Category: The Presidency

Saturday Soother, Covid Plateau Edition – May 2, 2020

The Daily Escape:

Spring flower bloom at Keukenhof Garden in Holland. (Hat tip to Ottho H.)

Remember when we had fifteen COVID-19 cases, and they were just going to be gone, like a miracle?

If you ask Trump, that’s where we are, plus a few orders of magnitude. All of the recent happy talk about reaching or being past the peak have omitted the detail that so far, “flattening the curve” isn’t substantially reducing the number of cases, or deaths.

The theory was that once we “flattened the curve”, we could ease up on social isolation, mask-wearing and get back to work. When we think about the downside of the curve, we think bell curves, with a sharp rise and fall from a high peak. As Wrongo said on April 20, that was unlikely to be the outcome, because it didn’t happen like that in countries that started fighting the virus long before us. And that’s how it seems to be working out. Here is where we are:

Source: Washington Post

The chart tracks a 3-day average of cases, since that smooths out some of the big day-to-day variances. As of April 29, it seemed clear that we have reached a peak, but we’re not showing any real signs of a rapid decline. This means the COVID-19 curve could remain elevated for a long time.

And we should remember that 878,839 cases are still active.

Politicians are obsessed with “the peak.” Are we at it? Are we past it? When will it come? Has it come? Now they’ve turned to communicating their plans for reopening the economy. That makes sense. Re-opening is becoming urgent, with more than 30 million Americans out of work, but it’s dismissive for politicians to say we’re past the worst of it “medically” while more people go to the ICU every day.

Massachusetts governor Charlie Baker (R), sees the plateau, and wonders when the curve will start to decline:

“Baker focused on hospitalizations and ICU admissions, saying, we’ve basically been flat for 12 days. We’re flat at a high level. But 12 days, 13 days counting today — you’re not going to find a lot of other places that just sit like this for 13 days.”

Former FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb MD, an advisor to Baker, tweeted:

IHME (mentioned in the tweet) is a closely watched model from the University of Washington Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation.

What we do over the next few weeks will determine whether we get this right, or whether COVID remains a large ongoing threat. We need to understand the potential risks that come with a decision to reopen, and make plans to mitigate these risks as best we can. Some states, like Connecticut, are planning carefully.

If we look state by state, in about half of the country, the numbers of cases are still rising. In about another third of the country, there is a leveling off. Only in a minority of states are the numbers actually coming down on a daily basis. New York, Washington, Louisiana and Idaho have had reductions of more than 50% from their peaks in new infections.

According to STAT, there are several possible outcomes: Recurring small outbreaks, a monster wave of cases, or a persistent crisis. And no one knows which outcome is most likely. We should expect new infections to start rising again in states without much testing, but with large populations that opened early like Texas, Florida and Georgia.

We should also realize that in some states, cooking the books about new cases and deaths will happen. Newsweek reported data compiled by Florida medical examiners was no longer being reported by the state government. The official state data has not been updated in over a week.

Acting like we’re flattening the curve when we really don’t know if we are, is likely to create a San Andreas-sized political earthquake if cases spike again.

But let’s try to get past all this, because it’s time for another Saturday Soother, when we stop checking Twitter, and think about spring.

Here on the fields of Wrong, the pear, plum and cherry trees have flowered, while the crab apples are soon to bloom. We have bluebirds nesting in both bluebird houses. Our weather remains cold and wet, so stay indoors and brew up a hot mug of Bengal Spice tea.

Now grab a socially distant chair and have a few minutes of fun with a song parody by the Opera Guy, Matthew Ciuffitelli. Here’s his parody of “Phantom of the Opera”, called “Phantom of the Quarantine”. Wrongo promises you won’t be disappointed:

Those who read the Wrongologist in email can view the video here.

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What Should Biden Do?

The Daily Escape:

Theodore Roosevelt NP, ND – photo by lightcrafterartistry

Happy May Day! Look on the bright side: Halloween is 184 days away, and everybody already has their masks.

