April 4, 2020

"We have little publicly available data about the racial makeup of those Americans who have been tested, those who have tested positive for the coronavirus..."

"... those who have been hospitalized, those who have become critically ill, those who have recovered, or those who have died from COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s information site does not offer racial data. Neither does the Johns Hopkins University database used by CNN, The New York Times’ count, nor the COVID Tracking Project. Few states, municipalities, or private labs are releasing their data by race. On Friday, the Illinois Department of Public Health became one of the few state offices to release some racial data. And the data showed a pandemic within the pandemic: African Americans are significantly overrepresented in infection rates in Illinois, while whites and Latinos are significantly underrepresented. African Americans make up 14.6 percent of the state population, but 28 percent of confirmed cases of the coronavirus. White people comprise 76.9 percent of the Illinois population, and 39 percent of the confirmed cases. Latinos comprise 17.4 percent of the state population, and 7 percent of the cases. In Illinois, Asian Americans were the only racial group without a significant disparity between their state population, at 5.9 percent, and confirmed cases, at 4 percent.... What we are seeing in Illinois could be happening nationwide—we just don’t know.... And Americans don’t seem to care to know. I suspect that some Americans believe that racial data will worsen racism.... Maybe I need to stop making everything about race, as my critics say.... Maybe some people fear that if racial data were to show that COVID-19 is disproportionately harming people of color, then white people will stop caring... Maybe there is only a class issue here...."

From "Why Don’t We Know Who the Coronavirus Victims Are?/The coronavirus is infecting and killing Americans of all races. But there’s little public data on whether the virus is having a disproportionate impact on some communities" by Ibram X. Kendi (in The Atlantic).

Another "maybe" (not mentioned by Kendi): Maybe it's a matter of pre-existing health conditions, notably diabetes.

It is interesting that the racial statistics are not getting out. I'm guessing it's either because it's difficult at this point to report them accurately or — more likely — because the officials believe that we're better off not thinking in these terms. People already feel bad about the virus, so why exacerbate the pain by making us feel that there's some evil human-made unfairness going on? And why give some people and not others a reason to think that this force of nature is picking favorites based on their race? Isn't it better to keep people feeling that we're all in this together, sharing a great human interest with the entire world?

428 comments:

1 – 200 of 428   Newer›   Newest»
robother said...

Not if your personal gig is entirely dependent on sowing racial discord, Ann.

richlb said...

Would the racial breakdown of those tested be skewed by the NBA getting access to tests for all of their players when the general public was having a hard time doing the same.

Wince said...

When you only have a hammer in your toolkit everything looks like a nail.

The concept known as the law of the instrument, otherwise known as the law of the hammer, Maslow's hammer (or gavel), or the golden hammer, is a cognitive bias that involves an over-reliance on a familiar tool. As Abraham Maslow said in 1966, "I suppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail."

The concept is attributed both to Maslow and to Abraham Kaplan, although the hammer and nail line may not be original to either of them. It has in fact been attributed to sources ranging from Buddha to the Bible to Mark Twain, though it cannot be found in any of their writings.[6] It has also been attributed to the stock market speculator and author Bernard M. Baruch.

Fernandinande said...

Isn't it better to keep people feeling that we're all in this together, sharing a great human interest with the entire world?

You mean like the post about the guy who claimed men's higher death rate meant men were genetically inferior?

Or like the statistics showing that young people are hardly affected?

wild chicken said...

Everyone is paranoid about HIPAA rules.

I'd like to know how many covid patients the local hospitals have, but it's all hush-hush, strictly on the QT. None of us boobs need to know anything.

Only, we need masks, stat!!!

tim in vermont said...

"why exacerbate the pain by making us feel that there's some evil human-made unfairness going on?”

Because that’s what they do?

Francisco D said...

It is interesting that the racial statistics are not getting out. I'm guessing it's either because it's difficult at this point to report them accurately or — more likely — because the officials believe that we're better off not thinking in these terms.

We always need to think in racial terms because it allows the SJWs to lecture us on structural racism.

Not to do so is White Supremacy.

Spiros said...

I'd like to remind you people that we Whites are not the only racists. China also has an irrational fear of Africans. Recall the infamous Chinese TV ad for a laundry detergent. The ad featured a Chinese woman stuffing a black man into a washing machine and adding laundry detergent. After the cycle completed, the Black man had turned into a pale-skinned Asian man. Nice stuff!!! And this ad is nothing compared the racist vitriol found online at Chinese chat rooms.

Automatic_Wing said...

Not only diabetes, but hypertension appears to be a significant risk factor as well. There's some thought that the blood pressure meds, ACE inhibitors, make you more vulnerable to the coronavirus.

Dust Bunny Queen said...

Having data...ALL the data is useful, but only if you take in ALL considerations of why that data may exist.

Race as in genetic components is useful

However, that isn't the only piece of the puzzle. There are many other pieces that are important in discerning who gets sick and how sick and why.

1)Living conditions. How closely do people live together. Multi generational houses. Apartments versus suburban living. Cheek to Jowl or spread apart.

2) Cultural practices. Kissing each other. Touching. Hugging. Eating from communal dishes, bowls.

3) Religious practices. Congregating in large groups to worship. Again, kissing, touching.

So many factors. Race is just one. BUT, it is a continent tool to hit us over the head with and try to stir up discord among the people. I wonder who would do that? (that was sarcasm)

RigelDog said...

We are getting insufficient data on every single aspect of this disease. At this point in the process I don't know that incomplete and un-explored data on race is of great use. It does seem to me though that messaging to the public should include heavy targeting of various populations. Here's an anecdote: The folks in my middle-class neighborhood, which is mostly white, observe the public guidelines. I have seen four examples of people disregarding the guidelines in my long daily walks. One example was two white women playing tennis on the public courts of a neighborhood playground/park. The other three examples were groups of people who arrived in different cars and were playing basketball/disappearing into the woods with paper bags full of what I am sure was beer. All minority. I have every sympathy for wanting to get out of the house and to meet up with friends, but it makes me wonder just how strongly our minority communities is getting the message that would convince them to believe in the necessity of social distancing.

Jim Ellison said...

The disease is worsened by crowding.
Illinois has Chicago and the rest of the state.
I would not be surprised if the percentage of African Americans in Chicago is significantly higher than in the rural parts of the state.

traditionalguy said...

White Immunacy.

Fernandinande said...

Not if your personal gig is entirely dependent on sowing racial discord, Ann.

The best way to do that is to keep people ignorant.

China also has an irrational fear of Africans.

It's irrational to fear a group of people whose violent crime rates are dozens or perhaps hundreds of times higher than your own group?

Bay Area Guy said...

Here's some loose racial statistics for a relevant state:

1. Wisconsin has 6 Milllion people

2. Wisconsin has 46 deaths from Covid-19.

3. So, that's 7.6 deaths per Million people over a 3-month period.

4. According to standard demographic assessment, Wisconsin is:
- 85.59% White
- 6.38% Black or African American:
- 2.76% Asian

So, I would generally surmise that the 46 deaths in the state of Wisconsin, were mostly white.

What do I win?

stevew said...

Feelings, it's all about the feelings. Never mind about fact and truth, those are just antiquated constructs.

The statistics about risk profiles are important and should be collected and shared, if not publicly then among those setting public policy on the response to the pandemic. Saying that we are all at equal risk, everyone of us, is patronizing and treats us as children.

I'm not sympathetic to the seeming racial agenda of this writer, but the more we know and share about the epidemic the better.

Gahrie said...

Isn't it better to keep people feeling that we're all in this together, sharing a great human interest with the entire world?

More "feelings are more important than facts" bullshit.

RNB said...

Characterizing COVID-19 infection and death rates by race: Bad.

Characterizing COVID-19 infection and death rates by region of the country: Good. (NYT: Call your office.)

CStanley said...

As mentioned in the post and a comment above, both diabetes and hypertension are more prevalent in the AA population than the whole, so it seems more likely that than some other specific race related trait. It shouldn’t be that hard to look at cross tabs of data to figure that out.

David53 said...

