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Covid 12/10: Vaccine Approval Day in America
Posted on December 10, 2020 by TheZvi
Today, the FDA is meeting to discuss Pfizer's Covid-19 vaccine. By the time many of you read this, they will have hopefully given the vaccine, and perhaps Moderna's as well, emergency use authorization. If that happens, distributions to the states can begin, and some people will be vaccinated as early as tomorrow.
That is excellent news. Alas, supplies remain highly limited and the vaccine takes a month to work. States are getting smaller allocations of the vaccine than they expected. The situation for the holiday season remains unchanged, and most of us will likely not become immune until some time around May.
Two weeks ago, I noted data was about to get weird. A week ago I observed that the data was weird. What I didn't note was that the Covid Tracking Project had written a post about exactly in what ways they expected it to be weird, which were different in places from the ways I expected. Lots of good observations in there. The post makes a convincing case that I was underestimating expected delays and bottlenecks.
Despite that, we saw a big jump in positive test percentage on Tuesday, December 2, exactly when I'd expected one. That could mostly be a coincidence. Perhaps that was more of a shift in timing of reporting, with the real surge from Thanksgiving coming later. I certainly buy the augment that such super-spreader events infect people in multiple waves, as those infected take the virus home, and we should expect an unusually high effective R0 in the week after Thanksgiving.
That will not give us much time to recover before Christmas and New Year's Eve give their one-two punch. It seems unlikely we will turn the corner until after those get to play out. Despite previous holidays not showing up much in the data, these big three seem like a huge deal to me, especially now. People are sick of it all.
People are also sick, period. Death rates are up. Positive test rates are up. Cases are up.
This week's post attempts to limit Twitter links. In cases where the link is serving as a source but is otherwise inessential, I'm going to link it explicitly and purely as a source, so there's no need to click unless you want to verify it. Any other Twitter links didn't have a good substitute I could find easily.
Last week's prediction: My unconfident prediction is a 14.8% positive rate on 10 million tests, and an average of 2,200 deaths to account for at least some amount of catching up in reporting. But, again, wider than usual error bars all around.
Results: We got a 13.7% positive rate on 10.4 million tests, and an average of 2,276 deaths. So somewhat better positive rate than I expected, but not as good as one might hope.
Next week: My baseline prediction is a 14.3% positive rate on 11 million tests, and an average of 2,550 deaths per day.
Date WEST MIDWEST SOUTH NORTHEAST
Oct 8-Oct 14 782 1217 2366 436
Oct 15-Oct 21 804 1591 2370 523
Oct 29-Nov 4 956 1977 2309 613
Nov 5-Nov 11 1089 2712 2535 870
Nov 12-Nov 18 1255 2934 2818 1127
Nov 26-Dec 2 1628 3814 2742 1939
Dec 3-Dec 9 2437 5508 4286 2744
If anything, deaths continue to lag infections, likely due to holiday effects, so this is likely an underestimate of how bad things are out there. Even at face value, things are clearly quite bad. The Midwest number is higher than any previous peak, the South is not far behind and the total death count is at an all time high, with numbers going up dramatically everywhere.
Positive Tests
Oct 8-Oct 14 68284 125744 117995 38918
Oct 15-Oct 21 75571 149851 133238 43325
Oct 29-Nov 4 112684 252917 167098 70166
Nov 5-Nov 11 157495 387071 206380 108581
Nov 12-Nov 18 211222 452265 255637 150724
Nov 26-Dec 2 256629 357102 294734 185087
Dec 3-Dec 9 354397 379823 368596 263886
Outside of the Midwest, it seems clear things continue to rapidly get worse, and last week was a data hiccup as expected. In the Midwest, it looks plausible from this graph that things have peaked, but positive test percentages will be the judge of that.
Test Counts
Date USA tests Positive % NY tests Positive % Cumulative Positives
Oct 1-Oct 7 6,009,923 5.2% 763,935 1.3% 2.28%
Oct 8-Oct 14 6,322,326 5.7% 850,223 1.1% 2.39%
Oct 15-Oct 21 6,440,150 6.5% 865,890 1.2% 2.52%
Oct 29-Nov 4 7,246,068 8.6% 973,777 1.6% 2.86%
Nov 5-Nov 11 8,285,598 10.6% 1,059,559 2.4% 3.13%
Nov 12-Nov 18 8,917,701 12.4% 1,155,670 2.9% 3.47%
Nov 19-Nov 25 10,430,055 11.6% 1,373,751 2.9% 3.83%
Nov 26-Dec 2 9,788,446 11.5% 1,287,010 4.0% 4.18%
Dec 3-Dec 9 10,458,813 13.7% 1,411,142 4.9% 4.61%
Test counts have recovered back to their peak and should presumably resume going up now. That positive rate is one ugly number, and it looks like New York is rapidly ceasing to be that much safer than the rest of the country, although it does run way more tests than most places.
The cumulative positives number is getting quite substantial, especially given how many infections are being missed, and that those infected are not a random sample. Without immunity from those already infected, we would likely be seeing growth now like we saw back in March.
Positive Test Percentages
Percentages Northeast Midwest South West
10/8 to 10/14 2.57% 8.14% 7.09% 4.75%
10/15 to 10/22 2.95% 8.70% 7.85% 5.36%
10/29 to 11/4 4.28% 12.79% 8.86% 7.04%
11/5 to 11/11 5.56% 17.51% 9.89% 8.31%
11/12 to 11/18 6.99% 18.90% 11.64% 10.66%
11/26 to 12/2 8.38% 17.90% 12.45% 12.79%
12/3 to 12/9 10.47% 17.94% 13.70% 12.76%
I am ready to believe the story that the Midwest is more or less peaking now. Their test percentages have been in a narrow range for the last five weeks, and their immunity effects are rapidly increasing. The West's number is encouraging, but it is on vastly more tests. That many more tests should drive down percentages enough to account for this, or alternatively disproportionally many negative tests got reported late and are warping the curve there a bit. Optimism seems premature.
In the Northeast and South, trends do not look good, and the Northeast especially looks quite bad, as if a combination of holidays and colder weather has broken the control system, and things are likely to get substantially worse before they get better. Time to bunker down.
My best guess is that the likely overall true peak is after the effects of Christmas and New Year's, so the measured peak of infections should be some time in mid-January, with deaths closer to the end of January. Early vaccinations will assist a little with this, but not much, as they are going to the vulnerable and deserving rather than to those most likely to spread the disease, and there are not that many doses.
Note that I continue to not list hospitalizations in these charts. They continue to rise, but that seems to me to still say more about how hospitals are handling things than about how many are infected or sick. Even if things were improving and there were plenty of beds, hospitalizations would still be rising now, because there would be more people getting sick now than are ready to leave the hospital, as discharges are going to lag cases by quite a bit. So while it's certainly something I look at as a sanity check, I don't know what it can teach us.
Covid Machine Learning Projections
For those interested, here's a closer look at the Covid-19 Projections website's nowcast model for true prevalence. Layman summary by him on Twitter here. Can be compared to his earlier write-up here. Seems intuitively like reasonable approximations. What it doesn't look like is the output of a machine learning algorithm, which is interesting. It looks a lot like something I would create if I was trying to plausibly fit a bunch of curves and generate reasonable claims in a smooth consistent manner, except that this uses a suspiciously large number of round numbers. I have some experience with this sort of thing.
The machine learning project doesn't know about Thanksgiving and its warping effects on data, so it still thinks there was a brief downward blip in infections a few weeks ago, although it now recognizes that things resumed getting worse shortly thereafter. If you smooth that out, answers here continue to seem sane and they see us as having had 630k infections per day two weeks ago, with 2.6% infected at that time and 17.3% of the population having been infected at some point, or over 20% by today. I continue to think that answer is on the very low end of plausible.
Germany continues to be stable. Many others have seen dramatic declines from their peaks, and the United States once again has a far worse Covid problem than Europe.
My news sources have not seen much happening in Europe this week, and the charts seem straightforward. Countermeasures have worked in at least containing things and preventing them from getting worse, but no one is aiming at suppression, instead they are waiting for the vaccine.
No, Not That Pandemic Vaccine, That Other Pandemic Vaccine
Team behind Oxford Covid jab start final stage of malaria vaccine trials. This is excellent news. Also a reminder that the world is smaller than it appears, as the same team behind one of three Covid-19 vaccines also produced this one. Given how most of the time and effort involved in vaccines seems to involve testing them and overcoming regulatory barriers, it should not be surprising that teams that make one vaccine can also make more.
Malaria is kind of a big deal, killing over 400,000 people a year. Bed nets are one of the prototypical Effective Altruist causes. Whether or not the best strategy would be to instead eradicate malaria in Africa the way it was eradicated in America, that is not happening at the moment. Barring that, a cheap and widely available vaccine seems like an excellent way to go.
"A lot more people will die in Africa this year from malaria than will die from Covid. I don't mean twice as many, probably 10 times," Hill said. The vaccine "is going to be available in very large amounts, it works pretty well. And it's going to be very low priced."
The vaccine could be in use by 2024 if the final human trials are successful, he said.
So we are now entering the final stage of trials, which means we are only three years away from starting vaccinations. Some time next year, 4,800 children will be vaccinated, then we will wait a very long time, likely in part because we only vaccinated 4,800 children. This is what people mean when they say what a great achievement the Covid-19 vaccines have been in terms of speed. Here we have a vaccine that likely could save over a million people if we sped up its release and distribution by three years, and we are not doing that because of reasons.
All of you Effective Altruists who were already working hard on malaria, is there any way to push on this and make it go faster? Perhaps you can arrange for a larger trial that will gather more data faster? Perhaps you can fund scaling up production or distribution faster in advance? What about Bill Gates, who is very involved with malaria and funded pre-production of Covid-19 vaccines? By the end of 2021, we should have sufficient doses of Covid-19 vaccines, which leaves years to handle production on this one even if they are in conflict. It does not appear this is getting the level of urgency it deserves.
All I Want For Christmas Are a Covid Vaccine and a PS5, But They Underpriced Them And Now They're All Sold Out
What does everyone else want for Christmas?
A PS5, yes. And thanks to my good friend Seth Burn, I got one! Section title will have to change.
For a slim majority, also a Covid vaccine.
There was a Pew Research survey this week on who intends to get the vaccine.
For those who want to guess who wants it more before looking, the categories are Male, Female, Postgrad, College, HS or less, Upper income, Middle income, Lower income, Over 65, Under 30, White, Black, Hispanic and Asian.
Answers are at the end of the section via screenshot (or Twitter source here).
