Philip Greenspun’s Weblog

Will Kathy Hochul be Florida health care worker Recruiter of the Year?

September 26, 2021September 27, 2021 by philg

Folks in the South Florida real estate industry dubbed Andrew Cuomo the “Florida Realtor of the Year” in gratitude for all of the money that they made selling houses to people fleeing New York’s lockdowns, school closures, and mask orders. (This was before Mr. Cuomo became famous for his efforts in other areas.)

I wonder if Kathy Hochul, the current governor of New York, will be remembered for solving every Florida health care enterprise’s HR problems. The nursing shortage in FL could be over by the end of next week, according to the NYT:

Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York is considering calling in the National Guard and recruiting medical professionals from other states to cover looming staff shortages at hospitals and other facilities as the likelihood grows that tens of thousands of health care workers will not meet the state’s deadlines for mandated vaccinations.
New York State is one of the first major testing grounds for stronger vaccination edicts rolling in across the country in the health care sector. California and Maine have also set deadlines for health care workers to be vaccinated. President Biden has said his administration will issue a national vaccination mandate expected to ultimately affect some 17 million health care workers at hospitals and other institutions that accept Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements.
Hospital and nursing home employees in New York are required to receive a first dose of a Covid-19 vaccine by 11:59 p.m. on Monday night, while workers working in home care, hospices and other adult care facilities must do so by Oct. 7, according to state regulations and a mandate issued on Aug. 16 by former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo.

For health care workers seeking freedom, Florida may not be a complete solution (since President Biden and, if necessary, the U.S. military could step in to deprive Floridians of the freedoms that Governor DeSantis has tried to arrange), but moving to Florida certainly will ensure as much freedom as is possible to obtain as an employed American (folks on welfare, of course, are completely free from requirements to wear masks, get vaccines, etc., since they are not going to work).

It doesn’t usually take a huge nudge to move someone from New York to Florida. A high percentage of the above-mentioned workers probably had planned to move to Florida after retirement. For those doctors and nurses who don’t want their pharmaceutical intake to be determined by two lawyers (Andrew Cuomo and Kathy Hochul), could this be the final nudge that sends them down I-95?

Separately, how much do we love it when people with no technical or scientific training say that MDs and RNs are rejecting science and have fallen prey to “misinformation” about the vaccines whose long-term disease-prevention capabilities and side effects are apparently best-known to politicians and journalists? (from state-sponsored NPR: “In The Fight Against COVID, Health Workers Aren’t Immune To Vaccine Misinformation”)

Also, as a vaccinated person I do appreciate the “blame-the-unvaccinated-for-all-of-our-woes” strategy being pursued by our leaders. But I wonder how long we can keep it going. If someone is a front-line health care worker and feeling young/healthy enough to be out and about without a vaccine shot, isn’t it likely that he/she/ze/they has already had a SARS-CoV-2 infection and therefore has at least as good immunity as someone who is vaccinated?

Last night, from the Juno Beach Pier:

“These Health Care Workers Would Rather Get Fired Than Get Vaccinated” (NYT, 9/26): a selection of those who might be easily recruited
“Mount Sinai hospital leaders holed up in Florida vacation homes during coronavirus crisis” (New York Post, March 28, 2020): While heroic staffers beg for protective equipment and don garbage bags to treat coronavirus patients at a Mount Sinai hospital, two of the system’s top executives are waiting out the public health catastrophe in the comfort of their Florida vacation homes, The Post has learned. Dr. Kenneth Davis, 72, the CEO of the Mount Sinai Health System who pulled down nearly $6 million in compensation in 2018, is ensconced in his waterfront mansion near Palm Beach. Davis has been in the Sunshine State for weeks and is joined by Dr. Arthur Klein, 72, president of the Mount Sinai Health Network, who owns an oceanfront condo in Palm Beach.
No exceptions for “people who are pregnant, lactating, or planning to become pregnant” from the New York Department of Health: … all pregnant individuals be vaccinated … Vaccination of pregnant people against COVID-19 also serves to build antibodies which may protect their baby from COVID-19 infection. … pregnant people with COVID-19 might be at increased risk of adverse pregnancy outcomes, such as preterm birth, compared with pregnant women without COVID-19… If pregnant people have questions about getting vaccinated… If someone is pregnant or thinking about becoming pregnant, healthcare providers should discuss the risk to the pregnant person … Vaccinations for Lactating People … A lactating person may choose to be vaccinated… . Pregnancy alone is not a valid “health condition” upon which to base a medical exemption.

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Rent our your new car via Turo for tax savings?

September 26, 2021September 21, 2021 by philg

Cars have never been in such short supply. Rental cars that I’ve been lucky enough to find, in our inflation-free economy, cost 2X what similar cars at the same locations cost in 2019, e.g., $120/day for a Camry at Dulles Airport.

The Democrats who rule in Washington, D.C. have promised higher tax rates on the subjects. Sales tax on a new car is a “state and local tax (SALT)” deduction that was limited during the Trump administration. (The richest 1% get more than half the benefit form a big SALT deduction, so the Democrats who say that they’re upset about inequality would have some explaining to do if they were to restore this and were unlucky enough to encounter an independent journalist.)

