psuhoffman

One last thing... wrt to the "phased" opening of the economy. All I have heard lately are the same very shallow hollow talking points from every interview on this. There are some VERY important details that no one is even mentioning. So....if we return the less vulnerable to work and order the people at higher risk to stay in quarantine.... possibly for a year or more, how does that even work. First of all do people realize how many that is. High risk isnt just people over 60 its also anyone with diabetes, asthma and other lung diseases, heart conditions, cancer, anyone who had chemo, various immune system deficiencies, anyone who smokes....we are talking about a LOT of people. How do businesses function missing that many people? Some key contributors will be gone. And most importantly...what about those groups? That is tens of millions of people. Who pays their bills? Do businesses have to retain them and pay their salaries even when they aren't working for a year? If not...what happens when they run out of money? Do we give them all unemployment? What about the people who live in a high cost of living area and unemployment won't cover their cost of living? They have to then "move" during a pandemic and suffer that loss because they are forced to isolate for a year? And even if we take the "conservative" approach of "well that is their problem" no it isnt..because if that 30% of the economy suddenly is destitute you really think that wont trigger a depression? Then what was the point of opening back up anyways? And if you force that group to choose between their health or losing their homes many will take the chance and go to work and get sick...and then we crash the medical system and we end up with the result the "plan" is trying to avoid and we might as well have just done nothing. Maybe there is some brilliant plan that no one is talking about to deal with all the issues that kind of policy would entail...but forgive me for being skeptical on that. Yea a scalpel type policy towards this would be better...in a vacuum...but we suck at that kind of societal level details collective actions. We would likely not even be able to agree on what kind of assistance the high risk in isolation should get. I don't have the answers either...just pointing out the "plan" I keep hearing about is more of a vague un-fleshed out idea than a plan.

Even if yesterdays spike was partially due to the observed "Tuesday bump" each week...it is apparent we have not made much progress down the curve yet. We may be slightly past the peak but still very early in the decline and that decline is likely to be slow not sharp. That said (and I do not want to get into a political argument with anyone, I have mostly been avoiding that but this is my personal take and yes its biased because EVERYONE is biased by their own experiences in life) I find it ridiculous that we are suddenly talking about a quick opening and relaxation of our societal covid preventative measures when we are just now very close to or only slightly past the peak of the pandemic. IMO the discussion is being driven by some people's impatience and frustration and economic concerns. I have not heard one shred of evidence from a virologist that inclines me to think opening everything back up soon is a good idea medically. And I am suspect that an early opening which could lead to another spike in cases would have any economic benefit. We are over a month into this now...and we are going to just throw all that way and go in a different direction? Then we might end up back at square one and have wasted all this time and be starting all over again. Plus if a significant number are sick the economy won't be "fine" no matter what the policy is. This just seems crazy to me. And I am NOT coming at this from a place of not wanting to work. I am working. All my classes are online. I have collaborate sessions with my students everyday, I am posting and grading work daily. I am contacting students by phone and email daily. My work load is pretty similar to what it was before. My concern is 2 fold.... this sucks and I do NOT want to have wasted all this time and have to start all over in 2 months...and if the economy is going to suffer anyways we might as well save lives.

I would take yesterday's numbers with a grain of salt wrt to declaring it a "SIGNIFICANT" jump up because for several weeks there has been a repetative pattern of lower reported deaths over the weekend and then a significant spike on Tuesday. The only logical explanation is that changes in how they are reported and issues with contacting family before they are made public wrt the weekends causes a backlog that then hits the reports as "new deaths" on Tuesdays. That makes more sense that the virus cares what day of the week it is and suddenly becomes more lethal every Tuesday. We will have to see what the numbers look like today before drawing any larger conclusions about the trend. That said the numbers do suggest (even taking into account the Tuesday bump effect) that while we may have flattened the curve that flattening happened at a fairly high level and we have not yet seen a significant move down the backside of the curve.

@showmethesnow sorry what I was trying to say was that I am skeptical of the virus being here in December because with absolutely no containment measures in place it likely would have spread rapidly out of control then.

@showmethesnow I have no doubt the episode began in China prior to their reports. What I meant is we didn’t see that type of spread here that we likely would have absent any measures at all to contain in December. When this hit various areas it wasn’t something that went undetected. China then Iran, Italy, Spain, NYC...places this hit before they were ready to contain it spread rapidly and was easily apparent something was wrong. I haven’t seen evidence of that kind of thing here back in December.

