The author compares statistics from the end of August to the historical record as if covid-19 was globally vanquished by September, and then assesses a 11/100,000 death rate (= 0.011%) based on those global statistics. The issue is that perhaps only 5% to 10% of the globe has been infected, which might be a generous estimate at the time of this posting (2020-10-17). If we thus extrapolate that 9 out of 10 people have yet to get infected, the death rate derived from the author's metrics should increase by a factor of ~10, so 0.1%. Disregarding statistics before June 7th, the U.S. has managed to get the death rate down to around 27.2/100,000 (=0.027%). Good! Sounds like we learned some important medical lessons, but we're still limited by the interplay of hospital capacity with public behavior. Since we're taking pretty minor steps to increase hospital capacity, shaping public behavior becomes paramount. More on that later (spoiler: fuck Trump). From wasO's article: First off, the CNN death counter running 24/7 in a corner of the screen is probably gonna be put into a future comedy sketch. That shit's ridiculous. We do not need 24-hour news coverage of statistics that show essentially no change in trends on the scale of 24 hours. It's clicksclicksclicksclicks and viewviewviewviewviewsssss, plain and simple. And we should all have a serious conversation(s) about the market incentives of most media to spread dis- and mis-information, stoke fear, propagate logical fallacies, etc., because holy shit, they exist. Hats off especially to Mark Fuckerburg. Sidenote! That is actually one of the biggest problems of mine with pure libertarianism; Assurance that important information finds the consumers making important decisions related to that information, and in a timely fashion. The competition between government and business seems to generally provide the best guarantee that critical information will be outed quickest (10 billion citations required, I know, I know). Anyway. A lot of us expected all of our US bureaucracy, taxation, legal code, and federally-funded expertise to properly handle covid-19, or any other pandemic. We don't really know what government could've done, because at almost every turn, the machinations of normal executive branch processes, including even a small respect for science, were undermined. I know there have been at least 10 documented instances of Trump & co. disregarding CDC/HHS recommendations so far. Maybe the best we can do is to agree on a null result; So far, the US covid-19 response is neither a test of big government or the lack thereof. I personally feel like it errs more towards the latter, but there is no agreed-upon criteria for judging this. Overlying all of this is the fact that Trump himself has stoked a culture of ignorance and disregard for good public health practices because it has suited him politically. That's not how a leader leads. There is no excuse for this. The country would be much better off if Trump got out of the way of scientific recommendations. That said, is some of the MSM backlash coverage to Trump disregarding institutional advice intended (subconsciously or deliberately) to hurt Trump politically, at the expense of a more pure objectivity? Almost definitely, but it's always been like that, to some degree. I want to subvert the entire business model and get grassroots. Still working on it.In comparison, the worldwide death toll attributable to SARS CoV-2 was about 865,000 by the end of August 2020. Given the global population of about 7.8 billion, this translates to an interim pandemic mortality of about 11 deaths per 100,000 people. Even if the total number of deaths were to triple, the mortality rate would be comparable to that of the 1968 pandemic, and it would be about two-thirds of the 1957 rate.
Why were things so different back then? Was it because we had no fear-reinforcing 24/7 cable news, no Twitter, and no incessant and instant case-and-death tickers on all our electronic screens? Or is it we ourselves who have changed, by valuing recurrent but infrequent risks differently?
I think the word "interim" in the passage you quoted is adequate disclaimer. Is he not allowed to make any observations until all the numbers are in? He describes the 1918 pandemic as lasting a year, the 1957 pandemic lasting 15 months, and the 1968 pandemic lasting almost two years in some countries. H1N1 lasted just half a year. The passage you quoted clearly anticipates additional deaths: "Even if the total number of deaths were to triple, the mortality rate would be comparable to that of the 1968 pandemic, and it would be about two-thirds of the 1957 rate." How do you justify your extrapolation that 100% of the world population will get infected? Has that ever happened with previous pandemics? I'm not sure what you mean here. How many people get information directly from government? Are they watching C-SPAN? If you count government figures on Twitter, perhaps the quantity is high, but I have doubts about the quality. You link to NPR, "an independent, non-profit media organization." Despite saying federal funding is "essential" they add that "On average, less than 1% of NPR's annual operating budget comes in the form of grants from CPB and federal agencies and departments." I don't think you are arguing that the government is not big enough. Was there any shortage of funding, material or personnel, if government figures had made all the right decisions?The author compares statistics from the end of August to the historical record as if covid-19 was globally vanquished by September
one of the biggest problems of mine with pure libertarianism; Assurance that important information finds the consumers making important decisions related to that information, and in a timely fashion.
So far, the US covid-19 response is neither a test of big government or the lack thereof. I personally feel like it errs more towards the latter, but there is no agreed-upon criteria for judging this.