There Are No Easy Answers

Every time we have a horrific mass shooting like we had in Nashville this week it is quickly followed by those who want to point to a specific cause.

Those on the left are quick to place the entire blame on "assault weapons".

One of Joe Biden's favorite talking points since he ran for President was that he wanted to ban "assault weapons".

Source: https://www.politico.com/news/2023/03/27/biden-assault-weapons-ban-nashville-shooting-00089050

However, the problem is that it appears that the term "assault weapon" is a difficult term to define.

Biden's Secretary of Homeland Security could not define what it was this week in a Senate hearing.

Source: https://twitter.com/2Aupdates/status/1641194137507512320

Neither could two nominees that Biden put forth to be the ATF Director when questioned in their Senate confirmation hearings in the last two years.

Therein lies the problem.

Machine guns and other military types of automatic weapons are already illegal and have been since the 1930's. In fact, the use of these weapons by gangsters such as Machine Gun Kelly, Baby Face Nelson and John Dillinger led to the passage of the National Firearms Act in 1934 that made them illegal in the U.S.

The shooter in Nashville is reported to have used an AR-15.

This is not an automatic weapon as they are generally defined. An AR-15 does not automatically fire multiple rounds with one squeeze of the trigger. It requires one pull of the trigger for every round fired. 

Semiautomatic guns such as the AR-15 are widely owned by Americans. It is reported that there are 100 million semiautomatic handguns and 40 million semiautomatic rifles in private hands.

An AR-15 typically is configured with a 20 or 30 round magazine. However, it can also accommodate 5 and 10 round magazines as well. The popular Wild West gun, the Colt six-shooter, fired six rounds. Could that be considered an assault weapon? Where do we draw the line?

Does anyone also seriously believe that a law could be passed that 140 million guns owned by Americans would be declared illegal and required to be turned in or confiscated?

It would not seem so considering there is a 2nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution that is part of our Bill of Rights.

In 1994 a federal law did ban the new manufacture of certain types of semiautomatic weapons and larger magazines but Congress did not see fit to extend the ban when it expired in 2004. There apparently was not enough evidence to indicate that the ban had been effective in the decade after its enactment.

The fact also remains that there were less than 500 homicides in the United States in 2021 (last year data is available) in which a rifle was the weapon used (automatic, semiautomatic, shotgun or otherwise).

That is less than half of the number of homicides caused by knives or fists.

We also hear people state that we never saw these types of mass shootings in the past.

It is true that the frequency has increased.

However, it is not true that mass shootings are a new phenomenon.

In fact, here is a graphic that shows some of the mass shootings that took place in the United States dating back to 1891. Notice that even the 1891 shootings involved school settings.

Source: http://behindthetower.org/a-brief-history-of-mass-shootings

This history of mass shootings also does not include what is still the most deadly attack on a school in U.S.history known as the "Bath School Massacre"  A series of explosions were set by a troubled man in 1927 which killed 38 schoolchildren and 6 adults.

Source: https://www.mlive.com/news/2017/05/10_things_you_probably_didnt_k.html

Unfortunately, there have always been demented, deranged and delusional people in our midst.

The problem today is that the actions of these maniacs are amplified by media and on social media which gives these people the attention many of them desperately crave.

For example, here are some messages that the Nashville killer sent to a friend the morning of the shootings.

The 911 call to police reporting the shootings came in exactly 15 minutes later.

Note the reference to being on the news and the fact that "more than enough evidence" has been left behind to explain the shooter's reasons for all of this.

Notice as well that the killer refers to themselves as both Audrey and Aiden in the messages to their friend.

Let's hope we hear more about the evidence left behind and the reasons the shooter did this.

However, it is difficult to imagine that the killer's transgenderism did not have a significant role in the mental and emotional issues that led to the commission of this heinous act.

Although you can be sure that there will be many in the mainstream media and progressive establishment that will do everything to downplay that angle. If it does surface they will argue that the shooter was pushed over the edge because they were discriminated against and marginalized by a cisgender society.

