Airborne COVID-19

I am familiar with OSHA regulations - had to implement/enforce them in the reserves and active duty for nearly 2 decades. OSHA is about erring greatly on the side of caution toward making a potentially hazardous work environment routinely safe. If OSHA were calling the shots, no one would ever go outside until we have global herd immunity and a highly effective vaccine. This pandemic is a much different context. Lives require economics to continue more than what strict lockdowns can save. When you go outside, it’s a warzone of pathogens: viruses, bacteria, mold, pollen, parasites, radiation, pollution, dust, even prions - all are dangerous to our bodies. If we implemented OSHA into everyday activities, we’d be bubble boys and girls, living in a sterilized environment that goes with us wherever we go. Such would be more dangerous if that environment was compromised because for many viruses our immune system has a “memory” that fades in the absence of “use”. So erring greatly on the si...

This is another attempt to raise awareness of how statistics can be misinterpreted and even intentionally misused. Seldom trust the media when it reports such things. We heard about the growing evidence that people are more likely to die if they take hydroxychloroquine. One such news headline extracted one of Trump’s many words of indiscretion, namely, “what do you have to lose” with the nutgraf answering, “with your life”. Such sends a powerful message. The problem is it is a deception because it is an example of the Simson Effect, which is when statistics flip when all the data of the study is taken into consideration. A famous example one will find in statistics textbooks is comparing the mortality rate of patients transported by ambulance vs. helicopter. It showed that patients were several times more likely to die if transported by helicopter. Is it the jolting around, or atmospheric pressure change, or something else? When they dug into the data and accounted for the level of sev...