Lysenko redux?
Here’s the Financial Times:
Rick Bright, who headed the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, or Barda, said he would file a whistleblower complaint after he was demoted on Tuesday, in the first big departure from the Trump administration’s team of officials working on Covid-19.
Mr Bright said he clashed with the political leadership at the health and human services department, which oversees Barda, and resisted efforts to fund the “potentially dangerous drugs” hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine, promoted by “those with political connections”.
“Rushing blindly towards unproven drugs can be disastrous and result in countless more deaths. Science, in service to the health and safety of the American people, must always trump politics,” he said.
Mr Bright said he and other scientists were pressured to fund companies “with political connections” and “efforts that lack scientific merit”. His demotion was first reported by The New York Times.
I know nothing about Rick Bright, but it will be interesting to see how this story plays out.
PS. I’m amused to see the differing way that the press treats Vietnam and China. China says more than that 4600 of its citizens have died of coronavirus, and the Western media accuses it of lying. How could the figure possibly be so low? Vietnam received a number of coronavirus cases very early in the epidemic, and now reports (officially) a grand total of zero fatalities, in a country with 97 million people. That’s fewer than British Virgin Islands or Turks and Caicos.
Yes, Vietnam is somewhat more “tropical” than China, but then so is Singapore. In Singapore, new cases are running at 1000/day, whereas in Vietnam there are zero new cases over 7 consecutive days.
The media is gushing with praise for Vietnam (here, here, and here) with nary a word of doubt expressed as to the accuracy of the figures. (BTW, I don’t have any reason to suspect Vietnam of lying.) Why is the media coverage so different for China?
I know what you are thinking. China’s governed by a brutal, authoritarian communist dictatorship, whereas Vietnam’s ruled by a . . . oh wait.
Maybe the difference is that it started in China. But we know it spreads like wildfire. In mid-February, Vietnam had as many cases as the US. And the policies adopted in Vietnam and China are somewhat similar. So why do Westerners believe the Vietnamese draconian policies succeeded in holding deaths to zero, but discount the possibility that similar Chinese draconian policies could have held their death total down to 4600?
BTW, obviously more than 4600 died in China, just as the death totals in Western countries (other than Belgium) are considerably higher than official reports. But why assume that 4600 couldn’t be as accurate as the Italian or Spanish or American figures, which are also somewhat understated?
I suspect the difference is that China is China, and Vietnam is the small country that America brutalized during the 1960s. People don’t think with the logic centers of their brains; they think with their emotions. They hate “China” and they don’t hate Vietnam, and this colors their perception of reality.
This theory unites the left (who feel guilty about Vietnam) and the right (who are championing a new cold war with China.)
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23. April 2020 at 11:41
Hydroxychloroquine has been prescribed for decades to at least hundreds of thousands (millions?) of people. I know a doctor (my father) who has prescribed hydroxychloroquine to thousands of patients. The basic protocol involves getting your eyesight checked once-a-year, since it can cause eye problems as a side effect of long-term use. If the eye doctor noticed a problem, the patients would simply discontinue use of the drug. My father thinks the worries about the side effects are crazy and not based on actual knowledge of the drug.
Check out this document: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1O6Cls-Oz2ZAgJuyDbnICEGjMvQPEyM-aaXARUomR9Ww/edit. A young doctor, James Todaro, updates it daily–he has a twitter too:https://twitter.com/JamesTodaroMD. The recent study that purported to show it doesn’t work used it on patients with severe disease. The doctors pushing it, meanwhile, emphasize on taking it early.
23. April 2020 at 12:15
Hey Scott,
Thoughts on this piece by Adair Turner arguing for monetary financing?
https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/monetary-finance-of-covid19-fiscal-deficits-by-adair-turner-2020-04
23. April 2020 at 12:25
John, Whether Hydroxychloroquine is useful or not has zero bearing on anything I said in this post, which should be obvious if you read it again. It wouldn’t matter if Hydroxychloroquine was a miracle drug that cured 100% if its patients, it would have zero bearing on anything I said in this post.
