Secession and COVID-19: UPDATE1:

So before I discuss the topic I want to say two things. I am doing fine and I have enough supplies to stay inside for a considerable amount of time and being retired I don't have to go to work or take other risks.

The other topic will be covered at the end of this post, which is some basic information about COVID-19 with links to some reliable sources of information.

SECESSION AND COVID-19

I have expressed the opinion that as long as Trump is re-elected the secession movements are going to remain without support. I also thought that there was a good chance Trump might be elected. So I haven't revived my writing on the Texas nationalist movement. The manuscript is where it was the night of the election in 2016.

However, we now have a severe national disruption with COVID-19.  Trump has said a series of things which in retrospect look fairly stupid. On the other hand the conservative movementt of the Breitbart type,https://www.breitbart.com/ , are coming up with a counter narrative as to what is happening. So COVID-19 has become fully politicized.

If things go badly, such as the health  care system runs out of hospital beds and really sick people are sent away I think Trump will have very poor re-election chances. I think it hasn't been considered that during a pandemic it might be elderly sick people with the flu that can't get beds because they are taken up with COVID-19 patients.

For example in Texas there is this warning about Texas running out of hospital beds by late April, about 30 days from now.

https://www.dallasnews.com/news/public-health/2020/03/22/hospitals-will-run-out-of-beds-by-late-april-if-gov-abbott-doesnt-order-texans-to-stay-at-home-hospital-group-warns/

Then there is this is the latest count of new cases. (3/22/2020 Dallas Morning News (DMN) Sunday report)It is 36 new cases, with the county's total now reported as 131. Yesterday's DMN report it was 21 new cases with a total of 95. Friday, March 20, 2020 DMN report it was 19 cases, with a total of 74. Thursday, March 19, 2020 there were 20 new cases, for a total of 55. I am not exactly sure if the report is for the day or the report or the prior day.

UPDATE as of yesterday, April 1, 2020 there were 100 new cases and the total is 731. The number of cases is still increasing and increasing at a higher rate.
https://www.dallasnews.com/news/public-health/2020/04/02/were-beginning-to-see-the-curve-rise-dallas-county-reports-record-100-new-coronavirus-cases/

So in three days the number of cases have more than doubled, about 2.5 times. However, this is a limited sample and the climbing numbers of cases might be due  to testing stations being opened so people can stop and get tested.

A week ago last Friday, the known number of cases in Dallas was 18. 3/13/2020, DMN. However, I would not use this data to construct an exponential curve. What I am trying to point out is that there could be in a week alot more cases, many times more cases than at the present.

https://www.dallasnews.com/news/public-health/2020/03/22/dallas-county-announces-second-death-36-new-coronavirus-cases/

If on the other hand there is a surge but it doesn't exceed the capacity of the health care system Trump will not be that badly impacted I speculate. Despite everything stupid he has said his supporters really don't care and they will vote for him. The real issue for them is not getting a Democrat elected and they would be willing to vote for a yellow dog or a sack of potatoes instead.

The other issue about a failing health care system is the health care providers getting sick. If most of the doctors are sick or quarentined along with other health care workers how does a hospital function? If there aren't

So what are the chances of the health care system getting overloaded or too many health care workers getting sick? I really don't know and I am watching day by day. Largely because I need to know if there will be emergency care if I get sick.

There has been alot of really inane alarmism. Mathematical illiterates are suddenly talking about exponential curves and with a few data points projecting millions of cases in 4 to 8 weeks. Besides using a few points to fit a curve and other idiocies these projections are just stupid. I have solved differential equations and in no way does the spead of a virus going to be that simple.

This isn't to say there can't be dire consequences, but I wish to warn people not to believe some these projections. If they use the word "exponential" they are idiots.

The basic problem is that we don't know how many people are out there with COVID-19. Until starting this week there has been little testing. The testing is largely of those who are sick and believe they might have it.

How many people are out there asymmtomatic or mild and spreading it we don't know. It might be quite a lot or it might not be enough to bring down the health care system.  Also, even if it is a lot of people, it  might be with the tough measures being taken it will be controlled.

So I am watching the numbers come in. The amount of testing is going way up and every person tested positive can be quarantined. On the other hand this virus takes some time to start exhibiting symptoms if it does, so we might find out in the next coupld of weeks a lot of people suddenly manifesting symptoms. In general we will have to just wait and see.

One factor I haven't seen discussed is the mortality rates versus age and the political implications. The chance of COVID-19 being fatal to a person contracting goes up stepply with age. It also impacts people with underlying health conditions which tend to go up with age. So though the gross average fatality rate might be about 1% for the general population, for the elderly it seems to be many times higher. Demographically these are much more likely to be Trump voters.

Asian Americans who being high income and who tend to be Republicans are very alienated by Trump's pandering to racist sentiment. It is likely to cost the Republicans a House district or two and maybe a U.S. Senate seat.

I think in about four weeks I think we will start seeing how this will play out politically. Of course even if it doesn't reach disasterous proportions, it might be that voter turn out will be much higher among young people who are finally motivated to vote, and want to vote Trump out.

I think political polarization is going to go way up. People in the cities impacted by Trump's incompetence are really angry.

COVID-19 is likely to be a public health issue right up to election day.

If Trump is not re-elected I think that secession movements will be quite active and get strong support. Not just because Trump is not elected, but because they will see a Democratic Party in power ready to aggressively push their agenda. The Democratic base is angry and will expect the Democrats to move.  This will likely cause a reaction with conservatives.

In the larger picture what is happening is unprecedented. In the end I am just guessing at what the issues might be and how they develop.

By the way there is even a right wing narrative that there really isn't a problem.

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2020/03/ron-paul/the-coronavirus-hoax/

COVID-19 INFORMATION

I would like to dispell those who are talking about fatality rates of 4% or more. The fatality rate for the general population appears to be somewhere between 0.6 to 1.5%.

The high rates reported are due to statistical bias of a skewed sample. So if I had a disease which had many of the people getting it not having symptoms of mild and others severely impacted or fatal it would depend very much on my sampling.

For example if there was an extensive testing of the public so we learned and included in our number those who are sick but don't have symptoms or mild, and we divided the number of fatalities by the total number we would get one rate of fatality.

On the other hand if we just took the number of people who should up at the hospital and divided that number into deaths we would get a much higher rate of fatality. The sample wouldn't include those who didn't have symptoms or were mild or those who weren't bad enough to show up at the hospital.

For other information I direct readers below. I just think people should be critically thinking about what is put out to the public and the fatality rate I find to be a big factor in getting people to panic. The rate is high, and it is many times higher than the flu, but it isn't the Black Death or Ebola either.

This is an excellent link for information about COVID-19. I regularly read them and they are really good in terms of their reporting and also being critical of what might be put out as information. It is fairly comprehensive and will answer any questions you might have.
https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/03/dont-panic-the-comprehensive-ars-technica-guide-to-the-coronavirus/