Thoughts Out Of Season

 Sitting up in bed today at 430 am with my old pal Insomnia my attention turned to the television: " MORE THAN 100 FIREFIGHTERS ARE BATTLING A 4 ALARM FIRE IN AN UPPER EAST SIDE BUILDING ON FIRST AVENUE" "Oh shit!" I jump up out of my stupor. My ex-wife and daughter live together on the Upper East Side on First avenue! Breaking out in an immediate sweat, heart beating like Keith Moon on meth, I grab for the remote and increase the volume so I could see the screen better (a trick I learned from my great Aunt Concetta who used to put her eye glasses on to answer the phone)I watch as a helicopter hovers over the scene revealing that, Thank God the fire was approximately 2 blocks south of her address. "WHEWWW", I let out a breath like I was holding it in for an eternity. Finally calmed I'm able to see the screen clearly "What a tragedy!" I say to myself. All those poor people evacuated in the cold! The firemen rushing through the blinding smoke a...

  A variant of Covid 19 recently discovered in Africa has caused world-wide concern that it may cause another very serious wave of infections across the globe just as it seems health officials seem to be getting a hand on the disease At this point in time, it is way too early to say whether it has the same potential to sicken like the original Covid virus but already some disturbing facts are emerging: - If you have had covid in the past it appears the variant can predispose you to being infected Covid again - While there are other variants of Covid such as the Delta variant which is the dominant strain at this time, the number of mutations present on the Omicron are astounding with 30 mu tations on the spike that attaches the virus to the target cell. This may not only cause vaccines" to not see" the which of course may lead to infection but such an infection could be much more prolonged - Early reports suggest that the Omicron virus may be 500 times more infectious than ...

 I'm sitting at a table in a cafe on Arthur Ave with my Uncle Gino watching the news. "The Windows Commision' trial had just ended and the cops were doing the perp walk for the cameras. Each boss sentenced to 100 years My Uncle turns to me "Hey Roc. You wanna be the Boss?' I give him a look like "WTF are you talking about?" He continues "Come on Roc you wanna be the Boss you can be the Boss. I'll call you Boss. When the cops come in and ask who's the Boss, I'll point to you!"

  In case you haven't heard a new variant of Covid 19, known as Omicron is causing world wide concern that we are in for another devastating wave of infection across the globe. There are already travel restrictions popping up against travelers from Africa worldwide.  There in not much known at this time when it comes to virulence and its ability to sicken and cause death as such on the scale of Covid-19 and its Delta variant. What is so concerning to scientists is that there are multiple, as much as 30 mutations identified on the spike that attaches the virus to the cell and thus infect it. These mutations may become "invisible" to any vaccine rendering it ineffective.   The variant has not yet been identified in the United States officially but it would not be out of the question to assume it is already here, For now, same suggestions. Vaccine, booster shots, wear a mask in public. It will probably take several weeks to get a rudimentary handle what we are looking ...

Today's morbidity and mortality number reflect an ever growing spread of corona virus or covid-19. Cases have popped up all over the world: South Korea 204 Japan 87 Singapore 85 Thailand 35 Malaysia 15 Italy 14 Iran in 1 day 6 cases and 2 deaths Many of these cases present without any travel to China and no known contacts. But what is most concerning to me is not the infection rate or the death rate. It is the amount of people who become critically ill and require ICU care. There are approximately 94,000  ICU beds across the country with the most skilled doctors, Physician Assistants and Nurses on hand. That surely is a lot of beds until you think how man of those beds are occupied on a daily bases diseases such as heart failure, stoke, diabetic complications, pneumonia, etc... In my experience at least 8 out of 10 beds are occupied. What in God's name are we going to do when overloaded with thousands, possibly tens of thousands of critically ill. And you...

Forget the information coming from Chinese authorities. They are still trying to save face while their citizens die in droves. But where do we look for information? Take a look at the cruise ship Diamond Princess. It's the perfect clinical trial. 3700 people isolated on that ship, no medical personnel, no involvement by Chinese authorities fudging the numbers. A trial such as this could never be replicated due to ethical concerns. What you have is a ship where all persons were quarantined in their cabins, no contact with anyone outside their cabins after the first person confirmed to have the virus. Results: Of 3700 people so far test on that ship at least 635 have come back positive which gives an infection rate of 18%. So far not all the passengers have not been tested so that number could rise. Extrapolated to the  population of the United States give  you would get if the infection rate was 20% was 60 +million people infected. Guess I can understand why 760 mil...

Every day China releases data in the number of those infected , the numbers critical and dead secondary to the corona virus. These numbers are taken at face value by WHO, CDC and tens of thousands of news organizations worldwide. But what if I told you I could do a statistical analysis of the numbers released by China and predict with incredible accuracy what tomorrows numbers would be? A regession analysis by Barron's found an incredible and very unnatural 99.99% prediction value for the information coming out of Chin. To better explain this I will quote Barron's: Put in an investing context, that variance, or so-called r-squared value, would mean that an investor could predict tomorrow’s stock price with almost perfect accuracy. In this case, the high r-squared means there is essentially zero unexpected variability in reported cases day after dayI                               Is the Chinese go...