PANIC vs. PANDEMIC: DOING THE HARD MATH

We all know that hard decisions require hard trade-offs. Believe it or not, I take Trump at his word that he chose to downplay the deadly danger of the coronavirus to the American people because he didn't want to create "a panic" as he told Bob Woodward in taped interviews for Woodward's new book "Rage." So, what were those trade-offs?

As a philosopher, I might frame the question along these lines: What was the utilitarian calculation that led him to call the virus a Democratic hoax, to claim it was no worse than the flu, to encourage his followers to flout and then protest mask ordinances and business closures, to claim over and over again that the virus would simply disappear on its own as if by magic, to blame the states's governors (who did not have the same information he bragged to Woodward he had) for their failure to handle the pandemic?

Or to put it another way: What countervailing value compelled this administration to try to wait out the ravages of this pandemic in anticipation of a vaccine (and gaslight the American public about when it will be widely available)?

Again: Why, to this day, is there still no national policy to deal with the inevitable second wave that will strike here before a vaccine is widely available?

These are the sorts of hard questions a competent leader and administration is required to make in deciding policy questions. I get it.

So, what was the trade-off that fueled Trump and his administration's decision to downplay the deadly seriousness of the virus to the American public? What was the specific panic they wanted to avoid?

Trump's economic advisors Peter Navarro and Larry Kudlow and Steven Mnuchin, among others, made it abundantly clear that the administration's main concern was stock market values. The Trump administration's principal measure of its economic success has been the rising stock market. Trump himself boasted the other day about the record highs in the Dow Jones Industrial Average as evidence of what a good job he is doing. Understandably, they did not want to see a stock market panic a la 2008.

So, let's look at the numbers on both sides of the trade-off equation. Currently, the U.S. has roughly a quarter of the world's deaths (~195,000) even though we only make up about 4% of the world's population. Worldwide deaths stand at ~905,000. So, doing back-of-the-envelope math, if Trump had acted responsibly and truthfully, not downplayed the severity of the threat, and the U.S. had performed on par with the averages of other countries in the world (not better, just average), we should be at ~36,000 deaths (4% of 905,000). That's ~160,000 additional deaths due to Trump's neglect and public lies about the deadly severity and spread of the virus.

So the question we need to ask is how many points on the Dow Jones Industrial Average were salvaged by this policy? And how many lives were sacrificed in trade-off for each point on the Dow?

Unfortunately, I can't do the second part of the calculation because I don't have access to the numbers Navarro, Kudlow, Mnuchin, Trump, Pence, et al., had. I don't know what their projections of a market "panic" looked like. How many points did they believe it would fall if Trump did not downplay the threat of the pandemic? So, as I write this, I cannot tell you how many American lives per Dow point they gamed out in their scenarios. But I do believe this is the question that needs to be asked. FOIA, e.g., anyone?

One last point. If they did not make the good faith effort to do these utilitarian calculations in determining their policy response to the deadly spread of the virus, then frankly they did not do their job. They are incompetent, and their response has been in bad faith. The total good from the number of Dow points saved should outweigh the total suffering caused by the stack of dead American bodies and shuttered businesses or Trump's policy is an abject failure.

Difficult policy decisions demand tough, realistic calculations. We hired Trump to do the hard work of governing, and we need to be assured he didn't slough off this decision in the false hope the pandemic would simply peter out because he was afraid it would upset his re-election campaign strategy.

More Random Plague Thoughts (Again, Mostly Non-Political)

—Let's start with a simple premise: This Coronavirus Pandemic is ABSURD

• What does that mean?
• "In philosophy, 'the Absurd' refers to the conflict between the human tendency to seek inherent value and meaning in life, and the human inability to find any in a purposeless, meaningless or chaotic and irrational universe." 
• It has no rational reason for being
• It has no purpose
• It has no meaning (other than what we choose to make of it)
• We all want to believe there is something or someone behind it
• An enemy, a conspiracy to blame
• It doesn't make any sense
• It came on us through no fault of our own
• For example, it was not a punishment from God
• (Though it would make just as much sense to say it hit the U.S. so hard to chasten us for electing one of the most evil people ever to occupy the Presidency as to say that Hurricane Katrina was a punishment for debauchery in New Orleans)
• It will not be "conquered" as in a war or dominated politically
• It may be mitigated
• It might eventually disappear
• But these rely on effective medical and social strategies

