{"id":1063,"date":"2021-08-25T13:58:05","date_gmt":"2021-08-25T20:58:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bruceramsey.net\/?page_id=1063"},"modified":"2025-07-20T17:01:01","modified_gmt":"2025-07-21T00:01:01","slug":"looking-back-on-the-plague-year-2021","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/bruceramsey.net\/index.php\/looking-back-on-the-plague-year-2021\/","title":{"rendered":"Looking Back on the Plague Year (2021)"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 I wrote this piece early in January 2021. It was posted on the Liberty web page Jan. 11. \u00a0The statistics in it are out of date, but I think the argument holds. As I post this, in August 2021, a mutated virus called the Delta Variant is raising hell. China’s death rate is still 3 per million residents. The U.S. death rate is<\/i>\u00a01,912 per million and rising. Some 632,000 Americans have died.<\/i><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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     <\/span> <\/span>The coronavirus has not been good for libertarians. <\/span>In the tribal war between the Left and the Right, the Left charged that the dreaded bug might kill a million Americans, and that President Trump was as useless as one of his red hats. The Right labeled the Left\u2019s warnings a political hoax, a move to impeach their dear leader and take away the people\u2019s freedom.<\/span><\/p>\n

      On March 31, 2020, I argued on this page that the Left had the better argument. When I wrote that, the virus had killed fewer than 3,000 Americans. It has now extinguished nearly 350,000. Before this is over, it will probably top half a million. If so, it will be the third-largest cause of death in the United States after heart disease and cancer. It will be more than all U.S. military deaths during World War II (416,000).<\/span><\/p>\n

       I don\u2019t hear voices on the Right saying, \u201cWe were wrong\u201d \u2014 but, hey, you were. The virus was as bad as the other side said it was.<\/span><\/p>\n

       Libertarians do have a point about officials imposing extraordinary controls. They have, and some of their controls have not been clearly lawful. But what would you have officials do? Leave us free to choose? That would be the libertarian way. The Swedes tried a liberal policy and libertarians cheered them on. Lately they have decided to impose more controls on behavior, an admission that the looser policy wasn\u2019t up to the job. <\/span><\/p>\n

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        Look around the world. Which countries have beaten the coronavirus, and which ones have succumbed to it? The best measure is the cumulative number of Covid-19 <\/span>deaths per million inhabitants<\/span><\/a>. As I write, on a list of 220 nations and such mini-jurisdictions as San Marino and Hong Kong, the United States is 14th<\/sup> worst, with a rate (on Jan. 1, 2021) of 1,073 deaths per million. The United Kingdom, with 1,089 deaths per million, is no better. Among major countries, Belgium is the worst, with 1,681 deaths per million.<\/span><\/p>\n

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       Among the Scandinavian countries, Sweden, with 861 deaths per million, has a fatality rate four times that of the next-highest Scandinavian country, Denmark (228 deaths per million), and more than 10 times the death rate in next-door Norway (80 per million).<\/span><\/p>\n

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       The region with the best record against the disease is East Asia. China, where the epidemic began, has a death rate of just three per million<\/i>.<\/span><\/p>\n

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       Probably that is understated. Multiply it by five if you like. Multiply it by 10. The number you are starting with is three, compared with the US death rate of 1,073.<\/span><\/p>\n

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        It would seem that if any government has done a fabulous job<\/i>, it was not the one led by Donald Trump. The American president accused China of covering up the coronavirus \u2014 criminally <\/i>covering it up. And in Wuhan, where the plague began, officials did cover up the \u201cChina virus\u201d for several weeks. But once the leaders in Beijing got wind of it in mid-January 2020, the central government moved in, cleared aside the foot-draggers, sent in tens of thousands of medical people and locked down Wuhan for 76 days.<\/span><\/p>\n

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       China is not the only country with a rock-bottom rate of death from Covid-19. Taiwan\u2019s is 0.3 per million; Thailand\u2019s, 0.9; Singapore\u2019s, 5; South Korea\u2019s, 18; Hong Kong\u2019s, 20; Japan\u2019s, 27. Most of East Asia did a far better job relative to Europe and the Americas, and they did it without China\u2019s heavy-handed police tactics or by locking up critics of the government. The stories that I\u2019ve read \u2014 and you can Google \u201cEast Asia\u201d and \u201ccoronavirus\u201d and read them yourself \u2014 give the picture:<\/span><\/p>\n

