The intolerable shut-down must end

Chart #1 shows what I estimate the total loss of private sector jobs has been since most of the country went into lockdown. It’s just about the worst economic catastrophe imaginable: over 26 million people have been sent home and forced to apply for unemployment insurance. To date I am unaware of how many public sector employees have been affected, but I’d bet it’s very few. Eric Garcetti (Mayor of Los Angeles) announced last Sunday that thousands of city workers will be “furloughed” beginning this July, but that only translates into a 10% drop in their incomes, not their jobs. 

The disparity between the massive suffering imposed on private sector workers and the extremely limited impact on public sector workers can only exacerbate the feelings of frustration that are building across the country. I think people are beginning to realize that we consented to the shut-down strategy in the belief that doing otherwise would result in millions of deaths. A shut-down was necessary to “flatten the curve,” and that has been achieved throughout most of the US. It is pointless to continue the shut-down, since the virus can only be contained by immunity, which in turn is achieved by infection or by vaccination, and the latter is still far in the future.

So why not begin the reopening? Hospitals throughout the country are so empty (having forbidden elective surgeries and having received far fewer covid-19 patients than originally projected) that many are teetering on the verge of bankruptcy. The 14-day moving average of daily new cases (an official criterion for reopening) is now falling significantly in at least 20 states (most impressively in New York), and it has flattened in at least 14 other states. New studies reveal that many millions have already been infected, yet only a few have been sick enough to seek treatment or a test. It’s becoming crystal clear that the vast majority of deaths occur only among people who were already suffering from a co-morbidity; for healthy people under the age of 65, the risk of dying from covid-19 is negligible, according to Stanford Professor Ioaniddis.

Yet we are still under the thumb of bureaucrats and politicians who were quick to impose draconian shutdown measures but are now very slow to embrace any reopening. Tens of millions are going stir-crazy, millions fear the loss of their business and/or their livelihoods, millions are standing in breadlines and virtually all students are studying at home while staring at computer screens (yet these are the ones with almost no chance of suffering serious consequences from a Covid-19 infection). But the ones calling the shots are still getting paid (and many handsomely) and still fully-employed. There is a precedent for this, and it portends more social unrest in the days and weeks to come. A good friend of mine, H. Cademartori, penned this cartoon with these thoughts in mind: