COVID-19 pandemic roundup

  • As country eyes path to reopening, restart of non-COVID-19 medical care, including postponed surgeries, is desperately needed [Hans Bader, James Bacon (Virginia governor’s “statewide ban on elective surgery is a sledgehammer which may be appropriate for the hardest-hit parts of the state but is wildly inappropriate for others.”]
  • Michigan’s Gov. Whitmer rolls back some of the more arbitrary and controversial restrictions in her stay-at-home order [Billy Binion, Reason]
  • Tech firms among the first to respond when the virus appeared here: “So, the approximate order of events was: private sector response, then local government response in the west, then response in the east and by the Federal government.” [Arnold Kling]
  • We previously linked our Cato online panel on the pandemic and the Constitution; now our friends at Competitive Enterprise Institute have written a very nice review and summary of it [Richard Morrison, CEI]
  • Especially given its conduct during this outbreak, expenditures on the World Health Organization deserve top-to-bottom reevaluation [Lyman Stone, The Dispatch; Anish Koka]
  • “COVID-19 Exposes the Shallowness of Our Privacy Theories” [Jane Bambauer, Truth on the Market]

One Comment

  • Lyman Stone’s indictment of WHO is interesting and sounds persuasive. It is a pity that Trump has so squandered his credibility outside his base, and especially outside this country, that no accusation by him will be taken seriously.

    If Trump could be persuaded to follow up on Stone’s charges, there remains his depressing record of panic as soon as he meets determined opposition. Most recently, I think of him throwing GA Governor Kemp under the bus for taking his advice on starting a return to work.