—Because it is such an ABSURDITY, when it first hit no one thought it applied to them

• People dismissed it
• They called it a hoax
• They said it was just the common cold
• They said it wasn't their problem
• They called it a political hit job on the President
• They blamed the media (a nebulous, ultimately meaningless concept)
• Then they said it was no worse than the seasonal flus
• We don't do anything special about them, so why respond to this?
• They said it was no worse than automobile accidents
• They neglected to say that car wrecks, though they sometimes kill people, are not highly contagious and infectious
• Then they said it was a biological weapon created by Chinese scientists
• Then, when it became apparent it was widespread and extremely contagious and deadly, they claimed it wouldn't last
• The President said it would go away magically in a few days and that deaths would decline from fifteen per day to zero before the end of April

—An absurdity leaves us in A STATE OF UNKNOWING

• It's inconvenient
• It's incomprehensible
• It's offensive to our sense of self-worth
• It's intolerable
• It's a threat to our self-understanding and our usual way of life
• We want to understand what's happening to us
• We want a convenient answer to explain why this is happening
• It is an unwanted distraction from our fixed ideas and plans; it causes us to lose focus on reality and the actual threat that we are facing

—But there are no easy answers or solutions. And because we don't understand it, we are UNABLE TO CONFRONT IT directly

• For example, the Trump administration discarded all of the pandemic planning from the previous administration and dismantled the pandemic task force on the National Security Council—and, after the pandemic hit, they were paralyzed, didn't know what to do, and failed to re-institute these measures
• Trump personally ignored warnings about the threat, and his denials and delay in directly confronting this pandemic has resulted in undue additional deaths and economic disruption
• And there's more likely to come by virtue of leaders denying the potential for a resurgence of the virus before a vaccine is developed

—There are PROVEN STRATEGIES, developed by experienced professionals who study these things for a living, for dealing with pandemics which could have and should have been implemented as early as January when we first learned the pandemic was on the way

• Testing
• For infection
• For antibodies
• Isolation and quarantine
• Other public health social measures
• Education about washing hands, masks, means of transmission, etc.
• Social distancing, limiting public gatherings, etc.
• Contact tracing
• Locating every one the infected person been in contact with
• Treatment strategies
• Vaccine development
• A lengthy, difficult process which most don't understand

—Our MISDIRECTED REACTIONS to this absurd situation have taken many forms:

