Ramesh alluded to an open letter signed by over 1,000 “public health professionals, infectious diseases professionals, and community stakeholders.” The letter argues that it’s okay if the current protests/riots spread COVID-19 because racism is itself a public-health issue that needs to be addressed.
Let’s take that argument seriously for a moment and ask a follow-up question: Why, then, was there so much criticism of the anti-lockdown protests? The premise of those protests was that continuing lockdowns caused far more economic damage than was necessary. If anything is a public-health issue, surely record unemployment, social isolation, and bans on people going to hospitals for non-urgent care should count
Well, here is how the letter distinguishes between anti-racism protests and anti-lockdown protests:
. . . [W]e do not condemn these [anti-racism] gatherings as risky for COVID-19 transmission. We support them as vital to the national public health and to the threatened health specifically of Black people in the United States . . . . This should not be confused with a permissive stance on all gatherings, particularly protests against stay-home orders. Those actions not only oppose public health interventions, but are also rooted in white nationalism and run contrary to respect for Black lives.
It’s difficult to understand how any reasonable person could have committed those words to print. Even just, “Yeah, we’re hypocrites, so what?” would have been a more satisfying response. Ironically, the signatories do say they have “privately mourned the widening rift between leaders in science and a subset of the communities that they serve.” That rift is now a chasm. If these leaders do have any real expertise, how sad that it’s been lost within the all-consuming political correctness of our age.
Maybe the most important questions of all about the COVID-19 pandemic are: How lethal is the virus SARS-COV-2? Whom does it kill? Are the death counts accurate – and, if not, are they overstated or understated?
Estimates for the lethality of the coronavirus have varied widely since January. Early Chinese data suggested the virus might have an “infection fatality rate” as high as 1.4 to 2 percent.
A death rate in that range could mean the coronavirus might kill more than 6 million Americans, although even under the worst-case scenarios some people would not be exposed, and others might have natural immunity that would prevent them from being infected at all.
As we have learned more about the virus, estimates of its lethality have fallen. Calculating fatality rates is complex, because despite all of our testing for COVID-19, we still don’t know how many people have been infected.
Some people who are infected may have no or mild symptoms. Even those with more severe symptoms may resist going to the hospital, then recover on their own. We have a clear view of the top of the iceberg – the serious infections that require hospitalization – but at least in the early stages of the epidemic we have to guess at the mild, hidden infections.
But to calculate the true fatality rate, we need to know the true infection rate. If 10,000 people die out of 100,000 infections, that means the virus kills 10 percent of all the people it infects – making it very, very dangerous. But if 10,000 people die from 10 million infections, the death rate is actually 0.1 percent – similar to the flu.
States began lifting their COVID-19 lockdowns more than a month ago, and so far the results have not been nearly as disastrous as many people predicted. By and large, according to estimates by two teams of researchers, virus transmission in Florida, Georgia, and Texas—three states with large populations that loosened their restrictions at the end of April—has either declined, stayed about the same, or risen slightly since then. Those numbers reinforce other evidence that broad business closure and stay-at-home orders deserve less credit for curtailing the epidemic than they commonly receive.
The two models estimate the reproductive number for the COVID-19 virus: the average number of people a carrier infects. A reproductive number higher than one indicates an ongoing epidemic. When the number falls below one, the epidemic is waning. The daily number of new cases can be expected to decline, and eventually so will the total number of active cases as previously infected people recover.
After Florida's lockdown was lifted, according to a model by researchers at the University of Utah, the reproductive number went up and down before rising to 1.29 as of May 29, compared to 0.98 on April 30. But in Texas, according to this model, the reproductive number fell from 1.13 on April 30 to 0.45 on May 28. In Georgia, the number barely changed during this period, remaining slightly below one.
A model by independent data scientist Youyang Gu is generally more pessimistic but probably more accurate, judging from its projections of COVID-19 deaths. The Gu model shows Florida's reproductive number rising from 0.97 on April 30 to 1.07 today. The picture is similar in Texas and Georgia, where the reproductive number rises from slightly below to slightly above one during the same period.
Concern is justified whenever the reproductive number rises above one. But with the exception of the University of Utah estimate for Florida, these numbers do not indicate that lifting the lockdowns had a big impact on virus transmission.
While the two models diverge in their estimates since April 30, they tell basically the same story about trends before these states closed "nonessential" businesses and told people to stay home except for officially approved purposes. In all three states, the models indicate, the reproductive number fell precipitously in March. Those downward trends began before the lockdown orders were issued.
