Using “history” to push the continuation of social distancing
Some people clearly want draconian forms of social distancing to go on and on and on. Some of them probably say this from fear. Some of them probably say it because of a desire to control people. Some of them are merely following those epidemiologists who advocate it.
And some are quoting misinformation such as this, which I’ve seen floating around lately here and there. It’s rather typical of the sort of thing one often sees on social media:
People grew sick of the social distancing measures as they dragged on into the summer of 1918. When the Great War finally ended in late November, people took to the streets to celebrate their good fortune. In the coming weeks, the second wave of the pandemic killed more people than the war. It’s not a game…
Let’s take this point by point.
The Great War didn’t end in late November; it ended on November 11, 1918. But when did the parades occur? Well, in a quick search, I found this large one in NYC in September of 1919, a date much too late for the above quote. The troops hadn’t come back the moment the war ended:
Demobilization began in late 1918; by September 1919 the last combat divisions had left France, though an occupation force of 16,000 U.S. soldiers remained until 1923…
It’s hard to get a sense of when most of the parades were held. This article mentions some in St. Louis that occurred almost immediately after the armistice, but the larger ones (you have to scroll down to see the articles) seem to have occurred in 1919.
The case of Philadelphia has come up before in various articles, but its parade that is linked to a huge increase in flu occurred before the war’s end:
Two days after the parade, the city’s public health director Wilmer Krusen, issued a grim pronouncement: “The epidemic is now present in the civilian population and is assuming the type found in naval stations and cantonments [army camps].”
Within 72 hours of the parade, every bed in Philadelphia’s 31 hospitals was filled.
And yet the situation was nowhere near as simple as that:
If St. Louis had waited another week or two, they might have fared the same as Philadelphia, says the lead author on the first study, Richard Hatchett, M.D., an associate director for emergency preparedness at NIAID. Despite the fact that these cities had dramatically different outcomes early on, all the cities in the survey ultimately experienced significant epidemics because, in the absence of an effective vaccine, the virus continued to spread or recurred as cities relaxed their restrictions.
The second study also shows that the timing of when control measures were lifted played a major part. Cities that relaxed their restrictions after the peak of the pandemic passed often saw the re-emergence of infection and had to reintroduce restrictions, says Neil Ferguson, D.Phil., of Imperial College, London, the senior author on the second study. In their paper, Dr. Ferguson and his coauthor used mathematical models to reproduce the pattern of the 1918 pandemic in different cities. This allowed them to predict what would have happened if cities had changed the timing of interventions. In San Francisco, which they found to have the most effective measures, they estimate that deaths would have been 25 percent higher had city officials not implemented their interventions when they did. But had San Francisco left its controls in place continuously from September 1918 through May 1919, the analysis suggests, the city might have reduced deaths by more than 90 percent.
Perfect timing is impossible; we simply don’t know enough. And diseases often come roaring back no matter what we do. In addition, if extreme social isolation measures continue, a city dies in other ways.
With COVID-19, there are scientists who are saying that extreme social distancing doesn’t matter all that much because the disease follows a certain course with or without it. Make of the following what you will:
A prominent Israeli mathematician, analyst and former general claims simple statistical analysis demonstrates that the spread of COVID-19 peaks after about 40 days and declines to almost zero after 70 days — no matter where it strikes, and no matter what measures governments impose to try to thwart it.
Prof Isaac Ben-Israel, head of the Security Studies program in Tel Aviv University and the chairman of the National Council for Research and Development, told Israel’s Channel 12 (Hebrew) Monday night that research he conducted with a fellow professor, analyzing the growth and decline of new cases in countries around the world, showed repeatedly that “there’s a set pattern” and “the numbers speak for themselves.”
While he said he supports social distancing, the widespread shuttering of economies worldwide constitutes a demonstrable error in light of those statistics.
To get back to the original quote that began my post – “In the coming weeks [following WWI victory celebrations], the second wave of the pandemic killed more people than the war…”. But that’s a misleading connection, too.
The second wave was very deadly around the world, including countries that were not really major participants in WWI, and it peaked before the war’s end for the most part [emphasis mine]:
The second wave of the 1918 pandemic was much more deadly than the first. The first wave had resembled typical flu epidemics; those most at risk were the sick and elderly, while younger, healthier people recovered easily. By August, when the second wave began in France, Sierra Leone, and the United States, the virus had mutated to a much more deadly form. October 1918 was the month with the highest fatality rate of the whole pandemic.
Lest you think (as I did) that Sierra Leone had nothing to do with WWI, there actually was some action involving military there, but it occurred solely in West Africa and was not part of the European theater of war. At any rate, as you can see from the above quote, the second wave was well underway in the US and elsewhere prior to the end of WWI and was especially deadly in the month before the war’s end.
