A obsessão em culpar a China pela Covid-19 está distorcendo os relatórios oficiais: Marcos Cordeiro Pires (Unesp) - Global Times

  Uma entrevista sobre a obsessão do momento...

Global Times, Pequim – 23.8.2021

US sensationalizes COVID-19 origins tracing as propaganda game: Brazilian professor

 

The deadline of the 90-day investigation into the coronavirus origins set by the Biden administration draws near, and US intelligence agencies are reportedly gearing up their efforts to compile a report. Do these intelligence agencies have the ability and reliability to trace where the virus comes from? What consequences will politicizing the origins tracing bring to the world? Global Times (GT) reporters Li Qingqing and Yu Jincui talked to Marcos Cordeiro Pires (Pires), a professor of political economics at Sao Paulo State University, Brazil over these issues.

 

GT: Regarding the coronavirus origins tracing, you said the US only accepts results that can convict China. Why do you say so? 

Pires: First, it is necessary to consider that nowadays, the truth of the facts have been overshadowed by the irrationalism of the so-called post-truth. In this communicational and semiotic framework, facts are distorted in favor of narratives that justify the prejudices associated with a particular political or social project. This is not new and has been gaining strength since the 1980s with the rise of neoliberalism. Today, the evolution of IA (Information Architecture) and social media is reinforced with clear political goals like Q-Anon and its instrumentalization by the Republican Party. Lies are reproduced on a large scale, with the help of algorithms, to create an "alternative truth." In this regard, China has been unfairly criminalized for having been wrongly accused of leaking the coronavirus, destroying the US jobs, and becoming the new "Evil Empire," as Ronald Reagan referred to the former USSR.

The anti-China rhetoric created by Donald Trump has become so ingrained in American society that it has become a trap from which Joe Biden cannot escape. Looking at the November 2022 elections, Biden and the Democratic Party are looking to maintain tension with China to rally support. For this, he can't look weak with China. Furthermore, lobby groups interested in a new Cold War, such as The Committee on the Present Danger: China, or groups that want to change the Chinese socialist system, such as the National Endowment for Democracy or Heritage Foundation, have strongly influenced the political system and, consequently, in the media and public opinion, forcing the government to deal harshly with China. In this context, the rhetoric that the virus's origin was an accidental or deliberate leak from a Wuhan laboratory has become almost a consensus. In this sense, any report that says this is false will fall into disrepute because the narrative built on Chinese guilt is already ingrained in public opinion. Thus, even if the investigations were done honestly and presented evidence of the impossibility of the leak, the final report would say "that it is not possible to 100 percent rule out" this hypothesis, leaving room for conspiracy theories.

GT: US intelligence agencies are preparing an investigation report on the origins of the virus and the report will be released soon. The US debacle in Afghanistan has shown the world how inept the US intelligence services were in misjudging the Afghanistan situation. Do these agencies have the ability and reliability to trace where the virus comes from? 

Pires: We can never underestimate the investigative capacity of the US intelligence sector. The agencies have a lot of money, technological capabilities, highly educated personnel, and a vast network of collaborators spread worldwide, within governments, media, social institutions, and universities. Edward Snowden's 2013 leaks showed the coverage of the US intelligence network, which has increased since then due to the evolution of big data and artificial intelligence. So, if the intelligence services were to seriously address any issue, it is very likely that they would build a report that is well-founded in facts. But that is not what it is about: The information will be politically manipulated to offer the government the narrative that interests the containing China policy because, at this moment, it is what is more convenient to the strategic objectives of the US elites.

GT: What influences will a report that aims to convict China have? In your judgment, what will the US do next? 

Pires: We assume that the report that will be released on August 26 will be used against China, regardless of the accuracy of its information. If no evidence is found, there will be a caveat that "the Chinese authorities did not cooperate with the investigations," so we cannot say that this possibility is 100 percent safe. So they will continue to pressure China in search of a supposed truth that fits the original narrative. There will always be the hypothesis that an "anonymous source close to Chinese authorities" has shown evidence of virus manipulation. Still, that source will never be revealed, leaving the case open. The pressure on the virus's origin will persist until another event arises to continue putting China on the defensive. This was the logic of the Cold War, and this is the logic that is prevailing today.

GT: For future origins tracing investigations, more than 25 million Chinese netizens have petitioned to probe the US' Fort Detrick biolab. Some international scholars also believe other countries, including the US, should allow WHO teams to access facilities on their soil. What's your take on this? 

Pires: In a context where mankind faces many global challenges, such as the pandemic, climate change, ocean pollution, and so on, cooperation is the only possible way to solve problems that affect everyone. If, since the beginning of the pandemic, the US had adopted a strategy based on science and international cooperation, the world would suffer much less than today, with 211 million people infected and almost 4.5 million dead. Cooperation and support for multilateralism is the most rational solution available to the international community. However, when the ideal world is confronted with the real world, we see that there are many limitations. The US will never open its chemical weapons laboratory to international inspection, any more than it will allow its citizens to be tried for crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court. Being by far the hegemonic power, they have the power to dictate their own rules, at least for now. Here is the basis of your double-standard behavior: Do as I say, don't do as I do! 

GT: Have you ever anticipated that the pandemic could be politicized like how it is today? Who is politicizing the pandemic? What consequences will politicizing the issue bring to the world?

Pires: As a Brazilian and researcher, I have reflected a lot on COVID-19 in Brazil and the world. Since March 2020, I have followed the politicization of the issue. At that time, Brazilian citizens of eastern origin (Japanese, Chinese and Koreans) were victims of racist aggression in the streets for accusing them of transmitting the coronavirus. 

In mid-2020, we thought that the development of vaccines would overcome the COVID-19 pandemic. But we didn't count on the denial, lies and anti-vaccination stances spread worldwide by the US far-right groups, which hit hard in Brazil, and how this posture contributed to delaying the fight against it and the spraying of new virus strains. 

