Visiting Column #44 -- My COVID-19 Figures or Yours

I got a tweeted reply today to something I had written, in regard to the status of breweries in North and South Carolina relative to Wuhan virus handling:

"If masks work, why are some businesses forced to stay closed? On the flip side, if masks don’t work, why are we all being forced to wear them?"

I have an answer for him, but it was going to take too long for a tweet and, anyway, the answer is fairly deep.

The first part of the answer is that, as I think the science is fairly clear on, masks are a pretty ineffective way to avoid getting the virus, but a fairly decent way to avoid spreading the virus.  Follow?  According to the figures, face masks are really for the infected person to avoid spreading it through coughing, sneezing or other means of expelling virus-laden droplets.

The second part is the harder part, since almost anything said or written dealing with Wuhan virus spreading is subject to political spin, and I'm more interested in factual stuff.  That's why I used the word "stuff", since it's real technical and I'm an MIT guy.

I might have the virus.

I don't know, because I have no symptoms and have not been tested, and I don't think I have it, but I have no idea.  You see, I have not been tested because I have no symptoms.

And that's the thing.  Neither have a lot of people; they don't have symptoms.  We don't find out if they do or do not have the virus, because they're not tested.

Do you get the missing part of all this?  Of all the people exposed to the virus and who would test positive for it, some percentage are symptomatic and the rest not.  Of all the positive-test people symptomatic, some percentage die and the rest recover.  Two different things. Pause on that for a second.

We do know that in this country, that second percentage is about four or five percent now, and maybe above 5% in some countries with not-great medical facilities.  So in the USA, about 5% of people with the virus and who show symptoms die, very skewed toward the very elderly.  That's about what it is with the flu, although the flu doesn't skew as badly toward the elderly.  As one example, in Minnesota as of this week, more people in Minnesota over 100 years old have died of COVID-19 than Minnesotans under 50.

But I digress.

While we know the second figure, the mortality rate for those people with symptoms who test positive, we do not know the other figure at all yet -- that is, we don't know what percentage of people exposed to COVID-19 show any symptoms!

We don't know that because we have not taken a population -- a city, a state -- and tested everyone to see what the infection rate is.  There are not enough tests to do that, but it sure would be a good thing to know.  It is possible, friends, that 50% of the USA would test positive, and I'm not kidding.

While I realize that not having that figure makes this article a bit incomplete, the point of the piece is just that -- something we do not know, that would affect policy greatly if we did.  For example, let's say that only 50% of infected people show symptoms (I'm expecting it is even less, but let's be conservative).  That means that the 1.8 million symptomatic cases in the USA as of today is actually from almost four million infections, and the death rate is only 2.5%, not 5%.

But it could be much more extreme than that; we know that many names listed as COVID-19 deaths are not.  It is also certainly possible that only 20% of people exposed (and who would thus test positive) become symptomatic.  That means that the death rate for all positive tests would be 1%, and that is less than the flu, for which we don't shut the economy down.

So masks ...

The question from the fellow on Twitter was why, if masks don't work, we have to wear them and why, if they do, we need to shut down businesses.  Good question.  And after the missing data I point out above, you should see the answer.

We know that masks are for the spreader, not the "spreadee."  Am I a spreader?  Well, since I've not been tested, I don't know -- and that's why I should wear a mask, because I could already be infected, and need to protect others around me.  And it is why even people without symptoms should wear them for now, because you might be infected and don't know it.

And why are businesses shut down if they do work?  Now, I don't agree with doing this (I think business should open right now and practice safety, but still be open), but it's because masks aren't 100%; they're only about 70% effective.  They would reduce the transmission rate but not eliminate it. 

So in certain business situations, with big crowds, masks would help a lot, but not be as effective as one might want.  And given the missing data on asymptomatic infections, it's possible that masks are even less effective than that 70%.

I'll be candid -- I personally think the reason "businesses are shut down" still, even after the curve is flattened, because the more leftist governors have seized on an opportunity to control their citizens, and free economies are not conducive to tight government control.  It is a rare opportunity for the left not to miss a crisis opportunity to seize power, and they don't then relinquish it readily.

But just remember -- until we know the symptomatic rate among the infected, there is some serious policy-making going on in a vacuum.

Copyright 2020 by Robert Sutton
Like what you read here?  There are over 1,000 posts from Bob at www.uberthoughtsUSA.com, and after four years of writing a new one daily, he still posts thoughts once in a while as "visiting columns", no longer the "prolific essayist" he was through 2018, but still around.  Appearance, advertising, sponsorship and interview inquiries cheerfully welcomed at bsutton@alum.mit.edu or on Twitter at @rmosutton

Visiting Column #43 -- Where Goes the Judge?

Yes, this is about Lieutenant General Michael Flynn, and I sure as heck don't like having to write it and to be hearing about the case.