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       — Fortune<\/i> recalled on Dec. 28, 2020: \u201cOn Jan. 22, the day after Taiwan\u2019s first confirmed case, Taiwan\u2019s government began distributing face masks to convenience stores, releasing 1 million masks per week and advising people \u2018to remain calm and not rush to buy them.\u2019 Before January was over, Taiwan had banned exports of face masks, placed limits on the number of masks that outbound travelers could take with them and capped the number of masks that each person could buy at one time.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

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       Compare this with US government\u2019s Centers for Disease Control, which didn\u2019t recommend masks to the public until April<\/i> \u2014 and Donald Trump, who didn\u2019t wear a mask in public until July, after he was hectored into it by a hostile press. <\/span><\/p>\n

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       — Foreign Policy<\/i> magazine reported on Dec. 29, \u201cEast Asian governments acted faster than the West, but they also benefited from publics that saw masks as a social good while Western experts were busy wrongly arguing that they had little value.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

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       East Asia was hit by the same waves of infection that washed over the United States, but fought back more effectively. By October, most of the region was disease-free:<\/span><\/p>\n

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       — CBC<\/i> reported from Wuhan in November, \u201cThe place is wide-open. The restaurants are jammed, the bars are jammed.\u201d That\u2019s not to say the people were happy about the government\u2019s heavy-handed lockdown of the spring. \u201cPeople do look at it as a nightmare,\u201d Canada\u2019s TV network reported. \u201cThey remember it as a very grim time in Wuhan\u2026 [but] most people will tell you it was probably worth it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

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       In December, the third wave hit East Asia:<\/span><\/p>\n

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       — Voice of America<\/i> reported December 7 from Taiwan that East Asian governments were \u201cstepping up controls without shuttering businesses in most cases or ordering people to stay home\u2026 [They were] quarantining sick people, tracing their contacts and mandating bigger social distances in public. International borders remain shut to tourists.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

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       East Asia\u2019s relative success is not only about governments but individuals. \u201cPeople in the region habitually comply with the rules, even where no one\u2019s on hand to enforce them,\u201d the VOA correspondent said. \u201cCollective well-being is prioritized over individual liberty.\u201d<\/span><\/p>


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 <\/span>       I imagine this grates on the libertarian ear. It grates on mine. But when you\u2019re fighting for life, you do what works. <\/span><\/p>

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\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Trump deserves some credit. He gave the green light to the pharma companies to develop, test and produce vaccines in record time. But he downplayed the disease from the start. He said it would go away, fought with his public-health experts and promoted cures that didn\u2019t work. He hobnobbed and shook hands with politicos and eventually got sick himself. Before, during and after his illness he behaved as if the virus were no big deal.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Would a President Biden\u2019s response have been better? On the public health aspects, almost certainly yes. On the vaccine, perhaps not. I can imagine a President Bernie Sanders bullying the pharma companies, which would not have helped.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0But whoever was president, Republican or Democrat, was bound to be too late. East Asia snapped to attention\u00a0<\/i>in late January of 2020, when the Republicans and Democrats in Washington, D.C., were fixed on Trump\u2019s impeachment. Several administration officials warned in January of what was coming, but they were ignored. The first U.S deaths from Covid-19 were reported at the\u00a0end of<\/i>\u00a0February<\/i>\u00a0in a nursing home in Kirkland, Washington,<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/span>15 miles from where I live. And when that news hit, the US government was not ready. The 50 state governments, Red and Blue alike, were not ready. The hospitals were not ready and the private-sector suppliers were not ready.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Probably we couldn\u2019t expect to be ready. Asia was ready because people remembered the SARS epidemic of 2003. We were hardly touched by that. What\u2019s more, we have a different culture. We celebrate rebels. Individuality. Rights. That is who we are, but it is not helpful in fighting an epidemic. Given the American character, the initial response to Covid-19 had to be strong. Decisive. It had to impress people that this was real, it was serious, and that they had better cooperate.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0After the \u201clockdown\u201d of March and April, the virus spread anyway. The conclusion to draw is not that the effort was all useless; it surely helped to \u201cflatten the curve.\u201d But to have been really effective, the lockdown should have come earlier. As a nation, we were\u00a0too slow<\/i>.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The countries that clamped down earlier, when there were few enough people to use contact tracing and individual quarantine, got better results. The Right needs to acknowledge this. If the United States had a\u00a0<\/span>cumulative death rate less than 1 percent of China\u2019s, you\u2019d be hearing about it. If Sweden, with its looser policy, had the best results in Scandinavia \u2014 even the same results \u2014 you\u2019d be hearing about it. As it is, my political allies seem curiously uninterested in the data.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Much of the concern among conservatives and libertarians has been the rules that put people out of work. I had a sense of the shutdowns a few weeks ago by walking through downtown Seattle for an hour. It looked like a war zone. Block after block, storefronts are boarded up. Much of it is because of the window-breaking by the Black Lives Matter protesters, and behind the plywood some businesses are still operating. But with Covid-19 they\u2019ve been hit twice, and many are closed. The work-from-home movement has killed the lunch places.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0I agree that the people\u2019s need to make a living cannot be swept aside by the glib answer, \u201cWe have to deal with Covid first.\u201d No; we have to deal with both at the same time. We don\u2019t know how long Covid will hang on, and we can\u2019t have a huge section of the people sitting at home indefinitely, living off government welfare. Businesses have to come up with ways to safely stay open, and officials have to allow them to do that. I\u2019m thinking of the Mexican restaurant I saw in Cle Elum, Wash., last summer: the owner had cut a window in a brick wall so he could serve customers in their cars. He told me that that window had saved the business. In my neighborhood, restaurants set up tables on the sidewalk during the summer. On the other hand, all the buffet restaurants I know of are closed.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0All of these adaptations include the wearing of masks. In its public protests against masks, the Right has made fools of themselves. I\u2019m thinking of a particular Internet wiseacre who mocks the face mask as \u201cthe diaper.\u201d I\u2019m not a medical authority, but neither is the Diaper Man, whose expertise is automobiles.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

