Close but no cigar. The editors of the Wall Street Journal have an idea:

Their respective comments highlight how difficult it is for leaders to make decisions when they still lack answers to basic questions. One response might be for the federal government to develop a website where the states update their numbers, outline the policies they have put in place, and note the results.

That would let people and public officials find out what’s happening in, say, Louisiana; where other states are on the infection curve; what is being done to flatten it—and give people a better sense of what their unmet needs are likely to be. Precision is inherently difficult, but a federal website could be a shared clearinghouse for shaping policies informing the public.

Many early projections about Covid-19 deaths were based on worst-case scenarios if governments did nothing. But state governments have taken many different steps. It will take more testing and tracing to know for sure, but the more information we have the more we can close the gap on dramatically different estimates and learn what works and what doesn’t.

Right idea. Wrong strategy. If undertaken by the federal government, the crisis would be long over before the site came up. The federal government simply does not have the human resources to accomplish it. That’s not what it does.

What it does is let contracts for private corporations, drawn from a list of qualified vendors, to do things. The contract process alone will take months.

Amazon, Google, or Facebook have the know-how, resources, and the ability to have such a site up in days. Amazon, in particular, is making millions in additional sales. C’mon, Jeff, do your bit. Set up a clearing house for state and local governments to pool their information.

The difference between a state governor and the President of the United States is that for a president blaming the federal government is not a satisfactory response to problems. At least not without a workable plan for changing the situation.

David Ignatius is jumping on the “it came from a bioweapons lab” bandwagon. From his most recent Washington Post column:

To be clear: U.S. intelligence officials think there’s no evidence whatsoever that the coronavirus was created in a laboratory as a potential bioweapon. Solid scientific research demonstrates that the virus wasn’t engineered by humans and that it originated in bats.

But how did the outbreak occur? Solving this medical mystery is important to prevent future pandemics. What’s increasingly clear is that the initial “origin story” — that the virus was spread by people who ate contaminated animals at the Huanan Seafood Market in Wuhan — is shaky.

Scientists have identified the culprit as a bat coronavirus, through genetic sequencing; bats weren’t sold at the seafood market, although that market or others could have sold animals that had contact with bats. The Lancet noted in a January study that the first covid-19 case in Wuhan had no connection to the seafood market.

There’s a competing theory — of an accidental lab release of bat coronavirus — that scientists have been puzzling about for weeks. Less than 300 yards from the seafood market is the Wuhan branch of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Researchers from that facility and the nearby Wuhan Institute of Virology have posted articles about collecting bat coronaviruses from around China, for study to prevent future illness. Did one of those samples leak, or was hazardous waste deposited in a place where it could spread?

Richard Ebright, a Rutgers microbiologist and biosafety expert, told me in an email that “the first human infection could have occurred as a natural accident,” with the virus passing from bat to human, possibly through another animal. But Ebright cautioned that it “also could have occurred as a laboratory accident, with, for example, an accidental infection of a laboratory worker.” He noted that bat coronaviruses were studied in Wuhan at Biosafety Level 2, “which provides only minimal protection,” compared with the top BSL-4.

Ebright described a December video from the Wuhan CDC that shows staffers “collecting bat coronaviruses with inadequate [personal protective equipment] and unsafe operational practices.” Separately, I reviewed two Chinese articles, from 2017 and 2019, describing the heroics of Wuhan CDC researcher Tian Junhua, who while capturing bats in a cave “forgot to take protective measures” so that “bat urine dripped from the top of his head like raindrops.”

And then there’s the Chinese study that was curiously withdrawn. In February, a site called ResearchGate published a brief article by Botao Xiao and Lei Xiao from Guangzhou’s South China University of Technology. “In addition to origins of natural recombination and intermediate host, the killer coronavirus probably originated from a laboratory in Wuhan. Safety level may need to be reinforced in high risk biohazardous laboratories,” the article concluded. Botao Xiao told the Wall Street Journal in February that he had withdrawn the paper because it “was not supported by direct proofs.”

Accidents happen, human or laboratory. Solving the mystery of how covid-19 began isn’t a blame game, but a chance for China and the United States to cooperate in a crisis, and prevent a future one.

