Tag Archives: PPE

Teachers Unions and Educational Hostage-Taking

14 Sunday Feb 2021

Posted by in Education, Pandemic, Unions

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Intelligent public policy is all too often undermined by policy makers incapable of properly assessing risks. The Biden Administration is setting new standards in this regard with its so-called “return to school” effort. It’s difficult to know how much of it is sheer stupidity and how much is pandering to teachers unions. Equal parts is probably a reasonable approximation.

The public teachers unions have consistently opposed reopening since remote learning began last spring, despite reams of data showing the safety of school environments. Even the CDC agrees! Oh, but wait: the CDC just issued new guidelines for reopening, which among other things require six feet of distancing rather than the three feet Director Rochelle Walensky claimed was adequate just a few months ago. Obviously, this reduces the number of students many existing school buildings can accommodate.

COVID transmission in schools is “extremely rare”. And in addition, remote education is sorely lacking in effectiveness. Teachers who truly care about educating their students should be giving the unions an earful. Not only has learning been compromised, but remote learning has increased the achievement gap between the best students and those in the lower part of the distribution.

Private schools have been open and as the map above shows, public schools in a number of states are largely open to in-person learning. Where that’s not the case, public school buildings are often still being used by children. They’re under the supervision of adults, but not teachers! As Matt Welch says:

“… many of the empty school buildings in largely closed districts are not in fact empty—they are filled with kids, being supervised by adults, just not adults who belong to teachers unions.”

Incidentally, many adults with children now at home, rather than in school, have been forced to leave the labor force, and many of them are women. As Michael Watson asks, why are advocates of working women so silent on this point? And this is to say nothing of the health care workers diverted, during a pandemic, from patient care by the need to manage children at home.

In December, Joe Biden promised to reopen “most” K – 12 schools within his first one-hundred days in office. Shortly after his inauguration, that promise became “most” K – 8 schools. As Welch notes, now the goal has been made a bit more precise, and it’s a complete sham: the Administration wants at least half of schools to be “open” for in-person learning at least one day a week! But we’re already well ahead of that! (And see here.)

On top of that, the federal government is playing the interloper here: reopening is not a federal decision. Ah, but Biden wants $130 billion in federal money earmarked to aid schools in their reopening efforts. Anthony Fauci has decided the stimulus is necessary for schools to reopen, his latest in a series of embarrassing policy flip-flops. The funds targeted at schools would be spent in a variety of ways, including PPE, COVID tests, new ventilation systems, and enhancement of remote learning to accommodate smaller (and distanced) in-person class sizes. Some of the funds are likely to make their way into teacher pay and to shore up pensions. One thing is certain: the unions want that money, and they will come back for more!

The unions also argue that teachers should be prioritized for vaccines, which would place them ahead of groups facing drastically higher risks. This is flat-out callous, insane, and evil. Again, the risk of COVID to teachers and children is low, while the elderly population faces staggeringly higher risks. Vaccinating teachers ahead of the elderly would cost many thousands of lives on balance.

This article from Education Next by Darrell Bradford describes the conditions for reopening demanded by teachers unions as the culmination of several years of activism. The unions contributed mightily to Joe Biden’s election campaign, of course. Their overwrought posture on teacher safety aside, the unions’ obstinance on the question of reopening is intended as leverage in the legislative push for Biden’s school aid package. Here’s Bradford:

“In other words, if you’ve wondered what a national teacher strike might look like and what might cause teachers across the country to arrest local economies and subject millions of students to instruction that may lock in deep learning losses, it’s just like this.”

The schools are safe, remote learning is substandard, and isolation is damaging to children’s’ emotional well being. Union demands for continuing limitations on in-person learning and requirements for reopening are not just unreasonable, but dastardly. That the Biden Administration is crafting its reopening policy and spending initiatives to appease the unions is motivated more by politics than the interests of children and their families. It’s time for parents and other true advocates to let their school administrators, elected representatives, and government officials know that the unions do not have their children’s interests at heart. And well-informed teachers should demand that their union representatives stop playing politics with the educational goals to which they’ve devoted their careers.

COVID Politics and Collateral Damage

26 Sunday Jul 2020

Posted by in Pandemic, Public Health

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Policymakers, public health experts, and the media responded to the coronavirus in ways that have often undermined public health and magnified the deadly consequences of the pandemic. Below I offer several examples of perverse politics and policy prescriptions, and a few really bad decisions by certain elected officials. Some of the collateral damage was intentional and motivated by an intent to inflict political damage on Donald Trump, and people of good faith should find that grotesque no matter their views on Trump’s presidency.

