Category: reason

Police Powers During a Pandemic: Constitutional, but Not Unlimited

State and local governments are currently taking dramatic and sometimes unprecedented action in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, including “shelter in place” orders, bans on public gatherings, and business shutdowns. What’s the legal basis for such sweeping actions?

In the U.S. constitutional system, each state possesses a traditional authority to regulate in the name of public health, safety, and welfare. Known as the police powers, this authority has deep roots in Anglo-American law. In his landmark Commentaries on the Laws of England (1765), the British legal theorist William Blackstone defined the police powers as “the due regulation and domestic order of the kingdom, whereby the inhabitants of a State, like members of a well-governed family, are bound to conform their general behavior to the rules of propriety, good neighborhood, and good manners, and to be decent, industrious, and inoffensive in their respective stations.”

Citing Blackstone, the American legal theorist Thomas Cooley, in his influential Treatise on the Constitutional Limitations Which Rest upon the Legislative Power of the States of the American Union (1871), said the police powers of a state “embraces its system of internal regulation, by which it is sought not only to preserve the public order and to prevent offenses against the State, but also to establish for the intercourse of citizen with citizen those rules of good manners and good neighborhood which are calculated to prevent a conflict of rights, and to insure to each the uninterrupted enjoyment of his own, so far as is reasonably consistent with a like enjoyment of rights by others.”

As one example of the police powers put to appropriate use, Cooley pointed to “quarantine regulations” and related measures designed to protect the public from persons or property “infected with disease or otherwise dangerous.”

The U.S. Supreme Court has long agreed that the states have police powers of this sort. In Gibbons v. Ogden (1824), Chief Justice John Marshall observed that the police powers, that “immense mass of legislation,” as he put it, “which embraces every thing within the territory of a State, not surrendered to the federal government,” includes “quarantine laws” and “health laws of every description.”

But the police powers are not a blank check—the state may not do absolutely anything it wants simply by invoking public health or safety.

Here’s a framework for weighing the constitutionality of purported health or safety laws, regulations, and orders. The goal of this framework is to prevent or curtail the illegitimate use of a state’s otherwise lawful police powers.

The first question to ask is whether the law, regulation, or order serves a genuine public health or safety purpose. Plenty of regulations would pass muster. But some would not. For instance, is public health or safety advanced in any way when a state requires a would-be interior designer to spend time and money obtaining a state-issued occupational license? Of course not. By contrast, is the public made safer when a confirmed COVID-19 patient is quarantined until a doctor gives that person the all-clear to return to normal life? The answer to that would seem to be a clear yes.

The next question to ask is whether the law, regulation, or order is the least restrictive means available for the state to pursue its legitimate public health or safety objective. Once again, quarantining a confirmed COVID-19 patient (until non-contagious) would seem to fit the bill. Other severe measures that similarly burden civil liberties might not. The details matter.

Another key question to ask (when appropriate) is whether a “temporary” measure has exceeded its shelf life. An emergency measure that was perfectly justifiable yesterday may become constitutionally suspect tomorrow. Things change and it is paramount to return to a normal footing as soon as the crisis has lessened or passed.

To be sure, there will be hard cases and this framework does not provide all the answers. We are likely to be arguing about the wisdom and legality of many government responses to COVID-19 for many years to come. Still, it does not hurt to remember that a state’s police powers are not unlimited, even amid a pandemic.

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Police Powers During a Pandemic: Constitutional, but Not Unlimited

State and local governments are currently taking dramatic and sometimes unprecedented action in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, including “shelter in place” orders, bans on public gatherings, and business shutdowns. What’s the legal basis for such sweeping actions?

In the U.S. constitutional system, each state possesses a traditional authority to regulate in the name of public health, safety, and welfare. Known as the police powers, this authority has deep roots in Anglo-American law. In his landmark Commentaries on the Laws of England (1765), the British legal theorist William Blackstone defined the police powers as “the due regulation and domestic order of the kingdom, whereby the inhabitants of a State, like members of a well-governed family, are bound to conform their general behavior to the rules of propriety, good neighborhood, and good manners, and to be decent, industrious, and inoffensive in their respective stations.”

Citing Blackstone, the American legal theorist Thomas Cooley, in his influential Treatise on the Constitutional Limitations Which Rest upon the Legislative Power of the States of the American Union (1871), said the police powers of a state “embraces its system of internal regulation, by which it is sought not only to preserve the public order and to prevent offenses against the State, but also to establish for the intercourse of citizen with citizen those rules of good manners and good neighborhood which are calculated to prevent a conflict of rights, and to insure to each the uninterrupted enjoyment of his own, so far as is reasonably consistent with a like enjoyment of rights by others.”

As one example of the police powers put to appropriate use, Cooley pointed to “quarantine regulations” and related measures designed to protect the public from persons or property “infected with disease or otherwise dangerous.”

The U.S. Supreme Court has long agreed that the states have police powers of this sort. In Gibbons v. Ogden (1824), Chief Justice John Marshall observed that the police powers, that “immense mass of legislation,” as he put it, “which embraces every thing within the territory of a State, not surrendered to the federal government,” includes “quarantine laws” and “health laws of every description.”

But the police powers are not a blank check—the state may not do absolutely anything it wants simply by invoking public health or safety.

Here’s a framework for weighing the constitutionality of purported health or safety laws, regulations, and orders. The goal of this framework is to prevent or curtail the illegitimate use of a state’s otherwise lawful police powers.

The first question to ask is whether the law, regulation, or order serves a genuine public health or safety purpose. Plenty of regulations would pass muster. But some would not. For instance, is public health or safety advanced in any way when a state requires a would-be interior designer to spend time and money obtaining a state-issued occupational license? Of course not. By contrast, is the public made safer when a confirmed COVID-19 patient is quarantined until a doctor gives that person the all-clear to return to normal life? The answer to that would seem to be a clear yes.