In fact, both The New York Times and USA Today issued statements effectively apologizing for referring to the killer as a "woman" because that is how the police identified the assailant. They stated that the police had misidentified her? him? I guess the police made the mistake of looking at her body after they had to shoot her in the school as three children and three adults lay dead because of her actions.

The media is concerned about offending the dead killer by misidentifying her? Really?

The sad reality is that the Nashville shooting is evidence that attempting to treat transgenderism as normal human behavior is dangerous.

These people need our help and compassion. However, they should not be celebrated nor their behavior affirmed as normal.

It is beyond me how we have gotten to this place.

If the DNA and physical attributes of the body do not match how the human thinks or feels about themself it is a mental issue, not a biological defect.

This reality had been accepted and established for centuries.

The human mind is very powerful. It can make us believe many things that are not true. 

For example, somatoparaphrenia is a type of mental illness or delusion where one denies ownership of a limb or an entire side of one's body.

We don't allow this person to amputate their own arm or leg merely because in their mind they do not believe the reality of their own biology.

The same is true of those who suffer with anorexia. These individuals starve themselves as they believe in their mind that they are overweight. We don't ignore the biology, agree with them and take their nourishment away to cater to their delusion. We treat their mental illness.

When it comes to transgender issues the thing I find interesting is that all of the work done today is to deny the biology and accept how the person "feels" or "identifies".

It used to be established medical practice in transgender issues to work on treating the mind rather than attempting to change the biology of the body.

Medical interventions today are focused on attempting to alter the biology. (Testosterone levels, gender reassignment surgery, etc)

That was not always the case. The prevailing medical opinion for centuries was represented by the views of Dr. Paul McHugh who was the psychiatrist-in-chief at Johns Hopkins University who believed that transgenderism was a "mental disorder" and sex change was "biologically impossible."

If the Covid pandemic taught us anything it was that the virus was not the only thing that was contagious.

Contagion also drives a great deal of human behavior.

The herd instinct is as strong in humans as it is in other mammals.

It was apparent in almost every response to Covid whether it was justified based on the science, facts or not.

I have written before about the seeming contagion of LBGTQ+ among young people, particularly women.

For example, how do you explain this?

1.7% of those born before 1946 identify as LBGT and 2.7% of Baby Boomers but 20% of Gen Z so identify?

Has something been introduced into the environment?

Did the hard wiring of our genetics change in the span of a decade or two?

Is it something else?

Is this evidence of mental abnormality rather than a physical one?

Why is it important to ask tough questions about this?

Consider this fact and what it suggests.

Is social contagion driving this?

I found this Google Trends data to be interesting when considering this question.

Compare how often the term "anorexia" was a topic of a Google search compared to "transgender" since 2004.

Source: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=anorexia,transgender&hl=en

Many young women are uncomfortable as their bodies change and mature. They can be insecure and vulnerable regarding their body image.

Social media has made this even more difficult for young women.

Have rates of anorexia decreased as transgender ideology has taken hold?

I have not seen any reliable data that this is the case but the trend above may warrant some additional study.

At least anecdotally it doesn't seem that we hear about anorexia and other eating disorders as much as we used to.

The bigger point here is that what we saw in Nashville and what we have seen in other mass shootings is the result of a number of factors.

Access to guns is certainly part of it. However, the media world we live in today and the deterioration of mental health are much bigger factors in the overall mosaic.

It is also true that in a free society we also always have to balance individual rights and the common good.

Do we take away 100 million guns from law abiding citizens to prevent something like what happened in Nashville?

Do we lock someone up with emotional and mental problems like that of the Nashville killer on the possibility that they may do something heinous? This is what was done fairly routinely a century ago.

Do we attempt to censor and limit the reach of social media?

Where do we attempt to draw the line on any of these?

There are no easy answers.

If someone suggest there is, you know they are a providing a political solution rather than a real, practical answer.

That simply does not exist if we want to continue living in a free society.

Elephant in the Room

For much of history giving birth to a child was one of the most dangerous threats to a woman's health as she would face during her life.

This excerpt from an article "Childbirth in Early America" provides some context.

