CRIME IS DROPPING IN OUR MAJOR CITIES DURING THE CRISIS: If the ACLU has its way, however, many prisoners will be released and hence the long-term consequences may be to increase crime. (Here’s hoping American don’t forget how lucky we are to have had a general drop on crime over the last few decades. Let’s not virtue signal ourselves into reversing that trend.)
WHO EXPERT MYSTERIOUSLY DISAPPEARS FROM WEBSITE AFTER CARRYING WATER FOR CHINA:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7QIA0hAnBg
“So: Why did Bruce Aylward behave that way during that interview, and why did WHO just scrub him from their site? Is he okay? Is he physically safe? And can anyone at WHO explain any of this?”
Not at this time, but we can illustrate it:
GOOD IDEA: CDC to Colleges: ‘Consider’ Canceling Exchange Programs. “Colleges have already canceled many overseas programs in countries with high rates of local transmission of the virus formally called COVID-19, most notably China and Italy. But the CDC guidance is seemingly global in scope, referring to foreign travel by students in general.”
ANALYSIS: TRUE. Why was early coronavirus coverage so lazy? The media’s insatiable thirst for political correctness:
President Trump’s order to halt all travel from China on January 31, for example, was met with hollers of xenophobia from the loudest corners of mainstream media. Those cries have since been memory-holed — quite literally, in some cases (Vox) — but it’s worth revisiting the where the worst actors in media stood when this pandemic started. In fact, it was the very next day after Trump’s executive order that mainstream media outlets published stories downplaying the threat as merely another xenophobic reaction to foreigners, just like they’ve done with Trump’s position on immigration at the southern border.
The night that President Trump issued his order, Vox tweeted, ‘Is this going to be a deadly pandemic? No.’ That tweet was then deleted with a correction earlier this week. Lenny Bernstein at the Washington Post wrote on January 31, ‘Get a grippe [sic], America. The flu is a much bigger threat than Coronavirus, for now.’ The next day, the Washington Post published an op-ed titled, ‘Past epidemics prove fighting coronavirus with travel bans is a mistake.’ In what appeared to be a full court press against the president’s order, the paper published another piece on January 31, ‘How our brains make coronavirus seem scarier than it is.’ On February 3, they hit us with another op-ed headlined, ‘Why we should be wary of an aggressive government response to coronavirus’, arguing it would lead to more stigmatization of marginalized populations.
In similar fashion, we saw this appearance by LaToya Cantrell who was on CNN to discuss the issue of her city dealing with its outbreak of the coronavirus. There was a spike in cases in the New Orleans area following the annual Mardi Gras parade, and the surrounding events. In being asked about this Cantrell had a handy excuse; President Trump is to blame.
Just so we are clear, the Mayor of New Orleans is blaming the president for her not acting as the Mayor of New Orleans. The amazing part of her delusion is how she launches into a long diatribe about ”leadership”, all while discussing something that transpired as a result of her lack of leadership.
And, of course, Wolf Blitzer lets her comments stand, not even considering the possibility of challenging her on not taking action on an extremely local event that is fully under her purview. When a mayor can brazenly declare that a completely municipal activity is not at all her responsibility and not have the news anchor even come up with a follow-up question, we are presented with all of the proof that they have no curiosity towards looking into facts.
This continues apace with the press during this crisis. It is why polls are now showing that public approval with our media complex is continuing to plunge.
Mardi Gras was on February 25, and the partying starts at least two weeks earlier in New Orleans, a period when Trump’s travel ban was still considered racist and xenophobic by the news media. Oh, and speaking of which: [Local] “Health official says risk of coronavirus in New Orleans is ‘very, very low’ but warns of flu cases,” the New Orleans Gambit, part of the Times-Picayune/The New Orleans Advocate group of publications, reported on February 26th.
BUT NONPROFITS ARE MORALLY SUPERIOR, OR SOMETHING: Kennedy Center Tells Musicians It Will Stop Paying Them Hours After $25 Million Bailout Is Signed.
THIS IS CORRECT, I THINK: Contagion And The Right To Travel. “Governors and state public health officers will use every arrow in their quiver to stem the spread of the novel coronavirus. That much is clear. Some of these actions will inevitably raise honest concerns about civil liberties, and Americans should endeavor to debate the wisdom of government policy even amid a crisis to hold government actors accountable and protect constitutional values. However, the simple reality is this: federal courts will not enjoin temporary measures that are facially calculated to save lives.”
I believe this analysis is correct. There’s a lot of caselaw out there, actually, and although most of it is quite old — because we haven’t faced serious epidemics or pandemics in a long time — I think the cases are still good law. I am somewhat surprised by people who seem to think these issues have never arisen before.
JOEL KOTKIN: The End of New York: Will the pandemic push America’s greatest city over the edge?
Yet today, New York faces a looming existential crisis brought on by the coronavirus. It suffers the largest outbreak of infection by far, accounting for the largest numbers of both cases and deaths outside of Wuhan and Milan. New York is home to nearly half of the coronavirus cases in the United States, and a majority of deaths.
What’s particularly ominous for New York’s future is that the best way to slow the spread of the virus—social distancing—works against the very things that make Gotham so appealing. The very pleasures and crowded realities of urban life, such as mass transit, are particularly susceptible to pandemics. As New Yorkers are told to avoid crowded subways, subway traffic is down 60% and commuter train traffic by as much as 90%.
