Demands to end lockdown reaching a crescendo

Demands to end the lockdown are reaching a crescendo. It's mainly from elite whites who've never experienced the poverty they say they're concerned about. The latest is the DA's finance spokesman Geordin Hill-Lewis, who incidentally doesn't understand economics. This is similar to, although not aggressively, to America's end lockdown protests,

The couple of black critics of the lockdown are not calling for the end, but correctly, questioning ''irrational" regulations. See the difference - who is smarter?

While it's fair they want to maintain their status - who doesn't? - they're not really concerned about the poor and unemployed who as always are ignored. The economy has been in the doldrums for a decade but these rich executives - all white - enabled the ANC government's mismanagement and didn't speak up. They were silent about what the economic implosion was doing to the poor and unemployed. They didn't care as long as their share price and bonuses were on the up. Suddenly they're advocates for the poor. The bile is rising.

Last week major fund manager Allan Gray's CEO Andrew Lapping wrote an opinion that the lockdown shall kill more people than Covid-19. This followed the same by Panda actuaries last week (see here).

To my knowledge Allan Gray is the first major South African company to go beyond concern about the economic consequences of the lockdown to saying it will kill more people. AG and Lapping are now firmly in accord with right-wing conspiracy theorists' and denialists' narrative (this group gets agitated and abusive when their narratives and comfort zones are challenged).

Lapping wrote: “Studies indicate that mortality rates double with job losses. I am concerned that our government’s lockdown approach and the subsequent economic hardship inflicted on our people will cost more lives than it can save (emphasis added)" and that "models" show this.

At this stage no one knows how many people will die of Covid-19 in South Africa so it's suspect when some claim they do.

I am a client of AG. Yesterday I emailed asking for his proof. I referred to Panda's similar flawed argument. I noted AG failed to predict financial events in the market that cost investors money (African Bank, where they were a major investor). But here they claim to have prescient knowledge about a subject not in their field and beyond their expertise. 

I called his opinion "tendentious", "reckless" and informed by flawed thinking, and like Panda, they "don't understand the economics of (South African) poverty, and are writing from a position of (white) middle class privileged with little regard for the workers who will face the dangers".

It's worth repeating The Atlantic Adam Serwer's statement, "[It's] a very old and recognisable story - political and financial elites displaying a callous disregard for the workers of any race who make their lives of comfort possible."

Lapping sent three peer-reviewed journal (I had read similar myself before) and two media articles. The last two I dismissed - I had asked for proof which he said they had and not second hand reporting.

It's clear he/AG don't have original, company information he based his statements on. The journal articles concerned studies that aimed to find if economic recession/depression-induced unemployment and retirement increases the risk (note not mortality itself) of mortality. I think that included people with existing medical conditions, especially cardiovascular. While they did find a tenuous link between unemployment and mortality, they acknowledge limitations, as credible scientists do.

I doubt Lapping read the articles - his communications staff probably downloaded them on my request - because if he had he would have seen the qualifications and exercise more care before publishing his opinion. 

The most significant is the link between unemployment and mortality has many variables - it's a long, uncertain route - and are "unclear" and "much debated". One of the three studies focused on middle-aged Americans, who would be in the group prone to cardiovascular disease anyway (they included retirees). The researchers emphasised that due to to the US' "poor social safety net" (healthcare especially) those among this study might not have obtained the medical care they needed (to reduce mortality).

Apparently contradicting his view the lockdown shall kill more people than Covid-19, Lapping told me "potential lives saved by the lockdown will be close to zero unless the spread of the illness is delayed until a vaccine is discovered". Doesn't this argue for caution easing the lockdown as experts have repeatedly said?

Other information he gave is SA Life Insurers shall soon release data that show mortality rates more than double with income loss.

He thanked me for my subsequent response and said everyone has an "opinion". They do but not all opinions are equal, especially if not supported by fact-based evidence (models aren't evidence). I asked if he manages South Africans' savings based on opinion or expert advice. I doubt he'd ask a layman, which is what and his peers about how to manage the pandemic are. Or would they make investment decisions on second hand information, like the articles he used as a basis for his opinion are. (Perhaps they used a layman or anecdotal information for African Bank and 2013's quantitative easing, which cost clients money.) 

I shared something with him: during my career I was long-term unemployed three times. I suffered depression as the unemployed do. I have cardiovascular ailments, like many people. But I didn't die from disease brought on by unemployment. Almost none do.

I volunteered in poor communities where people didn't have regular meals or eat for days. Like most such people, their community had their share of illnesses, which they didn't tell us about. They didn't die from poverty and unemployment Lapping and inappropriate studies to SA's situation, especially now, suggest. The poor don't die of poverty and unemployment per se. As one of the papers he referred me to stated:

"There are two concerns with inferring causality about the relationship between health and job loss from this evidence. First, omitted unobserved variables which are related to job loss and health (confounders) may bias causal inference. Second, health status itself may lead to job loss, leading to so-called reverse causality (Michaud et al, 2016)."

The other stated: "It is well established that individual-level unemployment is associated with an increased risk [note risk of medical conditions that result in death] of mortality. However, the causal nature of the association between unemployment and mortality is not clear and a matter of debate (emphasis added) (De Moortel et al 2018)."

In short, the studies are interesting academically but don't entirely and properly - a one-to-one correlation - reflect South Africa's situation socially, medically and economically, especially now. SA circumstances, particularly the poor's and unemployed's resilience. And the studies' limitations are significant. 

Nobel-winning economist Paul Krugman wrote in New York Times yesterday that we don't know what will happen next year. But Lapping and SA's white men, who aren't reading the articles they cite, do.

Krugman also said about the US and its now high unemployment 15-20%, due to its poor social and labour regime), once the the virus is 'crushed', the economy should 'quickly bounce back'. Even Trump, the denialist of everything, thinks it can. Assuming the lockdown is a few months at most, why can't it happen here?

The US's head of infectious diseases Dr Anthony Fauci testified before the Senate yesterday that reopening could unleash an outbreak "you might not be able to control". 

Do I believe people like him and Krugman over Lapping and his pals? Hell, I do. Only the ignorant and ideologically fanatical wouldn't.

Lapping, Allan Gray and the mostly white elite chorus have chosen sides - political agendas and expedient over scientific objectivity. But when pressed for suggestions that would protect the population and keep the economy moving, are silent.

Update: Demands to end the lockdown continue, including from those who've been moderate and reasonable to now and the familiar advocates for the privileged elite, IRR et al. But see former SA ambassador to Ireland and analyst Melanie Verwoed's article in News24 where she repeats the end lockdown shibboleths and her response to them.