Boreal B[l]og

In my daily analysis of Covid-19 statistics, I went to a twitter feed by Marc Lipsitch of Harvard, a leading epidemiologist.  I almost became an epidemiologist rather than being a statistician.  I thought at the time that statistics was more appropriate for my math background, but epidemiology might have meshed better with my medical background. It would have been more helpful now.  I probably would have found work as an epidemiologist back then, too, although maybe I wouldn’t have written as much, and maybe I wouldn’t have gone to so many wild places in this country.

Anyway, I never used Twitter, which is my first Luddite confession. I can go online to Twitter feeds without dealing with the rest of the platform.  I haven’t missed it, either. That is sort of how I look at my past.  If I have regrets, I am sorry, I missed something.  If I have no regrets, then so be it.  I look at Twitter feeds online with meteorology, climate change, and now Covid.  Those people are smart, really smart. I wish they would be heard. 

From Lipsitch, I went to a data group about Covid, where they welcomed new people.  I was interested, since I have what I thought were a few data skills, so I clicked on and saw a list of people who gave their skills. 

OMG, I was immediately over my head. I had never heard of Python, at least the non-slithering kind, and at least two-thirds of the recipients (I count that sort of stuff, but it’s kind of low tech) had machine learning, AI (Artificial Intelligence), and a host of other skills I clearly didn’t have. I realized that I was so far out of my league that I left the site.  I then looked at python online and realized that I could probably learn it, but why would I want to at this stage?  First, I need to survive this virus, which at may age is about an 86-95% probability, maybe less because of gender, maybe more because of my current health.  Second, I have done fine the last nineteen years after grad school without doing this.  I never even learned the new statistical program “R,” which was called “old” on the python web site.

You know you are old when the things you didn’t learned when they were brand new are now considered old, and you still haven’t learned them.  

I have gone from being a guy who counts everything in his life and does mental arithmetic for kicks to a has been in the field of data analysis.  If the economy totally meteor craters I am out of luck for any data analyst job.  Nobody wants a guy who as a kid updated batting averages every Sunday from the results on Saturday, doing it by long division. Or can multiply two digit numbers by two digit numbers every time he sees them—during a conversation without missing a beat.  If you have ever talked to me, there is a good chance I once did that. Scary, isn’t it?  

On the other hand, I got back to being me.  I have the data from China, Italy, Spain, Germany, Iran, and the US, and I am checking the UK and Netherlands, too.  I was doing doubling time analysis before I read about them online.  I didn’t need the graphs; I could visualize what the data were doing. I could look at long strings of numbers and decide what ratios I needed to look at: Deaths to Cases, Deaths to Recoveries, doubling time of cases, deaths, daily changes, where a country was on its curve.  It’s not like these statistics are the final word—deaths to cases is definitely NOT a mortality percentage because of lag time—but the change in them is useful.  My watch altimeter I hike with isn’t accurate, but the absolute change is accurate and exceedingly useful.  

So, my data skills and a few bucks will buy one a medium, hot, decaf white chocolate mocha with almond milk at Dutch Brothers, where they know me at the Franklin Street kiosk, but they don’t take cash right now, and I would have to walk up to the drive-in window if I want anything these days. I go by on my 4 mile loop every day.

Italy is slowly seeing the doubling time increase. That’s easier to comprehend than the percentage rise is dropping each day.  While true, it is the first derivative of the curve, and a decrease of something that is increasing confuses people.  Lengthening doubling time doesn’t.  I read a lot, I look at good graphics, which I am not good at creating myself, I do my own poor ones, and because I lost my calculator, I am doing it with a phone calculator until I get a new one.  Heck, last week, when I was having trouble getting back to sleep, I was doing logs in my head.  I got them right.  I made a prediction of the world cases and deaths for the next day and was within 500 for both of them.  

While I can’t do data analysis that will help save the world from this pandemic, I can keep myself busy looking at the data, comparing my conclusions to others’, and when it is all over, go back to tutoring math, explaining things to people who need someone competent  who can do that.  After more than 60 years, I can qualify as that person for at least some things.  The community college has had me for six years, and they still want me.