I am heartily sick of the sharing of information that is based on nothing but someone’s statement, and designed to lead to a certain result. In this case, that result is the continued clamping down on the US public, and the damping down of objections to it.
Personally, I’m all for the continuation of a certain amount – a milder amount – of social distancing. And in particular, since I’m in a high risk group because of age and a pre-existing condition, I plan to be fairly strict with myself. But that has nothing to do with what should happen in the larger society. I wouldn’t advocate a bunch of parades, of course. But I believe businesses need to reopen and people need to get back to something approximating regular commerce and regular life, and it needs to happen pretty soon in most places.
It is possible that there are huge costs in terms of illness, but it is virtually certain there are huge costs as well in keeping things closed. Those latter costs are not just economic, either. They can and probably will impact on physical and mental health as well, with people shut in and worried about their livelihoods, taking it out on each other in many instances, drinking, not exercising, overeating, becoming depressed, and not tending to other medical needs.
These clowns and the media that enable them do serious damage in the fear and general unease they cause. My mom asked me about some guy she on the news yesterday saying we need to do all this stuff until 2022.
I have had my fill of epidemiologists. They have as much credibility with me as a carnival fortune teller as this point.
How many people now recall the Asian flu pandemic of 1957, which probably killed at least one million and originated, like the Wuhan-virus, in China?
j e:
Not many, but I do. It killed about 110,000 in the US, and since the US population was about half what it is now, it’s the equivalent of about 220,000 in 2020.
There appears to be another infection besides the Wuhan virus. That infection is limited to leaders of nations and, in the US, state governors, primarily Democrats, who are hustling and jostling to plunge their economies into deep recession. Japan
declared a national emergency today.
Anyone who approves of re-opening an economy (regional or state) while having its more vulnerable individuals continue to take precautions until decent herd immunity develops is regarded as a fool or worse, despised by the Leftists who control the narrative.
The COVID epidemiologists are cut from the same Leftist cloth as the global warmists. Epidemiology and public health are Leftist domains, which is understandable, since they focus on populations, instead of individuals and individual liberty.
Control! They love control.
Looks like the parades, etc were in early fall, right at the start of what seems to be the traditional flu/virus season. I wonder if it happened in early June what the result would have been. Warm weather and eastern humidity are not virus friendly.
Thanks, Neo for mentioning that Israeli study. It is in line with what Willis has been showing in his data on WUWT.
My wife has been doing the shopping, but today I went out to pick up a prescription and get two grocery items in the nearby larger town. Eastern CT, where there’s not many cases. About 85% of the people in that town were wearing at least masks. Many had also gloves, and one young couple in their 20s, were completely covered except for their eyes: masks, gloves sealed with tape, heavy winter coats and stocking hats pulled way down. Meanwhile I’m walking around sans mask, gloves, normal coat. Yesterday while walking on our town green 5 miles from the aforementioned other town, no one was wearing masks. Completely different attitude between the two close places.
We NEED something to protect us. Masking and distancing look as a matter of ease of understanding like the might work.
Therefore they MUST work.
The mask/ no mask ratio has been in my observation almost without a pattern. The other day I went to dollar store that was very busy and I would say about a third of the people were wearing masks and it cut across all age groups. I’ve found the same in my visits to a Walmart and Safeway the last couple weeks. Some times lots of masks other times not many.
I’ve been wearing a mask in stores (not in car by myself or walking far from others like some people) because I have to take my mom to doctor a couple times so I’d just rather be safe than sorry with her. Plus if wearing the mask allows us to open some of the economy then fine I’ll wear the stupid mask.
Aerosol and Surface Distribution of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 in Hospital Wards, Wuhan, China, 2020
the maximum transmission distance of SARS-CoV-2 aerosol might be 4 m.
The age of bubble boy.
Wonderful post Neo.
I’ve seen the claim that aspirin usage made the 1918 epidemic much worse. Do you have any knowledge or feelings concerning that claim?
1. Leviticus 19:11 (Thou Shall Not Lie Bible Verse)
Do not lie. Do not deceive one another.
2. Proverbs 6:16-19 – God Hates A Lying Tongue
These six things doth the Lord hate: yea, seven are an abomination unto him: A proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood,
A heart that deviseth wicked imaginations, feet that be swift in running to mischief, A false witness that speaketh lies, and he that soweth discord among brethren.
3. Proverbs 19:9
A false witness shall not be unpunished, and he that speaketh lies shall perish.
* * *
..and 9 more quotations from the Bible here:
https://faithfulchristian.net/thou-shalt-not-lie-bible-verses-about-lying-and-deceit/
(read through all the listings, and the author’s profile at the end)
Searching for the chapter & verse of the Commandment, the phrase “thou shalt not lie” turned up this interesting movie from 1911, when people actually took it seriously.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1225761/plotsummary?ref_=tt_ov_pl
In Nazi Germany, Communist Russia (and maybe Tzarist as well), and most Chinese eras — plus a good number of nominally-Christian European ones — the soldier still would have been shot.