Maybe I need to stop making everything about race, as my critics say

He's the guy who says there are only two types of people, racists and anti-racists. He wants a Department of Anti-racism. Yea, more government!

TwoAndAHalfCents said...

Jim nails it. Chicago is 30% African-American and is by far the current hot spot for COVID-19. Its not unexpected at all to see the infection rate also around 30%. That the author cites 14% by including the whole state (much of which are still yet to see their first case) gives away the game.

tim in vermont said...

This seems to be the year of the self identification of assholes and morons.

gspencer said...

"Maybe I need to stop making everything about race, as my critics say...."

Yeah, maybe you should!!!

Fernandinande said...

More "feelings are more important than facts" bullshit.

Especially when the implication is that peoples' feelings should be manipulated by keeping them ignorant, for their own good.

tim in vermont said...

Not to mention that African Americans ride the subway a lot. I guess white supremacists engineered a society where there would be cheap food and mass transit all in a Rube Goldberg like plot to harm African Americans.

Ken B said...

He basically admits he just wants to know so he can make it an issue and score some points.

Spiros said...

Check out Black twitter. Not only are Blacks "immune" to Covid 19, but the disease is God's vengeance on Asians and Whites for slavery. (Without much fanfare, Asian-Americans are no longer a "model minority." They are accomplices to White Supremacy and are "proximate" to White Americans. So the Asians deserve to die as well.)

On the other side, plenty of nonsense from stupid Whites about Black people's supposed race-based resilience to disease. Some of this stuff finds its way into scientific journals.

tim in vermont said...

There is some racial component in that supposedly the lungs of Asians have more receptors to the virus, especially the men, BTW, than whites. Supposedly Asian men have five times as many as Asian women. But I read this a month ago, so I am not sure of the details and I might be wrong.

But since I read it, I see that the virus is twice as likely to kill men.

Fernandinande said...

I'd like to remind you people that we Whites are not the only racists.

Gee, thanks for the education. I guess you have no idea who Ibram X. Kendi is? White people are probably the least racist race on earth.

320Busdriver said...

All of the Drs I have seen on tv or listened to on podcasts have stated clearly. Obesity and Diabetes seem to be the sweet spot for covid morbidity. More so for younger folks. I think it was Osterholm on the Rogan podcast who was worried early on about obesity.

Tom T. said...

I'm guessing the racial breakdown is different in Italy and Spain.

Sebastian said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
tim in vermont said...

"Check out Black twitter. “

Blacks believe a lot of things, so do whites. Look at all the white people who believed in RussiaGate despite all of the evidence, for example.

Sebastian said...

WSJ: "What the country needs, and jobless Americans will increasingly demand, is thinking about a more sustainable anti-virus strategy—one that saves lives but also includes somehow taking the national economy off the ventilator that government has placed it on"

#StopTheInsanity.

Lurker21 said...

Another day in post-racial America ...

hombre said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Howard said...

Metabolic disorder is much higher in African-American and Latino communities. it is also less of a problem for the coastal elite Urban liberal Democrat soyboy demographic. Since this is mostly a urban transmitted vector disease the masses of obese white people in flyover country are relatively safe due to low population density sparse public transportation and the lack of high-level elite contact with foreign business people

Spiros said...

Fernandistein:

Trump also says he's the "least racist person."

tim in vermont said...

I have know a Dr guy in Boston who just said he just worked 24 hours straight due to COVID who says that you should spend your time losing weight if you are putting off getting the Wuhan Flu with the idea that you want to survive it.

Spiros said...

Fernandistein:

Trump also says he's the "least racist person."

Francisco D said...

Spiros said: Whites are not the only racists. China also has an irrational fear of Africans.

My Korean stepson would remind you that African-Americans have an irrational hatred of Asian-Americans.

He knows nothing of Al Sharpton. He is basing that opinion on personal experience.

The Godfather said...

So the Chinese invented an anti-Black virus? Got it.

Howard said...

Another way to look at it hombre is by identifying communities that are harder hit based on their race we can save more people that way.

320Busdriver said...

Purely anecdotal, but local news from Milwaukee indicates that the NW side is being hit hard.

This would indicate that more African Americans are suffering in WIsky.

hombre said...

Maybe the country has more important concerns at the moment than feeding the race baiters.

Besides, in order for the data to be useful one would have to consider the possibility that the African-American community doesn’t find the suggested ChiCom virus precautions any more compelling than it finds the criminal law. We can’t have that now can we.

tim in vermont said...

"and the lack of high-level elite contact with foreign business people”

Safe for now.

Sorry! I wrote something that can’t be true because it’s so damn scary!

gilbar said...

TwoAndAHalfCents said...
Jim nails it. Chicago is 30% African-American


it'd be more interesting by county, that's for Sure!

but, if we're going to be doing breakdowns; let's do the one that matters: SMOKING!

narayanan said...

If more Chinamen have died of CoVID19 can we call it Chinaman Virus?

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

The hack press would love to harness data (or even fake data) to make it all about race and racial unfairness.

Stay tuned.

Sebastian said...

"People already feel bad about the virus, so why exacerbate the pain by making us feel that there's some evil human-made unfairness going on?"

People already feel bad about the panicky overreaction, and already feel the pain of evil human-made unfairness going on.

FIFY.

Sebastian said...

I apologize for venting. Really. But here's Peter Hitchens:

“The real question is, is this serious enough to warrant putting most of our population into house imprisonment, wrecking our economy for an indefinite period, destroying businesses that honest and hardworking people have taken years to build up, saddling future generations with debt, depression, stress, heart attacks, suicides and unbelievable distress inflicted on millions of people who are not especially vulnerable, and will suffer only mild symptoms or none at all?”

tim in vermont said...

If you want the data by county, the raw data that the New York Times uses, here it is in CSV format, all ready to import into Excel or. whatever spreadsheet you use. It has breakdown by county.

https://github.com/nytimes/covid-19-data

tim in vermont said...

Hey Sebastian, are you fine with the whole country ending up where NYC is right now so that your 401K isn’t hurt too much? Is that what you are saying?

hombre said...

Blogger Howard said...
“Another way to look at it hombre is by identifying communities that are harder hit based on their race we can save more people that way.”

That would be another way of looking at it, Howard, if the country were permitted to look objectively at anything involving the African-American community.

Anonymous said...

1. race always is click bait

2. those stats are meaningless without info on the intermediate data. e.g. What is the percentage, by race of the people tested. If you oversample blacks in testing, but instead of using testing as your denominator, you use total pop, you get the answers shown.

3. There is Chicago and the rest of the state. Chicago is more black than the state. The rest, e.g. relatively rural is certainly more white and I suspect more hispanic.

4. Then there are the issues, that blacks may have more pre-existing conditions.

5. Then issue of neighborhood pop density is a factor

6. lastly, blacks disobey many laws at a higher rate, why don't we expect they might disobey virus rules?

tim in vermont said...

Supposedly the 2008 crisis led to about 10,000. suicides, so maybe it will be more. But I wonder if somebody kills themselves. due to a business failure, maybe they are just as much suffering from a pre-existing condition as that fat guy on CPAP and insulin.

People have thought of war as a kind of cleansing in the past. It’s not that surprising anymore.

Fernandinande said...

Fernandistein:
Trump also says he's the "least racist person."


Therefore the statement that someone or some group is less racist than some others actually means the opposite because Orange Man Bad?

I guessed that you were a silly person from your first post, but now you've proved it beyond a reasonable doubt.

BUMBLE BEE said...

The wife has to rely on public transportation for Dr's appts. Transport available to lower and middle class alike. White and black as well. As mentioned upthread, subway and elevated cars are disease cocoons. Guess what? the wife hasn't been coughing and sneezing. She's been using hand sanitizer since mid March and avoiding the bus since lockdown. Go Figure. Hygiene 101?

JAORE said...

"Maybe I need to stop making everything about race, as my critics say...."

Sure, sure. If so I expect the next column to be, "Why the unemployment benefits should be 10% more than my current paycheck"

hombre said...

Meanwhile, it would be appreciated if we could receive some accurate data about the effects of the disease on the entire population instead of Dr. Fauci’s ever-changing bullshit.

