Those Stubborn Facts: Biden’s Hollow Travel Mask Mandate

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Biden, CCP Virus, coronavirus, COVID 19, masks, Those Stubborn Facts, transportation, travel, Wuhan virus

“Biden to sign virus measures, requires mask use to travel”

– Associated Press, January 21, 2021

U.S. “airlines, Amtrak and other transport providers now require masks….”

– Associated Press, January 21, 2021

 

(Source: “Biden to sign virus measures, requires mask use to travel,” by Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar, Associated Press, January 21, 2021, Biden to sign virus measures, requires mask use to travel (apnews.com))

 

(What’s Left of) Our Economy: U.S. Manufacturing Output Held its Own in October

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automotive, Boeing, CCP Virus, civilian aircraft, coronavirus, COVID 19, durable goods, Federal Reserve, industrial production, manufacturing, masks, medical devices, non-durable goods, pharmaceuticals, PPE, vaccines, Wuhan virus, {What's Left of) Our Economy

This morning’s monthly Federal Reserve industrial production report is an object lesson in not counting your real manufacturing output chickens too soon – that is, before the revisions hatch.

So keeping in mind that today’s data will be revised further several times as well, it looks like my concerns last month about manufacturing turning from a CCP Virus-era economic leader into a laggard might have been premature.

Not that today’s release, which brings the story through October, showed gangbuster results. Inflation-adjusted manufacturing output increased by 1.04 percent over September’s levels. Much more encouraging, though, were the continually positive overall revisions and especially those for September. Its initially reported 0.29 percent constant dollar monthly output decline is now reported as a fractional (0.01 percent) increase.

As a result, after having sunk by just over twenty percent from February (the last month before the virus began seriously weakening the economy’s performance) through its April bottom, after-inflation manufacturing production is up by 19.35 percent. Alternatively put, it’s 4.56 percent below the February level, and 3,61 percent lower than last October’s.

Today’s October release also provided more evidence that the automotive sector’s dominant role role in determining overall manufacturing growth has just about faded away. Combined vehicles and parts production remained virtually flat in October, after falling an upwardly revised 3.02 percent sequentially in September.

In addition, October’s figures confirmed that, within manufacturing, the non-durable goods supersector has outperformed its durable goods counterpart – mainly because its first-wave pandemic dropoff was so much less dramatic.

Between February and April, price-adjusted durable goods output (including automotive and the troubled aerospace sector – due to Boeing’s woes and the virus-related travel shutdown) plunged by 27.99 percent, versus a 11.53 percent decline in non-durables (which contains industries like food, healthcare goods, and paper products manufacturing).

Since April real durables output has rebounded by 31.22 percent. But it’s still 5.51 percent lower than in February, and 4.19 percent lower than last October.

Since April, non-durables’ real output is up by 9.06 percent. But since its decline was so much less severe than durables’, in after-inflation terms its production is just 3.51 percent off the February level, and 2.97 percent below last October’s figure.

And what of some of the obvious drivers – for good or ill – of manufacturing output during this CCP Virus era?

Between February and April, aircraft and parts production plunged by 32.85 percent. An astonishing 43.31 percent recovery since has left the sector only 3.77 percent production-wise than in February. But because Boeing’s woes predated the pandemic, this output remains down 17.79 percent year-on-year.

Oddly, constant dollar production of medical equipment and supplies (a category including face masks, protective gowns, and ventilators) dropped by 19.75 percent as the CCP Virus was surging between February and April. And since then, it’s risen only 23.20 percent – including an encouraging 3.54 percent monthly improvement in October. Year-on-year, moreover, these sectors have seen 2.73 percent real output growth, but that improvement suggests how modest – and in retrospect, how inadequate – production was before the pandemic.

Finally, pharmaceutical and medicines production has been steady all year long in inflation-adjusted terms, and advanced by a modest 0.12 percent sequentially in October. Year-on-year, moreover, output has grown by just 0.39 percent – which makes these industries of special interest in the months ahead as mass production of recent promising vaccines ramps up.

For now, though, overall, domestic manufacturing production more than held its own in October. But except for that vaccine production, as the virus second wave strengthens, its near-term future could be just as challenging as that of the rest of the economy and nation

Im-Politic: Trump-ism Without Trump for America as a Whole?

