Relevant and even prescient commentary on news, politics and the economy.

The biochemistry of how COVID-19 attacks the body: a synopsis of the medical studies

The biochemistry of how COVID-19 attacks the body: a synopsis of the medical studies I’ve been doing some reading over the past several weeks, trying to understand how the COVID-19 virus attacks the human body. Below are quotes I found most noteworthy or interesting from these articles. In essence, they indicate that biochemically the novel […]

Heads up for tomorrow!

Heads up for tomorrow! Tomorrow morning I have a very long post quoting about 20 medical articles at length, explaining (what we think we know so far about) the whole biochemistry of how the novel coronavirus attacks the body. By the time you finish reading it, you will understand a lot about why the disease […]

Jobless claims still point to over 20,000,000 lost jobs in April, 15%+ unemployment rate

Jobless claims still point to over 20,000,000 lost jobs in April, 15%+ unemployment rate As I’ve written in the past few weeks, the number of initial jobless claims correlates roughly with the number of net new jobs added or subtracted in any given month. Normally there is too much noise for it to be of […]

The actual US coronavirus trajectory: “flattening the curve” at least until 2021

The actual US coronavirus trajectory: “flattening the curve” at least until 2021 “Flattening the curve” was not such an appetizing option either, because it meant that *everybody* got infected with the disease during the period of flattening, and so the death toll would still be horrifying, perhaps 1% to 3%. It also meant that the […]

Rates of testing, positive tests, and new infections by State

Rates of testing, positive tests, and new infections by State So that I don’t lose them, I wanted to publish both the rates of testing (and positive tests) by State, as well as the (Rt) or rate of new infections for each. Both of these are as of last week. Here is the rate of […]

Trends in US States compared by coronavirus response

Trends in US States compared by coronavirus response I mentioned over the weekend that I wanted to break out and look at some different aspects of the coronavirus pandemic. Here’s the first: how are States at different ends of the restrictions and testing spectrums faring? Seven States have never even mandated lockdowns. Let’s look at […]

Towards a modern “History of Republics”: a consideration of William Everdell’s “The End of Kings: A History of Republics and Republicans”

Towards a modern “History of Republics”: a consideration of William Everdell’s “The End of Kings: A History of Republics and Republicans” In view of the horrific damage that the Trump Administration has done to the American Republic, during the past year I have done extensive reading of the histories of a number of the most […]

Coronavirus dashboard for April 20: a few positive development

Coronavirus dashboard for April 20: a few positive development Here is the update through yesterday (April 19) As usual, significant developments are in italics. Yesterday saw the biggest number of daily tests, and ratio of total vs. positive tests so far, both positive developments.  The number and rate of daily infections and deaths also declined, but […]

Abbreviated coronavirus dashboard for April 18…In no way is the US ready to “open up” at all.

Abbreviated coronavirus dashboard for April 18 Here is the update through yesterday (April 17) There are some extended comments I want to make about the pandemic, and some graphs comparing States, etc., that are best done separately, so this will be an abbreviated update. Here are yesterday’s numbers. Number and rate of increase of Reported […]