Culture – Page 15 – Pat the Expat

Interesting Times

No doubt you’ve heard of the ancient Chinese curse “may you live in interesting times.” It’s a legend, of course, and no such statement exists in Chinese; the closest aphorism is something about it being better for dogs in routine times than for humans in changing times. The saying remains popular despite its lack of provenance (it appears in 1930s England) because it rings true. All change is hard; great change is phenomenally difficult.

Seems like we do live in interesting times. Of late, we’ve had protest and riot coming on the heels of plague and economic collapse, following populism and climate change and financial disaster, which was preceded by accelerating technological advance and geopolitical change. Phew!

Some Christian sects constantly survey the news for signs of the impending End Times, and these days they have plenty of ammunition. Actually, they always have. There is a constant historical theme of how important and decisive today’s events are. What first-person histories we have contain comments by people great and small about how amazing it was to live through, well, any period of history. And from the standpoint of the individuals involved, it was all true: it was incredible (to them) to live through the era they did. Judgment Day remains scheduled for mañana.

This notion rises to its zenith in Presentism, a philosophical mistake that emphasizes things now at the expense of things past. It shows up when people treat current events as unprecedented, current fads as enduring or inevitable, and evaluate history using current standards. Presentism requires a unique combination of lack of historical knowledge and collective egotism. We’re witnessing an amazing peak of Presentism today.

I’ve seen claims we’re on the verge of a fascist takeover of the United States. Some cite secret conspiracies about vaccines, chips, or tracking apps. Several have quoted my favorite bomb-thrower, Thomas Paine, to the extent that “these are the times that try men’s souls” and call for action! Presidential abuse of power, crime, protest, anti-semitism, racial violence (especially by the police), and technological change are peaking. Except that they aren’t. Some are increasing, others stagnant or decreasing. Plus ça change . . .

Looks like a right reasonable chap, what?

Thomas Paine may be the ideal (if ironic) icon for our times. Paine was a failed English businessman who, at the suggestion of Benjamin Franklin, avoided debtor’s prison by emigrating to the colonies. His signature writing style was a clever mix of diatribe and well-turned phrases, making him easily the most followed writer during the American Revolution. His fellow revolutionaries (and historians since) credit his tracts, especially “Common Sense” with being the fuel that ignited the larger movement.

As it turns out, Thomas was a one-note wonder. His bombast was always stuck on “high” and he inevitably destroyed friendships with shrill accusations. He moved to Paris during the French Revolution, cheering it on as it went from Liberté, Egalité, et Fraternité to guillotine, garrote, and grotesquery. He was saved from execution only by the happy coincidence of a jailor’s misplaced mark on his cell door, and the impending turn of the tide against Robespierre, the architect of his imprisonment. He remained an ardent fan of the cause.

Paine ended up safely back in the States, but turned his ire on the one icon above reproach: George Washington. Paine accused Washington of hypocrisy, treachery, and vainglory, doing no damage to Washington’s legacy but cementing Paine’s reputation as a bitter polemicist. He died separated from his former friends, practically unmourned. When an English admirer later disinterred his remains for more honorable reburial in England, the remains were lost.

Thomas Paine was a wicked good writer, and many of his ideas about freedom and equality were as stirring as they were ahead of his time. Yet he couldn’t brook disagreement, viewed compromise as surrender, and saw excess as pure zeal. If atheists named patron saints, he’d be the patron saint of Twitter, if not social media writ large. Somehow, he was right about the revolution, but wrong about so much more.

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!

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.”

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!

To Phase Three or not to Phase Three

That is the question. Mexico is entering into Phase three (according to Presidente AMLO), which is the peak of the epidemic. The government announced new restrictions: mandating the wearing of masks in all public spaces (even walking the dog or driving the car); limiting movement to essential activities (buying groceries, getting medicine, etc.); and basically instructing everyone sixty years old or older to stay home all the time. I have never been happier to be fifty-nine years and six months old.

Our local leader, the Presidente (Mayor) of Chapala, banned all sales of alcohol at grocery and convenience stores, due to the fact that ‘it was unfair’ to the liquor stores which had been deemed non-essential. Luckily, he reversed that decision a few days later. On the positive side, he noted that we have no confirmed cases locally, that the roadside checks had discouraged thousands of unwanted holiday visitors last week, and that he would not be using the jail times and fines authorized under law, as the people were complying of their own free will. An excellent example of the concept of liberty as “the right to do what one ought” as opposed to “the freedom to do want one wants.”

