Time to End One-Size-Fits-All Virus Response

_{Barry Arrington

April 18, 2020

Intelligent Design}

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Trump’s plan calls for protecting vulnerable age cohorts while letting the less vulnerable get back to work. The two charts below demonstrate why opposition to this proposal borders on the insane.

The first chart is from CDC’s website showing COVID-19 deaths by age cohort as of April 17. The total is only 13,130, because CDC is behind in sorting this data. According to Worldmeter, total US deaths as of April 17 are 37,230. The second chart assumes the rates stay the same as the data is compiled (and I see no reason we should not assume that). Then I calculate total deaths as of today by age cohort.

One number should jump out at you. 3,315. That is the total number of deaths in the three months since the beginning of the pandemic among people under 55. In a country with a population of 327,167,434, that is .001%. That is 1 one thousandth of a percent.

Fact: The overwhelming majority of deaths are among the elderly.
Fact: The overwhelming majority of deaths are among those with serious preexisting conditions.
Fact: The government response is to treat young healthy people with practically zero risk of death the same as sick, elderly people.

The third fact needs to end, and that is the administration’s plan. You don’t shut the county down over a 1 one thousandth of a percent risk.

Comments

The Bladen County Health Department confirmed positive reports of the coronavirus at the Smithfield Food plant in Tar Heel, NC Saturday morning. The release didn’t specify how many cases have been confirmed at the plant. While the county is confirming there are positive cases, the company is not. Saturday afternoon, a public relations representative for Smithfield said over email that they are not confirming any positive cases of COVID-19 at their facilities out of respect for their employees’ legal privacy.rhampton7_{April 18, 2020
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@Ortho what are the unusual things about this disease is the while you might think that it attacks the lungs and therefore people with asthma would be at greater risk, obesity seems to be a much harder signal for problems. Weird. But, that’s why we do science. Maybe that is part of the explanation for why American cases seem to be harder than other places.Jim Thibodeau_{April 18, 2020
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Yeah TF @ 58: That pronouncement from the great and wise Orthomyxo threw me too. But it must be true. After all, Orthomyxo assures us that he makes all of his pronouncements from his God-like perch above the fray. It must be our blinkered human perspective that prevents us from appreciating the truth, beauty and wisdom of his utterance (typos and all).Barry Arrington_{April 18, 2020
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@55 Orthomyxo
Ok truthfreedom, but, as I understand it, it’s the people who you think day human life has no value that are most supportive of measures to protect lives?
Could you please elaborate?Truthfreedom_{April 18, 2020
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Orthomyxo
I’ve said this before, but it’s extremely worrying to see you and Matt (and many others) fall into party lines when discussing this. Is the prospect of hundreds of thousands of lives lost can’t get you to break from these identities in not sure anything will.
Good heavens man. Sanctimonious much? It must be really nice having a God-like perspective so far above the fray from which you can pronounce judgments like that. I guess we don't need to debate the issues anymore. Like supplicants coming to the Oracle of Delphi, all we need to do from now on is consult the great and wise Orthomyxo. "Arrogant" does not even begin to describe your comment.Barry Arrington_{April 18, 2020
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@54 Barry Arrington: I said 'not too much', not do not praise him at all! :) Fair point.Truthfreedom_{April 18, 2020
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Ok truthfreedom, but, as I understand it, it's the people who you think day human life has no value that are most supportive of measures to protect lives? Seems a bit off to me?orthomyxo_{April 18, 2020
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TF "Do not praise EG too much." When our opponents are right, they are right even though they are our opponents. We should graciously acknowledge it. There will be time enough for fighting again soon I am sure.Barry Arrington_{April 18, 2020
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@25 Seversky So a person that believes that morality is subjective and illusory is asking for moral advice? How strange. Illogical even. Wait! Logic is subjective and illusory. Now makes sense.Truthfreedom_{April 18, 2020
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@51 Orthomyxo
If the prospect of hundreds of thousands of lives lost can’t get you to break from these identities in not sure anything will.
We've been taught that we are meat-robots and that NS rulez. We can not help ourselves and morals are illusory. Sorry.Truthfreedom_{April 18, 2020