To help convince the hesitant ones to change their minds, at least some skin in the game is officially here: Former Presidents Obama, Bush and Clinton volunteer to get coronavirus vaccine publicly to prove it's safe. I would assume Biden as well. Trump already had Covid-19, but if the goal is to show it is safe rather than effective, it would be great if he joined them anyway. I haven't seen this actually suggested anywhere? Will be a while before it matters much, given the severe shortage of doses.
You know who should likely get the Covid vaccine early? Airline pilots.
So naturally, the FAA is currently telling them that if they get their vaccine, they will lose their medicals, and not be allowed to fly. They are monitoring the FDA's decisions closely, but pilots are not allowed to get vaccinations that don't have full approval. I would never have predicted this particular plot point, but on a meta-level I find it entirely unsurprising. It makes sense that there would be government regulations that ban the vaccine from getting to some of the people who need it most. That the best we can hope for is that some such authorities try to kill us less aggressively some of the time.
Scream If You Wanna Go Faster
The vaccine even works faster than we thought! From the FDA report: Looks like efficacy even for one dose might be 88.9%. Here's the graph.
That doesn't mean we can do only one dose per person for a while until we have enough doses, because we don't know the consequences of a longer wait or whether the immunity from only one dose would last, but it's still great news. It also puts people in a profoundly weird spot, since they're mostly immune now, but will be much more immune soon. How safe do you play it during that period?
Business insider asks why the United States is behind the United Kingdom in approving the vaccine. Here is the functional explanation they give:
The regulatory process involves experts reviewing "thousands of pages" of technical information, an FDA representative told Axios on Tuesday.
The agency also has to evaluate the manufacturing process, check statistical analyses, and look at the effect of the vaccine on groups of people with high risk of side effects, the representative said.
The FDA and the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, the UK regulator, have different processes to review vaccines, Dr. Penny Ward, a visiting professor in pharmaceutical medicine at King's College London, told The New York Times.
The FDA asks drugmakers for raw data, which it reanalyzes, while British regulators rely more heavily on reports produced by the drugmakers.
An alternative hypothesis is that the FDA is delaying the process intentionally. With the cover story that this is being done 'in order to be careful' so as to prevent fear that the vaccine was rushed. I strongly agree that there are approximately zero people who are going to look at the gap between application for approval and when the FDA approves the application, and use that as a true objection that justifies not taking the vaccine. To the extent that this group has non-zero members, the group Tyler points out, that takes the delay as worrisome and uses that as its true objection, is not obviously smaller.
The simpler explanation is that there was already a meeting scheduled for December 8-10, people had holiday plans, and the FDA simply did not care enough about doing this faster to move the meeting.
In other Tyler modeling news, while the cause of faster vaccine approvals is clearly righteous, I do not think we can model a day's delay in approval as delaying vaccine production by one day. The story flat out makes no sense to me. Pfizer is not going to produce vaccine slower, at any point, because the FDA gives formal approval on December 10 instead of November 30. The vaccine is already approved in the UK, so there is a guaranteed place to sell more doses than they can possibly produce this month, in the worst case scenario. The probability of approval by the FDA isn't 100%, but given their knowledge of the data, it's close. Every sign points to the approval being a formality. So I hold strongly that the damage done is that current doses are shipped with a delay, not that all doses are delayed.
Still, that's pretty bad. It looks plausibly like a third of all deaths are of nursing home residents that could be reached in the first wave. So they all are getting vaccinated two weeks late, which means the cost here is something like 1,000 additional deaths per day of delay from that alone. Then add in the healthcare workers, and their new ability to actually do their jobs fully and also avoid turning hospitals into outbreaks. So yeah, it's a lot of blood, but giving them every death between application and approval isn't fair.
After I wrote that section, Tyler wrote a post even more explicitly disagreeing with this, essentially claiming that yes approval would accelerate other tasks substantially, which I continue to mostly not buy. I think his argument holds when approval is truly uncertain, but not when it is a formality. I do understand and share the frustration with those who use constraint X to justify not working to remove constraint Y, which we don't work on because constraint Z, which we don't work on because constraint X. Yes, we should be working on the other constraints. But that doesn't change the answer to the question.
Switzerland is going even slower, making the usual noises about the need for 'caution.' My read is that this is because they did not order vaccine doses early enough, and now they are all sold out, so why not spin that by not approving the vaccine for a while and calling it 'caution?'
As we know from last week, the Europeans are taking it relatively slow, despite knowing the answer already:
The impression it gives to me is not that officials were taken by surprise. It is that they had a choice to make, and made it.
Cell asks how we might speed up future vaccine development in case of a new pandemic. The strategy is based on it not being that hard to predict where future pandemics come from. If most are going to be variations on a few existing virus families, we can do a lot of the work in advance. They suggest that for only a few billion dollars, we can do advance Phase I and Phase II trials for vaccines designed for each virus family that could plausibly cause a future pandemic, stockpile doses, and be ready to proceed to Phase III right away.
If we had the vaccine in question ready to go on day one, then the phase III could begin the equivalent of February, then all we'd have to do is wait for enough infections.
What they do not say is that we could do much better than this by using human challenge trials. If we were willing to do such trials, and had already gathered safety data, there is no reason we could not know the vaccine's effectiveness and safety within a few weeks of identifying the new pathogen. Remember, Moderna created their vaccine in two days. Then all that is left is to scale production.
Cell does not suggest this, instead taking the need for a regular Phase III as a fixed law of nature that cannot be changed even when preparing in advance for a future threat.
And that's valuable! I am glad that people are taking seriously the question of "if the people and procedures in charge of slowing down and stopping development must be accommodated, how can we do that as quickly as possible?" Very good question. I only wish we could also fully ask an even better one.
The vaccine is the ultimate case of More Dakka. However much we are spending on it, it won't be enough. We should spend more. That was true before. It's still true now. The case for going big remains overwhelming. This whole time, we could have built far more capacity in exchange for (in context) trivial amounts of money. Pfizer offered us 200 million doses of vaccine in July, but we balked at the price tag, and only ordered 100 million doses. Then this week the Trump administration tried to buy more, but Pfizer informed us that other countries bought those other doses instead, and they won't have capacity for more until next June. Whoops. Then Trump issued some sort of executive order demanding that the doses go to us instead, because America, to which the chief scientist of Operation Warp Speed has said, "I literally don't know" what it means. And in an evergreen statement, "The White House is doing what the White House is doing."
I don't think this is going to slow us down much once Moderna is added to the picture, but if this mistake costs us all an extra month or two of our lives, it would be one of the worst times someone has walked away from an obviously great deal. If I was told my available dose was in June rather than April, I don't think I personally take that much extra risk given how perilous a state the hospital situation might be in for the next few months, but it definitely feels like a plausible last straw for many. In particular, being given one timeline, then having a delay for such a stupid reason, seems very much a 'screw it I'm done with this' moment. Again, I'm not doing that if this happens. But if others do that, I totally get it.
The Money Illusion has thoughts, speculating that bureaucracies are simply incapable of adjusting on the fly when the things that change matter. In Sumner's proposed model, what you enter the crisis with is mostly what you are stuck with unless you force their hand, and we forced it but not enough.
The Grumpy Economist wants to go fastest of all. He suggests the obviously correct answer, which is to allow free market vaccines and to distribute them by price, starting in February for those willing to buy it under those conditions. He claims this would have prevented the pandemic, which is going too far, since scaling up production and convincing enough people to take it would have taken months.
If we wanted to prevent the pandemic in the first place, that requires going much further. We would have needed to allow free market testing.
Let us be clear. Government bans on private action are entirely responsible for the entire pandemic in the West. Period.
Meanwhile in India, they rejected the emergency use authorization for AstraZeneca's vaccine. Which seems entirely unsurprising, given that there are all sorts of problems with the studies so far, which is why they didn't even attempt such a thing in the West. But of course, it's also, from an expected value position, completely insane. The vaccine is super cheap and the safety data seems ironclad. So what if we don't know how effective it is? It's weird to pick on India here. If anything, they deserve praise for making it worthwhile to ask the question at all. They might have gotten the right answer, even though they didn't.
For Me But Not For Thee
Austin Mayor Steve Adler (source):
Late Show Host Steven Colbert (source):
The Ramsey Tax Is Too Damn High
I think this calculation by Tyler Cowen, viewing Covid-19 as a "Ramsey tax problem," is not only importantly wrong but exactly backwards and rather perverse, in ways worth exploring.
The whole point of saying we are overreacting, to say that the costs of Covid-19 are not that high, is exactly to argue that the costs borne have been extraordinarily high. The claim is that the costs from infection are low, and that we are making a mistake to bear such high costs, such huge deadweight losses. There hasn't been a huge non-health loss as a law of nature. There's been a huge non-health loss because we made choices. Why must we accept those choices as given, and thus assume that the non-health costs must be so high relative to counterfactual health costs, if that is the current situation? And why are such people being accused of making moral claims when they are making efficiency arguments?
In particular, why is "talking people out of their high elasticity" equivalent to the statement "Don't leave NYC just because the taxes are going up! It will wreck the city."? Tyler's sentence is calling for sacrifice by the individual on behalf of the group. Whereas talking people out of their high elasticity is more like "you would be better off living your life mostly as you lived it before, and accepting that you are likely to get Covid-19 at some point, because life is short." If anything it's the opposite of the group sacrifice. What is going on here?
The better educated tend to be staying safer than the lower educated, as Tyler says. That seems like a distinct argument.
He then goes on to note this:
As a side point, note that in the 1968/1957 pandemics elasticities of adjustment were way lower, because you couldn't switch things to Zoom, Amazon, and so on. So those pandemics were closer to being a "lump sum tax" on human life and thus they were cheaper, and had lower deadweight loss, probably in per capita terms as well. From the framework on welfare economics, that is. The value of human lives was lower then too.
That does not seem like a side point! It seems like it's going even farther, and saying that we are worse off because we have the choice to use Zoom and Amazon, and choices are bad. In this case, in part because the choice creates a Copenhagen effect. It seems clear to me that in general having the option to overpay for safety is quite bad. The option to have us collectively do this is even worse. If Tyler is explicitly agreeing that if we lacked this choice, we would have all been better off, then what is he actually arguing for?
There is a distinct argument offered that those with better educations tend to be taking more precautions. To some extent this is obviously unfair, since those with higher educations are often those better able to work from home, and those with better financial cushions. They are also those who tend to listen more to authority, and worry more about looking responsible and safe, and they tend to be members of the blue tribe. The idea that they are doing this because they are smarter or make better decisions is… one hypothesis, sure. Definitely not the whole story.
Also worth saying that an individual cannot decide to not pay the Ramsey tax here, and accept the Covid risk. That choice is unavailable at this time. The world around you is not going to let you do the old normal things. Thus, one can realize that given one's remaining options it makes sense to play it safe, while also preferring the world in which no one played it safe and you did not either.
It is also perfectly fine to do any or all of these things, while also preferring the world in which we did proper suppression.
If we knew at the beginning what we know now but were restricted to the choices of "pay more costs" or "pay less costs" a lot of people would choose "pay less costs," both as a collective and as individuals.
Both for society in general, and for themselves in particular.
All Masks Are Not Created Equal
Robin Hanson asks why we treat all masks as the same, simply saying 'wear a mask,' when it is very clear that N-95 and surgical masks are more effective than cloth ones:
In my model, all three of these explanations play a meaningful part in the debate.
There is still a huge lack of consensus on how much better surgical is than cloth. That's what happens when you ban experiments. It makes it hard to learn things.
There is clearly very limited tolerance for debating Covid policy, and even less for advocating such policy to the public, or even getting them the message.
That's one of two central things going on, in my mind. You Have About Five Words. We can maybe tell people "Social distance, outside, wear masks." We don't want to burn another word here.
There's also what happens when you make that higher ask of people. If you count cloth masks that one can reuse as needed and are in plentiful supply, and that in my experience are relatively comfortable and look relatively normal, you have made a highly reasonable ask, which a lot of people still treat as unreasonable. You can even customize your cloth mask as a fashion statement or other signal of affiliation.
If you instead were to say, it needs to be N-95 or surgical (and if you allow both, then it's not only one word of your five that you're burning here), then there would be a lot of 'nope, not reasonable, not doing that.' Then they'll often wear no mask at all.
Or they'll wear a mask, but less often, especially when it actually matters. For the most part, that trade-off isn't worth it.
The public doesn't have the ability to process 'sort of works' or 'this works, but this works better.' They can't handle 'this is somewhat safe, but this other thing would be safer.' You get to say, these things are safe, do those, these other things are unsafe, don't do those, with clear markings. That's it. Try to be detailed and there will be a huge demand for "Do cloth masks work, or not? Well? Stupid so-called 'experts.'" Or they'll think asking that question owned the libs.
They certainly would not take kindly to being told the most important thing is a cloth mask, then the moment there are enough other masks, changing tunes (after initially lying about masks working at all) and demanding better.
So instead we wisely took the option for a clean, simple message. Wear a mask, period. If you're on the ball enough to upgrade to N-95, great, that's even better.
This is a whole section because this logic extends to all our other strategies and policies, including outside of Covid-19.
In Other Covid News
CDC recommends this week that Americans wear masks indoors when not inside their own homes. Let that sink in. Until last week, the CDC had not recommended this. Still, better ludicruously late than never, even for the single most important thing to be doing. Thank you, CDC.
Taleb notes: Masks work, says Danish study people described as not saying that masks work.
New York City vaguely aware sewage data might be helpful, but not so aware as to release said data anywhere I'm aware of, or to make any effort to isolate locations or otherwise use it to contain the virus.
Police were sent to seize the laptop and phone of Rebekah Jones. That was her account via Twitter, alternatively two news report are here and here. She was responsible for Florida's Covid-19 database before she was fired. She claims (credibly, as far as I can tell) that she was fired by Florida for refusing to falsify Covid-19 statistics early in the pandemic. She has spent the time since then trying to provide accurate data and expose corruption. For this, the police pointed a gun in her face and the face of her children, and seized her devices, claiming it was about a security breach. Which, one way or another, I suppose it was. In particular, they cite this particular breach, which was accomplished by 'no one bothered to change the login credentials' (direct source):
If you'd like to get involved, the thread linked to has details on how you can help.
Yet another cheap, fast, easy and seemingly reliable method of Covid-19 testing that, if it works and was implemented, would end the pandemic. This one uses the microscope on your smartphone and can even give you viral load information. So of course I barely registered this news at all because I assumed there was almost no chance the test would be allowed. FDA delenda est.
There's also this method of testing (source):
Seems great and I have little doubt we will never do anything of the kind.
A rather complete takedown, as far as I can tell, of an often-cited paper that concluded lockdowns are highly effective and saved three million lives in Europe. It's a lot of words that mostly aren't necessary, because it suffices early in the takedown to point out that the paper assumes its conclusion. If you presume that the only things that ever change transmission rates are non-pharmaceutical government interventions, then the alternative to such interventions is that almost everyone quickly gets infected while hospitals are completely overwhelmed, and that's how you get three million lives saved. So, sure. If there are no control systems and people don't adjust behavior except when the government issues an order, at which point they instantly adjust to the new transmission rate (which is what the paper assumes), then of course you are going to conclude that all credit must go to the only thing that ever changes anything. This is the level of scientific literacy and interaction with physical reality that even relatively competent Western governments and policy makers (e.g. European ones) seem to be employing these days.
California is locking down hard.
Here's the order for Los Angeles. Everyone must stay in their homes. Among other details, podcasts are explicitly exempt, religious services must be outdoors but are otherwise all right, and protests are explicitly allowed. Malls open, playgrounds closed. I think I sense a protest coming on.
It's unclear to me how this is supposed to work out. Do they think people are going to obey rules where they can't meet a single other person while socially distanced, unmasked and outside? Do they not understand that if you push unreasonably far, people stop listening to you? How would one even begin to enforce such a rule? How long do they intend to maintain things this severely? Conditions elsewhere are probably not going to be much better until at least February or so at the earliest. The full turnaround will likely take months beyond that. Is the plan to shut down the city completely that whole time, on top of what has already been done and not worked?
Ohio High School Athletic Association coronavirus rules: Students can wrestle, but can't shake hands. On the one hand this is obviously absurd. If shaking hands is not safe, what exactly do the decision makers think is happening when kids wrestle? On the other hand, shaking hands is a purely symbolic action that you need to stop across the school, whereas wrestling is a compact activity providing value.
Paper claims that a region in Brazil has 75% overall infection rate. About half by the epidemic peak, the rest after. Raw test numbers were not that high, but they feel confident correcting for waning antibody counts, and the implied IFRs are not unreasonable. They have some speculations on how the numbers got this high, but nothing satisfying. My best guess is quite simple, that the region was unusually vulnerable and also mostly young and taking few if any precautions, and it got hit hard enough to far overshoot its immunity threshold.
In other More Dakka news, we want to meet everyone outdoors and go on walks, but baby it's cold outside. Sounds like a problem. In a move I delayed for too long, I've ordered the warmest coat known to man. Should have done it last month, but better late than never. I was going to go with the third warmest coat known to man because for my needs that was definitely enough dakka, but in a running theme these days, they underpriced them and now they're all sold out, so instead I am ready, if necessary, for a cozy winter in Winnipeg. Which was the motivation behind my friend Seth Burn finding out about this coat in the first place, which he loves. I'll report back when it arrives. Not cheap. But if it works, totally Worth It.
Until next week.
32 Responses to Covid 12/10: Vaccine Approval Day in America
countlessstorieswithoutend says:
Just for the record, as a person who hates using twitter even a little bit, if you're trying to minimize the necessity of twitter to fully grok these posts I am all in favor.
Liam R says:
Same. Very much appreciated the screenshots and lack of links to twitter here.
I am absolutely in favor of this. Even if links must be provided for transparency, use screenshots in the body and add links at the end as footnotes.
>> Today, the FDA is meeting to discuss Pfizer's Covid-19 vaccine. By the time many of you read this, they will have hopefully given the vaccine, and perhaps Moderna's as well, emergency use authorization
