What if your government has decided to kill you? An interpretation by Antonio Turiel

In the 1976 movie, "Logan's Run," the law is that everyone must die when they turn 30. And everyone accepts that law. 

"Necroeconomics" is a concept used by some economists to describe the results of the collapse of the Soviet Economy, in the 1990s. Apart from the pure economic disaster, the collapse led to a trend of population decrease that, in some cases, is continuing to this day. The term may have a more general meaning and Warren Montag discusses how a purely market economy might deal with workers in a situation in which there are no sufficient resources to keep all of them alive. The idea that the state might decide that some people need to be eliminated has been called "necropolitics."

These concepts do not necessarily imply that your government has decided to kill you. The extermination may be the unwanted result of wrong policies or one of the unavoidable consequences of the overexploitation of the resources that make people live. But what if the government secretly decided to eliminate a fraction of the population, judged to be a useless burden for society? We all know that it happened in some states in a non-remote past. What form could it take today?

This idea has been explored by Antonio Turiel of the "Oil Crash" blog in a story published in Spanish two years ago and titled "Good Vibrations." When I read it the first time, I found it fascinating but hardly prophetic. It seemed to me just farfetched that people, anywhere in the world, would meekly accept to be ordered by their government to take a drug that they knew would kill them. But, today, I think that Antonio may have been more prophetic than he himself could have imagined. So, I translated the story into English, and here it is. Not for the faint hearted!

Good Vibrations. A story by Antonio Turiel 

From "The Oil Crash" Sept 2018 

Translated from Spanish by Deepl Translate, revised by UB

I was coming down the stairs and I was almost on the street. In a hurry, as usual. I had to find a taxi to go to the airport or the station, I don't remember anymore; I know I was going, once again, on a business trip. I had just left my house and right there, in the doorway, they were waiting for me. No, they were not: they had just arrived, because they were getting out of the car when I showed up.

I immediately saw my sister Marcela. She wasn't crying, but she had certainly been crying until maybe a few seconds before. When she saw me, she came running towards me and hugged me. I was perplexed: I didn't expect to see her there, because she lived far away; but when I saw other members of my family I understood at once that they had brought her and that it must be an important matter.

I hugged my sister and gave her a kiss on the head, almost on the crown of her head. The years had passed for her, just as they had for me, but she still had very beautiful hair. My little sister, my poor little sister.

I had to hold back the crying. I hadn't been a good brother to her. I don't mean when we were little: when we were children and lived together and happy, she was everything to me and I was everything to her. But everything was easier when we were kids. We had grown up, I had an important job, obligations, a family... And so did she. Well, she did.

I held her tight. When her family died, in that terrible way, I called her right away. I said words of comfort and encouragement that sounded hollow and hackneyed to me - why wasn't I able to say things that didn't sound like gibberish a thousand times over? -and I listened to her crying with a heavy heart. On the day of the funeral I had a very important meeting on the other side of Europe - a contract with many zeros - but I cancelled everything and was there. My hand on his shoulder, my shoulders like his handkerchief. They were all in black, everything was black and dark on that day which had the little decorum of being bright. The contrast made it seem as if we lived in black and white, and so it has always been my mood remembering sad things, in black and white. As the coffins descended I was reminded of her husband - an admirable and loving man - and her precious children - my nephews and nieces. It hurt to remember. I looked at my wife and children and realized, not for the first time but perhaps more intensely than ever, how happy I was.

Afterward, I can't explain it. Nobody likes to look at the bottom of a dark well. I loved Marcela and I called her often, I forced myself to call her because I felt I owed it to her. Maybe I was too aware that I was forcing it, but I really wanted to help her. I had put a reminder in my mobile phone book and, wherever she was, every Friday at the same time, I called her. Like an on-call service. Almost mechanically.

She gently slipped out of my arms and out of my guilt. Marcela knew a lot about guilt. How many times would she have blamed herself if she hadn't been there? She couldn't reproach herself for surviving the accident where others perished because she wasn't even there at the time, and that, instead of making her feel less guilty, made her feel more guilty. Because she would have liked to have had the opportunity to die with his loved ones, even if in the end the (bad) luck would have made her survive. But she didn't even have the option to die with them when it happened. It had been a year now, my sister, and she was still dead in life, receiving my empty calls every week, without being clear who was consoling whom from the absence of happiness.

Marcela looked me in the eyes and said:

- I can't take it anymore. I'm going to vibrate.

I looked at her in astonishment, not understanding - or not wanting to understand - what she was saying to me. I raised my eyes and my wife gave me a meaningful look. I looked at my sister again, in her eyes, after having avoided them for a year.

- They say - and she tilted her face slightly while with a slight movement of her shoulder she designated our relatives behind her - that I should first talk to you. That you understand much more of these things, and that you always give sensible advice, - suddenly, I felt her piercing gaze overwhelming mine - and it had been a long time since she had given me one. So that's why she came.

There are times in a person's life when they have to know exactly what to do. These are things that happen quickly, where there is not much time to decide, but where what is decided will be crucial. That is why it is so important to know how to recognize those moments when they come. And there are not many of them: perhaps three or four in a lifetime, but they are the ones that define it entirely. At that time I didn't know that my sister needed me - because I had already known that for a year - but that this time I really had to help her. That I had to commit myself. I understood it in one second, I accepted it in another. Something changed inside me and she certainly saw it in my eyes.

- You'll stay with us, Marcela. All the time you need. I have to take a trip, right now, for two days. But I am going to find information and make a couple of phone calls. Please, don't do anything, for now. My request must have sounded to my sister like a plea, but also like something she needed to hear. She nodded, shaking his head quickly several times. I kissed her on the forehead and turned to my wife and asked her to keep an eye on her. Then, with a quick gesture I called a taxi and left.
Vibrate. I had heard of "vibrating", but always as something distant, something that others do, and always referring to marginal people. I remembered having read a text in a weekly, entitled something like "Vibrating Times". It was all about a medicine for depression or something like that, which was called Vibr, hence the "vibrating", "taking Vibr". The kind of linguistic simplification that ordinary people like so much.

Once in the taxi, I looked up information and downloaded relevant documentation from reference databases - because, effectively, if I was any good at something it was at sifting through data, searching for data and correlating information - and I spent half the plane ride going through the contract documents I was going to sign and the other half studying Vibr. Antidepressant, anti-anxiety, in the amphetamine family. Neurotoxic effect, proven neuronal degeneration even at moderate doses if long exposure occurs, high addictiveness, withdrawal syndrome requiring shock treatment to avoid the most adverse effects - including cardiac arrest... Come on, it was clear that this stuff was shit. But the most surprising thing is that it had been approved as a drug for human use (with specialist follow-up, though). Highly recommended for pathological pain - as I'm sure my sister had been labeled by people much more pathological than she was, people incapable of knowing what love and its loss is.

That Vibr (commercial name of the drug, whose active ingredient had such a long name that ended in "mine" that it could fill in a crossword puzzle by itself) was a drug was even more surprising after reading the few clinical trials that had been done with it, all of them on compassionate therapies. The alarming number of premature deaths with respect to the control had been attributed to the poor baseline condition of the patients (and what the hell was the control group for then, if not to adjust that parameter?) You didn't have to be a big public health expert - I'm not - to know that in light of those studies Vibr should not have been approved as a drug. But it had been approved, about six months ago, for God knows what obscure economic interests.