The cultural difference could be whether or not the boy was praised or consoled for betraying his father’s presence.
Mark Twain looked at the question in one of his short stories, “Was it Heaven? Or Hell?”
He is preaching in this story, and not at his rhetorical best, but it’s a question that deeply concerned him.
http://www.classicshorts.com/stories/wihoh.html
Twain is speaking closer to his own opinion, I think, in this essay, “On The Decay Of The Art Of Lying.”
http://www.online-literature.com/twain/1320/
Or this one (we need something to read during our shut-in solitude!) — and it has a core of relevance to the present case.
https://freeclassicshortstories.blogspot.com/2015/12/my-first-lie-and-how-i-got-out-of-it-by.html
However, I think that the false witness being perpetrated by the CCP and the MSM (BIRM?) definitely falls under the Biblical strictures, and not Twain’s indulgences.
if god gives me a choice between making me a billionaire and have all of my dream desires come true or all liberals and democrats die of heart attack i would choose the latter without hesitation, am i evil? or the liberals’ outrageous heinous behaviors forced a good man into insanity.
liberals are insufferable, i wish them dead, all fucking dead. of course i don’t condone violence and i don’t encourage violence against anyone but i really wish they all died of natural causes right now. china made and released virus, but somehow the dems force me into house arrest and label me bigots and hateful and insensitive to elders just because i want to find out when we can get the economy back on again.
Seems very misplaced to focus hate on epidemiologists and public health folks. It’s people like that who have been working hard for over 30 years to eradicate polio, for instance, the main institutions being WHO, UNICEF, and the Rotary Foundation.
Ann:
Sorry but all the good that the WHO accomplished in the last 30 years has been swept away by their abandonment of World health to serve the CCP’s mouthpiece in this pandemic. Get Bill Gates to pay their freight. Or maybe the Alphabet kings of Google can chip in too.
My problem with some of these epidemiologists is they seem to think they are policy makers. Saying things like we will never return to the way things were or we will be doing this until 2022 is totally beyond their pay grade. And why Fauci is out there making proclamations on cable news about what needs to happen for sports to return and other things like that is beyond ridiculous. He is an adviser. Advise the president. Of course, all these stupid recommendations assume that they have any ability to correctly predict the future which they have proven time and again that they don’t.
Arrogant, self important attention whores.
Dave:
Why not just wish they get wise rather than that they die, if you had the ability to have a wish granted?
Liberals are not the problem. The ideas themselves have a seductive appeal, and there always will be people seduced by them.
In addition, almost every loved one and friend of mine is a liberal.
What’s more, do you really think that mendacity, evil, tyranny, and hypocrisy would be gone from the world if liberals disappeared? Hardly; not even close.
TommyJay:
I wrote a post on 1918 and aspirin.
Dave,
What neo said. Don’t let hate consume you. It does no harm to your enemies, but plenty of harm to you.
If one could wave a magic wand and remove wrongheaded political ideas from all who currently hold them today, within a generation there would be a whole new population of believers. It is very seductive to believe absolute power and control can save the world. “If only they would listen to me/do as I say!” Marx, Stalin, Lenin, Mao, Hussein, Pol Pot, Hitler, Che, Castro… And we see the inclination in politicians like AOC and Gretchen Whitmer. And all too many of our fellow citizens beg for a leader to save them from their troubles. “Put not your trust in princes.” It has ever been so.
As Ronald Reagan said in his inaugural address as Governor of California:
Rufus T. Firefly on April 17, 2020 at 2:37 am said:
Dave,
What neo said. Don’t let hate consume you. It does no harm to your enemies, but plenty of harm to you.
If one could wave a magic wand and remove wrongheaded political ideas from all who currently hold them today, within a generation there would be a whole new population of believers. It is very seductive to believe absolute power and control can save the world.
* * *
Which is why we still read the ancient Jewish accounts of their national history- no matter how often the Lord chastised them for erroneous beliefs and behavior, within a generation or two they were back at the starting line again.
Brendan O’Neill of “Spiked” magazine has an interesting podcast. It’s a great resource for information on Brexit and free speech issues in the U.K. I’m sure you all know Heather MacDonald. She is an extremely brave author and speaker on many contemporary topics. And, I’m pretty sure she, like neo, is a “changer.” I remember reading she grew up liberal in California.