I suppose I'm early to this post myself, but it sounds like an authorization won't happen until tonight at the very earliest: https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/news/health/2020/12/08/covid-vaccine-distribution-plans-states-hospitals-government/3795574001/
The Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee meeting is streaming live now, starting about 45 minutes ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owveMJBTc2I
>> Looks like efficacy even for one dose might be 88.9%.
I was worried Alex Tabarrok's would be misinterpreted when I read he posted that. The 88.9% figure represents the final efficacy number for everyone who has had *at least* one dose, even though 99% of them went on to get a second dose.
We only have limited data on what happened in the 28 day period between dose 1 and dose 2, enough to perhaps estimate that the efficacy for just one dose and one dose only, at least for a few weeks, is somewhere between 52% and that number.
See the analysis around the 20-minute mark here: https://youtu.be/AYWNpg7qwus?t=1203
A naive reading of the graph says that it takes some amount of time to become mostly immune, before which the lines move together, then the treatment line is mostly horizontal starting around day 10, and that horizontal stage comes before the second dose, which would have a delayed effect. My instinctive analysis was "yep, dunno if it's 88% exactly but looks plausible on this chart."
It certainly looks substantially over 50% which is good enough to raise the question of whether to double-dose people.
Maybe the best solution is one dose now, a second dose when scarcity is no longer a problem? That way more people get at least some immunity, although contacting people and scheduling the second dose 3-6 months from now will be a pain, and many people won't bother.
Anonymous-backtick says:
So I understand why American authorities banned testing–all their actions this year were designed to maximize suffering in the hopes it would be blamed on Trump.
What I'm missing is why, say, Japan or Taiwan didn't run all the proposed experiments.
Not only Japan or Taiwan, you also need to explain Europe and almost everywhere else.
Here's a question. If the reason American authorities are maximizing suffering is to get Trump, then have they stopped doing that now that he's lost the election? Do you expect them to stop doing that on January 20?
In the counterfactual world where Biden peacefully enters the White House I absolutely do think they would let up on covid-related dystopia in the short term.
*banned experiments
Mike B says:
I know the winter in Winnipeg was a joke, but it's definitely not a place you want to be right now! The entire Canadian prairies learned that no, we are not special snowflakes who handled this uniquely well in the first place – we just got exceptionally lucky and locked down fast enough to mostly miss the first wave. But now winter has arrived, and it's grim: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/manitoba-covid-19-cases-outbreaks-latest-numbers-1.5786952.
Playground order seems to have been reversed, https://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2020/12/09/california-reverses-closure-outdoor-public-playgrounds-remain-closed-la-county/ .
>>I think this calculation by Tyler Cowen, viewing Covid-19 as a "Ramsey tax problem," is not only importantly wrong but exactly backwards and rather perverse, in ways worth exploring.
I think that his primary fallacy is that he's confounding voluntary behavior and government action, implying that 100% of the lockdown costs are due to people choosing to stay home. Interestingly, the article talking about how lockdowns have saved 3 million people goes in the other direction – as you correctly pointed out they believe that people have perfect adherence to whatever the government does and thus the government is 100% responsible for all the lockdown costs (or benefits, in this case).
We would probably be arguing about this question for decades to come…
>> That's one of two central things going on, in my mind. You Have About Five Words. We can maybe tell people "Social distance, outside, wear masks."
Even "outside" seems to be missed by many, at least in Seattle where I live. I like to go for a walk late at night (think 12am) and even at that hour I often see people jogging/walking alone with a mask on. I mean, I don't object to them wearing anything they want, but I'm perplexed as to why people feel the need to put on a mask when the closest human is at least 50 feet away. At the same time (as Robin correctly points out) even those hyper-careful people usually have a cotton mask on, even though they could definitely afford an N95/KN95. Same deal in Whole Foods – some folks are happily buying $100 wine while wearing a cheap cotton mask.
>> Should have done it last month, but better late than never. I was going to go with the third warmest coat known to man
Strongly off-topic: is there a website that lets you find stores that sell high-quality clothing like this? I'm happy to spend $1000 on a jacket, but I want it to be a very high-quality jacket, not a jacket that costs $1000 because its made by a famous designer or because of the brand name alone or because its made from some exotic fabric that isn't actually any better than good old cotton.
RE: off topic. I think Consumer Reports does that kind of analysis. Or you can go to an enthusiast store like REI and ask the sales force.
Consumer Reports isn't perfect but is relatively high integrity for what it is. Beyond that I don't know. I got this one from a friend
>> is there a website that lets you find stores that sell high-quality clothing like this?
https://old.reddit.com/r/BuyItForLife/
h6 says:
With such long posts, would it be possible to make subheadings linkable? It's a hassle to send the link to an acquaintance and say "search for these keywords to find the part I recommend most"
Thanks for good posts
I don't know an easy way to do that but if it was easy and quick I would do it.
Sniffnoy says:
Also in non-covid vaccine news, here's an article about a potential universal flu vaccine (i.e., it would immunize against the flu in general, rather than specific strains like we currently do).
Do you have any thoughts on these masks from a company called Sonovia claiming their masks eliminate over 99% of the Covid virus within 30 minutes of contact?
https://sonoviatech.com/
Link to their test results page: https://sonoviatech.com/testresults/
A piece of cloth? That claim seems… Technically correct for any cloth mask? Seems like scam marketing. That's a 10-secons evaluation.
Is it just me, or does Rebekah Jones seem she's going down the path of the grifter? I mean, yes, the cops overreacted by drawing guns, even after she took like twenty minutes to let them in. But when your fundraiser is asking for a million bucks? That seems excessive, tbh. And while it's bad security that they didn't change the login, that doesn't give her permission to misuse the emergency alerts account. You're not allowed to rob a house just because it's unlocked, either.
And it's a bit odd to suggest that she was fired for not faking data, when the data she was lauded for posting after being fired was just a re-skin of the official Florida government stats. If she thought that their data was good enough to use in her dashboard, even after they fired her, presumably she doesn't think it was actually fake. See https://polimath.substack.com/p/same-data-different-vibe, for example.
Also, it looks as though the initial firing was a series of fairly typical human errors, on both her part and her employer's part, that just spiraled a bit out of control. (tl;dr, she posted some data a bit early, the epidemiologist asked her to pull it down for a review, Jones thought it was bad for transparency and tried to block said epidemiologist, got re-assigned away from her dashboard job for screwing with the work of doctors, thought she was being censored and sent a cranky email, got called out by her boss, and sent a rather sheepish follow-up with the subject line "umh…uh oh?". Looks to me like severe miscommunication all around, but not malice.)
You're not the only one. Quite frankly I don't understand the significance of the data that was apparently fabricated. As in – in a parallel universe where the data was NOT fabricated, what would actually be different? Less dead people in Florida? Less cases? More mask mandates? Or is it just data for the sake of data?
If data was actually fabricated, that's bad. Decision-makers need good data. And since it's a democracy, we're all decision-makers. Making a stink about fake data is a worthy cause, and I'm cool with that in principle.
The thing is, in the case of Florida, I can't find much evidence that it actually was faked. Whenever I dug into it, there was a 90% chance of some journalist being bad at math, and a 10% chance of a harmless difference in methodology.
For example, Jones' private dashboard included both positive PCR test results and positive antibody test results as "known cases", while the official Florida stats counted them in separate categories, and only called the PCR results "known cases". Neither one is really wrong, and there wasn't a true discrepancy – just a presentation difference. (With the state government site using the standard method that all the other states used, and the private site being innovative and throwing every scrap of data they could find on the screen – no surprises with either of those.)
remizidae says:
Jones has a substantial criminal record. Technically no conviction yet, but she's been charged with robbery and cyberstalking an ex. And those charges were before the firing, too. She seems crazy to me. Of course, crazy people can be right sometimes.
cakridge2 says:
I still must disagree that proper testing would end the pandemic – it's one thing to know that, say, 150 million people are infected, it is something else to get them all to stay home for 2 to 3 weeks.
The thing is that it's *close* already. R0 is clearly between 0.9 and 1.3. So if we don't need everyone, we only need (at most) a third of everyone currently going around infected to stop doing that, and things end very quickly.
Yes, but people's behaviour would change as well. I suspect we'd get vastly softer lockdowns (both in terms of private behaviours and in terms of laws), and R0 would stay nearly constant.
Of course, this would mean substantially less economic damage, and a massive increase to collective mental health, so it's still a win. But I don't think it'd be that particular win.
timunderwood9 says:
On the EU dragging its feet, here in Hungary, Orban, probably as part of the negotiations over the EU budget was talking up the idea of leaving the EU as being potentially beneficial by pointing out, among other things, how Britain was able to immediately approve the vaccine while we had to wait.
I am strongly in favour of Hungxit. I'm no big fan of the EU, but it's supposed to be a group of democracies, and Hungary no longer qualifies. Since they can't be expelled without unanimous agreement from the other members, and last I heard the Poles are protecting them, them leaving on their own solves a bunch of issues very neatly.
johfst says:
Great post as always. If you want to link to twitter posts without linking to twitter itself, you can convert them into https://nitter.net/ links by just appending the stuff after the "twitter.com" in the URL (for example, twitter.com/TheZvi/status/1337037720233922561 -> nitter.net/TheZvi/status/1337037720233922561). I've been using this proxy for reading twitter content on my laptop for the past few months, and other than the occasional hiccup it's pretty good.
Ray Taylor says:
I completely agree that Challenge Trials would have speeded things up by many weeks, maybe months. We need a new form of specialised pandemic ethics committees, now!