Spiros said...

I agree with Sebastian. For example, the real rate of return on our apartments is about 3-5%. So our tenants are asking us to forgo several years worth of income by forgiving April's rent (and then May and June). The "right thing to do" is to work for free for a decade for people who despise you.

These people have a surprise coming. Already credit bureaus are taking "surveys" of landlords. They want data on people's "ability and willingness to pay rent" so that they can "better inform" their clients about potential tenants. The rent strikers are going to show up on a free, searchable database. And they're going to get locked out of affordable housing.

BUMBLE BEE said...

Could Cheetos be a vector?

Anonymous said...

7. I bet Chicago, with well equipped hospitals does more testing

tim in vermont said...

Given the nature of the spread of the pathogen, tracking it by race for anything other than purposes of determining the best treatment strategy, medicine does vary by race, is is like reviewing the seating charts for the evenings dinner on the Titanic.

Anonymous said...

I have admit, the lack of reporting numbers on ethnicity made me curious.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinal is the only place I have found any reporting on this.

“Of the 25 people confirmed to have died from complications of COVID-19 in Milwaukee County as of late Friday morning, 20 have been African American, two have been Latino and three have been white.”

https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/2020/04/03/african-americans-milwaukee-hit-hard-coronavirus/5111950002/

320Busdriver said...

This would back up the statement that the NW side of Milwaukee is being hit hard.

https://mcoem.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/018eedbe075046779b8062b5fe1055bf

Owen said...

Lies, damned lies, statistics. Rinse, repeat. The grievance hustlers never rest. And I imagine that $2T is like blood in the water, driving them to a frenzy where really crap data and widespread innumeracy can be turned into a sweet new program of extra care for every intersectional demographic.

Wild chicken’s point about HIPAA seems relevant. It is illegal for us to know almost anything; or at least the healthcare system operates on that default presumption. So getting good data is not going to be easy. Insofar as there could be different susceptibility and risk factors in different subpopulations (e.g. diabetes or hypertension being more prevalent in blacks or whites, whatever) we won’t easily be able to interrogate large datasets.

tim in vermont said...

"So our tenants are asking us to forgo several years worth of income by forgiving April's rent (and then May and June).”

I agree. I have tenants too, and it’s not too much to ask people to die to protect my investment. I actually have squatters right now in one of my buildings, try getting the police to care about that right now on account of, .... wait for it.... they have more important shit to deal with.

You guys are gonna turn me into a Democrat, thanks God Trump isn’t listening to you.

Kevin said...

Two more explanations/contributors:

1. Minorities more likely to have the kind of job that is either not work from home and/or with a hard ass manager who is making you come in right up until the moment the state forces closure

2. Parties, and other social gatherings like church services, affecting one race/ethnicity more than others

Fernandinande said...

The Drill SGT said...

All those things, 'cept maybe #1, also apply to an analysis based on age.

2. If you over/undersample by age ....

3. Is the percentage of kids in a population the same in the city as in the country, and by neighborhood (poor vs rich areas)?

4. Kids have fewer pre-existing conditions.

5. neighborhood pop density is a factor; more kids in denser areas.

6. kids disobey many laws at a higher rate

tim in vermont said...

This is like Dred Scott. On the one hand, the guy is being held in slavery, which we all know just isn’t right, but on the other hand, this guy has invested hard earned money in owning him...

How many of you “let ‘em die alread so I can go back to collecting my rent” people purport to be “pro-life”?

tim in vermont said...

I saw a picture on Twitter of the NYC subway April 2nd packed cheek to jowl with AA riders off to work.

gilbar said...

thanx TiV!
from TiV's data, here are the counties in the US, with MORE THAN 100 deaths
County..State...........Cases..deaths
New York City New York51810 1562
Wayne Michigan 26163 194
King Washington 53033 177
Orleans Louisiana 22071 125
Oakland Michigan 26125 120
Bergen New Jersey 34003 120
Cook Illinois 17031 107

basically; DON'T LIVE IN A BIG CITY! DON'T RIDE MASS TRANSIT! DON'T GO TO MARDI GRAS!

JAORE said...

" I actually have squatters right now in one of my buildings, try getting the police to care about that..."

How heartless of you, Tim. Trying to toss the squatters out into the homeless street scene where conditions are unsanitary, social distancing is impossible and contributing factors are off the charts.

Asking those poor people to die for your investment. Shame, shame, shame.

320Busdriver said...

You could not pay me enough to spend a minute in NYC, much less get into a subway car. This nightmare seems more and more to be as virulent as the measles. Not that that provides any context to it.

bagoh20 said...

I don't see how knowing racial data or any other demographics would change anything. We already know that the vast majority of deaths are old, sick, and in New York or New Jersey, but we still locked down and fired everyone else in the country anyway, so obviously it's not like we are going to make intelligent use of such data.

iowan2 said...

I am much more interested in age, and co-mobitity. Anecdotal reports that over 90% of Italy's deaths would have died in 12 months. Again, reporting but no official studies, that +97% of the deaths had at least one underlying medical condition.
The race/diabetes connection sounds logical, and maybe smoking too?

Outside of Race, I am much more interested in the co-morbidity. We have those numbers, from a large enough sample size to conclude, if shelter in place for all, is a waste, and quarantine for only those with already compromised health concerns, would allow us back to normal life. Dining out, movies, jobs, athletics. Protect the weak, quickly build herd immunity, resume living as we choose. This would aid in dramatically lessening the fall development of the next outbreak. Protecting the compromised would be much more humane for them, that hoping they dont contract the virus then move to treatment.

RK said...

It could be tough times ahead for blacks hired to write about black issues. The readership market for black race-whining is probably declining fast.

Spiros said...

Tim, I'm not asking any one to die to protect my investments. Heck, my tenants don't give a damn about my properties. And I am working with these people to get through this crisis. Some can't pay on time or need a bit of a discount. Fine. But if you're a rent striker, your future landlord is going to know and he is not going to consent to a relationship with you. Both sides have rights and responsibilities. People need to know if you're the type of opportunistic loser who takes advantage of this situation. So piss off.

gilbar said...

6. lastly, blacks disobey many laws at a higher rate, why don't we expect they might disobey virus rules?

interesting. Putting aside race/creed/color what proportion of crack houses/illegal bars/opium dens are obeying the closure orders for bars?

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

Garbage people write garbage articles. Their obsessions are irrelevant. WiFlu doesn’t care what color you are. Are they trying to make my fake headline from yesterday come true?

CHICOM WUFLU TARGETS OLD WHITE MALES
Women and Minorities Hardest Hit

320Busdriver said...

Cuomo -just now

2/3 of those hospitalized have been released

tim in vermont said...

"Asking those poor people to die for your investment. Shame, shame, shame.”

I am not whining about that. It’s reality, just like if it was hit by a bomb during The Blitz. I was trying to explain that I hear where Spiros is coming from.

As for Spiros, yes, the rent strike is bullshit and dangerous, as is Kamala Harris’s plan to outlaw evictions.

bagoh20 said...

I'm close to 100% sure that we will eventually, but before November, find out that our response was far from the most intelligent one, and we all know who's fault it will be, despite who actually demanded it.

tim in vermont said...

"Anecdotal reports that over 90% of Italy's deaths would have died in 12 months.”

That’s complete bullshit. If you look at Italy’s excess deaths, they far exceed the official Wuhan deaths, multiples higher. But I ams sure you read that on the internet somewhere.

narayanan said...

Congressperson AOC has already gone on record asking for reparations to minorities for CoVID19.

this article could be laying ground work for future steps.

tim in vermont said...

"that the vast majority of deaths are old, sick, and in New York or New Jersey,”

This kind of shit is amazing to me. I hope it’s a joke.

Fernandinande said...

I don't see how knowing racial data or any other demographics would change anything.

It could if the racial differences were big, but those differences seem quite small compared to differences based on age or physical condition (which is somewhat racial), and also population density and personal habits. Amerindians have the highest rates of smoking, obesity and alcoholism, but perhaps the lowest population density.

Dust Bunny Queen said...

