{"id":12261,"date":"2020-03-24T10:00:43","date_gmt":"2020-03-24T17:00:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/?p=12261"},"modified":"2020-03-23T11:51:13","modified_gmt":"2020-03-23T18:51:13","slug":"the-psychology-of-viral-paradoxes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-psychology-of-viral-paradoxes\/","title":{"rendered":"The Psychology of Viral Paradoxes"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There are a lot of known unknowns and paradoxes in these times of uncertainty. Here are a few.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>1) Trump is criticized as both \u201cracist\u201d and \u201cxenophobic\u201d in his condemnations of the \u201cChinese\u201d virus, while he\u2019s also criticized for \u201cappeasing\u201d President Xi when he makes friendly references to their coronavirus chats. How can Trump be both?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Is he merely erratic? Perhaps any smart president at this moment would prefer both to galvanize Americans about the threat of Chinese near monopolies of industries key to the U.S. in extremis (such as medical supplies, pharmaceuticals, and rare earths) and &nbsp;yet to not to so offend our &nbsp;only importer that it cuts off a vulnerable U.S. in the middle of a crisis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>2) The media hype the increased number of cases (the denominator) without much attention to the number of deaths (the numerator) caused by, or perhaps mostly by, the virus. The numerator, however, is not increasing daily at a rate that\u2019s commensurate with the denominator, despite a number of important other extenuating criteria:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>a) Those seeking tests are mostly those with some sort of malaise or exposure, and yet they test overwhelmingly (so far) negative, perhaps at rates, depending on locale, of 80 percent to 90 percent negative (an increasingly not widely reported fact), and thus they may underrepresent percentages of the infected in the general population.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nationalreview.com\/corner\/coronavirus-psychology-of-viral-paradoxes\">Read the full article here<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review There are a lot of known unknowns and paradoxes in these times of uncertainty. Here are a few. 1) Trump is criticized as both \u201cracist\u201d and \u201cxenophobic\u201d in his condemnations of the \u201cChinese\u201d virus, while he\u2019s also criticized for \u201cappeasing\u201d President Xi when he makes friendly references to their [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-3bL","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":11012,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-paradoxes-of-the-mueller-investigation\/","url_meta":{"origin":12261,"position":0},"title":"The Paradoxes of the Mueller Investigation","author":"victorhanson","date":"February 22, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review They are numerous, and none of them are good news for President Trump\u2019s opponents. Special Counsel Robert Mueller has indicted 13 Russian nationals for allegedly conspiring to sow confusion in the 2016 presidential election. The chance of extraditing any of the accused from Vladimir\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Donald Trump&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Donald Trump","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/donald-trump\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11479,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/caravan-contradictions\/","url_meta":{"origin":12261,"position":1},"title":"Caravan Contradictions","author":"victorhanson","date":"October 29, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ American Greatness A\u201ccaravan\u201d\u2014the euphemism for a current foot-army of more than 10,000 Central Americans\u2014of would-be border crossers has now passed into Mexico. The marchers promise they will continue 1,000 miles and more northward to the U.S. border, despite warnings from President Trump that as unauthorized immigrants\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Mexico&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Mexico","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/mexico\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11214,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ten-paradoxes-of-our-age\/","url_meta":{"origin":12261,"position":2},"title":"Ten Paradoxes Of Our Age","author":"victorhanson","date":"June 7, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ Hoover Institution The 21st century is reminding of us of some uncomfortable truths. Abroad, recent controversies over the rise of Chinese mercantilism, the specter of Iranian and North Korean nuclear weapons, tensions in the European Union, the calcified Palestinian question, mass migrations, and the resurgence of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;China&quot;","block_context":{"text":"China","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/china\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11669,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-strange-paradoxes-of-our-age\/","url_meta":{"origin":12261,"position":3},"title":"The Strange Paradoxes of Our Age","author":"victorhanson","date":"February 19, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review Modern prophets often say one thing and do another. Worse, they often advocate in the abstract as a way of justifying their doing the opposite in the concrete. The result is that contemporary culture abounds with the inexplicable \u2014 mostly because modern progressivism makes\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Donald Trump&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Donald Trump","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/donald-trump\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11874,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-china-iran-border-matrix\/","url_meta":{"origin":12261,"position":4},"title":"The China-Iran-Border Matrix","author":"victorhanson","date":"June 20, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ Nationals Review President Trump and Secretary Pompeo have worked the U.S. into an advantageous position with a consistent policy toward bad actors. We are now at a point that even left and right agree that China\u2019s rogue trajectory had to be altered. And while progressive critics\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11899,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/strategika-issue-59-u-s-china-trade-tensions\/","url_meta":{"origin":12261,"position":5},"title":"Strategika Issue 59: U.S.\u2013China Trade Tensions","author":"victorhanson","date":"July 14, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Trade War 2.0\u2014China Sets Sail to Import Innovation, Export Governance Please read a new essay by my colleague, Christopher R. O\u2019Dea\u00a0in Strategika. By agreeing to restart stalled trade talks at their meeting in Osaka last week, President Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping averted a new round of punitive\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12261"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12261"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12261\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12267,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12261\/revisions\/12267"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12261"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12261"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12261"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}