Warning, continued thread drift...

Death rates are often related to infant/early mortality. Since the 50's the life expectancy went up, until recently. Not so much because people live longer but the averages do not include as many early deaths.

A major factor was the polio vaccine, also measles vaccines. Infant mortality rates have dropped steadily. Advances in cancer treatment have helped as well. Leukemia, which primarily affects young people, has gone from an 80% mortality rate to over 80% survival rate, thanks to stem cell transplant therapies. Other cancer treatments have also reduced deaths. Treatment and life expectancy of diabetics has also improved. Progress has been made in treating heart disease, also organ transplants.

Since the late 50's, vehicle deaths rates have decreased steadily with the introduction of seat belts, dashboard padding, collapsing steering columns and lately, air bags.

Sadly, other trends have become significant recently to offset these improvements. The leading cause of death today among 20-40 yr olds, traditionally a very healthy group, is drug overdose, mostly opiates. This silent epidemic has claimed many lives and is on the increase. It has resulted in a recent drop in life expectancy, for the first time in decades. I suspect this is connected to the 2013 trend change.

Medical science has come a long way to help us stay alive but it has not been able to prevent self destructive behavior.

In 1969 my employer called a company employee meeting in our theater area. The speaker was introduced as one of the research doctors from Washington University. Initially the presentation seemed straightforward as he spoke about life expectancies.
1. If you live long enough you'll die of something.
2. If you live long enough you'll have a cancer.
3. If you discover the cancer early enough you may die from something else.
At this point he described a new test for bowel cancer that detected occult blood in the stool and this was given to all for testing.
What huge strides have been made? My kids didn't get chicken pox, measles, mumps, diphtheria, knew no one even aware of a polio victim!
I read an article comparing the Spanish Flu epidemic to the current one and there were many parallels including mask vs no mask%, survival rates, etc.

Statistics are really hard to analyze correctly. If you divide the covid19 deaths' by the population of the US, you get about .009%, add this to the stated normal death rate for 2020 and you more than double it. A little over .017%.

I wonder how correct this figure is? 17,000,000 cases in the US is only about 5% of the population and 300,000 deaths. If the entire population were to get Covid in 2020 over .19% of the country would die if that rate prevails! I wonder???

quote:

Originally posted by Duane88:
Statistics are really hard to analyze correctly.

This is so true. I believe this has a lot to do with the confusion concerning this virus.

I am content to keep it simple, at the personal level. I know the virus is spread from person to person. Logic dictates avoiding other people as the best way to avoid infection.

Since this is not possible for most people, the next best thing is to avoid cross contamination when near others. This has always been the daily business of all doctors, dentists, etc. They wear masks and gloves. So do I when near others.

Do I know if the counts are truly correct? No.
Do I know how sick I would be if I get the virus? No.
Do I know if others around me are carriers? No.
Do I know right away if I am a carrier? No.

Don't care. Do the precautions actually work? We will never know unless we try. What I do know is that if I do NOTHING, there is NO possible benefit to me or others. For me, the only thing worse than getting sick would be getting someone else sick. Not acceptable. If taking precautions can save even ONE life, mine or someone else, it is enough for me... There is no excuse for allowing preventable deaths. You're either part of the problem or part of the solution...

When you get down to it, the only person you can control is yourself. Not telling anyone else what they should do, just why I do what I do. At least I can honestly say I tried to do my part to keep myself and others safe.

I am done with this discussion. To each his own, please be careful, be safe, be healthy and look out for others.

It was 44 degress this morning, warmed up to almost 60 now. I'm going out to work on the coach. I will report on the progress.

Have Barth, will tinker

Ok Steve, I am over the covid thing!!

So it was 27F here this morning, supposed to go to about 40f.
The sun is out now, but next week does not look so nice, perhaps a white Christmas!!

I keep thinking if I were in Florida, I could redo the roof on Ole Nose! Go bass fishing everyday too! Now I just wait for snow shoveling!!!

This park is literally right next to a really nice county park on the Peace River. They have a really nice parking lot and nice boat ramps. We are about 6 miles upstream from the Gulf, (Port Charlotte) so bass nearby and salt fish downriver.

I would love to have my 19ft IO Bluefin fishing boat here! Towing it behind the coach with the VW would be a challenge, not to mention launching it at the ramp. (I would need a hitch on the front bumper like Dana had.) I would love to be able to run and fish on the river. I would have to get it down here and borrow a truck to launch and haul out.

With all the fifth wheels around here we have lots of trucks, I'm sure I could borrow one for the 400 yard trip to and from the ramp. Getting it here each year is another thing. I could just bring it here and store it over the summer but I do use it at home in the summer. (Actually I would just let Danny and Suzy use it all summer....) Hmmm... Liz, can I get another boat for Florida? Yeah, maybe not.

Come and visit, we'll do the work on the Nose!