During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, between 1 percent and 1.5 percent of all births ended in the mother's death as a result of exhaustion, dehydration, infection, hemorrhage, or convulsions. Since the typical mother gave birth to between five and eight children, her lifetime chances of dying in childbirth ran as high as 1 in 8. This meant that if a woman had eight female friends, it was likely that one might die in childbirth.

The risks to women improved dramatically when women began having birth in hospitals under close medical supervision attended by a physician.

However, the trend in births from home to hospital did not begin until the early 20th century.

In fact, Jimmy Carter (elected 1976) was the first U.S. President born in a hospital (1924).

His successor Ronald Reagan (elected 1980, born 1911) was not.

Reagan's sucessor, George H.W. Bush (also born in 1924) was also not born in a hospital. He was the last President to be born at home.

Of the 46 U.S. Presidents to date, only Carter, Clinton, George W. Bush, Obama, Trump and Biden have been born in a hospital---six in all.

In researching this topic I was also interested to find that health outcomes for mother and child did not necessarily improve at the outset when there were more births in hospital in the 1920's than at home.

In fact, mortality rates for birth injuries actually increased 40%-50% from 1915 and 1929 as hospital birth rates increased during that period.

At the same time, the maternal mortality rates for women who gave birth in the hospital did not begin declining until the 1930's when sulfa drugs were introduced to treat infections.

Why did birth mortality increase while there was no improvement in maternal mortality when women first starting going to the hospital from their homes for birth?

The answer appears to be that it was caused by operative INTERVENTION by physicians in the hospital.

While attempting to help during the birth process doctors unintentionally caused more harm to the mother, and especially to the baby, with forceps and cesarean deliveries, which increased the risks of birth injuries and infections.

Hospitals became safer places for birth in the 1930's and beyond as sulfa drugs could deal with infections and doctors learned to be more judicious in avoiding injuries to newborns in the birth process.

Why do I bring up this history?

I recently saw this headline.

Source: https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/maternal-deaths-surge-to-highest-rate-in-60-years-in-us-report-3871270

The United States experienced one of the highest rates of maternal death in its history in 2021, according to a recent report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The report also stated that black women experience more than twice as many maternal deaths as white women.

A total of 1,205 women died in the United States during pregnancy or shortly after giving birth in 2021, up from 861 in 2020 and 754 in 2019, the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) said.

Maternal deaths were 60% higher in 2021 than they were in 2019!

What caused that?

Most of the stories about this increase suggest Covid as the the direct or indirect cause for the surge in maternal deaths.

However, Covid was also present in 2020 when maternal deaths only increased modestly from 2019.

Maternal deaths in 2021 were up over 40% from what they were in 2020.

However, there were also a lot of vaccinations being administered to pregnant women in 2021 on the recommendation of the CDC.

Some question if this might be a factor.

87% of women of childbearing age received at least one dose on the Covid vaccine .

Over 70% of women that age received both doses.

Most of those doses were received by August, 2021.

Source: https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#vaccination-demographics-trends

I don't know what caused this spike in deaths.

However, shouldn't someone be looking into it and informing us?

What is frustrating to me is that the CDC should have the definitive data on all of this so there is no question about whether it is Covid , the vaccines or something else altogether.

The CDC should know exactly how many of those who died had Covid or who had it previously.

The CDC should know exactly how many of the women who died during childbirth had been vaccinated.

The fact that the CDC releases a report on a marked increase in maternal deaths in 2021 and ignores the elephant in the room speaks volumes in my mind.

What is going on?

You have to wonder if what reporter Matt Taibbi found in the Twitter files might be at play?

Taibbi reported last week that Twitter censored true content or facts as "misinformation" at the behest of government intermediaries because it might contribute to vaccine hesitancy.

In other words, let's be sure that people don't have all the facts for informed consent because they might make a decision that we don't like.

It is important to keep all of this in context.

Even with the increase in maternal morality in 2021, we are talking about a maternal death rate of 32.9 deaths per 100,000 live births. In the 1700's, that number was at least 1,000 per 100,000.

For further context, the death rate from Covid for a woman of child-bearing age in the United States since the beginning of the pandemic in 2020 has averaged about 14.6 per 100,000 per year during the three years of the pandemic. (26,203 Covid deaths for 18-44 year old women since 2020 out of 60 million women in total for that age group in the United States).

