What is fraud from a legal perspective

 

Lately, the news has been full of references to "fraud." As a retired trial attorney, from time to time, I had to deal with clients who had been defrauded. I can say from experience that claiming fraudulent behavior or representations is easy and emotionally charged but actually proving fraud in court is one of the most difficult claims to prove in both civil and criminal litigation. 

Since my main trial experience was in Arizona, I will use Arizona law as an example. Here is one statement of the elements of a fraud claim that must be proved in court. 

While the criteria required to establish fraud vary in state and federal laws, one must generally be able to prove that an important fact was misrepresented by a person who knew the information was false to a victim who suffered a loss or injury as a result of reasonable reliance on the misrepresented fact. The misrepresented fact must be substantial and must have played a critical role in the victim’s decision. In order to be considered fraud, the misrepresented information must be a fact, not an opinion. See Arizona Fraud Laws. 

 In most states, the elements of a fraud claim have to be proven individually in order for the incident to be considered a fraud. With regard to elections, here is a link to a Federal Election Fraud Fact Sheet prepared by the United States Attorneys Office of the District of New Hampshire. If you have any questions about the Federal Law of Fraud, I suggest you carefully read the list of Conduct Actionable as Federal Election Fraud, Intimidation, or Suppression listed on the Fact Sheet. 

Once again it is easy to claim fraud but it is another thing to prove fraud in court. Why is this the case? The main issue is obtaining facts that support the claim. Now you would think that researching the total number of election fraud cases that ended in a conviction would be fairly easy. Court records are public and easily reviewed. In fact, there are huge searchable databases such as West Law that provide attorneys with almost every case of record in the history of the United States. 

If you spend a few minutes looking online, you will find real credible sources that address the issue of voter fraud in the United States, not unsupported allegations by politically motivated individuals. For example, here is a link to an article entitled, "Debunking the Voter Fraud Myth" from the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University of Law. Here is one quote from the article:

The Brennan Center’s seminal report on this issue, The Truth About Voter Fraud, found that most reported incidents of voter fraud are actually traceable to other sources, such as clerical errors or bad data matching practices. The report reviewed elections that had been meticulously studied for voter fraud, and found incident rates between 0.0003 percent and 0.0025 percent. Given this tiny incident rate for voter impersonation fraud, it is more likely, the report noted, that an American“will be struck by lightning than that he will impersonate another voter at the polls.”

The rest of the article cites 18 additional studies about the incidence of voter fraud. Of course, if you want to listen to politically motivated individuals rant about voter fraud all the studies and court decisions in the country will not convince you that there is really no significant issue or problem. 

Again, it is easy to claim fraud, it is very, very, difficult to find cases of voter fraud in the United States.  

A Plague of Ignorance

The Plague of Florence as Described by Boccaccio, an etching (ca. early 19th century) by Luigi Sabatelli of a plague-struck Florence in 1348, as described by Petrarch's friend Giovanni Boccaccio (pictured with a book bearing his initials) 

 “Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.”

― Martin Luther King Jr.

“You are not entitled to your opinion. You are entitled to your informed opinion. No one is entitled to be ignorant.”

― Harlan Ellison

We live in a world flooded with information and yet many in our contemporary society choose to be ignorant. I spent about 20 years of my life in formal education. After graduating from law school, I spent the next 39 years as a trial attorney. I went to court arguing cases for my clients thousands of times. I appeared in every level of our court system from Justice Courts (Small Claims Courts) all the way to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. For the months I have been watching two dangerous and overwhelming plagues attack the people of the United States. In both of these plagues a substantial percentage of the people of our country deny the existence of the plagues. One of those plagues, to the date of this blog post, had cost the lives of well over 300,000 people in our country, more than died in every war since the start of the Korean War combined. See "The coronavirus has now killed more Americans than every war since the start of the Korean War—combined."

The other plague is really more serious as it may result in the loss of our freedom and the return to an unthinkable division of our country not unlike the U.S. Civil War. At the very least, this plague will result in the destruction of the Republican Party. 

The first plague is, of course, the COVID-19. The second plague is harder to detect but more dangerous. It is a plague of ignorance. I am guessing that within a few months, vaccines will become available that will eventually slow down the COVID-19 pandemic. So far, about 50 lawsuits have been filed in various states and in various courts across the country challenging the results of the 2020 Presidential Election. So far, every one of those cases has been dropped, dismissed, or in a few cases is still on appeal. More cases are being filed even over the last few days before this post was written. See a summary at "Wikipedia: Post-election lawsuits related to the 2020 United States presidential election."

Many of the judges who have decided these cases are appointees of the current administration. From my standpoint as a trial attorney, the filing of so many baseless lawsuits is a serious concern. The attorneys involved in those lawsuits need to be sanctioned by their respective Bar Associations. What is more disturbing however is the fact that apparently, a large percentage of people in the United States ignorantly and willfully believe that the decisions in all those cases are somehow wrong and there is still evidence of election fraud out there just waiting to be proven. 

Let me give you an allegorical example. 

Let's suppose that I bought a car that I had now owned for four years. During those four years, my car had run erratically and was totally unreliable. I decided, after careful consideration, to buy another make of automobile and junk the older one. When I bought the new car, suddenly the manufacturer of the old car appeared at my doorstep and claimed that my decision to buy a new car was fraudulently induced by the manufacturers of the newer car I just bought. In fact, not only did they claim fraud, but they also went to court to prevent me from driving or owning the newer car. Now, I had to spend money to get an attorney to represent me, but when I showed up in court, the attorneys for the older car's manufacturer simply claimed that I had no right to dump the old car because of my purchase of the new car was faulty. However, they could never explain how my purchase was faulty and the judge in the case dismissed their claim. Despite this, the attorney for the manufacturer of the older car continued to file lawsuit after lawsuit and not only that they convinced my neighbors and even some of my friends to threaten me with physical harm. In all this, they could never really tell me what was wrong with my purchase of the newer car. Not once. 

Now, the attorneys making the claims in court are not ignorant. They are willfully and knowledgeably making false claims. However, the people who believe them are woefully ignorant. 

The United States can only operate as a country under the rule of law, that is the restriction of the arbitrary exercise of power by subordinating it to well-defined and established laws. In order for those questioning the validity of the current election for the president of the United States to follow the rule of law, they must present a case supporting their claims for fraud and misconduct. It is not enough to make claims without evidence. Over 50 judges of both political parties have ruled or are in the process of ruling that the claims made were not justiciable. Supporting those claims without evidence is ignorant and inexcusable. If people in this country continue to operate in ignorance and conscientious stupidity, we are going to have a rough time which may end up with extremely serious consequences. 

