"Risks and COVID-19"

Sydney M. Williams

www.swtotd.blogspot.com

Thought of the Day

“Risks and COVID-19”

April 11, 2020

“There is freedom waiting for you.

On the breezes of the sky.

And you ask. What if I fall?

Oh, but my darling,

What if you fly?”

                                                                                    Erin Henson (1981-)

                                                                                    Artist, Designer, Poet

Most decisions we make involve some measure of risk. Generally, the consideration is fleeting. Do I take the stairs and risk falling, or the elevator and risk it breaking down? At times, the choice is more absolute: Do I take the double-black diamond with moguls, or do I go around on the bunny trail? Sometimes the odds are important: Is my need to cross the street against traffic so great that the attempt should be made despite oncoming traffic? Risk is ubiquitous. It is embedded in the friends we make, where we go to college, what job we take and in our choice of a marriage partner – a risk my wife and I took fifty-six years ago today. A wise friend used to say that he was never upset with mistakes he had made but was troubled by risks he never took. Risks vary depending on what we do. To a soldier in combat, risks have different consequences than the ones we encounter daily. In his 1916 collection of poems, Mountain Interval, Robert Frost included “The Road Not Taken.” At a fork in the road a traveler pauses, knowing he cannot walk down both paths, so chooses “the one less traveled by…”  The reader never knows whether the choice was a good one or not, only that it “has made all the difference.” As well, progress is impossible without risk. A baserunner cannot steal second without taking his foot off first. Neither can we avoid risk. “Security,” as Helen Keller once wrote, “is mostly a superstition.”

Risk is defined as the interaction with uncertainty, a measure of the probability of danger or loss, against safety or profit. In our daily lives, we try to mitigate risk. We are encouraged to look before we leap. Insurance companies employ actuaries to assess risk and calculate premiums. Investors use algorithms to quantify the risk of loss against the potential for gain. While these calculations are never perfect, they are Darwinian in that those who are best at measuring risk tend to be the most successful, what Joseph Schumpeter termed creative destruction in industries as they adapt to change.

Politicians employ risk to further agendas: we are told we will be overrun by illegal immigrants if we do not shut our borders; we are frightened into believing that anthropomorphic warming will destroy the planet, and that an ever-expanding population will lead to mass starvation. Now we have the health risk of COVID-19 that was first downplayed by professionals, the media and politicians, but which now dominates the news. As well, COVID-19 has created enormous economic risks.  

There is little question that COVID-19 is dangerous, especially for the elderly and those that have under-lying medical conditions, like asthma, lung diseases, heart conditions, diabetes, liver or chronic kidney disease. Given the game of blame, as to who missed the seriousness of the virus, it may be of value to review some of what was said and done about COVID-19, from when it first made its appearance – a timeline, if you will, but a list that does not pretend to be exhaustive; but it is indicative.

November 17, 2019 – On March 14, 2020, Jeanna Bryner, Editor-in-Chief of Life Science, quoting the South Morning China Post, reported that a “55-year-old individual from Hubei Province may have been the first person to have contacted COVID-19…That case dates back to November 17, 2019….That’s more than a month earlier than doctors noted cases in Wuhan, China, which is in Hubei Province.”

December 31, 2019 – The New York Times reported on April 7, 2020 that on December 31, 2019: “The Chinese government confirmed that health authorities were treating dozens of cases.”

January 14, 2020 – The World Health Organization (WHO) said: “Preliminary investigations conducted by the Chinese authorities have found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission.”[1]

January 17, 2020 – The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) stated that, “based on current information, the risk from 2019-nCoV to the American public is currently deemed to be low.” The CDC and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced that American citizens returning from travel-restricted countries were being rerouted to specific airports where they would be screened and isolated.

January 20, 2020 – Japan, South Korea and Thailand reported their first cases of the novel coronavirus.

January 21-24, 2020 – World Economic Forum in Davos – attended by 3000 individuals from 117 countries, including 53 heads of state. China sent a large delegation, though Xi Jinping did not attend.  

January 21, 2020 – The first case of coronavirus in the United States was reported of a man who had traveled from Wuhan, China.

January 22, 2020 – President Trump, in response to a question regarding COVD-19: “We have it totally under control; it is one person, coming in from China.”  On that same day, Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR), a hawk on China, sent a letter to Alexander Azar, Secretary of Health and Human (HHS), encouraging the Administration to consider banning travel between China and the U.S.

January 24, 2020 – The CDC confirms the second U.S. case of coronavirus, adding, “based on what we know right now, the immediate risk to Americans remains low.”

January 28, 2020 – The WHO, following a meeting between WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus and Chinese President Xi Jinping, issued a release: “The WHO delegation highly appreciated the actions China has implemented in response to the outbreak, its speed in identifying the virus and openness in sharing information with WHO and other countries.”

January 29, 2020 – According to an April 5th article in the New York Times by Maggie Haberman, Peter Navarro, President Trump’s trade advisor, warned the White House on January 29th that coronavirus could “cost the Country trillions of dollars and put millions of Americans at risk of illness or death.”

January 30, 2020 – The WHO declared a global health emergency of international concern. The CDC confirmed publicly for the first time the person-to-person spread of coronavirus. That same day President Trump created the White House Coronavirus Task Force to coordinate all efforts, with HHS Secretary Alexander Azar as chair.

January 31, 2020 – President Trump declared coronavirus a U.S. public health emergency and issued a ban on travel between the United States and China. On that same day, Joe Biden criticized the President for the travel ban: “This is no time for Donald Trump’s record of hysteria and xenophobia.”

