Notes From All Over -- Part 2 -- The Chinese Flu Edition -- October 11, 2020

Before we get started (filed under: "I can't make this stuff up"):

Nobel Prize winner Dr. Jennifer Doudna and a team of researchers in California have developed a rapid COVID-19 test that can detect the virus in just five minutes using gene-editing technology. Link here.

Amazingly, the test can detect the presence of the virus in a sample using a smartphone camera: The researchers have manufactured a portable device, outfitted with low-cost laser illumination and collection optics. Not only can the technology deliver a result within minutes, instead of hours, but it avoids bulky lab technology. In developing countries, a test like this could be a god-send, making a huge difference in the responsiveness of public health officials as they direct a community's efforts to contain the virus. 

What's more: unlike every other rapid test that's been produced so far, including the Abbott Labs rapid test being used at the White House, the test developed by Doudna and her team is sensitive enough to quantify the amount of viral matter in a sample.

A smart phone? My hunch, Dr Doudna, et al, were using an Apple iPhone camera. Just saying. Would they trust a smart phone made in China to test for the Chinese flu? I don't think so. Oh, that's right. The Apple iPhone is made in China. LOL.

Resolution: I knew Apple was improving the resolution of the iPhone camera but I did not know they had come this far. To be able to take a picture of the virus is simply breath-taking. Maybe the virus is bigger than we thought and masks really do work. 

What amazes me with regard to this article: the writer's take away -- using an iPhone to detect the presence of the virus "would be a god-send in developing countries." OMG -- that's what the author took away from that story. This would be a god-send for developing countries. Helloooo... maybe even a developed country like the US would benefit from a five-minute iPhone camera test.  

The irony:

• six months to develop this incredible technology:
• five minutes to perform the test;
• six years for the FDA to approve it;

Now, where were we?

Cognitive dissonance:

• daily US coronavirus cases at highest level since mid-August. The WSJ.
• "crucial viral update, September 8, 2020."

I get a kick out of this. 

In 1918 it was called the Spanish flu. The current pandemic originated in China but MSM refused to call it what it is /was. 

There is no question in my mind that had this originated in chickens on a farm in Tioga, ND, rather than in bats in Wuhan, this would have been called the Bakken flu. Just saying.

And you do recall that the family of corona viruses was first described in chickens in North Dakota back in 1934.

Researchers were asking the question, "Why do chickens cross the road," when they stumbled upon this new virus. Researchers are still asking why chickens cross the road but at least they have a greater understanding of the corona virus. 

In the big scheme of things, the corona virus, as a human pathogen, is pretty much like any other human viral pathogen. Except a lot less infectious and a lot less dangerous. Compare with smallpox, Ebola, measles, HIV, and about 64 other viral pathogens.But I digress. Cases don't matters.Deaths per capita: that metric is a bit more relevant, but not much. Why? 

Was it a death with a positive test (and what test was used? The 30-cycle or the 40-cycle test) or was it a death from Covid-19? Was the death caused by a shotgun blast to the head or due to the 40-cycle Covid-19 test?

I don't know what definition this site uses, but North Dakota, on a Covid-19-related death per capita, is steadily marching toward the top of the list. 

North Dakota was near the bottom of the list (#40) earlier this summer, but now, the state is nearing the top of the list, nearing #20. South Dakota is doing much better but also trending up (bad).  

At this link, be sure to set the filter for "yesterday," and then mosey on over to the "total deaths/million" and rank from top to bottom. You might be surprised. Also click on New York and New Jersey, separately of course, then scroll to the last graphic on those pages: daily deaths. New York and New Jersey are quite surprising, to say the least. One can see why the governor of New York is banning NoDaks from visiting the "Excelsior!" state.

So, cases are surging, and yet hospitalizations (per case) are plummeting. We're back to freaking out over a "cold."

Nationwide hospitalizations are around 35,000, up from 30,000 a week ago but well under the numbers seen in the earlier months of the pandemic. 

The number of hospitalizations in the U.S. peaked at nearly 60,000 in mid-April and again in mid-July. 

Apparently the curve has more than flattened ... except in North Dakota.