No, I don’t have Vimeo on my computer, I tried DropBox, and it was a pain, so I don’t use it. I left Oovoo and I haven’t used Viber in years. I still use WhatsApp and Telegram, I can’t make sense out of the Safeway app, and probably a third of the apps on my phone I haven’t used in months, if ever.  

I’ve got a meeting on Zoom next week with the Cascade Volunteer board. A month ago, I had never heard of it.  Should be interesting.  

I was one of the first hike leaders in the Club to lead a group hike after the world changed, and I appear to be the last for awhile.  We normally do a Wednesday hike up Spencer Butte, meeting as a group at the bottom, and hiking up 3 miles with 1400’ elevation gain.  Several usually walk up together, although I go ahead if I can, using the hike as both conditioning time and as alone time, unless I end up being the Pied Piper with several breathing down my neck behind me but not passing.  I hate that.

Anyway, social distancing comes naturally to me, since I have always been one of those who stands in a corner at a party, assuming I even go to one.  As hike leader, I started by having the sign up sheet in my control, the bag for money several feet away on the ground ($1 per person), and as people came to sign in, I signed them up myself, had them drop the dollar in and start up the trail.  I went last, which worked worked well.  At the top, I had to dodge a couple of children who were running around and ask a few hikers to leave the larger group which had congregated up there. It’s difficult for many to avoid being close to another person.  I’ve seen it in camping, where people camp near me despite having a lot of area to use, and in parking lots, where they park next to me when there is more room elsewhere.

On the way down, I was last, but I saw the front group too close together following one another.  This is a bad habit on the trail, especially during this time. The Butte gets a lot of use, and somebody trying to pass a large group (it was once 18) has difficulty doing it when the front two are taking their time, and the people in the back just join in the parade.  I’ve not been able to change that. I got back to the trailhead and left.

Later, I got a text from someone telling me the coffee shop was open.  I didn’t answer.  On the trip description, I told people what they did after the hike was their business.  I should have been more forceful, recommending people not go to the coffee shop.  That seemed obvious to me, but we are in a new era: right now, get food, medicine, or exercise.  That’s it.  Not socializing. 

Pandemics have bookended both ends of my life.  I remember dimly the polio ones of summers when I was a young boy; my brother caught it. Now I am old and have another RNA virus to worry about.  

I walk daily in Alton Baker Park, where there are dirt and paved paths close together, the former for only pedestrians.  The problem is that I see pairs of pedestrians, not likely living together, walking maybe 3 feet apart, leaving no space for me. If one doesn’t move behind the other, so I can pass, I have to step off and waiting or even going to the asphalt trail. It’s one of the few times I am less annoyed about unleashed dogs.

The suddenness at which I changed surprised me. On 10 March I tutored at the community college, only wiping down the desk, with close contact with several students. The next day, I went to a meeting with the board of the Cascade Volunteers, feeling a little uncomfortable in the room, sitting about 3 feet away from anybody else.  Thursday, I did trail work, but two of us drove ourselves; others still carpooled. That day, 12 March, the world changed. Friday, I called in to the community college, saying I wouldn’t be coming. I went shopping that night, deciding not to wait another 12 hours, but I was what I would consider now “sloppy.”  Between my age and my sex, I am high risk.  I will not likely qualify for ventilator support should we run low on them. I am 14 days since the last time tutoring, 13 days since the last meeting, 4 days since I went to the UPS store. Counting to 14 matters a lot these days.

Counting the doubling time of cases and deaths matters, too. Increasing the doubling time is a quantitative way to see if we are flattening the curve.  The number of cases in the US is doubling a little more than two days, although some of that is on the basis of more testing finally being done. I am watching doubling times carefully, because it is easy to do, and Increase Doubling Time is a quantitative way of Flatten the Curve. 

Exponential growth doubling time per unit time is easy to learn. Divide 70 or 72 (easier to work with) by the time it takes to double, and one has the growth rate in per cent.  Doubling every two days is a growth rate of 35%; Spain is at 4 days (18%). 

