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With the country on virtual lockdown and many, many unanswered questions about the Corona Virus, we thought it was a good idea to do a stand alone podcast with our good friend and the most knowledgeable medical person we know (and full disclosure: Ricochet Board Member), Dr. George Savage. Rob Long, and later, Peter Robinson ask the questions on this show, but later in the week, we’ll open to the floor up to you and let you ask Dr. Savage. Stay tuned for a post soliciting questions. In the meantime, listen to this show and stay safe.
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Thanks for this podcast.
I find it very disappointing that Dr. Savage is talking about 33% exponential growth. I just debunked this as to Italy, here. It is true that exponential growth in the 33% range (per day) is fairly accurate for the first 5-10 days for many countries, but then it’s been leveling out.
My point may be overly technical, as it does appear correct that cases grow in an exponential way early on, which means that the number can grow from, say, 200 to 10,000 pretty quickly. But the exponential growth does not continue.
Jerry,
I wasn’t making the point that exponential growth is inevitable, or that the rate of growth will remain at 33 percent-per-day indefinitely. Instead, I was trying to quantify the driver behind the ever more draconian shelter-in-place orders that US states and localities are imposing.
My specific observation was based on reporting done by the Financial Times (see graph nearby). You will note that the author normalized the data for each country, with the x-axis describing number of days since the 100th reported case and the y-axis showing total case numbers.
I think the jury is still out on the point of how long exponential growth can continue. China’s case growth began decelerating after day 15 and South Korea’s after day 10. This occurred after maximal effort at social distancing, which is the point of the current public health measures being taken in the US.
Is that day 15 after everyone knew about the problem, or day 15 after China knew about it but kept it to themselves?
This is of course 15 days after the 100th patient according to China’s official reporting. So take it with a bit of salt.
I think @peterrobinson forgets that Trump has been in the forefront of saying that the US shouldn’t rely on China so much. Maybe he can’t be as vociferous about it right now, because China COULD restrict or totally cut off supplies of things that are badly needed especially now. (Saying we can just get those things from India, Japan, Korea, etc doesn’t hold up because those places also get their supplies and raw materials from China.) Meanwhile, we have the Bidens and Sanderseses etc who don’t think any “risky” manufacturing should take place in the US, which includes a lot of medical stuff, and especially the solar panels etc that the left insists are necessary for their Green New Deal/Green Economy.
And @roblong assumes that Obama in the same situation would receive the same criticism as Trump for messing up a speech. I wonder, what color is the sky in Rob’s world?
I also thought Peter’s commentary that this COVID-19 issue has wiped out all of the incumbent’s political advantages, including “standing up to China” and the strong economy. Putting aside that this will be the stance of Democrats/Media, regardless of the facts on the ground now and as the election nears, in fact Trump’s sustained pressure on China is being demonstrably vindicated by a real life events, further highlighting the correctness of his views concerning trade, Huawei, etc. While he incorrectly focuses on the trade imbalance at times, he is more right than wrong on his approach to China and it is being dramatically played out for the world, in more ways than even Trump could have foreseen. Regarding the economy, again, only Democrats/Media/NTs could possibly blame an economic decline on the incumbent under the current situation, where a lucid examination of where we are now would start with a recognition that we are very lucky to have had three years of solid job growth, market expansion and deregulation to put us in a most enviable position to weather the coronaviral storm. Imagine this event occurring after three more years of stifling, statist, “decadent”, corrupt leadership by a Democrat presidential incumbent, and you will begin to see the contrast.
It’s not over yet, by a long shot, but rising so high has given us room to fall, before falling behind.
All true. And maybe this will get Trump some help on getting more of the critical supplies and manufacturing back into the US.
Peter may be correct in that a lot of voters will simply vote as though someone else – ANYONE else – would have somehow automatically done better. If that happens, and we get Biden or Sanders, all I can figure is that those voters get what they deserve. Problem is, all the rest of us also get what only THOSE voters actually deserved.
It’s ridiculous central bank policy. Trump was trying to keep everything pumped up to get past the next election. Now he doesn’t have to worry about it.
I thought this was quite good. The most important part was at 11:40. Definitely listen to it. He says billions of dollars were deployed for pandemic readiness and not one state followed through. He’s the guy that runs Steve Bannon’s show.
Also screw China. They can comprehensively go to hell.
Dr. Savage failed mention the democracy of Taiwan, the most successful of all in fighting this virus because of Taiwan’s fundamental distrust of the PRC’s CCP and its unwillingness to be transparent from Day 1.
I think I heard their ambassador on the Hugh Hewitt show yesterday. It was really good.
I can’t pick a particular spot but the criticism of the WHO is worth listening to as well. It’s more towards the end. It sounds like that organization is just terrible.
Dr. Savage, thanks. I prepared almost identical graphs and posted them here at Ricochet, Sunday and again today, though for fewer countries and starting at the 200 case threshold.
They all seem to tell the same story — the exponential growth ceases after around 10-15 days. That is good news, but it suggests that we are seriously overreacting.
Maybe this is too obvious to mention, but does not the graph posted above, Country by Country… give a false impression of things given that 2000 cases in the United States, with its larger population, should be discounted? This goes to my real questions: how do we explain the 2-4 month delay in “arrival time” of this virus from China; is it not likely that it has been here since early this year, or longer? Also, what are the chances that early, on, this virus was either not diagnosed, or misdiagnosed as the flu?
I’m no expert, but it’s what I suspect.
There’s a working paper that touches on that. See the tidbit here, but I think the tweet thread will link you to the whole paper.