I know nothing about the writer and the venue in which his comments appear. Also, I’m not qualified to evaluate the quality of his argument. Still, I find the hypothesis intriguing: Covid-19 is “being spread in the medical environment — specifically, in the hospitals — not, in the main, on the beach or in the bar.”
Hygiene failures, especially insufficient hand washing, would certainly explain why nursing homes have been persistent, readily identifiable hot spots for coronavirus transmission.
The main technical question I have about the hypothesis concerns the concept of “step funtions” in the statement: “The presence of step functions and apparent linear-fit line segments in what should be a clean parabolic curve says this is exactly what has happened.” I have only the haziest notion of what the writer is trying to say.
More generally, if medical settings are indeed a primary vector for coronavirus transmission, I can easily see why alternative transmission models would gain higher attention.
Tidewater News and Opinion Forum 
Did a little digging on the author and found his wiki page:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Denninger
He is considered the founder of the Tea Party movement, which he left when the GOP …”hi-jacked the movement and perverted its original goals to the standard Republican concerns of “guns, gays and God”.”
He is strictly a market guy with no background in epidemiology or health care.
A couple of take aways from wiki: “Denninger is a founding contributor to the libertarian-oriented finance blog market-ticker.org,”…
“He now utilizes his blog to sell his home networking daemon and sell the artwork of his highly independent daughter.”…
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Thanks for the info, but what does it matter? One doesn’t have to be an epidemiologist, or even a scientist, to propose a hypothesis.
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True. But I prefer hypothesis from experts, not guys who use their blog, supposedly for market research, to sell his independent daughter’s paintings or his home networking daemon.
And I find his hypothesis to ONLY factor the financial side of the pandemic. I also find it to be bullshit. But that is just one man’s opinion.
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RE: “I prefer hypothesis from experts, not guys who use their blog, supposedly for market research, to sell his independent daughter’s paintings or his home networking daemon.”
As a rule, I don’t put much stock in argument by authority.
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Explains a lot.
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…”but what does it matter”…
This is why it matters.
“I know nothing about the writer and the venue in which his comments appear. Also, I’m not qualified to evaluate the quality of his argument.”
Good reason to research a little bit and find out who you are promoting. Took me about 3 minutes to find out who this guy is and where he is coming from.
The absolutism of his hypothesis is, as stated previously, bullshit. Spreading events have occurred from churches, parties, rallys (see Tulsa), and other venues. For Mr. Denninger to state the hospitals ARE the vector for spreading is a crock. Are hospitals and health care centers part of the spread? No doubt. But to say they ARE the cause is proven false without any real thought. Kind of like his piece. Lotsa words and graphs and such, but zero substance. (Sounds familiar to me for some reason.)
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And more than 6,300 cases linked to college campuses.
The hypothesis is disproven just as easy as it was written.
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RE: “But to say they ARE the cause is proven false without any real thought.”
That depends on the validity of his argument, which you refute with no justification or, in fact, any expertise superior to Denninger’s. For example, you don’t (can’t?) speak to hia central premise about “step functions.” If you want to debunk his hypothesis you must start there.
As it happens, that’s why I mentioned the “step functions” premise: to distinguish between competent criticism that might explain the concept and why it doesn’t apply, and incompetent criticism like yours that shows no clue bout what is going on.
By the way, you might have noticed the date of Denninger’s blog post. It is significant for a couple of different reasons. Can you figure out why?
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…”the date of Denninger’s blog post”…
Yeah, March 28. About the time when thew majority of cases were focused in nursing homes. Still doesn’t explain the literal explosion of cases since then. His “step functions”, which even you could not describe or defend, or refute appears to be his way of coming off a being accurate.
And I don’t see where he has stepped up and said his hypothesis has been disproved, which it has. -IMO
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I know this is but a single case as reported, but a little research and one can find numerous cases of church gatherings, meetings, parties, etc. that resulted in a series of infections, and not all old folks either. And we opened up the previously “we are not NY” states as if nothing was going on.
“Fourteen members of a Texas family have tested positive for the coronavirus following a party last month, with one dead and another on life support, according to a report.