Fairwinds, The concept of money financed deficits is pretty meaningless, but maybe it’s time for a post on that subject.
23. April 2020 at 12:50
Another brilliant post by Sumner, but…this: “The media is gushing with praise for Vietnam (here, here, and here) with nary a word of doubt expressed as to the accuracy of the figures. (BTW, I don’t have any reason to suspect Vietnam of lying.) Why is the media coverage so different for China?”
Answer: because China lied about its number of dead, and recently, like last week, ‘fessed up to the lying? Whereas Vietnam, who may or may not be lying, has not confessed yet. That’s the main difference. And the small fact (which is best explained in another post) China manufactured the chimeric virus known as SARS-CoV-2.
23. April 2020 at 12:56
Scott,
I personally have a hard time getting worked up about undemocratic states being dishonest whether it’s China, Russia, or Vietnam. To me it’s to be expected. I worry more about my own leaders, because it affects me more and there is some chance of influencing it. Not sure where that puts me in the continuum of your readers.
The interesting topics to me are what can my government do to keep my family safe. What can the Fed do to support financial markets, and what can my government and the fed do to ease the suffering of the tens of millions of people who will go without or with greatly diminished income for months at best. I think we will likely have unemployment more than double the peak of the great recession which could last upwards of a year. It’s hard to fathom the damage that could be done by a full year of forced unemployment.
To look at just one challenge, what would you do about mortgages?
What would you suggest be done to avoid record numbers of foreclosures?
23. April 2020 at 14:08
My apologies! I misunderstood your take on Rick Bright. I read your last post and then this post and assumed a connection. I figured your title meant that you were equating the possibility of a hydroxychloroquine treatment with Lysenkoism (Trump being Stalin in that case). Again, I apologize for my lack of close and careful reading.
23. April 2020 at 15:11
Scott,
Maybe people believe Vietnam because…..
1. It benefits from many factors that may mitigate the spread of the disease including: warm climate, BCG vaccinations, very limited public transportation.
2. It actually moved very quickly and very early to stop the spread of the disease including: a) shutting the border with China in early January, b) closing schools in late January, c) restricting all foreign travel in early March, d) quarantining neighborhoods when infection occurred, etc.
3. It is a much less repressive regime than China.
4. It’s not in the habit of bullying it’s neighbors.
5. It’s not in the habit of cheating on trade agreements and stealing IP.
6. It didn’t deal with the disease by dragging people out of their houses in the middle of the night and locking them up.
23. April 2020 at 15:24
@dtoh – no, it’s not just subjective opinions about China bulling, but objective facts, see my post above and this:
Newsweek.com “4/23/20 – The novel coronavirus in China was reported by Chinese authorities to have infected around 55,500 people by February 20. However, the total number of infections may have been four times as much—closer to 232,000—according to a research report by the School of Public Health at the University of Hong Kong, published in The Lancet Public Health. (article goes on to say official figures massaged to give lower numbers-RL) Doubts over the accuracy of the virus figures officially reported by China have been raised for weeks.”
23. April 2020 at 16:13
2839 and 50 and 60 million. That’s cases and deaths in Thailand which has a lockdown going but one that is often not enforced. New cases are down to a handful a day. Thailand was flooded with tourists from China until the border was closed.
My completely unsubstantiated theory is that COVID-19, or an inoculating cousin, may have already passed through Southeast Asia. Something funny happened in Bali too.
In any event, to call C19 an “epidemic” in Thailand rather overstates the case.
23. April 2020 at 16:52
John, No, I meant the scientific decisions are being politicized. Even if the drug works, Bright should not have been fired for making a valid scientific judgment.
BTW, as you know the drug’s been approved, so people can use it if their doctor prescribes it.
dtoh, You said:
“It is a much less repressive regime than China.”
No, it isn’t much less repressive.
“It’s not in the habit of bullying it’s neighbors.”
Didn’t it invade Cambodia and Laos?
And I don’t believe your claim that it doesn’t steal IP.
Regarding its fast initiatives, that’s why it has zero deaths and China has 4600. But the fact remains that Vietnam and China both have very strict systems in place, so if it works in Vietnam why wouldn’t it work in China, after the initial delay?
