Lockdown or Economy, a false choice

Have you heard people say that lockdowns are destroying economies? The argument is that we should open up, let the virus run its course, and build herd immunity (now that it seems only old people die, and that only a tiny percentage of overall cases result in death). Yet the assumptions seem to be that there is an either-or choice. The reality is much different. 

(Twitter: 27/12/2020 – the very voice and face of evil)

Locking down has enormous consequences for economic activity and mental health; this is true. This is balanced by a reduction in the mortality based on a lower or slower spread of the virus. A slower spread of the virus should ensure that the medical system, hopefully, can cater for the load that sick people place on the system. There are only so many hospital beds, and only so many medical professionals. Overload that system, and people will not receive required care, fatalities will rise, and the pool of available healthcare professionals will shrink as they are removed, hopefully temporarily, as they become sick and burned-out. There is also an element of trying to keep the sick-load down until effective interventions are available, and vaccines are available in volume. 

Remove lockdowns (or more accurately, do not impose lockdowns), and the benefits of fewer people becoming ill, dying, and overloading the medical system, will disappear. Now factor in the social impact of a visibly collapsing health system, mounting deaths and infection lurking around every corner and in every shop. There would be no need for a lockdown to stop people from flying. Bars could remain open, generating income for bar owners and employees. Shops and offices could stay open, and the economic activity would reduce unemployment and economic loss. Small investors leveraged to build businesses and futures would have these protected by an economic system that would continue apace, continuing employment and continuing the turnover required to service business (and personal) loans and build assets.

That is the argument. And it is dead wrong.

Mass illness and death have a way of seeping into the soul of a society, and fear is a dampener on economic activity. Trauma begets behaviours (and is caused by behaviours). So, tourism would come to a sudden stop. Likewise, while shops may remain open, economic activity in the shops would have come to a virtual halt. Yet wages would continue to be due, and as revenue collapsed and staff were fired, it would not be long before the markets themselves would begin to ‘price in’ the future impact of collapsing economic activity.

In the US, with a for-profit healthcare system linked to individual employment, the double threat of losing a job while at the same time being forced to work in environments that were clearly advantageous to the spread of the virus could not have anything other than a negative impact on workers' productivity. Worse than worker productivity, worker health will suffer through institutional failure to implement health-saving policies. The only policies that will matter will be wealth-saving policies. We’ve already seen the impact.

Earlier this month in Douglas County, one person who was sick went to work, and later tested positive for the coronavirus.

Within two weeks, that one action led to two subsequent outbreaks. The first killed at least seven people, nearly 20% of the county’s total COVID fatalities since the pandemic began. The second forced more than 300 people into quarantine.

Working from home would become a desirable option for workers (if they can), regardless of the ‘lockdown’ situation.

And the higher death rate among the elderly would drag workers away from the office for funerals and grieving, further impacting the social fabric. The higher death rate would also cause a national grieving significantly greater than the current numbing effect of the virus.

The question of “save lives or save the economy” is a false question. If society did not set out to save as many lives as possible, there would have been no economy. It would have stopped.  

Throughout the pandemic, modelling has included expected cases and mortality based on various levels of a lockdown or other social distancing measures. By early April deaths were climbing quickly, and projections looked pretty scary. The CDC’s site included its historical projections. Below is the 13 April 2020 projections of potential cumulative deaths in the US through July 2020, based on various levels of restrictions.

With the minimum “contact reduction” of 20%, deaths would have reached a range of between 130,000 to a horrifying 350,000. That range itself is horrifying, and reflects the dearth of information available at that time for modelling. It is scary to note that total US deaths passed 125,000 in June, not far off an extrapolation of the 40% contact reduction line above. 300,000 cumulative deaths in the US was reached in December, and current projections are for more than 420,000 deaths by inauguration day on 20 January 2021. 

Imagine 200,000 deaths by May 2020. Who would leave the house? Who would even consider going to work? Would there be an economy?

So while the modelling of total deaths took place, there was not an associated modelling of the potential impact on economic activity based on those deaths.  The comparison should have included not just vague statements about the health system being overloaded, but should have quantified the potential impact of health and economic activity.

The trauma of people being forced to continue to work in offices, factories and shops would be significant. The London Underground provides an example. Even under ‘normal circumstances’ the Tubes are packed, and people are surly and uncommunicative. There are unwritten behavioural rules, such as you don’t talk to others (or if you do, it is either boisterous groups, or quiet individual conversations) and do not make eye contact with strangers. Now imagine that in a pandemic in which everyone is expected to go to work, and the Tube is still crowded, but now there are people with fevers and coughs as well. 

