August 2021 – Page 4 – Life of an old goat

COVID update: how I see it

This was posted on my FB:

My updated COVID post: (thoughtful, respectful responses are welcome, even if you wish to disagree with some of these points)

1. Vaccines: cases. We are seeing some interesting data about how well vaccines prevent infection, hospitalizations and deaths. Some of the stats are misleading. “The reported share of COVID-19 cases among those not fully vaccinated ranged from 94.1% in Arizona to 99.85% Connecticut.”(reference in comment 1) The problem here is that this just reports “total unvaccinated who got infected”/total who got infected” and this includes cases that occurred when vaccines were just getting going.

A more useful stat would be “infection rate of unvaccinated” vs. “infection rate of vaccinated” IN THE SAME location (don’t compare Vermont to Arkansas” and the first figure I show does that in San Diego County. It appears that in a similar situation, an unvaccinated person is about 9 times more likely than a vaccinated person to get infected.This area: 18 cases per 100,000 in a week for unvaccinated vs. 2 per 100,000 vaccinated. In an area with 100000 people, and say, 60 percent vaccinated, this would be a case rate of (.6)(2) + .4(18) = 8.4 per 100000, with 23.8 percent of cases coming from vaccinated people.

2. However, vaccines are even much better at preventing hospitalizations and deaths. Example: of the 125000 breakthrough infections recently recorded, there were 1400 deaths. That is 1.12 percent. But given that one has a much lower chance of even being infected to begin with, that is outstanding protection against death. The US ratio is 1.74 percent for all cases (vaxxed and unvaxxed)

3. Masks and spread (see reference in second comment)It turns out that the spread is primarily aerosol. It was first thought to be droplets because the “droplet” spread model fit well for reasonably ventilated spaces. But for poorly ventilated spaces, it appears to be aerosol, which means that one can get infected even if one is well away from the infected individual.But the big deal is that, formerly, it was though that aerosol droplets were 5 microns in size or less; it turns out that it is about 100 microns or less.So, as before, masks work to keep the infected from spreading it AND a good mask does provide extra protection for the non-infected as well, even in this aerosol type situation.

4. Delta is much more infectious; a brief encounter can induce an infection (not as true with the previous variants) So it isn’t surprising to see cases go up so rapidly.5. A vaccinated person who gets infected carries about the same load as an unvaccinated person. Vaccines reduce the spread as a vaccinated person is less likely to get infected. My own practices:1. I mask outdoors (2 layer fabric or better) if I will be around people (say at a game concourse, or if some are sitting somewhat close to me..often not the case 2. I use a special 3 layer mask indoors for the gym (my two gyms have good ventilation, high ceilings, and are often not crowded3. I use KN 95 for other indoor things where I am around people I don’t know.4. I avoid excessively crowded things (Chiefs games are not a problem)

5. I don’t mask for small gatherings of known, trusted, vaccinated people who are asymptomatic. I do isolate from infected people.

Hope: we ARE starting too see more people getting vaccinated.

Holding pattern

Yesterday’s PT was a bit embarrassing; my glute medius is super weak on my “bad” side; the leg lifts I did humiliated me (leg behind the body near a wall); these are hard to describe. One of them is here:

I did better with chest taps with a wider leg stance.

Today: yoga, 4 lap walk (tingles started), rehab: some shoulder, abs with the ball (two kinds) chest taps, band walks, more shoulder

1 hour bike (19.25 fake miles)

Some shoulder pain last night.

A little bit forward..a bit back

I had some night shoulder pain. It could have been from sleeping with my spouse..or from…yes, the elliptical trainer (though I tried to keep my shoulders down) OR…from a deep stretch I did prior to going to bed.

This is tough, as I often don’t know what was bad until the evening.

I’ll update after therapy.

Pull-ups (2 sets of 5, 3 sets of 10, 3 sets of 5) went better; I focused on the shoulder blades); push ups had greater ROM (3 sets of 20), then 3 sets of: curls with 50, rows with 134, and careful, seated shoulder presses with 44 (the bar alone). I’ll have to really take the ego out of my shoulder presses.