As for being tropical, so is Singapore. They have recently had 1000 new cases a day. Tropical weather doesn’t prevent an epidemic, it merely slows the epidemic.
You said:
It didn’t deal with the disease by dragging people out of their houses in the middle of the night and locking them up.”
That’s exactly what I’m talking about. People are usual moral intuitions to make positive judgments about how the world works. You and I don’t like the repressive Chinese government, but that has no bearing on the number of cases in China. That would be a good argument if you wanted to argue against doing what the Chinese have done. I’d agree! I don’t favor the Chinese policy either, Taiwan’s approach is far superior.
I look at the world rationally, and I don’t assume that one brutal communist dictatorship is better than another just because I happen to like it more. Ask people who have been in Vietnamese concentration camps what they think about your claims. The Vietnamese government has a lot of blood on its hands.
You haven’t given me any rational reason why people should trust the Chinese government more than the Vietnamese government. Does the Vietnamese government have a history of lying less than the Chinese government?
Ray Lopez, You do know that the number of infections in almost all countries is more than 4 times the official estimates, don’t you? I guess not.
Ben, Thanks for your “completely unsubstantiated theory” We’ve all been eagerly awaiting it.
23. April 2020 at 18:03
Scott,
the whole focus is obviously on China because the disease broke out there and because 95-99% of the cases could have been prevented if the CCP (with some help of the WHO) had not done all these cover-ups and spread all those lies in the beginning.
I also don’t see why you keep comparing the handling of the case numbers by the Western states with China, when it’s so obviously so fundamentally different: the health authorities in Western nations stated from the beginning that the death figures are conditional and can change at any time, and they changed them quite a few times, as soon as new information came in.
The CCP has done exactly the opposite, you tell the story so wrong it’s astonishing. The CCP has claimed for weeks or even months that the death figures are absolutely correct, and that every other report is malicious Western propaganda.
Then the CCP suddenly had to correct the death figures by 50% from one day to the other. And so they were proved of lying, for everyone to see, as Ray correctly points out.
And now, it gets even better, now the CCP does EXACTLY the same thing again: They claim again that the death figures are absolutely correct, mistakes are impossible, other reports are malicious Western propaganda.
How you can seriously equate this with the Western handling of death figures remains a mystery. You are simply too biased and out of your mind on this matter.
Vietnam itself remains mysterious. Probably it is, as so often, a mixture of all the arguments mentioned here: tropical weather, a background immunity of unclear cause (Benjamin Cole’s theory doesn’t seem so bad), and of course some lying by the local communist party. As soon as they admit it, we know they lied, just as the CCP.
23. April 2020 at 18:42
Scott, the lion’s share of new cases in Singapore is from the foreign workers dorms. Outside community transmission dropped from about 30 per day to about 20 per day on average in the last two weeks or so since our lockdown.
The cases in the dorms are real. But they are not a good guide to what we should expect in other Asian countries like China or Vietnam.
Perhaps they might be a guide to the Middle East’s oil nations? They have a lot of foreign workers, too. But I don’t know how they put them up.
(I’m also a foreigner working in Singapore. But I’m on a white collar visa and live in an ordinary apartment that I rent.)
23. April 2020 at 18:47
Here is one to address: The Federal Reserve has printed up trillions of dollars to buy securities on globalized capital markets, and may be financing government outlays depending on who you believe. Michael Woodford would contend the Fed is in fact conducting helicopter drops by effectively printing money to finance government outlays.
I will let the monetary theologists solve the riddle if the federal government is conducting helicopter drops presently, or not.
But I would like to know, should the Federal Reserve buy Treasuries and place them into the Social Security Trust Fund to make up for lost revenues in these lockdown days? Or, should even this policy be examined to reduce tax burdens on productive businesses and citizens? And as a routine form of stimulus?
As it stands, I think the monetary theologists would need adult diapers if the Federal Reserve ever begins buying Treasuries and placing them into the Social Security Trust Fund.
Trillions for Wall Street, but not one penny for worker trust funds?