After comparing the scientific evidence, I was entertained by reading some reports in the general press. What I was reading really seemed like a science fiction story, with certain common points in all the articles (surely, the manufacturer had set certain script guidelines when they "hired" those "advertisers"). Vibr was the new wonder drug for depression. The patients' testimonies testified how all their worries and anguish had disappeared, and how they were once again productive and perfectly integrated members of society. Pure rubbish, I thought.

I didn't have much more time to think about Vibr since I landed, but that night when I got to the hotel, I called an old friend, a schoolmate with whom I had shared decades of life and who at that time was a senior official in the Ministry of Health.

After the cordial greetings and the usual jokes, I let him out point-blank, with the familiarity that came from the years that we had known and appreciated each other:

- Manuel, what can you tell me about the Vibr?

He was silent for two seconds, and answered me, with a hurried tone:

- You're not thinking of taking that shit?

I couldn't see his face, but I sensed that he was regretting his haste. Someone who aspires to be Secretary of State someday cannot say words like "shit", let alone refer to the star product of a major fund provider for an election campaign.

- No, relax, Manuel. It's about a close friend. He was considering it and consulted me. I didn't know anything about that... medicine, but from what I've read I have a clear idea. Thanks for your time, you've helped me a lot.

Manuel didn't say anything else, but because of the trust that existed between us there was no need to say anything else. I already knew what I needed to know, and he knew that I would never expose him. That's how friendship works.

I called my wife right away. I summed up the situation for her:

- Maria, Vibr is a very dangerous substance, very addictive and sure to kill you in a few years at most if taken regularly. It doesn't remove depression, it turns you into a zombie. Under no circumstances should you allow Marcela to take it.

Maria nodded.

- I think it's best if she stays with us for a while," I continued.

- For as long as she needs to - said Maria - as if she wants to stay with us. The children love her, and she is a sweet and good person, I want her to stay too.

- I love you, Mary.

- I know - she told me, and I imagined the mischievous smile she always put on when she told me that.

After two days I returned home, and everything went back to that thing we call normality but which is not, but rather the frenzied frenzy of our usual life. Marcela became part of our daily routine and I was grateful that she was there many times, especially on the days when Mary or I were absent.

Years went by. Vibr went from being a marginal drug to being the big star. It began to be used not only to treat depression, but also for anxiety and conduct disorders, and even for attention deficits in children. I was holding my hands to my head, but like many other issues, as usual, I looked the other way and went about my business. After all, it wasn't something that affected me personally.

There was a moment when the truth of the Vibr was completely exposed. Those who started taking Vibr could no longer stop, there were very few cases of people trying to detoxify, fewer of them survived the withdrawal symptoms and those who did were left with terrible consequences for life. Many of them ended up relapsing. In addition, statistics showed that from the time one started taking Vibr until death came, about five years usually passed. In fact, no one reached the age of 6, although there were quite a few people who died quite a bit earlier, especially the most depressed people. The newspapers were full of reports denouncing the situation of the "vibrants" (that was the name given to the consumers of Vibr, continuing with the same joke), especially when they were terminal. It was no longer so rare to find a vibrant in the street. You could recognize them by their appearance. Somehow, it seemed as if someone was pulling their strings: they were too complacent, too quiet, too moderate. Nothing ever bothered them, they were kind to the point of nausea. That's how they were all, even though the vibrant "terminals" were slower, less reactive. Their kindness gradually turned into indifference. On one occasion I myself had met a very thin, emaciated and dirty young man sitting motionless on a bench, with a lost look and all the typical pose of a vibrant: he was a terminal. I deduced that he no longer bothered to eat. He didn't even look for a suitable place to relieve himself. It lasted a couple of days, I even saw the moment when they took him away in an ambulance.

I thought that when the horror of the Vibr was exposed there would be a popular reaction and that its prohibition would be demanded first in the streets and then in Parliament. But this was not the case. Suddenly, all the media began to publish studies (perhaps it would be more appropriate to say "the study", because in reality they were all the same, a thousand times repeated), in which it was "shown" that although it was true that Vibr killed you "generally in 5 years" people who took Vibr would have "half-dead within 5 years if they had not taken Vibr". Thus, the central idea of the study is that these were equally condemned people, to whom the Vibr gave a better quality of life and that in addition during this "period of grace" that the Vibr gave them "they were productive and valuable members of our society.  which they illustrated with graphs about productivity improvements and decreased morbidity (because the vibrant ones went much less to the doctor and much more to work).

I was convinced that, once the truth was exposed and seeing the low quality of the arguments in favor of Vibr, the fate of the drug was sealed. But, to my surprise, society as a whole swallowed the toad, and Vibr continued to be socially acceptable. No doubt boosted by the success of their marketing campaign, the producers of Vibr managed to curl the curl even more, and spread the idea that when the doctor prescribed Vibr to you, you were undoubtedly already "in the middle" of your life and that therefore taking Vibr was the best option, because the few years that you had left to live would not be a burden to your loved ones and even with your effort and work you would improve the pension that you would leave them. And society swallowed the toad again. I was indignant at what was happening. But I did not exteriorize it in any way: it was an inner indignation. Later, as in many other issues, like most, I looked the other way and continued with my work. After all, it was not something that affected me personally.

It was around that time that I first met a vibrant on the plane, on one of my many trips. It was a woman, middle-aged. She noticed that I had been startled to realize that she was vibrant, and gave me a reasoned and thoughtful analysis of why I had made the decision to become vibrant. After all, with her age she had only a few years left in the company, and she was in danger of being fired sooner. By becoming vibrant, she had demonstrated her commitment to the company, which in turn guaranteed her a five-year contract and a good pension. Her children would have finished university "by the time she stopped vibrating" (I swear she put it that way; my stomach turned) and with her contribution they could start a prosperous and fruitful life. I thought of refuting one by one all the logical fallacies of what she had said, but when I looked into her eyes I gave up. It was obvious that I was already condemned. What was the point, then, of arguing. I am not of a morbid nature, and I felt that if I argued with her, I would end up getting excited and showing off. So I kept quiet and looked, literally, the other way. To her my position, moral and even physical, seemed natural and she respected my wall of silence all the way. I came out of that plane with my head resonating like a drum and with a stiff neck.

Maybe my memory is failing me or I'm reinventing the scene, but I'd swear the following happened right after I got back from that trip, maybe right after that uncomfortable flight. I arrived home wanting to spend a few days with the family when Marcela showed up in front of me. Next to her was my oldest daughter, Clara. I didn't understand anything about that performance, until Marcela opened her hand and showed me a blue pill, which had some letters engraved on it: "VIBR". I had never seen one before. I looked at it in horror, thinking that perhaps it had finally succumbed, but the reality was more horrible. "I found this in Clara's backpack," announced Marcela, and her voice broke from her anguish. I looked at my daughter with a face of dread. But, no, Clara was not a vibrant. At least not yet. I didn't know how many pills it took to become a vibrant, although I knew you were hooked from the first one.

- I'm sorry, Dad," said Clara in tears, "but don't worry, I haven't tried it. Some girls offered it to me at school, and they got so heavy that I had to try it that I finally took it to keep them quiet. But I didn't take any, I swear.

I believed her. It's true I wanted to believe her, but somehow I knew she was telling me the truth. She was my daughter, after all.

- Clara - I said, in the calmest voice I could articulate - do you know what THAT does?

- Everybody talks about it, Dad. The kids say it's for fun, to get rid of all the bad stuff.