Politicized Treatment

The smug dismissal of hydroxychloraquine as Trumpian foolishness was a crime against humanity. We now know HCQ works as an early treatment and as a prophylactic against infection. It’s has been partly credited with stanching “hot spots” in India as well as contributing strongly to control of the contagion in Switzerland and in a number of other countries. According to epidemiologist Harvey Risch of the Yale School of Public Health, HCQ could save 75,000 to 100,000 lives if the drug is widely used. This is from Dr. Risch’s OpEd in Newsweek:

“On May 27, I published an article in the American Journal of Epidemiology (AJE) entitled, ‘Early Outpatient Treatment of Symptomatic, High-Risk COVID-19 Patients that Should be Ramped-Up Immediately as Key to the Pandemic Crisis.’ That article, published in the world’s leading epidemiology journal, analyzed five studies, demonstrating clear-cut and significant benefits to treated patients, plus other very large studies that showed the medication safety. …

Since [then], seven more studies have demonstrated similar benefit. In a lengthy follow-up letter, also published by AJE, I discuss these seven studies and renew my call for the immediate early use of hydroxychloroquine in high-risk patients.”

Risch is careful to couch his statements in forward-looking terms, but this also implies that tens of thousands of lives could have been saved, or patients might have recovered more readily and without lasting harm, had use of the drug not been restricted. The FDA revoked its Emergency Use Authorization for HCQ on June 15th, alleging that it is not safe and has little if any benefit. An important rationale cited in the FDA’s memo was an NIH study of late-stage C19 patients that found no benefit and potential risks to HCQ, but this is of questionable relevance because the benefit appears to be in early-stage treatment or prophylaxis. Poor research design also goes for this study and this study, while this study shared in some shortcomings (e.g., and no use of and/or controls for zinc) and a lack of statistical power. Left-wing outlets like Politico seemed almost gleeful, and blissfully ignorant, in calling those studies “nails in the coffin” for HCQ. Now, I ask: putting the outcomes of the research aside, was it really appropriate to root against a potential treatment for a serious disease, especially back in March and April when there were few treatment options, but even now?

Then we have the state governors who restricted the use of HCQ for treating C19, such as Gretchen Whitmer (MI) and Steve Sisolak (NV). Andrew Cuomo (NY) decided that HCQ could be dispensed only for hospital use, exactly the wrong approach for early stage treatment. And all of this resistance was a reaction to Donald Trump’s optimism about the promise of HCQ. Yes, there was alarm that lupus patients would be left without adequate supplies, but the medication is a very cheap, easy to produce drug, so that was never a real danger. Too much of the media and politicians have been complicit in denying a viable treatment to many thousands of C19 victims. If you were one of the snarky idiots putting it down on social media, you are either complicit or simply a poster child for banal evil.

Seeding the Nursing Homes

The governors of several states issued executive orders to force nursing homes to accept C19 patients, which was against CMS guidance issued in mid-March. The governors were Andrew Cuomo (NY), Gretchen Whitmer (MI), Gavin Newsom (CA), Tom Wolf (PA), and Phil Murphy (PA). This was a case of stupidity more than anything else. These institutions are home to the segment of the population most vulnerable to the virus, and they have accounted for about 40% of all C19 deaths. Nursing homes were ill-prepared to handle these patients, and the governors foolishly and callously ordered them to house patients who required a greater level of care and who represented an extreme hazard to other residents and staff.

Party & Protest On

Then of course we had the mayor of New York City, Bill De Blasio, who urged New Yorkers to get out on the town in early March. That was matched in its stupidity by the array of politicians and health experts who decided, having spent months proselytizing the need to “stay home”, that it was in their best interests to endorse participation in street protests that were often too crowded to maintain effective social distance. That’s not a condemnation of those who sought to protest peacefully against police brutality, but it was not a good or consistent recommendation in the domain of public health. Thankfully, the protests were outside!

Testing, Our Way Or the Highway

The FDA and CDC were guilty of regulatory overreach in preventing early testing for C19, and were responsible for many lives lost early in the pandemic. By the time the approved CDC tests revealed that the virus was ramping up drastically in March, the country was already behind in getting a handle on the spread of the virus, quarantining the infected, and tracing their contacts. There is no question that this cost lives.

Masks… Maybe, But Our Way Or the Highway

U.S. public health authorities were guilty of confused messaging on the efficacy of masks early in the pandemic. As Joel Zinberg notes in City Journal, Anthony Fauci admitted that his own minimization of the effectiveness of masks was motivated by a desire to prevent a shortage of PPE for health care workers:

“In discouraging mask use, Fauci—for decades, the nation’s foremost expert on viral infectious diseases—was not acting as a neutral interpreter of settled science but as a policymaker, concerned with maximizing the utility of the limited supply of a critical item. An economist could have told him that there was no need to misinform the public. Letting market mechanisms work and relaxing counterproductive regulations would ease shortages. Masks for health-care workers would be available if we were willing to pay higher prices; those higher prices, in turn, would elicit more mask production.”

