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Yaron Brook Interviews The Rational Optimist, Matt Ridley, on How Innovation Works

Apr 13, 2020 | Politics

https://youtu.be/xa4AfXvR1XoYaron Brook has a wonderful interview with Matt Ridley, author of The Rational Optimist, on the subject of Ridley's forthcoming book, How Innovation Works.You'll hear amazing gems like this:
LED lighting would be another example of something that's come in within the last 10 years -- unpredicted, unheralded -- the result of an innovation by a Japanese professor 20-30 years ago. But now we can get white or tunable light out of LEDs; uses far less electricity than the preceding technologies .... is yet another step in the incredible decline of the cost of lighting. That's my favorite example of rational optimism. You basically have to work for a third of a second these days on the average wage to earn an hour of light. Well back in 1800 you had to work for six hours to earn that much light from a candle on the average wage. That's the sort of improvement we've seen in technologies over the last couple of centuries.

Inventing to Nowhere: Is American Invention at Risk?

Apr 11, 2020 | Politics

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tktH-gHcDA 
Invention is as old as human existence, and no country has promoted and thrived on invention more than the United States thanks to its patent system. But is American invention at risk? Framed around the story of two first-time inventors, Inventing to Nowhere explores the stakes in policy fights over the American innovation economy, with interviews of legendary inventor Dean Kamen, historians, members of Congress and other key players in the effort to keep the country innovating. For more than 200 years, the U.S. patent system has helped protect and grow ideas. This reverence for intellectual property rights has been a driving force in making the United States an economic superpower. But as the patent-law debate becomes more influenced by special interests, the future of inventors and entrepreneurs is in jeopardy.SavetheInventor.com

Bill Gates on How To Respond To The COVID-19 Pandemic

Apr 10, 2020 | Politics

"....Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates offers insights into the COVID-19 pandemic, discussing why testing and self-isolation are essential, which medical advancements show promise and what it will take for the world to endure this crisis." Takeaways:
  • Targeted Testing, as done in South Korea and Taiwan.
    • Gate's did agree with Taiwan being shut-out of WHO, especially . (For the record, this is due to the China Communist dictatorship's control over the UN. Taiwan was warning the WHO about what the NY Times was calling the 'Wuhan Virus' from December and was ignored.)
    • South Korea did not have to implement a nation-wide shut down because they did such an excellent job at early testing to isolate those with COVID-19.
    • Testing should be prioritized for health care workers in constant contact with patients and for those non-health-care workers who are symptomatic given the lack of supply of convenient COVID-19 kits to test everyone.
    • The COVID-19 testing problem will be resolved when reliable, in-home, self-test kits that deliver same-day results, are available.
  • Isolation & Shut-Down
    • If you cannot do a proper job on testing early, then you need to shut down movement to "flatten the curve"
    • Once the majority of COVID-19 carriers are isolated, the economy can reopen once you have done proper testing.
  • Mass vaccination in the long-run is the solution according to Gates. He has spent a hundred million dollars in advancing vaccination, particularly in third-world countries.

Delay in COVID Testing: "Too many chefs in the kitchen" or "All eggs in one basket"?

The interviewer, head of TED Chris Anderson, attempts to blame free-markets when he asks is the delay in the U.S. getting COVID-19 tests out in time due to "too many chefs in the kitchen." (In a  market there are many biotech companies competing to produce the best test)The actual cause of the delay in COVID-19 testing was that there was only one "universal" government chef in the kitchen -- the CDC -- which only approved one "universal" test created by the state and forbade all the "recipes" (tests) from other chefs (private companies) -- and the CDC's test did not work. CDC-FDA "universal" socialist medicine was the cause of the delay in this case.A better metaphor would be "putting all your testing eggs in one government-controlled basket."Thankfully, private U.S. medical companies came to the rescue.

$$$

Related: The next outbreak? We’re not ready | Bill Gates (2015 Talk) 

No Post-Mortem Tests: Germany’s Low COVID-19 Death Numbers

Apr 9, 2020 | Politics

Better medical equipment, early testing, and younger patients are some of the explanations for Germany's low COVID-19 death rates.EuroNews mentions another possible factor: No post-mortem tests.Quoting from David Courbe, "Dissecting Germany's low coronavirus death rate" Agence France-Presse (AFP):
Another explanation cited by Italian experts, could be that Germany, unlike other countries, tends not to test those who have already died."We don't consider post-mortem tests to be a decisive factor. We work on the principle that patients are tested before they die," the [disease control agency Robert Koch Institute (RKI)] told AFP.That means that if a person dies in quarantine at home and does not go to hospital, there is a high chance they will not be included in the statistics, as Giovanni Maga of Italy's National Research Council pointed out in an interview with Euronews.

Intercept: Key U.S. Manufactured Medical Supplies Shipped to Foreign Buyers

Apr 7, 2020 | Business, Politics

From "Key Medical Supplies Were Shipped From U.S. Manufacturers to Foreign Buyers, Records Show" (The Intercept):
Vessel manifests maintained by U.S. Customs and Border Protection and reviewed by The Intercept show a steady flow of the medical equipment needed to treat the coronavirus being shipped abroad as recently as March 17.[...]Drive DeVilbiss Healthcare, a Pennsylvania-based health product firm that produces supplemental oxygen machines, sent at least three different shipments of respiratory equipment to Belgium in mid-February and early March. The total cargo included 14 containers weighing more than 55 tons.
Fifty-five tons!
On March 8, two tons of Vapotherm’s high-flow disposable patient circuit units, used for operating its respiratory aids, were loaded onto a container ship in the Port of Los Angeles. The shipment was sent to Kobe, Japan, for Japan Medicalnext Co., a health care distributor.
The records show dozens of other shipments of respirator equipment, medical garments, medical masks, oxygen concentrators, and ventilators sent abroad over the last two months.[...]On February 28, a ship left New York for Hamburg, Germany, with about 1.5 tons of ventilator masks manufactured by Allied Healthcare Products, a health product business based in St. Louis. The masks are used for the company’s portable ventilator unit.
The reason?
The U.S. government has placed no restrictions on exports of medical supplies while continuing to impose financial penalties on the import of personal protective gear, protective goggles, pulse oximeters, hand sanitizer, and other medical products from China. On March 10 and 12, President Donald Trump temporarily lifted tariffs, in place since 2017, on some of these medical products.
 

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