Pandemic projection numbers tell unnerving story

Previously published in the Terre Haute Tribune Star, 29 March 

What if we just let the people with the highest risk die from COVID-19, as some appear to be suggesting?

Apparently even a cost-benefit analysis is nearly impossible because those most at risk already have “shorter” life spans and/or have underlying health issues that would just kill them eventually anyway. So, estimating what Grandma’s life is worth is hard. Not like other commodities such as cars, homes, airline seats and so forth. But, is Grandma a “commodity?”

About 16 percent of the United States population is age 65 or older. This is the group at the greatest risk of dying from COVID-19. And, so far, it appears that this age group is both more likely to get infected (although this is a weak claim since we are not doing enough testing to say this with much confidence) and to die from COVID-19. The CDC, last week, reported that 80 percent of the deaths were among people 65 and older. So, let’s just use that number for now.

As I write this, there are 64,107 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 893 deaths in the US. [The number of confirmed cases had grown to well over 80,000 by week's end. — Ed.) That’s a 1.4 percent death rate. More than 10 times what the death rate from the seasonal flu is. And if the 80 percent of deaths are among those 65 and older, then 714 of those dead are 65 and older.

How many Americans are going to get COVID-19? That is impossible to say, but we can model it for some ideas. Predictions range, depending on the measures being used, that between 40 and 70 percent of Americans will become infected. Let’s use the most optimistic number, 40 percent, and assume that all age groups will get infected at about the same proportion. Forty percent of the U.S. population is 127,399,400 people. If that were a nation, it would be the 11th largest nation on Earth, slotting in between Mexico and Japan.

If the 1.4 percent death rate holds, then 1,783,591 people will die; 80 percent of them will be 65 or older, or 1,426,873, about the population of New Hampshire. Currently there are 51,121,200 Americans age 65 and older. If that many die, that is a death rate of 2.8% or about 28 times that of the seasonal flu. 24,672,708 households in the US have an individual 65 years and older. Among those households 5.7 percent will experience a death.

That’s a lot of families experiencing death in a short period of time. In 2017, 2,067,404 persons 65 and above died in the United States. Of course, some of those 1.4 million projected to die would die in the next few months anyway, but just consider that it’s possible that the death rate for this age group could increase by more than half.

Which states have the highest numbers of persons age 65+? Puerto Rico, West Virginia, Vermont, Maine, and Florida have at least 20 percent age 65+. Alaska, California, Colorado, District of Columbia, and Utah have below 15 percent. Indiana is at 16 percent. For Vigo County, 16.3 percent, or 17,504, are 65 and above. Using the same analysis above, 4,811 age 65 and above will die. That is just under 4.5 percent of the Vigo County population, or just under 1 per 20. That means you will very likely know someone who dies from COVID-19. Do you know anyone who has died of the flu this year?

So, let’s put some money on these numbers. The average Social Security benefit in January 2020 was $1,503 per month, or $18,036 per year. In a very short time period, Vigo County could lose just under $315 million in income. Mean household income in Vigo County is $42,030 or $1.8 billion in income per year. This would be a loss of almost 17.5 percent of income coming into Vigo County.

When you think of the loss of demand for local businesses that would represent, it’s quite a hit. And this is the best scenario. If the infection rate is 70 percent, then it’s a hit of about 30.6 percent on the local economy in just a matter of a few months.

Unlike jobs lost in a recession, of which most eventually do come back, those people are not coming back.

Probing the bellwether status of Vigo County voters

Previously published in the Terre Haute Tribune Star, 7 February 2016


Two weeks ago I posted a link to an Internet poll for Vigo County voters’ presidential preferences. As promised, here are the results. Thank you to those of you who participated.


This poll cannot be used to make any claims about Vigo County because the sample size is too small and it’s not representative of Vigo voters. Below I discuss the small sample, who responded, and speculate on results.


First, only 42 registered Vigo voters took the survey. This leads to the only significant finding: few people read this column.

After 24 hours I began trying to get the link out to more venues but that didn’t increase the sample size much. There are 19 zip codes in Vigo County, but poll responders only came from nine. The zip codes responders came from were from Terre Haute and its metro area and from West Terre Haute.


The results also suggest that significantly more Democrat voters responded than Republican voters. Once I saw this trend, I tried to get the poll in front of more likely Republican voters, without much success.


Thirty-three of the 42 responders indicated they were likely or very likely primary voters. Among them, when asked who they would vote for if the election were today, I gave a list of almost all Republican and all Democrat candidates. Those 33 voted this way: Sanders 14 (42 percent); Clinton 7 (21 percent; Trump 4 (12 percent); Rubio 3 (9 percent); Paul 2 (6 percent); Cruz 2 (6 percent); and Carson 1 (3 percent). The lineup doesn’t change when we look at those 36 voters who indicated they were likely or very likely to vote in November. The rank order stays the same.


Other (better) polls tell us that Sanders has the youth vote. I asked Vigo voters if they had voted in the last four elections in Vigo. Thirty-four said yes, so that means these are not new voters and would at least be 34 years of age. The lineup is the same, Sanders, Clinton, Trump, Rubio, Paul, Cruz, Carson. Among the six voters who did not vote in each of the last four elections, the lineup is Sanders (4), Clinton (2). If the other polls are accurate, this means there are a lot of “white progressives” responding to my poll. There are many “white progressives” among the professoriate.


I asked who Vigo voters voted for in the last four elections. Among the nine consistent Republican voters (meaning they voted Bush, Bush, McCain, Romney), if the election were held today they voted Trump 4, Rubio 3, Cruz 1, Carson 1. Among the 15 consistent Democrat voters, it was Sanders 8, Clinton 7.