Tim in Vermont If you want the data by county,

Interesting site, but I'm not going to join and download a massive excel file. Plus is is just obvious that less populated and more sparsely populated places will have less cases. When you have people living like rats in an overcrowded cage...well...that is what you get.

Here is the data for the county I live in and the two surrounding counties. California a supposed "hot spot" of infection. Yeah. Not so much the whole State. County information is more instructive.

My County 11 cases 1 death
County x 0/0
County y 0/0

Total population of the three rounded up 225,600

Square miles 12,800

Compare to Massachusetts 10554 square miles Population 6.8 million MILLION!

I'm not saying that this isn't serious or a problem. HOWEVER...One size fits all Covid responses are insane. We already socially distance as a way of life 😊

bagoh20 said...

" DON'T LIVE IN A BIG CITY! DON'T RIDE MASS TRANSIT! DON'T GO TO MARDI GRAS!"

There is another glaringly obvious characteristic of those high infection places. I don't know the mechanism behind it, and maybe it just bad luck, but it's interesting that it suggests that you also SHOULD NOT VOTE DEMOCRAT.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Imagine what China can do to us next time?

Dust Bunny Queen said...

yes, the rent strike is bullshit and dangerous, as is Kamala Harris’s plan to outlaw evictions.

I foresee a spate of mysterious fires and insurance claims.

chuckR said...

To gilbar's summary add

Counties : Cases : Deaths

Palm Beach/Broward/Miami-Dade 6367 96

this is 62% of all Florida cases and 56% of deaths
deaths will probably exceed 100 with the 11:30AM or 6:30PM updates

Fl has good reporting for the public on their website (built off arcgis.com GIS modeling software). No racial data, no deaths by age group, but case by age group by county.

Thanks to the Mouse/etc. shutting down March 15, Orlando wasn't subject to additional waves of infected NY tourists and dodged higher case/death counts.

tim in vermont said...

Covid-19 Deaths in East Africa with significant Chinese presence:

Country Deaths
Tanzania 1
Djibouti 0
Ethiopia 0
Congo 2

Social Spacing? No

First World Health Care? No

Wide use of anti-malarials? Yes!!!!!


From Twitter

Sebastian said...

tim: "Hey Sebastian, are you fine with the whole country ending up where NYC is right now so that your 401K isn’t hurt too much? Is that what you are saying?"

No, that's not what I'm saying.

What I am and have been saying is 1. that we should rigorously quarantine the risk groups -- old and sick people; no more seniors on trails and in stores; 2. adjust our behavior -- social distancing is good and useful; 3. reopen safely where possible; young people run minimal risk, many businesses can operate safely--sports and real estate to start; 4. the ruinous costs will soon outweigh the benefits -- whole sectors are being destroyed; that has to stop, otherwise the whole system will crack, destroying even the health care system we supposedly are trying to keep from being overloaded. Lots of people will suffer profoundly well before my 401K causes me serious pain.

I am certainly not saying that we should follow NYC. Example: while the country is sacrificing, the NYC subway is apparently still running without any social distancing; why? But we should not fuel the panic with "we could all be NYC." That only reinforces the political CYA operation that the shutdowns are becoming. "We did everything we could not to be NYC!"

Of course, the key point is the trade-offs, as noted by the WSJ and Hitchens in the UK. We can achieve similar results at lower cost, if we don't panic the way we are now, give up on the insane "if we save just one life" notion used to justify ruin, and lock down particular groups, more strictly--i.e., use actual quarantines. And I am saying that the life expectancy and quality of life of the most vulnerable victims should figure into the trade-offs: we normally don't spend millions to add a year to the already-miserable life of overweight diabetics over 80, and we should not now spend tens of millions, with untold harm over time, per "life" "saved."

Fernandinande said...

Amerindians [also] have the highest rates of diabetes.

Richard Dolan said...

Unfortunate that so many on this thread hate NYC. It's quite nice here, even if it's not for everyone. Everything is closed, except construction sites, hospitals, groceries and the flowers (Brooklyn in springtime is lovely, and this one is no different). The ducks and the geese are swimming along the shore in Brooklyn Bridge Park, making their nests; the woodpeckers have returned in the back yard (Brooklyn has lots of townhouses, each with a (small) yard like mine); the daffodils and magnolias are in full bloom, and the MetOpera is offering free HD performances on cable. Tomorrow will be a better day, but today is not so bad.

So there, haters. Lighten up already.

Ken B said...

“ This kind of shit is amazing to me. I hope it’s a joke.”

Narrator: It isn’t.

It seriously isn’t, Tim. As you can see from all his other comments. And he's not the only one either.

Bay Area Guy said...

@320BusDruver sez:

"Cuomo -just now

2/3 of those hospitalized have been released."

Genuinely good news, we want folks to recover. According to Worldometer, of the 1.1 Million Covid cases, 240,000 have recovered. .

So, Cuomo's observation basically matches the data. That's always nice.

Worldometer also states that 95% of the worldwide cases are mild (811,000), while 5% are serious or critical (40,000). Out of a world wide population of 8 Billion people.

Discuss

Fernandinande said...

Kamala Harris’s plan to outlaw evictions.

From each according to his ability, and to each according to his needs sounds like a good idea for fair treatment of people, and if it's a good idea now, why not all the time?

Temujin said...

“In just ten days, we discovered that neither the tampon issue, nor the participation of transsexuals in the Olympic Games, nor the climate emergency were real problems, nor emergencies, nor anything of the sort. They were just fictitious problems, the pastimes of a generation that hadn’t known tragedy.” — Itxu Diaz, National Review.

The same goes for those who are looking for a racial angle on this disease. Leftist thinking is the giant obstacle to saving lives- all over the world.

tim in vermont said...

"What I am and have been saying is 1. that we should rigorously quarantine the risk groups -- old and sick people; no more seniors on trails and in stores; 2. adjust our behavior -- social distancing is good and useful; 3. reopen safely where possible; young people run minimal risk, many businesses can operate safely”

Hear hear for the quoted parts

I have a heart condition, which I didn’t know about, and certainly didn’t know I was genetically pre-disposed to when I fathered a daughter who has a similar condition only much worse. I plan to hide out. I think that maybe if there was more talk of supporting the at risk, and less talk of “They would all be dead within a year anyway” you would get a lot more support for your position.

Right now I have Bay Area Guy drumming his fingers as he digs my grave.

tim in vermont said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
bagoh20 said...

"This kind of shit is amazing to me. I hope it’s a joke."

No. I think it's called facts, and you don't adopt smart or effective policy ignoring them, but that assumes that you care that the policy is smart and effective more than you care about pretending to.

Rick said...

And the data showed a pandemic within the pandemic: African Americans are significantly overrepresented in infection rates in Illinois,

Thomas Sowell has a long chapter in one of his books discussing how social scientists lie with statistics via their choice of standard and presentation. Here for example why would we use statewide statistics instead of Chicago when the overwhelming number of cases are in Chicago?

Tommy Duncan said...

"Isn't it better to keep people feeling that we're all in this together, sharing a great human interest with the entire world?"

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one

tim in vermont said...

"From each according to his ability...”

That’s always the trick they can't manage, to get people to work hard while withholding incentives

bagoh20 said...

Hey Tim, maybe we should get every man, woman, and child a ventilator too, and hand them out alphabetically.

tim in vermont said...

"you care that the policy is smart and effective more than you care about pretending to.”

I think we have different objectives and therefore your word “effective” doesn’t mean anything in this context. Effective for what?

tim in vermont said...

"Hey Tim, maybe we should get every man, woman, and child a ventilator too, and hand them out alphabetically.”

This is the problem with arguing with idiots.

Dust Bunny Queen said...

Richard Dolan. Unfortunate that so many on this thread hate NYC.

I don't "hate" NYC or the people who chose to live there anymore that I would hope you don't hate small town or rural America and the people who chose to live there.

I just hate big cities. I HAVE lived in Big City (San Francisco to be specific) and agree that there are some bonuses and things that you cannot get elsewhere (restaurants, art galleries, shopping, the ocean, are some of the things that I DO miss).

