p_c_neary@hotmail.com

Truth, Belief, Action (II)

In part I we focused on truth versus narrative. Now, let’s turn to belief.

Beliefs can be profound or casual. Let’s focus on deeply-held beliefs here. The casual ones will come up again in Part III, about Action. Suffice it to say you can always tell the difference. To borrow a sports analogy, if someone says they are a fan of a team, but they don’t watch the team, attend games, or know the players, they aren’t much of a fan: they have a casual belief in the team. They’re known as bandwagon fans; nobody likes bandwagon fans.

Our beliefs (in general) come from our experiences. You can be given a belief system (say from your parents), but if your experiences don’t confirm that system, you will reject it. Belief can become a powerful force, shaping how we view future experiences, and thus creating a vicious cycle: we see only what we want to see. A police officer who arrests criminals all day starts to see criminals everywhere, not fellow citizens. A young black man constantly told he will be mistreated by the police might act rashly when confronted by officers, providing the excuse for that mistreatment. You can find evidence of this daily. A President who sees any criticism as a personal attack becomes unable or unwilling to admit a mistake, however trivial.

Yet belief can also be the force for a virtuous cycle: ignoring the harmful, rejecting the hateful, and focusing always on the good, which then elicits a positive outcome . . . in the fullness of time. It was the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s nonviolence which eventually won the day; it was he who said “I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality.” This emphasis on non-violence and love works because it is in accord with the truth. Violence may make progress in the short run, and hatred or rage may feel good for a sort period of time, but in the end, they are futile.

Nobody’s right, if everybody’s wrong

Some people believe that the American system is inherently racist. Some people believe that American police forces are racist. These beliefs stem from a experiences that, while real, are not true. Data deny them. I have lived in three countries, studied and visited many more. Every one which with I am familiar has a problem with racism. I endured lectures from my European friends about the racism of Americans only until their sisters were dating black US GIs. Sweden was a progressive racial utopia until it admitted dissimilar refugees. The Soviet Union? Read about the experience of African communists there. Asia? Perhaps the most brutally racist area of all, although many times its racism hides behind a polite smile. Mexico? Check out the furor over last year’s indigenous star of the movie Roma.

I am not arguing American racism is an illusion; rather, it is inherent in the human condition. We have a natural experiment in history to help understand this. The Republic of South Africa was the one country in modern times to believe in and enact a policy of state-sanctioned racism: apartheid. From this, we know what an inherently racist system looks like. A black RSA President was impossible to fathom under apartheid. Black athletes, black cultural stars, black academics, black professionals, black leaders: unlikely. All things modern America has enjoyed. Understanding the role racism plays–as a universal problem–is key to the way forward.

Likewise, those who see any criticism, any protest, any resistance to the current administration or the American system as unjustified, un-American, or treasonous are also wrong. They clutch at unfair criticism–which there is plenty–and reject all criticism. The MAGA crowd, the press, and the President have something in common: they believe it is all about Trump. It’s not. And we can’t get to the root of the problem until we get past that misapprehension.

Like Dr. King, I am not arguing for passive acceptance, or standing by idly and waiting for change. I am arguing that in order to make change, you must first accept truth, remove the blinders of your narrative, and love one another, unconditionally. Any other approach will end with more fear, more hatred, and more recriminations and revenge. That sets the stage for Action, my final post in this series, tomorrow.

Truth, Belief, Action (I)

There is so much emotion out there right now: pain, hate, fear & loathing. As a friend recently reminded me, catharsis has its use. If there is a time for all things (Ecclesiastes 3:1-8), then there is a time for rage, too. But then, too, “let us stop talking falsely now, the hour’s getting late.” (Jimi Hendrix, All Along the Watchtower)

When the dust settles and the smoke clears, we must put down our signs, our bricks and bottles, our tear gas and shields, and reason once again. In the end, there are truth, belief, and action; the first of these is truth.

Truth matters. There is only one truth, not your truth or my truth. We each have experiences which can be (in fact, always are) different. But there is objective truth. The truth is that a man was apprehended, then needlessly and intentionally murdered. Another truth is that thousands of people of all races and nations are so upset by this fact that they are peacefully protesting. A third truth is that a not insignificant number of people joining the protests are then fomenting violence, ending in destruction of property, looting, and violence to both police and innocent bystanders.

The problems start when we stop worrying about truth and start considering the term in vogue today: narrative. We used to call this a meta-story, or spin, or even propaganda. Narrative places truth at the service of a larger idea. This idea then colors how we understand the truth, sometimes directly undermining it. Which is dangerous.

How does it work?

If you’re a progressive, your narrative includes the ideas that the American system is fundamentally racist, that blind justice is not justice at all, that the system is rigged against minorities. The murder of George Floyd typifies an epidemic of police violence against African-Americans, the arrests at protests the willful authoritarianism of the American police state. Looting is the act of clandestine cells of Boogaloo boys or the understandable outrage boiling over after centuries of mistreatment and marginalization.

If you sport a MAGA hat, the suspect was a defrauder. You scan his autopsy for the tell-tale signs of alcohol or drugs and presume he resisted arrest. The protests are either the beginning of a race war or a carefully-staged provocation funded and organized by George Soros to undermine the President’s re-election. AntiFa is the cause of violence; looting is what bad people always do, given the opportunity.

Exaggerations? Hardly! I would provide links to these views, but then I don’t want to encourage their spread. But they are legion. You may have visited a site espousing them.

How do such narratives undermine the truth? Mr. Floyd was only a suspect–not a criminal–there is no evidence he ever resisted anything except to beg to be allowed to breathe. If you want to check the data on police violence, the Washington Post and The Guardian have the best data sets: but you won’t find evidence to support an epidemic against minorities. Believe it or not, the numbers haven’t increased for years. As to the protests, most were peaceful, and while no one doubts outside instigators were behind some of the violence, there is no evidence of a vast, coordinated conspiracy. As it happens, there was violence at protests long before the Boogaloo movement or AntiFa existed. It happens when masses of emotional people get together.

The Boston Massacre: without AntiFa or the Boogaloo boys, yet violence ensued!

What both sides get wrong is their reliance on narrative in place of truth. See how the man, George Floyd, gets lost in the narrative? He becomes a symbol, a prop, a cudgel used to bash a competing narrative.

What was the simple truth? A man was accused of committing a misdemeanor crime. He was murdered, without resistance, by the police after being apprehended. All four policemen involved were fired twenty-eight hours after his death. None of the officers involved cooperated in the investigation (i.e., they all pled the Fifth Amendment), thus prolonging it. The policeman directly responsible for his murder was charged within four days. The other officers were charged five days later, and the initial charges upgraded to murder in the second degree. According to the Minnesota Attorney General, Keith Ellison, the decision to charge and the timing of those charges were unrelated to the protests. Don’t believe him? Google him and try to stick him in your narrative.

When people replace truth with narrative, bad things happen. People start to believe in narrative the way that honest people believe in truth. And that can have terrible consequences. Which leads to Part II on Belief.

Re-opening, cautiously

As expats, we’re all strangers in a strange land, but never more so than now. Today all expats live in the same place: pandemia. Expats always face the fundamental challenge of how and where to access healthcare, and that challenge stares one in the face when sick or injured abroad. I’ve written before that–especially for older retiree expats–healthcare is the number one reason expats return to their homeland.