Losing the battle with the Pandemic: Natural Consequences as a result of ignorance, incompetence, and bad judgement

The state of Utah is a microcosm of what is happening around the world with the COVID-19 pandemic. The reaction to the initial wave of virus infections was quickly overcome with standard public health practices; closing business, prohibiting gatherings of all kinds, mandating masks, encouraging personal hygiene such as hand-washing and etc. The results were predictable. The incidence of viral infection started to go down. Unfortunately for the overall population, the leaders of our state and country vastly underestimated the effect of a highly contagious disease in a population with no immunity and no vaccines and abandoned these tested public health measures and went back to business as usual. 

Starting with a self-centered and rabidly political president and extending to a significant number of people who somehow believe that the small amount of good he accomplished in four years excused putting the entire country at risk from an uncontrolled pandemic, to state officials that are so afraid of the protests of hard-core so-called conservatives who threaten violent opposition to any public health restrictions at all, the governments of Utah and other states have abandoned taking any actions that might curb the spread of the disease. 

Around the world, we have seen graphic evidence of countries that have enacted stringent public health measures including shutting down their whole country, such as was recently done by Israel, and gotten control of the situation. We can't even mandate universal masks or take any other action that will really address the spread of the disease. 

Meanwhile, the country and the state are absorbed in politics and are paralyzed by a President who puts his personal agenda above the lives of his constituency. The virus doesn't care about your politics. It is killing people in my neighborhood, three people in the last week, and will continue to kill people until we follow the well-proven national health measures that we have known about for over a hundred years. 

Note: The Daily New Cases of the virus is merely an indicator of the problem, the real number to look at is the percentage of positives from the number of tests which, in Utah Valley where I live, is now over 25% of the tests given regardless of the number of tests. 

What about voter fraud?

 

In 2016, Clinton received 65,853,514 votes in the popular vote and Trump received 62,984,828. According to the popular vote, Clinton received over 2.8 million popular votes than Trump. Currently, as of the date of this post, with the election count incomplete in a few states, Biden has 75,596,426 popular votes and Trump has 71,043,149. The difference today is over 4.5 million, far more than the difference in 2016. In 2016, despite his loss of the popular vote, Trump did not contest the election on the basis of fraud. Back in 2016, a New York Times article "All This Talk of Voter Fraud? Across U.S., Officials Found Next to None" stated as follows:

After all the allegations of rampant voter fraud and claims that millions had voted illegally, the people who supervised the general election last month in states around the nation have been adding up how many credible reports of fraud they actually received. The overwhelming consensus: next to none.

In an election in which more than 137.7 million Americans cast ballots, election and law enforcement officials in 26 states and the District of Columbia — Democratic-leaning, Republican-leaning and in-between — said that so far they knew of no credible allegations of fraudulent voting. Officials in another eight states said they knew of only one allegation.

But apparently, according to Trump who is the apparent loser in the 2020 election, everything has changed in the past four years. Now, we have rampant voter fraud. Here is the split in the electoral college in 2016

Wikipedia: 2016 United States presidential election

You might note that 7 electors refused to follow their state mandate and voted contrary to the results of the election. 

Here is today's tally of the Electoral Votes from the Associated Press.

Now I have a couple of questions:

Why are there only allegations of voter fraud in the states where Trump is losing?

For example, in North Carolina, Trump is only ahead by about 75,000 votes. Why is that state excluded from the Trump allegations? By the way, Trump has only made allegations of fraud in 5 states and those are only states where Biden leads in the vote count.

Why is there only voter fraud in 5 states?

If Trump is worried today about voter fraud why wasn't something done about the supposed problem during his 4 years in office?

Why did Trump try to prevent the Post Office from delivering and collecting ballots?

Why did Trump vote by mail if voting by mail was basically flawed?

Why have I been voting by mail for years without a single issue or problem?

Just thinking. 

Surviving the Pandemic: It will continue to get worse

 

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/usa/utah/

Back in the latter part of September, the Daily New Cases in Utah of the COVID-19 virus went over 1000 a day for the first time. After spending most of my life involved in court cases in the Arizona and Federal Court system as a trial attorney, I am used to looking at evidence. Because we now live in Utah, I have been following the statistics closely. What did the State of Utah do when the Daily New Cases went over 1000? The Governor urged the residents to wear masks and practice social distancing. 

About that time, I could see from the increasing statistics including the percentage of positive tests that the number of Daily New Cases would soon go over 2000. The number did go over 2000 about a month later in October. I was wondering what the State of Utah would do when the number went over 2000 a day. The State issues an Amber Alert statewide and asked people to wear masks and practice social distancing. Hmm. When something doesn't work the first time, you just keep doing the same thing over and over hoping that it will work. 

When the number of Daily New Cases went over 2000, I could easily see that the rate of increase was accelerating and I wondered what would happen when the number went over 3000 new cases a day? Here is a quote from a KSL.com article about the increase entitled, "2,987 more COVID-19 cases, 17 deaths reported Friday as Utah breaks records again."

"The numbers being reported today are exactly what we've been warning Utah residents about for weeks," Utah Gov. Gary Herbert said in a news release. "They are why we've implored Utahns to adopt the behaviors that could have prevented us from reaching this point."

So, if what you are doing doesn't work, you just do more of it and hope it starts working. The positive test rate for the rolling seven day average in Utah climbed to 19.7%. This indicates that almost 1/5th of the population is now sick with the virus. Despite this, business is as usual in Utah Valley where I live. People are still gathering in large groups. People still come to our door without masks and there is no indication that the people in the state are taking this dramatic increase seriously. In fact, I am still hearing that the "virus is a hoax and as soon as the election is over, it will go away." The "virus" does not know about or care about any one country's election. 

I am now predicting that the incidence of the COVID-19 virus will go over 4000 a day here in Utah very shortly and may go even higher. 

Right around me, I am seeing multiple families where the entire family is sick and it will take months for the family to recover. I have friends who are dying of the disease. All of this is just in our own neighborhood. What does it take to follow what is being done in many other countries with success in limiting or at least reducing the incidence of this disease? The government throughout the United States seems frozen into inactivity by trying to protect an economy that will end up being thoroughly ruined by the pandemic if no action is taken. 