The next question to ask is whether the law, regulation, or order is the least restrictive means available for the state to pursue its legitimate public health or safety objective. Once again, quarantining a confirmed COVID-19 patient (until non-contagious) would seem to fit the bill. Other severe measures that similarly burden civil liberties might not. The details matter.

Another key question to ask (when appropriate) is whether a “temporary” measure has exceeded its shelf life. An emergency measure that was perfectly justifiable yesterday may become constitutionally suspect tomorrow. Things change and it is paramount to return to a normal footing as soon as the crisis has lessened or passed.

To be sure, there will be hard cases and this framework does not provide all the answers. We are likely to be arguing about the wisdom and legality of many government responses to COVID-19 for many years to come. Still, it does not hurt to remember that a state’s police powers are not unlimited, even amid a pandemic.

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Panic-Buying Isn’t Prepping for COVID-19

Unless they have top-notch recipes for butt-wipe casserole or plan on building papier-mâché bunkers to outlast the viral apocalypse, most of the people who recently stocked up on toilet paper probably misdirected their dollars and their efforts. All too often, that’s what happens when people are unprepared and find themselves scrambling to respond to a crisis without a plan. But, no matter what the headline-writers say, panic-buying isn’t prepping. Let’s talk about the best way to weather the current COVID-19 situation and make sure you’re set up for the inevitable next wave of suckage.

Preparing for bad times depends an awful lot on what kind of bad times are most likely to come your way. Is it an extinction-inducing meteor-strike? You just need a good supply of your favorite intoxicants for that. But something more survivable, like an earthquake, power outage or, perhaps, a global pandemic, requires plans, supplies, and effort.

As it happens, the American Red Cross maintains a whole section of its website devoted to emergency preparedness. Among other suggestions, it recommends that everybody keep a two-week supply of food and water at all times. That means you’re already supposed to have those goodies tucked away.

Two weeks worth of food and water isn’t enough to see you through what epidemiologists say could be “a matter of months rather than weeks“—with an optimistic estimate of two months—but it would see you through the initial panic so that you could wait until grocery store shelves are restocked and you’ve thought through your needs so that you can shop accordingly.

I think two weeks is a good starting point, but not nearly enough. What defines “enough” depends on your tolerance for risk, your resources, and the situation to which you’re responding. If quarantines, curfews, and social distancing really do last a few months, and your business or employer folds during that time, you will wish that you had supplies for “a matter of months rather than weeks.” To that point, the website The Prepared recommends that during the COVID-19 pandemic you should “be able to shelter in your home for at least two weeks—90 days is even better—without leaving for supplies or outside help.”

But that sounds expensive—and it really will be, if you try to do it all in one Saturday shopping trip (although probably not as pricey as surviving on take-out, as some people suggest). It won’t be so noticeable if you space out your purchases, and less painful still if you can draw on a vegetable and herb garden for fresh, dried, or canned additions. Pick up a little on each shopping trip in terms of extra storable foods that you like to eat (don’t buy Spam if you hate Spam) so that your stock increases over time. Then use the goods that you purchased first while continuing to add to the pantry to build and then maintain your supply.

My family uses Julie Languille’s Prepper’s Food Storage: 101 Easy Steps to Affordably Stock a Life-Saving Supply of Food as a guide. Languille prioritizes the foods you should purchase, so that you don’t end up with hundreds of boxes of pasta, but no protein or ingredients for sauce or side dishes; the goal is a balanced diet. The book features charts detailing how much of any given food you should purchase given the size of your household and your target prep time. The author also points out that you should adjust her recommendations according to your preferences and any dietary restrictions: Three gallons of olive oil for three people to eat over a year sounds light to me, but we practically swim in the stuff.

Languille’s book also helpfully includes cost estimates, canning techniques, and dehydration tips for turning garden produce into something you can eat years later.

Of course, there are things outside food and water to consider, too. Such as…

Don’t forget your meds! This is personal for me, since I had an eye stroke a few years ago. I recovered remarkably well, but add-on complications mean that I have to use daily eyedrops or else I’ll eventually go blind. Do I stockpile my eyedrops in case there is an interruption in the supply? You better frigging believe it. I even keep a supply of a med that I stopped using because of the side effects, but which still works.

If you’re in a similar situation, make sure you have a supply of meds to last through a shortage—or just to help you avoid extra trips to a pharmacy full of sick people during a pandemic. The American Red Cross suggests that “at a minimum” you should have a seven-day supply; I keep several months’ worth at any time and recommend that, if possible, you do the same.

Basic first-aid supplies are also a must, along with the skills to use them. You don’t want to have to run out for band-aids and antibiotic ointment if your kid takes a tumble. An expanded list of potentially helpful medical supplies—everything from steri-strips to burn gel to chest seals—is offered by The Prepared. Keep in mind that more advanced tools won’t do you much good if you don’t learn to use them.

Network with neighbors, friends, and family! Yes, even in a pandemic (although you should exercise caution). Do this because it’s a good thing to check on people, make sure they’re OK, and help them along through what is a tough time for everybody. If you need to make a grocery run anyway, picking up some extras for the elderly folks next door isn’t a hardship.

Work with others, too, because you may have complementary resources and skill sets. If you’re an EMT with kids, and your accident-prone friend has a supply of homeschooling materials, you can make life a lot easier for each other.

Now that we’ve gone through all of that, here’s the bad news: It’s a little late to get started on pandemic prepping. “Prepping,” after all, means preparation, and we’re tits-deep in the crisis. My local market featured lots of bare shelves yesterday, and the daily delivery didn’t arrive as expected. Companies that sell emergency food supplies warn of months-long delays—if they’re taking orders at all.

To get through the COVID-19 lockdown, you’re going to have to scrimp, buy what’s available, and make do.

Yeah, that’s gonna suck a bit. But you will make it through. That’s especially true if you follow the above advice and work with others for mutual assistance. Don’t wait for guidance or mandates from authorities who may lack your values, important information, or simple decency—take responsibility for yourself and cooperate with others who have done the same.

