EclectEcon

I Love My T-Shirt Masks, but tie them correctly

Last month I posted on how to make a mask from an old T-shirt in 15 minutes. I have two of them now, and my guess is that they're at least as good as most surgical masks. Here are some tips for using them, if you decide to make them:

1. Watch this ODIVI video. Alternatively, the steps are laid out in my blog post (linked above).
2. Don't cut it the way she does or the way I did in the earlier blog post. Instead, to get good straps, cut it so that you leave the full tops and bottoms of the sleeves -- that way you'll have good straps, as I did in the photos below.
3. Sew a rough seam along the bottom of the mask to hold the front and back together and to hold filter material in the mask, like a pocket. I did this by hand while watching tv.
4. Put fresh filtering material in the pocket you just made, between what used to be the front and back of the T-shirt. I use three layers of paper towels plus two layers of Kleenex. Someone suggested to me that the blue paper towels used by mechanics are good filters, too, but I don't know for sure.
5. Change the filtering material for each use.
6. Tie it right. The upper straps go under your ears and tie in the back of your head. The lower straps pull the mask up under your chin and tie right on top of your head. I know, that can look stupid, but it works for the woman in the video. It works for me, too, because I always wear a hat when I go out.
7. The minute you get home, dispose of the filtering material and put the mask in the washing machine (that's why I have those two plus some other masks).

I just returned from a five mile walk and had zero problems with my mask. I took these photos near the end of the walk:

 

 

Distancing -- a serious question about various activities

Background:
I try to get out of our condo unit nearly every day. Some days I just leave the unit and climb the stairs  for exercise within our building. Other times, if I'm not shopping (and only rarely am I shopping), I go for walks.

Inside
In this building, for several weeks we had a policy of only one person on the elevator (or two if both are from the same unit). We also had a policy of absolutely no visitors at all, and we have hand sanitizers next to the elevator doors on every floor. We also have hand sanitizers strategically placed throughout the main lobby and in the parking garage. Whenever we encounter someone else in a hallway or near the mailboxes, we all wait patiently. Most of us try to leave at least ten feet between us and someone else.

The elevator rules have now been slightly relaxed so that we can have up to three people on an elevator so long as we don't face each other, which seems pretty anti-social to me. I'm okay with having one other person on the elevator, standing diagonally across from me, so long as they aren't looking directly at me when they talk. But it's a small building and that has happened only once.

Outside is a different story.

Near us there are numerous wonderful paved walkways through parks and alongside branches of the Thames River. Joggers, runners, bikers, skate-boarders, and walkers all make considerable use of these walkways, especially on nice sunny days.

I wear a multi-filtered homemade mask when I go out of the building for these walks. Most of us using the the walkways try to practice distancing. Whenever I see someone coming toward me, I move off onto the grass; often they do, too, but not always. And runners or bikers (or fast walkers) sometimes pass me and don't leave as much distance between us as I would prefer. For the most part, it works out okay, aside from bridges and tunnels. For those, not everyone waits. If I start on a bridge or through a tunnel and someone at the other end doesn't wait, I turn around and go back and wait for them to pass.

Actually, I've found it easier to distance from others when I walk through residential areas. It's relatively easy to go up on a lawn when I meet someone and just about as easy to cross the street. Increasingly my walks are like these.

And now the question(s):

If I can do these things, why can't people golf (it's pretty easy to distance on a golf course)? How is that different from walking (properly distanced) with a few friends in a park?
If I can do these things, what about going to a beach so long as I distance just as I would in a grassy park?
Given that I'm pretty careful and pretty concerned about not wanting to bring Covid19 home, you can bet I'd stay away from others on the beach, and I'd not even get out of my car at the beach if it looked crowded.

Is it because policy makers don't trust others to distance? Recent photos from the beaches in Florida looked to me as if most people were trying to distance, though not all were, for sure. And keep in mind that UV is a pretty effective sanitizer.

Is it because if someone goes to the beach, is asymptomatic but infected, and doesn't distance, they could consequently transmit Covid19 to others? As a potential victim, I'd try to distance ... a lot ... but others might not.

Still, that's gotta be safer than walking on sidewalks downtown riding on a bus or subway where distancing can be much more difficult.