In non-pandemic times, others are tolerated because an unwritten code says ‘we are all in this together’, as long as being together will not kill us. In normal times the unwell person on the train is requested to get off at the next stop and stay on the platform until they feel better or ask for assistance from station staff. 

In a pandemic, station staff are suddenly required to act as front-line medical responders. The infection will spread to them quickly, and the numbers of staff unavailable due to illness will rise. As the London Underground workforce is well unionised and protective, strike action should be expected and would effectively shut down the Underground. So as the pandemic spreads (in a no-lockdown situation) the number of train services will fall, cramming more people into fewer trains, increasing infection rates. 

At some stage, people will simply refuse to take the Tube.

That needs to be figured into the economics of the pandemic, and the ‘stay open’ arguments. Does NYC continue to function if New Yorkers refuse to take the Metro? Does the Metro still function is staff are out on strike or there are too few staff due to sickness?

Then consider the psychological effect of an infection rate climbing quickly, yet with a demonstrably deaf governmental and business community. If we (well, I) have been shocked by the level of conspiracy thinking that has happened with lockdowns, imaging the level of conspiracy thinking that would take place in an “everything should continue as normal” scenario.

I would imagine that business would be even more reviled, and all faith in government to protect people, or even to have the people’s interests in mind would evaporate. Covid-19 would be seen as a tool by which the government was ridding itself of the elderly to avoid pensions and healthcare obligations to the elderly, returning the economy to longer-term demographic stability. Kill off the old, and Social Security costs will fall, and taxes won’t need to rise, allowing more tax cuts for the rich.

And about the ‘rich’. Clearly, THEY are taking this seriously, and are able to distance and protect themselves and their families while the workers who create their wealth must continue to work, be exposed, get sick, and lose everything to the illness. The current anger (yes, there really is anger) at the wealth accumulation by higher earners and the extravagant increases in wealth at the very top through the pandemic will have repercussions. A ‘wealth tax’ cannot be ruled out.

Now imagine a ‘no-lockdown’ scenario, with mounting deaths, raging illness and (in the US in particular) the stripping of families of what meagre assets they have, impoverishment of the newly unemployed (after all, if there is no lockdown there should be little need for a stimulus package). Remember that even those who are benefiting from stimulus are seeing assets diminished and poverty approaching. Renters are falling behind with no associated equity assets to rely upon to provide financial depth. Homeowners are finding mortgage payments difficult or impossible to make. Banks will allow loans to extend only so long.

This is happening with stimulus and with lockdowns. Without lockdowns, the higher infection rates and higher death rates due to crippled health systems will exacerbate the economic problems.

Anti-lockdown advocates also make the spurious claims that ‘more people will die from suicide than will be saved by a lockdown’. This is complete bollocks. The suicide rate will be the same or higher, as large numbers of people are pushed into extreme poverty through economic collapse (which will happen simply because too many sick and dying people will mean too little shopping and too little working). In addition, those that suffer from depression due to the visible increase in illness all around them will have no services available to assist them, as those services will also be impacted by increased employee illness and absenteeism. Volunteers will become fewer as they deal with issues of their own at home and in their families.

Long-Covid

Missing from the discussion has been the economic impact of "Long-Covid" on more general health, and the psychology of returning to work in an "open economy". Long-Covid refers to those patients who continue, sometimes months later, to have Covid-19 related symptoms and in some cases, significant disabilities. 

A core element of a thriving economy is the confidence that the structures are in place to ensure that long-term aspirations will be achievable by "playing the game" of work hard, gain rewards, live a comfortable life. Curtail the probability of a quick recovery and a "back to normal", and expect an even slower recovery. That is the simple psychological impact that will hinder a full return to normality.

Then there is the associated economic impact of a potentially large cadre of individuals who will be unable to fully return to their pre-pandemic jobs and lives. They will "contribute" less to the economy, while likewise increasing the cost of the economy. Societies are expensive to run, and taking care of the weak and the sick to a standard that provides opportunity and enables a quality of life is part of that cost. It is the insurance policy that we all de facto pay for.

Long-Covid will result in untold individual and family suffering, and will be a drain on the economy that is so loved by those with assets. 

While the skyrocketing sickness and death rates in an "open economy" will effectively close that economy regardless of the wishes of politicians and oligarchs. Long-Covid will make create further drains slowing further the recovery of that much-worshipped economy.

Summary

“Open the economy, Now!” Lockdowns cause more harm than benefit. This is true, but only if there is no pandemic. When society is being ravaged by a highly contagious illness, the impact is far beyond the economic. And ignoring the pandemic in the pursuit of continued profit will backfire. More will die, and business will still fail, and prospects for a speedy recovery will wither. 

This is not a Covid-19 travel ban (EU & Europe)

I am prefacing this with the disclaimer: I am NOT a conspiracy theorist, and do not like conspiracy theories. But sometimes you have to wonder. 

