Interesting to see docs, risk specialists and science profs share their ideas.

Here’s a few links that might interest:

Doc John discussing whether it makes sense to flatten. John has credibility with me because: (a) when he writes about niches I know very well (exercise), he makes sense; and (b) he’s willing to share observations that work against his financial and business interests.

Doc John extracting from a Swedish report that’s similar in tone to his blog – link to the report itself included in his post.

As an aside, the best thing I learned from Doc John was an observation, “good luck with convincing the endurance cohort of that reality.”

Another way of saying… when truth bumps into a core belief, expect the core belief to win.

Carl B, Biology Prof, countering the view that there is the same “area under the curve” whether it is flat, or not  => less of an overshoot means less death. Not directly in response to Doc John’s blog but explaining important considerations.

.@BenShapiro wants to know what the point of flattening the curve was, given that the same number of people get infected either way.

But the same number DO NOT get infected either way. My brief response here: https://t.co/TFax0hHYQT pic.twitter.com/6qGgBZLWqg

— Carl T. Bergstrom (@CT_Bergstrom) May 7, 2020

We have:

1. multiple commentators, all more experienced than me
2. all arguments emotionally appealing to a lay audience
3. no consensus
4. debate over future outcomes of complex systems

My take => proven exponential growth of a pathogen that is not well understood by the experts => therefore, lean heavily towards precaution. The burden of proof falls to the risk seekers.

Also saw an interesting comment out of Sweden => a senior public health official was surprised they couldn’t keep the virus out of elderly care facilities, facilities which were locked down. We saw the same thing in Colorado, just down the street from me and elsewhere.

External quarantine starting in NYC:

NYC is now doing something really big: offering hotel rooms to people with mild/mod covid-19 who need to relocate in order to keep their household from being infected.

Patients need to be referred by one of the below health providers. This is an early phase and will be expanded. pic.twitter.com/nesna9ANmj

— Mark D. Levine (@MarkLevineNYC) May 4, 2020

Study on COVID and kids coming:

Evidence on covid19 in kids is mixed; some studies suggest children don’t get infected, others suggest they do but are mostly developing mild or no symptoms. So NIH announced this week a large study to help determine rate of infection among U.S. children. https://t.co/WG8HWtpULc

— Scott Gottlieb, MD (@ScottGottliebMD) May 7, 2020

I’ll end the tweet summary with a useful reminder from Taleb:

Solid statistical inference lies in destroying BS with a single but powerful data point. Disconfirmatory empiricism.https://t.co/SiVkEb7nUP

— Nassim Nicholas Taleb (@nntaleb) May 7, 2020

Sometimes, all I need to do is find is one counter example to demolish my faulty thinking.

Neiman Marcus followed J Crew’s recent bankruptcy.

Day 50 lockdown party was a hit.

Kids say they’re looking forward to going BIG for day 100…

For COVID_19, I am the most vulnerable person in my household.

What would be useful => reliable information on how likely I am to get messed up by the virus. Not killed, not hospitalized, but permanently damaged.

Just like insurance, it’s easier to assess death than permanent disability.

Think I’ll ask my medical mentor.

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“I wouldn’t put any stock in any single result,” says @ScottGottliebMD on anti-body testing for #COVID19. “Quite frankly if it was me I’d repeat it three times.” pic.twitter.com/w429b3PEUg

— Squawk Box (@SquawkCNBC) May 4, 2020

What tipped me off, that antibody testing might not be all that reliable… it was rolled out by the local “anti-aging” docs at $250 per test.

As with supplements, many forms of elective surgery, low-T… if there is a demand then it will be filled.

We’re going to wait.

More on Singapore – what gets my attention is how seriously they are taking lockdown given the very limited community spread outside of the dorms.

Saw a couple articles on Friday about no adult transmission from kids. Struck me as magical thinking. I catch everything, and anything, from my kids.

Mitigation hasn’t worked as I expected in Colorado, or elsewhere. We’re still reporting >400 positives a day at the state level.

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Never miss an opportunity to use a crisis to further your agenda.

• Obama => healthcare, environment, climate
• Current => tax cuts, immigration, deregulation

When you look, it is easy to see at the State and Federal level. That said, most people spend too much energy thinking about remote issues.

How are you using this opportunity at your household, family and firm level?

The virus gives you an opening to implement necessary change, with yourself and others.

Bears are back in town and they are hungry! They’re knocking over my compost bin, which they usually ignore.