Division, mistrust and difficult to deal with data

Sadly, COVID measures have become part of politics and that is deeply unfortunate.

Yes, smart, informed people can disagree on cost-benefit analysis; after all, I take just that sort of analysis when I decide on whether to go to a yoga class, ball game, or even when I decided to go to “in person” teaching last year (following the vaccination of my higher risk wife).

But some things really are black and white.

The trouble is, “black and white” doesn’t mean “easy to understand.” For example, take the issue of how effective masks are at “preventing infecting the user” of said masks. There was debate over “droplet spread” vs. “aerosol spread”, with the latter having much smaller droplets. But, as we see:

“According to them, particles bigger than 100 microns sank within seconds. Smaller particles stayed in the air. Randall paused at the curve they’d drawn. To her, it seemed to foreshadow the idea of a droplet-aerosol dichotomy, but one that should have pivoted around 100 microns, not 5. “

What this means: yes, aerosol transmission of COVID is real..it is airborne and can easily defeat the 6 feet distance in poorly ventilated spaces. But the droplets are still big enough for a mask to be useful in mitigation effects.

Then there is the issue of vaccines, and what does it mean if there are a large number of breakthrough infections?

This article looks at data from states that measures breakthrough infections:

“Almost all (more than 9 in 10) COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations, and deaths have occurred among people who are unvaccinated or not yet fully vaccinated, in those states reporting breakthrough data (see Figure 2).“

BUT…how far back does this data go? Remember that vaccines started in mass in January, often with priority to those in certain groups. So of course, the “vaccinated vs unvaccinated” numbers would be lopsided during this time. And delta has just arrived here. That is, what would “cases in the last 1-2 weeks of July” look like? Remember this:

“Nearly three out of four people (346 of 469) who tested positive for COVID-19 in a Massachusetts outbreak were fully vaccinated, according to data released by the CDC Friday.“

This is post-delta and includes a population with high vaccination rates.

I hasten to point out this was a mass gathering event, and that vaccines almost certainly kept the total number of who would become infected much lower (I’ve heard 5 times lower) than they otherwise might have been. And few of these ended up in the hospital..that too is important.

Evidence: in San Diego County, the unvaccinated COVID rate is 18 per 100,000 whereas it is 2 per 100,000 for the vaccinated.

This. This. A thousand times, this. pic.twitter.com/TB24b1JIbl
— Aaron E. Carroll (@aaronecarroll) August 1, 2021

I am “Mr. Get the Damned Shot”..make no mistake about it. But honestly and accurately interpreting the data is not that easy.

August 1: part 2: painful Chiefs games

No easy way to say it: the Chiefs were soundly beaten on Saturday night 11-2 and again on Sunday 7-3; the victor was the Beloit Snappers.

The Saturday game saw a decent (by 2021 standards) crowd but the Chiefs were never really in it; base running errors (run down between 3’rd and home), errors in a potential score saving double play, you name it.

Yes, I wear a mask around people (in the concourse, when there are fans there) but take it off if I have several open seats around me.

Sunday: far fewer people (not a surprise) and ..sadly another loss.

1 August part I: lifting

Rehab, some deadlifting outside, then 30 minutes on the house indoor bike (10.1 miles..I know..fake)

10 x 134, 10 x 184, 10 x 224 (ok; focused on set-ups)

Work set: 5 sets of 3 on the 3 minute: 251, 251, 251, 257, 257 (some tugging on my RIGHT glute medius on some of the reps..not pain but I noticed “something”..I am paranoid.

Romanian: 2 sets of 10 x 134; second set was better. Also did some banded walks.

Shoulder and glute: some tingles with the glute; shoulder ached a bit last night; was my pre-sleep chest stretch too aggressive? It is just a tiny bit achy right now too.

Bunny was completely unimpressed.