The action sure isn’t over. The armies are still on the field, but I fear the outcome is no longer in doubt and hydroxychloroquine will lose this battle. There are two good studies which show almost exactly no benefit of hydroxychloroquine. They are reveiewed here. Basically the only benefit detected is as a nonspecific anti-inflamatory. […]

Corporate Bond Spreads and the Pandemic The St. Louis FED has an economics blog: The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has caused significant disruption in economic activity across the globe. Financial markets, in particular, have experienced surges in volatility that had not been seen since the 2007-09 financial crisis … The figure below plots the median value for […]

I have repeatedly argued that, based on in vitro evidence, hydroxychloroquine should be prescribed while we wait for the results of clinical trials. Such results were just published. They are very disappointing. The link is to an LA Times Article: latimes.com 2020-04-17 malaria-drugs-fails-to-help-coronavirus-patients-in-controlled-studies On the other hand Early peek at data on Gilead coronavirus drug […]

March housing, latest weekly jobless claims slightly less apocalyptic than expected If I were President, the one industry in the economy that I would be actively trying to prop up is housing. As I have repeated constantly over the past 10+ years, housing is a long leading indicator. The permit that is issued today means […]

Jason Brennan has a new post up doubling down on his earlier criticism of epidemiologists and government policy in response to the COVID crisis.  I responded to his earlier blog posts here.  I am still not convinced, but there are useful lessons to be learned from going through his argument. Brennan continues to claim that […]

James Smith protesting the protestors who are practicing unsafe methods of protest. They congregate in close proximity to others, failed to wear facemasks, threatened those people who were involved in the protest, and by their actions purposely prevented people and healthcare workers from having access to Sparrrow hospital in Lansing, Michigan. Their right to protest […]

World Chess Championship Ends The two best chess players in the world faced off this month, undeterred by lockdowns, travel bans or any other restrictions.  They never had to see each other either. It helped that they were both computer programs.  The former champ, Stockfish, is the strongest of the traditional type of program, designed […]

Coronavirus dashboard for April 16: if new infections have passed peak, what pace of decline can we expect? Here is the update through yesterday (April 15). Significant new items are in italics In the US, the only significant development yesterday was that deaths rose to yet another new daily high, while infections continued to be below […]

What lessons should we draw about the role of government from the COVID-19 epidemic?  I want to address this question in a few posts.  I’m going to start by examining a blog post by the libertarian philosopher Jason Brennan.  Brennan makes the following claims: Many medical journals published misleading papers based on bad statistical analysis […]