Wall Street Journal 08_04_2020

A18| Wednesday, April 8, 2020 THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.

Modeling the Path of Coronavirus Epidemic

In “Coronavirus Lessons From the

Asteroid That Didn’t Hit Earth” (op-

ed, April 2), Benny Peiser and An-

drew Montford seem to misunder-

stand the purpose of computer

simulations in epidemiology. The

power of astronomy lies in the fact

that planetary motions can be calcu-

lated from a small number of well-

defined variables. By comparison, in-

fectivity depends on millions of

poorly known behaviors ranging

from human sexuality to hand-wash-

ing. Simple models that reduce this

complexity to a single number (“R0”)

are bound to be wrong. The advan-

tage of computer models is that they

allow more variables. But these are

uncertain. Crowdsourcing cannot fix

this because no group can possibly

know facts that aren’t available to at

least one of its members. The point

of comparing different simulations is

less to decide which one is “right,”

than to see which outcomes are con-

sistent with our ignorance.

ADJ.EM.PROF.STEPHENM.MAURER

Univ. of California at Berkeley

The authors make a number of

good points about computer model-

ing and its limitations. However, the

age of a computer code is a lesser is-

sue if the logic and physical assump-

tions that were coded was correct in

the first place: the Pythagorean the-

orem or Navier-Stokes equations

cannot be faulted because of their

age, but their misapplication can be.

However, the degree to which a com-

puter model has been validated

against real data is paramount, as is

application within stated bounds of

validation. Of course, even well-vali-

dated code written in obsolete lan-

guages may not be executable on

modern machines; such code would

need to be recast in a modern lan-

guage and re-validated against real

data, taking data uncertainties into

account. Modern code, per se, by no

means guarantees superiority.

In any case, critical thinking is al-

ways needed when computer model-

ing (modern or not) results are pre-

sented. One need only look at the

striking variability of time-depen-

dent trajectories predicted by five to

six different hurricane models to re-

alize that future behaviors of com-

plex systems aren’t necessarily well

described by them.

JOHNWM.COX,PH.D.

Vienna, Va.

Messrs. Peiser and Montford’s

questioning the use of data based on

13-year-old models brings to mind

the admonishment given by Richard

Feynman during the investigation of

the Challenger explosion to a NASA

manager who argued that their data

didn’t signify the danger: “When you

don’t have any data,” Feynman said,

“you have to use reason.” An apt les-

son for this current challenge.

LARRYW.WHITE

Dallas

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Letters intended for publication should

be addressed to: The Editor, 1211 Avenue

of the Americas, New York, NY 10036,

or emailed to [email protected]. Please

include your city and state. All letters

are subject to editing, and unpublished

letters can be neither acknowledged nor

returned.

“Sometimes I just come

up here to think.”

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

Covid-19: What Would Dr. Tom Coburn Do?

Regarding your editorial “Thomas

Allen Coburn” (March 30): Dr. Co-

burn’s free-market health-care legacy

is evident in the “Phase 3” coronavi-

rus stimulus legislation, which re-

quires health-care providers to post

their cash prices for coronavirus

tests. Dr. Coburn was an early and

passionate advocate for health-care

price transparency, including in

“Shop Around for Surgery? Colorado

May Soon Encourage It” (Cross Coun-

try, May 5, 2018), where he argued:

“Publishing prices upfront would al-

low patients to shop for value. In or-

der to attract business, medical pro-

viders would have to step up their

game by offering more for less.”

Price transparency for coronavirus

diagnostics will serve as a check on

prices, limiting hospital price goug-

ing and waste, which Dr. Coburn

would have certainly chronicled in

his annual “Wastebook.” He laid the

groundwork for this small price-

transparency step, which can become

a giant leap if legislators pick up his

mantle and extend it to treatments

as part of the potential “Phase 4”

stimulus legislation.

CYNTHIAA.FISHER

Newton, Mass.

Ms. Fisher is the founder and

chairman of PatientRightsAdvo-

cate.org, on whose board Dr. Coburn

sat.