As someone else once said in another context, at this point what difference does it make?

What we do know, through genome studies, is that COVID-19 originated in China. We know that more than a million people have been infected. We know that the best hope for preventing its spread would have required China to be forthcoming about the virus much, much earlier. We know that its cost in terms of lost income and revenue will be in the tens of trillions and the cost in terms of lost lives immeasurable.

We also know, with a confidence founded on experience, that we can’t trust the Chinese government’s official statistics. As long as the Chinese Communist Party is in power, cooperation is meaningless.

And I’ve already made my view clear. Whether the virus is a weapon, an accidental release, or naturally occurring, as long as the CCP holds the reins, trade, travel, and, indeed, any interaction whatever with China is simply not worth the risk.

South Korea has been touted as a best case scenario for the response and outcome of the COVID-19 pandemic so I’ve been following COVID-19 events there pretty closely at Worldometer. Two of the graphs there concern me. The first is this:

If that can be believed, it suggests that almost half of the people with COVID-19 may remain chronically ill.

That’s augmented by this graph:

New cases seem to have stabilized but there’s been a sharp decline in new recoveries that is very concerning. If the new cases exceed new recoveries in coming weeks, the South Koreans may have succeeded in making their health care system collapse in slow motion.

IMO this supports what I have been saying for some time. We are not just in desperate need of more testing we really need an effective treatment.

That’s not very encouraging as best case scenarios go and we’re unlikely to equal even that.

The editors of the Wall Street Journal are worried that U. S. airlines will be nationalized as a result of the policy response to COVID-19:

America’s beleaguered passenger airlines are allocated roughly $50 billion in the coronavirus relief bill that passed last week. Loans represent half of the amount. The rest is grants to backfill wages and benefits, offered on the condition that the airlines won’t cut compensation or furlough anyone before Sept. 30.

The idea is simply to freeze the staff list for six months, at which point the pandemic might have receded and air travel recovered. In exchange, Congress has authorized the Treasury Secretary, at his sole discretion, to “receive warrants, options, preferred stock, debt securities, notes, or other financial instruments” that constitute “appropriate compensation to the Federal Government.” The law also empowers him to take “a warrant or equity interest” in airlines receiving loans.

The desire to get something for the taxpayer’s buck is understandable, but there’s a real risk here of a long-term nationalization. Look at the latest valuations of the biggest airlines: roughly $15.3 billion for Delta, $6.4 billion for United, and $4.6 billion for American. Leave out Southwest, which has fewer debts than its peers. Add about $8 billion combined for Alaska, JetBlue, Allegiant, Spirit and Hawaiian. Compare that with the federal government’s offer of $50 billion in loans and grants.

The point is that if the government takes equity, its stake might not be a sliver, especially if the employee subsidy isn’t discounted. At the end of 2019, American Airlines was paying about $1 billion a month in salaries, wages and benefits, according to its latest financial statement. With the number of flying passengers now down 90%, how long would the Treasury have to float an airline’s payroll before taxpayers became its majority owner?

Several observations. First, although I think that the payroll subsidies are probably good policy at least in the near term, the loans, which appear to be the editors’ main concern, shouldn’t exist at all. The airlines able to weather this storm, the leading candidate being Southwest, should survive and the others should be allowed to fail. Managing risk is one of a manager’s primary jobs. If managers are incapable of doing that, we shouldn’t subsidize their feckless behavior.

Second, I strongly suspect that there will be a lot less flying for the foreseeable future and the decrease in passenger miles may not be temporary. IMO the best policy WRT the airlines is gradually decreasing subsidies including wage subsidies after the immediate crisis which I would define as the next several months, say, starting in June. Airline employees will be increasingly motivated to look for other jobs as the subsidies decrease.

Third, I hope there’s some consideration of executive compensation in the legislation. $1 million of that billion a month American shells out in payrolls goes to the CEO. When I wasn’t an AA stockholder, that was none of my business but if I have been dragooned into becoming one to keep the airline afloat it is. $12 million a year plus options sounds like a lot for the CEO of a $6 billion company. Microsoft is a $1 trillion company and Nadella earns less than four times that. Something does not compute.

