HERD IMMUNITY?

Vaccination is the medical sacrament corresponding to baptism. Whether it is or it is not more efficacious, I do not know. ~ Samuel Butler  

Emus no longer fly higher than we humans’ realistic hopes for attaining global herd immunity from the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

Herd immunity refers to the level of protection from an infectious disease – like covid-19 – that occurs either when a sufficiently high proportion of a human population can no longer acquire or transmit infection, or when immunity resulting through vaccination or previous infection has been attained. Reaching this threshold level of protection is crucial.

Emus, a herd of which is shown below cavorting in their native Australian outback, do not fly. However, they can run as fast as 30mph. But, being appropriately adaptable on six different occasions during their 10-million year stay here on Mother Earth, emus apparently have to been able to fly, then abandoned flight and later relearned how to use their wings for liftoff. Impressivo. Do emus enjoy herd emunity? That is not yet known. 

A herd of emus in the outback. With herd emunity?

In early 2020, at the height of initial pandemic anxieties, the CDC and other public health authorities proclaimed herd immunity as a goal for its efforts to curtail the spread of SARS-CoV-2, aka covid-19. Early on, when asked about covid herd immunity, the CDC said it was possible after about 60-70% of all of us are immunized and behaving appropriately.

Through last spring and fall, the CDC emphasized attaining herd immunity. It no longer does. This puzzling change acknowledges a shift in epidemiological thinking. Several intervening factors likely make attaining herd immunity an uncertain prospect at best, and realistically unlikely any time soon.

These factors include: the uneven vaccine rollout, together with some people’s persistent, “unscientific” hesitancy about getting inoculated with a vaccine and widely-circulating coronavirus variants, like B.1.1.7 here in the US.

Such covid variants have been completely expected. It’s what viruses do. Unfortunately, every virus does its best to lengthen its effective life-cycle by always producing mutant variants (also called strains). Some strains are more contagious and/or lethal, others are not.

The annual flu vaccine “booster shots” that we’ve been living with since 1945 attest to such variants. Each year’s booster shot for flu is different, depending on the latest variants. Despite the shots, on average the flu kills 36,000 people in the US per year.

According to the FDA, the 2020-21 seasonal influenza vaccine formulation will likely cover four viral variants: an A/Hawaii/70/2019 (H1N1) pdm09-like virus; an A/HongKong/45/2019 (H3N2)-like virus; a B/Washington/02/2019-like virus and a B/Phuket/3073/2013-like virus (B/Yamagata lineage).

So now you know and can ready your arm for flu shots beginning in October. Interestingly, last year’s flu season was unusual in that flu cases began to decline in March. According to the CDC, this was “perhaps associated with community prevention measures for covid-19.” Thank goodness for small favors.

But back to our current nemesis, covid-19. Contrary to the media’s hype – the multitude of misbegotten headlines about “conquering covid” – after the first covid vaccines became available last December, the covid-19 virus will not be defeated any more than the typical flu virus has been.

There won’t be a “one and done” covid vaccine. The covid-19 virus will very likely need to be “managed,” like every other dangerous virus has been for over 200 years. Depending on how long immunity lasts, each of us should expect to receive periodic (possibly annual) covid-variant-based booster shots.

On May 3, Dr. Anthony Fauci himself dismissed the relevance of herd immunity as a goal, saying “People were getting confused and thinking you’re never going to get the infections down until you reach this mystical level of herd immunity, whatever that number is.” Mystical; that’s nice word-play Dr. Merlin.

On May 10, Jeffrey Zients, the White House Covid Coordinator, stated instead of reaching herd immunity, the goal should be to achieve some sense of normalcy by getting 70% of Americans immunized. Ah, normalcy. But does it beat herd immunity? More to the point, what exactly does “normalcy” mean?

Dr. Fauci and Mr. Zients are casting mistargeted aspersions. We vaccine-recipients and non-recipients ourselves were not “getting confused.” We are being excessively aided in our confusion by experts like yourselves who have been broadcasting differing, inconsistent stories about covid’s apparently-mystical herd immunity, and its threshold level. If anyone is confused, it’s been the experts. Not us.

Some doctors have said the covid herd immunity threshold (HIT) rate – the immunization level required to provide general, overall population protection – is about 60-70%, as mentioned above. Other epidemiologists have estimated the covid HIT rate is more likely 80-90%.

After months of emphasizing it, experts like Dr. Fauci are now shelving herd immunity as a goal for covid control. My bet is they’re now dismissing herd immunity because it cannot be realistically attained. Reaching herd immunity across Earth’s seven continents is even more next to impossible.

If we can somehow now become convinced to forget about herd immunity and instead believe in attaining “normalcy,” public health experts and administrators could eventually be judged victorious.

For other infectious diseases, attaining their HIT rate has been successfully accomplished. Measles’ HIT rate is an unmystical, but high 95% due to its significant contagiousness. Like other transmissible diseases, measles has been around for a long time. The measles virus moved from livestock to humans roughly 4000 years ago. A vaccine was introduced 58 years ago, in 1963. This vaccine remains 99% effective.

The measles, mumps, rubella (MMR) vaccine is administered to young children, as you may know or even remember. The CDC has declared 90.8% of US children by age 24 months have been immunized for MMR. In 2019, there were just 1,282 individual cases of measles throughout the US. Victory! Nevertheless, about 1.3M people die from measles annually across the globe.

Since Jan. 1, 2021, 3.2M deaths have occurred worldwide from covid; just over 581,000 in the US. As of May 11, 35% of Americans are fully vaccinated.

No matter how mystical it might be, public health authorities should continue wrangling to reach herd immunity for the covid-19 virus, not just whatever normalcy may be. They possess vital medical and social obligations to do so. Attaining the final percentages of immunization for the US covid HIT rate will be challenging and involve disproportionate expense and time. Is that extra expense worth it? Folks including the president will have to decide when to declare relative “success,” but it isn’t going to be soon.

 

 

LIVING IN EXISTENTIAL AND EXPONENTIAL TIMES

Bananas are great. I believe they are the only known cure for existential dread. ~ Anne Lamott[1]      

Many of us expect better opportunities to emerge beginning in just 63 days. Our great expectations surrounding President Biden’s inauguration are embraced by positives, yet tinged with some trepidation. After all, #45’s bacchanal has 62 days remaining and tetchy Mitch will likely continue to be running the Senate.

