Category: Coronapanic

More proof that New York City and Boston need to be abandoned or reconfigured

by philg

Want to stop coronaplague? The Church of Shutdown says it is as simple as social distancing. But an analysis of social distancing by the Maryland Transportation Institute shows that the very places that are best at social distancing are the ones that are suffering from the worst coronaplague:

Right near the top, the most plague-ridden states: NY, NJ, CT, MA.

Are the wicked being punished? Wyoming and Montana are at the bottom and people there are not dropping dead.

In “Data on nationwide excess deaths” I wrote the following:

Should we suspect from these data that the problems NYC has had with Covid-19 are idiosyncratic? Some other cities and regions also had exposure starting at roughly the same time (mid-January?) and those places locked down within a few days of the NYC shutdown. Yet excess deaths are fairly low (or actually negative) almost everywhere other than NYC.

Is it possible that we’re fighting a nationwide war against a virus that is attacking only a handful of cities for reasons that are peculiar to those cities? Or possibly peculiar to the strain of the virus that has been circulating in those cities? If we take out metro NYC, Detroit, New Orleans (they’re not going to have a second Mardi Gras this year, right?), and Boston, does the “U.S.” actually have excess deaths or any kind of problem with Covid-19 that couldn’t be handled with the most basic precautions?

(And how would we handle the apparently idiosyncratic problems with these cities? Tell New Orleans that Mardi Gras is henceforth restricted to the sober (90% reduction in crowding?). Reopen the United States economy and use the money to pay roughly half of NYC residents to move out to suburbs and other states. The super high density plainly has made NYC a breeding ground for any enterprising virus. Run more subway trains in Boston so that people aren’t jammed in like sardines and/or pay people to leave the city, as in New York. I’m at at loss to know what to do about Detroit, I must confess!)

Is the above chart proof that there is something about NYC and Boston that makes them ideal hosts for a viral epidemic? People in these cities have given maximum effort to observe the tenets of the Church of Shutdown, yet Covid-19 continues to infect and kill while leaving nearly the entire rest of the U.S. alone. Could this be just bad luck? France and Spain went off the rails with Covid-19, while Germany, at least if we believe their official death numbers, was barely touched. On the other hand, if we truly have faith in the Religion of Shutdown, aren’t we forced to conclude that Boston and New York are simply incompatible with a world of 8 billion humans interconnected by air travel?

(What would be ironic if not sad, at least for people like me who live in Boston, is that when this plague was new people in Boston and New York confidently predicted doom for the Deplorable-infested southern states. Intelligence and virtue would protect Boston and New York while stupidity, racism, and sexism would prevent Florida and Texas from responding competently. Now that Massachusetts has 10X the death rate of Florida and 20X the death rate of Texas, the jeering seems to have stopped.)

Also, does the chart falsify the familiar refrain from self-satisfied Californians that the reason they were substantially spared is that they purportedly shut down earlier than New York? The chart shows that, in fact, New York was socially distanced a week prior to California.

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Donutnomics during the Coronaplague

by philg

I caught up recently with my source for “Fast-food economics in Massachusetts: Higher minimum wage leads to a shorter work week, not fewer people on welfare”. He owns donut shops and, following minimum wage hikes, had workers asking for their hours to be cut so that they could continue to be eligible for various forms of welfare, including means-tested housing and health insurance subsidies.

What’s going on during coronaplague? “Business is down 50 percent,” he replied. “But we should be able to get a loan from the government that will pay for two months of salaries.”

What’s the main challenge right now? “Almost all of my workers could make more collecting unemployment than by continuing to work for me,” he said. This has created a delicate situation. Given that unemployment is now more lucrative than full-time work, does he lay off the best workers, rewarding them financially for their high effort and dedication to his business? Or does he lay off his least productive workers, thus inadvertently rewarding them financially for their weak efforts and lack of dedication?

How about around the rest of the neighborhood? Other than the supermarket, our town has one source of food that remains open: a pizza and sub shop that has a few tables, but was always primarily a take-out business (it occupies half of a gas station). The owner-chef says that business is down 60 percent.

