Written by John Furlan
Record Unemployment Claims, Covid-19 Model Data Issues, Call for Fauci-Type Economic Expertise
Introduction and Summary
Dr. Fauci has been the highly respected voice of reason in the Trump administration on COVID-19 healthcare policy. He has come out in favor of a national lockdown, as has Bill Gates and Ezekiel Emanuel, whom I cited in my April 1 article.
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Fauci has said, “I have no ideology. My ideology is health,” both correct and admirable, which is why he has so much credibility. Given his candor and honesty, I hope that he might agree with the two key issues that I will discuss in this article.
First, national and state Covid-19 policy responses are being made, at least to some extent, on the basis of epidemiological models which, of necessity, are deeply flawed because they are based on very limited data, as reputable infectious disease experts have readily acknowledged, see further below. Fauci himself has evidently done the same, which is not surprising, given his character, according to this April 2 Washington Post article:
“At a task force meeting this week, according to two officials with direct knowledge of it, Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told others there are too many variables at play in the pandemic to make the models reliable: “I’ve looked at all the models. I’ve spent a lot of time on the models. They don’t tell you anything. You can’t really rely upon models.””
The second main issue I address is that Covid-19 policy responses are not balancing healthcare concerns with economic ones, the latter not being Fauci’s remit, so he understandably doesn’t comment on them.
Which is why, especially given the shocking 10 million unemployment claims the past two weeks, the U.S. urgently needs someone with Fauci’s impeccable credibility, not Jared Kushner or Mike Pence, standing next to Fauci to comment on the increasingly critical economic issues at Trump’s daily briefings.
“expect the best, plan for the worst.”
Or barring that, since I don’t expect that to happen, then someone doing so in Congress, or outside if it comes to that. But it must be done ASAP, as I’ve emphasized in my last two articles calling for an Economic Jobs Council, which seemed validated after I posted them, by the off-the-chart 6.6 million unemployment claims on April 2, nothing has ever been seen like that.
The epidemiological model whose projections I discuss extensively in later parts of this series are from IHME, the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (University of Washington), which is primarily funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.The IHME model is believed to be the basis of the lower bound of 100,000 – 240,000 U.S. deaths from Covid-19 cited in a recent Trump press conference.
This model, which I urge you to follow closely as it is updated very often, is now forecasting as of April 5, nearly 82,000 U.S. deaths, down from 97,000 just a couple of days ago. To put these estimates into perspective, annual flu season deaths are around 61,000.
Added note: An even lower forecast was made on April 7 for 60,415 deaths by August 4.
The key point about this estimate, besides that it is coming down, is that it is within a very broad range. That range in the current IHME model extends from 49,431 on the downside 136,401 to the upside.
The range and certainty of forecasts are usually not discussed in the media. But serious policymakers like Cuomo and other governors in hard-hit states have, perhaps naturally, adopted the old mantra, “expect the best, plan for the worst.”
The other key point is that IHME is of course not the only model out there, it might be the most well-known, but policymakers tend to look at several models, some of which might be more pessimistic than IHME. I might give you my own opinion of what the “best” guesstimate of total deaths might be, but I am not a trained epidemiologist and statistician, so I have NO qualifications to do so, so I won’t.
“The range and certainty of forecasts are usually not discussed in the media.”
As I will emphasize several times throughout this article, at the top of the IHME charts they always clearly state in bold, “COVID-19 projections assuming full social distancing through May 2020.” In NO way should this article be construed as disagreeing with that policy.
I am NOT trying to create a dichotomy between social distancing healthcare policies to deal with COVID-19 and economic policies to deal with the huge economic fallout of those healthcare policies. As Gates, “the billionaire” whom I’ve expressed great respect for in my articles, might say, that would be a false dichotomy, with which I would agree.
According to this April 6 article on Yahoo Finance,
“Gates is spending billions of dollars on seven possible vaccines…
“Of all the vaccine constructs, the seven most promising of those, even though we’ll end up picking at most two of them, we’re going to fund factories for all seven, and just so that we don’t waste time in serially saying, ‘Okay, which vaccine works?’ And then building the factory.””
This very positive news doesn’t surprise me, I would have been surprised if Gates hadn’t stepped up with this offer. I’d also be very surprised if Gates and his wife Melinda don’t get a Nobel Peace Prize someday for their untiring philanthropic work over many years.
But the fact that Gates felt he had to step up with this offer also says a lot about the dysfunction of the U.S. government in a time of a crisis. Some may not like what he has just done, but can you point to a practical alternative, right here, right now, to try to get a vaccine?
Here Are the Ten Main Points of This Article
1) The epidemiological models that have been used in part to motivate and justify social distancing policies are very limited by deeply flawed data, as both Fauci and the modelers themselves readily, honestly acknowledge, especially with respect to the actual number of people who have been infected by Covid-19, again which the modelers themselves fully acknowledge.
“the fact that Gates felt he had to step up with this offer also says a lot about the dysfunction of the U.S. government in a time of a crisis.”