Finally, IMO we’re still doing far too much flying. Even before COVID-19 flying was a pretty miserable experience, especially compared with what it was like, say, 40 years ago. I don’t understand why we have been subsidizing it so heavily.

I just finished reading an op-ed in the New York Times on whether physicians have a responsibility to treat during a pandemic which I despised so much I will not even cite it.

Nowhere in the op-ed does it mention that physicians are professionals who have sworn an oath that supersedes other obligations, subscribe to a code of ethics, and are granted certain privileges in exchange for their dedication to acting in the public good. Let me answer the question: yes, physicians have an obligation to treat even during a pandemic. Even if they are not getting the support from the government they think they need. Even if they have wives and children and other responsibilities. That’s what they signed on for.

I do not envy physicians and I don’t care to do what they do. I have several physicians in my immediate family and my respect and admiration for them is almost boundless. Not only are they impeccably competent but they are dedicated, capable, and highly ethical. They embody the finest qualities of their profession, combining with competence caring and even nobility.

I wish that all physicians would honor the code of ethics to which they’ve subscribed but I’d be fine with their abandoning their status as professionals and the code of ethics that entails, simultaneously relinquishing the protections they’re afforded. Be careful what you wish for.

Fortunately, my observation is that more physicians are like those in my family than like the cat writing the op-ed in the NYT.

I continue to be unclear on what the rules for presidential accountability are these days. For example, I don’t see how you can give Obama credit for “saving the economy” without also pointing that the unemployment rate was higher under Obama than it was under Bush and that Obama officials were saying that the growth rate under Obama was as good as it will get.

This morning I saw some chortling on right-leaning sites blaming the lack of respirators on Obama’s failure to re-supply the federal stockpile. Guess what? Neither did Trump.

The politics of COVID-19 are interesting. Trump will undoubtedly be credited with saving the country by his supporters and blamed for letting it get as bad as it will and, concurrently, tanking the economy by his opponents.

In general I the only things I either credit or blame presidents for are related to foreign policy and the military where they have the most authority and I blame the Congress for just about everything else. Like politicians just about everywhere I think the members of Congress know what needs to be done. They just don’t know how they can keep their jobs if they do it and, well, there are priorities.

I honestly do not see how you can blame Trump for not closing international travel down and more tightly in late January without also observing that he was being impeached by the House then and the criticism he received for doing as much as he did. I also don’t see how you can deride Trump as a fascist and then complain that he isn’t acting more like a fascist.

My own view is that most of the complaints being lodged today are Monday morning quarterbacking and partisan in nature and that the reality is that for anything material to have been done to avoid where we will undoubtedly be going we would have needed to close down international travel tighter than a drum in December of even November and that would have required prescience.

Let’s talk about now. I think that President Trump should be using the Defense Production Act more lavishly than he is and should urge the Congress to take urgent steps during the crisis other than spend money, like suspending interstate air travel and, indeed, anything but necessary travel between states. Trucks, yes. Buses and passenger cars, mostly no.

I also wish President Trump were speaking to calm people’s fears but I’m afraid that just isn’t his style. Maybe he can rise to the occasion.

When I rise tomorrow morning I expect the number of diagnosed cases of COVID-19 worldwide will have exceeded 1 million. That’s a large number but still a tiny fraction of the total human population—about .013%. I expect the number in the United States to start closing in on 250,000—about .076%. The case fatality rate is around 2%. In some states like New York it’s a bit more. Here it’s almost exactly 2%.

I don’t think that anybody, except possibly the head of the World Health Organization, actually believes the numbers the Chinese have reported. I’ve seen estimates everything from twice as large to forty times as large, both for cases and deaths.

Italy continues to be the best example of a bad example. It’s number of deaths per million population is the highest in the world—218, more than an order of magnitude higher than ours or just about anybody else’s except Spain. I presume that the Italian response will be studied for years to come.

South Korea remains the brightest hope. On the positive side it’s barely possible they’ve reached an inflection point—the number of deaths seems to be declining. On the negative side new cases continue to be reported and the number of new cases is inching up to exceed the number of new recoveries.

