Generational Dynamics World View

[John J. Xenakis]

*** 25-Mar-20 World View -- Trump calls for ending coronavirus lockdowns by Easter, April 12

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Trump calls for ending coronavirus lockdowns by Easter, April 12
  
• Pandemic and shutdown surrounded by political controversies
  
• Putting the country back to work on April 12
  

****
**** Trump calls for ending coronavirus lockdowns by Easter, April 12
****


The 'Coronavirus Curve' showing how far each country is into the pandemic (ZeroHedge)

President Donald Trump and his advisors are saying: "The cure can’t be
allowed to be worse than the disease." This statement concisely
describes the conflict between the twin goals of slowing the pandemic
and prevening collapse of the economy.

The "disease," of course, is the Wuhan Coronavirus (Covid-19)
pandemic. According to the World Health Organization, the number of
cases worldwide surpassed 400,000 on Tuesday, with 18,227 deaths
(4.5%). In the United States, there have been almost 50,000 cases.
As I wrote in my previous article, the path of Covid-19 is almost
identical to the path of the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic, and millions
of Americans will die from the virus during the next two years.
( "22-Mar-20 World View -- Today's Wuhan Coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic vs 1918 Spanish Flu"
)

The "cure" for the disease has been to shut down the entire economy.
Factories are closed, restaurants are closed, businesses large and
small are closed. People are told to stay in the homes, and not go to
work. This is crippling the economy, sending the economy spiraling
into a recession, and causing a major selloff in the stock market.
The same is true in countries around the world.

The graph at the beginning of this article shows the "Corona Curve,"
and the position of different countries on that curve. That chart
shows that China and South Korea are the farthest along, with a
leveling off of the number of new cases, with Italy and Iran in the
middle of the time of fastest growth of new cases.

The United States is shown just about to enter the rapid growth period
in the next couple of months. This has been widely predicted anyway,
as the amount of testing increases, and reveals new infections. The
World Health Organzation on Tuesday said that the United States is
becoming the new epicenter of the pandemic.

What the chart doesn't show is that different states are at different
positions on the curve. New York City, San Francisco and Seattle are
well into the "late accumulation" phase, while many parts of the
Midwest are still in early development. In New York state there are
21,000 cases on Tuesday, and the number is doubling every three days.
New York will soon be totally overwhelmed by Covid-19 cases.

So Donald Trump says that he'd like to end all the lockdowns by
Easter, April 12. Few people believe that's possible.

****
**** Pandemic and shutdown surrounded by political controversies
****

The United States, like many countries, is facing a stark choice:
death from the virus, or death from economic collapse.

Last week, Trump issued a set of guidelines calling for a national
shutdown for 15 days, after which the situation would be reevaluated.
The 15 days ends on March 31. He's said that, if possible, he'd like
to announce an end to the lockdowns:

<QUOTE>"America will again and soon be open for business. We
are not going to let it turn into a long-lasting financial
problem."<END QUOTE>

Speaking generally, the medical community would prefer to continue the
shutdown. This is adding to a number of political issues and
controversies.

• Ending the shutdown could substantially increase the rate of
  infections. The shutdown at least is slowing down the rate of
  infection ("flattening the curve"), but if the rate increases, then
  hospitals will be overwhelmed. This is already occurring in Hong
  Kong, where the shutdown was called off, and there was a major
  resurgence in infections. This is the major reason why the medical
  community opposes ending the shutdown.
  
  
• People will tire of the shutdown restrictions. Some men with
  families to feed will find ways to continue earning money. Young
  people will find ways to party. So the whole shutdown concept has an
  expiration date anyway.
  
  
• Since not everyone can be sent back to work on April 12, some
  people are talking about being selective. This is the "herd immunity"
  concept, where young people go to work and the old people stay home.
  That will never fly, and would be a disaster if tried.
  
  
• Privacy issues are being raised over possible implementation in
  America of the measures used by China and South Korea to slow the
  growth in the number of cases. One technique is to require people to
  install an app on their phones so they can be tracked by the
  government, to make sure they don't something illegal, such as
  gathering with other people.
  
  
• There's talk of domestic travel restrictions within the United
  States. In the European Union, some countries have partially closed
  their internal boundaries with each other. That hasn't yet happened
  to the states in the US, but there is serious discussion of domestic
  travel restrictions by plane.
  
  
• Extortion and price gouging are growing. Some face mask vendors
  are increasing prices by a factor of ten. Phony coronavirus "cures"
  are being sold online. At the federal level, Nancy Pelosi is
  demanding that any coronavirus relief bills include numerous piles of
  money for her Democratic party cronies, having nothing to do with the
  pandemic. All of these practices are meant to prey on desperate
  people, and are common in times of crisis.

****
**** Putting the country back to work on April 12
****

Putting the country back to work is not an on-off switch. When Trump
announces new guidelines next week, he'll probably announced a gradual
lifting of the national shutdown:

• Loosening some of the harshest restrictions.
  
• Loosening more restrictions for some sectors of the economy.
  
• Perhaps removing restrictions altogether for some sections
  of the country.

I gave an example of this in a previous article: If a restaurant or
bar wants to stay open, then the owner will separate the tables and
place screens between them to create compartments, and then sanitize
each compartment after the people leave. Many restaurants are already
staying open by providing curbside service or at-home deliveries, abut
the use of screens could permit them to reopen completely.

This may seen like a fairly obscure example, but imagine if
restaurants were permitted to open again, provided that the restaurant
were made safe by the use of such screens. And now, imagine any other
kind of business, and think about how a similar change could be made
to allow the business to continue operating. This would result in new
regulations that would replace the requirement to shut down. And as
I've said before, we can imagine a different world, a new world, but a
world that's as busy and bustling as the old world was until recently.

So it's possible that within three or four months, most businesses
will be open again, but restricted by new regulations to make them
safe. Such regulations might "flatten the curve" enough so that the
number of coronavirus deaths can be reduced until a vaccine becomes
available, sometime in 2021.

Sources:

• Trump suggests he may scale back closures soon despite worsening coronavirus outbreak (Reuters, 23-Mar-2020)
  
• Coronavirus / 15 Days to Slow the Spread (White House, 24-Mar-2020)
  
• Here Is Where The World Now Is On The 'Corona Curve' At This Moment (Zerohedge, 24-Mar-2020)
  
• Italy Considers Adopting South Korean Model For Coronavirus Containment (Forbes, 21-Mar-2020)
  
• House coronavirus relief bill includes $35M in funding for Kennedy Performing Arts Center (Washington Examiner, 24-Mar-2020)

Related Articles:

• Today's Wuhan Coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic vs 1918 Spanish Flu (22-Mar-2020)
  
  
• Stock market plunges 13% on Monday, as investors begin to accept reality (17-Mar-2020)
  
  
• Iran's army to monitor entire population for Wuhan Coronavirus (14-Mar-2020)
  
  
• Coronavirus updates -- infections spread across the world (02-Mar-2020)
  
  
• China's coronavirus threatens Xi Jinping's Mandate from Heaven (25-Jan-2020)
  

KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Wuhan Coronavirus, Covid-19,
Herd Immunity, Flattening the Curve,
China, South Korea

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John J. Xenakis
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