What if we combine the above trends? Any new car that we happen to have ordered should be rented out via Turo! People who can’t find cars at Hertz, Avis, and Enterprise will be forced onto the Turo platform out of desperation. Rates obtainable via Turo should be much higher right now than in previous years. Suppose that the new car is used primarily or exclusively for Turo rentals for a year or two. Wouldn’t you then be able to deduct sales tax, insurance, garage space, depreciation, and other car-related expenses?

Suppose that the U.S. economy goes from boom to bust? (after all, we’re told that low-skill migrants are the primary driver of U.S. economy prosperity and the Biden administration is talking about deporting thousands of Haitians) We get back to the days when anyone could walk into a car dealer and buy a car and anyone could go to the Hertz counter and rent a car for $45/day. Shut down the Turo operation and convert the car to personal use, having managed to cover much of the cost of the car via rental income that was mostly balanced out by deductible expenses and therefore that didn’t get taxed.

Some Lamborghini owners working the tax angle or would it work in a tax-free environment (these seem to be all in Beverly Hills, but there are also some in Miami)?

There are perhaps 100 Corvettes available from Turo in Southeast Florida. They range in price from $85/day (2010) to $200-400/day (2020 and 2021 C8 version). Here’s a 2020 in NW Miami that has been rented 55 times at $299/day:

Omar lets people run up 200 miles per day as part of the price. Let’s say that he’s rented it for 110 total days (2 days per rental) and that Turo takes 30 percent of the revenue. Omar’s revenue is about $23,000. Suppose that people actually drove it 15,000 miles during these rentals (i.e., not quite the full 200 miles). Omar is charging $1.50/mile for extra miles driven. So if that number reflects the cost of depreciation and marginal maintenance from miles driven, he has actually not made any money (since $1.50 times 15,000 is $22,500). This YouTube enthusiast, at about 6:00 in, says that the C7 depreciated 48 cents/mile driven and predicts the same rate for the C8. On the third hand, 60 cents is probably the new 48 cents in our inflation-free economy. So Omar’s costs are perhaps 75 cents/mile driven (depreciation plus tires/oil). That leaves a profit from $23,000 of rental of only $11,750. That hardly seems worth it unless he is getting some huge tax savings on what would otherwise have been a non-deductible personal purchase. The IRS allows depreciation of $18,200 in 2021 and $16,400 in 2022 for a car placed into service in 2021. For a Californian or New Yorker in a roughly 50% state+federal tax bracket, that’s a potential tax savings of over $17,000 from the depreciation (though if the Turo business never makes any money, the IRS has a better chance of saying “that Lambo is a hobby”).

What about humbler vehicles? In our vicinity, I found a $30/day Hyundai Sonata 2016 (joined August 2021; never rented), an $87/day Tesla 3 2018 (joined April 2018; never rented; “The host cancelled this trip 11 minutes before it started.” and “The host cancelled this trip 3 hours before it started.”), a $48/day Kia Sorento 2017 (9 trips), a $35/day 2012(!) Camry (24 trips), a $39/day Volkswagen Jetta 2018 at $39/day (70 trips; this one must actually work as a business).

Readers: Did Turo get much more popular during the rental car famine of 2021? And will the Biden tax rates boost Turo yet higher? When the UK had high tax rates, one response was that nearly all cars of any value became company cars, paid for with pre-tax dollars (of course, the most sensible response was to emigrate to Australia, Canada, or New Zealand, and that worked out great for most of those who abandoned the sclerotic U.K.).

“Tax Deductions for Turo Car Rental Fleets”
“Top Tax Write-offs for Turo Rental Car Company” (LYFE Accounting)
“Child Support Litigation without a Marriage” (another source of tax-free income, potentially 100X more than you could make from renting via Turo)

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Disney World during Code Orange coronapanic

September 25, 2021September 25, 2021 by philg

Trigger warning: This post includes a description of a 911 call with screaming.

Most of the U.S. was at Code Yellow for about 8 years and aviation was at Code Orange under the Homeland Security Advisory System. I think it is fair to say that the U.S. is now at a semi-permanent Code Orange level of coronapanic with a “high” level of risk and community spread. Although the attitude of the typical Floridian is close to Code Blue (“Guarded”), Walt Disney World tends to reflect the national level of panic.

We visited on a weekday in September and chose Magic Kingdom because we were towing 6- and 7-year-olds who had never been to any big theme park.

You’d think that the park would be fairly uncrowded. Our government wisely excludes Europeans from vacationing here. For for all of the beloved PCR machines on the planet would we want to take the risk that 4 infected Germans coming off an Airbus might spread COVID-19 to the 11,000 Haitian under-bridge migrants who recently arrived to live here permanently (NBC: “Customs and Border Protection does not test migrants in its custody for Covid unless they show symptoms.”).