Joe Biden is the likely Democratic presidential nominee, and he’s carrying the hopes of many Americans that the Trump era will be just a single term. There are many hurdles for Biden to overcome on his way to winning the presidency, and a new one has emerged from an old story.

Tara Reade, a former Biden aide has accused him of sexually assaulting her in 1993. That story had been reported many times without really touching Biden politically, largely because the media was skeptical of Reade’s story when she came forward initially.

Recently, she changed her story from a creepy sexual harassment to sexual assault. And we now find out that she may have told others of the more serious allegation 25 years ago. That puts her story in a very different light.

Business Insider reported that two sources came forward to corroborate details about Reade’s new claims. One, a former neighbor of Reade’s, says that Reade disclosed corroborating details to her about the alleged assault in the mid-1990s, possibly one-to-two years after it happened.

Dealing with this sort of accusation when we’re focused on the political rather than the legal consequences, is tricky. People point to the Brett Kavanaugh nomination hearing and say that Kavanaugh and Biden are in the same boat. The WaPo says that at the time, Biden insisted that Christine Blasey Ford, who accused Kavanaugh of sexual assault:

“…should be given the benefit of the doubt…for a woman to come forward in the glaring lights of focus, nationally, you’ve got to start off with the presumption that at least the essence of what she’s talking about is real, whether or not she forgets facts.”

The HuffPo reports that Tarana Burke, a founder of the Me Too movement in 2007, thinks that Reade’s accusations against Biden are being felt differently because of the stakes in the 2020 election, which will feature two men in powerful positions who have both been accused of sexual assault.

Burke has suggested that Biden could be both “accountable and electable” for Democrats in 2020:

“The defense of Joe Biden shouldn’t rest on whether or not he’s a ‘good guy’ or ‘our only hope.’ Instead, he could demonstrate what it looks like to be both accountable and electable…”

Standards for evaluating evidence in the context of a job interview should be different than standards for evaluating evidence in a legal proceeding, or in a criminal trial.

Nobody has a right to become president of the US, or to be on the Supreme Court. If you think there’s a reasonable chance that Reade’s sexual assault allegation is true, it’s perfectly appropriate to take your estimate of that probability into account when deciding whether to support Biden or not.

Wrongo thinks that it would be better for the country if Biden replaces Trump. That’s true for Wrongo even if he assumes Reade’s allegation is 100% accurate.

So what should Biden do? He has to put this behind him. He should say he believes her, even if he has no memory of the event. And he should earnestly apologize.

Fess up and move on.

Republicans know that dividing the left radically improves their chances in November. They can see how easily the Dems’ laudable virtue of “believe all women” could be weaponized.

One thing an apology will do is make it easier for Biden to select a woman VP, as he has promised to do. Biden’s shaky past behavior around women will also be a part of the opposition’s message in the fall. He has worked to overcome some of that over the years by co-sponsoring Clinton’s Violence Against Woman Act. He has improved his views on both abortion and the Hyde Amendment, and he’s sort of apologized to Anita Hill.

Whichever woman Biden chooses will be forced to answer questions (probably endlessly) about Biden’s treatment of women, including the allegations of assault by Tara Reade. His VP choice may become the leader of the Democratic Party in four years, and the only way to inoculate the VP nominee against this is a full Biden apology.

Will a heartfelt apology hurt Biden? Certainly with some progressive voters. But even those whose only issue is a principled stand against sexual assault, will have to choose between Biden and Trump. If they do so based only on which man has sexually assaulted fewer women, it’s likely that Biden would be their choice.

This isn’t the choice Wrongo had hoped for, but it’s the choice we have.

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Time to End The Shit Show

The Daily Escape:

Early snow at Schwabacher Landing, Grand Teton NP, WY – October 2019 photo by travlonghorns

The shit show visited on America by Republican nihilists must end. Here are three of the latest examples.

First, Bloomberg reports that Trump says he won’t allow federal aid for states facing budget deficits caused by the Coronavirus unless they take action against their sanctuary cities: (brackets by Wrongo)

“We would want certain things…as part of a deal with House Democrats to aid states, [Trump] he said at a White House event on Tuesday…including sanctuary city adjustments, because we have so many people in sanctuary cities.”