Fortunately, Joe Biden already has been operating in many ways as our acting president (without portfolio), while #45 remains in his bunker at 1600 spouting dystopian fantasies and playing mulligan mini-golf. Irony abounds as our nation’s most presidential person is now resides in Delaware. Such is the yin and yang of this post-election’s politics.

The president and his craven sycophants have all too successfully and fraudulently branded Dems as socialists and defunders of police. The Repubs have gained 8 members in the House; giving the Dems the slimmest House majority in 20 years; and have an uphill battle on January 5 to gain a one-person edge in the Senate. Nevertheless, I doggedly remain an optimista.

These times, especially involving the coronavirus’ increasing onslaught, have brought forward several examples of inflation. No, not the economic kind when overall prices rise. We thankfully haven’t seen noteworthy price inflation since 2014.  

The inflation I am referring to is linguistically based and cannot be remedied by any action of the Federal Reserve. Nope, it’s emanating from the fingertips of media writers.

I have noticed an increasing use of two words, “existential” and “exponential” to describe what’s been happening here in the land of the free and home of the brave. These words often explain two inter-related events, the covid-19 pandemic and the November election.

After their common first two letters, the words diverge into very different realms. The rising use of both of these words has been initiated because of their connotative values which refer to emotional or cultural associations that the word carries, in addition to its literal meaning. I’ll first take a tour of existential.

Existential.  Existential can be defined as relating to, or affirming existence; grounded in existence or the experience of existence. Its connotative value often refers to a negative feeling or event, like existential angst, dread, crisis, threat or challenge. The use of existential essentially magnifies the feeling, angst or crisis beyond a simple, every-day ordinary one.

We have been enduring a large number of non-ordinary events and feelings. Thus, it’s not surprising that existential’s use has climbed more than 120%, according to Google.

The ghastly coronavirus crisis and the fraught presidential election each have offered media doyens much opportunity to describe a variety of events as existential. Before and after the election existential has been used to portray crises, political disagreements, terror and issues. A small and totally-unscientific sample of articles where authors have employed existential to describe terror, fights and issues includes this one, as well as this one and this one and lastly, this one that describes an existential crisis that’s wedging professional golf. Who’d have guessed?

Remarkably, existential has its own associated philosophy – existentialism. If you took Philosophy 101 in college you might remember existentialism with a small dose of mental, but not existential, strain. Here’s my strictly amateur synopsis of existentialism.

Existentialism is centered around the personal human exploration of the nature of existence. From its perspective the individual commences his/her inquiry from a point of “existential angst” and attempts to live their life earnestly with authenticity, based on their actions. In the late 19th- and 20th-century Soren Kierkegaard, Fredrich Nietzsche, Martin Heidegger, Simone de Beauvoir and Jean Paul Sartre were among the first existentialist movers and shakers.

Generally speaking, they thought that each individual — not religion or culture — is responsible for giving meaning to life and, through individual action, living it authentically. Existentialists are interested in closely examining existence, especially human existence. Sartre said, Man is fully responsible for his nature and his choices; and, Freedom is what you do with what’s been done to you.

Existentialists, through proper action, hope to triumph over the absurdity of existence. As such, existentialism is the opposite of nihilism. Nihilists are skeptical of everything and claim there is no god, no heaven or hell. Their predisposition leads to conceiving there can be no right or wrong.

My most memorable contact with nihilism came when I first watched one of my all-time great movies, “The Big Lebowski.” In it Jeff Bridges stars as Jeffrey "The Dude" Lebowski, a slacker middle-aged bachelor with a fondness for cannabis and bowling. In a memorable scene, he’s assaulted by the Nihilists: Uli, Dieter, Franz along with their ferret. Uli tells The Dude, “Ve believes in nossing.” The Dude abides.

If you want to dive deeper into existentialism, I suggest reading At the Existentialist Café, which a good friend recommended. In her book author Sarah Bakewell uses the literary conceit of a café to describe existential luminaries and their beliefs. Her literary café is perhaps modeled after a meeting between Sartre and his philosopher buddy Raymond Aron likely at the Café de Flore shown below, where Aron pointed to his glass on the table, telling Sartre perhaps only in half-jest, “You can make a philosophy out of this cocktail.” No mention if his cocktail was a Parisian Absinthe or not.

Café de Flore, Paris

But M. Aron’s was a drink (and food) for thought then, as well as currently. One lesser-known impact of covid-19 has been a strong increase in alcohol sales. In June, alcohol sales at brick and mortar stores nationwide were up 26% year-over-year. Spirits’ sales were up 35%, wine up 29% and beer up 21%. Ah, alcohol and existential challenges go together like a horse and carriage.

Having imbibed in things existential, I now turn to exponentials, which are somewhat less pliable.

Exponential.  Why has the media attached itself to "exponential?" To answer I first define exponential and briefly examine its mathematical basis. Feel free to skip this and the next paragraph if you want to escape the math, no worries. Exponential is succinctly defined as: of or relating to an exponent. Exponentiation is a mathematical operation. As you may recall from algebra, an exponent is a symbol written above and to the right of a mathematical expression to indicate the action of raising to a power. In the following example, the exponent is 2; 3² is 3 to the power of 2, or 3 squared, which equals 9.

An exponential equation in its simplest form is written as Y = bⁿ, involving two independent numbers, the base b and the exponent or power n, “Y = b raised to the power of n." When n is a positive integer, exponentiation corresponds to repeated multiplication of the base. That is, bⁿ is the product of multiplying together n bases:

      Exponential’s key connotative meaning is high, unending increase. The word exponential is being used exponentially by the media when it comes to describing the growth of coronavirus cases and deaths. They are both swelling big-time after an all too brief respite in late-summer between the spring surge and the current one.

It’s not just expansionary growth, it’s seemingly huger exponential growth. All too many healthcare professionals describe their perilous current state as "It keeps rising and rising, and we’re all running on fear. The health care system is going to collapse, no question." No wonder exponential has become more prominently applied, independent of what actual covid growth is.

Exponentials are a bit tricky mathematically speaking. Expressing ever-rising growth in exponential terms requires that the base (b, above) and the exponent (n, above) be positive integers. If n is zero, then Y is always 0 no matter what the base is. If n is 1, then Y is the number itself because any number raised to the power of 1 is the number itself. If the base, b, is less than 1 or n is less than 1 there’s no positive change/growth at all, Y will be negatively sloped. In fact, virtually any growth rate can be characterized as exponential. It all depends on the values of the exponent and the base.

Needless to say, media writers don’t bother with these intricacies. All of their statements implicitly assume a positive exponent more than 1 and a base greater than 1.