On the negative side, the more stringent restrictions closed our local club, so no more tennis or gym access (you feel our tears, I know!). Judy and I have collected an assortment of exercise gear over the decades, so I dug out the box and we selected various implements of personal destruction. Judy went back to her kettlebells, with an obligatory case of hamburger hands, while I did a variety of improvised stretches, hand-weights, stretch bands, a medicine ball, and jumped rope up on the mirador. I played music loud so I couldn’t hear the neighbors laughing!

Why I don’t do kettlebells: hamburger hands.

Judy got stopped by the policia coming back from the local farmacia: she had to show her license to explain why she was heading that direction (home). The government announced that restrictions will be extended until May 30th, except for smaller communities with no or few cases. They will be allowed to resume phase one activities (more normal life, with businesses reopening) on May 18th. I haven’t seen an official list of which towns qualify, but we’re certainly in the running.

Our state, Jalisco, is in an interesting position. Guadalajara is the capital, and it is the second largest city in Mexico, with our airport being the main transit hub for cargo. Yet we’ve had far fewer cases per capita than Ciudad de Mexico or other, smaller cities. As an analogy, in the CoVid19 pandemic in Mexico, Jalisco is playing California to Mexico City’s New York. The analogy even extends to the political side, as Jalisco is the center of (more conservative) opposition to the (more liberal) central government.

There is little of the panic evident here compared to the media coverage up north. The national government has emphasized they believe they have enough emergency room beds and ventilators to cover the surge; that may be wishful thinking, but there is much more of a common understanding that this is a deadly virus and that means some people will die. Flattening the curve means limiting avoidable deaths, not evading all deaths. Mexicans have an altogether different concept of death. It is not fatalistic so much as death as seen as an eventuality. One does what one can, and sometime (eventually) one dies. We’ll see how it all plays out.

Presidente AMLO’s sky high approval ratings have dropped steadily, but mostly due to the economic effects of the shutdown. Most Mexicans work “off book” and have little savings: the closures leave many completely bereft of resources. The federal government is attempting to make payments directly to the poor, but leaving businesses to fend for themselves. The state government is trying to bail out small businesses. Again, another experiment to watch.

It seems that leaders everywhere and at all levels are groping with the same challenges: unprecedented policy proposals, uncertain models with changing data, ambiguous public willingness to abide restrictions. Some have locked down, some are loosening up, although I have yet to see anyone with a blanket reopening approach. Some are doing more testing, some are doing less–and the results vary! Almost all are social distancing and emphasizing masks. The biggest single difference I see is the amount of drama involved: Mexico (like many countries) is treating the pandemic as a singular, very significant event: a life and death one. But just that.

Elsewhere, it seems to be closer to pandemonium than a pandemic.

Testing, testing, one, two, three

Several friends have asked me about the importance of, and status of, coronavirus testing in the States. It is the single most important factor in returning to the status quo ante virus, so why is the US behind other countries? Let’s focus on virus testing today (tests to determine if one has the virus now), but what we’ll see also applies to antibody testing, certification of equipment (like ventilators) and even “proof of” processes (like testing protocols).

The President trumpets (sorry, couldn’t resist the pun) the fact that the US has completed more virus tests (3.7 million, all data as of 5/19) than anybody. Which is true. The numbers change daily, but the US has done twice as many as Germany amd six times more than South Korea. Still a little behind the EU, which is a better comparable. The President’s many critics point out that total numbers of tests are not the right way to compare nations: you should compare tests adjusted for population. They are correct: it is a better way to compare, and here the US lags in forty-second place, behind such notable nations as Russia and San Marino, with the Faeroe islands leading the pack.

Let’s take a analytic look at the data, which tell an interesting story.

All scientists and health officials agree testing (in all its types) is the long pole in the tent (a military phrase meaning the thing in a sequence of things that takes the most time, thus is critical to on-time mission completion). All agree it is essential to restoring society to normal working order. All governments are trying to get to this end state: sufficient testing to achieve normalcy. No one is sure how many tests or what percentage of the population must be tested to get there (that is a judgment call, not a scientific determination), but all agree it is large. And no one is anywhere near there yet.

Data does not include Germany, as this site does not recognize Germany’s data, but the German numbers are very close to Russia’s. If you want to play with the data yourself, go here.