Yes, Trump wants to hold Democratic states and cities hostage unless they end their sanctuary designations. He has previously tried to cut off their federal funding unless they change their pro-immigrant policies, and he thinks now he has some leverage.

Second, Mitch McConnell and industry lobbying groups want to make immunity from COVID-19 lawsuits a condition for state aid. In a Monday interview on Fox News Radio, McConnell said he considers liability protections for companies a non-negotiable demand for the next coronavirus stimulus legislation:

 “That’s going to be my red line….Trial lawyers are sharpening their pencils to come after healthcare providers and businesses, arguing that somehow the decision they made with regard to reopening adversely affected the health of someone else.”

McConnell is arguing that companies should have the right to be negligent, and suffer no consequences for negligence that kills their staff.

As some states begin opening their economies, lobbyists say retailers, manufacturers, restaurants and other businesses struggling to start back up need temporary limits on legal liability. The lobbyists want to give companies more protection against lawsuits by customers or employees who contract the virus and accuse the business of being the source of the infection.

Think about this: Workmen’s compensation takes care of what might happen to an employee, and does so at ridiculously low rates, even for death benefits. So this means that the primary corporate liability issue is over employees who bring the virus home from work and infect family members. Under the new legislation, family members would be precluded from filing a suit against the employer.

What about corporate liability for retail customers? Would retailers be held harmless if people getting sick are traceable to their store? There is a tension between companies having confidence to reopen, and employees and customers having confidence that they will be protected from unsafe practices that raise their chance of infection.

Lobbyists and Republicans want permanent changes to the business liability laws, while Trump is looking at how they could create some of those shields either via regulation, or executive order. But McConnell wants permanent legislation. His leverage is to make it a part of the next stimulus package.

Finally, GOP governors are holding their own constituents hostage: return to work immediately with no protection from the virus, or lose your unemployment checks:

“If you’re an employer and you offer to bring your employee back to work and they decide not to, that’s a voluntary quit,” Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds (R) said Friday. “Therefore, they would not be eligible for the unemployment money.”

The only exception for workers getting unemployment after not returning to work is if they are ill with the virus or taking care of a family member who has the disease. The situation is similar for workers in Texas, where Gov. Greg Abbott (R) on Monday gave the go-ahead for retail stores, restaurants, movie theaters and malls to reopen on Friday.

“According to the Texas Workforce Commission, to qualify for unemployment benefits in the state, a worker must be “willing and able to work all the days and hours required for the type of work you are seeking…..employees who choose not to return to work will become ineligible for unemployment benefits.”

The only solution to these anti-worker policies is re-unionization of workers in nearly every industry, and these Republican efforts during the pandemic may energize that unionization.

Mitch wants to protect employers. Trump says the whole problem is China’s fault.

Now they’re teaming up to protect Smithfield, a Chinese company since 2013, to shield it from not protecting its American workforce. A positively Chinese idea!

At least there’s no pretense that they’re really just trying to increase employment.

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Monday Wake Up Call – April 27, 2020

The Daily Escape:

Harvest Moon over Bisti Badlands, south of Farmington, NM – 2019 photo by navidj.

Question: How many Americans have died from COVID-19? A: 54,024 as of Sunday.

Question: How many Americans died in the Vietnam War? A: 58,220.

Barring a miracle, we will pass that Vietnam milestone this week. By then, there will be more than one million confirmed cases, and 60,000 deaths in the US. Can we take a minute, and try to place the Coronavirus in the context of the dead and broken bodies from Vietnam?

Vietnam took ten years to reach that horrible number, while COVID-19 has met it in less than three months. Wrongo served during the Vietnam War. It was a trying time for all Americans. We were disunited at home, at much at war with each other, as with the Viet Cong. It scarred at least a generation, and there are still victims of both the domestic and foreign fights among us.

