MacroEdgo

Your Life: Something The Elites Have Always Been Prepared To Sacrifice For Their Ends

Although unknown by most who play it, Monopoly was invented as an education tool to demonstrate the pitfalls of wealth being concentrated amongst a few.

It was designed to be a warning of the danger of ‘Monopoly’!

The history of the western world’s most popular board game is fascinating, especially in how it mirrored reality including in the events surrounding how it came to be so widely loved and the wealth it created. Parker Brothers, who marketed the game and brought it to global prominence, still to this day does not acknowledge Lizzie Magie’s role in the game’s origins.

Lizzie Magie developed the game, which she called “The Landlord’s Game”, at the beginning of the twentieth century. Now early in the twenty-first century it still explains much of the behaviours within society, and it remains “a practical demonstration of the present system of land-grabbing with all its usual outcomes and consequences… It might well have been called the ‘Game of Life’, as it contains all the elements of success and failure in the real world, and the object is the same as the human race in general seem[s] to have, i.e., the accumulation of wealth” as it did then.

To suggest to an anxious and emotionally taught public that the light at the end of the COVID-19 tunnel is close is irresponsible in the extreme.

Yesterday I heard an Australian restaurateur enthusiastically discussing the 3-step plan to reopen the Australian economy and he used this same analogy. All I could think of was this poor fellow mistaking daylight for the light of a fully laden freight train.

The Elites use the same repertoire of tools in a crisis to frighten the public into believing that there is no other option but to return the ‘Game of Life’ as closely as possible to how things were before the crisis.

Of course they would do that. That is the ‘game’ they know best. In fact they came to know it so well, including through intergenerational wealth and power, that they have come to control or even own the game.

Lets take what occurred in the global financial crisis (GFC). Through the rampant greed of a few, investment products dreamt up on Wall Street created a deluge of debt down to Main Street so that anybody with a pulse could get a loan to turn a necessity of life – a home – into a speculative asset and with it the dream of a better future for the budding speculator on Main St. Of course what I describe is a classic bubble and they have a nasty habit of bursting, which is exactly what happened in the US in 2006. As the value of those speculative assets – homes – fell, the value of the products created and traded on Wall Street fell such that the financial viability of financial institutions around the world trembled. Indeed, long-standing investment firms collapsed whilst others were forced to merge.

As the value of their homes fell, and with the economic shock emanating from Wall Street reverberating, many people on Main Street lost their homes as well as chunks of their retirement savings and the ensuing recession cost many their jobs.

But it was not those people on Main Street, who were so directly disadvantaged, who received assistance. Instead the bankers who created the problematic products, and had earlier lobbied for the removal of regulations which would have prevented the egregiousness that caused the bubble, were bailed out by Governments. And no sooner had the cash come in their front door from the Government did the bankers turn around and give themselves rewards and incentive bonuses.

Meanwhile Central Bankers around the world continued to flood the globe with liquidity, from their own dreamt up manoeuvres, to keep aloft asset prices especially stock market values.

It is hardly surprising, then, that inequality between the owners of capital – the already wealthy – and the providers of labour – the workers who have little else to trade other than their own hourly labour – has continued to increase.

Effectively what happened in the GFC, as in other financial collapses, is that the ‘game’ became so out of balance that it collapsed under it’s own weight.

Imagine a Monopoly board in 2007 tipping under the weight of all of the hotels on the expensive half of the board, from the red properties to the royal blue ones, so that everything was sliding off the board. Immediately those who owned all of the hotels said they realised that they made an error in being so greedy, but they needed the (central) banker to get things back to ‘normal’ and support that side of the board so the game can continue safely. So everyone scrambled and lifted that side of the board and quickly put all of those hotels back in place. And for good measure the (central) banker paid them a few times over for a job well done. Meanwhile, the people in the cheapest properties lost their houses and were set back enormously.

Nothing demonstrates this truth better than this graph from the US Federal Reserve which demonstrates clearly that the only group of Americans back ‘in the green’ after the GFC is the most wealthy 10% (‘Top 10’). Moreover, this group experienced the least set back to their wealth during the GFC, besides the least wealthy Americans (‘Bottom 30’) who own few assets which went backwards in value, but who remained 31% less wealthy in 2016 than in 2007!

From A Wealthless Recovery? Asset Ownership and the Uneven Recovery from the Great Recession a report by the Board of Governors of the (US) Federal Reserve

Already in the economic response to the COVID-19 pandemic there are signs that wealthy Americans are benefitting disproportionately which creates a perception that it is always ‘Heads we win, tails you lose‘.

In my post “The Magic Sauce of American Economic Dynamism Is Not Based On Personal Greed” I laid out my arguments for why such personal greed is not integral to the capitalist system of which America is upheld as the pinnacle, rather it is a malaise of wealth which serves to weaken society and thus the capitalist system.

Actions by Elites, including the bankers, politicians and senior bureaucrats (including Central Bankers), which have led directly to increasing inequality within societies, only serve to weaken trust in institutions.

Thus humanity confronts major challenges which threaten our sustainability on Earth from a weakened and non-cohesive position. It is in this fertile ground where populists with extreme views and emerging powers advance their interests.

The COVID-19 pandemic is fast-evolving and the consequences apparent already are devastating, but that does not stop some from continuing to try to downplay its significance. Another challenge, the climate crisis, is more serious but to this point has evolved less rapidly which allows some to downplay its consequence and even its very existence in the face of significant evidence and the intellectual weight of the scientific community.

In large part it is exactly the same actors who seek to dismiss or downplay the need for action on both crises.

The increase in inequality in developed countries is seen as a prime reason for the growth in populist politics. In the United States and the United Kingdom the top elected representatives presently are Caucasian men with similar backgrounds and political playbooks, born into immense privilege but having convinced a heartland of the most financially disadvantaged that they offer them a brighter future by scapegoating migrants and anybody or any organisation working towards a more united humanity. The current Australian conservative Government under PM Morrison uses a very similar playbook.

In the companion post to this, “Toxic Masculinity and Political Footballs“, I discussed how the elected officials of the major Anglophone countries have created a great deal of momentum towards re-opening economies while COVID-19 remains poorly understood in their communities, and what is known of it is devastating.

For these conservative Caucasian men the answer is always more economic growth, and suppression of any questioning over what is the quality of life experienced by broader society from that growth and how sustainable is it.

These same men, who apparently care about mental health in society during crises, but do not recognise that mental health has long been deteriorating in Western societies, never give credit to the opportunity to work on the deeper causes of this with the aim of improving the underlying mental health of populations.

They cannot do that because they continually promote ‘aspiration’ which is a synonym for competing in a never ending cycle of one-up-manship which we all implicitly understand is a zero sum game because no matter how rich we become, there is always somebody who has more wealth, unless you are Jeff Bezos… for the moment…

There are some Elites that I can respect and even admire – they are those who authentically understand the privilege that they have enjoyed, usually from birth by virtue of the luck of being born in a developed country or into middle class even if they consider themselves ‘self-made’, as well as respect and appreciate relationships with other human beings especially the people who loved and guided them.

Steve Schwarzman is a quintessential Elite and to some a hero of capitalism, or more specifically, the way it is currently practised. Schwarzman is enormously wealthy and by virtue of this wealth he is one of the most powerful men in the contemporary world. I recently watched his interview with David Rubenstein on Bloomberg Television. Now in his 70s, in modern parlance Schwarzman would still be described as being extremely goal-oriented and driven, almost the definition of ‘aspiration’. If you measure life success in terms of wealth accumulation, while there are a few that still have an edge on him, his personal wealth would equate to the cumulative wealth of quite a few million of the poorest of our 7+ billion contemporary human beings.

In discussing his formative years with Rubenstein, Schwarzman did not seek to disguise his lack of appreciation for, or even understanding of, his parents’ station in life. His mother was devoted to the family as a housewife. The family owned a retail shop in Philadelphia which his father ran successfully. Schwarzman told Rubenstein the story of him being a young man suggesting to his father that the success of his business suggested that he could take the store concept nationally. His father said he did not want to do that. He then suggested he could develop a strategy to open new stores throughout the state, to which his father again stated he was not interested. Finally he suggested that his father open more stores throughout the city. His father told him no, he was content and happy with what he has. Schwarzman shook his head saying that he could just not understand his father. The story was meant to be an indication of how a lack of aspiration was essentially the antithesis of Steve Schwarzman’s very existence.

How very sad…. for Steve… that he is blind to his own impoverishment.

I wonder whether Joseph and Arlene Schwarzman knew another quietly influential Philadelphian, Lizzie Magie, or at least learned the lessons of her game which they may well have played in their youth? Or perhaps it is just a strong indication of the change in American culture post 60’s as I discussed in “The Magic Sauce of American Economic Dynamism Is Not Personal Greed“.

In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, right now people are scared and they are training their hopes and trust on institutions and officials. Popularity of elected officials is (or has been) high but electorates will become more discriminate in their opinions as the shock of their altered existence subsides.

As I explained in “Politics Vs Society in the COVID-19 Pandemic“, it is never possible to totally remove politics from decisions and actions by officials. As would be expected at such times, there has been a range of responses – some of these trusted sources are acting responsibly and less politically, while others are using the COVID-19 pandemic as a crisis to advance their own political agendas.