But this is also about gestalt, which is the German word for "looking at the whole freaking thing", which is what we need to do in the Flynn case.

So let's quickly review.  After Donald Trump was elected in November of 2016, and after he had started to create his Cabinet and senior staff, but before Barack Obama left office and still had power, there was a phone call.  Lt. Gen. Flynn had been named the incoming National Security Advisor, and was speaking to the Russian ambassador to the USA.

Obama had just imposed some mild sanctions against the Russians for their attempt to meddle in the 2016 elections, and Flynn was saying to the ambassador not to retaliate; that the new Trump Administration was going to look at the sanctions first to see if they were warranted.

Now, Obama hated Flynn.  He hated that Flynn wouldn't go along with Obama's public assertions that Al Qaeda was essentially done for, which he needed the general to support, so he could pose the "I stopped Al Qaeda" narrative for his, you know, legacy.  Flynn would have none of that.

The intelligence community leadership (the political appointees, not the agents) hated Flynn as well, because he planned to do some reorganization of national intelligence, and that would expose some of their leadership's missteps.  So a lot of people did not want Flynn to have a role in the new administration, and those people generally didn't have ethics.

The intelligence folks had been recording all the conversations the ambassador had with Americans, and that included the one with Flynn.  So James Comey, part of that cabal, sent FBI agents to meet with Flynn and entrap him -- one actually made a note in the meeting to that effect, which was not made known to Flynn or his legal team.  Never mind that they came back from the meeting noting that he had been truthful; no matter that he had not been told he was being investigated.

It's not legal to expose the name of an American citizen, in this case Flynn, on an intelligence-wiretapped phone call -- unless a request to "unmask" the American is filed.  Gee whiz, all of a sudden everyone in the Obama administration from Joe Biden down to the janitor filed an unmasking request, and one of them (or more) leaked the contents of the call to the Washington Post.

Flynn was then charged with lying to the FBI, and then threatened that if he didn't plead guilty, they'd go after his son.  As one of the Obamist cabal said, "If the FBI wants to get you, they can."  So Flynn pleaded guilty, lost his job, and incurred $6 million in legal fees, losing his house in the process.

Of course it ultimately came out that the FBI withheld evidence that would have cleared Flynn, and his new lawyers and the Justice Department, both realizing that the plea was inappropriate, went back before the judge, Emmet Sullivan, where the United States of America withdrew the charges.  Simple as that.

Not so fast.  Judge Sullivan huffed and puffed and decided that he would allow amicus curiae (friend of the court) briefs, from parties with no connection to the case, as to why Flynn's withdrawing of his plea should constitute perjury (!).  He then appointed another former judge, John Gleeson, to -- get this -- challenge the Justice Department's withdrawal of its charges!

That's where the "gestalt" thing comes in.  Look at the whole thing, and ask why Sullivan isn't.

An incoming government official is framed in a perjury trap for talking to the Russian ambassador, which he is completely permitted to do as, you know, part of his job.  He is threatened by the FBI, which is trying to "get" him, with going after his son, so he pleads guilty and loses his job, still not having committed a crime.  We find evidence that the FBI phonied up their actions, so the DoJ pulled its charges three years later, which should never have been filed in the first place.

That is the whole picture.  That is "gestalt."

But the judge is not happy about that.  He's unhappy that the DoJ admitted it framed Flynn, I guess.  And so he appoints someone who, by the way, has already written anti-Flynn newspaper commentary, to try to fight the actions of DoJ in withdrawing charges it should never have filed.  All the while, Flynn is paying lawyers a boatload of money to defend himself against corruptly-filed charges.

Why is the judge not dismissing the charges, tossing them out of court, and demanding the testimony of the actual guilty parties, the Obama officials and FBI administrators who started this whole mess?  Why is he not looking at Flynn as the aggrieved party as opposed to the victim of a government-wide plot to ruin him?

Good questions all.  But the mainstream media are not asking them.

Maybe they can't spell "gestalt."

Copyright 2020 by Robert Sutton
Like what you read here?  There are over 1,000 posts from Bob at www.uberthoughtsUSA.com, and after four years of writing a new one daily, he still posts thoughts once in a while as "visiting columns", no longer the "prolific essayist" he was through 2018, but still around.  Appearance, advertising, sponsorship and interview inquiries cheerfully welcomed at bsutton@alum.mit.edu or on Twitter at @rmosutton

Visiting Column #42 -- Nothing New, Apparently

It has been a while since the last column here, so I thought it might be a good idea to share that yours truly is still alive and well, holed up in quarantine but doing fine.  The bigger news is that there didn't seem to be a lot to write about, at least in the sense that I could share an opinion.

"What?", I hear you cry.  "But there's this pandemic, and ...".