Disney discourages visitors to some extent by requiring a reservation for a specific date in addition to a ticket and also by limiting the number of visitors per day in each park. I had some complimentary tickets from a cousin who works at Pixar and had to wait 1.5 hours on hold before I could talk to a human capable of making the required reservation (this is the main reservations line; why are they backed up if Europeans are excluded from the pool of potential guests?). The process is easier if you’re buying tickets on the Web, but you’ll have less flexibility than in the pre-coronapanic days.

The above factors, plus the chosen September weekday, meant that the park was mobbed rather than insanely mobbed. Most rides had waits of only 5-20 minutes (the FastPass system was gone and the new Genie+ system not yet available), with a handful at 35-50 (Peter Pan, the mine train).

(According to #Science, COVID-19 is a sufficiently serious public health issue that schools have been closed (for 1.5 years in our big cities) and/or children are made to wear masks 7 hours per day while also forgoing normal interaction (American kindergarten is now set up more like high school detention; kids must sit at their individual desks and not get close to other kids… while also wearing masks). If we are losing life years, contrary to Social Security and life insurance financials, the only sensible #Science-informed policy would be a presidential order shutting down all American theme parks. Pulling together 200,000+ people per day at Disney World (all four parks combined) means pulling together people in airliners (most of the folks we met had flown there), in restaurants, in hotels, etc. Even if they don’t get infected while on a roller coaster, they’re a lot more likely to get infected than if they’d stayed home, which remains the best demonstrated method of cutting one’s infection/transmission risk (our best vaccines can cut infection/transmission in half right now?). As a society we’ve determined that it makes sense to deny an education to millions of children if just one life can be saved. Shouldn’t the same logic apply to theme parks? If child can wait 1.5 years to learn, why can’t adults and children wait until the pandemic is over to ride a roller coaster?)

Getting to the park from Jupiter/Palm Beach involves a trip “through the middle of nowhere” (7-year-old) on “Florida’s Turnpike” (something that belongs to the people rather than to the state government?). There are signs reminding drivers that their toll dollars are at work, corresponding to signs on local roads and near schools about tax dollars being put to work. The Florida state government is grateful when citizens pay! The boys enjoyed the numerous billboards for Machine Gun America. The rest stops don’t have a “masks recommended” or “masks encouraged” sign on the sliding doors. Instead, the space is used to encourage people to come in and buy a SunPass (like an EZ Pass). Inside, visitors are reminded not to drink from the toilets (useful in case a literate dog comes in!):

Since we’re back to Code Orange rather than in full Code Red panic, Disney imposes an indoor-only mask policy:

To address fears of disease being spread by surface contamination, Disney has installed hand sanitizer stations throughout the park. With the attention to detail that you’d expect of a business operating in a country that has to buy all of its integrated circuits from Taiwan, China, Korea, and Japan, 90 percent of these were empty by noon and we never saw one being refilled.

What about the 911 call? Was that because of the empty hand sanitizer dispensers? After all, quite a few state governors and local government officials have declared that COVID-19 is an “emergency”. In fact, the 911 call was my iPhone’s own decision, apparently, spurred somehow by the restraining bar on the Space Mountain roller coaster pressing against my front pants pocket. The 911 operators would thus have heard 4 minutes of screaming and muffled struggle. “What’s Your Emergency?” can be answered in so many layers when one is at a theme park with kids….

(Photo above from Loxahatchee Ice Cream Company, Juno Beach, Florida.)

You wouldn’t guess from looking at the visitors, but it is difficult to obtain food inside Magic Kingdom. Tables at the sit-down restaurants had been booked weeks in advance. What you’d think would be fast food restaurants required mobile ordering in advance and then there weren’t enough places to sit once you got your food. I am not sure what stops Disney from building up an extra story or two and adding restaurant space. My idea for a new restaurant would be “Elizabeth’s” and you’d take the “Injun Joe” raft to get to the Elizabeth Warren-themed diner next to this already-built representation of her ancestral village:

(How is Disney able to still run a boat named “Injun Joe”?)

The fireworks show started at 8:15 pm. We got back to the car by about 9:15 pm, having caught one of the massive ferry boats (packed and with nobody wearing a mask since it is “outdoors”). The boys slept in pillow nests in the Honda Odyssey, mostly reclined, but it got me thinking about how it would be nice if there could be a restraint system for minivans in which young passengers could sleep horizontally and still be protected in the event of a crash.

When you care enough about a global pandemic to host mass gatherings in multiple locations worldwide every day…. “Disney World Has An Agreement To Require Union Workers To Be Vaccinated” (NPR)

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Chris Cuomo and what to avoid doing on the It’s a Small World ride

September 24, 2021 by philg

“Chris Cuomo Sexually Harassed Me. I Hope He’ll Use His Power to Make Change.” (New York Times, today):

“Now that I think of it … I am ashamed,” read the subject line of a 2005 email Mr. Cuomo wrote me, one hour after he sexually harassed me at a going-away party for an ABC colleague. At the time, I was the executive producer of an ABC entertainment special, but I was Mr. Cuomo’s executive producer at “Primetime Live” just before that. I was at the party with my husband, who sat behind me on an ottoman sipping his Diet Coke as I spoke with work friends. When Mr. Cuomo entered the Upper West Side bar, he walked toward me and greeted me with a strong bear hug while lowering one hand to firmly grab and squeeze the cheek of my buttock.
“I can do this now that you’re no longer my boss,” he said to me with a kind of cocky arrogance. “No you can’t,” I said, pushing him off me at the chest while stepping back, revealing my husband, who had seen the entire episode at close range. We quickly left.

