Costs of Lockdown

Hopefully, my postponed medical appointments and tests won’t hurt me, but I hate not being able to address medical problems promptly because I know all too well how important early detection of illnesses is to good health outcomes. In January 2017, I experienced unexplained inflammation in my right foot. I saw a doctor but unfortunately he didn’t promptly refer me to a specialist and by the time I was diagnosed nearly four months later, the inflammation had spread around my body. As it turned out, I have a rare skin disease called pan-sclerotic morphea. I will be living with the consequences of the late diagnosis my whole life. 

Thousands or perhaps even millions of Americans have untreated and undiagnosed medical conditions right now that aren’t being addressed because of our singular focus on mitigating COVID-19. 

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2020/04/30/rigid_lockdowns_imperil_public_health_im_in_a_position_to_know_143071.html

Defense, Cost, Benefit, Wilderness, Environment ...

How we 'gone strike the balance?

https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2020/04/29/bring_american_security_home_by_ending_chinas_rare_earth_monopoly_115233.html

The End of METOO?

Or not, who knows. I sometimes think that as long as they can name an aircraft carrier after JFK and HRC gets a voice in any part of the DNC, they don't take the #Me2 thing that seriously anyway. 

https://theweek.com/articles/911495/how-tara-reades-allegations-could-bring-down-joe-biden

What's Phase 2?

One benefit is we are buying time to develop an effective vaccine or treatment. But should we be confident such a reprieve is coming any time soon? The number of times humankind has created an effective vaccine against any coronavirus currently stands at zero. While some antiviral treatments have shown promise, hopes that a “magic bullet” treatment is soon forthcoming are exactly that — hopes.

A second benefit is that “flattening the curve” through a prolonged shutdown can change the fraction of us who will eventually get this disease even without a vaccine. But this effect is smaller than one might guess.

Absent a vaccine, the epidemiology models governments currently use predict that unless we take extreme mitigation measures forever, at least 60 to 70% of us will eventually get this disease. Long-term shutdowns can change how high a fraction above this 60 to 70% eventually get infected, but not the fact that the majority of us will get infected.

https://www.startribune.com/a-month-into-mass-quarantine-what-now/569933882/?refresh=true

Tough Minded Thinking about COVID

In March, Florida was projected to be the second-worst state for COVID-19 deaths, with predictions of 174 per day and a total of nearly 7,000 by the end of the summer.  Nothing like this has transpired and it will not come to pass.   

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/coronavirus-response-florida-new-york-results-compare-william-bennett-seth-leibsohn

As I write this (April 25, 2020), 53,000-plus Americans have died from COVID-19. One could argue whether coding errors have overstated deaths due to COVID-19 infection; others have made that argument; I won’t. Rather, I’d like to call your attention to another COVID-19 statistic missing in action. I’ve not seen it discussed anywhere. It is based on simple facts and actuarial tables. Call it … living days stolen by COVID-19. Do you know the number? I don’t. This is an extraordinary gap in our COVID-19 knowledge and damage calculations. Lack of analysis regarding the most essential unit of human currency — living days — has tilted public policy toward an economically ruinous lockdown.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/richkarlgaard/2020/04/25/living-days-stolen--a-smarter-way-to-measure-covid-19-deaths/#2a6e13246184

COVID Selection for Today

I can't normally make it through the first paragraph of Friedman's stuff, and then this:
"But when you’re in a struggle with one of Mother Nature’s challenges — like a virus or a climate change — the goal is not to defeat her. No one can. She’s just chemistry, biology and physics. The goal is to adapt.

Mother Nature does not reward the strongest or the smartest. She rewards the species that are the most adaptive in evolving the chemistry, biology and physics that she has endowed them with to thrive — no matter what she throws at them.

Here’s the stone-cold truth: There are only different hellish ways to adapt to a pandemic and save both lives and livelihoods. I raise Sweden not because I think it has found the magic balance — it is way too soon to tell — but because I think we should be debating all the different ways and costs of acquiring immunity."

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/28/opinion/coronavirus-sweden.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage

How will we hurt and who will we protect and why?

Because of its virulence, wide spread and the many asymptomatic cases it causes, Covid-19 cannot be contained in the long run, and so all countries will eventually reach herd immunity. To think otherwise is naive and dangerous. General lockdown strategies can reduce transmission and death counts in the short term. But this strategy cannot be considered successful until lockdowns are removed without the disease resurging.

https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/04/29/delaying-herd-immunity-is-costing-lives/

CFH Another Display of Govt Abuse

At the height of the Russia-collusion hysteria, anyone who theorized that Crossfire Hurricane had been sparked by the Steele dossier — a document paid for by the political party running against target of the investigation — would be rigorously fact-checked.

Mainstream reporters covering the story would authoritatively inform their audience that it was evidence gleaned from a conversation with then-20-something former Trump adviser George Papadopoulos that had triggered the investigation. They knew, of course, that if the FBI had relied principally on the dossier, the investigation would look transparently and problematically partisan. The Papadopoulos conversations, on the other hand, sounded pretty damning, even though journalists didn’t know exactly what they entailed.

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/its-official-every-aspect-of-crossfire-hurricane-was-shady/