However, the negatives of costs, crowding, unpleasant people, dirt, disease, decay of parts of the city outweigh any positives of LIVING there. People stacked on top of people.

So I chose to live where I live and how I live. Freedom, open space, privacy, nature, not to mention lower cost of living and more actual connections with people as opposed to anonymous city living. I don't judge you. You shouldn't judge me

SUDDENLY because NYC and other urban rat houses are having a bigger problem than the rest of the country...we ALL have to live as if we are in NYC. THIS is the resentment.

This isn't going to last and it really isn't playing well with the country rubes.

bagoh20 said...

Why not just argue the facts instead of trying to bully and shame them into being withheld? If I stated something that was not true, show me. If it is true, explain why it's not important. You know, "be helping".

Carol said...

your future landlord is going to know and he is not going to consent to a relationship

Oh, I bet they'll "address" that problem, too.

Fernandinande said...

"that the vast majority of deaths are old, sick, and in New York or New Jersey,”
This kind of shit is amazing to me. I hope it’s a joke.


Why is it amazing? Because it's false, or because it's true, or for some other reasons?

Ken B said...

Tim
Remember Scott Adams's rule of the ridiculous absolute.

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

I don’t really understand Tim’s insistence that every county in every state be locked down or “you want people to die.” He is loosening this site with his weird obsession, but at least he has Meade on board with calling anyone concerned about this unprecedented experimental economic collapse a “denier” and people who want others to die. Althouse blog is a different space than it was a few weeks ago.

JackWayne said...

Apologize if anyone has pointed out already. Don’t read comments anymore. My guess is sickle cell anemia.

Ken B said...

JackWayne
Interesting idea. I had not thought of that.

bagoh20 said...

"This is the problem with arguing with idiots."

Try to actually argue, and we'll see who the idiots are.

Shouting Thomas said...

I’m so tired of racism bullshit that I won’t debate it any more.

But I am curious. When did racism become “structural” instead of “systemic?”

Hard to keep up with the strategic name changes. Seems about time to dump People of Color and come up with a new name to boost black self-esteem.

bagoh20 said...

The Sweden (no lock downs) VS Michigan (locked down) comparison continues. Michigan still running double the cases and 100 more deaths despite starting out nearly the same two weeks ago.

Bob Smith said...

African Americans over represented in Illinois? I think I can figure that one out.
“Chicago, Chicago, that toddilin town,

Kevin said...

Race is a social construct.

Construct the racial data any way you like.

RigelDog said...

" I think that maybe if there was more talk of supporting the at risk, and less talk of “They would all be dead within a year anyway” you would get a lot more support"

That's a super-excellent point, Tim! The main terror of the disease itself, as far as I can tell, is driven by the people who are in susceptible categories and by those who must care for those people. Convince that cohort that the public and government will make caring for them a priority and I think we can be released from house-arrest with return to most normal activities quickly.

What no one is telling the people who are not at particular risk is that this virus will not be denied. It WILL continue to infect people and it is literally impossible to shut down as we are right now for many more months. Even if we could somehow survive the shut-down for, say, another 4 months, the virus will re-emerge anyway. My husband and I are in mild-moderate risk category and our kids are not at any particular risk except that all three are in great danger of losing their jobs and, in one case, their self-owned business. I am working on being mentally prepared to see my kids get sick and there's not one thing I can do about it except urge them to take precautions. I am also working on being mentally prepared to get this virus and maybe die; there's only so long I will self-quarantine after restrictions are lifted. I think I have come to peace with that but for the fact that my husband would be devastated if I go first.

Static Ping said...

When your religion is intersectionality, these sorts of things are important. Thank goodness they are not big on angels or the whole head of the pin thing would be quite the project.

Not having spent a great deal of time studying the statistics, it would seem to me that the persons most likely to get the disease, once it is introduced to an area, are people who live near lots of other people and use mass transit, which is pretty much Chicago. The second group would be people who travel a lot, especially internationally, and by extension get exposed to a large cross section of the world's population. It would not surprise me if the second group introduced the Wuhan coronavirus to the first.

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

Ken too. Virus Nazi. Like Fauci. Zero concern for the economy. Thank God Trump is in charge and not the tiny Doctor. There’s still hope he will order the healthy back to work in time. My optimism is based on the fact he shut off China way before the experts, including Fauci, were recommending it and Trump was prescient to do so. I pray he has the same good timing with our Vexit plan: Virus-EXIT. The back-to-full employment plan.

You know There is a third major concern, China’s aggressive stance pre- and mid-virus. There is a greater than zero chance China could attack the USA and initiate war while we are distracted and economically “paused.” History is our guide. Look at their demographic problem, aging before they accumulate wealth, heavily leveraged, about 500-million excess fighting age makes with no hope of a bride or children. Think about the big picture. The virus is NOT the only real threat we face and monomaniacal focus on it is as deadly or more deadly than ignoring it.

Virgil Hilts said...

"The coronavirus does not discriminate. . ." Bunch of crap. It tends to prefer obese people with bad lungs, compromised immune systems and other weaknesses. I clearly remember when AIDs epidemic was at its height the public message pushed that straight people might be just as much at risk from hookups, etc. It was not true but it helped support the extreme efforts to combat the disease. It was a useful lie. We now know that second hand exposure to cigarette smoke may have negligible impact on risk. But that finding is not shouted in headlines (I didn't hear about it until recently). Better if smokers think they are poisoning family members and so lets keep the second hand risk stuff out there. Imagine a Covi-21 that only attacked morbidly overweight people. Would we shut down the economy to protect them? I'm not so sure. I'm thinking for now, all this information about who has actually died might be better left until we've at least flattened the curve.

JackWayne said...

Another question: are they suppressing info on gays? A lot of them with HIV suppressed by drugs.

Achilles said...

tim in vermont said...

I think that maybe if there was more talk of supporting the at risk, and less talk of “They would all be dead within a year anyway” you would get a lot more support for your position.

Nobody ever made that argument.

You, Ken and Meade and the other assholes keep attributing that argument to people because you have no critical thinking skills and you seem incapable of thinking for yourselves.

And you fall further and further each day.

JackWayne said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
M Jordan said...

I’m a type2 diabetic. I was diagnosed three years ago. I took it seriously, lost 50 pounds and began a walking regimen to keep it off which I have. That may sound like I’m boasting (hope not) but I state it to make the following point: Diabetes is a code word for obesity. Tom Hanks is a diabetic like me and sailed through Covid19. My point here is it’s obesity, not diabetes per se, that is the biggest comorbidity in CV deaths.

Shouting Thomas said...

Michael Fumento earned the hatred of intellectuals, the press and academia decades ago by correctly predicting that AIDS would remain the "gay male disease," back when the Diversity crowd was insisting that AIDS would break out and become an equal opportunity infection.

Here's what he has to say about COVID-19.

Paul said...

Ann, they have bigger problems than counting races. Geeze... it's a 'first come, first serve' to the hospital.

Get a grip.

bagoh20 said...

When I said: "Why not just argue the facts instead of trying to bully and shame them into being withheld? If I stated something that was not true, show me. If it is true, explain why it's not important. You know, "be helping"."

I'm sorry if that was too demanding. I didn't mean to shut anybody up. It's not my place put rules in here.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Covid-wuhan - not just for subway riders and dense population centers.
Fancy, top people are getting the virus.

The Boris Johnson, Price Charles, Rand Paul, Sophie Grégoire Trudeau, Tom Hanks, Placido Domingo, Jackson Browne, now PINK for crying out loud.

Many others.

Tomcc said...

Racial information may be useful at some point in the aftermath of the immediate crisis. It seems to me that, at the moment, everyone would be wise to follow social distancing guidelines. If you have an existing health condition, you should take extreme measures to avoid infection. To me, that means self-isolation.

DavidD said...

“African Americans make up 14.6 percent of the state population, but 28 percent of confirmed cases of the coronavirus. White people comprise 76.9 percent of the Illinois population, and 39 percent of the confirmed cases.”

Where do the African Americans live and where do the White people live?