Tony Green, the Dallas man who hosted the party and believed the global pandemic was a hoax, called the cluster of infections “a harsh lesson in the reality of COVID-19,”
https://nypost.com/2020/07/28/coronavirus-strikes-14-family-members-kills-1-after-texas-party/?utm_campaign=applenews&utm_medium=inline&utm_source=applenews
Hospitals have always been a place to avoid because of the infection rates of any kind of disease. Things improved when simple hand washing protocols, among others, were codified and instituted.
I still think social distancing with masks are the best we can do. Testing and contact tracing is not going to happen in this country for a variety of reasons. One of them being a 1-2 week lag in results makes contact tracing impossible.
Toss in suspicion about contract tracing being a plot against freedom loving Americans, the same as masks it seems.
The rest of the world used to take our lead in many things. Now they are looking at us and wondering what the hell were we thinking. And still are, evidently.
Meanwhile we had 1200+ deaths yesterday with about 67,000 new infections. A total of 152,000 + deaths so far.
Whatever we are doing, it has got to be not terribly effective.
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RE: “Whatever we are doing, it has got to be not terribly effective.”
The observation doesn’t follow from the numbers you cite..
Separately, hand-washing by medical professionals has always been and continues to be a known and significant problem. In fact, insufficient and improper hand-washing by the general public is one reason universal masking is unlikely to be more than marginally effective.
https://www.webmd.com/women/news/20040706/study-doctors-dont-wash-hands-enough
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2020/07/could_face_masks_be_spreading_the_coronavirus.html
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AT I think missed the point of masks. Yes it is a surface that might contaminate if the mask is not properly cleaned or disposed of. But surface contamination is not the primary means of transmission for this particular virus. Aerosol is the culprit. And for that masks have been shown to protect both the wearer and people he comes into close contact with.
Combine that with avoiding crowds in indoor environments seems to work.
We will see a boatload of. “But, but, but…”
from the anti-mask crowd. Until they get sick, that is.
I look at this as an opportunity for honorary Darwin Awards for both the deceased and the recovered. Like the party guy in Texas, along with Gohmert and others who just think they live on a private island.
When we see the success of containment in Asian nations that have been used to wearing masks for decades, it should at least give pause to our #LIBERATE folks.
Morbid humor would suggest that the ones who died from “rebelling” at least can’t spread the virus anymore. So there is that.
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RE: “But surface contamination is not the primary means of transmission for this particular virus. Aerosol is the culprit.”
You need to learn more. Aerosol transmission is not the only vector; it may not even be the most important vector. But even if we assume that it is, improper mask use (contaminated, too course materials, improper fit, etc.) makes prevention of aerosol transmission using masks problematic.
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I said surface is not the primary and you say aerosol is not the only vector.
That sounds like the same thing.
Of course if you store your mask in the dumpster and never wash it after being in a crowd or wear it below your nose it will be less effective.
But mask wearing does help. And until we get cures and/or preventatives like a vaccine, it is all we have along with social distancing.
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And now Texas Congressman Louis Gohmert, who refused to wear a mask has tested positive. The automatic contact tracing started with 1) his staff, who he forced to work in the office, and 2) Bill Barr.
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So what? Unless you know exactly how Ghomert became exposed and infected, you’re just guessing about him.
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I never speculated as to how he became infected. All I said he was prone to not wearing a mask.
And now, in his infinite idiocy, he claims it was the mask that gave ti to him. The video of him during the Barr hearing showed him with a freaking bandanna which he at one point appeared to blow his nose into, or at least snort into it, was an indication of how much he doesn’t get it.
There have been several stories of those who chose not to mask up who then got infected and came out afterward and said they wish they had followed the SCIENTISTS advice and they tell people they should.
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“The observation doesn’t follow from the numbers you cite..“
1/4 of the world’s cases and deaths with 1/20 of the population. A rise in deaths from hovering around 5-600 or so to well over 1000/day. Infections skyrocketing to 65,000 and up per day. Hospitals running out of room in many hotspots. PPE shortages in some areas. 2 week waits for test results.
So how are these indicative of success in John’s book? I am obviously missing something.
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“Just let it roll through. We’ll be fine” Unless you’re not.
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RE: “So how are these indicative of success in John’s book? I am obviously missing something.”
I didn’t say your numbers were indicative of success. Your fallacious thinking is to assume they are indicative of failure.
My objection is to your reliance on fallacious reasoning.
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“…fallacious reasoning…”
How so?
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If it doesn’t agree with his view, it is always fallacious, silly, wrong or stupid.
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