What had been a private email is now public:

Note the domain for both sender and recipient… the super wholesome disney.com!

Separately, whatever your opinion of these allegations and the email between two people within the Happiest Place on Earth, isn’t it safe to say that there is no better family in New York State? Voters kept electing Cuomos to lead them and they kept tuning into CNN to watch Chris Cuomo. Maybe Chris and Andrew Cuomo, flawed though they may be, are as good as New Yorkers can get.

Andrew Cuomo as the modern Boethius

From earlier this month at Magic Kingdom, Orlando …

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It’s hard to fight the centuries-old idea that womanhood and childbirth are inextricably linked

September 24, 2021September 24, 2021 by philg

From CNET, originally a source of information about technology, “Women aren’t the only people who can get pregnant”:

Not everyone who gives birth is a mom. Trans, non-binary and intersex people can and do get pregnant, too, and they have a place in the parenting world.
Though it’s hard to fight the centuries-old idea that womanhood and childbirth are inextricably linked, the ability to get pregnant doesn’t automatically make someone a woman. Many of the issues that affect women can affect trans, non-binary and intersex people, too, and that includes pregnancy.

Yet fight we must!

Some helpful vocabulary:

Chestfeeding: Some trans and non-binary parents choose to feed their babies with their own milk. You can swap out “chest” for “breast,” and “chestfeeding” for “breastfeeding.” Refer to the milk as “chest milk” or “human milk.”

But don’t men have breasts? (After 1.5 years of coronalockdowns, sometimes pretty significant in size!)

Earlier this month, CNN celebrated two apparently healthy guys who didn’t give birth occupying one of the hospital beds that CNN also said were scarce to the point that Americans were dying for want of a hospital bed. I like the implication that the depicted individuals had actually pushed the babies out themselves (is there no limit to the credit that white men will steal?) and also that the browser renders this with a “99% acceptance” ad. Let’s hope that not even 1% of Americans would be sufficiently Deplorable to object to these guys getting credit for baby production.

Harvard Medical School agrees, using “birthing person” to include “those who identify as non-binary or transgender because not all who give birth identify as ‘women’ or ‘girls.’ ”

And the apology from Harvard:

The webinar panelists used the term “birthing person” to include those who identify as non-binary or transgender because not all who give birth identify as “women” or “girls.” We understand the reactions to this terminology and in no way meant for it to erase or dehumanize women.

Women will not be erased, but let’s also not forget that men might be better at giving birth.

Not every corner of the CDC is up to date on this, despite energetic efforts. An August 24, 2021 page doesn’t mention using “birthing person”:

not inmate, but “People/persons who are incarcerated or detained (often used for shorter jail stays or youth in detention facilities)”
not disabled but “People with an intellectual or developmental disability”
(great news here) not alcoholics, but “Persons with alcohol use disorder”
not homeless people, but “People experiencing homelessness”
not the poor, but “People with lower incomes”
not crazy, but “People with a diagnosis of a mental illness/mental health disorder/behavioral health disorder”
not foreigners, but “Asylee or asylum seeker”
not illegal immigrants, but “People with undocumented status”
not elderly or frail, but “Older adults or elders” (also, not Elizabeth Warren, but “Native American elder”?)
not Afro-American, but “Black or African American persons”
not Eskimo, but “American Indian or Alaska Native persons/communities/populations”
not rural people, but “Residents/populations of rural areas”
not Using MSM (men who have sex with men) as shorthand for sexual orientation to describe men who self-identify as gay or bisexual, individually or collectively, but “Using MSM (men who have sex with men) to mean people who report being male at birth and having had sex with a person who was male at birth, regardless of self-identified sexual orientation”
not homosexual, but “Two-spirit”

(To the above I would add, in light of Maskachusetts law and the 69 governor’s orders, not pothead, but “Person who smokes healing essential marijuana every hour.”)

We’re in a fight to the death (ours!) against an unprecedented respiratory virus that has caused a global pandemic, but taxpayer-funded workers at the CDC had time, at least on August 24, 2021, to write up the above.

