WHEN WILL THE PANDEMIC END?

Before getting into the COVID-19 Pandemic, here is a New York Times viewpoint from this morning on how Biden will tax the very rich:

The data is a reminder of just how far taxes on the wealthy have fallen over the past 70 years. In the decades just after World War II, many corporations paid about half of their profits in federal taxes. (Shareholders, who are disproportionately affluent, effectively pay those taxes). Today, corporate taxes are only about one-fourth as large, as a share of G.D.P., as they were in the 1950s and ’60s.

Also from the NYT:

• Bill and Melinda Gates are divorcing, raising questions about the future of their philanthropic foundation.

I began reading Gates' new book, How to Avoid a Climate Disaster.

Bill McKibbens' review, where he starts with:

First things first — much respect to Bill Gates for his membership in the select club of ultrabillionaires not actively attempting to flee Earth and colonize Mars.

For the record, here is a timetable of our Pandemic:

• This COVID-19 virus was first identified in Wuhan, China in December of 2019.  

• 
  That month I was on the Diamond Princess, which soon thereafter became the center of interest as the hotspot with the first international outbreak.
• Beginning on 20January2020 the ship left Yokohama, and by the time passengers were allowed to disembark a month later, 712 out of 3711 became infected, resulting in 14 deaths.
• The rate of contagion was 19%.
• The mortality rate was 2%
• Currently worldwide, 2% of the total population have been infected and the mortality rate is 2%.
• There remains the matter of asymptomatic cases.  
• For the Diamond Princess, this figure was 46.5%.
• If this figure is used for the world, then, instead of 155 million total cases, it should be 333 million cases, or 4% of the world population.
• 
  The World Health Organization began to be concerned on 20January2020 and finally declared this to be a pandemic on 11March2020.
• World deaths per week, and note that this has only plateaued for the World:

• The Infection Fatality Rate by age is startling.

CDC Planning Scenario IFR Range

Age group	IFR
0–19	0.002%–0.01%
20–49	0.007%–0.03%
50–69	0.25%–1.0%
70+	2.8%–9.3%

• The world GDP loss is said to be at 4.5%, a value of $88 trillion dollars/year.
• The U.S. stock market actually did well, after that initial drop, as all-time records are regularly being broken by all three primary indexes.

• Unemployment is settling at around 6%, with Hawaii the highest at 9% today:

• 
  Social distancing, hand-washing and masks prevent the transmission.
• Several vaccines began to be distributed from December 2020.
• More than 12 billion doses will be made available this year, making it possible to vaccinate 70% of the world population, which is around 7.7 billion.
• A survey published in January of this year of 19 countries reported that 71.5% would most likely be vaccinated, ranging from 90% in China to 55% in Russia.
• 
  The current expectation is that herd immunity will not be reached in the U.S.
• The herd immunity figure has been a moving target.
• The higher the transmission rate, the higher the herd immunity figure.
• Today, Anthony Fauci estimates it to be 70%-85% for COVID-19, possibly because the new variants are more contagious.
• Herd immunity depends on the disease:
• Measles  92%-95%
• Smallpox  80%-86%
• COVID-19  60%-75%
• Ebola  33%-60%
• Seasonal Flu  33%-44%

• 
  30% of the U.S. population will likely not be vaccinated.
• Thus, the U.S. will probably never reach the lower level of that guess.
• However, it looks like at least 80% of those 65 and over will be vaccinated, and this is the group with a high mortality rate.  Thus deaths will begin to drop.
• Plus, as various roadblocks will be placed on those not vaccinated--like from entering indoor restaurants, sporting events, cruise ships and so forth--in time many will overcome their inclination and get vaccinated.  
• Booster shots will be developed by the Fall.  These will further protect those already vaccinated.
• Thus, by this Fall into early next year the combination of therapeutics to treat those infected and the shift to most cases being the younger generation will mean that, while cases will remain worrisome, deaths will drop.
• Remember that 250,000 to 500,000 die each year from the seasonal flu.
• Also, 1.35 million are killed annually on our roadways.
• At the current world death number of 8,000/day for COVID-19, this would add up to 2.9 million/year.
• When this figure drops to 1000/day, or 350,000/year, about the average for flu/year, the pandemic will most likely be deemed over.
• But when will this be in consideration of the more infectious variants, the World perhaps never really reaching herd immunity, current expansion of this disease in India and uncertainty about Africa makes it difficult to guess when WHO will declare that the Pandemic is over.

Well, so much for our Pandemic.  I'll end first with a photo.  I haven't run a thorough check, but a decade away this month from the success the U.S. had in finding and killing Osama bin Laden, the person most responsible for 9/11/01, the following shot sent to me shows him as just a normal teenager of 14 with his friends.  He is second from the left:

The President credited for this revenge was Barack Obama.  Last week the History Channel showed the documentary, Revealed:  The Hunt for Bin Laden.  And, by the way, President Donald Trump reported that Osama's son, Hamza then 30, was killed in a counterterrorism operation, followed a year later by another assassination of his wife and her father, bomb maker Ahmed Abdullah. 

Last month I posted on Adolf Hitler:  Downfall and Resurrection.   Here is a 1935 photo of Ferdinand Porsche showing the Volkswagen Beetle to him:

It's true, in 1934 Hitler did commission Porsche to develop this car.  More than 21 million were sold, and production finally ended in 2019 with the following two convertibles.  Still sort of looks the same.

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