- And you know THAT kills?

- Yeah, well, everyone knows that the Vibr kills you in five years if you take it often, but the kids say that if you take just one a week nothing bad happens to you and you have a much better time...

- Clara, one a week is exactly the dosage given to Vibrants. One a week, exactly. - I couldn't help but stress that.

I kept looking at my daughter. I was furious. It was clear that the Vibr was a temptation for her: a 16-year-old girl, a good student but, like those of her generation, a bit lazy, always complaining about how much is required of her The offer of an artificial paradise was too tempting, it was clear.

It wasn't her fault. It was my fault. For not having conveyed to her some clear ideas about that poison. For not having been at home more, helping her to lift her burden, supporting her, encouraging her. My daughter had almost fallen into the trap, right under my nose. I looked at Marcela with tears in my eyes and as I could I mumbled:

- Thank you. You're the best thing that's ever happened to this family.

- This is my family too.

The three of us hugged each other in tears.

I cancelled all my appointments that week and asked to have all the days free. In less than a week, I changed my kids from school and high school. It was not difficult to find a place to take them: on their websites the new (and expensive) institutions announced "Vibr-free space" and detailed their strict controls to prevent their students from falling into such a destructive addiction. I did not even imagine that there were schools that made such publicity. Society had changed, adapting to the Vibr.

Of course, my youngest son Juan's new school and Clara's oldest school were far more expensive than the public school and high school they attended before. Fortunately, both my wife and I were "successful professionals", so we could afford it, although the classist stench that distilled out of that bothered me. But it was clear that the Vibr was running at full speed in public schools, even in primary school. Reading confidential reports passed on to me by Manuel (now Under-Secretary of State) I saw that up to 25% of high school students were vibrants. People who no longer even chose to go to university, because it was a waste of the little time they had left.

The government's reaction to the growing Vibr epidemic was not exactly what I would have expected. As more and more children were orphaned, the welfare state was greatly expanded, so that public health and education were completely free, and programs were set up to take orphans of Vibr to university (fortunately, the children of addicts did not develop any addiction per se). The only condition required of orphaned students was that they prove their academic worth; if they did so, they could go wherever they wanted. I always wondered what happened to those who didn't measure up. Besides, I was surprised by the generosity of the state, and I did not understand where the resources to keep the system going came from. Years before such a development of the Welfare State would have been considered too expensive. What had changed?

I understood the world less and less, and I got more and more fed up with it. On the plane, the number of vibrant people had long exceeded the number of non-vibrant people. In fact, those of us who weren't vibrating couldn't stand to talk to the vibrant ones: it was exasperating. A vibrant seems to speak with logic and reason, but in his arguments there is always a lack of attachment to things. Deep down, a Vibrant doesn't care about anything, he doesn't really have any preference. A Vibrant has no vision of how society should be, he or she adapts to whatever society there is, and nothing, however aberrant, seems to him or her to be a social injustice; for him or her it is a simple fact that must be taken into account, but it is never something that he or she wishes to change for the better because a Vibrant desires nothing.

That is why, after several unpleasant experiences talking to vibrant, he had started paying more for the "non-vibrant" premium bills. We were a caste apart, a frightened minority, sheltering in the front of the plane so that we could get out of it as soon as possible, hastily even, in front of the shapeless mass that patiently and obediently waited behind us to leave in an orderly, martial way.

And then it happened. The Government introduced a bill on the compulsory use of behavioural substances. I couldn't believe it when I read it. I downloaded the document and spent the rest of the day reading it, analyzing it carefully. Then I called Manuel.

- I knew you were going to call me - that was the first thing he told me - we can't talk on the phone. We'll meet at the Café Central at seven. Be punctual, at eight I'll be gone.

Something in Manuel's voice sounded like goodbye. Something was terribly wrong.

I arrived at the Café Central at a quarter to seven. I sat down at our table, and slowly drank the coffee with milk that a solicitous waiter brought me right away. At seven o'clock Manuel entered the café, ordered a cognac and sat directly at my table.

- What's going on, Manuel? - I said, without further ado.

- More respect, young man, you are talking to the new Minister of Health - he let go. He left me no time to wonder - payment for the many services rendered, I suppose. Also, because they have no one left who is medium sized and who does not vibrate.

- Did you write the new law? - I said, and my voice perhaps sounded a little louder than it should.

He smiled bitterly.

- I have fought with all my might, for years, to keep that law from seeing the light. Do you know me so little? But this comes from above. From the very top. Far higher than the President. It's global and concerted.

I kept quiet, assimilating what Manuel was telling me. He took advantage of my silence to take a huge slab off his head.

- Do you know all the times you've asked me where the money to pay for the new welfare state came from? Well, from the Vibr. Not from the sale of the Vibr, of course: the Vibr doesn't cost anything to make, and it's sold at a throwaway price. But the Vibr pays handsomely. Vibr has greatly reduced social security contributions, and productivity has skyrocketed. Did you know that part of the citizen's aid programme is paid for by the companies themselves, for whom the new system is much more profitable than the previous one? No, of course you don't, because we keep it a secret.

Manuel drank his cognac, I remained in silence.

- Many people with little training die when they are still young and highly productive in their unskilled jobs. They don't give costs, only benefits. And there's no shortage of manpower for those jobs. We regulate the migratory flow from much less developed countries with surgical precision. The least skilled workers are always young. Have you seen how the Café Central vibrates?

I looked at him strangely, and suddenly I saw him. All the waiters. Very young, helpful. All vibrant. A chill ran down my back.

- Of course, in the higher categories the replacement is not so fast," continued Manuel, "we don't have many qualified and prepared people like you," and he raised his glass as if toasting to me. - That's why there have been many suitable incentives to prevent the most valuable people from falling into the Vibr.

- But, Manuel, what the hell is this? - That's all I was able to say.

- You know it well, but you don't want to accept it," said Manuel, softly, with a sad smile. "In the end, more than being a big business for the pharmaceutical companies, the Vibr is and always has been an experiment in large-scale social control, which was very suitable for adapting to a world where resources are beginning to be scarce and the environment is very destabilized. Thanks to the Vibr, global consumption is following a gentle downward curve, a controlled and piloted decrease. And everyone is participating in this decline happily and collaboratively. That's the way it has to be.

- But, with the new proposal...

- With the new law we adapt to a faster descent phase - Manuel's gaze was lost at the bottom of his cup - only exceptional people can afford not to be vibrants. Like you. That's why I'm telling you: to leave some memory of this. You know? This descent won't last forever, and it will take someone who knows how to stop it, who will apply the brakes when we have come down far enough and before we crash.

- That's crazy...

- "Crazy or not, it's a done deal," said Manuel, and in one gulp he knocked down his glass. Save yourself. - And after saying this he got up and left.

I stayed there still for a couple of minutes, stupefied, assimilating the new reality. Then I remembered that I was surrounded by vibrant people and I was flooded with a feeling of suffocation; I jumped up and walked out the door. I had been walking for a few meters when I realized that I had not paid. Neither had Manuel. I instinctively pulled a ticket out of my wallet, as a clumsy excuse, as if to stop the scrounger accusation of the waiter who had rushed out behind me and whose hand I sensed was going to land on my shoulder. But no waiter was following me. It was then that I understood. Vibrant people don't care, they have no preference. Society was maintained only by habit, only by appearance. The vibrant ones were already lost and wouldn't fight for anything.