Usage of the word exponential has increased 25% according to Google; far less than that of existential. Recent media stories have used exponential in the following ways.

•       “The virus has now entered a stage of exponential growth that will be hard to halt with minor actions.”
•      “With no new curbs, exponential growth could continue for weeks.”
•    “As the pandemic seeps into every area of the country and scientists warn of exponential growth ahead of the holidays.”
•       "We are nearing a phase of exponential growth, if we haven't entered it already."
•       And illustrating that exponential is not limited only to referencing covid growth, here’s “State of the art uses of artificial intelligence (AI) in treating diseases and disorders of the brain have shown exponential growth.”

Exponential and existential have become watchwords for these times, courtesy of the virus and the media.

Our up-coming Thanksgiving holiday will pose its own challenges. As one UCSF doctor mentioned, “I’m massively worried. If you wanted to design something to make [coronavirus] things go worse, you would have designed Thanksgiving exactly when it’s coming.” Here’s hoping your turkey, stuffing, green-bean casserole and cranberry sauce is just tasty, not unhealthy. Take good care.

 

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[1] Anne, in the store you can find these bananas right next to existential bread. 

OUR DISCRETIONARY RECESSION

The fish rots from the head ~ Turkish proverb      

Let’s pause for a moment, take a deep breath, and somehow not focus on November 3. Next Tuesday has understandably become an all-consuming emphasis for obvious reasons. It may be impossible, but it’s worthwhile thinking about the abysmal economic reality we’ve been living through since shortly after 2020 began. This recession will continue to plague our nation well after next week because the Republicans have chosen to extend it.

The US has been in a harsh economic recession at least since early April, when our unemployment rate skyrocketed to 14.7%. The official arbitrator of business cycles, the Business Cycle Dating Committee (no, it’s not part of Tinder) of the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), announced in June that the recession began during this year’s second quarter (April – June).

In September, the (latest) unemployment rate was 7.9% - that’s 12.58 million people, people who want a job and can’t find one. This elevated unemployment rate is the largest in 8 years, not counting the historically-higher unemployment spike between April and August. Our real (inflation-adjusted) GDP dropped 5.0% in the first quarter and a massive 31.4% in the second quarter at annualized rates. This second-quarter reduction is the largest ever. As every conscious, competent person knows, these have not been good times, despite what #45 falsely asserts.

The NBER’s proclamation noted the distinctiveness of this recession. “The committee recognizes that the pandemic and the public health response have resulted in a downturn with different characteristics and dynamics than prior recessions.” One big distinction is this recession first affected the services sector, the most prominent contributor to our national output (GDP). The services sector accounts for over 68% of our GDP and more than 80% of our national employment. Another distinction was the speed that the previous good times suddenly stopped rolling along. These distinctions are solely due to the unique cause of this recession: covid-19.

Many previous recessions have initially battered “traditional” sectors such as manufacturing and more generally, the goods-producing portions of the economy. This recession hasn’t hit as hard the manufacturing sector, which is near and dear to every politician, but now accounts for just 7.3% of national employment. That’s less than one-half as many people who are employed by state and local governments.

Econ 101 textbooks’ discussions about how governments can escape the ravages of recessions focus on implementing expansionary monetary and fiscal policies. Monetary policy is set by the Federal Reserve Bank’s (the Fed’s) Board of Governors. Fiscal policy is multi-layered, referring to discretionary funds authorized and spent by federal, state and local governments.

Most of the Fed’s monetary policy mechanisms focus on changing the money supply and interest rates for buying or selling government bonds. During recessions the Fed increases the money supply and decreases interest rates. As such, monetary policy’s principal channel for influencing the macroeconomy is narrower than that of fiscal policy. Fiscal policy expenditures can and have been much broader in scope.

Monetary policy most directly influences business investment and consumer and business loans. Lowering interest rates during recessionary periods often lead to more investment and more lending because it is cheaper to buy loans. Beginning in July 2019 and sensing up-coming weakness in the economy, the Fed has dramatically lowered interest rates, via its Federal Funds Rate, FFR. Now the effective FFR is a bargain-basement 0.09%. More remarkably, the 10-Year Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities’ (TIPS) interest rate is -0.91%. During the past year, the Fed has increased the M1 money supply 41%, to $5.5 trillion.  

The seven-member Fed Board of Governors meets about once every six weeks to decide whether or not to change monetary policy. Last February, the Fed held three emergency meetings to respond to the coronavirus crisis. They significantly lowered the FFR. Despite these efforts, gross private domestic investment has steadily declined 21% during the last 18 months.

Because federal fiscal policy requires legislative action by 535 Congresspeople (435 members of the House and 100 of the Senate), it rarely coincides with the economy’s current needs. It often lags changes in the business cycle. That’s once again true now.

Congress authorized the unprecedentedly-large and effective $2.3 trillion CARES Act stimulus seven months ago. The CARES Act increased individual unemployment benefits, provided $1,200 checks to over 150 million people, offered more than 600,000 small businesses forgivable loans to pay their workers via the Paycheck Protection Program, as well as aided large companies and state and local governments.

Federal fiscal policy has been invisible since last Spring. Despite the ever-growing need, national expansionary fiscal policy has been stopped dead by Congressional intra-mural hostility, chiefly due to Senate Repubs’ intransigence, and the Administration’s incompetent team of sycophants.

The key proponent for this disinterest in needed Congressional expansionary fiscal action is Mitch McConnell, the Senate Majority Leader. On October 20 he warned the White House not to initiate a new stimulus agreement with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi before the November 3 election. He and his Repub colleagues are consciously choosing to postpone any expansionary fiscal policy that would begin remedying this recession.

I characterize Mitch’s strategy as a discretionary recession extension. It is completely perverse from both economic and political perspectives. Sen. McConnell’s strategy also directly conflicts with #45’s latest hopes to “go big” with a second stimulus before the election.

The idea of Republican Congresspeople purposefully deciding to prolong a recession and not alleviate its sizeable, adverse effects has no precedent. One commentator mentioned that Mitch and his Repub neo-austerity caucus are not only practicing bad economics but also really dumb politics.

How would Mitch explain his refusal to help fellow Kentuckians (along with every other US resident) as soon as possible? It’s a mystery. Especially because his constituents will be voting against or for him on November 3. They have been suffering from a giant 77% increase in Kentucky’s unemployment since last year. For the intransigent Repubs, folks’ suffering makes no difference.

