I looked at doing this a few months ago, and my conclusion was that it was going to be a lot of work that would not influence very many people’s behavior. Some contributors to this belief:
Recent LessWrong posts about long covid were not getting that much karma (example, example).
People I know don’t seem like they’d be moved on the margin by changes in the EV of long covid: people either think “you’re gonna get it eventually so why work so hard to get it a little later” or “no risk is acceptable I’m staying in lockdown”.
My assessment that, post-vaccination, covid was in the range of other health concerns, and most people had lower hanging fruit to pick on their health.
My belief that getting wide usage was going to require a fantastic UI, and that seemed like a lot of work.
When I talked to people they liked the idea a lot, but when I framed it in terms of “what would you give up to get this?”, the answer was always “not much”.
I don’t think people would necessarily have predicted how much microcovid improved their lives, so this could surprise people too. But I think this is a harder environment in which to bootstrap a new tool than summer 2020, so I would need a much more developed MVP to get attention.
I think doing it right would involve multiple skilled/trusted people making frequent updates. The appropriate people are really busy and often not very motivated by money (although you still have to pay for their time, especially over the long haul); the thing that would keep them going was users and impact. For all the reasons listed above I didn’t expect to be able to generate that momentum.
I periodically have posts that take a ton of work but get minimal attention because the facts on the ground are too murky for anyone to say something simultaneously truthful and compelling. It’s draining.
I was offered work on a more important project (my part on that is now finished, but it was definitely the right call to prioritize it from January until April).
If someone else is interested in running this with me as an advisor and estimator, please reach out, I’m happy to talk about my specific idea, which did get a lot of positive feedback. By far the most important thing you would need in PM-type skills like organizing contractors, keeping estimators and users engaged, and management. The next most useful would be the ability to design the UI or implement code yourself. Doing the medical research is not required, and I think there’s an excellent chance I can find funding for a sufficiently good organizer.
Thanks very much for looking into this, and sharing all those details about the conclusion you came to!
I have the PM-type skills for this, but if the consensus of smart people far more numerate than I is that the risk of debilitating long COVID is low enough that it’s comparable to other risks normal people routinely tolerate, it doesn’t seem worth it.
Some follow-up questions for you:
1) Is this still your assessment (i.e. how your assessment evolved since the post you wrote 8 months ago, if at all)?
My assessment that, post-vaccination, covid was in the range of other health concerns, and most people had lower hanging fruit to pick on their health.
2) How likely do you think it is that this would change with further variants? Do you think it is likely enough that this is worth keeping tabs on? (My guess is that this is covered in your overall comment above, but thought I’d check, in case your overall conclusion was about updating risk assessment to reflect new studies, rather than new variants).
My assessment that, post-vaccination, covid was in the range of other health concerns, and most people had lower hanging fruit to pick on their health.
I haven’t done any hardcore investigation since that post, and haven’t changed my mind based on anecdata.
How likely do you think it is that this would change with further variants? Do you think it is likely enough that this is worth keeping tabs on? (My guess is that this is covered in your overall comment above, but thought I’d check, in case your overall conclusion was about updating risk assessment to reflect new studies, rather than new variants).
I think this is where the real value of a covid assesment systems would pay off, if it ever did. To do this it would need to cover both long term damage and acute disease parameters like severity and transmission. Unfortunately this means you need to:
invest a lot with ~no payoff, because you’re not in a world where LessSick is useful
drop everything and respond really quickly whenever new data comes out, even though the answer is probably “no one cares”, because your value prop is that if reality takes a bad turn, you will alert people immediately.
I’ve watched this play out with microcovid and “infinite readiness punctured by quickly doing a lot of cognitively intensive work” is just a very hard dynamic to keep going for years. It’s also not obvious to me that covid is the best use of that energy, relative to other pathogens, and that monitoring pathogens are the best use of that energy relative to exercising and eating well.
However if you feel personally motivated to work on covid, for years, under taxing conditions, in a way you don’t on other projects, I think it’s plausibly worth doing, and there are some generalizable lessons that can be pulled from the project.