So per capita testing is a valid way to describe how well a country is doing on the road to getting back to normal. But let’s go back to the total testing numbers to see how they influence how to assess the progress. Only the US, Russia, Germany, and Italy have exceeded 50,000 tests daily, and the numbers are not increasing rapidly in any country. The US has achieved around 150,000 tests daily. If testing is the long pole, and everyone needs to do a lot more testing, why haven’t those numbers spiked?

Some suspect a failure in governmental leadership, so let’s compare.

Look at Germany, considered (rightly) a world leader. They had a head start on the regional crisis (it started in Italy), a favorable set of initial cases (younger by half than that of Italy), universal health care, and a world-class pharmaceutical sector. The acclaimed technocratic German administration was alert and responsive, led by the capable and experienced Chancellor Angela Merkel. They recognized testing was a challenge, and engaged both government and commercial resources on the problem. And the end result is they have done 1.7 million total tests., about 70,000 a day, with a goal of 200,000 a day.

Look at South Korea, another obviously positive case. Again, an early start at social distancing, a culture accustomed to wearing masks and willing to abide government restrictions, universal health care, good high tech manufacturing, world’s best internet penetration and adoption, and recent experience with MERS (Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome, a coronavirus which hit in 2015 and left ample lessons). Which resulted in half a million total tests, stuck at 10,000 test a day.

Is Germany not as sophisticated as we imagined? Did Angela Merkel not emphasize the importance of testing? South Korea has done well in many areas, but if testing is the key, they have only tested about one percent of the population, with almost no growth in the testing rate per day. Who’s to blame in these countries?

The answer lies in a simple observation: testing is hard. It is not at all like surging to make tanks in World War II (which were cheap and functional–long unrelated anecdote at the end of this post*). If testing were easy to scale, some scientist or company or leader would have done it. If you look at the testing numbers, they roughly correspond to a nation’s pharmaceutical research and/or production capability, nothing more, nothing less. And they are increasing at a roughly the same rate, everywhere.

To paraphrase what my old Army Master Sergeant would have said, “You can crap out a a zillion M4 tanks, but you can’t crap out a zillion coronavirus tests.”

How hard can virus testing really be? Well, every year we have to prepare a new test for that season’s flu virus (not talking about the rapid diagnostic flu tests, those are a shortcut we accept). We know it will only be a variation of what has come before, we know roughly when the flu season will start, and we know many thousands of people will die without tests (and vaccines). And it takes the full year between flu seasons to get it done.

Testing itself is a complex, multi-step process: You need the different reagents, production capability for the test kits, distribution and training for end users, a system for administering the tests and collecting samples, logistics to consolidate tests and transfer them to labs, lab capacity to evaluate tests, and a system to provide results. Some parts can be streamlined: there are multiple sources for reagents and training may be simplified. The government can play a role in establishing mass testing sites and moving materials. The internet provides an easy means to transmit notifications. But building tests? Creating evaluation capability? Not easily scalable, or someone, somewhere would be doing it.

Virus testing is closer to “nuclear power” complex than to “WWII tank” difficult. No one ever said, “hey, let’s spit out a thousand or so nuclear power stations in order to move to clean energy now.” Setting aside the politics, nuclear plants are difficult to build, require costly engineering and rigorous testing, and we have no tolerance for failures of any kind (rightly so). No nation wants faulty tests, or insensitive (false negatives) ones, or nonspecific (false positives) ones. The infrastructure for making tests can’t just be inflated. They can be increased at the nargin, and we are seeing that in many countries right now. New test equipment or processes have to go back through the same rigorous protocols, so again there is no shortcut.

Some things just take time. We are right to be impatient, but wrong if we ascribe blame when there is no alternative. Perhaps the problem is we’ve become used to modern medicine’s ability to do the seemingly impossible. We’ve come to expect science and medicine to do miracles. Read that sentence twice; the non sequitur should be obvious. That is the root of the problem. When science and medicine fail, we look for someone or something to blame. It may be rational, but it may not be correct.

