Janie Matrisciano

by JanieM

I once wrote something to the effect that God invented black flies to remind us that nothing is perfect, even the month of May.

I wrote hastily.

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by JanieM

5/16: US and UK updated to today. But US numbers are bizarre — Worldometer doesn’t agree with itself, in that today’s total deaths minus yesterday’s (as I copied them each day) gives a value quite a bit higher than the # they show in the daily deaths graph for today. If I dig deeper, I see that for at least the last few days, the #s in the “total deaths” graph don’t agree with the numbers I copied into a spreadsheet every night after they cleared the by-state table for the day. I know they adjust numbers sometimes, but these are big numbers, and I don’t see an explanation as yet. I’m not sure I’m going to bother continuing with this if the data is this murky.

5/14 note: I’m going to keep updating these for the time being, although even the number of deaths is reportedly being manipulated by different states in different ways, so I don’t know how indicative these numbers are. The time when Worldometer cuts off each night varies, but usually the updates are ready by 10:00 p.m. eastern time, and surely by 11:00. If I get time I might see if I can put a link to this post on the front page, and if I really get time I’d like to do some other graphs as well. We’ll see.

This didn’t take long, although it would be quicker to make these if I had been collecting daily data in a useful format all along. Hindsight is a wonderful thing.

Any other countries you’d particularly like to see?

Numbers came from the “Daily New Deaths in the US” graph here.

*****

And for lj’s “yellow peril” collection, from Tom Levenson at BJ: Weaponizing Bullshit, Chattering Classes Edition

*****

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by JanieM

Thanks to Anne Laurie’s amazing reporting at Balloon-Juice, the novel coronavirus has been on my radar since late January.

Because of Anne’s posts, I started backing up my food and household supplies a few weeks ago – just a little at a time, not trying to prepare for six months or a year in a bunker, but just adding an extra package of toilet paper here, a few extra packages of rice cakes and flour there. Even before this happened I probably could have eaten (boringly) for several weeks on the long untouched pasta and other staples in my cupboards and fridge.

For a couple of weeks I went to the store and bought a little more than usual with each trip. Then other people started to get a clue, and the following week the toilet paper aisle was cleaned out. I haven’t been to town since last Weds., and for the foreseeable future my son will be doing my shopping for me. He’s going today – we’ll see what he has to say about supplies of various things when he gets back.

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