text:
Home Dynasty 2020 Rookies 2020 Rookie Fantasy Tracker Week 15
2020 Rookie Fantasy Tracker Week 15
Rob Sullivan
INGLEWOOD, CALIFORNIA – DECEMBER 13: Justin Herbert #10 of the Los Angeles Chargers warms up prior to the game against the Atlanta Falcons at SoFi Stadium on December 13, 2020 in Inglewood, California. (Photo by Sean M. Haffey/Getty Images) 2020 Rookie Fantasy Tracker Week 15
The leap from college football to the NFL is not easy by any stretch of the imagination. While some positions like running back have easier transitions, all rookies have to adjust to facing bigger, faster, and stronger opponents. On top of that, they also have to learn a new playbook and system that is likely different from the one they were used to in college.
The preseason is typically their chance to adapt and get used to the next level of play before the real season begins. Needless to say, an offseason with no field time until August, and no preseason, will cut significantly into the much needed experience these rookies will acquire. Expect the rookies, even the so called "can't miss" guys, to start off slower than their fantasy managers are hoping for.
The 2020 Fantasy Rookie Tracker follows the fantasy production of the 2020 Rookie class and compares their results to the RotoHeat team's consensus Dynasty Rookie Rankings. In the initial installment of this season long series, I took a look at the Top-20 ranked rookies, list their projections, and give you my thoughts on their match-up.
As the season progresses, the rookies will be re-ranked based on their year-to-date performance. We then review their previous week and take a look at the week to come as we follow this draft class that comes with so much hype and promise.
Top 20 Rookies
Justin Herbert – QB Los Angeles Chargers
RotoHeat Rookie Ranking: 18
Current Rank: 1
Week 14 Projection: 21.00
Week 14 Actual: 16.72
Season to Date Actual: 265.18
Weekly Average: 22.10
Justin Herbert completed 36-of-44 passes for 243 yards with two touchdowns and an interception in the Chargers' Week 14 win over the Falcons. Coming off his two worst starts, this was closer to the Herbert we saw earlier in the year, but it is the third straight contest that Herbert has failed to hit 20 fantasy points. Herbert is one of only four quarterbacks to throw for at least 25 touchdowns in their first season. Facing the Raiders in Week 15, Herbert remains a viable starting option in your Fantasy Semi-Final.
James Robinson – RB Jacksonville Jaguars
James Robinson rushed 12 times for 67 yards in the Jaguars' Week 14 loss to the Titans, adding four receptions for 16 additional yards. With Mike Glennon struggling early, it was was hard for Robinson to get anything going. Thankfully that changed after Gardner Minshew was brought in. This one had the potential of being a big one for Robinson who lost 44 yards and a touchdown to penalties. With 67 yards Robinson went over 1,000 yards rushing on the season. Robinson's schedule is about to toughen up, in @BAL, vs. CHI, to round out the fantasy season. The volume will remain RB1 on a weekly basis, but the output could be more RB2 . Minshew being named the starter for Week 15 helps.
Justin Jefferson – WR Minnesota Vikings
RotoHeat Rookie Ranking: 6
Week 14 Actual: 9.90
Justin Jefferson caught 4-of-8 targets for 39 yards in Minnesota's Week 14 loss to Tampa Bay. This one was a disappointment for Jefferson, who failed to score a touchdown for the first time since Week 10, and his fantast managers. Jefferson still doubled up Adam Thielen (3/39) in targets (8-4), leading the Vikings with a team-high 21.6% target share. The rookie also finished with his fewest receiving yards since Week 8 — proof this performance is an outlier to an otherwise outstanding first-year campaign. Jefferson can still be trusted as a strong WR2 in Week 15 against the Bears.
Antonio Gibson – RB Washington Football Team
Week 14 Projection: 0 – In Active
Week 14 Actual: 0
Season to Date Total: 183.20
Week 15 Projection: 0.00
Antonio Gibson missed Week 14, as a result of the toe injury he sustained on Monday night in Week 13. Hopefully we see him again soon as the rookie was red hot prior to the injury. If he is to get back for Week 15, he will face a Seattle Seahawks defense that has been better of late but remains a favorable matchup.
LANDOVER, MARYLAND – NOVEMBER 22: Joe Burrow #9 of the Cincinnati Bengals is injured during the third quarter against the Washington Football Team at FedExField on November 22, 2020 in Landover, Maryland. (Photo by Patrick McDermott/Getty Images) 2020 Rookie Fantasy Tracker Week 14
Joe Burrow – QB Cincinnati Bengals
Week 13 Projection: IR – Out for the season
Joe Burrow remains on IR and will miss the remainder of the 2020 season after tearing his ACL and MCL in Week 11.
Chase Claypool – WR Pittsburgh Steelers
Chase Claypool caught 3-of-6 targets for 15 yards in Week 14 against Buffalo. Claypool's downward trend continued this week, with the 15 yards his second lowest of the season. His six targets were behind both JuJu Smith-Schuster (7) and Diontae Johnson (7). Claypool remains a boom/bust WR option. He'll have a favorable Week 15 matchup with the Bengals to help get him back on track. If you have a safer option I suggest taking it in your semi-finals.
Jonathan Taylor – RB Indianapolis Colt
Jonathan Taylor rushed 20 times for 150 yards and two touchdowns in the Colts' Week 14 win over the Raiders. Taylor has now totaled 241 yards and a pair of score in the past two weeks on 33 carries. He has added in 5 receptions for 59 more. With his production in recent weeks, Taylor has entered the RB1 picture. The Colts will be home favorites against the Texans' porous run defense next week, a defense that Taylor totaled 135 yards on in Week 13.
Clyde Edwards-Helaire – RB Kansas City Chiefs
Clyde Edwards-Helaire rushed 16 times for 32 yards in the Chiefs' Week 14 win against the Dolphins, adding five catches for 59 yards. CEH struggled mightily on the ground, averaging two yards per carry. He saved his day with pass game involvement, drawing six targets, the third most on the team. Edwards-Helaire played well ahead of Le'Veon Bell. If this sort of usage holds up, Edwards-Helaire could be considered a RB2 option in Week 15 against the Saints.
Tee Higgins – WR Cincinnati Bengals
Tee Higgins caught 5-of-8 targets for 49 yards in the Bengals' Week 14 loss to the Cowboys. Higgins has five catches in three straight games with Brandon Allen/ Ryan Finley under center, but those 15 grabs have amounted to 149 yards and one touchdown. Higgins played through a tight hamstring but appeared to avoid setbacks and should be good to go as a WR4 with some theoretical upside next week against the Steelers. Higgins is another WR that if at all possible I will avoid in Week 15.
CINCINNATI, OHIO – DECEMBER 13: CeeDee Lamb #88 of the Dallas Cowboys runs with the ball in the third quarter against the Cincinnati Bengals at Paul Brown Stadium on December 13, 2020 in Cincinnati, Ohio. (Photo by Andy Lyons/Getty Images) 2020 Rookie Fantasy Tracker Week 15
CeeDee Lamb – WR Dallas Cowboys
Current Rank: 10
CeeDee Lamb caught both of his targets for 46 yards in the Cowboys' Week 14 win over the Bengals. I didn't have high aspirations for Lamb in this one, but I certainly expected more production that this. The two targets were a season low, and he's yet to top 71 yards in a game since Dak Prescott's injury. The ceiling has been lowered considerably with Andy Dalton under center, and Lamb has just two touchdowns since Week 4. Lamb will be a low-floor WR4 next week against the 49ers. Once again avoid of possible.
Brandon Aiyuk – WR San Francisco 49ers
Brandon Aiyuk caught 10-of-16 targets for 166 yards in the 49ers' Week 14 loss to Washington. Aiyuk dominated targets, with the next closest 49ers pass catcher seeing seven targets. Deebo Samuel hurt his hamstring during the team's first possession, leaving Aiyuk as the entire passing game. Deebo's injury is reportedly one that could keep him out for a while. Aiyuk, who came into Sunday's game with a 28 percent target share over his previous four games, should be in all fantasy lineups going forward. He's a WR1 play in Week 15 against Dallas.
D'Andre Swift – RB Detroit Lions
D'Andre Swift rushed seven times for 24 yards and one touchdown and caught 4-of-5 targets for 26 yards in the Lions' Week 14 loss to the Packers. The fantasy points are nice, despite the ugly stat line. After missing the previous three games with a concussion and illness, it was simply nice to have Swift's available again. Swift appeared to escape this one unscathed and could be in line for a larger share of the snaps next week against the Titans in a juicy on-paper matchup. Swift should be considered a RB2 with upside in Week 15.
Jerry Jeudy – WR Denver Broncos
Season to Date: 115.60
Weekly Average: 8.89
Jerry Jeudy caught 2-of-4 targets for 42 yards in Week 14 against the Panthers. Jeudy has just six receptions to his name over the Broncos' last four games, with this 42-yard total being his highest for a single game in that span. Jeudy and Drew Lock's talents aren't meshing route now for fantasy purposes, and it is likely best if he is left on your bench for Week 15. Jeudy ranks extremely high on my dynasty shopping list when looking to buy entering 2021.
J.K. Dobbins – RB Baltimore Ravens
J.K. Dobbins rushed 13 times for 53 yards and one touchdown in the Ravens' Week 14 win over the Browns. Following a Tyus Bowser interception in the third quarter where he was tackled at the one-yard line, Dobbins punched in the touchdown from the goal line. His 13 carries led the team over Lamar Jackson (9) and Gus Edwards (7) while Mark Ingram didn't touch the ball. Dobbins wasn't targeted in the passing game. Dobbins has double-digit carries in five of the last six games and has a rushing score in three straight. He'll be an upside RB2 for Week 15 against the Jaguars.
ORCHARD PARK, NEW YORK – DECEMBER 13: Gabriel Davis #13 of the Buffalo Bills catches a pass for a touchdown against the Pittsburgh Steelers during the third quarter in the game at Bills Stadium on December 13, 2020 in Orchard Park, New York. (Photo by Bryan M. Bennett/Getty Images) 2020 Rookie Fantasy Tracker Week 15
Gabriel Davis – WR Buffalo Bills
Gabriel Davis caught 3-of-8 targets for 19 yards and a touchdown in Week 14 against the Steelers. Davis was left wide open in the end-zone for his touchdown. He could have had a better night, but was overthrown by Josh Allen on what would have been a 50-yard TD. Davis has at least 65 yards and a touchdown in three straight weeks and has been a near every-down player with John Brown on IR. Davis will look to extend his scoring streak to four games with a matchup with Denver in Week 15. Davis offers some flex appeal if you are in the desperate side of things in Week 15.
Laviska Shenault Jr. – WR Jacksonville Jaguars
Laviska Shenault caught 6-of-11 targets for 49 yards in the Jaguars' Week 14 loss to the Titans. Shenault also added a two-yard rush. The 11 targets were a new career high for Shenault as Mike Glennon and Gardner Minshew combined for 54 attempts in a game the Jags were losing 31-3 early in the third quarter. He still finished under 50 yards receiving for the sixth straight game. Shenault has shown enough to remain an exciting Dynasty league hold, but he is unlikely to flip any re-draft matchups over the final two weeks of the season as the Jags deal with a tough schedule, beginning with the Ravens in Week 15.
Darnell Mooney – WR Chicago Bears
Darnell Mooney caught both of his targets for 22 yards and one touchdown in the Bears' Week 14 win over the Texans.
Mooney played in three-receiver sets next to Allen Robinson and Anthony Miller. His two targets were disappointing, but the TD catch saved the day. Mooney has been quite the find for dynasty managers this season, nothing else.
Tua Tagovailoa – QB Miami Dolphins
Season to Date Actual: 93.66
Week 15 Projection: 13.1
Tua Tagovailoa completed 28-of-48 passes for 316 yards, two touchdowns, and an interception in the Dolphins' Week 14 33-27 loss to Kansas City, adding six rushes for 24 yards and a score. Tua makes his first appearance of the season in the top 20 rookie scorers. Tua also went over 300 passing yards for the first time as a pro and is averaging 306 passing yards in his last two starts. Tua lost DeVante Parker, Jakeem Grant and Mike Gesicki in this one to injury. His Week 15 matchup against New England isn't all that appealing, especially if all those weapons remain on the sidelines.
KJ Hamler – WR Denver Broncos
Week 15 Projection: 9.0
KJ Hamler caught 2-of-3 targets for 86 yards and two touchdowns in Week 14 against the Panthers. The second-round rookie roasted Panthers Rasul Douglas on both scores – the first just on a simple outside release and the second on a deep post over the middle of the field. Hamler will be a low-end WR4 consideration against the Bills in Week 15. With his lack of target volume starting him is extremely risky.
Cam Akers – RB Los Angeles Rams
Cam Akers rushed 29 times for 171 yards in the Rams' Week 14 win over the Patriots, adding two receptions for 23 additional yards. Akers' takeover of the Rams' backfield is complete. He out-touched Darrell Henderson and Malcolm Brown a combined 31-2. His 194 yards from scrimmage were the 12th most by any player all season. It was a flat dominant performance. The Jets are a dream Week 15 matchup, one that will have Akers in the RB1 mix. Cam Akers if you were patient, is a league winner.
Thank you for reading 2020 Rookie Fantasy Tracker Week 15. Good luck in Fantasy Playoffs everyone!
For more fantasy football content, follow us on Twitter @RotoHeatFantasy and be sure subscribe to our RotoHeat YouTube Channel.
Clyde Edwards-Helaire
J.K. Dobbins
Jerry Jeudy
Jonathan Taylor
Justin Jefferson
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I have been playing Fantasy Football since 2007, and Dynasty since 2013. Entered into the crazy worlds of Super-flex in 2018 and I am adding TE premium leagues in 2019. Always looking for creative and innovative ways to value players. Rebuilding rosters is my true calling. In addition to Fantasy Football, I am an avid MLB, and NHL fantasy participant.
Redraft Rick Butts - July 19, 2020 0
Dynasty SuperFlex Rankings (2021)

