Ask yourself, if you are lucky enough as I am to work from home and still have a paycheck, just when and under what conditions are you ready to go back to the office, to have people breathing the air in the seat next to you in the seminar room, to go touch the salad bar tongs, to go give a talk, shake a lot of hands and meet a lot of people, to get on a plane, to stand in a line? The virus may be contained, with aggressive testing and public health playing whack-a-mole, but authorities relenting and allowing business to open, in a highly regulated way. But will you just go back to normal? Likely not.
That assumes that the Expert Yet Idiots will continue to flail in the dark. Suppose that we ran experiments that let us know how spreading actually works. If doorknobs cause the virus to spread, what would we have to spray on doorknobs to make them safe? If breathing is the main source of spread, what sort of masks are needed?
Should people who have the antibodies for the disease be given “immunity badges” that allow them special privileges? I would not go to a dance session now, but if I can see someone’s immunity badge before I ask her to be my partner. . .
2. Mencius Moldbug, using a pseudonym, writes,
The strongest possible response will come from a new agency, built as a startup. This Coronavirus Authority will scale up faster than any existing organization can execute. It will use the old agencies only where it finds them useful. And it will dissolve itself once the virus is beaten.
Sounds like a typical Internet Engineering Task Force. Pointer from Tyler Cowen, who says he thinks some of the essay is off base.
I wish that this sentence were sourced:
On March 9, dear old Dr. Fauci said: “If you are a healthy young person, if you want to go on a cruise ship, go on a cruise ship.”
Can anyone find a link for this quote?
[UPDATE: Several commenters came through with links. Here is the transcript of the March 9 briefing.
Q Would you recommend that anybody, even a healthy person, get onboard a cruise ship?
DR. FAUCI: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think if you’re a healthy, young person, that there is no reason, if you want to go on a cruise ship, to go on a cruise ship. Personally, I would never go on a cruise ship because I don’t like cruises — (laughter) — but that’s another story.
But the fact — the fact is that if you have — if you have the conditions that I’ve been speaking about over and over again to this group, namely an individual who has an underlying condition, particularly an elderly person that has an underlying condition, I would recommend strongly that they do not go on a cruise ship.
As Tyler would say, that was then, this is now.]
Moldbug’s idea amounts to putting a Silicon Valley CEO in charge of the hypothetical CVA. The authority of this person would supersede that of the President.
It turns out that everyone’s reaction to this crisis is to say that it proves the correctness of their political ideology. Economists did pretty much the same thing with the 2008 Financial Crisis. Moldbug has always disdained democracy in preference for a more corporation-like form of government. I find it easy to nod my head in agreement as he describes the current failure. But any untried alternative form of government looks better only because we have not had a chance to observe its unintended consequences.
The economic section of the essay struck me as sketchy and unconvincing. But I am not going to spend time writing a point-by-point critique.
3. A reader forwards an article from the South China Morning Post.
On Friday, both the US and Singapore switched to advising citizens to wear masks when they leave their homes. The WHO also made a U-turn itself, with Ryan saying: “We can certainly see circumstances on which the use of masks, both home-made and cloth masks, at the community level may help with an overall comprehensive response to this disease.”
Leading from behind. Another quote:
“Universal masking, as a package of anti-epidemic measures, including greater social distancing and hand hygiene, has been instrumental in keeping Covid-19 in check,” said infectious diseases expert Professor David Hui Shu-cheong of the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
4. Another reader forwarded this from the Israel Ministry of Health.
Masks covering the mouth and nose greatly reduce the chance of getting infected and infecting others. These masks prevent the emission of droplets that carry the disease from reaching the nose and mouth. The masks protect those who wear it, as well as others around them, therefore, when a carrier of the virus meets a non-carrier, if both are wearing a mask, the protection against infection is doubled.
Therefore, we are instructing everyone to wear a mask at all times in public to prevent exposing acquaintances, bystanders, and coworkers.