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"Defund the Police", allies, CCP Virus, China, climate change, coronavirus, court packing, COVID 19, Democrats, election 2020, enforcement, Executive Orders, filibuster, Green New Deal, Huawei, human rights, Im-Politic, Immigration, Joe Biden, judiciary, lockdowns, mask mandate, masks, metals, multilateralism, Muslim ban, Phase One, progressives, Republicans, sanctions, Senate, shutdowns, stimulus, Supreme Court, tariffs, taxes, Trade, trade wars, Trump, unions, Wuhan virus

Since election day, I’ve spent some time and space here and on the air speculating about the future of what I called Trump-ism without Donald Trump in conservative and Republican Party political ranks. Just this weekend, my attention turned to another subject and possibility: Trump-ism without Mr. Trump more broadly speaking, as a shaper – and indeed a decisive shaper – of national public policy during a Joe Biden presidency. Maybe surprisingly, the chances look pretty good.

That is, it’s entirely possible that a Biden administration won’t be able to undo many of President Trump’s signature domestic and foreign policies, at least for years, and it even looks likely if the Senate remains Republican. Think about it issue-by-issue.

With the Senate in Republican hands, there’s simply no prospect at least during the first two Biden years for Democratic progressives’ proposals to pack the Supreme Court, to eliminate the Senate filibuster, or to recast the economy along the lines of the Green New Deal, or grant statehood Democratic strongholds Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia. A big tax increase on corporations and on the Biden definition of the super-rich looks off the table as well.

If the Senate does flip, the filibuster might be history. But big Democratic losses in the House, and the claims by many veterans of and newcomers to their caucus that those other progressive ambitions, along with Defunding the Police, were to blame, could also gut or greatly water down much of the rest of the far Left’s agenda, too.

CCP Virus policy could be substantially unchanged, too. For all the Biden talk of a national mask mandate, ordering one is almost surely beyond a President’s constitutional powers. Moreover, his pandemic advisors are making clear that, at least for the time being, a sweeping national economic lockdown isn’t what they have in mind. I suspect that some virus economic relief measures willl be signed into law sometime this spring or even earlier, but they won’t carry the total $2 trillion price tag on which Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi seems to have insisted for months. In fact, I wouldn’t rule out the possibility of relief being provided a la carte, as Congressional Republicans have suggested – e.g., including popular provisions like some form of unemployment payment bonus extension and stimulus checks, and excluding less popular measures like stimulus aid for illegal aliens.

My strong sense is that Biden is itching to declare an end to President Trump’s trade wars, and as noted previously, here he could well find common cause with the many Senate Republicans from the party’s establishment wing who have never been comfortable bucking the wishes of an Offshoring Lobby whose campaign contributions it’s long raked in.

Yet the former Vice President has promised his labor union supporters that until the trade problems caused by China’s massive steel overproduction were (somehow) solved, he wouldn’t lift the Trump metals tariffs on allies (which help prevent transshipment and block these third countries from exporting their own China steel trade problems to the United States) – even though they’re the levies that have drawn the most fire from foreign policy globalists and other trade and globalization zealots.

As for the China tariffs themselves, the latest from the Biden team is that they’ll be reviewed. So even though he’s slammed them as wildly counterproductive, they’re obviously not going anywhere soon. (See here for the specifics.) 

Later? Biden’s going to be hard-pressed to lift the levies unless one or both of the following developments take place: first, the allied support he’s touted as the key to combating Beijing’s trade and other economic abuses actually materializes in very convincing ways; second, the Biden administration receives major Chinese concessions in return. Since even if such concessions (e.g., China’s agreement to eliminate or scale back various mercantile practices) were enforceable (they won’t be unless Biden follows the Trump Phase One deal’s approach), they’ll surely require lengthy negotiations. Ditto for Trump administration sanctions on China tech entities like the telecommunications giant Huawei. So expect the Trump-ian China status quo to long outlast Mr. Trump.

Two scenarios that could see at least some of the tariffs or tech sanctions lifted? First, the Chinese make some promises to improve their climate change policies that will be completely phony, but will appeal greatly to the Green New Deal-pushing progressives who will wield much more power if the Senate changes hands, and who have demonstrated virtually no interest in China economic issues. Second, Beijing pledges to ease up on its human rights crackdowns on Hong Kong and the Muslims of Xinjiang province. These promises would be easier to monitor and enforce, but the Chinese regime views such issues as utterly non-negotiable because they’re matters of sovereignty. So China’s repressive practices won’t even be on the official agenda of any talks. Unofficial understandings might be reached under which Beijing would take modest positive steps or suspend further contemplated repression. But I wouldn’t count on such an outcome.

Two areas where Biden supposedly could make big decisions unilaterally whatever happens in the Senate, are immigration and climate change. Executive orders would be the tools, and apparently that’s indeed the game plan. But as Mr. Trump discovered, what Executive Orders and even more routine adminstrative actions can do, a single federal judge responding to a special interest group’s request can delay for months. And these judicial decisions can interfere with presidential authority even on subjects that for decades has been recognized as wide-ranging – notably making immigration enforcement decisions when border crossings impact national security, as with the so-called Trump “Muslim ban.”