I looked at doing this a few months ago, and my conclusion was that it was going to be a lot of work that would not influence very many people’s behavior. Some contributors to this belief:
Recent LessWrong posts about long covid were not getting that much karma (example, example).
People I know don’t seem like they’d be moved on the margin by changes in the EV of long covid: people either think “you’re gonna get it eventually so why work so hard to get it a little later” or “no risk is acceptable I’m staying in lockdown”.
My assessment that, post-vaccination, covid was in the range of other health concerns, and most people had lower hanging fruit to pick on their health.
My belief that getting wide usage was going to require a fantastic UI, and that seemed like a lot of work.
When I talked to people they liked the idea a lot, but when I framed it in terms of “what would you give up to get this?”, the answer was always “not much”.
I don’t think people would necessarily have predicted how much microcovid improved their lives, so this could surprise people too. But I think this is a harder environment in which to bootstrap a new tool than summer 2020, so I would need a much more developed MVP to get attention.
I think doing it right would involve multiple skilled/trusted people making frequent updates. The appropriate people are really busy and often not very motivated by money (although you still have to pay for their time, especially over the long haul); the thing that would keep them going was users and impact. For all the reasons listed above I didn’t expect to be able to generate that momentum.
I periodically have posts that take a ton of work but get minimal attention because the facts on the ground are too murky for anyone to say something simultaneously truthful and compelling. It’s draining.
I was offered work on a more important project (my part on that is now finished, but it was definitely the right call to prioritize it from January until April).
If someone else is interested in running this with me as an advisor and estimator, please reach out, I’m happy to talk about my specific idea, which did get a lot of positive feedback. By far the most important thing you would need in PM-type skills like organizing contractors, keeping estimators and users engaged, and management. The next most useful would be the ability to design the UI or implement code yourself. Doing the medical research is not required, and I think there’s an excellent chance I can find funding for a sufficiently good organizer.
Thanks very much for looking into this, and sharing all those details about the conclusion you came to!
I have the PM-type skills for this, but if the consensus of smart people far more numerate than I is that the risk of debilitating long COVID is low enough that it’s comparable to other risks normal people routinely tolerate, it doesn’t seem worth it.
Some follow-up questions for you:
1) Is this still your assessment (i.e. how your assessment evolved since the post you wrote 8 months ago, if at all)?
My assessment that, post-vaccination, covid was in the range of other health concerns, and most people had lower hanging fruit to pick on their health.
2) How likely do you think it is that this would change with further variants? Do you think it is likely enough that this is worth keeping tabs on? (My guess is that this is covered in your overall comment above, but thought I’d check, in case your overall conclusion was about updating risk assessment to reflect new studies, rather than new variants).
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/conditionsanddiseases/bulletins/selfreportedlongcovidafterinfectionwiththeomicronvariant/6may2022 which a couple other commenters shared seems to indicate that Omicron certainly hasn’t been more likely to cause long COVID than Delta (based on a quick read of the summary at the beginning)
I haven’t done any hardcore investigation since that post, and haven’t changed my mind based on anecdata.
I think this is where the real value of a covid assesment systems would pay off, if it ever did. To do this it would need to cover both long term damage and acute disease parameters like severity and transmission. Unfortunately this means you need to:
invest a lot with ~no payoff, because you’re not in a world where LessSick is useful
drop everything and respond really quickly whenever new data comes out, even though the answer is probably “no one cares”, because your value prop is that if reality takes a bad turn, you will alert people immediately.
I’ve watched this play out with microcovid and “infinite readiness punctured by quickly doing a lot of cognitively intensive work” is just a very hard dynamic to keep going for years. It’s also not obvious to me that covid is the best use of that energy, relative to other pathogens, and that monitoring pathogens are the best use of that energy relative to exercising and eating well.
However if you feel personally motivated to work on covid, for years, under taxing conditions, in a way you don’t on other projects, I think it’s plausibly worth doing, and there are some generalizable lessons that can be pulled from the project.