With hindsight we can now safely say the world understands inflation again.
Destroying carefully honed supply chains, stopping workers from producing, issuing trillions in new debt for handouts, which only transferred wealth from productive to unproductive sectors of the global economy...
While at the same time retiring fossil fuel energy sources with renewables unready to plug the gaps...
The global population is paying the price for their hysteria via hikes in prices for all the goods & services they buy.
Making more people aware of the excessive costs of the NPI's that we actually got is hugely important. Full Stop. More power to you.
I think you somewhat undermine the message, however, by implying that almost no NPI were cost effective and that everyone who should have know, knew it.
And errors in vaccine development and deployment involve a different set of issues.
I think not crowding into closed poorly ventilated spaces was a good idea and cost little. Masking probably stops some outward transmission and is pretty low cost. Some amount of work from home has turned out to be no cost at all. [Look how hard is it is to get people to come back for 40h in the office] Aggressive improvement of ventilation including UV sterilization probably WOULD have been cost effective, but it was not pushed. And the value of everything changes with number of vaccinated people.
So yes. I think PH officials could (and should) have given individuals and policy makers the information and tools for making cost effective decisions about PHIs and vaccinations and that the right decisions would seldom have been to do nothing.
These are certainly questions I have asked. My best answer currently is that this was crowd behaviour, where there were individual benefits for going along with the panic that led to collectively doing very costly things. Just remember, people loved lockdowns. It was electorally very successful across much of the world, with few exceptions. So while I do blame the experts, politicians, journos and importantly the many vested interests, I think the rest of us need to take a small share of the blame too.
Currently Australia has a COVID mortality rate of 62.95/100,000 for about 15k deaths from COVID.
The counter factual scenario is we do less to reduce the impact of COVID. The USA (where they did a lot less) has a COVID mortality rate of 327.48/100,000. At that rate Australia would have had in the order of ~81k COVID death, or ~66k more than we've actually had.
While lockdowns and restrictions might have led to the 18k excess deaths you've talked about, that's still a lot less than the 66k extra deaths we could reasonably expect if we hadn't taken steps to restrict COVID spread?
Sure. You can compare to only the USA if you want (though I'd be wary of their statistics). But plenty of places, like Sweden, had fewer excess deaths until today from all causes than Australia.
While it’s true that Covid is mainly a danger to the elderly, quite a few younger people, perhaps unaware of their co-morbidities, died early in the pandemic. Because it wasn’t yet clear what these co-morbidities might be and how to treat symptoms, some of the early NPIs were justified…..but certainly not after vaccine availability, and not after it became more apparent how SARS2 spreads.
Just curious Cam, are there any countries/jurisdictions that have avoided (or have limited) the uptick in non-COVID deaths? If so, what made their COVID policy responses different? Are there any good counter-factuals?
Or is the claim that this is a global problem that no single nation could insulate themselves from? Because if individual national decisions on COVID policy responses were somewhat powerless to prevent the rise in non-COVID deaths, then we have a global collective action problem. And while we can point fingers at ourselves, policymakers, politicians, journos etc. It isn't clear whether we would've bucked the global trend or not had our own domestic policies been different.
The real long term affects of Covid is a chronic cohort of folks who picked one side of the argument early doors and refused to change their mind. They've doubled down on an idea that Covid is mostly harmless, vaccines are risky and policy makers are stupid.
It's really not hard to find good evidence to the contrary - though you seem to ignore it wilfully.
How can anyone take you at face value when you ignore this? Are you afraid to change your mind? I guess I would be too if I'd gone on TV and print newspaper with a reputation for challenging the status quo. It would be an embarrassing climb down, so time is better spent throwing doubt at areas that are grey before moving onto the next thing that policy makers get wrong (Inevitably). One could make a career out of it.
There is a lack of concrete data around the effects of lockdown on health, however emergent data about Covid (Long term and insidious multi organ infection) points to the high likelihood that Covid is more nefarious than a simple respiratory infection. You would do well to pay attention to this data and perhaps take your head out of the circle jerk of conspiracy theorists and cranks you obviously enjoy.
I've had COVID. Just about everyone has. Thank you for your concern though.
What do you think was the right policy response? Do you think China is doing the right thing at the moment with lockdowns and mass testing?
I find it interesting that you have not provided any evidence or argument against what I have written. I'd prefer that if you would like to comment in future that you try doing so.
You've ignored the fact that I've presented evidence that Covid is not a simple respiratory condition. This is a clear sign to me that you are wedded to your beliefs and not arguing in good faith. Perhaps you've disappeared down a conspiracy hole - It's a real possibility that can affect the brightest among us (Understandable emotional reaction given the position you've dug yourself into).
I will give you the respect of answering your question - Do I agree with what China is doing? Absolutely not - It's dystopian and futile. What was the right policy response for us? I think we did OK all things considered. Covid is a much more serious and nefarious disease than you make out - this is the crux of the current issue. If you believe it's serious, then the policy response for a novel virus is more understandable. If you think you've had worse colds and you're not at risk of a condition like Long Covid then there's not much I can do to convince you otherwise. I've had real life conversations with a family member going through a psychotic episode - the experience taught me that no matter what evidence is presented to reassure them, they are incapable of changing their minds. A bit like China's ongoing efforts - ultimately futile.
With hindsight we can now safely say the world understands inflation again.
Destroying carefully honed supply chains, stopping workers from producing, issuing trillions in new debt for handouts, which only transferred wealth from productive to unproductive sectors of the global economy...
While at the same time retiring fossil fuel energy sources with renewables unready to plug the gaps...
The global population is paying the price for their hysteria via hikes in prices for all the goods & services they buy.