I hoped to identify “bellwether” voters which is why I asked about who Vigo voters voted for in the last four elections. Among the 42 eligible possible bellwether voters, there was only one. And the single bellwether Vigo voter indicated if the election were held today, s/he would vote for Sanders.


Can we learn anything from this too small, unrepresentative poll? No. We can still speculate, however. Given that the Iowa caucuses were last Monday, this small sample of consistent Republican Vigo voters do not like Ted Cruz as much as Iowa Republicans nor as much as the polls suggest New Hampshiricans do. This sample likes Trump and Rubio. Iowa Democrats were split between Clinton and Sanders and so is the small sample of Vigo Democrat voters only they slightly like Sanders more than Clinton. The polls suggest New Hampshirecrats like Sanders far more than they do Clinton. So, the bellwether is pointing in the general direction on the Democrat side, and is pointing more toward Trump and Rubio (who finished in a tight 2, 3 finish, just as they are a tight 1, 2 finish among the small Vigo sample). New Hampshire votes Tuesday. Polls suggest that Trump will win big, followed by Cruz and Rubio and that Sanders trounces Clinton.

The populist candidates, Trump and Sanders, are the most popular among the respective parties in this sample.


This poll uncovered one bellwether voter. That is 2.3 percent of the valid sample. At least this is an estimate of how many bellwether voters there might be, 2.3 percent. There are 70,000 registered Vigo voters, so that would be 1,610 bellwether voters. If half vote but all bellwethers do, that doubles their proportion. Is 4.6 percent of presidential Vigo voters who are bellwether voters enough to decide the election? Seems too small to me. What do you think?

Does Vigo's bellwether voting status really mean much?

Previously published in the Terre Haute Tribune Star, 24 January 2016


For the last four presidential elections, I’ve been a sought-out “expert” on Vigo County’s bellwether status. Should you be unfamiliar with this phenomenon, Vigo County has voted for the winner in every presidential election since 1952 missing only twice since 1888.


Initially, reporters sought me and Professor Kirby Goidel because we had polled during the 2000 and 2004 elections. We were the first, as far as we knew, to ever poll Vigo voters’ presidential preferences Since then, I am not aware of any scientific polling of the county’s preferences. Nevertheless, journalists continue to contact me for interviews.
                                               

This year, attention to Vigo’s bellwether phenomenon is receiving increased and early attention. A documentary production company, Three Blind Men Productions, has taken up residence in Vigo to document the bellwether effect. Filmmaker Don Campbell will have lived in Terre Haute for a year. I’ve been consulting (unpaid) with Don since the beginning of the project. Politico ran an article consisting of little more than a reporter stopping by a Pie and Politics meeting, the Republicans there were for Trump, and the article declares the bellhether is going for Trump. WFIU did a story on the Politico story and contacted me for a response to the article. Last Saturday, my living room was transformed into a television studio as Bob Abeshouse of Al Jazeera English interviewed me for two hours for an early March news documentary.



Whether political bellwethers exist is not much of a controversy among political scientists. As far as I can tell, the answer is “no.” Nevertheless, Vigo County’s record is impressive and makes for a good story and a different hook on the glut of presidential campaign news. I expect there to be more reporters and all variety of political storytellers showing up because of Vigo’s bellwether status.                                                  
                                                                                                                                           
Questions posed to me tend to be similar: “What accounts for Vigo’s amazing record in ‘getting it right’?” My answer:  I do not know why Vigo County has such a record of voting for the presidential winner and I don’t think anyone does.       
                                                                                                                                                                                        
Then I speculate on reasons why Vigo has such a remarkable record and respond to reasons posited to me by the journalist. A common one that is wrong, at least now and for the last couple of decades, is that Vigo is a microcosm of the United States. It is not. Vigo is poorer, more poverty stricken, whiter, older, fewer immigrants, less educated (despite four institutions of higher education residing here), more people with disabilities, more people without health insurance, higher unemployment rate, more reliant on manufacturing jobs, local ownership of business is more male, less minority, and Vigo is less urban than the U.S. is as a whole. According to information provided to me this weekend, Vigo also has more nonaligned voters than does the U.S. as a whole. Vigo County is not a microcosm of the United States and I doubt it ever was. 
.                                                                                                                                                                                             
Another posited explanation is that issues of America are the issues of Vigo County. This one is hard to address because one would need to know what the issues were in the campaigns and what the local issues were. I’ve voted in six presidential elections in Vigo County and based on past polling, the most important local issue has been “jobs,” pretty much swamping all others. When is a presidential campaign not about jobs? Maybe the candidate that mentions jobs the most is who Vigo votes for. This might make for an interesting undergraduate research project. 
                                                                                                                                                                                              
My current “most sociologically best guess” points to the relative stability of the population in Vigo County. By stability, I mean there is neither a lot of out-migration nor a lot of in-migration. Being born here is almost the sole means of entry and dying here is almost the sole means of exit; thus, the social barriers and forces that separate us into like- minded “echo chambers,” jobs, religions, race, and social class, are muted when people first meet each other in school.     
                                                                                                                                                                                          
For example, four people become good friends in the second grade and remain adult friends despite one becoming a union carpenter, one a physical therapist, one chronically unemployed, and the other a local business owner. The four, I submit, may influence each other with their different points of view. By being friends, they gain a better appreciation of each other’s views, in a respectful manner and, perhaps, as they decide who to vote for, all those influences come to bear on their choice.

Tom Steiger on GMA

While I'd rather be on the national news for winning a prize, this is better than doing a perp walk with a voice over "professor discovered eating his students"

My "glaring" interview on video here:

Australians interested in Vigo County's bellwether rings

here is an article from an Australian newspaper. The reporter contacted me. Too bad she didn't get the right university.

Tom Steiger on NPR

Is this it? Is this my 15 minutes of fame?

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=95617378