And next time, you’ll be better prepared.

from Latest – Reason.com https://ift.tt/2xQ1dVh
via IFTTT

Panic-Buying Isn’t Prepping for COVID-19

Unless they have top-notch recipes for butt-wipe casserole or plan on building papier-mâché bunkers to outlast the viral apocalypse, most of the people who recently stocked up on toilet paper probably misdirected their dollars and their efforts. All too often, that’s what happens when people are unprepared and find themselves scrambling to respond to a crisis without a plan. But, no matter what the headline-writers say, panic-buying isn’t prepping. Let’s talk about the best way to weather the current COVID-19 situation and make sure you’re set up for the inevitable next wave of suckage.

Preparing for bad times depends an awful lot on what kind of bad times are most likely to come your way. Is it an extinction-inducing meteor-strike? You just need a good supply of your favorite intoxicants for that. But something more survivable, like an earthquake, power outage or, perhaps, a global pandemic, requires plans, supplies, and effort.

As it happens, the American Red Cross maintains a whole section of its website devoted to emergency preparedness. Among other suggestions, it recommends that everybody keep a two-week supply of food and water at all times. That means you’re already supposed to have those goodies tucked away.

Two weeks worth of food and water isn’t enough to see you through what epidemiologists say could be “a matter of months rather than weeks“—with an optimistic estimate of two months—but it would see you through the initial panic so that you could wait until grocery store shelves are restocked and you’ve thought through your needs so that you can shop accordingly.

I think two weeks is a good starting point, but not nearly enough. What defines “enough” depends on your tolerance for risk, your resources, and the situation to which you’re responding. If quarantines, curfews, and social distancing really do last a few months, and your business or employer folds during that time, you will wish that you had supplies for “a matter of months rather than weeks.” To that point, the website The Prepared recommends that during the COVID-19 pandemic you should “be able to shelter in your home for at least two weeks—90 days is even better—without leaving for supplies or outside help.”

But that sounds expensive—and it really will be, if you try to do it all in one Saturday shopping trip (although probably not as pricey as surviving on take-out, as some people suggest). It won’t be so noticeable if you space out your purchases, and less painful still if you can draw on a vegetable and herb garden for fresh, dried, or canned additions. Pick up a little on each shopping trip in terms of extra storable foods that you like to eat (don’t buy Spam if you hate Spam) so that your stock increases over time. Then use the goods that you purchased first while continuing to add to the pantry to build and then maintain your supply.

My family uses Julie Languille’s Prepper’s Food Storage: 101 Easy Steps to Affordably Stock a Life-Saving Supply of Food as a guide. Languille prioritizes the foods you should purchase, so that you don’t end up with hundreds of boxes of pasta, but no protein or ingredients for sauce or side dishes; the goal is a balanced diet. The book features charts detailing how much of any given food you should purchase given the size of your household and your target prep time. The author also points out that you should adjust her recommendations according to your preferences and any dietary restrictions: Three gallons of olive oil for three people to eat over a year sounds light to me, but we practically swim in the stuff.

Languille’s book also helpfully includes cost estimates, canning techniques, and dehydration tips for turning garden produce into something you can eat years later.

Of course, there are things outside food and water to consider, too. Such as…

Don’t forget your meds! This is personal for me, since I had an eye stroke a few years ago. I recovered remarkably well, but add-on complications mean that I have to use daily eyedrops or else I’ll eventually go blind. Do I stockpile my eyedrops in case there is an interruption in the supply? You better frigging believe it. I even keep a supply of a med that I stopped using because of the side effects, but which still works.

If you’re in a similar situation, make sure you have a supply of meds to last through a shortage—or just to help you avoid extra trips to a pharmacy full of sick people during a pandemic. The American Red Cross suggests that “at a minimum” you should have a seven-day supply; I keep several months’ worth at any time and recommend that, if possible, you do the same.

Basic first-aid supplies are also a must, along with the skills to use them. You don’t want to have to run out for band-aids and antibiotic ointment if your kid takes a tumble. An expanded list of potentially helpful medical supplies—everything from steri-strips to burn gel to chest seals—is offered by The Prepared. Keep in mind that more advanced tools won’t do you much good if you don’t learn to use them.

Network with neighbors, friends, and family! Yes, even in a pandemic (although you should exercise caution). Do this because it’s a good thing to check on people, make sure they’re OK, and help them along through what is a tough time for everybody. If you need to make a grocery run anyway, picking up some extras for the elderly folks next door isn’t a hardship.

Work with others, too, because you may have complementary resources and skill sets. If you’re an EMT with kids, and your accident-prone friend has a supply of homeschooling materials, you can make life a lot easier for each other.

Now that we’ve gone through all of that, here’s the bad news: It’s a little late to get started on pandemic prepping. “Prepping,” after all, means preparation, and we’re tits-deep in the crisis. My local market featured lots of bare shelves yesterday, and the daily delivery didn’t arrive as expected. Companies that sell emergency food supplies warn of months-long delays—if they’re taking orders at all.

To get through the COVID-19 lockdown, you’re going to have to scrimp, buy what’s available, and make do.

Yeah, that’s gonna suck a bit. But you will make it through. That’s especially true if you follow the above advice and work with others for mutual assistance. Don’t wait for guidance or mandates from authorities who may lack your values, important information, or simple decency—take responsibility for yourself and cooperate with others who have done the same.

And next time, you’ll be better prepared.

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via IFTTT

If 18 Months of Extreme Social Distancing Is What It Takes To Stop Coronavirus, We’re Doomed

Imperial College London’s influential analysis of how various coronavirus prevention measures would affect the spread of the disease has estimated that doing nothing would result in 510,000 deaths in Britain and another 2.2 million in America. That report, which convinced the British government to abandon its strategy of largely letting the disease run its course, is now available to the public.

The report also finds that disease-suppression policies—extreme social distancing, self-imposed quarantines, school and university closures, etc.—will need to be maintained until a vaccine is developed, which could take as long as 18 months.