I called my wife, Marcela and my children and I'm meeting all of them at home. I had to talk to them, that very night.

Marcela improvised a snack and set it on the table where we all sat. I presided over it. I didn't like having to preside over anything. But on that occasion I had to do it. And I would.

- I suppose you know why I called you, I said.

- "The new law," said Clara.

- "The one that's going to get us all killed," said John.

His mother frowned slightly, rebuking him.

- That's right, to kill us," I said, and Mary stared at me with her mouth open. If I, who always took the iron out of things, said that, then the situation was serious.

- With the new law - I continued - it will be obligatory to consume Vibr "to improve productivity" if certain objectives are not achieved, which will depend fundamentally on age and level of training. What counts, basically, is how much you earn. This is how people will be valued: by what they earn.

I looked at Marcela:

- You, Marcela, with your classes and your crafts, you don't make minimum wage. At your age, which is almost my age, you will be forced to take Vibr as soon as the law comes into effect, the day after tomorrow.

I looked at my wife:

- You, Maria, are a qualified employee. You won't have to take Vibr for the time being, but when you turn 55 they'll check your file again and your salary should have practically doubled from what it is now, and I'm sure that won't happen. So you're not gonna get to retire. I'm sorry.

I looked at my kids:

- You guys are going to college, so you're exempt from taking Vibr until you're 30. It may seem like a long time, but it's not that long. At 30 you'll have to have a job and your salary should be at least 4 times the minimum wage. According to the statistics, the chances are that one of you won't make it. At 35 your salary should be 6 times the minimum wage. It will be very difficult for both of you to make it, but if you work like beasts you might make it. At 40, the salary of the one who is still alive should be 12 times the minimum wage. According to the statistics, even taking into account that you belong to the most privileged 10% of society, you have - the one who survives - a 5% chance of achieving it. To get to 45, 1 in a thousand. I think we can take it for granted that you will not meet your grandchildren.

They were all looking at me in desolation, taking the hit.

- As for me - I said to finish - I am too important for them, and although my salary is not so extraordinary they have made a special chapter for people like me. I'll be retired by the time I'm 70 if my body can take it. After that, they will leave me two years to sort out my affairs, and then I will have the choice between killing myself or the Vibr. Redundancy is worthwhile.

- What are we going to do, Dad? - said Clara, distressed

I looked at my face in the dining room mirror. So many years of hard work and bad life had left me a face that was a cross between Santa Claus and George Clooney. With more of the former than the latter. I laughed, literally, at my face.

I stood up. My back hurt a little, I felt my bones tired from so much traveling here and there, from so many meetings. So much effort to get to this point. What idiocy! What immense foolishness, that of the human race!

One second to think about it, another to decide. I took the ticket for the Café Central out of my pocket, and I left it with a strong hand on the table.

- Now, Clara," I said, in a loud voice, "now we are going to war.

Antonio Turiel
September 2018

The epidemic in the US: a comment by the virologist Guido Silvestri

Many have noted the spike in the number of coronavirus cases observed in the United States. The fear is, obviously, that this increase will result in a corresponding spike in the number of deaths after some delay. The virologist Guido Silvestri wrote a comment in Italian on Facebook about the situation and I thought it was interesting to translate it in its entirety and post it here. This translation is made by smoothing a Google-translated text and it remains rough, but I verified that it maintains the meaning of the original. This text was written a few days ago and, so far, we saw no large changes in the trends of cases and deaths in the US. But, as Dr. Silvestri himself says, we need to wait a few more days in order to see if the spike will continue and result in an increase in the number of victims. On this subject, see also this post by Chuck Pezeshky.

Update of July 2nd, 2020. The trends are still the same: the number of new cases keeps growing, but the number of deaths goes down. It seems to disprove Silvestri's hypothesis 1, the other three remain possible
 

COVID-19: SITUATION IN AMERICA

By Guido Silvestri

June 28 at 7:51 AM

Many ask me to talk about the situation of the COVID-19 epidemic in the US. I try in these lines to start from the data, without making political considerations. Science, always science, and very strongly science, as you and I like it :)

First of all, I would start from the curve that you see in the graph, above. Today (28 June), it was the second-highest day in terms of number of cases (yesterday was the highest ever). So it is clear that we are in full pandemic with many new cases diagnosed, especially in the large southern states (CA, TX, AR, FL, GA etc). Not that it is a subject not discussed at length, but it is good to start from these data.

It is equally clear that we are not experiencing the Apocalypse. In fact, if you look at the graph of daily deaths (above, lower graph) you can see that today was the 85th worst day since the beginning of the epidemic - which is not so bad since everything started here early March 2020. As far as I know, there is also no sign of the hospital overload seen in the past in Wuhan, Lombardy, New York / New Jersey, and other places.

The question asked by those who try to understand the facts (and do not have pre-packaged and/or ideology-driven answers) is the following: since we are facing this massive increase in cases that has lasted for ~ 3 weeks, why there is no corresponding increase in deaths or seriously ill people?

Of course, I don't have the absolute answer (and in fact nobody has it), but let me try to make some hypotheses and comments.

Hypothesis # 1. There will be a surge of deaths in the coming days. It is possible, of course, and we will see that in the next few days (so I already anticipate that in a week we will return to this discussion). I would point out, softly, that, looking at the graphs of last March, the time gap between increase in cases and increase in deaths is ~ 1 week. I repeat: we'll see.

Hypothesis # 2. Many diagnoses (i.e., positive swabs) are being made in asymptomatic and/or young subjects and therefore less at risk of developing severe forms of COVID-19. It is difficult to find precise data in this regard, but the feeling of many is that this is an important point, especially if the feared surge of deaths does not occur. If confirmed, this aspect would open up interesting implications in terms of natural immunity.

Hypothesis # 3. Positive swabs have a lower viral load, as it was already demonstrated in Italy first by the group of Massimo Clementi and Nicasio Mancini at the San Raffaele hospital and then by others (Pavia, Treviso, etc). This in turn could be linked to environmental factors (many infections in the South) and/or seasonality, which favor infections caused by lower viral inoculation. I would like to remind readers that lower inoculation infections = less serious infections, as known from the animal model of CoVs

Hypothesis # 4. Patients have a better prognosis because we treat them better. This point, in my opinion, is important and, if confirmed, goes in the direction of putting COVID-19 among the diseases with which the health services are concerned, without asking the general population to upset its existence - which, then, to think about it well, they are all other diseases. It seems clear to me that between dexametazone, tocilizumab, baricitinib, remdesivir, convalescent plasma, anticoagulant therapy, better ventilation protocols, etc. we are much more effective in treating the infection today than 3-4 months ago. This is important and a harbinger of optimism.

I add: note that I have not even mentioned the possibility of a virus-host adaptation, which is very plausible for me, because I do not want the scandalized chorus of some "purists" to say that it is too early to make this hypothesis ((but not other hypotheses) :-)

For now, therefore, I leave you with a key question, some preliminary hypotheses for an answer, and an appointment next week, to see if at that point we will have clearer ideas of what is going on.

HAPPY SUNDAY TO ALL!

Dr. Guido Silvestri received his MD in Ancona, Italy, and completed Residency training in Internal Medicine & Clinical Immunology (Florence 1990) and Pathology (U. Penn 2001). He is currently a Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar in Comparative Pathology, and Professor and Vice-Chair of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at the Emory University School of Medicine, where is also serves as Chair of the Division of Microbiology & Immunology at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center. 