Addendum: Here's the photo from the Washington Post. [much better quality if you click on the link]. Most of the people in it are distancing, but if I went to the beach and saw this, right now I wouldn't stay.

Covid19 Despondency

Below is a letter (somewhat edited) I wrote to a friend this morning.

How are you handling the CV19 situation there? I hope you're healthy and will continue to be healthy. I don't know about you, but I feel so blindsided by the whole thing.

 

...

 

I worry about and for everyone. I see no way out of this for at least a few months, and meanwhile so many people will have been pushed to the edge. I try to control my despondency by thought-blocking and thinking about positive things, but every once it awhile it hits.

 

So far, Ms. Eclectic and I are okay. We're both over 75 and have some health issues, and so we're trying to be careful... very careful. Over a month ago, we visited our oldest son and his wife and their new son, but since then we have had only two outings together: once to meet some friends in a parking lot where we opened our trunk and the friends put a bag with homemade masks and shields in it. And once when we took lawn chairs to an open park and sat in the sun, well away from everyone else, while I tried to fly my kite.

 

Our visit to our son was the last time we saw any of our children, grandchildren, or great grandchildren in person. We miss the hugs, kisses, and laughter together. We Facetime, but it's not the same.

 

Meanwhile, I'm going stir crazy, but fortunately only some of the time, and I have it under control when it hits. I know it's a bit risky, but I get out of our condo unit every day. Some days it's just to climb some stairs up and down here within our condo building; other days I go for walks. Rarely, I go out to do shopping. Every time I leave the unit, I take hand sanitizer with me and use it after any incident when I might have touched some surface. And every time I go outside the building, I wear a mask.

 

Mostly, now, I walk in residential areas, not on popular paved walking trails; it's easier to avoid other people in residential areas.

 

 If I'm just going for a walk where at worst I'll pass jogger or biker, I wear a homemade mask, but I line it with two layers of paper towels and two layers of Kleenex tissue to improve the filtering. For shopping, I have an N95 mask that I wear, but I've had to trim and reshape my beard and sideburns so it fits properly. We also take our temperatures frequently now. We have become borderline paranoids. At our age and in our states of health, we figure the odds are high that we're goners if we get it.

 

... Our sons have both been able to arrange most/all of their work to do it at home, but our daughter and some of our grandchildren and their families are really beginning to feel the economic effects of the shutdowns.

 

Meanwhile, my three main outside social activities are gone: 

• Encore, the concert band, no longer rehearses and will likely have to cancel our June concert. I'm hoping things are under control enough we can resume in the fall.  
• I no longer do stage work, but the mystery dinner theatre shows have been canceled until fall at the earliest. I'm hoping those can resume then, but who knows if customers/clients/restaurants will want to hire us even then?
• I (used to) play bridge weekly with three other men, but of course we no longer see each other, not even to get together with the others (or anyone else) in the building. 

[addendum: It's been so long that I forgot to add a fourth thing: we like to eat in restaurants, and can no longer do that. We order takeout or delivery now and then, but not often, and yes we are amazingly careful (I hope) when interacting with others in those situations. ... pay in advance, get it left outside our building where I'm waiting 15' away, or have them set it outside their establishment for me to pick up, etc.]

 

I miss the social contacts. Of course I'm much more actively exchanging emails with some friends and relatives, and I spend far too much time on "pandemic porn", watching counts and policies. 

 

I'm also doing some writing. I've published two more novels (see my .sig file below) and am working on another, but I'm not getting much written on it because of all the emotional and other distractions caused by Covid19.

 

I fear that we are in for a major economic depression. In addition, I fear all the central planners who want to reshape society and economic activity without regard for the benefits of individual freedom and choice. And I really worry about the ever-present nationalistic, protectionist tendencies I see regaining strength everywhere. This pandemic will set the world back by 3 years, if not 30 years. This is just one of the many very serious reasons I despair.

 

I felt early on, thinking about our friends and relatives who work in and/or run small businesses, that we (our countries) needed an emergency assistance programme in addition to our otherwise reasonably adequate social safety net. Everyone in those positions was completely blindsided (as were most of us), even if they saw it coming in early January (when most of us were more concerned about Australian wildfires). So many businesses will have to shut down, and so many landlords will lose massive amounts of income as business and residential tenants default on rent payments (and many in Ontario will actually choose to do so because the province has put policies in place to protect tenants who miss a couple of months of rent payments). And so many residential tenants on the edge will eventually lose their apartments. Shelters are overflowing and find it difficult to practice any kind of distancing. And people living on the financial edge will face serious mortgage issues.