“The Culture War Over ‘Pregnant People’” (Atlantic): Last year, a brand-new labor-and-delivery hospital opened on the well-to-do Upper East Side of New York City. Its name, the Alexandra Cohen Hospital for Women and Newborns, might strike most people as innocuous or straightforward. But to some people, the suggestion that a hospital where babies are born is for women is offensive, because transgender and nonbinary people who do not identify as women can also get pregnant and deliver babies. … I called Louise Melling, the deputy legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union, who leads projects on women’s rights and LGBTQ rights. Louise Melling: First of all, if we’re talking about “pregnant people,” that language says to people—to transgender men and to nonbinary people—“we see you.” It should do a fair amount of work to help address discrimination. If we talk about “pregnant people,” it’s a reminder to all of us to catch ourselves when we’re sitting in the waiting room at the GYN that we’re not going to stare at the man who’s there. We’re not going to be disconcerted. … It’s interesting to me, for example, that the CDC website now speaks of “pregnant people.” With every passing year, it’s more pervasive. My GYN just talked to me about this: “Oh, I just learned this,” and was really working to change her language. … I work on LGBTQ rights. My colleagues are people who are in pain. … They are threatened because of language. [i.e., some language is far more painful than childbirth and potential birthing persons who are concerned that childbirth will be painful should know that it won’t be any worse than hearing the term “pregnant woman”]

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Masketology down the East Coast

September 23, 2021September 24, 2021 by philg

What happens when a society that is so organized and detail-oriented that it needs to buy all of its integrated circuits from Taiwan, China, Japan, and Korea (and stop making cars when those countries can’t meet demand) tries to use facemasks to stop a deadly respiratory virus? Here’s a report on a trip by small plane from Maine to Florida at the end of August 2021.

(Note that cloth facemasks worn by the general public completely failed in a randomized controlled trial and surgical mask usage achieved only an 11-percent reduction in coronaplague levels (hailed as a huge success by #Science!).)

The trip began with a JetBlue flight from PBI to BOS. For maximum COVID-19 safety, every seat was occupied. The atmosphere was similar to a Hollywood portrayal of a prison galley, with flight attendants constantly hassling passengers regarding (1) where they stood while waiting for the bathroom, and (2) the extent to which they were wearing a mask. All masks came off at roughly the same time, naturally, when the same flight attendants served drinks and snacks to everyone at the same time.

Maskachusetts towns and cities were just in the process of reimposing mask orders (“In Fauci and vaccines we trust, but not enough to de-mask.”)

Despite the sign, mask usage was about 50 percent among customers and staff at a tire shop where I was trying to nurse our 2007 Infiniti far enough to be sold. In a tightly packed diner, none of the customers wore masks #BecauseEatingAndDrinking

In addition to masks, the USPS in Watertown was relying on the Plexi barriers that #Science now says are worthless:

While waiting in line, I observed that most customers and postal workers would lean around the partition in order to communicate clearly.

To avoid the remains of Hurricane Ida and general areas of thunderstorms down the coast, I started south by heading north, to Bar Harbor, Maine. Hancock County is now under an indoor mask order, but the local businesses are not necessarily complying. One shop door says “Your mask, your decision.” (fighting words to a California voter!) Other shops had out of date signs, e.g., one regarding a May 24, 2021 mask order rescission.

Acadia National Park told people to wash hands with soap and water, but despite the $6 trillion annual federal budget, there are no bathrooms available (sometimes outhouses) where these instructions could be followed. (Florida, by contrast, seems to have government-run usually-clean bathrooms everywhere that tourists might visit.) I like the primary focus on government employee welfare: “Help keep rangers and other visitors healthy.” Visitor health is important, but ranger health is #1. Except for a few Asians, I didn’t see anyone on the (crowded) trails wearing masks.

Eventually a high pressure system moved in and it was time to depart from my friend’s oceanfront quarantine facility. President Biden has ordered that all airports enforce mask usage. At least the national FBO chains have interpreted this to include facilities for private aircraft. I don’t want to rat out specific FBOs for fear that the Federal Virtue Enforcement Agency will come after them, but at small airports the effect of this order is nil. At the biggest airports, the corporate overlords’ influence is stronger, especially on the behind-the-desk customer service reps. There are expensively-printed banners reminding everyone to follow Biden’s orders. Here’s a picture cropped to hide the FBO chain’s name:

The “line guys” (almost always it is people identifying as “men” who wish to work outdoors in temps ranging from -10 F to +105 F and winds up to 50 knots) don’t bother with masks indoors or out. If you’re driving a truck filled with 2,000 gallons of jet fuel, maybe you don’t spend a lot of time worrying about a virus?

What actually happens, though, when the corporate overlords follow Dr. Joe Biden, M.D. and impose a mask requirement? At the biggest FBO where I stopped (name withheld to protect the guilty from the U.S. Marshalls), all of the non-line employees sported masks… under the chin or under the nose. To be fair, there was one employee, perhaps age 40 and looking slender/healthy, who wore a mask properly over her nose and mouth. She was training a new hire at a distance of about 1.5′ (feet, not meters). Every time that she spoke, in order to make sure that the new hire understood, she would pull the mask away from her face.

How about at Great Falls, Virginia? Population growth via immigration plus the growth of government spending pushing the D.C.-area population higher has resulted in 30-minute lines to get into the parking lot (except when the park is entirely closed due to the parking lot being full). Out of an abundance of caution, the taxpayer-funded visitor center has been closed for 1.5 years. People will need to get their COVID-19 at the retail stores that are open all around the park, rather than in the park itself.