Readers: Are you as surprised as I was by these numbers? Most donut sales are drive-through and/or takeout to begin with. Wouldn’t people want to escape their houses, enjoy a traffic-free 5-minute trip to the local donut shop, and come back with a delicious coffee and donut? And why are pizza/sub sales down? I have a tough time believing that our neighbors have finally learned to use their $250,000 dream kitchens.

A neighbor is an accountant for small-to-medium-sized businesses here in Massachusetts. He reports that every employer with whom he works is besieged by employees, especially the part-time and low-wage ones. Are they nervous about the future of the economy and want extra hours and overtime pay so that they can save up? No. Like the donut slingers, they want to be laid off because they can achieve a similar or higher spending power by collecting conventional Massachusetts unemployment plus $600 per week from the Federales.

Consider someone who works 25 hours per month at $20 per hour, helping out a retail store during busy hours. That’s $500/month, which would entitle the worker to roughly $200/month in benefits in the event of a layoff. Right now, however, unemployment will pay closer to $2,800/month.

How about a full-time minimum wage worker? Let’s call that 172 hours times $12 per hour = $2,064 per month. Unemployment will pay over $3,000 per month.

I met a 24-year-old who works for a national retail chain that is headquartered in Massachusetts. She has been cut from five days per week in the office to two days per week working from home. “I hope this lasts through the summer,” she said. “I’m making at least $200 extra per week while hardly doing anything.” (She has a 24-year-old friend, meanwhile, who has been terrified by reports of young people cut down by Covid-19. The slender healthy young person will not leave her apartment.)

How typical are these experiences in which an employee actually has a higher spending power by being laid off? “The $600 Unemployment Booster Shot, State by State” (nytimes) says “Workers in more than half of states will receive, on average, more in unemployment benefits than their normal salaries”:

It looks as though there are some strange bedfellows in this table. New Hampshire and New York, for example, are two of the states that offer the highest reward for continuing to work (still a minimal difference in spending power compared to playing Xbox and watching Netflix all day).

One of the main themes of the Bell Curve (1994) is that American society becomes more unfriendly each year to those whose IQ is below average. I wonder if this is being amply proven by the current landscape of work-versus-welfare alternatives. The Bell Curve says that in the old days it wasn’t that helpful to have a high IQ. If you were born a peasant you could think big thoughts while digging for potatoes. It wasn’t that harmful to have a low IQ. If you worked harder you’d get paid more. If you committed a crime, of which there was a short list of easily understood prohibitions, you’d get imprisoned. Our modern world, on the other hand, has thousands of crimes, many of which are non-obvious and/or not regularly punished. Would a person with an IQ of 90 be able to figure out that saying “I didn’t do it” to a law enforcement officer could result in 5 years in prison (Brogan v. United States), more than pleading guilty to killing a fiance in order to get the insurance cash?

Pre-plague Massachusetts already presented a non-obvious landscape for planning out a life of earning. Having a child and living on welfare yields a greater spending power than working at a median wage job (CATO analysis). Having sex with a married dermatologist yields a greater spending power than going to medical school and working as a primary care doctor (our family law). Having sex with three different already-married above-median-income partners and collecting child support from each yields a substantially greater spending power than marrying a median-income partner. Add to all of these we now have a situation in which workers are much better off financially being fired than continuing to work. And, of course, they’re also way better off in terms of exposure to the dreaded coronavirus if they stay home and play videogames or watch TV.

We have a similar situation for business owners. The smartest and most successful business owners had their free government cash arranged within days. They had no trouble figuring out which bank to use, what forms to fill out, etc. (The biggest banks helped the biggest customers, taking advantage of the fact that a hotel or restaurant chain with 100 directly owned locations was considered 100 “small businesses” rather than one big business.) The honest, but not-too-bright, small business operator? He/she/ze/they was mostly out of luck.

How about people who want to collect conventional welfare? Here’s part of an email from our local school:

The events of the COVID-19 emergency may have changed financial circumstances for your family. As a consequence, your students may now be eligible for the Free and Reduced Price School Meals (FRL) program. If they are eligible for the FRL program, the national Pandemic-EBT program may provide additional benefits in the form of food assistance cards.