In the last few days, here in Utah Valley, I have seen groups of young people with as many as 30 to 50, mostly without masks and huddled together without even a semblance of social distancing. We are also having church meetings in Utah Valley with up to 100 people in attendance where those attending are "encouraged" to wear masks. Hmm. 

The Pandemic in Utah (and elsewhere) is out of control

 

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/usa/utah/

This is a graph of the Daily New Cases in the State of Utah. Although the totals are not nearly as high as those in other states, the increases since September show a steep upward curve. This graph is particularly of interest to me because I live in Utah. But I also live in the United States. Here is the graph for the same day for the entire United States. 

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/

You can see the same increasing trend in the United States as you can see for Utah. Now, what happens if we look at the same day for the whole world?

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

Why do they all look about the same? Simple. This is a record of a worldwide pandemic. Just as John Donne said about people (men back then) "No Man is an Island." No city, county, state, or country in the world is not part of this pandemic. You can't have a pee area in a swimming pool without sharing. 

Here in Utah, the spread of the COVID-19 virus is looked upon as a local issue. Each county is subject to an individual evaluation with a simplistic three-tiers system of high, moderate, and low. What is missing is a realization that people can indiscriminately move from one county to another, i.e. the swimming pool. There is no enforcement just admonition to wear masks etc. 

Essentially, there has been an accumulation of incompetence, ignorance, and an inability to appreciate reality topped off with a disdain for "science." In the United States, the whole approach to control has been politicized to the point that supposed economic considerations have outweighed the fact that a huge increase in COVID-19 will likely destroy any chance of a swift economic recovery or any recovery. 

Meanwhile, as one of my daughters related to me just recently, there are people who believe that the whole pandemic is a Democratic hoax and invention. Hmm. I wonder how the Democrats got Spain to go along with their hoax. Here is the graph for Spain on the same day as above.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/spain/

The economy of the United States is hopelessly lopsided. Here is a quote from a USAToday article entitled, "How much do you need to make to be in the top 1% in every state? Here's the list."

Nationwide, it takes an annual income of $538,926 to be among the top 1%. Among the approximately 1.4 million taxpayers who meet this threshold, the average annual income is about $1.7 million – about 20 times the average income of $82,535 among all taxpayers.

However, the top 0.01 percent has an average annual income of over $7 million dollars a year. In the first quarter of 2020, the lower 50% of households and nonprofit organizations held 1.4% of all net worth in the United States. In other words, the spread of a pandemic will cause unimaginable suffering and loss but it will not end up affecting the huge disparity in wealth in the United States and around the world. Some of the largest companies in the world are benefitting from the pandemic with record sales. See "Who Are the One Percent in the United States by Income and Net Worth?"

Back to Utah. Up to this point, the government in Utah at all levels has not made any effort to enforce any mandate that might contain or even affect the spread of the COVID-19 virus. How high do the statistics have to go before something is done?

Meanwhile, I will continue to stay home, distance myself from everyone, and wear a mask when I go outside and talk to people. I will also continue to monitor the recovery of my near relatives and friends. 

I Don't do Crazy and I Don't do Stupid -- A Commentary

One of my early memories of working as an attorney in a law office over 40 years ago was of a man who came around periodically trying to get the law firm you invest money in his project to find the Lost Dutchman Mine in the Superstition Mountains east of Phoenix. I also remember another visitor to the office who was always trying to sell Navajo jewelry. The only problem with the jewelry was that I was convinced that it was probably stolen property. These were just some of the earliest of the experiences that I had that led me to adopt a simple phrase to explain my lack of enthusiasm and interest in proposed projects and attitudes: I don't do crazy and I don't do stupid. 

Very often during my long legal career, I would have potential clients approach me with a "sure-fire" winning case. They would start by telling me that I came highly recommended and then they would start to tell me about the case and I would, almost instantly, detect that their "presentation" was rehearsed. I would stop them and ask, "How many attorneys have you already talked to about this case?" Usually, I would get some run around answer but eventually, they would admit that they had talked to one or more attorneys. I would then say something about how sorry I was but they did not have a case and they were wasting their time. I would then hear a story about how someone in another state had a similar case and made a million dollars on the case. I would end the discussion by saying I did not think the case had any merits and I was not interested. Afterward, I would remember, I don't do stupid or crazy and I wasn't going to be the one who was stupid or crazy. 

Let's fast forward about a few years to the present. I am now sequestered because of a worldwide pandemic. Despite my sequestration, I am tuned in to the internet, as is usual for me. I can almost instantly see hundreds of news outlets and watch the Johns Hopkins University COVID-19 map. I can also see a real-time statistical analysis of the progress of the disease on the Worldometer COVID-19 Coronavirus Pandemic website. These two websites give me a quick reality check for any statistical claims made in any online news articles. As I have observed previously in this blog, the spectrum of the news sources I review includes those that would be considered "far-right" in the United States and others that would be labeled ultra-left-wing-liberal. What I am finding in both and fairly sprinkled across the whole spectrum is a lot that falls into my definition of either stupid or crazy. 

For an example, as of the date of this post, I am reading comments and quoted articles on Facebook where people are expressing the opinion that the pandemic is over and there is no longer any need for social distancing. Hmm. I can look at the Worlometer for today and see that Russia has over 10,800 new COVID-19 cases and over 100 deaths. Here is a screenshot of the Russian graph for daily new cases. 

That doesn't look like the end of the pandemic to me. Oh, but you say, Russia is lying about their statistics. Are they over-reporting for sympathy or under-reporting? Why would any country over-report? On the other hand, a lack of testing in the United States clearly indicates that everything they are saying about the COVID-19 virus here is under-reported. It would be easier if the stupid and crazy were somewhat limited to one end of the political spectrum but the whole pandemic issue has become so politicized that almost every news account has some degree of one or the other. 

The trick here is to not buy in to either stupid or crazy. If some self-anointed expert suddenly declares that eating raw cabbage cures the COVID-19 virus, look before you leap. Where did the information come from? Have there been any peer-reviewed studies supporting the conclusion? What does the expert expect stand to gain if you buy into his or her theory? What do you have to lose? What is missing from all of the online discussion is a measurable degree of self-preservation. Why is it that people are willing to risk their own death simply because someone puts up a video on YouTube?

What has Russia to do with you? What did China have to with anyone when all this started?

Here is one final graph. This is the daily number of cases worldwide. Granted, there are whole countries that are not reporting. But it isn't over yet and I suspect I will be able to illustrate the same conclusion in a month or two from the date of this post.

