One can think about it in this simple way: the virus doesn’t disproportionately strike nursing homes relative to other institutions. It’s just that when it reaches a nursing home, it has a devastating effect. But the fact that it’s gotten into so amazingly many nursing homes around the country just means that it has gotten into an amazingly large number of institutions and households all around the country. Most of the time the virus’s spread is very stealthy, because it doesn’t make most of those infected very sick or even sick at all. But it is lethal for particular subgroups, especially for frail elderly in nursing homes
What this tells me is that the virus cannot be contained via contact tracing, etc., because it’s too widespread already. We don’t (and won’t) have the capacity to test everyone everywhere anytime in the foreseeable future. We must recognize that the idea that the virus can be stamped out entirely is quixotic at this point. The question should be on how to manage the disease. We have to accept that it is here, part of our environment. We have to figure out how to have a functioning society while we live with it. Will the experts and elected officials ever have the courage to tell people the truth about the situation?
In 1976, the artist Saul Steinberg drew a cover for The New Yorker — “View of the World from Ninth Avenue” — that became an instant classic. You know the one: Manhattan heavily in the foreground, the Hudson River, a brownish strip called “Jersey,” the rest of the America vaguely in the distance.
It could almost be a map of the coronavirus epidemic in the United States.
Even now, it is stunning to contemplate the extent to which the country’s Covid-19 crisis is a New York crisis — by which I mean the city itself along with its wider metropolitan area.
As of Friday, there have been more Covid-19 fatalities on Long Island’s Nassau County (population 1.4 million) than in all of California (population 40 million). There have been more fatalities in Westchester County (989) than in Texas (611). The number of Covid deaths per 100,000 residents in New York City (132) is more than 16 times what it is in America’s next largest city, Los Angeles (8). If New York City proper were a state, it would have suffered more fatalities than 41 other states combined.
As long as supposedly serious people are saying things like coronavirus is 20+ times as deadly as the flu, we're going to have a hard time getting out of this mess.
A new poll by the Pew Research Center provides the clearest snapshot yet of the collapse in American views of China thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic. Taken March 3-29, the big takeaway from the survey of 1,000 adults is that 66% now have a negative view of China, compared with 26% favorable. That is a 20% jump in unfavorable ratings since 2017 and a 6% rise since last year. These are the worst numbers ever recorded for China, despite Beijing's global public relations campaign to portray its coronavirus response in a positive light.
The damage to China's image is deep and widespread. Nearly 90% of Americans polled believe that China’s power and influence are a threat, with fully 62% saying it is a “major” threat. As for the most visible Chinese leader, 71% of respondents have “no confidence” in Chinese Communist Party General Secretary Xi Jinping. Interestingly, those with a college degree and above were slightly more negative about China than those without a college degree, but at 68% percent to 64%, both were healthy majorities. Even the youngest demographic, aged 18-29, held a 53% unfavorable view, compared to 71% of those aged 50 and above.
But if one of the lessons of 2008 is to help Main Street as well as Wall Street, the lesson seems to be only partly learned. Americans live in two separate and unequal worlds, and the bailouts reflect this.
A British conservative think tank, the Henry Jackson Society, argued in a report in April that China is bound by international law to report crucial public health information in a timely, accurate and detailed manner. However, it “failed in its obligations to do this” through December and January in the early stages of the outbreak, the report said.
“It is possible that — had accurate information have been provided at an early juncture — the infection would not have left China,” the group said.
“The Chinese government’s negligence has cost the G7 at least £3.2 trillion ($4 trillion) — and the wider world a presently incalculable sum,” the think tank said, referring to the Group of Seven countries.
