Mahar Mangahas on the pandemic, False positives, Sweden

Selected articles by Mahar Mangahas on the pandemic
July 5, 2020

I like these three papers by SWS President Mahar Mangahas. Reposting portions of them below. All  photos here I got from the web.

(1) Allow people the freedom to earn a living 

By: Mahar Mangahas - @inquirerdotnetPhilippine Daily Inquirer / 05:05 AM April 18, 2020 
https://opinion.inquirer.net/129000/allow-people-the-freedom-to-earn-a-living

The responsibility for surviving the COVID-19 pandemic ultimately lies with the Filipino people, not the Philippine government. The government, having been set up by the people, is tasked with helping to protect the people, by means of scientific, intelligent, and credible guidance and assistance….

Unnecessary restrictions on personal movement. As long as persons wear face masks and keep adequate distance from each other, it does not make sense to inhibit them from moving across barangays, cities, or provinces within Luzon. The mere act of moving across a boundary does not imply the act of crowding. Checkpoints do not make sense; in fact, they promote crowding by creating queues where there were none.

Curfews do not make sense; in fact, being able to go somewhere at night lessens the need for it during the day. Use barangay tanods or even Boy Scouts, not armed policemen, to discourage partying. A one-entrance-one-exit policy does not make sense; in fact, having multiple entrances and exits for a public place makes it easier to keep one’s distance. Limiting the hours of groceries or banks does not make sense; in fact, the longer the hours, the shorter the queues (like at outdoor automated teller machines).

Public transportation does not have to be crowded. Trains, buses, taxis, jeepneys, and even tricycles can all be modified/configured to carry only as many face-masked passengers as will allow physical distancing (see “Restore jeepneys and tricycles,” Opinion, 3/21/20). Let associations of transport operators develop their own protocols for disinfecting their vehicles, and screening passengers for symptoms…

Let occupational groups find ways to operate and also observe physical distancing. With the use of face masks and shields, client screening, disinfecting, configuration of premises, and adjustment of business hours, there are ways for dental clinics, barbershops, salons, repair shops, exercise gyms, etc. to operate without compromising public health. Let them do their own protocols, without requiring approval from any agency. As it is now, their clientele will be limited.

A time of pandemic does not require any official determination of “essential” versus “non-essential” products, services, or occupations. What is truly essential is for the people to be able to freely earn a living.

(2) Hunger, fear, caution, dependency 
By: Mahar Mangahas  08:24 AM May 30, 2020 
https://opinion.inquirer.net/130306/hunger-fear-caution-dependency

…from Social Weather Stations’ media releases in the past week, based on its May 4-10, 2020 mobile phone survey about the COVID-19 crisis.

1. The hunger rate exploded. The proportion of families that experienced hunger due to lack of food, in the three months before being interviewed, was 16.7 percent, almost double the rate of December 2019, when previously surveyed.

2. COVID-19 brought fear of illness to a record high. The survey found 73 percent of Filipinos worried a great deal that they or someone in their family might get infected by COVID-19. This compares to an extremely worried 49 percent about contracting the Ebola virus in 2014, 56 percent about getting Swine Flu in 2009, 48 percent about Bird Flu in 2006, 62 percent about Bird Flu in 2004, and 54 percent about severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in 2003, based on SWS national surveys in those times.

3. In line with their fear of COVID-19, the great majority of Filipinos take proper precautions. With respect to using a face mask when going out, the SWS survey found 77 percent saying they do this always.

4. The lockdown has caused a state of dependency among the people. Given its continued reluctance for the people to resume their customary livelihoods—in particular, its sluggishness in permitting ordinary public transport to operate—the government must keep devising schemes to keep millions of people on “amelioration,” and new ways to finance the doles. Otherwise it may bring on a second wave of hunger.

(3) Try the invisible hand
By: Mahar Mangahas -  05:05 AM July 04, 2020
https://opinion.inquirer.net/131421/try-the-invisible-hand

At this stage of the pandemic, the main problem afflicting the economy is the heavy hand of government.

After over three months of lockdown, only some—I think less than half—of the nation’s jeepneys are returning to service now. It is not because jeepney operators (the supply side, in tens of thousands) are unwilling to provide the customary service, or because commuters (the demand side, in the millions) are unwilling to use the customary service.

It is because the government is unwilling to allow the supply and demand sides to freely transact with each other. Why have a few sectors—agriculture, banking, the stock exchange, business process outsourcing, offshore gaming—always been allowed freedom to operate, but not the extremely vital transportation sector, which links very many sectors together?

Without need for prodding, public transport operators have reconfigured their vehicles to cope better with the pandemic. Without need for special warning, public transport users have limited their demands to travel. Both sides do this out of their own self-interest, for the sake of their livelihood and health.

This is how a free market works, for the benefit of both sellers and buyers. Of course, prices of commodities and services shall have to adjust accordingly, in order to equalize demand and supply; so be it. (That’s the time for parties that feel socially mistreated to seek assistance from government.)…

Adam Smith, one of the founders of economics, observed centuries ago (“The Theory of Moral Sentiment,” 1759; “The Wealth of Nations,” 1776) that there is “an invisible hand” that keeps an economy in order, and benefits society as a whole, even as individual people freely pursue their personal self-interest.