Ihaveneverreadabetterargu-

ment for term limits for the House

and Senate.

JOEL.WILSON

Seabrook Island, S.C.

Pelosi: Fight Covid With Tax Relief for Rich

How apropos that your editorial

“Pelosi Pitches a Blue-State Bailout”

appeared on April 1. Many of your

readers must have surely thought

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi seeking

tax relief for her most financially

blessed constituents, in the middle of

a global pandemic, was April Fools’

Day satire.

Before Covid-19 came to our shores,

in one of the hottest U.S. economies

on record, approximately 36% of all

Californians lived below or just above

the poverty line (according to the

Public Policy Institute of California),

more than 150,000 California resi-

dents were homeless and one out of

every three welfare recipients in the

entire nation called California home.

Now, in the midst of economic un-

certainty, Speaker Pelosi is seeking a

tax break for California’s landed gen-

try. Golden State homeowners, af-

fected by limitations of the deductibil-

ity of state and local taxes already

enjoy high incomes and have reaped

unparalleled gains courtesy of a resi-

dential market kept artificially in-

flated by government policies that

benefit only land owners, the STEM

educated and those with the foresight

to be born to wealthy parents. Going

forward, it should be abundantly clear

where the speaker’s priorities lie.

RONDAROSS

Austin, Texas

I couldn’t help but notice you omit-

ted two vital words at the end of the

editorial. “When Democrats next com-

plain that Republicans want to cut

taxes ‘for the rich,’ remember that

Mrs. Pelosi wants to cut them, too,

but mainly for the progressive rich in

Democratic states”and herself.As

many know, Mrs. Pelosi is no pauper.

KEVINR.GERACI

Portland, Ore.

Unreasonably raising prices for

medical supplies and equipment

needed to fight Covid-19 during this

national emergency period is broadly

defined as “price gouging.” How is

attaching completely unrelated riders

to Covid-19 legislation during a na-

tional emergency, as Speaker Pelosi

did, any different from price gouging?

BILLYONTZ

McLean, Va.

Pepper ...

And Salt

Cruise Lines Should Appeal to Their Flags

Regarding Orlando Ashford’s

“Lost at Sea in a Pandemic” (op-ed,

April 1): Cruise ship lines use off-

shore flagging of their ships to

dodge U.S. regulation, liability and

taxation, legally registering their

vessels in Panama, Liberia and other

countries out of reach of U.S. law.

Carnival’s Carnival Breeze, Carnival

Dream, Carnival Conquest, Carnival

Elation and Carnival Ecstasy are reg-

istered in Panama, while Disney’s

Disney Wonder flies the Bahamian

flag. The Caribbean Princess is reg-

istered in Bermuda and Celebrity

Apex in Malta. These ships employ

largely cheap foreign crews and

build and refit their ships in foreign

shipyards.

Now they come begging for bil-

lions of U.S. dollars to save an in-

dustry that has done its very best to

avoid our laws and workers. I say let

them have U.S. tax money only after

every one of their existing ships is

flagged in the U.S. as a U.S. vessel,

and any new ships are built and

maintained in the U.S. Otherwise, let

them go beg from the countries

where their ships are registered. I’m

sure Panama, Malta and the Baha-

mas are eager to hand out free $

billion checks.

FRANKLOUISBLAIRKOUCKYIII

Carmel Valley, Calif.

