People with Apple watches could be monitoring their oxygen levels, but the regulators require that the ability be disabled for users. This is classic regulatory capture by the industry.
Category Archives: Science And Society
Recurring Infections
The bad news is that WHO says that there is no evidence that getting an infection prevents a recurrence. The good news is that WHO has not been a particularly reliable source of information.
[Update a while later]
They’ve retracted:
Effects Of Lockdown
Two California doctors say that it doesn’t reduce the number of deaths.
Of course, since they’re not from coastal California, they’re not really California doctors.
Brave Reuters Journo
…is super pissed that the Free Beacon did the MSM’s job for them.
Nutrition Labels
Why there’s a frozen-fry shortage.
Nutrition labels, to the degree that they provide calorie information, are worse than useless, because calorie counting is stupid. FDA should not only suspend them, but eliminate them.
Ventilators
Nearly everyone put on them in New York died.
So much for “life saving.” Of course, the problem is that by the time it’s so extreme that they decide to put you on one, it’s probably too late. But this shows that the ventilator panic was probably pointless.
We’re learning rapidly how to deal with this, but we’ve unfortunately lost a lot of unwilling guinea pigs. It reminds me of what I say in the book: Every aviation regulation is written in blood. People always have to die or be injured for us to learn.
New York Patients
Nearly all of them had underlying conditions.
Of all of these, I only have hypertension (which I think is vastly overdiagnosed, andoverrated as a risk). And since only 6% had only one, I’d think it’s unlikely that hypertension by itself is that big a risk, so despite my superannuated condition, I’m not that personally concerned.
Tiptoeing Through A Dark House
The Economic Wreckage
Bob Zimmerman catalogs it.
Some things will recover quickly, but we won’t have a robust recovery until people have sufficient confidence that they can go back to sporting events or movie theaters or restaurants at normal capacity, which will probably require a vaccine (even if it’s a placebo). And now, despite all the money being pumped into the economy, the Fed has to worry seriously about deflation.
Remdesivir
…seems to be at least somewhat effective.
If we can find what works for treatment, and only isolate the most vulnerable, that’s the best path forward to re-open the economy in the absence of a vaccine.
[Update a while later]
Time to dump epidemic models? All models are wrong, some are useful, but it’s not clear that these have been, though they’ve certainly been used to implement policies that a lot of people wanted to implement before the pandemic.
[Bumped]