* Back in the US Army in Germany in the eighties, we would go out on maneuvers for weeks, tramping around the German countryside. At the end of an exercise (ENDEX), there would be a day or so pause to re-organize before heading back home to garrison. The officers would find the nearest gasthaus and go for dinner and bier with the locals. It served two purposes: first to thank the locals for indulging our tearing up their farm fields, and second to blow off steam with a schnitzel and a great beer. We’d inevitably meet up with some old German WWII vets, who always told us they fought against the Russians. (Thus began a local joke: we won WWII because when we landed, Normandy was empty, since all the Germans were on the Eastern Front). One night, there was only one German left at the stammtisch when the night ended, and after several rounds of bier and Jagermeister, he fessed up to fighting on the Western front! We had to ask: what was it like fighting the US Army? “Ja, ich hatte es gern” (I liked it) he slurred, “when you hit the American tanks, the top popped off like a champagne cork!” We all grew quiet at the weight of what he said, and what it meant. “Good thing you got that fixed!” he quickly added.

Un dia en cuarentena

Mexico is under a federal state of emergency, while the state of Jalisco has even more specific guidance on social distancing, essential services, public gatherings, and masks. Stores are closed, with the exception of abarrotes and supermercados. The tianguis has reopened with only food stalls. Most government offices are closed. Semana Santa festivities (normally extensive) and the travel/vacation week which follows are cancelled. Here is what our day looks like:

6:30 am: Tucker, the mostly grayed Vizsla who sleeps along my side of the bed, awakes, stretches with a muffled groan (he’s such an old man), shakes his head vigorously to clear the cobwebs (and wake me with the jingle of his dog collar), then walks out to the front door. I can go back to sleep, but he’ll come rest his head on the bed, inches from my face, and make lip-smacking noises (do dogs have lips?), so further sleep is minimal. I walk him to the corner.

6:30-7:30 am: I feed Tucker, and he relishes his everyday breakfast of dog food with chicharrónes like he’s never had it before. I start the coffee, say morning prayers as the dawn breaks, then have a first cup (coffee, not dog food) myself.

7:30 am: Deliver a fresh cup of joe–with a morning song– to my lovely bride. According to her, this routine protects the entire planet. Y’all are welcome.

7:30-9:00 am: Read the Washington Post & New York Times, clear through my news and overnight feeds from select reporters. Spend the last few minutes on Facebook. Take Tucker for his morning constitutional. As Calvin Coolidge might have said, “the business of the dog is dog business.”

~9:00am: Eat a delicious breakfast of bacon & eggs (con tabasco), cherry tomatoes, and a fresh half avocado, lovingly prepared by my dear wife. Clean up the dishes afterwards.

9:00-9:30: clean up for the day, listening to WTOP out of DC for current news (useful), weather (mild humor at times), and traffic (hilarity all the time).

9:30-11:00: Today we go to the small, private gym in our club: thirty minutes (each) stretching, weights, cardio, and yes, we know how lucky we are to have access to this! The gym is small, about the size of a hotel gym, and only permits two people inside at a time. We rarely encounter anyone there, as the hotel rooms are empty. We employ a ritual of cleaning the equipment with a disinfectant wipe before using, then repeating the process again after using. We wash everything upon arriving home. On other days, we hold our Spanish class online using Zoom. Class is much more basic due to the technology, but it suffices to keep our learning fresh. The exercise does the same for our muscles and spirits!

11:00 am – 1:00 pm: Somewhere in here is lunch, if we are not eating dinner. We eat only twice a day, lest we become twice the size. Judy will whip up a royal grilled cheese, with sauteed onions and jalapenos, or a tuna melt (with onions) on a bagel. Always a large serving of chips; Nacho Doritos are my current favorite. Time to read some of the online version of The Economist (I indulged in a subscription back when working, then became addicted to their witty prose and insight), research and write this blog, or catch up on private reading. Today it’s the latter. I have seen many references to the 1940 book by Graham Greene, The Power and the Glory, and it’s available for free download, so I dive in. The intriguing fictional story of a self-proclaimed whisky priest in Mexico during the Cristiada.

At some point, I feel the tropical sun as I pass by an open window, and I remember to go out and water the garden. Our gardener still visits every two weeks, to trim and repair and replace things. We can converse through the mosquito screen on our terraza, and I leave him his pay and receipt book on the table. It’s terribly impersonal, but it keeps him employed and my plumbagos in check. Anyway, I water the plants under the close supervision of Tucker.

The dog will come pester me several times in the afternoon: to go out to the corner and check the day’s new smells, to lay under the sun in the garden, to come back in and get a drink because the sun is soooo hot, to bark at the trash truck. There is wisdom in the fact it doesn’t take much to make him happy.