That s, what is the percentage of Blacks in the portions of the state that have the majority of the cases and what is the percentage of Blanks in portions of the state with relatively few cases?

Greg Hlatky said...

I'm 63 and have chronic breathing issues.
I feel fine, however I'm willing to restrict my activities until this passes. What I won't do is insist everyone else restricts their activities and shutter their businesses to protect me.

Gk1 said...

"You know There is a third major concern, China’s aggressive stance pre- and mid-virus" I am thinking very much the same thing. Everyone is distracted by the here and now and no one seems to be thinking on how we deal with China in the aftermath.

China has taken 0 blame and appear to have only increased domestic repression to keep their country together. That's a recipe for collapse. Can they withstand western companies stripping their factories and going elsewhere? How will China deal with being isolated by the globalists?

M Jordan said...

Dr. Birx, aka Tall Scarfed Woman in a Lab Coat, talks incessantly about what a data freak she is. Then she gives us a graph to look at which is skewed by early, bad data.

How about some data, lots of data, Tall Scarfed Woman in a Lab Coat?

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

RigelDog good point as it was something Althouse posted early on that said the area under the curve, whether we have the steep slope or the gradual one, remains the same. That is total exposure to virus remains the same and we simply stretch the effects over a longer time period to avoid overwhelming the system. This also gives us a better chance at getting a vaccine or biologic in place to protect the most vulnerable (same group that should get flu and pneumococcal vaccines anyway) to WuFlu.

Bagho you know hard facts are hurtful and unnecessary. Please put your facts away until our feels are all sorted out Thx.

Shouting Thomas said...

I’m appealing to Althouse to stop spreading this panic.

I’m like you, prof. I have a guaranteed income that allows me to sit in my house.

People who aren’t like us are being pushed into desperation by this lockdown and the loss of their jobs.

This panic is completely over the top and worse than the disease. Please stop spreading the panic.

This lockdown must stop and it must stop immediately.

Yancey Ward said...

This is all a big fucking "Duh!"

All you had to do is look at the state level data and number of cases and deaths by county, and then go Wikipedia to check the demographics. It is really fucking simple to figure out even if the state level officials don't want you to know. I have done this for pretty much every state at this point. This is a disease of the cities, and especially those heavily dependent on mass transportation. When you go out another level and examine the rural areas with most cases, they all turn out to be heavily populated by African-Americans- this is the case throughout the southern United States. I would guess that Illinois' percentages are going to be more or less representative of the country as a whole, and I suspect it is actually worse because Illinois is now ascending the curve- I expect the numbers from Chicago will become a larger and larger sample vs the rest of the state as the next two weeks pass.

Arashi said...

I would posit that at this moment, there is not enough data to really do a proper analysis of the WuhFlu. Perhaps do these things after we get a handle on it and get the economy recovering?

But nope, today we have Governor Cuomo opining that he is amazed that somebody allowed all of our critical manufacturing go to China, and that he needs to look into how this happened. No awareness of his and the other globalists efforts for the last 30 years to do this and destroy the sovreignty of the US. I'll bet though, that the fault is DJT and the rest of the deplorables.

Oh, and yes, he is setting himself up to be the Great White Hope for the Democrats after they dump poor old senile Joe.

Rick said...

I think that maybe if there was more talk of supporting the at risk, and less talk of “They would all be dead within a year anyway” you would get a lot more support for your position.

Doubtful. People who cay anyone concerned about the economy supports millions of deaths is doing so because demonizing others is better for them than any rational argument. Since other people's comments don't create a better argument for them they are unlikely to change.

jeremyabrams said...

If black people are dying disproportionately, it will get out after Trump relaxes the lockdown. That way his move can be characterized as racist.

Amadeus 48 said...

After they do coronavirus, they can do homicide victims in Chicago. For a white person concerned with being a homicide victim, Chicago is one of the safest places in the world. Almost the same thing is true of hispanics.

Bay Area Guy said...

@Greg Hlatky,

"I'm 63 and have chronic breathing issues.
I feel fine, however I'm willing to restrict my activities until this passes. What I won't do is insist everyone else restricts their activities and shutter their businesses to protect me."

Bingo! Stay safe, Greg.

Surprised that other very smart folks over 60 refuse to understand this simple wisdom.......

Not Sure said...

There is no such thing as race, but we must know if the novel coronavirus is racist.

While we're at it, what about the infection rate by astrological sign? I need to know if I'm at greater risk as an Aquarian-American!

Amadeus 48 said...

You can get a lot of NYC information at this link:

https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doh/covid/covid-19-data.page

I don't think there is a racial breakdown, but they have information by zip codes, among other things.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

The nexus of Chi-Com money-to-pol power started with Bill Clinton.

That fact will be left out of all "Turns out China sucks" hack reporting.

Ice Nine said...

>>tim in vermont said...
Covid-19 Deaths in East Africa with significant Chinese presence:
Wide use of anti-malarials? Yes!!!!!
From Twitter<<

Chloroquine (what we are talking about when we talk about antimalarials for Covid) has not been widely used in Africa for a long time, due to resistance. The first line treatment for malaria in Africa for the last fifteen years is Artemisinin - which to my knowledge has not been connected with Covid in any way. Your Twitter guy may know something different, of course, but I doubt it.

Michael K said...

I’m like you, prof. I have a guaranteed income that allows me to sit in my house.

People who aren’t like us are being pushed into desperation by this lockdown and the loss of their jobs.

This panic is completely over the top and worse than the disease. Please stop spreading the panic.

This lockdown must stop and it must stop immediately.


I'm the same way but I agree the lockdown needs to start unwinding. There is panic starting among people I know who have successful careers and who are now seeing real trouble coming and soon. The peak of this epidemic should be arriving about Easter and unwinding should follow soon after. It will be uneven as some businesses may take a long time to come back. Movie theaters, for example, will be a challenge. Restaurants with out door seating should start to recover. The HVAC industry needs to think about adding air purification to their products. Airlines will be slow to recover.

The use of hydroxychloroquine is still not being considered as part of the solution. Too much politics in that, I assume. It turns out Michigan hospitals were using HCQ in defiance of the idiot governor's ban.

The pressure for continued shutdown is coming disproportionately from Democrat Mayors and Governors whose voters are on paid vacation.

Yancey, above, is correct about the role of crowded cities and mass transit in the epidemic. Maybe they should be the last places to open up.

rcocean said...

blacks doing better than whites = OK
Whites doing better than blacks = Evil racism! We must take action.

There's zero evidence that blacks or minorities are being badly treated. But they want the stats so they can claim that - if there's a statistical gap in the numbers. Its the same old game, that never ends.

rcocean said...

Just make everyone put on Masks - and lets go back to work.

Sebastian said...

Greg: "I'm 63 and have chronic breathing issues. I feel fine, however I'm willing to restrict my activities until this passes. What I won't do is insist everyone else restricts their activities and shutter their businesses to protect me."

Exactly. You are not the only one. Sanity still has a chance. But time is of the essence.

Of course, callous rationalist that I am, I would not leave it up to you, and impose an actual quarantine--anyone over 70 regardless, anyone over 50 with at least one health issue.

Lucien said...

Are blacks over-represented in transit,sanitation, and municipal jobs (etc.) in Illinois?
Are they under-represented in work from home jobs?

Fernandinande said...

I need to know if I'm at greater risk as an Aquarian-American!

You should freak out because about 8% of WuFlu deaths are Aquarian-Americans! (But don't ingest the aquarian cleaner...)

Come to think of it, you just pointed out another reason to record and publish racial data: if your race happens to be more affected, you should take more precautions, just as with age. But I don't think any race really is significantly more affected...which is also good to know.

Bay Area Guy said...

@VermontTim

"Right now I have Bay Area Guy drumming his fingers as he digs my grave."

Heh - well, I certainly don't want you to die, that would be cruel. I just don't want you to be stupid:)

More importantly, though, I don't want a Great Depression by killing off many blue collar industries like (movie theaters, Disneyland, cruise ships, airlines, hotels, casinos, sporting events, restaurants and barbershops).

