I get the impression that you might be thinking about this in terms of a false dichotomy. It seems correct to me to note that much longer lockdowns are politically infeasible in large parts of the US, but this doesn’t mean that most states will just let their entire population catch the virus. Maybe there’ll be a second wave and then states that are similarly badly hit as New York and New Jersey will change their stance. Or maybe some states succeed at lessening the restrictions in a smart way, with masks and so on. Maybe the people are sufficiently afraid to catch the virus that they socially distance themselves of their own accord, even when businesses reopen.
Expert predictions say that there have been between 4.8M—28M infections in the US so far (80%) confidence interval. Those infections are responsible for 73k+ deaths so far, and predictions say the median number of deaths will be below 300k in the US (probably even below 200k but I think there was an upward trend in the latest survey, and some chance they’re now between 200k and 300k).
I’ve been doing predicting as well and I agree with those predictions (I’m saying this because it can be justifiable to not always trust experts). Therefore I don’t think it makes sense to assume you’ll likely be exposed to the virus anyway. (The case for this is even stronger if you live in Germany or the UK; the upward trend in predictions about the US is a bit concerning.) For those who want to avoid low-ish but non-negligible risks of becoming sick for sometimes quite a long time, with a virus that in some instances can do do all kinds of strange and scary things that we don’t fully understand yet (see also Elizabeth’s comment above), it’s good to have the advice available! (Of course, I’m not necessarily saying I endorse all of those pieces of advice.)
I don’t think I’m thinking about it in terms of a false dichotomy. I tried to argue against what I think are the countermeasures that are the least likely to be helpful, not all countermeasures. The only strong stance I took (as far as I can see) is that the countermeasures are harmful even without considering their costs. In the real world, the costs are non-negligible.
I certainly don’t think any state will just let their entire population catch the virus! Rather, I think that some people, due to job, lifestyle, and how dangerous the infection is likely to be to them (both in relative and absolute terms) are very likely to catch it sooner or later. The sooner those people have it, the more of them will recover from it while we’re on lockdown (be it state- or self-imposed). I expect this to have a positive effect on the outcomes when lockdown is released. This can also be a self-selecting group to some extent—sure, you don’t have to visit your grandparents, but wouldn’t it be good (both for you and for them) to be able to? Similarly, immune people volunteering at or temporarily working for retirement homes might produce large gains for those living there.
I think the expert “predictions” about what is currently the case are reasonably accurate. I’m far less convinced about their predictions about the future—they were totally wrong about what things would be like now.
Certainly having the information on prevention available is useful—you might be a member of a vulnerable group! It just seems to me like the discussion on LW has been totally one-sided. The only person I’ve run into who could be described as rationalist-affiliated making points anything like these is Robin Hanson.
The only strong stance I took (as far as I can see) is that the countermeasures are harmful even without considering their costs.
I think your wording also kind of implied that a large fraction of the population is going to get the virus. Maybe you were primarily thinking of people with jobs that put them at risk, but I think even for those populations, expecting >50% of people with such jobs to get it is very much taking a strong stance. I was wondering if you’d think differently about your dislike of the LW emphasis on advice if you thought that the expert predictions were spot on.
Edit: But maybe that’s just not the crux. Maybe you’re not saying “you’re going to get it sooner or later anyway” but rather “sooner or later, you’re going to _decide_ that you’re fine with probably getting it anyway.”
And that’s a stronger argument, I think. But I think a lot of people have probably thought about it, and I don’t think keeping your probability of getting this virus <3% is extremely socially restrictive for the rest of how long it’ll take. That said, I’m an extreme introvert so probably I don’t quite factor in all the things that social people are missing.
20% of NYC had antibodies (per random pop sample). We can expect some small regions will make it out with sub 1% but I think there’s a 90% chance at least 4% of the US will be antibody positive from exposure (with or without severe symptoms) after a year (and a 90% chance no more than 60% will). We’ll apparently know more when the sedars-sinai antibody test is in wide use.
We can expect some small regions will make it out with sub 1% but I think there’s a 90% chance at least 4% of the US will be antibody positive from exposure (with or without severe symptoms) after a year
That sounds exactly right.
(and a 90% chance no more than 60% will)
I’d say you can go up to 97% for that.
I think the median will be somewhere around 10% of the US population very roughly and that’s why I disagreed with the OP. It’s unlikely I’d change my mind too drastically about those numbers, at least not in the near future and without new info.
*Update from the future (2021):* Turns out I was too confident here. I don’t think 60% of the people in the US got infected, but the numbers are not too far off now. Not living in the US it took me really long to notice how poorly things were going to go.
Trying to think about my own thinking here, this is what I came up with:
Most of the points I’ve listed are commonly believed and mentioned. However, in every case I can recall, it was not pointed out that they support infection (for some people, in some situations) being less bad / more good than it otherwise would be. I realize that what I wrote seems one-sided. In my defense, almost every other article I’ve read seems one-sided the other way.
This creates the impression for me that other people are treating their arguments as soldiers. They’ve already made up their minds that stamping out the virus as aggressively as possible is the right thing to do, so anything that would go against that needs to be suppressed. I don’t think that’s epistemically valid, and I think it’s dangerous.
If I believe this, and if I assume that the people in question are rational other than this one blind spot, that would imply that the most expensive, least effective measures that they’re taking are not worthwhile. I don’t think the specific percentage of people who will eventually get infected is a crux of my argument. An individual’s decision should IMO relate mainly to the chance that that individual will eventually get infected, for any reason including through choice.