In “The Great Reset” I discussed how major events that affect large swathes of society typically result in significant changes in the psyche of citizens, and such changes threaten incumbent Elites because they controlled the ‘game’ as it stood.

Right now there is an extraordinarily heavy weight pressing down on the centre of that Monopoly board. In early March this pressure was suddenly recognised and positions began sliding into the centre. Global efforts by Central Bankers have, however, supported the centre of the board and the Elites are busy sliding their property and other wealth back into position and making arrangements to keep them in position.

To be clear, from my first comments on the economic impacts in my 11 February Coronavirus (COVID-19) Update and in “Repeat After Me, This Is Not SARS: COVID-19 Is Far More Serious” I said that I expected Central Bankers to try “absolutely extraordinary actions (as opposed to the already ‘extraordinary’ actions that we have become desensitised to over the decade)”, and further suggested that while I was concerned about their continual inclination to ‘over-egg’ markets by doing too much and creating moral hazard – which they have never tried to redress by ‘removing the punch bowl’ – I felt that a financial panic on top a health panic was to be avoided.

Nonetheless, critically the response should be aimed at smoothing the transition to prices reflecting the nature of the challenge confronting humanity and thus businesses, not acting like it does not at all exist!

At the same time those playing the ‘game’ are becoming unwell, some are dying, others dealing with the pain of loss of a loved one, but all grieve the loss of their former freedoms.

True to type and form, the Elites want the board supported at all costs so that the ‘game’ can continue even if it means more players suffering personally devastating impacts.

Presently there is no better example of this than what is being played out in meat processing plants in America where President Trump has ordered them to stay open even though workers in such plants have been dying of COVID-19 and many are afraid to work, and COVID-19 is spreading quicker in areas where there are major meat processing plants suggesting that it is a high risk factor. The move listed meat processing as an essential service and protects the industry from legal liability should more workers become infected.

The inescapable reality is that 90% of those in the ‘game’ are sharing the resources from just the first 5 squares after “Go”, the least valuable 1/8 of the board, and every time they round the board, after they pay out the rents to the Elites, they keep going backwards.

Sometimes they pay with their life. Then again, their life has always been something that Elites have been prepared to sacrifice to meet (or meat?) their ends.

The memory of the wealthy being bailed out during the last collapse is fresh, as is the sting of how their own lives were negatively impacted, so Elites need to try even harder to give the appearance of the bailout not being tilted so heavily in their favour.

Then again, greed is such a serious malaise, and well everyone knows that political science, with its modern social media tools, has reached such an advanced state that the 90% will feel powerless to do anything other than accept the situation as inevitable, right?

Maybe…

Then again, human history is full of kids flipping the board while playing Monopoly against others who own all of the wealth of the board, especially when it is realised that the banker is slipping favoured players extra money for nothing and all of the “cards of chance” in the game have been intentionally tilted to favour the landlords.

The Elites know this well, and are aware that this risk is growing.

But greed is such a powerful malaise!

And power affords a lot of protection, right?

What I advocate is not a ‘flipping’ of the board, which some might equate with revolution, or anything near it, because that entails more loss in and of itself, and there is a wide range of possible outcomes with a great deal of uncertainty as to whether we will arrive at a place that is better.

But we do need a peaceful revolution to readjust the ‘game’ to make it much more fair and that requires resolute and sustained society-wide engagement.

Having just watched Warren Buffett’s entire 2020 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting I was, as I often am, in total agreement that conditions have improved (not just in America but throughout the developed world) over the last century. Buffett’s comments around diversity in his introductory comments were welcome, even if the related motion did not carry. (Sadly this topic was not discussed in the Q&A.)

Moreover, due not just to his success but because of his patent authentic humanity, Buffett has become the cheerleader of prominence for American capitalism which, as I discussed in “The Magic Sauce of American Economic Dynamism is Not Based on Personal Greed“, has taken on a very hard edge in recent decades. Sadly Buffett bypassed the opportunity to take this on and instead largely concentrated on historic diversity and inequality.

Still Buffett’s clear views that there remains much to do to improve American society around these issues, as perhaps the best known “proponent” of capitalism, were incredibly valid and valuable.

I am a great admirer of John Lennon and I, too, am a pacifist. However, we have learned in history that when we are entirely passive then the aggressive actors within our societies will push all of their favourable positions back in place and with growing inequality, as discussed by many others including Ray Dalio, probably the highest profile hedge fund manager at present, we all risk a much more disruptive response in the future.

“The Great Reset” provides us all with an opportunity to dream of a world that we want for ourselves and the people we love most, and ponder how we can realistically bring that to fruition, not instantaneously but with enduring commitment and innovation.

Goodness knows humanity has proven to itself, once again, even still in the early stages of this pandemic, that human ingenuity and endeavour is without limits.

My general optimism in humanity means that, even while often pessimistic (or realistic) about issues over the short term, I am often considered a dreamer on the big picture.

It is a badge that I wear proudly, for I know that I am not the only one. In fact, we are the majority.

Let’s get to work, in our minds, our hearts and in our actions, and claim that luminous future for all.

The alternate path is dark and disturbing for everyone including the Elites, as I have spelled out in “Xenophobia Must Be Challenged For An Effective Response To Climate Change Inclusive Of Human Population Growth“, “The Conundrum Humanity Faces: But Nobody Admits“, “Investment Theme: Defence and Military Spending” and “Let’s Wage War On Climate Change“.

Nobody should think for a second that our success is inevitable. There is no doubt that the Elites are going to make it so that we have to earn it.

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Toxic Masculinity and Political Footballs

As of writing on 11 May the Cedar Meats cluster of COVID-19 cases numbers at least 75 (it is difficult to confirm exact numbers) with at least 59 of those being people who have worked in the facility. According to the business operators around 400 people have worked there recently, so that means that around 15% of workers have been infected. The remainder of cases are contacts (family and friends) of the workers.

I found the press statement and video from Cedar Meats to be emotional, and I feel for the owners as well as the workers and their families.

The emotion is there because it is continually stressed that Cedar Meats is a “family business”, and of course the emotion contained in that is entirely within the adjective and what we all personally value in “family”.

The events around this cluster have become extremely political as Victorian Premier Dan Andrews has shown an inclination to pressure the Federal Government in the COVID-19 pandemic to act with greater caution. In recent days there has been discussion about whether the Victorian Government and the business acted as it should have when it was informed. It now appears that it took the business a few days to respond.

I know nothing about the business, and there have been some reports of prior worker dissatisfaction, which if true would be disappointing, but I would suggest that it is perhaps understandable that it took the business managers a couple of days to come to grips with the gravity of the situation. After all, it took Prime Minister Morrison a long time to accept it and act – his assertion that he would attend the first round of the NRL, only to have to go into self-isolation when Peter Dutton was confirmed to be infected, will long be remembered.

It is a real shame when ordinary people and families get caught in the middle of political stoushes. And just like our Federal Government and the US Federal Government should not deflect attention from their own shortcomings by questioning the actions of others in this pandemic, which made a geopolitical football of my friend Dr Shi Zhengli, unfortunately the need of the Morrison Government to sling some mud at Dan Andrews has meant that this family business has been collateral damage.

For me, the Cedar Meats outbreak is incredibly instructive. It is a clear demonstration of just how quickly this pandemic can reignite in cool conditions favourable for virus spread. It also demonstrates the clear potential for clusters of infected people to exist in our community right now undetected

The emotions around the incident, obviously heightened even further due to politicisation, goes to the heart of juxtaposition between economic and human cost and why we should all want as few people to be infected by COVID-19 as is possible.

From early on in the pandemic, before it was even named a pandemic, I wrote about the conflict between economic and human cost that decision-makers would experience.

I have to admit that when I wrote that post I envisaged only countries with a strong ability to coerce ordinary citizens to take risks with their lives in order to “produce” for the greater good, i.e. those under autocratic governments, or poor countries where the citizens will otherwise starve, would largely open up with the virus still circulating.

I profess to being surprised and utterly disappointed by especially the Anglophone elected officials for working at coercing people to “produce” in spite of persistent community transmission of COVID-19 and my view on the reasons for this will be the subject of my next post.

For this post I wish to just concentrate on the devastating impacts of the disease, the deaths and financial stress that it places people under, and of course, how the politics around these are playing out.

From early on in the pandemic, the right wing elected officials (yes, I remain resolutely averse to calling them leaders because they are not) of the major Anglophone countries continually shirked measures needed to arrest the spread of COVID-19 for fear of the economic consequences, and even some scientists or medical officials felt the need to speak of their concerns over economic impacts although such issues are well beyond the scope of their expertise.

In an effort to counteract growing concern for “human costs” as the loss of life and impacts on families directly from COVID-19 became apparent globally, those inclined to prioritise higher minimising economic costs began to emphasise that there are human costs to economic impacts (which is something that I stated would occur in my early writings).

This is an esoteric and rather nebulous area that makes definitive arguments in either direction challenging – which is perfect for political purposes.

Last week, however, The Conversation ran an article which found that in an Australian context measures towards eliminating COVID-19 were overwhelming supported on the basis of an analysis of human costs. That is, “far fewer lives would be lost by continuing restrictions than would be lost by ending them now”.

