Have a second Corona, On me!

Just a urchin livin' under the street
I'm a hard case that's tough to beat
I'm your charity case so buy me something to eat
I'll pay you at another time
Take it to the end of the line

Rags to riches or so they say
Ya gotta keep pushin' for the fortune and fame
You know it's all a gamble when it's just a game
Ya treat it like a capital crime
Everybody's doin' the time

Take me down to the paradise city
Where the grass is green and the girls are pretty
Oh won't you please take me home
Take me down to the paradise city
Where the grass is green and the girls are pretty
Take me home, yeah yeah

Strapped in the chair of the city's gas chamber
Why I'm here I can't quite remember
The surgeon general says it's hazardous to breathe
I'd have another cigarette but I can't see
Tell me who you're gonna believe

Take me down to the paradise city
Where the grass is green and the girls are pretty
Take me home, yeah yeah
Take me down to the paradise city
Where the grass is green and the girls are pretty
Oh won't you please take me home

So far away
So far away
So far away
So far away

Captain America's been torn apart
Now he's a court jester with a broken heart
He said "turn me around and take me back to the start"
I must be losing my mind "are you blind?"
I've seen it all a million times

Take me down to the paradise city
Where the grass is green and the girls are pretty
Take me home, yeah yeah
Take me down to the paradise city
Where the grass is green and the girls are pretty
Oh won't you please take me home
Take me down to the paradise city
Where the grass is green and the girls are pretty
Take me home, yeah yeah
Take me down to the paradise city
Where the grass is green and the girls are pretty
Oh won't you please take me home

I wanna go, I wanna go
Oh won't you please take me home
I wanna see how good it can be
Oh won't you please take me home
Take me down to the paradise city
Where the grass is green and the girls are pretty
Take me home
Take me down to the paradise city
Where the grass is green and the girls are pretty
Oh won't you please take me home
Take me down, lead me 'round
Oh won't you please take me home

I wanna see, what a woman can be
I want to take you home
Take me down to the paradise city
Where the grass is green and the girls are pretty
Oh won't you please take me home
I wanna go, I wanna know
Oh won't you please take me home

Guns and Roses

Today’s song was inspired by what popped on Philly’s Classic Rock Station MGK as I start my blog.  It reminded me of how a lot of people in NY might feel today.  I will come back to NY City shortly.  Meanwhile I hope you all have some patience with today’s admitted free flowing ramblings.

First things first.  It was nice to get some feedback on my last post.  Like many of you my “Google Blog seems to get harder to navigate and make comments.  My friend Ellsworth has mastered it but most, including this author cannot.  I am reduced to using word to type my blog as “Blogger” seems to get harder every time I use it.  Several have shared comments by email, and I think most of you (even my Faithful and Obedient Companion lost her ability to post) have been reduced to using email. 

In that vein I want to first share John DelNegro’s email to me as follows:

Many of my friends and I have been discussing your very good points in Observations, economic costs vs. social responsibility a difficult decision but I like you have concerns for the small business man who unlike Boeing will not get an $80 B bailout and pay it back in 6 months. Even if Washington does offer a loan to small business they don’t have the cash flow to carry them  and many bankruptcies will follow.

Talk about loony government, in MA, the Suffolk County DA is advocating for releasing non-violent criminals from jail while any restaurateur violating the strict operating policies invoked by the governor is subject to penalty. Really rational.

Thanks, John, for sharing your thoughts.  Also I am glad you discussed with “friends”, some of who I have a hunch are also blog followers in Florida!

Ok let’s move to my “new post since my cigar may be done before I finish!  Be forewarned the inspiration for today’s blog comes from the following:

Several blog followers live in the NY area.  They and others have children and grandchildren who live in that area as well.  As I think (and text) with them I cannot help but recall my own ties to Manhattan where I worked and lived  (for a year anyway) as well.  They are facing ground zero right now.  It brought me back to memories of 9/11 and how that impacted me both personally and in my work.  I can relate to this in more ways than one as you will see.

  Second, my son James sent me a podcast which features Jonathan Haidt (yes that guy) who shares his thoughts on this crisis and how such events can bring people together. As a nice sidelight he talks about his history and since I have always liked his work (and referred to it frequently) it also plays into my chain of thought.  So, I will start with memories of that last NY crises as a lead in.  It deals with 9/11.

 Having been in the “statistics” and data business most of my life, I have tended to look at them with a skeptic’s eyes.  This is still true especially when dealing with the “unknown”.  While this account may bore you, I will share it with you anyway because it may help explain my fascination with data in a crisis.  Here goes:

After 9/11 the world of insurance was turned on its’ head with uncertainty.  Worker’s compensation was no exception.  In an effort at brevity I will try not to bore you with the details but I will say that in the depth of that uncertainty I had the opportunity (and honestly with much dumb luck) to think “counter” to conventional wisdom and see a huge opportunity at the moment to leverage fear into a huge business opportunity.  Now I will not take credit for this as being all my idea.  But I did find some fellow “contrarian thinkers (many who I disagreed with at the time) who convinced me to “run against” conventional wisdom.  Instead of fear we aggressively pursued a course that enabled my group to become one of the largest writers of insurance in the US.   It lasted only until fear faded and regulators who ultimately disagreed with our philosophy.  I mention all this because that history still lingers within me as I read about “models” and curves” over the last couple of weeks.  It also provides me with hope that crises can lead any one of us to eventual opportunities.