So much of Europe is closing its doors to the UK, completely. No air or rail traffic to or from the UK from the Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, France and others. Greece has imposed a 7-day quarantine on any traveller from the UK. The “new strain” of Covid-19 is supposed to be 70% more infectious. This number feels a bit ‘made up’ but I’ll go with it. I’ve seen that it spreads 70% faster, or that it spreads within the body 70% faster. Whatever the situation, Europe has panicked and is shutting down all access to the UK. 

This is, frankly, silly.  The new variant was identified in September, and therefore there is not a country in Europe that has not had travel to and from the UK in the three months since. And in those three months, there can be little doubt that if it is that much more contagious, it will have spread outside the UK already. I almost wonder if there isn’t a little bit of politics going on here also, a gentle reminder to the UK government what Brexit will look like without a deal. Miles of lorries unable to deliver food to the UK because of blockages in the ports. All a good preview of Brexit. 

And they do not need to explicitly say this is what a ‘no-deal’ Brexit will look like; it’s a given.

So while we are told that there is a new strain of Covid-19 out there, and we should worry, the fact is that if it has been around since September, then there is no country that it has not already arrived in (except of course New Zealand).

The Black Death took from 1347 to 1351 to finish its march from the Crimea through Southern Europe, up to France and across to England and north and east to Germany. The plague travelled at the speed of a sail-driven ship, or the speed of a merchant walking their cart from village to village. The dates of arrival of plague in cities across Europe matched the speed of travel by foot (or ship) nicely. Indeed, word of the plague travelled faster, because couriers rode at some speed to deliver regal and ecclesiastic news. But infection travelled in the merchant’s cart.

In such a situation, a new variant of plague identified in September would still be on its way from England to Italy by December, with its arrival at each city along the way being identifiable by increased cases in those cities.

Covid-19 travels at the speed of a jet-liner. So any variant anywhere in the world, if the mutation is hardy enough and supportive of replication without killing the host, will travel around the world in days, maybe a couple of weeks. Shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted is one thing; shutting the stable door a month after the horse meandered out is quite another. That horse is not only long gone, it also wandered through all your neighbours' pastures and paths. 

Locking down all travel from the UK two and a half months after a new variant of Covid-19 has been identified is not only silly but ineffective in the extreme. Add to that the argument that this is a more contagious version. Well in that case, and with the speed of spread of ‘Covid-19 Classic’, a more virulent version should be spreading even faster. And we know that Covid-19 spread in a matter of a few weeks, not months. We also know that the initial spread was faster, but not identified because of the latency period between infection and manifestation of the decease. 

This version has not only had the time to spread, if it is actually more virulent, then it is already spreading rapidly through all of Europe. 

The closing of UK borders is not due to a Covid-19 variant unless this is for show only. And if it is for show, then the EU might as well use that show for alternative and additional messaging. We’re all in this together, or look what happens when you are locked out.

And possibly not a surprise, France has announced that it may open the border to traffic again as soon as 48 hours from now. They certainly will not have the new strain under control or even limited by then. But the main message will have been sent and received.

Good news, bad news, good news, bad news

It has been a day of Good News, Bad News, Good News and Bad News, all depending on the country. 

UK

In the UK this morning, a 90-year old has become the first person to receive the Covid-19 vaccine in the sanctioned roll-out (as opposed to the clinical trials). This marks the beginning of a vaccination programme that should, by late spring, see enough people vaccinated if not declare the pandemic over, at least to declare that the risk is contained. “Normal life” will be able to resume.

The anti-vax community will avoid vaccination, and will find that they are enjoying ‘stay-cations’ for the coming year. I expect no country will allow them entry (and many airlines will refuse to fly them) if they cannot demonstrate vaccination. That is their right, and I fully support it. But decisions come with consequences, and the result of their stand will be that they will not be allowed to put themselves and others in harm’s way – mostly put others in harm’s way. But it is also to keep them out of harm’s way and reduce their potential burden on the rest of society. If they refuse the vaccine, and then go on holiday and catch the virus, they put others at risk, but they also create an additional unnecessary drain on stretched health services.

Still, this has to go down as a great day. Not the first vaccine day. The Chinese and the Russians are already vaccinating their people, but as they are “not us” then they and their vaccines don’t count. So goes the logic; their vaccines have not been through our testing and trial regimes, and we have not had adequate oversight, so we will not certify, or count their vaccines as safe or acceptable. So, ours is first, yeah.

