Daily Ramble
We were able to let down the drawbridge today and see Naia off for school. The cold is evaporating nicely —and Ana and I even got some sleep. Many thanks for the kind words and photos sent to cheer our little one up.
To continue the show, I’m going to keep hammering on COVID data because, by the living saints, it seems like someone’s got to have the sacred duty of presenting facts in this wide world that looks to twist them for some ignoble purpose. So, let’s look no further than this excellent photo I lifted from Dr. Michael Levitt’s Twitter feed. And who is Dr. Michael Levitt? Only a Cambridge Ph.D., Stanford professor, and Nobel Prize winner in Chemistry. I love his Twitter feed because he presents data — no fuss, no muss. Interpretation left to the reader.
The chart above was posted 20 minutes before writing these words. It’s as hot off the press as it can get. The data is sourced from mortality.org. In the left-hand column is a ranking of countries from highest to lowest by the excess death percent. The excess death percent is the percentage of deaths above the norm. Michael also performs an age adjustment to normalize the data across age groups. The column on the right presents the same information but in a bar chart form.
Basically, this chart strips out all the noise and says, “hey, is COVID-19 actually killing more people than before it existed?” In many nations, that’s a clear yes. In others, it’s a clear no. What I want to focus on is the row labeled Sweden. Why? Because Sweden’s cause is rarely talked about, and it should be — not because we have friends hailing from Sweden that are perplexed by the rest of the world, but because of the data.
What does the data show? Sweden, which took the controversial COVID response of doing next-to-nothing, has seen no change in people's deaths. So doing next-to-nothing makes Sweden the world control group for governmental response to COVID. And guess what, if you’re not from Sweden, you probably suffered through lockdowns, sanity checks, mask-wearing, and arm jabs for literally NO REASON. Now, I’m not jumping into the conspiracy end of the pool here since I think there was a strong incentive for politicians to take action when COVID first reared its deformed head and scared the globe. But staying scared at this point is clearly a stupid approach when the world’s control group shows an unprotected population doing exceptionally well. So well, that life before COVID and after COVID is pretty much the same.
I’ve been pretty bloody clear about my righteous indignation today, but if I’m missing something in the data or misinterpreting it somehow, please correct me. As deadly as facts may be for a bias’ survival, I’ll gladly choke out an embarrassed apology rather than living with my heads in a delusional cloud.
Rad Things on the Interweb
Bitcoin Price Prediction
Yesterday: $32k - $35.1k
Today: $34k - $36k
Tomorrow: $33.6k-$36.6k
The ever-tightening range that Bitcoin has been trading in the last two months continues to constrict. But, like a spring coiling before launch, it’s sure to give a big price move when it breaks to one side or the other. At the moment, I’m looking at a break over $35k or a break below $33k to give a clearer indication of direction. Either way, the waiting is about to come to an end.
Bitcoin Q & A
Q: What is a Bitcoin node?
A: A device on the Bitcoin network that enforces the Bitcoin protocol.
A Bitcoin node is an internet-connected device that runs the open-sourced Bitcoin protocol. It receives new blocks, validates them, and adds them to its locally stored copy of the Bitcoin blockchain. Thus, running a node strengthens the network by increasing the decentralization of the distributed Bitcoin blockchain. It also allows the node operator to send transactions directly on the Bitcoin network, removing the possibility of censorship.
Thanks for reading,
Kent
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So....what does this chart tell one about the mortality rate during the pandemic in Australia and New Zealand who have endured strict lockdowns? And if I remember correctly, at least in Australia the prevailing effort was to take advantage of their geographic isolation and essentially block out the virus. I think they just recently admitted they will bring on the vaccine.
Welp, the chart shows that they had fewer deaths than normal. But it's hard to say if it was a function of the lockdowns. Spain and France have had serious lockdowns but have had the opposite results. I do notice that many of the countries that saw a reduction in deaths were island nations. Coincidence? Don't know.