On Police Brutality, Civil Unrest, and Resisting Simplified Narratives

Last updated on: May 28, 2020 at 10:05 am By Jennifer Fitz

Last night during the protesting and looting in Minneapolis, I viewed a few of the videos and read a fair number of the live reports of what was happening. If I were to summarize the situation as I perceived it, it would be this:

Quite a few peaceful citizens were out assembling in protest, as is their constitutional right, and as they well should have been doing, in light of the recent egregious police brutality that needs to have ended forty years ago.
Some lawless citizens, black and white, male and female, took advantage of the situation to loot area businesses. (Said based on the videos I viewed that showed assorted persons leaving Target with their stash, most either eager that their faces not be filmed or at least in a hurry to exit stage right.)
Pillaging and burning ensued, as well as at least one fatality, and precisely who was doing what, why and how, is more difficult to parse out — we can imagine that some of that gratuitous violence was the work of revolution-inspired protesters being utterly stupid and vicious, some of it was the work of criminals who just like to destroy stuff and hurt people, and some of it no doubt happened at the hands of people who would be hard pressed to articulate quite where they fell on that muddied spectrum.
The police were not amused. Also: This level of uprising is beyond the present ability of the city police to manage without resorting to slaughter. No surprises on either of those counts.

As is our habit these days, commentary is falling into two over-simplified narratives:

Oppressed persons . . . something something something . . . therefore the civilian violence is excusable.
Lawless criminals . . . something something something . . . therefore the police brutality is excusable.

Consider the possibility that there is a different way of assessing this situation that is both more accurate and more productive. I propose as an initial attempt:

Because we live in a broken-down, crime-ridden society, many if not all police officers are operating in a state of heightened fear and over-reaction.
Our morally-askew culture doesn’t promote violence and impulsiveness selectively — therefore the humans who are working as police officers are also being programmed to behave violently, just as is happening to other citizens. Google “Game of Thrones” if you aren’t sure what I’m talking about.
American citizens are rightly outraged by the way that unwarranted police violence has become a commonplace. This happens even against affluent white people in liberal states.
Racism is clearly the motivator in many (not all) cases where African-Americans are the victims of police or civilian violence, and likely the motivator in many (not all) other cases. This is a serious issue that, see book recommendation below, plays a significant part on all sides of the societal-violence problem.
Something is clearly very, very wrong when there is a steady flow of reports from around the nation that involve the police killing people while apprehending suspects in non-capital crimes (such as counterfeiting), as well as killing innocent bystanders in the process of apprehending unequivocally dangerous persons.
The fact that we live in a violent, lawless society — the sort where a peaceful protest inspires pillaging and burning — in no way undermines the cause of the peaceful protesters demanding the police knock it off with the violence and lawlessness.

This is not a left or right issue. It is not conservative or liberal. It’s not even religious or secular, though religion has plenty to say about morality and right living. Thus:

You can be a veil-wearing, husband-submitting, ultra-conservative, ultra-religious housewife on the extreme right, or you can be a gigolo on the extreme left who dresses like such a gal for the annual pride parade, and come to the same exact conclusion on this issue.
You can own all the guns or want to outlaw all the guns and come to the same exact conclusion on this issue.
You can Adore Trump or Trust Biden and come to the same exact conclusion on this issue.

The police not-killing civilians is not a partisan policy position. It’s a normal decent human being position.

***

It is, nonetheless, a difficult position to legislate. Just as the problem is complex, so are the potential solutions. As it turns out, there’s a bit of contemporary military science that has assessed the factors that make human beings more willing to kill more easily — and therefore given us some information on how to decrease the likelihood of brutality as well. It’s worth a look. Initial book review is here.

Artwork courtesy of Wikimedia, CC 4.0.

Unmasking False Dichotomies

Last updated on: May 14, 2020 at 7:49 am By Jennifer Fitz

As I mentioned the other day, I & mine are doing fine this coronatide, other than a sturdy dose of ordinary life, though I suppose my suddenly becoming a conversational twitterist is right up there with sourdough (check) as a sign of just how precarious our sanity is around here. As a result of this plunge into madness, I find myself now having to do the previously unthinkable and point out that RR Reno has lost his logic.

Quotes from the screenshots that we’ll be addressing today:

Now we know who want to cower in place. By all means rage against those who want to live.

And:

Just to reinforce. Talked to my son in Seattle. The mask culture is fear driven. Mask+cowardice. It’s a regime dominated by fear of infection and fear of causing infection. Both are species of cowardice.