Another way to look at it is that 29 consecutive doubling times are more than the US population, and right now we are between the 15th and 16th doubling times (32768 and 65536).  At a continued rate every two days, in less than a month the whole country would be infected.  If we push the doubling time back to 4 days, we would have closer to two months, same number of cases, but twice as much time to care for them, have more equipment, maybe have some anti-viral treatment.

I have a daily routine right now, and I was happy to see astronaut Scott Kelly suggest that. I learned last night that we can still exercise, so long as we stay apart from people.  My park is perfect for that.  I can walk four miles every morning, the hyacinths, Persian speedwells, wild cherries, and Oregon grape are in bloom.  The song sparrows call; the redwing blackbirds are building nests. A Great Blue heron is at the canoe canal.  Several are nesting upstream.

I just want to get through this time. My wife, the cats, a routine, math, and nature are all a big part of it.  

Last Thursday, I went with the trail crew to work the Clark Nature Trail over in Fall Creek.  Half the crew would be doing puncheon work with the Forest Service crew; the rest of us would do grunt work on the trail.  That was fine by me. I have become more and more comfortable doing trail work, widening trails, removing rocks, closing trails, diverting them. 

We met at the Shell station south of town for our “tailgate season” where we discuss what we will be doing, specific safety hazards and review general safety behavior.  Normally, we then divide up into vehicles to carpool to the trail head, but this time I said I would be driving myself.  I had decided to do that two days before; I didn’t want to ride in close contact to several others. I wasn’t the only one doing this in a group of 60 and 70 year-olds. 

At the trailhead, we had another tailgate session with the Forest Service and a specific discussion of the job we were to do. Several of us started by each picking up a 4 by 4, about 9 feet long, and we had to carry it through the woods uphill a half mile to the work site.  That is a cubic foot of wood, and it was heavy. I hoisted mine and was last in the group heading out.  I wasn’t sure how long I could walk without having to take a break, but I found that by stretching my right arm out along the wood ahead of me, it was like carrying a canoe.  

I stayed in the back of the group, but about half way there, the person ahead of me set his 4 x 4 down to change arms.  I told him I was passing, so I wouldn’t get hit by his wood, went around him and then kept on to the top. It wasn’t a competition, but I wanted to get to the top without stopping, and I did.  I walked back down to the bottom, got a second 4 x 4, and did the same thing.  After that, we did trail work in the mud, making a new trail and closing off an old one with nearby downed branches and logs. We made a small stream diversion, filled in holes from past posts, and pulled out a fence post deep in the ground.  It was a pleasant day in the woods among the pioneer violets, trilliums, snow queens, running streams, giant trees, Pacific wrens and spotted towhees. 

Before leaving that afternoon, I talked with one of the other guys, very experienced from working years for the Park Service.  He is about my age, has had cancer, and drove alone, too.  Neither of us was scared of the coronavirus, but we both knew that we needed to be cautious.  In the woods that day, the outside world had changed.  When I left that morning, many things were still planned, I had  a schedule with some things I needed to do.  When I returned, the stock market had plummeted again, basketball was over, baseball too, my trip to Nebraska in April was cancelled, Forest Service meetings I was to go to, scheduled for next week, became virtual, It was a different country, almost the way it was after 9/11, 1/28/86, or 11/22/63.

I was asked if I were panicked.  I answered no, and I’m still not.  I am at peace. My schedule is empty. I don’t have to get up earlier for anything, although I will still do trail work if I can.  I lost money on plane reservations that I can’t keep, but I am not trapped on another continent or a cruise ship in quarantine.  Or worse, sick. At least not yet. I won’t be tutoring in person, but I can do it online. I can still snowshoe and hike. I am concerned, yes.  Three days ago I was tutoring in the math lab.  Two days ago, I was at a meeting, but I sat separately from others. A week ago, I had two long distance trips planned. Now, I have none.

I read how retired physicians might be able to help.  I am not sure what is meant by help, in that we are at high risk by age and many of us have additional risk factors for severe or fatal illness.  Aside from liability issues, it seemed obvious that prolonged close contact to sick patients led to more severe illnesses among medical workers. Now, if they wanted to have my ideas on system design, that would be fine, but only if we did it by telemetry. 