The downfall of 'Professor Lockdown': triumphs and failures of science based policies

Scientists normally think that a scientific theory can be good or bad independently of the moral status of the person who proposes it. But in politics, the messenger can be blamed. That was the probable reason for the downfall of Dr. Neil Ferguson, nicknamed "Professor Lockdown," whose moral position was destroyed by a sex scandal. For most scientists, Dr, Ferguson's personal misbehavior has no relevance to the validity of his models, but for politicians and for the public, it does. A lot.

You all read the story of the downfall of Professor Neil Ferguson, aka "Professor Lockdown," trashed worldwide in the media for having had his lover, Ms. Antonia Staats, visiting him during the lockdown period that he himself had recommended for everybody else. It was a blessing for tabloids and there is no doubt that Dr. Ferguson deserved much of the scorn and the ridicule that was poured on him. Yet, there are some elements in this story that make it different from an ordinary story of philandering.

Let's review what we know: it seems that Ms. Staats and Dr. Ferguson met first over an internet site and then it was Staats who went to visit Ferguson during the lockdown period at his home in London, and the same Staats who told the story to friends who, in turn, diffused it around. Ferguson didn't even try to deny the media reports, and he immediately apologized and resigned from his post of government advisor.

I don't know about you, but. to me, all this looks like a trap, sounds like a trap, even smells like a trap. So, it probably was a trap. Ferguson fell head first into it and he was neatly skewered.

Of course, I am not the only one who smelled the rat: there have been plenty of speculations about who decided to push Dr. Ferguson under the bullet train, and why. Some say that it was because the British government needed to distract the public from bad news about the epidemic. Others think of a disagreement between the government and Ferguson. And when a government decides that a scientist is a nuisance, you know what happens (think of the case of Robert Oppenheimer in the 1950s)

Whatever the case, we are not talking here about a despicable professor who flouted a few moral rules. It is all about the political struggle that underlies the coronavirus story. It was Ferguson who told the UK government that they were facing a stark choice: either to accept a huge number of victims, maybe half a million of them, or to wreck the UK economy. The government chose the second strategy, probably thinking it was the least damaging one. Several other European governments, for instance the Italian one, patterned their response on the basis of the views expressed by Ferguson.

And here we have the interesting point: going into lockdown was one of the very few cases of a major policy choice made on the basis of a scientific model, and I mean a really major choice.  Governments do enact laws on the basis of scientific data, but normally it is a matter of gradual changes that don't change people's lives. Say, there are laws regulating the exhaust emissions of private cars, but no laws (up to now) forcing people to walk. The lockdown was also a rare case of a policy derived not from past data but from a predictive model of the future. It was a huge novelty because, normally, politicians ignore scientists' predictions: they tend to react rather than "pro-act". 

The problem, here, is that science and politics use different languages to model reality. Science speaks in terms of data, politics uses narrative. There follows that if you want to use a scientific model for political purposes, you must translate it into a different language: the language of politics. That means turning quantitative models into narratives. And there lies the problem. A big, large, huge, humungous problem: there is no "Google Translate" service that smoothly turns scientific results into policy choices. When people speak different languages they are bound to misunderstand each other, sometimes with disastrous results.  

So, Dr. Ferguson's recommendations were translated into a narrative and the lockdown became a moral tale of good and bad behavior. People were told that if they didn't follow the lockdown rules, they were not just breaking the law, they were evil for putting the life of their neighbors at risk. 

That worked nicely for a while in the UK and almost everywhere in the world, with people accepting in good faith to be locked into their homes for the sake of the common good. But there was a problem: it soon became clear that the lockdown was doing great damage to the very people it was supposed to protect. Stuck in small spaces, often without a job, without money, and without perspectives, people's health was badly affected. Heart attacks, depression, substance abuse, suicides, and more: we can't yet estimate how many life-years were lost because of the lockdown, but wasn't the solution worsening the problem? Unfortunately, in narrative terms, moral considerations always take precedence over cost-benefit analyses, and so the question couldn't be asked in the public debate. But, surely, it was being asked privately.

Then, it started becoming clear that Ferguson's model had big problems. It was a hodgepodge of lines of code put together as needed, never comprehensively documented, never independently tested, never having undergone a sensitivity analysis. As far as I can say from my personal experience with modeling, it was a model good enough for academic research, but hardly a tool that could be used to guide the policy of a national government. The problem was that there was no way to test if the model was correct or not. What if the model had badly overestimated the effectiveness of the lockdown, as some elements seemed to indicate?

Now, let's assume that someone in the upper echelons understood that the case for the lockdown was not at all so clear cut as it had seemed to be at the beginning. Then, a huge problem appeared. The government couldn't just tell people, "oops... folks, we made a mistake. We beggared you for no reason." 

Think in narrative terms, as politicians do, and remember that the lockdown had been framed as morally and ethically as "good" while no lockdown framed as "evil." The politician who proposes to end the lockdown would be seen as evil himself/herself. There follows, as politicians know, that the way to change policies is to change the narrative. That has rules, just as science has rules. Typically, evil cannot be turned into good (Sauron can be defeated but not turned into Gandalf's friend). But it is possible to turn good into evil when a supposed good guy turns out to be actually evil (Saruman the White who turns into Sauron's ally). And that's the key: turn the good guy into the bad guy and then the narrative can be changed. 

At this point, the path is clear: take the person who proposed the lockdown, Neil Ferguson, and turn him into an evil, amoral, egoistic, and reckless character. That can't have been difficult: mounting a petty sex scandal surely poses no problems for a national government. Of course, we have no proof that this is exactly what happened, but the gist of the story is clear: Ferguson's head had to roll. And it had to roll as noisily as possible. Afterward, the whole edifice that the former good guy had built can be targeted at will with the heavy artillery of the media.

It is happening. Not only Ferguson is being shredded to pieces (actually, all the way down to atomic particles), but also his work is being massively and aggressively criticized. Note what Elon Musk said about him: “This guy has caused massive strife to the world with his absurdly fake ‘science." We'll have to see how things will evolve in the coming days but right now, if things keep moving in this direction, the lockdown is a dead hippo in the water. And so be it: it had to be.

From this story, we can also learn something about the climate debate. You see on the image at the beginning of this post how the enemies of climate science had no qualms in associating Neil Ferguson with Michael Mann, a climate scientist often targeted with all sorts of smears and lies. Fortunately, so far Mann has been able to avoid getting entangled in some stupid scandal, but scientists as a category came under attack for lack of coherency when they use planes for their international meetings where they recommend people to stop using fossil fuels. No government ever implemented serious model-based policy choices about climate, although many of them claimed to have done that. But if something serious were ever to be done to follow the recommendations of climate science, you might see a much nastier backlash against climate scientists. 

Will we ever able to blend science and politics together? For sure, it is a very difficult task. We need nothing less than a completely different political language, a way of debating that would search for common ground instead of focusing only on shooting down the bad guy of the story. But that will take time, to say the least. And, in the meantime, we keep navigating toward the future thinking that the reefs don't exist if they are not mentioned in the media.





A comment from Mr. Kunning-Druger, Ugo Bardi's personal troll.

