Today’s Photo from Ted Grussing Photography: Quietly

By Ted Grussing

… the final glide back to Sedona on silent wings … no sound of an engine, only the slight whoosh of air disturbed as I pass overhead. The light was quiet too with almost pastel colors and light … a sight I can spend time looking at, remembering where I have been and planning the landing at Sedona … the airport is just above the nose in this photo.

Just above the cowling left of the nose is Cathedral Rock, the airport above that. I am roughly four nautical miles from the airport at 8,400′ above sea level and about 4,000′ above the airport … Mariah can turn that into around 22 miles in calm air, but more realistically 18 to 20 miles. So, a nice sled ride around the area before coming in for the landing..

A good link to accurate modeling of the CV-19 virus for the USA as a whole and each state is: https://covid19.healthdata.org/ and I believe it is updated daily. Last Friday when I got the link it was predicting 1,397 CV-19 deaths in Arizona and tonight it is predicting a total of 570 deaths through August 4th. A much better outcome.

To date in the 2019/2020 flu season in Arizona the influenza strains going around this year are responsible for over 1600 deaths … higher by August 4th for sure, but the death rate per week has been dropping precipitously the past several weeks since we have been implementing social distance and staying home. Good things do happen and perhaps there will be beneficial habits we will acquire and carry forward.

Have a beautiful day … stay healthy, keep breathing and enjoy quiet times.

Ted

Good night, thou sweet old world, good night;

Enfold me in the gentle light

Of other days, when gleams

Of dewy meadows held my dreams;

And quiet walks, as day sank low,

Dispelled each touch of woe.

… One hand let me hold tight.

Good night, thou sweet, old world, good night.

— Max Ehrmann

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The easiest way to reach Mr. Grussing is by email: ted@tedgrussing.com

In addition to sales of photographs already taken Ted does special shoots for patrons on request and also does air-to-air photography for those who want photographs of their airplanes in flight. All special photographic sessions are billed on an hourly basis.

Ted also does one-on-one workshops for those interested in learning the techniques he uses. By special arrangement Ted will do one-on-one aerial photography workshops which will include actual photo sessions in the air.

More about Ted Grussing …

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Derek von Briesen on April 6, 2020 10:07 pm

Ah yes, Ted, the highly influential Christopher Murray model out of the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics & Evaluation . . .

Way to go with spot-on & accurate stats in your post!! I mean that.

The value of the Murray IHME model is that it has daily state by state projections going forward to August 4. One can get a good feeling as to how accurate the predicitions are simply by taking the actual stats for daily deaths and total deaths and compare them to model’s projections on any given day.

And to add to the accuracy, the modelers are taking each day’s new figures from all states, feeding them into the model, and revising overall predictions.

So far, shelter in place/social distancing seems to be working. Daily stats on average (some variance state to state) are coming in under by 10-20% compared to the model’s predictions.

This bodes well for overall deaths over the next four months. Original predictions were around 93,00 deaths and have already been revised down to 81, 766 (as of 12:17am, EDT).

If the downward trend continues, we could see overall deaths by August 4, somewhere in the 60,000+/- range.

Horrible numbers but another very influential model (Imperial College/Neil Ferguson) had considerably higher projections.

Where the proverbial rubber will meet the road is on the other side of the variably timed peaks (April 15-May 7) where the model moves all states toward a Wuhan-like close to zero new cases after a period of slow decline.

WARNING: As the numbers look progressively better, there will be increased pressure to ‘re-open for business.’ Wuhan kept their stringent measures in place much longer than we are likely to given the administration’s stated desire to get everyone back to work and worship.

This would be a big mistake. In addition to imposing restrictions for a longer period than we are likely to, China had/has significantly more robust test and trace protocols in place to deal with flare-ups and keep the transmission numbers down.

Also, we cannot be entirely sure of the accuracy even now of the stats out of Hubei.

In addition to the assumption that we can ‘fit the curve’ to Wuhan’s in spite of our likely premature loosening of restrictions and our abysmal lack of a real test & trace capability, there is the question of what happens after August 4?

Any relaxing of restrictions assumes a rigorous test and trace, and the understanding that restrictions would quite likely have to be re-imposed should outbreaks renew.

