The COVID-19 pandemic, despite its unprecedented scale, mirrored previous disasters in its predictable missteps in preparedness and response. Rather than blaming individual actors or assuming better leadership would have prevented disaster, I examine how standard political incentives—myopic voters, bureaucratic gridlock, and fear of blame—predictably produced an inadequate pandemic response. The analysis rejects romantic calls for institutional reform and instead proposes pragmatic solutions that work within existing political constraints: wastewater surveillance, prediction markets, pre-developed vaccine libraries, human challenge trials, a dedicated Pandemic Trust Fund, and temporary public–private partnerships. These mechanisms respect political realities while creating systems that can ameliorate future pandemics, potentially saving millions of lives and trillions in economic damage.
N.b. - this is written by Alex Tabarrok, a (brilliant) economist. He is not an epidemiologist. I think that's a pro and not a con, but mentioning it for those interested.
N.b. - this is written by Alex Tabarrok, a (brilliant) economist. He is not an epidemiologist. I think that's a pro and not a con, but mentioning it for those interested.
Read the abstract and a bit of the intro and I’m just kinda annoyed that everyone knows what the problem is, people like Trump and Joe Rogan purposely spreading misinformation, and every...
Read the abstract and a bit of the intro and I’m just kinda annoyed that everyone knows what the problem is, people like Trump and Joe Rogan purposely spreading misinformation, and every intellectual out here is just ‘spreading awareness’ to the people who are already aware, and not the people sucked into the misinformation bubble.
It's not going to move the needle as far as the general public is concerned, but I think it's good that academic discussions go on regardless of what else is happening.
It's not going to move the needle as far as the general public is concerned, but I think it's good that academic discussions go on regardless of what else is happening.
I’m all for research just for researches sake. I understand that it all happens in tiny increments and builds on itself slowly. It just feels like this paper is written in the context of a world...
I’m all for research just for researches sake. I understand that it all happens in tiny increments and builds on itself slowly.
It just feels like this paper is written in the context of a world that I no longer live in. He’s putting forth actual problems and reasonable solutions when my government is like ‘covid didn’t happen’
I think we got here by ignoring that rhetoric and hoping it goes away, and the more we publish things without the context of the current admin, the stronger they become.
I think it might give that vibe partly because it’s written from a more global perspective, and also because it’s not about current events? Tabarrok is an American economist, but pandemic...
I think it might give that vibe partly because it’s written from a more global perspective, and also because it’s not about current events? Tabarrok is an American economist, but pandemic preparedness is a problem in every country. It will still be a problem after Trump is gone.
Writing about policy from that lofty perspective, assuming that people will be convinced by rational arguments, is pointless unless we assume there are some rational policy makers somewhere in the world who might be influenced.
(Also, who has gone so far as pretending the pandemic didn’t happen?)
Yeah covid denial really is some soviet russia shit right? Totally wild, but near everyone where I live thinks its a conspiracy. I like that the rest of the world is still rational though. Easy to...
Yeah covid denial really is some soviet russia shit right? Totally wild, but near everyone where I live thinks its a conspiracy.
I like that the rest of the world is still rational though. Easy to forget cause I’m trapped in this us centric media bubble
Here is the abstract:
N.b. - this is written by Alex Tabarrok, a (brilliant) economist. He is not an epidemiologist. I think that's a pro and not a con, but mentioning it for those interested.
Read the abstract and a bit of the intro and I’m just kinda annoyed that everyone knows what the problem is, people like Trump and Joe Rogan purposely spreading misinformation, and every intellectual out here is just ‘spreading awareness’ to the people who are already aware, and not the people sucked into the misinformation bubble.
It's not going to move the needle as far as the general public is concerned, but I think it's good that academic discussions go on regardless of what else is happening.
I’m all for research just for researches sake. I understand that it all happens in tiny increments and builds on itself slowly.
It just feels like this paper is written in the context of a world that I no longer live in. He’s putting forth actual problems and reasonable solutions when my government is like ‘covid didn’t happen’
I think we got here by ignoring that rhetoric and hoping it goes away, and the more we publish things without the context of the current admin, the stronger they become.
I think it might give that vibe partly because it’s written from a more global perspective, and also because it’s not about current events? Tabarrok is an American economist, but pandemic preparedness is a problem in every country. It will still be a problem after Trump is gone.
Writing about policy from that lofty perspective, assuming that people will be convinced by rational arguments, is pointless unless we assume there are some rational policy makers somewhere in the world who might be influenced.
(Also, who has gone so far as pretending the pandemic didn’t happen?)
Yeah covid denial really is some soviet russia shit right? Totally wild, but near everyone where I live thinks its a conspiracy.
I like that the rest of the world is still rational though. Easy to forget cause I’m trapped in this us centric media bubble