Maybe but then why didn’t we see what happened in China in other places until much later?

so sorry

Also most locally spend funds circulate back in taxes every few years. It's why i laugh when people freak out about something like spending too much on snow removal one year. Yea but within 3 years all that money is back because every time it changes hands it gets taxed.

UGH...so sorry. I don't want to assume what others situations are...but how hard should it be to simply make your way to your computer at a particular time each day? I have had a few internet issues at times...got booted...but my students know I will log right back in if that happens. I also offer some evening hours because a few of my students picked up delivery jobs to help out at home and I want them to be able to participate. But with younger children that is obviously not a problem. Obviously if this instructor continues to act "unprofessionally" don't hesitate to talk to them and contact the school if need be. As a teacher I am frustrated when I hear things like that...it makes all of us look bad.

It's a shame even our leaders don't truly understand how the economy functions. This will only hurt revenues more. I know local jurisdictions are pressed more since they don't have the power to manipulate the money supply like the federal government does, but if we really understood economics, during times of crisis the federal government would release emergency funds even more liberally to local jurisdictions. The negative effects/inflation from over saturating the market with currency will be offset by the downward market pressures right now so we don't have to worry as much about "balancing the budget" as we would during a normal economic period of growth. But if you cut jobs you are cutting tax revenues also. Estimates can vary based on how you calculate it and how far down the tree you go but about 40% of our revenues come from jobs that are at least somewhat dependent on government spending. That's why the "just cut spending" to balance the budget mantra is bunk. If we have a 1 trillion dollar deficit and you simply cut 1T in government spending...you would also cause a drastic cut in tax revenues and would still end up with a deficit. The better way to balance would be to keep spending steady and grow your way out as revenues increase each year. Otherwise you keep hurting people without any benefit to the deficit. In times of crisis like this balancing isn't even as necessary as rapid inflation is less likely due to increased infusions of currency since its being offset by the negative impacts of the crisis.

Every district has their own plan. For Baltimore, we gave out pretty extensive work packets first at our school then at food distribution centers to cover the last few weeks. Starting this week (for 4th Quarter) we are online using google classroom and we meet with students live several times a week using collaborate. I am posting assignments pretty much the same as I would in class, adapting them when needed obviously. I cut the work load down some and am being flexible as we get adjusted...but for me the loss (for students who are choosing to participate) won't be that extreme. There are paper packets also still available for students who do not have access to tech, but we are also offering programs for free internet service, phones and tablets so technically all students could have access if they wanted. Participation so far has been about 70% and honestly that is about what my participation rate was before all this. The biggest issue is the loss of socialization for students, especially younger ones. I have been calling and messaging students frequently to check up on them and see how they are doing. Encouraging them to participate in our live sessions. Some teachers don't want to give out their phone numbers but I have always allowed my students to contact me and it's never been a real issue. Hopefully this doesn't extend to next year but we are already taking steps to prepare in case it does.

Rebooting the world economy will take coordination and a collaborative effort. Too much of the workforce depends on transnational corporations or demand from international markets for one region to prosper in a vacuum. We are no exception. I was just saying one advantage we have now over most past economic crises is the market imbalance at work here can be temporary. I say can be because without adequate fiscal and monetary interventions the temporary imbalance could become permanent. Lets compare this to the Great Depression. In that case 4 major problems combined. An incredibly unhealthy distribution of wealth that limited purchasing power and product demand, extreme inflation of market value due to an unregulated financial sector acting recklessly and a lack of feduciary regulations combined with a sudden banking crises unchecked by a lack of funds insurance, and exasperated by a laissez-faire attitude by some governments unwilling to take measures to infuse the necessary artificial stimulus to kick start growth. Of those 4 factors acting to create the extreme imbalance only 1 exists today in a tangible way beyond the temporary effects of the virus. We again today have an unhealthy distribution that will threaten a worse recession someday if it is not rectified. But the other 3 factors do not exist to the same degree. In the 1920s we actually were still pretty close to a true capitalist economy. Not quite as much as the 1800s prior to the progressive movement when damn near anything was legal in the name of making a buck but still close. In that way we were ill equipped to manage a sudden market imbalance. Once demand was wrecked by such an imbalance it could take years for people to cobble together enough cap to increase demand and thus labor again. Plus people were burned and even when they had money were acting frugal which was not helpful to creating labor demand which requires people buying stuff. Today we can, to a degree, control and offset such imbalances. Whether we are willing is another story. But for instance, most don’t realize how government spending really happens. When we spend money we don’t take it from revenues. We actually just print the money. We make it up. Then the following year we correct the imbalance by either taxing it out of the economy fiscally or use monetary measures (open market operations or tinkering with interest rates) to prevent rapid extreme inflation. The deficit is just the estimate of the imbalance between how much more money we are infusing into the economy than taking out the following year. And normally that’s important because in a well functioning economy without an imbalance if you flood cap into the market without increasing production you end up with rapid inflation that destabilizes the economy. But what if we have an equal downward economic pressure like right now? Will the 2T infusion of cap really cause the same harm now? Not likely. In some limited sectors maybe. But the downward pressures right now will offset most of the effects. So we could spend recklessky right now without as much harm as in other situations. We also could freeze debt to limit the instability. Now will we do those things? I’m skeptical. But my point was our unwillingness to enact a proper economic plan doesn’t make the healthcare plan wrong. We could manage this in a way to minimize both the virus impacts and economic impacts imo.