After Joe wins on November 3[1], the Senate and House Repubs, as well as #45 will completely dismiss any more fiscal policy support on the public’s behalf. Why? Because in their minds such support will make President Biden’s life somewhat easier. The outer, pro-deficit coat they have grown with #45 will be promptly shed as they metamorphosize back into their usual hard-shelled Republicanas hypocritus, representationally shown below.

     Republicanas hypocritus

Repubs will once again shout their disingenuous abhorrence of larger public debt, even though every Repub Senator voted in 2017 for #45s massive, debt-laden tax breaks for the already-rich. The 2020 federal fiscal deficit is $3.1 trillion, amounting for 15.2% of GDP, more than triple the deficit for last year and the largest deficit as a share of the economy since 1945.

With the expectation of Joe Biden occupying the White House, Mitch and his Senate Repubs have already begun to sermonize about their newly- uncovered distaste for discretionary fiscal policy, just as they did with President Obama. They conveniently disremembered this stridency from January 20, 2017 until now.

I recommend Speaker Pelosi promptly reconsider and act on the latest White House stimulus offer of $1.8 trillion (versus the Dems’ $2.2 trillion). Sure, it’s only 81% of what she wants and the nation needs, but Mitch’s Senate will wholly disregard it. Their utter disdain will again amply reveal the Repubs' neglect of voters’ wellbeing. The Repubs’ deep interest in extending their discretionary recession will help ensure the Dems’ recapture of the Senate in addition to the White House.

 

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[1] I’m perhaps naïvely assuming Joe’s popular vote victory will be honored in all states’ legislatures and the proscribed Joint Session of Congress, presided by the Vice President, on January 6, 2021. That’s the date Congress members will formally accept the Electoral College votes and certify the election. However, before January 6 when the States are assembling their electors’ votes, Repubs might exercise their virulent hopes by having a state, whose voters gave Joe Biden their nod, and with a Dem governor but a majority Repub legislature (prime examples are Pennsylvania, Wisconsin as well as 6 other states) could refuse to accept the governor’s certified results of their own voters and dismiss the Dem electors in the state’s Electoral College. Such a dismissal would force these electors to become Electoral College drop-outs. The Repub legislators then could substitute their own slate of Repub electors, despite the popular vote results. It’s yet another reason to wish that no person drops out of college, any college. Of course, it’s never happened before; but.

  

TURNOUT TELL-ALL

The end of the pandemic is in sight. ~ Donald Trump (9/29/20)     

Here we are a mere 28 days before we choose whether the incumbent, possibly covid-filled president should remain in office or cast him out in favor of his eminently-laudable challenger.

But wait, a top-of-the ninth (or is it just the seventh inning stretch) colossal curve ball has been thrown into this political game, worthy of Sandy Koufax or Dwight Gooden. The curve ball is the Friday, October 2 announcement that #45 has covid-19. It’s highjacked the election, probably just as the president hoped. To no one’s surprise, his administration has itself become a super-spreader event.

Yup, viral reality has likely stricken our here-to-fore, ever-unmasked #45. I say likely because we should balance three concurrent realities. First, this virus’ months-long, utterly non-discriminatory and all-too-successful efforts to infect everyone; second, #45’s regular no-rules denials of fact, science and truth (see his quote above, QED); and third, #45’s on-going and widening deficit in election polls. Given this state of affairs, my amply well-founded, cynical self has pondered that he could be making up his infection for his own desperate advantage on November 3.

On Sunday, the seemingly non-stricken #45 briefly left his suite at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center for a short, unannounced motorcade ride so he could wave to his supporters outside. The president’s un-sick behavior was properly labeled by doctors at Walter Reed as irresponsible “insanity.” It’s only insanity if he actually has covid-19. Imagine him triumphantly returning to the White House all too soon, saying he’s facilely “fired the virus.”  

Because of his nefarious approach to politics, I urge the Dems to walk a fine line and not to be too considerate about the president’s viral condition. If they are too thoughtful, as is their virtuous inclination, they could become hoodwinked toast. Remember not the Maine, but hopeful victory on the 3rd, please.

The Repubs haven’t stopped a single one of their negative ads against Mr. Biden, as the president waved to his fans in his SUV outside Walter Reed. The Dems have ceased theirs against #45. This befits a risky tactic of perhaps being overly empathetic of the president’s (alleged) medical malady. Joe, please restart your full court press and all your ads, now.

But back to the upcoming balloting for the presidency.

In this seemingly-interminable presidential election cycle, analysts have guesstimated that the number of “undecideds” may range from 3% to 11% of registered voters; most polls show 3% to 5% at most. For the life of me, I don’t know how our presidential choice this time can be at all puzzling; which is another way of saying that the media’s obsessive focus on allegedly “undecided” voters is a misplaced ruse. At this point, there aren’t any really “undecided” voters to speak of. But the giant media election apparatus really, really requires them for their stories as well as the debates. Remember the debates?  

The incentive for someone to say now they’re “undecided” rests solely on receiving a slender, Skinnerian pellet of spotlighted, momentary media attention. “You’re really undecided; that’s fabulous, can we please interview you?” The media’s spotlight is probably bright enough for a few people to apparently want to bath in it. To assist those very, very few remaining "undecided" voters, I suggest you take this handy quiz to learn what you should do on election day. 

Other analysts believe most of these very scarce “undecided” voters aren’t likely voters. Past information indicates all too many will not vote on November 3. From this perspective, there are mainly “undecided” non-voters.

Despite the intensity and importance of every US presidential election, vast swaths of eligible voters regularly decline their privilege. The US Elections Project has determined that 39.9% of our voting-eligible population, or 45.3% of our voting-age population, did not vote in November 2016. Our paltry election turnout-participation rate ranked the US 26th highest of the 35 listed, advanced democracies, just behind Estonia.[1] The hefty number of non-voting citizens is in part why election campaigns focus on improving turnout and “getting the vote out.”

The table below shows the voter turnout and related information for the 2018 primary and Congressional elections and the 2016 presidential election for several major voting groups. Voter turnout is the percentage of eligible voters who cast a ballot in an election. In 2016, the national average turnout of voting-age people was 59%. Minnesota had the highest voter turnout of any state in 2016 and 2018.

