Eric Gay/AP Photo
Unsanitized-050520
"Temporarily closed" becoming "temporarily open," with drastic consequences.
First Response
Everyone is trying to make sense of the leaked CDC model that shows coronavirus deaths peaking at 3,000 per day, 70 percent more than the current plateau, and a whopping 200,000 new cases every day as well. The noted IHME model out of the University of Washington doubled as well, now predicting more than 134,000 deaths by August after sitting on 70,000 for a while.
I don’t think it takes a savant to figure out what’s going on here. The IHME model was just wrong, we were about to hit the number of deaths it predicted for three months from now, and it recognized its error by tweaking a dial. Though it did hold out that its projections “reflect the effect of premature relaxations on restrictions,” a convenient alibi for a model that was already out of date.
The CDC model is a more appropriate manifestation of what we’ve been talking about here. The country is pulling back on lockdowns while stuck at a peak on deaths and cases. In fact, because aggregating a large country with one curve is completely misleading, the pullback is happening while peaking is still going on. If you remove New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut, where cases spiked early, you see a curve that goes down slightly in the middle of April, causing everyone to relax, and then starts its way up again.
No other country has given the go sign to its population under these conditions. Countries around the world are starting to return and there appears to be some jealousy or mass delusion that we’re in the same position. We’re not and we never were. In fact Italy’s relaxation of the lockdown looks a lot like our lockdown. Having blown February by botching testing, we’re on the precipice of blowing March and April by re-opening far too soon. Even California, seen as the responsible actor in this play, is dropping restrictions (albeit not many), doing its part to put the country on a bad trajectory. The signals are all in the direction of placating protesters and putting America back in an incredibly dangerous position.
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So the CDC is adapting to circumstances like the IHME model, though in a more responsible fashion. It shows a ramp-up about two weeks from now, matching the beginning of the lockdown relaxations. This isn’t a second wave but the second half of a first wave that merely plateaued but never ended.
The Washington Post talked to the creator of the model, who disavowed knowing how the data was being used, but who helpfully explained that he was basing his decisions in the model on “reopening scenarios” that “could get out of control very quickly.”
This likelihood, by the way, is the worst possible outcome. Reopening and then seeing cases and hospitalizations that will overwhelm the system again, leading to another closure, would be worse for public health and worse for the economy.
The White House is sticking with a model made by their economist Kevin Hassett, who once predicted the Dow Jones Industrial Average would reach 36,000. (It hasn’t.) He’s using a “cubic” model which might as well be called a “fit the numbers to Donald Trump’s re-election plans” model. We’re seeing in real time a battle between epidemiologists and economists over predicting the future. Epidemiologists are catching up to limited data and reworking on the fly; economists are lying to flatter their bosses and ignoring reality.
If you really play out what the CDC model is showing, it gets you to half a million deaths by the end of the summer. You have to conclude, because what’s happening is so obvious, that this is an acceptable level of death to the president and his staff. They are fine with mass death in America. They have always been fine with mass death in America; we let mass murderers get guns, after all. They would rather have mass death than pay for unemployment benefits for too long. Their entire strategy throughout April was to figure out the best way to allow mass death, in service to the economy. This was a false choice, incidentally; we will have mass death and an obliterated economy. And when that happens, the only straw left to grasp will be the culture war.
Anyone working in the federal government on pandemic response right now who doesn’t want to be known historically as a mass murderer should probably resign.
Now She Tells Us
If you think you noticed frustration in that last segment, well now I have to report on Congress. The Senate returned to work on Monday, masks applied, mainly to tee up the confirmation of conservative judges, Mitch McConnell’s only real agenda. (This may break down, actually, after a complaint about McConnell leaning on older judges to retire to make way for young conservatives.) There’s little sense of any legislating about economic relief due to the crisis. Just like everyone else, the Senate wants to get back to normal, as a judicial confirmation factory.
In an alternate reality, Democrats think they can “squeeze” Republicans on the latest coronavirus response package, though Republicans appear unconcerned with doing much of anything. Nancy Pelosi wants to write a trillion-dollar-plus bill and told her caucus on a call, “We have to think big.” Elements of the bill include large amounts for state and local governments, food stamp increases, more cash assistance, extension of the boosted unemployment program, vote by mail guarantees, a postal service rescue, stronger workplace safety standards, and a few other things.
Good idea! It would have been a better idea when Republicans had any stake whatsoever in the outcome. They thought big about giving the Federal Reserve a $4.5 trillion money cannon. What Democrats are putting together, as many of them admit, is a wish list, to join all the other wish-list legislation gathering dust in the Senate. That didn’t have to be the reality; when Republicans wanted a corporate bailout, Democrats could have held out for some of these suggestions. They didn’t, and now they’ll whine about Mitch McConnell’s “obstruction” while those who needed the help and a better legislative strategy suffer.
That’s not to say there will be no bill. Republicans have highlighted some things they’d like to have—mostly, liability shields for businesses whose workers or customers contract COVID-19. Donald Trump, separately from congressional Republicans, has also talked about business tax deductions, a vague infrastructure plan, and (absurdly) a payroll tax cut, not the biggest priority when 30 million people are out of work and therefore ineligible for anything regarding payrolls. (He seems to think voters will reward him for this.)
You can, as Eric Levitz has, envision a three-sided deal where Democrats give on the liability shield and cut Trump in with a payroll tax cut and some infrastructure spending in order to get a trillion dollars in state and local government aid and some other goodies. That’s what a logical political system would bear: everyone gets something they want. We do not have a logical political system. McConnell has learned that he can give up next to nothing for what he wants. The left has been completely locked out of policymaking and Pelosi has a tenuous at best commitment to most of their goals. The packages released thus far have been extremely lopsided, because in the end Democrats are willing to take half a loaf and McConnell knows it.
One final point: The court packing push, already well underway, arguably voids the need for any liability shield, since it would add confidence that conservative judges will protect businesses. I don’t really know that McConnell needs to come to the table at all, or at least not without a true collapse in Republican standing that’s months down the road. Democrats played their hand very badly.
Today I Learned
- Looking to other countries is not something Americans ever want to hear, but hey, look to Iceland! (Washington Post)
- Here’s another crisis to deal with on top of this crisis: opioid deaths are spiking. (Daily Beast)
- J.Crew becomes a coronavirus casualty, though that’s just an accident of timing; private equity had long destroyed this business. (Yahoo Finance)
- The rental car industry, by contrast, really is a coronavirus casualty. (Wall Street Journal)
- Workers at Carvana are being told to get back to the office or give up their jobs. (HuffPost)
- Mortgage forbearance up to 7.5 percent of all loans. (Calculated Risk)
- USDA trying to square the supply chain circle by buying produce and dairy to forward to food banks and schools. (Politico)
- ESPN brings in Korean baseball, as I expected. (New York Times)