Fauci on cruises: https://www.forbes.com/sites/douggollan/2020/03/09/fauci-says-cruising-is-ok-if-you-are-healthy/#741367522d4d
The mask thing is interesting. First the “experts” said they don’t work with a “perfection or nothing” viewpoint and now it’s a “well, it couldn’t hurt” recommendation to wear. The latter is actually patently untrue as poor PPE wearing can increase you self contamination. And gloves give people a great way to spread virus person to person via a carrier as people don’t sanitize or change gloves between interactions with different people.
This commentary by two experts in respiratory protection, and professors, does at least look into the mechanism of masks.
“Sweeping mask recommendations—as many have proposed—will not reduce SARS-CoV-2 transmission, as evidenced by the widespread practice of wearing such masks in Hubei province, China, before and during its mass COVID-19 transmission experience earlier this year. Our review of relevant studies indicates that cloth masks will be ineffective at preventing SARS-CoV-2 transmission, whether worn as source control or as PPE. ”
http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2020/04/commentary-masks-all-covid-19-not-based-sound-data
Most of the delightful DIY masks, even with filters, don’t focus on the 0.3 micron particles that most readily make it into the lungs.
Personally, while fomite (surface) transmission may a strong vector, I’m leaning toward fair amount of time (15-30min) in poorly ventilated spaces inhalation is going to prove significant. That means “stay inside” for most people in old apt buildings with shared ventilation is the worst of all responses.
If I was retrofitting to be able to reopen a densely packed space like a restaurant, I would be looking to create negative pressure ventilation without dead spaces in the dining room.
“Suppose that we ran experiments that let us know how spreading actually works. ”
—
It is a simpler problem than you suspect, Arnold. We know a lot about the movement of droplets at various temps in various atmospheres. We can and have measured the stability of this and most viruses in open air. Hard numbers.
The experiments we need happened many times and many places, we need data collection. We have controlled experiments of a known group meeting for a days bridge tournament in room temp inside a gym. That is a calculable experiment. We are getting solid experiments from nursing homes, which gives us numbers for household. Given those experiments then we can derive good numbers for people who ride elevators, take mass transit, attend poker games and go to ER.
Much of the work is done, the news is grim, the results match NYC real time data. But NYC is absolutely the worse place to be, you are dependent on mass gatherings. However we should be able to scale NYC down and compute a slower spread rate in less dense cities. And LA, right now, is an ongoing experiment, watch its doubling times in LA compared to NYC. The doubling time should be two to three times longer. We can give you a number if there are five other people on a five thousand foot open office because atmospheres are remarkedly similar, as are the droplets. And we have spread numbers at that stability.
Just scale the NYC doubling number by density*time. I think we find that going to the office at asymmetric times is fine and makes no difference. I think if my small town packed the university football stadium we would over run our hospital in two weeks. There is a gradient, it is accurate, it can be tailored to the business at hand.
Is this a joke? (I can’t tell.) Menius Moldbug is the former pseudonym of Curtis Yarvin.
Yeah, it might be a joke.
An example of a pretty relevent “experiment”….
https://www.thedailybeast.com/coronavirus-strikes-45-of-60-people-who-went-to-mount-vernon-washington-choir-practice
(Originally in the LA times)
The Gist:
After Covid-19 was publicly known, but well before any “no gatherings order”, a choir group held practice. The long form I read reported that noone was in any way ill, they refrained from hugging each other, were careful about what they touched.
And 45 out of 60 test positive for covid-19 and 2 have died.
This makes me think that lots of air exhange (people singing) indoors, for an extended period of time, may have made a perfect way to spread the disease.
Compare this with the diamond princess (link follows) where 700 people out of 3711 tested positive (at least at the time of this report.) NOT 3700+. Order 18%. As I write this, the rate of positive tests in WA state is reported to be 13%. Neither of these is the “general population”.
What does this mean, and what does it imply? (Bryan’s careful speculation.)