Glad to see that you finally recognize at least some of your many mistakes, Mr. Bardi. And the mistakes made by this friend of yours, this despicable Mr. Ferguson -- despicable indeed, as you say. And you even have the gall to tell us that he created a model that is "good enough for academic research, but not reliable enough to be used as a policy tool." Why don't you say things the way they are: that model is crap. Yeah, stuff that comes out of a bull's rear end. And you gave yourself away when you said, "good enough for academic research." Shameful: you scientists spend public money to publish academic papers just thinking of your academic careers and then you take planes to go to academic meetings and enjoy nightlife and cocktails at the expense of the taxpayers! And then you think you can tell us what to do. You even think you can tell the government to lock everyone in jail as if we were criminals. But it is not the people who are criminals: it is you and your fellow scientists who are criminals. Now, this scandal about the coronavirus is going to really destroy you -- and I can split an infinitive here, just like the public will split your gang and have all of you truly skewered, not just in a metaphorical sense, ha! This is the end of the whole scam called "climate science" and you know that very well. Mankind can thank Mr. Ferguson for this: at least he made it clear what kind of people those "scientists" (so to say) are. Ugly, amoral, reckless, evil, power-hungry monsters -- not surprising that they ganged up together to create the scam called "global warming" just to fill their pockets with public money. Make no mistake: we'll remember this scandal. It is the beginning of the end of fake science and scientists.

Fate is coming back. What do we do when no choice is good?

Guest post by Jacopo Simonetta 
Originally published in Italian on "Effetto Cassandra"



It is called 'triage'. It happens in the emergency departments when the influx of ill or injured patients exceeds the capacity of the hospital. So, doctors must decide whom to save first and whom to save later, if they are still alive. I have always thought this is the worst thing that a doctor may be forced to do, but it happens, and doctors, like other emergency professionals (firefighters, soldiers, policemen etc.), are, at least in part, prepared to face these situations.

We normal people are not, but this does not mean we can abstain from making choices, when even failing to make a choice will have consequences. In fact, the extraordinary bubble of peace and well-being that has cocooned the western world for 70 years is vanishing, making us completely unprepared to face the very idea of 'tragedy'.

I am not referring here to the crises of collective hysteria that overwhelm us at every little difficulty, but to our inability to sustain the weight of the responsibility of choices that, whatever we decide to do, will provoke great damage and suffering. Outside of our collapsing bubble, this kind of situation is instead frequent and has been masterfully illustrated in many masterpieces of ancient philosophy and literature.

These are the dynamics of Fate: men are not simply dragged by a 'scornful destiny'; they are instead called upon to make choices whose consequences will be inevitable so that not even Zeus could change them. Sometimes, in the range of possible choices, there is one that could put an end to the suffering and the tragedies. For example, Paris could put an end to the war by letting Helen return to Sparta or Hector could win, granting the Achaeans a dignified surrender and a return to home.

In both cases, the heroes make the wrong choice and the consequences overwhelm them and their people, but it was not inevitable.

There are instead cases in which every possible option will have disastrous consequences, and nevertheless the hero must choose. Orestes' dilemma is paradigmatic: it is his sacred duty to avenge his father, but this means to commit the sacrilege of killing his mother and he well knows that whatever he decides to do, the consequences will be catastrophic. A similar dilemma torments Antigone, who must choose whether to bury her brother, violating a precise order from her king, or leave him unburied, violating a precise duty of hers.

This kind of dilemma lies at the core of Tragedy that, not coincidentally, was closely connected to the cult of Dionysus: perhaps the most ancient and certainly the most enigmatic of the Greek Gods.

We have pretended and continue to pretend we are immune to this kind of situations, but the truth is knocking at our door harder and harder, and visible cracks have opened in the physical and psychical walls we have built against it.

Let us make an easy example of the kind of tragic choices that we are in any case forced to take. Taxing air flights so as to drastically reduce their number would surely have positive effects on the environment and climate, but, would immediately force tens of thousands of people out of their jobs, most of whom would not easily find another one.

So what should we do? This is just a little detail of the fundamental topic that humanity will have to face from now on: actual degrowth, which is appearing to be a lot more problematic than the theoretical one.

In fact, we could discuss details for a long time, but nobody in good faith can deny that humanity, as a whole, has largely passed the Planet’s limits of sustainability. Just to mention a few numbers, today the technosphere (a.k.a. anthroposphere, that is humanity with all its infrastructures and symbionts) amounts to about 40,000 million tons, some 4,500 tons per person.

We and our domestic animals are about 98% of the world’s fauna, about 40% of the Earth’s surface is completely artificialized (urban, suburban, agricultural, etc.), 37% is made up of natural habitats heavily modified for anthropic use (pastures and almost all forests), only 23% can still be classified as 'wild' (a few remote forests, but almost only deserts, mountain tops, and Arctic regions). (data from IPBES Global Assessment on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services 1919, Laboratory for Anthropogenic Landscape Ecology, 2020).

Things are even worse at sea: we estimate that only 13% of the oceans is still basically intact (data from IPBES Global Assessment on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services 1919).

But these are all very optimistic assessments, as factors like global warming and the related acidification of the seas, global diffusion of polluting agents of all kinds, the growing number of barriers to movement by wild species and the contemporary spread of alien ones, industrial fishing and hunting of rare species, the dying off of insects and amphibians, the worldwide alteration of nearly all bio-geo-chemical cycles tell us that the Earth is by now a planet inhabited by a single species (Homo sapiens industrialis, alias H. colossus sensu Catton) with its symbionts, commensal species and parasites.

Everything else survives in extremely precarious conditions in the interstices and cracks of the technosphere, but it is only these survivors that still ensure the existence of conditions favorable to biological life on Earth.

This means not only that substantial degrowth is the only sensible thing to do, but also that it is an inevitable fact. There is no way we can prevent it and postponing it will only mean paying a much bigger price, a little later.

However, the vast majority of people rejects this view, preferring to imagine strategies, even very ingenious ones, to have it both ways. They have very good reasons to do so because accepting 'overshoot' would mean accepting the price of the 'environmental debt' that we have piled up. Of course we will pay it anyway, but we cannot blame those who prefer looking the way. In fact, I have the impression that, even among 'degrowthers', there are few that have deeply reflected on how much it will be necessary to degrow to stabilize the climate and stop mass extinction.

Obviously it is impossible to make a precise estimate, but to have a rough idea we will make a very easy calculation, using energy consumption as an indicator of general impacts. This is an approximation, but it is close enough to reality.

On a global level, we estimate that humanity passed the planet’s carrying capacity in the early 1970s, when worldwide energy consumption was in the order of 70,000 Twh, whereas now it is about 165,000. Let us imagine going back to the 70,000 Twh of fifty years ago, what would per capita consumption be? Between 1970 and 2020, human population has doubled; this means that, to bring global consumption back down to about 70,000 TWh, per capita availability would be less than a quarter of what it is now. This means a level of consumption similar to what we find today in Moldavia, Albania, Egypt or Nigeria, to make some examples.
Speaking about Italy, it would mean going back to nineteenth-century per capita consumption levels, without considering that such poor societies would probably not be able to produce the technologies that consent the life of 8 billion people, starting from the sophisticated devices necessary to convert sunlight and wind into electricity.

With this I am not saying that in few years we will be living with candles and horses, I just want to clarify that we do not have to give up just the unnecessary; we have to give up a lot that we see as necessary or an acquired right, starting from a life expectancy of over eighty years.

This opens a wide range of questions that, whether we like it or not, we will have to face because when the blanket gets too short, we have to choose whether to cover our feet or our shoulders. In actual terms, this means choosing who must be sacrificed so that the others have more chance of surviving.

