"The basis of reassuring the public about re-entry is repeating the facts about the threat and who it targets. By now, studies from Europe and the U.S. all suggest that the overall fatality rate is far lower than early estimates. And we know who to protect, because this disease – by the evidence – is not equally dangerous across the population. In Michigan’s Oakland County, 75 percent of deaths were in those over 70 years old; 91 percent were in people over 60, similar to what was noted in New York. And younger, healthier people have virtually zero risk of death and little risk of serious disease; as I have noted before, under one percent of New York City’s hospitalizations have been patients under 18 years of age, and less than one percent of deaths at any age are in the absence of underlying conditions.
Here are specific and logical steps to end the lockdown and safely restore normal life:
First, let’s finally focus on protection for the most vulnerable — that means nursing home patients, who are already living under controlled access. This would include strictly regulating all who enter and care for nursing home members by requiring testing and protective masks for all who interact with these highly vulnerable people. Specifically, nursing home workers should be tested for COVID-19 antibodies, and if negative, for virus to exclude infection, to ensure safety of senior residents. No COVID-19-positive patient can resume residence until definitively cleared by testing.
We should continue to inform the public about what they have already successfully learned regarding the at-risk group. That means issuing rational guidelines advising the highest standards of hygiene and appropriate social distancing while interacting with elderly friends and family members at risk, including those with diabetes, obesity and other chronic conditions.
Second, those with mild symptoms of the illness should strictly self-isolate for two weeks. It’s not urgent to test them — simply assume they have the infection. That includes confinement at home, having the highest concern for sanitization and wearing protective masks when others in their homes enter the same room." Dr. Scott Atlas in The Hill
—————
It should be mentioned that Dr. John Ioannides, a leading epidemiologist at Stanford agrees with Dr. Atlas.
I saw Atlas on a news program a day or so ago. The anchor looked frightened by what Atlas was saying. This is understandable. The COVID panic is now so deeply embedded and pervasive that to question the rationale for the shut-down of the economy is equivalent to heresy in a theocratic state.
IMO the road back economically is going to be slow and difficult. I hope I am wrong. pl
I hope you are wrong, too. I am tired of the drama and hysteria.
Still, I do want the investigations into China’s culpability for the
result of their “accident” or of their planned upheaval of the rest of the world.
I just want to trust some designated “expert” to tell us when when we can put away the masks and can take up hugging our friends and shaking hands while smiling and meeting new acquaintances. What is a church service without that and all the stories of Christs care and concern for the “untouchables” of the world?
Colonel,
Beijing is getting very nervous. Take a look at Reuter’s report:
Exclusive: Internal Chinese report warns Beijing faces Tiananmen-like global backlash over virus
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-china-sentiment-ex/exclusive-internal-chinese-report-warns-beijing-faces-tiananmen-like-global-backlash-over-virus-idUSKBN22G19C
Seems the CCP’s MSS’s think-tank CICR compiled an Intelligence Report of their own warning of possible armed conflict with U.S..
IMO it’s hoped that our IC will realize that this virus doesn’t jump ship into the human sphere on its own naturally without ‘human tweaking in a lab’ which then provides a bridge from which the virus could go from bats to the human sphere. And why would the CCP/MSS play such a dangerous game? — Bio-weapons R&D.
There can be little doubt that the fascist/socialist/anti-Trump elements in this country have seized upon the presence of the virus to attempt to destroy Trump’s chances in November and to bring about greater state control of citizens. This immediately after the lame impeachment plot failed to remove Trump; which was right after the lame Russian collusion plot failed to remove Trump.
I don’t think it’s paranoid to consider that China released the virus on the US at a time when President Trump is engaging in a major trade war with the Chinese, as a tactic in fighting that war.
The Ionides/Atlas clinical perspective has been known to be correct – based on data – since March, yet the Democrat controlled states continue to double down on state control of their populations and destruction of their economies.
The Left has become a collection of kamikazes. The elites can ride this out. They have money. They are hoping that when the economy is in ashes, all of the starving little people will come into their open arms.
In 1968 another Asian virus, known as the Hong Kong flu, arrived in the US. It began killing Americans noticeably in 1969. As this was occurring, the Woodstock music festival was planned. The festival went off with now famous record crowd numbers during the peak of the virus. No one seemed to care. That virus ultimately killed 100,000 Americans (not Woodstock attendees); more than covid, even if you believe the artificially inflated covid figures. That was at a time when the population of the US was far less. So a far greater % died than covid.
We’ve been here before folks. It’s the reaction that is different this time. The reaction is driven by internal and external political objectives of massive importance for our future as a free society.
Free people need to be able to make these decisions on their own. Give them clear information and let them decide their next move. Keep the government “experts” out of the decision making process. I believe that as the weather improves and the economic hardship increases, Americans will turn on the fascist/socialist elites and take their lives back. The vulnerable and the cowards will self-isolate. I further believe Americans will do what they need to to get the economy going again, buying American made only, patronizing small businesses beyond what they normally would and voting for pro-American candidates (i.e. the Democrats lose big time).
What should we be doing every “flu season”?
What have we done every flu season that has resulted in very similar numbers and population groups affected. How, in fact, is this one materially different.
Mnuchin said today that it is too early to say whether international travel will open back up before the end of the year. Coincidentally, I also came across a Twitter poll of 15,000 people with the the following question & results:
“Hypothetically, if everything opens up tomorrow when would you fly again?”
– Immediately 25%
– 2-3 months 20%
– 3-6 months 26%
– 1 year or more 29%
Hardly scientific and I’ve no idea of the demographic or geographic spread of respondents, but it seems pretty clear many people remain fearful.
https://twitter.com/chigrl/status/1257097868919406594
Colonel Lang, As to economic recovery I suggest listening to this podcast with Nouriel Roubini.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/audio/2020-05-03/nouriel-roubini-sees-a-bad-recovery-and-a-depression-podcast
The Democrat-media hysteria HAS been deeply ingrained.
The mass of people have – not surprisingly – turned out to be lambs (baby sheep).
Each person is responsible for managing their own life – which includes risk.
Unfortunately, the population of lambs has been trained over the years to look for mommy government to manage their risk – mandatory seat belt laws come to mind.
Ben Franklin said it succinctly:
“Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”
There is widespread criticism of Ioannides two Covid studies, including the use of an unapproved antibody tests which is known to give false positives; statistical flaws, and recruiting volunteers for the sampling via Facebook, as well as the wife of a study co-author to call and recruit parents from her kids school.
Here is an excerpt from an article on the controversy.
““My quick take is that something really odd is going on with Ioannidis,” wrote Alexander Rubinsteyn, a geneticist and computational biologist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, in an email to Undark. Rubinsteyn suggested that Ioannidis may simply be “so attached to being the iconoclast that defies conventional wisdom that he’s unintentionally doing horrible science.”
He added: “Pretty much no one with statistical acumen believes these studies.””https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/23/coronavirus-antibody-studies-california-stanford
Here’s who Ioannidis is https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/11/lies-damned-lies-and-medical-science/308269/
In areas where the health system is not under stress this makes perfect sense. I would give the hugging, handshaking and church services a miss and maintain the social distancing at work and when out of the house as far as is practical. It needs to be done with lots of testing, contact tracing and case isolation. Knowledge and common sense on everyone’s part will work. Limited local shutdown may be needed if cases start climbing in some areas.
Our restaurants open today in most of Florida. In spite of needing our hair attended to, we will eat out both lunch and dinner. Sadly, some of our restaurants are closing for good. My wife tells me that local Facebook is about evenly divided about going out now. I don’t get it as these folks have been gathering in the supermarkets the whole time.
All
Explain to me what anti-body testing does for us as a population other than allow mapping the extent of infection.
PJ20,
Except the results of the Ionides study have been replicated several times now elsewhere in the country, including NYC.
Diana Croissant,
“I just want to trust some designated ‘expert’ to tell us when when we can put away the masks and can take up hugging our friends and shaking hands while smiling and meeting new acquaintances. What is a church service without that and all the stories of Christs care and concern for the ‘untouchables’ of the world?”
I think that “expert” you seek is going to have to be the person you see in the mirror every morning. The “designated experts” have no interest in encouraging you to go back to living a life you love. As Eric Newhill stated, it’s going to be up to free-thinking adults to make those decisions for themselves. If you expect or hope for “experts” to protect you from yourself, then you have too much faith in “experts” and in government. Take sensible precautions as they relate to your own risk demographic and respect other people making those choices for themselves. Otherwise let’s all get on living like Americans.
Even in blissful ‘pre rona’ December the Fed’s repo market had been sounding the alarms that a serious bubble recession was coming. Nothing apparently was fixed from the last wall street megadooshbaggery meltdown. See:
https://www.housingwire.com/articles/wells-fargo-joins-chase-in-halting-helocs/
This means that even those who built up real estate equity will have a difficult time short term liquifying that equity, which means that Chase, Wells Fargo, et al have a lot of pessimism about the US real estate market, the thing they have made so much money on last few years, and which they were supposed to have fixed.
well pilgrims 😉 not only is the economy enduring sudden searing pandemic pain, it is also feeling the beginning of a big bubble popping recession, which everybody in the financial world was already freaking about well before the rona arrived. Perhaps endless Fed QE can prop up equities markets through November, perhaps, but then it’s all bets off into 2021 as numerous wall street debts scams will have to be deleveraged.
Sir,
In the spirit of fairness, anti-body testing would allow scientists to identify who has the anti-bodies and then track them to see if they become re-infected and, if so, at what level of severity. That would shed light on the “herd immunity” theory (i.e. is there such a thing and, if so, to what extent?).
Otherwise, calls for “universal testing” are just sound bites born of confusion and panic, at best; another means of violating the rights of Americans at worst (e.g. making people wear yellow stars, carrying papers that allow them to enjoy full or truncated societal “privelges”).
pl,
Widespread antibody testing will show covid-19 is more contagious than a lot of diseases, but not not near as deadly as most people think. People will see they had it, didn’t even know it and are now immune to it at least in the near term. Fear will be deflated. We will then have a known large segment of the population known to not capable of further spreading the virus and a ready supply of antibody serum as an effective treatment for those who do get infected. That will also diminish fear.
Covid-19 and our response to it is as much a political issue as it is a public health issue. Trump was going to run on a booming economy. If he wants to get back to that strategy, he has to banish the fear of the virus. That will get everyone back to work so they can eat and pay rent, as well as continue to piss away their money on crap they don’t need. Our economy depends on all that. If Trump is smart, he best get to stepping and institute a nationwide antibody testing program.
And Fauci has already been awarded the dunce cap with his 1980s assertion that HIV was going kill us all. So I guess for his most recent action he gets the dunce cap with slide rule cluster.
A cruise passenger interests website offered another informal poll – are you willing to cruise again: 64% said as much as in the past; 10% said they would cruise even more to help get the industry back on its feet. Therefore, in this obviously interested sample, 75% want the cruise industry to start up again. Yesterday. 25% will choose to wait or not cruise again.
The cruise industry passenger base remains willing and loyal. In fact they are probably better trained in personal hygiene habits than most having had to deal with noro (aka tourista) in the past and a typical URI complaint commonly called” cruise crud” that was most likely picked up on the air flight to get to the cruise port. The real numbers of disease and mortality overall within this industry do not support the screaming head llnes and lurid reporting.
TTG
It remains to be seen if one infection makes an individual immune for some time. IMO we should follow the Atlas/Ioannides formula. I noticed in re-reading “Sharpsburg,” that Hunter McGuire appears therein.
What does an anti-body test do? I just had one last week and awaiting the results – was a cruise passenger and international air passenger during the month of January in a later suspected area. (not Asia).
Here is why I did the anti-body test: (Quest Labs – fee service, no RX- 99% accuracy – drawn blood vial test)
1. Helps substantiate dates and areas of transmission that may not yet be in the data pool.
2. Tracks the rates of asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic cases occurring among the “elderly”, in order to see if there is an enhanced risk of not in this age group, if there are no underlying co-morbidities.
3. Adds demographic data specific for the travel industry.
4. Allows possible donation of anti-body serum for research and perhaps mitigation of those who are affected.
5. Personal peace of mind -been there and done that. Freedom to move about.
6. Provides baseline for duration of immunity; resilience of immunity or data showing re-infection can be possible.
Primarily it is for data gathering to help stop the hysteria. That was worth the time, money and blood donation for me. We will never know the true extent of this virus, its impacts, its initial modeling accuracy until we start plugging facts into the “expert” hypotheticals.
Taking one for the team is the way I see it. Will I now become a local Typhoid Mary and our house burned down if this data becomes known? Or will people stop walking out into the roadway in faux deference to my advanced age as I pass by, from our deliciously virtue signaling “progressive” population in blue state California.
All
Am I right or wrong in thinking that when the injected liquidity plus existing cash exceeds the amount of money that would haven been in the economy at this point then the currency will begin to inflate?
Deap
“Provides baseline for duration of immunity; resilience of immunity or data showing re-infection can be possible. Primarily it is for data gathering to help stop the hysteria.” Yes
Colonel, you are NOT wrong. The oil business in America is going to take a very long time to recover. There are complete shutterings of businesses, bankruptcies and more – all while we were in the middle of a downturn. Personally, I just folded up my tent because my my active client list went from 21 to zero over this last month (and that includes intl clients).
As the number one buyer of US steel, the oilpatch represents much more than people realize. We have also been the number one buyer of many other items – where sales have disappeared as company quietly and reluctantly face the reality of the current induced glut.
I’m being forced to change livelihoods – interesting for me, as I am short of the age to get my SS check and too old to employ by most corporate masters….
pl,
Yes, I noticed Hunter Holmes when I reread Chancellorsville this time. I knew nothing about him until you mentioned him a while back. He also founded what is now the VCU Medical Center and was president of the AMA for a time. There is a statue of him on the State Capitol grounds, but i haven’t seen it yet.
Californians have had a gut full of abuse by their Governor and overzealous Law Enforcement.
A former Marine who is a doctor spoke up against thug tactics that was used on a pastor by baton carrying police.
https://youtu.be/DTqipTcwxyA
Colonel
There is a lot of talk about the Fed’s actions causing inflation, or even hyperinflation. Economists disagree, but I am more persuaded by the likes of Dr Lacy Hunt (who Jack linked to in a previous thread) who believe mild deflation is the short term consequence of the US’ chronic over indebtedness – i.e a Japanese scenario. Dr Hunt makes the point that (hyper)inflation can only occur if the Federal Reserve act is changed to allow out and out money printing. I would bet there will be efforts to do just this within the next 12 months. Why? Because the deflation & austerity route out of debt simply doesn’t win votes.
Here is an interview with Dr Hunt which covers the issue, it is well worth listening to IMO. Interview starts at 22:45.
https://www.macrovoices.com/838-macrovoices-217-dr-lacy-hunt-the-road-through-deflation-toward-eventual-hyperinflation
Eric Newhill,
The original Santa Clara study was replicated in LA, but it used the same unapproved antibody test that is known to give false positives. I don’t know the other studies. But it seems to me the key questions are – what antibody test was used; how was the sampling done; what are the assumptions within the statistical model and are those assumptions public.
There’s a lot of junk science out there, as Ioannides himself has been good at pointing out in the past. To filter out junk science, you need transparency and peer review.
Deep:
“…How, in fact, is this one materially different.”
Stay with me for a line or two. Trump’s management of C-19 will pretty much sink his 2020 election. His two ‘sure re-election bets” (sic) are #1 a 30,000 plus market, and #2 a serious overseas military action, read: war.
There is a #3 strategy: hammer home that the C-19 virus is NOT materially different from the flu we’ve been with for the past decades. #3 is about the only strategy that will put Americans back in stores and on planes in a matter of weeks/short a quarter…and has the advantage of geting Trump re-elected short of more Wall Street monkey business or a war.
David Solomon,
I think Roubini is biased towards pessimism. He correctly called the 2008 crash – but he spectacularly failed to call the recovery (it happened much earlier than he predicted). Barry Ritholtz on the other hand called both the crash … and more impressively, called the recovery with better timing than anyone else who I was tracking. My money is on Ritholtz.
I would say deflation is still the biggest (certainly most toxic) downside risk right now for us economy and currency in 2020.
The US real estate market is now officially ‘a hot bag of garbage’ and shortly will be ‘set on fire’ and ‘kicked off a cliff’:
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/dirt-cheap-u-mortgages-thwarted-133800011.html
I read awhile back that after the last mortgage crisis, since banks can’t do the collaterization of these mortgages the market doing the packaging and leveraging is a lot more opaque, up until now that is. It will be interesting to peek under that rock now that it will all need be deleveraged post haste.
https://www.realtor.com/news/trends/coronavirus-is-making-it-harder-for-borrowers-to-get-a-mortgage/
Col.,
Inflation is going to go through the roof, which is going to screw a lot of people on the bottom just like last time around.
J.,
“Beijing faces Tiananmen-like global backlash…”
That backlash was – being granted most favored nation trading status with the US, then entry into the WTO. That must have them shaking in their boots.I believe the honorable Deborah Dingell spent a couple of decades as a lobbyist at GM while they were moving most of its US based manufacturing out of the US all while her wonderful husband, who she succeeded in office, was busy helping defend the American worker! BTW France extended their quarantine for visitors, which means those Chinese tourists interested in seeing the sights better plan on a month long tour with the first two weeks being quarantine; and the French tourism industry, previously 10% of GDP, is in for a big fat zero all summer long. That’s bound to do wonders for Macron’s budget plans.
ST Harris,
So banks are refusing to offer home equity lines of credit when housing is not going to rise in value and people are forbidden to work by multiple state governments? That’s not a bubble popping but a very resonable move by a bank. The “bubble” that is going to pop is the higher education indoctrination mill bubble that is going to lose all those Chinese students, as well as other foreign students, as well as up to 20% of in residence American students. Those exorbitantly paid people running the accredited diploma mills will be right there in line with the local school systems, city and state pension plans and various others trying to convince the left to bail them out – all while explaining that half the population of the republic are “non essentials” and should be forbidden to work, for their own safety of course. That’s going to create a giant tear in the fabric of credibility for lefty ideology and leadership. Biden to the rescue! Not.
Deap,
“…will people stop walking out into the roadway in faux deference to my advanced age as I pass by, from our deliciously virtue signaling “progressive” population in blue state California.”
I see the same thing here in Florida though I don’t even have grey hair. They can’t give up their reusable bags either, and really, really don’t like being asked how they steriziled the thing before they brought it into the store for the cashier to handle while loading their groceries.
I’d say deflation for a few things, cars and oil come to mind. Inflation for homes (in the South and Southwest), stocks, precious metals. My realtor friends are expecting a serious Fall buying season here in Florida as the virus will be the straw that finally broke the camel’s back. We did go out for lunch, it’s a very pleasant day here by the water and all the tables where we went were full (operating at 25% capacity).
Background on how the two Ioannides group studies in Santa Clara and Los Angeles counties suffer from the same problems.
https://www.salon.com/2020/04/26/scientists-feud-over-hyped-stanford-coronavirus-antibody-study-the-authors-owe-us-all-an-apology/
PJ20,
And the completed New York City study?
And the studies being conducted in Michigan and Ohio?
IMO, Some people will delve into deep levels of hair splitting to keep the panic going.
“I would say deflation is still the biggest (certainly most toxic) downside risk..”
ST Harris,
Does your standard of living increase when the price of all you buy goes up? Was it so “toxic” when your TV and computer prices declined and you could get more for an hour of your labor?
I know I feel poorer as my health insurance premiums keep going UP, my kid’s tuitions and rents keep increasing, when a burger that used to cost $5 now costs $12.
PJ20,
BTW, thanks for the explanation of how science works. How are you unaware of the European studies that also confirm Ionide’s results?
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-04-24/coronavirus-mass-covid-19-antibody-tests-have-serious-limits
So what is wrong with the German, Swiss and Swedish studies?
Sir,
I hypothesize that there are a glut of goods in the marketplace that can help soak up the excess cash in the economy. Also, low oil prices translate to lower prices for any goods that rely on petroleum products to be produced in any fashion. But yes, what you speak of is inflationary, as an independent variable.
The words, digital and currency might take out the word inflation rather quickly.
Eric Newhall,
The European studies in the link you shared do nothing to confirm the Ioannides work. Different geographic areas will because of uneven dispersal of COVID will have different levels of prevalence and they can as well have different levels of COVID lethality because of demographic and environmental factors.
More importantly, the link you shared had this key sentence referring to the Ioannides studies – “Other studies, including one from California, delivered more promising results, but that was likely the result of imperfect testing.”
The California Ioannides work is being used to promote reopening and given that it is entirely reasonable that it be subject to strict scrutiny and that scrutiny by many scientists has found the Ioannides work deeply flawed.
Two of the critical flaws are. One, an unapproved antibody teat that was known to give false positives was used. Thus, given an unknown level of false positives and an extrapolation from a 4% sample to the entire population of Santa Clara and Los Angeles counties, you could have a mammoth error.
Two, they did not perform a random sample to get the 4%. Rather they advertised on Facebook and solicited volunteers from the parents at a school of a co-author’s son. That is not how you obtain a valid sample.
https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Wife-s-email-may-have-tainted-Stanford-15225414.php
I guess that, like it or not, America is reinforcing its position as a giant experiment. We are seeing how well “we the people” can govern themselves in the face of a confusing and perhaps deadly pandemic.
Where I am, in Victoria, Australia, we are in lockdown. We are not as tightly sealed as France and perhaps other countries, but it is annoying enough. I don’t buy the libertarian crap about big government attempting to subjugate anyone, although we will surely hear a chorus of leftists referring to some measures, for example the ban on hunting here, and saying “let’s make this permanent!.”
What I do buy is the common problem of public servants engaging in backside covering. Do you think Fauci, Birx or anyone with actual responsibility is going to want to end the lockdown without a vaccine? I don’t and I don’t blame them. Let politicians make that one and if it turns out to be wrong then they can shoulder the responsibility for the next wave of deaths.
It’s an easy call – ending lockdown, when you have no skin in the game. We will watch and hope you succeed.
walrus
If the US economy is kept shut down until a vaccine is widely available the US will be a shattered husk. The Democrat globalists can them proceed to use it as a building block for a world state.
There has been vast media coverage of the scale of the pandemic in New York,
with the unstated implication that
the problems NY has been experiencing will be replicated in other places
unless draconian restrictions are imposed in those places.
However, NY has some unique demographic and social conditions
which have enhanced both the rate of transmission of the virus and its lethality.
To wit, a significant population in NY, its Hasidic Jewish community,
maintains social practices of close social contact,
and also has a high incidence of obesity (which increases the lethality of the virus).
Further, this demographic has, hardly surprisingly, been hit very hard by the pandemic.
In the words of someone quoted by the NYT,
it is experiencing a “Plague on a Biblical Scale”. See:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/21/nyregion/coronavirus-jews-hasidic-ny.html
Quoting the NYT:
“The coronavirus has hit the Hasidic Jewish community in the New York area
with devastating force …”
One may wonder how many of the problems of that hospital in Brooklyn that was “under siege” were due to the situation so described.
See also:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/09/opinion/hasidic-jews-covid-distancing.html
“Hasidic communities are facing a unique challenge when it comes to controlling the spread of coronavirus.
I fear that in those places, highly communal lifestyles combined by [with] skepticism about the need for social distancing — at times prompted by religious leaders — are going to ost more lives.”
And for obesity issues in this community, see
https://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4116222,00.html
“Haredi sector suffers from obesity”
“the problem is seven times worse in the haredi sector than among seculars”
Another area in New York State that has a really exceptional rate of both cases and fatalities from COVID is Rockland County. Rockland also has one of the highest percentage of Jews in the nation.
The point is that some, perhaps many, of the dramatic and drastic problems that NY has been experiencing, and that have gotten so much play in the national media, are due to demographic and social conditions that are peculiar to NY.
To be clear, I am certainly not trying to blame one particular population for causing the pandemic.
What I am trying to say is that
to extrapolate the results of the pandemic to other regions, with populations having different social practices,
is almost surely an error.
monseiur peacock de azur,
as somebody paying overpriced rent in an overpriced city with an overpriced kid (ridiculous monthly insurance policy) i am all with you.
My comment was directed to the macro level of the us economy and currency – short term consumer collapse along with terrified restraining of credit by lenders can lead to deflationary cycle.
Unless you’re looking for proletarian uprising in 2021, deflation is bad bad juju for the US economy, and so even though i feel there will be hell to pay for the Fed actions right now, they should keep on doing it.
Frederick:
The ed admin bubble is popping hard indeed, but so are many other bubbles. Real estate, oil/energy, financial services, professional business services – will diamond joe come to the rescue? obviously not since the fact is we are all well and truly screwed. You could have the damn ghost of abraham lincoln come down from heaven and do a little presidenting, and not sure it would matter all that much. So much garbage has to be waded through, on top of a pandemic.
Are we even talking about the now getting hotter cold war with China that looks to require a lot of time, money, and attention in the next couple years?
Walrus,
“Where I am…” On your private estate prepared long ago for a comfortable retirement. Like the fine people on Long Boat Key with the private marina, private pools and private beach. Lots of space for their kids to fly in from Boston, NY and Chicago to wait out the wise wisdom of “public servants engaging in backside covering” and probably some anti-Trump maneuvering and profiteering to boot. On a bright note at least no one outside of Flynn’s attorneys and some deplorables are paying much attention to the recently released proof of the criminal conduct of the FBI and DOJ in framing the man.
If I borrow 100k from the bank a new balance sheet entry is created representing new money and as I transfer the money to a new bank additional balance sheet entry is created. As I pay back the loan the money in the balance sheet entry is extinguished. The problem with bankruptcies is that the banks have go outside and borrow new money to repair their balance sheet. The trillions in new money created by the Fed is designed to stopgap the imploding bank balance sheets. On the whole the process suggest deflation as there is a scramble to repair the balance sheets of the banks.
In my fevered little mind the only thing that can create hyperinflation is the shortages of real goods. It would not matter if money is digital. The wealthy will be able to outbid the less wealthy for goods. People would catch on quickly what has more value. Money or goods. As quickly as toilet paper rapidly disappeared so would everything else. Shortages of goods could come from the destruction of real capital.
btw
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/04/navy-sailors-coronavirus-uss-roosevelt-234125
“Some sailors attempting to walk back on board the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt are showing new signs of the virus that sidelined the ship more than a month ago, despite testing negative for Covid-19.
The Navy began moving hundreds of sailors back on to the ship last week after crew members spent more than a month in quarantine or isolation, but a small number have shown a fever or other symptoms of Covid-19 during pier-side checks before embarking, Navy spokesperson Lt. Rachel McMarr told POLITICO.”
Col. Lang,
Perhaps that was China’s plan all along. They think that American society is not resilient enough to survive a pandemic. They saw the self absorbed snowflakes and extrapolated. We need to prove them wrong.
If America is experiencing anything like Australia at the moment, the Democrats are also wrong. A wave of new found nationalism and revulsion of anything Chinese has already kicked off here.
The age of Totalitarian bullying has arrived.
AG Barr needs to stop this snowball before it grows any bigger.
https://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/constitution/item/35626-kansas-city-forces-businesses-churches-to-keep-lists-of-visitors-for-covid-19-tracking
@ inflation/deflation of the currency
Right now, what matters is the sheer amount of US Dollar credit and cash circulating globally.
As the global reserve currency, US$ circulate globally both in cash form and in the form of sovereign debt denominated in US$.
What is happening today is two fold.
On one hand, a large number of countries are fiscally compromised. This is especially the case in Europe and in all those countries that have adopted a socio/economic model that is supported and financed by the West.
On the other hand, capital requires protection.
Skipping a few stones along the way, what is happening is that global capital is in search of protection that till recently came in the form of government paper such as government bonds and obligations.
The problem is that over the past 2 decades, not only have governments entered into an irreversible fiscal impasse thus their paper no longer generates the yield required in return assumptions that color the strategies of various pension, investment and/or insurance funds for example.
Today therefore there is a mad rush to hoard US$ globally. Hence there is a funding shortage which incidentally has also precipitated the crisis in the Repo market that the Fed is still trying to desperately staunch.
This is driving the US$ exchange rate higher which in turn is putting pressure on all those countries that have sold sovereign debt in US$.
In fact, the US$’s exchange rate bottomed in 2008 and has not looked back since.
The higher the US$ goes, the greater the socio/economic pressure on all the countries that have adopted the US$ as reserve currency and that have sold sovereign debt denominated in US$.
Compared to the effect of domestic policies in the USA therefore, the policies of global capital have a far greater effect on the exchange rate of the US$.
The best data in the USA for infection fatality rate of COVID-19 is from New York (between 0.5% and 0.8% in a population that is not that old when compared to the rest of the country), as they did a ton of serological tests and the infection is pretty spread there, well above the statistical and false positive issues that make the studies done in California all but useless.
Anyway, here is one link:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/antibody-tests-support-whats-been-obvious-covid-19-is-much-more-lethal-than-flu/2020/04/28/2fc215d8-87f7-11ea-ac8a-fe9b8088e101_story.html
It is not even something really new.
Also, people should note that the IHME model, the one that a few weeks ago was the base for some people in power to say that there would be only 60k deaths, was updated to better predict the total number of deaths (instead of mostly predict the peak use of hospital beds) and the numbers almost doubled.
Regarding the targeted stay at home that is the real topic here, well… IMO, it is pie in the sky to imagine that the different groups will not interact and, to be honest, it ignores that death is not the only thing that comes out of this disease. Reduced lung capacity, thrombosis on younger people, possible neurological issues… the disease still is barelly understood.
Fred,
We aren’t a bunch of billionaires. We are hopefully smart retirees who saw through the BS of endless shopping malls and decided to build and inhabit real spaces where we are somewhat self sufficient and have like minded neighbours. We aren’t green zealots or Californian free love nuts either.
I grow vegetables in a tennis court sized garden next to – the tennis court. We cut and sell 40 acres of hay. Our neighbors have horses, cattle, sheep and vineyards. Strangely, if you want to, you can buy your own slice of paradise in Australia, there is plenty to go around. We serve on the hospital auxiliary and the volunteer fire brigade. We cut firewood and do meals for the elderly.
Yes, we have friends that are also city folk who saw the light, but we also mingle with people who never lived anywhere but here.
We just met a new neighbor and his family. He is ex Green Berets. He has already endeared himself this month by breaking both arms of the local drug dealer. This ain’t the Hamptons.
You have a right to be envious.
PJ20,
You are being too literal and you are too focused on the trees and ignoring the forest. You also waver toward trivialities in definitions. No one in the real world has time or resources to pull apart every study and peer review and replicate into perpetuity. The real world is not academia. You, like Fauci (assuming pure motives), do not seem to comprehend that.
The point is every study that has been done, from California to Europe to South Korea, has shown that, the more testing that is done, the more we see that the virus is more prevalent in society than previously believed and, thus, less lethal.
There are just about 0 doctors that think the virus is a threat to children or the young and healthy adult population. The testing that you nit pick has allowed them to be confident in that understanding. That is the knowledge that is driving the decisions to re-open the economy and lift the draconian house arrest policies.
J,
re And why would the CCP/MSS play such a dangerous game? — Bio-weapons R&D.
J, who says that China does that?
So far we have the US gvt assertions, not more than that – and sadly not all that convincing. That is to say, if Trump said that leafs on trees are green I would probably check that just to be safe (and said that, what about autumn?).
After all, Sadam also didn’t at all have these ever evasive chemical weapons George Bush Jr. asserted
knowing of the falsehood = deliberately liedso much. As far as LIES golets call the bad habit by its proper name– ‘Trump trumps him easily‘.The bitter joke of the last days for me was for one the US intelligence community saying it does not have any evidence for corona coming from a china laboratory
= nope, no chinese BC attack or acident, probably natural cause.Soon after that Pompeo manifested himself saying that he believes the US intelligence community – to happily contradicting himself immediately by adding that the evil chinese commies cooked it anyway, for which he has mega-mega–over-over-overwhelming evidence (that he naturally cannot tell anyone about since … super secret and all that)
= trust me.Maybe he is just infected with that current Whitehouse pandemy of that “reality is not reality, fact is not fact” germ. That the chinese gvt heads are not exactly nice people doesn’t mean the assertions about chinese evildoing are honest or factual.
