The Unthinkable -- SARS/CoV-2 Deaths

"A global pandemic of this scale was inevitable. In recent years, hundreds of health experts have written books, white papers, and op-eds warning of the possibility. Bill Gates has been telling anyone who would listen, including the 18 million viewers of his TED Talk. In 2018, I wrote a story for The Atlantic arguing that America was not ready for the pandemic that would eventually come. In October, the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security war-gamed what might happen if a new coronavirus swept the globe. And then one did. Hypotheticals became reality. 'What if?' became 'Now what'?"
"'No matter what, a virus [like SARS-CoV-2] was going to test the resilience of even the most well-equipped health systems', says Nahid Bhadelia, an infectious-diseases physician at the Boston University School of Medicine. More transmissible and fatal than seasonal influenza, the new coronavirus is also stealthier, spreading from one host to another for several days before triggering obvious symptoms. To contain such a pathogen, nations must develop a test and use it to identify infected people, isolate them, and trace those they’ve had contact with. That is what South Korea, Singapore, and Hong Kong did to tremendous effect. It is what the United States did not."
Ed Yong, The Atlantic 

"Looking at what we're seeing now, we're looking at 100,000 to 200,000 deaths."
"But I don't just think that we need to make a projection when it's such a moving target, that you could so easily be wrong."
"[Measures like the travel advisory to residents of the greater New York area] will ultimately help stop the virus."
"The original proposal was to consider seriously an enforceable quarantine. After discussions with the president, we made it clear, and he agreed, that it would be much better to do what's called a strong advisory." 
"I think it's entirely conceivable that if we do not mitigate to the extent we are trying to do is that you could reach that number."
"I'm not against releasing the restrictions. I'm actually for it in an appropriate place. But I don't recommend it unless we have the tools in place in real time." 
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director, Anthony Fauci 

"We are asking every single governor and every single mayor to prepare like New York is preparing now."
"What we're trying to say to everyone is: when this virus comes to your metro area, please stay in your metro area where your care can be provided, because it's spreading virus more quickly around the United States." 
"This virus, we think, can spread with a lot of asymptomatic and mild cases. It's not until it gets into the vulnerable groups that you start to see the hospitalizations. If you wait for that, if the metros and rural areas don't take care now, by the time you see it, it has penetrated your community pretty significantly. And that's what we're concerned about. And that's why you have to prepare, even though you think it's not there."
Dr.Deborah Birx, White House coronavirus response co-ordinator 

"[There is a 15-page 'road map' outlining ways to transition from [sweeping mitigation strategies] to new approaches."
"A sustained reduction in the number of daily cases [over 14 days would be a trigger for lifting some of the measures in specific places]."
"It is too early to lift these measures [two weeks from the present]."
Dr.Scott Gottlieb, resident fellow, American Enterprise Institute

A Samaritan's Purse crew works on building an emergency field hospital equipped with a respiratory unit in New York's Central Park across from the Mount Sinai Hospital, Sunday, March 29, 2020.

Formerly head of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Dr.Gottlieb, now with the American Enterprise Institute. introduced a "road map in reopening" the United States in distinct phases. This, at a time when the infection rate in the U.S. is rising toward its peak, and at present stands at 164,121 infections and 3,153 deaths. U.S.President Donald Trump, conscious of the drain on American business spoke optimistically last week of the current situation in the pause of business-as-usual as the novel coronavirus cuts a swath through the U.S., with plans to launch by Easter.

Dr.Gottlieb and his colleagues expressed their expert opinion that various states have little requirement to be ordered to loosen restrictions by the White House. The recently released AEI report outlines steps that could be chosen once COVID-19 transmission comes under control in various regions, steps that were specifically linked to both the federal government and the states and health-care partners, public and private, working together for the common goal of restoring normalcy.

In the very midst of the pandemic's devastatingly-wide infectious rate, along with the deaths of so many Americans, a total of 100,000 to 200,000 deaths at peak is envisaged, and this toll is viewed by the president as a modest success in that government action has ensured that infinitely greater numbers of deaths -- some spoke of up to a million and beyond -- had been averted under his guidance. A stroke of good fortune whose personal perceptions and touted results are obviously not shared by all experts and commentators.

The reality is that a death toll spoken of by Dr.Fauci extends far beyond anything experienced by China, where the pandemic originated, and which has a population four times that of the United States. Even Italy's dread death rate and galloping infection rate that has swamped its hospitals and overwhelmed the capacity of its health-care community, which has seen a death rate over that which China experienced is set to be outpaced by the U.S.

Yet according to Dr.Fauci and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, discussions with the White House coronavirus task force led to President Trump's ultimate decision to set aside a quarantine for parts of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, in stark contrast to the strict lockdowns seen in Singapore, Hong Kong and China itself which succeeded in halting the internal spread of the coronavirus. As a result, South Korea, China, Singapore and Hong Kong are returning to normal, stamping out embers of the virus, while looking out for recurrences.