I want to be one less person who needs to be tested, brought to a hospital, given supportive treatment, and adds more stress to the medical care system. Our hospitals are not geared for this, and nor is our national system, if one can call it that. We got hit with a bad virus that was certainly predictable, if not knowing when. If not a virus, an earthquake would have stressed the system in some areas.  But when one is working to make a profit, getting the right patient mix, advertising, minimizing costs wherever possible, usually by limiting personnel, and asking first about insurance and second what is wrong with the patient, there can be no room in such a system for idle beds, idle machines, or idle people. I suspect many hospitals are near full capacity without coronavirus.  If they haven’t been, they are likely to soon go under.  When everything depends upon workers staying healthy, nothing going wrong, a pandemic is going to be a disaster.  The system is taxed with routine care; here where I live, it is overtaxed and medical issues of the population require month long waits. It is sort of like Canadian care that people complain about.  It isn’t like there is a lot of elective surgery that can be cancelled to free up beds; there is plenty of emergency and necessary surgery, requiring ventilators, every day.  

Many have resisted increased public support of medical care or public health because they aren’t affected by certain conditions.  I’ve long said that each of us is subject to a cancer, a ruptured aneurysm, a drunk driver, or a mutation.  Now, we have an example where any of us can become ill.  Each of us is subject to a virus that has a significant likelihood of killing us. Good public health helps all of us, yet public health has had its budget cut severely in the last decade.  For each dollar spent, public health delivers far more value than any other branch of medicine.

So, as I do the some of the things I like outdoors, hope I won’t be quarantined on the basis of age, or fall ill, I am at peace.  Nothing major to do tomorrow. No big trips on the horizon, no meetings, just a lot of reading, maybe a snowshoe, trail work, or even tutor math online.

I hope that out of this time we find our way to decent coverage of medical conditions, recognize we are all in this together, and make sure public health—where all the major strides in longevity are made—is funded far better than it has been.

For once, being an introvert in a land of extroverts is a blessing.  

Avoid crowds?  No problem.

The chain saw was wedged in the bottom of the 40 inch diameter log.  DAMN!  This had to have been the fourth or fifth time we had to deal with a wedged saw today, and it was now late afternoon.  

Our crew of three—the fourth had to leave early to get back to town by 5—looked at the log, which was mostly cut through, but obviously not completely. I hadn’t been impressed by the top bind, but the sawyer thought there was some.  If the top part of a fallen log is compressed, such as being in the middle of two parts that are supported, so there is a slight sag, the wood on top will tend to compress and grab or bind a saw, keeping it from moving.  If the saw is deep enough in the log, we can pound a plastic wedge into the cut or kerf, allowing the saw more freedom to move. If the log is under tension, a cut will tend to open and release the tension. When the kerf was opening up earlier in the cutting, a rather than narrowing, it suggested bottom bind, not a top one, but I didn’t say anything. I wish I had, for I might have been able to prevent a wedged saw.

I’m relatively new out there, now past the “Stay (the &%$) out of the way!!” instructions, so I tend to be quiet.  That is a mistake in the woods, just as it is in the cockpit or an operating room.  People don’t like criticism or comments.  The culture isn’t what it ought to be.

The sawyer, I later learned, had an on button but no off button.  She was a dynamo, one of those I learned who would be happy to still be out here at 8 pm cutting. I didn’t feel the same way.  In addition to my pack, I was carrying a Pulaski, my hand saw, gloves, a pair of loppers, plastic blue diamonds to place on trees for markers of winter trails, nails, and a hammer.  I was tired, and it made me more cranky and prone to mistakes.  We were cutting out a mile or two of trail, not a lot, but we had several hundred yards to go to the road and then a 2 mile walk back to the vehicles. Then we had to drive another 90 miles home.  I doubt the other two in the crew had made that calculation.  I had been refining it the whole day. It is useful to me to know where I am time wise  and trail wise in the wilderness. It is not considered a virtue by most of the people whom I am around, but I tend to arrive at where I want to be about when I expect to, without surprises, and I like that.

