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Scientific Encounters
As the map shows, most Republican-governed states - 73% of them - have low COVID-19 death rates. Specifically, less than 50 deaths per million population. Just 36% of Democrat-governed states have such low mortality rates. Now consider the havoc and suffering wrought by shelter-in place lockdowns….
The obvious question here is whether there is a connection between each country’s government response and its mortality rate.. The government response I’m most interested in regards the relationship between stay-at-home lockdowns and mortality rates (acknowledging that correlation is not causation). Here are the countries* that had full, countrywide, stay-at-home lockdowns: …
Systrom and Krieger applied their algorithm to spread rates in all 50 states plus Washington DC and found that infection rates are on a downward trajectory in 38 states….
Here’s hoping the COVID-19 contagion has truly peaked and the death rate will soon begin its quick slide. The signs are promisingly: hospitalization rates are down and the spread of infection is slowing in most states.
“In February 1957, a new influenza A (H2N2) virus emerged in East Asia, triggering a pandemic (“Asian Flu”). This H2N2 virus was comprised of three different genes from an H2N2 virus that originated from an avian influenza…It was first reported in Singapore in February 1957, Hong Kong in April 1957, and in coastal cities in the United States in summer 1957. The estimated number of deaths was 1.1 million worldwide and 116,000 in the United States.” - 1957-1958 Pandemic (H2N2 virus)/CDC
The general consensus seems to be that California’s relatively low death rate is at least partly due to the San Francisco Bay Area’s March 12th “shelter-in-place” order, which may have prevented the explosion of contagion that has afflicted New Yorkers. Seems reasonable and yet… the governors of Texas and Florida did not order statewide lockdowns until April. And Texas has a lower COVID-19 death rate than California’s and Florida’s rate is not much higher.
Unemployment kills. A 10% increase in unemployment for workers age 25-64 translates to 32,500 “extra” deaths a year in the US. This based on “Losing life and livelihood: a systematic review and meta-analysis of unemployment and all-cause mortality”, an analysis of 42 studies covering more than 20 million persons.
Neither Taiwan nor Japan conducted widespread coronavirus testing. Neither implemented countrywide “stay-at-home” lockdowns. And yet, as of April 13, the coronavirus-related death rate in both Taiwan and Japan is less than one death per million residents, compared to Spain’s mortality rate of over 350 deaths per million residents - and Spain went into total lockdown a month ago. What did Taiwan and Japan do right? The full answer to that question is still being worked out, but the widespread use of facemasks in both countries clearly played a major role in limiting viral spread. Facemasks broke the chain of transmission when infection rates were low, nipping contagion in the bud.
Are some government responses to the coronavirus more successful than others? By “successful”, I mean preventing virus-related deaths. Deaths as a percentage of a country’s population is a decent proxy for how many residents are infected, as well as the rate of serious infection - at least for developed countries with similar age demographics and where medical care is roughly similar. (Confirmed coronavirus cases is a poor indicator of virus prevalence, because so few people have been tested.)
So let’s look at the death rates as of April 10…
Here’s a definition of hope: “the perceived ability to execute envisioned routes to desirable future goals.” Hopeful people are able to envision pathways to success and feel confident in their ability to follow those pathways to achieve their goals. Socially mobile societies tend to be full of hopeful people, because they provide a foundation for hope: opportunity, personal experience, and the example of others.
The above headlines are referencing the April 5 Coronavirus Task Force Press Briefing, during which President Trump and task force members discuss the anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine as a possible treatment for coronavirus. Here are the relevant excerpts, with some text underlined for emphasis…
For some weeks now, President Trump has been hyping the potential of the drug hydroxychloroquine to treat COVID-19. Governor Cuomo has has expressed similar sentiments: “The president is optimistic about these drugs and we are all optimistic that it could work”. Yet only Trump gets slammed by the media for “peddling false hopes” by “touting unproven drugs”. For example…
By March 4, California had reported 53 confirmed cases of COVAD-19 while New York had reported 11 cases. At the time, there had been one coronavirus-related death in California and none in New York. Fast-forward to the March 26 death count*. California: 65. New York: 365. Why did New York spiral out of control?
Yes, a large majority of people under 60 who have been infected with the coronavirus have only mild symptoms. And I guess if someone is only concerned about their own health, that's enough to be cavalier about the possibility of getting sick. But higher risk individuals can get seriously ill and, given how contagious the coronavirus appears to be, the more people who get sick with mild symptoms, the more people who will get seriously sick in the general population.
As the above excerpt illustrates, status is about access to scarce resources in competitive situations. Higher status means greater access….Of course, one doesn’t want to be too obvious about one’s status aspirations - that reeks of desperation, which is a low-status emotion. Then again, once a person takes their high status for granted, it ceases to be sought or protected so strenuously. Ah, what a pleasant way to live: comfortable, confident and secure.
We resort to the brute force of willpower when when we have failed to avoid exposure to temptations. Willpower often works in these situations, but it can be exhausting. Willpower works best when used sparingly…Better smart self-control than hard self-control.
The following stats are care of the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), part of the U.S. Department of Justice. First, data on time served in state prisons, based on prison release records for 2016 from 44 states…So, how are US prisoners doing upon release? Turns out, not so good. This from a BJS nine-year follow-up study of state prisoners…
A bunch of studies have concluded that effective psychotherapy is almost entirely associated with factors common to all therapies but specific to none (Laska & Gurman (2014), Wampold (2015), Cuijpers, Reijnders, et al. (2019). These common factors include….
Turns out our little friend is not a preprogrammed automaton but an unpredictable creature of “unexpected depths”, a complex and strategic decision-maker capable of “changing its mind” in response to failure. For example, Stentor roeseli “can dodge, duck or flee” to avoid a threat, alternating these evasive maneuvers in a seemingly random manner until the threat is gone. Here’s a nice illustration …
Why is self-efficacy so important to how we approach the challenge of climate change? Because self-efficacy is associated with persistence, tolerance of uncertainty and risk, creativity, resourcefulness, and resilience. Qualities we all could use in the coming decades.