Category Archives: Medicine

Athletes and the Coronavirus

Written by Neil Kurtzman | 23rd June 2020

Baseball, football, soccer basketball, golf, and for all I know tiddledywinks are planning to reopen, but not before testing their athletes daily for the Coronavirus. As I mentioned here earlier this month, the New England Journal of Medicine reported that the sensitivity of the tests for the virus is no better than 70%. Our “experts”…


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Everybody Should Get the Gold

Written by Neil Kurtzman | 21st June 2020

Are you lost daddy? I asked tenderly.Shut up he explained. Ring Lardner Un pour tous, tous pour un is the motto of Duma  père’s The Three Musketeers. Today it has been modified to All for all from some, the second ‘all’ includes only enlightened thinkers. Consider the litany of wide-ranging demands from black students at the University…


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The Vanishing Patients

Written by Neil Kurtzman | 8th June 2020

Medical facilities are bemoaning the loss of revenue that has followed the COVID-19 epidemic. The conventional explanation is that patients are staying away from hospitals and clinics because they think them unsafe and fear contracting the virus should they go. Hospitals say they’re losing $50 billion dollars a month. Extrapolated to a whole year that…


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COVID-19 Mortality

Written by Neil Kurtzman | 29th May 2020

Below are the latest CDC mortality rates for the coronavirus . The Five Scenarios The five COVID-19 Pandemic Planning Scenarios represent a range of possible parameters for COVID-19 in the United States. All parameter values are based on current COVID-19 surveillance data and scientific knowledge. Scenarios 1 through 4 are based on parameter values that…


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COVID-19: Back to Square 1

Written by Neil Kurtzman | 16th May 2020

The country is gradually starting to reopen, but not before 33 million Americans are out of work. Millions more have or soon will lose their businesses. But if you stop and think about the difference between reopening and staying open from the start you’ll realize that except for the carnage there is no difference. Of…


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COVID-19: A Medical Example of How Science-Guided Policy Goes Wrong

Written by Neil Kurtzman | 10th May 2020

COVID-19: A Medical Example of How Science-Guided Policy Goes Wrong is the title of an article by me published on the National Association of Scholars website. Among other topics its discusses the problem of false positives test for the virus. The issue has largely been ignored. Consider the five soccer players in Spain who have…


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The Press Still Doesn’t Understand the Principles of Testing

Written by Neil Kurtzman | 29th April 2020

Here’s an article about testing for COVID-19 which reveals the press, irrespective of political bias, is still in the dark about screening for this disease, or broadly any disease. The piece is written rather awkwardly, but what it’s trying to say is that the Abbott ID NOW test is 85% sensitive. This means that 85%…


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Corona Craziness – Why We Surrendered Without a Fight

Written by Neil Kurtzman | 27th April 2020

Genghis Khan was the greatest administrator who ever lived. He always knew when to temper justice with brutality. Anonymous How did we reach a social point where most of the world would accept suicide as a remedy for a serious, but not unmanageable, contagious disease? We’ve endured plagues, famines, natural disasters, wars, and a Pandora’s…


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Lubbock Has More ICU Beds Than Either Brooklyn or Queens

Written by Neil Kurtzman | 19th April 2020

There can be no greater evidence of the disparity of medical facilities and outcomes than the comparisons suggested by the above title. You can read the three charts below. Note that Queens has more than 38 thousand cases of COVID-19. The county has 146 ICU bed for a population of 2.273 million. Brooklyn (Kings County) has…


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Coronavirus – From Panic to Reality

Written by Neil Kurtzman | 18th April 2020

It is slowly dawning on the world and the US in particular that we are suffering from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. We’re on life support. Our economic survival is 50-50, probably worse. How did we get here and where is here? I’ll start with the newest information which should come as no…


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