 

So many little people will be hurt. So many. 

 

Believe it or not,  I'm glad politicians are trying to help out those people. Yes, even I, John Palmer, quasi-libertarian, Mr. small-gubmnt, think it is right for gubmnts to do this. But I detest the bailouts of major corporations, and I resent the fact that so much tax money will be used for the cronies in the name of helping out the little people. 

 

Where is the money coming from for all these programmes??? Before this happened, both the US and Canada were already grotesquely adding to their deficits and debts despite the good economic conditions (when budgets should have been in surplus!), and now there's less wriggle room. 

 

Will they raise taxes? How much? and on whom? Now would be a great time for tax reform, but instead of a simple flat tax without all the deductions and exemptions exploited mostly by the rich, I'm afraid we'll see a return to higher marginal tax rates for high income folks, and we'll return to the sluggishness of the pre-Thatcher "English Disease" and the pre-Reagan era. 

 

Will gubmnts borrow? Now is not a bad time to lock in long-term debt at low interest rates, but watch for runaway inflation and stagflation about two years from now. And with inflation,  interest rates will go up considerably.

 

And I further resent the use of the term "stimulus". There's nothing to stimulate! This is a major supply-side shock to the economy, and until people can start producing goods, and especially services, we can't help but experience a major drop in GDP.

 

Anyway, I'm sure I've rambled on far too long. Despite the despair I feel, I'm also fairly happy and contented. We're okay, and for now so are our progeny.

 

I hope you and yours are doing well. 

 

------ John Palmer,   www.EclectEcon.net ------  

Buy my novels:   2605

  Susan's Story

  Murder at the Office Christmas Party

 

Economics and old age have much in common: Both dwell on foregone opportunities

Peter Cottontail Visits the Condo

Snow on Easter Weekend!

My previous snow stomp art:

        Peter Cottontail Visits the Condo

        Fight CV19 and STAY HOME

        Skool Daze

        I Think It Might Rain

        The Penrose Triangle

        Snowflakes (done with my granddaughters)

       Tobogganing Through the Trees   

        Kilroy Was Here

       Happy St. Patrick's Day, 2019

       Spring is Sprung

       You Wanted Spring? 

       Too Cold to Build a Snowman 

       Simply a-MAZE-ing 

       Let There Be Music

      Ommadawn 

      The First Robin of Spring? 

      Be My Valentine, 2018

      Curling AND the Super Bowl

      I'm No Escher... 

      Hark! the Herald Angel Sings

      Nativity Scene, 2017

      Planning an Escape

      Caught in the Net

Surf's Up 

Diagonally Warped in a Parallel Universe, Part 2

      Diagonally Warped in a Parallel Universe

      Pikachu

      Happy New Year, 2017

      O Tannenbaum

      Nativity Scene

Special Weather Statement

Think Tropics

Qubix

Valentine, 2016

Paisley'd Circles

Happy New Year, 2016

The House of the Rising Sun

Easter Eggs

A weak pattern in the blowing snow.

The same pattern after some melting

New Year's Champagne

Tiptoe Through the Tulips

Happy Valentine's Day

Cabaret

A Christmas Tree (my first effort)

Grocery prices During the Pandemic

Have you noticed that grocery prices have risen? Some of my friends have mentioned it, and yesterday I think I saw some prices that are higher now than they were a month ago.