I think many of you will appreciate this recent interview Brendan did with Heather. They discuss political reactions to the Coronavirus outbreak.
https://www.spiked-online.com/podcast/the-brendan-oneill-show/
AesopFan,
Since the Bible figures so prominently in so much of Western literature and art I tried several times to get through it so I could understand all the references to it that I encountered in so many other works. (I did the same thing with Greek and Roman mythology for the same reason.)
One of my favorite resources for understanding the Bible is Isaac Asimov’s Guide to the Old and New Testament. It’s a staggeringly huge work and, since Asimov is a secular Jew who was a non-believer at the time of its writing, he approaches it with little bias. The Bible seems to be a work few people can discuss objectively. He spends a lot of time on regional history and politics, geography… He even references what other extant histories state about the same time periods and addresses potential translation errors. It’s a heckuva work!
Somewhere after Deuteronomy things started blurring together for me and by the time I got to the New Testament I came up with a shorthand to remember the final 2/3 of the Old Testament:
Israelites: “G*d, things are really rough down here. Can you send us a King to lead us, rather than these Levite priests?”
G*d: “You think that’s what you want, but you really don’t want that…”
Israelites: “But we do. We really, really want a King to tell us what to do.”
G*d: “O.K., Don’t say I didn’t warn you…”
Rinse, repeat.
My wife and I watched the “Ten Commandments” last week. She had never seen it. When Moses was on Ararat and Dathan started convincing the Israelites to abandon him she said, “You mean they just saw the Red Sea being parted and they are going to go back to worshipping a golden calf?!”
Human beings are wacky.
Morning update: More interesting changes. For the second day in a row “serious” cases showed a decrease from the day before. Over the past two weeks there has been two times serious cases showed some sign of flattening, but we have never seen two days of actual decrease. The “active minus assumed recoveries” peaked 3 days ago. This morning I was able to fit that data with a Gaussian function. It has a standard deviation, or less precise, “full width at half maximum” of 12 days. Which means, if that analysis is correct, we should see a definite decline in about a week. If the serious cases continue to decrease that would support that we are definitely on the downside and the Gaussian is now the proper fit. Again, looking for consistency across various pieces of information, this is all in line with the Israeli paper Neo has referenced, and also the data Willis has posted on WUWT. Cautiously optimistic.
Rufus: I had never heard of the Asimov book. I’ll have to get it. Someone once said that inside every physicist is a philosopher, and I have been indulging that aspect since retirement. For exactly the same reasons you listed, I wanted to delve into the Bible a bit more, and the Asimov book looks like the way to go.
Thanks Neo,
If I had remembered that you had written a post on the aspirin issue I could have searched for it myself. Sorry. It was a very good post. I didn’t realize until recently that aspirin is an NSAID pain reliever.
physicsguy,
I believe Asimov was a Chemist by training, but I often wonder if Physics is a subset of Chemistry, or vice versa 🙂 .
I just checked on Amazon. You can buy new and used copies of the book. I think it is also sold separately (Old and New Testament), but I’m not sure if the individual copies are still available. You probably know Asimov wrote over 500 books in his lifetime. It’s an inconceivable sum. I’ve read a few of them. His “Understanding Physics” (a compilation of three separate volumes) is one of my favorites, although you would likely be a much harsher critic than I. I’ve bought copies for several musician friends who were struggling with understanding the nature of sound. His explanation on that topic is the best I’ve encountered for a laymen’s understanding.
I found this article on covid-19 transmission over at National Review. Well, it is a pre-review Chinese research publication, but it might ease one’s mind while enjoying the outdoors.
” but I often wonder if Physics is a subset of Chemistry, or vice versa ? .”
Well, it took physicists finding QM to finally help the chemists understand what they were finding. They made the periodic table but until QM there was not real understanding of what it meant. So, I would say the hierarchy of physics as the basis for chemistry, and chemistry the basis for biology holds. I give credit to chemists and also biologists for making sense out of some extremely complex systems. I prefer to stick with the much simpler physics.
Rufus & physicsguy
“If it squirms, it’s biology. If it stinks, it’s chemistry. If it doesn’t work, it’s physics. And if you can’t understand it, it’s mathematics.” ? Magnus Pyke
All I know about science I learned on the internet (applied math aka stats, computer programming, and political science degrees here).
You might enjoy this Asimov story, which combines Biblical and Scientific viewpoints.
https://bigbible.org/sansblogue/ot/pentateuch/genesis/creation-just-six-days-asimov-explains/
Asimov’s “How it happened”
https://bigbible.org/sansblogue/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Asimov.pdf
I remember a high school Sci-Fi creative writing contest in LA. I got an honorable mention for my cycle story, by judges who noted, correctly, that I liked Asimov. The actress playing Star Trek’s Uhura, Nichelle Nichols, presented me a cool computer generated map as a prize.
Some other writer made an interesting character who’s name was translated as:
As a color, shade of purple.
A memorable … As a mauve kind of punny.