Here’s a very important article from Science. On February 28th, a WHO-organized mission to China published a detailed report about the situation in China. It was led by a Canadian WHO epidemiologist named Bruce Aylward. The actual report is here. The article I’m recommending is an article summarizing the key findings of the report by two highly respected health policy and infectious disease journalists.
Let me briefly address some of the emails in response to this post below about the seasonal flu. First, all your feedback is helpful and appreciated. For reasons I don’t fully I understand some readers have interpreted that post as saying either that the flu is worse or comparable or that COVID-19 infection isn’t that bad. One reader even said it played into President Trump’s efforts to downplay the problem. I strongly disagree, for reasons I’ll explain below. But before I do, for clarity, I’m definitely not saying any of those things. I say quite clearly that even at the low bound, COVID-19 infection appears to be dramatically more lethal than the flu and that all human populations have little to no immune resistance to it, which is also dramatically different from the flu.
The point to me is numeracy.
News is just out that former Majority Leader Harry Reid is endorsing Joe Biden. Notable point here. Reid went out of his way not to endorse before the Nevada Caucuses, where he obviously would have carried a lot of sway. But while not ‘endorsing’ he made statements more or less constantly about how great Elizabeth Warren is.
So his refusal to endorse was fairly nominal to anyone who was paying attention. This endorsement of Biden seems as much his saying that he thinks Warren’s window has closed as it is an endorsement of Joe Biden.
As we enter into a period in which the United States seems likely to at least see localized outbreaks of the novel Coronavirus, here is some important perspective. The U.S. is already in the midst of a fairly bad flu season. Probably mostly without your even being aware of it, 32 million Americans (roughly a 10th of the population) have gotten the flu. That has resulted in 310,000 hospitalizations. And 18,000 people have died from the flu. Details and charts here at the CDC flu surveillance page.
I had a whole long post written about this. I can summarize it as follows. Buttigieg dropping out, along with a slew of other developments over the last week, sets us up for a hugely unpredictable set of results on Tuesday. Buttigieg only had about 10% support nationally. Some polls showed his voters spreading surprisingly evenly to the other candidates as their second choice — belying any simple calculus that his voters automatically migrate to Biden. Commentators are having debates about different candidates’ “lanes” such.
But those analyses miss this greater uncertainty.
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From TPM Reader RB …
JoinI just have to say that in regard to your first two comments today Mar. 1 on a possible Bernie-Biden race, both your readers NL and JE are far too pessimistic, looking only for the worst possible outcomes.
Here are some important new developments on the novel Coronavirus over the last 24 hours.
From reluctant Sanders supporter JE …
JoinI agree with your point about needing to get some clarify before the convention but I think we miss one important thing if the race narrows to Biden/Sanders quickly.
From TPM Reader NL …
JoinI am conflicted about this matchup. Let me get this off my chest first. I do not like Sanders. It has zero to do with policy, age, or electability. It is entirely about his unwillingness to be a team player and my fear that he will be a governing disaster because he will make the perfect the enemy of the good. This manifests in a lot of ways — unwillingness to join the party, unwillingness to call out his more toxic backers (assuming they are not FSB bots), unwillingness to make the case to his core supporters that change requires 50.1% percentage of the vote and get there requires, well, Democrats. What is the problem with making the case the Democratic party needs new blood and that the best way to change the party is by joining it?
Most about this night speaks for itself. I suspect the margin of this win will get Biden into contention in enough Super Tuesday states to gravitate this relatively quickly into a two person race. I doubt Michael Bloomberg will stay in the race long if thinks his impact is only to pull potential support from Biden, or if he sees no path for himself to the nomination. Steyer is dropping out tonight. I suspect others will follow next week.
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