As we are seeing, the countries that most used science and social mobilization showed the best results in containing the pandemic, such as China, Vietnam, Singapore, or South Korea. On the other hand, in those countries where denial and individualism prevailed, the situation got out of control, such as the US, Brazil, Latin America and Western Europe, which populations have suffered the most from infections and illnesses. Brazil, for example, shows a death rate that reaches 2,700 per million.

Concerning the latter, the far-right groups have sought to boycott any collective action, in addition to creating false narratives about fanciful medicines, denying the lethality of the virus, and doing anti-vaccination campaigns. Besides this, they still accuse China of having made the "Chinese virus" for geopolitical and economic purposes and defame Chinese vaccines. These problems go on.

GT: Brazil was one of the earliest countries which approved the use of Chinese COVID-19 vaccines and has carried out sound cooperation with China in this regard. When it comes to the origins tracing and opposing the politicization of the issue, what kind of cooperation do you think could the two countries conduct?

Pires: As we mentioned above, the theme of COVID-19 in Brazil is highly politicized, especially by President Jair Bolsonaro and his far-right supporters. During the pandemic, Bolsonaro, his family, and his followers attacked China, Ambassador Yang Wanming, and governors seeking to establish partnerships with China.

Bolsonaro has already been proud to be called the "Trump of the Tropics," and, since 2019, he has had a bad government, not just in managing the pandemic. By the way, a Parliamentary Inquiry Commission is underway in the Federal Senate, which has revealed numerous crimes committed by its government, including blaming and delaying the purchase of Coronavac vaccines, developed by the Sinovac laboratory. Today Bolsonaro threatens the country with a coup d'état that will guarantee him power indefinitely. But Brazilian society is on alert.

Even considering that Bolsonaro blocked the dialogue with China, there is much room for bilateral collaboration, as Brazil is much larger and more complex than the current ruler. State governments, the National Congress, the Judiciary, state governors, capital mayors, universities, research laboratories, and companies have greatly valued their relationship with China. There are common themes in which the dialogue is very fluid, such as trade, investments, scientific research, and the New Development Bank management. As soon as Jair Bolsonaro's government passes, relations between Brazil and China will return to the historical axis of cooperation and mutual respect.

 

Jair Bolsonaro já sofreu impeachment mental - Mario Sabino (Antagonista)

Jair Bolsonaro já sofreu impeachment mental

• 
  Mario Sabino
  O Antagonista, 26.07.21 11:47

A falta de inteligência explica por que o presidente da República acha ser possível enganar os brasileiros sobre a sua sociopatia no combate à Covid

https://www.oantagonista.com/opiniao/jair-bolsonaro-ja-sofreu-impeachment-mental/

No sábado, como publicamos, o virologista Jair Bolsonaro disse a seguinte gema: “Se eu estivesse coordenando a pandemia não teria morrido tanta gente. Você fala de tratamento inicial. A obrigação do médico, em algo que ele desconhece, é buscar amenizar o sofrimento da pessoa e o tratamento off label”. Ele também afirmou sobre as vacinas contra a Covid: “Agora, qual país do mundo faz acompanhamento de quem tomou vacina? Tem gente que está sofrendo efeito colateral, o que está acontecendo? A Coronavac ainda é experimental e tem gente que quer tornar obrigatória”.

As declarações do virologista Jair Bolsonaro foram feitas no mesmo dia em que a Crusoé publicou os vídeos das reuniões interministeriais do ano passado nas quais o Itamaraty alerta integrantes do governo sobre como seria desastroso para o Brasil não entrar no consórcio organizado pela Organização Mundial da Sáude para a aquisição de imunizantes. Os vídeos mostram que o general Eduardo Pazuello mentiu à CPI da Covid quando disse que as negociações com o consórcio eram “nebulosas” e que o preço inicial era de 40 dólares por dose. O único aspecto “nebuloso” era a falta de conhecimento de inglês dos advogados da União — foi preciso traduzir a minuta do contrato para eles — e o preço inicial era de 20 dólares, logo reduzido para pouco mais de 10 dólares. Mesmo assim, o governo brasileiro demorou a assinar e, quando o fez, comprou uma quantidade relativamente pequena de doses — ou seja, milhares de mortes teriam sido evitadas se o país tivesse adquirido o máximo de imunizantes que o consórcio oferecia.

Com exceção da Folha de S. Paulo, os jornais preferiram ignorar os vídeos. Mas os senadores da CPI da Covid, felizmente, não. Simone Tebet enxergou logo o crime de responsabilidade efetivamente cometido por Jair Bolsonaro. Numa das reuniões, a subchefe adjunta de política econômica da Casa Civil, Talita Saito, afirmou: “Eu bato sempre nessa tecla porque é importante deixar muito claro que essa decisão (a assinatura do contrato com o consórcio) ainda não foi tomada. O presidente da República ainda não se posicionou sobre a entrada do Brasil no instrumento”. Ou seja, Jair Bolsonaro era quem comandava diretamente o Ministério da Saúde e tomava as decisões que deveriam caber ao titular da pasta. Decisões que implicaram o sacrifício de vidas de cidadãos brasileiros.

O que Jair Bolsonaro coordenou, portanto, foi a morte premeditada de vítimas da Covid, não só deixando de comprar imunizantes (enquanto o Ministério da Saúde entabulava negociações sobre vacinas com gente suspeitíssima), como sabotando as medidas restritivas necessárias para impedir a propagação desenfreada do vírus. O que ele premeditava era que o Brasil alcançasse a imunidade de rebanho natural, ao custo de, quem sabe, um milhão de vidas. Que o presidente da República continue a sabotar o combate à pandemia depois de 550 mil mortes diz muito sobre a incapacidade institucional do parlamento de dar um basta a essa situação na qual a perversidade se traduz em tragédia. Ainda ocorre uma média de mil óbitos de doentes de Covid por dia no país, o que só não causa espanto numa sociedade que desvaloriza a vida.

