Tag: pandemic

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general freedom media and media people U.S. Constitution

The Rates that Matter

fear, Covid, Coronavirus, epidemic, pandemic, propaganda,

Millions more Americans have been infected with SARS-​CoV‑2 than are considered “confirmed cases,”* at rates ranging from 6/​1 (Connecticut, early May) to 24/​1 (Missouri, late April), making the fatality rate of COVID-​19 much lower than feared.

Unfortunately, we cannot trust our news sources to be forthright about this.

The “death count” had been the pandemic’s repeated headline for months, Dr. Ron Paul noted yesterday, “all of a sudden early in June the mainstream media did a George Orwell and lectured us that it is all about ‘cases’ and has always been all about ‘cases.’ Death, and especially infection fatality rate, were irrelevant.”

There’s a reason for this re-​focus. Since peaking in April, deaths, you see, “had decreased by 90 percent and were continuing to crash. That was not terrifying enough so the media pretended this good news did not exist.”

And the case number increases do look ominous, despite being almost innocuous: “This is not rocket science: the more people you test the more ‘cases’ you discover.”

And that is not the only change of spin regarding the pandemic, as Jeffrey Tucker dramatized on Twitter:

“Flatten the curve!”
“What does that do?”
“Pushes infections to the future”
3 months later
“There are new infections!”
“What should we do?”
“Flatten the curve!”

At Mr. Tucker’s stomping grounds, the American Institute for Economic Research, Gregory van Kipnis wrote last month that the “most frightening aspect of the coronavirus-​19 (COVID-​19) epidemic in the US is that it brought about exaggeratedly heightened fear of death.”

We have something to fear from the virus and its attack upon the respiratory system, but we have more to fear from fear itself.

That staple of propagandistic media.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

*  A confirmed case is of a patient who has seen a doctor for symptoms of the disease and has tested positive with the diagnosis seconded and logged by scientists associated with a national health agency.

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international affairs national politics & policies

Twelve Monkeys in Charge?

Covid, coronavirus, Dr. Fauci, epidemic, pandemic, vaccine,

Dr. Anthony Fauci, current director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, served as a leader on the “Global Vaccine Plan” through partnership with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Bill Gates, late of Microsoft, Inc., is on record desiring to make a future coronavirus vaccine mandatory for travel … and to institute tracking of everyone’s interactions.

After the Obama Administration pressured National Institutes of Health to put a moratorium on “gain of function” research of coronavirus in America, according to Newsweek, Dr. Fauci devoted over $7 million to that very research … in Wuhan, China.

The idea? To see if the coronavirus in bats could migrate into humans, using ferrets and other animals to cajole the virus to “gain function,” i.e. transmissibility.

The goal being to prepare vaccines in advance of naturally occurring jumps over the barrier between humans and other animals.

But many scientists regard this kind of research to be morally questionable. 

And 12 Monkeys dangerous. 

In the midst of all this has been one Dr. Charles Lieber, a 61-​year-​old nanoscience researcher, who recently “has been indicted by a federal grand jury on two counts of making false statements and will be arraigned in federal court in Boston at a later date.  Lieber was arrested on Jan. 28, 2020, and charged by criminal complaint.” He allegedly lied about his relationship with China’s Thousand Talents Plan and his role as a “Strategic Scientist” at Wuhan University of Technology in China.

Where SARS-​CoV‑2 — the coronavirus of the current pandemic — apparently came from.

Nanoscience is the engineering of really, really small stuff. Like strands of RNA and DNA and … viruses.

Does this induce confidence about that vaccine allegedly in the offing?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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general freedom U.S. Constitution

Thoughts in Slo-Mo

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“Oh my God,” my wife gasped after that eerie instant of calm when things stopped. She told me to call 911 just as I was pressing “9.”

We had been navigating the less-​than-​usually-​clogged interstates up the East Coast when suddenly dirt and debris swept across the asphalt. As we quickly stopped, a small vehicle flipped back onto Interstate-​84, rolling over twice, throwing its occupant — a 21-​year-​old woman — out of the car and onto the road some 30 feet in front of us.

As another man and I got to her, we saw she was breathing. Thankfully, a nurse came forward from the traffic, which would be stopped for hours. Within minutes, emergency personnel were on the scene.