‘

As the Corona virus blossomed Models and curves have become our best form of guidance.  I have no doubt that virtually of these experts “know” more than I do about pandemic curves.  I also do not know how much information they have held back to prevent panic. But I do believe things like medical capacity are a huge issue depending on the rate, extent and most importantly the timing of infection.  However, as I listened to these “experts” talk about social distancing, I had lingering doubts about where we are on this professed curve.  But enough background, Let’s get to the personal.

A few days ago, while facetiming with my sister and her husband, we got into a discussion regarding her recent hospitalization (in late January) after her open-heart surgery in early January.  She came down with acute respiratory failure and was placed on a ventilator.  I recall that shortly after she was released, we discussed (in semi-jest) the remote possibility that maybe she had in fact had been infected with “corona”, but that seemed far fetched based on the presumed timeline. However, during this recent discussion we revisited the topic.  She recalled that her husband, Jay also suffered respiratory issues at the time.  She also indicated that her son who lives in the NY area had flown in from NY shortly before her hospitalization.  Incidentally he was in Morocco over the Christmas holidays. As we chatted, we obviously started speculating.

Then, two days later I was reading a National Review article about China and the early spread of Corona.  Below is a cut and paste of the article and note paragraph 3 (in italics):

January 1: The Wuhan Public Security Bureau issued summons to Dr. Li Wenliang, accusing him of “spreading rumors.” Two days later, at a police station, Dr. Li signed a statement acknowledging his “misdemeanor” and promising not to commit further “unlawful acts.” Seven other people are arrested on similar charges and their fate is unknown.

Also that day, “after several batches of genome sequence results had been returned to hospitals and submitted to health authorities, an employee of one genomics company received a phone call from an official at the Hubei Provincial Health Commission, ordering the company to stop testing samples from Wuhan related to the new disease and destroy all existing samples.”

According to a New York Times study of cellphone data from China, 175,000 people leave Wuhan that day. According to global travel data research firm OAG, 21 countries have direct flights to Wuhan. In the first quarter of 2019 for comparison, 13,267 air passengers traveled from Wuhan, China, to destinations in the United States, or about 4,422 per month. The U.S. government would not bar foreign nationals who had traveled to China from entering the country for another month

Now one thing seems very clear to me.  Gosh,this pandemic was likely well established in NY in early January, just based on my read of travel out of China worldwide that day alone.  While arguing and focusing on impeachment at that time our country was missing the greatest pandemic since 1918 entering our country. By the way not sure we will ever "know" for sure about my sister and her husband's infection but my hunch is they were in fact early victims.

Observation 1.

At this point placing “blame” on how we got here is now is pointless, history cannot be relived, and politics will always be politics.  Missing the entry of this virus into the US was a fait accompli.  Like my last blog stated don’t kid yourselves, we are never in control of so much off the world’s events.  Neither is either political party.  Maybe, just maybe, Jonathan is correct and that some sense of unity will come back to our country out of all of this.  One can only hope.

  

Finally, this all leads me back to NY which is now at the epicenter of this Pandemic.  If in fact the virus has been spreading since January, then it is now reaching a crescendo, weeks before any of us thought.  In a recent presser even Governor Cuomo professed he thought he had more time (but who knows how much the experts already “knew”).  It all does not matter now but my immediate thought is “Holy Crap”.  Within a few days the sh-t is hitting the fan in the "Big Apple and its' surrounding communities.

Observation 2.

Living in isolation in Grand County I for one have suddenly started thinking and yes praying  (hey it's all I can do at this point) for all my friends back in NY area who face a very tough time over the next few weeks.  Prayers as well for Governor Cuomo with whom I usually share very little political agreement.  He is in a very tough place and but I think he has been very a very pragmatic leader for his state these past weeks. Prayers also for our President and his staff.  While this too will pass, the reality is we are ultimately all in this together.

Finally (yes breath a sigh of relief over finally) I would add that my last Blog's thoughts about weighing long term effects of the shutdown remain, but at this moment and time my thoughts turn to immediate hope of this looming tsunami passing NY ASAP and with minimal pain and suffering.  As we sort through this at the least we will soon see just how "big and bad" this shock wave is. 

With that I bid you adieu!

PS: Here is the Dan Crenshaw/ Haidt Podcast courtesy of James.  It is about an hour but might entertain you in your “social Distance “ downtime!

Crenshaw Haidt podcast