Four Things You Should Know about COVID-19

July 8, 2020 in Global Crisis Blog, Innovation Blog | Tags: | Leave a comment

Four Facts You Should Know about COVID-19

By Shlomo Maital

   (based on The Daily, a New York Times podcast, by a respected science writer).

  1. COVID-19 is not a kind of respiratory flu attacking mainly the lungs. Ordinary flu attaches to the receptors in the lung, so we cough and feel heavy chests. But COVID-19 is a vascular disease – it attacks the small blood vessels everywhere, in the lungs, in the kidneys, intestines, even in the brain. This is why there are so many and varied symptoms. True, it does severely attack the lungs – but this is because it destroys the blood vessels in the lungs that carry oxygen to the rest of the body. And because it attacks the blood vessels, it quickly spreads throughout the body, and wreaks havoc in a wide variety of ways. Perhaps this is why those on ventilators do not have a high survival rate….because it is not just the lungs that are damaged.
  2. Mutation: COVID-19 has mutated. The original Wuhan, China, strain spread, and then at some point, probably in Italy, it mutated. And spread abroad. How? It became less virulent, less fatal, but more transmissible. The novel coronavirus mutates a lot, like all viruses…but most mutations are not viable. But this mutation, in Italy, was highly successful. Why? It killed fewer people – but that meant more people lived, to pass on the virus. Which is what the virus wants. It wants to spread.   So we are dealing with a less deadly, but more virulent, virus, that spreads more easily. In part this explains why fewer are dying, but more people are being infected, in the US, Brazil and elsewhere… where many people don’t wear masks or practice social distancing. Both SARS and MERS viruses were lethal, killing 50% of more.   That’s bad news. The ‘good’ news: It meant that they both spread far far less quickly and easily than COVID-19. Same for the 1918-19 pandemic. The initial flu killed a lot of people. It stopped, paused, mutated – and then came back a year later as a new version, less lethal but far far more transmissible, in the second wave.
  3. Outdoors/indoors:   COVID-19 does not spread well outdoors. Even small amounts of wind disperse the aerosol, tiny drops, that contain tiny bits of the virus, when we breathe, shout, sing, or cough. This is in part why the massive outdoor social protests that sprang up, across the US, did not seem to directly cause massive hotspot outbreaks of virus. In contrast, the virus spreads far more easily indoors….
  4. Schools: Young children are less affected by it, though not all, and they are less dangerous in spreading the virus. Children seem to have smaller ‘loads’ of virus, and the smaller the load, the less likely it is to spread to someone else. When considering whether to open schools, this should be taken into account.  

Learning from Angela Merkel

July 8, 2020 in Global Crisis Blog, Innovation Blog | Tags: , , , , , | Leave a comment

Learning from Angela Merkel

By Shlomo Maital

It was all over for Angela Merkel. She announced her retirement as head of the Christian Democrats, in Germany, and more or less disappeared as Chancellor.

   And then – came the pandemic.   Writing in the New York Times, Anna Sauerbrey * explains how Merkel is hugely popular, her party leads by far in the polls – and Germany has weathered the pandemic far better than the US, for instance, where President Trump, a born misogynist, persistently mocks “Angela”. [The New Yorker reported: The first Trump-Merkel encounter in the Oval Office began with almost comically awful optics: Merkel offered a ceremonial handshake for the cameras, which Trump seemed to rebuff. After the photographers left the room, Trump reportedly announced, “Angela, you owe me one trillion dollars.”].”.

Here is a selection from Sauerbrey’s piece: “Now, in early July 2020, Ms. Merkel is riding high. The country, with a notably low fatality rate and a high-functioning test and trace system, has contained the pandemic — a success many attribute to the chancellor. In a recent poll, 82 percent of Germans said that Ms. Merkel was doing her job “rather well.” And the Christian Democratic Union is once again far ahead of its challengers.”

   Please recall that Merkel is a highly trained scientist – a quantum chemist, someone who understands deeply both physics and chemistry. A perfect person to lead a nation through a crisis that demands deep scientific understanding.  

       Now, let’s assume that the United States has a President who is wise, open-minded, modest, humble, intelligent, and desperate to lead his country through the crisis in an admirable fashion.   The US and Germany have much in common. Both have a federal structure – the 50 states in the US, and the German federal states.   Both in Germany and the US, the state governments have major powers. The wise US President says, let’s find out why and how Germany is doing so well, and adapt its policies.

     Here, the similarity ends. In the US, Republican ‘red’ states [Florida, Arizona, Alabama, etc.] have opened prematurely, triggering a disastrous wave of new infections.  In Germany, Merkel’s knowledge and background gave her credibility, and she deftly coordinated policy, so that the German states followed her guidance carefully. No “Florida’s” or “Arizona’s” in Germany.

