We are at an interesting point in the development of the Corona story. In the States, the Republicans are saying the scientists, and the Democrats who listen to them, are being overly cautious, and that the economy must be saved. The scientists (and the Democrats that listen to them) are saying the data quality is poor, and there is a lot of uncertainty here - so we should be cautious to prevent the potential mass death AND destruction of the economy that will result.
Trump has an incredible ‘gut’ when it comes to publicity. He knows, if he turns out to be wrong, he can just lie about it later, and a lot of people will believe him. Because the data quality is poor (see A Covid Rant) he could be right. There is a very odd tendency for the ‘cases’ and the ‘death’ metric in the US to climb linearly the last few weeks. The R0 thing that gets talked about, the transmissivity of the virus, is an exponent. For the line to be linear, it needs to be exactly one. Each person that gets infected needs to transfer the contagion to exactly one other person (on net). It isn’t perfectly linear, and hasn’t been linear in particular places at particular times, but with many people being careful, and the ‘I’m not scared of no stinking virus’ people limited to the edges, the R0 is strangely stable near one.
A quick jaunt into the weeds of math. There are a lots of things adding or subtracting from the R0 value, and the parameter itself is a amalgam of hundreds or thousands or millions or however many individual variables interacting in complicated ways. It seems when modelling the real world with mathematics, there tends to be about five variables that actually matter in a given case, regardless of how many variable could matter in a given case. The trick is knowing which five matter in that given case. With this, population mixing, both regionally and locally, the nature of the transmission (droplets or vapour from a person’s mouth?), the length of time an asymptomatic carrier may be contagious, and the time the virus can survive on surfaces are likely some of the five that matter here - but we don’t know that. In calculating these kinds of parameters nobody knows for sure which five they will be until they crawl into the weeds - which takes more time than exists between now and November. The important part for this discussion is that the net parameter, how those important variables interact, is holding at near one.
What that means, is that the virus is almost burning itself out with the present care people are taking in their lives. As a particular area gets hit harder, people there take it more seriously whether or not there are any government directives, and stay home and wear masks and are careful about where they put their hands and all that stuff the scientists tell you to do. With the behavioral modifications sensible people are taking, in areas where the virus hasn’t yet raged freely, it might not be able to get a good start at all. If that happens, then the worst case stuff the scientists are trying to protect against won’t happen and their advice at the moment will be overly cautious. Was the Y2K thing a disaster averted, or a big ado about nothing? Opinions differ
It also quite possible that things will spiral out of control and all those reckless nuts gathering in big groups without masks will get very sick and die horribly. Both end points are possible with the present degree of uncertainty. The real world seems hesitant to share just desserts and loves the colour grey, so a clear understanding of virus behaviour might not be figured out for years. The apparent situation looking back at all this from November might be open to argue either way. Guess which way the Republicans will be arguing it?
The global economy is almost certainly toast, and the American one even more so - unless more Democrats start pushing simple solutions that have a chance of working in time, and the Republicans start implementing those Democrats‘ ideas. The Democrats probably don’t need to have a communication strategy ready if things stay ‘bad but not awful’ and the economy restarting stuff does some good. If that happens, it would be because most people didn’t do stupid stuff and followed the public health advice, but whatevs. The disease course threading that needle isn’t going to happen, so it is unlikely to matter if the Democrats are prepared for that eventuality. Reality is all grey and nuanced, but grey and nuance are difficult to explain, and black and white is so damn easy. I mean the Republican’s will lie and fake stuff and do whatever, regardless of how careful any one is about phrasing and being open to different ideas, so it is another thing that probably doesn’t matter. Of course, that ‘not mattering’ excuse gets used to prevent a lot of things from mattering, so whatevs.
From places like Brazil is becoming, it will be easy to show what happens if no care is taken, but Americans aren’t good at learning things from other counties. They are so exceptional that pointing to places like that might not be useful. I are ignoring New York, for Pete’s sake (quick etymology lesson. St. Pete is a less blasphemous target for sake than Christ, so ‘for Christ’s sake’ became ‘for Pete’s sake’. Who knew? Probably everyone but me, but whatevs). Brazil is likely to stop reporting representative numbers soon, or will be looking worse than American by the end of May/early June. The early phase of contact was the rich jet set crowd, the virus is getting it’s teeth (or cones) into the places less able to resist it now. It isn’t going to be pretty. Ick. New topic…any new topic please.
The US. Right. With time, super-spreader events are likely to blow the stability of R0 near one out of the water, and a full summer time population flow (vacations are the enemy) is likely mix the unexposed population up with enough infected people to create the disaster the scientists are trying to prevent. That is the most likely future, but that might not be a better thing for the world than a continuation of the Trump presidency and the second American Civil War that could foretell. Pick your poison. Oh - do try to avoid both. Both would be double bad. I’m mostly writing this so I can point to it afterwards, and if what takes place resembles what’s here, to say ‘I tried’, but that will be weak tea. That’s ‘ick’ too. I saw a beautiful butterfly on my balcony today, that was nice. Sigh…no I didn’t - I made that up. But it would have been nice! I’ll go look at butterflies on the web. That’ll be nice! Cute puppy videos! And Digby has some cute Cheetah pups. That’s nice!