Any Coronavirus? Why are you so close to me? Where’s your mask? Did I hear a hawk?

A pandemic places those challenges in a particularly harsh light. You may have health insurance, but how does it consider an outlier event like a pandemic? Many folks with travel insurance learned that their insurers treated a pandemic as a force majeure, an act of God, outside coverage: surprise! Going to the doctor or hospital and dealing with medical terminology is difficult enough, but how about translating all that through a foreign language? Now add in crowded conditions and overwhelmed staffs. How does your host country view palliative care, determine treatment priorities (e.g., limiting ventilators to younger patients), or distribute new medicines? When the local government suggests you stay home via a police helicopter loudspeaker overhead, does that mean “please” or “or else!”?

I get a weekly reminder from the US Embassy in Mexico City that some flights are still available, as well as a note saying that if I wait too long I may not be able to return when I want. The Canadian government went a step further, I am told, and basically directed Canadian expats to return or face the loss of their health coverage, which instigated a mass take-off of Canadian snowbirds northward.

The Mexican government has taken a low-key approach to the pandemic. The state-run health system is chronically underfunded and understaffed, so the biggest problem has been lack of capacity. The federal government has not emphasized testing, as testing is mainly useful as a guide to treatment, and their logic is since no treatment is available, why test? Instead they have emphasized social distancing, masks, and closures/lockdowns, while tracking hospital admissions and trying to create additional capacity when and where it is needed. Of course transparency is also not a big thing in government here, so it is unclear how well the approach is working.

We have a daily press briefing with Presidente AMLO, and color-coded charts of cases, and phases of closure/reopening. The state of Jalisco has somewhat gone its own way, while not violating the federal government’s guidelines. We are currently in something called “fase cero” (phase zero) which is a preparatory phase for businesses to get certified to reopen starting June 1st. Except now we’re not.

Overnight, the federal government changed the criteria and reporting grades on the country, moving every state (save Zacatecas) to “maximum risk” without further explanation. While the government’s own data has shown the number of cases rising, there was no sudden spike in deaths/hospitalizations. According to the federal government, this new status freezes reopening for the foreseeable future. Some critics say the move appears to be an attempt to deflect blame if things get worse.

However, Governor Alfaro of Jalisco has other ideas. He has decided not to accept the federal description of our state’s data, and instead continue with Phase Zero activities for two more weeks. For locals, that’s great news! Here is the Governor’s address (all fifteen minutes of it) with subtitles:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I50IoVCEXRs&feature=youtu.be&fbclid=IwAR2JV_1lrOcg8s49f63D4jfNZ0yWqIgyZWzUp0t1QlfMNmvXJu7LA9QaR20

This announcement is full of entreaties to the citizens of Jalisco to keep doing the right thing (social distancing, mask wearing, etc.) so we can continue to advance out of the lockdown. It reminds me of the old maxim “if you want to be treated as responsible adults, act like responsible adults.”

For our part, we’re (cautiously) enjoying the extra freedom.

Lunch @ Gosha’s? 300 pesos
Four glasses of wine? 200 more pesos
Out with the most wonderful woman in the world? priceless!

Everything you know is wrong VII: Coronavirus edition

Watching the medical system, governments, and the public come to terms with the coronavirus has been fascinating. It calls to mind the old joke about why they call it “the practice of medicine”: because they haven’t perfected it yet! While viruses are old hat, each behaves differently, so what worked last pandemic may not work this time. The treatment must match the disease, which only becomes clear over time. Meanwhile, it spreads, and sickens, and kills.

Governments face many dilemmas: respond quickly and risk being considered panicky, wait and be charged with neglect. Mandate behavior and you’re a totalitarian, suggest and you’re weak. Act early and the public will weary of your measures, bide your time and the media will roll out a list of casualties.

The public (and the media) bears some responsibility, too. We want clarity when clarity is not possible. Our demands for scientific certainty are answered by Professor Heisenberg, who determined there are areas with fundamental limits about what we can know for sure. Anybody who has faced a serious diagnosis from a doctor across the table knows the routine: they only suggest courses of treatment, not rules. The public writ large got to experience–all at the same time–what only an unlucky few do everyday.

In that spirit, what’s been wrong about coronavirus? Even though it’s still early, a few obvious “truths” have met their demise:

Masks, especially homemade or surgical ones, do no good against this virus. Early mask adoption is one of the few consistent characteristics of countries which have experienced a less severe outbreak. Some blame governments for spreading the “useless mask” error, but the CDC message was more nuanced: N95 masks work, but IF the virus spreads mostly via aerosol particles, it will pass through other masks. Researchers now believe that transmission is primarily via droplets (not aerosol), so governments began to recommend or mandate masks. However, aerosol transmission is a possibility, so the government can’t say “wear a mask and you’ll be ok” because that is not always the case. So the utility of masks was really a function of understanding the disease. Sadly, some still believe masks are not helpful at all.
Lockdowns are a solution, not just a measure to buy time and “flatten the curve.” A lockdown does work. If everybody on the planet locked themselves in their houses for fourteen days (the apparent incubation period), the virus would be at least temporarily arrested. But most people can’t do that. Governments sold lockdowns as a means to slow the spread of the disease, avoid overrun hospitals (i.e., flatten the curve ) and buy time for therapies and vaccines. But no country can extend a lockdown for months, let alone a year (when a vaccine might be ready). Which leads to a related falsehood:
Reopening the economy puts money ahead of lives. This is a particularly nasty charge, that if a nation reopens it does so heedless of the possible deaths which would ensue. More importantly, it is wrong. There is death on both sides of the ledger: Covid19 deaths versus heart attacks missed, cancer undiagnosed, deaths of despair accelerated and so on. Some suggest that the immediacy of coronavirus death trumps the counter argument, but that is also wrong. The World Food Program, the UN organization responsible for fighting world hunger, has noted that the breakdown in the global economy will place another 130 million people (total 265 million) worldwide in danger of starving by the end of this year.
Massive testing is a prerequisite for successful reopening of any national economy. The media especially likes this one. Here is a simple fact: no country has attempted to do massive testing, and the countries deemed by the media as “successful” haven’t even tried to do massive testing. I am not quibbling about the word “massive” here. Some suggest the US, which currently does over 350k tests a day (and is the world’s leader in that statistic), needs to do three million tests a day, indicating a massive shortfall. South Korea, the paragon for testing, has never done more than 14k tests a day. The key? Early, targeted testing. As each new case developed, Korea traced and tested everybody exposed (not everybody who wants a test), requiring fewer overall tests and giving better, immediate feedback. This is a model which can be implemented at any time in the pandemic timeline, but works best earlier. Oh (pun intended), and South Korea never did a lockdown.
Herd immunity is a long term solution. Herd immunity is the concept that once enough people have been exposed and are now immune, the virus will die out for lack of new people to infect. It is only a solution in the same way that waiting for the summer to dry things out was a solution to Hurricane Katrina for New Orleans. No country is trying to achieve herd immunity: some erroneously suggest that Sweden is doing so, but instead they are simply avoiding closing the economy while protecting the most vulnerable populations (voluntarily locking down the vulnerable, not everybody). The success of their approach won’t be known until the pandemic ends, we add up the death and economic tolls, and compare results.

