World Pandemic from 30,000 Feet

Looking at the world wide incidence of covid-19, I see the influence of networks--it's as if the virus is a tracking molecule, like taking barium before a CT scan. 

You start with Wuhan, which is networked both to Europe and the US. (I'm guessing it might have particular ties to Italy?) The US is more closely networked with Europe than China, so a majority of our virus imports seem to have come from there. Meanwhile nations such as Russia, India, and Brazil are less closely connected to China and, perhaps more significantly, are less networked internally than countries such as UK and US.

Within the US the  NYTimes map shows a correlation, in my mind at least, between the timing and volume of cases and the networking of the state and county.  Currently the Northeast states are on the down slope, while the Southeast states are on the upswing. 

The Police: Now and 1968

Lots of comparisons between the protests/riots of today and those of 1968. Lots of concerns about police.

IIRC in 1968 white liberals thought that integrating the police and establishing civilian review boards would solve the problems with the police.  With hindsight, civilian review boards, where established, have not done well.  The problem is likely the entrenched political power of police unions. Not only do police generally have a positive aura,but, like the NRA, they've the power of fierce unity.

And the police have been integrated, perhaps not as thoroughly and at all ranks in some places as they should be, but we know  now that police who are minorities themselves can be authoritarian and abusive.

There have been gains in 52 years.  The number of people killed now as opposed to 1968 is witness to that.  I suspect, but don't know, that the property damage has been of an order of magnitude less.  Part of that is learning from experience (though it seems we've forgotten a lot of the lessons of 1968) but much of it IMHO results from social trends.

Again, in IMHO, I think the problems we see with police today reflect continuing forces in society and economy.  It's inevitable when you ask people to risk their lives, whether military, firefighters, police, or Doctors without Borders they're likely to develop esprit de  corps, and an us versus them mentality.  It's inevitable in crisis situations police get lots of attention, much unfavorable, which further aggravates the us versus them.  When you add minorities to the mix, they'll often feel forced to do better, to go one step further in order to "prove" themselves.   It's inevitable that public attention will fade as memories fade, meaning that police unions, based on the esprit de corps, will gain leverage over the political process.  If you're willing to increase pay, you can chip away at union-enforced procedural rights.  If you aren't willing, as most publics won't be most of the time, you'll allow polices to gain job security in lieu of more money.

Tom Friedman in NYTimes

Last week Friedman had a doom and gloom op-ed in the Times, rather surprising given his past optimism.  He argues three trends have made the world more fragile:

Over the past 20 years, we’ve been steadily removing man-made and natural buffers, redundancies, regulations and norms that provide resilience and protection when big systems — be they ecological, geopolitical or financial — get stressed. We’ve been recklessly removing these buffers out of an obsession with short-term efficiency and growth, or without thinking at all.

At the same time, we’ve been behaving in extreme ways — pushing against, and breaching, common-sense political, financial and planetary boundaries.

And, all the while, we’ve taken the world technologically from connected to interconnected to interdependent — by removing more friction and installing more grease in global markets, telecommunications systems, the internet and travel. In doing so, we’ve made globalization faster, deeper, cheaper and tighter than ever before. Who knew that there were regular direct flights from Wuhan, China, to America?

Today he returns with an even more gloomy one, at least by title:

"I am not at all certain we will be able to conduct a free and fair election in November or have a peaceful transition of presidential power in January. We are edging toward a cultural civil war, only this time we are not lucky: Abraham Lincoln is not the president.

He goes on to segue into praise of local leaders, since he's given up on national leadership/Republicans.

The "doom and gloom" phrase dates back to the 1950's, when Ike attacked Democrats for spreading doom and gloom.  It's a hint that I think Friedman is unreasonable in his fears.   For example, the current pandemic will, I think, kill many fewer people than the 1918-20 one.  Why? Mostly because of our advanced science and communications.  The world is fighting it together, not as together as it could be, but much more so than in 1918.

Another example: the current riots are much less serious than in 1964-68--they don't reflect a racial division nearly as serious as then, mostly because conditions have improved greatly since then. 

The Effects of the Recession and Other Stats

Three interesting stats in the news on May 29: one was how much fewer school employees the education system has today, as opposed to 2008; one was how much fewer employees the health system today as opposed to 2008; the third was how little time cars spend on roads.

The Decline of Pension Plans

The Post had an article on the decline of pension plans provided by companies, pointing to Minnesota and Iowa as exceptions to a general decline of such plans.

What stood out to me was that MN and IA weren't exceptional, didn't stand out in any of the maps shown from 1980 to 2014.  In the 1980-94 period they weren't in the top rank of states. It's only in the 2014-19 period that they become exceptions.  So whatever is the cause of their slower rate of decline, it seems to me it's unlikely to be deep-rooted trends, such as labor unions. 

Doubled Payments in CFAP?

I shouldn't do this, because I'm approaching senility and know little about the subject, but I won't let that stop me asking this question: is it possible that some producers and commodities will receive compensation for the same loss under both CFAP and the existing insurance and FSA programs?

1968 and Now--a Subtle Difference

I remember 1968 well, so well I've tried to avoid most coverage of the riots over the past few days.

There is one subtle difference I notice between then and now: the rioters are integrated.  In 1968 the rioters were all black.  Now they seem to be the majority but there's some whites (and perhaps Latinos and Asians, but I don't know that) shown as well.

I think that's a significant detail showing the distance between then and now.

US Pandemic from 30,000 Feet

It seems to me the general pattern of the pandemic spread was:

• the first to become ill and those who spread the disease were the well-off.  By definition if you were traveling between China and Europe, or between Europe and the US, or China and the US, you had money and an upper-middle class or upper class lifestyle.  And those you gave the virus to likely shared those characteristics.
• but second to become ill were the parents and grandparents of the travellers, those in nursing homes and assisted living homes.  My assumption is that most people in such homes are from backgrounds with above-average incomes, even though Medicaid may cover care.
• the final tier of victims were the vulnerable, those in meat packing plants, those in congested areas living in crowded homes, immigrants and the poor.

This is just speculation; I hope I live to see some good social research on the subject. 

I Remember: Space's Early Days

Watched the successful launch today.  Brought back memories of the pathetic early days of our space program, plagued by disasters and pitifully behind the Soviets in throw weight.  America certainly wasn't great in space in those days--1957 to mid 60's.

After Musk had his Starship blow up in the unmanned testing phase, I and I'm sure others of my age thought back to those early days, which increased my concern over today's launch.  But I've long since tried to learn not to obsess over what I can't control.  Today means the Starship event was just another instance of Harshaw rule, and we can all applaud Musk and NASA.

Our Pictures in the Head Are Wrong

Until today I had an image in my mind: people come down with some symptoms, they start to get worse, they go to the hospital to the ICU.  Sometimes they go on ventilators and likely die; sometimes they are able to recover and leave the hospital.  That to me was the normal course of events for people with covid-19.  It's wrong.

I started looking at data today.  One set of data was the rate of death, which turns out to be about .6 of  1 percent.  Then I tracked down CDC data on the rate of ICU admissions.  That turns out to be much smaller.

I should have realized: sometimes people die in the hospital as I was thinking, but sometimes they die in their nursing or assisted living home.  And sometimes they die in their home home. So dying in the hospital is not the majority experience. 

As is often the case,things are more complicated than the images you have in your head.