Tag: covid

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Accountability general freedom

Pandemic Turning Point

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While reading an article in The Hill, about the loss of life that the lockdowns will cause — “millions of years of life” — I saw news anchor Judy Woodruff, on PBS News Hour, put on a dour face to intone the latest U.S. coronavirus death count: over 98,000.

But the United States is not just one unit. The United States are … very different. Fifty different. Most states have had few coronavirus deaths. Indeed, the map of mortality shows only a few hot spots, with New York City the worst. 

Why? One key factor appears to be population density, particularly housing density and living quarters crowding. Lots of that goes on in New York City — and, PBS tells us, on Navaho lands.

Yet not all crowded conditions are as worrisome as once thought. Many were much exercised about Florida’s Spring Break beachgoers, but no major outbreaks occurred there.

This may be the result of the virus not being spread as experts initially thought: by asymptomatic carriers — as “A study on infectivity of asymptomatic SARS-​CoV‑2 carriers” indicates.

Japan’s prime minister, Shinzō Abe, has withdrawn the nation’s state of emergency … with less than 900 dead. Back in the U.S., the states are responsible for the lockdowns, but President Trump urges an end to them, and the other day even Dr. Fauci acknowledged that lockdowns also kill.

Emile Phaneuf, writing at FEE​.org, makes clear what has been foggy in popular discourse: it’s not “lives versus ‘the economy’” but “lives versus lives.” Mr. Phaneuf explains the economic logic of better policy regarding contagions.

Will our “leaders” listen in time for Round Two of the virus expected in the Fall?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Masks Work

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Early in this pandemic, experts — including CDC officials — told us that if you aren’t a medical worker dealing with infected patients, wearing a mask is ineffective in protecting yourself and others.

Many reversed themselves, though without honestly explaining why they had ever downplayed the value of masks to begin with. Masks are even now mandatory some places.

But we still hear naysayers who declare masks to be pointless.

One blithely declares: “The main transmission path is long-​residence-​time aerosol particles (< 2.5 μm), which are too fine to be blocked.” That’s less than 2.5 micrometers. A micrometer is one millionth of a meter. Yes, small.

But “too fine to be blocked”?

A properly worn mask need not be 100% effective to block tiny particles. Viruses do not fly unerringly through holes and gaps in the mask. They have no guidance system and no little legs enabling them to scamper to a hole if it hits fabric. 

Nor is the virus invariably unattached to larger particles. 

Obviously, the better the filtering, the more effective the mask.

Suppose you go to a supermarket and 

  1. wear a mask, 
  2. try to keep your distance from others, 
  3. go when fewer people tend to be shopping, and 
  4. leave fast. 

All pointless?

Short of wearing a hazmat suit or never leaving a one-​resident home, no protective measure will be 100 percent effective all the time, infallibly. This doesn’t mean that partly effective measures should be dismissed as entirely ineffective. 

A part of something is, well, not zero.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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nannyism national politics & policies too much government

Regs to the Chopping Block

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Donald J. Trump started his presidency with a flurry of activity. One of the things he did was sign an executive order to reduce Americans’ regulatory load.

This move may have been the most important initiative the new president advanced. It led to an economic boom that was not all just smoke and mirrors and “stimulus.” Real factors were involved in the resulting progress.

Now, however, the economy is in tatters. Massive unemployment, rising real poverty. 

But this is not a normal depression. It was the result of the reaction to the coronavirus — largely by the states, but at the recommendation of Trump himself, as advised by Dr. Anthony Fauci. Trump now wants what increasing numbers of Americans want: a return to business and normal life. But “re-​opening the economy,” as it is called, is not going quickly or smoothly.

On Tuesday Trump signed an executive order to give his Cabinet secretaries broad permission to cut regulations, “instructing federal agencies to use any and all authority to waive, suspend and eliminate unnecessary regulations that impede economic recovery.”

“And we want to leave it that way.” 

Which is the most promising part of this. 

“Mr. Trump has made nixing regulations,” explains John T. Bennett in The Independent, “especially ones put in place by the Obama administration, a top priority during his over three years in office.”

We could call the nixing of the lockdown orders themselves a “freeing up” of the economy. To help ease over all the damage, also “freeing up” business from regulatory kludge could not hurt.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Cure and Consequences

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“As the nation enters a third month of economic devastation, the coronavirus is proving ruinous to state budgets,” the Associated Press reports, “forcing many governments to consider deep cuts to schools, universities, health care and other basic functions that would have been unthinkable just a few months ago.”