Somewhere between 1:00 and 3:00, ennui sets in. I’ll play a video game to pass the time. Currently, Medieval France is vanquishing all of Europe, Africa, and the Holy Land, with some help de moi. I notice the dust has coagulated on the table top, making a nice outline of my Chromebook. We’ve paid our housekeeper in advance for the month, but told her to skip her weekly visits for her own good as well as ours. So I clean it off myself. Tomorrow it my be the dust build up on the ceiling fans, or the drip under the disposal, or whatever.

At times, I’ll start a real project, or–worse yet–try to pass one off to Judy. I already sorted the mass of family photos: gone are the many views of my thumbs, pictures of people or places we no longer recognize, and oh-so-many duplicates. The remainder are neatly placed in useful categories for another project: organizing a display, mañana. Judy finished sorting a stack of papers that had grown too large for the cabinet: paid bills, restaurant delivery menus, forms never filled out.

Most days I’ll siesta for about forty-five minutes in the afternoon. Judy claims this is entirely insufficient as a nap, but if I doze more than that, it will throw off my nightly rest. Luckily, I retain the ability to think of a wake up time, fall asleep, then wake up at that time. It’s a habit I perfected back in the Army, and one that I relish still having (unlike my hearing loss, another reminder of Army service).

It’s 4:00 pm, time for television. Now I grew up in the era when television was life’s background soundtrack, so ours may be on at any time, but most of the time I couldn’t tell you what was on. The Five (a guilty pleasure on Fox News, as I enjoy the back-n-forth between the regulars who always disagree but genuinely enjoy arguing with each other. Wait, how many guilty pleasures is that?) leads to the BBC World News America to ABC World News to the PBS Newshour, and suddenly it’s 7:00 pm. Yes, the news addiction I discovered as a young man continues unabated. Between talking back to the TV, I’ll review my email and news feeds and allow myself another thirty minutes of FaceBook.

There’s another, longer walk for the dog in there, whenever I sense the news getting repetitive, which is guaranteed. Another bowl of dog food and chicharrónes met with unbridled enthusiasm.

If we skipped lunch, Judy will perform a miracle combining fresh chicken, spinach, bacon, cream cheese and cheddar cheese with rice for dinner. Or Salmon and Mushrooms & Onions. Or any of the bowl meals we’ve grown accustomed to: egg roll in a bowl, spaghetti in vodka sauce, burrito bowl. I’ll resume cleaning the dishes and taking out the trash, as the sun finally relents in its assault on our westward facing windows.

7:00 to 10:00pm: Decisions, decisions! Its Holy Week, so we watch The Passion of the Christ on DVD. But sometimes I search the Dish satellite service (out of Cincinnati) for anything to watch while Judy enjoys her subscription to Acorn TV by bingeing on Brit dramas. Or we’ll start a new series on Amazon Prime video (e.g., The Expanse, Hunters, Bosch, Picard) and watch it together.

10:00pm: lights out, so to speak. It’s already heating up to the nineties hereabouts, so we turn on the mini-split air conditioner in the bedroom for thirty minutes to cool off the room, as we do our nightly prep for bed. Evening prayers, one last check to make sure I’ve not missed a call or email or something important. Then a drowsy game of solitaire on the tablet. This odd habit was a suggestion from a camino friend, who said to come up with a trick–something to do than was simple and repetitive–to help you fall asleep in a room full of people talking and snoring. Judy and I both took up solitaire apps, and I know it’s time to sleep when the tablet falls from my hand.

There are exceptions to this routine: Video chats with family and friends; the biweekly run to La Huerta, the local mercado, for fresh vegetables and whatever novelty the owner has procured (last week it was canned Italian tomatoes for thirty-eight pesos); longer walks along the nearly-deserted carretera on Sunday night with the dog. Nothing too exciting, but little treats to break the monotony. For a couple of los introvertidos, this stay-at-home thing is barely a challenge. But it’s what we’re supposed to do. What was the quote from Milton?

“When I consider how my light is spent
Ere half my days in this dark world and wide,
And that one talent which is death to hide
Lodg’d with me useless, though my soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, lest he returning chide;
“Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?”
I fondly ask. But Patience to prevent
That murmur, soon replies: “God doth not need
Either man’s work or his own gifts; who best
Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state
Is kingly. Thousands at his bidding speed
And post o’er land and ocean without rest:
They also serve who only stand and wait.“

What changes and what doesn’t?

I’m starting to see interesting articles talking about how life might change after the coronavirus pandemic wanes. It may seem weird–when countries are still experiencing exponential case growth–to be discussing what happens next. But the virus will wane, and whether it’s this Fall or next year, life will return to normal. But what kind of normal?

