An argument to be taken seriously.

The extraordinary shutdown, if continued, will have harmful consequences that go far beyond the economy. A short period of decisive action to buy time to prepare may be prudent. But ongoing measures of mass mobilization are likely to do severe damage to our society.

The Wall Street Journal editorial “Rethinking the Coronavirus Shutdown” warns of the economic consequences of a prolonged lockdown. We could be heading toward a drastic decline in GDP. This will dislocate the lives of tens of millions and exact human costs, not just economic ones.

Already, federal officials are gearing up to spend one trillion dollars. Central banks have committed nearly two trillion dollars to stabilize markets. These extraordinary measures indicate how perilous the situation has become.

more more more at First Things

No wonder it makes sense to call it a Chinese virus, if only to keep the record straight.

Facing harsh criticism for allowing the novel coronavirus to spread, Beijing has settled on an international communications strategy: smearing the United States by claiming the virus originated with American soldiers visiting China.

This strategy, based on obvious lies, will not work out well.

Nobody outside China’s state broadcasters and some information-starved viewers could possibly believe it. For good reason: it’s bunk, and vile bunk at that. An infected unicorn is more likely to have started the virus in Wuhan than the US military. Yet that is the story the Chinese Communist party (CCP) is trying to peddle.

more more more at Spectator USA

. . . in his Journal of the Plague Year, he pictured a city ‘filled with “the shrieks of Women and Children,” blazing comets, and ghosts walking upon gravestones.’

And we today, in our Day of the Virus?

Our experience of dread, of the uncanny forcing some of us back into our homes, and many of us into our alienated inner lives, is a little different.

The pandemic of 2020 projects its power over us in real time, but unless we’re directly affected—or infected—it comes across to us in means primarily visual and textual.

Eerie panoramas of deserted airports and Instagrammable tourist sites; close-ups of surgical masks in turquoise green and powder blue; images of figures in hazmat suits cleaning up our endless material spill.

And more here about The Pandemic Imagination | The New Republic

Pay attention to this:

Financial markets paused their slide Thursday, but no one should think this rolling economic calamity is over.

If this government-ordered shutdown continues for much more than another week or two, the human cost of job losses and bankruptcies will exceed what most Americans imagine.

This won’t be popular to read in some quarters, but federal and state officials need to start adjusting their anti-virus strategy now to avoid an economic recession that will dwarf the harm from 2008-2009.

Who is that big pachyderm in the room with us?

via WSJ

Good and very good.

The United States has sanctioned several Chinese companies involved in shipping Iranian oil and financing terrorism, the State Department announced on Wednesday. The measures taken against seven interlinked companies include three mainland China-based firms, three Hong Kong-based, and one from South Africa.

These companies were “engaging in a significant transaction for the purchase, acquisition, sale, transport, or marketing of petrochemical products from Iran,” the State Department said.

Bad guys slowed down for a while. Vigilance at the State Dept., good.

Nicholas Stix, an old friend from National Assn. of Scholars days, picks over the behavior of a reporter who said a “White House official” (whom she refuses to identify) referred to the currently notorious virus as “Kung flu.”

Summing up:

But even if she weren’t lying, who cares? For over 1000 years, we have referred to epidemics and pandemics by their point of origin.

In any event, Weijia Jiang [the reporter] is a fraud. It is not the place of reporters to act as jailer, intimidating people out of speaking their minds.

Right.

And then:

Besides, “Kung Flu” is funny! And you don’t boss around a free people about how they may speak about a foreign plague that is killing them.

Kung Flu, can you imagine?

via Nicholas Stix, Uncensored

Testing.

Behind its success so far has been the most expansive and well-organized testing program in the world, combined with extensive efforts to isolate infected people and trace and quarantine their contacts.

South Korea has tested more than 270,000 people, which amounts to more than 5200 tests per million inhabitants—more than any other country except tiny Bahrain, according to the Worldometer website.

The United States has so far carried out 74 tests per 1 million inhabitants, data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show.

via Science | AAAS

By the usual suspects.

Going on about covering you-know-what, Fr. H. observes:

Considering the Meejah [say it fast, figure it out] more generally, I have to say that our TV has very little news apart from members of the chattering classes endlessly pontificating about you-know-what.

Some of them say “Y’know” as many as five times in a single sentence. I feel like shouting at the screen “I do NOT know”.

It’s the most common tic around.

via Fr Hunwicke’s Mutual Enrichment