Making more people aware of the excessive costs of the NPI's that we actually got is hugely important. Full Stop. More power to you.
I think you somewhat undermine the message, however, by implying that almost no NPI were cost effective and that everyone who should have know, knew it.
And errors in vaccine development and deployment involve a different set of issues.
"implying that almost no NPI were cost effective and that everyone who should have know, knew it."
I hope I'm not implying it, but am directly stating that this is the case. Which do you think were useful?
I think not crowding into closed poorly ventilated spaces was a good idea and cost little. Masking probably stops some outward transmission and is pretty low cost. Some amount of work from home has turned out to be no cost at all. [Look how hard is it is to get people to come back for 40h in the office] Aggressive improvement of ventilation including UV sterilization probably WOULD have been cost effective, but it was not pushed. And the value of everything changes with number of vaccinated people.
So yes. I think PH officials could (and should) have given individuals and policy makers the information and tools for making cost effective decisions about PHIs and vaccinations and that the right decisions would seldom have been to do nothing.
You need to narrow your focus. Who made which decisions with NPV< 0? Why did they make them? Why didn't the media catch them out?
These are certainly questions I have asked. My best answer currently is that this was crowd behaviour, where there were individual benefits for going along with the panic that led to collectively doing very costly things. Just remember, people loved lockdowns. It was electorally very successful across much of the world, with few exceptions. So while I do blame the experts, politicians, journos and importantly the many vested interests, I think the rest of us need to take a small share of the blame too.
I've been following this series of essays with great interest. I'm curious who you mean specifically when you refer to vested interests?
:) It's never a bad thing to be aware of one's own shortcomings.
What about the counter factual scenario though?
Currently Australia has a COVID mortality rate of 62.95/100,000 for about 15k deaths from COVID.
The counter factual scenario is we do less to reduce the impact of COVID. The USA (where they did a lot less) has a COVID mortality rate of 327.48/100,000. At that rate Australia would have had in the order of ~81k COVID death, or ~66k more than we've actually had.
While lockdowns and restrictions might have led to the 18k excess deaths you've talked about, that's still a lot less than the 66k extra deaths we could reasonably expect if we hadn't taken steps to restrict COVID spread?
Sure. You can compare to only the USA if you want (though I'd be wary of their statistics). But plenty of places, like Sweden, had fewer excess deaths until today from all causes than Australia.
Sweden had a COVID mortality rate of 207.22 - still way above us.
Using Swedens numbers instead of the US, we'd expect ~36k more COVID deaths than we had.
While it’s true that Covid is mainly a danger to the elderly, quite a few younger people, perhaps unaware of their co-morbidities, died early in the pandemic. Because it wasn’t yet clear what these co-morbidities might be and how to treat symptoms, some of the early NPIs were justified…..but certainly not after vaccine availability, and not after it became more apparent how SARS2 spreads.
What happened to Sweden? They went down the pandemic handbook path didn’t they?
Just curious Cam, are there any countries/jurisdictions that have avoided (or have limited) the uptick in non-COVID deaths? If so, what made their COVID policy responses different? Are there any good counter-factuals?
Or is the claim that this is a global problem that no single nation could insulate themselves from? Because if individual national decisions on COVID policy responses were somewhat powerless to prevent the rise in non-COVID deaths, then we have a global collective action problem. And while we can point fingers at ourselves, policymakers, politicians, journos etc. It isn't clear whether we would've bucked the global trend or not had our own domestic policies been different.
The real long term affects of Covid is a chronic cohort of folks who picked one side of the argument early doors and refused to change their mind. They've doubled down on an idea that Covid is mostly harmless, vaccines are risky and policy makers are stupid.
It's really not hard to find good evidence to the contrary - though you seem to ignore it wilfully.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10238-020-00648-x
https://academic.oup.com/eurheartj/article/43/11/1124/6499078
And so on.
How can anyone take you at face value when you ignore this? Are you afraid to change your mind? I guess I would be too if I'd gone on TV and print newspaper with a reputation for challenging the status quo. It would be an embarrassing climb down, so time is better spent throwing doubt at areas that are grey before moving onto the next thing that policy makers get wrong (Inevitably). One could make a career out of it.
There is a lack of concrete data around the effects of lockdown on health, however emergent data about Covid (Long term and insidious multi organ infection) points to the high likelihood that Covid is more nefarious than a simple respiratory infection. You would do well to pay attention to this data and perhaps take your head out of the circle jerk of conspiracy theorists and cranks you obviously enjoy.
Good luck with your next Covid infection.
I've had COVID. Just about everyone has. Thank you for your concern though.
What do you think was the right policy response? Do you think China is doing the right thing at the moment with lockdowns and mass testing?
I find it interesting that you have not provided any evidence or argument against what I have written. I'd prefer that if you would like to comment in future that you try doing so.
You've ignored the fact that I've presented evidence that Covid is not a simple respiratory condition. This is a clear sign to me that you are wedded to your beliefs and not arguing in good faith. Perhaps you've disappeared down a conspiracy hole - It's a real possibility that can affect the brightest among us (Understandable emotional reaction given the position you've dug yourself into).
I will give you the respect of answering your question - Do I agree with what China is doing? Absolutely not - It's dystopian and futile. What was the right policy response for us? I think we did OK all things considered. Covid is a much more serious and nefarious disease than you make out - this is the crux of the current issue. If you believe it's serious, then the policy response for a novel virus is more understandable. If you think you've had worse colds and you're not at risk of a condition like Long Covid then there's not much I can do to convince you otherwise. I've had real life conversations with a family member going through a psychotic episode - the experience taught me that no matter what evidence is presented to reassure them, they are incapable of changing their minds. A bit like China's ongoing efforts - ultimately futile.
Good luck with your next infection.