Why not?
Brecause…Danger, Will Robinson, Danger!
23. April 2020 at 19:47
I just read an article today claiming that a study found 7 million people in Yunnan province had antibodies to viruses found in local bat populations. So while immunity from a closely related virus is an unproven theory, it probably is one worth investing some resources into figuring out, as it might pave the way for a cowpox type vaccine. There is no guarantee that the vaccines currently under development will work.
23. April 2020 at 20:38
Scott: Question China’s figures is important because they just don’t make sense. Look at how just a few weeks of un-contested spread hammered New York City. And China would have been blind-sided by the virus, with patient zero and his/her contacts spreading the virus for at least two weeks before anyone knew anything at all was wrong. But the whole country of 1.4 billion has less than 100,000 cases?
It just doesn’t pass the sniff test for a virus that seems to be very contagious.
Vietnam’s figures may be questionable, too, who knows? But, if the virus originated in a wet market in Wuhan sometime in November or December, how in the world are we supposed to believe it wasn’t all over the country by the time serious lockdowns began more than a month later when the US passed 100,000 CONFIRMED cases in March, not much longer than a month after the first confirmed US case?
The whole reason infections like this are dangerous is because they are extraordinarily difficult to limit in a modern, extremely inter-connected society. How are we supposed to believe that China went 4-8 weeks with more or less totally un-contested spread of the virus and ended up with less than 100,000 cases?
23. April 2020 at 22:20
https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/monetary-finance-of-covid19-fiscal-deficits-by-adair-turner-2020-04
Adair Turner has a interesting perspective that I often agree with. I think he is barking up the right tree.
And I am in shock that Christian List actually said something nice about me. There has been speculation that the reason old people did not succumb to the 1918 World Flu was due to previous exposure to a lesser lethal variation of the same virus.
Notice I use the expression “World Flu” so as to not offend Spaniards and members of our very worthy woke community.
23. April 2020 at 23:22
Scott,
I’m not one of the people who are disputing the Chinese numbers, I’m just telling you why people in general are more likely to believe the Vietnamese.
Yes Vietnam IS repressive… just not nearly as repressive as the CCP regime and not as repressive as it was when it was putting people in concentration camps (and BTW killing lots of them as well.)
And VN is not currently bullying it’s neighbors (or at least not very much.)
I think both countries were effective in curbing the outbreak, but VN did it in a more humane way, and people are more likely to believe the VN numbers because it’s not viewed as being as untrustworthy as the CCP.
As to Singapore.. Warm weather is just one factor. Other factors were working against them. As for VN, most factors were working in their favor.
24. April 2020 at 01:03
@Ssumner – “Ray Lopez, You do know that the number of infections in almost all countries is more than 4 times the official estimates, don’t you? I guess not.” – no I did not know this. Could you please post the link to this? Sounds suspiciously precise, too precise to be true.
24. April 2020 at 01:22
Ray,
you fall for a diversion from Scott. The main difference is that Western health authorities have been openly communicating for weeks that there is a large number of undetected cases, while the CCP is reacting extremely aggressive, when one just implies that something similar must be happening in China. The communication and transparency is fundamentally different.
24. April 2020 at 02:35
“When I started the blog in early 2009, I was frustrated by the lack of discussion of issues that seemed of paramount importance. I focused on the importance of monetary policy, especially issues such as QE, interest on reserves, the option of negative interest on reserves, monetary offset of fiscal policy, level targeting, etc.”
Right now, the blog seems to be a virus speculator. So…each country has achieved different results with various approaches to treat and manage COVID-19 in scientific and/or a populist approach. Does this mean, in economic and monetary policy that these same countries will achieve the same results? Can the US with worse virus stats outperform with economic policies than the countries that get through COVID-19 more efficiently?
