It's a tough time to be a "non-essential" worker or a small-business owner. One of America's most thoughtful, unifying, and inspirational governors recommended that such people simply get jobs as essential workers. Problem solved!

The problem may be a bit more difficult than it seems, however. The US Department of Labor follows a weekly measure of unemployment called the Insured Unemployment Rate. In the past decade, this number has run at about 3 times the standard unemployment rate. The jump last week from 1.2% to 11% should be alarming, as seen in the graphic below.

If we add in the effects of underemployment, shown in the U6 rate, we see that U6 has run between 3 and 7 times the insured unemployment rate, as shown in the graphic below.

Although this ratio declines in bad economic times, the most recent level of this ratio, about 3.6, implies that we could be looking at a U6 rate close to 40%, with standard unemployment close to 20%, in the next Labor Department release Friday morning, May 8.

State governments are closing businesses arbitrarily, with no guaranteed date for re-opening. These businesses employ tens of millions of Americans, run on a thin margin, and are weeks away from being unable to pay their own bills.

An esthetician's business was shut down by a wise governor: www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/04/20/pennsylvania-nonessential-worker-blasts-gov-tom-wolf-why-dont-you-stop-getting-paid/

A consignment store owner had to lay off her employees, while big-box stores are still permitted to sell clothing, as directed by the same wise governor: www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/04/20/pa-consignment-store-owner-how-can-walmart-target-still-sell-kids-clothes-i-cant/

A farmer had 61 thousand chickens euthanized, at a time when our supermarket has very few eggs on the shelf: www.startribune.com/egg-demand-shifted-and-61-000-minnesota-chickens-were-euthanized/569817312/

Why has this been done? To save lives? So far, projections show that American deaths from Wuhan coronavirus will be approximately as many as the high end of flu seasons. Indeed, we may well be on the road to herd immunity. Several recent studies have found the prevalence of Wuhan coronavirus antibodies in the population to be dozens of times higher than the number of confirmed cases. But the Congressional Budget Office is forecasting a contraction of 40% in GDP, a return to the 1930s, if we continue the lockdowns.

The following graphic shows the per capita death rate from Wuhan coronavirus in America to be running substantially less than that in Europe.

Within America itself, there is tremendous variability in the impact of Wuhan coronavirus by county, as shown in the following graphic. While New York City and its immediate suburbs have been hit hard, the parts of America that grow our food have been touched more lightly. As I showed in my previous post, this is a direct function of population density. To be blunt, America should not be forced into a Venezuela-style calamity, starving with no toilet paper, due to a disease primarily affecting a few large cities and their immediate suburbs (also shown in my previous post).

In a nutshell, the lesson is this.

Social distancing, face masks, washing: yes!

Stay-at-home orders, business closures: no!

Two months ago, in February, an MRI revealed a "mass" near a gland in my wife's neck: an apparent parotid lipoma. Most such "masses" are benign and slow-growing, but not all of them. The doctor recommended a follow-up MRI in mid-April, to see if the "mass" had changed. We made our appointment.

In early April, however, the imaging center, across the state line in Delaware, informed us that all imaging centers in the healthcare chain we use, save one, would be closing due to Wuhan coronavirus. That one remaining center would be open only for the highest priority cases, and that does not include tracking the progress of a "mass". The scheduler informed us, with all due gravity and seriousness, of the fact that one Delaware resident had already died from the Wuhan coronavirus. To put this into context, approximately 23 Delawareans die every day on average.

This morning, we had a tele-conference with the doctor. There was little we could discuss without a new MRI scan. The doctor shared much interesting information, however.

The major hospital in northern Delaware performs about 180 surgeries per day in ordinary times. However, they have reduced surgeries by about 80%. (So much for overwhelming the system.) The triage rule for medical care is excruciatingly stingy; the only patients who can receive surgery are those who would die, or suffer loss of limb or vision, within 2 weeks.

Again: if you are gravely ill but could be expected to die 3 weeks from now, the local healthcare system will not operate on you. After all, if you come into their facilities, you might get sick or make someone sick!

I do not want to single out this particular health care conglomerate for opprobrium; many healthcare systems under the control of a certain political party have rationed care to the point of denying care. I have read the harrowing account of a woman's horrifying suffering in a Virginia hospital because the governor forbids the prescription of hydroxychloroquine for treating Wuhan coronavirus.

The governors of Pennsylvania, Delaware, and other states have assumed godlike powers of decision about what medical procedures are "elective" and which are not. Abortion is an "essential" activity, but following the progress of a tumor is not essential.

