The Angry Bear

Congress and the Fed Could Ensure Universal Protection During the Pandemic No matter how well or poorly the federal government addresses the overall economic crisis, millions of vulnerable people will be left unprotected.  Homeless people, incarcerated people, immigrants, people in fringe, off-the-books employment like day labor—unless steps are taken that specifically target them, they are staring into the abyss. This is fundamentally a local problem. ...

A clinical trial of hydroxychloroquine with 30 patients (15 treated 15 controls) has been completed in Shanghai. It is the first genuine randomized trial. It reports no evidence that hydroxychloroquine works at all. It is true, that given the principal outcome measure defined in advance, the trial has no power. Not low power, 0 power. In a hypothetical, if all patients treated with hydroxychloroquine became healthy immediately with no symptoms and no...

Not surprisingly, many business owners are upset to discover that their business interruption policies do not cover losses due to pandemics.  Although it is easy enough to understand their frustration, it is important to understand the underlying economics.  (Full disclosure, I worked in the property casualty industry for many years.) The main business of insurance companies is risk pooling.  They take premiums from (say) large numbers of drivers, and...

Massive Scandal or a Massive Misunderstanding of Regs and Laws for Orphan Drugs Most of you know, I have been writing on healthcare for a long time and much of it has been negative about healthcare and the costs. I am not defending Gilead’s marketing of Remdesivir; but, a few articles (Common Dreams, The Intercept, etc.) written and the pundits amongst us appear to have misunderstood the issue for Remdesivir’s status. I can understand why people would...

The recent insider trading by members of Congress (notably but not exclusively by Senator Burr) is appalling.  One policy response – advocated for by Elizabeth Warren – would prohibit MOCs from investing in the stock of individual companies, requiring them instead to invest in mutual funds.  This would prevent the type of corruption evident in the Chris Collins case.  However, under this proposal MOCs could still have cashed out of stock funds and moved...

In case you missed it, here's the recent ad from Republicans for the Rule of Law featuring President Trump's own words on the pandemic. pic.twitter.com/mExr5eGqhr — Bill Kristol (@BillKristol) March 22, 2020

AFL-CIO has a Plan From the AFL-CIO website: PRIORITIES OF THE LABOR MOVEMENT TO ADDRESS THE CORONAVIRUS: PROTECT FRONT-LINE WORKERS Streamline approaches for allocating and distributing personal protective equipment to working people in greatest need. Issue a workplace safety standard to protect front-line workers and other at-risk workers from infectious diseases. Provide workplace controls, protocols, training and personal protective equipment....

Lockdowns work 1. San Francisco (lockdown ordered March 16) vs. New York City (lockdown ordered March 20) 2. San Francisco vs. Miami-Dade County (no lockdown) 3. Kentucky vs. Tennessee 4. Italy Lockdowns work. We only need complete lockdowns a few weeks, during which we ramp up manufacture and supplies to test kits and emergency medical equipment like masks and ventilators.

Coronavirus dashboard for March 24 Here is the update through yesterday (March 23) In order to succeed in containing the pandemic, I believe that the US needs 2 weeks of China (nearly complete lockdown) followed by at least a month of South Korea (very aggressive and widespread testing). At minimum, that means at least 50% of the US population under lockdown and a ratio of 15:1 in tests to results showing infection. The recent exponential growth of...

Meanwhile while we are pre-occupied with corvid-19 comes this news from  Rolling Stone: The Trump Department of Justice has asked Congress to craft legislation allowing chief judges to indefinitely hold people without trial and suspend other constitutionally-protected rights during coronavirus and other emergencies, according to a report by Politico’s Betsy Woodruff Swan. … The DOJ has requested Congress allow any chief judge of a district court to pause...