• Fear: This may be the biggest factor.
• This virus is an existential threat; that means it can kill you and others
• We worry: What will this unknown scourge do to me and my family and friends? To the country? To the economy? To the world?
• Denial:
• We think: Oh, it can't be as bad as all that
• That's leads us to distractions
• We try to forget about the omnipresence of this threat
• Magical Thinking:
• We think: God will save us
• Or, it will go away on its own if we ignore it
• Or, I'm impervious; it can't happen to me
• Embarrassment:
• We think: How could this happen to me? to us? I didn't do anything to deserve this
• Leaders are embarrassed it happened on their watch, don't want to be blamed
• Victims are embarrassed they got sick
• Blame:
• We think: This had to be somebody's fault—but not mine
• Leaders try to slough off responsibility instead of directly dealing with the problem, so they invent boogeymen
• Trump blames China, Democrats, Media, States
• Trump claims he bears no responsibility for the health of the nation
• Paralysis:
• We are so overwhelmed by the magnitude of the situation, we can't act
• Or, in Trump's case, we refuse to act to relieve suffering
• The extent to which this is (a) Trump's incompetence and inability to govern or (b) a GOP ideological inflexibility is yet to be determined
• The long-term Republican strategy of "starving the beast" by depriving the federal government of revenue to reduce its ability to act may be at play here
• As tax strategist Grover Norquist said: "My goal is to cut government in half in twenty-five years, to get it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub."
• Well, it's certainly drowning now
• But it's drowning in deaths of American citizens that are proportionally completely out-of-whack with those of most other countries.
• We just crossed the 100,000 death threshold
• Exhaustion:
• This thing is so big and overwhelming, fighting it just seems endless
• It's a marathon, not a sprint.
• Our sympathy, which begins running on adrenalin, takes its toll on first responders and medical facilities are overwhelmed
• Scientists working tirelessly to develop vaccines and cures burn themselves out
• We don't know how long we can hold out in isolation without going to restaurants or barber shops and hair salons or movies and bowling alleys
• Over-reaction:
• Some cry, "Let's just shut down everything. Let's reboot society! Burn it all down! Let everybody die who's going to die so we can have 'herd immunity'; we'll be stronger as a species for it."
• Grasping for cures:
• Snake oil! Miracle bleach! Hydroxychloroquine! Silver oxide!
• Of course, it is this aspect which brings on charlatans, frauds, snake oil salesmen, and other conmen trying to exploit this feeling of uncertainty and make a quick buck off vulnerable
• Stress:
• It is pervasive; it overlays everything from our isolation and daily meal planning to problems with re-opening the larger economy
• It suffocates us; it weighs down all our thoughts and emotions and actions
• Nostalgia:
• We hope we will get back to the good old days; we want the old 'normal
• Cynicism:
• Some don't care who or how many die but merely want their political polls or stock portfolios or profits to increase
• Some politicians are actually polling and making political calculations about how many deaths are acceptable so that a mayor or governor or president can claim to re-open. They've proclaimed this thinking publicly 
• These are the real "death panels" which some used as a canard—a false charge—against the Affordable Care Act
• Loneliness:
• So many people are dying alone, losing loved ones
• Others are isolating with no social contact with their churches or clubs or groups
• Anger:
• We're mad at the virus so we act out, taking it out on the very people who are trying to alleviate or mitigate the disease and those around us
• Misguided outrage helps us deal with our own feelings of helplessness before this thing which is bigger than us, has no reason, attacked us through no fault of our own
• But because it is misguided, it causes further societal damage

—These are all reactions to GRIEF

• And that is what this situation feels like
• We are all grieving. We are all experiencing grief
• But our grief feels so small in the face of this overwhelming general pandemic
• And that is the problem
• There's nothing we, individually, can do
• We feel vulnerable and helpless in the face of this massive assault
• And we don't like that feeling
• What's more, we can't even be sad—yet. It's too early to mourn
• People are still getting sick and dying
• We are still in the throes of this thing
• We are still experiencing limitations on our freedoms and activities
• So our grief takes all these other misdirected forms
• We are impatient for it to be over
• We all want to live our lives free of this virus and the restrictions it has imposed on us
• We all want to do anything else than isolate
• We all want to get back to normal
• But in this case, normal may cause yet more devastation—economic and social—and greater death tolls as second and possibly third waves hit
• And we need to be very wary of this

—APPROPRIATE RESPONSES to grief include:

• It's okay to feel sad, feel helpless, to be angry, to be stressed out, to mourn
• But it's how we deal with those emotions that matters in society
• How we act out our emotional turmoil
• Sympathy: Ask 'What can I do to help someone who is suffering, someone who is in grief?' 
• Hope: There will be a vaccine perhaps a cure—someday. Some good people are on the job
• Patience: Don't rush back into unsafe situations. Be wise!

—BOTTOM LINE: The world is grieving, the country is grieving, we are each grieving in our own ways

• This grieving will not end anytime soon
• We need to be aware of it, understand it, and somehow learn to accept this as our changed circumstance
• We can take some comfort in the fact that it is temporary, but must realize it is not going away anytime soon
• And take precautions as we go forward

The sooner we realize that EVERYONE is experiencing this ABSURD GRIEF (though people are responding to it in different and often inappropriate ways), that everyone is MOURNING, the sooner we can begin to HEAL—individually and as a society and as a species.

Don't Be a 💩🏊‍♂️!

I’ve been brooding about how this will likely be the first summer in decades I won’t be able to go out and swim a couple of miles every week. I’m not Masters level fast, mind you. But I love swimming. It's a full-body, cardio-vascular workout with no impact. My free-style recreational mile is usually just under 40 minutes—no toys or floaties or fins. And I do try to swim year round though my gym has been closed since February.