Voter Turnout and Electorate Shares by Ethnicity and Age

Group	Voter Turnout 2018      2016	Share of Electorate 2018      2016	Share of 2019 Pop.
Non-Hispanic White	55.2%    64.7%	73.3%    73.6%	60.1%
Hispanic	36.9       44.9	9.4          9.1	18.5
Non-Hispanic Black	51.3       59.9	12.2        12.3	13.4
18-29 years old	32.6       43.4	13.8        15.7	16.4
60+ years old	65.5      71.4	37.3        33.6	16.5 (65+)

Sources: US Elections Project, US Census, Marketingcharts.com

As shown in the table, non-Hispanic White people and people 60 years old or over, aka elder voters, had the highest turnout, closely followed by non-Hispanic Black people, a key Dem constituency. Younger people, a hopeful Dem constituency, had the lowest turnout, half that of elder voters in 2018. These turnout rates are typical across many years’ elections. Elder voters account for a disproportionate share of the electorate, relative to their 2019 population share. The other groups’ population shares are more commensurate with their electorate shares.

Once again, the Dems are emphasizing increased turnout for young people and Hispanics, as well as non-Hispanic Black folks. If the Dems’ efforts succeed in improving these groups’ turnout it could likely benefit their candidates. But in past elections such efforts have largely come up short with regard to younger persons. Interestingly, California has a proposition on its ballot that would further expand youth voting privilege by allowing 17-year olds to vote in primaries and special elections if they will be 18 by the time of the next general election. OMG, say it ain’t so.

The Dems are also hoping to get Bernie Sanders’ and Elizabeth Warrens’ progressive believers to vote for Joe. Both Bernie and Elizabeth are thankfully far more engaged in promoting the Dems’ candidate than they were four years ago. The question remains whether Progs will really shed their puritanical mental frocks and actually cast a ballot for Biden, despite their believing he’s not “pure” enough. Fingers are crossed in hoping they are not all like Roger Williams, a strict Puritan leader, nearly 400 years ago.

The Dems’ challenges illustrate a long-running political dispute about election strategy: Is it better to persuade people who will likely support you to actually vote by increasing turnout or to win over swing voters and change the vote margin?

Both are important for achieving victory, but past elections indicate it is more valuable to win by changing the vote margin than by changing turnout. Why? Because successfully changing a persuadable voter to change her/his sides (change the vote margin) produces two votes: plus one for you, and minus one for your opponent. Getting an additional voter to cast a ballot through turnout is worth just one vote. Also, an election’s vote share/margin also tends to shift more than turnout from election to election. Thus, changing the margin ends up being more politically “efficient”, netting two votes versus one vote, but can entail more convincing efforts.

I’m trusting that despite #45’s relentless all tricks and no treats, the thoughts of #16’s Secretary of State William Seward (who bought Alaska for us at a pittance) remain true: “There was always just enough virtue in this republic to save it; sometimes none to spare, but still enough to meet the emergency.” In our current emergency we’ll find out soon if Sec. Seward was right, as I truly hope.

 

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[1] For you national election geeks, Belgium has the highest voter turnout with 87.2% of the voting-age population actually casting votes in their latest national election.

 

SHOULD I MOVE BACK TO PHILADELPHIA?

Venus favors the bold. ~ Ovid 

It seems to me that the fall election will be the day after tomorrow. The intensity of media’s circus about all things electoral is being ratcheted way up – with more than Barnum’s three (3) rings and a mere 46 days remaining before November 3.

A growing bask[1] of poll results are published daily. Incessant interviews with allegedly undecided voters pervade the media. Come on, how could any semi-cognizant person 18yrs or older remain unresolved about voting for either Biden or Trump? The number of “swing” or “battleground” states –where someone has decided the expected election results are “too close to call” – have multiplied this time around. Past elections have categorized three or four states as swingers, not now. Last week there were 12 to 15 states that have been labelled “swing/battleground” by various organizations.

Fifteen states, really? Absurdity lives on both sides of the screen. Either the polls’ always-suspect forecast accuracy is getting worse, or the cabal of pollsters and media have determined it’s decidedly inequitable that only a couple of states get so anointed. Each of the 15 swingers must deserve a participatory blue or red tinted ribbon.

According to one analyst, Pennsylvania will likely decide the presidential election among the swingers. Sorry Wisconsin, Minnesota, Ohio and Florida. Your time in the election spotlight’s glare has apparently dimmed. So, if the Keystone State is indeed the key state, should I move back there – I grew up in suburban Philadelphia – and vote to help Joe win? Is my additional vote worth more there than in the People’s Republic of Berkeley, where I’ve resided for decades?

To see if I can still actually legally cast a vote in Pennsylvania I visited the comprehensive www.vote2020-womentowomen.com/ website that Patrice and her friend Linda Saulsby recently launched. I learned I need to relocate in PA no later than October 2 and register by October 19. It would be a rather quick hop, skip and a long jump back to Liberty Bell-land. Recent polls of likely voters in PA show Biden leading #45 by 3% to 7%, indicating that more Biden voters will help.

Each and every vote counts of course, and in the last presidential election Sec. Clinton beat The Donald by a significant 30.0% margin in my home state, California. In Alameda County, where Berkeley dwells, her victory margin was an incredible 63.6%. She received 5.4 votes for every vote Trump got. These results illuminate California’s and my home county’s status as deeply midnight blue territory. The most recent polls of likely voters in CA show Biden leading from 29% to 30%.

On the other hand, #45 won Pennsylvania in 2016 by a miniscule but vital 0.7% margin even though the state has been Democratically-aligned for a long time. The Dems’ presidential candidates have won PA in 10 of the 17 elections since 1952. Before 2016, the Dems triumphed the last six straight presidential elections. But now politicos believe PA is getting redder. As Democrat cognoscente James Carville stated, “Between Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania is just Alabama.”

I cast my first presidential vote in November 1968 for Hubert Humphrey when I lived in Montgomery County, one of Philadelphia’s four “collar counties” that surround it. In 2016, Montgomery County gave Sec. Clinton a 21.3% winning margin.

In order for Biden to win PA this time around, these four collar counties (and Pittsburgh’s Dem majority) must surmount #45’s strength throughout the far less urban rest of the state. That, unfortunately, did not happen in 2016. It most assuredly needs to happen this November 3.

In his disastrous town hall meeting held in Philadelphia this week, #45 talked about “herd mentality” – yet another of his ever-lengthening list of spoken misnomers – when he likely meant herd immunity. Actually, from this I believe he and his deceitful campaign has been exposed for using heard mentality to inure his base from the real world and instead accept his fearfully-spoken dark fantasies.

