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"We have to figure out how to operate and fight through a world where coronavirus exists. If we just wait for what, you know, everybody hopes is gonna happen, which is"2019 normal will never exist again" for the military, and that means the US's fighting forces will have to prepare to fight in a coronavirus world. the disease goes away, and it doesn't, and we haven't planned for the - for the other case, we're in a bad situation," Hyten said, speaking to CBS News.The senior officer admitted that despite twice daily briefings of the Pentagon's crisis management team, the military "still don't fully understand the virus...We had so many assumptions of what a virus would do, what a pandemic flu would do. And then when you actually see what coronavirus does, what COVID-19 does, it's completely different," he complained.
We ran a simple one-variable correlation of deaths per million and days to shutdown, which ranged from minus-10 days (some states shut down before any sign of Covid-19) to 35 days for South Dakota, one of seven states with limited or no shutdown. The correlation coefficient was 5.5% — so low that the engineers I used to employ would have summarized it as "no correlation" and moved on to find the real cause of the problem. . . .
Sweden is fighting coronavirus with common-sense guidelines that are much less economically destructive than the lockdowns in most U.S. states. Since people over 65 account for about 80% of Covid-19 deaths, Sweden asked only seniors to shelter in place rather than shutting down the rest of the country; and since Sweden had no pediatric deaths, it didn't shut down elementary and middle schools. Sweden's containment measures are less onerous than America's, so it can keep them in place longer to prevent Covid-19 from recurring. Sweden did not shut down stores, restaurants and most businesses, but did shut down the Volvo automotive plant, which has since reopened, while the Tesla plant in Fremont, Calif., was shuttered by police and remains closed.
How did the Swedes do? They suffered 80 deaths per million 21 days after crossing the 1 per million threshold level. With 10 million people, Sweden's death rate ‒ without a shutdown and massive unemployment ‒ is lower than that of the seven hardest-hit U.S. states — Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Louisiana, Connecticut, Michigan, New Jersey and New York — all of which, except Louisiana, shut down in three days or less. Despite stories about high death rates, Sweden's is in the middle of the pack in Europe, comparable to France; better than Italy, Spain and the U.K.; and worse than Finland, Denmark and Norway. Older people in care homes accounted for half of Sweden's deaths.History will record the one-size-fits-all economy-destroying COVID-19 lockdown of 2020 as one of the most colossal public policy blunders in the history of the world.
In response to my last post (The Data Are in: A Nationwide Lockdown Was Never Necessary) Bob O'H got red in the face, stamped his feet, and apparently insisted that a nationwide lockdown was necessary. Was it? Here is an analysis performed by a friend:See also:
To put US COVID19 cases into perspective, it helps to separate the terrible outbreak in the five-state region of New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Rhode Island and Massachusetts from the other 45 states. (Stats as of April 25.)
Total Population
NY-NJ-CT-RI-MA - 39.8 million
Rest of US - 288 million
COVID Cases - Total (per million people)
NY-NJ-CT-RI-MA - 490,675 (12,312)
Rest of US - 496,657 (1,722)
COVID Deaths - Total (per million people)
NY-NJ-CT-RI-MA - 33,262 (835)
Rest of US - 22,153 (77)
Comment: A salon owner in Dallas, Texas has reopened despite a county order that says her business is "non-essential." She said she has missed a mortgage payment and has 19 employees who are out of work.