We have historical examples: the Black Death and the Spanish Flu, two of the worst contagions in history. The Black Death ravaged the world in the 14th century, killing upwards of 200 million people in four years and recurring for centuries. The Spanish Flu hit in three waves between 1918-1920, killed between fifty and one hundred million, while infecting one-quarter of the world’s population. Nothing about CoVid19 approaches either of these cases, but there are interesting lessons from each.

Historians credit the Black Death with hastening the end of feudalism in Europe, undermining the authority of the Roman Catholic Church, and fostering the Renaissance. Dead serfs raise no crops, and surviving commoners found more lands, cheaper food, and more opportunities. The death of perhaps half the population in a region wrought great change.

The Spanish flu coincided with the First World War, and came on the heels of several other contagions (e.g., cholera, yellow fever, typhoid). Thus the world’s population was both more accustomed to disease outbreaks, and had a coincidental catastrophe (WWI) which put the tragedy in perspective. Historians point out that there were no great changes from the Spanish Flu, other than the end of the practice of using common cups (which was heretofore common in schools, churches, pubs, etc.), and the nation-state’s assumption of some responsibility for health.

Let’s start with what won’t change. Some predict a flowering of good-neighborliness and caring, based on our shared national tragedy. It saddens me to disagree. Trauma, especially national trauma, rarely causes such change. For every individual who suffers a heart attack and changes his diet for the better, there are far more who resume a bacon-and-beer diet (not that there’s anything wrong with that!). Cities that are massively disrupted–like New Orleans in Katrina–may look a little different, but quickly revert to character. How long did the bipartisan national spirit last after 9/11? After trauma, people seek normalcy, which they define as what it was like before. So I doubt the Age of Aquarius is around the corner.

Some things I expect:

The forced march to telework should prove to skeptical bosses that workers can indeed work outside their direct view, sparking increased adoption (Voluntary, part-time, but an increasingly available option).
Ditto for telemedicine. It works even better for routine stuff and it keeps you and everyone else from exposure.
Government will get larger, at least temporarily. The Economist suggests this is normal in the modern era and likely this time. I agree in the near-term, but I question whether it will hold in the long term, or for all nations.
In addition to testing and early action to quarantine, one of the keys of South Korea’s (and Singapore’s) apparently successful response to CoVid19 was extensive use of electronic tracking and surveillance. While I don’t see this becoming widespread under normal circumstances, I think it will be a standard epidemic response among capable governments in the future.
Businesses will reassess “just-in-time” delivery of supplies, perhaps increasing the number/diversity of suppliers and/or capability to stockpile essential items. Nations likewise will reevaluate the strategic implications of allowing so much production to be centered in a single nation (China) and perhaps re-shore (i.e., bring home) production of things like pharmaceuticals. Cheaper is cheaper, not always better.
The contagion will “thin the herd” economically. Small businesses working on weak margins or large ones with underlying cash-flow or business process conditions will go bankrupt (especially true for restaurants). So there will still be plenty of planes and cruise ships, but fewer companies. I don’t foresee the end of the cruise industry, though. Those cheap vacations will look pretty good when they are safe again, and the surviving cruise lines will offer extreme deals to restart the business.
Streaming services are winners; cinemas were already in trouble, this might kill them. There will always be some movie theaters for special viewings, opening nights, etc. But their monopoly on content was eroding and is now gone, and with that, ten-dollar popcorn.
I would bet that US federal government will enact mandatory paid sick leave, as the challenge of workers who have to go to work sick was highlighted in the early stages of the pandemic.
Most countries will review medical stockpiles, policies, and preparations for testing. Taiwan was hard hit by SARS and did the same, and it fared much better (apparently) this time. Why the US stockpile wasn’t refilled after the 2009 H1N1 outbreak (through two administrations and multiple Congresses) will be an interesting review.
Doctors, nurses, and other medical professionals will be heroes to a new generation of Americans, deservedly so. Look to increased interest in and pay for the field. Also, the medical profession will play a decisive role in any future discussions about nationalizing health. I’ll let you guess how that will play out.
Celebrities, social influencers, and athletes will be relative losers. They will always play a role in public opinion and entertainment, but we all learned to live without them, and their attempts to gain attention or empathize with the rest of the world have fallen flat.
Going out on a limb here, but maybe, just maybe, we’ll see a reckoning for those people and media who sensationalize everything. People who take a political view of every situation, those who ascribe to conspiracy theories, those who share bogus health guidance, media who exaggerate for effect: all need to be rightly shunned. Partisan sites have not done as well during the crisis. I hope the fact-checkers have a field day when this is all over. Re-reading what I just wrote, I would put this more in the “wished for” than likely category.