This put me in mind of what it was like when my kids were young and we would take them swimming. We wanted them to develop a love of the water at a young age. And we were gratified they all grew up to be on their swim teams, train to become lifeguards, and take up scuba diving—one of my great loves.

Every once in awhile we would get to the pool just as some kid had pooped 💩 in the shallow end. The lifeguards would have to clear everyone out for 24 hours while they shocked the pool with chlorine and ran a full filtration cycle.

This pandemic is actually a lot like that. This country has a big poop 💩 problem. The coronavirus is the poop in the social pool, and the stay-at-home, isolation, quarantining, and social distancing regimes are the 24-hour reboot.

The only problem now is that some people—some wealthy, some armed, some governors, and some presidents—want to reopen the pool before they’ve cleaned out all the poop 💩. And plenty of the loudest mouths are happy to let YOU be the poop 💩 swimmers 🏊‍♂️ so their stock portfolios or poll numbers won’t tank.

So, all I’m saying is don’t be a poop swimmer 💩🏊‍♂️! It's too early to re-open the economy without proper planning and precautions. The folks urging us to go in too early are not lifeguards; our health and safety is not their first concern.

Let’s let the filtration cycle run its full course and get the place cleaned out. This may take months. We may risk a second and third wave of COVID-19 which could be devastating. We all want to get back in the pool as soon as possible, but it’s not worth a mouthful of virus—or poop 💩 for that matter.

More Plague Thoughts — More Political This Time

I posted the following thread on Twitter a couple of days ago.

Ok. Hold onto your collective hats. It’s time for some (conspiracy) game theory. In a very memorable phrase, Trump’s campaign manager Parscale recently declared that his ‘Death Star’ campaign was about to launch on all platforms. 1/10

The next day, a massive disinformation conspiracy theory video appears on Facebook filled with a mixture of misinformation, disinformation, and partial or slanted truth-or truthiness. Pl@ndemic. Millions of instantaneous views & shares. 2/10

This is a rather obvious piece of propaganda intended to confuse people, poison the dialogue, and create and play on people’s fear and doubt about the authority of using a scientific approach to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic. 3/10

It was shocking how fast it “went viral.” And of course there was further PR complaining about how the media is attempting to squelch the truth. Which only propagated it more. But that’s not all. 4/10

Today it was announced that Trump’s valet tested positive for coronavirus, and in a memorable phrase Trump was lava level angry. It was this phrasing that jumped out at me. It sounds contrived. What does it matter what Trump is feeling? 5/10

Shouldn’t we be concerned about what he’s NOT been doing to protect the country? This feels like another distraction tactic to take the heat off of him for his negligence and reckless indifference and utter incompetence in dealing with this problem. 6/10

Now the speculation: Let’s say it’s not true, or only partially true—the valet has a common cold. But what if the campaign sequesters Trump for a couple weeks or so (a la Kim Jong-Un)? 7/10

Rumors spread that Trump has the virus. Everybody wants to know. Does he have it? Is he going to die? Nobody says anything. Then all of a sudden, he reappears (again like Kim). And the whisper campaign begins about how he beat the invisible enemy. 8/10

He’s a superman. He’s a God. It’s a miracle. God wants him to rule four more years, otherwise a lesser man would have succumbed. It’s campaign gold, I tell ya. 9/10

So, is this another move in the Death Star campaign. I wouldn’t put it past them. Watch this space! 10/10

PS. Yes, I’ m cynical, but not half as cyncical as this Trump campaign. Also a reminder: I craft narratives (create fiction) daily.

Random Plague Thoughts (Mostly Non-Political)

