Covid Update December 29, 2020 - Use a single dose (for now)

 How has Covid affected the US?

It looks like the US has turned the corner of the third wave but we are still loosing too many lifes.  The overall toll of the pandemic to date is illustrated by looking at total weekly deaths in the US this year compared to previous years. Overall, Covid effect continues to result in excess deaths.  Note that this is an increase in overall deaths including more Covid deaths, more suicides, and likely reduced accidents.

Bring on the vaccines!

The actual design of the vaccine (Moderna's with Pfizer's shortly after) was complete January 2020. There was significant supportive safety data for the vaccines at the beginning of the pandemic. The actual safety data for the specific vaccine was available May 2020.   It has been months waiting for the FDA bureaucratic generation and review of additional efficacy and safety data.  What if we had taken a different approach, balancing the known risk with a reasonable estimate of safety of vaccine to greatly greatly accelerate emergency use authorization?  How many lives would we have saved?  Given the Pfizer data shows that one dose has a significant effect, why not go with 1 dose for now?  How many lives would we save?  UPDATE - UK today decided to go with 1 initial shot to save lives.

How's the US doing?

Relative to the major EU countries and Canada the US has been on the high end of cases (positive tests per million) but more in the middle of the pack in deaths per million.  Given that positive tests are affected by testing availability, non-random population sampling, and inter-country events/requirements, it is not a perfect measure of actual cases per million.  Deaths, however, are most likley the ultimate measure of Covid effect.

How are Individual states doing?

Data on cases (positive tests), hospitalizations and deaths in individual states shows that most states have had or are in their 3rd wave.  And, while total hospitalizations in the US is at a high level, most states are at a lower level than the worst hit states were early in the pandemic.  I highlight Illinois (my state), New York (where my daughters are)  and CA, NY, FL and TX to illustrate some of the larger states.

What's happening within the states?

Looking at what's happening in the largest counties in the US (over 1 million) shows the high level of cases (positive tests and note that during the first few month of the pandemic there was a severe limit of testing and as a result it is very likely that there was a much, much higher level of cases than shown through positive tests) and recent increase in deaths, noting that the deaths are still, thankfully, much lower than early in the pandemic.

Trickle Down DID work!

Everyone is richer.  

Recent buzz from London is that a study shows that trickle down didn't work.  However, if one reads the paper, what it says is that changes to taxes on the top 1% did not lessen income inequality.  But, and this is the big but, trickle down was never claimed to be the secret to reducing income inequality  It was positioned as the best way to improve all levels of income.  And guess what?  It does.  Yes, the highest earners are making 1.7x's more in income.  But the lowest earners are making 1.2 x's more.  And that's in the face of the least skilled workers having to compete with a developing world. 

The rich already pay more than their fair share.

And, as is clear, the highest earners are already paying 1/3 of their income to the federal government, not to mention additional taxes they pay at the state level.  How much more should someone pay to the government for their value creation.

The Data Does Not Support Stopping Responsible Socially Distanced Indoor Dining

As scary and obtrusive as it may sound, Google is able to "track mobility" of it's users: " We aggregated, anonymized data to chart movement trends over time by geography, across different high-level categories of places such as retail and recreation, groceries and pharmacies, parks, transit stations, workplaces, and residential."

Below is Cook County Il's mobility data showing the  mobility for various activities as a result of Covid.   

When mobility data for restaurants/recreation is compared to cases per million for Cook County and DuPage County IL there is no clear relationship between mobility and cases per million.

It may be that if there was more granular data available such as age, bars versus restaurants, etc., it is possible a more clear relationship might be identifiable.  But for now, it is not clear that going to restaurants in a responsible socially distanced manner, led to the recent increase in cases.

Bruh! We are Taxing the Rich

I am always amazed at what people can get away with saying.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is practicing her capitalistic rights by selling merch with the slogan: "Tax the Rich."  Despite having a degree in economics from Boston University, it is not clear how she justifies her position.  Maybe 5 years of bartending, working long double shifts and working her fingers to the bone, before becoming the woke darling of the left and liberal media, caused her to loose whatever abilities she had to understand facts and use logic to make a valid point.

I used the recent CBO Income Distribution Data to look at what US households are making in income (includes all income including government transfers) and paying in taxes.  What did I find?

The top 20% of households makes 51.1% of all of the US income and pays 67.5% of all of the taxes.  The second highest quintile makes 19.07% and pays 16.8%.  The middle quintile 13.8% and 9.1%.  The second to lowest makes 9.8% and pays 4.8%.  And the bottom quintile makes 5.6% of the nations income and pays only 1.8% of the nations taxes.

Note that this is just the Federal level of taxes.  There are additional taxes, progressive in most states, that are also being paid. 

Below you can see we are already taxing the rich at much higher tax rates than other quintiles of income.  How much higher does AOC want? 

AOC - Bruh - We are already taxing the rich!

Maybe we ought to start thinking "Fair Share" is treating everyone equally (flat tax.)

What is unfair if someone makes twice as much as another by working twice as hard, twice as smart or twice as long or even gets twice as lucky and then pays twice as much in taxes.  Isn't that fair?  Treating everyone's fruits of their labor equally, taking the same percentage?   Give everyone the same incentive to work harder, longer, smarter to create and keep more value.

We can take care of those who need it by redesigning our social safety nets for unlucky individuals recognizing that there will be lazy people traying to take advantage of them, to guarantee adequate food, shelter and health care and good education.  Offer this safety net to all.  Tax all income the same (wages, capital gains, dividends, inheritance, etc.).  That sounds fair to me.