Perhaps the most interesting “wrong” thing I uncovered about coronavirus is how it spreads. Because it spread so quickly, epidemiologists initially assumed it was primarily an aerosol particle transmission, like the flu or measles. Most highly contagious diseases are airborne. However, as more data came in, it was apparent that while some airborne spread was happening, cases of direct contact with droplets were more the norm, and that the average infected patient infected no one at all!

As the medical field gathers more data, they have found some patients produce and expel far more virus than others, and that the viral load any patient produces varies over time. Some asymptomatic patients produce almost none. There are now data from several natural experiments: the infection aboard closed cruise ships, the isolated Italian town of Vo’, several quarantined nursing homes in the States, the choir incident in the state of Washington. There is also the established story of the unusual spread of infection, high initially in China. Then to Europe and the US coasts, but in different ways, and at different rates.

The more that epidemiologists study it, they are identifying superspreader events as a key to transmission. What are superspreader events? Indoor meetings of closely-gathered people doing things like singing, talking loudly, and interacting. Introduce a high-viral load infected person to these events, and a mass spread occurs. For example, at the two-hour choir practice in Washington, fifty-three of sixty-one choir members got sick!

The story of how the virus spreads is not so much “wrong” but simply how we learn what the truth about the virus is. And what it means. Perhaps outdoor baseball with fans in the bright sun is ok, but indoor basketball is a no-go. An evening with friends at a quiet bar, maybe; a mosh pit at the concert and afterparty karaoke, hmmmm, no. Yes to church services with communion in hand, social distancing, music but no singing; nope to loud choirs, sing alongs, common cup, hand-holding & hugs. Dining al fresco at spaced tables under the stars: si! Eating at a crowded, loud food court in the Mall: no.

And this may all change, too, as we learn more. It’s not a conspiracy, nor is it evidence of lying or incompetence. It’s called science, which proceeds by trial-and-error. Don’t forget the error part. It’s especially important.

A Reminder out of Time

Wrapped up as we all are in the travails of life in a time of plague, the seasons roll on. Nature cares not for the whims of man.

The daylight lengthens whether we are there to use it or not. The sun warms and the night cools, e’en as we remain cocooned in our conditioned cells.

In little more than a month, deer began loitering on the highways, sheep decided to make town visits, and boar seemed to be asking “what’s up?” Nature abhors a vacuum, and the top of the food chain was apparently vacant.

Spring and its discontents, like its flowers, are in full bloom. The next snow in New England will be the last one (sure!), our local “rain birds” drone out the telly, the early reconnaissance mosquitoes are back. But who will they bite?

Yup, rains a ‘comin

Man is the only creature to markedly alter his environment, we are told. We fashion ourselves masters of this little bit of the universe, able to build up and tear down: dam the greatest rivers, scrape the highest skies, control the very carbon in the atmosphere. As usual, Shakespeare skeptically said it best:

What a piece of work is man, 
How noble in reason, 
how infinite in faculty, 
In form and moving how express and admirable, 
In action how like an Angel, 
In apprehension how like a god,
(Hamlet, Act II, Scene 2)

Our thirst for knowledge is tireless, as is our demand for mastery. We discovered fire and yoked water & wind. We probed light to find it is both wave and particle. We pulled apart matter and unleashed its immense energy. We dug still deeper and found . . . strings!?! We aim our telescopes ever closer to the very instant of the Big Bang. We tug at the corners of consciousness and convince ourselves there is nothing that science cannot eventually explain. Except perhaps, “why?”

Modern man may be a Colossus astride the globe, but he was staring at his iPhone, about to trip over the smallest of stumbling blocks: tiny, non-living chemical bomblets called viruses.

“My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings; Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!” — Shelley

We have come to worship progress; I use that term “worship” advisedly, but I think accurately. When you worship something, you place all your trust, your faith, in it. Despite a great deal of history, especially the twinned history of mankind and disease, we look to medical science to solve such problems. Yet that long history has been marked by failures to do so. I mean no disrespect to those brave men and women who daily put their lives on the line in medical garb: watching their dedication as they seek treatments or vaccines or even palliative care fills one with reassurance in mankind’s basic heroism and compassion. But no faith in progress: it is now–in 2020– as it ever was, in 1919, in 1665, in 1346, and . . .

Pandemics come with regularity: that we have forgotten this is testament to our advances in medicine and retreats in studying history. They do so because that is what bacteria and viruses do. Nature is not angry with us; it would pay man little attention, if it could. Unless, of course, you worship the Earth Goddess Gaia, in which case you should be out doing some serious sacrificing.

I am not one to describe any event, let alone a pandemic, as God’s wrath. A husband is wise to admit the mystery of his wife’s mind, so “who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been His counselor?” (Romans 11:34). Likewise I defer judging as those who say “God does not . . .” There are very few endings to that phrase that can hold true other than “. . . think as man does.” I do know whatever the origins of this novel pandemic, God will make of it what He will. All things end up in conformity with His plans, as obscure as they may be to we mere mortals.

I pray that it be His Will that we take a little less pride in our progress, our science, our medicine. That we stop treating politics as the alpha and omega of our thought. That people stop striving so much to be on “the right side of history” as to be just good. To act first justly in our daily lives, with compassion to our neighbors, before looking for the intervention of higher powers (of the earthly or divine type). To be more in the moment rather than in the act of becoming.

If things change at all after this plague, I think the epitaph for the society which passed would be “They were proud, they were accomplished, they were distracted, and it was their undoing.”

Part Two: The WABAC machine

If you never watched the original cartoon Rocky & Bullwinkle, you missed something good, so go find it on YouTube or Cartoon Network. If you did watch (like me), you’ll remember the original Sherman and the talking dog, Mr. Peabody, who had various historical adventures using the WABAC (Way-back, get it?) time machine.

As I was writing the last blog post on media bias, I had a WABAC moment: what was the media coverage like during the last pandemic: the 2009 H1N1 or Swine flu outbreak. To remind, this virus was a new strain of the infamous Spanish Flu bug which terrorized the world in 1919-1921. This time, it lasted about twenty months. Note this: confirmed cases worldwide were 1.6 million, deaths 18,000; estimated cases were 700 million to 1.4 billion with 284,000 deaths. Yes, ten years later, we still can’t narrow down the data within an order of magnitude. That might give some pause, even today, when making instant judgments about the coronavirus. But I digress.

H1N1 hit within the first hundred days of the Obama Administration, right next door in Mexico, oh, and simultaneously with that pesky little Great Recession. So I began searching the paper of record, the New York Times, to see how it covered the administration’s response and unfolding crisis.

Was I in for a surprise!

You will want to read the hyperlinks on this one. What I found was telling, in the “I can’t believe I’m reading this” way. My comments below are italicized.

Early on (in April) The Times published an opinion piece by a doctor entitled “Sound the alarm? The Swine Flu bind” noting “History teaches that the influenza virus mutates to cause worldwide spread about twice a century, on average. But scientists have yet to figure out what causes the mutations, when they will occur and what makes certain viruses more lethal than others.” and that public officials faced a damned-if-they-do and damned-if-they-don’t decision. Oh for that sane, balanced perspective today!