     The federal government in Germany manages and directs the test and trace system, with massive resources and trained personnel. A model of excellence.

     Not so in the US. And the US President? His shocking, racist speech at Mt. Rushmore barely mentioned the pandemic. Maybe, he thinks, if I ignore it – it will just go away.

     The people of Germany are fortunate to have Merkel in a strong leadership position during the pandemic.

     The hapless people of the United States are desperately unlucky to have Trump leading them, even though three million more people voted for his rival.  

* How Germany Fell Back in Love With Angela Merkel. New York Times, July 8, 2020.

It’s So Darn Simple! Wear the Damn Mask!

July 7, 2020 in Global Crisis Blog, Innovation Blog | Tags: , , , , | Leave a comment

It’s So Darn Simple! Wear the Damn Mask!

By Shlomo Maital

Listen carefully. Wear the damn mask! In Asia, countries where people are used to wearing masks, and do so, have fewer cases. Wear the damn mask! Make it a federal requirement. Personal freedom? First amendment rights? Come on, blockheads – you do not have the right to infect others and endanger their lives.

But hey – don’t believe me. Would you believe Goldman Sachs? They are very careful about what they say – the service investment banks offer is mainly trust and credibility. And Goldman Sachs says, 60% (you got it – 60%) of current cases could be prevented if everybody, everywhere, would wear masks in public. If everybody agreed to wear the damn mask, it would not be so necessary to keep shutting and opening restaurants, bars, beaches, small businesses, etc. The benefits would be huge.

   So why don’t people wear them in the US? Why are cases spiking, in 30 or more states?

   Ask your President.

   Unless mask attitudes and behavior change fast, the picture for the US economy is bleak. Here is Goldman Sachs’ take on it:

   “The sharp increase in confirmed coronavirus infections in the US has raised fears that the recovery might soon stall,” Jan Hatzius, Goldman’s chief economist, said in a note. “Although a significant part of the increase reflects higher testing volumes … a broader look at the CDC criteria for reopening shows that not only new cases but also positive test rates, the share of doctor visits for covid-like symptoms, and hospital capacity utilization have deteriorated meaningfully in the last few weeks.”   GDP fell 5% in the first quarter, part of a mostly self-induced recession aimed at stopping the coronavirus spread. It was the biggest one-quarter drop since the fourth quarter of 2008, during the Great Recession. As cases decreased, states slowly began reopening amid hopes that the sharp drawdown would be short-lived. Indeed, even if Goldman’s reduced call is correct, that would mark, by a wide margin, the biggest quarterly rebound since at least 1947. The U.S. has seen 340,000 new virus cases over the past week, a rise of 13.4%. That has come with 3,447 deaths, a 2.9% increase.”

Keep it simple, Stupxxx.   Wear the damn mask!

 

 

How Israel Screwed Up: Anatomy of Catastrophe

July 6, 2020 in Global Crisis Blog, Innovation Blog | Tags: , , , , , , , | 2 comments

How Israel Screwed Up: Anatomy of Catastrophe

By Shlomo Maital

This is the story of how Israel, and its Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, totally screwed up how it handled the pandemic. This, after congratulating itself for being a “model for all nations”. It is based on an article in today’s daily Haaretz by Ido Efrati. It will take me only 695 words. And they are almost too painful to write. Because it is my country, and it is unbearable to see what our leaders have done to it.

   According to the Israeli government press office: as late as on May 7, “Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, today, participated in a conference of the leaders of the countries at the forefront of dealing with the coronavirus pandemic, [whose leaders] sought to learn from the Israeli model for dealing with outbreak zones.”   Really??

   Ten costly mistakes that cost lives:

  1. Very few nurses have been assigned to do contact tracing. And they are not well coordinated. A new contact tracing center does not yet operate – it hasn’t yet received the necessary authority. It now takes 6 days or more to trace a patient’s contacts – it has to be 24-48 hours to stop an outbreak.
  2. PM Netanyahu decided to open all schools fully for all grades in mid-May. He scrapped the previous system of ‘capsules’, and small groups.   And days later, the new Health Minister Y. Edelstein scrapped the requirement that kids wear masks. Too hot, he said. So much for getting adults to wear masks. Schools spread the virus and soon hundreds had to close and quarantine teachers and kids.
  3. It has taken many months for the Health Ministry to increase daily tests to 25,000. Only on May 31 did the Health Minister say that asymptomatic people should be tested, too, if they came in contact with someone infected. Only on June 22 did Dr. Sadetzki (Health Ministry official) order officials to test those quarantined within 48 hours. Result: Many carriers spread the virus widely before they were identified.
  4. Until a week ago, the Health Ministry used a strategy of declaring ‘red zones’ (local hotspots). But because the virus is now so widespread, this failed utterly. And under pressure, the Ministry backed down.
  5. Israelis are exhausted, hungry and jobless. After the PM and other leaders made empty promises and false claims, they no longer believe what they are told. Police are trying to enforce mask-wearing, with little success. Moreover, both the President of Israel and the Prime Minister of Israel broke quarantine laws during Jewish religious holydays, inviting relatives against then-strict lockdown rules – and the Press reported it. This infuriated many Israelis and led to widespread defiance. Now, only about a quarter of those who should be in quarantine actually do so, according to the Health Ministry.
  6. Five months after the pandemic broke out in Israel, critical information is missing. What proportion of Israelis are asymptomatic, with virus? We don’t know. How long does it take to trace patients’ contacts? We don’t know.
  7. Israel has a well-staffed professional experience organization that can best deal with the pandemic. It is the Israel Defense Forces’ Home Front command. It has almost infinite manpower, able to call up trained soldiers for reserve duty. Yet the Prime Minister stubbornly refuses to mobilize the Home Front Command. The reason is transparent. Home Front is under the Defense Ministry, and Netanyahu’s rival Benny Gantz is Defense Minister. What if, heaven forbid, the Home Front succeeded? Gantz would get the credit. No way. It will not happen. As with Trump, Bibi is only, and totally, about Bibi, and not Israel or its wellbeing.
  8. “Israel’s decision making, from the earliest stages of the crisis, has been influenced by only a handful of professionals. …Many professional associations are furious that they can’t even get a foot in the door to influence decision-making.”
  9. “The coronavirus crisis has laid bare years of neglect in the public health system, including its diagnostic laboratories.” The country’s 37 diagnostic labs have for months relied on student volunteers to help. There are too few doctors and too few hospital beds.
  10. And the previous Health Minister, appointed in July 2015, allowed the healthcare infrastructure to degrade – believe it or not, while most civilized nations appoint doctors or veteran healthcare managers to head the Health Ministry, Israel appointed an ultra-Orthodox Hassid who once came to a key pandemic press conference wearing his bear-fur hat in celebration of the Jewish festival Purim. During the pandemic, while in office, he persistently fought against lockdown restrictions on the ultra-Orthodox – and partly as a result, they have suffered disproportionately many cases and deaths.  

 

Mission Accomplished? Uh, Whoops, Not Quite!

July 5, 2020 in Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Mission Accomplished? Uh, Whoops, Not Quite!

By Shlomo Maital

Bush’s Mission Accomplished speech

   A small bit of 17-year-old history: In his “Mission Accomplished” speech (named for a banner displayed above the speaker) United States President George W. Bush spoke on the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln on May 1, 2003.   Bush stated it was the end to major combat operations in Iraq.  We won. Yay!  

   Bush’s claim —and the sign itself—became controversial after warfare in Iraq increased during the Iraqi insurgency. The vast majority of casualties, both military and civilian, occurred after the speech. 

   Fast forward. In the Wall Street Journal, Vice-President Mike Pence declares, just two weeks ago: “There Isn’t a Coronavirus ‘Second Wave’. With testing, treatments and vaccine trials ramping up, we are far better off than the media report.”   Meanwhile, the US is among world leaders with some 50,000 new cases daily. And President Trump? CNN reports: in mid June, “ when U.S. health officials reported nearly 27,000 new Covid-19 cases, President Trump said in a television interview that the virus was “dying out.” He brushed off concerns about an upcoming rally in Tulsa, Okla., because the number of cases there is “very miniscule,” despite the state’s surging infection rate.”

     Mission Accomplished? A victory lap?   Not quite. And people are dying as a result.

     My country Israel is no exception. We are among world leaders in new cases per 1,000 population. And the numbers are rising.   A bloated coalition cabinet is like a carving I once saw, a two headed snake, one head trying to eat the other.   This, after our Prime Minister took ‘credit’ for Israel’s astounding success in defeating the coronavirus.

     And it is no second wave. It is the continued first wave, of a sneaky wily piece of ribonucleic acid that is humiliating the vaunted brainpower of humans, 86 billion brain cells for each of the 8 billion or so people on earth. Two to zero, in favor of the virus.

     No, mission not accomplished. And the arrogance of claiming that it is, is itself criminal.

