THAT’S NOTHING. CUOMO IS KILLING THEM. Trump is hemorrhaging older voters, polls show.
Related: Cuomo Defends Barbaric Nursing Home Policy: ‘Older People, Vulnerable People Are Going to Die.’
Broken eggs are everywhere, but never an omelet to eat.
Archive for 2020
May 19, 2020
“FELL OUT:” “A 49-year-old man has fallen out of a sixth-floor window of a Moscow hospital for coronavirus patients and died, Russian media reports. Three Russian doctors treating coronavirus patients also fell out of windows in recent weeks.”
JOEL KOTKIN: The new geography of America, post-coronavirus.
For a generation, a procession of pundits, public relations aces and speculators have promoted the notion that our future lay in dense — and politically deep-blue — urban centers, largely on the coasts. Just a decade ago, in the midst of the financial crisis, suburbia’s future seemed perilous, with experts claiming that many suburban tracks were about to become “the next slums.” The head of President Obama’s Department of Housing and Urban Development proclaimed that “sprawl” was now doomed and people were “moving back into central cities.”
That idea was always overwrought with enthusiasm, but, with the COVID-19 pandemic heavily concentrated in these urban centers, the case for forced densification promoted by “urban supremacists” seems increasing dubious. By some estimates, the death rate in large urban counties has been well over twice those of high-density suburbs, nearly four times higher than lower-density ones, with even larger gaps with smaller metros and rural areas.
The pandemic has been toughest on those areas that suffer what demographer Wendell Cox called “exposure density.” In the worst case, which is in New York’s outer boroughs, this pattern is exacerbated by living in crowded apartments, walking packed streets, traveling cheek to jowl in the subway and then forced into a crowded workplace. This could explain why sprawling, large and relatively less-dense urban areas in Texas, California and Florida — each with their own pockets of poverty — have also experienced far lower infection and fatality rates than New York.
Indeed. Related: Coronavirus lessons on density, mass transit, bureaucracy and censorship: They kill.
THE COSTLY FAILURE TO UPDATE SKY-IS-FALLING PREDICTIONS:
What about Wisconsin, which was heavily criticized for holding in-person voting? It has had an increased caseload, but that is largely due to increased testing (up almost six-fold since early April) and an idiosyncratic outbreak in its meatpacking plants. The latter is tragic, but it is not related to the election; in fact, a Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel investigation failed to link any cases to the election; this has largely been ignored outside of conservative media sites such as National Review.
We could go on – after being panned for refusing to issue a stay-at-home order, South Dakota indeed suffered an outbreak (once again, in its meatpacking plants), but deaths there have consistently averaged less than three per day, to little fanfare – but the point is made. Some “feeding frenzies” have panned out, but many have failed to do so; rather than acknowledging this failure, the press typically moves on.
This is an unwelcome development, for a few reasons. First, not everyone follows this pandemic closely, and so a failure to follow up on how feeding frenzies end up means that many people likely don’t update their views as often as they should. You’d probably be forgiven if you suspected hundreds of cases and deaths followed the Wisconsin election.
Second, we obviously need to get policy right here, and to be sure, reporting bad news is important for producing informed public opinion. But reporting good news is equally as important. Third, there are dangers to forecasting with incredible certitude, especially with a virus that was detected less than six months ago. There really is a lot we still don’t know, and people should be reminded of this. Finally, among people who do remember things like this, a failure to acknowledge errors foments cynicism and further distrust of experts. The damage done to this trust is dangerous, for at this time we desperately need quality expert opinions and news reporting that we can rely upon.
Earlier: Our Nevermind Media — The media shrug at their massive bungling of major stories.
AT AMAZON, Face Mask, Pack of 50.
FROM WUHAN TO NEW YORK TO A NURSING HOME NEAR YOU: Why Did New York Infect America With Coronavirus? New Report Blames Cuomo, de Blasio.
THEY WON’T, THEY’VE CHOSEN THEIR SIDE: Media Must Report Truth Of Anti-Trump Spy Operation Before It’s Too Late For Them.