“To avoid a rebound in transmission, these policies will need to be maintained until large stocks of vaccine are available to immunise the population—which could be 18 months or more,” write the report’s authors. “However, there are very large uncertainties around the transmission of this virus, the likely effectiveness of different policies and the extent to which the population spontaneously adopts risk reducing behaviours.”

It is difficult to imagine people continuing to follow self-quarantine policies for weeks. It’s impossible to imagine them doing it for a whole year. If that’s what it’s going to take to fully stop the spread of COVID-19, it’s worth wondering whether we should admit defeat before we do any additional damage to the economy. Eighteen months of extreme social distancing isn’t feasible.

John Ioannidis, a professor of medicine at Stanford University, raises some of these issues in a terrific post for Stat. Ioannidis wonders whether long-term and “draconian countermeasures” to combat coronavirus can be justified, given how uncertain they are to work and how little data we have about COVID-19’s true mortality rate:

“The data collected so far on how many people are infected and how the epidemic is evolving are utterly unreliable. Given the limited testing to date, some deaths and probably the vast majority of infections due to SARS-CoV-2 are being missed. We don’t know if we are failing to capture infections by a factor of three or 300. Three months after the outbreak emerged, most countries, including the U.S., lack the ability to test a large number of people and no countries have reliable data on the prevalence of the virus in a representative random sample of the general population.

This evidence fiasco creates tremendous uncertainty about the risk of dying from Covid-19. Reported case fatality rates, like the official 3.4% rate from the World Health Organization, cause horror—and are meaningless. Patients who have been tested for SARS-CoV-2 are disproportionately those with severe symptoms and bad outcomes. As most health systems have limited testing capacity, selection bias may even worsen in the near future.

The one situation where an entire, closed population was tested was the Diamond Princess cruise ship and its quarantine passengers. The case fatality rate there was 1.0%, but this was a largely elderly population, in which the death rate from Covid-19 is much higher.

Projecting the Diamond Princess mortality rate onto the age structure of the U.S. population, the death rate among people infected with Covid-19 would be 0.125%. But since this estimate is based on extremely thin data—there were just seven deaths among the 700 infected passengers and crew—the real death rate could stretch from five times lower (0.025%) to five times higher (0.625%). It is also possible that some of the passengers who were infected might die later, and that tourists may have different frequencies of chronic diseases—a risk factor for worse outcomes with SARS-CoV-2 infection — than the general population. Adding these extra sources of uncertainty, reasonable estimates for the case fatality ratio in the general U.S. population vary from 0.05% to 1%.

That huge range markedly affects how severe the pandemic is and what should be done. A population-wide case fatality rate of 0.05% is lower than seasonal influenza. If that is the true rate, locking down the world with potentially tremendous social and financial consequences may be totally irrational. It’s like an elephant being attacked by a house cat. Frustrated and trying to avoid the cat, the elephant accidentally jumps off a cliff and dies.”

Ioannidis also notes that “in the absence of data, prepare-for-the-worst reasoning leads to extreme measures of social distancing and lockdowns,” but “we do not know if these measures work.”

The worst-case scenario may be extremely bad—much worse than his numbers suggest—but again, bringing much of human civilization to a halt for multiple months or years is not really a viable solution.

FREE MINDS

Facebook’s spam-detection algorithm went haywire, causing the social media site to mistakenly take down tons of legitimate articles about COVID-19. People attempting to share information about the coronavirus were told that they had violated community standards. Articles from a number of publications—Reason included—were flagged.

The issue—a bug in an automated system—was fixed late Tuesday night.

FREE MARKETS

The federal government wants to work with tech companies to track the spread of the coronavirus by analyzing the movement patterns of smartphone users. According to The Washington Post:

“Public-health experts are interested in the possibility that private-sector companies could compile the data in anonymous, aggregated form, which they could then use to map the spread of the infection, according to three people familiar with the effort, who requested anonymity because the project is in its early stages.

Analyzing trends in smartphone owners’ whereabouts could prove to be a powerful tool for health authorities looking to track coronavirus, which has infected more than 180,000 people globally. But it’s also an approach that could leave some Americans uncomfortable, depending on how it’s implemented, given the sensitivity when it comes to details about their daily whereabouts.

In recent interviews, Facebook executives said the U.S. government is particularly interested in understanding patterns of people’s movements, which can be derived through data the company collects from users who allow it. The tech giant in the past has provided this information to researchers in the form of statistics, which in the case of coronavirus, could help officials predict the next hotspot or decide where to allocate overstretched health resources.

‘We’re encouraged by American technology companies looking to leverage aggregate, anonymized data to glean key insights for covid-19 modeling efforts,’ said an official with the White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy, who spoke only on condition of anonymity.”

On the one hand, it’s incredible that advances in technology have produced the possibility for real-time tracking of the spread of a pandemic. This data could be put to very good use in efforts to thwart the disease. On the other hand, collecting data on people’s movements and giving it to the government sets off civil libertarian alarm bells.

QUICK HITS

  • Donald Trump has officially won the Republican Party’s presidential nomination.
  • Former Vice President Joe Biden cruised to victory over Sen. Bernie Sanders (I–Vt.) in the Illinois, Arizona, and Florida primaries.
  • More regulations that should be eliminated forever, not just in the face of the coronavirus:

  • The D.C. metro is reducing service even further.
  • Titania McGrath is wisely addressing the real issues: “There is a pandemic sweeping the globe and it has to be stopped. It is called ‘free speech.'”
  • Still more regulations that should be eliminated forever:

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via IFTTT

If 18 Months of Extreme Social Distancing Is What It Takes To Stop Coronavirus, We’re Doomed

Imperial College London’s influential analysis of how various coronavirus prevention measures would affect the spread of the disease has estimated that doing nothing would result in 510,000 deaths in Britain and another 2.2 million in America. That report, which convinced the British government to abandon its strategy of largely letting the disease tun its course, is now available to the public.