(Un)Happy Birthday, America – There’s a Hole in your Bucket

July 4, 2020 in Global Crisis Blog, Innovation Blog | Tags: , , , , , , | Leave a comment

(Un)Happy Birthday, America – There’s a Hole in your Bucket

By Shlomo Maital

   Happy birthday, America; you are 244 years old today. But it’s an unhappy birthday.   Here is why.

    “New America” is falling behind “Old Europe”. The term Old Europe was used by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld in January 2003. It was used in scorn. President Trump continues to mock Europe, and even mock even its brilliant German leader Angela Merkel.

     But guess what? Experts believe, as in this New York Times article, that “Europe may bounce back first” (July 3) – long before the US.   But why? America spent relatively far more on relief measures – a staggering $2.7 trillion, or 13% of its GDP!, on economic relief to individuals, firms and states. And more will come soon.

   What went wrong?

   The US spent vast sums on those who did not need it – like big corporations. (Sound Republican to you? Remember the Trump tax cut?). Much money was thrown away through incompetence – thousands of dead people got checks in the mail.   A lot of money went toward unemployment payments – companies laid off people so the government could save them money. So expanding unemployment caused layoffs, rather than prevent them.  America has a terrible leaky bucket – a near-non-existent social safety net. Just when the pandemic really really needed one with no holes in it.

   Europe? Unemployment rose relatively little. The German government reintroduced kurzarbeit– used after the 2008 crisis, in which work hours are shortened and spread around over workers rather than fire or lay off people. Most of Europe simply used its existing safety nets to help those in need, and the safety net expanded nearly automatically. Most people kept their jobs — which means you don’t have to rehire them, something US firms will be hesitant to do.

   In the US, with Trump boasting about 11% unemployment (yes, it’s down from 14%), consumers are highly uncertain about their future. And they are just not spending. With consumption at 70% of GDP, no US recovery is possible without consumer confidence. And it is lacking, especially with an election looming on Nov. 3.  

   America’s bucket is leaky. Somehow it has not managed to create a waterproof bucket for its poor, its ill, its uneducated, its immigrants, etc., in 244 years. So it IS an unhappy birthday.  And the specter of that terrible day in 1619, when the first African slaves landed in America, continues to haunt this troubled nation.

   Now, a strong US leader could look across the ocean and figure out why Europe, old Europe, crusty old Europe, has done so well, and try to copy its social safety net.

   But that would take vision and humility. Those qualities, too, seem to have leaked out of the bucket.

Build Back Better – Toward an Emergence Vision

July 2, 2020 in Global Crisis Blog | Tags: , , , , | Leave a comment

Build Back Better – Toward an Emergence Vision

By Shlomo Maital

   In the US, Israel and other nations, we are seeing a disastrous collapse of leadership. There is no vision regarding the future, and how we are to emerge from the pandemic. Churchill once said, if you’re going through hell – keep going. But where? How? Our leaders shrink into the shadows and fall silent. Let someone else take the blame.

   Here is a blueprint for emergence. Start with a mantra – three words. Build back better. No, we will not go back to the ‘good old days’, they actually weren’t that good, as the virus proved. We will build back – but better.

   How?   We start with a careful audit, by experts. What were the range of social, political, educational and economic failings before the pandemic? Inequality, apathy, ill health, poor schools…   write the entire list.

   Second, strategic plan. How can each of these ills be repaired? And most important, how can we use creativity, with minimal resources, to tackle the problem? Schools can shift to project-based learning – that won’t require huge new resources, kids will thrive.

   The Bible says (Psalms) in Hebrew, without vision, a nation literally falls to pieces:

      . אין חזון יפרע עם    

So  Give us a vision. Build a strategic plan. Tell every part of society where they fit into it and what they must do. Do it bottom up – canvas all of society for ideas. Get people to pull together. Today, in Israel, each interest group – small business, artists, performers – demonstrates on their own, with the guiding principle: the squeakiest wheel gets the most grease. A bad system.

   Crises produce new leaders. I eagerly await the new leaders who will step and bring us their vision – and help us implement it.

One Terrible Picture – Worth Thousands of Words

July 1, 2020 in Global Crisis Blog, Innovation Blog | Tags: , , , , , | Leave a comment

One Terrible Picture – Worth Thousands of Words

By Shlomo Maital

 

New COVID-19 cases in the United States, daily, from early March

The graph above shows new COVID-19 cases daily, for the United States, up to date. It speaks for itself. (The graph is from the New York Times).