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


A journey into the Spirit of God.
NEW! Changes..the only one that satisfies. and Shifts in the Wind...direction counts!
Note: All pages in this website have accompanying music. If you'd like to enjoy it..please turn on your volume control.
I trust that God has led you to my website today; perhaps because you have a divine appointment with Him, and that He will minister to your particular need through one of my writings.
Jesus said a couple of things about Himself that we need to know: One, that He came "that we might have life, and have it more abundantly." I never knew that. I was really waiting to know Jesus when I met Him at the "Pearly Gates." I had no idea that I could live this life here on earth with Him beside me all the time! What a revelation it became--and completely changed everything! I am now in my 70s and at the urging of some many friends to get "everything in print", these pages will take you along some of my adventures in the Spirit.
Knowledge is wonderful--but all the knowledge in the world is nothing unless there is wisdom with it. And wisdom comes from God. We can ask for it, and He will speak to us--but usually in the most unexpected ways. His thoughts are not our thoughts. His ways are not our ways.
Perhaps you'll journey with me long enough to realize you want that for yourself.
Remember, that kind of life is only found in Jesus Christ, the son of God. He said so. "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life."
Narrow-minded? Yes. Arrogant? No. We find many things to be narrow--boarding an airplane requires a boarding pass. As you go through the gate: no boarding pass, no seat!
Our first step involves our heart. "If you seek Me, you will find Me, if you search for Me with all your heart."
Simply WANT to know Him, and He promises to manifest Himself to you. But pray with sincerity to Him and ask for Him to save you, forgive your sins, and give you His promise of eternal life. Then ask His Holy Spirit presence to lead and guide you down that Life pathway.
What an adventure awaits you if you do! Bon Voyage!


What is the Law Regarding Employment in South Bay?
Employment law refers to the body of laws in South Bay that regulate employees, employers, and independent contractors. Hiring procedures, wage disputes, and termination are some issues that are controlled by these laws. Employers and their employees alike should be aware of South Bay employment laws.
Majority of the time employment is considered to be "at-will", although in some instances there might be an employment contract between the employer and employee for a set period of time. "At-will" employers or employees can end the employment at any given time, if the reasons are not illegal. Laws of both the state and federal government decide which employment terms are valid and enforceable should there be a contract between the South Bay employee and employer.
The laws applicable for citizens of South Bay usually make discrimination illegal at any phase of employment, such as hiring, working environment, and terminations. South Bay residents must follow laws which prohibit employer discrimination against members of different classes. These classes include age, gender, race, religion, disability, and national origin.