Saturday marked the return of the hummingbirds, and the first time I’ve had to use glasses to read my workout! Milestones, of a sort.

My injuries have disappeared and I’ve been pain free for two days. So nice! I feel like I’m on happy drugs from the removal of chronic pain.

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Want to help a personal trainer?

Help them create an outdoor gym.

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I read about parts of Europe opening their public spaces for restaurants to serve outdoors.

We should do the same here, especially if we’re going to mandate restaurants to operate at 50% indoor capacity.

Use public outdoor spaces to create safe working environments so our communities can get back to work.

I wrote myself a note and stuck it on my monitor…

If you keep an open mind then you won’t have to struggle to change it later

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A friend recommended the writing of Primo Levi. I’m almost through, If This Is A Man.

Excellent reading for perspective in lockdown.

Life has a way of humbling me.

I pulled my recovery days forward to yesterday/today. Going to get back on my program Saturday/Sunday then take another two days off to start next week.

One of the best lessons of my 30s was, “it takes about six weeks for an overuse injury to become apparent.” I even warned you, and myself (!), about it at the end of March.

I made it six weeks and three days. I was miserable, and not much use to my family, earlier this week.

Anyhow, the lesson of “beware the 45-day mark” applies across more domains than physical training. Most anybody can keep an initiative rolling for a month, or so.

Dalio says it takes 500 days to create a habit, the point at which whatever you’re trying to do flows on autopilot.

Came up with a list of stay-at-home projects for the weekend:

• Bake a carrot cake with Monica to celebrate Day 50 of lockdown
• Weed whack the alley with my son
• Make my own mask under the instruction of my oldest daughter
• Craft sock puppets with my youngest daughter
• Clean all outdoor furniture and pull cushions out of storage

Ax-man said it was time to hand out feathers and give some recognition to the family. Pics above and below.

Latest corona news is worries about re-infection might be misplaced.

Vaccine timelines bouncing between 9 months and 2 years.

No clear information on what happens if the virus doesn’t kill you – impact on lungs and other organs.

Bankruptcies are starting with large retail chains preparing for Chapter 11.

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I play “what is cheap” with myself quite a bit.

Neighbors put their house on the market. Listed for $2 million, which is pre-Corona, no rush to sell, asking price.

Building is ~3,000 sq ft with internal garage. I’d estimate $750K for the lot, $250 per sq ft (depreciated) for the house. So ~$1.5 million virus value. Subtract $250K for a margin of safety and my price to buy is $1.25 million.

My calculation tells me there is a huge gap between sellers and investment buyers.

I’m usually priced out of a market, but not always.

When I would run these figures in 2009/2010, asking prices got as low as 35% under my valuation. In this case, the asking price is 60% over my valuation.

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Leaves are coming on the trees.

Flowers all around the neighborhood.

Days are long and pleasant.

One of the questions I see in the news.

Are we willing to accept a lower standard of living to have a more robust society?

That’s a lot of faulty thinking packed into 16 words.

The question is asked with regard to securing masks and protective equipment.

Most of us aren’t making buying decisions for our nation’s strategic stockpile. Instead, we make daily choices, with the potential to make our lives miserable, if we don’t pay attention to them.

Somewhere inside the middle of our connections is a default position on a host of issues.

• More vs Less
• Time cost of money
• The true, largely emotional, cost of possessions
• The value of the ability to control our schedules
• What is right

Usually, it is difficult to see how deeply our default positions penetrate our lives.

These are not usual times!

April was a month where every single one of us was stress tested.

• Defining Success: How did you do?
• Relationships: What about your marriage? Your family? Your kids?
• Mistakes: What mistakes did you make? Can you own your mistakes, even in public?
• Lack: On the toughest days, what was lacking?

Resist the urge to point the finger outwards, too much of that happening.

How did you do?

April took a lot of “things” away from us.

Under a high level of stress we fell into our deepest patterns.

What did you notice?

If you’d described April 2020 to me in 2019 then I would have predicted misery.

Misery, with absolute certainty.

Yet, I wasn’t any more miserable than usual.

I’m similar => good days, and difficulties => high energy, and low => productive, and frustrated.

Pay attention to thoughts that are best ignored and not acted upon.

Be careful what you talk yourself into.

DFW – this is water

Yesterday, we watched Adventures in Babysitting (2016 version) and my wife treated us to Taco Tuesday.

We had fun!

I even ate a taco.