Why I Stopped Reading National Geographic and the COVID-19 Pandemic

When I was a lot younger than I am now, I was a great fan of the National Geographic Magazine and even went to Washington, D.C. to sign up personally at National Geographic Society headquarters. Some years ago, the magazine ran an article about Salt Lake City, Utah. Of all the things they could have written about, the National Geographic writer chose to talk about polygamy. There were two photos in the article; one showed a lovely polygamist family in a large beautiful home with children all dressed in matching clothes and the other showed a "typical Mormon" family sitting in their weed overgrown, and very messy backyard with very overweight people apparently overeating with a table full of food. Granted, polygamy is an issue here in Utah and in other places around the world. Historically, my own ancestral family members were polygamists. But the issue of polygamy is so low on the concerns here in Utah as to be almost non-existent. Recently, the Utah State Legislature reduced the penalty for polygamy from a criminal action to about on par with a traffic ticket. See "Polygamy bill passes the Utah State Legislature."

My opinion of National Geographic made a major shift with that one article. I suddenly began to see that the "primitive" societies and other depictions made by the magazine were just as biased and unrealistic as the article that offended me. I subsequently got rid of almost all of my huge collection of back issues and stopped regularly reading the magazine. This experience with many others has sensitized me to writing that is biased and exploitive. I have also focused on how much "propaganda" passes for news and commentary. By the way, propaganda is defined as information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote or publicize a particular political cause or point of view. I am not advocating cutting off reading anything you personally disagree with. If you do that, you are creating your own propaganda. But in my case, I stopped viewing the National Geographic as an unbiased source of information and put it into the same category as most of the other publications I regularly read. 

Now, what does this have to do with the virus COVID-19. Quite a bit actually. I read extensively, probably 20 to 30 or more different magazines and news reporting entities on a regular basis. I also spend a very short time reviewing a little bit of my Facebook stream. What I am seeing in this pandemic era is an extraordinary increase in propaganda much of which is just plain false. Unfortunately, the sources for this propaganda are almost universal from the heads of our national government, political parties, popular news online, magazines, and almost every other possible venue. No, I am not going to give examples of "fake news." The stream of such drivel is so constant and so pervasive as to basically create an alternative reality where everything from UFOs to flat earth theories are considered to be mainstream acceptable topics for serious consideration. 

How do we avoid being "sucked in" by propaganda and false news? The best way I know is to read an expanded and extensive variety of news sources. Next, it is important to identify and listen to those people and news sources that do not have any particular political or cultural bias. If you are listening to or reading the same online commentator or watching the same news station or company every day, you are being desensitized to fake news and propaganda. 

Of course, all this is easier said than done. But what do you do when even the statistics lie? The best decision is to examine your own best self-interest. If the world is buying toilet paper, do you actually need to fill your garage? If you are old and vulnerable, like me, do you listen to people who say that social distancing is a bad idea and counter to your "freedom," or do you take reasonable measures to protect yourself from disease and infection? Do you listen to people who say that a disease that has, at the time of this post, killed hundreds of thousands of people is really a political hoax and no worse than the flu? 

You can believe what you want to believe but you should take the time to think through the consequences of buying into an idea that will put you personally in danger or be detrimental to your family. 

Journal of the Virus Year: My experiences with the virus: April 4, 2020

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/coronavirus-cases/

The count on the worldwide number of Coronavirus COVID-19 just went over a million a few days ago so I thought more about numbers than usual. The graph above was from the day before the number went over a million. This particular website has hundreds of graphs of every kind and possible description but it also has a significant section on the virus. Here in the United States, the number of new cases daily is increasing with a similar curve. Here is the graph for the U.S. for the same day as the one above.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/

One interesting fact that is dramatically shown by the graph of the total cases in the U.S. is that the increase in the infections did not appear un about the 16th of March, only a few days ago and the number of new cases is rising every day.

Here is a graph of the world total from April 4th. You will note that the graph looks identical except for the increased numbers.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/coronavirus-cases/

Although I have not gotten sick with the virus (yet), because of my age and past experience with lung problems including, but not limited to, asthma, I am definitely in the risk category and so I am staying strictly inside except for short solitary excursions and avoid almost all contact with the outside world. The remaining contact is from about, at least, six feet or more. Fortunately, our weather has been mostly beautiful and we have been well stocked with the essentials from long before the virus became a problem. 

Until those curves shown above start taking a decided turn for more level, we are in for a long haul.  I am still hearing people say that there is nothing to worry about and that the whole pandemic thing will be over by the end of the month or whatever. I am not a statistician nor am I involved in the medical side of the disease but I am an attorney with years of trial experience looking at "evidence." I would hate to be asked to argue a case for an early end to this particular pandemic. I would also hate to be an expert witness trying to predict how many deaths might eventually occur from the COVID-19 virus and its variants. It is hard to see the spacing between the dots in these graphs. Here is another graph from the same website that shows the increase in the number of cases each day.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/coronavirus-cases/

You might wonder why the numbers seem to go up for a while and then go down and then jump up. These are not really changes in the number of new instances of the disease, they are changes in the reporting. For example, as of the writing of this post, the State of California is in a testing crisis. Here is a quote from an article in the Atlantic, entitled "Private Labs Are Fueling a New Coronavirus Testing Crisis, Backlogs at private laboratories have ballooned, making it difficult to treat suffering patients and contain the pandemic."

Though the problem is national in scope, California is its known epicenter. Over the past week, the most populous state in the union—where the country’s first case of community transmission was identified, in late February—has managed to complete an average of only 2,136 tests each day, far fewer than other similarly populous states, according to our tracking data. Yet California also reports that more than 57,400 people have pending test results. Tens of thousands of Californians have been swabbed for the virus, but their samples have not yet been examined in a lab.

What will happen to the Daily New Cases number when the California test results catch up with the backlog if they ever do? This is what is called a "boxcar effect" with the numbers jumping and falling due to reporting failure. 

As long as the number of new cases continues to increase, the effects of the virus will continue to get worse.

 

Journal of the Virus Year: My experiences with the virus: March 31, 2020

I drove past our local Costco yesterday and saw the line of people waiting to get into the store. I understand that the lines have been longer but this one went down the side of the building. It was apparent that many of the people coming to the store were not aware of or prepared for the line. Fortunately, as I have written before, we are not dependent on buying anything in particular right now or for some time into the future.