On May 1st, the Times noted how seriously the Obama administration was taking the threat. The Times reported the President was deliberate in trying not to cause a panic:”It was no coincidence, his aides said, that he played golf the day his administration declared a national emergency.” Oddly enough, no reporter asked about the recently eliminated NSC staff position covering infectious disease. Yes, believe it or not, it happened first way back then, but no one seemed to care. Golf as a crafty signal: yes, that’s it!

White House spokesman Robert Gibb was asked about the fact that there was no Health and Human Services Secretary and only five Presidential nominees (out of twenty positions, none confirmed) in the department, he said “‘Our response is in no way hindered or hampered.’ When pressed to say whether White House officials would prefer to have a full team in place, he said, ‘We’d rather not have a swine flu.'” There was no follow-up on how the Department could possibly be effective without any appointees, nor any opinion from the Times.

Asked about Mexico’s more drastic actions responding to the outbreak, CDC acting director Richard Besser said “You don’t know if this is a virus that will fizzle in a couple of weeks or one that will become more or less virulent or severe in the diseases it causes.” Perhaps President Trump should have suggested the coronavirus may “fizzle.” That appears to be the scientifically appropriate term, or at least no one in the media objected when the CDC head used it.

Another Times story the day after the US declared a public health emergency noted that “only two laboratories, in Atlanta and Winnipeg, Canada, can confirm a case” and that Besser “praised decisions to close individual schools in New York and Texas but did not call for more widespread closings.” Only two labs, but no follow up about why, or when would more come on line? And no questions about the lack of a national policy? Enquiring minds apparently didn’t want to know!

In October, HHS Secretary Sebelius was asked to account for the fact that only 23 million of the 120 million promised doses of vaccine were available, she responded, “If we could wave a magic wand or have the tools in our government shop to fix this, I think there would be a different expectation.” Noticeably absent from the questions was any mention of the Defense Production Act of 1950, which was ready and available for use. Maybe it grew into a magic wand later?

Regarding that shortage, the Times created a helpful video explaining that it was due to “old technology” and “an inefficient process.” The video says the federal government “responsibly” contracted with all five vaccine producers, but “in a weird confluence” all five had problems. “Some people will die” due to the vaccine shortage, the video intones, and the federal government has confirmed that. That’s it. Nobody at fault? People will die. Move along now.

When the President’s daughters got the coveted, in short-supply vaccine shots, the Times did cover it by saying, “The vaccinations could raise questions about whether the Obama girls were given special treatment” but quickly noting “The White House may be trying to set a good example amid concerns about the vaccine’s safety. Sharing the news that the president has allowed his daughters to receive the shots could ease the fears of ordinary Americans who are wondering whether to get vaccinated.” This was simply embarrassing. President Obama’s daughters were in a high-risk group and deserved the vaccine; couldn’t the Times have left the defense to the White House Spokesman?

Finally, an otherwise irrelevant opinion piece by Gail Collins, which has this jewel: “The swine flu scare has made it clear why Barack Obama picked Joe Biden for vice president. As the White House’s unfiltered talking head, Biden is the perfect warning bell to show the White House when things are veering out of control. A kind of mental canary in the governmental mine shaft.” It also provides the following Biden story: “‘If you’re out in the middle of a field and someone sneezes, that’s one thing. If you’re in a closed aircraft or a closed container or closed car or closed classroom, it’s a different thing,’ Biden babbled happily on the Today show. He also assured Matt Lauer that he had warned his family away from subways and that he ‘wouldn’t go anywhere in confined places now,’ but unfortunately Lauer did not inquire whether the Oval Office counts as free range.” This has nothing to do with my point, but I bet you a stiff drink that this quote will show up in an ad during the campaign, whenever the former Vice President attacks the President about coronavirus.

I could go on, but you get the point. Look at any of these articles (less the last one) from the paper of record and compare how the coverage was different. Assertions left unquestioned. Off-hand comments unexamined. Difficulties and challenges highlighted; failures explained away. Note I am NOT comparing how the Obama and Trump administrations performed; just how the media covered them in remarkable similar circumstances. The Obama administration response is on the books: probably a “B+” for messaging (smooth, reassuring, consistent), a “C+” for actual work (slow to enact national guidance, failure in vaccine mass production). Most importantly, the swine flu that year didn’t turn out to be the big one; extending the analogy, swine flu was a quiz, not the final.

The short version? Covid19 is much more contagious, perhaps more than five times as deadly.

in comparing that coverage to today’s, one could assert today’s media was only responding to the incompetence of the Trump administration, but that assertion fails because Obama’s team was new and unproven, understaffed, and made similar mistakes (e.g., reorganizing out the NSC staff position, failing to respond quickly with respect to vaccine production, making bold/rosy projections).

You might say the media treats the Trump administration differently because it acts differently. There is no doubt the President sees the media as an antagonist, if not an enemy. But this is not a personal relationship, it’s an institutional relationship. I don’t claim the media is a neutral observer; they do. If you’re going to make that claim, you forfeit the right to say “we have to be confrontational because he was first.”

Read those articles again. Read any article today. Tell me this is the rightful, impartial role for the media.

We all know how important it is (from the Times coverage) that the US has the most deaths from coronavirus. Bonus quiz, before you look at this graphic: who had the most deaths (worldwide) from the H1N1 pandemic, despite having only the fifth highest number of cases?

Other countries with more cases but less deaths? Germany & Italy

Of course, the Times went back and did an in-depth review of the Obama administration’s performance based on the discrepancy between how the US did and other nations. Well, I am sure they will eventually.

Part One: All the news that fits your bias

The New York Times masthead proudly proclaims “All the news that’s fit to print.” Some call it the newspaper of record, the official version of what’s happening, and to some extent that’s true. Some call it the home of “fake news.” I dislike the later term, only because it seems to have become shorthand for “news I don’t like.” Several friends have asked me my views about media bias. The Onion captures it well:

I like my bias like my whiskey: straight up, with a satire chaser!

As I’ve said many times, everyone has bias. Bias is simply the accumulated opinion of your experiences. It’s what makes you, you. Media personalities like to claim they are unbiased, but of course they aren’t. A day does not pass that I could not find three examples of biased coverage in the news sections of the major media sources.

What does media bias look like? Much of it is subtle, shaded by determining what is news and what is deemed not news. One example:

Two marches happened in Washington DC in January: the Women’s March (January 18th) and the Annual March for Life (January 24th). Both gathered “tens of thousands” but local traffic reports confirmed the second was somewhat larger. The Times had one news report on the March for Life, one on the Women’s March. Under normal circumstances, neither of these events may be news. In this case, the President spoke at the March for Life, the first to do so (and a major change). One march had a precedent-shattering speech, which several Times opinion writers commented on; absolutely nothing of news importance happened at the other march. This even but unequal coverage represents an improvement: almost every year since 1974, generally, the only coverage the March for Life gets is arguments over the crowd size.

