Evidence-based decision-making
This fellow seems to have his head screwed on straight. He advocates concentrating on isolating on those at the highest risk of COVID complications, while letting everyone else go back to school and work. He gets there by looking carefully at what measures have been tried in different countries, and what effect they had on both general spread and, more important, contributing to a crushing load on hospitals. There's also some welcome attention to scary theories about air-borne transmission and likelihood of infection from casual contact, which bears on how effective careful hand-washing and surface-sanitizing can be even if we end the lockdown before we destroy the economy. He also argues that the biggest danger to the economy is fear, not of the virus, but of what the government may do next.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
14 comments:
From early in the cited article: The United States is tracking with European nations with doubling cases every three days or so. As we measure and test more Americans, this will continue to grow.
He may be interested in data, but he's unfortunately sloppy in describing them. As we measure and test more Americans, the number of cases will not continue to double every three days or so. What will be doubling (assuming his projection is accurate) is the number of known, identified cases. The number of cases is growing, or stabilizing, or shrinking at an unknown rate because we don't have any data on the number of cases actually extant.
It would be good if pundits and pundit wannabes stuck to some context.
Eric Hines
Everyone seems to overlook the fact that if you go looking (testing) for something, you will generally find it. So yes, as we test more, we find more. Now, I'd like to know how many people are negative, and how many are asymptomatic or "meh, just a cold."
And I agree that a lot of people (self included), are looking around and thinking that some folks in government are dreaming of the day they will be in a position to declare an emergency and then abuse government power even further. A bad precedent, set with the best of intentions, is still a very bad precedent.
LittleRed1
I do think that we will begin to see some opening-back-up in April, at least in places that aren't in major outbreaks (and especially in Republican controlled areas). This was perhaps still worth doing, if only because there were so many unknowns about the disease even a couple of weeks ago. As we encounter it directly in numbers, we can begin to make better judgments.
This was perhaps still worth doing, if only because there were so many unknowns about the disease even a couple of weeks ago.
It's always easier to clamp down hard at the outset and then loosen up as conditions allow or become apparent, than it is to stay loose early and then try to tighten up later.
Even if it seems hard to clamp down.
Eric Hines
I am afraid the situation in New York is going to be a significant drag on other states easing restrictions, even if doing so would make sense.
Agreed--it will have the same explosive effect that watching the Italian meltdown did.
I was delighted to see that NY hospitals are routinely administering chloroquine as well as other antivirals. If the treatments are seen to be effective, and even better if they shorten the crisis periods and therefore the drain on the top level of medical intervention, we'll calm down faster. Also, though I'm irritated by the prospect of NY once again demanding the right to commandeer all the resources of the U.S. because they assume they're the center of the universe, it remains true that this is a large rich country that can afford to bail them out, if necessary, if only to slow the disease spread and prevent further economic carnage.
Italy's hardest-hit regions apparently didn't have that luxury. Neither the other Italian regions nor any of their EU neighbors poured in to help.
I can see that for the next few years I'm going to lobbying hard to eliminate "certificates of need." We can't afford to operate the entire country's medical system at half capacity just in case there's an emergency, but overcapacity in some areas--however unjust it may feel, and just spare me anyway--is a good thing to have if you suddenly have to expand the medical system in a crisis.
I've been taking fire locally from a guy who's furious that our small, excellent, local freestanding ER won't let him get care and pay over time, since he has no insurance. They should lose their license, he thinks. I think he shouldn't expect the ER to be his personal bank, and he sure shouldn't try to remove this valuable resource from the rest of us, who have either insurance, savings, or the ability to borrow from a bank or friends or whoever. Everyone who's treated in the local ER is one more person not standing ahead of him in line in the crowded ERs in neighboring counties.
The local ER, by the way, has two, count them, two, ventilators.
From a Maggie's commenter today: "We're in sort of a 'cytokine storm'. The response to the disease is more toxic in the long run than the disease itself."
The article has been "suspended" by Medium for unknown 'violations.'
Hmmmmm. S'pose Eric Ciaramella complained about it?
Reposted at ZeroHedge: https://www.zerohedge.com/health/covid-19-evidence-over-hysteria
I'm sick of these people. Same goes for those now clamoring to prevent the media from airing the President's "dangerous" daily briefing before they get a chance to fact-check them and decide which parts it's safe for us to hear. It's not just Rachel Maddow, either.
To ZeroHedge's credit, they are also including what seems to be the best-thought-of pushback.
Yes, like a real discussion that consists of more than "shut up"!
Yes, it would have been nice if Medium had done the same, especially since that's where the early references to the article send people.
Side note- I've been using Brave browser and been very happy with it. When I went to that page, it automatically offered to check wayback machine to see if it was there (it is). Convenient.
That pushback was more, to my eyes, a critique of sloppiness than actual debate about the substance. It's a paper a guy wrote in presumably a few days, not a doctoral dissertation. Of course it's a bit sloppy in places. I wanted to see someone go at the substance, and I didn't feel he did. I think the susbstance- as offering a real critique of the accepted line right now, was good. He's not really saying he knows whats the real story, he's punching holes in the accepted narrative.
Either way, 'they' are doing their best to squelch it. Twitter flags a link to the Federalist presentation of it as "suspicious". Makes one wonder.
Washington state may be beginning to level off and should see some improvement soon, hopefully, which would be a good sign.
I think once we have the benefit of time and more data, a lot of people's assumptions about this are going to be called into question.
Post a Comment