What We Should Do About COVID-19
We need more data and key measurements including the infection fatality rate (aka actual mortality rate) broken down by age, sex, race, pre-existing medical conditions, ambient temperature, sunlight levels, air pollution levels and other risk factors. The false positive and negative rates of the tests, both the tests for active infection such as the RT-PCR tests and tests for past infection such as the antibody tests. How the disease spreads and at what rates for different modes. Aerosol transmission which is virtually unstoppable probably occurs at least at a low level. The data should be collected and analyzed in an open “transparent” manner by multiple independent teams, not just those funded or controlled by the CDC which has many conflicts of interest. Decisions should be made based on knowledge and careful thought and not fear, anger, and the primal fight or flight response which seriously degrades higher cognitive function.
There are also a number of other questions that should be quickly and carefully resolved where possible including the appropriateness of aggressive intubation, generally considered a very dangerous risky procedure, for coronavirus patients, how well ultraviolet light both artificial and in sunlight damages or destroys the virus under field conditions including in aerosol particles and on surfaces, etc. This is a short post and I won’t cover all these other questions here.
Decisions on maintaining, scaling back or fully stopping lockdowns, social distancing, masks and other measures should be based on this evidence. My opinion is that this evidence is either lacking or rudimentary/inadequate as of today (Sunday, May 3, 2020). It should be collected as soon as possible by whomever can do it and shared with the world.
Companion Video
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NODYMOCYSBU
BitChute: https://www.bitchute.com/video/ni5bG48M1KaI/
(C) 2020 by John F. McGowan, Ph.D.
About Me
John F. McGowan, Ph.D. solves problems using mathematics and mathematical software, including developing gesture recognition for touch devices, video compression and speech recognition technologies. He has extensive experience developing software in C, C++, MATLAB, Python, Visual Basic and many other programming languages. He has been a Visiting Scholar at HP Labs developing computer vision algorithms and software for mobile devices. He has worked as a contractor at NASA Ames Research Center involved in the research and development of image and video processing algorithms and technology. He has published articles on the origin and evolution of life, the exploration of Mars (anticipating the discovery of methane on Mars), and cheap access to space. He has a Ph.D. in physics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a B.S. in physics from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech).