Covid-19 Politics

[broncofan]

Millions watched online streaming, Millions. As for Tulsa, attendees would have been close to a million had Patriotic Americans not been intimidated and threatened by a phalanx of Leftists, Ultra-Leftists, Marxists, Marxist-Leninists, Trotskyists, Maoists, Posadists -never forget the Posadists-, Anarchists, Anarcho-Syndicalists, Muslims, and of course, the Black Panthers. Or maybe that's fake news.

Meanwhile, Covid-19 cases in Oklahoma continue to rise each day...and that's not a joke.

Cases in Oklahoma, California, Arizona, and Florida are very worrisome. The governor of Florida is a guy named Desantis who has been a Trump ass kisser from the beginning of the pandemic. He was late closing beaches and early opening up the state and for a long time Florida's numbers were very good. They are now spiking and starting to get a bit out of control.

There was talk about warm weather slowing transmission a little bit, which is speculative but plausible. It's interesting though, that if you're in a state that's extremely hot and uncomfortably humid like Florida, the weather can bring you inside. The difference in transmission between being inside and outside is probably much greater than differences in temperature and humidity.

But Florida's spiking numbers have also put the lie to some people's claim that countries that were able to control their outbreaks had advantages in climate. If people congregate indoors together, and distancing breaks down, numbers spike.

[filghy2]

Cases in Oklahoma, California, Arizona, and Florida are very worrisome. The governor of Florida is a guy named Desantis who has been a Trump ass kisser from the beginning of the pandemic. He was late closing beaches and early opening up the state and for a long time Florida's numbers were very good. They are now spiking and starting to get a bit out of control.

One of the Australian states has recently reimposed some restrictions in response to a surge in new cases of around 15-20 per day (out of a population of more than 6 million). The US is still getting 20,000-30,000 new cases per day, yet many of your politicians seem to be acting as if this virus is no longer a big concern.

The US is looking like an outlier among developing countries in its inability to control this virus. Apart from Sweden (which has been conducting its own experiment with limited restrictions) I think just about every other developed country has been able to reduce the rate of new cases to a fraction of its peak level back in March-April. It's not just because you are doing so much testing either - I saw somewhere that the percentage of positive tests in the US is relatively quite high.

Colder weather does not appear to have had much effect on transmission rates in Australia and New Zealand either.

It has been about a month since the last Covid-19 death here, so the sense of danger has definitely diminished. I must admit when I read about the recent outbreaks my main concern is what it might mean for my holiday plans. I like to go somewhere warmer during the winter but at the moment I can't even go to the warmer states in Australia because their borders are still closed.

[broncofan]

Back in January I had made big travel plans for this summer and was looking forward to them but by March knew it wasn't going to happen.

When this is under control and we've been vaccinated we really have to do a post-mortem. The mistakes and missed opportunities are too numerous to keep track of.

The most obvious thing is there's just too much pressure on governors not to do their jobs and we have no federal leadership. I've mentioned this but my county has 1.2 million people and had about 10 cases the other day. It contains the city of Pittsburgh, which has reasonable population density so it's not an outlier in that regard.

So that's the basis for my view that if we'd done a good job we'd have about 5000 new cases a day nationwide. It's not as good as many places, but the 30,000 number shows poor national leadership. Once one place is under control there's an explosion elsewhere.

As you say, increased testing doesn't explain everything. It might mean our cfr will be lower for this 30,000 than it was when we had 30,000 two months ago, but percentage positives have started climbing.

I know there are those reading this who understand we've done a poor job but think maybe public health recommendations strike the wrong balance between safety and individual choice. What have we gained by doing a poor job? Is there some benefit I've missed that offsets the loss of life? Is our economy better?

And on the right, all these people worried about the tyranny of being forced to wear a mask inside while applauding the President when he fires inspectors general, cripples the Justice Department, and threatens to use the military against protesters.

[filghy2]

I know there are those reading this who understand we've done a poor job but think maybe public health recommendations strike the wrong balance between safety and individual choice. What have we gained by doing a poor job? Is there some benefit I've missed that offsets the loss of life? Is our economy better?

And on the right, all these people worried about the tyranny of being forced to wear a mask inside while applauding the President when he fires inspectors general, cripples the Justice Department, and threatens to use the military against protesters.

I haven't seen too many reputable economists arguing for early ending of restrictions. Most of them understand that there can't be a sustained economic recovery unless the virus is brought under control, otherwise many people will continue to avoid activities that might expose them.

It's not even clear that this approach has been good politics. Trump's best chance for reelection would be to have things significantly improving by November, but the current approach seems to have made that unlikely. That's the problem with immersing yourself in a delusional bubble - you become incapable of making informed judgements even about your own self-interest.

Surely you are not suggesting that those principled defenders of liberty only care about themselves and don't mind a bit of tyranny if it's directed towards people they don't like?

[broncofan]

It's not even clear that this approach has been good politics. Trump's best chance for reelection would be to have things significantly improving by November, but the current approach seems to have made that unlikely.

