The View from Right Field

What’s Next for Covid-19?

Dr. Scott Gottlieb, former head of the FDA and a really smart guy,¹ is worried about a surge in the virus this fall.  If it happens, the question is what do we do?  Do we have big shutdowns, little shutdowns, or what?  I don’t know what our governments will do, but I do know part of the solution: what we do personally.

What governments do is important but governments don’t always know what is right.  President Trump has gotten things wrong.  Governors (both Democratic and Republican) have gotten things wrong.  So what really matters, at least for me, is what I do.  I don’t need government to tell me to cut back.  I can cut back on my own.  I can not go to restaurants or movie theaters or whatever else.  As an example, apparently in Michigan, it is okay for our condo association to keep its hot tub open.  The hot tub is six or seven feet in diameter.  And there are often four people (two couples) in it.  Without masks, of course.  Actually, I don’t know how that fits with Michigan’s rules, but it doesn’t matter.  Because, even if Michigan says it is okay, I can’t figure out how it is okay for me.  So I’m making my own decision, and I’m not going in it.

When Is This Pandemic Going to End?

I think one of the biggest things about this pandemic, especially for those who are cutting back and staying in to try to stay safe, is: When is it going to end?  When is a vaccine going to be available?  How effective will it be?  Do other people have to take the vaccine for it to be really effective?  What can we safely do until we get a vaccine or the pandemic ends?  Etc.

The fact is we don’t know the answers to those questions, and it may be a while, perhaps quite a while, before we do.  Which drives us crazy.  We want to know, and we want to know now.  This is the age of instant everything.  Amazon delivers tomorrow.  Streaming delivers immediately.  We’re not used to waiting.  We’re used to getting what we want now.  But Covid-19 isn’t that way.  It makes us wait, and we don’t like it.  But I wonder whether this is unique or whether it’s just putting us back to the way things used to be.

Are We Heading for Another Shutdown?

With this being Labor Day, I thought I would write about labor; i.e., people who work for a living, both in jobs and in small businesses they have worked for years to build up and support their families with.

Back in March, much of America shutdown because of the coronavirus.  We didn’t know much about the virus, but it was clearly dangerous and people were dying.  So there were shelter-at-home orders and a big piece of the economy was shut down.  When some people objected or wondered if it a shutdown was necessary, the response was that people’s lives were more important than the economy.  Some said you can’t put a price on a person’s life.  Some even asked, which people would you have die?

Covid-19. Baseball. I Don’t Know. None of Us Knows for Sure.

With respect to the mess in Miami (the Marlins, that is, not the city as a whole; also, the Marlins and Covid-19, not the Marlins as a lousy baseball team), people have all kinds of answers:  Baseball shouldn’t have started; Baseball’s doing it the wrong way; Baseball can’t continue; etc.; etc.¹ 

The one thing I know is that I don’t know.  Actually, there is one other thing I know: Covid-19 is hard.  We don’t have all the answers.  We are learning new things about this virus every day.  Remember how the warm summer weather was going to slow the virus down.  Oops, that didn’t happen.

Silly Question of the Day: “Is testing for MLB diverting resources?”

The headline of the lead article in today’s Chicago Tribune asks (in the print edition): “Is testing for MLB diverting resources?”  Really?  That’s the most important question today?  If so, we must be in pretty good shape.  Because the amount of resources used by MLB for its testing program is pretty small compared to our whole country.  Especially since MLB hired a company that wasn’t already doing testing to set up a new testing program for MLB.  But even with that, one of the people quoted in the article worried that the MLB program was diverting swabs and other testing supplies that could be used elsewhere.  As I said, if the biggest question in the United States today is whether MLB is diverting swabs, etc., so it can test a few thousand people more frequently than otherwise, we are in pretty good shape.

Except, of course, we aren’t in good shape.  We need to test lots more.  We need to be able to test lots more people lots more frequently.  Testing, testing, testing is how we can stall this virus until we can get a vaccine.  But we’re not there.  The federal government¹ needs to ramp it up.  Big time.  We probably should have had this kind of testing capability in reserve.  But nobody in Washington, of either party or any administration, apparently cared enough, or had enough foresight, to do that. 

We Need to Get Kids Back to School As Soon As We Can

A few comments on getting kids back to school.

1. We need to get kids back to school as soon as we can. If they are not in school, they are falling behind. And the least advantaged kids are falling behind more than the most advantaged.  For every month kids are not back in school, the inequality gap is growing.  If the inequality gap is important, and it is, we need to get the least advantaged kids back to school as soon as possible.

2. But we have to do it safely. And that makes if difficult. I understand other countries, in Europe, etc., are sending their kids back to school.  So why can’t we, people ask.  The point is that those countries have Covid-19 more under control than we do.  I am not judging anybody, but it is a fact.  While there are places in the United States where Covid-19 is under control, there are other places where it isn’t.

Three Modest Thoughts on Covid-19

So much is being written about Covid-19 that it is unclear how much any one person can add, so I will at least be brief.

1. Those who I listen to most are those who are least certain. Because the main thing we know is how little we know – and how what we “know” today may be uncertain tomorrow and wrong the day after. All we can do is make our best guesses on what to do today and keep an open mind on how that may change in the future – because we are learning more all the time.  Sometimes what we learn tells us we have been doing is right thing; other times it tells us we need to change what we have been doing.  An open mind and a willingness to change it as we learn more are the best way to get through this pandemic.

A “V”-Shaped Recovery – Or a Gentle Upward Slope?

So where is the economy going?  The stock market would have you believe it is coming back – and quickly.¹  That would be a so-called “V” recession.  Quickly down and just as quickly back up.  Given it was a government-ordered shutdown that caused the sudden down, maybe a removal of the shutdown will allow things to rebound suddenly.  And that could be the way things go – as long as the confidence we had before the pandemic comes back, too.  If the confidence is back, maybe the economy will be back.

That is the question, isn’t it?  Because even if the government discontinues its shutdown, are we going to discontinue our shutdown?  If there was a vaccine, it might happen – subject to the effect of all those businesses and jobs that got lost during the shutdown.

George Marshall on Character

In a speech on “Marshall and His Generals” at the George Marshall Foundation on July 20, 2017, Dr. Stephen Taaffe talked about the four criteria that Army Chief of Staff General George Marshall used to pick the high-ranking officers¹ for the U.S. Army during World War II.²  Let me mention them, in reverse order:

1. General Marshall wanted to know them personally or know somebody who knew them personally.

2. Age.  (Sorry.  I realize it is politically incorrect today, but General Marshall didn’t want older generals.)

Coronavirus Emergency Legislation: Fixing “Bugs” and Keeping “Features”

I said in my post of March 23, which is currently pinned to the top of this blog:

“As we get thru this, we must all remember that mistakes will be made. Things will be done that shouldn’t have been. Things will be left undone that should have been done. But helping each other is more important than blaming each other.”

Which means, among other things, that we shouldn’t blame Congress for mistakes or the unintended consequences in the bills that were passed in March and April to deal with the economic fallout of COVID-19.  However, the fact that we shouldn’t blame Congress for provisions that have not turned out as we expected, doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t change or fix provisions that aren’t working as we thought they would or that have consequences we didn’t intend.