2) These data flaws can only be somewhat remedied by periodic random sampling of Americans, both nationally and locally, using serology antibody tests, which are just now becoming available and whose initial results may come in the next 2 – 4 weeks, to give a better estimate of the actual number of people infected, the denominator of the critical case fatality rate used in the models.
That rate may be around 1%, or it may be lower, or higher, no one still really knows at this point. This test is different from the PCR test far more widely reported but still not as widely available as necessary, which is criminally negligent. The PCR test is used by doctors to distinguish if a patient with flu-like symptoms has Covid-19.
3) Without better data fed into constantly improving models, the Federal and state governments are simply NOT able to make optimal policies, both on healthcare social distancing and also on economic policies to mitigate the increasingly extremely costly economic effects of those policies, with chart-busting 10 million Americans applying for unemployment in the last two weeks, with many millions more in coming weeks. In the future people may look at the chart from Vox.com that I put at the top of this article and wonder happened, did a meteor strike the earth?
4) Better healthcare policies and better economic policies, both based on better data and models, are complementary. The American people are far less likely to stay the course on social distancing policies unless they feel there is some light at the end of the tunnel, rather than the daily anxiety of the uncertainty of how many more Covid-19 deaths combined with how much more unemployment and business closings, for how long, making them ever more fearful and depressed.
5) Social distancing policies cannot eliminate Covid-19, as everyone knows by now, they are designed to “flatten the curve” of cases, so that very sick patients do not overwhelm ICU beds, ventilators and exhausted, stressed out medical personnel, due to under-funded public healthcare systems, private systems slashed to the bone to “maximize shareholder value” for private equity, hedge and other funds and CEO stock options, combined with the lack of a rational, humane national health insurance policy, which has been the case for many decades, Covid-19 is just making that glaringly obvious. It is the failure of those policies which are actually the true underlying causes of the Covid-19 crisis and the resulting unemployment crisis.
“Social distancing policies cannot eliminate Covid-19 …”
If you don’t agree with this point and guess that this article is mainly designed to make a plug for Medicare for All, it’s NOT, I only mention the insurance issue in one sentence twice in the rest of the article, without even calling it MFA. That’s not what this article is about. Anyway, there is absolutely no realistic chance of MFA becoming law in the no-compromise version that Sanders espouses in time to impact the Covid-19 crisis, which we all have to deal with the medical systems and insurance that we currently have.
“… they are designed to “flatten the curve” of cases …”
6) Dr. Fauci just said Sunday that it is likely that Covid-19 may become seasonal. Since the disease hasn’t been eradicated, the models show a second wave after the summer. If/when Trump learns of that, probably from Fox TV, he is likely to say:
“WTF, I can’t get re-elected with a whatchamacallit second wave just before the election, let alone unemployment going through the roof due to this social distancing b.s., which I never wanted in the first place, it’s all Fauci’s fault for talking me into it. I’ve got to stop this staying at home crap ASAP, it’s un-American I tell you, and goose the stock market and the economy, in that order. Get me Jared on the line, but first Sean, Laura, Tucker and my good ‘ol buddy Rush.”
Yep, unfortunately that’s exactly what’s likely to happen in a couple of months, or less.
“… so that very sick patients do not overwhelm ICU beds, ventilators and exhausted, stressed out medical personnel”
7) The only way around that happening is to do the random sampling of serology antibody tests ASAP, and then to be as open and as transparent as possible with the results and the updated models with the American public, as Cuomo has been trying to do in his daily briefings, in the meantime maintaining the social distancing policies on which the models’ best-case estimates are based.
8) While that is being done, the U.S. must also model out the economic and social costs of the benefits of the social distancing policies. Such cost/benefit analyses are routinely done by the government, including putting an economic value on human lives, as heartless as that may sound at a time like this.
I have proposed in my two previous articles, prior to the devastating April 2 report of 6.6 million unemployment claims, that an Economic Jobs Council, be formed to do things like that ASAP. At this point I don’t care who forms it, Sanders, Biden, Trump, any of the economists I mentioned in those articles, or any other big name economist. Just do it.
9) If Trump wants to sell his policies to the American public for his re-election, he needs an economist with the stature and credibility of Fauci to be standing there with Fauci at his daily press briefings, assuming Fauci will continue to be standing there. Jared Kushner, Mike Pence, or the few “economists” left on Trump’s team obviously don’t fit the bill.
I can’t readily think of any reputable economist who would want to put him/herself in that very unenviable position. Perhaps the best that I can hope for is that a group of such economists organize themselves, or that a politician like Sherrod Brown, Cuomo, Whitmer help do so, although as governors of hard-hit states I doubt the latter two would have the time. I’d even suggest Biden and his friends at the DNC, if I thought it would help.
10) The IHME model I discuss below show that in New York and California, it projects COVID-19 peak hospital resource use is just two and ten days away, respectively. The stock market has picked up on this peaking in the actual data, going up over 7% as I write this on April 6.
So there you have my ten main points, in 1096 words, a short article in itself. Many of you are probably saying I should have just stopped there. But for those who wish to continue I will post Part 2 (Taming the Disease) and Part 3 (Recovering the Economy) over the next two days.
Photo credit: Vox.com
Adapted from an article on Medium 06 April 2020.
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