So I read the whole thing. Is it me or did he kinda leave out the issue of hospitals (and thus the main fortress in healthcare) being completely overwhelmed? The footage of Italian hospitals...
So I read the whole thing. Is it me or did he kinda leave out the issue of hospitals (and thus the main fortress in healthcare) being completely overwhelmed?
The footage of Italian hospitals brought to collapse in the early weeks/months of the outbreak was what convinced me that this is real and what probably inspired the lockdowns elsewhere in Europe. "Flatten the curve" was a campaign to point out how it's not even so much about preventing COVID deaths but about spreading out cases over a greater amount of time so they don't end up clogging the healthcare system. One of the best measures of success are intensive care unit occupancy.
I think that's important, but you still have to distinguish between the effects of government rules versus what people do because they know it's serious. You could think of "flatten the curve" as...
I think that's important, but you still have to distinguish between the effects of government rules versus what people do because they know it's serious. You could think of "flatten the curve" as a marketing campaign that affected what people did without any legal restriction. (Though it probably also increased public support for lockdowns.)
Tracking hospital capacity is important but it doesn't tell us why people did what they did.
This persons articles always follow the same pattern for me, I get invested in the first 2/3rds or so when the author presents a coherent summary of current research, and then the last 1/3rd the...
This persons articles always follow the same pattern for me, I get invested in the first 2/3rds or so when the author presents a coherent summary of current research, and then the last 1/3rd the author starts bullshitting and multiplying numbers together to do unit cancellation and uses this to come to whatever conclusion they preferred in the first place. Like I don’t disagree with the conclusion here but just saying “oh there’s high error bars here” when you say that more strict lockdowns accounted for .6% of GDP loss some states is just ineffective communication.
With this sort of essay, I don't think it's all that important whether or not you agree with the conclusions. After all, in the end it's a judgment call. But I think seeing someone else make a...
With this sort of essay, I don't think it's all that important whether or not you agree with the conclusions. After all, in the end it's a judgment call.
But I think seeing someone else make a serious attempt at it is useful for seeing why it's a difficult question that even experts will disagree on, and it provides references for further reading if you're curious enough to make an attempt yourself.
In this blog post, Scott Alexander reviews various scientific studies about how effective various lockdowns were, and does a bit of his own analysis. I tried excerpting but couldn't find a fair...
In this blog post, Scott Alexander reviews various scientific studies about how effective various lockdowns were, and does a bit of his own analysis. I tried excerpting but couldn't find a fair way to do it. I'll just quote the final sentence:
All of this is very speculative and affected by a lot of factors, and the error bars are very wide.
So I read the whole thing. Is it me or did he kinda leave out the issue of hospitals (and thus the main fortress in healthcare) being completely overwhelmed?
The footage of Italian hospitals brought to collapse in the early weeks/months of the outbreak was what convinced me that this is real and what probably inspired the lockdowns elsewhere in Europe. "Flatten the curve" was a campaign to point out how it's not even so much about preventing COVID deaths but about spreading out cases over a greater amount of time so they don't end up clogging the healthcare system. One of the best measures of success are intensive care unit occupancy.
I think that's important, but you still have to distinguish between the effects of government rules versus what people do because they know it's serious. You could think of "flatten the curve" as a marketing campaign that affected what people did without any legal restriction. (Though it probably also increased public support for lockdowns.)
Tracking hospital capacity is important but it doesn't tell us why people did what they did.
This persons articles always follow the same pattern for me, I get invested in the first 2/3rds or so when the author presents a coherent summary of current research, and then the last 1/3rd the author starts bullshitting and multiplying numbers together to do unit cancellation and uses this to come to whatever conclusion they preferred in the first place. Like I don’t disagree with the conclusion here but just saying “oh there’s high error bars here” when you say that more strict lockdowns accounted for .6% of GDP loss some states is just ineffective communication.
With this sort of essay, I don't think it's all that important whether or not you agree with the conclusions. After all, in the end it's a judgment call.
But I think seeing someone else make a serious attempt at it is useful for seeing why it's a difficult question that even experts will disagree on, and it provides references for further reading if you're curious enough to make an attempt yourself.
In this blog post, Scott Alexander reviews various scientific studies about how effective various lockdowns were, and does a bit of his own analysis. I tried excerpting but couldn't find a fair way to do it. I'll just quote the final sentence:
To measure lockdown effectiveness, you really need to measure the stringency of the lockdown as well.
E.g. here is Australia vs New Zealand