Cities like New York pay a price for being both dense and cosmopolitan. As a new study from Heartland Forward reveals, the prime determinants of high rates of infection include such things as density, percentage of foreign residents, age, presence of global supply chains, and reliance on tourism and hospitality. Globally, the vast majority of cases occur in places that are both densely populated and connected to the global economy. Half of all COVID-19 cases in Spain, for example, have occurred in Madrid, while the Lombardy region in Italy, which includes the city of Milan, accounts for roughly half of all cases in the country and over 60% of the deaths.
In contrast, suburban, exurban, and small-town residents get around in the sanctuary of their private cars and have far more room inside their houses. They do not usually get lots of visitors from outside, particularly from abroad. Overall, most rural areas around the world have been largely spared, at least for now, due to much less crowding and casual human contact, which abound in cities.
Pandemics naturally thrive most in big cities, where people live cheek by jowl and are regularly exposed to people from other regions and countries. Like COVID-19, the bubonic plague came to Europe on ships from the Orient, where the disease originated. As historian William McNeill noted, the plague devastated the cosmopolitan centers of Renaissance Italy far more than the backward reaches of Poland or other parts of central Europe.
Being away from people, driving around in your own car, and having neighbors you know, all have clear advantages when it comes to avoiding and surviving contagion. Even the urban cognoscenti have figured this out. Like their Renaissance predecessors during typhus and bubonic plague outbreaks, contemporary wealthy New Yorkers are retreating to their country homes where they struggle with the local townies over occasional short supplies of essentials.
In the long run, the extraordinary concentration of COVID-19 cases in New York threatens an economy and a social fabric that were already unraveling before the outbreak began.
All that high density/mass transit/reusable shopping bag stuff looks downright suicidal now.
NOTHING TO SEE HERE, MOVE ALONG: Report: Thousands Of Urns Shipped To Wuhan, Where The Virus Is Supposedly Under Control.
AT AMAZON, canned Boston Brown Bread. Also with raisins.
I SEE ON FACEBOOK THAT DAVID LAT IS OUT OF THE ICU — and he’s the one doing the post, which is good news. Still very weak and on oxygen 24/7 but that’s progress for sure. Get well soon, David!
SO HOW ARE THINGS AT STATELY INSTAPUNDIT MANOR? Fine. We cleared away a lot of essential errands — getting our taxes finalized, some medical appointments, etc. — a couple of weeks ago, and have largely stayed in since. To be honest, that’s not a huge change in our lifestyle. We still get out to run in the park, drop things at the post office, visit the ATM or the bank, but we generally hang out at home. The not-eating-out thing means I’ve painlessly lost a couple of pounds, and while I miss the gym I get an okay workout with dumbbells and a chinup bar along with pushups, etc. And we opened the pool so I can swim. I suppose some couples don’t like spending a lot of time together, but the Instawife is a delight as a quarantine companion. I’m teaching my classes online and while I don’t think they’re as good as the real thing — I like to walk around the classroom and interact with students one-on-one, and you really can’t do anything equivalent on Zoom — they’re not bad.
I had groceries delivered from Publix today, partly as an experiment as I’ve never done it before — I actually enjoy grocery shopping — and it went fine. They did a good job of picking the stuff and the delivery was quick. The InstaCart platform was groaning under its national load — I had to try several times, then wait for it to be down for maintenance, before I could put my order through. But I don’t think too many Knoxvillians are doing that yet. Give it time, as I hear grocery delivery in NYC is very backed up. Keep your larder well-stocked!
FRONTIERS IN BLAME-SHIFTING: New Orleans would have canceled Mardi Gras if feds had taken coronavirus more seriously, Mayor says.
A lot of blue cities and blue states failed the test here, and they’re all going to be singing this tune. It wasn’t the feds that told New Orleans to have Mardi Gras when other events were closing down, and it wasn’t the feds who told NYC to encourage people to go to Lunar New Year parades and ride the subway.
Related: New York Health Commissioner Tells People Not To Follow White House Coronavirus Guidance.
OPEN THREAD: How’s your weekend going so far?
TENNESSEE: Doctors ask every Tennessee mayor to order shelter-in-place: If Governor won’t do it, mayors can, letter argues. It’s true that mayors can. It’s also true that the ones that will, probably already have.
In Knox County, interestingly, we have 33 cases now, an increase of three from yesterday and five from two days ago. Meanwhile, we now have 14 recovered, up from 6 two days ago. So we’re currently subtracting cases (via recovery) faster than new cases are being discovered, even though we’re testing more. This may not mean anything — and we’ll certainly want to see if the trend holds up — but I think it means that our local lockdown, now a week old, is doing some good.
The situation in Nashville, meanwhile, is grim. I’m hearing ugly things from doc friends.
AT AMAZON, save on Gardening Supplies and Gear.
It would really help right now if our news media apparatus wasn’t garbage.
WEIRD, BECAUSE ALL THE BEST PEOPLE TOLD ME MASKS DON’T HELP: More Americans Should Probably Wear Masks for Protection: Experts have started to question whether masks may offer at least some protection to healthy individuals and essential workers.
GOOD GUY WITH A GUN TAKES DOWN BAD GAL WITH A GUN: Armed Citizen Shoots, Kills Active Shooter At Tulsa Shopping Center.
DAVID GEFFEN TACITLY TELLS THE REST OF THE WORLD, “GET BENT:” As coronavirus ravages the U.S., media mogul David Geffen observes a sunset from his $400 million superyacht: ‘I’m hoping everybody is staying safe.’
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