Judging from the estimates in both models, statewide lockdowns had little or no perceptible impact on virus transmission in these states. And Oklahoma, which never imposed a lockdown, saw essentially the same drop in transmission around the same time. These estimates are consistent with cellphone and foot traffic data, which show that Americans were moving around less in response to the COVID-19 epidemic well before politicians made it mandatory.
The novel coronavirus has done severe economic damage all over the globe. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) stated on June 1, 2020 that it could take nearly a decade for the economy to grow back to levels forecasted this January. As economists, we want to understand just how much damage has been done to what people and sectors and how that damage was perpetrated. There’s usually more than one perp in a Depression.
First, the coronavirus obviously causes direct health effects that can impact economies. Note that economists like myself are not suggesting illness or death is bad primarily because of their economic effects; the social and personal costs of pandemics are devastating on their own. Second, people voluntarily change their consumption, work, and personal behavior in reaction to pandemics, without the need for any intervention. Third, political interventions like stay-at-home orders and business closures coercively change consumption, work and personal behaviors in ways that impact economies.
In this study, I’m interested mostly in the effects of political interventions. No one person can do much to affect mass, decentralized behavioral changes. But political officials taking advice from epidemiological and economic experts can directly and severely affect state and regional economies.
The numbers I use to track these intervention-based effects are state-specific insured unemployment claims from March 1, 2020 until May 9, 2020, the most recent reflected week at the time of writing. I group states by their lockdown status circa the most recent reflected week. Generally, I index insured unemployment rates to 0% on March 1, 2020, so what you’re seeing in these charts is the difference between the unemployment rates in each state reflecting the two weeks ending on March 1, 2020 and the unemployment rates in each state reflecting the two weeks ending on May 9, 2020.
First, let’s look at the series for all states from March 15, 2020 (rates are extremely stable before that) and May 9, 2020. Each thin line is a state’s own series, colored by group. States locked down but with stated lockdown end dates are red, states locked down with no stated end dates are orange, states partially or fully reopened are blue, and states with no official lockdown are green. Thick lines in the series represent group averages.
On May 22, the medical journal The Lancet published a study that aimed to figure out how effective chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine, anti-malarial drugs, are in combination with certain anti-bacterial drugs for treating hospitalized COVID-19 patients. The researchers concluded that "each of these drug regimens was associated with decreased in-hospital survival." In other words, patients treated with the drugs were more likely to die than those who were not. That study was based on data supplied by the medical data aggregation company Surgisphere which claims to have assembled a database of tens of thousands of COVID-19 patient records from hundreds of hospitals across the globe.
Almost immediately other researchers began questioning the accuracy of the Surgisphere database and therefore the accuracy of the study's finding that the anti-malarials are ineffective—or worse, dangerous—at treating hospitalized COVID-19 patients. For example, an open letter signed by scores of outside researchers points out that Surgisphere has not released the code or data used in The Lancet study although the journal is a signatory to the Wellcome open research data guidelines. The outside researchers note further possible problems with Surgisphere's reported data for COVID-19 patients: The data were not properly adjusted for confounders such as disease severity and doses used to treat patients. Researchers also suggest that Surgisphere is reporting data from implausibly high numbers of COVID-19 patients in Australia and parts of Africa.
The researchers are particularly concerned because several randomized placebo-controlled clinical trials of the drugs that could more clearly show the benefits or dangers of such treatments have been derailed in the wake of The Lancet study.
As a result of this storm of criticism, the editors at The Lancet have issued "an Expression of Concern to alert readers to the fact that serious scientific questions have been brought to our attention" about the article. The editors further note that "an independent audit of the provenance and validity of the data has been commissioned by the authors not affiliated with Surgisphere and is ongoing, with results expected very shortly." The journal has also posted a minor correction to the article with respect to misclassifying Australian data, adding a supplemental table.
Surgisphere has now attracted the attention of data sleuths who are turning up oddities about the company including that its purportedly vast database does not appear to have been used in prior peer-reviewed studies and that it has a suspiciously low number of employees for a company that claims to have relationships with hundreds of hospitals.
America’s labor market defied forecasts for a Depression-style surge in unemployment, signaling the economy is picking up faster than anticipated from the coronavirus-inflicted recession amid reopenings and government stimulus.
A broad gauge of payrolls rose by 2.5 million in May, trouncing forecasts for a sharp decline following a 20.7 million tumble the prior month that was the largest in records back to 1939, according to Labor Department data Friday. The jobless rate fell to 13.3% from 14.7%.
