Shanghai Disneyland will close in effort to contain coronavirus

Waiting for why you're wrong...

Krugman had another column about the relative value of life (as economists do, I guess), but it was the two studies that he linked to that I found particularly interesting.

But even so, doing the math says that social distancing, while it reduced G.D.P., was well worth it.

That’s the conclusion of two studies that estimated the costs and benefits of social distancing, taking the value of a life into account. Indeed, we waited too long: A Columbia University study estimated that locking down just a week earlier would have saved 36,000 lives by early May, and a back-of-the-envelope calculation suggests that the benefits of that earlier lockdown would have been at least five times the cost in lost G.D.P.

Certainly this aligns with the observations of the 1918 pandemic. Our action feels a lot like a Wall Street play... save the quarter at the expense of long-term gains. Mind you, he is making a political statement, but if your intent really is the best outcome, or at least the economically damaging, why wouldn't you pay attention to this?

(I'm first going to admit to just skimming the Post article and nothing more...but I don't have a lot of time right this second)

In cold hard numbers, that makes sense. I would expect it's exactly the kind of analysis you like and value.

But there's still a lot of nuance. Normalcy has value. Returning more towards normalcy is worth something - for the same reason that on paper, buying shiny new toys is often not a good idea, but in practice, having a shiny new toy is a good thing.

Also, (and here he goes on about the demographics again), I don't mean to suggest that older lives aren't as valuable, but the 'cost' of a life is an average. If a pandemic is disproportionately taking less valuable lives - (I know, I know!) - then the back of envelope calculation is going to be a decent clip off.

I guess my point is, this is much more complex a situation than back-of-the-envelope math is good for.

But still, I get it. There's an argument to be made that, in cold hard numbers, we might be economically better off being more conservative with our rush to normalcy.

It's not about what I like or value... I can't find the studies that say letting as many people die as possible, or something in between, is the better economic outcome.

Lord Gonchar said:

Oh, and the WHO is still telling us not to wear masks unless you're caring for somewone with COVID-19 or coughing and sneezing yourself:

It's true.

Am I reading the 2nd paper correctly? Social distancing saves 1.7 million lives and that translates to $8 trillion which it then says is over 1/3 of the entire GDP. I am struggling to understand how 1.7 million people can generate 1/3 of the GDP. By those numbers, we would only need 5.1 million people to generate 100% of the GDP. Obviously I am missing something.

I can't find the studies that say letting as many people die as possible, or something in between, is the better economic outcome.

The two studies noted in the Krugman opinion piece were something in between. No one is talking about absolute lockdowns. Social distancing/stay at home orders are a something in between approach. Question is as has been discussed, where the slider is stopped.

And letting as many people die as possible would involve Covid parties. Not sure I have seen many people seriously talking about that as an option.

The cited studies (or any "study" on cost/benefit analysis of differing approaches) are just like the models for Covid that are based on a number of assumptions. Change the assumptions and the results change. Often dramatically. Aren't just throwing darts at a dart board but they are educated guesses.

A lot of those assumptions are based on historical statistics. But here there is a lot of new with pretty much no historical stats for support. New virus. Never purposefully shutdown functioning economy. Or tried to restart it at some later point. How long until economy recovers. Substantially. Fully. How many jobs that are lost now will not come back. What is the impact on the global economy and how does that effect particular countries. How long will any shutdown last. Will there be another one.

And how much value to put on life. Not only Covid deaths but other deaths as well. Kids not getting vaccinations will lead to quality of life for many and possibly death for others. Checkups/cancer screenings skipped which result in what were preventable deaths. Drug/substance abuse issues. Suicides. Reduced deaths in auto accidents could be factored in as well.

Tons of opportunities to be detailed but not neutral in terms of what you include and exclude. And how you weigh them or on sliding scales where you place values.

The assumptions at this point are reasonably valid. This narrative that we don't know anything had some weight a month ago, but less so now. The models are fairly robust at this point. The volume of testing changes the fatality percentage, but as positive as it is, it doesn't change the fatality outcome.

