Review of a paper on economics of covid prevention. Costs way higher than reasonable valuation of health benefits, not to say we shouldn’t do prevention but the economic lockdowns are skewing the cost/benefit ratio. over half the costs are lockdown rather than health impacts, and the valuation of those health impacts is also very aggressively / highly valued looking at deaths rather than lost years of life.
we’d get only $1.08T and $0.64T for covid death and impairment harms, which gives a prevention to harm cost ratio of 5.31. (Which isn’t that far off of the 4.0 median estimate from my most recent poll.)
And its crazy to think that on average we are getting a 5.41% cut on covid harm for each 1% increase in prevention cost we pay! In fact, in most recent poll median estimate is that we’d instead get only a 0.18% cut in covid harm. And that’s why I say we are way over-preventing covid.
Perhaps wasteful spending on covid is more accurate than over-preventing.
“The study also uncovered that the biggest percentage rise in excess deaths were in those aged 25 to 44, which experienced a 27% increase over an average year. Among those over 85 years old, there was a 14% increase in excess deaths.”
Given that a majority of Covid deaths have been the elderly, doesnt this indicate that a lot of the deaths were people that would’ve died regardless? I know that Covid deaths are typically reported as “over 65”, so the data sets arent an exact overlap.
And since you dont typically expect people age 25-44 to just up and die, it make sense that the increase is a higher percentage, even though the absolute numbers remain quite small.
Congratulations are in order for Texas, which recently took over the #1 spot among the states by number of confirmed cases. California, which somehow managed to reduce the number of daily infections and deaths from the summer highs, slides to #2.
The effects of a growing herd immunity. Remove 10% of the population from the pool of potential infections, and you’ve reduced the rate of community spread by 10%.
Yeah, no. CA has a higher population and due to more international travel it got hit hard early before they had warning (well… we HAD warning, but Trump decided not to tell anyone… so, CA had no warning.). Despite this disadvantage with a much higher initial spread, CA is now at a cumulative total of around 40 deaths per 100,000. Whereas TX is already over 60.
Abbott drove hospitals to their breaking point in July and then we only pulled back about 50%-70% from that incredibly high water mark and have stayed there (and increasing again now).
Steve Bannon! (which is an automatic invalidation, much like “Russia!”)
She claimed there would be an orchestrated superspreader event at the White House targeting Trump (well before there was a superspreader event at the White House that did get to Trump).
She notes some random person who first suggested what she’s suggesting.
CNN doesnt understand that unincorporated businesses would not be registered with a state’s Secretary of State.
Others have reached the same conclusion as her, but not the “right” others.
Some Chinese scientists with family in China are concerned about blowing the whistle on a merciless and vengeful Chinese government.
Local scientists dont get to see second hand what she saw in China first hand.
And then some gushing over what a respected scientist she is, and a picture that somehow manages to get all the name dropping done in a single frame.
I dont know what “extraordinary evidence” anyone could expect from someone who fled China and remains in hiding. Having much actual evidence at all would almost necessarily require the cooperation of the Chinese government.
Known liars / exaggerators / criminals like Bannon (and Trump) should strive to never have their name associated with anything credible. Otherwise it is automatically suspect.
You do understand what “redundancies” are, right? It’s paying twice for one job, they didnt just say “screw it, we dont need to worry about that function”.
…crossing the center line head-on into the returning virus.
This one issue is going to doom Trump, more than dislike IMO. He would’ve had a cakewalk reelection if he actually showed compassion, caring, and resolve to tackle it.
Not even that. Simply stop referring to everything as “the best [whatever] ever”. Just “As good as anyone else could’ve done” alone would’ve saved a lot of votes (you can agree or disagree with the sentiment itself, but it’s pretty certain more people would’ve bought in).
Death rates have always lagged behind case rates, because COVID is not like a heart attack – people don’t die the same day, it could take a few weeks. More cases means more community spread. More community spread means even more people could get infected if communities do not take any measures to slow it down.
Hope and pray all you want, but just because the president says “soon” and pulls unrealistic dates out of his ass, it doesn’t mean the pandemic will be over any time soon. Even if good vaccines are available within a few weeks, it could be another 6-12 months before enough people are immunized (and this is assuming that the vaccines are effective against multiple strains). Russia has had one vaccine and has been vaccinating the military (and the rich) for a few months I think? I think they’ve approved a second one not long ago. Don’t know how good those vaccines are, but their cases and deaths are still rising quickly (or maybe they’re just lying less about the numbers).
I doubt that any of the almost 66M people who voted for Hillary would have voted for Trump even if he properly handled this single issue (or just demonstrated these qualities which he does not possess), so I also doubt it could ever be a cakewalk. He’s the least popular president ever – his approval rating has never been > 50%, and compared to other recent presidents he’s one of the least popular, only comparable to Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford.
Good #1 vaccines could be right around the corner. Millions of Americans could start the vaccination process sooner rather than later. (as you predict)
Sure. But we have a little over a few (3) hundred million Americans, though not all will be vaccinated, we need many of them for herd immunity. The vaccines need to be manufactured (which probably will happen as they got a bunch of money and are supposedly already making them), distributed, then administered. And they might have to be administered twice, with second being like a booster shot a few weeks or months later. So my guess of 6-12 months isn’t that far off, right?