February 4, 2020 – The White House directed the FDA (The U.S. Food and Drug Administration) to step up coronavirus diagnostic testing procedures.

February 5, 2020 – The CDC issued a statement: “While we continue to believe the immediate risk of 2019nCoV exposure to the general public is low, CDC is undertaking measures to help keep that risk low.”

February 7, 2020 – New York City Health Commissioner Oxiris Barbot told a TV interviewer, “I want to be clear, this is about a virus, not a group of people. There is no excuse for anyone to discriminate or stigmatize people of Asian heritage. We are here today to urge all New Yorkers to continue to live their lives as usual.”

February 10, 2020 – New York’s Mayor Bill de Blasio was interviewed on MSNBC: “If you are under 50 and you’re healthy, which is most New Yorkers, there’s very little threat here. This disease, even if you were to get it, basically acts like a common cold or flu. And transmission is not that easy.”

                  February 18, 2020 – The CDC reaffirmed, “The risk to Americans from coronavirus is low.”

February 20, 2020 – The White House raised travel warnings to their highest level for Japan and South Korea.

February 24, 2020 – Nancy Pelosi toured San Francisco’s Chinatown, urging people to come along, mingle and shake hands with residents.

            February 26, 2020 – The first case of suspected local transmission in the United States was announced by the CDC. On that same day, President Trump replaced Mr. Azar as head of the corona task force with Vice President Michael Pence.

            February 27, 2020 – Vice President Pence named Dr. Deborah Birx to serve as the White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator.

            February 29, 2020 – The first death in the U.S. from coronavirus was recorded in the U.S. On the same day, President Trump halted travel to and from Iran.

            March 11, 2020 – The WHO declared coronavirus a worldwide pandemic.

            March 12, 2020 – President Trump imposed travel restrictions with Europe.

            March 13, 2020 – President Trump declared coronavirus a national emergency.

            March 14, 2020 – The White House extended travel bans to the United Kingdom.

All the incidents mentioned above reflect risks that were either political, reputational or both. People on both sides of the aisle can find the fodder to satisfy claims of neglect or worse. But should that be our pursuit as we face the twin crises of a pandemic and a collapsed economy? As someone once said (or should have if they did not), “democracy is a slow process of stumbling to the right decision, instead of going straight forward to the wrong one.” Unlike dictatorships, democracies move slowly, as they listen to multiple voices and encourage debate. Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, after Pearl Harbor, is alleged to have said: “I fear we have awakened a sleeping giant and filled him with a terrible resolve.” They had. Was the President late in declaring a health emergency, or did the fault lie with the WHO and the CDC who downplayed its seriousness? Should Democrats have been pursuing a feckless impeachment when the coronavirus was invading our shores? Early on, with the exception of Senator Tom Cotton and Secretary Alexander Azar no one in Washington appeared to take seriously what became a pandemic. Why? Was it because of a deceitful China or a compromised WHO? Was it because Washington and the media were otherwise engaged? In a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed, Holman Jenkins concluded: “Many things are worth doing; many risks are worth taking, and many are worth avoiding. It would be great to have more clear thinking about which is which in our current crisis.”  But that is the problem with forecasts. We deal with things as they are. “The future,” as the song goes, “is not ours to see.” At the moment the focus should be on helping the sick, finding cures and righting the economy. There will come a time to disinter the past and place blame where it belongs: who underplayed and who overplayed the risks of COVID-19?

With the benefit of hindsight, it is easy to point out missed signs, like the concern of Senator Cotton on January 22 or the warnings from Secretary Azar a week later. But it wasn’t until January 30 that the WHO and the CDC elevated coronavirus to a health emergency of international concern. The next day, the President declared COVID-19 a U.S. public health emergency and banned flights from China. So, should he have listened to two men, accomplished in their fields but neither a doctor, or should he have heeded the scientists and doctors at the CDC and the WHO? Keep in mind, the President had to navigate the ship of state through the Charybdis of a public panic and the Scylla of ignoring an unknown health threat. He chose a middle course. Given what we now know about the failure of a compromised WHO and a depleted Strategic National Stockpile of drugs and medical equipment, it appears, at least to me, that he chose well. But risks continue to propagate. The United States has lost 10% of its workforce in three weeks, a rate of decline faster than during the Great Depression. The President now faces a challenge – how to restart a twenty-two trillion-dollar economy, without reigniting the deadly virus.

It has been three months since coronavirus struck our nation. As a Country, we have rallied. It appears that social distancing, self-isolation and commonsense hygiene are working, and that the worse may soon be over – that the light at the end of the tunnel may not be a freight train barreling toward us, but the light of resurrection, appropriate in this time of Passover and Easter. But there remain risks our leaders must take – How to restart this economy from the somnolence of a six-to-eight-week shutdown? How to pay back the two to four trillion dollars borrowed to save businesses and jobs? This will require more choices, decisions (and risks) for the politicians who lead. We are in untraveled territory. COVID-19 has not been eviscerated. Re-starting the economic engine will not be easy. Money is not free, and we all know it is the private sector that generates the income the public sector spends. Voters in November will elect the individual they believe best suited to lead us toward a healthy, economic revival.    

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[1] Dates, not otherwise identified, come from a March 31, 2020 report by Cleta Mitchell in The Federalist. She is a partner in the Washington, D.C. law office of Foley and Lardner