The Wall Street Journal - 09.03.2020

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL. Monday, March 9, 2020 |A

‘Network Effects’ Multiply a Viral Threat

caught swine flu, the death toll

could exceed 440,000.

In short, Covid-19 has the poten-

tial to make 2020 much more than a

bad flu season. To understand why,

we need to apply more sophisticated

frameworks than are being employed

by most lay commentators, billion-

aires included.

“In Wuhan there also seems to be

a new outbreak of pneumonia that’s

bad.” That was the first mention in

my email of the coming pandemic,

on Jan. 4. Just over two weeks later,

I noted that the new virus had “al-

ready caused three deaths in the city

of Wuhan” but warned that it could

spread rapidly, like SARS in 2003, as

the outbreak coincided with the Chi-

nese New Year celebrations. Ten

days after that, on Jan. 30, the num-

ber of confirmed cases world-wide

was 9,776 and the total deaths 213.

As of March 8, there are more than

107,000 confirmed cases and close to

3,700 deaths.

At first, the number of cases out-

side China did not grow exponen-

tially. But that changed in February.

Three weeks ago, the number was

doubling every eight days. Now it is

doubling every five days.

Standard epidemiological models

tend to understate the threat posed

by a virus such as 2019-nCoV, be-

cause they don’t take account of the

topology of the social networks that

transmit it. Thanks to the work of

network scientists such as Romualdo

Pastor-Satorras and Alessandro

Vespignani, we now understand the

extraordinary power of modern

transportation networks combined

with the social-network hubs known

as “superspreaders.”

To quote László Barabási, Mr.

Vespignani’s colleague at Northeast-

ern University, “When it comes to

the spreading of a pathogen, the epi-

demic parameters are of secondary

importance. The most important fac-

tor is the structure of the mobility

network....Aninfluenza virus

moves through a continent with the

speed of a sports car or of a smaller

airplane.”

That means travel restrictions

tend to be imposed too late to stop

the spread of a contagious virus

along the routes between the world’s

3,000 busiest airports. What matters

is not geographic distance but “ef-

fective distance” in journey time.

Then there are all the local net-

works on the ground, where air-

ports, shopping malls, supermarkets

and schools act as hubs connected to

countless homes and offices.

Finally, and crucially, there are

social networks, which have the

same “scale-free” character as the

transportation networks: A relatively

small number of nodes have an

amazingly high number of edges. In

good times, these are the frequent

flyers, the gregarious networkers,

the sexual Lotharios. In times of

contagion, they are the superspread-

ers, like Gaëtan Dugas, the Canadian

flight attendant who claimed to have

had 2,500 sexual partners and came

to be known as “patient zero” in the

early histories of AIDS, or Liu Jian-

lun, the physician from Guangdong

Province who brought SARS to Hong

Kong when he checked into the

Metropole Hotel on Feb. 21, 2003.

Nicholas Christakis has shown

that there was a similar pattern at

Harvard when H1N1 came to campus.

“The speed with which people ac-

quired the flu during the epidemic,

depended on various aspects of their

social network position,” writes Mr.

Christakis, who is now at Yale.

“Those with more friends, those who

were more central in the network,

and those whose friends did not

know each other got it sooner.”

Similar processes have caused

Covid-19 to spread with startling

speed around the world, then out-

ward from transport and social hubs.

A British businessman who went

from a conference in Singapore to a

ski trip in the French Alps was one

of the first superspreaders to be

identified in this epidemic. The virus

reached Switzerland via a group of

tourists returning from Italy.

For all these reasons, the number

of known cases in the U.S. (436)

must be off by at least one order of

magnitude and more likely two, sim-

ply because of the disastrous short-

age of test kits. According to Messrs.

Pastor-Satorras and Vespignani’s

Global Epidemic and Mobility model,

the United States is the fifth-likeliest

country to import Covid-19 from

abroad—after Thailand, Japan, Tai-

wan and South Korea. If the U.S.

turns out to have proportionately as

many cases as South Korea, it will

soon have some 46,000 cases and

more than 300 deaths—or 1,

deaths if the U.S. mortality rate is as

high as Italy’s.