Yesterday, while driving on our first shopping trip in 3 weeks, we observed many closed businesses, including businesses closed permanently. The customers could not be trusted to determine which businesses are essential, so the governors did it for them. The wholesaler we patronized sells clothing, office supplies, hardware, garden supplies, and so on, like many of the closed businesses we saw; but the food sold by the wholesaler enabled the entire business to remain open. I recommend that all businesses sell snacks and beverages to qualify as "essential".

​The graphic below depicts the number of deaths from Wuhan coronavirus as of April 19. New York City (5 counties) comprises some 35% of the national total, in red. The orange slices are 7 counties in the New York City metropolitan area. The 3 yellow counties are other hard-hit counties (and one county-equivalent). Green represents the rest of the country, about 47% of the total.

The graphic below depicts Wuhan coronavirus deaths rate per 1 million population in the USA as of April 19. We use the same color coding. Notice that when these 15 counties and county-equivalents are removed from the USA total, the death rate drops to about half the current national average.

The following graphic shows these counties on a national map. Please do not misinterpret this map. Wuhan coronavirus does exist outside the colored counties, but at a lower rate.

The question has to be asked: is the cure worse than the disease? The answer is complex. The disease is fatal for a small number of people, especially those who are older and have certain pre-existing medical conditions. The disease lingers for some survivors in unpleasant forms. Wuhan coronavirus must be taken seriously.

However, social distancing, which is effective for containment, does not require stay-at-home orders, which are not effective for containment, according to a second such study I read today. Theoreticians who are monomaniacally focused on the eradication of the Wuhan coronavirus, and the politicians who follow their recommendations, are willing to sacrifice the lives of hundreds of thousands of Americans who will not get the medical care they need, not to mention the needless drug overdoses and suicides we will suffer in the next depression.

It is time to open up America, while maintaining social distancing, wearing face masks, and washing. Otherwise we will not have a country left to save.

Six hundred. Six zero zero. That is the approximate number of jobs destroyed in the United States, so far, for every American life lost to the Wuhan coronavirus, so far.

As of April 16, 2020, about 34 thousand Americans have died with Wuhan coronavirus. Under CDC guidance, coronavirus does not have to be known as the principal cause of death. Indeed, the decedent need not have tested positive for the disease, as long as coronavirus is presumed or suspected to have been present.

In the 1957-58 Asian flu pandemic, about 100 thousand Americans died from the flu, in a country with about half the population of today's America. That is equivalent to about 200 thousand deaths today. The 2017-18 flu epidemic killed about 61 thousand Americans, for comparison.

America's response to the current pandemic has been to shut down the economy, and in some states, to put citizens under virtual house arrest. Moralizing politicians and health experts insist that the lockdown continue nationally until there are no new cases for two straight weeks. America suffers about 7700 deaths each day already, including some from infectious disease (and some from medical error...), but never has there been such a drastic response to a disease that kills far fewer children than the flu.

The following graphic shows the progress of new cases of Wuhan coronavirus in the six most affected countries, in weekly number of news cases per one million population, measured from the first day on which total cases numbered at least one per one million population. All countries hit their peaks during week 4 or week 5. America is past the peak of new cases. ("Geo mean" refers to the geometric mean of the six time series.)

The following graphic shows the strong relationship between Wuhan coronavirus deaths per one million population, and population density. The data points are the 50 states plus DC. However, New York state has been separated into two components: New York City, and the remainder of the state. It is remarkable that R-squared for this power-law model is nearly 49%. Remove Alaska from the data set, and R-squared increases to about 51%.

The implication is clear: high population density is a risk factor for Wuhan coronavirus mortality. The relationship would most likely be stronger still if it were plotted by county rather than by state; the hardest hit counties in America are also the most densely populated.

The above graphic depicts data points, the states, filled in according to a color spectrum, in which the lowest risk states are blue, and the highest risk locations are red. This graphic justifies today's proposal for re-opening America, announced today by the White House Coronavirus Task Force. Decisions should be made, not just state-by-state, but even on a county-by-county basis.

America runs a terrible danger if we continue in the one-to-two-year lockdown proposed by some elites. It is not possible to turn on an economy like a light switch. Unemployment is devastating to individuals and to families; to have it running at depression-era levels would be a disaster.

The elites may believe that food grows in the stock room at Whole Foods, but the reality is far more complex. If farmers are not able to harvest their winter wheat and plant a spring crop, we could experience famine on a communist scale.

Stay-at-home orders do not add value to the benefits of social distancing, according to the studies I have read. The recommendations thus seem clear: allow businesses to re-open; allow people to travel as they wish; but wear face masks in a relatively crowded space, and wash frequently. This strategy has worked successfully in eastern Asian countries, and can work here, until a vaccine becomes available.

America will not remain forever in isolation, jobless and starving. It is time to re-open, cautiously, now.