The report also finds that disease-suppression policies—extreme social distancing, self-imposed quarantines, school and university closures, etc.—will need to be maintained until a vaccine is developed, which could take as long as 18 months.

“To avoid a rebound in transmission, these policies will need to be maintained until large stocks of vaccine are available to immunise the population—which could be 18 months or more,” write the report’s authors. “However, there are very large uncertainties around the transmission of this virus, the likely effectiveness of different policies and the extent to which the population spontaneously adopts risk reducing behaviours.”

It is difficult to imagine people continuing to follow self-quarantine policies for weeks. It’s impossible to imagine them doing it for a whole year. If that’s what it’s going to take to fully stop the spread of COVID-19, it’s worth wondering whether we should admit defeat before we do any additional damage to the economy. Eighteen months of extreme social distancing isn’t feasible.

John Ioannidis, a professor of medicine at Stanford University, raises some of these issues in a terrific post for Stat. Ioannidis wonders whether long-term and “draconian countermeasures” to combat coronavirus can be justified, given how uncertain they are to work and how little data we have about COVID-19’s true mortality rate:

“The data collected so far on how many people are infected and how the epidemic is evolving are utterly unreliable. Given the limited testing to date, some deaths and probably the vast majority of infections due to SARS-CoV-2 are being missed. We don’t know if we are failing to capture infections by a factor of three or 300. Three months after the outbreak emerged, most countries, including the U.S., lack the ability to test a large number of people and no countries have reliable data on the prevalence of the virus in a representative random sample of the general population.

This evidence fiasco creates tremendous uncertainty about the risk of dying from Covid-19. Reported case fatality rates, like the official 3.4% rate from the World Health Organization, cause horror—and are meaningless. Patients who have been tested for SARS-CoV-2 are disproportionately those with severe symptoms and bad outcomes. As most health systems have limited testing capacity, selection bias may even worsen in the near future.

The one situation where an entire, closed population was tested was the Diamond Princess cruise ship and its quarantine passengers. The case fatality rate there was 1.0%, but this was a largely elderly population, in which the death rate from Covid-19 is much higher.

Projecting the Diamond Princess mortality rate onto the age structure of the U.S. population, the death rate among people infected with Covid-19 would be 0.125%. But since this estimate is based on extremely thin data—there were just seven deaths among the 700 infected passengers and crew—the real death rate could stretch from five times lower (0.025%) to five times higher (0.625%). It is also possible that some of the passengers who were infected might die later, and that tourists may have different frequencies of chronic diseases—a risk factor for worse outcomes with SARS-CoV-2 infection — than the general population. Adding these extra sources of uncertainty, reasonable estimates for the case fatality ratio in the general U.S. population vary from 0.05% to 1%.

That huge range markedly affects how severe the pandemic is and what should be done. A population-wide case fatality rate of 0.05% is lower than seasonal influenza. If that is the true rate, locking down the world with potentially tremendous social and financial consequences may be totally irrational. It’s like an elephant being attacked by a house cat. Frustrated and trying to avoid the cat, the elephant accidentally jumps off a cliff and dies.”

Ioannidis also notes that “in the absence of data, prepare-for-the-worst reasoning leads to extreme measures of social distancing and lockdowns,” but “we do not know if these measures work.”

The worst-case scenario may be extremely bad—much worse than his numbers suggest—but again, bringing much of human civilization to a halt for multiple months or years is not really a viable solution.

FREE MINDS

Facebook’s spam-detection algorithm went haywire, causing the social media site to mistakenly take down tons of legitimate articles about COVID-19. People attempting to share information about the coronavirus were told that they had violated community standards. Articles from a number of publications—Reason included—were flagged.

The issue—a bug in an automated system—was fixed late Tuesday night.

FREE MARKETS

The federal government wants to work with tech companies to track the spread of the coronavirus by analyzing the movement patterns of smartphone users. According to The Washington Post:

“Public-health experts are interested in the possibility that private-sector companies could compile the data in anonymous, aggregated form, which they could then use to map the spread of the infection, according to three people familiar with the effort, who requested anonymity because the project is in its early stages.

Analyzing trends in smartphone owners’ whereabouts could prove to be a powerful tool for health authorities looking to track coronavirus, which has infected more than 180,000 people globally. But it’s also an approach that could leave some Americans uncomfortable, depending on how it’s implemented, given the sensitivity when it comes to details about their daily whereabouts.

In recent interviews, Facebook executives said the U.S. government is particularly interested in understanding patterns of people’s movements, which can be derived through data the company collects from users who allow it. The tech giant in the past has provided this information to researchers in the form of statistics, which in the case of coronavirus, could help officials predict the next hotspot or decide where to allocate overstretched health resources.

‘We’re encouraged by American technology companies looking to leverage aggregate, anonymized data to glean key insights for covid-19 modeling efforts,’ said an official with the White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy, who spoke only on condition of anonymity.”

On the one hand, it’s incredible that advances in technology have produced the possibility for real-time tracking of the spread of a pandemic. This data could be put to very good use in efforts to thwart the disease. On the other hand, collecting data on people’s movements and giving it to the government sets off civil libertarian alarm bells.

QUICK HITS

  • Donald Trump has officially won the Republican Party’s presidential nomination.
  • Former Vice President Joe Biden cruised to victory over Sen. Bernie Sanders (I–Vt.) in the Illinois, Arizona, and Florida primaries.
  • More regulations that should be eliminated forever, not just in the face of the coronavirus:

  • The D.C. metro is reducing service even further.
  • Titania McGrath is wisely addressing the real issues: “There is a pandemic sweeping the globe and it has to be stopped. It is called ‘free speech.'”
  • Still more regulations that should be eliminated forever:

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Tyler Cowen Thinks Coronavirus Could Be This Generation’s World War II

How exactly should we respond to the threat of COVID-19, the deadly disease caused by the novel coronavirus that has, in a matter of weeks, upended much of daily life across America and the world? In many ways, the answer to that question depends on just how big of a threat you think it is. And George Mason University Economist Tyler Cowen thinks it’s a very big threat indeed.