There has been a report of another prospective treatment: HC + Z-Pak + Zinc. I suspect that some brave physicians will continue to experiment with new treatments until a provably effective treatment is found.

From what I’ve observed in my walks today unless eliminating the spread within crowds is enough to “bend the curve” any hope of doing so is a fantasy. Cops idle their prowl cars a foot from one another and talk through the windows to each other. Lawn crews and other workmen continue as though nothing out of the ordinary were going on, not observing “social distancing”. People stand within a few feet of their neighbors, shooting the breeze. I sometimes actually need to challenge people for them to give me enough space.

Bill Gates has some thoughts about getting ahead of COVID-19, expressed in this Washington Post op-ed:

Through my work with the Gates Foundation, I’ve spoken with experts and leaders in Washington and across the country. It’s become clear to me that we must take three steps.

First, we need a consistent nationwide approach to shutting down. Despite urging from public health experts, some states and counties haven’t shut down completely. In some states, beaches are still open; in others, restaurants still serve sit-down meals.

This is a recipe for disaster. Because people can travel freely across state lines, so can the virus. The country’s leaders need to be clear: Shutdown anywhere means shutdown everywhere. Until the case numbers start to go down across America — which could take 10 weeks or more — no one can continue business as usual or relax the shutdown. Any confusion about this point will only extend the economic pain, raise the odds that the virus will return, and cause more deaths.

Second, the federal government needs to step up on testing. Far more tests should be made available. We should also aggregate the results so we can quickly identify potential volunteers for clinical trials and know with confidence when it’s time to return to normal. There are good examples to follow: New York state recently expanded its capacity to up to more than 20,000 tests per day.

There’s also been some progress on more efficient testing methods, such as the self-swab developed by the Seattle Coronavirus Assessment Network, which allows patients to take a sample themselves without possibly exposing a health worker. I hope this and other innovations in testing are scaled up across the country soon.

Even so, demand for tests will probably exceed the supply for some time, and right now, there’s little rhyme or reason to who gets the few that are available. As a result, we don’t have a good handle on how many cases there are or where the virus is likely headed next, and it will be hard to know if it rebounds later. And because of the backlog of samples, it can take seven days for results to arrive when we need them within 24 hours.

This is why the country needs clear priorities for who is tested. First on the list should be people in essential roles such as health-care workers and first responders, followed by highly symptomatic people who are most at risk of becoming seriously ill and those who are likely to have been exposed.

The same goes for masks and ventilators. Forcing 50 governors to compete for lifesaving equipment — and hospitals to pay exorbitant prices for it — only makes matters worse.

Finally, we need a data-based approach to developing treatments and a vaccine. Scientists are working full speed on both; in the meantime, leaders can help by not stoking rumors or panic buying. Long before the drug hydroxychloroquine was approved as an emergency treatment for covid-19, people started hoarding it, making it hard to find for lupus patients who need it to survive.

We should stick with the process that works: Run rapid trials involving various candidates and inform the public when the results are in. Once we have a safe and effective treatment, we’ll need to ensure that the first doses go to the people who need them most.

He also talks about producing a vaccine in quantity. I tend to believe that an effective vaccine will be much more elusive than he seems to.

Those all appear to be sensible suggestions, based on certain assumptions. The question I would ask is for the avoidance strategy of the “stay at home” directives to be effective how complete a compliance is necessary? If your answer is “100%”, we should be implementing another strategy as quickly as possible. We can’t get 100% compliance with anything. If something below 100% compliance would be sufficient, what will be necessary to achieve that level? Just as an example here in Chicago, the number of shootings was actually greater during the week following Gov. Pritzker’s statewide “stay at home” directive than it had been the prior week. Criminals are notoriously observant of rules. Additionally, something between 5% and 10% of the U. S. population is composed of people who are here illegally. The one thing they have in common is that they’re not predisposed to follow the rules if the rules stand in the way of what they want to do.

I’m sad that he doesn’t mention emphasize finding effective treatments in his op-ed. Unless you assume zero new cases, the very slow rate of recovery from serious cases of COVID-19 tells us that “bending the curve” is a much lengthier process than would otherwise be the case. We need effective treatments urgently. Supportive care is not enough.