It all means that a young woman today has infinitely better odds of living a long life compared to that 18th century woman 

Finally, a Fox News story on the same CDC report on maternal maternity also presented another factoid that I found interesting about the health of pregnant women.

Only about 40% of U.S. women who gave birth in 2019 had favorable heart health before getting pregnant, according to a new report by the American Heart Association.

If only 40% of U.S. women who give birth have favorable heart health before getting pregnant, that means 60% of those who get pregnant do not have favorable heart health.

60%!!!

We are talking about women who are almost all 45 years of age or younger.

The CDC reported in 2016 that the average age 20-39 year old woman weighed 167.6 pounds.

That is about the same weight that a man of the same age weighed in the 1960's.

The average woman (and man) of today weigh 30 pounds more than they did then.

60% of women between the ages of 20-34 are considered overweight or obese.

68% of women 35-44 are in the same category according to the CDC.

Credit: https://www.healthline.com/health/womens-health/average-weight-for-women#average-weight-around-the-world

 

Increased weight (before pregnancy) may be the most important reason of all on why women have increased risks from childbirth, Covid or anything else today.

There is far more health risks from additional weight than almost anything else they might confront.

However, does it surprise anyone that this topic has gotten about one-millionth the amount of attention that Covid, the vaccines or anything else has over the last three years?

Is that the real elephant in the room?

Things That Make You Go Hmmm-March 22, 2023 Edition

Climate Change

Greta Thunberg is famous for making bold predictions about the demise of the planet due to climate change.

Time actually named her its Person of the Year in 2019.

Credit: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/greta-thunberg-time-s-2019-person-year-n1099396

This is what she tweeted out in 2018.

It seems that she just deleted that tweet for some reason.

Source: https://nypost.com/2023/03/15/greta-thunberg-reportedly-deletes-grim-2018-tweet-about-climate-change/?utm_campaign=SocialFlow&utm_medium=SocialFlow&utm_source=NYPTwitter

Does anyone remember this headline from 10 years ago?

Source: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2425775/Climate-scientists-told-cover-fact-Earths-temperature-risen-15-years.html

For context, here is a graph showing the % of days that US Historical Climatological Weather Stations had temperatures above 90 degrees for the last 100 years.

Credit: https://twitter.com/TonyClimate/status/1636138937575149568

How come it was much warmer in the 1930's and 1940's than today when there were much fewer fossil fuels used at that time?

Global fossil fuel consumption has increased 8-fold since 1950 and doubled since 1980.

It doesn't look like the trend has ceased over the last five years either.

Hmmmmm.

Interest Rates

We are hearing increasing rumors that the federal government is considering having the FDIC guarantee all bank deposits 

Source: https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/us-studies-how-guarantee-all-18-trillion-us-bank-deposits

The FDIC currently only guarantees the first $250,000 that any depositor has in an FDIC insured bank.

It has already guaranteed all deposits in Silicon Valley Bank even though 97% of the deposits were over the FDIC limit.

How much did the FDIC have in assets to cover the guarantee BEFORE Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank were taken over?

$125 billion.

The last I checked $125 billion is a tad below $18 trillion.

Do you see a problem?

In the meantime, the current yield on a 6 month Treasury bill is almost 5% even after the drop in interest rates since SVB went under.

Source: https://www.cnbc.com/quotes/US6M

How much is Chase bank paying its depositors?

Has it increased what they pay in interest to try to keep deposits in the bank?

If you qualify for its "relationship rates" you can get .02% this week on your savings account. Otherwise you get .01% on most accounts.

Source: https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/us-studies-how-guarantee-all-18-trillion-us-bank-deposits

In the meantime, Chase can pay its depositors .02%, take that money and buy a 6-month treasury bill for 5% or park it at the Federal Reserve for an even shorter term and earn 4.65% at current rates.

That is a pretty sweet deal for Chase.

The problem for the banks is that more and more depositors are figuring out the game that is being played as interest rates have risen.

Does anyone believe this will end well when those are the underlying economics in all of this?

Hmmmmm.