Today’s fight against the Coronavirus may become the current generation of 20-something’s Vietnam. Jobs won’t come back quickly, friends and family are dying, and the lack of testing and a vaccine will make life scarier for young people than for any other group.

Like Vietnam did to the boomers, Coronavirus could scar young people for years to come.

As we head into month four of the outbreak, we know that we are undercounting deaths. The Economist reported on one aspect of the undercount early in April, comparing cardiac arrest deaths in NYC to the historical average:

Are the increased rate of cardiac arrest deaths really COVID-19 deaths? A strong case can be made that they are. Back to the Economist, who says that the outbreak will be worse in the South: (emphasis and parenthesis by Wrongo)

“Places with older residents and more diabetes, heart disease and smoking have higher CFRs (case-to-fatality rates)…..Counties with lots of poor or black people tend to have more health problems, less social distancing and fewer ICU beds. Yet CFRs in such areas are even higher than you would expect from these factors alone.

Together, these variables leave a geographic footprint….the highest death rates will probably…be…in poor, rural parts of the South and Appalachia with high rates of heart disease and diabetes. Worryingly, the three states that announced plans this week to relax their lockdowns (Georgia, Tennessee and South Carolina) are all in this region.”

It didn’t have to be like this. There’s plenty of blame to go around, but in the end, the single most important factor in America’s disaster of a response was the lack of early testing. That will be a greater disaster if we fail to keep growing testing as the lockdowns end.

One thing that’s difficult to comprehend is the lack of empathy for the dead and their families and friends by some Americans. Most can rouse themselves to celebrate the first responders, health care workers, and “essential” workers, but not all can.

The WaPo has analyzed all of Trump’s Coronavirus briefings, and found this:

“The president has spoken for more than 28 hours in the 35 briefings held since March 16, eating up 60% of the time that officials spoke….Over the past three weeks, the tally comes to more than 13 hours of Trump — including two hours spent on attacks and 45 minutes praising himself and his administration, but just 4Âœ minutes expressing condolences for coronavirus victims.”

Trump has not even ordered American flags lowered in tribute to the dead, while some governors have. New Jersey’s Governor Phil Murphy and New York’s Governor Andrew Cuomo both did in April. As Susan B. Glasser said in the New Yorker:

“Trump, who has in the past personally asked for the flags to be lowered after a shooting or a politician’s death, can’t even bring himself to do this much for victims of the coronavirus.”

Time to wake up, America! We must tread carefully for the next few months, because we truly know very little about the virus. For example, there’s no evidence that Coronavirus antibodies prevent reinfection.

To help you wake up, listen to “Road to Nowhere” written by David Byrne for the 1985 Talking Heads album “Little Creatures”. Here, it’s performed in 2012 by David Byrne and St. Vincent, live in Paris with a brass band:

Sample Lyric:

Well, we know where we’re going
But we don’t know where we’ve been
And we know what we’re knowing
But we can’t say what we’ve seen

Those who read the Wrongologist in email can view the video here.

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Sunday Cartoon Blogging – April 26, 2020

From the WaPo: (brackets by Wrongo)

“President Trump on Friday threatened to block an emergency loan to shore up the U.S. Postal Service unless it dramatically raised shipping prices on online retailers…“The Postal Service is a joke,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. [In order] To obtain a $10 billion line of credit Congress approved this month, “The post office should raise the price of a package by approximately four times…”

The USPS is enshrined in the US Constitution. BTW, killing it might accomplish a few things for Trump:

  • It obstructs any Congressional effort to mandate mail-in voting.
  • It rewards private sector delivery carriers like FedEx and UPS that compete with the USPS. Many of them have donated both to Trump and Republican candidates.

The USPS is entirely self-funded. If you buy stamps, you’ve funded the Post Office. Its operations are profitable. It loses money on paper because of Congress’s unique requirement for the USPS to pre-pay all future pension liabilities, something no other American corporation or institution is required to do. That was imposed by Republicans in 2006 in the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act.