I was the only crew member who had been previously been on this trail, both in winter snowshoeing and in summer trying to place diamond markers.  I had been so upset about  missing markers in winter that I said someone ought to be out here putting therm in, and “someone” turned out to be me.

In June, I walked the trail.  That is not easy, since winter trails do not need to be cleared the way all year trails do.  A couple of feet of snow will cover a lot of plants and many downed logs, so only the big logs or logs over the trail have to be taken out.  The trail does have to be wide enough to be seen in winter, and that was a big problem with Nickerson Loop. I had been stopped on another person’s snowshoe trip at a brushy field with no clear path. In June, there was still no clear path, just a lot more brush to walk through, but I worked my way through it from both ends and placed a few diamonds.  It wasn’t perfect, but it was better.

With the chain saw crew, I had a chance to get the trail open for people to travel the loop.  We had cleared some brush and cut out about a half dozen logs earlier, the saw’s being stuck several other times.  I was later told the sawyer was relatively new, and I realized the bar of her saw, the metal semi-elliptical protrusion on it, was not long enough for the logs we would be cutting;  I knew beforehand and had mentioned that we would have at least a 36 inch diameter log to cut out. 

Anyway, the saw was stuck, and without another chain saw to free it up, we had a problem.  The so-called “walk of shame” is when a sawyer leaves the bar in the log, removes the motor and comes back later with another bar and chain to cut the first bar out.  I had some wedges used to keep the kerf open, and I put one below the saw and tried to pound it in, hoping I could move something enough to free the saw.  No luck.  We started with a hand saw in the cut to try to open it a little.  No luck.

The sawyer then took a handsaw and began sawing the log for a second cut.  This log was 40 inches in diameter—a meter—and handsaws are good up to 6 inches, 8 on a good day. I told her that wasn’t going to work.  She had a Katana 650 one person hand saw back at the car (650 mm), and the other crew member asked me how far it was.  I figured two miles, and then to myself multiplied that by 2 (round trip) and divided by 3 (walking speed, maybe) to get the round trip time in hours, and realized he might not be back here until 4:30 or 5.  He stayed.

So for lack of anything better to do, I took my hand saw to the kerf above the bound saw and started cutting.  The wood was obviously hard, but I went at it for a few minutes, trying to make sawdust while ignoring how much wood was below the saw, and then heard a noise—a slight crack.  

Hope.

I cut a little more vigorously and heard a louder crack.  The log was talking to us.  I gave the saw to another crew member, since he was stronger and I was tired, and within thirty seconds of his sawing, there was a large crack, the log started to fall, and the chain saw was free.  

Dodged that bullet.

We still had a couple more logs I knew about, because I had scouted the trail ahead of us, and after losing it, and cussing the people who didn’t replace diamonds (that would be me in part), found it again, and led the group to the next cut.  In addition to diamonds, I was using strips of pink ribbon that I could tie to plants.  Pink or orange ribbon has helped me find trails many times.

There was a pair of logs to be cut out that the other two dealt with while I put diamonds on both sides of a tree.  Then there were some logs that would be cut on a regular hiking trail, but I leave alone since snow will cover them, at least if we get a normal snow year.  They were cut anyway.  More time on trail.  I had said several times to the crew who was opening up the trail that this was a winter trail.  The bottom didn’t have to be perfect; people just needed room to pass through it.

I got home well after 6 and considered myself lucky.

I respect people with no off buttons, but I am not one of them, and I don’t think that is a particularly healthy lifestyle.  I could be wrong.  But I am correct when I say it is not good for me.  That kind of behavior reminds me of medicine, some of my mentors and partners, who appeared to be able to work without sleeping, eating, and perhaps even toilets for all I knew.  I just knew I couldn’t do that.  It was a reason I first left my group and then left medicine.  I’m hoping I don’t have to leave trail work for the same reason.  This isn’t trying to fix people, it is keeping trails open and is a volunteer duty.