Sociopatas são capazes de se conter quando a sociopatia se volta contra eles próprios. Mas Jair Bolsonaro não tem esse discernimento, como prova mais uma fez a fala de sábado, na qual tentou novamente enganar o distinto público com a  lorota de que o STF o impediu de coordenar os esforços contra a Covid. Na verdade, os ministros do Supremo reconheceram que governadores e prefeitos tinham autonomia para adotar as medidas que consideravam adequadas para impedir a disseminação da doença nos seus estados e municípios, respectivamente, o que jamais significou tirar a responsabilidade da União. Não contente com a lorota, ele voltou a atacar a Coronavac, comprada pelo seu inimigo João Doria, como se a vacina da AstraZeneca, adquirida pelo governo federal, não tivesse efeito colateral.

Parece estranho que o presidente da República ainda ache ser possível continuar a ludibriar tanta gente ao mesmo tempo. A maioria dos brasileiros, contudo, já está convicta de que Jair Bolsonaro não tem capacidade intelectual compatível com as necessidades exigidas para o cargo que ocupa — e talvez nem mesmo para gerir a sua própria imagem. De acordo com a pesquisa Datafolha divulgada no início do mês, 57% dos cidadãos consideram o presidente da República “pouco inteligente” e 62% o veem como “despreparado”.

Ser “pouco inteligente” significa ser burro. O presidente da Câmara pode engavetar os pedidos de abertura de processo de impeachment contra Jair Bolsonaro, mas os eleitores já votaram pelo seu impeachment mental.

Preparem-se para uma possível, ou provável, terceira onda, ainda mais mortífera do que as anteriores...

 Não imagino que seja alarmismo infundado, pois que baseado em dados e inferências da Universidade de Maryland (tenho preenchido questionários que recebo desta universidade, que usa, portanto, informações reais, de pessoas reais), não apenas deduções matemáticas.

Acredito que o melhor a fazer, na dúvida, é se precaver...

Paulo Roberto de Almeida

Sábado, 29 de maio de 2021 A próxima onda

Sem vacinas, prepare-se mais uma vez

Uma pesquisa que rastreia as redes sociais mostra que, nos próximos meses, o Brasil viverá uma nova onda de mortes por covid-19. E ela será muito mais grave do que a última, que já foi brutal. A Universidade de Maryland usou uma base de dados do Facebook para compilar informações de pessoas. Pelos cálculos, os cientistas conseguiram antecipar o nível de contágio – isso duas semanas antes da notificação oficial de novos casos. O gráfico que eles geraram é este aqui.

Como se vê, o contágio está empenando de modo exponencial muito antes que as autoridades de saúde tenham percebido.  Nós já tínhamos falado sobre os riscos de uma avassaladora terceira onda no laboratório do genocídio, Manaus. Em fevereiro, o repórter Fábio Bispo escreveu: “O biólogo Lucas Ferrante, do Instituto Nacional de Pesquisa da Amazônia, o Inpa, avisou pessoalmente o prefeito de Manaus, David Almeida, do Avante, sobre o risco iminente de uma terceira onda de contaminação pela covid-19 na capital do Amazonas. Foi uma reunião rápida, de menos de 30 minutos. Acompanhado de três assessores, o prefeito chegou a sinalizar que poderia adotar o lockdown para salvar vidas. Mas o discurso logo mudou, e o aviso do cientista foi ignorado. Ele e outros sete pesquisadores elaboraram um modelo epidemiológico a partir das taxas de transmissão da nova variante do vírus no Amazonas, a reinfecção por perda de imunidade apresentada em pacientes após seis meses e os cenários de vacinação e isolamento social do estado. O estudo, que será publicado em uma revista científica de renome internacional e que está em fase de revisão, sinaliza a necessidade urgente de lockdown em Manaus e aponta para uma terceira onda de contaminação mais longa e que, potencialmente, pode causar mais mortes do que a observada em 2020.“ Manaus é um emblema do governo Bolsonaro e sua gestão assassina da pandemia: aposta em imunidade de rebanho, cloroquina e ausência de vacinas. As pessoas morreram sufocadas. Teremos agora novas Manaus pelo Brasil? “Está tudo muito ruim e não vejo uma região com um cenário mais grave. O aumento de pessoas reportando sintomas é constante em praticamente todo o país”, explicou o especialista Isaac Schrarstzhaupt, coordenador na Rede Análise Covid-19, que fez o estudo com os dados do Facebook. Caso isso aconteça, será em meio à CPI que tem obrigação de punir os responsáveis.

Leandro Demori Editor Executivo

Economic Lessons From COVID-19 - David Henderson (Reason)

 

Economic Lessons From COVID-19

What the pandemic has re-taught us about the perils of planning, the power of incentives, and the complexities of externalities.

DAVID R. HENDERSON | 

Reason, FROM THE JUNE 2021 ISSUE

(Illustration: Joanna Andreasson) 

One of the most important things economists can do in a pandemic is not forget what we know. We know that central planners don't have enough information and insight about the lives and activities of 330 million people to plan those lives in a thoughtful way. We know the problems that emerge when you distribute something valuable by giving it away. We know that government officials face bad incentives. We know that externalities pose problems for the straightforward "leave it to the market" viewpoint, but that large government interventions create new problems. In the rush to make pandemic policy, too many of these lessons were cast aside.