Besides panic buying, one of the other major impacts of the Coronavirus COVID-19 is the proliferation of false or misleading news stories. I read a good example of a "serious" news report today that started out with a false premise and then relied on that false statement for the balance of the article. My quote comes from the KSL.com article entitled, "Coronavirus Mailbag: How long should we expect to be social distancing?"

Editor’s note: These answers are based on interviews and information current as of the time of publication. Please be aware that new information may be discovered by health experts after publication. We’re working to keep this information as up-to-date as possible. 

SALT LAKE CITY — We’re starting to get a better picture of COVID-19 in Utah. As of Monday, 806 state residents or visitors had contracted the novel coronavirus and four residents had died from it, according to the Utah Department of Health. 

Other statistics released by state officials Monday indicate the disease has affected younger Utahns the most, but older Utahns have suffered heavier complications from it. About 87% of Utah’s confirmed cases, so far, involve people under the age of 65, including 42% of cases involving people between the ages of 25 and 44 and 15% involving people 24 years old or younger, Gov. Gary Herbert said during a press conference Monday.

On its face, this appears to be a serious attempt at answering some basic questions about the coronavirus pandemic and its effect on Utah. Unfortunately, the statement made in the first paragraph of the article is both false and misleading.  The false statement is "As of Monday, 806 state residents or visitors had contracted the novel coronavirus and four residents had died from it, according to the Utah Department of Health."

If this statement does not appear to you to be false, then you are not reading enough about the pandemic to understand what is actually going on. Why is this statement false? Simply put, out of an approximate population of 3.161 million people, as of March 30, 2020, only 16,003 tests had been conducted. The statistics in the second paragraph of the article are based on a vanishingly small percentage of the population that has been tested.

The interesting thing about this issue is that it is general across the United States. The only way any kind of conclusions can be drawn about how the coronavirus is affecting the national population is to massively increase testing, not just for sick people, but for everyone. Additionally, there are some questions about people who have recovered from the virus. See "New antibody tests can detect whether people have had the coronavirus after they recover, but scientists still aren't sure whether people can get reinfected." from Business Insider.

What is even more unfortunate is that many people, as I observed yesterday in a very short trip to get gas in my car and mail some letters, are ignoring both the distancing issue and the stay at home issues. The parking lots at the stores and the Mall were filled and so far, here in Utah, the stay at home mandates have been ineffective. This could partially be the result of contradictory and false information being disseminated by government officials around the country.

The key to all of this seems to be to do what you need to do to protect yourself and your family. Read as many varied accounts from different news services rather than listening to your "favorite" one. Take reasonable and consistent measures to avoid catching the virus from others and following the instructions of the most reliable resources: doctors and hospitals and health agencies not politicians and online talk show hosts. Here is a link to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention article entitled, "How to Protect Yourself."

Journal of the Virus Year: My experiences with the virus: March 30, 2020

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db355.htm

Everyone now on the face of the earth (and anywhere else) will die sometime. One of the totally irrational responses to the current Coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic is a meme that lists the number of annual deaths from different causes, mostly politically motivated, and the current death number from the coronavirus. The above chart shows data from the Nationa Vital Statistics System as compiled by the Nationa Center for Health Statistics of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as shown in an article entitled, "Mortality in the United States 2018." Here are some actual tabulated figures from another article from the same source entitled, "Deaths and Mortality."

Data are for the U.S.

• Number of deaths: 2,813,503
• Death rate: 863.8 deaths per 100,000 population
• Life expectancy: 78.6 years
• Infant Mortality rate: 5.79 deaths per 1,000 live births

Source: Deaths: Final Data for 2017, tables 1, 3, 13 pdf icon[PDF – 2 MB]
Number of deaths for leading causes of death:

• Heart disease: 647,457
• Cancer: 599,108
• Accidents (unintentional injuries): 169,936
• Chronic lower respiratory diseases: 160,201
• Stroke (cerebrovascular diseases): 146,383
• Alzheimer’s disease: 121,404
• Diabetes: 83,564
• Influenza and Pneumonia: 55,672
• Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome and nephrosis: 50,633
• Intentional self-harm (suicide): 47,173

Source: Deaths: Final Data for 2017, table B pdf icon[PDF – 2 MB]

Bear in mind that every death has a cause so even if a person lives to be over 100 years old, ultimately there is a cause of death. 

Where I live and because of my age, I am surrounded by death.  I regularly learn about the death of a friend or acquaintance. By its nature, the death of any one individual is disruptive. For example, although both my parents died more than 11 years ago, I am still working through issues caused, in part, by their deaths.

The real question here is what do all these statistics about the causes of death have to do with a pandemic? The answer is basically nothing. Let's suppose we could eliminate one entire cause of death. The effect might be to increase the life expectancy of the population but it would not change the overall death rate it would only move the numbers of deaths into other cause categories. If people didn't die from cancer they would still die from something else.

So why is there such a big impact of a new cause of death such as the coronavirus? The partial answer is in the mortality tables or actuarial life tables used by insurance companies to set your life insurance rates. I have referred to this type of table before. Here is a link to the one from the United States Social Security Administration. Looking at this table, at my age, almost 40,000 people out of the 100,000 born in the same year that I was born, have now died. This is translated into a death probability of .035963 and my current life expectancy is about 11.18 years.

Do these large numbers and generalized percentages have anything to do with the pandemic? Well, yes, if the number of people who die is large enough to affect the overall death rate.

But the real problem is the vast disruption in our entire society not just any relative numbers of deaths from any specific cause. Arguing that more people die from heart disease than from a virus is irrelevant. At least some of the people who die from the virus would have ultimately died from heart disease but they didn't. They died from the virus. The real question is personal. Do you want to die now from the coronavirus or do you want to some time to die of some other cause? Your reaction to this question determines your attitude to the efforts being taken to reduce the impact of the present pandemic. This isn't a political issue. The effects of the coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic are not the results of anyone's political persuasion but the severity of the effects for any individual are determined by that individual's actions. Can you absolutely prevent the disease from killing you? No. But you can reduce the risk and you may survive. Pointing out that there are other causes of death does not reduce the possibility that you personally will die from the coronavirus. Arguing that we shouldn't do anything about a virulent infectious disease just because there are other more serious causes of death is simply irrational and unintelligent.

You might note that in the United States billions of dollars are spent every year attempting to reduce the effect of each of the leading causes of death.

Journal of the Virus Year: My experiences with the virus: March 23, 2020

This isn't the Coronavirus. It is a random virus pathogen. 

