Tag Archives: Hot Topics

The Covid-19 epidemic is creating a painful dilemma for policymakers.  On the one hand, we need to practice social distancing to keep people healthy and to prevent our hospitals from being overwhelmed.  Unfortunately, this strategy is causing a severe economic contraction as people avoid contact with others. An ideal response to this dilemma would have three basic components.  First, we would implement a hard, nation-wide lockdown to slow the spread of...

Alan Collinge of the Student Loan Justice Org. has a petition supporting the cancellation of Student Loan Debt. If we can bail out corporations again, why not bailing out people with excessive student loan debt? The student loan justice.org is counting on you and needs your help with “President Trump: Cancel Student Loans NOW.”  Join student loan justice.org and the 116,064 signers of the petition calling for President Trump to cancel student loan debt....

Coronavirus dashboard for March 28: testing falls further behind- by New Deal democrat Here is the update through yesterday (March 27) 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...

The USA is about to experience the largest fiscal policy shift since World War II. The House is debating whether to add $ 2,200,000,000,000 to the Federal Budget Deficit (counting loans as if they were expenses because that’s what they do). There appears to be a near consensus as all are speaking in favor. It is just possible to guess which are Republicans I’m sure there is a similar near consensus that Rep Thomas Masie of Kentucky, who made them fly to...

For 3 days from an abundance of caution, 4 hours a day of online teaching responsibilities and extreme laziness, I have stayed in an apartment usuaally in a bed. Rome is a bit different than was I went into hibernation. There are people walking around without dogs on a leash. Some cars. There was a guard outside the supermarket absolutely waiting for someone to come out bfore letting someone in. No crowds: no line at cashier. The Deli lady (who I thanked...

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...

Patient privacy prevents precise calculation of the fraction of Covid 19 patients in the USA being treated with Hydroxychloroquine or Chloroquine. However, Hospitals are purchasing hugely increased amounts Christopher Rowland reports. Data gathered in the first 17 days of March by Premier Inc., a large group purchasing organization for 4,000 U.S. hospitals, showed a 300 percent week-over-week increase in orders of chloroquine and a 70 percent...

This is a comment on “Is Anthony Fauci Really Our Truthteller-in-Chief?” by Kevin Drum. I will briefly summarize. Drum quotes from the latest press conference “Is there any evidence to suggest that, as with malaria, it might be used as a prophylaxis against COVID-19? DR. FAUCI: No. The answer is no.” later after Trump says hydroxychloroquine is the cure for Covid 19 Fauci changed his line to Q I would like Dr. Fauci, if you don’t mind, to follow up on...

The best US solution to the coronavirus pandemic: SHUT.IT.DOWN — two weeks of China + one month of South Korea For the last few weeks, I have been screaming at the top of my lungs about “exponential growth.”   That’s because so few people realized the impact such growth could have in a pandemic, over the course of just a few months, even weeks.I first began thinking about this as soon as I read a Tweet by Trevor Bedford a month ago about how coronavirus...

I will never forgive Donald Trump for saying something exceedingly controversial with which I agree. I hate to say this but I agree with Trump and disagree with Fauci on hydroxychloroquine and Remdesivir. Update: But don’t mix the Hydroxychloroquine with Azithromycin“Azithromycin: (Major) Avoid coadministration of hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin.” Thanks Ted Lieu I will discuss hydroxychloroquine here because there is no legal issue. It can be...