“I think there’s a good chance…that this becomes like this generation’s World War II,” he tells Reason, “a totally formative event that shapes how people see the world.” This is a once-in-a-lifetime emergency, and Americans need to be “prepared for it being very serious.” Cowen, for his part, has been “devoting pretty much all of my efforts every day to putting the United States in the best possible position to respond.”

For Cowen, that means a two-track approach—one private, one public. First, through the Mercatus Center, the libertarian think tank he chairs, he’s sponsoring the Emergent Ventures Prizes, an extensive set of financial rewards for innovators, explainers, and responders whose work helps to combat the virus. There are prizes for journalism, for social media analysis, for policy, for social distancing innovations, and for rapid treatment plans. The prize pool starts at $1 million, and he’s soliciting donations to make it even larger. 

“The purpose of the prize is to incentivize and also get money to people who are solving the problem, and in fact they’re doing so well or they’re so busy they wouldn’t have time to apply for a grant or even know that it existed.” With a rapidly spreading virus, time is of the essence, which makes prizes a particularly valuable form of incentive. 

“By some estimates,” Cowen says, “the number of actual cases [of COVID-19] could be doubling every five to seven days. The longer we wait, the harder it gets to address the issue. So the nice thing about prizes is their start-up costs are very low—you just announce the prize.”

Cowen says he’s already given out at least one of those prizes, and although he wouldn’t provide a name, he said it was to “people who just literally needed money to make a purchase transaction so they could start building testing kits.”

For Cowen, the prizes are an important extension of his belief that the private sector has a substantial role to play in responding to the crisis. What’s more, he argues, is that it already is.

“I think big business has actually done phenomenally well,” he says. “If you look at Amazon, Walmart, many other American businesses, they were not necessarily expecting this to be as dramatic as it was. But they had the size, the scope, the scale, the talent to pull off provisioning Americans in a major way. Internet providers, Zoom or Skype, which is now owned by Microsoft. Those have been the essential backbone of our adaptation.” 

That’s the first track. But Cowen is an economist and a studious analyst of American politics and policy. And he’s trying to make a difference there as well. 

Cowen recently released a brief outlining what he calls “the best economic plan against the coronavirus.” In it, Cowen calls for a package of measures, from expanding unemployment insurance to reducing tariffs to loosening labor rules to sending every American a check for $1,000—a giant fiscal stimulus that Cowen acknowledges would “mean a much higher budget deficit and higher inflation rate.” 

Cowen doesn’t relish this outcome. With deficits already set to run more than $1 trillion annually for the foreseeable future, he says “we were already taking a big chance, which made me nervous. We’re now taking a much bigger chance in what is a more fragile global economy. But I think you have to ask what are the relevant alternatives.” The goal, he says, is “to do those things that infringe upon liberties the least” and to avoid even worse policies down the road. Spending that results in tax hikes, or that somewhat increases the existing risk of a debt crisis, he argues, presents “a relatively low degree of harm.” 

“We already have taxes,” he says. “It’s bad if they’re higher in the future. But we’re not locking people up, we’re not nationalizing sectors of the economy. We’re not ruining that much.” Without an infusion of cash into the economy, there’s a risk of systemic meltdown: large numbers of people who can’t pay their rent, who can’t get food, and resulting problems with the court system. And that, in turn, could result in policy responses that are even worse. “I think you would end up with a lot more government than if you just send people some amount of money now.”

And yet, the recent history of emergency policy interventions, from 9/11 to the financial crisis, suggests that rapidly introduced, large scale interventions often have significant drawbacks—at best, as with the stimulus plan passed under President Barack Obama, they work less well than intended. But in many cases, as with the creation of the Transportation Security Administration, they leave legacies of dysfunction that can linger on for years. 

Cowen doesn’t disagree. And he doesn’t necessarily think that this time will be different. “I think it’s absolutely fair to expect policy will get worse and that will be with us for a long time,” he says—under any scenario.

And yet he sees a glimmer of hope. For even if much of the response to the current crisis is flawed or misguided, it might also help wipe away some of the policy detritus of decades past. As an example, he points to the Trump administration’s recent announcement that doctors would be freer to conduct patient visits online, over internet video services. “In essence, telemedicine is being deregulated,” Cowen says, and as a product of the current sense of urgency, “it can just happen. I think it’s possible, probably even likely, it just stays that way forever.” 

Beyond that, he points to universities that are doing more of their classes online. A substantial reform of the Food and Drug Administration, whose old regulations and procedures gummed up initial efforts to develop testing for the coronavirus, is now likely. “I don’t know how far that will go, but I would say there’s at least a scenario where we reinvent ourselves. And at least in some areas, but certainly biomedicine, I think we’ll be freer and more able to do things than we would have been without this crisis.” 

Once again, Cowen brings up World War II as the precedent. America faced a “very difficult, very tragic, pretty terrible set of choices with different details, different tradeoffs.” The war, he says, “did restrict liberties in significant ways. I don’t just mean people fighting, but just Americans at home having their consumption restricted or their opportunities limited. But nonetheless, America in the 1950s was a much freer place in the world as a whole, was much freer than if we had done nothing.”

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Tyler Cowen Thinks Coronavirus Could Be This Generation’s World War II

How exactly should we respond to the threat of COVID-19, the deadly disease caused by the novel coronavirus that has, in a matter of weeks, upended much of daily life across America and the world? In many ways, the answer to that question depends on just how big of a threat you think it is. And George Mason University Economist Tyler Cowen thinks it’s a very big threat indeed.

“I think there’s a good chance…that this becomes like this generation’s World War II,” he tells Reason, “a totally formative event that shapes how people see the world.” This is a once-in-a-lifetime emergency, and Americans need to be “prepared for it being very serious.” Cowen, for his part, has been “devoting pretty much all of my efforts every day to putting the United States in the best possible position to respond.”