By inference, that means that far fewer Australian families, be they business owners, workers, or retirees, will be torn apart by the loss of loved-ones.

Of course economics do have a relationship to health and death in rich developed countries as well as developing, and while the devastation of that has been exposed in the COVID-19 pandemic, it has always been obvious to those prepared to acknowledge it. All one had to do to confirm it was watch a documentary on inequality in the United States to see families torn apart by financial hardship placed on them due to sickness of one or several family members.

The point is this, when confronted with the loss of a loved-one families are prepared to do whatever it takes, to bear whatever economic cost is entailed, for a chance to save that person.

So here is the question, say in 3 years hence, when the pandemic has passed, if we went to the families that lost loved ones with COVID-19 and asked them then what they would have preferred priority given to, economic activity or to saving lives, what do you think they will say?

The advantage that politicians seeking to prioritise the economic impacts above human costs have is that the families that will be impacted do not yet know it…

The elected decision-makers of the major Anglophone countries, Australia included, have approached the pandemic with the same mindset – to minimise impacts on the economy, even if that meant large numbers of people dying, and try to supress the political pressure to save lives for long enough to ensure that the pandemic has progressed to a point of no return, where elimination with stringent biosecurity and restrictions was no longer possible.

The problem that PM Morrison has, from his way of thinking, is that COVID-19 did not spread widely from imported cases, quite likely due to lower transmissibility due to it being summer, and the political surge to clamp down on the pandemic – having seen what occurred in the northern hemisphere – meant that our response was reasonably effective and thus we have seen a low expression of the disease within our population.

Now Morrison does not wish to be patient and throw everything at elimination because he wants to ease impacts on the economy as soon as possible.

For Morrison, the chance of eliminating the coronavirus from Australia, and therefore ensuring very low human impacts of it on our society compared with many northern hemisphere countries, is outweighed by the economic consequences of keeping the economy closed for another let’s say 2 months to eliminate the coronavirus. So Morrison, together with some elements of press similarly active in other major Anglophone countries, i.e. Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation, has created a great deal of momentum around re-opening the economy and an expectation of greater freedom of movement and interaction within the population which ties that momentum to significant political risk for State politicians, such as Dan Andrews in Victoria, to counteract.

There is not doubt in my mind that if Australia goes on to experience a severe pandemic in winter 2020 then, just as has been stated that Trump is culpable in deaths of Americans, so too will Morrison be culpable in the deaths of Australians.

The warped and deterministic logic within the momentum to open up the economy that the Morrison Government has generated is encapsulated within the following irony:

the price I must pay for there being more people at my funeral is the increased chance of me dying much earlier than otherwise in a hospital alone!

Before concluding I will just provide a few extra thoughts on impacts on Australian families of stringent social distancing/isolation measures in addition to what was discussed in that article in The Conversation discussed above.

I have been giving a great deal of thought to the impacts on Australian families and in many ways this post can be seen as a companion to my next which I have now chosen to entitle “Your Life: Something The Elites Have Always Been Prepared to Sacrifice For Their Ends” instead of setting a more optimistic tone.

Firstly I would suggest that some people actually feel better under the lockdown conditions, as has been written about in various places, such as people with some specific anxieties and phobias, and isolation within society is not uncommon and some may actually be less isolated under these altered conditions. Moreover, introverts are not rare in society and many will be quite fine with a certain level of solitude.

Being a stay at home parent, and specifically a male, I lead a reasonably isolated existence, so I would count myself in this category of those who are certainly no worse off in mental health terms than when not under stringent social isolation measures. I would also say that there is at least one other person in my immediate family who was experiencing extreme pressure before these stringent measures were introduced, and I believe that this period of family togetherness has been a net benefit to this person. The other two members of my immediate family have expressed no deleterious impacts on their mental health and have settled in to their new normal well after the initial grieving process. What was key to this was giving honest messages that this is unlikely to be solved quickly and we may need to maintain isolation for an extended period.

I note that Morrison said similar things BEFORE reluctantly agreeing to the introduction of stringent isolation measures, but of course that changed at the first sign of success at limiting the number of new cases.

Of others that I know well, including extended family, while their clear preference would be for things to return to conditions before the pandemic, to a person they agree that the sacrifices involved in stringent measures are worthwhile and they show no signs of negative impacts thus far while one other close family member with ongoing mental health issues has probably improved.

Furthermore, I believe I would not be the only one whose heart has been warmed by seeing all of the families walking around together in the early evening. It is not difficult to imagine that families that manage and are fortunate to not experience severe direct impacts from this pandemic may well be enriched by the time spent together and I imagine that many children will be enjoying a great deal more attention from adults which will have positive long-term benefits and easily outweigh any moments of frustration that all parents feel when taking on additional parenting tasks such as additional responsibilities with schooling.

I do understand, however, that some will be worse off under stringent isolation measures but what I am pointing out is that there is always a spectrum regardless of what conditions prevail.

To be clear in no way do I discount the impacts of financial hardship on families because it is something I understand well. However, it is also important to note that at least some of that hardship can be lessened by Government, not just by temporary measures, but by strong leadership and with long term commitments.

What do I mean by that? Every thinking person realises that the issue of automation and/or artificial intelligence replacing jobs, along with the proliferation of “Bullshit Jobs”, has been creating additional worker anxiety and that needs to be addressed. The introduction of a Universal Basic Income seems to many to be inevitable, and clearly what has already happened around the developed world in responding to COVID-19 may well be the start.

If leaders begin to discuss this openly then that will ease some of the pressure on the unemployed, understanding that this is a shift that will happen anyway and critically that support is not temporary. Moreover, that does not preclude people from upskilling to get a higher paying job even if the number of hours worked is less than what we currently consider is employed full-time.

I appreciate that this is a discussion that is unlikely to hit the mainstream with the current elected decision-makers in the major Anglophone countries, who prefer to sell the mantra of never ending “aspiration”, but leading in a way that says that wealth accumulation is not the most important yard stick for success in life, in fact that it is a poor one, would be invaluable.

Again, any thinking person knows that mindless consumption on a planet with finite resources is entirely unsustainable and must be addressed.

Finally, leaders could create a far more a positive attitude by encouraging people to dare to rethink how we live life, instead of insisting that we must risk a “snap back” to exactly the way things were before, so that when we can come back out of this we can make things better than before. Of course a major impediment to this is that powerful vested interests are very satisfied with the way things were, thank you very much.

So it is clear that there most definitely are different approaches to handling this pandemic to those with the mental acuity to consider alternate approaches.

Unfortunately, in my opinion, PM Morrison is hell bent on opening up our economy as soon as possible regardless of what new information emerges domestically or internationally.

We were fortunate to have a second chance at eliminating COVID-19 from Australia after PM Morrison dithered on closing the borders to international travellers in February and early March. I strongly doubt that we will be fortunate enough to be able to say “third time lucky”.

Saving lives minimises impacts on families and as the experience of the family business Cedar Meats shows, families are at the centre of everything that is important to us human beings, including PM Morrison who took his family on a holiday during the unprecedented Australian bushfires this past summer.

Now PM Morrison has Australian families on a collision course with severe impacts from COVID-19. He cajoles family leaders, the parents whose focus is most intently trained on the protection of their children and/or their elderly parents, to get out from under the doona.

This is toxic masculinity at its most virulent to intimate cowardice toward anybody who would wish to continue to lead their family to shelter in place until the path of the COVID-19 pandemic as Australia enters winter is more clear. This is a message to other males to shame them in their caution, essentially inferring that any male is gutless and not a real man if he continues to choose to shelter in place with family. It is a message that does not respect individual choice or recognise that we all have different attitudes to risk and risk tolerance. And by putting schools front and centre in the debate it puts cautious Australian families on a path to anxiety and conflict with State Governments over obligations to send children to school while there is emerging evidence of spread and serious disease in children associated with infection by this coronavirus.

Again, this is not leadership befitting the actions of the elected top decision-maker of a nation.

It is not leadership at all. It is weakness. It is dumb. It is careless and heartless. Most of all, it is dangerous.

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Institution At Heart Of Capitalist System Links Severe Pandemic Affects To Growth In Extremism

Studying the rise of Nazism in Germany, this new report by Kristian Blickle at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York draws a link between those regions worst affected by the 1918 flu pandemic and increased extremist voting.

The source of the work is critical. It is not a left-wing thinktank that can be attacked on partisan lines as being radical. It comes out of an institution at the very heart of capitalism, no less than one of the 12 Federal Reserve Banks of The United States of America.