Indeed, regulators made acquisition of adequate supplies of PPE more difficult than necessary via compliance requirements, “price gouging” rules, and import controls.

Bans on Elective Surgery

Another series of unnecessary deaths was caused by various bans on elective surgeries across the U.S. (also see here), and we’re now in danger of repeating that mistake. These bans were thought to be helpful in preserving hospital capacity, but hospitals were significantly underutilized for much of the pandemic. Add to that the fright inspired by official reaction to C19, which keeps emergency rooms empty, and you have a universe of diverse public health problems to grapple with. As I said on this blog a couple of months ago:

“… months of undiagnosed cardiac and stroke symptoms; no cancer screenings, putting patients months behind on the survival curve; deferred procedures of all kinds; run-of-the-mill infections gone untreated; palsy and other neurological symptoms anxiously discounted by victims at home; a hold on treatments for all sorts of other progressive diseases; and patients ordinarily requiring hospitalization sent home. And to start back up, new health problems must compete with all that deferred care. Do you dare tally the death and other worsened outcomes? Both are no doubt significant.”

Lockdowns

The lockdowns were unnecessary and ineffectual in their ability to control the spread of the virus. A study of 50 countries published by The Lancet last week found the following:

“Increasing COVID-19 caseloads were associated with countries with higher obesity … median population age … and longer time to border closures from the first reported case…. Increased mortality per million was significantly associated with higher obesity prevalence … and per capita gross domestic product (GDP) …. Reduced income dispersion reduced mortality … and the number of critical cases …. Rapid border closures, full lockdowns, and wide-spread testing were not associated with COVID-19 mortality per million people.”

That should have been obvious for a virus that holds little danger for prime working-age cohorts who are most impacted by economic lockdowns.

Like the moratoria on elective surgeries, lockdowns did more harm than good. Livelihoods disappeared, business were ruined, savings were destroyed, dreams were shattered, isolation set in, and it continues today. These kinds of problems are strongly associated with health troubles, family dysfunction, drug and alcohol abuse, and even suicide. It’s ironic that those charged with advising on matters pertaining to public health should focus exclusively on a single risk, recommending solutions that carry great risk themselves without a second thought. After all, the protocol in reviewing new treatments sets the first hurdle as patient safety, but apparently that didn’t apply in the case of shutdowns.

Even as efforts were made to reopen, faulty epidemiological models were used to predict calamitous outcomes. While case counts have risen in many states in the U.S. in June and July, deaths remain far below model predictions and far below deaths recorded during the spring in the northeast.

One last note: I almost titled this post “Attack of the Killer Morons”, but as a concession to what is surely a vain hope, I decided not to alienate certain readers right from the start.

 

 

Trump and Coronavirus

26 Tuesday May 2020

Posted by in Pandemic, Public Health, Risk Management, Stimulus, Trump Administration

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It’s a bit early to fully evaluate President Trump’s performance in dealing with the coronavirus pandemic, but there are a number of criteria on which I might assign marks. I’ll address some of those below, but in so doing I’m reminded of Jerry Garcia’s quip that he was “shopping around for something no one will like.” That might be how this goes. Of course, many of the sub-topics are worthy of lengthier treatment. The focus here is on the pandemic and not more general aspects of his performance in office, though there is some unavoidable overlap.

General “Readiness”

Many have criticized the Trump Administration for not being “ready” for a pandemic. I assign no grade on that basis because absolutely no one was ready, at least not in the West, so there is no sound premise for judgement. I also view the very general charge that Trump did not provide “leadership” as code for either “I don’t like him”, or “he refused to impose more authoritarian measures”, like a full-scale nationwide lockdown. Such is the over-prescriptive instinct of the Left.

Equally misleading is the allegation that Trump had “disbanded” the White House pandemic response team, and I have addressed that here. First, while the NSC would play a coordinating role, pandemic response is supposed to be the CDC’s job, when it isn’t too busy with diseases of social injustice to get it done. Second, it was John Bolton who executed a reorganization at the NSC. There were two high profile departures from the team in question at the time, and one one was a resignation. Most of the team’s staff remained with the NSC with the same duties as before the reirganization.