Well, sure there is.  But alone among the masses, I don't know that there is a lot to have an actual opinion on, you know, where there is a point to be made.  The facts are what they are, which is that Red China somehow became aware of the virus and its transmission last November or so, and lied their red butts off about it while they were buying up every protective mask they could get their filthy red hands on, including ones they're now selling to the governor of California at inflated prices.

So I suppose you could have an opinion on what is the deserved punishment for Beijing, and maybe I do.  I'd like those artificial islands in the South China Sea or wherever they are to have a MOAB dropped on them, but I'd be equally OK with every penny of Chinese assets in the USA seized and held for potential civil settlements by victims of the Wuhan virus -- medical and economic.

I'd be equally OK if, instead of tying up the courts with individual cases, the USA simply confiscated the cash value of the assets to replenish the Treasury for the cost of the stimulus and Paycheck Protection bills that were necessitated by the Red Chinese lies, deceptions and actions.  That would be fine.  Or we could simply declare that the entirety of the national debt that is owed to Red China is no longer owed.  That's good, too.

But in fact, the reason I'm not full of opinions is that as a nation, we had to wing this thing.  Every step taken by every level of government, all through the process, has been based on "ground truth", i.e., what we know on that day.  For the most part, government has had to say "We know A; we project B over time C; so we think the best course of action is X."  There was no time for hindsight.

How do you criticize that?  President Trump's first major decision was very early on, and that was to stop all flights from Red China.  The left screamed "racism" because, well, that's what they do, but that really was the logical step to take, don't make the problem worse while we're figuring out what the problem is.  Even the left knew that was the right thing to do; they just couldn't admit it, because, well, Trump.

His next major decision was to delegate the rules of engagement and operation -- i.e., what to close down and when -- to the governors.  New York City was a mess, but Scott City, Kansas (where the United Nations should be, as I argue here), was not.  Thousands of such contrasts existed, the president reasoned, so the sensible tack was to let those decisions be made more locally and not have the Federal government mandate rules that were needed in some places but crippling to others.  Opinion?  Perfect sense, there, nothing to argue about.

All along the way, and that "way" has now been more than two months, Trump has been saying that we needed to focus on opening the nation for business as soon as it was possible.  That would mean stages, of course -- certain businesses first, then others; certain protections required first, then fewer -- and also that the movement to the next stage would be a local, not a Federal decision.  If the governor of Texas felt that the state could advance to stage two, he could (and would) do so, even if the governor of Massachusetts did not.

Isn't that common sense?  How does anyone not think that was the right idea?  So no, I have no real opinion to share, because there is no reason for contention.

Well, OK, so I do have an observation.  If anyone ever thought that liberalism and the left in general were not all about grabbing and holding power, I would think that they have firmly grasped the notion now that they are only about grabbing and holding power.

Note that the left and the media have taken the position that bills, intended to borrow money that we don't have to provide funds for working people to pay their mortgages and feed their families, should be gummed up with all manner of things about voting, along with giving more to the Kennedy Center, and shoveling unrestricted taxpayer money to incompetent cities.

What was it that Rahm Emanuel, Obama's sidekick and later mayor of Chicago, said?  "Never let a good crisis go to waste."  In a joint endorsement video this week, Hillary Clinton quoted him, as if it were a good thing and not a contemptible admission of the left's political tactics.

Everything the left is doing now; everything they are saying, is toward slowing the economy, keeping more government more in charge, putting a bigger stranglehold on the American citizen, suppressing freedom.  It is all in the name of adding power to the government, a government that they think they will eventually take over to the point of dictatorship with them as the dictators.  The voting laws they propose are meant to ensure that.

We are lucky that they were not able to do even worse in the first two years of the Obama presidency, when they had the House, a filibuster-proof Senate and the White House.  The voters rebelled at what they were able to shove through and kicked the Democrats out of the House majority. 

We are lucky that a no-nonsense guy like President Trump (and not a RINO type) won in 2016, not just to keep the Clintons and the rest of the power-mad left out of authority, but because he has the cogliones to tell the nation that what the left wants is power, and not governance.  He speaks truth to power, because the people are the power in the USA.

We are lucky that so far, the left has not corrupted our electoral system to where they could grab a choke-hold on our government and utterly corrupt it, too, much as the Obama types did when they loosed the FBI to try to frame Trump team members.

We are lucky.  OK, so yes, I have an opinion.

Copyright 2020 by Robert Sutton
Like what you read here?  There are over 1,000 posts from Bob at www.uberthoughtsUSA.com, and after four years of writing a new one daily, he still posts thoughts once in a while as "visiting columns", no longer the "prolific essayist" he was through 2018, but still around.  Appearance, advertising, sponsorship and interview inquiries cheerfully welcomed at bsutton@alum.mit.edu or on Twitter at @rmosutton