the "background" cases of the flu with little seasonal variability. What the hell do our "leaders" expect? Divine intervention?  So where is this NN likely to reside the most? A quick look at urban and rural Minnesota gives us an idea. The animation a...