How about President Biden’s order that masks be worn whenever people are outdoors in federal parks, but not well-spaced? Is there more respect for this than what we found in the Everglades back in April? At Great Falls, the order was ignored by roughly 90 percent of visitors (who numbered 1000+). See below for some of the Mask Righteous. One is unmasked, but has put a mask on his toddler (see Wright Brothers on the science of COVID-19 for a discussion of how it can make sense for one household member to wear a mask when on an excursion, but not everyone). The slender young person has ventured beyond the fence to the edge of the gorge, swollen to near-historic levels by Hurricane Ida. He/she/ze/they will be coronavirus-free before joining the dozens who have drowned in the past 20 years at Great Falls:

At a coffee shop in North Carolina, only about 1 in 25 customers were masked. My friend has been a righteous Facebook denouncer of Trump and a supporter of Biden, masks, and lockdowns, but he did not voluntarily wear a mask inside the crowded counter service shop.

At an FBO in Georgia, still fighting the transmission-via-surfaces war (#SalvationViaLysol):

This is walking distance to Southern Soul Barbeque, where I defended against COVID-19 in the traditional American manner, i.e., consuming plenty of fried okra and hush puppies. Why bother to lose weight when confronted with a virus that kills the obese when instead one can rely on government orders to don cloth face coverings?

Here’s the Shuttle Landing Facility to prove that I made it to Florida:

Biden mask order compliance was actually higher in Florida than in the other states, with one indoor FBO employee wearing a mask at my destination (“1 out of 20 ain’t bad”!). Mask usage outside the airport, e.g., at supermarkets, was much higher than in other states, despite not being required. Of course, this could be partly due to the fact that Florida was just getting over a COVID-19 hospitalization surge:

The peak was towards the end of August. Now that I look at this chart, one thing that is interesting is how easy it is to convince Americans to panic. Florida was portrayed as a disaster area by the media and I was cautioned by multiple friends and family members not to go near this Land of Death in which they were running out of places to stack the dead bodies. At the very height of the recent plague, roughly 17,000 people were in the hospital in Florida with a COVID-19 positive PCR test. The state is home to nearly 22 million people, however. So a person who had 150 friends still had a 90 percent probability of not knowing anyone who was in the hospital for/with COVID-19. (Take the probability that a friend is not in the hospital and then multiply that by itself 150 times):

type “(1-17000/22e6)^150” into Wolfram Alpha if you want to check.)

A country that spends 20 percent of GDP on health care, in other words, purportedly can’t cope with 1 in 1,300 people needing hospital care for a respiratory virus (actually perhaps closer to 1 in 2,000 since “COVID-19 hospitalizations” in the U.S. include people who are there for some other reason and test positive for an asymptomatic coronavirus infection). Maybe this is true, in which case we might want to ask what we’re getting for our $4 trillion per year (Bloomberg does). But more likely it is false, especially in light of the fact that hospital care for COVID-19 is probably not any better than home care (nytimes).

I stopped in Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Virginia (Dulles and Roanoke), North Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. In not a single place did I see a group of Americans wearing masks consistently and correctly, despite, at least at the airports, presidential orders that they do so and, in many cases, local orders that masks be worn.

(How about the flying, you might ask? An instrument approach was required to get into BHB (Maine). I needed to climb to 11,500′ to get over some bumpy clouds in Florida. Steering around heavy rain cells was required to make the final approach into SUA (Stuart, Florida). Otherwise, it was good VFR weather and a student pilot could easily have made the trip. Lesson: If you’re willing to be flexible on timing, a Cirrus can be a useful mode of transportation, but flexibility needs to be measured in days, not hours!)

Why write all of the above, you might ask? I’m thinking this will be a useful data point for historians 50 or 100 years from now who want to know what Americans actually did in 2021. They’ll have ready access to the rulers’ orders, but won’t know how these were implemented by the subjects.

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U.S. promotion of shutdowns and coronapanic results in migration boom

September 22, 2021September 22, 2021 by philg

From today’s Wall Street Journal: “Latin American Migration, Once Limited to a Few Countries, Turns Into a Mass Exodus; Haitian standoff in Texas reflects broader mix of nationalities fleeing pandemic-hobbled economies from around the hemisphere.” (worth a look just for the photos)

Let’s roll back the clock to March 2020. The first country hit by SARS-CoV-2 infection was China, a country and society obsessed with protecting human life at all costs (where else do you see signs all over the subway system on how to avoid injury on escalators, etc.?). Ignoring established WHO advice on pandemics, the Chinese decided to attack the respiratory virus with strict lockdowns. The typical U.S. state governor copied this idea with about the same level of success that you see in the documentary American Factory, where an attempt is made in Ohio to produce automotive glass with the same quality and attention to detail that has been achieved in China. The U.S. states that were the most aggressive with lockdowns, mask orders, and other disruptions nearly all ended up with higher COVID-19-tagged death rates than give-the-finger-to-the-virus-sweep-up-and-move-on Sweden. Maybe nobody got infected in the shut-for-a-year K-12 schools, but adults could meet and mingle at bars, on Tinder, and while shopping for “essential” alcohol and marijuana in Massachusetts (there was no Chinese model for how to run a marijuana store during a respiratory virus pandemic because marijuana is illegal in China).