0. It’s not as wide spread as we think (hope) and is therefore rather deadlier than the flu.
1. Sustained sharing of common air spaces is likely the strongest vector for the disease. So places with lots of people in small apartments will get hit hard. Places with lots of people stacked in relatively isolated sky scrappers will do better.
It now seems clear to me that this air exchange dominates. Hand washing is of course safe and good, but it’s probably minor in this context.
2. Air flows. So even a thing that doesn’t block 200nm or 300nm particles, may redirect the air in ways helpful in the current cirumstance. It may not be about filtering, but rather about air flows.
@JK Brown – this suggests to me that negative air pressure is good, but some kind of screening/blocking to control airflow might be better. One wonders if things like heavy exhaust ducting drawing return air *down* to the floor would help?
The link I left out of previous post:
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00885-w
“But will you just go back to normal”
Given I have not modified my behavior in the slightest and still shake hands, itch my face, ignore all advice here, and daily engage in civil disobedience yeah no problem on that account.
Murrow once mentioned something about not descending from fearful men, folk should take that to heart.
The Israeli mask explanation sounds right on the preventing spread of droplets — my wearing a mask is most useful as a way to prevent me from passing the disease to you. For protecting oneself, though, I still understand masks to be largely illusory. Perhaps by alluding to such benefits, the Israeli writers are subtly tickling self-interest to encourage production of what amounts to a public good.
I would like to see voluntary “experiments” — let people/groups set up more or less restrictive communities with different restrictions that they choose. We can still require quarantine or testing before they may reenter broader society, but if some (young people?) want to try free love for a while on a beach, I think we should encourage it and learn from the results.
Please keep up the great work reporting on and thinking about COVID-19… I know it is frustrating when it feels like shouting into the dark :-).
“In order to save the economy we had to destroy it.”—The Consensus View.
My retort, though overused in the past, fresh again: “We have met the enemy, and he is us.”
—30—
“It turns out that everyone’s reaction to this crisis is to say that it proves the correctness of their political ideology. Economists did pretty much the same thing with the 2008 Financial Crisis.”—ASK. Ouch…in another life, ASK was a lead-pipe, back-alley fighter.
Lockdowns are an economic and public health policy dead-end, as we have a naive population and novel cold virus. No vaccine for 18 months, and that is if we are lucky.
The right way: Sequester the elderly, provide all the assistance in the world (meals on wheels, free book deliveries, free wi-fi, set up Skype, Facetime, etc). Anyone else is free to stay home.
The rest of us should run the gauntlet. BTW, I am 65. I face some risk. But economic lockdowns are a catastrophe.
There is enough hysteria already, so I will not add on. But the economic outlook….then the socio-economic outlook….seriously, lockdowns are not the least-bad option, in a world that is presenting us with bad options.
PS…lockdowns, border closures, quarantines…and a de facto open border with Mexico? Trump’s Wall?
OK, Sweden is doing that so let’s see how it turns out.
“If you are a healthy young person, if you want to go on a cruise ship, go on a cruise ship.”
—-
On March 9 Fauci should have known better. The better advice, today: if you want to take a walk in the park, fine just avoid the crowds. Shop only at stores you know are not congested, shop at time when the crowds are minimum.
The goal is to maximize the probability you get it in six months, not today, when the treatments improve. But there is a gradient. Congestion eases at the hospitals, they become stocked for treatment, and we get early covid results. All of these make the future look about the same as the present and we can take more risks. You become resigned to a fate of coughing your guts out for two days sometime in the future. Everyone gets the flu, sooner or later.