I can’t speak for Seattle. I live in that reddest of red states, and I observed this morning that our reported COVID-19 deaths year-to-date are tracking with our 2019 traffic fatalities year-to-date. Here’s our situation on the ground, for those who are curious:

SC Department of Health is promoting mask usage as one of a list of precautions to reduce the risk of transmitting the novel coronavirus;
Governor McMaster eased us into a partial shutdown and now he’s easing us back out of it again, with a focus on protecting vulnerable populations, maintaining hospital capacity (so far so good), and keeping open anything that can safely be kept open;
Industry groups are developing voluntary guidelines for modified business practices in high-risk industries (restaurants, hair salons, gyms, etc.);
Neither God nor guns were ever taken off the market (this is ‘Murica), but public boat ramps and shooting ranges did have to be closed for a hot minute and if we go back to being naughty “nothing is off the table.” Let that be a warning to you, citizens, I am your governor and this time I mean it. Quit making the Coast Guard have to break up your coronacation parties.

I don’t think “fearful” describes the climate here. If you know enough people in enough places, you know someone under 50 who’s died of COVID-19. As elsewhere, nursing homes in particular and the elderly in general are the most likely to be struck down. And thus, because we are the kind of state that we are, some people are quite cautious; some people are modifying their behaviors to be more careful but with little lapses like the receptionist at the doctor’s office whose employer-mandated mask covered only one of her two airways; and some people feel like it’s just not living if you aren’t sitting on dynamite while jumping your ATV over a gully full of copperheads.

So, to answer the question that our COVID-19 statistics shove in one’s face: Yes, you should be a little bit scared when you are driving in South Carolina. A healthy fear, properly ordered, leads to many a tale of people who almost-but-were-not killed by that guy driving home from the bar at four in the morning when you were headed out to the deer stand.

Thus my disappointment with RR Reno.

I realize he lives immersed in the culture of the American elite, and that it’s not paranoia when they really are out to get you. It is my firm hope that he can get himself a sabbatical in some red state paradise where the Walmarts are bustling but yes, most of us wear masks. Because right now he’s got a nasty case of False Dichotomy Disease.

Newsflash: It is possible to both think that widespread usage of face coverings, handwashing, physical distancing, and a daily brisk walk in the springtime sunshine are great public health measures in the face of a potentially-deadly illness for which the best-trained physicians in the world have only completed a few month’s residency thus far and to not be cowering in terror, but in fact to be doing all one can to live as normal a life as possible.

It is possible to both think that face masks in general are a low-cost, common-sense way to slow the spread of an airborne respiratory virus and hold that there are many good reasons this or that person might not use a mask, and that even in high-risk situations, there are often other options (face shields, plexiglass, distance, holding your breath while you dash past the lady blocking the aisle) if for some reason using a mask is not a good choice.

It is possible to both think that one should do everything possible to protect vulnerable workers who spend all day dealing with the public up close and personal and think that states should be doing all they can to keep businesses open.

Goodness gracious it is even possible to think that COVID-19 is a very serious disease and think that responsibility for public health resides primarily with the states, with local communities, with business owners, and with the personal choices of private citizens — not with federal dictate.

I may be proven wrong, and every time I hear of a comparatively young and healthy person dying of COVID-19 I feel almost as scared, for a moment, as I do when I’m riding shotgun with my 15-year-old student driver careening down the interstate in a construction zone. Not quite, though.

Statistically speaking, it is my belief after reviewing the data that I personally am in far more danger teaching my kid to drive than I am going to Walmart under our present local culture of mask-wearing, plexiglass, physical spacing, and me holding my breath as I pass elderly shoppers who can’t figure out the directional arrows on the aisles.

But it is also an established fact that my community is passing around a respiratory virus that is spread by healthy, asymptomatic adults who share the air with other people. It appears that mask-wearing offers some help, when combined with other simple, low-cost behavioral changes, in protecting vulnerable persons from catching the virus while they carry out necessary activities. Why on earth would I stubbornly object to a minor inconvenience that might buy someone a few more years with their grandchildren?

Furthermore, it is also possible that I am one of those vulnerable persons and don’t know it. There is no way to know ahead of time if my experience of the novel coronavirus will be nothing at all, death, or something in between. It’s beautiful out this time of year, and I’d rather be gardening than monitoring my O2 stats as I sweat my way through the worst flu-like illness of my life. As a master procrastinator, to my mind there is a third way, in between cowardice and bravado: I could just try to avoid the thing as long as possible? Why not?

Public Health Logic vs. #MasksForAll

Last updated on: April 2, 2020 at 9:19 am By Jennifer Fitz

I’m not an epidemiologist, but I do sometimes teach logic. So check out this bit of public health polemic from CIDRAP:

There is some evidence that surgical masks can be effective at reducing overall particle emission from patients who have multidrug-resistant tuberculosis,³⁶ cystic fibrosis,³⁴ and influenza.³³ The latter found surgical masks decreased emission of large particles (larger than 5 µm) by 25-fold and small particles by threefold from flu-infected patients.³³ Sung³⁷ found a 43% reduction in respiratory viral infections in stem-cell patients when everyone, including patients, visitors, and healthcare workers, wore surgical masks.

In sum, wearing surgical masks in households appears to have very little impact on transmission of respiratory disease.

I suppose it all depends on what your definition of “very little” is. 43% reduction in viral respiratory infections? Sure, I’d like a little of that.