Earth-shattering? Hardly. I chose this example because it’s one I have been following for decades with consistent results. The media usually covers larger marches, but somehow neglects this one even when the total surpassed half a million marchers. In this case, the media determines that the views of one side aren’t newsworthy–or as newsworthy–as the other side: bias. A worse type of bias is only telling one side of a story. Try these on:

On Saturday, March 14th, ABC’s Weekend News led with a story of chaos at US airports, as Americans fled back to the States on the eve of the President’s just announced travel ban from Europe. I was deeply interested, as I had a pending flight stateside. They repeated the story, with the same videos and images, on Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday. Now it’s not unusual for networks to rerun stories from the weekend, as their viewership on those days is different and much lower. And the chaos was certainly newsworthy on Saturday. Except, it wasn’t newsworthy on Tuesday, or Monday, or even Sunday. Because the ICE and CBP personnel at the airports adjusted and eliminated the lines . . . before Sunday morning! In this case, the Times led its Sunday edition thusly “After a night of chaos at some of the nation’s busiest airports on Saturday, officials scrambled on Sunday, with some apparent success, to reduce lines . . .” ABC went days and days and never reported that things were fixed. How come?
No doubt you heard about the April 15th coronavirus outbreak at the meat packing plant in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. When the national media caught the scent, they descended on the story with a vengeance: The Times cited it as the #1 coronavirus hot spot in the nation, and lamented the poor immigrants (some war refugees) who were about to lose their lives or jobs. Other media called out Smithfield Foods for endangering its workers, and ridiculed South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem for resisting stay at home orders for her state. This much of the story was well covered. There was palpable glee by some that the rubes were finally getting their just desserts. What happened? Over eight hundred employees were infected, most asymptomatic. Two died. The county reported under two thousand cases and eleven deaths linked to the plant. Sioux Falls hospitals weren’t stressed. The President declared the industry vital and the employees are cautiously getting back to work with new policies. You can only find local news coverage of this part of the story.

Another bias is how much attention the media pays to a subject and why. As in:

Are you embarrassed by the President’s hawking of various treatments or cures for the coronavirus? #Metoo. Even with all the disclaimers he makes, he shouldn’t be highlighting anything that hasn’t come out of a reliable, properly conducted and peer-reviewed study. Get this! Have you heard about the positive effects of Remdesivir? The problems with Hydroxychloroquine? Clinical use of HIV/AIDs drugs? #Metoo! And all these results were initially covered extensively in national media despite being preliminary: not final, not peer-reviewed. Even the President’s ludacris observation about UV light and disinfectant: how many of you saw that press conference live (I did)? How many of you saw the clip during the entire week when the media continuously covered it? Now riddle me this: if the point is it’s dangerous for the President to say such things (because people might do something stupid), who has given more people the opportunity to do something stupid? In this case, the need to ridicule the President (however deserved) outweighed the life-and-death calculation the media claimed as the reason for the coverage.

And of course there is sensationalism:

As the US and nearly every other country on the planet begins to reopen, we’re starting to see stories like this: why we are heading into trouble reopening. This was a Times opinion piece, but it got picked up by various news sites and networks. Look at the key chart:

The point is clear: the decline in CoVid19 cases is illusory, driven by a decline in several major metropolitan areas. Now look at this chart:

During the same time period (March-May) the US went from almost no tests to over eight million tests total. And what happens, the more you test? The number of confirmed cases goes . . . up. The original opinion made no reference to it, but that’s ok, an opinion piece is trying to convince you. It’s like a lawyer’s summary, not a judge’s ruling. But then several news media outlets reprinted the chart, and made no mention of the testing issue. I did see one article where an expert commented that ‘tests had greatly increased, but that wasn’t the reason for the increase in confirmed cases.’ Now I’m willing to follow experts, but I would an explanation based on some multivariate analysis, a little less “because I said so.”

Sensationalism bias is sometimes called “if it bleeds it leads,” meaning bad news gets the headline. Some might see several of these examples as simple sensationalism. But when was the last time eleven deaths over the course of a week in South Dakota elicited front page NYT and major television network coverage? Heck, a tornado killing twice that in an hour would merit 30 seconds or a weather section article.

I have little problem with bias or partisanship in editorial or opinion pieces, (except when they then get cited by the straight news side). Television networks have news and entertainment departments, and people who get them confused have nobody but themselves to blame (if you get news from Rachel Maddow or Sean Hannity, good luck!). No, of course I don’t think Fox News is unbiased, either. Fox was explicitly created to provide a different bias.

Some media do better at times: look at the NYT lead on the airport chaos story: solid work! PBS NewsHour generally only displays the “what we cover” bias, so kudos to them, too. All that said, if you don’t think the media is biased, if you’re not taking all your media reporting with a big bag of salt, you’re too gullible! The key is to access multiple media sources and to know and account for their biases . . . not to believe they’re unbiased.

Coming next, an extra-special bonus: something I stumbled across while researching media bias! Stay tuned!

Take me out to the ball game

It’s baseball season–what else is going on?–so here’s a brief look at today’s game of the week, already in progress.

Color Announcer (CA): “A big welcome to those fans just joining us from the daily media lack-of-information update. I can assure you we’ll break away from the action for irrelevant and ominous news as always, but for now, you’re looking live at Amazon-Alphabet Stadium, with its Earthfield sponsored by the new iPuke, where the hometown Homo Sapiens are battling the upstart Virus from Corona.”

Play-by-play (PbP) man: “Let’s catch you up on the action. Y’all know Corona comes on strong, very aggressive, and this game has been no exception. Sapiens may be the reigning champion species, but the newcomer Virus is giving them all they can handle.”

CA: “In the top of the first inning, the Virus loaded the bases with no outs. Their clean-up hitter slapped a sharp, sinking line drive at Xi, the Sapiens’ rising star at third base. The Virus, as aggressive a team as I’ve ever seen, had the run and hit on, so the runners were all in full stride! Xi dropped it, then tried to pretend he caught it. As the runners rounded the bases, he lazily tossed the ball to WHO, on first (naturally), who then jogged into the dugout as if the inning was over. Corona cleared the bases before the umpires could even get Sapiens to return to the field. Before the first half of the inning was over, Corona had staked a big lead.”

PbP man: “If Xi makes the catch, he probably would have made an unassisted triple play. Been a real hero. As it was, just admitting the mistake and making a real throw would have gotten one or two of the runners out. In baseball, like life, it’s not what you do, but how you react that matters.”

CA: “So true. Did you get that off a greeting card?”

PbP man: “Fortune cookie from Chinese carry-out last night. By the way, how do you eat Kung Pao chicken with a mask on?”

CA: “You don’t eat it with a mask on; you eat it with chopsticks. But we’ll investigate that further if the game really gets out of hand.”

PbP man: “We’re now in the bottom of the third, and Corona continues to pile on runs while Sapiens has only a few scattered hits. Xi came out with a big stick and went deep, while the Sapiens infield of Merkle, Moon, and Tsai have played great defense, limiting Corona’s scoring opportunities despite the continued erratic performance by WHO’s on first. Right now, with runners in scoring position, Sapiens’ pitcher, the Big Orange Hurt, is at the plate.”

CA: Big Orange trumpets himself as a modern day Babe Ruth, phenomenal pitcher and batter, and this would be the time to shine, with runners in scoring position and two outs.”

Umpire: “Striiiii-iiike one”

PbP: “BO wasn’t even looking as that pitch was thrown, is that confidence, or what?”

CA: “I’ll take ‘or what’ for 500, Alex.”

PbP: “Who’s Alex?”

CA: “No, WHO’s on first, but the Sapiens are at bat, now, and . . .”