If prices are higher now, are rising, and are expected to continue to rise for the next few months or longer, here are some possible explanations:

I. Microeconomics

Costs are rising:

• Many grocery chains and other retailers have given their employees raises of 10% or more
• Many grocery stores have put down tape or spray painted markers 6' apart inside and outside their store to promote distancing; they have also put up queue-control barriers to keep people distancing in the queues instead of crowding near the front; doing this is not cost-free.
• Many grocery stores have someone at the door to limit the number of people in the store at any given time.
• They also have people wipe down the handles of the baskets, carts, trolleys, etc.
• Some even have sanitizer stations for people to sanitize their hands.
• Restocking shelves isn't cost-free either, and since people are staying at home and eating at home more now, this means they're also buying more at grocery stores rather than at restaurants, hotels, trains, planes, etc. How does this add to costs/unit? see the next item.
• Diminishing marginal product: you can add more product and you can hire more employees (maybe), but it's hard to add more space in the store and in the back storage areas. More people and more product means more congestion and more congestion costs. Also, hiring more workers means digging deeper into the pool of potential workers, and retraining current employees is also costly
• Higher demand typically means stores just try to order more from their suppliers, but there are higher costs for suppliers, too, as they face shortages and rising costs of their own.
• Given that the value of the Canuck buck has declined relative to the US dollar, that means Canadian importers are paying more for everything that might end up on the shelves or might be used to produce things that might end up on the shelves.

Demand is rising:

• As I noted above, people are buying more from grocery stores than they used to.
• As some managers and some suppliers see the increased demand, they raise the prices. Often not in any major or obvious way. Pricing decisions are not simple textbook [find the q/t for which MR=MC] but rather involve considerable trial and error, either at the store or at some regional or head office.
• When people have to queue up to get into stores, and when people read or hear about stores being out of some things, they don't worry so much about paying a few cents more for many of the items on their shopping list. [in econ-speak, the price elasticity of demand is lower in those instances]
• Some stores have fewer sales, and some stores no longer put out flyers advertising sales.

II. Macroeconomics

Aggregate Supply

• The CoVid-19 pandemic has caused a decline in the overall rate of production. Many (probably most) manufacturing facilities are still trying to operate full time, but they are facing increased supply problems for some items, in part due to transportation issues and in part due to bottlenecks.
• The lock-down, quarantine, and isolation policies have primarily affected the service sector of the world economy, but not exclusively. Also, the drop in production of services has led to a major shift to the left of the overall Aggregate Supply curve.

Aggregate Demand

• One would think that with so many people's incomes dropping, Aggregate Demand would decline. However...
• In both Canada and the United States, numerous policies have been implemented to dampen the effect of the pandemic on people's incomes. This is especially important if (1) people expect the support policies to be reasonably lucrative, (2) people expect to be supported if they over-extend, and/or (3) they expect it all to be over in a couple of months or so. Following the Friedman permanent-income-hypothesis, if people consume according to expected income (including gubmnt programmes), consumption may not drop much at the aggregate level.
• What is there to spend money on? People who regularly (or even irregularly) traveled, ate in restaurants, shopped a lot in person, etc. all have less to shop for. They (we) are driving up demand for the things we can still buy.
• Over the next year or so, the gubmnts plan to increase their fiscal deficits astronomically. These deficits will almost surely be monetized to a great extent by the central banks. [in colloquial language, the gubmnt won't raise taxes to pay for all the programmes; instead it will print more money]. The increased money supply will lead to much more rapid inflation over the the next two years unless the central banks try to neutralize that effect. They've shown no indication they intend to so so.

Sectoral Shifts in Demand

• As consumers try to buy more household products in general, manufacturers cannot instantaneously hire and train more employees the products that consumers want more of. As I once wrote (albeit in reverse) back in the late 1970s, "you can't easily transport and train all the workers in the oil patch to some place where they can produce more surgical masks, toilet paper, etc.

Grocery Shopping during the CoVid-19 period

Walmart opened at 7am today for Geezers/Elders/Seniors/etc. I arrived at 7:15 and had to join a queue of about 15 people waiting to get in because the store was limiting the number of people in the store. Of those in front of me, not one was wearing a mask; I was wearing a cloth mask over my N95 mask (for reasons I'd rather not go into). Photos below.

They let about 4-5 people in at a time. When I neared the front of the line, I looked back and over half the people in the lineup behind me were wearing masks, mostly surgical masks.

Also while I was near the front of the line, a woman went to the security guard who was controlling the number of people being let in and asked, "Seniors can go in early, can't we?"

"Yes, that's the lineup."

"For seniors???"

Every person in the line was clearly a senior. The man behind me in line and I looked at each other and laughed, complimenting ourselves for looking so young.