I haven’t booked a flight to PHL yet. I’m hoping Joe and Kamala will continue bolstering their fearlessly bold and clear advantages to the voting public. They should keep emphasizing their positivism, humanity, knowledge, credibility, common sense and perhaps most importantly, empathy for every US resident.

I also haven’t scheduled a journey to our closest planetary neighbor, Venus. I found the report that astrobiologists may have discovered phosphine (PH3) in Venus’ atmosphere emotionally-positive news. On Earth, phosphine can be produced either by microbes or chemists (including as a lethal by-product of hazardously-operated meth labs).

That’s right, possibly some beyond-strange microbial lifeform could be floating next-door in the Venetian atmosphere. Wow; welcome to the planetary neighborhood. Unfortunately there’s no beaches to travel to (it’s a toasty 900°F on the surface), but what an escape from the onslaught of a covid-flu twindemic, wildfires, the on-going viral recession and vicious politics.

To Venus and beyond…

 

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[1] A bask is the collective noun that describes a group of crocodiles, a treacherous reptilian carnivore. 

TOILET PAPER, CHICKS AND GOLD BARS

I’m not counting any chickens. ~ Jeff Bridges  

How’s your Sheltering-in Place (Sh-i-P) coming along? We’ve been at it since Monday, March 16, which seems like... The SF Bay Area counties now have extended their Sh-i-P orders through May 3. Further extensions, with masks, are only a matter of time.

Don’t worry, this blog doesn’t get within 6 feet (or should it be 27 feet, see here) of casting judgement on how rigorously any of us are following our Sh-i-P rules. It is only semi-virus-related so I consider it mildly other-worldly, since covid-19 occupies 110% of the public’s conscious attention, or so the media presumes.

Instead, this blog centers on toilet paper (TP) and chicks 🐥 (not the Dixie kind) that have flown off stores’ shelves, just like TP. For more fiscally-focused folks, I also consider gold, a precious metal that humans have valued through innumerable crises of every sort, including ones like this one.

It’s an understatement to say many aspects of people’s behavior have been changed over the past several months, during this initial chapter of covid-19. Countless folks’ expectations have become frenzied by Sh-i-Ping, the Administration’s pinballing, sometimes deceptive messaging and the media’s ceaseless proliferation of coronaviral stories – letting us know for example when Papua New Guinea registered its first coronavirus case. Such untethered expectations change personal consumption patterns, create panicked, feverish purchasing and subsequent emptied shelves. Voila, resulting scarcities of toilet paper, chicks, and glass gem popcorn seeds, among other items.

Toilet Paper: (FYI, the use of the colon as part of this subsection title is purposeful.) What is it with TP anyway? Normally it is an ordinary, inexpensive consumer product that sells for $0.67 per roll at Costco, when it’s in stock. That’s very different than TP’s price in Venezuela, where hyper hyperinflation has taken its toll. A roll of TP in Caracas costs at least 2,600,000 bolivars. Yet another of the multitude of reasons to not live there.

Toilet paper has been around for a good long time. The first documented human use of TP happened in China during the 6th century AD – 15 centuries ago. In Ancient Rome, a sponge on a stick was often used, and, after use, placed back in a pail of vinegar. In other locales, wealthy people wiped themselves with wool, lace or hemp. Less wealthy folks used rags, wood shavings, leaves, grass, moss, water, snow, seashells, or corncobs. The rise of publishing in the 18th century led to the use of newspapers and cheap, popular books’ pages for cleansing.

However, actual rolls of TP didn’t accompany toilets until more recent times. Commercial toilet paper began in the mid-19th century, with a patent for roll-based dispensers filed in 1883. Indoor plumbing first started to be placed in American homes in the mid-1800s. In 1940 nearly one-half of US houses lacked hot piped water, a bathtub or shower, or a flush toilet. Toilet paper dispensed from rolls was first popularized in 1890 when the Scott Paper Company began selling it, coinciding with mounting use of indoor, flush toilets. Now more than seven billion rolls of toilet paper are sold yearly in the US. Over time, deflation has struck the rolls. The size of a general single sheet of TP has shrunk 26% since 2000. Nothing’s sacred.

Today’s TP scarcities recall another shortage when Johnny Carson joked in his December 19, 1973 Tonight Show monologue that “there is an acute shortage of toilet paper.” There really wasn’t any shortage; on stage, he verbally made it up.

The first OPEC oil embargo also was happening when Johnny joked and created large amounts of public anxiety as well as blocks-long queues at gas stations. Carson’s audience apparently found his jest more frightening than funny. His “news” sent large numbers of shoppers into grocery stores to buy and hoard toilet paper. Thus an actual shortage was born. The Scott Paper Company urged people to stop panic-buying their product. Nevertheless for several months, TP was in short supply or actually absent from store shelves. TP was bartered for, traded, and even sold on the black market.

 That was then, the present-day TP shortage, shown above, arose from consumers’ anxiety-driven purchases, but not from a misplaced joke. It has been happening not just in the US, but in Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong and Japan. Why? Perhaps shoppers fearful of coronavirus quarantine measures have stockpiled essential supplies to last out a week or two (or more) of isolation. In Hong Kong, ambitious thieves actually held up a supermarket to steal a TP delivery.

Buying TP is a relatively cheap action and satisfies people’s need to think they are “doing something” when they feel at risk. Also, customers may sense that buying TP is part of their crucial “preparation process” for Sh-i-P. Finally, TP is utterly non-perishable, has few straightforward substitutes and is one of the rare products someone can buy in larger-than-normal quantities that is guaranteed to be eventually used before it goes bad. Hence, large expanses of emptied-out TP shelves exist here, as displayed above. Not to worry; breathe deeply, it’s hopefully temporary.

Chicks. Everyone loves baby chicks, especially at Easter-time. Demand for new chicks is off the charts this year. Flocks of people have been rushing to raise backyard chickens amid their coronavirus concerns and egg shortages. Hatcheries report an increased demand for baby hens as more people want to grow chickens for eggs, meat and companionship. Baby chicks are certainly cute, as shown below, and look great under the Easter bush.

 The USDA reported last week that the national inventory of shell eggs decreased 10% for the second consecutive week and the nation-wide supply of Large eggs declined 14%, characterizing the current run on chicken eggs across the nation. As a consequence, wholesale prices for shell eggs continue to show sharp daily increases, rising to levels not seen since March 2018. In some areas, wholesale prices of eggs have tripled during the past three weeks, which has spurred more panic buying of eggs and chicks.