Network effects are the reason it

is anything but dumb to worry about

the novel coronavirus. Not only is it

spreading much faster than most

Americans realize; it is also disrupt-

ing global manufacturing supply

chains as well as all the economic

activities that depend on travel and

proximity. It could set off a cascade

of defaults in the corporate bond

market, disrupting the global finan-

cial network.

Finally, cable news and online so-

cial networks can be relied upon to

disseminate alarmist and downright

fake stories about the pandemic—

like the widely circulated map of

global air routes that, according to

one Australian website, depicted the

“flight data of an estimated five mil-

lion Wuhan residents who fled dur-

ing the critical two weeks before the

outbreak city was placed under lock-

down.”

That aspect of the panic is indeed

dumb. But that doesn’t make it

smart to underestimate the scale of

the Covid-19 pandemic—a perfect il-

lustration of the vulnerability and

fragility of our networked world.

Mr. Ferguson is writer and host of

“Niall Ferguson’s Networld,” based

on his 2018 book, “The Square and

the Tower,” which will air March 17

on PBS.

By Niall Ferguson

DAVID KLEIN

‘T

he coronavirus panic
is dumb.” I hesitate to
disagree with Elon
Musk, but here goes.
The wrong way to
think about the rapid spread around
the world of the novel coronavirus,
2019-nCoV, and the disease it causes,
Covid-19, is to say—as another smart
and wealthy man put it to me last
Monday—“Remember the H1N1-A vi-
rus of 2009? Neither do I. It infected
a significant chunk of the globe,
killed 20,000 U.S. citizens and we
got over it pretty quickly.” He might
have added that 20,000 is less than
half the number of Americans who
died of influenza and pneumonia in
2017.

H1N1, also known as swine flu,
was a form of influenza. The repro-
ductive number—the number of peo-
ple a carrier typically infected, R
for short—was 1.75. In the U.S., the
CDC estimates that H1N1 infected
60.8 million people and killed 12,469,
for a mortality rate of 0.02%
This new coronavirus—which is
not influenza—appears to have a
higher R0 and a much higher mor-
tality rate. That rate is almost cer-
tainly lower than the World Health
Organization suggested last week
(3.4%), but it is still much higher
than for H1N1. South Korea, which
probably has the most accurate data
given its aggressive testing regime,
reports 50 deaths from 7,313 infec-
tions, a mortality rate of 0.68%. If as
many Americans catch Covid-19 as

This isn’t merely a bad

flu season. Covid-19 is

spreading far faster than

most Americans realize.

Where Do the Candidates Stand on This Radical Immigration Plan?

P

oliticians used to write bills
pandering to American voters
in election years. Now a bill in
the House panders to deported
criminals living in foreign countries.
Chicago-area Rep. Jesús “Chuy” Gar-
cia and 44 Democratic co-spon-
sors—including three other lawmak-
ers from gang-ravaged Chicago—
recently introduced a radical
immigration bill called the New Way
Forward Act that seeks, as per a
press release from Mr. Garcia, to
“disrupt the prison to deportation
pipeline.”
The bill would make it more diffi-
cult for U.S. authorities to deport ille-
gal aliens who commit felonies. It
would roll back the federal statute
that requires local authorities to co-
operate and communicate with Immi-
gration and Customs and Enforce-
ment, making sanctuary cities legal.
Its provisions would also help return
already deported felons to the U.S.
Not long ago such a proposal
would have been dismissed as too

radical in the faculty lounge at

Berkeley; today it is fast approach-

ing the mainstream in the increas-

ingly woke Democratic Party. Con-

sider the bill’s key points:

• It would create a five-year stat-
  ute of limitations for deportations
  and formally decriminalize illegal
  border crossings.


• It would raise the minimum
  prison sentence needed to require
  deportation from one year to five,
  paving the way for illegal aliens con-
  victed of serious crimes such as
  armed robbery, sexual assault, child
  molestation and manslaughter to re-
  main in America.


• It would repeal a law that bars
  entry to aliens who have committed
  crimes of moral turpitude—deprav-
  ity such as murder, voluntary man-
  slaughter, rape, child molestation,
  kidnapping, assault and so on. Even
  multiple offenders would be permit-
  ted to enter under the bill.


