A Journal of the Plague Year

Today was shopping day, delayed because the store is only open two times a week for seniors hour, and one of those times was superseded by the Good Friday holiday.

Everything seemed still in good order at the No-Frills. Unlike last time I went, there was no lineup. The shelves were full. They seemed to have an oversupply of paper towels, and they were on special. Some of the staff were not even wearing masks. Despite the floor markings, customers were not social distancing. As before, the staff were exceptionally kind and friendly. They are showing their best side: the heroism of ordinary people.

I wore a makeshift mask, made without sewing from a scarf and rubber bands, as demonstrated on YouTube by the US Surgeon General. It seemed to work well enough. I brought gloves too, but did not use them. I reasoned that I did not need both, since the issue was not touching my face with my hands. And the gloves are bulky and hard to handle food with.

I spent 40% more than in a typical week, but this is not surprising, and does not reflect higher prices. I was shopping for four more days than usual. I also picked up one or two extra items to belatedly celebrate Easter—I missed my chance to buy any special treats before the holiday. I had not planned ahead for the Good Friday closure.

Several YouTubers I follow for coronavirus news have grown disturbingly downbeat: Scott Adams, Bill Whittle, Tim Pool. Adams reports a doctor who says he has found no clinical value in hydroxychloroquine. Adams now reflects that even finding a vaccine is not going to solve this. Flu vaccines, after all, are usually only somewhat effective. We have “flattened the curve,” but now what? The virus is still out there. We cannot hide indoors forever. We have been congratulating ourselves because we have had fewer than 60,000 deaths, and the models had predicted a million.

But we have to end the lockdown, and all we have done, he says, is perhaps to spread that death toll over three years.

Bill Whittle simply admits to general lassitude and a sense of hopelessness.

Tim Pool is talking about the food supply chain breaking down. Three meat packing plants have closed in the US, because the workers have been falling sick. He thinks the social fabric is unravelling; society is close to collapse, and once it does, it will not be possible to just get back to work, even if the virus is defeated.

Other grim reports are that those who have recovered may not have immunity; that some are getting the virus a second time, or else it lurks in your system like herpes, and resurfaces; that even if you recover, it damages the heart, the lungs, the kidneys, the brain.

Other weirdly apocalyptic things keep happening. Krakatoa has erupted. There are reports of 39 separate tornadoes in Georgia. Wildfires in Thailand. Locusts in Africa.

My current predictions of what may emerge when the fog of war lifts:

I think the coronavirus escaped from a lab in Wuhan; it did not begin in the Wuhan wet market.

I note that the Chinese government seems to have shut down the lab. The wet markets are reopening, Surely they would not do this if they really thought the wet markets were the problem.

China will now be an international pariah. Everybody is going to want to decouple. The Chinese government will not survive.

I think the charge that the experts reversed themselves on face masks is unfair. They are saying the same thing they have said all along. The issue has changed. Face masks do little to protect the average person from the virus; they should be saved for the health workers. Any form of makeshift face mask is useful, on the other hand, to prevent you from touching your face with infected hands, and to protect others from you if you happen to have it and cough, or, in the memorably awkward phrase of Justin Trudeau, “talk moistly.” This has been consistent from the beginning.

Nobody was misled; nobody was put in danger. Anyone can make a suitable mask from a scarf or handkerchief.

Some are complaining that the lockdowns were an overreaction, or a power grab by governments. I think shutting everything down was the right thing to do, given that we did not have enough test kits or medical supplies. Not to mention, enough information on what we were dealing with. Even if there is no available treatment, even if a vaccine will not end the threat, we needed to buy time until we had reliable test kits in large quantities. With them, we can keep the virus at bay by testing everyone regularly, and only quarantining those who have it. We seem to be very close to that point now.

But I also suspect the hydroxychloroquine combination works. It is eerie that we are not hearing of how often it is being used, whether it was used on celebrities like Boris Johnson, and so forth. If it was not effective, we would have heard more by now. We are not hearing more because it works, but governments need to get more of it.

President Duterte of the Philippines has more or less said so on national TV, my wife reports. He says there will be an effective treatment by May, but that the Philippines will not have it—the rich countries will get it first.

My wife’s situation in the Philippines has meantime gotten more difficult. They have banned motorcycles. These are the only vehicles available for the run from our house to the supermarket; it’s a long walk. Especially carrying groceries.

As for the report from one doctor that hydroxychloroquine/zinc/azithromycin does not work, this is not really news. He was using it on the most serious patients, as a treatment of last resort. I think we already knew that it was not effective at this late stage. It must be given early on, at first reported symptoms, to block the spread of the virus. This is how it works; not against pneumonia. Of course, with a limited supply, doctors are not likely to pass it out that freely. Once they can, hospital admissions may drop quickly.

I think the virus is sensitive to temperature and humidity. Not 100%; but to some degree. As is typical of viruses. The spread should naturally subside as summer arrives. I look at the world map, the relative lack of cases in the tropics, and how low the rate has remained in Australia and New Zealand, and I think this has to be the explanation. Everybody has cases, but in these countries, they tend to be people arriving from elsewhere. That means we should get some respite in the Northern Hemisphere soon.

Put this together, and I expect things to start opening up again, in North America and Europe, some time in May. There may be a second wave next October; but we will be prepared.

I think that once we are past this virus lockdown, economic recovery will be swift. Scott Adams likes to say that economics, and markets, are pure psychology. There will be a mood of exuberance just as there was after VE Day in 1945. People will be in the mood to celebrate by spending what money they have.

I think that whether or not it mostly ends by November, this crisis will be remembered to Trump’s credit; he will win reelection. There is still room for him to make a misstep; but the natural instinct is to rally around the leader in a crisis. It helps, too, that his opposition is in disarray, with a candidate who seems to have dementia.

When the fog clears, and partly in reaction to this period of confinement, there will now be a strong inclination to leave cities for more wide open spaces. Now that we have gotten more acclimatized to telecommuting, it will become more practical to do so.

Big city real estate prices may crater; a little loss in value may snowball, since many were in the market for investment purposes.

But they may not; I’m not prepared to make this a definite prediction. If things look shakier in China, there may be a lot of people in China who will want to scoop up real estate in North America to escape feared coming chaos there. While Chinese as a whole may be poorer, China is a big country; there may still be enough cash, and enough demand, to sustain that market.

Higher education should face the same pressures. Everyone now has experience with teaching and learning online. This has broken the biggest barrier to its spread: Luddite profs who did not want to have to learn new skills. For overwhelming economic reasons, more education now should stay online. Less prestigious colleges in the US may start going bust. At the same time, a lot of colleges are already financially floated by Chinese rich kids coming over for the cultural experience, and to qualify for Canadian or American residency. The attraction of this may grow if things seem shakier in China.

Putting it all together, I remain optimistic. I say an effective treatment and an end to the lockdown by June, followed by a sustained surge in the markets.

Let’s see if I am right.