The developments in the last three or four days regarding the spreading Coronavirus COVID-19 have been extraordinary. For example, on March 20, 2020, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention listed the following figures:

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/cases-in-us.html

The number from today's report from the Johns Hopkins University of Medicine, Coronavirus Resource Center shows the U.S. with 35,224 cases and 471 deaths, more than double the amount being reported by the CDC in less than three days.  If you are quoting or relying on data that is even part of a day old, you are likely vastly underestimating the impact of this pandemic considering the huge increases in the numbers of people infected that even with the vast under-reporting is running 30,000 a day and continually increasing.

After a week of "social distancing" and the resultant relative isolation that entails, our family has been increasingly relying on video conferencing software to mitigate the isolation. It has been interesting to me as I talk to people outside of our family, how many people believe that this worldwide pandemic with somehow spontaneously disappear in a week or two. For example, the school systems in the State of Utah, presently, has a "two-week" plan in place that is open-ended but begs the issue of the severity of the pandemic. Here is a quote from the Provo City School District that illustrates the issue.

As a district, we recognize that yesterday's announcement to dismiss school for the next two weeks has probably caused you to have many questions. While this email contains a lot of details, it will hopefully answer many of your questions and provide direction for next week. The district will continue to provide direction as needed throughout this coming week. This information will be emailed to all parents and posted on the district website, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts. Please read the entire email for important information for next week.

At the other end of the spectrum, I am seeing irrational panic buying on a huge scale. In contrast, I have spent my whole life hearing about the need for a reasonable amount of food storage that includes other essential items. This is not a "prepper" mentality that believes that the world as we know it will imminently end. It is a reasonable concern that individual and family conditions can become difficult because of loss of work, illness, or local disaster conditions. My family has used our "year's supply" to tide us over periods when our income was not sufficient to maintain our family. Of course, this practice was promoted by our Church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but the idea of preparedness is not unique to the Church. The current Church program on preparedness is focused on "Self Reliance." See Self-Reliance Services.

The unfortunate results of panic buying are that people acquire quantities of food and other items that they will never use and in some cases, do not know how to use. For example, for many years, the emphasis of the food storage program of the Church focused on basic foods such as wheat and other grains. This reflected the fact that many people had access to grain mills to make flour and could make their own bread. As time passed, this model of preparedness changed with the times. Presently, the idea of self-reliance focuses on individual skills and the food storage component is less focused on obtaining a "years supply" of anything. Here is a quote from the Church's statement on Food Storage.

What am I supposed to have in my food storage?
There are three main components of food storage:

• Food supply (three-month and long-term)
• Water supply
• Financial reserve

Store foods that are a part of your normal diet in your three-month supply. As you develop a longer-term storage, focus on food staples such as wheat, rice, pasta, oats, beans, and potatoes that can last 30 years or more. Learn more about a long-term food supply.

Longer-term food storage involves a dedicated pattern of rotation and constant use of the food items stored. See  “An Approach to Longer-Term Food Storage.”

You do not begin a food storage plan by running to the local store in a panic and buying large quantities of off-the-shelf food or other essentials. Before you go off half-cocked and start spending a chunk of money on food, you should realize that buying a large quantity of any one item does not solve the problem. Ask yourself this question: When was the last time I lived primarily on a diet of whole wheat? Food storage only works if you integrate your storage with your normal day-to-day living pattern. The second question I always have to ask when this topic comes up is do you have a wheat mill, that is, a machine to grind wheat. You can see wheat mills by searching online. Here is one "Buying Guide for Grain Mills." Back in the early 1970s, I was actually in the business of selling grain mills for a short time.

A disaster, such as the Coronavirus COVID-19, always reminds us that we need some level of preparation. However, once the crisis arrives the time for preparation is past and panic buying does not solve the issue. A pandemic proceeds over time. It is entirely unlike an earthquake or hurricane. It is not "over" in a matter of a few days or even a few weeks. Pandemics last months and years.

If you have somehow gotten the idea that this coronavirus is going to go away anytime soon, you need to sit down and plan for your short-term future and long term future in a realistic way that does not involve acquiring a mountain of toilet paper or bottled water,

Journal of the Virus Year: My experiences with the virus: March 19, 2020

Do you have the Coronavirus COVID-19? Is there someone or some agency you can call to find out and receive a test? Have you or one of your children ever had a strep throat? Did you go or take your child to the doctor to have the test done? When we had our seven children at home, we almost had a standing weekly appointment with our children's' pediatrician. Testing for an infection is and was for us, a routine medical procedure. What is happening with the Coronavirus? Even with all the hand-wringing rhetoric in the news, almost no medical tests for the virus are being done two months into a worldwide pandemic.

This week, one of the people I know quite well is a professional with an advanced degree. I cannot and will not disclose his identity for obvious reasons. He and his family live in the eastern part of the United States where there are multiple reports of the coronavirus infections. Just before the school was closed down, his child came home from school with a fever and all of the symptoms of the Coronavirus COVID-19. He also developed the symptoms. Not just hypochondria, but the symptoms as widely publicized. He tried to work through his employer and the county health department where he and his family are living but was repeatedly told that testing was not available nor did he or his child fall into the category of those who would be tested. They could not show contact with a person who already had the disease.

I am not a conspiracy theorist. But I do read a broad spectrum of news accounts daily. I do not fall into the category of those who read only what they want to hear. I know what Fox News has to say and I know what CNN has to say. I am also an attorney with years of trial experience. I know when crucial evidence is either being ignored or is missing altogether. Do you know how many tests for the Coronavirus have been performed in your state so far? We sort of know how many cases have been detected, but information about the number of tests is missing. If you test ten people and five of them turn out to have the virus, you know you have a serious problem but if a hundred people have the virus and you only test ten, you don't have any information about the seriousness of the problem.

Today, according to the Johns Hopkins University of Medicine, Coronavirus Resource Center at about 5:00 am, there are 9,415 people in the United States with the Coronavirus. How many total have been tested? My guess is that the number confirmed is only as accurate as the number tested.

Here is in Utah, we have news reports that say, "Amid coronavirus supplies shortage, Utah is now telling most patients not to seek testing." Here is the quote from the article dated March 18, 2020.

In a news conference last month, not long after the first U.S. coronavirus case was reported, the director of Utah’s health department was optimistic that infections in the state could be isolated. 

