“Far from being the time to drop our guard, this is the moment to work even harder to save lives,” Tedros said during a press briefing in Geneva. “Specifically, this means investing so that Covid-19 tools are equitably distributed, and we simultaneously strengthen health systems.”
Houssin said the committee is working on criteria, including epidemiological data and the level of international assistance to contain the virus, to determine when the WHO can declare that the global health emergency is over.
“Masks Stay On: C.D.C. Keeps the Mandate on Planes” (NYT):
Despite pressure from airlines and industry groups, the Biden administration extended the requirement to wear masks while traveling on public transportation through May 3.
Dr. Ashish K. Jha, the new White House Covid response coordinator, said in an interview that the additional time will allow the C.D.C. to assess whether BA.2, a subvariant of the coronavirus, is going to become a “ripple or a wave” in the United States. The C.D.C. will use that information to determine whether the mandate should be extended further, he said.
We’re still in a COVID emergency, which is why the rabble need to wear some sort of mask on buses, subways, and commercial airliners (the elites are unmasked in their private cars and private jets, of course!), but COVID is not a sufficiently serious risk to justify trying to keep COVID-infected migrants out (“CDC orders Title 42 to wind down, saying expulsions of migrants are no longer needed” (CBS, April 1)).
It’s a worldwide and nationwide emergency, but every American has the option to move to a state that matches his/her/zir/their desired level of panic. One useful tool is the WalletHub ranking of states by COVID-19 restrictions (the Florida Free State is #2 at the free end of the spectrum). A newly released multi-state comparison from the National Bureau of Economic Research is co-authored by Casey Mulligan (see Book Review: The Redistribution Recession). From “A Final Report Card on the States’ Response to COVID-19”:
For those who seek maximum panic and securely locked-down K-12ers, the best places to live are California, Maryland, Oregon, Washington, Hawaii, and D.C. (And, in fact, some friends who were supporters of lockdowns, masks, Joe Biden, etc. recently moved to Hawaii from a state that had only a middling level of passion for lockdowns and school closures.)
As the authors point out (above), school closures will surely kill a lot of Americans in the long run; they estimate that more life-years will be lost just from this than from COVID-19. But did school closures save lives in the short run? The authors look at COVID-tagged deaths per 100,000 population and adjust for age and the prevalence of obesity and diabetes. Hawaii is ranked #1 (lowest rate), but D.C. is ranked #48 despite similar enthusiasm for school closure. (schools-open Florida is mid-pack for death rate at #22.) On the “excess deaths” guestimation, California and Florida are right next to each other despite it being illegal to keep a school open in California and it being illegal to keep a school closed in Florida.
The authors are economists so they get into a lot of GDP data and operate from the assumption that richer is better than poorer. I personally disagree with this approach as I’ve noted before. Since Americans say that they don’t care how impoverished they become so long as they can preserve at least one human life, the relevant standard for looking at lockdown is life-years, adding up those saved from COVID-19 and subtracting those lost due to the side-effects of lockdown. Wealth (GDP) factors into this only to the extent that wealth is correlated with health and longevity.
The NBER paper concludes by noting that four of the states that they ranked last in a composite score (in-person school percentage, economic performance, and minimizing deaths) are the ones that have had the highest per-capita rates of out-migration. These are DC, NY, IL, and CA.
What about our family’s August 2021 move? Florida gets an A rating and a #6 rank in the composite score. Maskachusetts is lumped in with the D students and has a #41 rank. (If you like skiing, Utah is ranked #1!)
Related:
My feeling is that the masking contributes to urban crime in place like NYC since criminals know that masks make it harder to recognize masked criminals and contribute to unruly behavior on airlines since masking increases the frustrations of air travel.
One can only hope that the voters keep the masking mandates in mind when they vote in November.
Jack: Isn’t it safe to say that more than half of voters love mask orders? If they didn’t want to be technocratically managed, why would they have voted for Presidents Biden and Harris? The most important vote is with one’s feet. Everyone who loves Science and, therefore, lockdowns, school closures, and masks, should move to the Northeast, D.C., or California.
Given your previous posts about Florida, and maybe also because of family, I’m sitting in Florida right now. My plane has a hangar and I’m closing on a house in a month.
I’ve been here shopping for 3 weeks and my lord the stress relief is palpable. I have seen one mask, no one has mentioned covid and I’ve largely lived a normal life. Even visiting family no arguments about vax/no vax or mentions of covid.
Would recommend anyone to pay over ask to GTFO of California.
Since you link to your April post about the Florida move, and because so many people who were former Facebook friends once questioned your sanity and intellect over it, I’d like to ask (and I hope this isn’t too intrusive):
How have the kids adjusted to the move? What’s their general impression of living in Florida after ~8 months? Do they question your sanity?
The lion kingdom is most impacted by Bide’s mask mandate for airplanes. Having a passport which expires in 1 year was a motivation to go somewhere, but not if it entails wearing a mask for 12 hours.
Obama always said if you like your covid emergency you can keep your covid emergency forever!
We can consider ourselves lucky that the WHO was founded only in 1948, otherwise we would still be locked down because of the Spanish Flu (1918-1919, no vaccines, less than two years, stopped naturally).