I know much less about climate change, but a recently retired attorney friend with long experience litigating on these issues told me that even before Trump appointee Amy Coney Barrett joined the Supreme Court, the Justices collectively looked askance on efforts to create new policy initiatives without legislating. Another “originalist” on the Court should leave even less scope for ignoring Congress.

The bottom line is especially curious given the almost universal expectations that this presidential election would be the most important in recent U.S. history: A deeply divided electorate could well have produced a mandate for more of the same – at least until the 2022 midterms.

Im-Politic: My (Hopefully Wrong) Election Prediction

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battleground states, CCP Virus, coronavirus, COVID 19, election 2016, election 2020, Hillary Clinton, Hunter Biden, Im-Politic, Joe Biden, masks, Nancy Pelosi, political ads, polls, shy Trump vote, suburban women, suburbs, Trump, Wuhan virus

One big reason I’m not a betting person is that I hate a major difference between what I want to happen and what I think will happen. And that’s exactly the case with this year’s presidential election. In other words, although as I explained in a recent post and then amplified in a recent magazine article, I voted for President Trump (and by no means reluctantly), I’m convinced that his time in the White House is just about up.

Not that I’m certain of this outcome. To repeat a conclusion I’ve made to friends, family, and others in various circumstances, I completely accept the idea that the race has tightened substantially in Mr. Trump’s favor in recent months, and especially in toto in the six most discussed swing or battleground states (Arizona, Florida, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin). But today, as throughout the fall campaign, I’d rather be in Democratic nominee Joe Biden’s shoes.

In fact, I’m sticking with this position even though I’ve become somewhat more impressed with claims of a “shy Trump vote” – i.e., the notion that many Trump voters reached by pollsters don’t reveal their true preferences for various reasons or, similarly, that the same pollsters simply aren’t reaching a significant number of Trump supporters. My main reason? In an era of spreading Cancel Culture at the workplace and elsewhere, it’s entirely plausible that many Trump supporters fear expressing their actual preferences to strangers.

But to me, the most telling poll results stem precisely from those six battlegrounds, however increasingly close the race may be. And that’s because, even though the President carried them all in 2016 (generally by slim margins), and even though he’s the incumbent, they’re now thought to be up for grabs at all. In other words, even though Mr. Trump is now a known quantity (or because he’s a known quantity), and has had nearly a full term of presidential abilities to extend favors to these states, they’re still a heavy lift for him.

I sense, moreover, as just suggested, that his troubles in these “flyover America” regions stem from a political malady that he’s never been able to overcome – and perhaps has never wanted to overcome or dispel: Trump Fatigue Syndrome. I fully accept his insistence (and that of many supporters) that his tweets and other verbal brickbats have built and maintained a large and intensely loyal base (indeed, big enough to elect him President once). I also agree that his combative instincts have enabled him to survive ruthless opponents who, astoundingly, have even filled his own administration and other levels of the federal bureaucracy since his inauguration.

At the same time, it’s hardly a stretch to suppose that even a significant slice of Trump-world is anxious for a return of some semblance of normality to American politics, and that four more years of the President are sure to mean four more years of (partly needless) tumult. Most revealingly, even the President seems to accept this analysis. Why else would he be pleading (only half-jokingly) for the suburban women supposedly most offended by his style to “like him,” and defensively making that argument that his roughness has been the key to his survival? (I can’t find a link, but heard it when listening to one of his rally speeches yesterday.)

And what’s especially frustrating for a Trump supporter like myself: He could have been just as forceful and cutting a champion of his “forgotten Americans” constituencies, and just as much of a scornful scourge of the elites, with a just a little more subtlety and a little more selectivity in his targets.

Some appreciation of nuance, in fact, would have been particularly helpful in dealing with the CCP Virus. In between the kind of fear-mongering and consequent shutdown enthusiasm dominating press coverage and the rhetoric of Never Trumpers across the political spectrum, and the pollyannish optimism and mockery of modest mitigation measures like even limited mask wearing that was too often expressed by the President, could always be found a vast store of effective and actually constructive messaging strategies.

Collectively, they have represented a test of the kind of leadership deserving of political support, and have amounted to acknowledging squarely the difficulties of formulating effective pandemic policies and vigorously supporting targeted counter-measures while staving off the panic that Mr. Trump has (rightly) stated he wanted to prevent. Just as important: The President could have conveyed to the public the admittedly inconvenient but bedrock truth that forces of nature like highly contagious viruses can long resist the powers even of today’s technologically advanced societies. But this was a test that Mr. Trump flunked.

