Swingin' Tern

From: Leigh M. Walker <lmwalker@eclipse.net>

Sent: Tuesday, July 7, 2020 4:15 PM

To: FP Board <fullboard@folkproject.org>

Subject: Swingin' Tern June report

The Swingin' Tern report for June:

No dances last month. While the average deaths and new cases have been declining in New Jersey, the rate has slowed. Consequently, the likelihood of holding a dance on August 15 has decreased significantly. We will continue following developments.

Leigh Walker

Swingin' Tern

From: Leigh M. Walker <lmwalker@eclipse.net>

Sent: Wednesday, July 1, 2020 1:05 PM

To: FP Board <fullboard@folkproject.org>

Subject: [Fwd: ADV: ST: Update on August 15 dance prospects]

---------------------------- Original Message ----------------------------

Subject: ADV: ST: Update on August 15 dance prospects

From: "Leigh M. Walker" <lmwalker@eclipse.net>

Date: Wed, July 1, 2020 1:01 pm

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hello all,

In late May, the death and infection rates in New Jersey were collapsing.

The IHME was projecting that the virus would almost vanish in New Jersey by early August. Were that to occur, the chance of dying in a car accident while traveling to the dance might be 100 times greater than the chance of dying from getting the virus at the dance. Not that personal concern was ever our only consideration, but this shows what the situation was in late May, when Dr. Fauci was recommending the economy start to be reopened, in contrast to his recent warnings.

Many trends in New Jersey are still good. For example, virus hospitalizations in late June dropped below 1000 after being above 8000 in mid-April. However, as when I wrote a couple weeks ago, overall progress both in deaths and new cases is much slower than in late May.

Discussed below is a simple model here with a set of optimistic assumptions. It's not a prediction, just an illustration.

Right now in New Jersey (rough numbers, with calculated numbers also

rounded):

300 new reported cases per day

3,000 reported cases per ten-day period

15,000 recent infections (optimistic. It uses the low of the range of 5-10

that most experts believe the ratio of actual infections/reported

cases to be.)

0.8 R (optimistic. R is the reproduction number, i.e., how many

people on average each newly infected person passes the virus onto.

R below 1 indicates the virus is dying out. Early on, it was well

above 1 everywhere.)

yielding

4,000 recent infections six weeks from now (15000 * .8^6, rounded)

So, if 35 people attended the dance, there would be roughly a 1.5% chance that among us would be a recently infected/possibly contagious person.

(4,000/9,000,000 x 35)

By itself, that's higher than we'd want. Consider also that in contrast to the above calculation of 1.5%, which is based on optimistic assumptions, somewhat more pessimistic assumptions would yield a chance of 15% or more.

The above is a broad, rough model to give you a general idea of the current situation. How things will develop is uncertain. But you can see how different it is from late May, when the projected chance of an infected person attending a NJ August dance was negligible.

If the more optimistic scenario above seems to be playing out you, you might think that 1.5% is not so bad, because then probably (>98.5%) there would be no adverse consequences of holding the dance, especially with the anti-spread measures we've planned. But's it's similar to the "tragedy of the commons," where it really doesn't matter if your car sometimes spews out black smoke, right? It's just one car, so what's the harm, right?

Finally, one more illustration of how things have changed can be seen from the IHME projected infections for August 1 (i.e., just that day):

Projection made on May 26 (for Aug 1) 3 (and declining rapidly)

Projection made on June 24 (for Aug 1) 530 (declining less rapidly) (Projected actual infections, not reported cases. Actual infections are what's important.)

The projections have become hundreds of times worse in just one month.

To review, we've been considering holding a dance outdoors and taking other measures to minimize transmission. In late May it appeared the the virus and its risk might dwindle to around zero in August, but the current situation makes it unlikely we'll get there. As we said back in May, we're going to be flexible and guided by the data and other things we can see.

I still think there's a better chance of having an outdoor dance on August

15 than one indoors in September or October, for reasons discussed in previous emails. Of course, we will follow what's actually happening and take actions accordingly, but you should know how events might unfold (or

not) into the fall. While I do still hope we can have a dance on August 15, it's improbable.

Thanks to everyone who has been contributed to this discussion -- in particular to Jae, who volunteered to make high-quality masks for the dance and to oversee an outdoor washing station, both of which would reduce the chance of spreading the virus if we have the dance.

I plan an update later this month. As usual, comments are welcome, either to everyone or me privately.

Best,

Leigh

From: 'Evelyn Maurer' via Fullboard - Current and some former board members <fullboard@folkproject.org>

Sent: Monday, July 6, 2020 6:51 PM

To: lmwalker@eclipse.net; fullboard@folkproject.org

Subject: Re: ADV: ST: Update on August 15 dance prospects

Hi, Leigh,

Thank you for your amazingly detailed update of Covid-19 statistics and predictions!

It's not just regarding Swingin' Tern, but for all of us, in every aspect of our daily life.

Thanks, again, so much!

Evelyn Maurer