Amerika

Meanwhile, the US daily new cases have reached a seven-day moving average of over 200,000. And the president, Trump, still doesn’t care, and his people still have rallies and gatherings of hundreds or thousands of people with limited or no masks or distancing. Giuliani is sick, and infected how many people as he stood in courtrooms and posed for selfies with people across Amerika? Now that buffoon is ill and receiving the best care that Amerika can provide. In a civilised society, he would be facing charges of endangerment. Even in Amerika is it illegal for someone to knowingly put others at risk of contagion for deadly deceases. Did he know he had it? Possibly not, but his behaviour represents recklessness at the very minimum. He should be in jail. Well, he should be in jail after he recovers.

Even if he did not know he was infected, he certainly knew his behaviours were dangerous. He knew he had been in contact with infected people (at various Trump events) and therefore should have been taking greater care. Instead, there is video of him, in a courtroom, asking someone sitting next to him to remove her mask “so we can hear you”. 

Yesterday was Pearl Harbor day. More than 2400 Americans were killed In the Japanese attack, and the United States declared war on Japan and Germany. Yesterday the US seven-day moving average number of deaths from Covid-19 reached 2300. Yesterday’s and the day before yesterday’s raw numbers were lower than that, but they were the Sunday and Monday numbers, and we expect those to be lower. 

Meanwhile, there is reporting today that Pfizer actually offered to sell the US government 100 million additional doses of their vaccine last summer. The administration turned them down. Now the US will have the 100 million that it pre-ordered from Pfizer, and the 100 million from Moderna, and will not be able to source additional Pfizer vaccine doses until Pfizer’s existing orders from other clients have been filled.

So between the Pfizer and Moderna vaccine doses, there should be enough to vaccinate around 100 million Amerikans (at two doses per person vaccinated). That is just under a third of the population. 

Instead of focusing on sick and dying Amerikans, Trump rang the governor of Pennsylvania to ask him to overturn the election result and select a republican set of electors. The governor said “no”. The governor of Georgia gave him the same answer. Outside the house of the Michigan Secretary of State, the official who certifies the election for Biden, armed groups gathered and shouted threats. And the president said nothing to stop them while continuing to encourage the lie that the vote was stolen and that there was massive fraud. Fraud that they cannot prove in any court. 

Biden is said to be against pursuing Trump; that it would be bad for the country and would stop the healing that needs to happen. He is wrong. Trump and those that enable him, and those that follow his thinly veiled suggestions to “Liberate Michigan” (from lockdowns, but really from a Democratic governor), they must all face the courts. 

Reuters reports “Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson said dozens of armed protesters gathered in a threatening manner outside her home on Saturday evening chanting “bogus” claims about electoral fraud.”

Thugs with guns outside someone’s house protesting the electoral outcome must see consequences. As above, it may be their right, but with the practice of those rights comes consequences. I hope the faces and names of all those ‘protesting’ outside the Secretary of State’s home are published and spread widely. Let them learn that participation in a free society also requires compliance with the norms of that society.

Those that have committed crimes of intimidation should be prosecuted. Those that have smeared the names of good people should be prosecuted. Democracy is not free, and to forgive and forget the actions of those who seek to undermine it will only embolden them for the next time, until they are shooting in the streets; until they are armed at the polling stations, demanding proof that citizens are authorised to vote, and telling people that if they vote the wrong way, they will be visited afterwards.

We’ve seen this before. And it must not be allowed to happen again.

Greece

Thankfully here in Greece, the numbers continue to fall. 

Yesterday there were under 1000 cases for the first time in over a month, and today there were 1250 new cases (well, actually the day before yesterday, and yesterday, but today with when I can see those numbers). Watching them every day can be depressing and frustrating, so it is good to leave it for a few days, then come and take a look, to be either heartened or concerned. Today, heartened is the word.

The seven-day moving average is now at around 1600, down from 2600 two weeks ago. There is a long way to go, but it does seem that things are moving in the right direction. Does this mean opening for Christmas? I’m not confident. They have opened the “Christmas decoration” shops, to allow people to buy the trappings, light and decorations of Christmas, no doubt to give people some hope and happiness at this time. Without that, it would be a very grim Christmas indeed, and that would add to the depression that will be felt by many as January bites. 

Panama

In a blow to progress in Panama, the "Dry Law" has been brought back in for the Panama Province, covering the city and surrounding suburbs. Arijan apparently is the new epicentre of Covid-19 cases. This not a huge surprise, as workers commute from Arijan into the city, often spending 1 to 2 hours on crowded busses. If they are lucky (and 'wealthy') they travel in air-conditioned buses, trapping the air and the virus inside. If they are not, they travel in crowded buses with the window open enjoying the heat and humidity.

Panama cases have climbed back above 2500 per day. This is as bad as its been, and the hopes that the pandemic had passed are shattered with this. 

I guess the summary for the day is that there is bad news, good news, and bad news, with a weighting toward good news.