I recommend readers to take in the full work, but extract the following key quotes to whet the reader’s appetite:

Introduction
…inﬂuenza deaths of 1918 are correlated with an increase in the share of votes won by right-wing extremists, such as the National Socialist Workers Party (aka. the Nazi Party), in the crucial elections of 1932 and 1933… (Page 1)
following Voigtländer and Voth (2012a), we show that the correlation between inﬂuenza mortality and the vote share won by right-wing extremists is stronger in regions that had historically blamed minorities, particularly Jews, for medieval plagues… Moreover, the disease may have fostered a hatred of “others”, as it was perceived to come from abroad. An increase in foreigner/minority hate has been shown by Cohn (2012) or Voigtländer and Voth (2012a) to occur during some severe historical plagues. Regions more affected by the pandemic may have gravitated towards political parties aligned with anti minority sentiment… (Page 3)
Voigtländer and Voth (2012a) and Voigtländer and Voth (2012b) highlight the importance of antisemitism in driving extremist voters. Importantly, they show how persistent certain sentiments, especially those pertaining to hate of “others” (such as antisemitism), can be. (Page 4)
Conclusions
We show that the deaths brought about by the inﬂuenza pandemic of 1918-1920 profoundly shaped German society going forward… we also show that inﬂuenza deaths themselves had a strong effect on the share of votes won by extremists, speciﬁcally the extremist national socialist party. This effect dominates many other effects and is persistent even when we control for the inﬂuences of local unemployment, city spending, population changes brought about by the war, and local demographics or when we instrument for inﬂuenza mortality. The same patterns were not observable for the votes won by other extremist parties, such as the communists. Our results are striking in part because they are robust to a large battery of alternate speciﬁcations despite being based on a relatively small sample

This adds another layer of complexity to decisions on opening up economies in spite of the presence of COVID-19 in communities and thus increasing the affects of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Moreover it adds empirical underpinning to what many of us have long understood and which formed the underlying theme of my first paper on COVID-19, “Social Cohesion: The Best Vaccine Against Crises“, and which informs all of my writing on MacroEdgo.

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Open Letter To Queensland Premier Palaszczuk

This letter was submitted today via the online Contact The Premier portal.

Dear Premier Palaszczuk

On Monday evening my family sat down to watch 4 Corners. After 15 minutes my 15 year old eldest son, returning from the rest room, asked if we could turn off the program as it was upsetting him and making him anxious. Of course we did so and discussed his fears.

He was scared by hearing how well-informed and intelligent people at Australia’s frontline of the fight against COVID-19 were scared for their own lives and the lives of and impacts on their family.

I explained that it was perfectly normal to be scared because this is serious event that will impact our country and be remembered for the rest of our lives. I confirmed that I, too, was scared. But I promised my family, again, that I will continue to do everything in my power to protect us from the worst direct impacts of this disease.

I have a professional background in research in infectious disease and virology, and worked for a period in biosecurity policy development working on risk analyses for aquatic invertebrates (prawns, freshwater crayfish and bivalve molluscs).

I also count the original describer of the causative virus of COVID-19 at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, Dr Shi Zhengli, as a personal friend and former colleague (and co-author) as I worked in the lab where she did her PhD.

My sons both are afraid of being made to go back to school when they do not feel comfortable that it is safe for them or our family. We in our family are about as well informed as anybody can be having access only to publicly available data.

The Queensland State Government approach of opening schools prior to mid-winter, and the Federal Government ambitions to progressively open the economy, does not accord with the level of risk that we as a family are prepared to accept.

I have been a stay at home parent since our eldest son was born. We as a family made a commitment to eschew additional wealth, such as delaying buying a family home and other trappings of extra disposable income, to concentrate on giving our children the best start in their life as is possible. I am actively engaged with their education and have been ensuring that their distance schooling has progressed smoothly this year. Both of our sons are well settled into a routine in social isolation.

I recognise that we are fortunate with the decisions that we have made in our family life to be able to deal with this pandemic, but I consider it a serious breach of my rights to have to follow a directive to send children to school and take on additional risks that we as a family do not want and have no need to experience.

I would hope that any directives on education that you implement would recognise that all Queenslanders have different attitudes to risk and different circumstances, and that it is a personal right to decide on what risk we will accept when facing a once in 100 year pandemic. In other words, any opening of schools should not be compulsory, and families that decide to continue with distance education should not be disadvantaged in making such a choice.

Finally, I have followed with concern the growing issue of COVID-19 impacts on food processing, and especially meat processing. Having experience in this field, and being aware of the latest research on viability of SARS-CoV-2, I consider that the food safety guidelines are inadequate with respect to this pathogen. The closing of a meat processing facility in Melbourne, with it now confirmed that over 10% of their workforce are infected with the virus, proves that this will be an area of critical concern.

This is an issue of great import to food processing workers for health and safety issues, and to the wider public as SARS-CoV-2 has been shown to remain largely infective for 14 days at +4 Celsius and other coronaviruses have remained infective for 2 years at -20 Celsius.

Obviously this also presents risks to agriculture as North American pig producers had to euthanise stock which could not be processed due to plant closures.

What testing are you currently doing on food processing employees and when did those testing programs commence? What additional risk mitigations factors are being implemented in food processing facilities? Will you make all of this information public so that people can make fact-based decisions on what risks they are prepared to take when purchasing, preparing and consuming food products?

Given the critical nature of these issues, a timely response to these concerns and questions would be greatly appreciated.

Yours faithfully
Dr Brett F Edgerton (BSc, PhD, GradCertCom)

I would encourage all Australians to write similar letters to their own State Premiers, and please feel free to model your letter – and use as much of my text as you wish – to have your opinion heard.

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Peter Dogherty on COVID-19 Origin

Peter Dogherty is Australia’s foremost scientist (an immunologist), Nobel Laureate, and today on Bloomberg he totally debunked the fallaceous statements on the origin of COVID-19 which the US administration has been ramping up in recent days.

So very sad to see a friend who devoted their life to authentic service to humanity to be made a political football…

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10158096293074178&id=693294177

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COVID-19 and Food Safety in Processed Meat

Australia and the world must proceed cautiously with COVID-19

One of these diametrically opposite statements is correct. Which one is it?

A) Freezing is a common method to kill and inactivate viruses, and typically the faster and deeper the freeze the more effective the treatment. OR

B) Freezing is a common method to store and maintain infectivity of viruses, and typically the faster and deeper the freeze the more effective the treatment

To this point I have written a total of 17 posts on the COVID-19 pandemic since 3 February 2020 at MacroEdgo, sent an open letter to PM Morrison, initiated a petition “Je Suis Chinois” to express solidarity with humanity in the pandemic, as well as updated my Coronavirus (COVID-19) Update daily until recently when I shifted to periodical updates.

In my first papers I stated clearly that the coronavirus had certainly escaped the biosecurity net that had been formed around Wuhan, and that the World Health Organisation (WHO) and other officials were engaged in a strategy to slow the spread.

I began referring to the event as a pandemic much earlier than any nation began to do so, and I discussed the political realities that surrounded the management of the pandemic in a modern globalised economy in several posts in mid February.

In these papers I said that I had a great deal of respect for the way that China, and the WHO for that matter, had responded to the pandemic, and with my experience in biosecurity policy development I expected that all nations would struggle with balancing the need to acknowledge the problem to react appropriately to it against the multitude of geopolitical and economic consequences of doing so. That has certainly played out in line with my commentary.

I also spoke about how countries with greater inequality, with large numbers of poor people who do not have resources to go without regular income, and countries where Government has greater influence over citizens and are able to coerce people into returning to work even while the risk of contracting the virus persists, would be impacted more severely even if the data may not be indicative.

The place where my analysis faltered was in the reaction of the Anglophone countries. In my update of 11 February I stated all of the biosecurity measures that have now been enacted would have then been under consideration. I think it is clear that while the medical and scientific experts would have been discussing these, their political masters, the actual decision-makers, were a long way from having come to terms with the challenge that was confronting humanity.

Certainly this is what the WHO is now pointing out in response to criticism by the loudest Anglophone political decision-maker who is seeking to shift blame for his own intransigence towards the COVID-19 threat.

The world should have listened to the WHO then carefully because global emergency, the highest level of emergency, was triggered on January 30 when we only had 82 cases and no deaths, in the rest of the world. And every country could have triggered all of its public health measures possible. I think that suffices the importance of listening to the WHO advice. And we advised the whole world to implement a comprehensive public health approach. And we said find, test, isolate and do contact tracing and so on… countries who followed that are in a better position than others, and this is fact… I assure you that WHO gives the best advice we can based on science and evidence, it is up to the countries to accept or reject [that advice]… each country takes it’s own responsibility [for their decisions based on that advice]
Dr Tedros, Director-General, WHO

As these (especially Anglophone) decision-makers faltered, I increased my urging to take action in posts written in mid-February and in my open letter to PM Scott Morrison.

I have always made it clear that my view is that we in Australia should use our geographical advantage in being an island and with considerable biosecurity human capital and infrastructure to aim at knocking it right back and eradicating COVID-19 if at all possible.

I also have consistently stated that this is a very new pathogen of humans known to mankind for only a handful of months since my friend and former colleague (and co-author) Dr Shi Zhengli isolated the causative coronavirus.

Consequently I have argued that we should be very careful of drawing any presumptions and that we should proceed with an abundance of caution.

For instance, I have continually highlighted that we do not understand the seasonality – if any – for this disease, noting that Australia and other southern hemisphere countries will be the first to experience a full winter with COVID-19 hanging over us.

I have also consistently stated that it would be imprudent to believe that already we understand all of the ways that this pathogen can affect and cause disease in us humans, and in recent days there have been reports of persistent infections in Chinese patients of unknown significance, of uncertain implications of infections in pregnant women, and of an association between COVID-19 and severe complications in children now being recognised globally after early observations suggested that children almost never suffered serious disease.