2 dead from coronavirus, 45 ill after March choir rehearsal
https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/01/us/washington-choir-practice-coronavirus-deaths/index.html
430,000 People Have Traveled From China to U.S. Since Coronavirus Surfaced
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/04/us/coronavirus-china-travel-restrictions.html
How the Virus Got Out
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/03/22/world/coronavirus-spread.html
1,203,099 Confirmed Cases
https://www.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/85320e2ea5424dfaaa75ae62e5c06e61
1. Infection Rate between 20%+ (Diamond Princess) and 75%+ (Choir Rehearsal)
2. 430,000 people traveled from China to US since CV19 surfaced
3. Millions of people left Wuhan between the time the virus surfaced and travel was restricted
4. Worldwide confirmed cases of 1,203,099
Although this data is imperfect it is so far off something must be wrong with it. CV19 is so contagious it infects between 20% and 75%+ of people who come in close contact with an infected person yet only 1.2MM people are infected?
CDC launches studies to get more precise count of undetected Covid-19 cases
https://www.statnews.com/2020/04/04/cdc-launches-studies-to-get-more-precise-count-of-undetected-covid-19-cases/
At least the CDC is going to do the testing that really matters most to see if we will be social distancing for the next 12 to 18 months.
The main meeting has been cancelled due to coronavirus outbreak. The Geoforum and the annual general meeting will be held online on 27 May 2020. More information will be sent to all members in due course.
If you don’t trust the Forbes link posted above, Dr. Fauci’s statement is in the White House’s transcript of the March 9 press briefing. The quote above is slightly edited.
“It turns out that everyone’s reaction to this crisis is to say that it proves the correctness of their political ideology. ”
This is one of the most useful statements – we could replace the last bit with ‘religion’ and get to the same basic conclusion. For the most part, people believe that infectious disease public health, criminal law enforcement, and national defense are the purposes that excuse every other aspect of government – including the recursive ones like creating and enforcing tax laws. Historically, religious ritual was also a key role of government, but that’s something for another day.
This is one of the reasons that socialist/progressives are so keen to recast every disease (mental health, obesity, etc) as infectious.
Faced with a large infectious disease threat met with a lack of government capability/capacity, many people shift to embrace enlarged government activity; and those who believe that the best big government would be run according to their own rules imagine a bigger government more according to their own rules.
Thus, what we see today.
Here’s the Youtube clip of Fauci being asked the cruise ship question. https://youtu.be/3s8pc7NpGkU?t=2070
The follow up asking him to be more specific about cruise ships is here: https://youtu.be/3s8pc7NpGkU?t=2207
“It turns out that everyone’s reaction to this crisis is to say that it proves the correctness of their political ideology.”
My reaction is different. I think it proves that everyone was wrong and led astray by their ideology’s main presumptions about what would make states more or less capable and successful at avoiding and/or crushing an epidemic like this.
I keep pointing to Taiwan, because it is the most successful case by far, and, by all accounts, Chen Shih-chung – a politician and the Minister of Health of Welfare, and currently “Chief Commander” of their CDC’s Central Epidemic Command Center, is a new Lee Kwan Yew in terms of high quality leadership.
He graduated with a dental degree in 1977, and has been holding positions in the Taiwanese health bureaucracy for 20 years, the last 15 as a deputy or full minister.
So some people have an ideology which says bureaucracy is synonymous with incompetence, evil, abuse, and obstruction … and yet, Taiwan’s epidemic bureaucracy performed as perfectly as could be expected from any human organization under similar circumstances. They were prepared and trained and adequately resourced and empowered. They investigated early to see what was going on in Wuhan first-hand, and immediately and accurately adjusted course in response to new information. They embarked on crash programs of building new mask-production facilities, and increased it significantly in mere weeks.
Some people say the problem is democratic politics, but Taiwan is a democracy, and Chen is a democratic politician and bureaucrat. Also ‘hero’. South Korea is a democracy too. In terms of someone one’s ideology might cause some difficulty in terms of believing such a person would be successful at all, this is like asking who created gleaming Singapore, taking it almost single-handed from impoverished backwater into first-tier society within a generation, and being told, “a trial lawyer”.
And yet it moves.
On the other hand, for those who think democracy, civil liberties, and constitutional constraints on power are the bee’s knees, Taiwan’s epidemic managers are, if not exactly Moldbug’s “temporary virus dictators”, something pretty close. On the other hand, if you think only unadulterated dictatorships have what it takes to crush these plagues, the the fact that China and Iran didn’t do so well (and really it’s hard to be sure how well they did at all), might give one pause.