Details of the Pandemic-EBT program may be found at https://www.mass.gov/info-details/pandemic-ebt-p-ebt. It is a supplemental program provided through the Massachusetts Department of Transitional Assistance. Eligibility is based on the FRL status, so, if your family circumstances have changed, you may wish to apply for enrollment in the Free and Reduced Price School Meals (FRL) program.

The application form is attached. You may fill out the Word document and upload the completed application file electronically to the Free & Reduced Lunch Application Submission Folder. That is the preferred application method. You could also print out the PDF version, fill it out, sign, and scan it, then upload it electronically to the Free & Reduced Lunch Application Submission Folder. Either method provides for the confidentiality of your information.

So… as long as you have a scanner and/or an Office 365 subscription, free meals will be coming your way! Here’s an excerpt:

Confusing: Each of your six children can be “foster”, “homeless”, “migrant”, and/or “runaway”. If a child has run away, however, how would there be an adult filling out this form?

(The form also says “We are required to ask for information about your children’s race and ethnicity. This information is important and helps to make sure we are fully serving our community.” Dare we ask if the white poverty industry employees will try to prepare ethnically appropriate meals for each child? It will like Clint Eastwood in Gran Torino trying to make Hmong meals for the neighbors?)

Is this truly accessible to a person with a below-average IQ?

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Doom for the wicked Swedes is always three weeks away

by philg

Massachusetts Facebook friends were gleefully discussing the wave of death that is pummeling Sweden, over a link to “I Just Came Home to Sweden. I’m Horrified by the Coronavirus Response Here.” (Slate) As part of strategy to be defriended by everyone, I responded with

Maybe the Swedes would appreciate some advice … on the Massachusetts secret to managing Covid-19. I am sure that they are curious to know how we managed to achieve 2X the Swedish death rate while shutting down schools, offices, restaurants, and gyms (all places that Swedes are still going).

The Church of Shutdown members have a ready answer to this:

And in Sweden, the infection rate continues to grow, while in Massachusetts it is shrinking slowly. MA hasn’t done a great job, its biggest mistake being that it did nothing until the rate was high, but its future looks better than Sweden’s.

Me:

You’re proving my point about the Church of Shutdown. Our religion says that we should be rewarded for our social distancing. Instead, however, we see Swedes partying and Danes sending their children to reopened schools. At some later date, however, (“the afterlife”) everyone will get his/her/zir/their just reward. The Swedes will be killed for partying continuously. The Danes will be killed for abandoning the sacrament of school closure before Jan 2021. The righteous of Massachusetts will be spared both infection and death in this afterlife, though it may look dark for us right here and now.

Righteous:

No, in MA we have the opportunity to get the infection rate down to a level where testing and tracking can keep it under control. No need to wait for an afterlife. The IHME model gives June 22 as the date. There’s reason to hope our new mask order will accelerate this process.

This prompted me to look at the IHME prophecies. On April 12, in “Everything the gleeful journalists said would happen to Sweden has happened… to Massachusetts”, I wrote “The University of Washington right now says that doom is in store for Sweden. They’ll have 13,259 deaths through August 4, 2020. They’ll have 79 ICU beds and need 3,378(!).” and included a screen shot indicating that peak demand on Swedish health care would happen on May 3 (today!).

Are they, in fact, 3,300 ICU beds short? They have had a total of only about 2,000 critical care “sessions” total for 1,500 patients (official data). ICU occupancy has been steady at roughly 500 patients for the past few weeks.

What do the augurs of University of Washington now say?

Although nothing regarding Swedish policy has changed, despite hundreds of American newspaper articles telling the Swedish how wrong they actually are, the God of Shutdown is now coming for the Swedes on May 22, at which point those who failed to worship Him/Her/Zer/Them will be short 3,711 ICU beds.

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After spreading without being constrained by the Miracle of Shutdown since mid-January in Sweden, Covid-19 will finally get organized to kill the unrighteous in Sweden in late May:

(Look at the error bars! They’re fairly confident that on May 23, Sweden will have between 11 deaths and… 2,789 deaths.