I have stated that I am flummoxed by the apparent predisposition of many Australian decision-makers and, especially in the early period, some medical or scientific bureaucrats and experts, to show such strong concern for economic considerations above health considerations.

From my earliest writings I acknowledged that it was a difficult balance to strike, but I have been scathing of the balance chosen by Australian decision-makers at times.

Moreover, while it is clear from the reported data that Australia has been far less impacted than many other G20 nations to this point, I have expressed deep concerns that this might produce an unearned sense of achievement when in fact that lower impact thus far may be more due to factors beyond our control which may reverse, for instance, as we head into winter.

After that recap, which readers can verify by reading my earlier reports, I would hope that it can be agreed that I have earned the right to not just express an opinion, but have it heard, on where Australia should head into the future with the COVID-19 pandemic.

First an outline of the significance of the persistence and viability of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, in certain environmental conditions.

While the lay person, who often confuses virus for bacteria, and infectious for non-infectious disease, might have been inclined to believe that the correct answer to my introductory question was A, the correct answer is B. Moreover, while ideal storage of viruses is achieved in facilities only available in laboratories – under liquid nitrogen or in ultra-deep freezers (set at -70 Celsius) – infectivity is preserved in tissue frozen in a domestic freezer and I have certainly done transmission trials with viruses held under such conditions for many months. What is more, viruses can remain infective in material held in domestic refrigerators for a prolonged period.

What is the significance of this you might ask.

Well as I have been pointing out there is a lot unknown about SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19, and while it might be easy to sideline certain comments with blanket statements that “there is no evidence of” in relation to multitude of issues, the reality is that a general knowledge of viruses points to certain risks that need to be heeded.

While there is some emerging data on the persistence of SARS-CoV-2 when subjected to different environmental conditions of temperature, humidity and UV light, with the main aim of determining what is the likely impact of seasonal change on the ease with which the virus spreads, we already know from a general knowledge of viruses, and indeed other human coronaviruses, that it is likely to remain infective longer under cooler conditions and in the absence of UV light.

In the appendix below I have summarised the relevant data on similar viruses and what has been determined thus far for SARS-CoV-2 together with sources. Here I do not want to bog down on technical detail.

The significance, however, for me is for more widespread than seasonality and critically relates to what has been observed in the meat processing industry in North America.

As at writing, 13 major meat processing plants in the US have been closed due to COVID-19 outbreaks amongst staff, including 10% of beef processing and 25% of pork processing capacity, and Canadian plants are similarly affected. In a full page advertisement in several newspapers including The New York Times and The Washing Post on Sunday 26 April Tyson Foods Chairman John Tyson alerted Americans that “The food supply chain is breaking”.

These processing plants are closing due to deaths of workers with COVID-19 and high infection rates amongst employees. Moreover, over 100 meat inspectors, of a US total of 6,500, have been infected with the virus and their movement between different processing plants is a major concern for the industry as potential spreaders of the disease.

The issue being discussed publicly relates to the inability to process meat because of the difficulty of providing a safe environment for those working in the industry when conditions favour the spread of the virus between workers as they work very closely together in processing lines and because they are a tight-knit community often carpooling and socialising outside of work. In most countries over recent years the workforce of meat workers has become heavily dependent on temporary resident workers on visas.

This quote from an article in USA Today highlights the concerns thoroughly:

More than 150 of America’s largest meat processing plants operate in counties where the rate of coronavirus infection is already among the nation’s highest, based on the media outlets’ analysis of slaughterhouse locations and county-level COVID-19 infection rates.
These facilities represent more than 1 in 3 of the nation’s biggest beef, pork and poultry processing plants. Rates of infection around these plants are higher than those of 75% of other U.S. counties, the analysis found.
And while experts say the industry has thus far maintained sufficient production despite infections in at least 2,200 workers at 48 plants, there are fears that the number of cases could continue to rise and that meatpacking plants will become the next disaster zones.
Initially our concern was long-term care facilities,” said Gary Anthone, Nebraska’s chief medical officer, in a Facebook Live video Sunday. “If there’s one thing that might keep me up at night, it’s the meat processing plants and the manufacturing plants.”

Less discussed, for reasons that will become clear below, is that the meat processing plant environment is ideal for the survival of the virus on surfaces because it is cool and moist, and there is obviously little to no sunlight with natural UV radiation.

Relevant unions are heavily involved to safeguard the health of the workers. The CDC together with Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has produced interim guidelines to help meat and poultry workers and employers reduce the spread of COVID-19 amongst the workforce.

While I absolutely share those concerns for the workers, there is an even more significant and widespread issue at play here that some readers may have begun to realise.

The significance of food-borne viruses in causing disease in humans has been increasingly understood in recent decades. The relevance of microbial assessments in determining the risks associated with imported animal and plant products has thus grown in significance, and has highlighted the need for research analyses.

Viruses have proven to be some of the most important pathogens to manage due to their infective persistence in food processing environments and because of their potential to cause severe disease.

In my post “Investment Theme: Product and Food Miles” I highlighted how the food production industry had changed significantly since the time of my Grandparents, who survived the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic as late teenagers. Not only is perishable food distributed regionally, unlike then when the lack of refrigeration necessitated its consumption immediately and thus locally, perishable food under refrigeration is traded both nationally and internationally.

This opens up the possibility of transmission of pathogens that remain viable in cool conditions, and viruses are chief amongst these, over wide geographies and wide temporal ranges given that viruses present in frozen material may remain a risk for a very prolonged period.

The WHO was quick to recognise this potential with COVID-19 and in its Situation Report No 32 published on 22 February included a section entitled “SUBJECT IN FOCUS: Food related considerations” which contained the following statement:

Currently, there are investigations conducted to evaluate the viability and survival time of SARS-CoV-2. In general, coronaviruses are very stable in a frozen state according to studies of other coronaviruses, which have shown survival for up to two years at -20°C.

Below in the appendix I provide an up to date review of the relevant data.

To cut to the chase, unless I was extremely confident in risk mitigation strategies to prevent workers infected by COVID-19 from coming into contact with product in the processing chain, I personally would be very reluctant to purchase packaged meat in Australia if COVID-19 became widespread.

While it is absolutely true that cooking for even a brief period is highly likely to totally inactivate the virus, as the domestic cook for my family, I realise that it is difficult to limit the spread of blood and general fluids from meat and its packaging during food preparation, and the potential for contamination is significant.

My family biosecurity strategy for COVID-19 aims to physically prevent the introduction of the viable (infective) virus into our home and at the point that COVID-19 became widely prevalent in sources of perishable food products which I source for my family would be the point at which I would cease to purchase those products. (I am fortunate to have a fruit and vegetable garden, and I have planted a community garden on the verge and would encourage all Australians to do likewise.)

I would hope that right now there will be research being conducted on nucleic acid and infectivity detection for SARS-CoV-2 in meat from plants where there have been confirmed COVID-19 cases. However, given the extreme sensitivity around the issue of the public’s perception of food safety, this issue will be treated with the utmost of discretion.

All of this just makes the case for why I have been pushing so hard to minimise the number of infections by SARS-CoV-2 within Australia with a strong preference to eradication.

Given all of the uncertainties around this new human pathogen, and given we in Australia have experienced a relatively low expression of COVID-19 thus far which suggests that eradication might be a real possibility, loosening of biosecurity measures at this point in mid-Autumn seems to me to be highly imprudent and suggestive of at least a hint of political hubris.

A far more prudent approach would be to continue with very strict biosecurity measures and increased testing, firstly of all those with symptoms of respiratory infections and then as and if capacity allows, all people (prioritising those who have been, through work requirements, more active in the community), to detect any and all cases so that eradication can be achieved.

This will allow us by the depths of winter to have a very good understanding on whether we really have gotten on top of the virus.

On the other hand, a loosening of measures invites the virus to get away from us just as we enter the most critical period for the southern hemisphere. That would be an enormous error, one that the electorate is unlikely to forgive decision-makers for given that there remains reasonably strong support for the social distancing measures currently in place.

Allowing COVID-19 to surge in winter would entail loss and impacts on Australian families that have been experinced in the United Kingdom, United States and elsewhere which to this point has not been the common experience, and that would produce deep psychological scarring which would persist far longer than a few more months with these social distancing measures.

In my earliest writing on COVID-19 I continued to develop my views on the theme of global inequality, that I had been discussing in relation to climate change, in the context of the emerging pandemic. It is already noticeable in this pandemic that it is the most vulnerable amongst humanity where the virus is spreading most prolifically. Rapid spread amongst lower paid migrant workers who live in low quality, cramped quarters is a theme that has played out around the world from China to Singapore to North America.

Moreover, wealth inequality between continents and nations, and within societies, has been exposed as a major differentiator and factor in COVID-19 spread and impact.

Again, and to borrow the words of FDR, we have learned that we can not live alone in good health if we are not equally concerned about the good health of all people in all societies including those of nations far away. We must not live as dogs in a manger, but as members of the human community.

Not only must Australia meet the challenge that COVID-19 presents within our own borders, we must act as a member of the global community and join with humanity to earn our luminous future (the theme of my next post in draft).