I can play ball for a month, sure. That's reasonable. I know I won't get this virus, or if I get it, it'll be mild. I can also tolerate a big haircut to my 401K and stocks. Financially, I'll be fine.

But I'm much more concerned about my blue collar brothers and sisters who won't be fine.

rcocean said...

Instead of easing up, the local businesses are getting even more stringent. Now, even whole foods is setting up "senior hour" and only letting in X number of people in the store. One Starbucks reopened but only takes "Mobile orders", so no exchange of money or credit cards. You prepay, and pick up your drink. Probably 50% of the people I saw on my bike ride were wearing masks or scarfs.

mockturtle said...

In the UK:

Coronavirus Cases:
41,903
Deaths:
4,313
Recovered:
135

This speaks so well of their National Health system, doesn't it? /s

n.n said...

The usual suspects are normalizing diversity. Still, to their credit, viruses are known racists, sexists, genderists, etc, and have historically indulged color judgments.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Michael K-

The use of hydroxychloroquine is still not being considered as part of the solution. Too much politics in that, I assume. It turns out Michigan hospitals were using HCQ in defiance of the idiot governor's ban.

Seriously? She banned the use of a promising treatment, because she hates Trump?

Fernandinande said...

callous rationalist

I think the term here is "crude nudality"...uh, that doesn't sound right, but it's something like that. Close enough for blog work.

Clark said...

@Michael K: How worried should people be about the potential interactions between hydroxychloroquine and both/either losartan and/or hydrochlorothiazide?

mockturtle said...

But I'm much more concerned about my blue collar brothers and sisters who won't be fine.

Not just blue collar folk, B.A.G. Clinics and doctor's offices are closing up shop, too, from lack of business. And hospitals are laying off staff because people aren't having 'elective' procedures.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Mock-T
Free nationalized "health care" is fantastic... Just don't ever get sick.

rcocean said...

Since everyone wants to talk about the racial differences in the medical stats. Blacks in Illinois are more urban, have higher rates of obesity, smoke and drink more, and suffer more from diabetes, and lung issues then white people. This of course, is the fault of white people.

rcocean said...

They want to hold back on endorsing anti-malaria drugs in order to ramp up production and save the supplies for the truly needy. Further, they don't want idiots taking the drug for "prevention" getting side effects, and then suing people. Which is exactly what a lot of lawyers would do.

tim in vermont said...

"I'm the same way but I agree the lockdown needs to start unwinding.”

Me too, I just don’t think it was a huge misstep. Social distancing does not equal lockdown.

AllenS said...

Pretty sure that Blacks don't live as long as Whites as a whole for all and any kinds of reasons.

n.n said...

are they suppressing info on [trans/homo males]

It may be a factor as it was in HIV/AIDS by virtue of interface and behavior; but, no, NYC and others don't seem to be tracking individuals in the transgender spectrum separately. I'm surprised that they do track by sex: male and female, and not the politically congruent gender alternative.

Ice Nine said...

>> Clark said...
@Michael K: How worried should people be about the potential interactions between hydroxychloroquine and both/either losartan and/or hydrochlorothiazide?<<

There are no known interactions among the three.

tim in vermont said...

I wholeheartedly endorse the rest of Doc’s post as well. This is a slow cresting wave.

Ironically, NYC might come back quicker than everybody else since they are adopting, whether intentionally or not, the “ride it out” strategy. Then will come the close of the flu season.

tim in vermont said...

Postcards from the near future:

ROME — There is a growing sense in Italy that the worst may have passed. The weeks of locking down the country, center of the world’s deadliest coronavirus outbreak, may be starting to pay off, as officials announced this week that the numbers of new infections had plateaued.

That glimmer of hope has turned the conversation to the daunting challenge of when and how to reopen without setting off another cataclysmic wave of contagion. To do so, Italian health officials and some politicians have focused on an idea that might once have been relegated to the realm of dystopian novels and science fiction films.

Having the right antibodies to the virus in one’s blood — a potential marker of immunity — may soon determine who gets to work and who does not, who is locked down and who is free.


https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/04/world/europe/italy-coronavirus-antibodies.html

Not Sure said...

Clinical trials of the tuberculosis vaccine BCG's efficacy against covid-19 are now being carried out.

A casual look at a map of the worldwide incidence of covid-19 suggests that countries that mandate universal vaccination against TB are doing better. India, for example, has an astonishing rate of 2 cases per million population. The current US rate is 887.

Yes, I know, testing rates differ, but the relative death rates are similar: 24 per mil in the US vs. .06 in India.

tim in vermont said...

They are talking about “COVID Passes.” And this for those of you who don’t click on the Times. Believe me, I hold my nose:

That debate is in some ways ahead of the science. Researchers are uncertain, if hopeful, that antibodies in fact indicate immunity. But that has not stopped politicians from grasping at the idea as they come under increasing pressure to open economies and avoid inducing a widespread economic depression.

Michael K said...

they don't want idiots taking the drug for "prevention" getting side effects, and then suing people. Which is exactly what a lot of lawyers would do.

There are very few side effects, and preventive use is appropriate in high risk individuals. For example, my wife takes HCQ for rheumatoid arthritis. I have read that there is no example of a patient taking it for that reason contracting COVID 19.

Remember these are old drugs, in use since 1945.

tim in vermont said...

The UK tried the “no lockdown, protect the vulnerable” strategy, and quickly abandoned it as deaths mounted, BTW. So anybody proposing it should let us know what they would do differently.

Sebastian said...

"The main terror of the disease itself, as far as I can tell, is driven by the people who are in susceptible categories and by those who must care for those people. Convince that cohort that the public and government will make caring for them a priority and I think we can be released from house-arrest with return to most normal activities quickly."

Right. The panic of a minority is driving the ruin of all. Some susceptibility is inevitable: e.g., for old obese people in institutions. But yes, government efforts should be focused on an infrastructure of sustaining an actual quarantine -- no more amateur close-up "caring for" those people. That's how the virus still spreads, that's why even after supposed lockdowns we still get old people with new infections weeks later -- because the "terror" is still not great enough to actually do the things that actually prevent transmission to the actual risk groups. Anyone who can feed and clean himself, must; everything is done at a distance. Exceptions for dementias etc.--with the clear understanding by families that any care provided comes with risk, and that society cannot spend trillions to reduce it to zero. To avoid ruin, there should be no "convincing" of that "cohort," but instead a forced adjustment.

"What no one is telling the people who are not at particular risk is that this virus will not be denied. It WILL continue to infect people and it is literally impossible to shut down as we are right now for many more months."

Right again. But for most people, infection is harmless, and building up immunity good. That's what we should want, gradually, precisely if we are thinking about rational care for the vulnerable.

"there's only so long I will self-quarantine after restrictions are lifted."

Not problem for the majority of the population, and such resistance will grow. But the point of actual quarantines is that it doesn't matter what you will do; it matters what we tell you you must do, if we decide targeting you and others as restrictions are lifted. Of course, shutdowns aren't quarantines. And of course, we are nowhere near a shift to rationality.

gilbar said...

serious Nostalgia Question:

Remember Vaxers? Those people that thought Vaccines were HORRIBLE?
What Ever happened to those people?

Shouting Thomas said...

The UK tried the “no lockdown, protect the vulnerable” strategy, and quickly abandoned it as deaths mounted, BTW. So anybody proposing it should let us know what they would do differently.

I would abandon the lockdown immediately and send everybody back out to work and to live their lives.

Just spoke to a fellow church member who is administrator of a NYC metro hospital. The deaths that hospital is experiencing are almost entirely among the morbidly obese and elderly. A combination of those two is deadly.

For just about everybody else, infection goes unnoticed, or it's not very severe and they quickly recover.

End the shutdown now. Don't give government this power. Live free or die.

Mark said...

It is interesting that the racial statistics are not getting out. I'm guessing it's either because it's difficult at this point to report them accurately or — more likely — because . . .

. . . we've got other things to worry about than someone's effing ideology.

AND because race is entirely irrelevant.

The thing spreads the most within concentrated populations. In some areas, it will hit the concentrated white neighborhoods the worst (e.g. Jewish areas of NY), in others it will have gotten into some other demographic the most.