And this period, what Tomas Pueyo calls “The Dance,” of on/off restrictions combined with rigorous testing and tracing will last until we have a vaccine or until enough people have had and recovered from COVID-19 that a degree of herd immunity will become protective of those that remain uninfected. That is truly frightening because most scientists assume at least 40% of a population for the beginnings of herd immunity. 40% of 9.5 billion = 3.8 billion X .01 (1% CFR) = 3.8 million dead.

IN other words, tragedy.

Not quite 1918 levels, but . . .

The basic fact remains true: we have no natural immunity to a highly contagious, long-incubation, 1%-3% fatal novel coronavirus for which, as yet, no vaccine has been developed.

Remember too, we have never developed a vaccine for a coronavirus heretofore.

The three keys to making it through this with the best outcome are : capacity, resources, and most importantly, RESOLVE. We can build field hospitals, produce PPE, vents, testing kits (or we hope we can), but resolve is a different thing entirely to gauge.

Over the tragically long time required to weather this unprecedented storm, we will all be tested like never before.

FINGERS CROSSED AND FAITH FORWARD, WE CAN STAY STRONG!!!

1 Comment

Derek von Briesen on April 6, 2020 10:07 pm

Ah yes, Ted, the highly influential Christopher Murray model out of the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics & Evaluation . . .

Way to go with spot-on & accurate stats in your post!! I mean that.

The value of the Murray IHME model is that it has daily state by state projections going forward to August 4. One can get a good feeling as to how accurate the predicitions are simply by taking the actual stats for daily deaths and total deaths and compare them to model’s projections on any given day.

And to add to the accuracy, the modelers are taking each day’s new figures from all states, feeding them into the model, and revising overall predictions.

So far, shelter in place/social distancing seems to be working. Daily stats on average (some variance state to state) are coming in under by 10-20% compared to the model’s predictions.

This bodes well for overall deaths over the next four months. Original predictions were around 93,00 deaths and have already been revised down to 81, 766 (as of 12:17am, EDT).

If the downward trend continues, we could see overall deaths by August 4, somewhere in the 60,000+/- range.

Horrible numbers but another very influential model (Imperial College/Neil Ferguson) had considerably higher projections.

Where the proverbial rubber will meet the road is on the other side of the variably timed peaks (April 15-May 7) where the model moves all states toward a Wuhan-like close to zero new cases after a period of slow decline.

WARNING: As the numbers look progressively better, there will be increased pressure to ‘re-open for business.’ Wuhan kept their stringent measures in place much longer than we are likely to given the administration’s stated desire to get everyone back to work and worship.

This would be a big mistake. In addition to imposing restrictions for a longer period than we are likely to, China had/has significantly more robust test and trace protocols in place to deal with flare-ups and keep the transmission numbers down.

Also, we cannot be entirely sure of the accuracy even now of the stats out of Hubei.

In addition to the assumption that we can ‘fit the curve’ to Wuhan’s in spite of our likely premature loosening of restrictions and our abysmal lack of a real test & trace capability, there is the question of what happens after August 4?

Any relaxing of restrictions assumes a rigorous test and trace, and the understanding that restrictions would quite likely have to be re-imposed should outbreaks renew.

And this period, what Tomas Pueyo calls “The Dance,” of on/off restrictions combined with rigorous testing and tracing will last until we have a vaccine or until enough people have had and recovered from COVID-19 that a degree of herd immunity will become protective of those that remain uninfected. That is truly frightening because most scientists assume at least 40% of a population for the beginnings of herd immunity. 40% of 9.5 billion = 3.8 billion X .01 (1% CFR) = 3.8 million dead.

IN other words, tragedy.

Not quite 1918 levels, but . . .

The basic fact remains true: we have no natural immunity to a highly contagious, long-incubation, 1%-3% fatal novel coronavirus for which, as yet, no vaccine has been developed.

Remember too, we have never developed a vaccine for a coronavirus heretofore.

The three keys to making it through this with the best outcome are : capacity, resources, and most importantly, RESOLVE. We can build field hospitals, produce PPE, vents, testing kits (or we hope we can), but resolve is a different thing entirely to gauge.

Over the tragically long time required to weather this unprecedented storm, we will all be tested like never before.

FINGERS CROSSED AND FAITH FORWARD, WE CAN STAY STRONG!!!