The Avalon Hill metaphor

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Note to commenters: feel free to correct me on any of this, preferably with links to definitive sources. I will post corrections here.

There are two stages to the virus disease. In the first stage, one gets flu-like symptoms. In the second stage, if it occurs, an immune response coats the lungs, reducing oxygen flow do the blood. I believe this is called ARDS, although sometimes I see it referred to as pneumonia. The second stage is by far the most deadly.

UPDATE: This article makes me think perhaps in three stages: flu-like; pneumonia; ARDS. But it doesn’t change the main point.

On the defensive side, we know that risk of death goes up with both age and obesity. As I understand it, obesity is a big risk for the second stage. I do not know whether being young is protective for the first stage, the second stage, or both. Perhaps it does not matter which.

On the offensive side, it seems intuitively reasonable that a more aggressive virus attack, meaning you inhale more of the virus, is more likely to cause worse symptoms at the first stage. It seems intuitively reasonable that having worse symptoms at the first stage is more likely to trigger the second stage.

This reminds me of an Avalon Hill war game, in which you move counters, and when a battle occurs, the winner is determined by the attacker’s attack factor, the defender’s defense factor, and a roll of the dice.

I view Robin Hanson’ variolation idea through the lens of that metaphor. Our current approach is either to have a mass retreat or a mass advance, not bothering to look at attack factors or defense factors. It seems to make more sense to choose our battles where we can be confident of low attack factors and high defense factors.

12 thoughts on “The Avalon Hill metaphor”

  2. Your suggested approach seems to resemble the Swedish approach of encouraging the protection of the elderly and sick but a much more relaxed approach for everyone else. Paul Mirengoff posted an interesting comparison between the USA and Sweden that showed Swedish cases per million declining below USA rates: https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2020/04/swedens-numbers-vs-americas.php
    But of course case numbers are meaningless , however, a similar comparison using 3DDRR would seem to be useful in assessing the Swedish/Avalon Hill approach. Sorry I lack the math confidence to attempt it myself.

    • Please don’t use 3DDRR because it uses a cumulative death ratio. Instead, please the relative change in new deaths. By relative I mean for example percentage.

  3. https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/04/trials-drugs-prevent-coronavirus-infection-begin-health-care-workers

    White and his colleagues at the Mahidol Oxford Tropical Medicine Research Unit wondered whether widely available drugs could help. They have designed a trial in which 40,000 doctors and nurses in Asia, Africa, and Europe will prophylactically receive chloroquine or hydroxychloroquine, two old drugs against malaria. White hopes the trial will start this month, but its launch has been “incredibly difficult because of bureaucratic processes,” he says

    —–
    What bureaucratic process prevents this trial of volunteers? They are not variolating, but they are voluntary subjects with medical degrees.

    • I am thinking of the movie MASH when Sutherland and Gould are in Japan doing illegal surgery and the hospital administrator shows up. This is war, just gas and blackmail the bureaucrat, anything goes.

      Anything goes for the ER staff at this point, if this is a good idea they do not need badges.

  6. Off topic:

    Morgan Stanley’s chief U.S. equity strategist Mike Wilson might agree with you about inflation. This week he wrote…

    “Bear markets end with recessions, they don’t begin with them, making the risk/reward more attractive today than it’s been in years; with the twist that the next leg of the bull market could look much different than the last and the unthinkable – inflation – begins to appear.”

    I don’t know if something “unthinkable” is as extreme as what you characterize as an “inflation virus” but it superficially seems like you may be in agreement. I hope you are both right but I doubt it. How high do you think it will be? When? PCE or core PCE?

  7. https://hotair.com/headlines/archives/2020/04/grocery-workers-beginning-die-coronavirus/
    Grocery Workers Are Beginning To Die Of Coronavirus
    —
    It is a pandemic, these workers are dying now because they failed to price gouge toilet paper two weeks ago.

    There were mobs at the store, stocking up, and we know that one hundred people in a closed environment over eight hours will spread to 15 people. A natural experiment, though I lost the reference, take the numbers as approximate. If you never believed that short queues is an economic optimum, then believe now.

    • “these workers are dying now because they failed to price gouge toilet paper two weeks ago.”

      I thought they were dying because they are too poor not to go to work, need public transportation to get to work, and weren’t provided with adequate PPE equipment at the beginning of the crisis (and sometimes still aren’t) with many being denied bringing their own from home by employers that were worried it would make the customers nervous.

      But no, its because toilet paper wasn’t jacked up in price. You know if these grocery store suddenly tripled the price of everything I can’t possibly imagine panicked customers trying to loot the place as fast as they could.

  8. Fond memories of Avalon Hill games (Panzer Leader, Squad Leader, and Napoleon were favorites) played many years ago! Wish I still had those games during this time of quarantine.

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