Central Planning

One of the most important controversies of the 20th century was the economic calculation debate. In his 1922 book, Socialism, Ludwig von Mises argued that without markets, central planners would not know how to "calculate." Specifically, they wouldn't know how many of various goods to produce, how to produce them, and whom to allocate them to. In the 1930s and 1940s, Mises' student Friedrich Hayek advanced the argument by noting the ways an economy depends on dispersed information that exists in the minds of millions of people. This information about individuals' "circumstances of time and place," he wrote, could not be captured by a central planner. Hayek's most famous contribution to the debate was his 1945 article "The Use of Knowledge in Society," published in the American Economic Review. That article led modern Hayekians to use the phrase "local knowledge" as a shorthand for Hayek's "circumstances of time and place."

By the end of the Cold War, most economists—even some socialists—were acknowledging that Mises and Hayek had won the debate: The Soviet planners had failed because they had embarked on a task that could not succeed.

But in the COVID-19 era, a lot of policy makers have let this lesson slip their minds. While few have advocated full-blown state socialism, many have forgotten the more general truth that officials don't have enough information to make detailed plans about people's lives.

Take Gavin Newsom, the first governor to impose a statewide lockdown. The California Democrat listed 16 infrastructure sectors deemed so essential that they would not have to lock down. Restaurants, hairdressers, gymnasiums, and schools, not being among them, were compelled to close. So were large swaths of the retail economy. But Newsom did not base these regulations on a sophisticated understanding of what is essential and what is not. He couldn't. No one has that understanding, for the reasons Hayek laid out long ago. The list of essential industries came from an old script; it was not highly correlated with the relative value of various industries and was not closely based on risks of spread.

What was missing from the discussion is something known only in the minds of the humans involved: the value of what was lost. Measuring the loss of gross domestic product (GDP) doesn't quite do it, because the private sector component of GDP is valued at market prices but the value consumers put on goods and services typically exceeds the sticker price. (Economists refer to the value minus the price as consumer surplus.) Gatherings of more than a few people at funerals, for example, were prohibited; many mourners surely valued the gathering they had to miss at more than the ceremony's price.

Central planners tend to come up with one-size-fits-all policies even when the evidence shows a large range of "sizes." With the lockdowns, the most extreme instance of that may be the decision in various jurisdictions to close schools to in-person instruction. Even if, like me, you aren't a fan of government schools, they arguably create at least one large valuable service: day care. So shutting them down—while paying full, or close to full, salaries to public school teachers—took away one of the most valuable services the institutions provided, while shifting the costs onto parents.

Whether or not one ultimately agrees with it, one can understand the decision to close schools in March and April of last year. But as more data came out, it became increasingly clear that students ages 15 or younger had only a tiny risk of dying from COVID-19. The latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) shows that from January 1, 2020, to February 17, 2021, only 140 U.S. residents under age 15 died from the disease—just 0.03 percent of the overall COVID-19 deaths. During the 2019–20 flu season, according to the CDC, about 434 U.S. children under age 18 died from the flu. Yet no one advocated closing schools over that.

Of course, there is the risk of transmission from children to teachers. But teachers in Sweden, which avoided school shutdowns, had a slightly lower fatality rate than I.T. technicians. That comparison is relevant because many I.T. technicians can and do work from home, and probably did so increasingly after the worry about the coronavirus became widespread.

What about the risk of transmission from school children to their parents or other family members? If you've paid attention to recent protests in California and elsewhere, you'll realize that many families are eager to take that risk.

Moreover, the comparison between private schools and public schools is telling. In a January 2021 article in Axios, Erica Pandey notes that only 5 percent of private schools were "virtual" last fall, with presumably 95 percent being in person. That contrasts with the 62 percent of students in public schools who started school in the fall online. The difference is wonderful for the private school kids and tragic for many of those in public schools, but those with local knowledge and local control were most able to get kids back into classrooms.

The pathologies of central planning also played out with the COVID-19 vaccines. In early May, four economists—Susan Athey of Stanford, Michael Kremer of Harvard, Christopher Snyder of Dartmouth, and Alex Tabarrok of George Mason—wrote an op-ed in The New York Times titled "In the Race for a Coronavirus Vaccine, We Must Go Big. Really, Really Big." It advocated two major forms of federal spending for a vaccine. One, which they called a "pull incentive," was a commitment to buy 300 million courses of vaccine at a price of $100 per person. The second, which they called a "push incentive," was a guarantee of "partial reimbursement for production capacity built or repurposed at risk and partial reimbursement as they achieve milestones."

The authors didn't discuss how the vaccine should be distributed once the federal government paid for it. Presumably they wouldn't favor letting the drug companies sell a vaccine to the public after being paid by the federal government; that would have created an uproar. By default, their not mentioning distribution probably left most readers thinking they wanted the federal government to distribute the vaccine.

The good news is that the feds are not distributing the vaccine. The bad news is that state governments are deciding who gets it. Furthermore, no one pays for it, so we lack a price system. Without prices, there are huge lines to get vaccinated; people who barely value the vaccine sometimes get it ahead of people who value it a lot; and the incentive for those administering the vaccine to do so quickly is lower than it would be in a free market.

Could it have been different? Yes. On January 11, 2020, Yong-Zhen Zhang of China distributed the virus's genetic code; two days later, the Moderna lab in Massachusetts formulated one of the vaccines now being used. That was more than three months before the economists' article in The New York Times. So even without federal subsidies, Moderna would have been ready to sell the vaccine by the time it actually did so in late December. Then it could have distributed it to front-line health care workers and older people in nursing homes for, say, $20 a pop and sold doses to a lot of the rest of us for more. If the prices were too high for some people to afford, the government could have helped low-income Americans pay for the vaccine without involving itself in the distribution process.

The Food and Drug Administration's power to say no to drugs and vaccines that it thinks haven't been sufficiently tested for safety and/or efficacy is also a form of central planning. Without that power, we could have had the vaccine earlier. Even if the agency's power to "just say no" to drugs were restricted to its pre-1962 powers, when it could insist on safety but not on efficacy, we would have had the vaccine months earlier. That would have saved tens of thousands of lives.