Umpire: “Striiiiiii-iiike two”

Pbp: “Looks like The Hurt is in the hole, down two in the count, and he seems to be arguing with the umpire.”

BOH: “That was SO not a strike. That was a ball. The BIGGEST ball. And I know a ball when I see it. When I throw a ball, it’s . . .”

Umpire: “Striiii-ike three, yer out!”

BOH: “I’m out? You’re out! You’re out of your mind, You’re fired!”

CA: “That ends the inning; it looks like the umpire got the best of that exchange. Let’s go to the Sapiens dugout where Pitching Coach Anthony “Mad Tony” Fauci will give us his thoughts about the game.”

Dugout reporter (Dr): “Tony, what can the Sapiens do to get back in this contest?”

Mad Tony: “Baseball ain’t bean bag, and it ain’t timed, either. As long as we got at-bats, this game is still on, however long it takes. I tell you this: we got solid mid-game relief, and we got the world’s best closer. I been watching Virus for a while now: they can’t throw a curve for nothing, and like Michael Jordan, they can’t hit a curve neither. It’s all fastball. Their stuff don’t mutate for (beep).”

Dr: “You’re referring to your closer, Big Pharma, and I suppose he’s already warming up?”

Mad Tony: “Sure, they jumped all over the Orange guy today, but our relief will give them some junk they ain’t seen before. And Big Pharma? Oh, he’s ready. One shot is all he needs.”

CA: “Mad Tony, a question from up here in the booth. How hard is it to keep Big Orange’s head in the game in a situation like this? I mean, from up here it looks like he’s as likely to bean WHO on first as fire one past the batter.”

Mad Tony: “See, The Big Orange guy is what we call E-rratic. It’s like unpredictable, but with more attitude. Not his best outing, but then nobody has played their A-game today; Virus does that to you. Makes you look sick, but only for so long. They’re a one-trick pony. Fool me once, shame on me. Fool me twice, . . . er, uh, we won’t get fooled again, I always say.”

CA: “Thanks, Mad Tony, words to live by, or at least play Quotable with. While Sapiens retakes the field, I sense the crowd is growing a little restless here at the iPuke.”

Stands Reporter (SR): “It’s pronounced Poo-kay, but you’re right about the crowd. They don’t like losing, they don’t like sitting six feet apart, and they don’t like wearing masks. There is a rumor swirling that the bathrooms are out of toilet paper, and the concessionaire is out of hamburgers. Don’t get me started on the price of beer. The crowd is still into it, making themselves heard, but nobody knows what they’re cheering. It doesn’t look like any Virus fans showed up, but a few fights have broken out among Sapiens’ supporters. Of course, it’s hard to land any blows at that distance, but many just seem to enjoy arguing! As if they had nothing else to do.”

CA: “Nor do we all. Let’s get back to the action, and just in time, here’s our play-by-play man, back from a break.”

PbP man walking in with armload of TP and hamburger: “Armed gunmen in the toilets, and a riot at the hamburger stand. Just another weekend in Philly to me.”

CA: “Let’s talk about your last family reunion another time. What do you expect from the Sapiens in the field, right now?”

PbP: “Big Orange has to settle down and just do his job. He’s got a great supporting cast and all the tools to win. No mocking WHO on first, no calling the umpire names, no random throws at hecklers in the stands. For their part, the fans need to get it together; they keep looking for who to blame, but the game isn’t over. The players aren’t playing that well, but for the most part they’re trying. Some of them look like they haven’t played this game in a hundred years!”

CA: “That’s oddly specific. But you must admit, some of the players have been, well, lackluster?”

PbP: “Behind the plate, E. Union has been solid, but pretty much just goes along and reacts. The outfield has been literally all over the place. In right, The Swede acts like it’s just another game. Mack Ron always looks great in center and Boris looks awful in left, and I mean, he always looks awful. He looks sick now. They may have to replace him, but all they have on the bench is Jair B. and he seems to spend more time in the stands with the fans then on the field. You play the game with the team you have, not the team you want.”

CA: “Right. And by that, you mean . . . ?

(long pause)

PbP: “Well, you’ve got your known knowns, which are the things you know that you know. Then you got your unknown knowns, which you don’t even know you know, but you know. And of course your known unknowns, which you know you got to figure out because you know you don’t know them. But the real problem is them unknown unknowns, because, well . . .

CA: “You don’t know that you don’t know them?”

PbP: “No, that’s ridiculous. Surely you jest!”

CA: “That’s just how the quote ends. and don’t call me Shirley. To finish up, what does Sapiens need to do when they come to bat”

PbP: “They’re down nine-to-one, it’s only the top of the fourth. As Yogi Berra liked to say, you only score runs one at a time in baseball.”

CA: “What about a grand slam? Isn’t that four runs in one at bat?”

PbP: “You arguing with the Yogi? See, first the batter runs to first, and the runner on third runs to home. That’s one run. The the runner on second runs to third, and the runner on first goes to second. Then the runner on third goe…

(Commotion in the booth, as a handsome, immaculately coiffed man ((ICM)) enters and grabs the mike.)

ICM: “We interrupt this broadcast to bring you an extremely important announcement. Homo Sapiens is in danger of losing the game, the series and the entire planet.”

CA: “Wait a minute! Who are you? and why did you say ‘we” when it’s just you?”

ICM: “I identify with the royal we, and prefer the first person plural pronoun; I am the instantly recognizable face of network news.”

CA: “Sorry, I didn’t recognize you.”

ICM, after a pause to consider the impossibility of not being recognized: “Our sources have learned that Homo Sapiens is losing by AT LEAST eight runs, and it could get worse. Fans are so upset they are rioting in the stadium, and food shortages have been identified.”

CA: “OK, first of all, the team is losing by eight runs, not ‘at least eight.’ What does that even mean? Second, it could get worse because the other team is at bat, and you can only score when your team is at bat. So it’s just as possible it could get better.”

PbP man: “and the fans are angry about toilet paper, not the team. They ran out of hamburgers, not food!”

ICM: “Again, to summarize: Homo Sapiens is definitely losing, violence is breaking out, and we are running out of food.” Stay tuned for further updates, and watch our special this evening: ‘How bad is it and how much worse can it get?’ We now return you to your original programming.”

ICM leaves the booth. CA and PbP man look at each other and shrug.

CA: “Back to the game! Sapiens shut down Virus in the top of the fourth, and now they have runners on base with no outs. Is this the rally all fans have been waiting for?”

PbP man: “Maybe the start of something big, or maybe the rally fizzles. In any event, the game is only half over, and maybe the fans should pay more attention to the results on the field, and less attention to how it’s characterized. I know this: in the end, we will know the score and how each player contributed to the outcome. Along the way, all we have is speculation and opinion, and we all know that opinions are like (beep)holes; everybody has one, and they all stink.”

CA: “didn’t get that from a fortune cookie, did you?”

PbP: “No it just occurred to me when the network guy started talking.”

Mask on, Mask off

A guard at a Family Dollar in the States has been shot to death because (allegedly) he told a family they all needed to wear masks to enter the store. A Texas park ranger was pushed backward off a pier into a lake while explaining to a group of young people why they still needed to practice social distancing in a state park. Protestors have shown up at several state capitol buildings, sans masks, to protest wearing them (among other things); they have also taken to berating those wearing masks (especially news media).

