What I think I know, and what I don’t
Lead Summary
By
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By Jim Thompson
HCP columnist
In the 24/7 COVID-19 world we live in today, there is so much data (good, bad, how do you tell which is which?) that I could write a column taking any position I wanted and back it up with fairly reputable looking stories.
Nearly everything is anecdotal. To draw any real conclusions, one would have to have much better data than you or I can obtain (does such data even exist?) and a strong understanding of statistics to interpret it. None of these things seem handy, so I am going to stick to what I know, inject a question or two along the way and let you draw your own conclusions.
We’ll start with “War of the Worlds.” I am not talking about the 2005 movie.
“War of the Worlds” was written by H.G. Wells in the late 1800s. In 1938, a young Orson Welles created an adaption of this book which was broadcast on CBS radio at 8 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 30, 1938.
It was presented in such a way that it appeared to be an on-the-scene live report from Grover’s Mill, New Jersey, where Martians had just landed. It was done in such a realistic “breaking news” fashion that it caused widespread panic.
The whole piece from Wikipedia regarding this broadcast is instructive in light of what we are experiencing now. One quote I found amusing was this: “On Nov. 2, 1938, the Australian newspaper ‘The Age’ characterized the incident as ‘mass hysteria’ and stated that ‘never in the history of the United States had such a wave of terror and panic swept the continent.' Unnamed observers quoted by ‘The Age’ commented that ‘the panic could have only happened in America.’”
A precursor to 2020?
The next incident on which I would like to focus is the mild panic at the end of 1999, when we did not know what computer systems were going to do when they reached one second after midnight on Jan. 1, 2000.
Known as Y2K, this incident caused much speculation and considerable expenditures on the parts of large companies and governments to assure their systems were “Y2K Compliant,” meaning they would roll over to the new millennium without incident.
When the time came and nothing happened, wags remarked, “I told you so.” What they missed was nothing happened because widespread pre-emptive actions were taken.
In the area of things I do know, there are certain parties and entities that love having the worldwide economies shut down and will do all they can to extend this as long as they can. I’ll not offer my opinions on who these parties are, but suggest you watch who is protesting a quick reopening and investigate their background motives.
My next observation is that all the scare tactics that have been thrown at us regarding global warming and climate change now have new hurdles of doubt to leap. If we can’t get our hands around a relatively tight event such as COVID-19 (by tight I mean a relatively short time frame event coupled with an uncertain prediction as to damage from a single point adversary – the virus), there is no way humans can make any sort of credible forecast as to impending doom from global warming/climate change.
COVID-19 is a tiny, tiny event compared to global warming/climate change. Predictions in both cases require accurate measurements of field data, current and historical; proper application of statistics and dead-on computer modeling. The COVID-19 incident proves we humans and our computers still lack this capability.
Finally, I ask, what is the government (and I will limit this question to the U.S. government) saving us from with all this economic damage?
Has the government assumed payment of all costs for anyone who gets sick, thereby absolving us from applying any insurance we may have to our personal treatment and cure? If that is not what they are doing, what is their purpose?
Beyond the emotional toll, all human life has a real dollars-and-cents value. If you don’t believe this, get yourself on a wrongful-death civil suit jury. A 25-year-old with a lifetime of earning potential has a much higher financial value than a 70-year-old like me. The lawyers from both sides in such a suit will be happy to pull out reams of data and educate you, the juror, on exactly what this value is.
So, if we do a hypothetical here, and take a worst-case scenario of 2 million lives saved in the U.S. and say this has cost us $4 trillion in stimulus, lost earnings, profits and so forth, that works out to $2 million per life saved. This is pricy for civil court, even for the 25-year-old. If we save only 100,000 lives and can contain the costs at that same $4 trillion, that works out to $40 million per life saved, a number that would not fly in any court's loss-of-life case.
Like I said, there are some things I know, some things I don’t and then there are questions…
Jim Thompson, formerly of Marshall, is a graduate of Hillsboro High School and the University of Cincinnati. He resides in Duluth, Ga. and is a columnist for The Highland County Press. He may be reached at jthompson@taii.com.