Notice the breezy attribution to the pandemic of the devastation caused by governments’ reactions to the pandemic.

Official tallies have it that COVID-​19 has killed over 80,000 Americans. And it will kill more. But state government revenue is nose-​diving “because government-​ordered lockdowns have wiped out much of the economy and caused tax collections to evaporate.” 

Why make much of this fine distinction between the disease and the response?

Because it is easier to control our response than it is a disease.

The people we elect are supposed to understand such things. 

But, do they?

The fact that this is a political as opposed to medical predicament is clear: “Now state finances are in peril regardless of the actual number of infections.”

And note: a few states aren’t going to experience the problem nearly so badly: Arkansas, Iowa, Nebraska and the Dakotas. Why? These states have done pretty much what Sweden has done: avoided lockdown orders and treated the disease like a health problem and not a political opportunity to flex their “leader” complexes.

No matter how we reacted, the pandemic was going to be devastating. But generally cures shouldn’t be worse than the disease, and we should wonder whether our politicians’ lack of understanding here is indicative of a co-​morbidity … of the “body politic.”

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob. 

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The Rationale Has Ended

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Early on, we feared the worst. Based in no small part on the extravagant predictions of serial alarmist/​lockdown scofflaw Neil Ferguson, a British epidemiologist, the worry quickly became: our hospitals will be swamped!

To prevent that, governments around the world 

  1. instituted lockdown orders, shutting down most commerce and peaceable assembly, to “flatten the curve,” thereby postponing many incidents of coronavirus and giving hospitals a steadier workload over time; and
  2. set up emergency clinics and hospitals, to take on overflow.

In the U.S., the Army Corps of Engineers contracted with private companies to set up field hospitals. Given the alarmist talk of “exponential growth,” that sure seemed like a prudent use of $660 million.

Now?

Well, most never saw a patient.

Many field hospitals are being dismantled.

And so is the case for the lockdowns: the hospitals are generally not being swamped, which means that as summer approaches we can open things up and let herd immunity build up.

Indeed, we may already have reached that condition, according to Nic Lewis writing on Judith Curry’s Climate Etc. blog. 

At issue is the “Herd Immunity Threshold” (HIT). The disgraced Ferguson’s original HIT was over 50 percent, while Lewis argues that the actual HIT level “probably lies somewhere between … 7% and 24%,” suggesting that “total fatalities should be well under 0.1% of the population by the time herd immunity is achieved.” 

Why the lower HIT? 

More realistic models take into account human diversity — a point also made by economist Daniel B. Klein, who adds important truths like “[f]or most people COVID-​19 is scarcely a disease at all!”

It turns out that being reasonable about this pandemic requires neither complete gloom and doom nor risky response.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Of Light and Darkness

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Josh Disbrow runs a pharmaceutical company called Aytu Science.

So far, so good. We all know that we need medicines in order to treat pandemic infections and so forth.

But the company blundered. It promoted technology that President Trump found occasion to refer to publicly, perhaps in a too offhand way, as a means of fighting the COVID-​19 virus: “Supposing,” said the president, “you brought the light inside the body.…”

As you know, all presidential utterances must be reviewed beforehand by committees and focus groups in order to perfect the calibration. Apparently that didn’t happen this time.

Disbrow reports that the work Trump mentioned — using ultraviolet light against microbes — “has been in development since 2016 … and is a promising potential treatment for COVID-​19.” Aytu had licensed the tech, called Healight, from Cedars-​Sinai Medical Center.

After Trump spoke, Disbrow knew there’d be ill-​informed controversy about Healight (the man’s an oracle!). So Aytu Science created a video to explain it, posted the video to YouTube and Vimeo, and promoted it through Twitter.

But YouTube and Vimeo quickly took down the video, and Twitter suspended Aytu’s account.

These guardians of “platform” discourse apparently contend that given the life-​and-​death stakes, it’s crucial to weed out misinformation. One must simply smother discussion about “a light inside the body,” etc. Because it makes the president look reasonable.

Strange standard. 

Open discussion and debate help us learn what is true, breaking down rigid opinion and prejudice, in effect shining light where it could not reach before.

YouTube and Vimeo and Twitter have embraced darkness.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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