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Barry, I'll admit to not following US news closely. So if there are people advocating many more months of lockdown, or plans to isolate at-risk individuals from society, then point them out and ill read them. I've said this before, but it's extremely worrying to see you and Matt (and many others) fall into party lines when discussing this. Is the prospect of hundreds of thousands of lives lost can't get you to break from these identities in not sure anything will.orthomyxo_{April 18, 2020
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@Barry Arrington Do not praise EG too much. He was complaining about the closed borders policy and said in January (with no data available) that COVID-19 was less deadly than the flu.Truthfreedom_{April 18, 2020
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As many of our long time readers will have deduced, I have a weakness. Often times I get into lengthy back-and-forth discussions with progressives (in this case MatSpirit) who engage with equal parts stupidity and dishonesty. It is a clear violation of the pig rule: Never wallow in the mud with a pig; it does no good and the pig enjoys it. It is a truly unseemly part of my personality. Why do I do it you ask. I'll tell you. Curiosity. Sometimes I am just curious (some would say morbidly so) to find out to what depths of illogical argumentation and outright dishonesty progressives will go. As Mat has demonstrated in this exchange, some times the depths are pretty astonishing. I mean really. Even I was surprised at the mendacity of his last comment. He is utterly shameless. He seems to be moored to no moral anchor that constrains him from saying anything at all if he thinks it will score a rhetorical point. And I find that fascinating. Repulsive, yes, but fascinating too.Barry Arrington_{April 18, 2020
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MatSpirit.
Talk about the BAP.
What, are you in the third grade? Why didn't you just write, "no you are!"
But I don’t understand your cost/benefit analysis. The ventilators still exist.
Now you are just making crap up. Stop it. Are you the only person on the planet who does not know that a couple of weeks ago the government signed a half billion dollar contract with GM to close the ventilator gap? I suppose that's one explanation for your statement. The other, far more likely, explanation is that you are liar still trying to rescue your hopelessly bad argument. You have forgotten the first rule of being deep in a hole. Stop digging. Making up "facts" everyone knows are false is not only dishonest, it's kinda stupid because of the "everyone knows" part.
The government paid for 1.2 billion dollars worth of ventilators, it got them, it used every one of them
So now you're saying the government did not need to spend that extra half billion, because it already had all the ventilators it needed; it was just a matter of getting them to the right place. God help us but you are pathetic.
if by some miracle we do have left over ventilators when this is finally over
Please stop. The whole point is that we already have left over ventilators that NY never had to use from its original stockpile.Barry Arrington_{April 18, 2020
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@3 Bornagain77: Oh, don't you know about this 'theory' that explains that by killing your children you 'increase your reproductive success'? Look, that's how it goes: 1. You have 0 children 2. Now you get pregnant 3. Now you decide to kill the 'parasite' 4. Now you have no 'parasite' and you are a killer, but... You have 'increased your reproductive success'. Please Bornagain77, be scientific. We owe so much to 'evolution'! Pray Darw'.Truthfreedom_{April 18, 2020
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Denyse
I know for a fact that cancer surgeries are being put off in some places to accommodate pandemic hospitalizations
I too have hard rumors of empty clinics and bored medical staff. This is obviously not the case in Manhattan. But it does support the point of the OP. Maybe elective medical procedures should be postponed at New York Presbyterian. But is there an equivalent need to close them down in Colby, Kansas? Probably not; yet shut down they are.Barry Arrington_{April 18, 2020
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Talk about the BAP. Coumo seems to have followed federal guidance (see Vividbleau's link in 31) which showed the state would need 30,000 or 40,000 ventilators in a month or so and ordered them. We turned out not to need that many. Good all around. But I don't understand your cost/benefit analysis. The ventilators still exist. They were passed on to other hospitals that needed them. The government paid for 1.2 billion dollars worth of ventilators, it got them, it used every one of them, and they are still being used. I don't understand how anybody can call that an unnecessary expenditure. Can you show us some numbers? Remember too, that if by some miracle we do have left over ventilators when this is finally over, they can help rebuild the strategic stockpile. I just don't see the waste here.MatSpirit_{April 18, 2020