HCP columnist
In the 24/7 COVID-19 world we live in today, there is so much data (good, bad, how do you tell which is which?) that I could write a column taking any position I wanted and back it up with fairly reputable looking stories.
Nearly everything is anecdotal. To draw any real conclusions, one would have to have much better data than you or I can obtain (does such data even exist?) and a strong understanding of statistics to interpret it. None of these things seem handy, so I am going to stick to what I know, inject a question or two along the way and let you draw your own conclusions.
We’ll start with “War of the Worlds.” I am not talking about the 2005 movie.
“War of the Worlds” was written by H.G. Wells in the late 1800s. In 1938, a young Orson Welles created an adaption of this book which was broadcast on CBS radio at 8 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 30, 1938.
It was presented in such a way that it appeared to be an on-the-scene live report from Grover’s Mill, New Jersey, where Martians had just landed. It was done in such a realistic “breaking news” fashion that it caused widespread panic.
The whole piece from Wikipedia regarding this broadcast is instructive in light of what we are experiencing now. One quote I found amusing was this: “On Nov. 2, 1938, the Australian newspaper ‘The Age’ characterized the incident as ‘mass hysteria’ and stated that ‘never in the history of the United States had such a wave of terror and panic swept the continent.' Unnamed observers quoted by ‘The Age’ commented that ‘the panic could have only happened in America.’”
A precursor to 2020?
The next incident on which I would like to focus is the mild panic at the end of 1999, when we did not know what computer systems were going to do when they reached one second after midnight on Jan. 1, 2000.
Known as Y2K, this incident caused much speculation and considerable expenditures on the parts of large companies and governments to assure their systems were “Y2K Compliant,” meaning they would roll over to the new millennium without incident.
When the time came and nothing happened, wags remarked, “I told you so.” What they missed was nothing happened because widespread pre-emptive actions were taken.
In the area of things I do know, there are certain parties and entities that love having the worldwide economies shut down and will do all they can to extend this as long as they can. I’ll not offer my opinions on who these parties are, but suggest you watch who is protesting a quick reopening and investigate their background motives.
My next observation is that all the scare tactics that have been thrown at us regarding global warming and climate change now have new hurdles of doubt to leap. If we can’t get our hands around a relatively tight event such as COVID-19 (by tight I mean a relatively short time frame event coupled with an uncertain prediction as to damage from a single point adversary – the virus), there is no way humans can make any sort of credible forecast as to impending doom from global warming/climate change.
COVID-19 is a tiny, tiny event compared to global warming/climate change. Predictions in both cases require accurate measurements of field data, current and historical; proper application of statistics and dead-on computer modeling. The COVID-19 incident proves we humans and our computers still lack this capability.
Finally, I ask, what is the government (and I will limit this question to the U.S. government) saving us from with all this economic damage?
Has the government assumed payment of all costs for anyone who gets sick, thereby absolving us from applying any insurance we may have to our personal treatment and cure? If that is not what they are doing, what is their purpose?
Beyond the emotional toll, all human life has a real dollars-and-cents value. If you don’t believe this, get yourself on a wrongful-death civil suit jury. A 25-year-old with a lifetime of earning potential has a much higher financial value than a 70-year-old like me. The lawyers from both sides in such a suit will be happy to pull out reams of data and educate you, the juror, on exactly what this value is.
So, if we do a hypothetical here, and take a worst-case scenario of 2 million lives saved in the U.S. and say this has cost us $4 trillion in stimulus, lost earnings, profits and so forth, that works out to $2 million per life saved. This is pricy for civil court, even for the 25-year-old. If we save only 100,000 lives and can contain the costs at that same $4 trillion, that works out to $40 million per life saved, a number that would not fly in any court's loss-of-life case.
Like I said, there are some things I know, some things I don’t and then there are questions…
Jim Thompson, formerly of Marshall, is a graduate of Hillsboro High School and the University of Cincinnati. He resides in Duluth, Ga. and is a columnist for The Highland County Press. He may be reached at jthompson@taii.com.