If there were an anti-viral pill that cut infection rates by 25% or 30% or 45%, with virtually no side effects, no drug interactions, available in generic at minimal cost . . . you’d be taking it every day. They’d probably put it in the drinking water.

If it were a shot and you refused to give it to your newborn, you’d receive stern warnings and a note in your chart that you’d gone AMA. If you persisted in your refusal, your children would be banned from public schools.

***

That’s surgical masks, of course, which are in short supply and therefore logic tells us they should be saved for the situations where they are needed most. Your homemade cloth mask is less effective. And yet, weirdly, I’ve never been to a doctor’s office where the flu-prevention poster says Covering your cough does nothing. Don’t bother.

Who are these physicians who would like to come to my house right now, as I’m sitting here recovering from a wicked sore throat and intermittent aches and a nasty headache yesterday, all of it well above-and-beyond even this year’s steady allergies, but those allergies are still making my nose run something amusing . . . who are these doctors who want to come sit with me while I sneeze on them and chat at them and would seriously say, “No, don’t bother covering your face, it doesn’t do anything.”

But if it’s a Walmart employee, then that’s okay?

I think not.

***

Let’s say that widespread use of homemade and improvised masks only cuts the spread of COVID-19 by 10%.

Is there an ER doctor out there who doesn’t want to cut caseload by 10%? Is there an ICU nurse thinking, “Nah, 10% few patients? Why would I care about that?”

If our politicians invested a billion dollars in a spending program that cut spread of the disease by 10%, they’d be touting it election cycle after election cycle for the remainder of their career. But if it can be accomplished for free using materials you have sitting around your house?

Never mind. Not worth it.

***

There is some evidence that piling on the “not very effective” public health measures can save lives. Here’s a discussion of preliminary evidence that lowering the amount of virus one is exposed to can reduce severity of the disease.

Here’s a discussion for the lay audience on the challenge of transmission among asymptomatic and minimally-symptomatic persons, which is more of a thing for COVID-19 than for other viruses.

Use your logic skills: If washing hands helps a little, and covering your cough helps a little, and keeping six feet away helps a little . . . then all three combined helps a little more. Yes? Yes.

***
Y’all. Have mercy on the doctors and nurses who are dying from exposure to this virus.

Stay home when you reasonably can.

Wash your hands.

Use physical distancing, barriers, minimal contact, and disinfecting to make work life safer.

Favor outdoor over indoor meeting locations.

Cover your mouth and nose.

And I’m gonna say it now, even though I’m not hearing it yet: Put on whatever glasses you have on hand and thereby reduce the number of droplets hitting your eyes.

While we’re at it . . . Eat as nutritiously as you can, get exercise, and generally take care of yourself.

Slow. it. down.

Artwork: A poster explaining that covering your face when you cough or sneeze is helpful. (Wikimedia, Public Domain). But apparently the droplets of moisture that come out of your mouth and nose when you talk or breathe can be spewed freely and that’s fine? Or is covering your cough just a big fat lie? I think not. Every little bit helps.

Cover it up . . . slow it down.

Flattening the Curve vs. Flattening the Economy

Last updated on: March 23, 2020 at 3:56 pm By Jennifer Fitz

In response to a popular piece on the economic devastation of “flattening the curve” my friend Scott Reeves issued a challenge to me: Jen, I think you’re wrong. Check us off on the test of true friendship, and then read Scott’s thoughtful challenge to the Church, which is pertinent to anyone who opposes the flattening of the faith.

Meanwhile, as an Armchair Junior Economist, with the weight such a position entails, here are some quick thoughts on what I think Americans need to do to hold the economy together as well as it can be held.

(1) I stand by the moral imperative to do what we can to avoid overwhelming our medical system by letting contagion spread unfettered. I think the evidence is clear that failure to “flatten the curve” causes a massive number unnecessary deaths.

Perhaps I’ll expand that thought in a future post. But for now, it’s simply a premise of my thinking, rooted in my pro-life point of view. If your opinion is that it’s okay to knowingly allow many people to die who would otherwise survive, in order to achieve some other goal, then I suppose my question is: What goal is it you have which is of greater value than protecting human lives?

(Of course we know that many people in our society do hold, say, economic security to be of greater value than allowing this or that inconvenient person to live. That is wrong.)

I recognize that poverty is itself a cause of death and destruction (more to follow below, though probably not what you want to hear). However, to simply be less rich is not worse than being dead. And if one is dead, one has no hope of avoiding death. Whereas, if one is alive, but poor, there is still hope that poverty might be alleviated.

(Acknowledging here that in the long run we’re all dead, so it is fitting that momento mori be the theme of this year’s Lent, see here and here. And yet, Christian paradox, the command is to choose life.)

(2) The index to my primers on double effect can be found in The Junior Moral Theologian’s DIY Kit.

Conclusion: The present epidemic calls for the virtue of prudence, and persons of goodwill can disagree on what prudence entails.