The Navy hospital ship USNS Comfort passes lower Manhattan on its way to docking in New York, Monday, March 30, 2020.

Merit VS Affirmative Action

"[The Liberal government is applying] gender-based analysis [to policy-making because we all need] to be smart about getting the very best out of all of our citizens and making the very best out of our economy, because women entrepreneurs tend to make better choices than others."
"We've seen it in study after study."
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau

"We believe companies with diverse boards are more likely to achieve superior financial performance."
"Research from Credit Suisse and Catalyst Inc. has shown that companies with higher female representation have delivered higher returns."
Mark Machin, head, Canada Pension Plan Investment Board

"We find clear evidence [of greater performance among firms with women in decision-making roles. Even companies with only one female director] generated a compound excess return per annum of 3.8 percent for investors over the previous last decade."
Credit Suisse, 2016 report on corporate gender performance 

"Research conducted by consulting firms and financial institutions is not as rigorous as peer-reviewed academic research."
"[The link between board diversity and performance is] very weak. [When academics examined a few studies they discovered] the relationship between board gender diversity and company performance is either non-existent [effectively zero] or very weakly positive."
Katherine Klein, Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania

"Does Gender Matter? Female Representation on Corporate Boards and Firm Financial Performances -- a Meta=analysis", a 2015 European academic paper, found that the link was "small to non-significant", concluding "Mere representation of females on corporate boards is not related to firm financial performance." On the other hand, of course, this does not rule out that women should be given the same, equal opportunities as men to sit on boards if and when they qualify equally.

Leading to the possibility that research behind those claims of [gender] diversity's impact on company performance may just be suspect, serving an ideology of female empowerment at the expense of corporate best interests, although there is nothing inherently amiss in re-adjusting the gender balance on boards and the corporate ladder of achievement through merit alone, making no adjustment for gender.

It appears beyond fanciful that gender alone can impact economic and business outcomes simply by re-adjusting the makeup of board level participants to expect massive changes in corporate performance. A wide range of factors drive corporate performance well beyond adjusting for an increase in female directors to enhance performance. The differential between company interests where consumer good production is not the business of mining companies and nor can retailers be equivalent to oil companies.

The Economist not so long ago reported that experiments in Europe with quotas are now widely thought of as a failure: "Gender quotas at board level in Europe have done little to boost corporate performance or to help women lower down", it concluded.

And then there is the inimitable observations borne of vast experience in the world of gender differentials, empowerment and recognition of superiority as when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau observed that when groups of construction workers are sent to small communities to build pipelines and other infrastructure they impose "social impacts, because they're mostly male construction workers". Blast those male construction workers and the impact of the trauma they're responsible for.

In fact, it took no time at all for females in the construction business to round on their prime minister to upbraid him for his expert opinion on an issue he knows little-to-nothing about in his zeal to promote women and demote men. He bases his opinions not only on his self-declared feminist credentials but on market research papers claiming the installation of female corporate directors and executives makes for more profitable corporations.

Men, needless to say, come out looking not quite as capable of making sound decisions, from these 'research papers' given high credence in the business world where lib-left perspectives appear to have become entrenched, with the implication that too many men dominating a board is inferior to boards with an equal number of women to men ... or perchance women dominating a board with their superior wisdom. Where's merit? Why, fully ensconced in gender of course.

On the other hand, for every study purporting to demonstrate the advantage to corporations of having women in positions of authority there are other studies that lay waste to the 'evidence' that women present on boards or in executive suites generate improved financial results. It is, however, human nature to gravitate to conclusions that tend to bolster our already-conceived and determined notions  unwilling to budge to counter-'evidence'.

Recently, Financial Post Magazine had editor Andy Holloway pose a headline question: "Will adding more female directors improve a company's results?" And the response? "Maybe not, but the pressure to do so is not going away", despite that the quick analysis of the market performance of the TSX 60 by the magazine indicates little or no relationship with board gender diversity.

"Fortunately, as Alice Eagly points out in her analysis, [Alice Eagly, professor of psychology and management at Northwestern, and one of the most renowned researchers on female leaders, delved into the academic research on the topic. She summarized what social scientists had learned about women's impact on corporate boards."
"Let’s just say, it doesn’t look good.] there are sophisticated statistical techniques that can control for these issues. What happens when we use them? Basically the impact of female board members on financial performance disappears."
"One large study even found a small reverse effect [greater gender diversity produced worse financial outcomes]. But, for the most part, it seems that gender diversity in the boardroom has no effect on corporate outcomes [and, if it exists, it’s tiny]."
Forbes