I also note the following statement in an article published in The Guardian entitled “Trump to order meat-processing plants to continue operating amid pandemic“:

“We only wish that this administration cared as much about the lives of working people as it does about meat, pork and poultry products,”
Stuart Appelbaum, president of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, told Bloomberg.

That is a very clear-cut echo of my writing from 28 February in this post entitled “Australian Politicians Care More About the Health of Our Prawns and Bananas Than About People” and I thank Mr Appelbaum for the sincere compliment.

Any objective reader of my posts and work knows that I have been extremely accurate and prescient with my views on the progression of the COVID-19 pandemic and its economic and societal implications.

I do not profess for a moment that my published views captured the full spectrum of consequences and implications. However, I do feel that is not immodest to suggest that I have been one of the most accurate of those who have made public their views on the pandemic since very early in its progression.

My arguments for Australia to move early to close the borders and then eradicate COVID-19 were purely from a humanitarian position of wanting to minimise the pain of loss that humanity would experience. However, as time has progressed, as the world has gone into shutdown and the economic consequences which I foresaw have come to pass, it has also become clear that it would have been better economically for Australia if decision-makers had enacted my recommendations when I was calling for them.

Instead of dithering for an extra few weeks, if these measures were implemented immediately we would have a much more functional domestic economy by now which would remain the case for as long as we were able to prevent the re-introduction of the disease.

In this new report I have highlighted newly recognised threats that have surfaced because of the spread of the disease in countries that failed to heed the advice provided by the WHO.

What should also be clear now to the objective observer is that when all efforts are focused on the humanitarian side – that our aim is to minimise the pain of loss to human beings – then the cohesion that that creates places us all in the best possible position to fight against this scourge which we all want to defeat as soon as is humanly possible. The outcomes that result from that patience and compassion also brings economic benefits.

APPENDIX – Scientific data on viability to assess the risk associated with SARS-CoV-2 presence in chilled and frozen foods

While there have been no confirmed reports of transmission of SARS-CoV-2 from food preparation, and the commercial sensitivity around food safety means that many reports on the subject will go to lengths to suggest that it is unlikely, this can not be discounted if viable virus is present.

In this case, “the lack of evidence” line is weak. Virtually every pathogen/microbial risk analysis that has ever been conducted could contain just this one line.

Vast numbers of pathogen and phytopathogen risk analyses use the issue of viable pathogen present and a potential pathway for exposure to recommend strong risk mitigation strategies, eg. cooking of all imported prawns into Australia unless from an area proven by credible surveys to be free from significant pathogens or PCR analysis conducted on each shipment to prove freedom from significant pathogens.

That might seem a ridiculous segue, but that is the ridiculous disparity that we confront as I have pointed to previously and which the union representing meat workers in the US has picked up on themselves.

I have no intention here to carry out a full risk analysis, but what follows is in effect a very brief one. To prove that there is significant concern I need to satisfy to a reasonable degree three points:

1) there needs to be a likelihood that viable pathogen may be present in product;

2) there needs to be a pathway for exposure to that pathogen; and

3) there needs to be a significant impact from that disease.

I think that we can agree that the third condition has been amply satisfied to this point on 1 May 2020 with over 3,000,000 cases confirmed globally and over 200,000 deaths.

While some would suggest that being a respiratory virus that lessens the chance of exposure. But not really. Anybody who has been involved with food preparation knows well that cleaning up after food processing involves lots of splashing (opportunity for aerosol production). Moreover, many respiratory viruses have a high involvement of touch and self-inoculation via membrane surfaces in the mouth, nose and eyes, and there is no doubt that there is ample opportunity for this to occur with those involved with food preparation and those that co-inhabit using those preparatory areas and wash facilities.

Furthermore, while cooking is likely to destroy most viruses, there is variability amongst viruses in sensitivity to heat, and in modern times there are significant dishes that utilise minimal or no heat and some with minimal addition of acids or other ingredients that might otherwise be likely to inactivate viruses.

I would suggest that this represents about as strong a case for a viable pathway for exposure to a pathogen that is present in a product as in virtually any product risk analysis. So I would suggest that condition 2 has been met.

So we are left with pathogen viability. As I have continually stated we are dealing with a pathogen known to mankind for all of 4 months, so understandably there is a paucity of research data on many aspects. However, given the important issue of potential seasonality there is some information on viability of SARS-CoV-2 in different environments, some of which are relevant to food production, storage and usage. Moreover, given the prior outbreaks of significant disease in humans by other coronaviruses, there is some information on other similar viruses which will be highly indicative for SARS-CoV-2.

Whether a pathogen will be viable in a product is dependent on whether it is likely that viable pathogen will be present at the completion of processing and then whether it will survive the storage period before it is prepared for consumption.

Here are a few important quotes from the WHO/FAO “Viruses in Food” report:

This report draws attention to the threat of viruses as a risk to public health when they are present in food. Viruses require special attention because they behave differently from bacteria, and because currently used control measures typically either have not been validated and there is not a good understanding of their efficacy towards viruses, or are not effective in controlling virus contamination. Data from recent studies have shown that foodborne viral infections are very common in many parts of the world despite the measures already in place to reduce bacterial contamination.

Member states of the WHO were quick to note their concern for the risk of spreading COVID-19 with food and WHO Situation Report 32 on 22 February stated:

WHO continues to collaborate with experts, Member States and other partners to identify gaps and research priorities for the control of COVID-19, and provide advice to countries and individuals on prevention measures. National food safety authorities have been following this event with the International Food Safety Authorities Network (INFOSAN) Secretariat to seek more information on the potential for persistence of the virus on foods traded internationally and the potential role of food in the transmission of the virus. Experiences from previous outbreaks of related coronaviruses, such as the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV) and Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) show that transmission through food consumption did not occur. To date, there have not been any reports of transmission of SARS-CoV-2 virus through food. However, concerns were expressed about the potential for these viruses to persist on raw foods of animal origin.
Currently, there are investigations conducted to evaluate the viability and survival time of SARS-CoV-2. In general, coronaviruses are very stable in a frozen state according to studies of other coronaviruses, which have shown survival for up to two years at -20°C. Studies conducted on SARS-CoV ad MERS-CoV indicate that these viruses can persist on different surfaces for up to a few days depending on a combination of parameters such as temperature, humidity and light. For example, at refrigeration temperature (4°C), MERS-CoV can remain viable for up to 72 hours. Current evidence on other coronavirus strains shows that while coronaviruses appear to be stable at low and freezing temperatures for a certain period, food hygiene and good food safety practices can prevent their transmission through food. Specifically, coronaviruses are thermolabile, which means that they are susceptible to normal cooking temperatures (70°C). Therefore, as a general rule, the consumption of raw or undercooked animal products should be avoided. Raw meat, raw milk or raw animal organs should be handled with care to avoid cross-contamination with uncooked foods.

Most additional research results released since this time have concentrated on ambient – i.e. normal human living conditions – to assess seasonality.

Importantly, in their experimental conditions Chin et al. 2020 found that SARS-CoV-2 infectivity was largely preserved when exposed to +4 Celsius for 14 days.

Given that COVID-19 has been shown to be highly prevalent in meat processing workers, and the data on coronavirus and specifically SARS-CoV-2 survival in conditions present in meat processing and storage facilities, the potential for a pathway for exposure to infective virus is clear.

Clearly this warrants urgent scientific research to fully determine the risks of the foodborne route for transmission.

Sources

Casanova LM, Jeon S, Rutala WA, Weber DJ and MD Sobsey. 2010. Effect of air temperature and relative humidity on coronavirus survival on surfaces. Appl Environ Microbiol. 76(9): 2712–2717. doi: 10.1128/AEM.02291-09

Chan KH, Malik Peiris JS, Lam Y, Poon LLM, Yuen KY and WH Seto. 2011. The effects of temperature and relative humidity on the viability of the SARS coronavirus. Advances in Virology. Article ID 734690. 7 pages. https://doi.org/10.1155/2011/734690

Chin AWH, Chu JTS, Perera MRA, Hui KPY, Yen H-L, Chan MCW, Peiris M and LLM Poon. 2020. Stability of SARS-CoV-2 in different environmental conditions. Lancet Microbe 2020. https://doi.org/10.1016/ S2666-5247(20)30003-3

van Doremalen N, Bushmaker T, Morris DH, Holbrook MG, Gamble A, Williamson BM et al. 2020. Aerosol and surface stability of SARSCoV-2 as compared with SARS-CoV-1. N Engl J Med 2020; published online March 17. DOI:10·1056/NEJMc2004973.

FAO/WHO [Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations/World Health Organization]. 2008. Viruses in food: Scientific Advice to Support Risk Management Activities: Meeting Report. Microbiological Risk Assessment Series No. 13. Rome. 79 pp.

National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine 2020. Rapid Expert Consultation on SARS-CoV-2 Survival in Relation to Temperature and Humidity and Potential for Seasonality for the COVID-19 Pandemic (April 7, 2020). Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. https://doi.org/10.17226/25771.

WHO. 2020. Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) Situation Report – 32. February 22, 2020.