My left hamstring is smashed from my program => this morning was 72 minutes of feeling amazing then 18 minutes of damage control.  So far, I have recovered quickly from my niggles.

I’ve been reminding myself that no one cried on Friday!

🙂

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Not surprised by this one…

Japan’s Abe Says No Tokyo Olympics Next Year Unless COVID-19 Can Be Contained : Coronavirus Live Updates : NPR

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A very useful reminder.

We all know the importance of skin in the game for organizations and societies.

But what about yourself? Do your mental patterns (habits, beliefs, etc) have skin in the game, so that those which fail you are gotten rid of?

Or do you defend them in a bureaucracy of excuses?

— Luca Dellanna (@DellAnnaLuca) April 29, 2020

For me, writing is the first step toward making my mistakes more visible.

Once I can see mistakes, I can start to figure out how to replace habits and avoid certain situations.

Historically, replacement/avoidance works a whole lot better than seeking to transcend myself.

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The linked thread is a quick read on the role of central quarantine in Asia.

(1/x) Large swaths of USA now adopting extensive lockdown orders paralleling those in Wuhan.

But Wuhan’s response had another crucial element: central quarantine.

Read this for a crazy, only-in-New York idea for how to break the epidemic. Perhaps useful for others too.

— Carl Minzner (@CarlMinzner) March 21, 2020

Click the date above for the full thread. The most useful part was the explanation of why keeping slightly sick people home is a bad idea.

Colorado is slowly opening with ongoing community spread within a highly connected state/country. I expect we will need a form of central quarantine.

…but I could be wrong.

My expectation was wrong about Florida (links to their DOH dashboard). So far, Florida appears to have grown slower than our experience in Colorado => they have more than 5x our 65+ population (Kaiser Demographics).

My expectation about our rate of hospitalization was also wrong. It’s been growing slower than our positives for the last ten days. A fact pointed out by our governor at yesterday’s press conference.

You can track our hospital data here. The State is tracking capacity for ICU beds, staffing and ventilators. They also track discharges vs admissions.

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The pic in the tweet below shows the layout of a 20-person dorm room.

The Singapore government requires a minimum of 48 square feet of living space for each worker, but many dormitories can house up to 20 people per room. This is one typical layout, according to dormitory visits conducted by Transient Workers Count Too. https://t.co/IDdbQTLwza pic.twitter.com/PbwLV6IP2n

— The New York Times (@nytimes) April 29, 2020

Picture a thousand of these dorm rooms, in close proximity, and you can see how the virus might blow up quickly.

I wonder where we have dormitory housing in Colorado and the US.

A buddy in Eagle County said he felt employee housing was a key risk in the high country.

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Free testing for the next two days at our local university. A short walk from where I live.

Testing is getting a lot of attention by our State Government and with the Governor’s press conferences.

I saw a picture of Vail’s mayor (now recovered), donating blood so his plasma could be used to help others. The link is to an article about a mobile collection center set up in Colorado’s hottest hotspot, now considerably cooler in terms of rate of daily positives.

Colorado & Nevada joined the Western States coalition with Washington, Oregon and California.

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An interesting idea => certain universities have the capacity to create on-campus testing, trace and isolation.

We’re going to see a lot of creative experimentation as we iterate across the next year.

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We remain under a stay-at-home order => extending to what will be Day 56, for us.

If I was unemployed, with three kids, looking at a cash flow projection showing I’m about to be completely screwed… lockdown would be wearing thin and I’d be demanding the right to take personal risk to care for my family.

Meanwhile, I will keep grinding and figure out a family project for the weekend.

First sprouts of the 2020 growing season!

These popped up all over our neighborhood this week. They were effective with my family.

Your senior prom has gone up in smoke, your summer job fell through and you’re sitting at home with your parents.

What to do?

Get your life under the control of your own choices.

• This isn’t going to blow over.
• Nobody’s coming to save you.
• Time to self rescue by creating optionality in your life.

Defer college => it’s likely to be a mess, at short notice, this fall

16-months until the 2021/2022 academic year begins => learn something useful => for example, Lambda School – 9 month, 40 hours per week program.

Get ridiculously strong => no access to a gym? Gym Closure #1 and Gym Closure #2.

Own your #1 time waster => stop it, today.

Wake up first in your household, get your training done before breakfast => do this every single day for 500 days.

500 days is the distance between now and the start of the 2021/2022 academic year.

What one habit would change everything?

Take advantage of the opportunity of time.