Some feel the US government told them not to wear masks, then told them to wear masks: very confusing, if not suspicious. Some feel the masks are a not-so-subtle way of imposing control over people: starting with a rule, then enforcing it with fines and jail, and finally telling you how to live. Some feel masks are unnecessary because the virus can pass through them. Some feel masks are ineffective because people don’t know how to wear them correctly. Some feel the coronavirus is no big deal, so what’s with a mask? And many feel masks are a sign of sanity and good citizenship and anyone who disagrees is a fascist, know-nothing, violent domestic terrorist.

Phew, so many feelings! Let’s take a look at the facts and think about masks for a change, shall we?

First of all, never use the word mask by itself. If we were going to discuss vehicles, you might first ask me “what kind?” Race cars are different from pickup trucks are different from tanks and motorcycles and Segways. All are vehicles. Lucky for us, the mask discussion can easily break down into two categories: Respirators (such as the famous N95) and surgical masks (which also includes all lower forms of face covering, down to the humble Buff).

Respirators don’t look all that different from some surgical masks, so what is the difference? First, respirators protect the wearer from even small particles, while surgical masks only protect from large particles. Second, respirators can be reused (even though manufacturers prefer you discard them). Finally, respirators require a face-seal, or a tight fit in the PPE parlance. Back in the Army, we practiced wearing gas-masks (respirators+) for hours at a time, and we had to get a seal when we put them on. The way they trained us? We put on our masks with a good seal, then went into a tent full of teargas so thick you couldn’t see. The instructor ordered us to reach to the back of our mask and break the seal. The gas roared in, and everybody immediately went into full flight mode as teargas burned your throat & lungs, fluid poured from your eyes, nose, & mouth, and you ran blindly toward the exit to spend about fifteen minutes retching on the ground, gasping for air. Never had any problem convincing soldiers to get a good seal after that.

To put it in laymen’s terms, respirators are custom finish, while surgical masks (despite the name) are more builder’s grade. The CDC has a great infographic here.

So about the mask frenzy. Yes, the federal government told you (and me) to not buy masks, that we didn’t need them. To be precise, that we didn’t need them as much as medical professionals needed them; they were referring to the N95 respirator type of masks. They were/are in limited supply. They keep the wearer safe from Coronavirus while you are exposed to sick people all day long, if they are properly worn and fitted. See, if you aren’t trained, they won’t work well for you, they will just give you a false sense of security. It’s not just the fit/seal issue: you have to train how to put them on and take them off so as not to contaminate the insides of the mask, and not touch your face. So they are just not appropriate, like a tank is not appropriate as a vehicle for commuting (unless you drive I-395 daily).

Why is the government telling us to wear surgical masks now if they don’t protect the wearer from the virus? Such masks do provide some minimal protection, but if you walk under a fresh rainbow sneeze of coronavirus, your surgical mask or balaclava or Buff probably will not save you. These masks are there mostly to prevent you from generating the rainbow sneeze on your fellow man. You may not feel sick, or you may just feel a little off, but you may be infected, and if you sneeze/cough/scream/kiss (just sayin’) your neighbor, you are now a super-spreader, the Typhoid Mary of the neighborhood. And a mask on yo’ face helps with that.

Some folks (mostly guys) love this Pee analogy. Doesn’t work for me, but to each his own!

Some other analogies if you like:

Respirators for doctors (and the like) are like space suits for astronauts. Astronauts don’t wear space suits except to train, and when in space. They don’t have to wear them in space either; they’ll just die without them. So too with doctors and respirators.

Buffs don’t work for doctors; they need eye protection.
“The doctor will see you now.”
“No, no he won’t”

Surgical masks are more like a custom. Sneezing/coughing is neither good nor bad; it’s something the body does as it fights off a disease or reacts to an allergy. Humans have a custom that we don’t intentionally sneeze in each other’s faces. Why is that? Why should I care; I’m already sick! We do it as a courtesy. It’s so automatic and ingrained us, that I dare you to try to walk up and sneeze at someone. It’s almost impossible! We are asked to adopt a new custom–wearing face coverings–simply to protect others. That’s all.

Bottom line: Leave to go out, mask your snout! Staying in; show your chin!

Since you made it this far, click on this link and read Edgar Allan Poe’s short story (four pages) The Masque of the Red Death to reward yourself. Why? One, it’s short; did I mention four pages? Two, it’s Poe, so it’s dark and rich and scary. Three, whenever anybody asks you what you read during the pandemic, you can say “Poe’s Masque of the Red Death.” It will impress most, and only Lit majors will get the joke. Four, it’s about a plague, so, timely. Five, depending on your take, you might even get a little schadenfreude out of it–which reminds me, it has a glossary explaining some of the more arcane terms from Poe’s time.

Enjoy!

A Coronavirus quiz (part II)

As promised, here are the answers to the quiz, with some commentary included.

Country A was the among the earliest to announce a travel ban on China, pending the arrival of tourists for the busy Chinese New Year celebration, and later enacted a total ban on immigration. It has only managed to ramp up to 50,000 tests a day. Its case fatality rate (hereafter CFR) hovers near one percent, and it is starting to relax restrictions on outdoor activities. New Zealand, where no one called the travel ban racist, as the Kiwis normally welcome tens of thousands of Chinese visitors for the New Year, which they were very wise to avoid. They still don’t do many tests but are among the leaders in per capita testing at 2.5%.

Nation B was among the first to ramp up viral test production, but has never completed more than 25,000 daily viral tests. It eschewed a national lockdown, and businesses and public spaces remain open. Instead, it deployed strict quarantines of areas where it detected an outbreak in progress. It also deployed a series of apps for contact tracing, and made failing to carry cell phones with these apps a crime punishable by several thousand dollar fines. South Korea, who is selling viral tests internationally despite the low daily testing level. That and the lack of a lockdown demonstrate it’s not just one thing, it’s the combination of policies which matter.

State C initially acted like the virus was “under control.” Eventually its leadership decided they had a problem on their hands and ramped up testing from nothing to hundreds of thousands daily. Its largest city is also its pandemic epicenter, and the national government is continuing to argue with state and local officials about responsibility for stringent quarantine measures. It hasn’t flattened the curve, yet, but is considering how to relax restrictions in light of the May holiday season. Call yourself Tovarisch if you ignored the false leads and guessed Russia. President Putin is staying out of the limelight and leaving the Mayor of Moscow to be the public face of the crisis. The May holidays? May (labor) Day and Victory Day!

Country D is still open for business, although without large gatherings. It has experienced several surges in cases and deaths, but its medical system has not been overwhelmed. It believes its relaxed rules and emphasis on social distancing are far more sustainable for the months-to-years before a vaccine is developed, and that it’s CFR–now higher–will eventually be the same as its neighbors who have shut their economies down. Sweden insists it is not sacrificing its vulnerable citizens and continues with its unique approach, despite withering foreign criticism and a vocal domestic minority. We won’t know who is right until all the data is in.