Yes because there is no $ on life AND money is all abstract anyways. We literally make it up. It’s the value of our goods, services and means of production that matters. Temporarily there will be an imbalance to that but necessary services will survive and if the government wanted too they can easily freeze then reboot all non essential economic sectors with an infusion of capital to kick start it. Typically such an infusion would create inflation but not when it’s balanced by downward price pressures such as now. Economic policy is really about how we allot and prioritize resources. Money can be manipulated. This won’t create a permanent imbalance in the means of production. We will still have an adequate labor force and raw materials. With an infusion of cap to crate necessary demand the economy would recover quickly. We could also freeze all debt both to and from financial institutions so most come out the same way they entered the crisis. Now I know our government sucks at economic policy and that likely won’t do all that. The biggest issue is we are selfish AF and that strategy would require the greater good mentality. A lot of people will still be making a profit. Financial institutions don’t want to give up several months of interest payments. And many wouldn’t want everyone to realize just have abstract the value of money is and open their eyes to the truth of how we deploy our resources. So we will probably drive ourselves into a depression in a futile attempt to save the status quo economic system but that doesn’t make the first part of the plan wrong. It just makes us idiots when it comes to economic policy.

In a few years when it’s a constant neussance we will have some natural immunity and likely a vaccine. It won’t be a threat to run rampant all at once and crash the medical system.

It’s unavoidable. An old boss of mine is a Qanon tin foil hat nutcase and it’s amazing what he shares on his FB wall. I mean some of it’s like grocery store tabloid level stupid. The theme seems to be “take ANYTHING that doesn’t fit his preferred narrative and twist it into a conspiracy that does”. But some of those absolutely lunatic level crap posts have 100,000 likes.

You are describing the micro effects of the macro pattern I discussed.

Split flow progressive pattern with lack of phasing (until OTS). Southern stream moisture stays south. Northern stream races by to the north. It happens. But it’s unlikely to persist forever. Especially as we move into Summer patterns when different factors become more critical to our precipitation prospects.

At least this time the map agrees with your point. But a 30 day anomaly over such a relatively small geographic area isn’t that significant. If that kind of pattern were to continue another 60 days or so it would become a problem. My guess is it won’t. These things tend to naturally balance out. These short term anomalies aren’t even really anomalies. The mean is just a bunch of anomalies averaged together. You are missing the forest from the trees.

You might want to learn how to read that map before using it to make a point...

A small area receiving 50-75% of normal precip for 1-2 months isn’t that significant. That happens quite frequently. For some reason no one makes a big deal everytime we get 150% of qpf in a 60 day period. The drought thing is overblown almost everytime it comes up. We haven’t had a true emergency level drought in a long time. The droughts being trumpeted lately are just typical variance that happens several times a decade. And before some brings up water restrictions...just because some localities didn’t properly plan their water usage when zoning doesn’t mean it’s a true anomalous drought everytime they run out of water due to poor planning and over population for the local water availability.

It hasn’t rained here in about 20 minutes. Good thing we are already sheltering in place.

Here we go...

I think the coop they used there is right on the bay so it skews low.

