Our Brand is Crisis

If you are about to decide whether to take a step so obviously harmful to our economy and way of life...

… then surely you should only consider doing it for two reasons:

1. A catastrophe is happening right now; or, there is a high degree of certainty the catastrophe will happen soon.

2. The destructive precautions chosen will almost certainly work.

Is a catastrophe happening right now?

Officially - we have had 18 deaths. (I remember some deaths not being confirmed as coronavirus deaths, with at least two involving other serious illness. We don't seem to get clarity on this.)

6 of these deaths have been of people in their 80s; another 4 of people in their 70s.

12 men. 6 women.

We currently have 7 people considered to be in serious condition in our hospitals.

We have 1 934 confirmed cases, and we have conducted 68 874 tests. A postive percentage of under 3 percent. Remember, you only get tested if you have symptoms or have been in direct contact with a positive case.

Are we definitely heading for a catastrophe? Certainly the disease emanating from China (almost certainly a Chinese lab) is serious, causes terrible illness and does require action - but are we definitely headed for a catastrophe on the scale of Aids or our crime rates?

I have already pointed out that it seems doctors around the world have discovered a cheap, old medicine that works reasonably well, that malarial countries are seemingly not being hit hard, and that countries with infant TB vaccine programmes are also showing some immunity.

Then we have the so-called models. Originally the Imperial College model predicted 200 000 deaths in the UK - no matter what the government did. Then it went down suddenly to 20 000.

An American model predicted 100 000 deaths (the IHME model) - WITH SOCIAL DISTANCING - and now that has been downgraded to 60 000. Bear in mind that 60 000 people died of flu in 2017. Their hospitalisation rate predictions have been way off too.

Then note that the countries/states with the earliest lockdowns have not done well at all. Italy, Spain, New York. Plus a lockdown should not have seen fewer cases yet in South Africa as the virus has a 14 day incubation period. So the lockdown could not have 'worked' - yet.

So - we are not currently in a catastrophe, we are not certain a catastrophe will come, and we are not certain a lockdown works.

One number we know for sure - 17 million Americans have filed for unemployment in two weeks (this excludes freelancers etc without work now coming in).

We don't know what our number will be.

I do know that it will be near impossible for any politician to admit they may have been completely wrong.

The US are still in Afghanistan - using weapons to bring 'freedom' - because how do you bring the troops home and admit the sacrifices were for nothing?

With a running death count, how soon will our lockdowns end?

CS Lewis:

“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. This very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be "cured" against one's will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals.”