(3) From my perspective, the chief failing of the United States is a national security failure. I observe that:

Even the ordinary internet-surfing, non-Chinese-speaking housewife (albeit one with degrees in certain pertinent fields) was able to note by late-January that the virus rampaging in Wuhan posed a significant threat to the United states. Yes, my husband and I re-balanced our 401(k) accordingly.
We were not alone. SuperHusband’s employer began a stepwise set of precautions, beginning by banning international travel for employees about the same time evacuation flights from Wuhan were beginning, and progressively tightening employee-safety measures as the epidemic spread.
And yet: Does not the USA have an intelligence service? Should not our president and other key officials (one thinks of certain senators who have lately presented themselves as worthy claimants to the chief executive’s office) been privy to, and acting upon, information out of China long before the average housewife or corporate executive could clearly see the handwriting on the wall?

In my naivete, I assumed the silence on such matters was because the United States did not wish to broadcast (and therefore increase vulnerability to terrorism) its efforts to quickly ramp up our medical supply lines. It is exactly as they say about assuming.

(4) All that is done. What are our choices now?

(5) I should like us to quit being dishonest.

For example, in the effort to avoid a false sense of security and to prevent a run on masks, the US has waged a massive propaganda campaign against the use of face masks. What if instead we acknowledged that:

Civilians wanting to protect themselves from the virus is reasonable, but that we need civilians to limit their use of medical equipment because there is a shortage, and to donate what they can to local healthcare providers;
Improvised face masks and eye protection (and perhaps gloves?) do not stop the spread of the virus, but can help slow it down, especially when combined with physical-distancing;
Available data changes daily, and so suggested best practices will likewise be updated?

It isn’t necessary to shoot down every theory as categorically false, only to three days later announce it’s the new dogma. Put a date on your recommendation or statement of we’re-not-sure yet, and train people to check the best-by date. People enjoy feeling in-the-know and scolding each other for sharing old information. Harness that superpower.

(6) I’d like OSHA, health departments, and industry organizations to work on quickly disseminating best-practices for slowing the spread of the virus, even knowing that those best practices will evolve over time.

By this I mean not “It’s all or nothing, and heaven forbid you worry anybody by acting as if this needs to be taken seriously, but once we finally decide to take this seriously, we’re shutting everything down.”

There are reports of employees, even healthcare providers, being forbidden to wear any sort of face mask, lest it “scare people.” Honey, if all it does is scare people, we’ll be ahead of the game. Scare people into keeping their bodies to themselves and covering their coughs, please. Please.

(7) We need to quickly move beyond “Essential industries only” thinking into “What can we keep open and how do we do it?”

Looking at, say, the Pennsylvania list, at this writing residential construction is limited to emergency repairs only. Have you observed much construction work, friends? It’s not exactly a touchy-feely business. For many, many contractors, moving to best practices that prevent the spread of contagion would involve very little adaptation. Honestly the biggest challenge is transporting laborers without cramming them all into the cab of the supervisor’s pick-up. (And note: Plenty of mom-n-pop contracting businesses involve only household members working closely together.)

There is no need to shut these industries down. There is no need to shut down factories that are automated enough that workers can be spread apart and work routines organized in a way that eliminates back-and-forth handling of materials. Do you understand that in many situations, you can completely solve the door handle problem by judicious use of a door stop?

We can maximize economic output and minimize economic loss by both reorganizing essential services to protect workers and reorganizing non-essential services to protect workers. The missing piece here is that there has been very little effort in the US to be serious about physical distancing and infection control. Instead it’s either a free-for-all or a total shutdown.

Both extremes are wrong. Closing public dining rooms and switching to carry-out is common sense. Not giving masks to food service employees is suicide. (Also: When we re-open restaurants, how about handwashing stations in the dining area?)

(8) Reckless generosity belongs at the bottom of the social pyramid.

I’m going to briefly pretend that our government is manned by rational persons oriented towards public service. While indulging in that fantasy, here are the two prongs of economic policy to pursue in the immediate term:

Prodigiously hand out cash and food stamps to people who find themselves suddenly unemployed or under-employed, even if they don’t qualify under traditional definitions for beneficiaries. Take the risk that scammers will lie (they always do anyway). Help ordinary people keep their essential bills paid, right now, as an emergency measure. This is the number one thing we can do to safeguard the economy.
Put together financing and assistance for businesses that can retool to assist in pandemic relief. At every level, not just the big businesses.

Everything else can be carefully constructed over the next few months. Those two are the immediate needs.

(9) What? Demand-side economics?? What about the airlines???

Well, um, payroll is a thing? So rather than industry by industry attempting to bail out the corporations, and figure out who needs to do layoffs where and how, if we just help ordinary people pay their bills, we’ve covered most of our bases. Yes, assets sit idle, and that kills ROI for a little bit. If you can keep the individual human beings afloat during the emergency, the entire economy is far better poised to bounce back as soon as it can.*

People who aren’t bankrupt or dead will spend money. Businesses will be back in business. If you kill the customer, you kill the business.