For Cowen, that means a two-track approach—one private, one public. First, through the Mercatus Center, the libertarian think tank he chairs, he’s sponsoring the Emergent Ventures Prizes, an extensive set of financial rewards for innovators, explainers, and responders whose work helps to combat the virus. There are prizes for journalism, for social media analysis, for policy, for social distancing innovations, and for rapid treatment plans. The prize pool starts at $1 million, and he’s soliciting donations to make it even larger. 

“The purpose of the prize is to incentivize and also get money to people who are solving the problem, and in fact they’re doing so well or they’re so busy they wouldn’t have time to apply for a grant or even know that it existed.” With a rapidly spreading virus, time is of the essence, which makes prizes a particularly valuable form of incentive. 

“By some estimates,” Cowen says, “the number of actual cases [of COVID-19] could be doubling every five to seven days. The longer we wait, the harder it gets to address the issue. So the nice thing about prizes is their start-up costs are very low—you just announce the prize.”

Cowen says he’s already given out at least one of those prizes, and although he wouldn’t provide a name, he said it was to “people who just literally needed money to make a purchase transaction so they could start building testing kits.”

For Cowen, the prizes are an important extension of his belief that the private sector has a substantial role to play in responding to the crisis. What’s more, he argues, is that it already is.

“I think big business has actually done phenomenally well,” he says. “If you look at Amazon, Walmart, many other American businesses, they were not necessarily expecting this to be as dramatic as it was. But they had the size, the scope, the scale, the talent to pull off provisioning Americans in a major way. Internet providers, Zoom or Skype, which is now owned by Microsoft. Those have been the essential backbone of our adaptation.” 

That’s the first track. But Cowen is an economist and a studious analyst of American politics and policy. And he’s trying to make a difference there as well. 

Cowen recently released a brief outlining what he calls “the best economic plan against the coronavirus.” In it, Cowen calls for a package of measures, from expanding unemployment insurance to reducing tariffs to loosening labor rules to sending every American a check for $1,000—a giant fiscal stimulus that Cowen acknowledges would “mean a much higher budget deficit and higher inflation rate.” 

Cowen doesn’t relish this outcome. With deficits already set to run more than $1 trillion annually for the foreseeable future, he says “we were already taking a big chance, which made me nervous. We’re now taking a much bigger chance in what is a more fragile global economy. But I think you have to ask what are the relevant alternatives.” The goal, he says, is “to do those things that infringe upon liberties the least” and to avoid even worse policies down the road. Spending that results in tax hikes, or that somewhat increases the existing risk of a debt crisis, he argues, presents “a relatively low degree of harm.” 

“We already have taxes,” he says. “It’s bad if they’re higher in the future. But we’re not locking people up, we’re not nationalizing sectors of the economy. We’re not ruining that much.” Without an infusion of cash into the economy, there’s a risk of systemic meltdown: large numbers of people who can’t pay their rent, who can’t get food, and resulting problems with the court system. And that, in turn, could result in policy responses that are even worse. “I think you would end up with a lot more government than if you just send people some amount of money now.”

And yet, the recent history of emergency policy interventions, from 9/11 to the financial crisis, suggests that rapidly introduced, large scale interventions often have significant drawbacks—at best, as with the stimulus plan passed under President Barack Obama, they work less well than intended. But in many cases, as with the creation of the Transportation Security Administration, they leave legacies of dysfunction that can linger on for years. 

Cowen doesn’t disagree. And he doesn’t necessarily think that this time will be different. “I think it’s absolutely fair to expect policy will get worse and that will be with us for a long time,” he says—under any scenario.

And yet he sees a glimmer of hope. For even if much of the response to the current crisis is flawed or misguided, it might also help wipe away some of the policy detritus of decades past. As an example, he points to the Trump administration’s recent announcement that doctors would be freer to conduct patient visits online, over internet video services. “In essence, telemedicine is being deregulated,” Cowen says, and as a product of the current sense of urgency, “it can just happen. I think it’s possible, probably even likely, it just stays that way forever.” 

Beyond that, he points to universities that are doing more of their classes online. A substantial reform of the Food and Drug Administration, whose old regulations and procedures gummed up initial efforts to develop testing for the coronavirus, is now likely. “I don’t know how far that will go, but I would say there’s at least a scenario where we reinvent ourselves. And at least in some areas, but certainly biomedicine, I think we’ll be freer and more able to do things than we would have been without this crisis.” 

Once again, Cowen brings up World War II as the precedent. America faced a “very difficult, very tragic, pretty terrible set of choices with different details, different tradeoffs.” The war, he says, “did restrict liberties in significant ways. I don’t just mean people fighting, but just Americans at home having their consumption restricted or their opportunities limited. But nonetheless, America in the 1950s was a much freer place in the world as a whole, was much freer than if we had done nothing.”

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via IFTTT

Why Price Gouging Laws Are a Bad Idea

“We don’t have any…!” Fill in the blank.

People are stocking up on things, fearing that we will be stuck in our homes, under quarantine, without essential supplies.

Some hoard toilet paper. A popular internet video features someone driving up to what appears to be a drug dealer but is really someone selling toilet paper.

When it became hard to find hand sanitizer in New York, Governor Andrew Cuomo said the state would produce its own, made by prison labor.

Yet in-demand items like masks and hand sanitizer can still be found. It’s just that we have to pay an inflated price.

People on social media are outraged by that. They post pictures showing stores charging high prices, like $19.99 for a can of Lysol spray and $22.99 for a 12 oz bottle of Purell.

We’re encouraged to report such high prices to the government because “gouging” is illegal. New York has an online “price gouging complaint form” that people can fill out if they are charged “unconscionably high prices.”

“On my watch, we will not tolerate schemes or frauds designed to turn large profits by exploiting people’s health concerns,” said New York’s economically clueless Attorney General Letitia James. “Some people are looking to prey on others’ anxiety and line their own pockets.”

Well, yes.