- - - -

How do single parents, working couples, or for that matter anyone who works regular hours get any shopping done? The Walmart lineup was VERY long when I left, and the line up at Costco (London North) looked to be at least 100 people long an hour before they opened! Is it that bad everywhere? If so, it reminds me of the old gasoline shortages in 1979 when people queued up for hours to get gas and many people hired others to do the waiting for them. I see a potential for a booming business for seniors who will shop for other people.

----

I was disappointed (though I shouldn't have been surprised) to see none of the employees wearing a mask. One was, but it was down around his neck. I can imagine that Walmart might be reluctant to outbid healthcare employers/employees for even surgical masks, but I thought maybe some of the employees might be wearing some they had made for themselves.

Everyone tried to maintain distancing, but it's not always possible in the aisles, even with fewer people in the store. That's the reason I trimmed my beard and sideburns last night and wore my mask combination.

I saw one employee cough. Only once, but into her hand, not her arm or elbow. I avoided the area where she was working. She needs lessons in coughing, for sure.

----

Checking out was carefully policed for distancing, both in the overall queue and at each cash register. Walmart would still let shoppers use their own reusable bags, but I didn't expect that, so I didn't have ours with me.

I was stunned to see the customer in front of me pay for their shopping with cash and receive cash in change. Currency is a great way to transmit a virus.

After I received my order, I thanked the cashier for working today. She said others had thanked her, too.

[Addendum: they had toilet paper (our brand, even), chicken, chicken parts, eggs, milk, most everything I wanted. I didn't see any hand sanitizer or sanitizing wipes or sprays, though.]

 

This is getting too long. I'll post about grocery prices in a separate post.

Pure speculation: Virion Bombardment

Based on the scant reading I've been doing over the past two months, it looks as if maybe (please note the emphasis) people who are only lightly exposed to Covid-19 are less likely to get the disease, less likely to suffer as much from it, and less likely to die from it than are those who are very heavily exposed to it. They still get it, but not as seriously or maybe even asymptomatically.

This is all probabilistic of course. As well, there are very likely many other determinants of getting infected, the seriousness of the infection, and death.

But suppose that roughly speaking, probabilistically , in general, it's correct. If so, it has some important implications:

1. Social Distancing

Why the 6' line of demarcation? Surely potential droplet and aerosol contamination isn't binary. What about 5'10"? what about 6'3"? Is it possible that if people stay farther apart, the result is that if they happen to get a few virions of CV19 into their bodies, it's not enough to make them seriously ill, ceteris paribus? Is it possible that people who are closer to a carrier are more likely to be bombarded by more virions because their are closer to more people, and it's the number of virions per some unit of time that determines everything? I don't know how viri and virions work.

2. Masks

Why are some masks recommended in some situations and not others? Maybe it depends on both the likelihood and strength of the potential bombardment?

Front-line health workers may very well need N95s or the equivalent because they are constantly and heavily bombarded, and even with N95s, a few virions get through, but not enough to cause serious damage (in most people; remember this is probabilistic).

So if I walk past someone who is a carrier, they might expel a droplet or an aerosol containing the virus, but if that's it, I might not get the disease because of the low bombardment, or I might get a low-grade infection because my body can fight it off at that level? But if I'm at a restaurant, sporting event, concert, play etc. (pre bans, of course), I'm more likely to be more heavily bombarded and more likely to be infected and more likely to suffer more seriously?

If these guesses are correct, then maybe even wearing a t-shirt or bandana mask might not only protect others from me if I am infected, but will also, at the margin, protect me by somewhat lowering the rate of bombardment that would get to my lungs. This might work when I'm walking on trails or along the sidewalk or in environments which assiduously practice social distancing, etc. [e.g. the Blood Donor Clinic].

But if I'm in a grocery store, where who knows what is in the air and on the products, maybe I face a higher risk of heavier bombardment? And if so, in those environments I might be better advised to trim my beard so an N95 mask fits better and wear that mask.

3. Hospital Workers

People working nowhere  near CV19 patients might be okay with just surgical masks if all my above hypotheses are correct. They're unlikely to be heavily bombarded by virions or by many. The surgical masks will stop enough to leave most of those workers ok.

But others working with ER and CV19 cases are more likely to need N95s or better just to reduce the number of virions that get through to them.