(10) Of course emergency economic aid doesn’t work too well macro-economically, in the longer-term, if Congress and the President have spent the last thirty years acting as if their primary calling is to grow the federal debt. Thus, now backing off the fantasy life: A combination of loss of wealth (see below) and money-printing is how we create stagflation. Oof. We’re in a dicey situation.

(11) There’s also the small problem of our present social system being built around the complete ignoring of the fact that our society is decayed to the point that people seriously, with a straight face, balked at closing schools because school is where children get their food. (Bless the many school districts who have figured out how to both feed and educate their students remotely, proving it can indeed be done). You can’t have a society that is built on broken families and insufficient wages, and still expect your economy to weather natural disasters.

We’re headed for trouble.

(12) I’m really sorry that we’re headed for trouble. Natural disasters were not invented last Saturday. Every gathering of human beings across all time has had to plan and prepare itself to endure the vagaries of life in this fallen world. Some do it well, and survive. Others do it poorly, and collapse. I am concerned that the United States has pushed its luck.

The thing to understand is that it is possible to both respond to a dangerous pandemic in a way that minimizes needless death and holds together enough of an economic platform that we can recover from the blow.

The blow is still the blow. You cannot unleash death and destruction and then expect to be as rich as you were. This is life. This is why emergency savings are necessary. This is why social structures need to be strong. This is why you can’t push a policy of broken families, self-destructive behaviors, and debt-financed businesses as the norm for day-to-day operations year in and year out.

Economics is the management of wealth, and deadly illnesses destroy wealth. That is reality. There is no need to be alarmed by the loss of the wealth. There is need to act in a way that mitigates the loss of wealth, shores up our society, and stops the cycle of death and destruction so that wealth-creation on the widest possible scale can resume.

IN CONCLUSION: Big prayer and fasting. Thanks.

Artwork: Dancing Deaths, courtesy of Wikimedia, public domain.

*Let’s go ahead and get out our test of whether a given wage is a living wage: Can the CEO live on it?

The point of a corporation is to build wealth for people. The point of economic emergency action is to rescue people. People create wealth. Protect the people, and the wealth will rebound.

At Least Half of American Adults are High-Risk for COVID-19 Death

Last updated on: March 19, 2020 at 9:28 am By Jennifer Fitz

Friends are circulating this article from Bloomberg, which for some reason is supposed to be reassuring, “99% of Those Who Died From Virus Had Other Illness, Italy Says.” In the sampling of cases, Bloomberg reports that of those who died:

More than 75% had high blood pressure, about 35% had diabetes and a third suffered from heart disease.

So what does that mean for American readers?

The CDC estimates that 13% of Americans have diabetes. Concerning high blood pressure, from the CDC website:

Nearly half of adults in the United States (108 million, or 45%) have hypertension defined as a systolic blood pressure ≥ 130 mm Hg or a diastolic blood pressure ≥ 80 mm Hg or are taking medication for hypertension.

Only about 1 in 4 adults (24%) with hypertension have their condition under control.

About half of adults (45%) with uncontrolled hypertension have a blood pressure of 140/90 mm Hg or higher. This includes 37 million U.S. adults.

Meanwhile, the American Heart Association reports that 48% of American adults have heart disease. The CDC’s treasury of sources for statistics on heart disease is here.

Keeping in mind that these three categories overlap significantly, we’re still looking at easily half of all American adults being in the high risk category for COVID-19 death.

Recall that an additional portion of cases are severe enough to require intensive care in order to survive. Though we cannot have information on the long-term recovery from the disease, we do know that even asymptomatic infection is associated with serious lung damage. No room for a sigh of relief for anybody, just yet.

Related:

What More do Old People Have to Give? Someone with diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, or all three, can live for years and years managing the condition . . . if they aren’t killed in the next few weeks. I’m sorry it needs to be said, but apparently it needs to be said: Losing 5-10% of our collection of comparatively older and sicker people is not what we want.
Give Your Bishop the Benefit of the Doubt Eric Sammons, an author and fellow Catholic I have respected for many years (though I don’t always agree with him), put together a map of the United States, marking in black the dioceses that had suspended public Masses. As of this morning, the whole nation has gone dark. It is a chilling visual. And yet, and in the linked post I use a specific example to show how it might be done, I think we Catholics need, in this instance, to practice the virtue of seeking the most favorable explanation for our neighbor’s behavior. (And likewise in the other direction.)
Making the Mass Present in Your Soul When Your Body Isn’t In which I share a prayer technique that I find helpful, and maybe some others will find beneficial as well. Your mileage may vary; every soul is unique and unrepeatable. Still, in times of trial it is good to have as many tools in your kit as possible for nurturing your faith.

Meanwhile, the map I wish someone would make next is of the pinpoints of light among all that darkness, with each dot representing the sanctuary lamps still shining brightly. As consolation, and perhaps as motivation as well, that we up our evangelization game a little?