The biggest single change? A loss in fervor for the dominant faith. The Black death was a blow to medieval Catholicism. The Spanish Flu undermined the social-Darwinist and eugenics movements, while also undercutting the health professionals who had no answer (bacteria were well understood, while viruses were only beginning to be understood). But what is our dominant faith today?

If you’re talking about the United States, I would describe the faith as combination of rugged individualism and laissez-faire capitalism. How does that faith get shaken? This gets very tricky. The default condition would be to return (as per my earlier comment) to the status quo ante virus. But fear spread alongside the coronavirus, and it will leave a residue. That fear, in breathless headlines and apocalyptic videos, was existential. Look at what we spent our time arguing or caring about and ask yourself: was it worth it? Transgender bathrooms? NYSE 30,0000? Ukraine quid pro quo? Supreme Court positions? The Oscars?

I could certainly see a political realignment coming out of this pandemic. Changed parties? More parties? Demographic moves within parties? I can’t tell what form it will take. If you think you know how it plays out, I bet you thought you knew who would win in 2016.

Does society engage in more frivolous and nihilistic behavior like the roaring 20’s? Do we gain a new political movement aimed at the center and eschewing the extremes?

It is too early to tell about this one, and I welcome your thoughts. Remember, whatever we say here, it’s on record! I’ll revisit this post in one year to see how things turned out.

A different way to look at the pandemic

Back in the paleolithic era (circa 1995), I worked long-range analysis for the Chief of Staff, US Army. I wrote a think piece about the internet. The prevailing view was there would be a “digital divide” based on access. A second, less widely-held opinion was that internet access would become a public utility (like water): so essential, it would be ubiquitous. I held to the second view, and postulated that there would still be a “digital divide,” only that this divide would be between the people who could understand and act on the digital information firehose (call them digitals), and those that couldn’t (that is, digitally disabled). It might be too early to tell, but I think I got it right (even a blind squirrel finds a nut on occasion).

Fast forward to today and our coronavirus quarantine in a fully digital world. We’re bombarded with info about the pandemic: on TV, from social media, in online news feeds. What do we believe? What should we act on? How to process all this . . . stuff? In the next two posts, I’ll try to give you a frame of reference. Today, I will focus on figuring out what we know, don’t know, and can assume. Next post, I’ll pull out the crystal ball (I took it with me in retirement) and suggest what might happen after we’re all done with the coronavirus (whenever that is).

The digitally disabled are the ones sharing stories from friends of friends on social media, often with impressive credentials (CoVid Task Force Director, or Senior CDC researcher) full of “do this, don’t do that advice.” If you search, you can never find these original sources. If you fact-check the advice, you’ll find it is a mix of common sense and outright fabrication. What you can find are the authoritative websites of the CDC, WHO et al and what they really say. I find the Johns Hopkins site and the Financial Times graphs very helpful. Be a digital, and track the sources.

The same advice applies to the news. News reports, like early reports from the battlefield or eyewitness accounts of a crime, are invariably not quite right. Maybe not totally wrong, but still not right. I have run across several verifiable accounts from emergency room doctors that are very interesting, but I don’t share them widely, because although they are real, they are fragmentary: something perhaps true at a point in time, but not the whole story. And nobody has the whole story, yet. Even the data we have are very suspect: in some cases because the sources are bad, in others because we don’t know what to count.

What do I mean? Are mortality rates good data? Suppose someone with advanced Alzheimer’s disease catches CoVid19 and dies: from which did they die? If someone is not tested for CoVid19 and dies with flu-like symptoms, does it count as a seasonal flu or coronavirus fatality? What about data concerning confirmed cases of coronavirus? China just admitted it hasn’t been reporting asymptomatic cases. Imagine a hypothetical country which refuses to do any CoVid19 testing (like North Korea): they will have zero confirmed cases, just a very bad flu season! So we have to very, very careful about the data. And have a little sympathy for doctors and political leaders trying to make life-or-death policy decisions in a period of very sketchy data!

