CoronaVirus Meltdowns, Mismanagement, and Misinformation
It's a doom and gloom week. Between fears of rapidly spreading illness and a rising Sanders candidacy, pessimists in the pundit class are in full panic mode.
Yes, there are things with both situations to be concerned about. However, the biggest short term problem, generally speaking, are the reactions by people who like to think of themselves as being in charge. (I’ll talk about Sanders in another post.)
Financial markets on Monday morning were having a meltdown over fears of a pandemic, while communities in California and Alabama refused to allow caregivers spaces to quarantine victims of Covid-19.
From CNBC:
“There remains a large degree of uncertainty surrounding the virus, and no one knows how this will ultimately play out,” said Keith Lerner, chief market strategist at Truist/SunTrust Advisory. “With stock prices and valuations still near cycle highs, the risk of a worsening virus outbreak has not been priced into the market to a great extent.”
The uncertainty in the market may dominate the news cycle, but more concerning should be yet another strain of NIMBYism. Symptoms include worries about a golf course adjacent to a facility and U.S. Senators intervening to block the use of a former Army base.
From the New York Times:
The scramble to find places to quarantine American coronavirus patients is beginning to run into resistance from local officials who do not want the patients housed in their backyards.
The city of Costa Mesa, Calif., has gone to court to block state and federal officials, at least temporarily, from placing dozens of people evacuated from Asia in a state-owned residential center in their community. A hearing on the issue in federal court is scheduled for 2 p.m. Pacific time on Monday.
And Alabama officials have reacted with alarm to news that coronavirus patients could be sent as early as Wednesday to a Federal Emergency Management building on a former army base in Anniston, Ala., about 90 miles west of Atlanta.
The President, whose biggest fear is a downturn in the economy, is tentatively going to ask Congress for $1 billion in emergency funding. For what purpose, I cannot say.
Unfortunately, nobody’s going to be in charge, since the government intentionally rendered itself incapable. In 2018, the Trump administration fired the government’s entire pandemic response chain of command, including the White House management infrastructure.
A few facts are in order here...Here’s what is generally agreed upon:
People can transmit Covid-19 before symptoms appear, or even if they don’t get ill.
If each person with the virus spreads it to 2.6 people (the current estimate), one case can lead to 3500 cases within a couple of months.
The death rate is estimated to be in the 2–3% range.
Vaccines are at least many months away.
Here’s Mark Sumner at Daily Kos, contemplating the disruptions in people’s routines that might be put in place:
These actions are likely to be the subject of political debate. Deservedly so. Because making the right decisions in a situation like this means trusting science and having knowledgeable advisers and neither of those things is exactly in vogue at the White House. Going way back to that “is this the week that Trump panics” article — expect actions that are both unnecessary and frustrating, in addition to those which are genuinely helpful.
So hang in there. Watch the news. Wash your hands. Check out Ready.gov to make preparations that you really should be making in any case. And consider what it would mean for your family if you can't make that holiday trip across the country. Or if the kinds need to be home unexpectedly for a few weeks. And don't hit me for saying this again, but Don't Panic.
When something like 9/11 happens, it divides the world into before and after. That doesn’t necessarily mean millions of people die. It doesn’t even mean someone you know gets sick. But everyone is affected. Everyone has their lives knocked off course; their thinking reset. Take a look around you … this is before. There’s still a chance that those terrorists—those extremely tiny, beta coronavirus terrorists—never board that plane. Still a chance that governments around the world stop this thing in its tracks. But if I’m being truthful, that chance is a small one.
Here's a link to reliable information from the Food and Drug Administration.
It is important to understand that there is no connection between the word “pandemic” and people dying. It just means more people are showing symptoms.
By the way, pandemic is no longer an official term, at least at the World Health Organization:
The World Health Organization (WHO) no longer has a process for declaring a pandemic, but the COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak remains an international emergency, a spokesman said on Monday.
The Geneva-based agency, which declared the H1N1 swine flu outbreak a pandemic in 2009, declared the novel coronavirus that emerged in Wuhan, China in December a public health emergency of International concern, known as a PHEIC, on Jan. 30.
It should surprise nobody that the usual purveyors of conspiracy crap are busy spreading their paranoia.
I’ll ignore the really fringe stuff from people saying you should drink bleach (yes, really) and stick with the two most obvious sources: Republicans and Russians.
From the New York Times:
The rumor appeared shortly after the new coronavirus struck China and spread almost as quickly: that the outbreak now afflicting people around the world had been manufactured by the Chinese government.
The conspiracy theory lacks evidence and has been dismissed by scientists. But it has gained an audience with the help of well-connected critics of the Chinese government such as Stephen K. Bannon, President Trump’s former chief strategist. And on Sunday, it got its biggest public boost yet.
Speaking on Fox News, Senator Tom Cotton, Republican of Arkansas, raised the possibility that the virus had originated in a high-security biochemical lab in Wuhan, the Chinese city at the center of the outbreak.
And at Business Insider:
Officials told Agence France Presse (AFP) that thousands of fake Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram accounts have been found spreading theories that the US is behind the outbreak of the COVID-19 coronavirus.
Posts reportedly included claims that the virus was a bid to "wage economic war on China," that it was a bioweapon engineered by the CIA, and that it was fostered "to push anti-China messages."
According to a report produced by the State Department's Global Engagement Center and seen by AFP, the campaign was spotted in mid-January, with several thousand accounts — many of which were previously tied to Russian activities — posting "near-identical" messages about coronavirus.
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Vox.com has the most comprehensive run down of what’s actually going on:
This means hospitals need to be ready with Covid-19 protocols, health care workers need to be protected with access to protective equipment such as face masks, and countries need plans in place for maintaining supply chains and carrying on with travel and trade.
Recent outbreaks in Germany, France, and the UK suggest high-income countries with strong public health systems may be able to control the virus’s spread, at least for now. (In these places, after Covid-19 cases were detected, the counts didn’t rise appreciably.)
But it’s also possible they, too, are harboring outbreaks that have yet to be detected. And as the virus moves around the world and infections mount, even high-income countries are likely to struggle, Osterholm said. “I think we have to expect there are going to be many locations around the world that will experience what China is experiencing.”
Gosh, if we only had a strong public health system. It should be noted that many institutions, like the University of California, already have pandemic protocols in place.
I guess all that healthcare “freedom” Republicans and their ilk are pushing has a price.
https://twitter.com/Will_Bunch/status/1230560291286474753?s=20
Repeat after me: The Dow is not a realistic measure of the economy. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has nothing to do with individual prosperity.
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Finally, on another concerning subject:
https://twitter.com/cathmckenna/status/1231708434522923008?s=20
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Lead image via the Food and Drug Administration