Finally, there was the matter of a distracting impeachment on false charges. This effort lasted through the first three years of Trump’s administration, finally culminating in January 2020. Perhaps the Administration would have had more time to focus on what was happening in China without the histrionics from the opposition party. So whatever else I might say below, these factors weigh toward leniency in my appraisal of Trump’s handing of the virus.

Messaging: C

As usual, Trump’s messaging during the pandemic was often boorish and inarticulate. His appearances at coronavirus briefings were no exception, often cringeworthy and sometimes featuring misinterpretations of what his team of experts was saying. He was inconsistent in signaling optimism and pessimism, as were many others such as New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio. It shifted from “the virus is about like the flu” in February to a more sober assessment by mid-March. This was, however, quite consistent with the messaging from Dr. Anthony Fauci over the same time frame, as well as the World Health Organization (WHO). Again, no one really knew what to expect, so it’s understandable. A great deal of that can be ascribed to “the fog of war”.

Delegation and Deference: B

Trump cannot be accused of ignoring expert advice through the episode. He was obviously on-board with Fauci, Dr. Deborah Birx, Dr. Robert Redfield, and other health care advisors on the “15 Days to Slow the Spread” guidelines issued on March 16. His messaging wavered during those 15 days, expressing a desire to fully reopen the nation by Easter, which Vice President Michael Pence later described as “aspirational”. Before the end of March, however, Trump went along with a 30-day extension of the guidelines. Finally, by mid-April, the White House released guidelines for “Opening Up America Again“, which was a collaboration between Trump’s health care experts and the economic team. Trump agreed that the timeline for reopening should be governed by “the data”. There is no question, however, that Trump was chomping at the bit for reopening at several stages of this process. I see value in that positioning, as it conveys an intent to reopen asap and that people should have confidence in progress toward that goal.  

International Travel Bans: A

If anyone wonders why the world was so thoroughly blindsided by the coronavirus, look no further than China’s failure to deliver a proper warning as 2019 drew to a close. Wuhan, China was ground zero; the virus spread to the rest of the world with travelers out of Wuhan and other Chinese cities. The White House announced severe restrictions on flights from China on January 31, including a two-week quarantine for returning U.S. citizens. In retrospect, it wasn’t a minute too soon, yet for that precaution, Trump was attacked as a racist by the Left. In early February, WHO actually said travel bans were unnecessary, among other missteps. Other bans were instituted on entry from Iran and Brazil, as well as entry from Europe in early March, as countries around the globe closed their borders. Trump’s actions on incoming travelers were prescient, so I’ll score this one for Trump. Some of these travel restrictions can and should be eased now, and certainly that is expected in coming months, so we’ll see how well that process is managed.

Deference to States: A-

As a federalist, I was pleased that Trump and his team left most of the specifics on closures and bans on public gatherings up to state and local governments. That allowed more targeted mitigation efforts as dictated by local conditions and, to some extent, public opinion. This is a classic case of “laboratory federalism” whereby the most effective policies can be identified, though as we’ve seen, there’s no guarantee less successful states will emulate them. I grade Trump well on this one.

On reopening, too, Trump has been a consistent advocate of allowing flexility where local conditions permit, though he wrongly claimed he had “total authority” over ending social distancing rules. It’s hard to square that remark with his general stand on the issue of autonomy except as a tactic to strong-arm certain governors on other points.   

CDC/FDA Snafus: D

I applaud the Administration for its emphasis on the salutary effects of deregulation, but Trump went along with some major pieces of “expert advice” that were not only poor from regulatory perspective, but an affront to federalism. One was a directive issued by the CDC to delay “all elective surgeries, non-essential medical, surgical, and dental procedures during the 2019 Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak“. (See my post “Suspending Medical Care in the Name of Public Health“.)

This is exactly the kind of “one size fits all” regulatory policy that has proven so costly, sacrificing not just economic activity but lives and care for the sick, creating avoidable illnesses and complications. The idea was to assure that adequate health care resources were available to treat an onslaught of coronavirus patients, but that was unneeded in most jurisdictions. And while the contagion was in it’s early “exponential” phase at the time, a more nuanced approach could have been adopted to allow different geographic areas and facilities more discretion, especially for different kinds of patients, or perhaps something less than a complete suspension of care. In any case, the extensions into May were excessive. I must grade Trump poorly for allowing this to happen, despite what must have been extreme pressure to follow “expert advice” on the point and the others discussed earlier.

That’s not the only point on which I blame Trump for caving to the CDC. In a case of massive regulatory failure, the CDC and FDA put the U.S. well over a month behind on testing when the first signs of the virus appeared here. Not only did they prohibit private labs and universities from getting testing underway, insisting on exclusive use of the CDC’s own tests, they also distributed faulty tests in early February that took over a month to replace. The FDA also enforced barriers to imported N95-type masks during the pandemic. Trump tends to have a visceral understanding of the calcifying dangers of regulation, but he let the so-called “experts” call the shots here. Big mistake, and Trump shares the blame with these agencies.  