In any event, as if we don't have enough other things to bitch and moan and hate about. We don't need this invitation to more social rancor.

Question: Does posting things like this help??

Michael The Magnificent said...

Natural selection at work.

Poor choices result in poor outcomes.

If someone isn't going to listen to you when you tell them to stay in school and study hard, to not do drugs, to wait until marriage to have babies, to get a job, and to not steal cars, they are not going to listen to you when you tell them to stay at home.

Again, poor choices result in poor outcomes. This happens regardless of race.

Mary Beth said...

Seriously? She banned the use of a promising treatment, because she hates Trump?

Gov. Half Whitmer and the Nevada governor both banned it, but I think both have rescinded those bans now. The bans were reported as being reactions to the woman who fed her husband fish tank cleaner. So, along with trying to smear Trump with the fish tank cleaner story, I wonder how many people's health was put at risk because of the slanted news coverage.

Shouting Thomas said...

Now, read the Michael Fumento piece I linked above.

It's one of the few sensible pieces you will read about this craziness.

And stop panicking and fear mongering.

AtmoGuy said...

Don't forget the electoral component. Democrat governors are panicking and locking everything down because they are seeing much higher case and death rates in their electoral strongholds. As I write this over 40% of cases in Wisconsin are just in the City of Milwaukee.

I wouldn't be surprised if they secretly want an uptick in suicides among rural whites who have lost their jobs to balance things out come election day.

tim in vermont said...

"government efforts should be focused on an infrastructure of sustaining an actual quarantine -- no more amateur close-up "caring for" those people.”

That’s sensible, and different than what the UK did. But a third of Americans have high blood pressure, lots are diabetic and pre-diabetic, so I think that you would get a better hearing if you didn’t preface your remark with "for old obese people”. Way too many people see this as some kind of “cleansing” on both sides, right and left.

Michael K said...

Lucien said...
Are blacks over-represented in transit,sanitation, and municipal jobs (etc.) in Illinois?
Are they under-represented in work from home jobs?


Yes. The black middle class is largely made up of government employees, which should mean they are at less risk but there is also a large black underclass.

There is also something different about black's ACE receptor.

Potentially reduced efficacy and limited outcomes data indicate that ACE inhibitors or ARBs should not routinely be initiated as monotherapy in black hypertensive patients.

Corona virus uses the ACE2 receptor to attach to the cell.

The trimeric SARS coronavirus (SARS-CoV) surface spike (S) glycoprotein consisting of three S1-S2 heterodimers binds the cellular receptor angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) and mediates fusion of the viral and cellular membranes through a pre- to postfusion conformation transition.

The solution is too complicated to look up but there may be something about blacks and Han Chinese that affects susceptibility to infection.

Sebastian said...

"The UK tried the “no lockdown, protect the vulnerable” strategy, and quickly abandoned it as deaths mounted, BTW. So anybody proposing it should let us know what they would do differently."

What do you mean, "protect"? If cases kept climbing, the "protection" was obviously no quarantine.

Of course, you raise the implicit question, and it is a fair one, how we can enforce such a quarantine, i.e., actual, strict isolation of all risk groups. That would be very unpleasant -- would we use force? And of course, America's entitled seniors would be reluctant to submit -- it's so unfair, what do you mean I can't walk on the trail? I say harsher but targeted measures are necessary, unfairness be damned; but I also favor a support system for the risk groups, which would be much less expensive than what we are doing now. Example: universal delivery of groceries; no one over 70, and no one of 50 with a health issue, in the stores -- proof/ID needed.

tim in vermont said...

“The deaths that hospital is experiencing are almost entirely among the morbidly obese and elderly.”

It’s a cleansing sent from the Lord!

bagoh20 said...

" Social distancing does not equal lockdown."

That is exactly what a lot of us have been saying all along. It's our main point about what is being done wrong. It's not the lock down that's going to flattening the curve. It's personal behavior, how each person protects their personal space and contacts, plus of course advancing immunity. These practices will become much more common now, as we see how it reduces all such disease like the annual flu. As people continue to concentrate in cities, it can make a big difference without shutting down anything. In 2017-18, when we had 61,000 flu deaths, we virtually did nothing, but if in cities and on mass transit we took simple precautions I wonder where that number would have been, not to mention all the sickness and missed work that didn't result in death, and this happens to some extent every year.

I just hope people don't take the wrong lesson and start demanding shutdowns with every flu season. Some people actually like this shut down stuff. A lot of people get paid to stay home, and almost everybody likes that. I expect to see people demanding selective shutdowns like they demand other employment benefits just to get paid time off.

tim in vermont said...

"I say harsher but targeted measures are necessary, unfairness be damned; but I also favor a support system for the risk groups, which would be much less expensive than what we are doing now.”

Your lips to Trump’s ear. Including the part about running trails. I have been in enforced isolation, no walks allowed for 14 days. Unenforceable of course, but I am a law abiding man. I used my treadmill.

Owen said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
bagoh20 said...

This article is suggesting that the virus itself is racist. We already hate the damned thing anyway, so yea, COVID is a racist S.O.B.

Clark said...

@Ice Nine:

The risk or severity of QTc prolongation can be increased when Losartan is combined with Hydroxychloroquine.

The risk or severity of QTc prolongation can be increased when Hydrochlorothiazide is combined with Hydroxychloroquine.

Source: drugbank.ca

Yancey Ward said...

Tim, you know I don't like putting dampers on hope here, but....

"There is a growing sense in Italy that the worst may have passed. The weeks of locking down the country, center of the world’s deadliest coronavirus outbreak, may be starting to pay off, as officials announced this week that the numbers of new infections had plateaued."

I will just point out that Italy stopped increasing the rate of testing at almost the same time that the numbers of new cases plateaued. I have warned everyone repeatedly that the numbers of new cases each day is roughly proportional to the numbers of tests per day at that time. In Italy's case, you can't actually show that new cases has plateaued- all that can be shown from the data is that testing itself has plateaued (in Italy's case, at 40,000 tests/day), giving the same rough 8-13% positive rate. If we had data on turn-away rates, we might be in a better position to judge this, but no country gives that.

Owen said...


Sebastian: "The panic of a minority is driving the ruin of all." Thread winner.

I think we have a convolution here --in a technical sense, I believe "convolution" means two (or more) intertwined (and interacting) functions.

One function in this convolution is the disease itself. It wants to propagate. It has a discrete set of moves to help it do that. It applies them to its environment, constantly pressing.
Another function is our receptivity to the disease. We are its substrate, its food; and our behaviors affect the disease's ability to execute its plan.
A third function (or maybe part of the second) is our behavior toward each other --our social and political actions-- as they affect our receptivity to the disease. If we go to lockdown, that affects how much substrate is available per unit time to the disease. Which is time-bound: it must keep finding new fuel. If instead of lockdown we go to a strategy of protecting the most vulnerable, that gives the disease more substrate/unit time and a faster burn-through; but saves (we hope) our old and sick.

The disease doesn't want to kill us all. It wants to domesticate us (which in fact it can only do by becoming less lethal). It aspires to becoming, someday, the common cold. Which sounds fine (well, certainly a helluva lot less bad) and we should hope it gets there: but at the lowest cost to us.

IMHO.

Shouting Thomas said...

It’s a cleansing sent from the Lord!

It’s the inevitable, in the same way that cigarette smokers die of lung cancer.

So, you’re willing to give up your freedom and put millions out of work to extend the lives of the elderly obese by a few months?

If you, you’re just a coward.

Now, quit panicking and get hold of yourself.

The congregation I play for is probably the most liberal in the U.S.

Sebastian said...

Tim: "Way too many people see this as some kind of “cleansing” on both side"

Yes, and they are wrong to see it that way, and their wrongness fuels the panic and the overreaction. I don't mean to quibble with you, but that is part of what I am resisting here. In the fog of fear we march to ruin.

I callously mention old obese people since they represent, speaking very broadly, about half of the subgroup at risk. But I do indeed think that much more rigorous measures are needed to single out all the younger sicker people as well--with assistance, to be sure. That's what public policy should focus on now.

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