It was my good fortune to study at the University of Chicago, and learn first-hand from the great economic freedom fighter Milton Friedman (“Capitalism and Freedom,” 1962: “Free to Choose,” 1980). For Friedman, freedom is the end, and capitalism is a means.

I am a founding member of the Foundation for Economic Freedom (fef.org.ph), where the prevailing general sentiment, I believe, is that the people’s economic well-being has already suffered too long from the government’s overly restrictive policies.

The authorities, both national and local, have issued too many questionable rules. Preventing senior citizens and youngsters from going out is discriminatory. Many families have children cared for solely by the grandparents; when outdoors, they would not want to walk six feet apart, for the children’s security.

Curfews are not justified by the pandemic. The COVID-19 virus does not travel any more swiftly by night than by day. Using the nighttime for work (as well as play) allows more physical distancing in the daytime.

Family members who live indoors unmasked do not need to avoid close contact with each other when outdoors. It is cruel to disallow masked riding on a motorcycle behind a spouse, parent, or sibling (and to question their family relationship is an invasion of privacy).

The invisible hand promotes cooperation without coercion, at no financial expense. 
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False positives and Sweden success in "flattening the curve"
July 18, 2020

A good FB post here by Dr Roy Spencer, an academic climatologist from U. of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) yesterday July 17. 

Roy W. Spencer
A COVID-19 story & the dangers of politicizing a virus:

I just asked a friend in a major U.S. city who owns a successful medical testing business his opinion about masks. He is on the advisory board to one of the top hospitals in the country (you'd recognize the name), and is an expert in immunology, epidemiology, and a couple other medical-ologies. His wife is an ER nurse. They both believe that the public wearing masks is probably doing more harm than good, because cloth masks are being reused, laid down on unsanitary surfaces, and recycling bacteria from the wearer.

But that wasn't the main point he wanted to make.

He told the story of a friend whose wife recently got very sick with COVID-like symptoms and was admitted to a very good hospital in the city. She was told she had COVID by three top medical professionals.

The husband called my friend to say her health was failing and was not expected to live. My friend told him to INSIST she be tested for other illnesses. They did, and discovered she had Legionnaires disease, which is bacterial, not viral. She was treated and released a day or so later.

(He also related that he has personally known more people to commit suicide in recent months than have had COVID.)

COVID-mania is causing harm. "Following the science" means making rational decisions, but when the government pays hospitals extra $$ for having COVID patients, you can bet that every illness will suddenly look more like COVID than before the financial incentive existed.
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Two recent good articles I discovered, 

(1) Why Sweden Succeeded in “Flattening the Curve” and New York Failed 
Wednesday, July 15, 2020
By Jonathan “Jon” Miltimore, Managing Editor of FEE.org
https://fee.org/articles/why-sweden-succeeded-in-flattening-the-curve-and-new-york-failed/

The reason New York failed to "flatten the curve" and Sweden succeeded probably has little to do with lockdowns.

Sweden took such an approach (NO LOCKDOWNS) for two reasons:

First, as Tegnell has publicly stated, there is LITTLE TO NO SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE that lockdowns work.

Second, as evidence today shows, lockdowns come with WIDESPREAD UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES: mass unemployment, recession, social unrest, psychological deterioration, suicides, and drug overdoses.

(2) The Media's Jihad against Sweden's No-Lockdown Policy Ignores Key Facts
07/14/2020   Ryan McMaken 
https://mises.org/power-market/medias-jihad-against-swedens-no-lockdown-policy-ignores-key-facts

As soon as it became clear that the Swedish state had no plans to implement harsh lockdowns, global media organizations like the New York Times have implemented what can only be described as an ideological jihad against Sweden.

For many weeks, there has been an incessant drumbeat of articles with titles touting the "the failure of the country's no-lockdown coronavirus strategy," that "Sweden Has Become the World's Cautionary Tale," and "How Sweden Screwed Up."

Indeed, looking at this, one might conclude that thanks to Sweden we know what both lockdown and nonlockdown countries look like: they look remarkably similar in some cases.

My Swedish friend Peter Eriksson also commented, The Swedish government is getting a lot of shit since the are not promoting use of masks as general. It can be useful in some situations such in small isolated areas with bad air flow. But in open spaces the use of masks increase the possibility to get sick.

Back to the Philippines.

Pneumonia, an infectious and contagious disease, has killed on average 57,278/year, 2016-2018 in the country. Or 157 deaths per day, every single day. We never heard a single proposal to have a lockdown to stop the spread of pneumonia.

Tuberculosis, another infectious and contagious disease, has killed 23,409 people in the PH in 2018, average 64 TB deaths per day, every single day. No proposal for any lockdown to control the spread of TB.

Now virus cases and deaths are rising recently, why?

At least two possible reasons. One, these are deaths many weeks ago and reported only recently. And two, just my hypothesis -- hard lockdown the past four months didn't prevent the spread of the virus. But it made many people poorer, hungrier, sicklier, have weaker immune system and become more vulnerable to viral and bacterial infections, diseases.

Open up the economy, remove the government lockdown and encourage more personal responsibility in personal and household hygiene, scared people to have double mask, double the 6ft social distancing if they want. But the economy must open up, wide and clear. Lockdown dictatorship should end.