COVID-19 questions with no answers
Alex Berenson has been active lately on some of the Fox opinion shows, and every now and then I’ve watched his appearances. He’s an interesting guy; I wrote about him previously in this post about marijuana and its effects.
Berenson has some observations about the COVID-19 data that dovetail with some things I’ve noticed as well [emphasis mine]:
…Berenson…says that outside of places like New York there has not been a national health crisis that was predicted — nor are there signs that the level of lockdown in various states has made a difference.
“Aside from New York, nationally there’s been no health system crisis. In fact, to be truly correct there has been a health system crisis, but the crisis is that the hospitals are empty,” he said. “This is true in Florida where the lockdown was late, this is true in southern California where the lockdown was early, it’s true in Oklahoma where there is no statewide lockdown. There doesn’t seem to be any correlation between the lockdown and whether or not the epidemic has spread wide and fast.”
He has also argued, in lengthy Twitter threads, that the drop in cases seen in various states has come before lockdowns would have had an impact — since it takes a few weeks for social distancing measures to take effect due to the window between infection and symptoms…
Berenson says the correct response in the initial days of the crisis would not have been to do nothing, but instead to adopt a more measured and targeted approach.
“There was incredible pressure to do something … so these lockdowns all cascaded, every governor tried to outdo the next. And no one stopped and said ‘OK what about Japan, they don’t seem to have a terrible epidemic, they wear masks, maybe we should wear masks,” he said.
He said other measures such as protecting individuals particularly at risk, and even things such as banning large gatherings such as concerts and sporting events could have been appropriate. But now he fears it may be too late for officials to say they overreacted.
At this point I’m in agreement with Berenson, and I think I always have been.
However, I think that the effect on the economy would have been bad anyway, although not nearly as bad as it has been. Hotels and restaurants would have suffered anyway, as people would have been afraid and most would have stayed away. Hair salons and other person-to-person service businesses would also have been hurt, I’m almost sure. Doctors were already warning not to come in if the visit wasn’t essential.
Some things happen regardless of what the government does. Fear is a powerful motivator, and it was already in place before the reaction from government became so draconian. Sports events were already canceled and certain businesses were already having employees work from home. How long could life as usual gone on?
The nearly-total shutdown has also been a chance for local governments to flex their muscles and let loose with their inner totalitarian impulses. That’s an ominous sign, but perhaps another useful one. We get to see how easy it is to slip into more and more government control, particularly in a time of widespread fear. COVID-19 is a great teacher, although a harshly cruel one.
[Hat tip for Berenson article: commenter Artfldgr.]
Predictably, Berenson is being attacked by leftists for daring to express contrarian opinions. It is all too obvious that so-called progressives see in this crisis an opportunity not only to expand the power of the state but also to demonize all forms of dissent from the official narrative; long gone are the days in which the left would, on occasion, defend the expression of unpopular views.
It is interesting to see what wasn’t shut down- mass transit in the NYC metropolitan area (and other areas suffering greatly right now, like Detroit). In my state, almost all the new cases are in the Nashville and Memphis metropolitan areas, and they have kept their mass transit going.
The answer to New York’s problem was always obvious and unused.
“Fear is a powerful motivator, . . . .” [Neo]
The following should be repeated frequently and loudly:
The shredding of the Bill of Rights is what I see as the most destructive aspect of this whole experience. All the governments need to do is declare an “emergency” to “protect” the public from now on. Hopefully, some suits after this is over will happen and maybe yield some corrections. But with 50% of the population all good with totalitarianism now, I doubt it.
In a normal flu season there can be as many as 60 K deaths due to the flu. Let’s say that c-19 adds another 60 K. From the current data half those deaths are in the NYC metro area. That leaves 30 K for the rest of the states, a rough average of an excess 600 deaths per state. Why are we shutting down the country for this? The models are nonsense and should never have been treated as anything but wild speculation, certainly as not as the basis for national policy,
An interesting different point of view: A Brazilian woman who has worked for us for thirty years said to me that something similar was going on in Brazil and the Communist governors of the northern states were thrilled because it gave them an excuse to grab more power.