Maybe the perpetualy witch hunted Trump (according to himself treated by media even worse than Lincoln!) is just playing his ‘blame china game’ (
who, as he said, also want him to lose re-election (and are pro-Biden), so it is a precaution re-election blamegame already, and in case he screwed up corona response it’s all clearly Obama’s, Biden’s, China’s & the WHO’s failure), hoping to get more of Navarro’s trade warsuper easy to win, and perhaps as a bonus a corona-ised regime change in China, that’s a US habit goal older than Trump’s own answer to anything else so far,compulsion & coercionpenal taxery.Blaming China of biological warfare against the US could also be just a bold, bold insurance, just in case shit hits the fan. That said, that conclusion is cynical, but playing that sort of a game is also.
WT Harris,
Lincoln was good at setting aside the constitution when it pleased him, which multiple governors are doing right now. Not the example of presidenting I want to see emulated.
“Am I right or wrong in thinking that when the injected liquidity plus existing cash exceeds the amount of money that would haven been in the economy at this point then the currency will begin to inflate?”
Inflate in relation to what? Gold, Silver, Oil, Euro, Yen, Healthcare or Food? It is all relative.
The anti-body testing would benefit as TTG suggest, by providing individuals with a peace of mind knowing they have had and survived the “killer” virus while also demonstrating scientifically that the virus is not as deadly as feared.
While governments, scientists and group-think can make all the proclamations they want, it will ultimately be down to each individual to choose their level of risk. In this sense, watching society re-establish itself to some sense of normalcy will be interesting to witness.
Eric,
You say that COVID is less lethal than previously thought. The problem with that is that we don’t know how lethal it is because the death records are not always capturing COVID as a cause. To illustrate that, please see the charts in this link – https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2020/04/16/tracking-covid-19-excess-deaths-across-countries
Or, read this article from a few days ago – https://www.theweek.com/speedreads/912453/true-death-toll-coronavirus-pandemic-could-half-times-higher-new-research-shows
On top of that we don’t yet know what the lasting effects of COVID are on people across age groups who recover. There are already many signs of lasting lung and other organ damage which could very well lead to premature death of many of those now recovered.
Now, I’m just as sick of shelter-in-place as any other sane person. But I believe that unplanned unorganized reopenings will cause immense pain and suffering. Hospitals and clinics have to have all the PPE they require, along with critical care and ventilator capacity. Testing capability has to be adequate both in quantity and quality of the test. Contact tracing has to be ready to insure that the inevitable new cases do not cause further spread. Lastly, the population has to accept the wearing of masks.
Walrus,
Envy, like Pride, is a sin. Enjoy the vegetables, the tennis, and the neighbor who regales you with tales of glory.
Chloroquine is a potent inhibitor of SARS coronavirus infection and spread
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1232869/
This is from Fauci’s institute back in 2005. Their research showed it had “both prophylactic and therapeutic advantage.”
PJ20,
If you were a sane person, you would be able to see the costs of “sheltering in place”. Some of those costs are medical life and death matters as well. People are not getting treatment for emergent, acute and chronic conditions because their doctors’ offices are closed and because they have been made to fear going out. People are dying of conditions like appendicitis, diabetes, cardio-vascular issues, infections. Malignant tumors are going undiagnosed and untreated; a condition where time is of the essence. People are dying of these conditions, or will die.
Psychiatric medication prescriptions are up 25% since the lockdown. Suicides and drug ODs are up significantly. This is all from the data and I have participated in the studies at work.
Anecdotally, alcohol sales (= consumption) are way up, As are incidents of domestic abuse.
IMO, all of that outweighs the covid deaths and must be considered when evaluating policy options.
You seem to be motivated to only focus on covid itself for some reason.
All
Sorry if this has been posted here elsewhere, but a 100% of population serology test in a Tennessee correctional facility has showed very encouraging results:
2444 inmates tested
53% found positive – of which 98% were asymptomatic
0 deaths
https://www.newschannel5.com/news/more-than-1k-at-trousdale-turner-correctional-center-test-positive-for-covid-19
The virus is not the flu. It is much worse. Hospitals had to expand ICUs, use outpatient OR to expand their ICU capabilities. Patients dying in ERs, medical staff infected and many dying.
New York City is about 20% infected based on testing of all pregnant women being admitted and also based on antibody testing. The fatality rate is probably 0.3-0.5% or in that range. Aside from age and diabetes/hypertension/obesity, there are no predictors of death. A young healthy athletic person in their 30s can die from this. We doctors are really scared of this. I was not scared of H1N1. Even N95 PPE is not 100% protective. We know colleagues who used proper PPE but still got infected.
New Zealand, Australia, Taiwan, South Korea were able to control their outbreaks. The virus can be beaten and controlled.
The economy will be back once people are reassured there is a treatment/vaccine that will significantly reduce the mortality rate. I’m optimistic we will have a vaccine and more effective treatment regimens.
There will be many innovations in the next 2-3 years. better masks? Airplanes with closed kiosks? Controlled airflows? Your own filtered air supply like a fighter pilot?
Capitalist economies will bounce back, some industries will die but others will thrive.
DoctorM
“Capitalist economies will bounce back, some industries will die but others will thrive.” Capitalist economies? Not the kind you like obviously. The US is dying.
America killers Doctor M and PJ20 are working from different and conflicting notes.
New York City not = United States. Put a military quarantine around NYC and let the rest of us go back to living and working.
Fred,
Off topic, but regarding “ tales of glory”, the gentleman concerned has just bought a house near us and we were barely on nodding terms with him and his wife and two kids. They run a cleaning business. His property backs on to the aforementioned drug dealers place. We didn’t know there was a dealer there because the occupants kept to themselves.
Anyway, the ex GB has been cleaning up the ten acres of his new place, removing scrub, etc. He was working at his fenceline near two large sheds on the next door property when the dealer appeared and took a shot at him with a shotgun and missed. The dealer then dropped the gun, came through the fence and onto GB’’s property, apparently intending to do harm, calling GB a “problem” that he intended to fix.
GB then broke both his arms to ensure he couldn’t use the gun again and called the police. Five police cars and two ambulances turned up (we all saw that, but didn’t know the story until a few days ago.). The dealers sheds were full of cannabis and worse. We are not sure what he is charged with. GB’s PTSD has “woken up” and his family is also very upset. He is having treatment and is worried about being charged with “using excessive force”, although we all think that is ludicrous. We are all doing our best to support them.
Nobody knows how this will end. Unlike storybooks, events like these don’t always have happy endings.
Breaking news. The French have found a case of Covid19 from 27 December.
I’m not sure of the impact of this news.
https://www.smh.com.au/world/europe/after-retesting-samples-french-hospital-discovers-covid-19-case-from-december-20200505-p54prz.html
walrus
PTSD? Nah. Just taking care of business.
Colonel – above you mention inflation. As a result of all that money issuance the Central Banks are doing. You have some contributors who do finance so I was hoping one of them might address the question.
Some say the status of the US dollar as the reserve currency, and the consequent demand for dollars from the rest of the world, should mean that the vast sums being issued at the moment might not in any case have an inflationary effect.
Which is nice, if so. Perhaps, if one of your financial experts does go into the subject, he or she will explain how countries that don’t happen to run the world’s reserve currency can get away with it too.
Asking for a friend.
EO,
I just read that your version of Fauci and architect of the UK’s “shelter in place” policy, Ferguson, has been forced to resign because he apparently doesn’t really believe in sheltering in place. He has been caught sneaking out of his shelter to rendez vous with his married lover. Kind of like Chicago’s shelter in place strong arm enforcer mayor who was caught sneaking out to have her hair done. So the “experts” don’t really fear the virus?
I’m curious. What do your people think about that?