“We know that these measures taken — isolation of people who are ill, and quarantining those who have been exposed before they become ill so you can prevent their spreading — this is effective,” Joseph Miner said in early February.

But those measures depend heavily on testing. Amid a shortage of coronavirus testing supplies, Utah health officials are now telling patients not to seek testing unless they are so sick they require extra medical care. 

“We … would like the ability of testing statewide for whomever is showing symptoms, but that’s just not the case right now,” state epidemiologist Angela Dunn said in a news briefing Tuesday.

Congress and the Administration want to spend billions (trillions?) of dollars on fighting the disease but I have yet to hear anything substantial. So you have to wait until you are dying to get tested? How many people around you have the disease? How do you know how serious the situation is in your state? According to the above-cited article, only about 27,000 people in the entire United States have been tested by public laboratories and we know that more than 9,000 have been confirmed infected. Think about it.

In my opinion, the money the government is talking about spending and paying out to people in cash is aimed at the faltering economy, not the Caronavirus at all.

Journal of the Virus Year: My experiences with the virus: March 18, 2020

I hadn't planned to write so frequently but developments here in Utah are progressing very rapidly. Today we awoke to an earthquake. Actually, I was already up and working. We are far from the epicenter which was up in Magma, (appropriately named), Utah (oops Magna). There are quite a few local news stories. The trumpet on the Angel Moroni on the Salt Lake Temple fell off. See "Salt Lake Temple sustained minor damage during 5.7 earthquake." Well, if the lines were long at Costco from the Coronavirus COVID-19 yesterday, the lines ought to be longer today with the added incentive of an earthquake. Interestingly, the Temple was already under renovation partly for the reason to add seismic upgrades.

Panic buying is a common reaction to all kinds of emergencies and disasters. My wife and I have never had to buy anything in a panic because we have kept an adequate supply of essential items on hand all of our lives. Over the years, this supply of essentials has been generically termed a "Year's Supply." Lately, however, the time period has been reduced to a more reasonable 3-month supply. Food storage has commonly been associated with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but many other organizations and even churches promote self-reliance and preparedness. See Self-Reliance Services.

The one thing we cannot figure out is why the panic buyers have focused on toilet paper and bottled water.

Every day is a new adventure. Stray tuned for comments on social distancing and other vital topics.

Journal of the Virus Year: My experiences with the virus: March 17, 2020

William Henry Holmes, born Cadiz, OH 1846-died Royal Oak, MI 1933 Public Domain Smithsonian American Art Museum

Now we have gatherings limited to no more than 10 people, isolation zones, health emergency, shelter in place, and last but not least social distancing. In the "good old days" they simply put a sign on your door that said "quarantine." I realized that I have been "social distancing" for years. The irony of my being an online social networking maven is that I am actually not a very social person. As the coronavirus pandemic further limits my social contact, I begin to realize how little social contact I really have every week even without the virus. Due to the fact that our neighborhood is made up of mostly really old people, we are already socially distanced just by our membership in the category of the elderly.

I guess from my perspective all the references to "those over sixty" being at an increased risk from the virus are somewhat amusing. We are at an "increased risk" for just about every other possible category of life-threatening conditions imaginable. See "Age-Related Diseases and Clinical and Public Health Implications for the 85 Years Old and Over Population." for an example. This article starts out by listing all the conditions that are part of "normal aging" such as the following:

• Sensory changes
• Muscle strength and fat changes
• Immunosenescence (say that ten times rapidly)
• Urologic changes

Despite the threat of being infected with the coronavirus, I can spend my isolated time worrying about cardiovascular disease, hypertension, cancer, osteoarthritis, diabetes mellitus, osteoporosis, and several other chronic conditions. Not to mention the fact, of course, that many of my friends have already died off long ago and continue to die off all the time.

But look at the bright side, now we have something to take our minds off of all these background conditions. We can spend our time in social distancing worrying about the coronavirus. What a relief.

Well, I can add more to the list. What about walking speed, mobility disability, falls, frailty, continence, depression and psychological and cognitive disability? Guess what? According to the article cited above, "social isolation predicts mortality and other adverse outcomes in older adults." So we are doomed if we go out in society from the virus but we are equally at risk from the imposed isolation. By the way, no one read me my rights before I got old.

At one time, I obtained an insurance license and so I became aware of the actuarial tables. Here is a link to one from the Social Security Administration: https://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4c6.html. At my age, my probability of dying within one year from all causes is about .035963 and my life expectancy is about 11.18 years. One of my neighbors is 92 years old. His life expectancy is about 3 years. What does it mean to him that he is now subject to "social distancing?" I am guessing that he is even only contacted by his family infrequently because he has outlived most of them. How socially distant can you get?

You can see why someone with a short life expectancy might get depressed.

What can you do in your social distancing condition? How about using social media and the telephone to talk to your older (really old) friends and neighbors? That might help them avoid some measure of depression and ameliorate the effects of your own and their social distancing.

Journal of the Virus Year: My experiences with the virus: March 15, 2020

I wasn't going to write again today until I started to read some of the comments on Facebook. I also have the first potential cases of infection from the coronavirus in my own family living in another state. In addition, the number of people infected in Utah began to rise dramatically in the last two days as testing finally began although presently, Utah’s state lab had the capacity to test only 41 patients a day for the disease. See "Utah patients who tried to get tested for coronavirus describe what happened."

The discussion on Facebook centered around the idea that "what's the big deal?" Those discussing the issue were reflecting the idea of a meme that is currently circulating that compares the Coronavirus COVID-19 to Influenza. Their discussion also reflects statements made by the President of the United States. If you are wondering why the coronavirus is such a big deal, I suggest you do your homework and start looking at some of the statements made by competent medical authorities. You can start with this article: "This Coronavirus Is Unlike Anything in Our Lifetime, and We Have to Stop Comparing It to the Flu." 

Here is the simple beginning of an explanation about the serious nature of this particular pandemic:

https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html Track Reported Cases of COVID-19

What you see above is an exponential curve or an extremely rapid increase. This is from the Johns Hopkins, University of Medicine, Coronavirus Resource Center on March 15, 2020, and is tracking the number of Coronavirus COVID-19 Global Cases. Unfortunately in the United States, the number of cases is skewed downward by the lack of testing facilities. Quoting from an article entitled, "Coronavirus vs. the Flu: The Difference Between a 1% and 0.1% Fatality Rate Is Huge" in the National Review, 

Exponential growth of some diseases means that the number of Americans infected can multiply from a single case to 60 million in a year, as was the case with the H1N1 swine flu in 2009.