@RevWarReenactor they might not have "lied" to you, simply fallen to a common misconception. West can help wrt snowfall...but only if you get far enough west to enter another climate zone. The reason west helps is because of the contour of the elevation zones in the mid atlantic. If you go far enough west you get out of the coastal plain and into the Piedmont. Go far enough west and you get out of the Piedmont and into the mountains. With each elevation increase you enter a better climate zone for snowfall. But within each zone...north/south matters more than east/west. You can see that with these snowfall maps here...I continued the approximate contours from the NJ map to help show how once you hit the fall line...snowfall totals turn southwest due to the climate zone change...but within the coastal plain the contours run more west to east. You can see on the Maryland snowfall map how there is a tight gradient along the fall line. Had you moved 15 miles further northwest THEN you would have seen a dramatic change in your snowfall. But moving east and west within the coastal plain won't make much difference. Within each climate zone local meso scale terrain features like ridges and water matter more. So being right along the immediate coast...like on the barrier islands...will get less snow than 10 miles inland. But once inland a little snowfall won't usually change much going another 10 miles east or west. Someone right along the Delaware river will get less snow than someone 250 feet higher up in South Jersey for instance. Look at where you are on that MD map...you had the misfortune of moving into a local snowfall minimum also...a region that is between the Chesapeake bay and Delaware river...at very low elevation. Warmth floods up the bay and river.... you have a downsloping wind from every direction...and a wind off water from many directions. You are in a bad local area also. When I moved from southern NJ to northern VA I did see an increase in snow...but only because I went from the coastal plain to the Piedmont. Had I moved somewhere 15 miles further southeast in VA I would have actually gotten less snow than where I used to live southeast of Philly. Elevation is the reason going west helps...but if you go west and do NOT increase your elevation...you really aren't doing yourself any good. And if you go west and put yourself into a local snow hole due to terrain features you can even get less. I get way more snow than places west of me in the valley there. Hope this helps explain the real phenomenon you are describing.

First of all I hope you don't find this antagonistic. I don't find any of this to be hostile. We have different opinions but it's an interesting conversation that is all. It has been a crappy run for snow. I am not happy with the results either. But I am taking a purely statistics and probabilities side here. In the last 10 years DCA had 4 years above average. That still holds with the long term "normal" frequency. Those years can sometimes come in chunks with long periods in between...that has always been the case. There is a very random distribution to our big snowfall years. You have to look at the frequency over longer periods of time when you have that kind of distribution to see real trends versus just random noise. Like a coin flip. You can get 5 heads in a row...and think that is a trend...but if you step back and look over 20 or 30 flips you are more likely to see it even out towards the 50/50 probability. Over the long term the odds of a big snowfall year is about 30% and we will have runs of good or bad within but over the longer term it usually ends up evening out to about that 30% chance. I am not trying to say its been a good run for snow. Its been crappy. But the problem is we live somewhere that crappy is kind of the normal base state most of the time. I am just accepting that reality. Not saying you should be happy about it. WRT your take on different years...and how snow comes. Again you feel how you feel...no changing that, but what you describe...late snowfalls (or even mid winter ones) that melt right away...or turn to rain and get washed away...or imperfect storms that dry slot us...that describes A LOT of our snow. If you start to toss years that got to a decent result but did it with "flawed" storms you end up making our already crappy climo even worse. For instance if you remove the "good snow years" in DC where most of that snow came from one big storm OR most of that snow came late in the season then you end up tossing "good years" like 1960, 1972, 1983, 2000, 2015, 2016, 2019... take those away and now your probabilities of a "good year" go down to like 20% if not worse. On top of that a lot of the "mediocre" years become awful if you toss one big storm years...like 2006, or years where most of the snow came from flawed melty storms or late season storms....like 2018. Do that and now the chances of a total crap season goes up even more. So I get why you don't "like" those storms as much...I just don't think you get how rare what you "want" really is. How common has it been for us to get a winter where we get a lot of snow from multiple "cold" storms? How many of those have happened in the last 30 years? 1996, 2003, 2010, 2014, 2015... is that it? Am I missing any? If not that is 5 times in 30 years... that's only 17% of the time. You only have a 17% chance of getting that in any given year. I am not saying that isn't what you should want...and I want that too...I just realize how rare that is around here. I also think you are mis remembering some years. 2002 DC only had 3.2". It was 2003 that was great and that was a nino year. 2004 was only 12.5" so it was decent but not a "good" year, especially by your standards. 2006 DC had 13.6" and most of it came from one storm that was a meltathon right after so doesn't that fall into the type of years you say you don't like? 2008 was only 4.9 all of it came from a clipper in early Dec and then two 1" slush storms. I highly doubt you really thought that was "decent" at the time. 2009 was 7.5" almost all from one storm in March that melted the next day. So.... You are saying some of those werent that bad but they were every bit as bad as some of the years in the last 10 that you complained constantly that they sucked as they were happening. They were all way worse than 2018 was in your location and you hated that year when it was actually happening. I think time has a tendency to edit our memories. 15 years from now maybe all I will remember from this winter is that one good snowstorm I got in January and the day in the snow with my children and it won't seem as bad. But the numbers don't lie.