I live in Michigan. I agree with much that the Governor hear has done. However, I find it hard to stomach the ‘stories’ of hospitals being overwhelmed, while reading the reports available on the STATES OWN WEBSITE, that show over half the ICU beds in the hardest hit regions being only half full, and over half the ventilators still available. This does not jive with the stories of sharing ventilators and lack of PPE. Also, the state a few weeks ago removed it’s ‘PPE Inventory Reports’ that showed millions of available N95 mask, shields and PPE clothing. They are sowing misinformation on purpose, and the data that they are publishing proves it. The weekly updates that are being spoon fed to the low information masses do not match the data that is easily available online. Even ignoring the far right extremists that the press loves to throw pictures up of on the television, this state was coming very close to revolt.
Walrus,
Sounds like a really stupid dope grower. Leaving out the cops made it much more enjoyable a tale.
“French have found a case… “I’m not sure of the impact of this news.”
Lots of ass covering will begin as the real information comes out about actual death rates thus distracting from China’s complicity in ensuring the virus was as widespread and simultantously present in the West as possible. That fact will get burried in an ongoing media barrage highlighting the rush to cash in on expensive cures before the cheap and readily available one is proven to be effective in a way even ‘scientists’ can’t deny.
Mr Newhill – heard about Ferguson going. Couldn’t see what the fuss was about – apparently the woman visited him, not the other way round, so it was her business not his if the regs were broken.
Seems the BBC reports his crime as being that he “allowed” her to visit. Curiously “patriachal” language for a Prog outfit like the BBC. And are we now expected to check that any visitors we may receive have arrived at our house in accordance with current regulations?
But since Ferguson was responsible for advising lockdown it was chancing it, I suppose, to be associated with someone breaking it.
On a related matter, I’ve been getting some stick on an English website, sometimes from compatriots of yours. My take on the US side of things is that Trump and his team acted with admirable decision once it was realised that this virus was getting out of hand.
Also the policy that Trump set out for coming out of lockdown was the right one – test and track, maybe local lockdowns if needed to contain the inevitable further local outbreaks.
I’ve contrasted this American (and German) approach with the UK approach, which until recently and maybe even now is all over the place.
But my interlocutors don’t agree. They claim that Trump screwed up.
I know you don’t approve of lockdowns but apart from that and setting all the petty stuff about bleach etc on one side, and given that you’re sitting right in the heart of the American medical system, do you reckon The Trump/Pence team got the policy right for coming off lockdown?
Eric Newhill,
I have not made any personal comments, nor will I. I did notice in your last post you labeled me an “America Killer.” I had thought this board was a place for reasoned discussion, not ad hominem attacks.
As I said above, I’m sick of shelter-in-place, and I listed what seems to me and many others are reasonable conditions for reopening. In rereading that, I notice I left one out, and that is, before reopening a state, new cases of Covid must be on a clear down trend with the R0, or basic reproductive ratio, at less than 1.
I’m sure you have seen that many states are relaxing their shelter-in-place orders. Unfortunately, many of these states are still showing daily increases in new cases. To reopen in those circumstances, is inviting a second wave of a severe magnitude. You can check this prediction out in 2 – 3 weeks. (Though perhaps some of those states reopening will regain their senses.)
Also, you noted in an earlier post that almost no physician suggests that the virus seriously effects children. You might want to read this – https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/05/nyregion/children-Kawasaki-syndrome-coronavirus.html?smid=tw-share
Our experience with the virus is only recent and we will very possibly learn of more damaging effects, e.g. in one of my earlier posts I noted we are learning of many ‘recovered’ patients with serious lung and other organ damage which could well lead to premature death, but thus not yet counted in the death rate.
EO,
Thx for the reply re; Furgeson. Interesting.
“do you reckon The Trump/Pence team got the policy right for coming off lockdown?”
First, I agreed with the original two week lockdown. That seemed painful to small business, but neither unreasonable nor unrecoverable; especially given that we didn’t know much about the virus at the time.
However, for at least a month, the data has been sufficient to understand that the virus is killing the elderly and infirm and to re-work policies such that the elderly and infirm are protected and the rest of us can get back to normal life. We have also had time to understand that the WHO/CDC models were all wrong and should not be used as a basis for policy. Except, possibly, New York City, the overwhelming of hospitals never occurred. Even there, the hospital ship only briefly took on a small volume of hospital overflow and has now pulled out of harbor.
IMO, I think Pence/Trump have been dragging their heals for too long with regards to ending the lockdown, though I understand the concept of federalism (states versus Washington) and I understand, but don’t appreciate, the vicious politics involved.
All of that said, to be honest, I don’t know what their policy for ending the lockdown is, exactly. I have heard conceptual bits and pieces; no coherent plan – there might be one. I just haven’t personally been exposed to it. I do know that the lockdown must end immediately or the economy will be lost for many years and there is a very real chance of major civil unrest; basically, the wheels coming completely off the country. I have a good sense that is what our enemies want and are working towards. They want to rebuild the country as a socialist state. Got to crack a few eggs to make an omelet.
If I was in charge in the form of Good King Newhill I would end the lockdown immediately such that not even the slightest remnant of it existed and I would install strict measures to protect the vulnerable.
PJ20,
Keep talking. You’re proving my point.
Eric Newhill – thanks for your assessment. I think you’re right that the economy has suffered a most damaging blow, though I do think it likely that the virus has done the most of that rather than government response, and will continue to do so.
But I must say I’m astounded by the lack of elementary administrative ability that has been revealed in so many Western countries by this pandemic.
It’s not so much the failure to plan for this particular sort of pandemic, though there were mistakes even there that could have been avoided. It’s the failure to prepare for any pandemic at all.
Limited facilities for isolating patients – you wrote recently about a serious failure to isolate that you saw occurring – inadequate stockpiles of kit for medical staff and no plans for producing that kit in quantity if needed, no skeleton infrastructure that could be used as a basis for expansion, not even back-up for the morgues. That’s a quite astonishing lack of adequate forward planning.
It’s as if a country found itself in a war and discovered its army didn’t function and was incapable of being made to function.
This compounded by a devastating slowness of reaction and a refusal by whoever handled the early stages to think on their feet.
When it was finally realised that the thing was serious I imagine that lockdown was the only Hail Mary they could reach for. Quite unnecessary, had the respective administrations had an ounce of mother wit and got a grip earlier.
During that 2016 Trump election campaign the theme was that our various crony administrations ran their respective countries for their own benefit, not ours. True enough, except that what this pandemic has revealed is that most of them can’t run a country at all.
EO
“the virus has done the most of that rather than government response” That is demonstrably, visibly untrue. In this country, we have only rapidly dying airlines, railroads, bus lines. We have no schools. We have rapidly developing food shortages in a land of plenty. Food animals are being slaughtered and discarded for lack of market demand. We have a vast sea of us who have lost our jobs and incomes. Our manufactures are declining
by the month. The government did all of that, not the virus.
we must save our country by accepting casualties. Yes. A lot of people will die so that the nation may live.
pl,
Food animals are being slaughtered because the meat processing plants have been hit by covid-19. Those plants were going full bore as essential businesses until the virus actually hit the workforce. The food shortages are due more to the direct effects of the virus rather than the enforced shutdown. Local watermen who sell oysters, crabs and such to restaurants are also being hit hard. That’s a direct result of government action. Our local Decatur’s Crabs are still doing fine since they sell mostly to the public. There’s a line of cars to pick up their bushel of number 1 jimmies at their Plank Road location in Fredericksburg.
Col.,
Yes indeed, the government did it all. Some states and local governments are making it worse, too. Today I made a business trip up to Tampa. The city is like a ghost town even though the state was supposed to start reopening on the 4th. On the way back over the Gandy Bridge Causeway, which has a stretch of beach on either side on the Pinelas County (west end) there were 9 (yes nine) Sheriff’s deputies patrolling the 50 odd cars/people in that stretch who were fishing. (Good thing I only picked up a coke at the bait shop on the Tampa side.) It’s a perfectly asinine authoritarian overreach but is apparently happening in plenty of other places too. But on a bright note the Mayor (Tampa) is gay, and woman!Yay! A lot of businesses are never going to recover; God knows what she thinks those people are going to do to make a living if she succeeds in economically destroying the places many once worked at. Maybe she can change parties again like she did to get herself elected a year ago.