• COVID-19, the Novel Coronavirus is NOT the Zombie Apocalypse.
• But it's like nothing any of us alive have ever experienced.
• The Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918 is our only global model precedent.
• Though we have the experiences of China, S. Korea, and Italy to go by.
• And these are so recent, their findings are hard to digest.
• That flu was more deadly but not nearly as contagious.
• One of the truly pernicious features of COVID-19 is the way it's spread:
• If someone sneezes on me at the grocery story on a normal Tuesday...
• I know I will come down with cold symptoms by the weekend.
• With this virus, I might not show any symptoms for up to TWO WEEKS!
• And all that time, I am infectious to everyone I come into contact with.
• Unbeknownst to me or them!
• The economic consequences of this current pandemic are going to be dire:
• Q1 earnings/unemployment will only tell part of the story: ~three weeks of devastation.
• Q2 will be devastating globally because the economic stoppage will be for the entire period.
• GLOBAL RECESSION!!!
• Depression. Economic Armageddon.
• The death of Neo-liberalism and Global Capitalism.
• The rise of Socialism.
• The implementation of Nationalist Isolationism and Military Dictatorships.
• The suspension of democratic elections and even Constitutions.
• None of the above. All of the above.
• Who knows?
• I certainly don't. And neither do you.
• And that's the point: we are all dealing in uncertainties and unknowns.
• One question to ponder though: Are the stock markets pricing these potential risks in now? (We'll come back to that.)
• Still, there are some things we can speculate about reasonably.
• China, e.g., is already starting to see the first signs of economic recovery—even in Wuhan.
• Due primarily to early efforts at containment and isolation.
• AND MASS TESTING.
• Only with broad testing are we able to determine how widespread the contagion is.
• Frankly, the U.S. has no idea how bad it is here because we have so little testing...
• Even for our front-line medical personnel.
• China's economy is, however, manufacturing based.
• Ours is more a service economy.
• China, thus, may not be a good model.
• Because you can isolate people on a factory floor but not, say, in a restaurant or at a show.
• There may be some validity to the notion that the virus will dwindle by summer.
• Summer colds suck but are not nearly as prevalent as winter colds.
• Social distancing, isolation, and quarantining are key factors in stopping the spread now.
• And we should all be observing them assiduously.
• Probably at least through May or June.
• But these measures also bring certain risks:
• Chief among the risks: Fewer people are exposed to the virus.
• Thus fewer develop immunities to it and remain vulnerable to exposure and infection.
• If—IF—we see a dwindling of the virus and hints of an economic recovery by summer...
• Many feel the economy and global equity markets will start to recover.
• And social distancing, etc. (sports, concerts, bars, restaurants, etc.) may dwindle as well.
• Folks will likely relax their precautions.
• But there will not be a vaccination ready by that time.
• And this is the problem.

• Now, back to the Spanish Flu precedent (remember that?):
• It, too, dwindled over the warmer months of 1918.
• But came back with an even more virulent vengeance the next October.
• And most of the deaths occurred over THAT winter stretching into 1919.

• Yet, CDC is on the case.
• People we know personally here in Atlanta who normally work on things like HIV/AIDS, cholera, ebola, flu, etc., have been reassigned.
• It's all hands on deck for COVID-19.
• This is a good thing. A very good thing.
• But no matter how hard they work, a vaccine will not be ready for at least another year, if not longer.
• This is a fact of life about vaccine trials: THEY TAKE TIME!
• Both to check their effectiveness against the virus, and
• Their dangers.
• Next fall, if the Spanish Flu is any guide, could see a disastrous SECOND WAVE of the outbreak!
• Unless, of course, some sort of therapy is developed.
• There is some happy talk now from Trump about hydroxychloroquine, a malarial drug.
• There is some evidence it can be repurposed to ease the effects of the coronavirus.
• This evidence, however, is inconclusive...
• And must likewise be investigated. Again, THIS TAKES TIME!
• Again, CDC does not have any evidence at the present time that Chloroquine can mitigate the symptoms of COVID-19, say like Tamiflu does for the flu.
• The point being: if we see a relaxing of the distancing precautions in the summer due to a belief that the virus is defeated, we may see a dramatic increase in cases next fall.
• Remember, it is VERY contagious.
• And, there being no vaccine, this could devastate the global economy even further.
• And that includes the stock markets as well—IN A BIG WAY!
• Meaning: a second major dip in the stock markets, another devastating hit to a recovering economy.
• Bottom line: Don't sleep on this thing!
• Don't get over-confident.
• We are in this for the long haul.
• At least until an effective vaccine is developed...
• Or a proven therapy or even a cure is developed.
• Then, and only then, will we have to deal with the idiot anti-vaxxers.
• But at least they will have seen what a vaccine-less world looks like.