If we had an MSM which was not a lackey of the elites, they’d do some investigations to see whether, outside of NYC, Detroit, NOLA, etc, there were any hospitals in trouble from lack of patients.
After cancelling appointments and elective procedures, I’ve seen isolated reports of hospitals being unexpectedly empty. Another recent report was the dismantling of an emergency military hospital set up in Washington state, which saw 0 patients before being deemed unnecessary.
Just random reports so far, but useful data in dealing with the virus … if you haven’t already established an agenda.
The answer to New York’s problem was always obvious and unused.
The answer would be security personnel at every escalator enforcing a ‘no mask, no gloves, no service’ rule.
Just yesterday I had a colleague in another state inform me of furloughs of medical personnel in his area. It’s a thing. I’ve been seeing a lot of talk of it in the last week or so in my internet travels, but I can’t vouch for those. This one I can.
Art Deco – there is this kind of response — maybe a trifle behind the curve.
https://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/man-without-face-mask-refuses-to-leave-septa-bus-police-pull-him-off/2359607/
Santa Clara county (Silicon Valley) where I live has a “dashboard” showing hospital usage as well as number of cases/deaths. Apparently there is plenty of capacity and no shortage of ventilators.
“He has also argued, in lengthy Twitter threads, that the drop in cases seen in various states has come before lockdowns would have had an impact — since it takes a few weeks for social distancing measures to take effect due to the window between infection and symptoms…”
Uh, we started the whole social distancing thing back on March 15. It’s now April 11.
Here’s a few numbers:
1st confirmed U.S. death to coronavirus reported on March 1.
On the afternoon of April 11 (six weeks later), we’re at 20,391 deaths.
And around 13 states have reported 1,000 or more new cases of COVID-19 each in just the last 48 hours.
It’s kind of an interesting demonstration of human nature that people who turned out to be right about the initial projections being way off are now fairly ignorant and/or indifferent to how bad this virus is turning out to be. And let’s remember, the U.S. is actually handling this A LOT better than some other countries. If the U.S. had the same per capita death rate as England, we’d have over 40,000 dead now. If the U.S. had the same per capita death rate as France, we’d have around 78,000 dead.
And just for some perspective, the CDC is estimating the flu killed anywhere from 24,000 to 64,000 Americans so far this flu season…which began in October 2019, over six months ago. Anyone want to put money down on how many COVID-19 deaths we’ll total five months from now?
Mike
A woman at our church with two young children just found out that her breast cancer has returned. She was scheduled for a lymph node biopsy and some other diagnostic procedures, but the hospital cancelled due to Michigan’s rules requiring them to be ready for a rush of COVID-19 patients. I happen to know that her hospital is not busy because a friend’s son is an anesthesiologist there, and they asked him to take an early vacation due to the fact that there wasn’t enough for him to do at the moment. In the meantime her breast cancer is metastasizing. Criminal in my opinion.
MBunge:
I don’t think he’s referring to an absolute drop in cases.
He seems to be referring to a drop in cases compared to the models’ projections.
I haven’t seen him as being ignorant about “how bad this virus is turning out to be.”
Chris B:
That’s terrible. Has she raised a stink about it at the hospital? Or maybe another hospital?
Not sure yet Neo, just found this out a couple of days ago. This is a major medical center, so hopefully they can either re-schedule quickly or she can find somewhere else. I’ll let you know when I find out.
I know a PhD chemist that did lots of computer modeling and he has a very low opinion of modelers and their models. His opinion is that anybody that bases public policy on computer models is a fool. He jokes that the chemical reactions he modeled always ignored his models and did whatever they wanted to do.
Chris B:
Please keep us posted, and wish her well.
