I’m taking a slightly different approach.... https://twitter.com/nolongerbennett/status/1252613584691093505

The metric that matters most to ME is the percentage of reported CLOSED cases that are fatalities, because that’s the ONE metric on which it seems to me that we have the firmest grasp at any given moment, due to the number of untested cases, and known but unresolved cases, etc.

As of this minute, the Johns Hopkins COVID-19 website displays global reported cases of 2,501,156; total recovered of 659,732; and total deaths of 171,810.

Recoveries and deaths total 831,542. That’s all the GLOBAL outcomes we know of at this point. The remaining 1,669,614 cases as of this minute are still open, and we don’t know yet how they will be resolved.

So, taking those cases which we KNOW have resolved in either a recovery OR a fatality, we can easily do the math and come up with a mortality rate among KNOWN resolved cases of 20.662% as the percentage of known closed cases ending in death.
([171,810/831,542] x 100)

Using the same process for the US (788,920 reported cases, 73,533 reported recoveries, and 42,458 reported deaths), we get a mortality rate of 57.74% for known closed cases (42,458/73,533x100).

Now, BEFORE anybody gets their shorts in a twist....how do we KNOW these numbers have ANY predictive validity WRT COVID-19's mortality rate here in the US? MY answer is, we don’t.....at least, not absolutely.

And personally, I think the mortality rate will turn out to be MUCH lower than the numbers I’ve shown above; but like I said, there’s no real way to predict right now what it will be. Why? Read on.

To date, there have only been approximately 4,026,572 Americans tested for COVID-19......most presumably because they were symptomatic in some way or other. However, people forget that this is ALSO flu season, and it’s possible to feel like shit and NOT have COVID-19.

Even if the results of those 4,026,572 US tests were 100% reliable (they’re not), only 788,920 cases reported positive as known COVID-19 cases. That means that 19.59% of those tested were positive for COVID-19....and not all of them were hospitalized. Many were sent home.

We can infer some conclusions based on these numbers, but we won’t REALLY know until the pandemic is entirely behind us .... and that will likely take many more months. Why? Because the REPORTED numbers are ALWAYS behind the curve as it is unfolding in real time.

So what does that mean for me as an individual, or any other individual person? Well, it SHOULD mean that one exercises due diligence for one's personal safety, and a certain amount of—for lack of a better term—"social responsibility" toward others, while getting on with life....

.....as much as is possible. I am, by virtue of age and health history, in a higher risk cohort. But my financial circumstances make accepting work where I can find it a practical necessity. So....

....I stay home when I don’t HAVE to go out, and when I judge that I HAVE to go out, I use a mask, gloves, and hand sanitizer as necessary, to BOTH protect myself from others, and to protect others from me.

That said, the odd human moments insert themselves when I least expect them, and I sometimes respond as if all were normal. A couple of weeks ago I had to deliver a new maintenance truck from a dealer in Grapevine, to the city maintenance yard in Mount Pleasant, 140 miles away.

When I got there and finished turning the truck over to their maintenance supervisor and getting signed off on the paperwork, he reflexively reached out to shake my unloved hand, and I reflexively responded in kind. Neither of us were wearing masks at the time.

It was a quasi awkward moment, and we both kind of grinned and shrugged it off. When I climbed into the chase vehicle to get back to Grapevine, I immediately dug the hand sanitizer out of my pack and vigorously cleaned my hands. I’ll bet he did the same back in his office.

The next delivery I made a few days later, there was no handshaking, and I had a mask and gloves on. Point is, I’m still adapting to the "new normal" while still trying to live my life as best as I can. It’s a risk I’m willing to take ..... for now .....

I really only need to go out for financial reasons. I still have bills to pay. Otherwise, I could fully shelter in place for 3-4 months with the food stores I currently have as part of my preps. And if the shit gets REALLY bad, I have two offers for very rural bugout locations.

If I owned my own rural property and didn’t have my current financial needs, I would have bugged-out to it back in January, when I first started following COVID-19's progress. As is, I’m currently dependent on the generosity of friends if it comes to that.

So I’m trying to balance that against the need to not burn through my emergency reserves unless it is ABSOLUTELY necessary, while still maintaining SOME kind of financial control over my affairs.

The minute it becomes necessary to start consuming my food preps, I’ll load ALL of my shit into my trailer and get gone for one of those two offered farms.

But until that moment, I’m going to act responsibly, without panicking. And THAT means occasionally going out and about as necessary, while taking such measures as I can to responsibly protect myself and others.

A relative living with us works in the ER of a largish local hospital. They have some really sick patients upstairs, which all the OTHER blood markers show probable COVID-19 infection, but for whom even the latest COVID-19 tests are only about 70% accurate.

They THINK that the problem is the medium the nasal swabs are put into. It’s believed that the medium is causing false negatives; so they are testing with 2 swabs now.

One swab goes into the testing medium, and the other goes back into the test kit envelope for later testing when researchers finally figure out a more reliable way to test. BTW, when this new test 1st came out, doctors believed it to be 95% reliable.

A shift from 95% reliable down to 70% reliable means that the "confirmed" reporting is all fucked up. We can intuit some things at the micro from the results, but they are not STATISTICALLY reliable on the macro level.

That’s why the only rational way to handle the pandemic is with responsible caution, absent any panic. Try and live as normally as you can, while protecting yourself to the extent that you can, while still exercising some social responsibility, and while still paying your bills.

I’m an old fart. I want to live to be 100, and then die in my sleep after God-glorifying sex with my wife. But Proverbs 16:9 (ESV) says: "The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps." God may have other plans for me.

In the meantime, I’m going to try and live my life as normally as possible, while still minimizing risk wherever I can, AND while treating others as if their lives have value. That means that I will go out and about as necessary, while still respecting social distancing.

It CAN be done folks. There are very few absolutes in life .... and most of THOSE are contained in the Constitution. The rest has to be worked out on an individual basis, as per minarchist principles.