As an octogenarian, I’m alert to anything moving us closer to “Herd Immunity.” At my age, with a wife recovering from lung cancer, life is basically a form of house arrest. It will remain that way until we arrive at “Herd Immunity.” We get there by enough people becoming immune to impede the virus. Natural spread, a vaccine, or a combination of the two are the ways we get there. Given the history of vaccine development, a successful one at first looked a very long way off. Due to herculean efforts by all hands, miraculously, we might have one in a month or two. A get out of jail card may be in the offing.

However, even when the clinical trials are over, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently decreed a further two-month observation period before release. This will probably push a vaccine well into the new year. The need for this is hotly contested in the scientific community. Unfortunately, it got injected into election-year politics. Having pulled out all stops with his “Operation Warp speed,” President Trump was looking forward to the early vaccine O.K. Democrats claimed he was pushing through a possibly unsafe vaccine to help in his re-election. If half the country refused to get vaccinated, it would be difficult to achieve any early “Herd Immunity.” The fact a delay would cost lives and cause further hardship is the basis of the FDA rules’ criticism. The critics see little risk in moving quicker.

In the midst of all of this, Speaker Nancy Pelosi issued a warning a Covid-19 vaccine should not be authorized for use in the U.S. based on data from British trials. Ms. Pelosi told reporters in Washington, “We need to be very careful about what happens in the U.K. We have very stringent rules in terms of the Food and Drug Administration here, about the number of clinical trials, the timing, the number of people and all the rest.”

Reading is our primary way to expand knowledge. However, we all know that not everything is worth reading. As you know from the last post, I read only some excerpts from Bob Woodward’s new book. If the grabbers the publisher puts out were worthless, why bother with the book? This applies to the rest of the wave of election time books seemingly coming out every other day. These tell-all books add little to what we need to know for an intelligent decision. Disgruntled family members, former employees, and those suffering other party derangement syndrome come up every four years and then are rightly forgotten. Time is better spent elsewhere.

Recently, I finished two books worth time. The first is Matt Ridley’s How Innovation Works: And Why It Flourishes in Freedom. The author of many highly informative books, Ridley, understands how the innovations that changed humanity’s course came about. In most cases, it’s not how you thought. Very entertaining and informative. Ripley challenges how we think about things.

The other book is Alec Berenson’s Unreported Truths about COVID-19 And Lockdowns Part 2. Previously, I had recommended Part 1 of this series of what are really pamphlets. As Ii said then, the former New York Times reporter will reinforce what readers of this blog already know. However, Berenson has some information you may not be aware of. 

I had no idea none of our emergency pandemic plans contained any provision for hard lockdowns. Apparently, when the idea was discussed, it was dismissed as far too disruptive. Berenson walks us through how policy planning that was highly reluctant to impose a hard lockdown did a 180 in March. He explains how, in panic, our policy changed. 

In the calm before the storm, planners can take the time to use a larger canvas to factor in other aspects than just the spread of the disease. As we consider the bigger picture, the less attractive the massive dislocations caused by a lockdown look. Yet, only the narrow group of people dealing directly with disease spread had a real input in the actual March decisions.

It is reasonable for epidemic experts to present their narrow views. They didn’t want to be blamed for not doing enough to prevent deaths. Who was there to offer a broader perspective? The people available to present the economic side, such as the President’s chief economist Larry Kudlow, were constrained by fear of being accused of putting dollars above lives. In fact, this is what happened and closed off broader consideration. Why was there no one to present more general medical concerns? Shouldn’t there be some medical people charged with seeing the bigger picture?

Many institutions have recognized this problem and have people involved with public medical policy. Stanford University’s Hoover Institution is one aware of the value of medical people with a broad perspective. It has people like the senior fellow, Dr. Scott Atlas, to advise decision-makers how specific actions would affect other medical areas. How a decision concerning one specialty might affect areas such as pediatrics, surgery, acute treatments, psychiatric and psychological, just to name a few.

Covid-19, raging forest fires, riots ,and high crime in the cities, we know who to blame. Donald Trump is President, and it’s all happening under his watch.

Trump never fails to provide a real head-scratcher. Why he would give recorded interviews to Bob Woodward, I can’t fathom. In what way would it ever turn out well? Sure enough, Woodward uses the tapes to hammer the President less than two months before the election. Of course, he’ll sell a boatload of books. It indeed adds the narrative of it’s all Trump’s fault.

I haven’t read the book, just the widely published excerpts. The idea trumpeted in the book is Trump knew all about the Covid-19 but failed to level with the people. By playing down the threat he lied to America. This assumes what Trump told Woodward were hard and fast facts the President was hiding from the public. Looking at the excerpts provided, this is far from the case. Rather than hard facts, they are more of an illustration of the fog of war.

Take the Virus was dangerous, airborne, highly contagious, and “more deadly than even your strenuous flus,” passage.We already knew from reports out of China the Virus was dangerous and highly contagious. The February 7 interview was done at the same time the Diamond Princess was quarantined in Japan. The ship was, in fact, a floating coronavirus lab. What we found out from it has held basically true throughout the epidemic. We received daily re[ports from the ship.

“Mounting evidence suggests coronavirus is airborne — but health advice has not caught up” was the authoritative journal Nature’s headline not in February but on July 8. “Governments are starting to change policies amid concerns that tiny droplets can carry SARS-CoV-2. And after months of denying the importance of this, the World Health Organization is reconsidering its stance.”

The last thing I thought I would be writing about after my previous post was a new basis for lockdowns. We don’t have to wait for a Biden Administration. No, we’ll be in the soup before the end of the year. I pointed out our hard lockdowns were a result of a startling report from the Royal College. Based on its model, it predicted 2.2 million deaths in the U.S. if we didn’t act fast. While many people immediately questioned the study on both the science and methodology, I wrote it didn’t pass muster based on common sense. How was this pandemic worse than the 1918 Influenza epidemic? The data even then showed the coronavirus was fatal to a much smaller segment of the population. Ignored were our medical advances over the last hundred years. Still, it spawned panic and the crushing lockdowns.

Here we go again. A new study by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington predicts 410,000 likely deaths in the U.S. by year-end. The cooler weather will explode cases and fatalities higher than experienced in March and April. The worst-case would be over 610,000 deaths. Less publicized is its best-case scenario of 288,000. To date, we have recorded about 190,000 deaths. Right now, we are running at under 1,000 deaths a day.

For us to arrive at the 410 figure, our daily rate would have to be running at least triple today’s rate by year-end. How likely is that? The IHME points to flu type diseases always being worse in the fall and winter. People will be forced inside where it would spread easier. Colder, drier weather can help viruses stay viable longer and proliferate more quickly. The start of school always increases the spread.