Good News

Well, we have arrived at a lot of good news, finally. The growth of the virus has been declining and we can have serious talks about reopening the economy. It is actually a measure of good news that we can spend the next century arguing over whether staying home helped or not. We get to have that argument because we took all the necessary actions to stop the spread of the virus.

As Rich Lowry recently noted, the arguments against hunkering down amounts to arguing we didn’t need to take out Hitler because he failed to take Britain or Moscow. Hitler failed because we acted. The virus is not wiping us out because we acted.

There are some things up front to note, however.

First, the media is reporting we have crossed the 40,000 death threshold. Yes and no. We have crossed 40,000 deaths, but some counts are higher than others. Why? The CDC had been reporting just deaths that came after positive COVID-19 testing. Some counts include those coded as presumed COVID-19. Before you freak out, remember, that is how the flu is counted. So we have crossed 40,000 deaths in actual, positive cases of COVID-19, but some counts will include those coded by hospitals and not just based on confirmed tests.

The Most Eye Opening Detail

This really did blow my mind and it puts it all in perspective. In eight weeks, there have been 40,000 deaths from COVID-19 based on actual, confirmed tests. Now, to be clear here, these are not people who died of a gunshot wound but tested positive of COVID-19. I know there’s this conspiracy theory on the right these days that everyone is being coded as dying of COVID-19 if they have a positive test. That has been thoroughly debunked, including by Dr. Birx who is the one people claim said otherwise.

There have been 40,000 deaths from COVID-19 based on positive tests.

If we take out presumed flu deaths and, like COVID-19, only look at positive tests of flu that led to deaths, there were less than 7,000 flu deaths last years.

Put another way, for every single confirmed death caused by flu as shown through a test for flu, there are five from COVID-19. Also, the flu deaths are spread over six months. The COVID-19 deaths have been spread over eight weeks. Also, keep in mind there is a testing deficit for COVID-19, i.e. more people can readily get a flu test than a COVID-19 test.

But There’s Good News

We are on the other side of this thing. The media and epidemiologists are fretting about reopening the place, but we cannot stay inside forever. It is time. We did what we needed to do. We should go slow. We should take precautions. But we need to move forward with opening.

In that regard, there are some hopeful signs that the virus is bad but not as devastating as we first presumed. In Silicon Valley, scientists tested a bunch of people and found the virus was more prevalent than previously thought. The same thing happened in a homeless shelter in Boston and another study in Massachusetts in one of the hardest-hit areas of the state.

The data still resides in anecdote and actually suggests wider spread than in Europe, which makes no sense to anyone including the people conducting the tests, but it does give us hope that the virus spreads faster and is less overall lethal than the current metrics suggest. Keep in mind that Dr. Fauci said last month he personally suspects the fatality rate is 1%, not the current 3% - 5%. That is still ten times more fatal than the flu but still headed in the right direction.

A Word of Caution on the California Test

A lot of friends are touting the California test as proof they were right all along that this is no big deal. Just keep a few things in mind. First, there is a lot of data that suggests the antibody test used in the California test throws out a lot of false positives. In fact, the government has noted the antibody test might react to the common cold.

Second, keep in mind the methodology was flawed. It advertised only on Facebook in Silicon Valley at a time testing was in short supply. Presumably, people who thought they had symptoms would have been the ones to go since they couldn’t get tested anywhere else.

All things being equal, there is reason to be encouraged, but let’s acknowledge there were flaws in how the test was conducted. As for the Boston test, it was only 200 people tested and 63 positives — so more anecdote than data. But still good to hear.

Reopen for Business

Now, let’s get back to business. Governor Brian Kemp of Georgia has been talking with several governors in the South about a state compact to open back up. He was under extraordinary pressure to shut the state down. He delayed doing so until modeling showed Georgia would exceed hospital space.

Once the modeling shifted, he acted. The result? The modeling had shown Georgia would peak on April 24th then on May 1st. Now, it looks like Georgia crossed its peak on April 7th. The data seems to have been thrown off due to a one day surge in deaths, but those deaths have declined.

Georgia is ready for a slow-rolling reopening in conjunction with Tennessee, South Carolina, Florida, Alabama, and Mississippi. (Am I the only one who has to say out loud M-I-SS-I-SS-I-PP-I when spelling that state?)

Florida too has reopened some beaches and is ready to get back to work. That’s good, but it comes with the media savaging both states. Notably, some members of the press were showing pictures of beaches in California when talking about the beaches in Jacksonville, Florida. It is worth noting that despite the crowds, families were staying at distance from each other and limiting crowd sizes. But why report that when you can be outraged?

You know, I have been vocally in the camp that we must shelter-in-place to contain the virus. It worked. But I just don’t understand the people who think we have to stay cowering in our homes for a year until a vaccine is developed. We can’t. I would also note that most of those who suggest we have to do this are in no danger of economic disruption.

We had to do this. Every country on earth did it except Sweden and the news there isn’t great. Every country responded the same way and I presume the world’s leaders and their experts have more information than you and me. I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt. But it is absurd to think we can do it much longer.

Now For a Seriously Partisan Note

For several weeks, the press lectured everyone and reporters on Twitter were seemingly gleefully reporting that southern Republican states were going to see disaster because of the virus.

St. Andrew Cuomo was taking care of things in New York, but De Santis, Kay Ivey, Brian Kemp, etc. were going to get everyone killed. Well, if we are data-driven, what does the data show? Consider this picture I sent out yesterday. This is the death per 100,000 people by state as of Saturday.

You have to go down the list before hitting a state run by a Republican.

I want to be clear here, that is not the partisan point I want to make. The partisan point I want to make is that reporters who lean to the left were screaming bloody-murder that Republican governors were going to have blood on their hands and the GOP was anti-science and would not listen.

Except they did listen. They just listened to inhouse experts who followed the models and did not take a one size fits all approach. The result? The hardest-hit areas are not the Republican areas or the South or Trump-supporting areas.

Maybe the media should stop calculating death based on the Electoral College.

But Travel, But Travel

Some will say the reason those Democrat states are hit so hard is because of travel. Actually, the busiest airport on planet earth is in the United States, but it is in Georgia, not New York. With flights to Asia and Europe daily all the way into February, Georgia should be a seriously hard-hit state. It has certainly been hit, but that hit came in Southwest Georgia due to some very specific events happening. Otherwise, Georgia contained the viral spread way better than New York.

Atlanta outperformed New York City. Atlanta’s Democrat mayor is way more competent than New York’s Democrat mayor.

Lastly

While the evidence is still not set that warm weather helps contain the virus, let’s assume it is. We are going to see even greater disparity and hysteria in the media as southern states reopen without a viral spread.

But because the media is so concentrated in New York City, I don’t know that we’re going to see reasonable coverage. The situation in New York cannot be understated. But also, if the press is using that to shape their coverage of the virus moving forward, that is going to be bad too. As the chart shows above, urban areas in certain states are being devastated by the virus. But not every state is.

Regional solutions need to come into play. And if the virus really is halted by warm weather, southern states might have a bit of an advantage. A partisan press out to get the President is not going to cover those regional approaches fairly. That will create an even wider disconnect between the press and public.