24. April 2020 at 03:58
The U.S. and China have never been at war, at least not officially. They did engage in combat in the Korean War, but never officially. Compare that to Japan or Germany. The U.S. defeated Japan and Germany, but the Korean War never really ended (thus, North Korea). Trump often describes a virtual war with China, in which steals American jobs. But Jobs (i.e., Steve Jobs) didn’t shift production to China under threat of death, he did it voluntarily, the result being the largest (at times) company in the world and enormous wealth of those American who invested in Apple. Other U.S. companies that shifted production to China likewise did so voluntarily, producing winners (shareholders) and losers (American workers). Yet, many Americans view China as a hostile nation, our enemy. When James Doolittle led the bombing of Japan in retaliation against Japan for Pearl Harbor, all but a few of the pilots and crew survived by landing in China, from which they were returned to America. In retaliation for China’s favor to the U.S., Japan bombed China, killing 250,000 civilians and 70,000 soldiers.
24. April 2020 at 05:02
No joke, I wonder if your logic is as bad in monetary policy as it is in this essay—-That would be very disappointing——but I assume not
It does not follow that because we apply double standards to Vietnam that China’s numbers might be more accurate than we think. You so graciously admit that China lies or “undercounts” just like other countries. And you may even think they do it more on purpose than other countries—-but undercounting is undercounting.
You also hold it open that perhaps there undercounting is as proportional as for other countries. If you do, that is a possibility.
However——you also just assume in some cultural way (like California Chinese versus N.Y. Chinese) they prevent spread better.
Their deaths per million of 3–while not as good as Azeberjain or Cameroon—)although 1 higher than Japan—-another miracle country)—-is 1/50th of US .
Would you at least admit that their lack of global cooperation deserves some condemnation beyond you “yeah but….” comments.
The closest thing you remind me of on China is me…..on Trump.
24. April 2020 at 06:21
Tony..i hear u….but in real time it’s hard not to argue that China/Xi has outperformed/maneuvered U.S./Trump….
“Trump suggests injection of disinfectant to beat Corona and clean the lungs”
we aren’t setting the bar too high
24. April 2020 at 07:12
Scott,
Rick Bright seems to be an official who wants to withhold ineffective drugs from Americans. It’s a delicate situation.
Didn’t you always believe that anyone should be able to buy the medication they want to? An opinion that one might be able to understand to some extent.
People have been sufficiently educated, but if they still want to take hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin and die from cardiac arrhythmia, then they should be allowed to do so, shouldn’t they?
Maybe this is a new way to reduce the Trump electorate? =)
@Benjamin Cole
I have said positive things about you several times in the last days, you have just overlooked it. If you like, you were right about Sweden. Background immunity is now being discussed again as well. Scientists now also are really discussing that some children might not only have few to no symptoms, but may be immune in the first place, like you said in non-technical words. I might have even forgotten 1-2 points where you were right. Ah right, the cruise ships for example, the numbers from there seem to be helpful after all. I am also surprised that nobody talks about inoculation but you. I have no problem admitting when someone was right about certain points and I wasn’t.
24. April 2020 at 07:56
Christian List—
Well, thank you for your kind sentiments. Let us hope for a return to economic prosperity as soon as possible, and may you participate in that prosperity to the fullest extent, and in health!
24. April 2020 at 08:52
Since 12/30/19 only $393.5 billion dollars has been added to M1 (means-of-payment money).
MZM velocity will crash in the 1st qtr. of 2020. The FED is too tight.
24. April 2020 at 09:00
@Christian List
Is there some new evidence regarding the crew of the Diamond Princess?
24. April 2020 at 10:35
Christian, You said:
“The CCP has done exactly the opposite, you tell the story so wrong it’s astonishing. The CCP has claimed for weeks or even months that the death figures are absolutely correct,”
So the CCP denied they missed even a single case in a country of 1.4 billion? That would be bad. Link please, if you want me to accept the claim.
You said:
“Then the CCP suddenly had to correct the death figures by 50% from one day to the other. ”
And isn’t that also what New York did a few weeks back? And France?
You said:
“Rick Bright seems to be an official who wants to withhold ineffective drugs from Americans. It’s a delicate situation.”
What are you talking about–the drug has been approved. And yes, I’d abolish the FDA and have a free market.