Excess Deaths in Germany

Credit: https://twitter.com/goddeketal/status/1636121394009309186

Draw your own conclusions on this data.

However, has there ever been a pandemic in human history where deaths went up a year into the pandemic after the introduction of new treatments and vaccines targeted at the disease? Then overall deaths went up more in the second year?

Hmmmm.

Electric Vehicles in Quebec

The province of Quebec in Canada passed legislation in 2018 that phases out the sale of all new fossil fuel vehicles there by 2030.

Volkswagen was looking for a site in Canada to manufacture electric car batteries.

It recently rejected Quebec as a possible location for the plant due to concerns by VW about the province's  about tp provide a consistent supply of electricity to power the new plant.

If you don't have enough electricity to power an electric battery plant how are you going to have enough electricity to power all of those electric cars?

No worries.

Those progressive liberals have seven years to figure out how this is going to work.

Hmmmm.

Bachelorette Parties

This article made me go Hmmmm twice.

Source: https://www.thebach.com/blog/bach-app-special-report

Nashville and Scottsdale are both more popular venues than Las Vegas for bachelorette parties?

In fact, there are twice as many bachelorette parties in Nashville as Las Vegas.

The average cost of a bachelorette party is $10,800.

$1,200 per person spent on airfare, lodging, entertainment and food times an average of 9 girls attending.

We have come a long ways from my experience where the bridal party split up after the rehearsal party at separate bars and had a few drinks with the future bride and groom.

Bear in mind these are many of the same people today who claim they cannot afford to pay their student loan debt.

Triple Hmmmm!

Credit: https://www.thebach.com/blog/bach-app-special-report

Seeds of Destruction?

If you want to see where the seeds of inflation were planted, as well as the conditions that set the stage for the bank troubles we are seeing today, look at this graph of deposits at U.S. commercial banks.

These seeds were planted by the Covid relief payments by the U.S. government and Biden's $1.9 trillion stimulus package in early 2021, which were made possible by the Federal Reserve's monetary policy, that accommodated the spending.

Banks were flooded with cash as government Covid payments were made to businesses and individuals in 2020 and 2021.

Between the beginning of 2020 and the end of 2021, bank deposits increased from $13.3 trillion to $18 trillion---$4.7 trillion in additional cash deposits.

How much were the Covid relief and stimulus payments approved by Congress and signed into law in that time?

$4.5 trillion.

Funny how that works.

Of course, that much additional money in the system meant there was a lot of money chasing after stocks, real estate and general goods and services.

Inflation was the result. Too much money chasing too few assets, goods and services.

Most of the deposits in the banks were earning little interest for the depositors.

As inflation because entrenched, the Federal Reserve began increasing interest rates to try to slow the economy.

As treasury rates started to increase in the second half of 2022, more and more depositors started withdrawing their bank deposits to invest in treasury securities that were earning higher yields.

When is the last time we have seen net bank deposit outflows before?  1948.

As bank depositors withdraw cash from the bank it is necessary to have the liquidity to satisfy the demands.

However, in a fractional banking system ready cash is in short supply as most bank assets are invested in loans, mortgages or investment securities that are not liquid.

It also doesn't take much for a trickle to turn into a flood when the confidence of depositors in a bank's safety is shaken.

That is what happened at Silicon Valley Bank.

That concern has spread to other banks.

Banks often use the Federal Reserve's Discount Window to address temporary funding shortfalls. It allows banks to access funds quickly, often the same day.

Borrowing from the window is usually considered a last resort. It can signal that a bank is having financial difficulties.

You can see what has transpired recently at the Discount Window.

Source: https://twitter.com/Malone_Wealth/status/1636736907605336066

Compare what was happening to the stock market at the same time that banks were hitting the discount window in the past.

Late 2008-Early 2009 S&P 500 performance.

Spring 2020 S&P 500 Performance

Will history repeat itself?

I guess we will find out.

In the meantime, perhaps we should all take comfort by what our current Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said in 2017 when she was the Federal Reserve Chairman.

Or perhaps not.

You may also recall that Yellen was one of the so-called experts who told us that Biden's stimulus bill would not cause inflation, and even if it did, it was going to be transitory.

