I’m now going to put up multiple posts on the Covid-19
pandemic each day, rather than one big one as I’ve been doing up until now. One
post that I’ll do every day is a “Numbers”
post, about the numbers – cases, deaths, etc. - that I’ve been tracking in the
last few days. There will still be a primary post, and this is the first of
those. I’ll always put it up last, so that it gets picked up by the email feed
at night.
You should check out the Numbers post, since it includes a disturbing trend - as if we needed more of those! - that I identified today.
You should check out the Numbers post, since it includes a disturbing trend - as if we needed more of those! - that I identified today.
“I don’t take responsibility at
all.”
-
Donald J. Trump, March 20, 2020
“At no point have (we) discussed
a nationwide lockdown.”
-
Mike Pence, March 23, 2020
I couldn’t have said it any
better than these two gentlemen did: The senior of the two people running the
entire Covid-19 response in the US says he can’t be held responsible for
anything that goes on. He never said a truer thing. This has been his attitude
throughout his presidency. Nothing bad has happened that he doesn’t
blame on others, and there’s very little good that happens that he doesn’t take
credit for. He’s certainly not taking any blame for the monumental screwup
in Covid-19 testing, which will cost thousands or hundreds of thousands of lives in the US. If he removes the social distancing order in time for
Easter and people flock to churches and other public gatherings – and this all
results in a big jump in infections – he will without a doubt not take responsibility for that, either.
Meanwhile, the person actually
charged with overseeing the entire response states emphatically that the group
he leads has never even considered what the majority of experts consider to be
the only way to stop the virus cold. Of course, there are many experts who
disagree with the idea that there needs to be a nationwide lockdown. Who’s
right? Well, that’s all a moot point for Mike Pence. He’s said that he’s
already made up his mind, and he’s not even going to consider any evidence to
the contrary.
There’s really not much more
that needs to be said. I was going to run through a litany of statements,
actions and – most importantly – lack of action that have led to our being very
likely to blow by Italy this week and China next week in total infections, with
no end in sight in the near term. And to our healthcare system which will soon
be overwhelmed with cases starting next week or the following week in New York
City, but definitely coming to a hospital near you in the next month or two.
Maybe the damage will be limited. From the general tone of people in Trump’s own administration, it sounds like it’s unlikely they’ll let him unwind the social distancing that’s in place now – and of course, more and more states are implementing it on their own (although the ones that don’t do it will of course ultimately cancel out any progress made by the ones that do, unless the latter build walls with their neighbors and forbid all interstate travel). Maybe someone will get through to him that he is planting false hopes with his touting of unapproved drugs to treat Covid-19 (which resulted in the death of an Arizona man a day or two ago), and also with his repeated statements that a vaccine will be available very soon, when in fact it’s 1-2 years away.
And maybe someone will make him
realize that he needs to start working with the rest of the world on the
response, and fast. Instead, he pulled most American diplomats out of China
recently, supposedly due to the risk of infection, when in fact they’re much
more likely to be infected in the US – where cases went up by 11,000
yesterday – than in China, where the virus isn’t spreading at all. Yet at the
same time he is pulling them out, he’s promising to get lots of everything that the hospitals need
right away, while not explaining how he’s going to do this with no diplomats in
China, when China makes a lot of what we need – including the parts needed to
build ventilators. And how he’s going to get European countries to send us
medical devices that they need for their own citizens, when there’s no European
leader - other than Vladimir Putin and a couple of his authoritarian buddies,
of course - who will even be inclined to pick up the phone when he calls
(helpful hint to Trump: block your caller ID when you call Angela or Emile)?
And maybe the stock market will
set record highs tomorrow, and maybe every child in the world will receive a pony
for Easter.
Folks, these two fine gentlemen
need to be removed from all responsibility for anything to do with the Covid-19
response NOW (or tomorrow morning at the latest). They’ve made it very clear
that they haven’t learned anything about how to respond so far, and they’re
firmly committed to closing their ears to hearing anything else that might
upset their preconceived notions (and I love the idea that, if we relax social
distancing, people will rush back to work and the economy will be great again.