Right now, we are seeing a practical example of choices that we will have to make more and more often, with the spread of the Covid-19 epidemic. We have seen that this disease is particularly treacherous because it spreads easily and has a relatively low death rate, but on condition that long and costly care is available.

We have several possible choices.

We can try to stop the outbreak in every way, but this would have devastating economic consequences that could even throw the global economy into a crisis much worse than that of 2008.

We can keep the main economic flows active, but this would mean a lot more infections, and thus sanitary costs that could send entire states in bankrupt. Without counting that the saturation of hospitals would also mean a definite rise of mortality.

We can also pretend nothing is happening and bury the dead in secret, but we cannot predict how many they would be, nor the practical consequences of the panic that would overwhelm the world a lot more than it does now.

We can look for compromises between the different options, but in any case we cannot avoid very painful and largely unpredictable consequences.

Another example, even more brutal, is the drama that is taking place these days at the border between Greece and Turkey. Putting aside the complicated story that brought tens of thousands of people to try to break through the barbed wire, we find ourselves in front of another tragic choice.

We can welcome the refugees, but this would have devastating social and political consequences in Europe (there is no need for guesswork here, because we already made the experiment in 2015).

We can drive them back, but these are people that cannot go back to Syria where the government would kill them, nor can they remain in Turkey because the Turks are sending them away.

We can confine them in 'refugee camps', which are actually prison camps with no foreseeable release.

We can please Erdogan so he takes them back, and support him in his war against Syria.

We can also think of other solutions, but anything realistically feasible will mean tragic consequences for someone.

There are many other fields where we see similar dilemmas: how do we face the situation? Because, in the end, every one of us will have to find a compromise between our mental model of the world and the physical reality that is coming back into our lives, peaceful up until now.

I would say we basically have two options:

The first is to deny one or more pieces of the puzzle, so as to simplify it and restore the satisfying dynamics of good versus evil. At this point we must choose our side, and then assume things do not work because of the other side, whatever happens.

The second is to accept that in many key matters of the present and the near future we have several possible choices, but none of them will not cause major damage and suffering for which we will share responsibility. Even if we choose not to choose:  because there will be painful consequences anyway. Just like it was for Orestes and Antigone.

Translation by Maddalena Martinez. Link to the version in Italian

The March of the Holobionts: Why Gaia is one of us

As a Goddess, Gaia may not be all-powerful, but She does what She can.

Image from Extended Evolutionary Synthesis.

One of the good things about the current epidemic is what it is teaching us. Apart from a welcome slap to human hubris, it is a test of population models (right now, it seems that everyone I know is busy at fitting data with logistic equations). But there is more than population dynamics in this story. It is the occasion for a reflection of the role of viruses in the ecosystem. In my case, it led me to discover concepts that I only vaguely knew before. One is that of "virome," a term analogous to that of "genome" -- the idea that viruses are part of us. Did you know that 8% of the human genetic code is directly derived by viral genes? The role of viruses in our metabolism is still largely to be discovered, but surely most viruses are not pathogens, they are commensals or symbionts. Companions of our travel to an unknown destination.

And then there is the related concept of "holobiont" -- a term originally invented by Lynn Margulis, the co-discoverer, with James Lovelock, of the idea of "Gaia" as a homeostatic planetary system. Once you learn what a holobiont is, your view of the world changes completely. The evolutionary unit of the ecosystem is not the organism, but the holobiont: an ensemble of creatures that cooperate with each other without sharing the same genetic code as multicellular organisms do: a tree is an organism, a forest is a holobiont. The forest holobiont includes not just trees, but all the animals together with the microbiome of fungi, bacteria, archaea, viruses, and everything.

That opens up a whole new evolutionary frontier: multicellular organisms transmit genetic information by the complex process of sexual reproduction followed by competitive selection. Holobionts do something similar, but they don't have a genome that they pass to their descendants by sexual transmission, they have a hologenome that successful holobionts can transmit using different strategies. And that answers a difficult question: who is Gaia, exactly? You guessed it, the Queen of Heaven and Earth is a holobiont! As a Goddess, She may not be benevolent and merciful, surely not all-powerful, but she does what she can. She is one of us.


Below, a translation of an article that I submitted to an Italian newspaper, "Il Fatto Quotidiano" where I try to explain some of these concepts. These submissions are limited to ca. 650 words, so you have to be extremely synthetic and also take into account that the readers are ordinary people, not scientists. So, I didn't mention the concept of holobiont, maybe in a future article. But I thought that also the readers of "Cassandra's Legacy" will find it interesting in this short text. (BTW, as a translation service, Yandex seems to be somewhat better than Google).


Coronavirus: what's happening?
Submitted to "Il Fatto Quotidiano" by Ugo Bardi

Translated using Yandex, slightly revised and modified

The most recent data indicate a decrease in the number of coronavirus infections in Italy. That means we could get out of the epidemic in the coming months. But why do we expect this trend? It is explained in the field of Science called "epidemiology" that studies how epidemics spread.

The first epidemiology studies date back to 1927, when two British researchers, Kermack and McKendrick, developed the "SIR" model (susceptible, infected, removed), still used today. However, the basis of these studies was the previous work of the American Alfred Lotka and the Italian Vito Volterra. A few years earlier, they had developed the model that we now call “Lotka-Volterra,” but also “predator-prey,” or “foxes and rabbits” (although neither Lotka nor Volterra ever spoke of foxes or rabbits).

Let's explain. Imagine a green islet in the middle of the sea, populated by only two species: foxes and rabbits (there is no such island, but let's take it as a hypothetical example). The population of foxes (predators) tends to grow when rabbits (prey) are abundant. It grows so fast that, at some point, the surviving rabbits can no longer reproduce quickly enough to replace those eaten by the foxes. The rabbit population reaches a maximum and then falls. At this point, Foxes starve. With few foxes around, the remaining rabbits can reproduce peacefully and the cycle begins again.

The model is based on the idea that predators tend to take more resources than nature can replace: it is what we now call "overexploitation” It always ends badly, but the model describes the trajectory of the populations that first grow and then collapse as a bell-shaped curve. An example of a real case is that of St. Matthew Island in the Pacific. There were no reindeer on the island before the US Navy brought some, in 1944. In a couple of decades they became thousands, they devoured all the grass, and then almost all died of starvation. Then, a couple of particularly harsh winters exterminated the last individuals, sick and hungry. Reindeer was the predators and grass the prey: a classic case of resource overexploitation.

Not that the model can explain the complex interactions in a whole ecosystem, but it is useful to provide us with a framework for what's happening. And we can use it to understand the current epidemic. It is the same thing: the virus is the predator and the prey is us. The population of the virus is growing rapidly as it always happens when resources are abundant. But soon the virus will begin to run out of prey, fortunately not because infected people die (some, unfortunately, do). They are no longer prey because they become immune. Indeed, the epidemic is following the bell-shaped trajectory predicted by the Lotka-Volterra model.

So, nothing unexpected. Viruses are creatures looking for resources just like we do. They're doing nothing different than what we did in the past by exterminating species like mammoths or the dodo. And, today, with the huge expansion of the human population over the last 1000-2000 years, we have become a great hunting ground for so many micro-organisms, also because of our tendency to live in crowded cities where it is easier to get infected. Thus, the past history is full of epidemics: plague, smallpox, cholera, influenza and many others.