If you are listening to popular talk radio hosts comment on the coronavirus, you need to get your head out of the sand and start reading a variety of news articles from a huge variety of sources. Before writing a post like this one, I probably read 50+ articles from a huge variety of news media sources. Ultimately, I form an opinion based on what I believe to be my best evaluation of the most educated and competent authorities. The statement quoted above refers to the H1N1 Swine Flu of 2009 that had a death rate of .02% and infected between 700 million and 1.4 billion people. It is estimated that the swine flu epidemic of 2009 killed about 203,000 people. Here is one comparison of the mortality from the flu compared to the COVID-19 from the ProPublica article cited above (See https://www.propublica.org/article/this-coronavirus-is-unlike-anything-in-our-lifetime-and-we-have-to-stop-comparing-it-to-the-flu)

The flu kills less than 1% of infected people who are over age 65. By comparison, in China, COVID-19 killed 8% of those infected who were 70-79 and almost 15% of those infected who were age 80 or older. That’s a staggering difference.

Since I happen to fall into the 70-79 age category, I am taking all this about the coronavirus seriously. 

Journal of the Virus Year: My experiences with the virus: March 14, 2020

(Credit: Walter D. Mooney Ph. D., U.S. Geological Survey. Public domain.)

No, I am not sick. No, I do not personally know anyone who is sick from the coronavirus.

The last few days were basically in a free-fall collapse. Almost every item on my schedule was canceled or postponed. The major effects of the coronavirus included the closing down of Brigham Young University and, of course, the Family History Library where my wife and I volunteer as missionaries and the suspension of Sunday church meetings of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. for all 16 million-plus members around the world. In addition, the Church's temples were also closed to all but certain approved activities. The impact on our family was dramatic and personal. Where possible, these activities (not including the temples) will be conducted online. In fact, the General Conference of the Church in April will be held entirely online with no one except the direct participants actually attending the meeting in person. See "Updates on How COVID-19 Is Impacting Saints Worldwide" for the entire list of closures and changes.

Another change involved one of my granddaughters who is leaving on a mission for the Church. Normally, she would spend a few weeks at the Missionary Training Center in Provo, Utah but because of the virus, she will have all her training online and go directly to her mission. The changes the past two days or so also impacted all of my grandchildren who are students at the University because all of the classes are going to be taught online and the students are all being sent home. See https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/?lang=eng.

The complications kept us going for two days almost non-stop and then it started to snow. Well, an interesting week. I started this journal because of my interest in history. Today, one of the prominent historians of the Church, Ardis E. Parshall, published an article about the cancellation of the Church's General Conference back in October of 1957 because of the flu. My wife's sister died from complications due to the flu's impact on an unsuspected heart condition. You can read the article and the striking similarities to the current pandemic here: “It Will Be the Wise Thing to Do”: Behind the Cancellation of the October 1957 General Conference."

From my personal perspective, I have spent the last 16 years as a Church Service Missionary, first at the Mesa FamilySearch Library in Mesa, Arizona and then at the Brigham Young University, Family History Library in Provo, Utah with a year off to serve as a Church Service Missionary in Annapolis, Maryland digitizing records at the Maryland State Archives for FamilySearch.org. Not having an assignment at the Library is a major change for me. Like the rest of the world right now, I am practically holding my breath about the rest of the challenges that might occur if and when the virus gains a foothold in Utah. Both my wife and I have weathered the flu, Type B, so we know first-hand what killed off so many people this year and in the past, but the novel Coronavirus COVID-19 is a whole new challenge.

Of course, the organizational consequences of a pandemic are not as serious as the disease and deaths. We live in a community with a significant number of people over 60 who are in the risk category for the coronavirus. We hope to rally as a community to take care of those around us as much as possible and as consistent with good pandemic practices.

Journal of the Virus Year: My experiences with the virus: March 11, 2020

Thomas Gainsborough, English, born Sudbury, England 1727-died London, England 1788 Public Domain

As the worldwide number of confirmed infections of the Coronavirus COVID-19 passes 120,000, the big issue in the United States is whether or not the reporting system is functioning at all. The question is not the number of people who have been diagnosed with the coronavirus but the number of tests and testing kits that have been taken. There is no doubt that the coronavirus has been circulating in the United States for weeks but political blundering and denial have resulted in only a relatively few actual medical tests being administered. Obtaining those numbers is complicated by the fact that private test results are not reported and according to some news accounts, the results from tests by Center for Disease Control (CDC) are no longer publishing negative results for the coronavirus. Quoting from the CDC website,

CDC is no longer reporting the number of persons under investigation (PUIs) that have been tested, as well as PUIs that have tested negative. Now that states are testing and reporting their own results, CDC’s numbers are not representative of all testing being done nationwide. 

Here is the infographic of the number of states reporting cases of COVID-19 to the CDC from the CDE website for March 10, 2020.

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-in-us.html

A running total of all the worldwide cases is being maintained by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) of the Johns Hopkins Whiting School of Engineering. Further reliable information about the coronavirus can be obtained from the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center. The COVID-19 Interactive Map is the best resource for seeing the progress of the disease across the world.

https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html

It is important to remember that the numbers on this map are only the instances of the coronavirus that are reported and counted. Countries such as North Korea that are refusing to report are not included.

Obviously, the coronavirus is a major topic of conversation. However, I have already heard a significant amount of misinformation from conversations about the coronavirus and from news outlets that are quoting inaccurate numbers. The CDC is obviously not an accurate source because they are reporting only reporting "confirmed and presumptive positive cases of COVID-19 reported to CDC or tested at CDC since January 21, 2020." On March 10, that number for the total cases was 647 while the CSSE number for the morning of March 11 for the United States was at 1,040. However, both numbers are most likely lower than the actual incidence.

As an attorney, I automatically examine the evidence. I also discount any evidence that appears to originate from politically influenced sources. However, it is evident that if the information I receive is wrong (i.e. my client is lying to me) my conclusions might also be wrong. But from all I read, the numbers of actual infections here in the U.S. is much higher than either of these two reporting sources.

Well, that is all for today. I will be writing more about our efforts to evaluate and react to the disease as time goes on. We did make our "run" to the stores and had no trouble ultimately finding what we needed despite some of the bare shelves in Costco. Since we always keep a sufficient supply of essentials on hand to last us many months, we do not have to resort to panic buying every time there is something that comes up to cause the rest of the world to go berserk.