Mr. Bunge:
If a coconut had three holes in it it would NOT be a bowling ball. But if it is dropped on your head from the top of the tree it will probably kill you; the bowling ball that is. I’m not certain if the coconut impact would be fatal. Let’s run a model.
Hospitals all over the country are restricting what they call non-essential or elective surgeries in order to free up capacity for anticipated COVID-19 cases. Operating rooms are the cash cows of any hospital system, and drastically reducing procedures has pushed a lot of hospitals toward bankruptcy. Most hospitals are far under their usual capacity, not unlike some cities’ streets and usual rush hour highways.
Physicians have few or no billable procedures, so there are severe cutbacks in hours for those lucky enough not to be laid off. Very few hospitals are busy in the conventional sense, and they are bleeding money at an astounding rate, fixed costs are very substantial. We have friends in healthcare in AZ, DE, PA, MI, IL, MA, and NC, all of them are working short hours and hurting financially.
The smarter hospitals are realizing that they need to isolate COVID-19 patients and treatments in separate wings if at all possible, and are setting up screening and triage systems to keep them out of the regular emergency rooms. ERs can’t be allowed to become deadly vector points.
Dentist offices, optometrists, etc. are facing the same pressures as the restaurants and hair dressers, except that they typically have even greater overheads.
Pennsylvania is distributing hundreds of millions of dollars to hospitals in the state to prevent them collapsing financially. This pandemic is a healthcare calamity of the first order.
Hospitals here in central NC are half-empty because elective surgeries have been prohibited by the governor. Furloughs and reduced hours are happening. However, I do know of a woman who needed breast cancer surgeries and was treated. Along with orthopedic surgeries being cancelled, the related physical therapists are out of work as well.
My husband needs a knee replacement. No word on when that can be done.
Dan D:
It sure sounds like this “cure” for one disease killed the physician (and other patients). First do no harm. Oopsie. Just like in war no plan survives contact with the enemy. Time to reconsider the “cure” for this one disease.
Mbunge “ 1st confirmed U.S. death to coronavirus reported on March 1. On the afternoon of April 11 (six weeks later), we’re at 20,391 deaths.”
Just how do you know that? Flights were arriving from China from November 2019(earlier?)through February 1, 2020, and even later from Europe. Even though Trump brought this to the country’s attention on 2/4 no one was really paying attention until the hysterical prediction from Oxford in late March of 2 million deaths. Dr. Birx has ordered that all deaths involving corona virus be counted as corona virus whether it was the primary or a secondary cause of death. There’s also lots of anecdotal evidence that for the most part the disease is mostly mild to annoying. I’m not a guy who spends much time with people, my sons claim I invented social distancing, and I know of three 3 day infections, one 1 week infection, and one serious 17 day infection, all unreported. In other words, the data is really quite poor on this disease with under reporting, over reporting, and no reporting.
There is also the issue is that half of all reported deaths are from the NYC metro area. There’s nothing much happening in the rest of the country where the deaths are spread all over. Even the big states of CA, TX, and FL only have a few hundred deaths each. Without the concentration in NYC, home of the national media, who are in their usual business of sensation along with get Trump by any means necessary, no one would even think of COVID-19 as a serious problem.
“Without the concentration in NYC, home of the national media, who are in their usual business of sensation along with get Trump by any means necessary, no one would even think of COVID-19 as a serious problem.” – Paul
This may well be true.
Texas has under 300 dead, so far, but more than 12000 cases.
https://www.fox4news.com/news/track-texas-coronavirus-cases-by-county-with-this-interactive-map
Notice anything about the locations of the majority?
If you check county-wise, and know where the “big” cities are, you can see that almost all the cases come in those that have substantial urban areas.
https://www.texastribune.org/2020/04/11/coronavirus-texas-411-number-positive-cases-over-11000-226-dead/
(the URL isn’t keeping up with the data)
Well, if we ever DO get the answers, it won’t be through the usual media suspects.
If you haven’t seen this from PowerLine, watch it — the young woman depicting a reporter at the Daily Briefings is spot on.
If the Babylon Bee did videos, she would be one.
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2020/04/ms-stuckey-observes.php
Won’t get answers this way either.
The ? is what happens to the big blue checkmark on Tweets.
Can’t get good answers when you don’t have good data.
https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/492025-poor-state-reporting-hampers-pandemic-fight
And speaking of not breaking down demographics the same way in every state — why are we not seeing large numbers of cases in the homeless populations of LA and SF and NY broken out separately?
Especially given that they made such a to-do about commandeering spaces to house them, and get them treated (which I don’t have a problem with, but it’s not a good long term solution).
Have I just missed the stories somewhere?
Another thoughtful article Neo.
I do believe that the “experts” have done a terrible disservice to the country. They have tied President Trump’s hands; even though some of the Federal actions; e.g., stopping travel from China, and then Europe were appropriate. Unfortunately, every Federal action gave cover to even more draconian ones at the state and local levels. I think that Governors, and local authorities, faced with the crazy model projections, and in view of what others did, were afraid not to match the most extreme restrictions. It snowballed; and worse. It enabled the inner totalitarian in so many petty officials and citizens. We now have “hot lines” to report non-compliant neighbors. Surfers on empty oceans are chased down and arrested in SoCal. Easter church services in which attendees never leave their cars are prohibited.
Unfortunately, it will likely be self justifying. When this is over we will be told that severe disruption of commerce, and curtailing of personal liberty, was a necessary price. There will be no mechanism to prove whether more reasonable actions would have been as effective.
There is one glimmer of hope. That is that the American people, having seen first hand how easy it is to trample personal freedoms, will be more vigilant, and resistant in the future.
Sadly, I am not sanguine. We, me included, are soft.
The answer to New York’s problem was always obvious and unused.
Shutting down public transportation is not feasible in a place where most people don’t have cars. Nurses, lab workers, and even some doctors, among other genuinely essential workers, need a way to get to work. Example: I have a friend who just get rehired by the city to work in a lab, no doubt doing coronavirus testing. She lives in Brooklyn, the lab is in Manhattan. She doesn’t own a car. This is the reality for tens of thousands. In any case, there’s a Fox News piece that reports that subway ridership is down 92%. So most of the time the trains are not at all crowded, though the story reports that occasionally they are.
You can get a feel for the virus in a timed finite space on board the Diamond Princess cruise ship:
In two weeks after the cruise started in Yokohama on 1/20/20 about 20% of everyone got the disease….passengers and crew. We know at least one person seeded this epidemic because she got off in Hong Kong and was tested positive.
About half of these positives were asymptomatic at the time of testing.
About half were symptomatic.
20% of the positive testees never got symptoms.
They found viral RNA on various surfaces in the cruise ships up tp 17 days after all people had left.
In the meantime her breast cancer is metastasizing. Criminal in my opinion.
I was surprised to discover some years back that periodic post-treatment screenings that breast cancer patients undergo are fairly pro-forma. (No bone-scans, for example). Some of the literature they gave us explains that your recurrent breast cancer responds to treatment or it doesn’t and that detection when asymptomatic is not correlated with better outcomes.
Neo, You’re absolutely right about local governments succumbing to or taking advantage of totalitarian temptations. People would not be docile, either, if we hadn’t been subjected to years of shrieking about pussyhats, Russian collusion, Kavanaugh misdeeds, and sixth-hand Ukrainian hearsay. Everything is a cataclysmic event now.
Thanks, too, for the Berenson article. I live in the East Bay, and nobody I know has had personal experience of any sort with the virus. In fact, the only cases I’ve heard of are at nursing homes. Yet, the streets look like scenes from a bad science fiction movie. An emergency room doctor friend says his hospital is very quiet. In Wyoming, which Peggy Noonan wants to treat like New York, 239 confirmed cases, 105 recoveries, and zero deaths.
