And perhaps the lesson of this Passover is that freedom is precious. It is worth fighting for and dying for, and when necessary, like the Israelites in bondage, waiting for. We are being asked to wait a few more weeks to return to our lives. Not a big sacrifice when compares to the peoples enslaved throughout history.
The Story of Passover is contained in Exodus. Moses is on the wheel; gets a court appointment; goes with a bond motion several times before a judge with a hardened heart and askes "let my people go". Who amongst us has not been there before? Like every good court victory, afterwards you get to eat.
Enjoy your Passover. Among those of the Jewish faith, it is common during major holidays to wish "next year in Jerusalem." This year, those of you who celebrate Passover can have a different wish: "Next Year...Together."
EXODUS:
And the LORD said, I have
surely seen the affliction of my people which are in Egypt, and have heard their cry by reason of their
taskmasters; for I know their sorrows;
And I am come down to deliver them out of the hand of the
Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land unto a good land and a large,
unto a land flowing with milk and honey; unto the place of the Canaanites, and
the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the
Jebusites.
Now therefore, behold, the cry of the children of Israel is come
unto me: and I have also seen the oppression wherewith the Egyptians oppress
them.
...
And G-d said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt
thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you.
...
And afterward Moses and Aaron went in, and told the Pharoah, Thus saith the LORD G-d of Israel, Let My People Go, that they may hold a feast unto me in the wilderness.
...
And they shall take of the blood, and strike it on the two side posts and on
the upper door post of the houses, wherein they shall eat it.
And they shall eat the flesh in that night, roast with fire, and
unleavened bread; and with bitter herbs they shall eat it.
For I will pass through the land of Egypt this night, and will
smite all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and against
all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment: I am the LORD.
And the blood shall be to you for a token upon the houses where ye
are: and when I see the blood, I
will pass over you, and the plague shall not be upon you to destroy you, when I smite the land of
Egypt.
And this day shall be unto you for a memorial; and ye shall keep
it a feast to the LORD throughout your generations; ye shall keep it a feast by
an ordinance for ever.
Grateful for the work the various statisticians and public health experts are doing to model the virus and Im glad those in power have access to, and apparently are consulting, the models. Have NOT heard of or seen one single model studying the likely suffering the economic shutdown is causing. And no Im not worried about the Dow Jones. I fear that several more months of this will trigger a Great Depression like economy in which hundreds of thousands of jobs will never return, defaults on rent, mortgages, and loans spiral one after the other. Entire industries (travel, hospitality, restaurants, events) take years to recover, some (cruises, various airlines) never do.
ReplyDeleteThis isnt about CEOs losing stock value. This means very real people will lose the ability to raise their families, prepare for retirement without Social Security solvency, send their kids to college. There will be suicides, massive mental health decline, spiking addiction and sociopathic behaviors, hopelessness and depression. Already struggling areas of the country mired in economic suffering, opioid addiction and suicide will get knocked out for a lifetime. Millennials, who already have one-half of the financial resources Gen X had during the 07-08 recession, will likely never recover, never afford a home, never see the end of their student loan debt.
We do not shut down highways even knowing hundreds of thousands of lives will be lost due to driving accidents. We do not shut down the economy during bad flu years, when 80k+ lives are lost. If, ultimately, this virus has a fatality rate in the *neighborhood* of a bad flu... if ultimately we see that only those older than 70 or with co-morbidities are really truly at great risk due to this virus... the fact that we shut down the economy for everyone is something we will have to live with.
The response of course may be that we will never know. Without the economy shut down it COULD have been much worse, but that is non-falsifiable. In other words, yes we will never know.
But damn, for all the studies (constantly diminishing the dire warnings -- it was just last week Trump was derided for saying "only" 100,000-240,000 lives lost... now it is down to under 70,000) about public health and the virus, where is a single study on the consequences of this shut down?
We very quickly assented to an economic decision that will be life-altering for millions and millions of americans. I wish there were an economist getting as much screen time as Fauci, at least discussing these issues.
We don't know whether it would be worse if we didn't engage in social distancing? Turn off Oan.
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ReplyDeleteYou make points that I think all of us are thinking. And you're right that this is worth more analysis and more discussion. But its folly to compare this to a bad flu year or to highways. Right now, Italy has had 139,422 confirmed cases (after a lock down beyond our own) and 17,669 deaths. That's just short of a 13% death rate. Even if the unreported cases are double the reported cases, that's over 4% death rate. That's about consistent with what is being reported globally. Look at Spain (155k cases and 15,238 deaths - about 10% death) and NY State (151k cases and 4,571 deaths about 3% death but cases are still playing out). In this context, 4% looks about right globally.
A leading Harvard epidemiologist named Mark Lipsitch projected that, without taking measures to curb it, coronavirus could infect 40% to 70% of the global population this year.
Think about that ... Let it sink in.
Let's call "40% to 70%" a simple 55% (splitting the difference). And let's call the death rate an even 4%. 55% infection rate of 7.8 billion on earth is 4.29 billion coronavirus cases. 4% death rate of 4.29 billion infected is about 171.6 million projected deaths worldwide in a single year from a single virus if we did not take action.
Let's do that math again for the United States. There are about 327 million people in the US. 55% of 327 million is 179.85 million. 4% of 179.85 million is just shy of 7.2 million projected deaths in the US in 2020 from coronavirus if we did not take action.
That is what very reasonably could have happened if we continued with business as usual. The fact that the numbers are falling now that we have taken herculean measures to contain the problem does not mean that there was no problem to begin with.
Even if the numbers were even HALF of that, the consequences would be extraordinary. Think about what THAT would do to the economy (not to mention life and our collective mental health).
And this is not the stuff of movies. In 1918, when global population was about 2 billion, the Spanish flu, with an estimated death rate of about 2.5%, infected about a third of the global population and killed around 50-100 million worldwide. (these are estimates because the record keeping wasn't great 100 years ago). These numbers reflect that the projection I described above not only could happen, but actually HAVE happened (adjusted for relative population between 1918 and 2020).
I thought Ayn Rand died in 1982!
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