Link Log Roundup for May 16, 2020
In this edition: reopening America, learning to be a contact tracer, the trouble with fixating on immunity, inside Trump’s brain, and Wall Street’s death cult.
Your daily look at links I’ve saved to my Link Log (RSS) over the course of each day but didn’t necessarily address or highlight here on the blog. These are the links I logged yesterday, and not necessarily links to things published yesterday.
Reopening America: A state-by-state breakdown of the status of coronavirus restrictions
Governors have taken different tactics in developing plans to loosen stay-at-home orders in their states, each taking different paths in removing social-distancing restrictions. States in the Northeast, Midwest and West Coast have formed coalitions to usher in a regional recovery. Other states have faced criticism for already allowing nonessential businesses to resume in-person operations. Some governors have yet to release any sort of reopening plan.
I Enrolled in a Coronavirus Contact Tracing Academy
In the Before Times, there were only about 2,200 contact tracers for the whole US, according to the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials. They would help squelch periodic flareups of tuberculosis, HIV, syphilis, and other dangerous diseases. Now they’re all working around the clock on Covid-19. Public health experts estimate we need 100,000 to 200,000 more to safely reopen American society.
Why History Urges Caution on Coronavirus Immunity Testing
Yellow fever in the U.S. at that time—and earlier, smallpox in Europe in the 1700s—brought with it an understandable fixation on immunity. In the current coronavirus pandemic this attitude has been globally reborn in the form of an “immunity passport.” The idea is that if individuals successfully weather COVID-19, they could be allowed to reenter work and public spaces. There are fundamental problems with this concept, however, because of the many unknowns surrounding coronavirus immunity itself.
Inside Trump’s coronavirus meltdown | Free to read
Shortly before the CDC visit, Trump said “within a couple of days, [infections are] going to be down to close to zero”. The US then had 15 cases. “One day, it’s like a miracle, it will disappear.” A few days afterwards, he claimed: “I’ve felt it was a pandemic long before it was called a pandemic.” That afternoon at the CDC provides an X-ray into Trump’s mind at the halfway point between denial and acceptance.
”People Will Die. People Do Die.” Wall Street Has Had Enough of the Lockdown
Kim Fennebresque, a longtime Wall Street investment banker, has had successful stints at First Boston, Lazard (where I met him), UBS, and as the former CEO of Cowen & Co., a small, independent investment bank. He’s had enough health issues lately to make him especially vulnerable to COVID-19, if he were to contract it. Nevertheless, Fennebresque believes the time has come to open up the economy, especially in those regions of the country where, so far anyway, it has had less of a devastating impact. He agrees the debate has been poorly framed. “In terms of money versus lives, it really reduces it to a silly trade-off, because that’s not what it is,” he says “People will die. People do die. People my age die. It happens, right? It can happen with a flu epidemic. People can die. People have to take care of themselves and wash their hands. People have to stay in and do lots of things, and 5,000 people can’t go running to a beach the day it opens. You do that and it has consequences. People have to take responsibility for their own lives. And people do die. That is kind of what happens.”