People always look for ways to line their own pockets.

But what politicians call “gouging” is just supply and demand. Prices rise and fall all the time.

Most state’s anti-gouging laws never even say exactly what is “unconscionably excessive.” That invites abuse. Vague laws give politicians dangerous power. They can use anti-gouging law to punish any merchant who doesn’t give them money or kiss their rings.

It seems cruel to charge customers more during a crisis, but when there are no laws against sharp price increases, people don’t experience long lines and shortages.

Think about what happens when stores don’t raise their prices: People rush to buy all they can get. The store sells out. Only the first customers get what they want.

But if the store charges more for items in extraordinary demand, people are less likely to hoard. Customers buy what we need and leave some for others.

Prices should rise during emergencies. That’s because prices aren’t just money; they are signals, information. They tell suppliers what their customers want most.

Entrepreneurs then make more of them and work hard to get them to the people who need them most. If “anti-gouging” laws don’t crush these incentives, prices quickly fall to normal levels.

Stossel in the Classroom contest winners explained that in a video.

Last week, some people bought lots of hand sanitizers and masks and then sold them on the internet. One couple boasted that they made over $100,000 reselling Lysol wipes.

They’re not bad people. Their actions allow people desperate for supplies to buy what they need, even if it’s at a higher price.

We’re supposed to stay indoors, so it’s good that we can get these products online. Then we don’t leave home and infect others.

Unfortunately, Amazon, eBay, and Facebook, worried about accusations of “profiteering,” cracked down on resellers. The companies removed listings for masks, hand sanitizers, and disinfectants.

This will only cause more shortages. Bigger profit was what encouraged people to sell online. Now no one gets those products until the market returns to normal.

In China, there was a severe mask shortage. That raised the price of masks and kickstarted production of face masks all around the world. A factory in France hired more people and raised its production of face masks from 170 million a year to half a billion.

The French company didn’t do it only because they want to help people in China. Extra profit motivated them.

Price “gouging” saves lives. In a crisis, we like to think that everyone will volunteer and be altruistic. But it’s not realistic to believe that all will.

If we want more supplies, we ask sellers to risk their money, their safety, and comfort. (Sellers often travel long distances to reach people most in need.) Most sellers won’t do that unless they’ll profit.

Government should dump its anti-price gouging laws and let the free market help those in need.

COPYRIGHT 2020 BY JFS PRODUCTIONS INC.
DISTRIBUTED BY CREATORS.COM

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via IFTTT

Why Price Gouging Laws Are a Bad Idea

“We don’t have any…!” Fill in the blank.

People are stocking up on things, fearing that we will be stuck in our homes, under quarantine, without essential supplies.

Some hoard toilet paper. A popular internet video features someone driving up to what appears to be a drug dealer but is really someone selling toilet paper.

When it became hard to find hand sanitizer in New York, Governor Andrew Cuomo said the state would produce its own, made by prison labor.

Yet in-demand items like masks and hand sanitizer can still be found. It’s just that we have to pay an inflated price.

People on social media are outraged by that. They post pictures showing stores charging high prices, like $19.99 for a can of Lysol spray and $22.99 for a 12 oz bottle of Purell.

We’re encouraged to report such high prices to the government because “gouging” is illegal. New York has an online “price gouging complaint form” that people can fill out if they are charged “unconscionably high prices.”

“On my watch, we will not tolerate schemes or frauds designed to turn large profits by exploiting people’s health concerns,” said New York’s economically clueless Attorney General Letitia James. “Some people are looking to prey on others’ anxiety and line their own pockets.”

Well, yes.

People always look for ways to line their own pockets.

But what politicians call “gouging” is just supply and demand. Prices rise and fall all the time.

Most state’s anti-gouging laws never even say exactly what is “unconscionably excessive.” That invites abuse. Vague laws give politicians dangerous power. They can use anti-gouging law to punish any merchant who doesn’t give them money or kiss their rings.

It seems cruel to charge customers more during a crisis, but when there are no laws against sharp price increases, people don’t experience long lines and shortages.

Think about what happens when stores don’t raise their prices: People rush to buy all they can get. The store sells out. Only the first customers get what they want.

But if the store charges more for items in extraordinary demand, people are less likely to hoard. Customers buy what we need and leave some for others.

Prices should rise during emergencies. That’s because prices aren’t just money; they are signals, information. They tell suppliers what their customers want most.

Entrepreneurs then make more of them and work hard to get them to the people who need them most. If “anti-gouging” laws don’t crush these incentives, prices quickly fall to normal levels.

Stossel in the Classroom contest winners explained that in a video.

Last week, some people bought lots of hand sanitizers and masks and then sold them on the internet. One couple boasted that they made over $100,000 reselling Lysol wipes.

They’re not bad people. Their actions allow people desperate for supplies to buy what they need, even if it’s at a higher price.

We’re supposed to stay indoors, so it’s good that we can get these products online. Then we don’t leave home and infect others.

Unfortunately, Amazon, eBay, and Facebook, worried about accusations of “profiteering,” cracked down on resellers. The companies removed listings for masks, hand sanitizers, and disinfectants.

This will only cause more shortages. Bigger profit was what encouraged people to sell online. Now no one gets those products until the market returns to normal.

In China, there was a severe mask shortage. That raised the price of masks and kickstarted production of face masks all around the world. A factory in France hired more people and raised its production of face masks from 170 million a year to half a billion.

The French company didn’t do it only because they want to help people in China. Extra profit motivated them.

Price “gouging” saves lives. In a crisis, we like to think that everyone will volunteer and be altruistic. But it’s not realistic to believe that all will.

If we want more supplies, we ask sellers to risk their money, their safety, and comfort. (Sellers often travel long distances to reach people most in need.) Most sellers won’t do that unless they’ll profit.

Government should dump its anti-price gouging laws and let the free market help those in need.

COPYRIGHT 2020 BY JFS PRODUCTIONS INC.
DISTRIBUTED BY CREATORS.COM

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