This is what happens to a country with inept criminal leadership, or lack of leadership, and a politicized pandemic where wearing masks is ‘unconstitutional’, where political leaders buckle under popular pressure and open the economy too soon – and then find they can’t close it again. Go back to Memorial Day weekend, Monday May 25 – and the crowds that gathered at beaches and parks – and you can see the second wave 14 days later.  And no, President Trump and Vice-President Pence, this is NOT because of increased testing! 

   So nations of the world! Look at this closely. If you make the mistakes the US has made, heaven forbid, this is what awaits you.

   As I write this, new cases in Israel are exploding. But very little is being done.

The World is Unstable: Surprise!

June 28, 2020 in Global Crisis Blog, Innovation Blog | Tags: , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The World is Unstable: Surprise!

By Shlomo Maital

   In my previous blog, I quoted experts who warned that in a globalized world, an epidemic will spread quickly via travelers – quoted in a book published two decades ago by a brilliant science writer Mark Buchanan * and in an article published in the leading science journal NATURE in 1998.

   It is worth another short blog to describe Buchanan’s main message in his book.

     Economics is all wet; beware. The world is inherently unstable, including financial markets; markets are not efficient and no, supply does not always balance demand and no, prices do not always and everywhere reflect true underlying value. The opposite: There are frequent ‘avalanches’, and infrequent but massive huge crashes. Earthquakes are unpredictable; because the plate tectonics that cause them are unstable. So are financial markets. A vast industry, and an army of misguided economists, exist based on an enormous fallacy – prediction is possible. Data prove otherwise. Post hoc explanations of crashes are simply amusing; they are ad hoc, not just post hoc. Both physical and human systems are simply – inherently unstable. It is the way of Nature.

    There is an important personal lesson in Buchanan’s fine book (he has a Ph.D. in theoretical physics). If the world is unstable, then be prepared to adapt to major, sudden crises. Keep a small reserve of resources on hand. Forewarned is forearmed; if you anticipate avalanches, if you are aware they happen, you may be less shocked when they occur. If you are head of a family or a parent, embrace this in your family setting. If you are a junior or senior manager, prepare your organization.

     If you are a political leader, start now – with ‘build back better’, and ‘prepare for an avalanche’ — but, probably, given US, UK, and Brazilian loser-leaders, that is way too much to ask.

 

  • Mark Buchanan:       Ubiquity: Why Catastrophes Happen.       Three Rivers Press, New York: 2001.      

 

 

The Real Culprit of the Pandemic: Globalization

June 27, 2020 in Global Crisis Blog, Innovation Blog | Tags: , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The Real Culprit of the Pandemic: Globalization

By Shlomo Maital

Nov. 9, 1989. The Berlin Wall falls. The two Germany’s unite quickly. The European Union expands. And the age of globalization begins.

December 2019. Wuhan. A novel coronavirus is identified. It spreads globally.  

   Has the age of globalization ended? And – is globalization the true underlying culprit?

   I’ve been reading a remarkable book, two decades old, by a brilliant science writer Mark Buchanan: Ubiquity: Why Catastrophes Happen. Three Rivers Press, New York: 2001.

   In Chapter 8, Buchanan recalls the “six degrees of separation” discovery of social psychologist Stanley Milgrom, in 1967 – in which any two people anywhere can be connected, by no more than six direct links, each link comprising someone you know personally. Based on Milgram’s work, Buchanan writes, two scholars, Watts and Strogatz, modeled such ‘networks’ as a tool for modeling the spread of infectious diseases.   [Duncan Watts and Steve Strogatz. “Collective dynamics of small-world networks”, Nature 393, 1998, pp. 440-442.]

     Their finding: (in 1998): “Watts and Strogatz also modeled the spread of infectious diseases on small-world networks, and found that they spread much faster than they would on ordered networks. What’s more, only a very few shortcut links are necessary to make this happen. This has disturbing implications for how dangerous diseases might be able to spread over the world, carried to or from remote places by just a few long-distance travellers”.

     Explanation: “ordered networks” are regular ‘grids’, where your links are your immediate neighbors. Small-world networks are like ‘six degrees of separation’ disorderly ones, like the kind Milgrom discovered – in other words, real networks as they are in the real world.

   Globalization has massively expanded trade and travel. The benefits have been massive. Emerging markets, especially in Asia, have grown wealthy. Western consumers have been flooded with inexpensive goods from Asia.

   But apparently, the price is the current pandemic. When the whole world is interconnected by flows of goods, people and information, it grows wealthy and prosperous (though not everyone of course) – and also becomes highly vulnerable to pandemics.

   I am, and have been, a big fan of the benefits of globalization.  But as often happens, we ignored the attendant risks.  We were told in 1998 and in 2001. I guess we were not listening too closely.

 

 

 

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