1. Finland starting a random-sample test. I guess they have more money to do this than we do.
2. Tyler Cowen is soliciting proposals for anti-virus research that he will fund quickly.
3. The Competitive Enterprise Institute lists regulations that hamper the response to the crisis. I have to say that I am not one of those expecting libertarians to come out ahead after this. Everyone is going to say that the crisis serves to prove that their ideology is correct.
4. Ross Douthat on what the experts do not know.
most of the institutions that we associate with public health expertise and trusted medical authority have failed more catastrophically than Trump has.
I will be surprised if progressives ever concede that.
“Everyone is going to say that the crisis serves to prove that their ideology is correct.”
—
Too late, look at the stimulus bill, all the ideologies already included. This all almost certainly tells us that the priors crowd was out to get their bailouts before the virus hit.
most of the institutions that we associate with public health expertise and trusted medical authority have failed more catastrophically than Trump has.
I am dubious of the the failed public health expertise here because:
1) Why was the Pacific Rim more effective than the US or Europe?
a) Simple reality is Pacific Rim nations were experienced at pandemics coming from China. They experienced SARS 15 years. The US has not a major pandemic spread since 1957 which is small portion of the population even remembers.
b) US medical experts were telling governors the truth on Feb. 9th. Why was this not shared at the time?
Why because our leadership, especially Trump, did not accept this reality until March 15th or so.
Did you just prove Arnold’s point?
“I will be surprised if progressives ever concede that.”
@collin – is Trump responsible for Europe and South America and Japan too?
Of course not the COVID-19 is Trump’s fault. The biggest lies with China who did a lot cover it up instead making more impact to the world. I hold President Xi is most fault here. Period.
However, executive branch of our Government does have a unique position here and there was a fair amount experts predicting this in late January and early February. If an average President, Bush Sr., was faced with the pandemic risk, when do you think he would have acted and notified the US population. Would it be February 10th to start ramping PPE production and test? Would it be February 23rd? Certainly not March 10th in which Trump finally started acting.
Yup, no doubt whatsoever Bush Sr. would have acted quickly. None at all. A sure thing. Definite. How can anyone doubt it?
At the very least, he would have been faster than any of the European countries. That why Collin and I were such big fans of his when he was president.
The US is already doing randomized antibody testing: “The United States has launched an unprecedented effort as well. One serosurvey is already underway in six metropolitan areas, including New York City, the hardest hit city in the United States. A second, even larger one, is on its heels, and together they should give a strong nationwide effort to track closely how many Americans have become infected as the pandemic unfolds. Serosurveys may also help efforts to develop vaccines, and, separately attempts to devise therapies to stop the virus from causing harm” [https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/04/unprecedented-nationwide-blood-studies-seek-track-us-coronavirus-spread]
German is as well (n=100,000) [https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8170903/Germany-100-000-people-coronavirus-antibody-tests.html]
Believe other countries are as well.
(1) Stanford group is random testing too:
https://www.stanforddaily.com/2020/04/04/stanford-researchers-test-3200-people-for-covid-19-antibodies/
Everyone is going to say that the crisis serves to prove that their ideology is correct.—ASK
First, prepare an abstract and conclusion to your economic study. Then, conduct the study.
Regarding Item 4., that was a fantastic article by Douthat.
I’m not a progressive but I don’t concede this at all. It is the job of the executive to make sure that agencies do their jobs. It’s like saying, “The workers failed even more catastrophically than the boss.” It’s the boss’ job to make sure the workers are employed constructively. The workers’ job is to make sure they don’t get fired. I don’t think that we can or should expect more from workers. Some executives are good at getting good output from their employees, and some presidents have been good at getting agencies to do their job. My impression is that Jimmy Carter gets a C, Reagan gets a B+ and Trump gets an F.
If you want the executive to be able to “make sure that agencies do their jobs”. she has to have the power to hire and fire. Civil service means that most workers in, say, the CDC never have to worry about that. Thus, the “permanent government” as political scientists call it, or the “deep state” as scared right-wingers do.