“…nobody I know has had personal experience of any sort with the virus.”
The closest thing to a first-hand confirmed case I know of is that of a woman who is known by a mutual acquaintance. She (the patient) is in her late 90s, dying in a nursing home, and tested positive for the virus. She was sick for a few days and got better. She is still dying in a nursing home of all of the other things she was originally dying from, but not COVID-19.
I know at least four people with personal experience of the virus (that doesn’t count Sharon). One was in her 90s and died (I knew her when I was growing up). Two were in their 30s and although they were quite sick, never had to be hospitalized and they have recovered. One was in her 30s and was hospitalized and very very ill but has recovered. All in cities but not all in NYC.
A relative of mine also had very good friends who were on the Diamond Princess. They had a very difficult experience, as you might imagine, but never became ill.
Jimmy on April 12, 2020 at 12:53 am said:
The answer to New York’s problem was always obvious and unused.
Shutting down public transportation is not feasible in a place where most people don’t have cars.
* * *
New York’s problem is also one of a large, vulnerable population, as pointed out at a recent briefing.
Bookworm Room had an optimistic post about that.
http://www.bookwormroom.com/2020/04/11/covid-19-behavior-changes-mean-were-not-victims/
Jimmy, that was a good comment. The black community has all those comorbidities plus the behavioral one. Nobody can solve the behavioral but they seem to be paying attention.
It’s kind of an interesting demonstration of human nature that people who turned out to be right about the initial projections being way off are now fairly ignorant and/or indifferent to how bad this virus is turning out to be
Standard scare story. The answer is going to be to open most of the economy while letting those at high risk, most of us older and not working anymore, self quarantine. The vast majority of serious cases are in big cities with public transit. Los Angeles seems to be an exception for the obvious reason that there is not much public transit. Driving in your own car, while a mortal sin to leftists, seems to be safe.
The NYT found a story in Brazil where a regimen of high dose chloroquine was discontinued for QT prolongation, a well known but rare side effect of chloroquine. They will play this up in spite of two problems. The high dose was higher than recommended and the Hydroxy version is safer and more used. I fully expect this story to get big play as it fits the Orange Man Bad theme.
I know a lot of folks here read Instapundit, so I assume most saw this, https://www.zdnet.com/article/nyu-scientists-largest-u-s-study-of-covid-19-finds-obesity-the-single-biggest-factor-in-new-york-critical-cases/
It’s hard to tell if it is anything conclusive, or not. The article even points out some of the theory’s flaws. Not a bad sample size, but all from NYC. The speculation is it is inflammation + over 65 that may be the biggest determinants if a COVID patient ends up needing hospitalization. Obesity often = inflammation, but the hypothesis proposed is the inflammation itself is the culprit.
Rufus – darn it, I was all set to have my ice cream!
So – obesity is a contributing factor, and all the parks, golf courses, and gyms are closed.
The Chinese Communist government’s Chinese Coronavirus behavior can and must never be forgotten.
For the damage caused (and still being caused) by the actions that this Chinese Communist government deliberately took–and refrained from taking—damage to many countries and to a large portion of the people in this world—the Chinese Communist dictatorship needs to pay a very heavy price—needs to be punished and punished hard.
Such punishment needs to be broad-based, and comprehensive.
A few suggestions–
For it’s part, the U.S. Government needs to put into place new laws and policies that will lure/force U.S. companies to “repatriate,” to bring their factories and their money back here to the U.S. from China.
And that is just the beginning.
Our government also needs to see to it that we wean ourselves from reliance on China for anything at all of strategic (and obviously, now, to include medical) value—especially electronics—from transistors and circuit boards, to finished products, software, and whole systems—see Huawei, to precursor pharmaceutical chemicals, medicines, and medical equipment.
Do you know how many Chinese produced products and programs many of us use here in the U.S. feed data to, or have it transit through China?