Matthias, I’m not saying you are wrong, but I don’t know why you think the dorm issue is so important. Are you saying cities like Dhaka aren’t just as crowded as those dorms? Obviously it’s a big factor in Singapore, I just don’t see why we should assume crowding would not be a big factor elsewhere.
Michael, I see why people are skeptical, but there are two very powerful arguments cutting the other direction. The rest of East Asia is also radically different from New York, with no explanation for that either. What about Tokyo? Seoul? Hong Kong? Are they also lying?
Second, Western scientific studies of the rate of mutation broadly support the Chinese figures as of early February, at least within an order of magnitude. And it would be bizarre if the lying started after early February, when by all accounts they were doing much better.
dtoh, I’ll just say this. Of all the countries in the world, Vietnam is the most similar to China, and it’s not even close. Densely populated, fast growing, middle income, East Asian countries with authoritarian communist governments and mixed economies. They are basically the only two of exactly that type. Yes, Vietnam’s much less repressive than in the 1970s, but so is China.
Ray Lopez, In Europe, the official death rate is over 10%, whereas the actual rate is believed to be about 1%. Do the math.
Michael, You said:
“No joke, I wonder if your logic is as bad in monetary policy as it is in this essay—-That would be very disappointing——but I assume not
It does not follow that because we apply double standards to Vietnam that China’s numbers might be more accurate than we think.”
I never said it did. And you think I have bad “logic”! I’m saying that if we are biased against China then their numbers might be more accurate than we think, which is pretty damn near a tautology.
And China’s lack of global cooperation? How’s the US doing on that front?
cove77, Yes. It’s like the world of the satirical “Onion magazine” has come to life. You can’t make this stuff up.
24. April 2020 at 13:11
Scott,
Do you believe the Chinese economic data that recently came out? It says a 7% contraction in Q1, while all other Western Economies are expecting something like a 20-30% contraction. Is there a reason for why China’s contraction is less than other economies?
Also, how would you rate the Federal Reserve’s response to the crisis as of right now? Have they made any improvements in the last week? I have been checking the news, but I really can’t tell if they have done anything that has bettered the economic situation as of late.
24. April 2020 at 14:52
The broad panel testing done in New York City should put rest to the argument that we are under-testing by 50-80x. Approximately 1.4% of New Yorkers had tested positive(officially), at the time that 21% were deemed to have antibodies. This implies 22-23% total exposure in recent days, if the panel is broadly representative.
Thus, testing is off by a factor of closer to 15x. Not 50-80x. And it implies we are far from herd immunity, even in NYC.
And this implies a true mortality rate in the vicinity of 1.1% to 1.3%. This is no flu.
0.21% of NYC residents are dead. 23% have been exposed to it. Many existing cases are unresolved, so we are “locked in” to at least 0.25%, possibly 0.30% death level, from existing cases only.
0.25% / 23% = ~1.1% mortality rate
0.30% / 23% = ~1.3% mortality rate
And that assumes we are fully capturing all excess deaths attributable to covid that did not occur in hospital.
Last point => the R0 in the U.S. may well be above 1.0 again, as the moving average of daily cases seems to have stopped declining this week. There are three curves. NYC. Responsible Lockdown States. And Irresponsible Lockdown states (in this case, unfortunately, mostly the red ones). NYC has an R0 somewhat below 1.0 (helped b/c 20% of the population can’t get it now). The responsible states are closer to 1.0. The irresponsible are above 1.0. A couple weeks ago, NYC was half of the cases in the country. The improvement in NYC overwhelmed the acceleration everywhere else (From a small base). But now, the NYC curve decline is not enough to offset the acceleration elsewhere. This is a hot mess, indeed.
The recently downwardly revised death models that called for 60k deaths by August 4 never made sense to me. We will cross that level before April 30.
This was not the topic of the original post, but I can’t stand the fact that so many on here keep making arguments that are inconsistent with fairly reliable observable data.
24. April 2020 at 16:01
Scott,
Yes… but no.
Vietnam is a lot less repressive than China… to me it feels more like Thailand than China.
I think there are several reasons why it’s less repressive.