Speaking of forces of nature, the weather across the country today isn’t likely to help reelect the President, either. It looks to be bright and sunny nearly everywhere, with moderate temperatures. Those conditions figure to translate, all else equal, into high turnout, which tends to favor Democrats (even given the astronomical levels of early in-person and mail-in and ballot box voting).

Mr. Trump also faces an opponent who hasn’t been nearly as easy a mark for him as was Hillary Clinton in 2016. Biden’s lack of hard edges unmistakably helps here. But so, too, has his performance in the two presidential debates. As I’ve argued, they’ve belied Trumpist charges of mental and physical frailty. Even better for the former Vice President – he’s also held up more than well enough on the campaign trail. Sure, he’s given himself plenty of rest. But Biden’s increased pace of activity in the last two weeks or so should be enough to fend off a critical mass of doubts among undecided voters about his capacity to serve.

In addition, the Democratic nominee has clearly benefited from the Mainstream Media’s decision to suppress news about the possibly whopping corruption of the entire Biden family. However outrageous I or anyone else considers this cover-up, it’s had the undeniable effect of keeping from huge swathes of the electorate weeks worth of just about the worst news any political candidate could fear.

The Trump campaign might have partly filled this gap, and offset other vulnerabilities, with better advertising. But throughout this election year, most of the Trump ads I’ve seen have been as professional and reassuring as those cable spots for Chia Pets or Sham-Wow – complete with hucksterish voice-overs. Moreover, where on earth are high impact graphics like clips of Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi childishly ripping up copies of the President’s last State of the Union address? The videos recently aired at Trump rallies highlighting Biden’s dangerously clueless statements and policy record on China have been very effective. But boy, are they coming late in the day.

Also possibly revealing on the ad front – I see a lot of anti-Trump and pro-Biden ads on conservative-friendly and even transparently pro-Trump shows on Fox News. That’s clearly a sign of playing offense. According to this report, however, the Trump campaign hasn’t taken the fight to hostile territory like CNN and MSNBC to nearly this extent.

I’m not by any means arguing that “It’s over” for President Trump – much less than it has been for weeks. I’m convinced that he’ll be helped by an enthusiasm gap. I take seriously the reports of strong new voter registrations by Republicans, particularly in the key states, along with the evidence that minorities aren’t turning out for Democrats in places like south Florida. Nor, as mentioned earlier, is my faith in the polls remotely complete. But toting up the President’s relative strengths and weaknesses still places him in my underdog category. And unless Election 2016 repeats itself almost exactly, that ‘s no place for a winning political candidate to be.

Im-Politic: Who’s the Real Adult-in-the-Room on Mask-Wearing

Tags

CCP Virus, celebrities, coronavirus, COVID 19, election 2020, entertainment, Face the Nation, facemasks, Im-Politic, Joe Biden, Margaret Brennan, masks, Scott Gottlieb, sports, Trump, Wuhan virus

Joe Biden is not only big on masks. He clearly views them as a super-weapon against the CCP Virus.

At last week’s final presidential debate, the Democratic candidate said “The expectation is we’ll have another 200,000 Americans dead between now and the end of the year. If we just wore these masks, the president’s own advisors have told him, we can save a 100,000 lives.”

So it seems he believes that masks can cut forecast upcoming fatalities by 50 percent – no doubt why he also declared that “What I would do is make sure we have everyone encouraged to wear a mask all the time.”

The former Vice President is also clearly a believer in what I like to call “The Science” – apparently believing that there’s a strong consensus among the relevant medical authorities (i.e., not your family GP, or brain surgeons, or others in the healthcare field not specializing in epidemiology or respiratory diseases) on all anti-virus efforts and strategies, including on the power of mask-wearing.

So I found myself decidedly amazed this morning upon listening to Scott Gottlieb‘s take on the matter. Although he served as Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration under President Trump, Gottlieb (an M.D., but an internist,by the way) has been a leading critic of the Trump anti-CCP Virus policies. And that’s fair enough. By the same token, however, it’s noteworthy that he came out with a distinctly non-Biden-y take on masks’ effectiveness.