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Barry, I worry most about the damage lockdowns do with respect to other heath concerns. Consider: I know for a fact that cancer surgeries are being put off in some places to accommodate pandemic hospitalizations that are not really happening. Cancer does not play fair. It will grow while the patient waits. Kids who are not in school and young people who are not at work have more reasons and opportunities to investigate drug abuse. There will be lives wrecked, jail time, deaths, later - and the link to COVID crazy will be erased. I am an oldie myself (b 1950) and I am NOT asking society to shut down to protect me. Whether I live long enough to be a problem to my adult grandchildren is not a big public concern. It's not even a big concern of mine. But I hate seeing so many young people's lives disrupted.Denyse OLeary_{April 18, 2020
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Orthomyxo
Barry, I don’t think anyone is suggesting countries should stay at complete lockdown for many months.
Then you haven't been reading the news lately. Lots of progressives are suggesting just that.
having young people go back to work without extraordinary measures to isolate at-risk folks is very likely to lead to future lockdown
Which is why exactly no one is suggesting that. (Well, maybe some really really fanatical libertarians are suggesting that. No one has ever listened to the extreme libertarian fringe; no need to start now.)Barry Arrington_{April 18, 2020
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Barry, I don't think anyone is suggesting countries should stay at complete lockdown for many months. But how we manage the easing of restrictions matters a great deal, and having young people go back to work without extraordinary measures to isolate at-risk folks is very likely to lead to future lockdown (or many more deaths or both).orthomyxo_{April 18, 2020
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I would also be very careful about the idea that only those with other illnesses are dying. All the data I have seen to support this include conditions like obesity and hypertension that are very common in the general population too.orthomyxo_{April 18, 2020
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There were actually 3 waves in the 1918 flu: nice summary here https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/12/1/05-0979_article. The 2nd was the most deadly, possible because it evolved to be more virulent between (northern hemisphere) waves. This is partly the result of how sttongly seasonal flu epidemics are. The new virus is likely somewhat seasonal, but probably not to the same degree as flu.orthomyxo_{April 18, 2020
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Orthomyxo
It its an extremely risky approach
Maybe. But cowering in our houses while the world's economy goes down the toilet is also extremely risky. We must make judgments about which risk to take. There is no risk-free option. Just yesterday the UN (no right wing group that) estimated that a severe depression will result in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of children in the developing world and plunge tens of millions more into grinding poverty.Barry Arrington_{April 18, 2020
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Ed, You ask some cogent questions that will need to be addressed. Your stock just went up in my book. Too often progressive analysis is limited to: "Trump suggested it; I am opposed to it." MatSpirit has demonstrated that with his painful-to-watch arguments in this thread. My off the cuff tentative take on your questions:
what about the millions of those under 55 who are living with and supporting an elderly parent? Should they be excluded from this opening up?
This is an issue that exists now. Millions of "essential" workers go home to homes occupied by elderly an infirm every day. I hope they are using common sense precautions in their homes. Even if they are not, I do not see how the government can impose, monitor and enforce rules of household behavior. This one is going to rest ultimately on the goodwill and commonsense of the average person.
And what about the millions of younger people who are essential workers working in the health care system? Should they also be forced to follow in-place orders when they are not working?
Why should they be? Barry Arrington_{April 18, 2020
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Mat,
“hysterical overreaction”? In the midst of the worse outbreak of covid 19 in the world?
Mat, as we saw above, Cuomo called for an unnecessary $1.12 billion expenditure. Is there any limit to the number of billions of unnecessary spending that you would not try to justify with the phrase "worst COVID-19 outbreak in the world"? You say you are so great at cost/benefit analysis. I just wonder if there is any upper limit on the cost of obtaining zero benefit?Barry Arrington_{April 18, 2020