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Second Open Letter to PM Morrison

To: The Prime Minister, Minister for Health, and Minister for Agriculture, Drought and Emergency Management

Dear Messrs Morrison, Hunt and Littleproud

I note the recent difficulties with meat processing in North America as workers have become ill with COVID-19 causing a large proportion of processing capacity to close. In response, President Trump today has signed an executive order to include meat processing as critical infrastructure forcing meat processors to stay open even when there have been outbreaks of COVID-19 in facilities.

Thus far concerns expressed in the press has been for the welfare of the workers and for the welfare of US citizens in maintaining access to meat supplies.

I have a research background in infectious disease and worked for a number of years in Biosecurity Australia conducting risk analyses on the importation of animal products (Prawns, Freshwater Crayfish, and Bivalve Molluscs). My work did not focus on traditional food safety aspects, but obviously there is significant overlap in the technical aspects of those analyses.

While I share the concern for meat workers, who work closely together in cool, damp conditions in the absence of natural light, ideal conditions for the persistence and spread of viruses, there is a far greater concern which at present has not been acknowledged presumably for fear of the impact that it would have on the reputation of meat as a commercial product. (From my years at BA I understand very well the sensitivities held by commercial interests around food safety issues.)

A far more significant and society-wide concern is the potential for SARS-CoV-2 contamination of meat during processing and its persistence in product which may lead to processed meat being a significant factor in spreading and prolonging the COVID-19 pandemic.

As I consistently state in my posts at http://MacroEdgo.com it has only been 4 months since my friend and former colleague (and co-author) Dr Shi Zhengli with her team identified the SARS-CoV-2 virus. I state this because it is important to recognise that we only understand the tip of the iceberg with this virus and it would be very imprudent, in fact arrogant, to assume that we already understand all of the impacts of this virus on humans. I would cite the emerging concerns over a new form of disease in children that has been associated with SARS-CoV-2, which has been discussed in the press in recent days, as being supportive of the need for extreme prudence.

Nonetheless, with innovation in the modern food industry allowing perishable foods to be traded widely domestically and internationally the importance of this vector in the spread of pathogens has been acknowledged and has been the topic of considerable analyses, and even with a paucity specific data on persistence of SARS-CoV-2 at various temperatures, the potential of the foodborne route of transmission is clear given the apparent spread between workers in meat processing plants.

This raises a number of critical issues for the Australian community and specific groups.

Firstly, the experience of the North American meat processing plant workers demonstrates that these people are particularly at risk of acquiring COVID-19 and it is a work place health and safety issue.

Is the Department of Health taking action on this in collaboration with State workplace health and safety officials? Has there been a risk assessment done and what risk mitigation practices have been enacted? For example, are these workers being tested regularly irrespective of whether they show symptoms of COVID-19? And what process will ensue if infections amongst meat workers are detected?

In the US this issue has impacted the farmers because 25% of pork processing and 10% of beef processing capacity has been closed. Pork producers especially were impacted and were needing to euthanise stock. It is therefore a serious issue for the agriculture industry and associated ministry.

Finally, it is a serious issue for the broader Australian community on a number of fronts. There is some suggestion in the press that meat processing plants are serving as amplifiers of disease in North American communities as many of the worst affected counties house meat processing plants.

Second is the food security element where a prolonged break down in the supply of meat could impact the nutrition of Australians, the livelihood of Australian farmers and associated workers, and create heightened anxiety within society.

Finally, and to my mind the most serious issue, is the potential for the spread of the pandemic both geographically with movement of processed meat products and over time with the likelihood that virus will remain infective for prolonged periods within processed meat and associated fluids and packaging.

These are all critical issues that require very close examination by your Departments as well as transparent and open communication with affected groups and the broader public.

I cannot complete this letter without taking the opportunity to remind you of your failings and timidity in moving more quickly to effectively close our international border and work to eradicate COVID-19 as I implored you (PM Morrison) to do in my letter dated 3 March 2020 and in my writing on MacroEdgo through February.

With the current creeping movement to relax social distancing measures I feel that we are again at a high level of misunderstanding of the risks that we confront.

Almost daily we learn something new about how COVID-19 can affect humans and modern society, both directly and indirectly.

Much of what we learn is from the northern hemisphere which is emerging from winter which is likely to be, and there is some supportive research data now emerging, the most serious period for the pandemic.

As we in Australia are now heading into winter we should assume the worst, that there are many subclinical infections within the country and that we will suffer a serious flare up in the depths of winter if we do not throw all of our resources at detecting the virus and eliminating it.

I consider it a grave error in judgement to loosen in any way social distancing measures until we get into the depths of winter and can justifiably feel more confident that we are on top of the situation.

Finally, while your Government has always appeared heavily occupied by the economic impacts of measures necessary to lessen the toll of COVID-19 on human health, and thus by my definition society (because I understand that people are always more important than money), it should be becoming clearer to your Government that actions taken to safeguard the health of Australians will have significant positive economic benefits.

If you had acted earlier to enforce biosecurity measures, as I discussed in my letter, then we may have already eradicated COVID-19 and this would have allowed our domestic economy to be open already.

Now, it should be readily apparent that the Australian image of a premium source of clean and green agricultural and other products will be enormously enhanced if we manage to eradicate COVID-19 and that would have enormous trade and broader economic benefits.

Alternatively, to loosen measures for the sake of perhaps an extra month or two of additional limited commercial activity may come at the cost of allowing COVID-19 to become widespread in our population for an entire winter season. If a vaccine does become available before the next northern hemisphere winter, then that would make us in the southern hemisphere the only region other than Wuhan to experience an entire winter season with COVID-19 running rampant.

That would scar the Australian people deeply and would have severe and long-lasting impacts on our society and our economy.

Finally, if you consider my language emotional I assure you that it is not due to lack of respect for your elected office. I am passionate about seeing the best decisions for Australians and for humanity.

Yours faithfully

Dr Brett F Edgerton (BSc, PhD, GradCertCom)

MacroEdgo.com

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Dr Shi Zhengli

It is an extremely sad state of affairs when an individual can become a lightning rod for a great deal of anxious feeling and outright fear of many. That can become extreme when it is a catastrophe that humanity confronts.

I am not going to repeat here the things that have been said about Dr Shi Zhengli that I have observed by searching her name on the internet. All I will say is that she felt so compelled to respond that she said on Chinese social media that she swore on her life that they were totally false. In the Anglophone press there have been further fallacious statements made which are utterly vile.

I am extremely proud to say that I am a personal friend and former colleague of Dr Shi Zhengli the scientist who leads the virology team in Wuhan who first identified the causative agent of COVID-19. If you look at my list of publications you will note that Zhengli very kindly included me in the list of authors on a paper that was published a short while after I retired.

Fifteen years ago Zhengli and her team made the key discovery that SARS originally came from bats and she has worked tirelessly to improve humanity’s understanding of these important viruses. It is in large part the work of Zhengli and her team on which the global scientific community is trying to build to produce an effective response to this natural disaster.

Zhengli and her team deserve our deep appreciation.

I am not going to pretend that we are best friends because in truth we lost contact when I retired as a research scientist in 2004 when I was 34 due to lack of opportunities to continue my career in Australia. The reality is that I lost contact with all of my friends with whom I worked – that was one of the greatest aspects of the grief that coalesced with other stressors to cause me to have a breakdown – that in my premature retirement I lost my community because I would no longer be collaborating on research and attending the same conferences and symposia.

In my Coronavirus (COVID-19) Outbreak update of 12 February I said the following of Zhengli:

I first met Dr Shi Zhengli over 22 years ago when I visited the laboratory where she was studying for her PhD with the brilliant and legendary aquatic invertebrate virologist, Jean-Robert (JR) Bonami, in Montpellier in southern France.
I had finished my PhD 18 months earlier, and I was visiting JR in the hope that I might be able to organise to do a postdoc with him in France. It took 2 years but I finally won a fellowship from the CNRS (the French equivalent of the CSIRO) to spend a year in JR’s laboratory learning from him and his team.
Indeed Bonami was brilliant. The techniques that he had developed were simplicity in themselves – just like brilliant Italian food – simple, good quality products used to perfection! – but you had to learn it directly to get them under your belt.
In between time I visited Zhengli briefly in 2000 at her laboratory in Wuhan.
Zhengli had finished her PhD research when I spent a year in Montpellier in 2001, but she visited periodically through the year and for a while we lived in a flat next to her. And Zhengli was amongst the multicultural group of foreign postdocs, from China, India and Sicily, whose friendship was so important to us during this period.
I admired Zhengli deeply for her extremely strong work ethic and her commitment to her research and career. Like all of the PhD students and postdocs I knew from developing and lesser-developed countries, she made very real personal sacrifices to develop her skills to benefit her country, for certain, and for the whole of humanity.
Zhengli was more than a colleague, though; she was a friend. Zhengli has an enormous heart and is a wonderful mother and a very authentic and caring friend. That was vital for a period in my life when they were rare.
Living in France, without being able to speak the language, was incredibly isolating for my wife and I. As a mixed couple we felt comfortable because we saw many African-French mixed couples and families. However, even though French colleagues were very keen to make full use of my English writing skills to help them publish their work in high ranking journals, they would not talk to me at all at other times and in group settings I sat alone feeling very much in the dark. I tried to learn French, but I just could not pick it up quick enough while working full time on my research to have any sort of social interaction with my French colleagues.
Virtually all of the foreign students and postdocs I knew were miserable, some bordering on clinical depression.
When Zhengli was there, I had a friend with whom I could talk. And I soon knew that she was a special person.