This year, Cackle Hatchery, based in Missouri, has seen its chick sales rise 100%. It’s been so hectic at McMurray’s Hatchery in Iowa that callers wanting to order chicks have been put on long holds. The hatchery is nearly sold out of chicks for the next month. McMurray’s has seen a rise in “homesteader types” and others who want to raise their own chickens. A growing number are first-time, wanabe chicken farmers.

“This has to do with the perceived hoarding that is going on,” Bud Wood, McMurray’s owner and president, said of the surge. “People are afraid they won’t be able to buy eggs and chickens in the grocery store, and they don’t want to have to go to the store and possibly be infected.” “They’re panic-buying chickens, like they did toilet paper,” stated Tom Watkins, McMurray’s Vice President.

My daughter Lindsay and her family have already raised backyard chickens several times, and are about to start anew. As a veteran chicken-raiser she offers the following observations. Newly-hatched chicks are fragile creatures that first take careful indoor tending, including the use of heat lamps to keep them warm. Her kids have likened them to little-dinosaurs. Once they’re living outside, you must keep your chickens safe from predators. One of their chickens was picked off by a dive-bombing hawk while they were still young, and several others met their demise by racoons. Be prepared for the long-haul; it takes six to nine months for them to mature enough to produce eggs. Once they’re big enough, letting them free-range in a large run during the day means your yard’s bug population will surely decline because of their constant search for food, as well as have more nutrient-rich eggs and happier chickens. Remembering that they’re farm animals is key; they’ll poop everywhere and their cage needs to be cleaned out regularly. However, you can use their composted droppings as a high-nitrogen fertilizer in your newly-created virus “victory” garden. (Don't use fresh chicken manure, it'll burn the plants.) Finally, if you add a bit of cayenne pepper to their food, you’ll get really gorgeous orange-yolked eggs, that aren’t spicy. Yum.

Gold. Given the deep drops in stock prices and increased market volatility, demand for gold is rising, even for 400 troy ounce (27.4 lb.) bars similar to those in Ft. Knox’s vaults. There are over 368,000 golden bars at Ft. Knox which used to “back” our dollar until 1971. Thank goodness the market for gold and gold bars isn’t closed like your favorite local bar is. You’ll want that quarantini for home delivery, right? So let’s take a shallow dive into gold, where unlike TP and chicks, shortages don’t exist, yet.

 Gold is a precious metal that has been used for coinage, jewelry, and other arts throughout recorded human history. The first precious metal coins, made of electrum an alloy of gold and silver, were used as money around 600-500 BC in several places around the ancient world; in China’s Yellow River valley, in India’s Ganges River valley and by the king of Lydia in western Asia Minor (modern Turkey). The Lydian coins weighed anything from a slender 0.006 troy ounces up to half an ounce, varying by value. These coins were stamped with animal heads, such as lions and rams to discourage counterfeiters.

The world’s largest gold producer is China, by a large margin. The US, the fourth biggest producer, supplied 253 tonnes in 2019. About one-half of all gold produced is used in jewelry, 40% in investments and 10% in industry. Overall, there is about one ounce of refined gold in the world for every person. Being a mature commodity, the world supply of gold increases at approximately the same pace as population growth. The several gold crowns that I “wear” in my mouth thus have accounted for an infinitesimally miniscule portion of “industrial” gold usage.

Many investors look to gold in periods of market turmoil because they believe it holds value through recessions better than other assets. And guess what is now coming to an economy and stock market near you, a recession. Over 10 million Americans filed for unemployment benefits in March. Precious metals like gold have often served as a hedge against market volatility, political instability, currency weakness, and economic collapse. Demonstrating this increased demand, the price of gold has recently risen, as shown below.

GOLD SPOT PRICE, March 19 to April 3, 2020 

Will investors turn to gold as covid-19 continues its horrific assault on our health? Or will it be fools’ gold? If the nastiest predictions about the economy’s second quarter performance become valid, it’s certainly possible gold will be good. Will it be another golden age? Exceedingly unlikely.

ORANGES, KUMQUATS AND THE EASTER DUMMY

If the world’s a veil of tears, smile till the rainbows appear. ~ Lucy Larcom  

The fight against the coronavirus may be shaping into a battle. In one corner of the viral boxing ring are epidemiologists, in the other economists. Here in the good ol’ USofA, we’re still standing in the early rounds of this fight.

These two erudite warriors have much different perspectives. Which side you decide to most support now may hinge on your answer to these questions. What’s now the most critical repercussion of the coronavirus’s ever-increasing damage? Is it the tragic human toll or is it the consequential economic harm?

I’ve pomologized[1] the epidemiologists’ recommended actions as “oranges” and the economists’ actions as “kumquats.” They’re both citrus fruits that I enjoy, but quite distinct. The challenge for policy-makers – and really all of us – is akin to how much of each fruit should be mixed into the needed fruit salad bowl of policies that will best combat the coronavirus within our economy. The timing of mixing the oranges with the kumquats into the policy bowl may be important as well. Unfortunately, there is no existing recipe that anyone can use for this fruit salad to be a winner.

Neither fighter’s stances are founded on much actual US covid-19 data, although useful information is growing day by day, just like the deaths. Despite reassuring statements, everyone’s guessing (and hoping). “Exponential” has become one of the most-employed words in the media; raise your hand if you knew what it meant before mid-December. Nevertheless, the accuracy of death rate projections should still be taken with a large grain of salt.

Most epidemiologists argue that the nation should wholly focus on minimizing the healthcare system’s impending trauma, so that we won’t run out of ER and ICU beds, equipment and staff. Their prime emphasis is on strengthening policies that will reduce death counts and flatten the curve. This has consequences for our economy. Before the coronavirus became the center of everything, and unbeknownst to most economists (like me), a flock of epidemiological models have been widely used to predict a broad range of human health consequences from viral and other types of communicative diseases. These models are now being adapted to the coronavirus on the very public stage of policy discussions.

Fundamentally, there are two epidemiological strategies for managing and hopefully, ultimately suppressing this virus. First, mitigation of the coronavirus that’s designed to delay and curb the virus’ spread through isolating and quarantining infected households as well as other procedures.

Second, suppression, known as “flattening the curve,” attempts to limit the pandemic, although it will likely also lengthen the dispersion period. Suppression consists of broader tactics, including public social distancing, sheltering-in-place, limiting large and not-so-large gatherings at which the virus might spread like theater performances, concerts, closing schools and canceling/postponing sporting events like NBA and MLB games. Japan just announced it was postponing the world’s largest sports event, formerly known as the 2020 Summer Olympics.