Health Resources: B-

Managing the emergency distribution of PPE and ventilators to states did not go as smoothly as might have been hoped. The shortage itself left FEMA with the unenviable task of allocating quantities that could never satisfy all demands. A few states were thought to have especially acute needs, but there was also an obligation to hold stockpiles against potential requests from other states. In fact, a situation of this kind creates an incentive for states to overstate their real needs, and there are indications that such was the case. Trump sparred with a few governors over these allocations. There is certainly blame to be shared, but I won’t grade Trump down for this.

Vaccines and Treatments: C+

 

The push to develop vaccines might not achieve success soon, if ever, but a huge effort is underway. Trump gets some of the credit for that, as well as the investment in capacity now to produce future vaccine candidates in large quantities. As for treatments, he was very excited about the promise of hydroxychloraquine, going so far as to take it himself with zinc, a combination for which no fully randomized trial results have been reported (the recent study appearing in the Lancet on HCQ taken by itself has been called into question). Trump also committed an unfortunate gaffe when the DHS announced the results of a study showing that sunlight kills coronavirus in a matter of minutes, as do bleach and other disinfectants. Trump mused that perhaps sunlight or some form of disinfectant could be used as a treatment for coronavirus patients. He might have been thinking about an old and controversial practice whereby blood is exposed to UV light and then returned to the body. Later, he said he used the term “disinfectant” sarcastically, but he probably meant to say “euphemistically” …. I’m not sure he knows the difference. In any case, his habit of speculating on such matters is often unhelpful, and he loses points for that.

Fiscal Policy: B

The several phases of the economic stimulus program were a collaboration between the Trump Administration and Congress. A reasonably good summary appears here. The major parts were the $2.3 trillion CARES Act in late March and a nearly $500 billion supplemental package in late April. These packages were unprecedented in size. Major provisions were direct cash payments and the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), which provides loans and grants to small businesses. The execution of both was a bit clunky, especially PPP, which placed a burden on private banks to extend the loans but was sketchy in terms of qualifications. The extension of unemployment compensation left some workers with more benefits than they earned in their former jobs, which could be an impediment to reopening. There were a number of other reasonable measures in these packages and the two smaller bills that preceded them in March. A number of these measures were well-targeted and inventive, such as waiving early withdrawal penalties from IRA and 401(k) balances. The Trump Administration deserves credit for helping to shape these efforts as well as others taken independently by the executive branch. 

Trump’s proposal to suspend payroll taxes did not fly, at least not yet. The idea is to reduce the cost of hiring and increase the return to work, if only temporarily. This is not a particularly appealing idea because so much of the benefits would flow to those who haven’t lost their jobs. It could be improved if targeted at new hires and rehires, however.

Trump’s proposal to grant liability waivers to reopened private businesses is extremely contentious, but one I support. Lockdowns are being eased under the weight of often heavy public and private regulation of conduct. As John Cochrane says in “Get Ready for the Careful Economy“: 

“One worry on regulation is that it will provide a recipe for a wave of lawsuits. That may have been a reason the Administration tried to hold back CDC guidance. A long, expensive, and impractical list of things you must do to reopen is catnip when someone gets sick and wants to blame a business. Show us the records that you wiped down the bathrooms every half hour. A legal system that can sue over talcum powder is not above this.”

Indeed, potential liability might represent a staggering cost to many businesses, one that might not be insurable. Accusations of negligence, true or false, can carry significant legal costs. Customers and employees, not just businesses, must accept some of the burden of risks of doing business. I give Trump good marks for this one, but we’ll see if it goes anywhere.

Some of the proposals for new stimulus legislation from democrats are much worse, including diversity initiatives, massive subsidies for “green” technologies, and bailouts for state and local government for unfunded pension liabilities. None of these has anything to do with the virus. The burden of pension shortfalls in some states should not fall on taxpayers nationwide, but on the states that incurred them. The Trump Administration and congressional Republicans should continue resisting these opportunistic proposals.

The Grade

Without assigning weights to the sub-topics covered above, I’d put the overall grade for Trump and his Administration’s handling of matters during the pandemic at about a B-, thus far. When it comes to politics, it’s often unfair to credit or blame one side for the promulgation of an overall set of policies. Nevertheless, I think it’s fair to say that Trump, could have done much better and could have done much worse. We will learn more with the passage of time, the continued evolution of the virus, the development of treatments or vaccines, and the course of the economy.