Incentives

Another fundamental insight from economics—one that is arguably the basis of almost every other economic insight—is that incentives matter. Decision makers whose rewards are closely tied to the value their decisions create will tend to make decisions that create, or at least allow, a lot of value. They will sometimes fail, but they will try hard to make good decisions.

On the other hand, decision makers whose rewards are unrelated to the value of the decisions they make will make good decisions much less often. Even more perversely, if their decisions benefit only narrowly defined interest groups, such as government workers, their decisions might well destroy value.

Does this sound familiar? Consider Anthony Fauci's guidance to the American public early in the pandemic, from his perch on the White House Coronavirus Task Force, that there was no need to wear a mask. Later, Fauci conceded that this wasn't true; he had said otherwise, he maintained, to ensure an ample supply of masks for health care workers who needed them more than the average American. He didn't seem to take account of the damage that would do to the federal government's credibility.

Credibility is particularly important during a fast-moving pandemic. But Fauci would be paid the same $417,608 annually no matter what he said.

Moreover, the issue of incentives is relevant to the school opening issue discussed above. Private schools depend on tuitions and gifts to stay in business. Public schools, by contrast, get funded whether they teach in person or on Zoom. And public school teachers are typically paid full salaries even if they teach from home.

Externalities

The strongest argument for lockdowns is that when one person passes the virus on to another, he creates a "negative externality"—economists' term for a cost that someone imposes on others that wasn't accounted for when the person decided to act. The classic example is air pollution from a factory. The plant spews smoke into the air; it makes its way to tens of thousands of lungs; and, absent liability, fines, or agreements, the factory owner has little or no incentive to care.

If the factory's smoke entered the lungs of workers voluntarily laboring at the factory, though, that would not be classified as an externality. Whatever the lowest wage they would have been willing to work for in the absence of the smoke, that wage will be somewhat higher with the smoke. The factory owner can then decide whether it's cheaper to reduce the smoke or to continue as usual but pay higher wages.

Why do I note that caveat? Because what is sometimes described as a COVID-19 externality is not necessarily one.

Consider a customer going to a bar and knowing that there's a risk he could get infected. He has an incentive to take account of that risk. The other customers in the same position have an incentive to take account of the risk. The owner, knowing that some customers will be worried, has an incentive to take account of the risk. Private property helps "internalize" the externality.

It doesn't fully internalize it, because there are many bars, many restaurants, many gyms. So people leaving the first bar might spread the virus elsewhere, imposing a cost on patrons and workers at those other bars, restaurants, and gyms. But much of it is internalized.

In a recent paper, the George Mason economists Peter T. Leeson and Louis Rouanet note another way COVID-19 externalities differ from pollution. The polluter typically doesn't worry about the pollution that blows downstream. Many people, by contrast, do worry about being in contact with others and either infecting or getting infected by them. One need only look at the huge voluntary changes people made in their lives to see how important this factor is. Well before the first lockdown, Americans canceled trips and conferences and quit going to indoor restaurants and bars. On a smaller scale, people going about their business in town wear masks, and if they don't—and sometimes even if they do—they try to maintain a decent space between themselves and others, especially if those others are unmasked.

To the extent there is an externality, we should also remember a point made by Nobel-winning economist Ronald Coase: The person who suffers from pollution downwind from a factory would not suffer if he weren't there. That observation has led economists in Coase's tradition to the concept of "least-cost avoider." Economists tend to focus on the efficient outcome, and the efficient outcome requires looking at who has the lower cost of reducing or eliminating the externality. When people live near an airport, for example, the cheaper solution might be to have airplanes produce less noise. But it might instead be for homeowners to install double-pane or triple-pane windows.

In this pandemic, governments have chosen to prevent a huge number of interactions among people who are at low risk of suffering from the disease. Given that the risk of death by COVID-19 for older people with comorbidities is orders of magnitude higher than the risk for the general population, the lower-cost solution would probably have been for the elderly to isolate themselves.

That has a lower cost for two reasons. One is sheer numbers: It's easier for 40 million people to isolate than for more than 300 million people to isolate. The other reason is that elderly people with comorbidities are more likely to be retired or to work from home. So their loss from staying in their homes is low.

Moreover, it wouldn't necessarily require a mandate that the elderly isolate. They could do so if they wish, and most probably would choose to do so. But governments should not insist—as New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania did—that nursing homes readmit people who test positive for the virus.

Just as even paranoids can have real enemies, even optimists can have real grounds for hope.

I think almost all of us were surprised at how quickly most governors and many mayors moved to close down major sectors of the economy. This was a really large attack on economic freedom, the largest in my lifetime, and it happened within days. In most cases, executives did it with zero consent from legislatures. They used existing law to the limit and, some legal scholars say, beyond the limit. I doubt those officials typically thought in March 2020 that we would still be locked down in January 2021. But the lockdowns took on a life of their own.

Recall, though, an earlier anti-liberty episode that was not nearly as shocking as the lockdowns. In 2005's Kelo v. New London, the U.S. Supreme Court gave its blessing to a city government's use of eminent domain to expropriate property from homeowners and transfer it to a private entity, the New London Development Corporation. This sent shockwaves through the country. The Institute for Justice, which represented the losing side before the Supreme Court, has noted that the decision "sparked a nation-wide backlash against eminent domain abuse, leading eight state supreme courts and 43 state legislatures to strengthen protections for property rights."

Could we see a similar response to the lockdowns? Already there have been some moves at the state level to limit governors' lockdown powers. A bill that passed both the House and the Senate in Ohio would have limited the Ohio Department of Health's power to quarantine and isolate people, restricting it to only those who were directly exposed to COVID-19 or diagnosed with the disease. Similarly, in Michigan, the Senate and House passed a bill to repeal a 1945 law that Gov. Gretchen Whitmer had used to impose the state's rather extreme lockdowns. Both bills were vetoed, but I doubt that will be the end of the story.

