Bits

I watched the debate last night. To me, the most notable point was Biden lamenting the profiteering of the largest companies during the pandemic, doing an I-feel-your-pain with small businesses, and at the same time promising more shutdowns.

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Local bloggers brought up a change in how the Minnesota Department of Health reports coronavirus hospitalizations. It's a subtle but infuriating change. Up until September 24, they were reporting both cumulative hospital and ICU coronavirus admissions, and daily populations of each. They've changed the latter to report not populations, but new admissions only.

In the old version, you could see where the state stood with respect to hospital capacity. That was the whole reason for the Governor's lockdowns in the first place:  to slow down the spread and not overwhelm the medical system. The graph became more and more embarrassing to him over time, as the ICU numbers stayed flat in the 200s.  (In the spring, the state worked to expand ICU capacity from 200-odd beds to nearly 3,000). He has locked things down too hard and too long.

Neither version tells how long people are staying in the hospital and/or ICU.

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One thing I left out of yesterday's van carpet post was that we also had to replace some hardboard panels between the van's carpet and padding. These are to support the carpet over some depressions in the van floor. My husband took a sample of the old hardboard to the store, and found that the closest approximation in thickness and stiffness was super-cheap panelling.