At the end of March 2020, I asked here ““For every saved American [via shutdown], though, aren’t we guaranteed to cause more than one death in a poor country?” Without the U.S. as a trade, tourism, and travel partner for Latin America, during the first 18 months (so far) of 14 days to flatten the curve, what actually happened? WSJ:

The broad wave includes single mothers from Ecuador, Nicaraguan teenagers and farm laborers in Chile. Many cite the same reasons for uprooting their lives and heading north: economic hits from the pandemic that cost jobs and income, the allure of a booming U.S. economy and the belief that President Biden’s administration would welcome them.
Struggling to put food on the table after the pandemic closed her small coffee business, Mayra Aguilar sold her car and left her home in Ecuador’s southern Andes last month, hoping for a better life in the United States.
Latin America and the Caribbean as a whole suffered the world’s steepest economic contraction last year, and the region’s biggest decline since the Great Depression, according to the International Monetary Fund. The pandemic cost some 26 million jobs.
Earlier this year, Yanisleidys Diaz began her trek to the U.S. after she was told she had to leave Chile in 180 days. The 39-year-old single mother from Cuba arrived in Chile in 2019 with her two sons, seeking informal work because they lacked a work permit. Her oldest boy, 17-year-old Leodan Riveros, worked construction and as a fruit picker at a farm, earning less than minimum wage.
They struggled to make ends meet even before the pandemic. Then Ms. Diaz said she was notified by the government that they could no longer stay without residency. They sold their furniture and clothes to pay for five bus rides to cross Peru, Ecuador and Colombia.

The U.S. is not entirely to blame for other countries failing to follow the Swedish “experiment” (doing what humans have been doing for millions of years is an “experiment” while trying something that has never been tried before and for which no data exist is “following the science”), of course, but I think it is fair to say that we’re reaping what we sowed. As with our wars in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan, we went into lockdowns with no exit strategy and it didn’t occur to us that other nations might not have the ability to print money indefinitely while people cowered in place rather than work and study.

We are continuing our economic war against neighbors in this hemisphere, e.g., via telling Americans not to travel and/or making travel onerous (testing requirements, prison ship atmosphere on commercial airliners (mask orders, threats of fines if mask order is not complied with strictly and completely, etc.)). Is there any number of desperate migrants who show up on our border that would convince us that this isn’t a war worth fighting? (If we have 150,000 daily positive PCR tests (“cases”), that means we have roughly 1 million Americans who are infected and contagious at any one time, right? (not everyone who is infected will get tested and people who are infected will be contagious for several days) Why do we then require Americans to get a COVID-19 test as a condition of returning from a vacation in the Caribbean? Our theory is that 1 million coronaplagued people is bad, but 1,000,002 coronaplagued people is an out-of-control situation? Same question for European visitors! If we have 1 million residents incubating SARS-CoV-2, why does it matter if 6 more show up on Lufthansa?)

If All Lives Have Equal Value, why does Bill Gates support shutting down the U.S. economy? (March 28, 2020), in which I asked “For every saved American [via shutdown], though, aren’t we guaranteed to cause more than one death in a poor country? The U.S. is 15 percent of the world economy. Our shutdown is going to make us poorer so we’ll buy less from the world’s poorest countries. People in those poorest of countries who were at a subsistence standard of living in 2019 are going to be without sufficient funds for food, shelter, and medicine in 2020. Even citizens of medium-income countries, e.g., those who work in industries that are tied to trade with the U.S., might be unable to afford previously affordable life-saving medical interventions. … It has proven to be an interesting window into the logic of the American Righteous. Planet Earth is exquisitely interconnected such that bringing a reusable shopping bag to the Columbus Circle Whole Foods will stop global warming and thus keep the seas from inundating Jakarta. On the other hand, we can stop trading with a country where people are living on $2/day and there will be no adverse consequences for those people.”

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Don’t take health advice from the ignorant

September 22, 2021September 22, 2021 by philg

“Why So Many Tennis Players Don’t Want the Covid Vaccine” (NYT, August 30) describes a heretic and a suspected marrano:

Third-ranked Stefanos Tsitsipas caused an uproar in his native Greece this month after he said he would get vaccinated only if it were required to continue competing.
“I don’t see any reason for someone of my age to do it,” said Tsitsipas, 23. “It hasn’t been tested enough and it has side effects. As long as it’s not mandatory, everyone can decide for themselves.”
Giannis Oikonomou, a spokesman for the Greek government, said Tsitsipas “has neither the knowledge nor the studies nor the research work that would allow him to form an opinion” about the necessity for vaccination, and added that people like athletes who are widely admired should be “doubly careful in expressing such views.”
Top-ranked Novak Djokovic has drawn scrutiny for his approach to health issues throughout the pandemic, and has declined to disclose his own vaccination status. Djokovic said it was a “personal decision” when asked about vaccine protocols on Friday. “Whether someone wants to get a vaccine or not, that’s completely up to them,” Djokovic said. “I hope that it stays that way.”