When asked during his latest weekly Face the Nation appearance by host Margaret Brennan (who cited a claim by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that “masks are the best plan for the moment”) to “Walk us through what the safest masks are,” here was Gottlieb’s response:

“Remember the masks serve two purposes. One is to protect other people from you, so if you’re asymptomatic or pre-symptomatic, if you have a mask on, you’re less likely to expel respiratory droplets that can affect other people. The other purpose is to provide you some measure of protection if in fact you’re around people who are infected. So if you want a mask to afford you some protection from other people, quality matters. A cloth mask may be 10 percent to 30 percent protective. A surgical mask, a Level Two or Level Three surgical mask, procedure mask, may be about 60 percent effective. An N-95 mask or equivalent, like a KN-95 mask, which is the Chinese equivalent, or what we call an FFP 2 mask, which is the European equivalent to an N-95 – that could be 90, 95 percent protective. So if you want a mask to afford you a level of protection, wear a higher quality mask. If you can only get a cloth mask, thickness matters, and cloth masks with polyester in them, that combination of polyester and cotton, do better.”

He did add that “A national mask mandate could be put into place,” but also stated that, “It doesn’t need to be backed up with fines or stringent enforcement. We have other requirements that we expect of a civil society that we enforce with political jaw-boning, leadership. We give people warnings at first. So I think masks are one thing that we could be doing.”

Neither Gottlieb nor Biden would limit the virus response to more mask-wearing – not by any means. But even when viewed in isolation, Gottlieb’s cautious and indeed extremely nuanced assessment contrasts strikingly with Biden’s practical fetishization of masks, and in particular with the idea of a national mandate – unless you think it would be a game-changer with or even without “fines or stringent enforcement.”

Gottlieb’s views also contrast with Mr. Trump’s long-time mockery of mask-wearing in general. But contrary to mask enthusiasts, and generally consistent with Gottlieb’s caution, there are any number of reputable studies casting doubt on the masks-as-panacea meme – either showing negligible effects outside clinical and other obvious settings, or coming to inconclusive results. (See here for a useful summary.)

And since the Biden stance is so widely echoed by so many leading American influencers (including not only Mainstream Media journalists but figures from the sports and entertainment worlds), and since the former Vice President is equally widely portrayed as the adult in the room, it seems legit to emphasize that his position arguably is no more scientifically grounded than the President’s.

As for me, because I’m a law-abiding person, and these are the Maryland regulations, I wear masks when in indoor public and crowded outdoor spaces, but nowhere else. They’re all cloth of varying thicknesses, though.

Im-Politic: Close Encounters with Virus Authoritarianism

Tags

authoritarianism, CCP Virus, coronavirus, COVID 19, facemasks, Im-Politic, Joe Biden, masks, progressives, Riverdale Park, social distancing, virtue-signalling, wokeness, Wuhan virus

As RealityChek regulars know, I’ve resisted the temptation to make this blog about me personally, or about my family and friends, except when personal experiences shed light on some broader subject or controversy. Last Thursday alone, though, produced two of those exceptional situations, at least as I interpret them. And both have to do with the problems and pressures created by the sweeping anti-CCP Virus regulations still in force in so many states and localities.

In the interests of fairness, I need to point out that (just in case many of you don’t already realize) that for some time I’ve viewed the lockdowns and shutdowns imposed throughout the country way too all-encompassing. As I’ve written, although excessive caution was understandable and even necessary early during the pandemic, since then, governments should have had enough learning ability to recognize (a) that restrictions were best focused on the most vulnerable segments of the population, and (b) that the comprehensive nature of the lockdowns and shutdowns were becoming a cure whose economic costs were comparably serious to the disease, and were creating their own major public health dangers to boot. (See, e.g., here.)

Even so, I wasn’t exactly loaded for bear Thursday when I left my house in the D.C.-area Maryland suburb where live to walk the three blocks to the local weekly farmer’s market. My town, Riverdale Park, is getting way too woke for my tastes – including a decision to let illegal aliens vote in local elections if they’re all of 16 years old and can present some kind of evidence that they’ve resided in the area for a grand total of 45 days. But filled with woke characters and illegals as the market tends to be, I especially look forward to going because the produce and specialty items offered tend to be excellent values, and because most of the vendors (who don’t seem to be locals) are easy, informative, and sometimes even fun to deal with. Moreover during this Virus Era, the market is a badly needed opportunity for in-person human contact, and an equally cherished reminder of pre-Virus normality.

Because of state and county social distancing requirements, entry onto the market grounds is regulated (by volunteer staff who deserve admiration for their civic-mindedess), so customers need to stand in line six feet apart until the proper density is achieved. I’m fine with that, as well as with the obligatory mask-wearing. What I was not the least bit fine with was what happened once I began shopping for some vegetables, and specifically began inspecting the tomatoes for bruising and other problems.

Behind me, from the line of customers still waiting to get in, came the demand “Hey! Stop touching all those tomatoes!” For a moment, I could scarcely imagine that I was the object of this fellow’s ire, but upon realizing I was the sole tomato shopper at the moment, turned around and saw him again shout something like, “Keep your hands off the tomatoes!”