Artwork: Russian icon of The Good Shepherd, with sacred heart imagery, circa 1840, via Wikimedia, Public Domain.

7QT: Catholic Social Teaching Kicks in During Quarantine, and After

Last updated on: February 28, 2020 at 3:27 pm By Jennifer Fitz

Let’s talk about the economics of epidemics. By the time we’ve hit all seven takes for today, we’ll have a to-do item.

#1 I am inclined to believe COVID-19 is for serious.

It can be tough to decipher the reality behind news out of China. Frankly it’s tough to decipher the reality behind any click-provoking, ad-selling story picked up by the modern media. But here is something fairly rare: China, South Korea, Japan, Iran, and Italy all went into freak-out mode once a critical number of local COVID-19 cases emerged.

That’s a pretty diverse slice of geopolitics right there. Five different economic, social, and governmental cultures. Matching reactions. That tells me something is afoot.

In terms of statistics, of the early-outbreaking nations my money is on South Korea for the most reliable figures. My hypothesis is that South Korea had the strongest motivation to test early and often; it has a modern medical system and a relatively healthy populace; and in terms of the reputation of the government for open, democratic livin’, it’s not China or Iran.

Ditto Italy and Japan on the latter two criteria, but I have a sneaking suspicion both those nations were taken more by surprise, whereas it seems to me, looking at this issue from my armchair as a person who hasn’t looked closely at international foreign policy in many, many years, South Korea saw this coming.

So I’m guessing our best early numbers for patterns of infection, morbidity, and mortality are whatever we see in South Korea.

#2 Quarantine works.

From Disease Control Priorities: Improving Health and Reducing Poverty:

The practice of quarantine began in the fourteenth century in response to the Black Death and continues today (Mackowiak and Sehdev 2002). Quarantine and social distancing (such as the prohibition of mass gatherings) during the 1918 influenza pandemic reduced spread and mortality rates, particularly when implemented in the early stages of the pandemic (Bootsma and Ferguson 2007; Hollingsworth, Ferguson, and Anderson 2006). During SARS and Ebola outbreaks, health agencies and hospitals limited disease spread by isolating symptomatic patients, quarantining patient contacts, and improving hospital infection control practices (Cohen and others 2016; Twu and others 2003). During the 2003 SARS pandemic, none of the health care workers in hospitals in Hong Kong SAR, China, who reported appropriate and consistent use of masks, gloves, gowns, and hand washing (as recommended under droplet and contact precautions) were infected (Seto and others 2003).

For an illness like COVID-19, which seems likely to become endemic, the chief benefit of quarantine is slowing the spread of infection. This matters because everyone benefits if you can avoid overwhelming your healthcare system. From the same source:

When pandemics cause large morbidity and mortality spikes, they are much more likely to overwhelm health systems. Overwhelmed health systems and other indirect effects may contribute to a 2.3-fold increase in all-cause mortality during pandemics, although attribution of the causative agent is difficult (Simonsen and others 2013).

Slowing the spread of disease has many potential benefits:

Shortages of medicines and supplies are lessened because manufacturers can hope to keep pace with increased demand if the incidence of infections and complications is spread out over time.
Healthcare workers not only therefore have better access to protective equipment, they can also stay healthier if they are not overworked.
Later-affected localities have more time to learn about the course of the disease and ideal treatments and precautions. There is more time to train healthcare and public safety workers.
The depth of assistance for an affected community or affected persons within a community is far greater if not everyone is overwhelmed by the illness at the same time.

So while quarantine and self-isolation measures have significant social and economic costs, those costs may be well worth enduring.

#3 Human beings are not omniscient.

This is why the insurance industry exists.

I live in hurricane country. Year after year we face the constant questioning of whether the most recent storm brewing in the Atlantic is gonna be the next Hugo or Andrew or Katrina. And if so, where’s it going to hit? Who’s it going to hurt?

For state governments, there’s a fine balance between failing to act and getting slammed by casualties versus over-reacting too often and becoming the Governor Who Cried Wolf. This is not easy.

In the face of an Ebola or a SARS or a COVID-19, the natural course of prudence is to watch attentively, be a little too careful at first, and gradually relax precautions as the coast clears.

Regardless of whether a given disease proves to be the next bubonic plague or the next round of sniffles, even if we do everything exactly right, there are economic costs to widespread illness. Let’s look at what’s going down with COVID-19.

#4 Economic statistics are imperfect measures.

We need to distinguish between types of economic loss. Parsing all this out is complex, so don’t get all huffy in the next few paragraphs.

Some preliminaries:

Figures like GDP or Unemployment measure monetized transactions on the legal market. That means that any work that is unpaid, or that is paid for but not reported, doesn’t get “counted.” This will matter in a second.
Not every quantified economic activity is an equal measure of wealth-generation. If you spend money building a house where there previously was none, that expense represents an increase in wealth quite different from if you spend the same amount of money replacing a house just destroyed in a fire. Both are work. Both represent the creation of wealth. But in the one case you are wealthier than before; in the other you are only replacing wealth that was destroyed.
Numbers like stock market valuations are measures of expectations; only indirectly do they measure prosperity. However, because many people and institutions depend on stock market investments to fund long-term savings, there is fallout from market downturns.