According to recent reports, among them are some of the apparently hugely popular drones, **and some of the rapidly proliferating “home security cameras” that all of us are buying and installing.
We need to limit, if not eliminate, all Chinese access to data streams collected here in the U.S., and that should include an investigation into and ways to eliminate any “back doors” that the Chinese may have managed to insert into the electronic components, finished products, and systems that they sell to us.
Our government needs to redirect all U.S. supply chains for any and all products—both precursor parts, chemicals, and finished products–away from China as their source, and to source these things from other countries who are our actual allies.
Then, there are the many supposedly “U.S. companies” that have actually been bought and taken over by the Chinese.
Thus, or instance, we find out in the first sentence or two of an article the other day–talking about how Smithfields*** has closed a meat packing plant because hundreds of the workers there have tested positive for the Chinese Coronavirus, and that a shortage of such meat products is only an estimated few weeks away—that iconic company Smithfields was bought several years ago by the Chinese and, in fact, is shipping a lot of it’s pork products, not to customers here in the U.S., but back to China. ****
The federal government must take measures to discourage such acquisitions of U.S. companies by the Chinese, and perhaps even find ways to remove Chinese ownership and control over the companies they have already acquired.
Of more strategic importance is the fact that the Chinese have become our chief source for the critical “Rare Earth Elements” (REE) that are vital for our production of military weapons, weapon systems, and military equipment– elements that we used to mine ourselves in the U.S.
This another suicidal misstep. The Federal government must see to it that we reopen our own REE mines. *****
These new “decoupling” policies must be put into place regardless of the effect they will pretty obviously have of increasing the prices of the goods these U.S. companies formerly manufactured in their factories in China, and we formerly bought.******
The Chinese government funded and run propaganda outlets, their “Confucius Centers” which have quietly been embedded in over a hundred U.S. universities around our country, need to be closed, and their staffs sent packing back to China.
As one of the U.S. government’s first priorities, our government should also stop the massive influx of Chinese “students” into our colleges and universities–reports say around 350,000 such Chinese “students” are currently “studying” here now—students from China who, since the Chinese government pays their full tuition, often displace American students.
Such a ban would also greatly reduce the reported wide-spread thefts by China of our intellectual property–scientific research and discoveries, commercial technology, processes, and secrets–that many such students reportedly help China gather.
Such a step would also eliminate the obvious loss to the United States when Chinese students–who we train–take their skills and knowledge back to China, there to contribute to that rival country’s progress, and it’s attempt at world dominance.
Strict new rules and scrutiny should also be applied to all U.S. university faculty members, to halt the actions of those faculty members who have clandestine ties to and payments from China, examples of which have just recently come to light.
The “Academic and Educational Communities” and those companies who are used to using these Chinese students to do some of their research for them will scream bloody murder over these steps, which will cost them money and access, but their protests must be ignored.
Moreover, astonishingly, according to reports, both the DOD and VA currently spend a lot of money procuring some things from China,
Thus, as quickly as practicable, the Federal government should eliminate procuring anything from China.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/criminality-and-corruption-reign-in-xi-pings-china/ see also https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/04/stunning-us-gave-wuhan-lab-3-7-million-grant-study-horseshoe-bats-carry-co ro see also https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/04/exclusive-china-coronavirus-linked-former-leader-chinese-communist-party-family-soros-investments-surprise-anyone/navirus/
** https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/20/politics/dhs-chinese-drone-warning/index.html
*** https://dailycaller.com/2020/04/13/pork-meat-shortages-coronavirus-smithfield/ see also https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/04/gop-rep-massie-warns-us-weeks-away-not-months-food-shortages/
**** https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-swinefever-smithfield-foods-foc-idUSKBN1XF0XC
***** https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-05-29/china-gears-up-to-weaponize-rare-earths-dominance-in-trade-war
****** https://www.the-american-interest.com/2020/04/08/the-long-hard-road-to-decoupling-from-china/?utm-access=rcw