Still in partial disbelief, rather than respond with something like “Mind your own business” or something more emphatic, I simply asked him “How else am I going to see if they’re OK or not?” To which he replied, (seriously) “I’m sure the fine people who run this stand wouldn’t offer us bad produce.” I agree, by the way, that the vendors are fine people. But frankly, it’s bad enough that the masks greatly complicate the essential task of sniffing fruit (including tomatoes) to make sure that they’re ripe. Now it’s verboten to turn them upside down to make sure they’ve survived their trip from the fields in reasonable shape?

With my bewilderment not entirely having faded, but recognizing that this late-40s-something white male wearing a roughly color coordinated baby blue baseball cap, mask, and T-shirt wasn’t going to do anything to stop my tomato inspection, I decided to create a teachable moment of the incident. So when I was finished (and had chosen some genuine beauties that were not as banged up, like some of their counterparts), turned around and advised him, “It’s called the eye test. Think about it.” (Of course, it’s also the “feel test.”) 

As is often the case, I spent the next half hour or so going coming up in my mind with better, and even genuinely devastating, rejoinders. (E.g., “Ever heard of washing produce?” “Ever think that I might have tested positive?” “Can I see your badge?”) But as routine as these “if only” exercises have become for me, I actually do regret not telling him to buzz off.

That’s partly because there were no “Don’t touch the merchandise” signs posted and I was obeying all the other rules. It’s mainly, however, because even the best such detailed, substance-specific points obscure how his behavior perfectly epitomized the kind of arrogant, self-righteous busy-body impulses that so many self-styled progressives are flaunting now that the pandemic has ostensibly validated their longstanding determination to impose sweeping controls over all realms of human behavior – especially for the good of those less enlightened of course.

While I was steaming and reenacting on my walk home, I quickly found myself in another possible encounter with this kind of progressive Virus Authoritarianism. At least that’s how I interpreted it. The normally busier of the two streets on my way home (not that it’s usually very busy) was absolutely devoid of people. Until a block ahead of me another pedestrian appeared. Because he was wearing a back-pack I assumed he was a student of some kind, and once he came close enough, I also saw he was masked. I wasn’t – once I left the crowded market area, I removed mine, and I was out-of-doors with no one near me, so why endure the discomfort?

In any event, this other pedestrian wore the covering even though there was no one in sight from where he was coming, and there was no one behind me, either. That’s his right, of course, and to maintain social distancing, I conspicuously swerved to my right as he approached. He moved a little to his right, and although I didn’t recognize him, I was all set to say “Hi” by way of nodding my head or giving a little wave of my hand because that’s what social-butterfly-me does in these situations. But when I saw how resolutely he was staring straight ahead, seemingly set on avoiding eye contact, I concluded that a friendly gesture wouldn’t be reciprocated. And it seemed reasonable to assume that he was very upset that I wasn’t masked – despite the fact that, as I just mentioned, the street was otherwise empty.

Even if he wasn’t, I couldn’t help but wonder why on earth he was masked in the first place. No supposedly settled or any other kind of science has deemed masks necessary in these kind of state-of-nature circumstances, where distancing couldn’t be easier. Was he aggressively virtue-signaling, like Democratic Presidential nominee Joe Biden seems to have in comparable situations? But to a non-existent (except for me) audience?

But as I implied, his attitude could have been just my imagination.  Maybe virus irritableness is getting to me.  More evidence may come my way when I visit the market this coming Thursday. And when my hands will be all over the produce again.

Those Stubborn Facts: A Strange Definition of a Broken Trump Promise

Tags

Associated Press, CCP Virus, coronavirus, COVID 19, health security, Mainstream Media, manufacturing, masks, medical supplies, PPE, supply chain, textiles, Those Stiubborn Facts, Trump, Wuhan virus

“Shortages of meltblown textiles, key to N95 mask-making, illustrate ‘the failure of this administration to take necessary steps to fulfill’ its promise of restoring critical manufacturing capacity lost to China.”

– Associated Press, September 10, 2020

“Pre-pandemic, five U.S. producers were making about 42 million N95 masks a month. By October, that is projected to have increased to 11 U.S. producers making 168 million a month, which could amount to 2 billion a year….”

–Associated Press, September 10, 2020

“Also pre-pandemic, 24 U.S. companies were making meltblown, with 79 machine lines in operation….But only a fraction of that was going into medical respirators….By the end of 2021… there will be 28 new lines in the U.S., representing a 35% increase, with almost all of the newly produced textile going into medical supplies.”