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\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0I\u2019ll make my stand for masks on the following ideas. First, the people who\u00a0are<\/i>\u00a0authorities \u2014 the medical doctors and public-health officials \u2014 insist on them. I respect those people. Second, in the cities of East Asia, which has had the best results in the fight against Covid-19, mask-wearing is near-universal. Third, if the virus spreads through droplets in the breath, which scientists say it does, common sense says that covering the mouth should help. Fourth, arguments against masks usually misconstrue their purpose as protecting only the wearer. Their purpose is to stop the spread and thereby protect the community.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0There is another reason for masks. It sends a message. It is a constant reminder to the wearer not to forget:\u00a0Don\u2019t<\/i>\u00a0rub your nose,\u00a0don\u2019t<\/i>\u00a0chew your fingernails,\u00a0don\u2019t<\/i>\u00a0hug other people or shake their hands. Mask-wearing is also a social signal:\u00a0Hey, you!<\/i>\u00a0Stay away from me!<\/i>\u00a0And,\u00a0Where\u2019s your mask? I\u2019m wearing mine!<\/i><\/span><\/p>

\u00a0<\/i><\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0I don\u2019t like wearing masks, breathing my own air and struggling to communicate with people by talking through a blanket. I don\u2019t know how many times I\u2019ve gotten out of the car and halfway to the store thought, \u201cDamn! I forgot my mask.\u201d But when I get in the store, I am glad that someone required everyone to wear them.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0I do want my freedom \u2014 and to live to enjoy it. Right now, though, I think the people in Wuhan, China, have more ground-level personal freedom than I \u2014 the freedom to go to a restaurant, to host a hot-pot dinner, to go to work. They have it because of what their government did \u2014 which in some respects was too harsh, but was quick enough and thorough enough to stop the virus.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a9 2021 Bruce Ramsey<\/span>
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\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 I got little reader\u00a0response to this. The message from conservatives and\u00a0<\/i>libertarians<\/i>\u00a0is almost entirely anti-vaccine and anti-government. It’s good, I suppose, that people are talking about liberty, but in this case I don’t agree with them.<\/i><\/span><\/span><\/p>

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\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 I wrote this piece early in January 2021. It was posted on the Liberty web page Jan. 11. \u00a0The statistics in it are out of date, but I think the argument holds. As I post this, in August 2021, a mutated virus called the Delta Variant is raising hell. China’s death rate […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1063","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bruceramsey.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1063","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bruceramsey.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bruceramsey.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bruceramsey.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bruceramsey.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1063"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/bruceramsey.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1063\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1564,"href":"https:\/\/bruceramsey.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1063\/revisions\/1564"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bruceramsey.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1063"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}