When Nose is towing the bass boat, it launches it, not a bad job at all, of course Nose is only 25 Foot. Used to launch it from a 32 foot Winnebago, a bit more of a challenge.

Steve, if I were to make that great trip, we would fish all the time, drink beer the rest, Liz would either kill me or perhaps not for keeping you out of her hair!!

Would be a stretch for Ole Nose, never took that long of trip. For safety sake better tow the Miata. Oh well just a fantasy for right now.

Duane how are you going to pull the boat and the Miata?

I have that hitch on the front but back the boat in with the regular rear hitch. As long as I have enough room to get straight it is not bad. The first time I did it with DBarth we had a crowd of onlookers. They couldn't believe I was going to do it with my Coach.

Since then it has become common place but usually smaller rigs. There is just enough room to turn Midnight around and get straight. The dock boys know to leave me alone and not try to help.

Duane you need to learn to ice fish! I sold my ice house. To darned cold. That offset the pleasure. I still kept most of my spearing and ice fishing gear but will probably go south where its warmer once I retire.

quote:

Duane you need to learn to ice fish! I sold my ice house. To darned cold. That offset the pleasure. I still kept most of my spearing and ice fishing gear but will probably go south where its warmer once I retire.

Went ice fishing once, with a guy in Brainard Minnesnowta, all we did was drink whiskey, memory servers me caught like 3 crappie all day! Froze my feet, we were in a tent contraption. The only thing fun was the power ice drill!!!

Saw a trailer once in Missouri that had a bass boat above a SUV, it took the guy like an hour to launch the boat, don't remember what the RV was that towed it. Think I will stick to one or the other.

When you retire and move south how are we gonna have the spring GTG??? Who will send me all that spring water???

Steve really has the best idea, summer north and winter south.

quote:

Originally posted by Duane88:

When you retire and move south how are we gonna have the spring GTG??? Who will send me all that spring water???

Steve really has the best idea, summer north and winter south.

You need to read closer Duane. “Go south”. Not “move south” plan at the current time is visit my many southern friends and relatives (some of those relatives are friends). Stay long enough but not too long. Some could be days some could be months.

Heck I don’t t believe I’ve meet Danny Z yet so there’s Florida. There are others some of the big GTG’s I don’t remember who we all meet.

Had to get back to FLORIDA to make sure we didn’t drift to far off Topic.

Liz and I are comfortably settled in here. Becoming confirmed snow birds now but I can't help it. On the shortest day of the year, we have 1 hour and 37 minutes more daylight here, not to mention the sunshine! 16 degrees, cloudy and snowing at home.

Cool today, low in the 40's high only upper 50's, tomorrow as well but but back to the 70's next week.

Getting back to coach projects and tinkering with the VW. We will visit Danny and Suzy next week. Life is good here.

Hoping everyone has a merry Christmas and a better year in 2021. To all, take care and be well.

Now what to do with this lump of coal...

quote:

Now what to do with this lump of coal...

Send it to me, got down to 7F here last night, Mississippi river is almost completely frozen!!

Eagles have arrived from that white waste land north of us!

I guess winter in Iowa is official now! Florida sounds good Steve!!

Getting ready to turn the wheels on the Barth. Just heading over to Arcadia to see Steve and Liz for a day trip. Where they are you can just drive past them and go down to the county boat ramp park to park your RV, then walk a couple blocks back to their place. I might be able to talk Steve into checking out the Onan to see why it surges so bad. If Billy T was here he'd have it fixed in a heartbeat, but it might take a little guesswork on our part.

Life is good here. With the deepfreeze covering the country we have been very happy being here. We had two nights of frost in January, otherwise about average temperatures. Low 80's the last couple days.

I have finished my roof recoating project and I have only one skylight left to replace.

I also installed new LED driving lights in the front bumper, the old halogen ones were shot. I finally installed new LED backup lights in the rear bumper, the old ones never worked. I had to remove the muffler and tailpipe to get to the front side of the bumper. I will replace the original muffler with a smaller lighter stainless version. For the first time since I've had the coach all the exterior lights are working and are LED versions.

I got the sliding step cover loose and functioning, if only manually. (The electric drive unit is fried.)

This gets me about caught up to where I wanted to be at the end of last summer. I have a few more projects left for this winter. I have new laminate to install in the bathroom. The bottom half of the walls were done with oak plywood last summer. The top half will have new laminate and towel bars soon.

I would like to clean up the engine bay and get things painted back there. The exhaust manifold was leaking before I owned the coach and there was still soot residue on many surfaces. I power washed the area already so new paint will be nice.

We have had a nice winter so far. We have visited Danny and Suzy and some other friends in Venice. We spent a couple afternoons on the Gulf beaches nearby and we are back to swimming at the pool.

Still waiting for vaccinations, Florida has much confusion between state sites, Publix and other providers. Can't seem to get everyone on the same page. Our neighbors in Michigan have already been called and had their first shots. Not worth going home yet, though!

Take care all, stay warm

Have Barth, will travel