–Associated Press, September 10, 2020

(Source: “Scarcity of key material squeezes medical mask manufacturing, by Martha Mendoza, Juliet Linderman, Thomas Peipert, and Irena Hwang,” Associated Press, September 10, 2020, https://apnews.com/02a0542e8a05176bd5d79757134bc277)

Im-Politic: The Surprising Politics of Mask-Wearing

Tags

California, CCP Virus, conservatives, coronavirus, COVID 19, Democrats, Eric Garcetti, facemasks, Florida, Gavin Newsome, Im-Politic, liberals, lockdowns, Los Angeles County, masks, Miami-Dade County, Orange County, Republicans, Ron DeSantis, San Diego County, shutdowns, Trump, Wuhan virus

Republicans and conservatives are recklessly or stupidly or (INSERT YOUR FAVORITE DEROGTORY ADVERB) resisted orders issued by many state and local governments mandating facemask wearing in various circumstances to fight the CCP Virus more effectively. No less than Paul Krugman, one of The New York Times‘ uber-liberal uber pundits, says so. So do a number of Republicans – especially those from the nearly extinct Bush wing of the GOP. And special ire is reserved for Prsident Trump, who until July 11 refused to wear a mask in public, and who still hasn’t issued a blanket endorsement of the practice, and remains opposed to a federal mandate.

In the interests of full disclosure, I wear masks (as required by law) when I patronize indor businesses in Maryland (where I live), and would don them in crowded outdoor areas, too (not required). And I’d abide by any mask regulations elsewhere. Evidently scientific evidence on mask effectiveness has been mixed enough to prevent the World Health Organization (WHO) from encouraging their use until June 5. But these coverings make intuitive sense to me, and although I find tem sort of uncomfortable, they’re anything but unbearable.       

What I do find irksome is how the Mainstream Media and most of the rest of America’s chattering classes have decided that it’s only one half of the political spectrum that’s to blame for shortfalls in America’s mask-wearing record. Because evidence abounds that there’s lots of opposition, or at least indifference, to masks among Democrats and liberals, too. And the experiences of Florida and California – two big states whose governor have taken dramatically differing approaches to handling the CCP Virus – make the point nicely.

In case you’re ignoring national news completely, Florida deserves special attention because of the “ha-ha factor.” As in “Ha ha – Republican Governor Ron DeSantis had been bragging about how the Sunshine State had suppressed the virus with a light regulatory touch, but lately it’s become a major hot spot.”

Specifically, the indictment against DeSantis began with his refusal to close the state’s beaches for spring breakers and Florida natives who relish the shore, continued with his decision to reopen the beaches and the rest of the state after a shelter-in-place order had been in place fairly briefly, and has been reinforced by his own opposition to order mask-wearing state-wide, which is blamed at least in part for Floridians’ continually casual attitude about face coverings and related practices like social distancing, and the state’s recent spike in cases and deaths. (See here and here for examples.)

But if you look at the pattern of infection in Florida, it quickly becomes clear that Democrats as well as Republicans must be ignoring mask-wearing and distancing en masse. After all, the five Florida counties with the biggest numbers of registered Democratic voters are (in descending order) Miami-Dade, Hillsborough, Broward, Palm Beach, and Orange. Indeed, together, they account for nearly 45 percent of the Florida Democratic total. They also happen to be the state’s five most populous counties, adding up to just under 42 percent of its population.

Yet this Big Five has contained more than 54 percent of the 80,236 new CCP Virus cases recorded in Florida during the week ending yesterday. In other words, these Democratic strongholds punched significantly above their new cases weight. And Democratic voter champ Miami-Dade all by itself, whose population represents 12.65 percent of Florida’s total, is home to more than 24 percent of those new Florida virus cases. And with the exception of one tiny black majority panhandle county, it’s also Florida’s most lopsidedly Democratic county. So its even greater “out-perform” is all the more noteworthy.

One possible counter-argument is that these five populous Democratic counties are also more densely peopled than state counties with much smaller populations, where the virus’ impact has been slighter. But that sounds like an excuse to me. If Democrats are less selfish and/or stupid and/or reckless than Republicans, and therefore more committed to mask-wearing and social distancing and the like, then they should be making much greater efforts to tone down their recreational or social lives to slow the spread, and save the lives of their fellow Floridians.

Obviously, not every resident of these counties, or every registered Democrat, is ignoring the need to fight the pandemic. But the prevalence of Democrats in these counties is just as obviously signaling that many are.