He’s trying to make the Postal Service unprofitable. And when it’s a shell of its former self, sell it to UPS or FedEx who would be delighted to have one of their biggest competitors destroyed. On to cartoons.

Our grim future:

MAGA-ites drink the healing Kool aid:

Your lockdown inconveniences my freedumb:

Georgia takes aim at the lockdown:

Nursing homes account for 25% of US COVID-19 deaths. Remember the elderly and infirm:

The oil glut has forced the oil companies into the suburbs:

 

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Flattening the Curve May Take Time

The Daily Escape:

Dying Tornado, KS – photo by mattgphoto

When it comes to ending the lockdown, the theory is that once we’ve “flattened the curve” we can ease up on social isolation, mask-wearing and get back to work. The problem is that when we think about the downside of the curve, we think parabolas. This chart demonstrates that even with the “flattening”, we’ve been told to expect a sharp drop-off in cases:

But as Cathy O’Neil says: (brackets by Wrongo)

“The dying won’t be over nearly as soon as it [a curve like that] suggests.”

O’Neil looked at the curves for Italy and Spain. Both had uncontrolled outbreaks and climbed the curve about two weeks ahead of the US. They also turned to lockdowns late, leading to overburdened hospitals. So, they offer a decent indication of what to expect in in America:

 “Their curves…are not symmetric curves. They go up fast, flatten out and then descend slowly. How slowly? It’s still hard to tell, but the shape strongly suggests that the bad news won’t go away nearly as quickly as it arrived.”

Here’s Italy for example:

It’s too early in the virus’s growth in the US to know what the right side of our curve will look like, but the evidence from Europe suggests that the descent will be slow. More from O’Neil:

“New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has said ‘the worst is over’ and ‘we’ve reached the peak.’ He should have followed with “now comes the long wait.”

She’s saying that the far side of the curve is likely to be a long, slow slog. This is food for thought for politicians who must decide when to end the lockdown.

It should also be food for thought for all of those protesting the lockdowns. In addition to the shape of the curve, we still have almost no idea what the actual prevalence of the virus is in the general population.

Abbott Labs has developed a 5 minute serology test that it says has 100% sensitivity and 99.6% specificity (Sensitivity means the test detects the presence of antibodies triggered by the COVID-19 virus; specificity means it successfully avoids mistaking that virus for similar coronaviruses).

The test was used in the Boston suburb of Chelsea. It found that of 200 randomly sampled residents who were stopped on the street and asked to give some drops of blood, 64 had antibodies. That’s 32%. The study was conducted by physicians at Massachusetts General Hospital.

John Iafrate, a pathologist at Harvard and the study’s principal investigator, said:

“We don’t know at this point what percent of these antibody-positive individuals are still carrying virus, but a fair estimate is likely 30-50%.”

Soumya, a health reporter for the LA Times, tweeted: (emphasis by Wrongo)

“LA County just released the results of their antibody study. Tests found that 4.1% of the county’s population has antibodies to the coronavirus. That figure is 55 times higher than what is suggested by the official case count.”

This suggests that there are many more infected, but asymptomatic people than are in the official numbers.

So, we need to be more sensible about both the shape of the curve, and about how little we know about who has the disease, and who doesn’t.

We’re still flying almost totally blind, four months after the government found out this was coming.

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Sunday Cartoon Blogging – April 19, 2020

One week ago, the cumulative US COVID-19 death toll was 15,000. Seven days later, the death toll is now 36,000. That means in a week, about 21,000 Americans have died, a growth rate of 140%. In the past two months, here’s how US coronavirus deaths have grown:

  • Feb 17: 0 deaths
  • March 17: 111 deaths
  • April 17: 36,997 deaths

Although deaths are a lagging indicator for how successful we are in our efforts to contain the Coronavirus, and despite all the happy talk about flattening the curve, this looks like a rocket ship leaving the launch pad.

The Navy has now tested about 94% of the crew on the USS Theodore Roosevelt, the aircraft carrier that was sidelined with a Coronavirus outbreak. As of Friday, 660 crew members (of about 4,865) have now tested positive for Coronavirus.