For those that think it’s all about the institutions, well, the US has plenty of these institutions that even go by the same names and employ plenty of smart people of decent character. They are not hollow imitations imposed on conquered countries, they are the original articles, the models of which we imposed in hollow imitation form on them. And yet, it doesn’t move. Most of those institutions failed pretty badly, and no one is really willing to face the implication of that fact, especially of the fact that there is no non-radical way to fix that problem.
Meanwhile, for all our democracy and civil liberties, we’ve got hundreds of state and local politicians and officials trying to push as far as they legally dare in the direction of being little dictators, and for all our institutions, when the poop hits the fan, everybody just thrown the plans and the professional advice out the window and apparently wings it by gut hunch without worrying much about anyone holding them to intellectual account.
Maybe it’s about cultural capital and that good old American gumption, creative, on-the-spot innovative problem solving like for the CO2 scrubbers on Apollo 13 and … well, maybe. But if it is, America can’t harness it. Maybe it’s Taiwan’s Northeast Asian obedience and conscientiousness, but their leaders seem to have reacted to the situation with plenty of initiative and creativity.
What about where various countries fall on the Capitalism-Socialism axis? Another mess for the ideologies.
Well, I could go on, but I think you get the overall point. We can’t all be right, but we can all be wrong, and it seems we were. Like God showed up one day as a large snail, “Huh, nobody called that one.”
Two quick subsidiary points.
First, I’ll have to ask Tanner Greer sometime if there’s a name which is not “conditionally fascist mercantilism” which describes the Japan-Singapore-Taiwan-South Korean Northeast-Asian deviation from the Western social-economic-state model, but whatever that hybrid is, it seems to be really good at this kind of thing, which is an extremely important thing to be good at, and, frankly, kind of humiliating to see it proven that one’s own society is not good at it. Japan may be the odd man out for this particular crisis – we’ll see how it compares to out own stellar performance corrected for demographics – but in general it’s a successful, pleasant, safe, and prosperous society that performs pretty well, so stays in the club.
Second, while one of those typical “commissions” would be a symbolic political circus, that doesn’t mean some deep thinking and investigative inquiry into why things went as wrong as they did is not in order. In particular, and in line with Moldbug’s point, it’s not just an accumulation of small mistakes and errors here and there. It’s total intellectual and structural failure almost across the board, medical, scientific, economic, political, etc., and to an extent which almost beggars belief, even to people used to complaining about how incredibly bad things have gotten.
I do disagree with Moldbug on one major point. I don’t have an opinion on this economic proposals, but with his assess of the political psychology of the typical American as being ‘childish’, I must dissent. Yes, severe acute entitlement syndrome is endemic in American society, and the behavior and attitudes of many Americans seems childish and immature as a result, as they would in any spoiled brat.
By as Golding told us, a bunch of children all tossed together ends up as Lord of the Flies or Prison Gangs at Yard Time. Incompetent for achievements representative of great human accomplishment and higher flourishing, sure, but chaotic and violent, full of energy and vigor, and, if by nothing else than Darwinian selection, competent at their primary goals, even if that’s only protecting one’s turf from the rival gangs.
But our social condition isn’t youthful, not even in the pathological, negative sense of rampant immaturity. Like old immune systems, our civilization is now, plainly, completely, senescent. It is senile. Doddering, decrepit, and demented.
Ross Douthat calls it “Decadent”.
Masks covering the mouth and nose greatly reduce the chance of getting infected and infecting others.
Masks are “common sense”. The especially reduce the “infecting others”, altho I don’t have/ know of a good double blind study that show it.
As long as, and whenever, any place is on “lockdown”, or reduced movement – all movement outside the home should include wearing a mask.
We have reusable cloth surgical style masks. Far far better than nothing; and probably enough to keep the R0 under <1.0.