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@Seversky My commission sales job involves dealing with a lot of customers every day, and we’re doing significant protocols to try to stop the spread of the virus, but I have noticed something, black women and men are wearing masks when they come in, and white women are wearing masks, but white men are not wearing masks. Ugh. A few miles east of me our idiot governor has reopened the beaches. I like to do my 750m swim as much as the next person(1), but it’s probly going to cause a second wave. (1: anybody who knows what sport I amateurishly compete in knows that number)Jim Thibodeau_{April 18, 2020
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Cuomo called for 28,000 ventilators on March 27 (cost per ventilator is $40,000; total cost $1.12 billion). Trump said on the same day NY did not need 28,000 more ventilators. NY is past its peak hospitalization and NY was did not use all of the ventilators they had in stock. So it is clear they did not need more. I asked MatSpirit who was right, Trump or Cuomo. He says Cuomo was right. Huh? How can that be you ask? Simple, you have to learn progressive logic to see that not only was Mat right, he was inevitably right. I will explain for the uninitated: You see, when you are a progressive, the answer is not a matter of logic and evidence; it is a matter of "what do I need the answer to be to support my argument?" In this case Mat needed the answer to be that Cuomo was right to ask for 28,000 additional ventilators even though he clearly did not need them. So what is a progressive to do? Simple: Establish a new principle: Cuomo was right to demand a billion dollars be spent for more ventilators because of the "plan for the worst case" principle. It's brilliant really. Cuomo demanded 28,000 ventilators he did not need. He was right to do so. Indeed, he was morally obligated to do so, because he was "planning for the worst case." Notice how flexible this principle is. No matter how hysterically overstated Cuomo's demand, he would have still been right to make it. 28,000 he did not need? He was right. 50,000 he did not need. Still right, because he was planning for worst case. 100,000? Still right. You get the picture. Of course, any child can see what Mat is doing here, and he convinces no one, least of all himself, because he knows as well as the rest of us that he is spewing BS.* So, let's go back to the original question. Who is better at cost/benefit analysis? The bottom line: Cuomo's call for an unnecessary billion dollar expenditure was a hysterical overreaction. The billion dollar cost was not justified by the zero benefit. Trump's response that it was not necessary to spend that billion dollars to gain zero benefit was correct. Who was the better steward of limited tax dollars? Trump. _____ *BTW, this length of this comment is a classic example of the BAP. "BAP" stands for "BS asymmetry principal," the principle that dispelling BS requires far more effort than to sling it in the first place. Barry Arrington_{April 18, 2020
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There’s a meme going around that in 1918 the first wave of Spanish flu only killed single digit million people, the second wave killed dozens of millions of people. I would like to see that verified.Jim Thibodeau_{April 18, 2020
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This is similar to the plan the UK had before the data came in from Italy, and is probably something so states will try for. It its an extremely risky approach though, as it depends on being able to absolutely isolate the vulnerable. If you simply "reopen the economy" the virus will take off again and sweep through >50% of the population. The new epidemic wave will create millions of opportunities for the most vulnerable to contract the disease and die or end up in an ICU. Unless you can keep the vulnerable away from the rest of society you are likely to see more periods of lockdown in the future. I think more countries will try some form of case-isolation and tracking once they've passed the first wave. The idea being to keep prevalence very low for a long time but actively finding cases and quarantining them. This will depend on keeping the number of contacts-per-case manageable low, so will probably mean some from of physical distancing will say in place for a long time (albeit not full lockdown).orthomyxo_{April 18, 2020
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Putting all of this right vs left nonsense aside, I agree that it makes sense to allow the younger cohorts (under 55) to open the economy back up and put steps in place to continue to isolate the elderly. But what about the millions of those under 55 who are living with and supporting an elderly parent? Should they be excluded from this opening up? And what about the millions of younger people who are essential workers working in the health care system? Should they also be forced to follow in-place orders when they are not working? I think we all agree that we will have to open up our society fairly soon. Doing it slowly and wisely is critical.Ed George_{April 18, 2020
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