The Art of Coronavirus Modeling

M

odeling the course of the coronavirus
pandemic may still be as much art as
science as projections are shifting as
more information becomes
available. The good news is
that conditions in most of the
country are less dire than
early models predicted, and
public-health experts will have
to study the reasons to help
the country emerge from this economically de-
structive shutdown.
The so-called Murray model by the Univer-
sity of Washington’s Institute for Health Met-
rics and Evaluation on Tuesday projected 81,
fatalities over the next four months, which is
about the same as it forecast two weeks ago. But
predictions for individual states have shifted,
sometimes dramatically.
Forecasted fatalities have fallen in North Car-
olina (-80%), Pennsylvania (-75%), California
(-70%), Texas (-65%) and Washington (-55%) and
even by nearly two-thirds in Louisiana despite
its recent surge in cases. Death projections, on
the other hand, have increased by more than half
in New York and 133% in New Jersey.
More states are also predicted to experience
their peak demand for hospital resources
sooner. The Murray model now shows that
Washington hit its apex on April 2—17 days ear-
lier than forecast two weeks ago. California is
expected to hit its peak on April 14—10 days
earlier—though Gov. Gavin Newsom has pro-
jected the date at sometime in mid-May.
The Murray team say their projections
changed because their early modeling was
based largely on data coming from China. “The
time from implementation of social distancing
to the peak of the epidemic in the Italy and
Spain location is shorter than what was ob-
served in Wuhan,” they note. This underlines
the limitations of existing models.
As Anthony Fauci of the White House corona-
virus task force noted last week, models are
only as good as the assumptions fed into them.
One problem is there isn’t consensus among
public-health experts about how variables other
than social distancing affect transmission and
fatalities. Nor, by the way, do models account

for how treatments could reduce deaths and

hospital utilization.

The Murray March 26 study noted that its

model accounts for popula-

tion age structure but not the

“many other factors that may

influence the epidemic trajec-

tory: the prevalence of

chronic lung disease, the

prevalence of multi-morbid-

ity, population density, use of public transport,

and other factors that may influence the im-

mune response.”

These variables are worth closer study since

places in the U.S. that adopted social-distancing

measures at roughly the same time are experi-

encing enormous variation. New York’s per cap-

ita fatalities are about 25 times higher than Cal-

ifornia’s though both states shut down

businesses at about the same time.

New York state is about twice as dense as

California, and New York City’s population is

about 300 times more concentrated than the

U.S. as a whole and 11 times more than Los An-

geles County. More than half of people in New

York City use public transportation where they

have a higher risk of virus exposure.

Even within cities there is substantial varia-

tion among populations. In Chicago the fatality

rate for blacks is about six to seven times higher

than for whites or Hispanics, which may be due

to higher rates of cardiovascular disease and HIV.

Life expectancy for black Americans is also about

seven years lower than for Hispanics and three-

and-a-half years lower than for whites.

In New York City, the coronavirus has hit the

Bronx and West Queens much harder than Man-

hattan. But those neighborhoods also have large

numbers of multigenerational households,

which is thought to have stoked outbreaks in It-

aly and Spain. This could also help explain why

per capita fatalities are 70% higher in Los Ange-

les County than in San Francisco.

The point is that coronavirus models are one

guide to the pandemic future, and often imper-

fect. They should also be one among other fac-

tors in determining government pandemic pol-

icy such as when to start reopening parts of the

country. They’re a tool, not an oracle.

The Murray model now

shows less dire forecasts

for much of the U.S.

Wisconsin’s Election Confusion

W

isconsin held its election Tuesday on
schedule despite coronavirus, and
Democrats are blaming the Supreme
Court for endangering public
health. That’s not what hap-
pened. On Monday night the
Justices rightly reversed a dis-
trict judge’s last-minute order
that would have allowed Wis-
consin ballots to be cast after
the election was legally over. The confusing epi-
sode is a reminder that, even in a pandemic,
steps as grave as rewriting voting rules should
be up to elected representatives and not free-
lanced by judges.
Wisconsin planned to mitigate the coronavi-
rus threat with a large increase in vote-by-mail
so fewer people would need to leave their homes.
The Democratic National Committee sued to
force the delay of the election outright.
Last Thursday a federal judge denied that ex-
treme request but said vote-by-mail needed to
be extended. Instead of receiving ballots by April
7, he said, clerks needed to count any ballots re-
ceived by next Monday, April 13. After apparently
realizing that this could distort the electoral pro-
cess by allowing Tuesday’s reported results to in-
fluence votes, the judge issued another order
banning the state elections board from reporting
any results before April 13.
The Republican National Committee asked the
U.S. Supreme Court to intervene, and five Jus-
tices agreed that the district judge was outside
his authority. His remedy would “fundamentally
alter the nature of the election by allowing voting
for six additional days after the election,” they
wrote in an unsigned opinion.
The Supreme Court decision came an hour af-
ter the Wisconsin Supreme Court swatted aside
Gov. Tony Evers’s effort to unilaterally postpone
the election. Through March, Mr. Evers, a Demo-

crat, had indicated the election should proceed

and issued an executive order exempting polling

places from his mass-gathering ban.

