Not yet. To be fair it can be hard to tell. I don't know if our rise in cases is exponential as it was. It looks like the rise may have gotten a bit slower. On an anecdotal basis: since the lockdown started 2 of 3 clinicians at my wife's clinic have been diagnosed. One only lost sense of smell and taste. Two had flu-like symptoms and have since recovered. Two of my children have been put in isolation but not tested (no symptoms). So it is certainly getting close to (if not on top of) my family.

The science and data aren't so clear - there are definitely disagreements. Without a statistical analysis I'd point out the following:

1. You lockdown, but the virus remains to break out later - and so you end up bouncing alone and perhaps never actually moving past the virus. This is probably what France, Spain and the UK are experiencing. A lockdown saved very few lives (judging by how many died relative to, say, Sweden) - but slowed down transmission so that people didn't get widespead exposure. Sweden is *not* seeing a resurgence of deaths.

2. The US story is very unclear in this regard. Arizona, Florida, Texas and Georgia were all criticized for not locking down enough. Arizona has 76 deaths/100,000. Georgia and Florida have 64 and Texas has 53. Some states with lockdowns have been far better. But many were far worse. NY 170, MA 136 and so on...

I think the effect of lockdowns varies massively by many other factors. If people live 13 to a 3 bedroom apartment (Bnei Brak) in very dense neighborhoods a lockdown probably does very little. If a virus spreads by aerosols (as the CDC is considering) or sewage a lockdown might do very little. If it can spread in harvested or processed food packaging then not much is helped.

To me, our recent evidence suggests lockdowns can slow things down - but the price is terribly high and the long-term benefits might not be there. If we're only waiting a few more weeks for mass vaccines of high-risk patients then they might be the right path. If not, it is harder.

Hebrew or Arabic. But foreign doctors don't - so you can't import lots of Hebrew-speaking doctors. Many people have another language - Arabic, English or Russian. This opens up foreign medical personnel.

Because patient-doctor communications can be helpful - we aren't cars. So being able to take a history and communicate is helpful.

I don't listen to a word Trump says. He's an idiot. I would guess you don't either. You will not find, in all the writing I've done, a single reference to Trump as an authority in *anything.*

That doesn't mean he can't be an effective President but only a small percentage of people (probably somewhat smaller than the number who think Biden has all his marbles) actually think Trump speaks truth. Many more people just don't happen to believe his detractors either and so refer to Trump as an antidote to the accepted truth.

Where I live there are newspapers who job it is to criticize Netanyahu (and others which exist to praise him). When there is no lockdown, they lambaste Netanyahu for not locking down. When there is a lockdown, they attack him for locking down. When there is no peace, attack him for no peace. When there is peace, attack him for peace (this is a clever turn for generally left-wing papers, but they've done it - see below).

I've learned to tune out both the pro-Netanyahu and anti-Netanyahu news.They are driven by personality, not underlying objectives and the focus on personality ends up being tremendously destructive.

I apply the same rule to Trump. I'm not really interested in what either his supporters or detractors have to say - they are both blinded by the politics of personality.

--

How does the left-wing attack peace?

1) Attack military equipment concessions the UAE got

2) Attack the dishonesty of pretending to want annexation just to give the UAE something to paper over their decision (stopping annexation)

3) Attack the peace deals as being too quick and not perfectly negotiated

4) Attack the peace deals as serving political objectives

5) Attack the peace deals because Netanyahu should be focusing exclusively on Coronavirus

6) Attack the peace deals because the other party aren't very nice people

7) Attack the peace deals because Netanyahu wasn't going to fly commercial to get to DC

All of it is pretty useful for analyzing whether the deals are a good idea or not. If they had been commissioned by somewhat on the left, none of these arguments would exist. Of course, the opposite also applies - if a left-wing PM were to do things the right-wing supports the same kind of attacks would occur.

The peace deals are wonderful. The lockdown is somewhat 'light.' My son is still going to his basketball practice my wife to work. They have closed schools, customer-facing businesses (to on-premises customers) and limited travel for reasons outside of work. Hopefully it will help the caseload stay within the treatment capacity.

Two notes.

One, the Israeli death rate only just crossed 2/million/day. The US peaked at 8. Belgium at 25, Spain at 18. So while we have lots of positive tests part of that is due to lots of testing.

Two, there is a cultural challenge. If you go here and sort by the places with the highest rates: en.wikipedia.org/.../Israel_medical_cases

You'll see Arab and Haredi (ultra-orthodox) places at the top of the list. The vast majority of the top of the list are Arab, but they are smaller places. Despite the government and the press, I think many people want to let it spread in order to move on. I'd be happy to do this too - with better statistical understanding of the remaining cost and with field hospitals and overseas clinicians invited to shore up capacity during the rush.

In round 1, Israel had a death rate of 0.14% per statistically identified case (vs. 1.4% in NY and 5% in Sweden). This number should be updated and the remaining road identified so we can make intelligent decisions about where to go.

200,000 Americans did not die because of anything Trump said. That's like saying Peru's Vizcarra is responsible for the worst death rate in the world, or Sophie Wilmes is responsible for the second-worst-in-the-world death rate in Belgium. Or Mario Cuomo being responsible for the second-highest death rate in the US (behind NJ).

Different words might have had very little impact. Even different actions, given the existing social and cultural aspects of the United States might have caused more harm than good.

As far as public is concerned, here's an excerpt from my podcast on January 28th:

"You see, the disease was first noticed in early December. Locking down Wuhan was very impressive, but the chances are the horse has already left the barn. Over four million people left the city between the time of initial detection and when they shut the doors. If the disease can be transmitted during its dormant period of up to 2 weeks then millions of people could have left, undetected, as carriers. If the disease is contagious when there are no symptoms, then there’s no way to get a leash on it now."

I had no special briefings, no unique insights.

Here's an early attempt at humor from February 2nd:

"For years, China pushed the One Child Policy. They forced abortions. There were masses of abandoned babies. All of it was a particularly nasty deal. But, then, they realized they were going to suffer a terrible problem. There are going to be, if current demographic trends continue, an enormous amount of old Chinese who are beyond their working prime. A country with the per capita income of Romania was going to have a massive elderly population. There were going to be too many parents. Cue the Corona Virus. The Chinese have just shifted their old policies. Instead of the One Child Policy, they’ve adopted something new. The No Parent policy."

This is not suggestive of a disease that isn't dangerous.

He didn't have any information we didn't have. It was obvious to everybody from January that a disease that could spread asymptomaticly could not be stopped beyond the very very early stages. That window closed with the Chinese New Year in Wuhan.

So he *knew* it, but so did everybody else. It was coming, no matter what. Then the question is, what do you do about it?

Even now, the answer isn't so obvious. Sustained mass panic might not be the way to go.

Don't ascribe too much intelligence to Trump's statements at any time. He could now just be trying to make himself look smarter than he was (or is).