We saw the vehicle with hazard lights on, just before we arrived at Box Canyon, at about 3700 feet, where we were going to log out part of McBee Trail in the Waldo Lake Wilderness as part of crosscut saw training.  It was raining something that looked white. Good hypothermia weather, although sawing logs might keep us warm.  

Nobody at the car flagged us down, and we didn’t see anything, so we pulled into the parking lot, got into all our rain gear and personal protective equipment—hard hats, gloves, safety glasses– had our day packs on and were ready to go to work.  Five of us were getting some training, and while I had been in the woods crosscutting with the crew 19 different times, I figured I could learn some more.  It was my first time working with a saw since I broke my hand backpacking around Mt. Hood two months earlier.

We crossed Highway 19, the Aufderheide, a scenic but not often traveled 60 mile road between Highway 126 from Eugene to Santiam Pass and Highway 58 between Eugene and Willamette Pass.  Box Canyon was equidistant from each side.

While crossing the road, the truck that had had its hazard lights on stopped and asked if we could help. 

 
“There’s a car over the edge with a guy pinned in there.”

We had completely missed seeing the car.  Anybody could have.  The details weren’t completely clear, but the car was apparently driving west from Oakridge and heading towards Terwilliger Hot Springs the night before.  The hot springs are closed at night, but that didn’t stop people from using them. There were three in the car; the driver and one passenger were hurt but were able to leave and apparently flagged a car down and had called emergency.  An ambulance was heading up from the McKenzie River side, the north, but it was probably 40 miles, and the last 30 on the Aufderheide were narrow and bumpy.  They would be at least an hour and a half, maybe longer.

We walked towards the accident scene, about two hundred yards. My leg was bothering me, so I lagged behind.  We brought our tools, because we weren’t going to be doing any logging for a while until we understood the situation.  

A small, red car had collided with a fir and left a 7-8 inch gash in the bark, but not too deep.  The car had somehow turned and faced perpendicular to the road, engine compartment smashed in on the right, the windshield ready to give way, and the car was on some sort of stump, suspended, so it remained horizontal with the rear wheels several feet above the sloping forest floor under it. 

The other passengers or the hunters had put blankets on the victim, who was conscious but in a lot of pain from what appeared to be a fracture of the femur.  There was little we could do: one of the others in our group, who knew I was a physician, looked at me like I was supposed to do something.  We did not want to touch the car, and everything appeared relatively stable, so we waited for the emergency personnel to arrive.

About an hour after we knew about the accident, an ambulance arrived, a crew of first responders, someone from Eugene Mountain Rescue, and an Oregon State Police officer soon after.  They stabilized the car, started removing the passenger side front door, and got a backboard ready. They wanted to take the patient directly up the bank, which had a lot of brush.  

“Do you guys have loppers to cut out this brush?”

“Does the Pope have a Bible?” I thought.  We are a bunch of wilderness trail workers.  We had five loppers among us and cleared the bank in as minutes.  Then there was another issue.

“We encountered two logs coming in on the road.  We winched one out of the way, but the other needs to be removed.  Can you do it?”

Why yes, we can, but unfortunately, we aren’t the chain saw group. Still, we had bodies and we had a 5 foot, 2-man crosscut.  Four of us left and drove north down the Aufderheide about 6 miles, where we found a 75 foot western Hemlock down, the top covering about three-quarters of the road. This would be a big part of the training, cutting the tree out.

Of the four, one was an experienced crosscut sawyer, two were beginners., and I knew enough to be helpful. I was able to work with the two new people; we had to make two separate cuts because the log had such a top bind, or compression, we couldn’t get plastic wedges in to the kerf, or cut, to open it. We had to “chunk” the log by cutting and then using a Pulaski to remove wood. Eventually, we got through the log and with 4 of us pushing with our legs, moved it off the road, opening about 80% of the road there.

We then got back in the car and drove back towards the accident site.  Not five minutes later, a small group of cars, including one ambulance, came the other way.  

We had lunch standing up, by the trailhead in the rain, and then hiked into McBee trail, clearing about a mile of it.  When we came out and drove back to Oakridge, we came upon the tow truck with a red car, crushed front end, but no longer with a person in it.