Zhengli in the middle with JR Bonami on her right in 1998 on JR’s boat in La Grande Motte © Copyright Brett Edgerton 2020

I cannot help but believe that this scapegoating is a form of human arrogance. Many just cannot accept that we humans are nothing special on this beautiful planet – we are just another species and can be impacted by all of the same natural threats that other species confront.

At present, in this time of social distancing, I am grateful that I have a backyard with fruit trees, our chickens, and wild life that is plentiful there to the close observer. One afternoon I walked past my banana trees lining the back fence and saw nothing out of the ordinary, but then as I began walking back up towards the house for some reason I turned and noticed that I had just walked past a family of Tawny Frogmouths (with similarities to owls) on the fence camouflaged by the dried out banana fronds. For me I took it as a lesson of perspectives – that when one looks at things from multiple perspectives the interpretation can be completely different and surprising.

Tawny Frogmouth sitting on my back fence. © Copyright Brett Edgerton 2020

Walking in my yard provides the perspective that it is only humanity that is confronting this particular crisis, unlike the other crisis which we ourselves are causing for the planet. The plants and wildlife in my yard looking and behaving normally reminds me of that.

I had similar reflections when I lived in Europe. I vividly recall travelling on trains observing the amazingly beautiful wild poppies scattered across fields and realising that they still bloomed even through world wars when those fields might have been the sites of horrific pain and torture humans were inflecting on each other, while all of the other species carried on as normal. I personally believe that is why the poppy held such a strong place in the psyche of those who participated in those conflicts, and now in their commemoration.

This crisis was a catalyst to me reconnecting with an old friend, and I am glad that I have and have learned about her life over the intervening years. We exchanged family photos and it was wonderful to see Zhengli’s friendly face beaming in a selfie with her son towering over her.

Zhengli and her team have worked tirelessly for months now. My gratitude to them knows no bounds. I am also extremely grateful for all of the scientific community working around the clock to come up with solutions so that humanity suffers less from this particular natural disaster, along with all of the other essential workers doing their parts.

I am for a united humanity!

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What Really Scares The Global Elites

The greatest fear of the Global Elite is NOT you having insufficient money to buy from them new cars, investment products, houses both new or to renovate (into 4 bedroom, 5 bathroom, 2 kitchen, 3 car garage McMansions), other impressive toys (like motor boats, jet skis, motorcycles, flashy jewellery, you name it), impressive life experiences that may create envy in others, or the multitude of other ways that us “consumers” spend our “disposable income”.

What the Global Elite really fear is you developing insufficient ASPIRATION to acquire all of those things!

That in this time of solitude, with painful loss experienced by so many families, when the Jones’s who must be kept up with are less visible to us, societies of people might reflect on what it is that nourishes souls and gives meaning, and that we collectively might decide that is not continual wasteful mindless consumerism hand in hand with higher consumer debt.

The Global Elite fear what I have termed “The Great Reset” because they know that major global events often are accompanied by this psychological reset.

That is why the Global Elite are so concerned to end the lockdowns as soon as possible. They want to get everyone back on their hamster wheels – of working more and more to earn more and more to buy more and more things with the aim of impressing others – before those habits are lost for a generation.

Don’t be a dope and allow yourself to be manipulated!

Although the light at the end of the COVID-19 tunnel remains a long way, together we really can make that light bigger and brighter than ever before if we only have the courage to grasp it.

MacroEdgo

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Anglophone Politicians Have Learnt Nothing

This is my Coronavirus (COVID-19) Outbreak update for today, 9 April.

Note that I specifically exclude New Zealand from the context of the title of this post as they are led by a courageous leader in Jucinda Ardern who has been prepared to make genuinely difficult decisions. With what has occurred in China and Europe to this point, and which is just ramping up in the UK and the USA (including makeshift graves in NYC parks), one has to wonder what on Earth would get through to these dinosaurs.

WHO Situation Report 79 for 8 April (released 9 April Brisbane, Australia, time)

Globally: 1,353,361 confirmed cases (73,639 new), 79,235 deaths (4,904 new)

Today I want to talk about the erroneous use of the term “curve flattening” which is the term du jour. This is an epidemiological term which refers to the spread of a pathogen through a population. By population, it assumes a closed or near closed system, and being theoretical it refers to the total number of infections.

So what is the problem in applying that theory to contemporary human populations, and especially Australia through this pandemic?

There are two. Firstly we have not been a closed population as the Government has been at pains to state that new (detected) cases have been mostly from travellers, i.e. those coming from other populations. Now that that introduction of the virus has (finally) been effectively ended – by strict travel restrictions and strict quarantine – it is becoming evident that there has been community transmission within Australia, as I warned there would be in “Politics Vs Society” published 21 February, when there were only restrictions on those entering from China, where I said:

I am of the view that there may be hundreds of people infected by the coronavirus in Australia as of the time of writing, that being 21 February 2020. (Note I always state such opinions beyond the first few paragraphs of my writing because I know the superficial masses will have stopped reading paragraphs earlier.) To make myself accountable, I will say that I will be very surprised – and wrong – if there are no reports of people ill with coronavirus in Australia by 7 March. And I would expect that many who present as unwell with coronavirus throughout March have not been to China.

The second point is that we still have no idea of how many people in Australia are infected because the testing criteria are still too stringent. Thus we have no idea of the shape of the curve in the broad population. To be clear, an infected person, who has not travelled overseas and has not been in contact with a known infected, could only be detected if they are symptomatic and are an essential worker or live in an aged care facility, or are so ill that they have developed pneumonia. Now the morbidity rates of this disease, across populations, has stayed fairly consistent since the outbreak in Wuhan – 4 of 5 infected people experience only very mild disease (so even most essential workers who are eligible for testing would NOT be detected let alone the broader public), and around 3 of 4 of the remaining people experience illness but not the most severe symptoms (so infections in those eligible for testing would be detected but NOT in the broader public), while around only 1 in 20 of those who are infected will develop more severe disease leading to admission to intensive care units which would lead to detection irrespective of the other eligibility for testing criteria.

The authorities are making a very big assumption that there is limited community transmission beyond what has been found because an explosion in cases of otherwise unexplained pneumonia have not been appearing at hospitals, to this point in time, in contrast with what has occurred in Europe and the US.

As I explained in “COVID-19 Elephants in the Room“, with a pathogen so new to humanity and consequently so very little understood, it is a serious mistake to make assumptions and prudent policy would continually choose the cautious path and apply the precautionary principle.

Unfortunately, nations, and especially the Anglophone countries, are so incredibly quick to jump on anything remotely “positive” on the pandemic progression, and that is mostly because of the predilection of their “followers” (their anti-leaders) to choose money before people, rather than vice versa.

I am not going to speculate on what is an infinite range of possibilities about what could trigger a greater expression of disease amongst Australians infected over the next few months as Australia moves into the winter season, but it is much, much too early to be talking about an opening up of the Australian economy without first undergoing an enormous ramp up in testing to determine where we really sit in terms of the incidence and prevalence of infection in our population.

We are still in the very early stages of this pandemic. Even in Spain, where recent research suggests that their population has the highest proportion of people who have been infected by this coronavirus, less than 15% of the population have likely been infected. While these studies showed a significant saving in lives due to measures implemented throughout Europe, the report states:

Our estimates imply that populations in Europe are not close to herd immunity (approx. 50-75% [of populations infected with known rate of spread of virus]). Further [with the rate of spread due to measures implemented] dropping substantially, the rate of acquisition of herd immunity will slow substantially. This implies that the virus will be able to spread rapidly should interventions be lifted.

No matter how much our national “followers” want the pandemic to be over, no matter how much the business elites want to re-open, no matter how much people are tired of the social isolation, the simple reality is that continuing these reluctantly introduced and late measures is necessary to minimise deaths which have been shown to be patently preventable.

Moreover, these “followers” are suggesting that they have made the “hard decisions” yet they squibbed on making the really hard decisions – going it alone and enacting strict quarantine measures earlier than others. Instead they try to frame giving $Billions to business to put the “economy on life support” as heroic when historically they have framed their left-wing counterparts as irresponsible when they have done the same, frequently taunting that it is never difficult to spend money.

This continual flirtation with “opening up” economies shows that these “followers” have learnt nothing through February and March, and that they are continually making the same mistakes of underestimating the power of this natural disaster, the impacts it is and will continue to have on humanity, and the consequences that that has on the way they can PLAY their politics.

Moreover, it is cynical in the extreme, when humanity is psychologically weakened, to toy with emotions and suggest that the light at the end of the tunnel is nearer than was feared. Without promising news on an earlier than expected vaccine or treatment, or an intention and capacity to step-up testing enormously along with biosecurity measures for infected people, that light is just as far away as it always has been.

A far, far better strategy for humanity would be to begin a discussion which shows that people are the genuine focus of the future which coalesces around inclusion and sustainability.

In other words, show that that light at the end of the tunnel is bigger and brighter than it ever has been before!

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