Guaranteed failure, part II

President Trump made it clear in his interview with Fox News yesterday that his “plan” for opening the schools in full next month (or in September) is to force them to do so by withholding federal funds if they don’t. What’s most interesting – well, appalling – about this is that he has to know that a) federal funds only account for 8% of school districts’ funding, and b) those funds are earmarked for particular purposes like special needs students. He has zero authority to withhold them.

What’s even more appalling is that there’s certainly no reason to have this argument in the first place. Everyone agrees the kids need to be back in school as soon as possible, as long as this is done safely. But here’s the problem: Doing it safely requires a plan, and the Department of Education has no plan at all, other than to pound the table and force the districts to reopen for all kids five days a week - never mind that the number one skill taught in schools this fall will be Superspreading.

Now, the White House is filled with people who simply repeat what the president says back to him to make him feel good. But there are plenty of others that don’t do that – for example, Chris Wallace of Fox News pushed back on Trump time and again during the interview, and even interrupted the tape to fact check lies that Trump had told. Trump has to know there’s no way that schools will actually reopen no matter how many empty threats he makes.

The solution to this problem for Trump is really simple: Have the Dept. of Education develop a plan, which doesn’t get all students back but makes it possible for a lot of them to come back (and elementary students should be the first back, because they need the social interaction most, and can’t learn well remotely. They also, by good luck, happen to be the ones least likely to spread the virus to their families if they’re infected in school, whereas teenagers spread exactly like adults do, in fact worse because they interact with their peers much more). With that plan, there needs to be money to help the schools make reopening safe, especially replacing ventilation systems in about a quarter of the schools.

Of course, the Dept. of Ed. is very unlikely to develop any plan at all. And if the schools get more federal money (which they will), it will be no thanks at all to Trump.

But let’s say he gets his way, and most schools reopen at full strength and no preparation. What happens when the first superspreader event occurs? Or when the first teacher dies of Covid-19 contracted at school? Schools will again shut down. This time they’ll remain closed until parents can be absolutely certain that their children are safe, and teachers can be reasonably certain they’re safe. Instead of the half a loaf Trump could have had if he’d been sensible about reopening, he’ll end up with a zero loaf – and this will without doubt happen before the election.

Once again, failure is guaranteed. Trump knows it. Why is he doing this? Has he decided that, since he’s going to lose the election, he might as well bring everybody else down with him?

And even more importantly, why are we even letting this man stay in office until January 20? Are we aching to learn how much damage one person can really do? Unfortunately, we’ll probably learn that lesson. It will make for some great books and even movies, a few years from now.

Breaking news! The Daily Beast quotes Betsy DeVos as saying on a conference call with governors yesterday: “Education leaders really do need to examine real data and weigh risk,” DeVos said. “They already deal with risk on a daily basis. We know that risk is embedded in everything we do. Learning to ride a bike, to the risk of getting in a space capsule and getting shot off in a rocket into space.”

Of course, this will certainly reassure parents across the country: "Your kids are at no more risk than the astronauts on Apollo 1, the shuttle Challenger or the shuttle Columbia. Why, there's at least a 95% chance they won't die - or that you won't die after being infected by them - in any given school year. What are you worried about?

I'll forgive you if you think this is really from the Onion. Even they couldn't make something like this up.

The numbers

These numbers are updated every day, based on reported US Covid-19 deaths the day before (taken from the Worldometers.info site, where I’ve been getting my numbers all along). No other variables go into the projected numbers – they are all projections based on yesterday’s 7-day rate of increase in total Covid-19 deaths, which was 4%.

Note that the “accuracy” of the projected numbers diminishes greatly after 3-4 weeks. This is because, up until 3-4 weeks, deaths could in theory be predicted very accurately, if one knew the real number of cases. In other words, the people who are going to die in the next 3-4 weeks of Covid-19 are already sick with the disease, even though they may not know it yet. But this means that the trend in deaths should be some indicator of the level of infection 3-4 weeks previous.

However, once we get beyond 3-4 weeks, deaths become more and more dependent on policies and practices that are put in place – or removed, as is more the case nowadays - after today (as well as other factors like the widespread availability of an effective treatment, if not a real “cure”). Yet I still think there’s value in just trending out the current rate of increase in deaths, since it gives some indication of what will happen in the near term if there are no significant intervening changes.

Week ending	Deaths reported during week/month	Avg. deaths per day during week/month	Deaths as percentage of previous month’s
March 7	18	3
March 14	38	5
March 21	244	35
March 28	1,928	275
Month of March	4,058	131
April 4	6,225	889
April 11	12,126	1,732
April 18	18,434	2,633
April 25	15,251	2,179
Month of April	59,812	1,994	1,474%
May 2	13,183	1,883
May 9	12,592	1,799
May 16	10,073	1,439
May 23	8,570	1,224
May 30	6,874	982
Month of May	42,327	1,365	71%
June 6	6,544	935
June 13	5,427	775
June 20	4,457	637
June 27	6,167	881
Month of June	23,925	798	57%
July 4	4,166	595
July 11	5,087	727
July 18	5,476	782
July 25	5,705	815
Month of July	23,514	759	98%
August 1	5,933	848
August 8	6,170	881
August 15	6,417	917
August 22	6,673	953
August 29	6,939	991
Month of August	28,202	910	120%
Total March – August	181,838

I. Total deaths

Total US deaths as of yesterday: 143,289

Deaths yesterday: 408

Yesterday’s 7-day rate of increase in total deaths: 4% (This number is used to project deaths in the table above; it was 4% yesterday. There is a 7-day cycle in the reported deaths numbers, caused by lack of reporting over the weekends from closed state offices. So this is the only reliable indicator of a trend in deaths, not the three-day percent increase I used to focus on, and certainly not the one-day percent increase, which mainly reflects where we are in the 7-day cycle).

II. Total reported cases

Total US reported cases: 3,898,639

Increase in reported cases since previous day: 64,923

Percent increase in reported cases since yesterday: 2%

Percent increase in reported cases since 7 days previous: 14%  

III. Deaths as a percentage of closed cases so far in the US:

Total Recoveries in US as of yesterday: 1,802,391

Total Deaths as of yesterday: 143,289

Deaths so far as percentage of closed cases (=deaths + recoveries): 7%

For a discussion of what this number means – and why it’s so important – see this post. Short answer: If this percentage declines, that’s good. It’s been steadily declining since a high of 41% at the end of March. But a good number would be 2%, like South Korea’s. An OK number would be 4%, like China’s.

I would love to hear any comments or questions you have on this post. Drop me an email at tom@tomalrich.com