My favorite part of the above is the idea that nobody should listen to the 23-year-old Tsitsipas on the topic of maximizing personal health. From ATP:

(Having chosen to live in tax-free Monte Carlo (Greece, like nearly all of the world’s countries besides the U.S., doesn’t tax non-resident citizens), is it possible that Mr. Tsitsipas could obtain a New York Times stamp of approval as an expert on minimizing tax liability?)

From whom should we take health advice, if not Messrs. Tsitsipas and Djokovic? How about Assistant Secretary for Health in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services? Here’s Dr. Rachel Levine:

Except in South Dakota and Florida, state governors have held themselves out as experts on public health, confident that muscular government action can, for the first time in human history and contrary to W.H.O. guidance through 2019, stop a respiratory virus. Let’s look at JB Pritzker, the governor of Illinois? He’s issued nearly 100 executive orders so far regarding health in the time of COVID-19. My favorite, of course, is Executive Order #3 (March 12, 2020):

WHEREAS, in late 2019, a new and significant outbreak of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) emerged; and,
WHEREAS, it is necessary and appropriate for the State of Illinois to immediately take measures to protect the public’s health in response to this COVID-19 outbreak;
THEREFORE, by the powers vested in me as the Governor of the State of Illinois, pursuant to Sections 7(1) and 7(12) of the Illinois Emergency Management Agency Act, 20 ILCS 3305, I hereby order the following:
Section 1. The application submission deadlines in the Cannabis Regulation and Tax Act and implementing regulations for submitting in-person applications by March 16, 2020, are suspended as follows:

(summary from the index page: “CANNABIS APPLICATIONS — The deadline for cannabis grower, infuser and transporter license applications is extended, and applicants are now allowed to mail completed applications, rather than submitting in person.”)

Can we see a photo of the heroic health expert governor who protected Illinois residents from a potential shortage of health-promoting marijuana during the global pandemic?

(Perhaps Governor Pritzker is an expert who contributed to CNN’s “Why does smoking pot give you the munchies?”)

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A month of not being told how or what to think comes to an end

September 21, 2021September 22, 2021 by philg

Compared to Maskachusetts or California, one of the remarkable features of life in our corner of Florida (Palm Beach County) is the lack of folks telling others how and what to think. In the Boston suburbs, I would be reminded every few minutes while driving or walking the dog to (1) have faith in leaky vaccines to end the global COVID-19 pandemic (highway electronic billboards), (2) stop hating Asians, (3) celebrate that Love is Love, (4) agree that Black Lives Matter, (5) welcome immigrants, (6) vote for Democrats, etc.

When we departed the Boston area (see Relocation to Florida for a family with school-age children), I said “I’ve paid for my last shopping bag at the supermarket, driven by my last BLM sign in an all-white neighborhood, and read my last governor’s order.” We have yet to see a BLM sign, a Trump bumper sticker or hat, or a Biden/Harris bumper sticker. We haven’t bothered to check what Ron DeSantis is up to in Tallahassee and learn whether a recent order might make one of our daily activities newly illegal. Over the weekend, however, we flew the Cirrus SR20 down to Key West. Some folks were displaying rainbow flags, which didn’t necessarily qualify as educating others regarding the path of righteousness. Unlike our old neighbors (boring cisgender white heteros), the folks in Key West flying rainbow flags might actually have been living an LGBTQIA+ lifestyle. However, we did encounter the following “love comes in all flavors” sign prominently displayed on the Ben & Jerry’s ice cream freezer:

This is consistent with Is LGBTQIA the most popular social justice cause because it does not require giving money? There were no signs in the shop regarding other social justice causes, e.g., poverty or homelessness. That might lead to questions regarding how a “single mom” (who forgot to have sex with a high-income defendant and therefore was reliant on what we no longer call “welfare”) with two kids could afford to pay $14 for two small ice creams. There were no signs reminding customers to boycott Israel. Ben & Jerry’s did not urge us to assist the tens of thousands of Haitians who’ve recently arrived, nor protest the fact that at least some are being deported in violation of international law.

(Separately, let me note for the record that I think Häagen-Dazs is much better ice cream, as long as we’re talking about mass-market. Here in Jupiter, we’ve managed to maintain a reasonable level of obesity, and therefore our coronavirus cross-section, at Matty’s Gelato Factory and Loxahatchee Ice Cream Company.)

Wikipedia: Cohen has severe anosmia, a lack of a sense of smell, and so relies on mouthfeel and texture to provide variety in his diet. This led to the company’s trademark chunks being mixed in with their ice cream. [i.e., the co-founder had COVID-19 symptoms before COVID-19 symptoms were popular!]

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