Suppression aims to stop the virus, not just delay it like mitigation does. Suppression has the benefit that it seems to have worked in China, where the coronavirus first appeared. However, suppression requires that many, many more people rigorously, consistently and continuously follow its requirements. Suppression’s effects are thus hopefully much larger but likely more extended over time than mitigation.

Epidemiological models of covid-19 are all based on conjectured values of key parameters, like the contagion rate. Here’s one example of the wide range of different epidemiological models’ underlying parameters. The Imperial College (London, UK) model has used a coronavirus infection rate of 81% of the US and UK population. Another often-cited model, this one built at Johns Hopkins, cites a quite different 56% infection rate, 30% lower than the Imperial College model’s rate. Many such models are forecasting large numbers of deaths. The Imperial College model has predicted 22 million people will die in the US. That attention-grabbing number is almost 7% of our population and over 30 times the total number of US fatalities from all conflicts we’ve fought in since the Revolutionary War.

Economists entered the covid-19 policy match a bit after the epidemiologists. They are using their macroeconomic models to predict possible economic consequences of the pandemic. Modern general-equilibrium macroeconomic models are complex and rely on hundreds of parameters and equations for their predictions. Coronavirus-scenario macroeconomic models, like those of epidemiologists, probably depend on covid-19’s parametric inputs, but also a host of economic factors. Salt should also be applied liberally with these predictions.

Some economists believe a prime concern now is how to keep the economy going so as the viral battle continues, there are still places for us to work, earn income and buy stuff. In other words, keeping the economy functioning in some fashion is at least as important as containing the coronavirus. If many restaurants, bars, other local retail establishments and larger national firms end up laying off people and run out of money, bad things will happen to vital economic infrastructure. Like the epidemiologists’ models, a herd of macroeconomic models are predicting very broad ranges of impacts, including reductions in GDP and increases in job losses.

Two often-mentioned macroeconomic models are ones developed by Goldman Sachs (GS) and Morgan Stanley. These models’ covid-19 impact predictions have dramatically worsened over the past two weeks. On March 15 the GS model estimated the second quarter (April 1 – June 30) GDP would decrease by 5%; on March 22 the prediction was amplified to a 24% reduction, almost five times as large as a week before! A one-quarter US GDP drop of 24% has never occurred historically. [The GDP dropped a maximum 12.9% during the Great Depression, from 1931 to 1932.] I wonder what this model’s GDP reduction will be next week. Will anyone be employed? 

Not to be outdone in their “how low can we go” duel, on March 21 Morgan Stanley said the GDP will fall 30.1% between April and June. This horrific drop would push unemployment up to 12.8%, over three times as large as the current 3.5% rate. Another Bad News Bearer has stated that unemployment will rise to 30% in the next few months.    

 The actual increases in applications for unemployment insurance are truly alarming. During the last week 3.3 million people have filed for unemployment benefits; 1 million in just California.

There is an evolving relationship between policies that directly battle the coronavirus and policies that manage our economy. Keeping more people working now to minimize economic challenges could allow the virus to spread faster and broader. Undertaking more stringent epidemiological lockout policies to curb the virus may exacerbate the economy’s challenges.

It’s been clear from the beginning (now three months into the covid-19 crisis, although it seems like much longer) that weighty, no-win trade-offs will need to be made by elected decision-makers. Every politician should be publicly stating that pain and nasty consequences will continue to occur, whatever salad bowl of policies are adopted to resolve this crisis. Managing public expectations is as important as the policies themselves. This runs entirely against what politicians usually pronounce: that there’ll be no pain accompanying their solutions. But the coronavirus doesn’t listen to anyone, including politicians. It just does its horrid thing. No one can simply and immediately turn on and off our complex, giant economy using a political light switch. Duh. It will take longer than desired for any economic remedies (like checks getting to citizens) to really happen.

The divided political control of who establishes the government’s plan for action has led to gnashing the teeth of the stock market, the media, us folks and the government itself. The VIX market volatility index is at a five-year high.

What the existing, deadly rampage of the coronavirus has done so far (and it’s hardly finished), together with the predicted epidemiological and economic consequences, seems to have forced both Congressional Democrat and Republican to create the largest-ever package of benefits, subsidies and loans. On March 25, the Senate finally set an agreed-upon, gargantuan $2 trillion legislative package to mitigate some of the economic effects of the coronavirus and flatten its curve. Benefits will be provided to workers, businesses, healthcare facilities and others who’ve been adversely affected. For inexplicable reasons, the House did little in developing its own legislative ideas, perplexingly leaving it to the Senate to initially define Congress’s plan. Consider it phase I of needed fiscal medicine.  

The beyond-dire predictions of the virus’s consequences have caused #45 and his clique to recoil from on-going epidemiological control measures. The president reads these consequences as defeat in the November election. He wants to be resurrected on November 3, not routed. So #45 is now threatening to pull the plug on most coronavirus suppression efforts because he’s terrified of curve-flattening’s political consequences for him. Our beyond-bumbling president announced on March 24 that he wants to end all restrictions on people’s movement in the economy by April 12, Easter.

The media and epidemiologists shouldn’t be surprised by his possible retreat They’ve been steadily predicting political calamity for the thin-skinned, empathy-empty #45.

He became the Easter Dummy when he stated, “We’re opening up this incredible country. I would love to have the country opened up and just raring to go by Easter.” The president wants to throw the epidemiological fighters out of the ring. Understandably, his scheme has been strongly condemned by epidemiologists, economists and many others as foolhardy and short-sighted. He has specialized in myopia once again. 

Fortunately, Dr. Anthony Fauci may have saved us from #45. According to the March 25 Borowitz Report, Dr. Fauci has tricked Mr. Trump into believing there is no Easter this year. If only that were true. ☹ Speaking of the essential Dr. Fauci, who’s been MIA at several of the recent White House covid-19 briefings, he’s figured out a far better partner to work with for spreading clear, truthful information about this crisis, Steph Curry. He and Steph hosted an Instagram Q&A session recently. Goooo, Tony and Steph.

Should the president call off the federal virus suppression efforts? Most assuredly, no. Doing that will cause even more viral devastation later. As one commentator characterized #45’s recoil, “Damn the mortality, full speed ahead.” But, even with continuation of viral suppression and immobilization of huge numbers of people, the already-large economic costs will continue to grow bigger. Additional fiscal assistance will be needed. 

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[1] Pomology is the science of growing fruit.