That's why the https://covidactnow.org/ holds a lot more weight for me now. The prediction model doesn't go that far out, but the current state alone is enough for me to think, yeah, the optimism is premature..

And believe me, I want nothing more than to be wrong. A fall without Food & Wine is sad (if a more white privilege thing has ever been said...). The evidence does not support a positive trend.

Who is talking a narrative that we don't know anything? Saying there is a lot we do not know about the virus is not the same as saying we know nothing.

Shades said:

I am struggling to understand how 1.7 million people can generate 1/3 of the GDP.

I think the assumption behind the math is that 1.7MM people generate $8 trillion in N years of productive life, not in a single year. Not sure how much they discounted due to the typical age of people dying of Covid; it is a point Krugman raised (on the Twitter at least).

Yeah, I think that's lifetime, not per year.

But here there is a lot of new with pretty much no historical stats for support...

Who is talking a narrative that we don't know anything? Saying there is a lot we do not know about the virus is not the same as saying we know nothing.

Agreed, but we know a whole lot at this point to suggest that we don't know enough to make better decisions.

You are mixing two different things. Krugman's opinion piece and the "studies" he referenced were about the economic costs of shutting things down (social distancing). My reference to Covid modeling was simply to state that the financial models (really what they are more than studies) suffer from the same issues as the disease models: lots of assumptions which when changed, alter the models. The rest of what I said (including reference to historical stats) was with respect to the financial models. And those things are true.

Krugman:

But even so, doing the math says that social distancing, while it reduced G.D.P., was well worth it.

How can you make such a definitive statement on a cost/benefit analysis when neither the costs nor the benefits are fully known at this point? His support are the two "studies" which he admits "estimated the costs and benefits of social distancing." What if those estimates are wrong? We know that X is true (unless the assumptions I made to make that determination are not correct in which case X is not true). This reasoning is supposed to be helpful?

A while back we discussed experts, the value of their opinions, and the lack of trust that many have in them. The example of masks, fatality rates, who is most affected, etc all show why.

Being an expert is a relative term, compared to the GP many of us here are experts on rollercoasters, compared to the companies who design and build them we know nothing. The only different between the three groups is the time and effort put into the topic at hand.

Science evolves and develops around testing a hypothesis, outcomes build scientific theory. These theories, if not broken down by further testing and hypotheses, become accepted as fact. However, all of this takes time and in many cases quite a bit of it, especially for complex subjects. Considering this virus we have not had extended lengths of time to prove or disprove theories. Everything is still just a hypothesis being tested. The nature of science is what makes it work so well, yet also makes it so untrustworthy in the beginning. It is no surprise that experts flip flop on stance, and it is also no surprise that people reject the experts. With time certain ideas will continue to hold true, and after hearing and seeing expert alignment along with some time those ideas will be accepted by the majority.

Some of us here said long ago that there would be an acceptable death rate, we also argued awhile ago that this disease is not very much of a threat to the younger healthy demographic. We were making hypotheses just like the experts, we just weren't able to actually test any of them.

Some of those experts got it right, others did not. Who should we side with when new ideas and statements are made? That question depends on the individual. For most of us our confirmation bias will lead us to grab the experts who support our own hypotheses.

To put this into coaster terms, look at B&M vs RMC or Intamin. All experts in designing rides, B&M has perfected and used the same methods and designs for some time. They have less difficulties. RMC and Intamin push the boundaries much harder and this results in some ideas that work really well, and some that don't always pan out.

Our experts right now are trying to push hard and fast. Not taking their time to perfect everything in the labs before releasing their statements.

TheMillenniumRider said:

With time certain ideas will continue to hold true, and after hearing and seeing expert alignment along with some time those ideas will be accepted by the majority.

You mean like climate change? Or anti-vax?