In a way, we are at war: viruses attack us and we defend ourselves with vaccines, antibiotics, hygiene, and our immune system. But, if it's a war, we won't necessarily win it. Maybe we'll find a vaccine for the Sars-VOC-2 virus, but don't expect miracles.

Actually, species do not make wars against each other: they adapt, that's how the ecosystem works. Viruses and bacteria are seen almost only causes for diseases, but our body hosts a large number of them and of many different species. They are not parasites, many are "symbionts" – creatures that help us with so many things, think of our intestinal bacterial flora. So, in time, we'll end up adapting. And the virus will adapt, too.

.

A comment from Ugo Bardi's personal troll: Mr. Kunning-Druger

Mr. Bardi, you are just beating the bush, as you and your warmunist friends usually do to confuse the public. Now you mix magniloquent words at random, goddesses, viromes, holothis and holothat. And what does that mean? That we should welcome being infected by a virus and die? You are being exposed once more for what you are: an enemy of mankind.  So, if it has been all a fault of those stupid pangolins and bats (and those disgusting Chinese who eat them), well, there is a simple solution. As you said, our ancestors exterminated stupid animals like those dodos, why not exterminate pangolins and bats, which must be just as stupid? Problem solved. The reality is that man has no obligation toward nature, except to put it back in its proper place when needed. Now, it is the time to shelve those silly plans such as the energy transition and the green new deal. We need to go back to growth, and do that fast.

Italy: The Virus Hits Polluted Areas. Is There a Correlation?

The coronavirus pandemics: a consequence of the human impact on the ecosystem

The Italian situation: on the left, pollution levels of microparticulate. On the right, the diffusion of the Coronavirus pandemic. Image from the article by Setti et al. 

Below, I report an English translation (slightly modified) of an article that I submitted today to the Italian newspaper "Il Fatto Quotidiano." Sorry that the text is a little Italy-centered and all the links point to pages in Italian. Nevertheless, I thought that the story of a possible correlation of the coronavirus diffusion and the level of pollution was interesting also for the readers of "Cassandra's Legacy." 

For some additional considerations, take a look at the picture above: the correlation of the virus diffusion with the most polluted areas of Italy seems evident. It is, of course, a hypothesis to be taken with plenty of caution, but it has some logic in it. The Val Padana, the Northern plains of Italy, is a region stuck between two mountain chains, the Appennini and the Alps, blocking winds coming from the North. The result is that air stagnates and pollution accumulates, creating what's probably the most polluted area in Western Europe. Considering that also Wuhan, the other center of the coronavirus epidemic, is located in a highly polluted area, central China, it makes sense to think that the infection does more damage to the already weakened lungs of people affected by pollution. Indeed, I had already noted how epidemics tend to strike mostly populations already weakened by other factors, typically famines and wars -- pollution is just another factor that has the same effect. According to the data, it may also be that the virus is carried by flying microparticles and that makes the infection spread faster.

The discussion is ongoing in Italy, with some people vehemently rejecting the idea that pollution may have anything to do with the pandemic. They tend to negate the correlation using the concept that "correlation doesn't mean causation" as a little mantra to dispel ideas they can't accept. There is a certain logic in this attitude, too. If the epidemic is reinforced by pollution, it means that the virus is not just an act of God, unpredictable and nobody's fault. It means that we have created the disaster by our neglect of the damage we are doing to the ecosystem and that, eventually, comes back to us with a vengeance. It is understandable that some people take the hypothesis as a direct attack on their non-negotiable lifestyle. But so it goes, we are all human beings. 


The Coronavirus epidemic and pollution: is there a correlation?
by Ugo Bardi
Submitted to "Il Fatto Quotidiano" 22 March 2020

There is an ongoing debate about the possible correlation between the coronavirus epidemic and pollution. A recent study by Leonardo Setti and colleagues examines this correlation in Italy. The result is that particulate matter appears to act as a carrier of the virus and accelerate its spread. This would be in accordance with the fact that the maximum spread of the epidemic is in Val Padana, probably the most polluted area in Italy.

The article does not explicitly say that pollution may also have weakened the immune defenses of victims, but this is the result of other studies. For example, a recent study shows that this specific virus preferentially attacks the lungs of smokers, and smoking does similar damage as pollution to lungs.

These are possible hypotheses but, of course, it does not mean that they correspond to reality. In fact, Setti's article also generated negative reactions. The Italian Aerosol Society (IAS) intervened with a document that points out that correlation does not mean causation, that the data are uncertain and that we need to study much more about it before we can determine if the atmospheric particulate matter has any effects on the epidemic.

Who's right? For most of us, it is difficult to give an informed judgment on such a specialized and complex subject. One thing we can say, however, is that here we have a correlation based on data – albeit uncertain- backed by serious people. Nothing to do with the various follies that you can read all over the Web, that the epidemic is all the fault of 5G, of chemtrails, or who knows what other ongoing monstrous plot created by the powers that be.

Another thing we can say is that this story is a good example of how scientific progress works: we start from a correlation, often initially uncertain, and then try to arrive at an explanation. Perhaps you remember the case of the English doctor John Snow, who in the 19th century had noticed a correlation between the number of cases of cholera in London and the distance of the homes of people sick from a certain public fountain. He shut it down and so he managed to stop the epidemic. Much later, it was discovered that the fountain fished near a well that contained infected fecal matter.

Today, it seems obvious to us that Snow was right but, in his time, the role of bacteria in infectious diseases was not known and his idea was initially opposed. It may be that someone had also said to him that " correlation does not mean causation!" But if Snow had waited for certainty, people would have continued to drink from that fountain and die of cholera.

The analogy with the current situation is obvious. Also for the coronavirus epidemic, we have an analysis of the location of the cases that establishes a correlation with highly polluted areas. On this basis, an action strategy can be devised. For cholera in the days of Snow, it was enough to close a fountain to stop the epidemic, for the coronavirus you have to reduce air pollution. That's not so easy, but we can at least try. If it turns out the correlation didn't exist, well, we'll still have done something good.

All this does not mean that it is the only pollution that causes the epidemic, absolutely not. But if it's an important factor, then we have to take it into account. If the air in Lombardy had been less polluted, it would have been easier to control the spread of the virus and mortality would have been lower.

Once more, we see how the damage we do to the ecosystem comes back to us. At this point, it is useless to blame the Chinese bat-eaters or the government that did not close the borders in time. To a large extent, the blame lies with all of us who, with the excuse of "development", have not done enough to combat air pollution. It will take time to remedy, but, at least, the coronavirus is teaching us that there is no development if it is not sustainable and that sustainable development respects both the ecosystem and human health. Hopefully, we'll remember that in the future.

h/t Sylvie Coyaud and Alex Saragosa.



A comment by Ugo Bardi's Personal Troll, Mr. Kunning-Druger

So, mr. Bardi. I see that you finally had what you wanted. You and your friends, including the little witch with braided hair, you must be very happy at seeing people die of the virus. Isn't it a good way to reduce what you call "pollution"? You will stop at nothing to impose your twisted ideology of hate on the world, right? And I figure you must be gloating at seeing the fall of the concentration of CO2 that you call "greenhouse" gas but is instead food for plants. Very well, one point scored by you watermelons, those who are green outside and red inside. I figure that the next step will be trying to force Communism on us with the excuse of the pandemic. Sure, but you'll see that it won't be so easy. Not easy at all.