Europe not doing too well

	Deaths	Population	Deaths per
		(Million)	Million
Belgium	7,501	11.42	657
Spain	24,275	46.72	520
Italy	27,682	60.43	458
United Kingdom	26,097	66.49	393
France	24,121	66.99	360
Netherlands	4,711	17.23	273
Ireland	1,190	4.85	245
Sweden	2,462	10.18	242
Switzerland	1,716	8.52	201
United States	60,908	327.17	186

Source

But spooky if it were to go down

Source

What a surprise this isn't

Almost 18,000 more people could die from cancer over the next year in England because of the impact of COVID-19, new research suggests.

It has prompted NHS clinical director for cancer, Professor Peter Johnson, to declare that "cancer treatment hasn't stopped" because of coronavirus and he is urging people with cancer symptoms not to delay in seeking medical help...

Comparing the data from 3.5 million patients, the report's authors estimated that pre-COVID-19, about 31,354 newly diagnosed cancer patients would die within a year in England.

But as a result of coronavirus, they found there could be at least 6,270 extra deaths in newly diagnosed cancer patients - a rise of a fifth.

If we disrupt everything it should come as no surprise that everything is disrupted. Another reason to get back to normal - the damage is already in the pipeline.

What if Kim dies?

Kim inspects production of  Workers' Delicious Banquet No 1

What if North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un is dying or already dead? It is widely anticipated that his sister Kim Yo-jong could seize the reins of power but nobody seems to know much about her. I am unreliably informed that her name translates as Fragrant Production Target although nobody really knows what is going on in the Gangster Kingdom.

Yaron Brook on fraudulent science

The Edward Archer article referred to is here.

The versatility of madness

But the brilliance, the versatility of madness is akin to the resourcefulness of water seeping through, over and around a dike.

F. Scott Fitzgerald - Tender is the Night (1934)

There seems to be a division between people who are comfortable with viewpoints which are merely conventional social formulae and those who prefer more nuanced views and have a tendency to see many conventional formulae as misleading or at least questionable.

Familiar enough and hardly surprising because we need conventional formulae as shortcuts to social cohesion. We can’t keep inventing the wheel of ideas. The problem is complexity because social formulae have to be very widely adoptable which inevitably means that they cannot easily evolve the nuances and adaptability demanded by a complex world. Adoptable is not adaptable.

It is tempting to see many current social trends as akin to madness, but madness may be a feature here, not an aberration. What could we have done to avoid the madness? Nothing – there is no formula for avoiding the madness. One solution appears to be the widespread adoption of a formula which may be somewhat crazy but it works, it holds societies together and causes more good than harm. A religion for example.

However, as Christian religions fade away as useful if obviously patchy social formulae we seem to be adopting a monolithic political formula, a totalitarian form of sentimental environmental socialism. This is quite obviously not a formula for avoiding confusion, nonsense and outright madness. It is far too simple, sentimental and too suspicious of reason and analysis.

Again – there is no formula for avoiding madness. If there were it would not be a formula. Socially we may blunder into madness but not out of it. That requires more of an involuntary upheaval such as a revolution, which of course is another form of madness.

In the end leaders have to guess

The number of deaths from coronavirus could reach 100,000 in the UK by the end of this year if a gradual lockdown is implemented just to shield the elderly, Professor Neil Ferguson warned yesterday.

The Imperial College epidemiologist said it was impossible to send the young and healthy back to work while keeping the vulnerable in lockdown without seeing a huge increase in deaths...

Professor Ferguson said some degree of social isolation will continue to be required until a vaccine to the killer bug is released, which Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab today said was unlikely to happen until 2021.

He was asked if young people could be allowed out of lockdown if the tough measures have suppressed the infection rate enough and the Government has increased NHS capacity to a sufficient degree.

Professor Ferguson told UnHerd: 'In practical terms, you would require a very high level of effective shielding for that to be a viable strategy.

Not wishing to be too cynical and scientifically it is a very difficult position, but this has the flavour of a ploy to me. Politically, lockdown until a vaccine is developed is a hopelessly unattractive option. Many more deaths will happen anyway so this take on the situation is most unlikely to be proved entirely wrong. A ploy? Feels like one to me. 

In the end decision-makers have to take a sideways look at what everyone else is doing then make a guess as to the best policy move. Experts can be remarkably unhelpful.