However, of those 660 who were positive, 60% have not shown any symptoms associated with the illness. This should cause us to question the true rate of infections in the US. The proportion of people who are asymptomatic carriers worldwide remains unknown, but at 60%, the Theodore Roosevelt’s figure is higher than the 25%-50% range Dr. Fauci laid out in early April.

Taking these two data points together, America should proceed carefully as it leaves the lockdown.

On to cartoons. Another day, another spin of the big blame wheel:

With big business, some things never change:

If not his signature, then certainly his fingerprints:

The right’s narrative that can kill:

Individual responsibility has consequences:

John Roberts has to live with his Wisconsin voting decision:

 

 

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Saturday Soother – April 18, 2020

The Daily Escape:

Rainbow appears over NYC at 7pm, the time of change of shift for NYC’s health workers – April 13th 2020 photo by Steve Braband. Thanks to reader Shelley VK.

An argument by those who want to end the lockdown about those who think we should keep it is:  “You have shut down the economy because you think even one death is too many.”

That is a misrepresentation of what America’s governors have done. They really have said: “We reduced the economy and restricted daily activities because otherwise, as many as a million people might die.”

What is missed by the “live free or die” folks is that these actions were taken to reduce the risks to human life from the pandemic. They say, you shouldn’t ask us to stay locked down, because “life is full of risk anyway”.

To a degree, they are correct. Lockdowns only work for the privileged. They don’t work for everyone, because the level of income support and debt relief provided by the government is inadequate to the need. If landscapers are not essential in a state, they don’t work. But since they live paycheck to paycheck, they won’t be able to buy food. And when they see others working and earning, that’s got to be angering.

If we ask people for sacrifice and compliance, the country must at least secure their short term needs.

Since the government isn’t providing adequately for those needs, rebelliousness, non-compliance, and virus denialism are on the rise, as we saw in Thursday’s large demonstration in Michigan.

In Connecticut, Wrongo’s home state, the major issue every spring is passing the town budget. With a COVID-19 shutdown in effect, Governor Ned Lamont (D) issued an executive order suspending in-person voting for the next fiscal year’s budget. And there is no vote by mail option in CT.

His order has been met with livid anger on the right and left, conjuring up “no taxation without representation” and calls to “stand up for your rights”. People are saying if they can shop using social distance, why can’t they vote using social distance?

What angers many in town is that voters have rejected several budgets in recent years. The town then lowers the numbers, and it goes back to voters who eventually approve it. They could simply roll over last year’s approved budget, but instead, they’re going to pass a budget increase along with an increase in taxes, without ratification by voters.

The executive order seems wrong-headed, and it’s making people very angry. And so non-compliance will grow, as will denialism that the virus is a serious health problem.

All of this may help the virus flare up again soon.

In a comment, blog reader Terry McKenna brought up the concept of the “Tragedy of the Commons”, the idea that all individuals have a right to consume a resource even if it comes at the expense of other individuals. If demand overwhelms supply, every individual who consumes an additional unit directly harms all others who can no longer benefit from it.

Most Americans don’t think about how their actions impact others. Most are unwilling to even temporarily comply with limitations placed on them for the common good. With Operation Gridlock in Michigan, we’re seeing more proof that when human health and safety go up against the almighty dollar, humans will lose.

People should remember that finding a vaccine for the virus is not a sure thing. There’s also little reason to believe that once a vaccine is found, that it will be completely effective. The longer people are allowed to think that universal Coronavirus immunity is just around the corner, the angrier they will get when that isn’t the case.

Until we know if a vaccine is likely or not, the current political climate won’t be conducive to rational discussions about difficult decisions. The virus can’t spread itself, but it seems to have plenty of helpers.

On this spring Saturday, let’s forget about non-compliance and the Coronavirus for a few minutes. Let’s have a brief respite, and indulge in a Saturday Soother.

Start by inviting your besties to a Quarantini video conference. The term “Quarantini” was actually coined several years ago on the podcast “This podcast will kill you”, hosted by two disease ecologists/epidemiologists. Wrongo prefers Irish single malts, but pour whatever makes you happy. And make a toast: Confusion to our enemies!