Even if it doesn't happen until this particular pandemic is over, there's good reason to believe that some state legislatures will want a say in future decisions. Whatever the case for letting governors move so quickly early last year, that case gets weaker and weaker the longer the lockdowns last. At some point, legislators just might roll back those powers. Or so we can hope.

DAVID R. HENDERSON is a contributing editor at Reason, a research fellow with the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, and the editor of The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics.

A tragédia pandêmica do Brasil retratada no Washington Post: o mundo preocupado com o Brasil

 

By Ishaan Tharoor with Ruby Mellen  Email  Brazil’s rolling coronavirus disaster is a threat to the world People walk past street art in Rio de Janeiro this month. (Pilar Olivares/Reuters) In the tortuous course of the coronavirus pandemic, there has been at least one constant: Latin America’s most populous nation has not handled it well. Brazil lags behind only the United States in coronavirus-related deaths and infections. But the latter is starting to battle its way out of the pandemic; in Brazil, the outbreak is now worse than it has ever been. The country on Tuesday reported close to 3,000 deaths, a spike that accelerated this month. In the past week, Brazil posted a record of 12,888 new deaths and more than 467,944 new cases, according to Johns Hopkins University figures. Experts warn that Brazil’s hospital system is on the brink of collapse, with occupancy peaking near or even pushing past capacity in over half the states of the country. Rather than going up, the daily numbers of administered coronavirus tests — key to tracking and stopping a surge in cases — have declined dramatically since December. Part of the problem is the emergence of a more virulent coronavirus variant in Brazil, one whose rapid spread since January has raised global alarm. “If Brazil is not serious, then it will continue to affect all of the neighborhood there — and beyond,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director general of the World Health Organization, warned earlier this month. “This is not just about Brazil. It’s about the whole Latin America, and even beyond.” Even in communities that are developing greater levels of immunity, an uncontrolled outbreak can still give rise to dangerous variants — and scientists fret that Brazil is incubating possibly deadlier new strains. A patchwork of inconsistent curfews and lockdowns in states and cities failed to stave off the crisis many Brazilian medical workers feared would come. Doctors and health officials are now battling against a rising tide. “Patients are being transferred from state to state — sometimes traveling hundreds of miles — in a nationwide hunt for hospital resources,” my colleague Terrence McCoy wrote last week. “Without ventilators, nurses have pumped infected patients’ lungs manually. Cemeteries are running out of space to put the bodies. Refrigerated containers wait outside hospitals to take the overflow. People all over the country are dying at home, unable to get treatment.” It’s impossible to overlook the role played by Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro. The far-right firebrand bumbled through the pandemic— famously deeming the coronavirus little more than a “measly flu” a year ago and, more recently in December, declaring that the outbreak had reached its “tail end.” He contracted the virus himself but continued to tout unproven remedies and raged against social distancing measures and other precautions advocated by regional officials and his political adversaries. Under Bolsonaro’s watch, Brazil “succumbed to denialism, disorganization, apathy, hedonism and medical quackery,” wrote McCoy. In an illustration of the chaos, Bolsonaro announced this week that he would be appointing a new health minister — the country’s fourth since the pandemic began. The first two fell afoul of the president after questioning his leadership and covid-era decision-making. The third, an active-duty general with no medical training, is now being investigated by the country’s top court for alleged neglect that led to the collapse of the health system in Amazonas state earlier this year. During a briefing Tuesday, Marcelo Queiroga, a cardiologist who will transition into the role of health minister in the coming days, reiterated his loyalty to Bolsonaro. “The president is very worried about the situation,” he said. Critics wonder if that’s true. Brazil’s lack of effective national coordination on the pandemic is, in part, Bolsonaro’s fault. He and his allies initially pushed misinformation downplaying the threat of the virus and the efficacy of social distancing and masks. Later, Bolsonaro questioned the value of vaccines, stoking anti-Beijing sentiment even as a Chinese vaccine was undergoing trials in Brazil. Last October, he blocked federal government plans to purchase tens of millions of doses of the Sinovac vaccine. On this front, Bolsonaro had a fellow traveler in former president Donald Trump, who similarly scorned covid-era lockdowns and sought to blame his domestic rivals, as well as China, for the woes of the pandemic. Last year, the Trump administration also pressured Brazil to not obtain the Russian Sputnik V vaccine for its population. But with Trump gone and infections spiking, Bolsonaro is in the midst of a humiliating about-face. His government announced last week that it had ordered 10 million doses of the Russian vaccine. And it had to go to China, cap in hand, to request tens of millions of doses of a Chinese vaccine, as well as the raw materials to mass produce it on Brazilian soil. “China spent months batting away resentment and distrust as the place where the pandemic began, but in recent weeks its diplomats, pharmaceutical executives and other power brokers have been fielding scores of requests for vaccines from desperate officials in Latin America, where the pandemic is taking a devastating toll that grows by the day,” noted the New York Times. “Beijing’s ability to mass-produce vaccines and ship them to countries in the developing world — while rich countries, including the United States, are hoarding many millions of doses for themselves — has offered a diplomatic and public relations opening that China has readily seized.” Meanwhile, in Brazil’s turbulent domestic political scene, Bolsonaro’s mismanagement has presented a new opening for his main rival. Former leftist president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva scorned Bolsonaro’s “moronic” handling of the crisis. “This country is in a state of utter tumult and confusion because there’s no government,” Lula declared last week, lamenting the lives that could have saved and warning that “covid is taking over the country.” Brazil’s medical workers are desperately trying to prevent that from happening. “We’re trying to help people but this disease is much faster and more aggressive than the tactics we’ve been using,” André Machado, an infectious-disease specialist in the city of Porto Alegre, told the Guardian. “It’s like we’re flogging a dead horse. This disease is going to kill many more people in Brazil.”