California’s a somewhat different story – and an even stronger challenge to the narrative. Unlike Florida, where the Democratic-Republican ratio overall is only 1.06:1, in California, it’s Democrats outnumber Republicans by a 1.90:1 margin. Not surprisingly, the Golden State is governed by a Democrat – Gavin Newsom – and its lockdowns came much earlier, and were much more pervasive, than Florida’s. So Californians were by no means receiving the kinds of mixed messages about responsible behavior from their statehouse than DeSantis has been accused of sending.

But many of the state’s residents evidently decided to ignore them – and pretty quickly. For example, as early as late April, so many Californians were crowding the state’s beaches in violation of social distancing protocols that Newsom decided to close them. A little over a month ago, after major increases in the state’s CCP Virus case numbers, deaths, and deaths followed Newsom’s cautious reopening program, Newsom charged that the problem wasn’t a too hasty lifting of economic restrictions, but Californians’ irresponsible behavior:

“Simply put, we are seeing too many people with faces uncovered — putting at risk the real progress we have made in fighting the disease. California’s strategy to restart the economy and get people back to work will only be successful if people act safely and follow health recommendations. That means wearing a face covering, washing your hands and practicing physical distancing.”

Much of this incautious beach-going is surely going on in Orange and San Diego Counties, where the Democratic-Republican split is smaller than in the state as a whole. So even though both counties combined boast nearly 1.3 million Democratic voters, maybe all of theirDemocrats were well-behaved.

But no such case can reasonably be made for Los Angeles County, the state’s most populous by far, and a jurisdiction where registered Democrats outnumber registered Republicans by more than three-to-one – much higher than the state average. Here, the virus’ comeback has been strong enough that Los Angeles City Mayor Eric Garcetti is warning that he is “on the brink” of imposing another stay-at-home order. And for good measure, he laid much of the blame at the feet of the public:

“It’s not just what’s opened and closed. It’s also about what we do individually. It’s about the people who are getting together outside of their households with people they might know. It might be their extended family, it might be friends. They might think because they got a test two weeks ago that it’s OK, but it’s not… We have to be as vigilant right now as we were the first day…bring 100 percent of our strength the way we did the first or second month.”

Even before the debut of the the Trump face covering, Republican and conservative resistance to mask-wearing had been crumbling, and despite my continued uncertainty that the results will be game-changing it’s a trend I applaud.  And I suspect it would be accelerated if America’s Democratic and liberal leaders admitted that their supporters have considerable work to do on this front, too.   

Following Up: More Data on America’s Dependence on Foreign Healthcare Goods

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Barack Obama, Department of Health and Human Services, facemasks, Following Up, George W. Bush, health security, healthcare goods, imports, Lena H. Sun, manufacturing, masks, Mike Bowen, Prestige Ameritech, Rachel Siegel, supply chain, The American Conservative, Trump, Washington Post

Since news organizations can be so unreliable, I always do whatever I can to use information from primary sources instead of items in the media. I’m making an exception this morning, however, because I’ve failed to find a government document mentioned in several news articles, and reportedly it contains such important data that it deserves mention. Specifically, this document seems to add vital detail to my recent description in The American Conservative of how extensively the United States relies on foreign sources for crucial health care goods, and how long this gaping hole in the nation’s healthcare security has existed.

The document I can’t find has been described in this Washington Post piece as “a 2014 briefing released by the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.” Among its findings, according to Post correspondents Lena J. Sun and Rachel Siegel:

“Up to 95 percent of surgical masks are made outside the continental United States, in places like China and Mexico….”

The 2014 date, of course, is revealing in that it was two years before Donald Trump was elected President. Also revealing: The authors interviewed a domestic mask manufacturer who showed them letters he’s written to American Presidents warning that mask availability could be disrupted during a pandemic outbreak.

The first was written to Barack Obama in 2010. And apparently little or nothing was done. But the manufacturer, Mike Bowen of Texas-based Prestige Ameritech, says he reached out to George W. Bush’s administration as well – with the same results.

But just in case you think this is an establishment-bashing exercise, it’s important to note also that Bowen says he sent the same warning in 2017 – when Mr. Trump did occupy the Oval Office.

Contrary to much (self-serving) conventional wisdom, I’m not at all opposed to finger-pointing and blame-casting, even during a crisis. In fact, I view it as critical to ensuring that mistakes aren’t repeated. But I am opposed to cherry-picking finger-pointing. Because by now it should be abundantly clear that when it comes to U.S. national leaders and American health security, both Democrats and Republicans and liberals and conservatives and even populists have let the country down.

And the faster all partisans get off their high horses and focus on identifying lessons that need to be learned regardless of political effect, the faster Americans will overcome this crisis and the lower the chances of a rerun.