The best article I have read on the COVID-19 pandemic is An Epistemic Crisis, by Jeffrey A. Tucker, on the website of the American Institute for Economic Research (AIER), an eminent pro-freedom think tank. This article, however, is not merely economic; it is primarily epistemological, as its title suggests.
I wish I could quote the whole article. Instead, I urge readers to click on the link above to read the whole article before returning to read the rest of mine.
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Thank you for returning to my article. The only thing in the article by Tucker that I disagree with is the “update” at the end. We do not know that the U.S. death rate is falling. Most of the U.S. cases have been identified in the last few days. We do not yet know whether these new cases will end in death; therefore, these new cases cannot be included in the denominator to calculate the death rate. Moreover, in addition to the 553 already dead in the U.S. as of March 23, 1,040 are in serious or critical condition.
Here is the best news yet regarding COVID-19 in Utah, where I live:
Coronavirus testing is now available to Utah patients with symptoms, regardless of whether they’ve had contact with a confirmed patient, University of Utah Health and ARUP Laboratories announced on Monday.
“As of today, ARUP laboratories can do 1,500 tests for coronavirus each day,” said Michael Good, CEO of U. Health. “[The lab] anticipates a capacity of more than 3,000 as long as sufficient supplies remain available.”
But is this good State news translating to good local news? In proportion to population, we in Iron County–the rural county where I live–should be doing 150 tests per day. Are we? This is the most important thing that our community—private and public—should be working on. Everyone with symptoms, plus every health care worker, every food service worker, every resident who has recently traveled to a major city (added 3/24.2020), and every worker who interacts with the public must be tested. Also, we must do random testing of the county population–including those who are symptom-free–to ascertain how wide-spread the virus is.
Once we know who is infected and who is not, the infected can stay home, and everyone else can go out and be productive and do errands for the infected.
Our great nation squandered our lead time when the CDC and FDA hampered private testing. Taiwan (which acted decisively even before COVID-19 tests were available) and South Korea did better than we did, because they started screening and testing early. But the U.S. and our great state of Utah are now making a comeback. The sleeping giant has awakened. But Iron County can do even better. We still have some lead time that our nation squandered. There are no reported COVID-19 cases in Iron County … yet. But today there are four cases in adjacent Washington County (in additional to the one traveler who was quarantined early). The virus will come here, and probably already is here, and many of our loved ones may die unless we act decisively.
In South Korea, where many of the cases have already resolved either in death or recovery, the death rate is 3.4%, more than thirty times the death rate from our typical flu. What is saving the people of South Korea is not a low death rate, but instead a low number of new cases–because of testing.
Everyone in town with any influence should work to get the resources here to do extensive testing.
Many in town have complained about the heavy hand of government in this crisis. Fair enough. But what I am calling for is not a matter of using coercive government. It is a matter of free individuals recognizing an emergency and handling it. If Salt Lake County can do 3,000 tests a day, surely we can find a way to do at least 150 a day.
And if we demonstrate that we know who is infected and therefore know how to stop the spread of this virus in our community, then there surely is no basis for anyone outside our community to restrict our freely chosen actions.
Recall this passage from Tucker:
“The contrast with South Korea, where infections have fallen and fallen, is striking. There were no shutdowns, no geographic quarantines, no panics. Society was open for business. Life went on as normal but for one thing: people had access to testing, which is to say that people were given access to the essential and most important piece of information that was necessary at the time.”
This strategy–to focus on testing before the virus spreads out of control–can be applied across rural America. The U.S. was slow to learn from the errors (and sins) of China. But rural America still has time to learn from the errors of urban America. For the most part, the virus has hit the cities–the main centers of international travel–first. We in rural America have a second chance.
Fool us twice, shame on us.
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3/24/2020: I learned of the article by Tucker from Raymond Niles and Tony Donadio on Facebook.