You’d have to be “anti-science” to deny that the number of Covid-19-tagged deaths in Sweden on May 23 will fall somewhere in between 11 and 2,789!)

Separately, how do we enter the Promised Land of “testing and tracking” that has been promised to the Church of Shutdown faithful? The 22 million undocumented will answer their phones and open their doors when the friendly government agent calls or shows up to ask a lot of questions about exactly where they’ve been? Healthy 20-year-olds will meekly submit to being stuck with needles and swabs? What’s in it for them? A resident of Massachusetts can terminate a 23.99-week-old pregnancy (political logic: had the pregnancy terminated in a birth at 22 weeks, for example, taxpayers via MassHealth would have paid $5 million or more, if necessary, to preserve the 22-week “child” rather than paying $1,000 to abort the 23.99-week-old “fetus”), why can’t a resident of Massachusetts say “my body, my choice” when the helpful government shows up with needles and swabs?

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Full lockdown policies in Western Europe countries have no evident impacts on the COVID-19 epidemic

by philg

Professor Johan Giesecke, former chief scientist of the European CDC, and most of the rest of the 15 state epidemiologists in Sweden, started out from the position that Western government “lockdown” policies would have a minimal effect on the evil coronavirus’s ability to infiltrate a naive population (video). That’s been a primary motivation for Sweden’s decision not to bother tilting at the windmills (and “herd immunity” pops out as a side effect, but the Swedes would say that herds all around Western Europe will get there pretty soon too, if they haven’t already).

Were the Swedes correct in this assumption?

“Full lockdown policies in Western Europe countries have no evident
impacts on the COVID-19 epidemic.” (medrxiv, April 24) chronicles Thomas Meunier’s attempt to find discontinuities in the growth of the coronavirus as a result of various Western policies. He’s a Ph.D. in physical oceanography (essentially applied physics), not a physician, and testing policies vary from country to country and from day to day, so he is looking only at the output numbers (daily deaths attributed to Covid-19).

Meunier’s conclusion is that the “home containment” policies tried by some of the worst-hit countries (“when lockdown doesn’t work, try more lockdown!”) had no effect compared to the more basic social distancing policies, such as adopted in the Netherlands. The virus was already burning itself out when peoples and governments went into full panic mode:

This observational study, using a generalized phenomenological method based on official daily deaths records only, shows that full lockdown policies of France, Italy, Spain and United Kingdom haven’t
had the expected effects in the evolution of the COVID-19 epidemic. Our results show a general decay trend in the growth rates and reproduction numbers two to three weeks before the full lockdown policies would be expected to have visible effects.

What about the Swedish infidels? What happens when a country goes completely off the reservation? (as pilots like to say, “We don’t need Elizabeth Warren to tell us what a bad idea that is”)

results for Sweden suggest that taking no action at all may yield a more variable decay of the epidemic.

(The Swedes did, of course, ban gatherings of more than 50 people, and took some other medium-weight measures with the goal of preventing ICUs from being overwhelmed.)

In aviation, delay between input and output is one of the biggest challenges for a beginner pilot and leads to accidents even for experienced pilots via pilot-induced oscillation. Trying to hover a helicopter? A little forward cyclic doesn’t do anything for a second or so. Then the helicopter moves forward over the ground at an alarming rate. Pull back on the stick? The helicopter tilts back almost immediately, but keeps going forward. Instead of waiting, the beginner will…. pull back more! This keeps instructors busy and, every now and then, keeps helicopter factories busy building replacements (see “Teaching Hovering”). The same thing happens when trying to land a heavy jet. A little low? Thrust levers forward. Due to inertia plus a bit of spool-up time for the engines results in no big result for 5-10 seconds, at which point the airplane is above the glide slope. Thrust levers dramatically back! 5-10 seconds later… Well, you get the idea… (and then, at least in Toronto, the captain says “Nobody was born knowing how to fly a 53,000 lb. jet”)

I’m wondering if the same thing has gone on with human responses to coronavirus. Outputs (deaths) occur 2-4 weeks after inputs (exposure to the virus, changes in behavior). People are reacting this month to something that actually happened last month and may no longer be happening. (Will we look back on this and say it was like the tired mom of a sleepless two-month-old baby taking 31 birth control pills in hopes of undoing the damage?)