Credit: https://twitter.com/charliebilello/status/1446858352638763019?lang=en

This is the brain atop the brain trust overseeing our financial and economic policy?

The lesson here is that seeds grow.

They also often grown in unpredictable and unexpected ways.

Let's just hope that these are not seeds of our own destruction when all is said and done.

What Were You Doing Three Years Ago?

Do you remember what you were doing three years ago today?

I do.

I was writing the blog post below.

The underlying question I asked in that post was whether our policy experts were making decisions really knowing what they were doing?

We were living in a surreal world where the entire economy was effectively shutdown.

Was the cure worse than the disease?

Did we really have the data to know that we were making the right decisions?

Ron DeSantis, in his new book "The Courage To Be Free", said he asked Dr. Deborah Birx during the lockdowns to cite the data and historical record to support why they were recommending the lockdowns.

She told him it was "kind of our own science experiment."

Source: https://dailycaller.com/2023/03/14/desantis-deborah-birx-covid-19-lockdowns-science-experiment/

 

“I said, ‘Deborah, just tell me. When in American history has this been done and what were the results because I kind of feel like we’re flying blind here and we may be doing things that are gonna be damaging.’ And she said, ‘You know, it’s kind of our own science experiment that we’re doing in real time.’ That didn’t sit well with me, you’re a citizen of a republic, not a guinea pig.”

Lean back and take yourself back three years in time.

Was BeeLine asking the right questions?

Why were so few others doing the same?

You might also ask why we got to the point that anyone who asked questions about what we were doing over the next three was deemed a purveyor of misinformation?

How would things be different if we could turn the clock back three years?

Surreal Is Our New Reality (originally published March 19, 2020)

I could call it surreal.

However, it is our new reality.

It is stunning the extent that which our lives have been transformed in the last 10 days.

Surreal is our new reality. All sporting events cancelled. Schools closed. Cruise lines shut down. Air travel at a near standstill. Restaurants and bars shut down. Shopping malls closed. Millions trying to work from home. Millions of others suddenly out of work.

I wrote this on January 31 when we were barely a week past the first coronavirus case being reported in the United States.

We often don't realize the precarious perch that our lives are built on. A lot of that is based on the confidence that underlies our economic system. It doesn't take much to disrupt that equilibrium and the confidence that goes with it. When people don't have the confidence to do business, shop, travel and interact, the economy quickly tanks.

People are now realizing what I was talking about. I wish it were not true.

I have to believe that we will soon experience unemployment rates that will exceed anything that most of us have seen in our lifetimes.

If the current surreal reality continues for several months we may challenge some of the numbers seen in the Great Depression.

Jobless claims soared to 281,000 last week and that was before most of the restaurant, bar, store and theater closings that went into effect this week. We will soon these numbers in the millions.

Of course, I don't need to say anything about the stock market.

Over $12 trillion of value has been wiped out in less than a month in the United States alone. Global values have taken somewhere near a $25 trillion hit.

That value evaporated faster than in any stock market sell-off in history.

Washington is talking about a $1 trillion economic aid package. That seems like a lot until you put it into a broader perspective.

I have not heard many talk about it but we are surely blessed in all of this that we are taking this economic hit at a time when we were at an economic high. Stocks were at all-time highs. Unemployment was the lowest in almost half a century. It would be far, far worse having to deal with a poor economy and struggling stock market before we were hit with this pandemic.

For some context, here is the Dow over the last five years. Yes, it is bad, but imagine having to confront this in 2016. Or 2009?

There is a reason that pilots attempt to climb if they run into a problem in the air. It always helps to have as much altitude as you can when you are flying an airplane. The more altitude you have, the greater margin you have to overcome any issue, and the better chance you will have to land the aircraft safely. The strong economy over the last three years is a significant advantage for us compared to where we could be.

It is hard not to ask the question whether all of this surreal reality is worth it?

We will likely never know. Once a course is taken it is often impossible to consider the alternative. Whatever decision is made is quickly affected by other choices and actions that compound and don't permit one to easily determine if the "road not taken" might have actually been a better path. Mind you, I did not say easier. There are no easy roads whichever way we go right now.

