You throw the sand against the wind, And the wind blows it back again.

From Coronavirus Cases in Georgia, Florida Continue to Decline Despite Business Openings by Zachary Evans.

There was a massive media assault on Georgia and Florida for beginning the reopening process, The Atlantic's Georgia’s Experiment in Human Sacrifice by Amanda Mull being an example of the hysterical anger and vitriol.

"Listen to the scientists, don't rely on reading chicken entrails you knuckle dragging morons" was the substance of the Mandarin Class charge.

And here we are. Coronavirus Cases in Georgia, Florida Continue to Decline Despite Business Openings. Can't get cocky. There almost certainly will be some bump, certainly in cases, possibly in deaths. Our testing has finally ramped up. We are certainly going to find more cases. As you make the transition from blanket lock-downs to target lock-downs, which is the more accurate description of what is happening, of course there will be occasional mis-calibrations.

We have another four weeks to go before we can with confidence claim that the transition to targeted lock-downs has been succesful.

But what we can say even just two weeks into the transition is that the hysterical forecasts of the like of Amanda Mull, a 32 year old journalism major, not a scientist, who has had no executive experience, were based on partisan ignorance and not on an accurate understanding of the underlying mechanisms of Covid-19 or a realistic forecast of the consequence.

Amanda Mull (Ben Rhodes-type journalist), Brian Kemp (Governor of Georgia), and every other citizen and expert have a Gini coefficient of 0 in terms of knowledge of the future run of Covid-19. For socialists desperately wanting to get rid of inequality, Covid-19 has been a huge success. We have a virtually uniformly equal distribution of ignorance and incapacity to accurately forecast and an equal distribution of opinions.

Which is an achievement of sorts but not a useful one.

In the meantime, hysterical charges of

Policy seeking to alleviate the increasing immiseration of the 60% who live paycheck-to-paycheck and the 30% who are without income is something all of us should support. And during this window when we are all equally ignorant and equally uncertain as to what is happening and what will happen, we all ought also to demonstrate more humility and caution than we normally might.

Instead we have the Mandarin Class media stridently condemning policy based on partisan considerations rather than factual reality.

In a few weeks we will have a better picture whether the transition from blanket lockdowns to targeted lockdowns came at too high a cost in excess deaths and whether targeted lockdowns were successful at alleviating some of the economic misery touching a third of households. We don't know yet. But we do know that the Mandarin Class journalists don't know what they are talking about but are willing to trumpet their vicious opinions.

Reading the Yahoo News! headline "Coronavirus Cases in Georgia, Florida Continue to Decline Despite Business Openings" triggered an involuntary recollection of William Blake's poem upbraiding of the overconfident, rationalist, atheist, progressives of his day.

Mock on, Mock on, Voltaire, Rousseau
by William Blake

Mock on, Mock on, Voltaire, Rousseau;
Mock on, Mock on, 'tis all in vain.
You throw the sand against the wind,
And the wind blows it back again.

And every sand becomes a Gem
Reflected in the beams divine;
Blown back, they blind the mocking Eye,
But still in Israel's paths they shine.

The Atoms of Democritus
And Newton's Particles of light
Are sands upon the Red sea shore
Where Israel's tents do shine so bright.