Here’s an example from the Financial Times website (a good source, just to show you how little even good sources can know):

I used this earlier version of the data because it includes the # days criteria lines. Their latest graphs do not.

This chart shows death rates as of Sunday, March 29th. You might infer that the US is doing worse, since our rate is accelerating (based on the slope). France and Spain were doing still worse, although their slopes indicate things are improving. China and Iran are doing ok; Japan is doing great. Except China is lying, Iran is clueless, and Japan has been accused of deflating its numbers (their numbers jumped immediately after they postponed the Olympics). Yes, all these data are provided by the national governments. The real story to this graph: most everybody is bunched between reported deaths doubling every two and three days. Those are the margins we’re working with, and much of the variability can be explained by demography, culture, health care resources, and population density, which are all long-term givens, as opposed to crisis policies.

Here’s another one from FT, this time with cumulative cases:

Here the US trend is better (see the curve bending?) although we have the most cases (look out, here comes Turkey!). But again, notice that the entire world is bunched between doubling-every-two-to four days.

The outlier in all this is South Korea, where the data are probably pretty good and the results outstanding. Many cite the early testing they did as key, but forget South Korea (1) is a compact country the size of Indiana with a density twenty times the US (2) has a population that is younger, healthier, and more compliant, and (3) instituted draconian control measures like mandatory locator services (using cell phones) with fines and jail time. Imagine that working in New York!

You probably have seen the R0 (called “R nought”, around two) for coronavirus mentioned: it is the rate of infectability, or how many people on average does an infected person infect. R0 is based on all kinds of solid assumptions, but as one medical researched commented, it is a variable: an infected person in a room all alone who never comes in contact with anyone has an R0 of zero. How does an R0 of two work out? Quarantine measures can slow the infection, and assuming those recovered are immune (not proven), eventually the pandemic subsides, but not before almost all of the planet has been exposed. See, it’s not about not getting CoVid19: many if not most will. It’s all about making sure not everybody gets sick at the same time in the same place, overwhelming emergency medical resources (which drives up the fatality rate). Oh, and if/when we get a vaccine, of course, the lucky few can be protected.

We need ventilators, right now. They are not difficult to build, but every machine has to be tested, so of course we also need to ramp up testing devices and people to run the tests. Unless we want to use untested machines, in which case we might want to change our liability laws (in the notably litigious States), because some device is going to malfunction, and there will be a class action lawsuit. Wonder why some firms are not so excited to be building a device in such high demand?

But then there is the little problem of the outcomes for ventilator patients. If you need a ventilator and can’t get one, you are probably going to die. However, data on ventilator use for ARDS (Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome, which results from CoVid19 among other things) are that about forty-to-sixty percent of all patients on ventilators still die. Total numbers of ventilators is a meaningless statistic: what matter is the number available at a given hospital at a specific time. Over time, we can move the ventilators from place to place.

So be very careful about drawing conclusions from any of the data, especially national data. Countries are not uniform in size, density, government honesty or culture norms, nor in when their epidemic started. Let alone the various policy options they choose. When all is said and done, there should be enough good data to make comparisons. Those who try to do so now will look foolish, for a good reason.

Enough of the complications: what do we know, and can we assume? The following data points and conclusions have been consistent over time:

Social distancing can flatten the curve and delay the number of cases in a given location at a given time, which is all important.
Eighty percent of people infected with CoVid19 are either asymptomatic (perhaps twenty-five percent!) or have flu-like symptoms. This is why the CDC is considering having everybody wear masks: there may be a sizable group of infected people walking around without symptoms. Some of us may have already recovered from CoVid19 and not know it! Most people who are infected will feel sick; a much smaller group will feel really, really sick. Only about five percent require hospitalization.
The issue of intensive care and ventilators is primarily for those with pre-existing conditions such as diabetes, obesity, high blood pressure. From another direction, seventy-eight percent of those infected who ended up in intensive care had a pre-existing condition. Even the preliminary data on deaths among the young point to pre-existing conditions (especially obesity).
Widespread viral testing (whether you have the virus) is necessary but not sufficient; we also need antibody or serum testing to confirm who already has had the virus (assuming it provides immunity, which is likely). The combination of these two types of tests provides a path back to normal life. As my son-in-law surmised, we might soon (and for a year or two) be walking around with disease passports which certify why we’re allowed out and about.

That would be quite a change, but who would rather stay in quarantine while the economy grinds to a complete halt? Would such a change be permanent? I’ll explore that with my next post!