1. Six years ago, I threw a dance party for myself. I got to select the program of dances. My children were all there. Life was better then.
2. Russ Roberts sent me three pointers. The first one is a Twitter thread from Dr. Muge Cevik. She seems to be another John Alcorn. Her conclusions from various case cluster studies of the transmission process include:
these studies indicate that close & prolonged contact is required for #COVID19 transmission. The risk is highest in enclosed environments; household, long-term care facilities and public transport.
these studies so far indicate that susceptibility to infection increases with age (highest >60y) and growing evidence suggests children are less susceptible, are infrequently responsible for household transmission, are not the main drivers of this epidemic.
these studies indicate that most transmission is caused by close contact with a symptomatic case, highest risk within first 5d of symptoms.
She links to this interesting meta-analysis.
The findings from this systematic review do not support the claim that a large majority of SARS-CoV2 infections is asymptomatic.
3. The next pointer is to John Mandrola, MD.
in one year, will the virus be 1) gone, or 2) less contagious, or 3) less deadly?
He makes the case that the answer is no. In which case, perhaps people should just live their lives as best they can. This is worth a longer comment, which I will try to make later in the week.
4. His third pointer is to Neil Monnery.
Easily the best results to date are from the stringent ‘isolate, test, trace and quarantine’ strategies used by Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong, Australia and South Korea. It is an approach that requires great preparation, organisation and execution. The key risk is how these countries will do if there is a second or subsequent wave. If that does not occur, or they manage it, even at many multiples of their deaths to date, they will be the key place to look for future learnings.
As you know, I am skeptical that testing and tracing are what is effective. The tests are so unreliable. Tracing is so hard. I am inclined to credit isolation and mask-wearing. And keep in mind that since most of the deaths are among the elderly, how you handle the elderly is likely to matter more than how you handle the spread among those under 50.
In a pandemic that might be contained, isolating yourself helps others, keeping them from infection. But if pandemic will end with herd immunity, isolating yourself hurts others, pushing them more to be part of the herd that gives everyone immunity. The externality changes sign!
We need to raise the status of Risky Randy and lower the status of Anti-fragile Arnold.
However, given that simply reducing the average contact rate by 50% is enough to significantly reduce the rate of spread of the infection, a few minor decisions are all it would take. Moderately reducing frequency and lengths of outings, and being increasingly aware of one’s surroundings are all it would take to significantly reduce average contact rate. It is also likely that during periods where there are reports of high levels of infectious load, employers would be more willing to let an employee stay home and or cut back services.
His idea is that the government should undertake testing to let people know of impending “hot spots,” and then let people make their own decisions in response. Pointer from John Alcorn.
7. Jose Maria Barrero, Nick Bloom and Steven J. Davis write,
the COVID-19 shock caused 3 new hires in the near term for every 10 layoffs. These sizable new hires amidst a tremendous overall contraction align well with our anecdotal evidence of large pandemic-induced increases in demand at certain firms. Weekly statistics on gross business formation derived from U.S. administrative data also point to
creation and gross hiring activity, even in the near-term wake of the pandemic.
… Drawing on our survey evidence and historical evidence of how layoffs relate to recalls, we estimate that 42 percent of recent pandemic-induced layoffs will result in permanent job loss.
This is a strong blow to the GDP-factory thinking about this crisis. In fact, it is a PSST story.
8. Doc Searls looks at various industries classified using a matrix I suggested a while back. Can’t really excerpt. I strongly recommend the whole post.
#1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QABgTYER4-0
Is this the correct event?
If Y, very cool! Hang in there! And, Happy Birthday?
“We need to raise the status of Risky Randy and lower the status of Anti-fragile Arnold.”
Only is Risky Randy self isolated for a month after getting the virus.
We should pay everyone under 40 with no pre-existing $10,000 and a month paid vacation in quarantine to purposely get infected. Cost = $1.5 Trillion, but mostly paid to ourselves. Call is reverse social security from old to young in exchange for herd immunity.
Exactly backwards and extremely inefficient. It’s like an anti-utilitarian approach to a not very difficult problem.
Instead, we should be paying the most vulnerable to stay out of harms way and let everyone else get on with their lives.
How many people are vulnerable?
What do you need to pay them to self isolate until the rest get herd immunity?
Herd immunity will take a long time to achieve if you aren’t purposely infecting people. And the “at risk” pool is pretty big.
I would apply the Coase theorem here – allocate costs to the best cost avoider (BCA).
In this case, the 60+ population and/or those with pre-existing health conditions are the likely BCAs. Compensate them accordingly for self-quarantining and let the vast majority of society move on with creating economic value.
I think that would be more expensive then quarantining the young. Quarantining at risk and waiting for herd immunity naturally would take a long time and be much more expensive per person.
If we do “immunity passports”, then you don’t have to compensate the young at all. You tell people, “You all are on lockdown unless you have recovered from the infection and are no longer contagious. After that, do whatever you want. All businesses and public activities can proceed as usual, except they can only employ people in close proximity, or let customers in the door, if they show their immunity passports. You can come to a local Hanson clinic and get variolated for free anytime you want. If you come down with severe symptoms, you will also be treated for free. But if you don’t do this, you are probably out of a job and out of normal society.”
I think about 1/3rd of the population consisting of mostly healthy young people voluntarily goes through the process of getting their IPs in about a month, and maybe the next 1/3rd the next month. In about two months, you’ve got herd immunity and local eradication, and the vulnerable can come out too. That’s a pretty cheap approach, and fast, and cheaper and faster than what we’ve been doing already.
At any rate, I think the point comes across better if it’s “Radioactive Randy”. Normal society can’t exist when there’s always the possibility that someone nearby is emitting invisible poisonous rays that are potentially deadly to anyone who gets too close, and which also makes them radioactive too. If that were the situation, we would be putting up Geiger counters instead of thermal scanners on every pole, and it wouldn’t be unreasonable to ask the state to coerce radioactive people into staying in comfortable, compensated isolation chambers until a few half-lives go by and the rays diminish below toxic levels.
The article by Dr Mandrola is terrific, and I appreciate the opportunity to read it.
But actually the good doctor did not answer the question that prompted his writing.
He was asked by an older couple if they could start seeing their grandchildren.
That is a tough one. Even the more liberal experts, such as in Sweden, seem to recommend that persons over 70 stay hunkered down, and that persons in nursing homes receive no visitors whatsoever.
I think this is an issue that has to be solved, or least articulated better so that people can make good choices.
It is true that the advanced industrial nations have taken life expectancy to extraordinary lengths. If you read the obituaries in large Eastern cities, nearly every deceased person seems to be over 90, except musicians.
So in a statistical sense, we could let Covid lower the age of death a little and not be ashamed. But this is shall we say much tougher to do in real life.
Thanks also for the post from Dr Cevik, specifically:
” these studies indicate that close & prolonged contact is required for #COVID19 transmission. The risk is highest in enclosed environments; household, long-term care facilities and public transport.
these studies so far indicate that susceptibility to infection increases with age (highest >60y) and growing evidence suggests children are less susceptible, are infrequently responsible for household transmission, are not the main drivers of this epidemic.”
I have been looking for information like this, in order to argue against the over-the-top closing of schools, parks, and libraries.