Next, settle back and spend a few minutes watching and listening to a parody tribute to NY Governor Andrew Cuomo, from Randy Rainbow, “ANDY!”:

Those who read the Wrongologist in email, can view the video here.

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Should America Be Reopening Now?

The Daily Escape:

Poppies, Antelope Valley, CA – 2020 photo by user_greg. Part of the annual spring “super bloom” in CA.

Given Trump’s decision to open the country to walking around while infected, it’s becoming clear that for the administration, the business of America is strictly business.

But this is wrong. In a pandemic, the business of America is not business; it’s public health. Absent public confidence that the virus is at least under control, many businesses and workers won’t be comfortable heading back to work, no matter what politicians say:

“More than eight in 10 voters, 81%, say Americans “should continue to social distance for as long as is needed to curb the spread of coronavirus, even if it means continued damage to the economy…. Democrats (89%) are more likely than Republicans (72%) to say Americans should continue the “social distancing” measures”

Looks like Trump holds a minority view. To see if there was any concrete basis for saying the US was in a position to reopen soon, Wrongo looked at the COVID-19 Tracking Project’s state-level numbers, and subtracted the terrible NY numbers from the rest. Here’s the result:

The conclusion is that NY isn’t all that terrible compared to the rest of the US. It has a decreasing share of America’s total infections and deaths. But the highlighted rate of increase in deaths in the rest of the US since April 12th should concern the White House.

In fact, the seven-day average for growth in new cases shows that cases in the rest of the US are growing faster. NY is growing at 5.27%, while the rest of US is growing at 5.83%.

And the news from the places without lockdowns isn’t good. Politico reports that hot spots have erupted in farm belt states where governors insist lockdowns aren’t needed:

“The only hospital in Grand Island, Neb., is full. The mayor…asked for a statewide stay-at-home order that the GOP governor insists isn’t needed. More than one-third of those tested for coronavirus in the surrounding county are positive — and there aren’t enough tests to go around.

Grand Island is the fourth-biggest city in a state President Donald Trump and his top health officials repeatedly [say is]…keeping the virus at bay without the strict lockdowns 42 other states have imposed.”

New cases in Nebraska and in Iowa, South Dakota and other parts of the heartland are starting to spike. This should be raising concerns about whether we’re controlling the disease. Here’s Nebraska’s Republican Gov. Pete Ricketts saying that voluntary social distancing is working: (emphasis by Wrongo)

“This is a program that depends on people exercising personal responsibility and their civic duty….This is about making that decision, not the heavy hand of government taking away your freedoms.”

All of a sudden, as if they saw the bat signal, Republicans want to do the “Live Free or Die” thing. From the Daily Beast:

“A protest movement is taking hold targeting states that have extended social-distancing rules, closed schools, and restricted access to large religious gatherings. And it’s being fed by loyalists and political allies of President Donald Trump.”

This seems to be “spontaneous” support for Trump’s effort to reopen the economy.

In Michigan, a demonstration called “Operation Gridlock” protested Governor Whitmer’s shelter-at-home orders. Michigan has the third-highest number of COVID-19 cases in America, and the lockdown lowered infections. But Republicans criticize the order. Several thousand cars blocked the Lansing streets to protest what they see as an infringement of their liberty.

A lot of calories are going into the open vs. lockdown debate. It’s all a waste of time. How will we get a healthy economy if we eliminate the lockdown before we have any chance of stopping the mass transmission of this disease?

People aren’t staying at home because governments told them to. They’re doing it because it’s not safe to be out there. They aren’t going to go to work willingly in crowded offices, or travel, or attend concerts unless the danger is visibly lessened. And the economy will not recover until people are willing to do these things.

It’s not about flipping a switch. Businesses reopening will happen in small steps, as public health officials and political leaders, especially mayors and governors (and businesses), work to establish the basic conditions for a return to economic activity.