1. VN is a poorer country and the government has less money. The tools of repression are not cheap.
2. Except in the North, communism and authoritarianism have never really had a chance to gain a foothold.
3. In some ways, economic power is more distributed.
4. Returnees from the U.S. (Viet Kieu) have a lot of economic influence. If they are repressed, they just hop on plane and fly back to Orange County. (Very good recent article on the Viet Kieu at https://www.euromoney.com/article/b1l192v8p6q9bh/vietnams-diaspora-returns-with-attitude )
5. Anti-government sentiment is quiet but very strong (especially in the South) and this acts as break on the government.
24. April 2020 at 18:25
Scott,
Maybe you can show me a link where CCP officials talk about dark figures? They just don’t do that. At best, you get statements such as “we didn’t conceal any death figures, and the numbers are accurate”.
Then a few days later, they increased the death figures by 50%. How is that even possible when the numbers were accurate and when they didn’t conceal anything in the past??? They can’t have it both ways.
I mean, you tried to explain it, and your explanation wasn’t bad, the causes of death were initially assessed incorrectly, your example was pneumonia, and other Western media said this as well: quite some people who died of pneumonia were not counted as Covid-19 deaths.
But you admitted that these errors had been known for weeks, if not months. And you also admitted that these people tested positive for Covid-19 most of the time. So how is this not a cover-up attempt? Or are you saying that you had this information for weeks, but the CCP did not?
Nevertheless, the CCP did not correct the numbers until mid-April, they only corrected it when the pressure became too massive, and when it became completely unbelievable by the day that they never correct the numbers.
I think it is absurd that one has to discuss seriously with you whether the CCP is transparent or not. In the above example, a few sub-sentences by the CCP in February or March would have been enough, such as: “The figures are all preliminary. There are dark figures. We’ll take a closer look at the figures again at one point in the future. We are still counting.” — Pick what you want. But they never said something like this. This is not transparency at all.
The CCP was well aware of the errors, but they did not correct them until there was external pressure. It’s always like that with the CCP, it was not much different with the CP in the GDR. It is a similar regime, with the difference that the CCP is way more powerful and even more controlling, combined with a unprecedented threatening global focus.
The NYT has a balanced article on the subject and Mr. Bright said something along the lines of: “I resisted efforts to provide an unproven drug on demand to the American public. I insisted that these drugs be provided only to hospitalized patients with confirmed Covid-19 while under the supervision of a physician.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/22/us/politics/rick-bright-trump-hydroxychloroquine-coronavirus.html
That sounds a bit like withholding, he excludes over 99% of Americans. It would actually be better if the ineffective drugs were to be swallowed by healthy Americans with Covid-19 anxiety, rather than by seriously ill people with heart diseases in a hospital. Then at least the damage would be less.
24. April 2020 at 20:00
Narayana Kocherlakota has come out in favor of negative interest rates.
I never liked negative interest rates, as it struck me as admission of defeat, that the central bank lacked the resolve to print enough money to keep inflation above 2%.
But we live in an unusual situation, one entirely not of the Fed’s making.
We are still left with the problem that negative interest rates are corrosive to bank solvency, and in our clunky Fed-commercial bank arrangement, commercial banks are key to injecting additional net cash into circulation.
More and more, it seems helicopter drops, or MMT, are concepts worth pondering.
25. April 2020 at 10:07
John, They report the data as a 12-month change, so start with the fact that that’s 13% below the Chinese trend. Plus, the crisis didn’t affect China’s economy much in January. Even so, I don’t necessarily believe any specific number. They seem to smooth their data somewhat.
On the Fed, money’s obviously way too tight. Not much more to be said.
Jay. Yes. In a post I did about a week ago I estimated that 15% of New York State residents were infected, or soon would be. Of course the NYC rate is somewhat higher.
25. April 2020 at 10:16
dtoh, The south of China is also less repressive than Beijing.
I’m don’t doubt you know Vietnam better than me, but I’m not sure how “it feels to you” is representative. The worst repression is always suffered by marginalized people, mostly out of sight to Westerners (in both China and Vietnam.) I don’t see much repression in China, but then I never visit Xinjiang or Tibet, or even small villages where people are bullied by the government. I meet Chinese professionals. I know China has repression because I read about it.