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YouTube casting out the physician-heretics

by philg

I found a fun illustration of my theory that American attitudes toward coronaplague are primarily religious. Two physicians in California would ordinarily have been celebrated as heroic “frontline” workers. But then they made heretical statements in a YouTube video, e.g., that the death rate from Covid-19 was about the same as for a bad influenza (what the former chief scientist of the European CDC estimated as well) and that shutting down society and the economy was irrational.

YouTube cast out the heretics, which didn’t surprise me, but sampling the hour-long video (still available on the web site of the doctors’ local ABC broadcast(!) TV station), I was surprised at how mild-mannered the doctors are.

The efforts that elite Americans, such as the executives at Google/YouTube, are making to suppress heresy, all the while claiming that their religious beliefs are based on “science”, would be comical if not for the high stakes in terms of lives. Astronomers don’t spend a lot of effort trying to remove astrology videos from YouTube. People don’t feel that astronomy is threatened to the point that they post on Facebook #BelieveAstronomy and #RejectAstrology.

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Have we figured out whether coronavirus is significantly spread via contaminated surfaces?

by philg

“NYC subways will close overnight for coronavirus cleanings” (New York Post):

New York’s 24/7 subway system will shutter nightly from 1 a.m. to 5 a.m. to facilitate coronavirus cleaning, Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced Thursday in a historic move.

“You never had a challenge of disinfecting every train every 24 hours,” said Cuomo in an Albany press briefing, a problem he earlier this week directed the MTA to solve. “It can best be done by stopping train service from 1 a.m. to 5 a.m. every night.”

The “massive undertaking” is expected to impact 10,000 riders nightly, according to Cuomo, who said buses, vans and for-hire vehicles will be provided to pick up the slack.

“You do have essential workers who are using our trains and subways, and they will have transportation during that period of time,” Cuomo vowed.

The larger push to clean up the subway system has been made for those workers, who Cuomo said deserve better than dangerous, unsanitary trips to and from the front lines.

“It is our obligation as human beings to reciprocate, and make sure we’re doing everything we can,” he said.

Fine words, of course, from a guy who will probably not be working at 2:00 am with a bottle of Formula 409. But is there any evidence that touching surfaces previously touched by the plague-infected is a significant source of transmission? Is it touching door handles and subway poles that have turned New York into Wuhan-on-the-Hudson or is it sharing air, while actually together inside the subway and buses, that is primarily responsible?

For those of us who don’t live in a plague center (Boston and New York are the only ones left in the U.S.?), should we be touching everything with a cloth, OCD-style, or not worrying too much if we’re not in a crowded space?

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Is the face mask the Church of Shutdown’s hijab?

by philg

Our town, which has a 2-acre zoning minimum, has imposed a rule requiring the “Use of Face Coverings”, starting today. People cannot be out of their yards without a mask:

Roads, sidewalks, bicycle paths, and trails: Walkers, joggers, cyclists, inline skaters, and skiers must wear face coverings when approaching or overtaking other persons. When no other person is nearby, the face covering may be worn under the chin in a position from which it can be quickly pulled up over the nose and mouth when needed. When approaching or overtaking another person, both parties must move off the path to the side to establish at least six feet of separation.

Most of the roads don’t have sidewalks, so this means people who are separated by the width of a two-lane road have to be masked. “Skiers” are mentioned, so it seems that the Church of Shutdown is preparing for a full year of worship.

Given that no effective masks are available for purchase in Massachusetts, the good news is that one can comply with this rule by wearing “scarf or bandana.” But aren’t those essentially useless against tiny particles of virus escaping into the air? If we can agree that bandanas and scarves are not adequate functional substitutes for surgical masks, is it fair to consider them religious symbols, i.e., the Church of Shutdown’s hijabs?

(Of course, it may also be impossible to buy a bandana:

Can the police arrest and/or fine people for failure to possess what cannot be purchased?)