I have no doubt that the public health professionals are making the best recommendations and decisions they can based on what data they have. However, the problem is that we are dealing with so many unknowns with this virus.

John P.A. Ioannidis is professor of medicine, of epidemiology and population health, of biomedical data science, and of statistics at Stanford University and co-director of Stanford’s Meta-Research Innovation Center. In other words, he is someone that knows a whole lot more about this than I do.

In a recent opinion column Dr. Ioannidis questions whether we are dealing with a once-in-a century pandemic or a once-in-a century evidence fiasco due to the fact that big decisions are being made without reliable data.

At a time when everyone needs better information, from disease modelers and governments to people quarantined or just social distancing, we lack reliable evidence on how many people have been infected with SARS-CoV-2 or who continue to become infected. Better information is needed to guide decisions and actions of monumental significance and to monitor their impact.

Draconian countermeasures have been adopted in many countries. If the pandemic dissipates — either on its own or because of these measures — short-term extreme social distancing and lockdowns may be bearable. How long, though, should measures like these be continued if the pandemic churns across the globe unabated? How can policymakers tell if they are doing more good than harm?

I am persuaded that the current path we are on for this two week period makes the most sense right now since it is better to err on the side of caution.

However, how long can this be sustained and at what cost?

Even more than new therapeutics and vaccines, what we need most right now is better data to assess the threat and danger to society of the virus together with the ultimate economic cost that we may have to pay to combat it. Rationale minds need to then balance those two important factors as it relates to our society.

At one point is the cure worse than the disease?

How bad is Covid-19? We just don't know right now. It is still playing out.

However, the Visual Capitalist put together this excellent graphic to show the history of the world's greatest pandemics.

There truly is nothing new under the sun. Mankind has been challenged before and come out better on the other side. We will once again.

However, the human costs of most of these pandemics have been extraordinarily high in lives lost.

May we get the best data available as soon as possible to make sure that we are making the best decisions to limit the human costs, first and foremost. That is not necessarily easy as Dr, Ioannidis points out.

One of the bottom lines is that we don’t know how long social distancing measures and lockdowns can be maintained without major consequences to the economy, society, and mental health. Unpredictable evolutions may ensue, including financial crisis, unrest, civil strife, war, and a meltdown of the social fabric. At a minimum, we need unbiased prevalence and incidence data for the evolving infectious load to guide decision-making.

Surreal only works for so long. Every click of the clock the human cost will compound one direction or the other as relentlessly as the virus spreads in communities in the United States and the world.

We need better data if we are going to make better decisions.

The sooner the better. That is the real reality.

Focusing On The Wrong Pandemic?

There is no more concerning trend in the United States than the increasing rate of depression, anxiety and mental illness in young people.

This received a lot of attention during the Covid lockdowns but this trend had been underway for most of the decade before we ever confronted the pandemic.

To provide some perspective on the dimensions of the problem, consider the death rates for those age 15-24 from Covid-19, drug overdoses and suicides for the year ending March 31, 2022.

Almost 16 times the number of young people died of suicides and drug overdoses in that one year period as died from Covid!

The Covid lockdowns did nothing to help the mental health situation of young people. It exacerbated the trend that was already in place.

For example, this is a graph that shows depression scores for 12th graders from 2005 to 2018.

Levels of depression for 12th graders began to increase rather dramatically in the early 2010's.

This applied to both males and females and those with both liberals and conservative political outlooks.

However, as has been seen in most studies, there is a higher level of depression/mental health issues with women than men and with liberals compared to conservatives.

Source: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666560321000438

You can see the same trend in 12th graders in their  "self-derogation" scores. This is when someone answers "they don't have much to be proud of" or believe "they can't do anything right".

Again, this trend began in 2010-2011.

Credit: https://twitter.com/monitoringbias/status/1634218771643506688

You can see the male/female and liberal/ conservative differences in mental health in the broader data set for the population at large below.

The data is rather striking.

The more liberal you are the greater chance there is a mental health issue. The more conservative you are, the less likely that is the case.