Carta dos Médicos do Brasil à Nação: assinada por dezenas de entidades médicas profissionais

 Carta dos Médicos do Brasil à Nação

Faz um ano, o Brasil registrava a primeira morte pelo vírus SARS-Cov-2, era março de 2020. Aos 9 de maio, marcávamos 10.000 vidas perdidas no embate com o novo coronavírus no país. Um mês após, mais um registro assustador: 1 milhão de infectados. Chegamos a 100.000 mortes em agosto de 2020 e a 200.000, cinco meses depois, em janeiro de 2021.

De janeiro para cá, passados pouco mais de dois meses, os números de infectados e os de mortes explodiram: hoje, caminhamos tristemente para contabilizar 300.000 óbitos. Os casos no País já vão para 12 milhões.

A progressão exponencial da epidemia evidencia insuficiências na rede de saúde. A realidade é que não há leitos em quantidade necessária para fazer frente à elevação vertiginosa da demanda; os profissionais de saúde, entre os quais, nós, os médicos, chegamos à exaustão, além da perda de várias vidas. Numericamente, já faltamos em várias regiões para atender esta demanda de casos jamais imaginada.

É nosso mais grave momento dessa emergência em saúde coletiva. A Covid-19 se mantém em ascensão e todos os números e carências tendem a piorar, se não houver uma resposta firme e coordenada. O Brasil requer união de suas inteligências, da soma de conhecimentos científicos, de estratégias unificadas e ação imediata. Não pode prevalecer a máxima do cada um por si.

Nós médicos, por ética, retidão e compromisso com os pacientes, dizemos claramente à Nação: o controle da situação nos foge às mãos, pois não estão sob nosso comando as ações e nem a gestão da saúde.

Nosso diagnóstico é de que apenas a obediência às regras de proteção – como o distanciamento social e o uso correto de máscara -, as iniciativas contínuas de testagem e rastreio de contactantes, juntamente com a vacinação em larga escala, são capazes de oferecer melhor prognóstico à população brasileira.

Vacinas já. Essa é a ideia que deve unir e reunir todos os brasileiros, em um só coro, de mãos dadas. Juntos, precisamos trabalhar urgentemente pela revisão de caminhos e prioridades.

Precisamos de certezas. Não podemos viver de estimativas que não encontrem respaldo na realidade. Precisamos saber exatamente quantas doses de vacinas teremos e quando efetivamente elas serão disponibilizadas para a população.

Um vai e vem de informações desencontradas, uma dança de números de eventuais lotes de vacinas que deverão chegar e depois não chegam só leva ao descrédito das autoridades de saúde e a desalento na população. Soluções concretas, e não promessas vazias, é o que precisamos. E já!

Temos de reafirmar, lembrar e relembrar, a cada instante, que o distanciamento social e uso de máscara salvam vidas. O remédio indispensável agora é a visão cidadã. Em 11 de março, esse senso de coletividade e solidariedade estava – permita-nos uma figura de linguagem simples para ilustrar – na Unidade de Terapia Intensiva. A adesão ao isolamento no País era de 33,4%. Baixíssima.

Conclamamos, portanto, o cidadão a assumir sua responsabilidade e a atuar pela ampla conscientização. O isolamento e uso de máscaras, repetimos, podem ser o diferencial para salvar a vida de avô, avó, pai, mãe, ou do filho, ou do amigo.

Diante do quadro de dificuldades e incertezas, também conclamamos cada um dos médicos do Brasil a ser um agente multiplicador da Medicina de excelência e da Ciência junto a todos os pacientes, aos colegas de trabalho e em seus círculos familiares e de amizades. Desmentir fake news e reforçar a relevância das regras de prevenção devem ser tarefas diárias. Assim também salvamos vidas.

Aproveitamos para comunicar aos cidadãos a criação do Comitê Extraordinário de Monitoramento Covid-19 (CEM COVID_AMB), composto pela Associação Médica Brasileira, com suas 27 federadas estaduais, e pelo conjunto das suas 54 sociedades de especialidades do País.

O CEM funcionará em regime permanente, enquanto durar a crise. Terá um núcleo executivo formado por médicos com legítima autoridade no campo da prevenção e da atenção aos pacientes acometidos pela doença.

Monitorará permanentemente a pandemia em todo o território nacional e as ações dos órgãos responsáveis pela saúde pública, com o intuito de consolidar informações e, a partir de cenários atualizados, transmitir orientações periódicas de conduta para cuidados e prevenção aos cidadãos e aos profissionais da Medicina.

Destacamos, por fim, que o momento torna necessárias comunicações recorrentes com esclarecimentos e orientações à saúde, por mais simples que pareçam. São elas a vacina, o combate às fake news e a conscientização individual e coletiva para as medidas gerais de prevenção.

Boletim 01/2021
Comitê Extraordinário de Monitoramento Covid-19 (CEM COVID_AMB)

1. A vacinação em massa, para todas as pessoas, é a medida ideal para controlarmos a velocidade de propagação do vírus. Entretanto, é impossível afirmar, nesse instante, em que momento isso ocorrerá;

2. Diante de tal quadro, o distanciamento social, com a menor circulação possível de pessoas, é conduta essencial para conter a propagação viral;

3. A conscientização e a atitude cidadã devem prevalecer sobre quaisquer outros aspectos e as regras preventivas seguidas à risca:

Uso correto de máscara – sempre
Distanciamento social
Evitar aglomerações
Manter o ambiente bem ventilado e higienizando
Ficar em isolamento respiratório assim que houver suspeita de Covid-19
Higienizar frequentemente as mãos, com água e sabão ou álcool gel a 70%.