BTW Traffic on I275 from the Sarasota area to Tampa and back was about 30% of what it would normally be that time of day and this time of year. Sarasota has a different county government and a lot of wealthier segment of retirees so isn’t likely to do as bad as Tampa, which is a much bigger and more blue collar city.
Gateway Pundit: …” In her report (NYT writer) Fink describes how Imperial College researchers including Neil Ferguson* shared their projections with Dr. Fauci and Dr. Birx and the White House coronavirus task force. They even sent a copy of their report to the task force before its release (March 16)…..”
NB: *Imperial College researcher Ferguson’s married lover is a key employee of AVAAZ, a radical leftist “click-tivism” group, with 60 million very active online global members.
AVAAZ strongly supported Bernie Sanders in both the 2016 and 2020 election. Bernie Sanders lost to Biden Feb 29. Bill Gates is also an AVAAZ supporter.
Sir,
Thank you. I know you have faced the bullets and age has not diminished your courage, as you are aware that you are in the high risk group for the virus.
Two years ago my wife got stung on the legs by ground bees (nasty little things that inhabit holes in the ground, like abandoned gopher holes). There were welts up and down her legs and she was in pain, but we didn’t think much about it other than she decided a warm bath might help. She went upstairs to fill the bath and I was downstairs in my home office wrapping up something for work. About 15 minutes later I heard a loud thud. I knew that wasn’t right and I ran upstairs to find my wife semi-conscious on the floor of the bathroom. Her face was swollen and her lips turning blue and she was gasping for air. I knew what was happening and dialed 911. It took them maybe 10 minutes to get to our house. We were lucky because the paramedics had been returning from taking someone up to the city and were closer to our place than they’d normally be. It seemed like forever before they arrived. The whole time I was literally watching my wife die. I felt powerless. I even made the decision that if the paramedics didn’t get here in time, I’d try to perform a tracheotomy myself – even had a knife and a plastic straw that I’d run down and grabbed from the kitchen (got to do something, right?). It was the most horrible experience. Fortunately, the paramedics arrived and instantly shot her up up with a couple different drugs They had to hit her a total of five times on the way to the hospital. I bought the lead paramedic a beer a few weeks later and he told me that they had never had to use that many shots to keep someone alive.
I don’t ever want to see my wife like that again. I hope I go before she does. We are in an age bracket of increased risk, though not at the highest level yet. However, we are both willing to have the country get back to normal and face the virus – even if it meant a final repeat of the experience – this nation and its ideals are infinitely more important that either of us individuals.
TTG
“The food shortages are due more to the direct effects of the virus rather than the enforced shutdown.” Since most infections are either mild in their effect or asymptomatic the shut-downs in the meat factories are largely caused by panic among the workers and management brought on by media hype and Fauci-esque obsession.
Eric Newhill
A terrible experience for you. My doctor and his wife are Chinese immigrants. She is his receptionist. She asked me recently why I am not afraid. I told her that this could be explained as a consequence of a lack of imagination.
Well Colonel, let me get personal for the moment. You have no duty to risk infection for the sake of your country. You have a duty not to.
This site is the only site that gives a balanced, judicious and above all informed critique of neocon foreign policy. OK, there are others that go in for looking at it, but they are all contaminated with gut anti-Americanism or material about behind the scenes conspiracies that don’t exist. One can often get information from them, if one makes allowance for the weird stuff, but never authoritative assessment.
So we pilgrims can’t spare you, Colonel. Just as you would never have dreamed of strolling around in the open if there were snipers around, you have a duty to keep your head down until we know where we are with this damned virus.
We don’t yet, but the general outlines of the disaster are emerging. The economy was inevitably going to be hard hit as soon as this virus got into the West. Sure, these crude lockdowns should have been entirely unnecessary. Had there been a concerted effort from the start to contain infection, and to knock it back as soon as it poked its head up anywhere, this would have been a manageable public health crisis. But that couldn’t happen.
1. The scientific/medical consensus was blurred. As late as mid February the responsible European body was assuring us all – and the politicians – that there was low risk. I’m pretty sure that’s how it was in the US as well, to go by the statements made at the time.
2. It turns out that such plans as were made for dealing with such a pandemic were the wrong plans. Worse, there were not even sketches of an effective plan for dealing with any pandemic.
So the various authorities were caught on the hop, blundering around and sometimes making things worse. Your contributor, Mr Newhill, has seen this up close in the US and the public health expert I have referred to before on your site, Dr North, sees the same in the UK. Here he is getting to grips with hospital acquired or caused infections that I believe Mr Newhill has seen also –
http://www.eureferendum.com/blogview.aspx?blogno=87600#disqus_thread
Scarcely confidence inspiring, not now we’re several months into the pandemic.
3. The sharp political conflicts in the States and in much of Europe – that’s not exactly conducive to a unanimous and measured approach to the crisis. For much of the American population whatever Trump does he is damned, and for some half of the UK population whatever the PM decides is ipso facto wrong.
Those three points are not partisan points. They outline merely why the initial response to the coronavirus in most Western countries could not have been effective. We citizens are sailing in a ship of fools, Colonel, and no point pretending it could have been any different.
So what now? I’m still obstinately convinced that, given we are where we are, the public health policies for coming off lockdown I’ve seen outlined by the Trump/Pence team in those early White House Press Briefings are the best way out. I’m also sure the Germans have got a better handle on this thing than most of the rest of us.
But whether that Trump/Pence team will do any good is still in the balance. There’s a tendency in Europe to see Trump as C in C America and not take account of the fact he’s got to take Congress with him on anything big, and even then deal with State Governors who might well have their own ideas. And the measures taken in Germany, though admirable and so far effective, also have no guarantee of success. It could be that even in the countries with correct policies this disease will become endemic, and in those without it’ll be a shameful series of disasters.
And the economy is wrecked either way. The efforts needed to contain this disease cannot but harm the economy. If those efforts are not made, or fail, and the disease becomes endemic, and if no vaccines or effective treatments emerge, then the characteristics of this disease will have their inevitable effect. Whatever governments do the pattern of consumption, of trade, and of work, will change so radically that the economy we know now will no longer exist.
…”I told her that this could be explained as a consequence of a lack of imagination.” Or it could be explained by that extraordinary gustatory sense that tells one that the meal being served is overpriced and undercooked bullshit.
EO,
I think you’re tops, but, unfortunately, just wrong about most everything when it comes to this virus. You’re entire outlook, it seems to me, is based on the notion that there is something unprecedented about this particular virus. Yes, the media, the politicians/socialists and the govt epidemiological geeks keep pushing that message, but the data doesn’t support it (guess that makes me a geek too, albeit with a broader perspective and background).
I mean I just don’t see it. I see nothing to make me believe that it won’t behave like the Hong Kong Flu of 1968/1969 or the Asian Flu of 1957/1958. Who remembers those? We didn’t destroy our economy and civil liberties over those outbreaks. We accepted the casualties and moved on. And that has been my message since the data started coming in over a month ago.
The Award for the Most Purple Prose in a single post goes to……..???
–damned virus
–disaster
–public health crisis
–contain the infection, knock it back as soon as it poked its head
–ship of fools
–shameful series of disasters
–no vaccines, no treatment — the economy is wrecked
–change so radical … the economy we know will no longer exist
“I told her that this could be explained as a consequence of a lack of imagination.”
Je pense que vous êtes trop modeste. Votre courage et créativité sont manifestes; aussi bien que votre amour du pays.
Eric,
” ground bees” I feel your wife’s pain; I had that experience at age 7 at a park somewhere along the Potomac while my father was still working in D.C. No anaphylactic shock, but 37 or so stings and a lifelong dislike of hornet’s nests.