A high trust society is much better than a low trust society. But a high trust society requires people — especially among its leadership classes — willing to be trustworthy even when doing so is a short-term disadvantage. That requires civic-mindedness and self-discipline, two things that our leadership classes have not demonstrated of late.
BECAUSE THEY CAN: Scientists can’t figure out why otters love to juggle.
YEARS AGO — THE YEAR OF THE FIVE HOUSE MOVES — OLDER SON AND I STOPPED BY THE GROCERY STORE. WHILE I WAS RUNNING AROUND GATHERING ENOUGH TO MAKE DINNER, THEY DID THE ANNOUNCEMENT “IT’S TIME OF THE TOP OF THE HOUR WALK.”
SOMETHING MADE ME LOOK AT SON. HE WAS DOING THE ENTIRE MINISTRY OF SILLY WALKS, WITH ADDITIONAL SILLINESS. NOW EVERY TIME I HEAR THAT ANNOUNCEMENT I LAUGH, EVEN IF I’M SHOPPING BY MYSELF: Hilarious footage shows people performing their best silly walks in Monty Python inspired joke.
SOCIALIST PRIVILEGE. SAME AS IT ALWAYS WAS: Tax For Thee, Not For Me, Says AOC.
THERE ARE INDEED SEVERAL THINGS WRONG WITH THIS PLAN. THE MOST IMPORTANT ONE BEING THAT IT WON’T WORK: Mark Cuban Touts Trickle Up Economics.
How about y’all let my people go (back to work)? You can’t stimulate the economy while simultaneously keeping it locked down. Give it up.
I GUESS THE ENTIRE WORLD IS PARTICLE PHYSICS, NOW? The Era of Anomalies.
WITH DOCTORATES IN COMPUTER SCIENCE AND MEDICAL BIOMETRY HE CAN’T POSSIBLY HAVE GREATER EXPERTISE THAN KAREN: YouTube censors epidemiologist Knut Wittkowski for opposing lockdown.
STUDIES HAVE FOUND THAT SOME PEOPLE ARE FAR MORE LIKELY TO WASH THEIR HANDS BEFORE EXITING WHEN THERE IS SOMEBODY ELSE IN THE JOHN: CNN reporter caught removing face mask when she thought camera was off.
THEY TOLD US THIS WAS A 2 – 3 WEEK LOCKDOWN, WE DIDN’T AGREE TO SEVERAL MONTHS. HECK, WE DIDN’T EVEN AGREE TO TWO TO THREE WEEKS. WE SHOULD ALL BE WEARING T-SHIRTS THAT SAY “WE DID NOT CONSENT”: Social distancing on the decline in the US: poll.
They can go socially distance themselves. Nosotros (lit: we others. Very useful from Spanish. And probably misspelled since I haven’t read Spanish in years) are going to set ourselves free.
GO TO SPIN, STRANGENESS AND CHARM FOR YOUR WINNIE THE FLU RELATED NEWS: COVID19 update, May 18, 2020: preliminary human vaccine trial results; new BCG study rules out COVID protective effect; the Swedish road alone; more YouTube censorship.
THIS IS YOUR WORLD ON SOCIALISM: Desperate Venezuelans turn to cow blood soup during coronavirus lockdown.
FOR IT TO BE CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE, IT WOULD MEAN THEY HAD SOME AUTHORITY TO ORDER US AROUND. THEY DON’T. SO ALL THEY DESERVE IS: Civil Shoulder Shrug.
May 18, 2020
OPEN THREAD: Nighttime you’re too tired to drive your change across the floor.
NATURE IS HEALING. WE ARE THE VIRUS: Trump Derangement Syndrome Has Introduced Impeachment 2.0.
(Classical reference in headline.)
THIS IS WHY THE CHINESE WANTED HIM, I GUESS: NYT 2017: Candidate to Lead the W.H.O. Accused of Covering Up Epidemics. “A leading candidate to head the World Health Organization was accused this week of covering up three cholera epidemics in his home country, Ethiopia, when he was health minister — a charge that could seriously undermine his campaign to run the agency. The accusation against Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus was made by a prominent global health expert who is also an informal adviser to Dr. David Nabarro, a rival candidate in the race for W.H.O. director general.”