Who’s going to do that, when they have no idea whether or not the person in the
next cubicle is in the later stages of an asymptomatic coronavirus infection?
At least they’ll get a paycheck, and their survivors will be able to give them
a nice funeral. If I were a business owner – with more than myself as an
employee – I would require that every employee get a negative Covid-19 test before returning, and have a new one every week thereafter,
until the virus is finally under control nationwide. But there’s one problem
with that idea: See “Testing, Criminal Lack Thereof”).
If the two men want to stay in their current positions, that’s fine – hell, I’ll even let them keep their nice offices. Maybe they can find something useful to do with their time, like finish the wall with Mexico (and build one with Canada while they’re at it), since it will soon be needed to keep Americans in. But some responsible adult needs to be brought in to lead the entire Covid-19 response, and needs to be given the powers needed to make that happen. It has to be someone from outside, since there’s nobody left in Trump’s team that would be remotely up to the task (this includes Dr. Fauci, who of course has great intentions, but no clue on how to make them come to fruition. He probably knew all along the huge consequences of the delay in testing, yet just tried to work silently from the inside to make things as un-bad as they could be; that sure worked out well). The person we bring in needs to be someone who will pound on a desk and scream until the person behind it sees the truth – and fire them if they don’t.
Of course, this is very late to
be making such a change. If Trump and Pence would have admitted they made
mistakes early on and also showed they were sincere about listening to the
experts and moving forward vigorously based on the best advice possible – and that
they really believed that the virus was more than simply a hoax perpetrated by
Trump’s enemies to deny him the election – I would say they should continue to
be in charge of the effort. But they place obstacles in its way every day and
are literally doing far more harm than good.
And here’s something you may
find surprising: I’m almost positive what I’m advocating will come to pass in a
few weeks. Why? The same word I’ve been using all along: exponential. By next
Wednesday (using the growth rate for the last seven days – 757%), I expect
416,000 total confirmed cases (vs. 81,000 in China, which is probably very
close to their final total - and probably less than 100,000 in Italy). This means that, using a 3% estimate of case
mortality rate, there will be 12,477 expected deaths over the course of the
pandemic. This is based on my assumption that next Wednesday there’s a total
lockdown (with emergency exceptions, of course) across the country which is
100% successful, resulting in 0 new infections after April 15.
By Wednesday, April 8, I expect
4 million infections (using the same 757% growth rate, which was the rate for the last seven days. The 7-day rate has varied between 545% and 839%
since March 9, the first day I had enough data to compute it); this will work
out to 120,496 deaths. And by April 15, we’ll probably be close
to a million deaths over the course of the epidemic.
I’m not the only person saying
these things; the epidemiologists seem to agree that there will be more than a
million deaths. I’ve heard the CDC itself is saying there could be between
200,000 and 1.7 million.
But what if we totally locked
down today? We would get the expected deaths number shown in my Numbers
post today: 1,648. So I guess it’s all
just a question of how many deaths we think are appropriate. Maybe you think it’s
worth a few hundred thousand deaths, as long as we make sure Trump gets re-elected. That doesn’t
happen to be the way I think, but hey – it’s a free country.
6:55 PM CT: The NY Times has a chilling story about Trump refusing to even use the military - the much-admired Defense Logistics Agency - to allocate ventilators where they're most needed, and then re-allocate them when things change. This alone might make a big difference, but since each governor has to consider his or her own state's needs first, it's almost by definition something that has to be done by the Feds. But Trump is suddenly very concerned about government usurping the role of private industry. And I totally agree with him: When NYC is probably going to start triaging next week and other cities will follow on their heels, your number one concern should be not to interfere with the workings of private industry. Makes perfect sense to me...
This statement will be inscribed on his tombstone.
This statement will be inscribed on his tombstone.
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