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text:
\section{Introduction}

The cosmic microwave background (CMB) is an observational phenomenon that reflects the profound properties of our universe. A decade ago, some anomalies \citep{2004PhRvD..69f3516D} have been discovered by analysis of CMB results from the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP). The anomalies include: 1) The cosmic quadrupole on its own is anomalous at the 1-in-20 level by being low; 2) The cosmic octopole on its own is anomalous at the 1-in-20 level by being very planar; 3) The alignment between the quadrupole and octopole is anomalous at the 1-in-60 level. Further work has been done, focusing on these anomalies \citep{2006MNRAS.367...79C,2004PhRvL..93v1301S,2004IJMPD..13.1857R}. And anomalies actually extend to the higher multipoles $l$=2--5 \citep{2005PhRvL..95g1301L}. Recently, a much more precise CMB map from the Planck satellite provides access to a detailed analysis, and finally confirmed the anomalies with higher confidence \citep{2013arXiv1303.5062P,2013arXiv1303.5083P}. Until now anomalies from CMB remain puzzled.

Besides CMB, there are some similar phenomena found in other observations. Through analysis of quasar spectroscopy, the fine structure constant is found distributed anisotropically whose dataset fits a spatial dipole in the direction right ascension
$17.5\pm 0.9$ hours, declination $-58 \pm 9$ degrees \citep{2011PhRvL.107s1101W}. Through analysis of supernovae, there is also a preferred direction of the acceleration of the universe which is located roughly at $(l,b) \sim (130,0)$ \citep{2012JCAP...02..004C,2013MNRAS.tmp.2732Y}.

Inspired by the intriguing anomalies above, we pay attention to GRBs. Contrary to CMB, GRBs are violent common events in the universe, and the detection rate is a few events per day by some instruments. GRBs are of high redshifts among most observable objects in the universe, thus containing much information about our universe. One of our interests is the sky distribution of GRBs, which has been studied by some works \citep{1998A&A...339....1B, 2001grba.conf...56C, 2009AIPC.1133..483M, 2009BaltA..18..293M, 2010AIPC.1279..457V, 2014arXiv1406.6480K}. It has been found that short and intermediate GRBs distribute anisotropically while long GRBs approximately isotropically.  Furthermore, \citet{2000AstL...26..672T} proposed a simple method to derive quadrupole of the GRB distribution and found no obvious quadrupole.

In this paper, we use an approach similar to the CMB analysis, spherical harmonic expansions, to obtain the coefficients of the expansion terms and then perform the same steps as \citet{2004PhRvD..69f3516D} to check whether there are anomalies in the angular distribution of GRBs. Unlike the CMB, the angular distribution of GRBs can be started from the dipole. In section 2, we introduce an approach to derive spherical harmonic coefficients, and simulate a sample of some specific distribution mode to test the approach. In section 3, we apply the method in section 2 to the GRB sample. Conlusion and discussion are made in section 4.

\section{Spherical Harmonics Transform}

A continuous function on a spherical surface can be developed into spherical harmonic coefficients,

\begin{equation} \label{eq1}
f(\theta,\varphi)=\sum\limits_{l}\sum\limits_{m}a_{lm}Y_{lm}(\theta,\varphi),
\end{equation}
where
\begin{equation} \label{eq2}
a_{lm}=\int\limits_{\theta}\int\limits_{\varphi}f(\theta,\varphi)Y_{lm}(\theta,\varphi)^{*}\sin{\theta}{\rm d}\theta{\rm d}\varphi.
\end{equation}

The spherical harmonics $Y_{lm}(\theta,\varphi)$ are normalized as
\begin{equation} \label{eq3}
\int\limits_{\theta}\int\limits_{\varphi}Y_{lm}(\theta,\varphi)Y_{l'm'}(\theta,\varphi)^{*}\sin{\theta}{\rm d}\theta{\rm d}\varphi=\delta_{ll'}\delta_{mm'}.
\end{equation}

The above method is aimed at transforming continuous distributions. However, when processing practical situations we are almost faced with discrete distributions. Here, we use a little trick to tackle the problem.

In a discrete distribution, a function is only defined in separated points, so we cannot derive coefficients by integral at all. We naturally transform integral to summation,
\begin{equation} \label{eq4}
a_{lm}=\sum\limits_{i}f(\varsigma _{i},\xi _{i})Y_{lm}(\varsigma _{i},\xi _{i})^{*}\Delta S(\varsigma _{i},\xi _{i}),
\end{equation}
where we adopt curved coordinates $(\varsigma _{i},\xi _{i})$, and subscript $i$ denotes different coordinates in different areas. $\Delta S(\varsigma _{i},\xi _{i})$ is the area where $(\varsigma _{i},\xi _{i})$ lies. If $\Delta S(\varsigma _{i},\xi _{i})$ is infinitesimal, the summation is transformed to integral. Furthermore, we choose mean values of $f(\varsigma _{i},\xi _{i})$ in the area $\Delta S(\varsigma _{i},\xi _{i})$ as an approximation in our case,
\begin{equation} \label{eq5}
f(\varsigma _{i},\xi _{i})=\frac{n_{i}}{\Delta S(\varsigma _{i},\xi _{i})},
\end{equation}
where $n_{i}$ is the number of GRBs in the area $\Delta S(\varsigma _{i},\xi _{i})$. The way that we divide the spherical surface is arbitrary, and we can always make $\Delta S(\varsigma _{i},\xi _{i})$ as small as possible so that we have not more than one GRB in an arbitrary area. In this way, the expression of coefficients is written as
\begin{eqnarray} \label{eq6}
a_{lm} &=& \sum\limits_{i}\frac{1}{\Delta S(\varsigma _{i},\xi _{i})}Y_{lm}(\varsigma _{i},\xi _{i})^{*}\Delta S(\varsigma _{i},\xi _{i}) \nonumber \\
&=& \sum\limits_{i}Y_{lm}(\varsigma _{i},\xi _{i})^{*}=\sum\limits_{i}Y_{lm}(\theta _{i},\varphi _{i})^{*},
\end{eqnarray}
where curved coordinates are converted back to spherical coordinates, and subscript $i$ denotes different GRBs.

We combine the method described above and the method in \citet{2004PhRvD..69f3516D} to search for multipoles. Firstly, we adopt specific distributions to test our method, i.e. distributions like spherical harmonics $Y_{lm} (\theta, \varphi )$. For instance, if a distribution is exactly shaped like $Y_{20} (\theta, \varphi )$, then we will find a quadrupole lying on the equatorial plane. If a distribution is exactly shaped like $Y_{33} (\theta ,\varphi )$, we will find octopole pointing to the north pole.

We simulated 50000 points uniformly distributed on the spherical surface and attach them to $Y_{20} (\theta ,\varphi )$ so that $Y_{20} (\theta ,\varphi )$ is defined uniformly. Then we attain the desired function which is discrete.  Using the method of the previous method, the five coefficients $a_{2m} $ are derived. Rotate the coefficients to search for quadrupole and finally find it in the direction of $(\theta ,\varphi )\sim (90^{\circ},232.5^{\circ})$ without surprise. The unrotated and rotated real-valued coefficients are listed in Table 1. Besides $Y_{20} (\theta, \varphi )$, we can as well find the pole of any other distribution mode in the right direction.

\begin{table} \label{table1}
\caption{The unrotated and rotated real-valued quadrupole coefficients.}
\begin{tabular}{|p{0.9in}|p{0.9in}|p{0.9in}|} \hline
coefficients & unrotated & rotated \\ \hline
$a_{2-2} $ & 4.53 & -7.68 \\ \hline
$a_{2-1} $ & 3.32 & 4.35 \\ \hline
$a_{20} $ & 3986.06 & -1966.02 \\ \hline
$a_{21} $ & 7.68 & -3.32 \\ \hline
$a_{22} $ & -31.19 & 3467.63 \\ \hline
\end{tabular}
\end{table}

\section{Results}
With the methods described above, we are able to cope with the angular distribution of GRBs. Here, we adopt a sample of 3899 GRBs where 1236 GRBs are from http://www.mpe.mpg.de/ \~{}jcg/grbgen.html (this website is updated daily and we select GRBs from the oldest one to GRB 131014A. We have removed GRBs involved in the following sample.) and 2663 are from BATSE 4B Catalog \citep{1999ApJS..122..465P} (the website http://www.batse.msfc.nasa.gov/batse/grb /catalog/current/tables/basic\_table.txt). Both are in Galactic coordinates.

Upon figuring out our desired coefficients of the spherical harmonics expansion, we quickly get the preferred axes from $\stackrel{\frown}{n}_{1} $ to $\stackrel{\frown}{n}_{5} $ of different multipoles respectively, as follows,
\begin{equation} \label{eq9}
\begin{array}{l} {\stackrel{\frown}{n}_{1} =(-0.1198,-0.3949,0.9109)} \\ {\stackrel{\frown}{n}_{2} =(0.4811,-0.2778,0.8315)} \\ {\stackrel{\frown}{n}_{3} =(0.6648,-0.3012,0.6836)} \\ {\stackrel{\frown}{n}_{4} =(0.7778,-0.4157,0.4714)} \\ {\stackrel{\frown}{n}_{5} =(-0.7852,0.5626,0.2588)} \end{array} .
\end{equation}
Converted to Galactic coordinates, they are roughly in the direction of
\begin{equation} \label{eq10}
\begin{array}{l} {(b,l)_{1} \sim (22^{\circ } ,73^{\circ } )} \\ {(b,l)_{2} \sim (33^{\circ } ,150^{\circ } )} \\ {(b,l)_{3} \sim (47^{\circ } ,156^{\circ } )} \\ {(b,l)_{4} \sim (62^{\circ } ,152^{\circ } )} \\ {(b,l)_{5} \sim (75^{\circ } ,-36^{\circ } )} \end{array} .
\end{equation}
It is easy to see that the second to the fourth vectors have some kind of alignment while the last and the first oneis in a totally different direction. Figure 1 demonstrates the map from $l=1$ to $l=5$ respectively, where deep green denotes positive values and light green denotes negative ones. From the dipole and quadrupole map, we find they are more planar than others, and the corresponding direction is perpendicular to the plane where deep and light green varies from each other. Figure 2 shows the distributions of the angular dispersion on the spherical surface, where larger values are donated in the deeper blue. Clearly, in each map the two ends of the direction of multipoles lie in the two deep blue areas, which can be regarded as possible errors of each direction respectively.