Explaining to people that the economy is not saved by opening bowling alleys has somehow not been easy. It is probably more cost-efficient to pay some places to stay closed than to have a dozen or so of their patrons in the icu.

I don't know enough economics to understand this macro issue but isn't the global economy interdependent enough that even if we act like there isn't a deadly virus circulating and get local commerce going there can still be a global recession that impacts us like everyone else?

Watching Republicans accuse Fauci of spooking the markets has been painful. I don't think Trump understands what the stock market is. It is the aggregate of publicly traded companies whose share price is based on expectations people have about their future earnings. Every piece of news can shift people's beliefs about the future profitability of these companies and if you have to sell your shares, the losses are very real. But I can't imagine anything as self-defeating as basing policy decisions on the vain hope that stock market participants are pricing in only the news you want them to. That's a disaster for our long-term well-being and probably not good for the market in the long run either because you're not taking the actions that can enable these businesses to succeed.

[filghy2]

Watching Republicans accuse Fauci of spooking the markets has been painful.

Perhaps they should also withdraw funding from the IMF, who are now predicting that the US economy will contract by 8% this year. The stock market still seems to be overoptimistic about the likelihood of a quick recovery.

[broncofan]

9000 cases in Florida today. It's pretty scary what's going on because unlike NYC at the height of its outbreak they're not actually closing down. I don't know how any American can look at the outcomes we've gotten compared to the rest of the world and not conclude that we screwed this up. And the screw up is measured in tens of thousands of lives. Not sure what else there is to say....people just don't remember what exponential growth looks like...

[broncofan]

I don't know whether to put this in this thread or the next thread down but it made me laugh a bit. Project Lincoln for those who don't know are Republicans against Trump. They've made some very effective ads against him as well.

https://twitter.com/ProjectLincoln/status/1276596849290461184?s=20

[broncofan]

I'm a bit surprised that in Pittsburgh, which is in Allegheny County, we haven't had an uptick at all and it's been long enough for at least some cases to show up. Random factoid: during the 1918 Flu Pandemic, Pittsburgh had the highest number of deaths per capita of any other city. We're doing much better during covid and the other day had 7 new cases in a county with 1.2 million people.

Not super important to the general purpose of the thread but I figured since I wrote this about a week ago I should write an update. Today we had 96 new cases and according to our governor's own criteria we probably should be closing things down again. I'm sure he's afraid of that politically, but going from less than a dozen cases a day to close to a hundred in a week is what we call exponential growth. And if you would see the people I encounter taking totally needless risks. The guy who lives next to me talking to everyone who walks by without a mask and from a foot away. Would it hurt to limit your interactions to close contacts? Would it hurt to wear a mask? Would it hurt to stand a few feet away?

[Stavros]

I appreciate your frustration -in the two main supermarkets in town, with arrows on the floor pointing in one direction to minimise human contact it is common to find someone walking towards you in the wrong direction, with even people of my age or older not wearing a mask. Now one supermarket has abandoned the arrow scheme, though they still limit the number of customers allowed in to the shop, and I don't mind queuing to get in.

But, as the rules on isolation are relaxed further -in the UK on July 4th, ha ha- there is a fear that people 'liberated' will go shopping mad, and attempts by cafes and pubs to restrict movements will fail, and so on. Moreover, we now have what might be an emerging trend -the city of Leicester has seen such a large spike in new infections the Goverment is thinking of locking it down -though the shambles that is decision making means that while the Home Secretary has said it is an option, the Conservative MP for Leicester South "told the BBC's The World This Weekend he felt there was "no suggestion" a lockdown was about to happen", while the Labour MP for Leicester East "has called for a lockdown due to a "perfect storm" of poverty, positive tests and higher ethnic diversity". Unity is strength, hence the weakness.
I wonder if this is how Governments will try to manage the relaxation of restrictions with geographically specific spikes -but how can they lock down Leicester, a city of over 300,000?

It makes me wonder if the Republican Convention can take place in Florida; if Texas can be 'shut down', because other than as an act of personal choice, it appears that new infections are rising in the southern States, but direct action by the State Government is not managing what might become a crisis in hospital care. It does appear that new cases in South Korea, China and New Zealand are being handled efficiently -not sure about Germany where there seems to be a link between abattoirs and meat packing plants and new cases. But national and local economies cannot be shut down indefinitely. I suspect we may have to try and manage a permanent presence of Covid 19 at a high level before any vaccine successfully lessens its impact, if it does. And that could be six months to a year.
I cant say I am impressed with Boris Johnson's handling of this problem, just as he seems to be negotiating a Brexit deal with the EU that is superficial and ignores deep problems with trade and services and rights. It is possible that he is even as bored with this major policy issue as the US President, as both are known to have little interest in policy detail, though at least Johnson, often criticised for beng AWOL, does not insult us by playing golf in the middle of a national crisis. I think both men have given up on the politics, and are hoping they can take any credit for any successes that happen, but are now dependent on science to do what politics cannot.