The whole point, here, is that protective measures don't just reduce the probability of being infected by CV19 virions; they also reduce the bombardment effect -- they reduce the number of virions that get through to my lungs, etc., and thus leave me less less likely to be symptomatic, or, if symptomatic, with the effect that I would suffer less and be less likely to die.

I.e., it's not just the probability of being hit and infected by a virion, but it's the density and severity of the intake of the virions.

 

I may be right out to lunch. After all, I'm not a virologist, Jim.

Scarcity, Choice, and Triage

The National Post has an article about how people are facing choices about death because of CoVid-19.

Here's the important quote:

A letter was shared widely last week from a Michigan hospital, for example,

outlining its triage criteria for intensive care, making clear that other conditions

such as cancer, heart disease or trauma could make a patient “not eligible” for

intensive care or mechanical ventilation.

“Patients who have the best chance of getting better are our first priority,” read

the public letter from Henry Ford Health System.

 

The article then discusses attempts to quantify (objectively!! Hah!) expected future years of quality-adjusted life. My take:

• Scarcity is rampant (time, ventilators, healthcare workers, space, supplies) [Economists discuss this all the time for all goods and services]
• Scarcity means people have to make choices, like it or not. [Economists also discuss this all the time; indeed some people say that economics is the study of choice due to scarcity.]
• Those choices, when it comes to a pandemic, involve triage, deciding who to treat and how (recall gripping scenes from MASH that captured this effect to some extent).
• You can call them "death panel" decisions if you want, but someone has to decide who gets what treatment. What will be their decision rules?
• The CV19 triage decisions are analogous, but on a much larger scale, to decisions about who gets what transplants.
• The linked article talks about being neutral, objective, etc. I call BS. There are normative values embedded in these measures.
• Even though I'm relatively healthy, and even if I might have as much as 15-20 years left, I could very easily lose out in triage to others who are younger, have more 'productive' years ahead of them (i.e. will work at real jobs, earning money and paying taxes, and not lounge around writing and acting). E.g., I'm over the 75-years-old criterion applied in some parts of Italy. It's not 'agism', and I understand it, but the realism of it is a huge gutwrench.

It is this situation that leads many of us elders (a term I'm coming to like a lot more than seniors) to:

• wear masks,
• use sanitizers,
• wash a lot,
• avoid crowds (especially in confined areas),
• do large shoppings at odd hours to avoid having to be in stores too often,
• isolate a great deal,
• pay for delivery so we can avoid stores, etc.

I know I'm going to die at some point, but I'd rather not have it be after I've been lying on a table, realizing that some young ER doc or nurse has triaged me into death.

I Got It Up!!

It was a lovely day... Sunny and nice breeze... So I took my $6 parafoil kite from Ali Express down to the park to fly it. The breeze was somewhat variable, but after only a few minutes, I had the kite up in the air and flying nicely. I love that sensation!

Interestingly, not one person I saw was wearing a mask today.

Also, interestingly, there were many people on the paved trails through the park, but none on the sidewalks, which I took to return home. I understand it because the paved trails are beautiful and along the river. But from now on when I go out for walks it will be along abandoned sidewalks. And I'll wear my mask.

 

 

Murder at the Office Christmas Party

A lot of us are reading more these days, what with sports, concerts, restaurants, and theatre all pretty much shut down. Here's a book I just published you might want to consider, Murder at the Office Christmas Party. Those who have read it say that parts of it have the warm feel of a "cozy mystery" but the overall story has the complexity of an Ellery Queen mystery.

The blurb for it:

Lieutenant Mike Randall had never had a case like it before.

There were at least six different suspects, and probably more, and every one of them had the MMO – means, motive, and opportunity to kill Linda Batchly at the Arttekko Christmas party. He couldn’t pin it on anyone, though. The evidence against any one of them wasn’t compelling, and it didn’t begin to approach “proof beyond a reasonable doubt.”

The case kept him busy for nearly a year. Eventually, he was forced to move on to other active cases, and the murder of Linda Batchly was relegated to the cold case files. He fought having her murder declared a cold case, but there was nothing he could do or say to keep the file active. He hadn’t come up with any new information after the first week, and he had to move on.

But the case stuck in his mind...