In "Recommended Reading," after the lockdowns, numerous studies have document permanent learning loss among children because of shuttered schools and distance-education. Now a new study. One exception. Sweden.
Covid-2019
Covid-2019
Friday, June 10, 2022
In "Recommended Reading": did you know that the American Rescue Plan funded a new CDC service that will forecast diseases like the weather? If that seems like a bad idea (after all, weather forecasts are always wrong), well, that's because it is!
Covid-2019
Thursday, June 9, 2022
In "Recommended Reading," a fascinating new NBER study by our friends Casey Mulligan and Rob Arnott, documenting the mysterious recent rise in deaths other than Covid-related. Why more homicides? Why more motor deaths? Why none at all among children? Is it something about the pandemic, or our societal responses to it?
Covid-2019
Wednesday, June 8, 2022
In "Recommended Reading," a visionary analysis by our friend Bret Swanson on how robots can save us from what he calls "Covid-flation."
Covid-2019
Tuesday, June 7, 2022
In "Recommended Reading," an update on Alex Berenson versus Twitter. He fights on for the right to expose Twitter's complicity with government to suppress Covid critics.
Covid-2019
Monday, June 6, 2022
We've gotten used to certain patterns in Covid data -- but now something new has emerged. In the US, fatalities have run a steady 500 per day, plus or minus, for three months straight. Meanwhile, case numbers have risen a bit. That means the case-fatality rate has fallen, of course. But it remains odd that in data series that have always been uniformly cyclical, this one is flat-lining.
Covid-2019
Sunday, June 5, 2022
In "Recommended Reading," the political newspaper The Hill asks: "COVID-19 cases are on the rise. Does it matter anymore?" The answer is no. One reason is that US cases are in a rising trend nationally, but in a falling trend in 18 states (and that number making good progress has been steadily improving for the last two weeks).
Covid-2019
Saturday, June 4, 2022
In China, no Covid fatalities reports in 8 days. Onl7 171 cases nationwide yesterday. Is that close enough to "zero Covid" for you?
Covid-2019
Friday, June 3, 2022
We're back... thanks to our friends at Johns Hopkins for being so responsive to yesterday's database issues. We have your favorite fear-porn in "Recommended Reading" -- how about this headline: "US Covid cases may be 30 times higher than reported"? What would journalists do without the word "may"? But in really important news, we congratulate our fellow Texan Harini Logan for winning the national Spelling Bee!
Covid-2019
Wednesday, June 1, 2022
A new feature today on page 3: the China provincial case accelerometer, so you can track area-by-area the progress toward achieving "zero Covid." A flat line means no case growth -- zero Covid. Looks to us like we're darn close.