“Nós, os médicos, estaremos sempre disponíveis para ajudar; e ajudaremos. Mas não trazemos a solução; hoje não a temos. A solução para a Covid não está nas mãos de mais de meio milhão de médicos do Brasil. Será resultado das atitudes responsáveis e solidárias de cada um dos cidadãos do País e das autoridades públicas responsáveis por implantar as medidas efetivas que se fazem necessárias para mitigar a enorme dor e sofrimento da população brasileira.”

ENTIDADES SIGNATÁRIAS DESSE DOCUMENTO

SOCIEDADES DE ESPECIALIDADES

Academia Brasileira de Neurologia
Associação Brasileira de Alergia e Imunologia
Associação Brasileira de Cirurgia Pediátrica
Associação Brasileira de Hematologia, Hemoterapia e Terapia Celular
Associação Brasileira de Medicina de Emergência
Associação Brasileira de Medicina de Tráfego
Associação Brasileira de Medicina Física e Reabilitação
Associação Brasileira de Medicina Legal e Perícias Médicas
Associação Brasileira de Medicina Preventiva e Administração em Saúde
Associação Brasileira de Nutrologia
Associação Brasileira de Otorrinolaringologia e Cirurgia Cérvico Facial
Associação Brasileira de Psiquiatria
Associação de Medicina Intensiva Brasileira
Associação Médica Homeopática Brasileira
Associação Nacional de Medicina do Trabalho
Colégio Brasileiro de Cirurgia Digestiva
Colégio Brasileiro de Cirurgiões
Colégio Brasileiro de Radiologia
Colégio Médico Brasileiro de Acupuntura
Conselho Brasileiro de Oftalmologia
Federação Brasileira das Associações de Ginecologia e Obstetrícia
Federação Brasileira de Gastroenterologia Sociedade Brasileira de Anestesiologia
Sociedade Brasileira de Angiologia e Cirurgia Vascular
Sociedade Brasileira de Cardiologia
Sociedade Brasileira de Cirurgia Cardiovascular
Sociedade Brasileira de Cirurgia da Mão
Sociedade Brasileira de Cirurgia de Cabeça e Pescoço
Sociedade Brasileira de Cirurgia Oncológica
Sociedade Brasileira de Cirurgia Plástica
Sociedade Brasileira de Cirurgia Torácica
Sociedade Brasileira de Clínica Médica
Sociedade Brasileira de Coloproctologia
Sociedade Brasileira de Dermatologia
Sociedade Brasileira de Endocrinologia e Metabologia
Sociedade Brasileira de Endoscopia Digestiva
Sociedade Brasileira de Genética Médica e Genômica
Sociedade Brasileira de Geriatria e Gerontologia
Sociedade Brasileira de Infectologia
Sociedade Brasileira de Mastologia
Sociedade Brasileira de Medicina de Família e Comunidade
Sociedade Brasileira de Medicina do Exercício e do Esporte
Sociedade Brasileira de Medicina Nuclear
Sociedade Brasileira de Nefrologia
Sociedade Brasileira de Neurocirurgia
Sociedade Brasileira de Oncologia Clínica
Sociedade Brasileira de Ortopedia e Traumatologia
Sociedade Brasileira de Patologia
Sociedade Brasileira de Patologia Clínica e Medicina Laboratorial
Sociedade Brasileira de Pediatria
Sociedade Brasileira de Pneumologia e Tisiologia
Sociedade Brasileira de Radioterapia
Sociedade Brasileira de Reumatologia
Sociedade Brasileira de Urologia

FEDERADAS AMB

Associação Médica do Acre
Sociedade de Medicina de Alagoas
Associação Médica do Amazonas
Associação Médica do Amapá
Associação Bahiana de Medicina
Associação Médica Cearense
Associação Médica de Brasília
Associação Médica do Espírito Santo
Associação Médica de Goiás
Associação Médica do Maranhão
Associação Médica de Minas Gerais
Associação Médica do Mato Grosso do Sul
Associação Médica do Mato Grosso
Sociedade Médico-Cirúrgica do Pará
Associação Médica de Pernambuco
Associação Piauiense de Medicina
Associação Médica da Paraíba
Associação Médica do Paraná
Sociedade Médica do Estado do Rio de Janeiro
Associação Médica do Rio Grande do Norte
Associação Médica de Rondônia
Associação Médica de Roraima
Associação Médica do Rio Grande do Sul
Associação Catarinense de Medicina
Sociedade Médica de Sergipe
Associação Paulista de Medicina
Associação Médica de Tocantins

São Paulo, 15 de março de 2021

NÚCLEO EXECUTIVO – CEM COVID_AMB

• Antonio Carlos Lopes, Sociedade Brasileira de Clínica Médica
• Bruno de Lima Naves, Sociedade Brasileira de Angiologia e de Cirurgia Vascular
• Carlos André Uehara, Sociedade Brasileira de Geriatria e Gerontologia
• César Eduardo Fernandes, Associação Médica Brasileira
• Clóvis Arns da Cunha, Sociedade Brasileira de Infectologia
• Dante Mário Langhi Júnior, Associação Brasileira de Hematologia, Hemoterapia e Terapia Celular
• Emanuel Savio Cavalcanti Sarinho, Associação Brasileira de Alergia e Imunologia
• Hélio Penna Guimarães, Associação Brasileira de Medicina de Emergência
• Irma de Godoy, Sociedade Brasileira de Pneumologia e Tisiologia
• José Eduardo Lutaif Dolci, Associação Médica Brasileira
• José Luiz Gomes do Amaral, Associação Paulista de Medicina
• Suzana Margareth Ajeje Lobo, Associação de Medicina Intensiva Brasileira
• Zeliete Linhares Leite Zambon, Sociedade Brasileira de Medicina de Família e Comunidade