Readers: What kind of evidence is there that a suburban street or sidewalk with a handful of walkers per hour, or a trail in the woods where people pass each other every 10 minutes (for example), will make any difference to whether a Covid-19 outbreak is sustained? (Separately, in what American suburb has a Covid-19 outbreak ever been sustained, despite up to two months of pre-shutdown spreading? For example, have we heard of a case of someone traveling from a St. Louis suburb to New York City for a Broadway show in February and then returning home to infect neighbors on the other sides of the white picket fences? The NYT map below doesn’t suggest that the fabled exponential growth has occurred anywhere in the U.S. other than a few cities.)

Related:

  • “The case for reopening America’s parks” (Vox): Another Chinese study looking at 318 outbreaks featuring three or more Covid-19 cases adding up to 1,245 total confirmed cases across more than 100 cities found just one instance of outdoor transmission.
  • Governor’s state-wide order on face masks: This applies to both indoor and outdoor spaces. … A face covering can include anything that covers your nose and mouth, including dust masks, scarves and bandanas. … make sure you wash the cloth mask regularly. Wash your hands or use hand sanitizer after touching the mask. [i.e., use the hand sanitizer that you can’t buy after touching the bandana that you can’t buy]
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How productive are you during this coronplague shutdown?

by philg

Happy International Workers’ Day, comrades!

How productive are you and your co-workers now that everyone has gone to work-from-home?

In my small survey of for-profit enterprises that are still up and running, but dispersed, popular answers are in the 75-80 percent range. (Massachusetts public schools, however, are down closer to 10 percent.)

One manager at a “Big Tech” firm said that he expected productivity to fall as new projects were undertaken, but that 75-80 percent was a good number for the current work. He’s in Silicon Valley where hardly anyone has children. A manager at a “Big Tech” coding plantation here in Cambridge, also said that her team was at 80 percent. “Really?” I asked. “What about the people with children.” Her response: “Oh, they’re useless.”

Readers: What are you experiencing? If companies can truly work at 80 percent without an (expensive) office, can this be boosted up to the point where office space can be cut out? And if remote work does become popular, why will people want to stay in high-tax high-cost mediocre-weather states such as Massachusetts, New York (#1 in overall state and local tax burden), and New Jersey? Why not sell the $1 million 2,000 square-foot house in MA and work from home in a $1 million 6,000 square-foot house in Texas or Florida, while paying nothing in state income tax?

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American health care workers rage against preferences for the H-1Bers

by philg

A friend is a physician in a moderately coronaplagued city here in the Northeast. She’s in a private discussion group for hospital workers. Since they actually do have some Covid-19 patients, they’re not in as bad financial shape as physicians, nurses, and other health care workers nationwide. However, they are having their hours, shifts, and pay cut…. except for the workers on H-1B visas.

Ordinarily, these folks are at least moderately pro-immigration. A caravan of Hondurans that crosses the border should be eligible for Medicaid soon enough, and certainly any children born to those Hondurans while they’re in the U.S. will be Medicaid-eligible. Medicaid will turn the “migrants” into “customers”.

Having their hours cut while the H-1B workers soldier on full-time at full pay, however, is apparently an unanticipated and bitter pill to swallow.

Where is the solidarity for International Workers’ Day?

(Personally, I think the rule makes sense. The H-1B workers do not have the flexibility to quit and work for another employer. So an employer of one of these indentured migrant servants shouldn’t have the right to cut hours and pay.)

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Order that Oshkosh 2020 T-shirt now

by philg

EAA Airventure (“Oshkosh”) is canceled (press release).

Is it time to buy the Oshkosh 2020 T-shirts? Unlike with Tokyo 2020, they won’t rename next year’s event, I don’t think.

Ordinarily I don’t like T-shirts that feature airplanes I am not qualified to fly, but if the event is fictional maybe it is not so bad to implicitly claim fictional flying skills, e.g., with this P-40 Oshkosh 2020 shirt:

Or use a magic marker to update “Cleared Direct” to “Cleared to Cower in Place”?

Admittedly, Covid-19 is targeting the general aviation demographic. Of the 316 people killed by the evil virus in Wisconsin, the largest cluster is among those 90+:

Ninety is unfortunately close to the median age of single-engine piston aircraft pilots and perhaps younger than the expected age at completion of a homebuilt project…

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