Christian, OK, so you have no link to back up your claim, and no explanation as to why NYC cases leaped by 38% in a day, due to a new way of handling the data. Or a similar big jump in France. I’ll take that as confirming I was right.
There’s a difference between a government claiming it’s telling the truth about reported cases, and one claiming never to have missed a single mild case in a country of 1.4 billion. Be sensible.
As for Bright, the drug’s been approved and he has no control over who gets it. All he can do is make recommendations.
25. April 2020 at 16:43
Scott,
I’ve spent time in the homes of Uighur families in Xinjiang. Been to Vietnam at least a hundred times. Same for Thailand.
As to how it feels; I always like to say, if you have enough anecdotes, it becomes statistically significant.
And again, I’m not one of the people doubting Chinese data or the efficacy of their efforts to stop the virus.
25. April 2020 at 18:22
Scott,
I find it funny how you so obviously cannot admit that the transparency of the CCP is a disaster. This is further proof that you are closer to the CCP than you claim. And now there isn’t even repression in CCP China, at least nothing you can see when you are there, it’s only something one can read in obscure books but never observe. LOL.
Scott,
your reading comprehension is terrible again. I wrote specifically about death figures. And even more specific about Covid-19 positive patients known to have died from “pneumonia” in January, according to you and the CCP. Deaths that even you have known about since February/March, you said so yourself.
But the CCP has always said that their death figures are correct, even though they knew about these cases very well.
A correction was not made until mid-April, when the external pressure became too much. And you find nothing wrong with that. What an absurdity. And btw: If death is a “mild case” for you, then what is a severe case? This is so ridiculous and absurd.
Assuming it is not 1:1 CCP propaganda, what you are writing here, then what would 1:1 CCP propaganda actually look like, may I ask? Maybe this last point is too harsh — for the CCP. I mean let’s face it, even the CCP is more honest than you right now.
25. April 2020 at 18:42
Scott,
What you write about Bright sounds nearly equally strange. The whole point about the Bright case seems to be that he was part of the whole process, for example of the EUA approval process. He even says so himself. And now you claim that the media reporters, and even Bright himself, must be idiots for not seeing that he has no control and power? What do you know that these people do not know? Did you even read a single sentence about this case or just the headlines that fitted into your mindset/agenda?
26. April 2020 at 09:19
Christian. You continue to ignore similar data corrections in NYC, France etc. I’m going to assume that means you have no answer, and that you agree with me that China’s no more corrupt that NYC or France.
You said:
“you so obviously cannot admit that the transparency of the CCP is a disaster”
I hereby admit that the transparency of the CCP is a disaster
(As I’ve done many times before.) Take a deep breath, you are hyperventilating.
As for Bright, are you saying that the FDA has not approved the drug? If not, I stand corrected. But I believe it has been approved. Of course the FDA also warns of possible side effects; I have no problem with that.
29. April 2020 at 17:03
No, I addressed this issue multiple times. Again reading comprehension. The Western authorities have always communicated that they will correct as soon as better data is available. They have always said that miscounts are entirely possible. Miscounts are no problem as long as they are handled transparently. The CCP continually claims their death figures are correct. There is no transparency, as you now admit yourself.
No,
I said he was against it, and they kicked him out because of it. But unfortunately, the FDA included his statement in the indications, so that now only doctors in hospitals can use it for very seriously ill patients. This is the wrong target group. And it means no other doctor will prescribe it, especially not in the US, where you can always get sued. So 99% who may want it won’t get it, that’s the whole trick behind this scheme.
US doctors won’t go against the recommendations, I bet their liability insurance doesn’t even cover going against such explicit recommendations. This means in practice that it is not approved, except for this tiny 0,1% of hospital patients, like I said from the beginning. That’s the whole bureaucratic ploy of Bright, he planned this, and he’s even dumb enough to admit that this is the reason why they transferred him. They should’ve moved him to Antarctica, to count penguins.