U.S. stocks jumped after the report with the S&P 500 up 2.9%, adding to weeks of gains in equities since mid-March. The figures were so astonishing that President Donald Trump held a news conference, where he called the numbers “outstanding” and predicted further improvement before he’s up for re-election in November.
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, who's voiced concerns about other demonstrations potentially spreading COVID-19 in recent weeks, participated Thursday in a civil rights march in Highland Park with hundreds of people who did not follow social distancing rules.
Whitmer drew criticism after she stood shoulder to shoulder with some march participants, who included Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan. From the front line to last, the marchers started at Highland Park city hall and were a rolling quarter-mile of humanity traveling southbound on Woodward, with the skyline of downtown Detroit in the distance ahead, as a caravan of Detroit and Highland Park police vehicles escorted them while a helicopter buzzed overhead.
"Social distancing is critical to stop the spread of COVID-19 — unless you have a great photo op," state Rep. Lynn Afenoudlis, R-Grand Rapids Township, tweeted.
Whitmer spokeswoman Tiffany Brown denied the governor had violated her own executive order issued Monday that says people should remain six feet apart if participating in public gatherings.
The U.S. unemployment rate unexpectedly dropped to 13.3 percent in May, down from a record high in April, indicating the nation's economy is recovering faster than expected from the coronavirus lockdown.
The Labor Department said in its Friday report that employers added a stunning 2.5 million jobs in May -- the biggest increase on record. The economy shed a combined 22.1 million jobs in April and March, meaning there are an estimated 21 million Americans currently out of work.
Economists surveyed by Refinitiv expected the report, conducted in mid-May, to show that unemployment rose to 19.8 percent in May and that employers shed 8 million jobs. If the expectation had been accurate, it would have been the worst figure since the Great Depression.
The most recent jobs report suggests the economic recovery will be much faster than many expected. While many predicted a decrease in employment for May, employment actually increased by 3.84 million from April to May. Correspondingly, rather than rising, the total number of unemployed persons fell 2.09 million. The unemployment rate currently stands at 13.3%, down from 14.7% in April and in sharp contrast to the 20% rate many professional forecasters were predicting.
The fast turnaround reflects the gradual lifting of economic restrictions across states and reduced fears of consumers, workers, and business owners, who have a better understanding of the risks of COVID-19 than they did in mid-March when the slowdown in activity began.
The global pandemic has been incredibly disruptive. But, as Senior White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett explained in late May, it has had a limited effect on our long-run ability to produce and the kinds of goods and services we like to consume.
We have the same machines and equipment that we had in February, and the same educated workforce required to use them. We still want to go to the dentist, get a haircut, enjoy a nice cocktail. None of that has really changed. We have just been waiting to do those things until we believed it was relatively safe, and until it was legally permissible.
While the speed of the recovery suggested by the jobs report is surprising, the fact that many people are returning to work is not surprising at all. Of the 20.6 million unemployed persons in April who had lost their jobs or ended temporary employment, 87.6% were on temporary layoff. Only 2.0 million had permanently lost their jobs.
Red Tape is Tying our Hands in COVID Fight
https://www.realclearpolicy.com/articles/2020/06/05/red_tape_is_tying_our_hands_in_covid_fight_495343.html
Regulatory roadblocks are keeping Americans from getting the rapid, responsive healthcare we need — and the saga of a Seattle-based diagnostic testing program is just the latest example of how red tape is tying our hands in the fight against COVID-19.
Recently, U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulators ordered a halt to the Seattle Coronavirus Network Assessment (SCAN), a program that aims to test patients for exposure to COVID-19. Promoted by Bill Gates, it had already been authorized by the state and included technical assistance from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Yet the FDA shut it down because it had not received bureaucratic authorization to share the result of self-administered tests with program participants.
You read that right: The FDA was fine with testing — and nobody claims the test is unreliable or dangerous — but without bureaucratic approval, the SCAN program may not tell patients the results of their self-administered tests. Sadly, this kind of FDA red tape is typical of our increasingly obsolete system of medical regulation.
The FDA deserves credit for taking steps in recent months to speed up the clinical investigation and approval timeline for COVID-19 treatments. But as the Seattle example shows, there’s still a lot of progress to be made to ensure that Americans receive both the protection and care they need.
We can make that needed progress by opening up the potential in our healthcare system — and there are several ways that we can do that.