So if we look at COVID-19, some of the effects of quarantine have no impact on the real wealth of human beings. Let’s begin with a red dinosaur.

In the photo, which is a communal Lenten penance of unknown duration, I am holding a small plush toy made in Lianyungang, China. My daughter spied these at Aldi a year ago, regretted never purchasing one, and this year when they showed up again on the Valentine’s impulse-buy shelves she splurged. In fact she eventually bought up the entire stock of leftover dinosaurs in our community and bestowed them on friends, family, and willing buyers, thus creating a Dinosaur Club. At 99 cents a piece, she thereby added a solid twelve bucks to GDP.

Quarantine measures have since shut down certain Chinese manufacturers. In terms of human flourishing, the loss of red plush dinosaurs is a non-happening. We the dinosaur-custodians are no better or worse off owning an accounted-for plush toy versus owning, say, a sock puppet created at home from salvaged scraps.

In contrast, the loss of basic medicine, essential supplies, and certain durable goods due to quarantine shut-downs is indeed a direct loss of genuine wealth in the form of goods that measurably add to human flourishing in a tangible way.

In the same way, in terms of human well-being for the consumer, it does not matter if one purchases dinner out or makes it at home, if both meals are equally nutritious — even though one will register a much higher number on economic indicators than the other.

That “for the consumer” qualification is of course the big problem with quarantine. For the supplier, the loss of sales hits home hard.

#5 Quarantine puts people out of work who can’t afford to be out of work.

The owner of a massive business selling luxury goods or services (and yes, that red dinosaur is a luxury good — it fills a want, not a need; the needs it does fill could as easily be met through a rag doll and a big hug from a friend) is unlikely to sustain any long term damage if his or her business is run well. Yes, there will be a hit to profits. But for the owners of large businesses maintaining adequate cash reserves, there will be plenty of opportunity to rake in the millions or billions some other year. It’ll be fine.

Who gets hurt when the luxury-economy gets shut down? Employees and marginal business-owners. Low-wage factory, retail, and service-industry workers are unlikely to have the savings necessary to simply not work for weeks on end, and are unlikely to be able to work from home. Small business owners living week-to-week on scant revenues, including many farmers, are in the same boat.

So although quarantine is overall better for the health and well-being of everyone, it also creates instant-poverty for wage-earners and certain entrepreneurs who are kept from working or who lose their customer base.

**#6 What this means is you have to go into Advanced Rerum Novarum Mode.**

Temporary disruptions call for temporary measures of charity above and beyond the usual, preferred, free-market solutions.

At the most local level, if you have the money to prep for quarantine, you need to be ready to assist those who can’t afford to do so. If your local foodbank is in fact prepared to deliver goods to clients under quarantine, that’s a good destination for cash donations. Otherwise, it behooves us to simply expect that there will be a need to directly feed your less-wealthy neighbors in a situation where your apartment complex or subdivision is put on lockdown.

Regionally, health care providers can put in place free or sliding-scale screening and treatment stations. Hospitals can choose to waive bills for patients who cannot afford treatment and need it (and additionally they can set aside the usual over-pricing rigamarole that characterizes American healthcare for those who do have the ability to pay).

At the state and federal level, bankruptcy, criminal, and civil laws can be reformed to take into account both the temporary hit from emergency quarantine measures and the longterm regulatory biases that unduly penalize the poor.

#7 The Church will not lack for work.

I’m cynical. I haven’t noticed state and federal governments being super-effective at protecting the poor thus far, and I doubt Coronavirus is going to change that. I predict we’ll see a few grand gestures, some of them genuinely helpful, but for the most part the priority of our rulers will remain with keeping the servant-class just hale enough to continue churning out the services.

Thus, no matter how much we imagine the government will save us, the Church will still have to fill in the gaps. The need for practical assistance through crisis situations is only going to grow.

For a financially-solvent upper middle class family, quarantine may require some digging into emergency savings. Not a big deal. That’s why we have emergency savings.

But for those who can’t afford to take a financial hit, the scramble to meet basic needs during quarantine will require digging some big financial holes. Likewise remember the widow and orphan: Quarantine slows but does not stop the spread of disease. Some of those killed by COVID-19 will be adults responsible for supporting their families.

Thus we reach an unsurprising conclusion: We’ll need to do what it is the Church is called to do.

Not complicated. Just Lenten.

The 2020 Elections, as Clarified by Lunch and a Manslaughter Trial

Last updated on: February 11, 2020 at 9:15 pm By Jennifer Fitz

So today I ate lunch today at a local Trump campaign meeting, an unexpected encounter that answered a few questions about the national mood. (For those who don’t recall, here’s where I stood four years ago. No significant change to report.)

