One of the weirder acts in the world of magic is a guy named “Sylvester the Jester,” aka the “living cartoon.” The gist of his act is recreating effects you might see in Looney Tunes — eyes bulging out of his head, steam coming out of his ears — but in real life. His catchphrase, no matter what weirdly destructive thing he’s just done to his body, is a cartoony, cheerful, “Back to normal!”
I’ve been darkly thinking about that a lot in the past week, as much of the US began emerging from the first phase of the pandemic as if everything was just magically going back to normal. You don’t need me to tell you that’s not how things have worked out. In the interest of transparency, I’ve been doing a few normal things in the past week. I attended a wedding, but via Zoom (it was amazingly well done and still very touching!). I had a few very cautious meals at restaurants, only at uncrowded places with widely spaced outdoor seating and lots of air circulation. I got a haircut, my first of 2020 and long overdue, but with measures in place to keep it as safe as possible: masks on at all times, by appointment only, no blow dryers, and frequent sanitizing of everything. It feels good to do normal things, but there’s still much I won’t do: dine indoors, go to a party, ride in a Lyft, take a bus, or get on an airplane. The best way to get through this is still to avoid prolonged indoor interactions, wear a mask when you have to be indoors, and keep your social circle tightly circumscribed and physically distanced.
Soon I’ll have a new piece for you that has nothing to do with either COVID or police brutality, a welcome break from the doom and gloom. But for now, there’s a ton of COVID news to sort out. Let’s get to it.
Covering COVID
The biggest story in the US right now is that case numbers are exploding. At the same time, the number of daily deaths has been in decline. Unfortunately, I don’t see much reason for optimism in that disparity. We can expect infections to be a leading indicator for deaths, since there are typically weeks between infection and that outcome, and there’s a further delay in official reporting. On top of that, it appears that new infections are concentrated in younger age groups. They’re less likely to die from COVID, but a highly infectious respiratory virus is unlikely to stay put in just one segment of the population; young people will eventually infect older cohorts. My fear now is that as the virus spills into older populations, we’ll see another big wave of deaths this summer, reversing progress in reducing mortality (though I would love to be wrong). For a very good breakdown of how to interpret these trends, see this post from the COVID Tracking Project.
We understandably focus on death as the worst outcome for COVID, but higher rates of survival among young people shouldn’t make them complacent about becoming infected. It’s true that they probably won’t die, but they may suffer lung scarring and a variety of other long-term, debilitating symptoms. Lois Parshley explores these for Vox. Patients are also prone to experiencing terrifying delusions. Keep in mind that this virus has only been known in humans for about six months, so there’s still a lot we don’t know about its potential effects.
The Atlantic’s coverage right now is so good that almost every link could lead there, but I’ll highlight this piece by amateur pilot James Fallows. He looks at the United States’ early response as if he were writing an accident report for a plane crash, documenting the ways our national failure didn’t have to be so disastrous.
For a broad view of the situation, as well as thoughts on what activities to possibly engage in, read this interview with epidemiologist Marc Lipsitch. Thinking of dining inside a restaurant? Consider that JPMorgan analysts have found that restaurant spending strongly predicts future surges in cases.
You may have read about a new flu virus in pigs with “pandemic potential.” The media is obviously primed for these kinds of stories right now, but fortunately it doesn’t look like an immediate threat. Here’s a good thread from a virologist explaining why. This story did get me wondering about how many viruses are out there lurking in the wild, which led me to this paper surveying bats to roughly estimate that there are more than 300,000 different viruses infecting mammals. The next pandemic is likely a virus we don’t even know yet, just like we didn’t know the novel coronavirus until it was already spreading among us. (See my post “Spillover, revisited” for more on this.)
On a positive note, antibody treatments are looking promising and may be in use well before a vaccine. CNN covers the basics, and JAMA has a more technical explanation.
Lastly, a few big picture essays I found thought-provoking and that are also worth your time: Noah Smith on what the pandemic has revealed about American decline; Francis Fukuyama on whether COVID will lead to more liberal democracy or more nationalism; Bruno Macaes on how the “great pause” could change the metaphors we use to think about the economy, shifting from viewing it less as a complex organism and more as a programmable intelligence.
Social distancing
To read: The above article by James Fallows reminded me of Greg Ip’s 2015 book Foolproof, which has a chapter on how we made air travel extraordinarily safe. The book more broadly about the how maximizing safety can lead to unanticipated risks and is interesting throughout. In fiction, I enjoyed In Other Rooms, Other Wonders, Daniyal Mueenuddin’s collection of interrelated short stories set in modern Pakistan.
To wear: The masks I ordered from Grayers a while back have finally arrived, and aside from having to tie knots in the straps to make them tight enough, they’re pretty solid. If you want masks that are comfortable to wear and that come in a summery prints, I recommend them. (And definitely do wear a mask! It’s one of the lowest cost things you can do to protect yourself and others.)
To eat: Tyler Cowen says we’re living in a temporary dining paradise, which is definitely overstating things. But the advice to seek out a few carefully selected dishes that aren’t normally available is sound. Here in Portland, the “Asian stoner food” at Gado Gado and the fish and chips at Oui Chippy (the temporary conversion of Scotch Lodge) have been standouts. You can probably find similarly new approaches at restaurants in your city. Also, if you’re a subscriber to Reason magazine, you can read my cover story from the new issue on how restaurants are adapting to the current environment. Non-subscribers will have to wait.
To drink: Here’s a throwback to one of my old cocktails that I like to make for outside drinking in the summer, the Smokejumper. It’s refreshing with a touch of smoke from lapsang souchong tea. (You can tell this is an old photo from the plastic straw. Shame!)
2 oz gin
3/4 oz fresh lemon juice
1/2 oz yellow Chartreuse
1/2 oz lapsang souchong syrup (1:1 hot tea to water)
Shake, serve on the rocks with a lemon twist.
Newsletter details and obligatory self-promotion
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