COVID-19 # 46 (Highlighted Parts Are Required)

There has been panic buying and isolated food riots in China. This has been fueled by internet rumors within China that other countries may reduce or block their exports of food during the worst parts of their epidemics. My opinion is that such policy moves have low but not zero probability. A largely unknown international problem is that most countries are not self-sufficient in food production, and few are self-sufficient in a large number of products. Data on this is sketchy at best: lots of sites, but not much solid information. For example, China is actually a net exporter of food by dollar value, but they still rely heavily on imports from many other countries. And, of course, in southern Utah, many of you are aware of the volume of hay exports to China.

Global News reports that Canada has triaged nursing home patients; facilities have discussed not sending their positive cases on to hospitals for better care. This discussion was made in writing and kept secret almost 2 weeks before it was published in Canada's free press. Officially, it is denied that this is a policy order. It's probably necessary for me to remind you that when there is little pressure except expenses on our healthcare system, that many people profess to want the cheaper Canadian system. The common assertion that such systems include death panels was ridiculed; (I'm not even necessarily against such a thing but) I feel obligated to point out that this is exactly what people are worried about. Of course, widespread inability to evaluate unintended consequences is one of the reasons economics exists as a field.

This chart is in raw numbers (rather than proportions) and not logged (for better perspective):

Having noted all that, it does give you a sense that the U.S. is the big problem spot in the world right now.

The good news today is deaths were down in New York state on Saturday. Hospitalizations are down too, although most ICU's in New York City hospitals are beyond capacity.

Our Southwest Utah Public Health Department has started noting current hospitalizations on its website. Their area is Washington, Iron, Garfield, Kane, and Beaver counties. Prior to this, they only noted positive test results (36 so far). There are currently three hospitalizations in that area. They do not post data on ICU usage: I have used 1 in 5 in my mental model of the ratio of ICU beds to hospital beds. Washington County has 32 ICU beds, Iron has six, and the rest of the counties have zero. I have speculated that facilities in Cedar City will also support patients from several counties in central Utah, most likely Millard, Piute, Sevier, and Wayne.