Lockdown Weight Gain, AKA Feeling Free to Ignore My Irrational Beliefs

For the first month of lockdown, I felt like I was gaining weight each week.

I sensed weight gain was happening on the weekends, when I back off and recover from my program.

Weekends are ~15,000 steps per day => I’m not inactive, it’s the constant grazing that creates issues.

Anyhow, I went back to basics (link is to my nutrition strategy):

• Cranked my intake of veggies – extra fine green beans from CostCo and broccoli => use them as a base on my meals and dropped the amount of quinoa I eat
• Substitute salt for cheese

1/ I also gave myself some context by checking in with reality. My BMI moved from 22 to 23 => so my feelings of being gigantic and bloated, while real to me, are not grounded in reality.

2/ An interesting thing about body image is I’ve always looked different when I see myself in a picture, rather than a mirror. Probably has something to do with what part of my brain is doing the assessment.

Regarding 1 & 2, I pay attention when “irrational” views persist.

Self knowledge helps me (a) resist the urge to take decisive action on irrational views; and (b) frees me to take my opinions less seriously.

Worth repeating – take my thoughts less seriously and be comfortable not taking bold action in a time of great uncertainty.

Fits in nicely with my goal of becoming more patient with my kids.

Investment Strategy

Thinking about Buffett/Munger sitting on cash and not taking action. A reminder to myself that there’s no rush to move from my current position.

Not changing minimizes switching costs and preserves the option to change later.

Not choosing can be a choice to avoid an unforced error.

Meditating on this observation is useful in a world that seems “far too expensive” relative to how screwed up it is!

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Quick Links

University of Victoria Home Learning Guide

Yesterday I mentioned that Colorado’s rate of daily positives had popped. Digging deeper into the data (slide down), the increase happened in line with Colorado’s testing capacity doubling.

Gates interview on Vox.

Vail resorts took the wind out of the class action suits and addressed my concerns about next ski season. I’m impressed with them as an organization. They know what I want, better than I do. I’ll probably buy a set of Epic Passes – thereby helping to preserve their business model.

My neighborhood “howls” each night at 8pm => first people, then their dogs.

I achieved 6 out of 7 goals for April. Decided to let go of my plan to move the kids ahead in math => wouldn’t have made anyone happy.

We are starting to see the turkey problem appear in decision making.

Because you haven’t had major problems in the last little while, you assume things are going to be just fine.

Of course this depends on what you describe as “major.” The macro numbers are grim and incredible.

We are all in the mood to fool ourselves.

Magical thinking.

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My topic of conversation with the kids at breakfast this morning.

Kids, I want you to remember that I don’t want to get sick.

I’m counting on you to continue to be smart.

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Our local Elk’s Club is gearing up for social distance lap swim.

• Book an 80-minute slot
• Swim for an hour with ten minutes before/after to come/go
• 1-2 people per lane, same household only
• Outdoor pool, open gate, no change rooms, no surfaces to touch

Something to think about if your community has an outdoor pool. They built a simple website and the income will be useful to keep the lights on for a community organization.

This is the longest non-swimming block of my wife’s life. She started as a toddler.

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Our state stay-at-home order expired yesterday.

Boulder County (and most other Colorado counties with lots of people) extended the stay-at-home order.

Significant pop in Colorado’s positives over the last three days. Seeing the five-day average jump upwards for the final week of lockdown is not what I expected.

Perhaps it’s a timing issue with reporting.

It doesn’t bode well for the summer.

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Related to the lockdown stuff, Ax and I have started wearing masks on the trails. I got him on board by telling him that it “makes other people feel better.”

I noticed a spot on my thigh last week – irregular shape, multi-colored, slightly raised – most definitely not what you want to find on your skin during lockdown!

All I had at home was Bacitracin Zinc, Neosporin and Clotrimazole => left over stuff from diaper-days.

Thankfully, one of them did the trick, or I healed on my own.

Phew!

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Australia and New Zealand turning the corner, perhaps.

What do they have in common?

• Ability to isolate => no long land borders
• Early imposition of quarantine on international arrivals
• Cultural pride in self-sufficiency and a lack of stupidity
• An understanding that nobody is coming to save them
• Experience making trade-offs with limited resources

American social distancing is leaky and we have highly connected internal/external land borders.

