Weiss harps and harps and harps about models. Epidemiologists recognized very early on that models had a lot of uncertainty in them; the models didn't drive policy per se but the high downside costs of large infection rates did.
It will take a good causal analysis to know if stay-home orders had a salutary effect on incidences.
The estimate of the mortality rate is not so well known as Weiss indicates. As the 1918 pandemic showed, even a 2% mortality rate can be devastating. As it is the US has had >100k excess deaths b/c of COVID-19.
Also 538 has shown good evidence that people were reducing their consumption and travel even before stay-home orders were instituted, implying such orders may have exacerbated but did not cause the big slumps in consumption and employment.
Data from the 1918 pandemic mostly demonstrated that states that implemented more stringent lockdowns had better economic recoveries.
Sweden has now had 44k cases and has the largest per capita case rate.
What exactly about it? As an Italian, I saw most of the measures as excessive and panic-driven. Most of the country did not need a lockdown at all. Perhaps the model made by the Italian expert panel wasn't that good (it predicted, upon reopening, 150,000 Italians needing ICU care in a worst case scenario by June 4th - obviously that did not happen).
And the "plan", if there was one, was simply to wait it out - until some people realized it was going to cause quite a lot of harm.
Of course, the media kept on fueling panic, and also some non-government experts (one in particular saying until recently that masks and physical distancing were useless to reduce spread).
Yesterday even one of the people who handled the lockdown in one of the regions said that perhaps it was too heavy-handed.
Italy is not a good example of things done right. Not at all.
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[ 4.3 ms ] story [ 18.2 ms ] threadIt will take a good causal analysis to know if stay-home orders had a salutary effect on incidences.
The estimate of the mortality rate is not so well known as Weiss indicates. As the 1918 pandemic showed, even a 2% mortality rate can be devastating. As it is the US has had >100k excess deaths b/c of COVID-19.
Also 538 has shown good evidence that people were reducing their consumption and travel even before stay-home orders were instituted, implying such orders may have exacerbated but did not cause the big slumps in consumption and employment.
Data from the 1918 pandemic mostly demonstrated that states that implemented more stringent lockdowns had better economic recoveries.
Sweden has now had 44k cases and has the largest per capita case rate.
Of course, the media kept on fueling panic, and also some non-government experts (one in particular saying until recently that masks and physical distancing were useless to reduce spread).
Yesterday even one of the people who handled the lockdown in one of the regions said that perhaps it was too heavy-handed.
Italy is not a good example of things done right. Not at all.