Credit: https://twitter.com/monitoringbias/status/1630954493759090691

What is going on here?

Why the rise in mental health issues in the young?

A number of observers believe the increased use of social media and the rollout of the iPhone is responsible in some way. It is even argued that children with liberal parents were more likely to be early adopters and provided iPhones to their teenagers earlier than conservative parents. This would explain why the increasing effects of depression began earlier with liberal teens.

It is an interesting theory. We do know that being isolated and feeling disconnected from others leads to depression. A life centered around a phone, apps and texts and devoid of human interactions is not the best prescription for sound mental health.

The chart below is also very interesting.

Pew Research asked the question whether a doctor or healthcare had EVER told you that you had a mental health condition.

You would think, just based on age alone, it would be much more likely that older people would answer this in the affirmative than young people. After all, they have been around much longer and faced many more challenges and problems in their lives.

However, the exact opposite was true.

The younger you were the more likely you were to have a mental health condition at some point in your life.

This was true of men, women, liberals and conservatives.

Credit: https://twitter.com/monitoringbias/status/1634194897875116032

However, we again see the divide on the issue between men and women and liberals and conservatives, particularly in the 18-29 age cohort.

It is almost behind comprehension that over 50% of young, liberal women say they have been told they have a mental health condition.

This is the group we are relying on to birth and nurture the future generations of Americans?

This is also a large demographic that is voting overwhelmingly for liberal Democrats. 

God help us! 

I wish I had a good answer for why there seems to be more mental health issues with those who identify as liberals than there are with conservatives.

Is it simply because liberals are more honest and transparent? Possibly.

Could it be due to a victimization mindset that has become even more amplified in the social media age we live in today?

Jill Filopovic wrote this in a recent Substack that might provide some perspective on this point.

Just about everything researchers understand about resilience and mental well-being suggests that people who feel like they are the chief architects of their own life — to mix metaphors, that they captain their own ship, not that they are simply being tossed around by an uncontrollable ocean — are vastly better off than people whose default position is victimization, hurt, and a sense that life simply happens to them and they have no control over their response. 

Depression, anxiety and many others mental health conditions result when one feels overwhelmed and becomes unduly pessimistic about the possibility of anything changing in their life.

At the core, they do not believe change is possible or within their control.

Instead of being the architect of their own life and changing the things they can change individually, they focus and dwell on victimhood or any number of external issues.

The problem today is that there are plenty of things social media and the mainstream media do to fuel these thoughts.

"The world is going to end in 10 years due to climate change."

"White privilege".

"Male privilege".

"Systemic racism".

The list could go on and on.

Another fact in all of this is that white liberals are much more likely to live in an echo chamber than white conservatives despite the popular narrative being the opposite.

Credit: https://twitter.com/monitoringbias/status/1631042799788335110

When all you hear is one point of view and it is a pessimistic one at that, you are probably not going to be in the best mental state.

The default answer for many liberals is to rely on government to fix their problem.

However, as we know, it is not really in the interests of the politicians they vote for to fix the problem, even if it is possible.

A big factor in positive mental health is having a strong self-identity, Understanding who you are and being proud of what you are and what you can be.

Another interesting data point on this is that White Liberals are the only group to think more highly of other racial groups than their own.

They may think this is virtuous but you have to wonder whether this is a sign of a healthy mental state?

Finally, we have the interesting change we have seen in recent years in the percentage of those who identify as LBGT.

How do we explain this?

1.7% of those born before 1946 identify as LBGT and 2.7% of Baby Boomers but 20% of Gen Z so identify?

Has something been introduced into the environment?

Did the hard wiring of our genetics change in the span of a decade or two?

Is it something else?

Why is this important in evaluating these mental health issues?

Source: https://adaa.org/find-help/by-demographics/lgbtq

If you consider that 20% of Gen Z identifies as LBGT, and that group alone is six times more likely to experience depression, this issue by itself goes a long way to explaining the overall trend changes we are seeing in the mental health status of young people.

Do we have a big problem with mental health in the United States?

How much was spent on preventing Covid in this age group?

How much focus is going to prevent the root causes of this mental health pandemic?

It appears that our priorities might be misplaced.