• It concludes by bestowing a
  “right to come home” to the U.S. at
  taxpayer expense on anyone de-
  ported after April 24, 1996.

The media, lurching leftward with

the Democratic Party, has largely

failed to scrutinize the bill. But it’s

a mistake to dismiss this as a fringe

proposal that will never see the

light of day.

Recall the first Democratic de-

bate, when NBC’s Savannah Guthrie

asked the candidates to raise their

hands if their health-care plans cov-

ered undocumented immigrants. Ev-

ery candidate on stage put his hand

up, including Joe Biden, who hesi-

tated and looked as if he knew it

was madness but he had to keep up.

The show of hands illustrated how

bad ideas can go from fringe to

mandatory in a few years.

We don’t have a clear idea of how

many Democrats support it, but

many prominent representatives do.

There are the usual suspects—“the

Squad,” led by Rep. Alexandria Oca-

sio-Cortez, as well as several law-

makers from districts with serious

crime problems. There are also a

couple of surprising co-sponsors,

such as Madeleine Dean (D., Pa.) and

Andy Levin (D., Mich.), who repre-

sent moderate districts.

What about the presidential can-

didates? The campaigns of Mr. Biden

and Bernie Sanders didn’t respond

to requests for comment. Mr. Biden

has said he will have a moratorium

on deportations in his first 100 days

if elected. He has also asserted that

criminal aliens with drunk-driving-

related felonies shouldn’t be de-

ported but is vague on details.

Mr. Sanders wants to decriminal-

ize illegal border crossings, stop

construction of what he calls a “rac-

ist and ineffective wall,” “break up”

ICE and Customs and Border Protec-

tion, end workplace raids, and insti-

tute a moratorium on deportations.

He also wants to “repeal 1996 immi-

gration laws” intended to remove

criminal aliens.

Why is the Democratic Party

moving left on immigration when

America elected a president who

campaigned on building a wall?

They might think they’re courting

the Latino vote, but many Latinos

live in neighborhoods with crime

problems. Mr. Garcia’s heavily La-

tino district had 332 homicides in

the past six years as of time of pub-

lication. The last thing people who

live in violence-plagued neighbor-

hoods need is a fresh infusion of de-

ported criminals.

The media has a responsibility to

pin the candidates down on issues

like these, but too often reporters

seem willing to save Democrats

from themselves. If Democrats want

to push for free return trips for de-

ported criminals, let’s make sure the

American people know about it.

Mr. Seminara is a former diplo-

mat and author of “Breakfast With

Polygamists: Dispatches From the

Margins of the Americas.”

By Dave Seminara

A Democratic House bill

would invite criminals in

and give deported aliens a

right to return to the U.S.

OPINION

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How the U.S. Won World War II Without Invading Japan

T

he U.S. entered World War II in

1941. Yet American planes
      couldn’t dent a roof in Japan
      until 1945. The 1942 Doolittle raid,
      with its 16 bombers that took off
      from carriers, showed great ingenuity
      and bravery. But it had zero impact
      on Japan’s ability to make war.
      The raid was designed to boost
      morale after Pearl Harbor. When the
      U.S. didn’t follow up with more at-
      tacks, the Japanese believed their
      homeland was invulnerable to en-
      emy bombs because of the em-
      peror’s divine presence. That hubris
      ended 75 years ago Monday with an
      event that set in motion the even-
      tual U.S. victory.
      First, a little more history: The
      U.S. could reach Japan only after the
      Marines took the Mariana Islands at

great cost in 1944. The largest air-

ports in the world were built within

months and filled with new, modern

B-29 bombers. The B-29 was a mar-

vel and the greatest expense of the

war at $3 billion, compared with

$2.4 billion for the Manhattan Proj-

ect. Each plane was three times the

size of the next-largest bomber, the

B-17. The B-29 could fly 3,700 miles

and cruise at an altitude high enough

to elude antiaircraft fire.

But the B-29 ran into a problem

during its first mission over Japan—

huge winds up to 200 miles an hour.

The jet stream rendered it impossi-

ble for bombs to hit targets.