Some of those experts got it right, others did not. Who should we side with when new ideas and statements are made? That question depends on the individual. For most of us our confirmation bias will lead us to grab the experts who support our own hypotheses.

The decision of which of the differing experts to trust should still be made on scientific principles: Their expertise and experience in the field, the confidence intervals of their statistical analysis, peer reviews, critical reflection, further research, etc. It should not be based on gut feelings, YouTube videos and celebrity bloggers, conspiracy theories, what's convenient, what's politically advantageous, etc. I see way too much "science evolves and sometimes gets it wrong before it gets it right, so I just trust my gut instead," especially LONG after the scientific consensus has solidified.

To use your analogy, if I were a park I wouldn't buy an Intamin ride because "I had a good feeling about it" or because Jenny McCarthy says I should or because someone with no credentials did a conspiracy theory hit piece YouTube video on B&M. I would want to see demonstrable evidence that the ride and its design process was different from Shoot the Rapids and Top Thrill Dragster.

hambone said:

I think the assumption behind the math is that 1.7MM people generate $8 trillion in N years of productive life, not in a single year.

That makes sense. Just odd that they put it in terms of GDP.

Using the data for the 70-79 age group, the 561,000 lives saved by distancing are responsible for $2.06 trillion over the rest of their lives. That equates to $3,670,000 per person. That seems like an awful lot of money for people that old.

Jeff said:

That's why the https://covidactnow.org/ holds a lot more weight for me now. The prediction model doesn't go that far out, but the current state alone is enough for me to think, yeah, the optimism is premature.

I am curious what data you are honing in on at that site? You mentioned the ICU beds a few pages back. Looking at the random hot-spot states, the overall ICU occupancy is very low. I clicked on a few counties that I thought might be bad. In those cases what I found is that their ICU rate is high, but it is due to very limited beds. Take Elmore county, Alabama. They are at 100% but they only have 5 total beds in the county.

ApolloAndy said:

You mean like climate change? Or anti-vax?

Anti vax is a small noisy minority, so I don't consider them. However climate change is a good point. Maybe it is also a seeing is believing thing and I sat here for a few minutes and attempted to think of something that has changed in my life so far because of climate change and I can't come up with a single answer.

Also, I think with climate change we are talking about something that is still debated by a large number of people. If we were truly worried about climate change we would all be switching our cars to electric and our power grid to 100% nuclear and that would most likely clear up more than enough for everything to be solved.

But that's exactly the point. It's not that people are waiting for experts to come to a consensus. There is a very, very clear consensus within the scientific community that climate change is real and anthropogenic. It's that people don't actually care what experts say when it's inconvenient. Scientists are worried. Policy makers are generally not because citizens are generally not.

I have no reason to believe that the response to Corona related protocols isn't coming from the exact same "science unless it's inconvenient, then my gut" place.

Re: Covid site, it's the infection rate numbers that are appealing about that, expressed as the current R0, by state and county. For example, Orange County was just last week at 0.99, but now it's 1.02, meaning the rate is going in the wrong direction. If it gets back over 1.2, we're basically back where we started.

Putting "studies" in quotes... what's that about? They're published, peer reviewed studies. That you have to make assumptions does not invalidate them. If a respected economist believes that the math in the studies checks out, I respect that and I respect the peer review process.

Both cost/benefit analysis papers are based on significant numbers of assumptions. Change those assumptions (and at this point there is a ton of uncertainty on both the cost and benefit sides) and the conclusions change as well. The papers themselves actually acknowledge that repeatedly (one specifically noting that certain benchmark parameters are reasonably close to their break-even levels, which suggests that positive net benefits are not assured). Krugman doesn't. He definitely understands the significance of estimates and assumptions so it must be another reason. Guess thats where the "not neutral" part comes in. Thought there was something about true/facts being included though.

Assumed cost A = $10

Assumed cost B = $15

Assumed benefit X = $12

Assumed benefit Y = $10

Net cost: $3

If math checks out, analysis good?