We should expect our experience to be different than the best of the city-states of East Asia and islands of Oceania

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Two things on my “to do” list for this week:

1. make a list of “things that are obvious” about the virus
2. draft a basic week for a summer without camps or swim league => online education is going to end May 21st

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Aside from University Education and Medicine => what are other admin-heavy sectors that have benefited from money pouring into them?

Look for sectors with long-term price inflation far ahead of the mean.

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Weekend Highlights

The kids take comfort in having a schedule. Even on our unstructured day, our youngest wanted me to type out a game plan.

Recent movies:

• Incredibles – done as a day movie on Sunday – gives an option for a parent nap!
• A Monster in Paris – all three kids were rapt
• Episode 2 of the Star Wars franchise
• The Willoughbys – weird one, but girls watched

Our oldest did a FaceTime call with a buddy, teaching her how to make masks. Kept her occupied for a couple hours!

What can your kid teach other kids?

Saw our neighbors filled their “Little Library” with canned goods for anyone passing by.

Saturday & Sunday I write myself three items of cleaning to get done. The weekends remind me that being online is usually a distraction from doing what needs to be done.

Kids are required to do one session of cleaning each week (usually on Sunday). Beyond that I pay. Last week’s cleaning bill was $10.

Sunday afternoon was pea planting for Axel, while Bella washed a car.

Bella’s car wash, $5 a vehicle!

Finished The Body by Bill Bryson – entertaining read – much lighter going than the last book I read.

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Monday highlights…

I’m figuring out my 80-pound sandbag – links to sandbag getup exercise.

Getting up off the floor with a weight on your chest and shoulder => functional!

Another week of shopping => done!

I learn about myself by tracking my perceived difficulties.

Much of what I thought was difficult pre-Corona turned out to be quite useful during Corona!

Can you remember your problems from February?

Above => Axel doing kneeling plate half moons – legit (!) exercise – first thing that’s made him sore training with me.

We watched the Phantom Menace on Disney+ last night. Enjoyed it.

We’ve settled into an evening routine where we put on a movie and do breaks where everyone sits down to eat dinner in stages. Slows the kids down and spreads out the duration of the movie. I have a tendency to graze the entire time, though!

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A better understanding of where/how transmission happens will be useful to figure out how we come out of lockdown.

New: Study of 318 outbreaks in China found transmission occurred out-of-doors in only one, involving just 2 cases. Most occurred in home or public transport. Raises key chance for states to move services outdoors (religious, gym classes, restaurants, etc). https://t.co/Isg5DGxRWa pic.twitter.com/Z5n1b52h8V

— Scott Gottlieb, MD (@ScottGottliebMD) April 23, 2020

As a family, opening the outdoors is more helpful than being able to access indoor areas. Looking unlikely that I’ll want to expose myself, or my family, to high-traffic surfaces or public indoor spaces anytime soon.

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There is a useful “what we need to learn list” inside the article called The First Modern Pandemic, you can find it linked on the front page of Gates Notes.

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The table below is our state trend under the stay-at-home order.

Calculate (a) 40-days of growth at (b) 5% per day as we reopen with (c) ~350 positives…

…~2,500 positives per day.

Lots of movement in the numbers depending on A-B-C => tremendous uncertainty, with a virus that is poorly understood.

Some local discussion about our Governor opening “too early.” He’s made it clear that “safer at home” isn’t an opening, at all.

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Here’s why I left my desk job 20 years ago => 1, 2 and 3 => 4 was a life review about where my choices were likely to take me over the following ten years.

6 Time Management Techniques from Seneca:

1. Remember that you will die

2. Value your time more than your own possessions

3. Be ruthless to things that don’t matter

4. Put your day up for review

5. Do it now

6. Realize what time off is for – rest actively, not idly

— Daily Stoic (@dailystoic) April 23, 2020

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Craft Idea => fuse bead bowl, fill with painted rocks, write a letter then deliver to a friend

Older kids can color-code the bowl, or put the first letter of the recipient’s name in the base.

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Our city council dropped the speed limit in residential neighborhoods to 20 mph. With the reduced traffic, my neighborhood has become bike friendly. Yay!

In other local news, our University President took a 10% pay cut. This is far from enough => he’s likely to be furloughing most his teaching staff, slashing administrative positions and making across-the-board pay cuts for the survivors.

Picture mid-July, Colorado is under its second stay-at-home order, what’s the right thing to do with the ~33,000 kids looking to return the following month?

I hope I’m wrong => my expectation implies all kinds of pain for my hometown.

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Class action suit launched against the parent companies of the Ikon and Epic ski passes.