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Here's an account of the problem back in April. For that month Florida typically had around 17,000 deaths, this April we had 19,200, say 2,000 excess deaths. By official counting only about half of those were COVID-19 deaths. State criteria, though different from the U.K.s, require several...

There's a reason I've stopped giving daily reports on covid-19 cases in Florida. I started to question the numbers, because they didn't show internal consistency. This week did nothing to improve my opinion, with over 75,000 old results suddenly found by Quest Diagnostics. The state is blaming...

I could hardly make this one up. Florida will not release data on COVID-19 in schools due to "privacy concerns". Similar concerns previously applied to infections in nursing homes and jails.

Somebody, and I can't always be sure who, has been trying to argue that the mortality rate for COVID-19 in the U.S. is a fraction of the official numbers. Reuters does a fact check on the claim. I'm sure this has been used in some other countries to minimize the problem.

If you have good data, pandemic spread can be accurately predicted. Here's an example from Ohio. I don't believe Ohio has quite the degree of controversy over data we see in Florida, where cooperation between various people with access to data has broken down. Of course, my cynical old mind...

I'm not committed to the hypothesis that direct viral infection causes our troubles. The variety of possible triggers points to some kind of misdirected immune response, though viruses, and RNA viruses in particular are high on the list of suspects. Humans are just now developing RNA vaccines...

I'm still not able to keep up with all this, because I can only sit and type for limited time before my back complains. What I realized at the outset is that this could explain why various tests of mitochondrial function could fail to find abnormalities in ME/CFS. Here's an overview of the...

Florida has two new stories today: 1) the governor is opening long-term care facilities to visitors; 2) the state is breaking off use of Quest laboratories because of delayed test results. The first item indicates those visitors will be checked for symptoms, and will have to wear masks, but will...

New York decided to treat some excess deaths as COVID-19 caused, and now looks worse in statistics as a result. Florida has fought to deny or delay damaging numbers. We had a dispute between the state DoH and various county medical examiners over which deaths were due to COVID-19. We have a...

I think the important point is that the approach described, not testing asymptomatic people who may be carriers, does not identify the routes by which the infection spreads. This is classic "community spread" which defeats contact tracing. In Florida we went through a previous dispute about...

This one makes it hard to avoid politics, but the story should be available for free because it directly concerns COVID-19. If you have trouble, I'll find another source to link. Scott Atlas, a new adviser to the president on coronavirus is not an epidemiologist, though he was previously chief...

This post on Phys.org just caught my eye. I didn't realize there was a distinct mitochondrial cycle for this essential part of cell metabolism. Here's the primary citation. This is the first I have heard of MEPAN and the foundation to study it. This devastating disease could be a key to the...

Just saw this story in WIRED about utter confusion about testing asymptomatic people who have been exposed. This is not how you control a pandemic.

Throughout this pandemic I have been looking for things that relate to mysterious problems seen in ME/CFS which COVID-19 makes much worse. One thing I have long suspected has to do with endothelial dysfunction. Several other terms related to inflammation and microvascular leakage have also...

To give U.S. leaders a break, I'll just mention that governments of other countries have done reprehensible things to hide bad news about the pandemic. I won't link it, because it is political, but those in the U.K. who care to might check on what Phil Moorhouse is saying about the subject...

Florida's DoH reported today we have 3,815 new cases and 89 deaths. Getting those deaths below 100 per day is considered progress. Most deaths being reported now probably were caused by infections which took place in July. I'm very much afraid there is an unstated policy of delaying reports of...

BGR reports on a Korean study of COVID-19 transmission on airplane flights, even if you take all reasonable precautions.

Other than tropical storms, motorcycle rallies, political conventions and fires in California, the other big spreading event is the opening of schools. Here's an effort supported by the NEA to track cases in U.S. schools. This is not part of the federal government. I can testify that reporting...

I've now seen video from the air of the worst-hit part of Cameron, LA. This is so close to maximum destruction the difference hardly matters. It will take weeks simply to assess the damage. The wind stayed below the threshold for Category 5, and the storm surge was "only" about 3 meters...

Just to follow up on hurricane Laura. I've just been able to watch live video of people driving into Lake Charles after the storm. First note: if they were able to drive in this was probably above the storm surge. The roads had downed trees and debris, but were not flooded or washed out. One...