The bottom line is that the people are in control. We had to be convinced to stay home, and now we’ll have to be convinced to go out.

You go first, should be the people’s mantra. Trump should go back to holding MAGA rallies immediately. He should put his life and those of his supporters, where his mouth is.

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More on What’s Next

The Daily Escape:

Sunrise, Mauna Kea, HI – 2020 photo by laramarie27

Here’s the COVID-19 tracking report as of April 12:

The rate of increase in infections and deaths appear to have plateaued, while deaths as a percentage of cases continues to rise. Testing hovers around 140,000 per day, still growing slower than the rate of new infections.

The next chart seems to indicate that opening the lockdown would be a mistake. The impression is that the rest of the country isn’t doing as badly as New York. Here is a comparison of cases in New York to cases in the rest of the US:

On the 12th, infections in the rest of the US started to grow faster than new infections in NY. The rate of new deaths in the rest of the US has also become a larger share of total US deaths. So far, there is little evidence to conclude that the administration should reverse the lockdown strategies of the states.

Today we continue with yesterday’s question, “what’s next?”

When parts of the US, and eventually all of it come out from physical and economic quarantine, we will attempt to return to “normal”. Normal will bring with it a level of economic devastation, bankruptcy, and household impoverishment that will almost certainly be beyond what politicians can now imagine.

To bridge across to a sustained level of economic activity, the Federal government and the Federal Reserve will have to add substantial stimulus beyond the $2 trillion so far, possibly an additional $5+ trillion, in new stimulus.

Most of those new funds will have to go to individuals and small businesses in the form of outright grants. Otherwise, small and medium size firms will not be able to reopen their doors after a prolonged shutdown.

Grants to individuals will be most important. Renters and homeowners will have no means to become current on back rent and mortgage payments. Without these funds, the impact within the financial sector will exceed that of the Great Recession, as rents and mortgages would go unpaid for months. Foreclosures and evictions would skyrocket.

Local and state governments that rely on tax revenue from sales taxes, income taxes, real estate and property taxes will be deeply affected as well.

Bipartisan talk in DC of a new effort to create $2 trillion in infrastructure funding makes sense as a source of jobs and needed economic revival. It will also jump start the downstream suppliers of steel, cement and heavy equipment.

The Federal government may have to take equity stakes in large companies like it did in the 2008 auto bailout. In a fashion, this will make the US look a lot more “socialist” than it did in 2019.

There will also be psychological fallout that will be difficult to anticipate. Axios thinks the Coronavirus may be a defining experience for Generation Z, shaping its outlook for decades to come, disrupting its entry to adulthood and altering its earning potential, trust in institutions and views on family and sex.

Pew Research says that nearly half of workers ages 16-24 held service jobs in bars, restaurants and hotels — many of which have now been shut down or greatly scaled back. And young workers with less experience are the first to be let go.

Nearly 25% of US workers, 38.1 million out of 157.5 million, are employed in industries most likely to feel an immediate impact from the COVID-19 lockdown. Among the most vulnerable are workers in retail trade (10% of all workers) and food services and drinking places (6%). In total, these two industries employ nearly 26 million Americans. More from Pew:

“Workers in these industries have lower-than-average earnings. Across all industries, the average weekly earnings in January 2020 were $975. By contrast, workers in food services and drinking places earned only $394 per week on average. Workers in the other high-risk industries had earnings ranging from around $500 to $600 per week.”

Hence the need for a financial bridge by the federal government.

Part of the new normal must be adequate inventory of medical supplies to deal with any future replay of the Coronavirus or another pandemic. The NYT reports that China today makes about 80% of the world’s antibiotics, along with the building blocks for a long list of drugs. That supply can be shut off at any time, for any reason. It is now painfully obvious that health care must be a primary national security concern, something our politicians were blind to just a few months ago.

Will these, and other necessary things change?

So far, we have a redux of 2008. The Fed and Treasury have decided to bailout speculative capital and big corporations, let small businesses fail, and let the working poor employed by small business to become even more impoverished.

Will there be a Marshall Plan for us?

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