EO,
“For much of the American population ….” I think that is changing rapidly. The left’s current assault on our own people, the fraud in the Russia Collusion investigation, the Ukraine Impeachment and now the Flynn case has shorn a great deal of the left’s credibility; now there is the implosion of trust in local government capability, especially in NYC, Corona Death Capital of the Republic, mostly due to Cuomo and de Blasio’s criminal malfeasance. Some corrupt ass in power in Ventura County California is now backtracking after threatening taking children away from parents “contact tracing” being the excuse. The drawing back of the curtain on the Fauci and Birx corrupt data analysis driven patent medicine show is going to put another nail in the vampire’s chest. “It’s the economy, stupid” worked for Bill Clinton’s campaign, it will only highlight that lefty governors ordered people to be classified as essential or expendable and stay home and do what you are told. Party loyalty uber alles only go so far with the masses. Steal their jobs, their savings, threaten their children – for their own good, and now ask them to vote Biden and his mystery VP because Trump hurts their feelings? Good luck with that one. Better rig the election outright. BTW, did you notice nobody seems to talk about where 22 million illegals went or just how anyone is going to contract trace them? Me neither. How many congressional seats and electoral votes, and votes in this election, do they add up to?
Hi Deap!
Are you a deplorable? If so, welcome, brother, and I would merely observe that literary criticism is best practiced in private before one exposes one’s fledgling attempts to the pitiless gaze of the SST commentariat.
But if you’re a prog LOOK OUT. I have bad news for the horse you rode in on.
Eric – this is something that you’re an expert on and I’m not. So all I can do by way of argument is to throw reports at you from other experts that you’ve probably already read and in any case understand better than I do.
But could not the argument be broadened out to include the inevitable public response to the panic element of the pandemic, the response of much of the public to how the various governments are handling this pandemic, and the failure on the part of what we might loosely call “Middle England” or the equivalent in the USA to get a grip on what this pandemic might mean for the future.
1. Leaving the epidemiological avenue of approach out, therefore, we might take account of the fact that it’s the public response to the virus that will determine what happens to the economy as much as what the authorities do.
That public response, if there’s no treatment or vaccine emerging, is inevitable. Many in the UK were going into “personal lockdown” before any official lockdown was announced. In cases I know of local businesses and their employees were therefore suffering loss of trade well before lockdown. For those businesses all that lockdown meant was that the employees got some state money to keep going rather than none at all. But those businesses were part ruined by the public response to the pandemic rather than by what the government did.
When the lockdown is lifted many won’t go back to their old buying habits, not for a while and not until they’re sure they won’t catch the disease. Warren Buffet getting out of airlines (unless that’s some “buy the dip you’ve caused” scam, which I doubt) is clear indication that he expects patterns of consumption to alter.
We don’t know yet whether Trump will use the opportunity to cut down on trade with the Far East and cheap labour countries and “bring industry back home”. Or whether consumers or businessmen will do it for him. But interruption in that flow of cheap goods, and their replacement by necessarily more expensive home produced goods, will be a radical change.
And the USA sells goods and services abroad. Even if it comes out of the pandemic with a healthy economy, many of its customers won’t. That perhaps a more serious problem for the UK, with its over-dependence on Financial Services to keep the ship afloat, but it will also be a consideration for the States.
So leaving the epidemiological stuff to one side, and merely looking at the inevitable consequences of the pandemic, we’re in for change unless that treatment or vaccine comes along soon.
Very big change if the colossal reaction by the central banks goes awry.
2. I’m not happy with the reaction of my sort of people – call them deplorables for want of a better term – to this pandemic. Our instinct for the fake – and there’s a lot of fakery around at the moment – is leading us to scorn the government policy that led to lockdown. But that’s now water under the bridge. The fact is that lockdown or not, there’s a lot going wrong in any case with the way our government and institutions are dealing with this pandemic.
The criminal failure to separate Covid-19 patients from others has led to unnecessary deaths and the failure to take normal public health measures, or to push those measures as they ought to be pushed, will lead to more. I don’t know about over your way, but over here the scepticism about lockdown would be better employed looking sharp at the strategy for coming off it.
3. But there’s a wider concern yet. On the principle of “never let a crisis go to waste” the progressives are certainly looking to see how the crisis can be used to advance their agenda. I noticed that Governor Cuomo, even as he was facing that “Battle on the Mountain” in New York, took time out at one of his press conferences to remark that the pandemic meant things would alter and it would be a good idea to start thinking now about how they should alter.
And I bet the progs are thinking about that very hard. I see no sign that the deplorables, or what AG Barr calls the “Conservatives” and what we in the UK call the “small “c” conservatives” are doing any such thinking.
So in my country at least it looks as if things haven’t changed very much in that respect. The deplorables are very good at seeing through the cronies, not that that’s difficult. They’re vociferous in deploring what has been done. But when it comes to fashioning policies for what ought to be done – on what I’m hearing over here we’re a busted flush so far.
EO,
I understand what you are saying and I think that, academically, you make some fair points. However, I have to fall back on the Hong Kong Flu, which appears to have been just as bad. None of the drastic measures occurred and life went on as normal. Indeed, I believe that would have been the case with covid had the media, governments and shadow organizations not seized upon the situation to destroy the western world, especially America. That is to say, that, IMO, we are in a war and our enemies are winning, having infiltrated our governments and media.
I don’t think this is an actuarial or epidemiological phenomenon at all. I think referring to those sciences is a side show. Again, this is war. The war is not entirely just a perfect storm of opportunists and dunces doing damaging things. There are forces deliberately driving well calculated damaging policies and they are also encouraging the opportunists and dunces to act as they inevitably would. Look at what Avaaz wants and what they are saying about the opportunities the virus presents. Why was Fauci meeting with Bill Gates at a globalist forum a couple years ago?
I believe that had the virus been messaged properly, people would have acted as they did in 68/69 (Hong Kong flu) and the elderly/vulnerable would have been properly protected. We would have built immunity and that would have been the end of it.
I remeber our schools closing for a few weeks as a result of thee 1957 Hong Kong flu, only because so many kids were out sick that it made no sense to keep the classrooms going.
But I don’t remember any panic. Just a bummer flu. Which I did not get. Then everything was back to normal. How did my parents think about this flu or the nation at large as a global danger, not on my radar as a teenager.
There was another flu that hit badly over a Christmas vacation period a decade or so ago, when everyone coming back from the holidays could talk about nothing else other than how bad it was, how laid up everyone was and how nothing else happened during that holiday time off anyway.
Which flu was that – it seemed like it had about a two week spread and duration. And then it was back to business as usual. I got it, stayed in bed, took two asprin and lost 5 pounds. No complaints.
However my elderly father, who was in a senior living center was taken to ER by ambulance for similar symptoms, was given two (2!) CT scans and sent home, with a later fully paid $10,000 Medicare bill. plus the charge for his two aspirins. That is when I became very cynical about mining the elderly for their Medicare policy limits.
Eric – this is the most cogent exposition of the anti-lockdown argument I’ve seen. I think it might be close to your opinion.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=22&v=bfN2JWifLCY&feature=emb_logo
I like Giesecke. Reminds me of the stolid General Kujat giving it to us straight, back during the Ukrainian hot war. I’m not qualified, as said before, to evaluate Giesecke’s argument but I know one thing he got dead right. Once you’re in lockdown it’s hell’s own job to come off it.
And I think that in what’s necessary in order to come off lockdown your professional view coincides with my gut feeling.
Thanks for the trouble you’ve taken in replying. Appreciate it.
EO,
Yes. I agree with that Dr. – He says what we are seeing in the data. This is a normally mild virus. Most people who contract it will never know they did so. Those who die from it were going to die from something in the next few months anyhow. The lockdown isn’t going to save anyone’s life. 60% of those dying in New York City and New Jersey were locked down at home. The virus got into their homes and killed them anyhow. Maybe in some geographies the lock down “flatten the curve” a bit and helped hospitals cope with the patient flow. Observe my use of “some” and “maybe”. That’s the policy benefit side. Pretty thin gruel.
Then there is the cost side. The trashed economy, The people dying for lack of medical care for non-covid illnesses and the damage to civil liberties.
This should be a no brainer.
Mind you, when I say “we see in the data”, I’m not talking about models. I’m talking about actual claims, etc. that allow us to describe who is getting this, build a clinical profile based on medical history, where it’s happening, etc. That info can then be tied to proven models that tell us how many years these people would have lived if they never contracted the virus.
Insurance companies are superior to the CDC/WHO because we have to be. $billions and careers are dependent on getting it right. We are not government workers that swim in a political swamp and play with other people’s money and who can’t be fired.