Nation E was the first to warn against Chinese claims on the coronavirus. It enacted strict border controls, then tightened them further! Its fines for violating quarantine or contact tracing rules continue to rise (above $10,000 US). It investigates and enforces fraudulent news coverage (such as a claimed toilet paper shortage) to the tune of US $100,000 fines. It emphasized ramping up mask production, then decreed controls on sales to ensure everyone has and wears them. It has practically eradicated the disease. The other China, Taiwan, tried to warn the WHO, but was rebuffed because, well what do they know? Turns out a lot, based on SARS and the proof in the data. Can you imagine the US with fines for “fake news?” No, me neither.

State F started out slowly, hoping to achieve herd immunity by simply protecting vulnerable populations and relying on its universal health service. As cases and deaths mounted, it engaged in a full reverse, enacting a lockdown and ramping up testing. It seems to have weathered the worst, but still has the second highest number of daily deaths. If I had said “National Health Service” it would have been obvious– the United Kingdom.

Country G was one of the world leaders in responding to the coronavirus. It enacted early and effective social distancing, restricted immigration, provided free health services, mass testing, and contact tracing. Its government is unusually effective and efficient, yet it suddenly finds itself with a spike in new cases and the most in its region. Singapore is blaming infected returning citizens for the new outbreak, but the new cases are centered in workers’ dormitories where low-skilled foreign workers are assigned to barracks-like accommodations.

Nation H is trying a little bit of everything. It has apparently past the peak in new cases and deaths, but the spread is uneven: urban areas were hard hit, while other regions not so much (yet). Some areas are reopening, while others still fear having overrun medical facilities. Testing is on the rise, but the public’s willingness to maintain strict lockdown conditions is waning. Many decry the lack of a single national policy in the place where the debate rages between “Make America Work Again” and You’ll “Make America Sick Again.”

State I enacted the first and most extensive lockdown in the Western world. Its higher CFR appears to be due to a perfect storm of older victims, inadequate emergency facilities, and the bad luck of being one of the first places hit hardest. Still, it has turned the corner on cases and deaths and is preparing to loosen restrictions. Italy tried to do everything right, and still got hammered for things no one thought were important (e.g., regional intensive care beds?).

Country J has the most cases and deaths in its region. Its leader has encouraged protests against state lockdowns, and engages in a running public debate with the press and medical officials. That leader still says it’s no worse “than the flu” and refuses to wear a facemask. J is for Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro, the man most likely to out-trump President Trump. He is firing his health minister, leading protest rallies, and suggesting he needs to bring back martial law.

Nation K was initially hard hit, but enforced a tight regional lockdown and now has no deaths, officially. It fears a recurrence due to foreign visitors, which it is tightly controlling, and questions the account that the virus originated in China. C’mon, it’s a gimmee, the only nation questioning where the virus began is the People’s Republic of China, although they are clever enough to trumpet it in domestic news, but only whisper it in translation.

State L’s leaders insist they are fully prepared in terms of tests, ventilators, and hospital beds due to a national health system. However, their case count and deaths continue to rise, and hospital workers have been especially hard hit. The largest city is the pandemic epicenter, but their leader has only reluctantly given up his well-attended political rallies. This is how we coronavirus in the home of Corona beer–Mexico.

Country M is a world leader in testing per capita and total tests. It is in the top five for total numbers of cases, but has the best CFR among them. It attributes its success to younger initial victims, more testing, and well-resourced hospitals. The national lockdown is strongly supported, but more than a thousand protestors gathered in the capital city last week against it. The Germans demonstrated the same ruthless efficiency they always do, along with a little luck this time.

Nation N has an older, more densely situated population, making it very vulnerable. But it is also known for high technology and cultural compliance, so its early low infection and death rates seemed to indicate success at limiting movement and using contact tracing. But it wasn’t testing very much, and now its daily deaths are increasing, causing its leaders to fear they missed an opportunity to avoid a tragedy. I’ll publicly withdraw my earlier criticism that Japan was suppressing their data to avoid postponing the Olympics; it seems they were just lucky in fewer Chinese visitors, fewer international visitors, and a population lacking the complications which lead to deaths. But the virus never sleeps, and Japan’s luck has run out.

State O was late to the game but acted boldly, enacting a nationwide shutdown, which immediately backfired as millions of poor migrants began walking hundreds of miles to return home from the cities where they worked. The government fears that official data hides the magnitude of the crisis, and is preparing to blame a religious minority if a catastrophe ensues. It’s never a good time to be poor and Muslim in India, but the sight of millions of people walking the roadways home was one for the ages!

“You don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here.”

How did you do? Any perfect or near-perfect scores? Take credit! Any particularly difficult clues? Any quibbles? Sound off!

What do we take from all this? There are no silver bullets. Some countries went all in on testing, but no major country has gotten above 4% of per capita testing (Iceland has 13%). Some invoked electronic monitoring and contact tracing measures that no advanced Western nation would stomach, due to civil liberties concerns. Some added physical restraint to the mix (Google “China violently quarantines its citizens” for the shocking videos). Some had more masks on hand and insisted everyone wear them; those without enough masks took to dissuading citizens from hoarding them in place of medical users (bad move, if understandable).

Remember when ventilators were the main topic of American discussion (who has them, why won’t the federal government release them, how do we use the DPA to build thousands more)? Well, even New York City didn’t use half what it asked for, and the data from one study suggests they weren’t the lifesavers we were lead to believe (under normal circumstances, half of all ventilator patients die; with CoVid19, 88% of such patients died).

Because this is the first true pandemic in one-hundred years, we’re witnessing a real-time experiment with hundreds of variables and approaches. Some lessons are obvious; in other cases data points out a discrepancy that is not yet explicable. What has proved important?

Early social distancing/mask wearing/limited quarantine of the sick. Anything to slow the spread of infection, enabling time for all other measures. Note the word limited: full scale stay at home orders can only last so long; enact them too early, and you will have people breaking out before the curve has flattened.
Open exchange of data. Whether it is on cases, symptoms, therapies, clinical approaches, or vaccines, everyone does better when the data is correct, openly-shared, and correctly reported. And being honest about what’s being counted: there are several ways to make data errors which don’t involve nefarious intent. Leaders should not hawk cures or treatments; anybody notice the number of news accounts leaking preliminary study results? Yeah, same thing.
Expanding local/regional intensive care facilities. The type of health system (universal/national or not) and the quality of its doctors were less important than numbers of intensive care beds. We may not use all of them, but one way to avoid avoidable deaths is to ensure one has enough treatment facilities for the worst cases. Hardly a cognitive breakthrough, but one worth repeating that the benefits far outweigh the costs.
Protecting nursing homes. Even countries with exemplary care standards have experienced extreme death rates at nursing homes. The combination of vulnerable populations kept close together with staffs rotating between homes has proven deadly. Everywhere.
Geography and the interplay with demography. Have more old people? Bad. Have more obese people? Bad. Have more international travel connections? Bad. Greece is like Italy, but hasn’t suffered the same. Mexico is much like the US, but hasn’t suffered the same. The differences don’t point to policies as much as other factors (perhaps climate?) yet to be explained.
Recent experience with severe contagion: Taiwan (MERS, 2012) and South Korea (H1N1, 2009) are among the best, despite not doing mass testing or total lockdowns. In fact, low-level testing works fine if started early enough. And people being inclined to wear facemasks. And the country being a more compact one. Oh, and being suspicious of the People’s Republic of China plays a role, too.

Hope you enjoyed this testing exercise as much as I did creating it!