Hap Arnold, head of the Army Air

Force, turned to his youngest gen-

eral, 38-year-old Curtis LeMay, who

didn’t fit the profile of the glamor-

ous flyboy. LeMay was slightly over-

weight, surly and taciturn. Most peo-

ple found him frightening. He was a

lieutenant in 1940 but rose out of ob-

scurity to become the most innova-

tive problem solver in bomber com-

mand. LeMay also insisted on flying

the lead bomber on every dangerous

mission. He was also the only U.S.

general in the war who fought in

front of his troops—a case study in

military leadership.

LeMay approached the jet-stream

dilemma like the engineer he was. On

the night of March 9, 1945, he sent

346 B-29s to Tokyo. In a radical de-

parture from normal operations, he

ordered the planes to fly low—5,

feet—and not in formation, but in a

single-file line. The planes would

drop incendiaries instead of impact

bombs. The crews protested, assum-

ing they would be destroyed by the

flak. But LeMay believed the crews

could survive because the Japanese

wouldn’t see this coming.

He was right. With minimum loss

to the U.S., the incendiaries started a

firestorm that burned down more

than 16 square miles of Tokyo. The

firestorm left more than a million

homeless and killed an estimated

100,000 men, women and children.

The Japanese were as surprised as

they were devastated. More people

died during that 24-hour period than

perished five months later in either

Hiroshima or Nagasaki.

If this sounds shocking to contem-

porary ears, consider the context. An

estimated 15 million to 17 million

Asian civilians were killed—Chinese,

Koreans, Filipinos and those from ev-

ery other country Japan conquered.

Like their German allies, the Japa-

nese adopted a sense of triumphal

racial superiority. Many of their vic-

tims were killed in the most brutal,

medieval ways. An average of

250,000 people were dying through-

out Asia every month in the first half

of 1945.

As Americans approached the

mainland, the Japanese fought even

more ferociously on Iwo Jima and

later Okinawa. The war in the Pacific

was turning into an out-of-control

bloodbath. The only way to stop this

mass death—and prevent a pro-

longed guerrilla war following the

largest invasion in history—was to

force the empire to surrender by de-

struction from the air.

The U.S. would have to firebomb

64 Japanese cities, capped off by the

two atomic bombs in August 1945, to

end World War II. In the tragic calcu-

lus of war, it took the deaths of un-

told numbers of human beings to

save the lives of even more. These

are brutal realities few people today

can imagine, let alone confront.

Sept. 2 will mark the 75th anni-

versary of the Japanese surrender on

the USS Missouri. That happened

without an invasion of the Japanese

mainland. Imagine Iwo Jima times

100 or even 1,000. At least a million

American servicemen and many

more millions of Japanese lived full

lives thanks to the terrible and

tragic—but necessary—events that

began on March 9, 1945.

Mr. Kozak is author of “LeMay:

The Life and Wars of General Curtis

LeMay.”

By Warren Kozak

More people died in the

March 1945 firebombing

of Tokyo than at either

Hiroshima or Nagasaki.

Rich Matta writing for the Hill,

March 8:

A couple weeks before the Demo-

cratic field narrowed on Super Tues-

day, as an experiment, I looked up

the privacy policies of all the major

Democratic presidential campaigns at

the time, as well as President Donald

Trump’s campaign. Privacy policies

for Joe Biden, Pete Buttigieg and

President Trump appeared to address

Californians’ privacy rights with a

dedicated section indicating an email

address for requesting details on how

their information is shared with third

parties, or in Trump’s case, for exer-

cising third party disclosure choices.

The Bernie Sanders campaign stated

that the CCPA doesn’t apply to their

campaign, as it is a non-profit organ-

ization and not defined as a “busi-

ness” under the CCPA, but they

would nevertheless make efforts to

respect my privacy upon request. The

other remaining candidates at the

time remained silent about the CCPA

in their privacy policies—Elizabeth

Warren, Tom Steyer, Amy Klobuchar

and Mike Bloomberg.

As we all know, policies are one

thing, actions are another. I followed

the instructions in the privacy poli-

cies to make a polite CCPA request to

each campaign at their designated

email addresses asking what per-

sonal information they were storing

about me.

Not one of the presidential cam-

paigns fulfilled my request—includ-

ing those that said they’d respect

such requests.

Notable & Quotable: Privacy