Yet liberal pressure built in

recent days and on Monday

Mr. Evers tried using his emer-

gency powers to call off the

next day’s voting. The state’s

Supreme Court ruled 4-2 that

he didn’t have that power—

election law would need to be changed by the

legislature (though in other states Governors’

emergency powers are broader). And so voting

went ahead, with long lines at socially distanced

polling places and a surge in absentee ballots—

more than a million compared to less than a

quarter million in 2016.

More than a dozen states have postponed

their spring primary elections because of the vi-

rus. Yet Wisconsin’s election is more consequen-

tial than the all-but-finished Biden-Sanders pri-

mary that is the main item on the ballot in many

states. A state Supreme Court seat and criminal-

justice referendum are both contested. Postpon-

ing it by months could require altering the dura-

tion of elected officials’ terms.

Republicans in the Legislature didn’t show

interest in postponing the election, but neither

did Mr. Evers until recently. If voters are disap-

pointed, they can hold legislators accountable

in November or boot Mr. Evers in 2022.

The pandemic has disrupted much of Ameri-

can life and voting is no exception. But both the

district judge’s jury-rigged order and Mr.

Evers’s last minute 180-turn under political

pressure set a bad precedent. This virus will be

here for some time, and people in different

states need to deal with it through the demo-

cratic process. Americans have already tempo-

rarily lost some of our freedom and we

shouldn’t also toss out the rule of law.

Decisions to alter voting

need to follow the law,

even in a pandemic.

Prohibition Makes a Comeback

T

he roaring 1920s and the so far deplor-
able 2020s already have one mis-
guided policy in common. As state and
local officials work to limit the spread of the
coronavirus, some have ordered the closure
of liquor stores. It’s going as well as history
would suggest.
Pennsylvania’s Liquor Control Board an-
nounced March 16 that liquor stores would
close the next day. The state hoped to keep res-
idents at home, but instead Pennsylvanians
flocked to buy booze while they still could.
Lines stretched around the block, and sales
spiked to $29.9 million in a single day—“the
most spent on booze in Pennsylvania in one
day, according to complete sales records dat-
ing back 12 years,” the Philadelphia Inquirer
reported last week.
Denver saw a similar rush on March 23
when Mayor Michael Hancock announced
that liquor stores would not be considered
essential businesses. “It’s created a safety is-
sue in the short term,” Argonaut Wine & Li-
quor co-owner Josh Robinson told the Denver
Post. “The mayor said not to panic buy, but
that is exactly what he encouraged people to
do by shutting us down.” Mr. Hancock de-
cided within hours to reverse course and let

the liquor stores stay open.

But in Pennsylvania the closures continue.

Many residents are now driving to neighboring

states to buy alcohol, potentially bringing the

virus with them. The Monongalia County

Health Department has banned liquor sales to

anyone without a West Virginia ID, and Dela-

ware police are pulling over out-of-state driv-

ers and instructing them to go home.

Pennsylvania’s Liquor Control Board re-

sumed limited online sales on April 1. But it re-

stricts orders to six bottles per transaction and

can’t guarantee that all who want to buy alco-

hol can. The number of orders immediately

overwhelmed the site, and the state now ra-

tions access to the online store, too. Black mar-

kets thrive when the government refuses to let

supply match demand, so expect to see rum

runners make a comeback.

New York City has been wiser and allowed

restaurants to offer alcohol for take-out and

delivery. That satiates the thirsty while provid-

ing much-needed revenue for struggling busi-

nesses. Kentucky lawmakers have passed legis-

lation allowing alcohol producers to ship

directly to consumers. Such policies acknowl-

edge that, even in a pandemic, prohibition cre-

ates more problems than it solves.

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