The woman was airlifted to a hospital; she later died. 

Those slow-​motion seconds of the accident stay with me, along with the surrealism of the aftermath, standing on a stopped superhighway — helpless — feeling amazingly connected to someone’s precious life. 

And death.

Back on the road, after giving a statement to police, my wife wondered aloud if, what with the current pandemic, the young woman’s parents would even be able to get into the hospital to see her.

Throughout this coronavirus crisis we have heard stories of people dying all alone because of policies designed to “keep us safe” — by keeping relatives and even spouses out. 

We like safety, but if either my wife or I lies dying in a hospital, regardless of the COVID-​19 risk, each of us would wish to be with the other.

It’s “till death do us part,” not “till quarantine do us part.”

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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general freedom ideological culture national politics & policies

Masks Work

mask, filter, coronavirus, Covid, pandemic, epidemic,

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

body politic, Covid, corona virus, epidemic, pandemic,

“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

AYTU, ultra violent, UV, light, Covid, Corona Virus, epidemic, pandemic,

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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The Wisdom of Freedom

tear, Texas, freedom,

“Salon À la Mode owner Shelley Luther was sentenced to seven days in jail for criminal and civil contempt and a $7,000 fine,” the Dallas-​Ft. Worth CBS affiliate reported Tuesday, “for defying Governor Greg Abbott’s stay-​at-​home rules.”

She dared to open her beauty salon … and tore up a county judge’s related and official-​looking cease and desist order.

Another judge offered to spare her jail if she would confess that her “actions were selfish” and, the judge lectured, “putting your own interest ahead of those in the community in which you live.” Luther responded decisively: “Feeding my kids isn’t selfish.”

Calling for Luther’s “immediate release,” Attorney General Ken Paxton articulated smart policy: “The judge should not put people in jail like her who are just trying to make a living.”

That should be written in law — sans the “like her” part.

The agile Governor Abbott, the rule’s originator, ducked responsibility with “surely there are less restrictive means to achieving [public safety] than jailing a Texas mother.”

Then, governor, why the command? 

“I am modifying my executive orders,” Abbott declared yesterday, “to ensure confinement is not a punishment for violating an order.” 

The Lieutenant Governor paid her fine.

Shelley Luther was “free” — and on Fox News last night.

But have we learned anything? 

Why not provide the public with the best information available and allow people to make their own decisions? No orders. Businesspeople would be free to do what they think is best. At-​risk folks would be free to be very careful. 

Obviously, governments can help. But best through persuasion, remembering they work for us. 

Free people.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Note: In The Wisdom of Crowds (2004), James Surowiecki posited that “a diverse collection of independently deciding individuals” can make complex decisions better than the experts. Exactly.

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Accountability national politics & policies

Incentives Going Viral

Covid, corona virus, epidemic, pandemic, incentives,

Back in the 1850s, when the Fugitive Slave Act was in force, the federal commissioners who determined whether a nabbed black person in the North could legally be “returned” to the South to serve as somebody’s slave were paid $5 a head if the answer were No, and $10 a head were the answer Yes.

It is universally agreed among scholars that this incentive resulted in free blacks being kidnapped and turned into slaves.

It was one of the reasons why there was so much resistance to the Fugitive Slave Act in the northern states.

Incentives matter.

Similarly, though with far less momentous initial consequences, hospitals get paid more from the federal government if doctors or administrators list a patient as a coronavirus patient when placing them on ventilators.

This became an issue because a medical doctor, Minnesota State Senator Scott Jensen, made it one in several venues, including on Fox News.

The Snopes fact-​checking service rated Jensen’s claims a “mixture,” but USA Today diagnosed the claims “as TRUE.”

Not only do hospitals and doctors get paid more, laboratory-​confirmed tests are not required — all “made possible under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act through a Medicare 20% add-​on to its regular payment for COVID-​19 patients.”

Incentives making a difference, you can see how this might inflate the numbers of COVID-​19 cases and deaths.

We do not know the extent of the resulting misinformation. But we know it has some effect. 

Muddying up statistics is itself a danger, since evaluating the pandemic and our reactions to it is going to be a huge issue in the next few months — and years.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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