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Showing posts from May, 2020

Whoo Ha!

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Looked Like Horrible News. Now It's Great News! Our Daubers Were Down, but Then... I'm a Dauber, but I'm obviously UP! ... came the correction. Thank you Science! (Surely by now, you know this news has nothing to do with wasps, mud daubers or otherwise.) Here's the great news:                                                                                Covid Patients Testing Positive After Recovery Aren’t Infectious, Study Shows By  Heesu Lee  and  Jason Gale May 18, 2020, 9:15 PM MDT   Updated on  May 19, 2020, 3:19 AM MDT So those sailors on the Roosevelt, all those South Koreans and others who test positive again after recovering from Covid-19 didn't actually catch it again. They are (most likely)* now immune, and n...
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Two Upbeat Bits of Pandemic News* 1. There is a new, 100% accurate antibody test & 2. T cells for COVID-19 ‘bode well’ for long-term immunity Once a sci-fi guy, always a sci-fi guy.  On March 29 I started saying stuff like this: 1. Give EVERYBODY the  antibody test  for Covid-19.       (and the virus test too) 2. Quarantine all positives. 3. Do comprehensive contact tracing. Quarantine all contacts. 4. Drop all social distancing for those with the "well and immune" antibody load. My Big Assumptions - Slightly ahead of reality So, there was no accurate, mass producible antibody test way back then (six weeks ago). I assumed there was, and I made the larger assumption that antibodies meant at least temporary immunity. That also had not been confirmed. My sci-fi sense was optimistic. These  Two Upbeat Bits of Pandemic News prove out those two assumptions! First the antibody test: Don't Bogart that... Loo...

Boy, Did I Get It Wrong

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May, 2003 Duff Cast His Sci-Fi Eye to the Distant Future May, 2020  * ( Honest. That was the day the piece was  first posted, and that was the predicted time. I promise I have not fudged the date. I reposted  it in 2011, adding some pictures.) It was about my fixation on inter-basin water movement to save the Western States. No More Floods, No More Droughts The Prediction That Ran Amuck May 2020     The Mississippi River is approaching flood stage in Illinois, Indiana and Missouri.  The Corps of Engineers monitors the levees and dikes with the giant web of depth gauges and flow meters.  The U.S. Weather Bureau is predicting major rainstorms in several of the watersheds.  Supercomputers are crunching trillions of numbers and putting options in clear graphical displays in front of Corps decision makers.   America The Beautiful ... The tale goes on about how America overcomes a looming environmental disaster...