Meanwhile, here’s a headline being passed around Twitter: Couple indicted on involuntary manslaughter charge for allegedly terminating pregnancy. Mom and Dad ordered misoprostol from an overseas pharamcy, used it to induce an abortion, and sure enough it worked.

Exactly which Ohio laws were violated I couldn’t say, but there’s not a single candidate running in the democratic presidential primaries who isn’t campaigning in favor of the procedure this couple decided to try at home. There is not a single candidate who has reservations about a 28-week’s gestation baby being delivered (I don’t know anyone who doesn’t agree there are legitimate reasons that might be medically necessary) and intentionally put to death (nope, not medically necessary).

At the March for Life last month, as I stood there irritated at the security lines in place because of Trump’s appearance, there was a lady near me who was as gung-ho a cheerleader for the president as you could want. She had a homemade sign that everyone kept wanting their photos with, and she beamed and posed and tried to get the crowd chanting, and fortunately for those of us who don’t love being stuck in the middle of a pep rally, that didn’t ever last long.

I got past security in time to hear the president’s speech, and this is what I heard: President Trump is planning to win in November.

He’s not playing. That was one heckuva well-written speech. Whoever his writers were, whoever coached him on the delivery, hire those people. You won’t find better.

If that was the warning shot, the State of the Union was a canon hitting broadside. Did you find the showmanship tacky? Did nothing stink of reality-show quite like making a military family wait to reunite even one minute longer than necessary? Bad news for the upper crust: Reality TV sells. Donald Trump may be as vulgar as they come, but he is a better salesmen than you.

In 2016, Trump was selling an emotion. He sold the idea that he stood for the common man against the liberal elite, and he had the salesman’s luck of getting to compete in the general election not against the other common-man candidate, who likely would have won, but against the opponent who was the epitome of everything True Believing Trumpers love to hate. It doesn’t matter whether Trump, or Sanders, really is the friend of the ordinary folk. What mattered was that people identify with it enough, and be sour on the competition enough, to win the electoral college.

In 2020, the game has leveled-up. Trump is four years more experienced in selling his product, and he hasn’t wasted his time. Donald Trump has been filling his sales display with merchandise people want to buy. A sample of pro-life here, a tester of health care pricing transparency there, a dose of political assassinations and a fresh new batch of landmines for those who go in for such things. While every single Democrat in the primaries is digging in heels on the right of parents to abort their babies with Down Syndrome, Trump has proposed a budget that increases federal spending on persons with cognitive disabilities. Does that make him a pro-life hero? No. It makes him a politician who knows what it takes to win.

This is what it’s like to sit at lunch with local Trump campaign organizers: You meet at a clean, efficient, locally-owned restaurant. You order the gorgonzola salad, and it’s better than most restaurant salads by a long shot, and not over-priced either. Before you eat, one of the leaders tells a joke and then says grace. Guess what? Deplorables like being allowed to pray. Trump people may or may not be religious at home, but being insulted over your religion? That’s fighting words.

So then there’s lunch, and people just talk, mostly general chit-chat, not even political. At the end of the meal, the local organizer runs through her to-do list. There are some rallies planned, they’re gonna be short and fun and it’s a good time. Would a few people like to work on combing the obituaries and working with voter registration to make sure no dead people vote this year?

Then the guy who said grace stands up and tells the story of how, by being friendly and approachable and sharing an objective list of Trump’s accomplishments, he’d gotten an opponent to change parties.

I spent an hour and a half with the local Trump reps, and there was not a moment of negativity. There was kitsch, for sure. There was a drawing for a MAGA hat, there was a big ol’ muscle-man Trump banner, there was a little theme music playing during clean-up. This works not because most people who are going to vote in November want a president’s head stuck on Rocky Balboa’s body. It’s because if you are positive, law-upholding, and no matter the voter’s priorities you can point to two or three accomplishments fit the bill, then the people who don’t go in for kitsch will ignore it. It’s a big tent. Trump might be a sales guy’s sales guy, but he’s got something in inventory you’d like to buy.

Meanwhile, the opposition is sniping at centrist voters one non-negotiable at a time. There are a lot of people who don’t want 28-week-old babies intentionally put to death — or at least want it to be done discreetly under guise of “no extraordinary care.” There are a lot of people who are okay with parts of socialized medicine (Trump has not overturned the part of the ACA that provides medicaid for low-income families) but don’t want nuns being made to pay for birth control, and the middle class fined for failing to buy insurance they can’t afford. There are a lot of people who don’t give a rip what grown-ups do behind closed doors (and indeed if more people did care, Trump would not have gotten elected) but they don’t like minors being pushed into sex-change surgery and don’t like seeing small business owners bankrupted over left-wing sting-operations. The message from the bulk of the left is that if those things bother you, good riddance.

The message from Trump is that your president might not be a perfect man, but who is? And he’s going to do some of the things you want, and he wants not just your vote, he wants you.

Unless something big changes, it’s looking like four more years.

Photo: President Trump smiling over a signed executive order, courtesy of Wikimedia, Public Domain.