The correlations of the second to the fourth vectors are
\begin{equation} \label{eq11}
\begin{array}{l} {\theta _{23} =13.6^{\circ } } \\ {\theta _{24} =28.2^{\circ } } \\ {\theta _{34} =15.3^{\circ } } \end{array}.
\end{equation}
Although these angles are not small, they are yet not large enough to be ignored, especially the angle between quadrupole and octopole. Comparing with the axes of CMB multipoles \citep{2004PhRvD..69f3516D},
\begin{equation} \label{eq12}
\begin{array}{l} {\stackrel{\frown}{n}_{2} =(-0.1145,-0.5265,0.8424)} \\ {\stackrel{\frown}{n}_{3} =(-0.2578,-0.4207,0.8698)} \end{array} ,
\end{equation}
we find that the third component of the above two factors agrees well with that of $\stackrel{\frown}{n}_{2} $ in equation (\ref{eq9}). That means the $\theta $ directions of axes in both cases are similar. However, the first and the second component of each vector in equation (\ref{eq12}) are inconsistent with that in equation (\ref{eq9}). Thus we conclude that the $\varphi $ directions in both cases have no common point.

Besides, in GRB distribution $\stackrel{\frown}{n}_{5} $ differs much from the first three vectors and has no alignment with them. In detail, $\stackrel{\frown}{n}_{5} $ has a separation of about 71.4 degrees with $\stackrel{\frown}{n}_{2} $. In contrary to GRB, the $l=5$ multipole for the CMB map is aligned with $(b,l)\sim (50^{\circ } ,-91^{\circ } )$ \citep{2004PhRvD..69f3516D}.

Apart from $l=5$, the dipole also points to a different direction, which misaligned with others. The angles between them are as follows:  \begin{equation} \label{eq15}
\begin{array}{l} {\theta _{12} =35^{\circ } } \\ {\theta _{13} =48^{\circ } } \\ {\theta _{14} =60^{\circ } } \\ {\theta _{15} =83^{\circ } }\end{array}.
\end{equation}

Furthermore, we calculate a statistical parameter $t_{l} $ that describes how planar each multipole is. The expression of $t_{l} $ is \citep{2004PhRvD..69f3516D}
\begin{equation} \label{eq13}
t_{l} =\mathop{\max }\limits_{\stackrel{\frown}{n}} \frac{|a_{l-l} (\stackrel{\frown}{n})|^{2} +|a_{ll} (\stackrel{\frown}{n})|^{2} }{\sum _{m=-l}^{l}|a_{lm} (\stackrel{\frown}{n})|^{2}  } .
\end{equation}
The coefficients $a(\stackrel{\frown}{n})$ above are all rotated to the preferred frame where the angular momentum dispersion is maximized. The higher $t_{l} $ is, more dominant the $|m|=l$ mode is, therefore the $l$ multipole is more obvious. $t_{l} $ for GRB distribution are listed below:
\begin{equation} \label{eq14}
\begin{array}{l} {t_{1} =100\% } \\ {t_{2} =91\% } \\ {t_{3} =68\% } \\ {t_{4} =43\% } \\ {t_{5} =18\% } \end{array} .
\end{equation}
Dipole is obviously planar.We can also find quadrupole planar in the quadrupole map. Beside quadrupole, there is no anomaly in other multipoles. For comparison, $t$ for octopole of the CMB map is 94\% \citep{2004PhRvD..69f3516D}.

\section{Discussion}

Taking the angular position of 3899 GRBs, we have calculated axes for the multipoles from $l=1$ to $l=5$, and found some anomalies, i.e., the axes of $l=2,3,4$ are aligned with angles $\theta_{23} =13.6^{\circ },  \theta_{24} =28.2^{\circ }, \theta _{34} =15.3^{\circ }$ respectively, while the axes of $l=1$ and $l=5$ are directed far away. The aligned axes of $l=2,3,4$ are not aligned with the CMB axis \citep{2004PhRvD..69f3516D}. Notice there also exist prefered directions for the fine structure \citep{2011PhRvL.107s1101W}, and supernovae \citep{2012JCAP...02..004C,2013MNRAS.tmp.2732Y}, but no any two of them  are aligned.

We should remember our analytical method is not so robust as expected. The way that we expand the GRB distribution is an approximate approach, and has an effect on the coefficients. Specifically, equation (\ref{eq5}) means that we adopt a function of constant GRB number density $f(\varsigma _{i} ,\xi _{i} )$ instead of GRB number in area $\Delta S(\varsigma _{i} ,\xi _{i} )$, i.e. we assign each point on spherical surface a value derived from nearby GRBs. Therefore, what we did is to transit the real GRB map to a similar map where all points on the surface have definition. We don't know errors from the transition and whether it will swing largely axes of multipoles.

Errors of GRB localization are not taken into consideration. As we know, many GRBs do not have definite localization and some may range over one degree. As a result, even the real GRB map is not as accurate as the CMB map. We should also notice that GRBs are detected by several instruments and each has different thresholds, which may induce the somewhat selection effect.

Finally, if the effect mentioned above is small enough, we are glad to see a potential correlation between the GRB map and the CMB map. Two maps originate from different physical scenarios. CMB originates from transmission of photons from last scattering surface to observers and anisotropy of the CMB is due to fluctuation of the early universe. On the other hand, anisotropy of GRBs distribution may be the consequence of fluctuation of mass density during primordial universe or sequence of the universe evolution. Whether they have a common point or correlate with each other is ambiguous. But, if we do indeed find some relationship between the axis of evil of GRBs and CMB, we obtain some clues to reveal the structure of our universe behind the uncanny phenomenon.

YCZ thanks the helpful discussion with Tsvi Piran, Dingxiong Wang, Bing Zhang, Biping Gong, Qingwen Wu and Weihua Lei. This work is supported by the National Basic Research Program of China (973 Program, Grant No. 2014CB845800), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grants No. U1231101 and 11033002) and the Chinese-Israeli Joint Research Project (Grant No. 11361140349).

\defA\&A {A\&A }
\defA\&AS{A\&AS}
\defApJL {ApJL }
\defAJ {AJ }
\defApJ {ApJ }
\defApJS {ApJS }
\defARAA {ARAA }
\defJCAP{JCAP}
\defMNRAS {MNRAS }
\defNature {Nature }
\defPASP {PASP }
\defPhysics Report{Physics Report}
\defSPIE {SPIE }

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaArXiv


text:
Mnium ist eine Gattung von Laubmoosen aus der Familie Mniaceae mit holarktischer Verbreitung.

Beschreibung
Die Moospflanzen dieser Gattung wachsen aufrecht oder manchmal etwas übergebogen. Oft sind sie rötlich getönt. Sie haben lanzettliche bis eiförmige Blätter, deren Ränder meist mehrreihig gesäumt und mit Doppelzähnen besetzt sind. Die Blattrippe reicht gewöhnlich bis in die Blattspitze. Die Blattzellen sind rundlich – sechseckig.

Systematik
Zur Gattung Mnium werden weltweit 19 Arten gezählt.

In Mitteleuropa vorkommende Arten sind:
 Mnium ambiguum
 Schwanenhals-Sternmoos (Mnium hornum)
 Mnium marginatum
 Mnium spinosum
 Mnium spinulosum
 Mnium stellare
 Mnium thomsonii

Quellen

Literatur
 Jan-Peter Frahm, Wolfgang Frey: Moosflora (= UTB. 1250). 4., neubearbeitete und erweiterte Auflage. Ulmer, Stuttgart 2004, ISBN 3-8252-1250-5.
 Martin Nebel, Georg Philippi (Hrsg.): Die Moose Baden-Württembergs. Band 2: Spezieller Teil, (Bryophytina II, Schistostegales bis Hypnobryales). Ulmer, Stuttgart 2001, ISBN 3-8001-3530-2.

Einzelnachweise

Weblinks

Mniaceae (Familie)
Mniaceae

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
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Vali Nasr
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American Author; New York Times bestsellers The 48 Laws of Power, The Art of Seduction, The 33 Strategies of War, and The 50th Law
Diplomat & Author; Former United Nations Under-Secretary-General
Former CEO and Co-founder of PayPal; Technology Entrepreneur, Investor and Philanthropist
Wildlife Photographer, Filmmaker & Author Best Known for Hosting a Series of Snake Documentaries
I know how important inspiration is to a Children. I was diagnosed with Colon Cancer on March 31, 2005, where eighteen inches of my colon was removed. It was during my cancer treatment at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center where I saw kids suffering from cance