Since I don’t wish to treat my arguments as soldiers: the presence of a meaningful level of immunity very much IS a crux of my argument. If that isn’t true, it erases pretty much all of my other points and means we need to stamp this thing out even if the cost of doing so is unbelievably high.
I get the impression that you might be thinking about this in terms of a false dichotomy. It seems correct to me to note that much longer lockdowns are politically infeasible in large parts of the US, but this doesn’t mean that most states will just let their entire population catch the virus. Maybe there’ll be a second wave and then states that are similarly badly hit as New York and New Jersey will change their stance. Or maybe some states succeed at lessening the restrictions in a smart way, with masks and so on. Maybe the people are sufficiently afraid to catch the virus that they socially distance themselves of their own accord, even when businesses reopen.
Expert predictions say that there have been between 4.8M—28M infections in the US so far (80%) confidence interval. Those infections are responsible for 73k+ deaths so far, and predictions say the median number of deaths will be below 300k in the US (probably even below 200k but I think there was an upward trend in the latest survey, and some chance they’re now between 200k and 300k).
I’ve been doing predicting as well and I agree with those predictions (I’m saying this because it can be justifiable to not always trust experts). Therefore I don’t think it makes sense to assume you’ll likely be exposed to the virus anyway. (The case for this is even stronger if you live in Germany or the UK; the upward trend in predictions about the US is a bit concerning.) For those who want to avoid low-ish but non-negligible risks of becoming sick for sometimes quite a long time, with a virus that in some instances can do do all kinds of strange and scary things that we don’t fully understand yet (see also Elizabeth’s comment above), it’s good to have the advice available! (Of course, I’m not necessarily saying I endorse all of those pieces of advice.)
I don’t think I’m thinking about it in terms of a false dichotomy. I tried to argue against what I think are the countermeasures that are the least likely to be helpful, not all countermeasures. The only strong stance I took (as far as I can see) is that the countermeasures are harmful even without considering their costs. In the real world, the costs are non-negligible.
I certainly don’t think any state will just let their entire population catch the virus! Rather, I think that some people, due to job, lifestyle, and how dangerous the infection is likely to be to them (both in relative and absolute terms) are very likely to catch it sooner or later. The sooner those people have it, the more of them will recover from it while we’re on lockdown (be it state- or self-imposed). I expect this to have a positive effect on the outcomes when lockdown is released. This can also be a self-selecting group to some extent—sure, you don’t have to visit your grandparents, but wouldn’t it be good (both for you and for them) to be able to? Similarly, immune people volunteering at or temporarily working for retirement homes might produce large gains for those living there.
I think the expert “predictions” about what is currently the case are reasonably accurate. I’m far less convinced about their predictions about the future—they were totally wrong about what things would be like now.
Certainly having the information on prevention available is useful—you might be a member of a vulnerable group! It just seems to me like the discussion on LW has been totally one-sided. The only person I’ve run into who could be described as rationalist-affiliated making points anything like these is Robin Hanson.
Thanks for clarifying, that makes sense.
I think your wording also kind of implied that a large fraction of the population is going to get the virus. Maybe you were primarily thinking of people with jobs that put them at risk, but I think even for those populations, expecting >50% of people with such jobs to get it is very much taking a strong stance. I was wondering if you’d think differently about your dislike of the LW emphasis on advice if you thought that the expert predictions were spot on.
Edit: But maybe that’s just not the crux. Maybe you’re not saying “you’re going to get it sooner or later anyway” but rather “sooner or later, you’re going to _decide_ that you’re fine with probably getting it anyway.”
And that’s a stronger argument, I think. But I think a lot of people have probably thought about it, and I don’t think keeping your probability of getting this virus <3% is extremely socially restrictive for the rest of how long it’ll take. That said, I’m an extreme introvert so probably I don’t quite factor in all the things that social people are missing.
20% of NYC had antibodies (per random pop sample). We can expect some small regions will make it out with sub 1% but I think there’s a 90% chance at least 4% of the US will be antibody positive from exposure (with or without severe symptoms) after a year (and a 90% chance no more than 60% will). We’ll apparently know more when the sedars-sinai antibody test is in wide use.
That sounds exactly right.
I’d say you can go up to 97% for that.
I think the median will be somewhere around 10% of the US population very roughly and that’s why I disagreed with the OP. It’s unlikely I’d change my mind too drastically about those numbers, at least not in the near future and without new info.
*Update from the future (2021):* Turns out I was too confident here. I don’t think 60% of the people in the US got infected, but the numbers are not too far off now. Not living in the US it took me really long to notice how poorly things were going to go.
Trying to think about my own thinking here, this is what I came up with:
Most of the points I’ve listed are commonly believed and mentioned. However, in every case I can recall, it was not pointed out that they support infection (for some people, in some situations) being less bad / more good than it otherwise would be. I realize that what I wrote seems one-sided. In my defense, almost every other article I’ve read seems one-sided the other way.
This creates the impression for me that other people are treating their arguments as soldiers. They’ve already made up their minds that stamping out the virus as aggressively as possible is the right thing to do, so anything that would go against that needs to be suppressed. I don’t think that’s epistemically valid, and I think it’s dangerous.
If I believe this, and if I assume that the people in question are rational other than this one blind spot, that would imply that the most expensive, least effective measures that they’re taking are not worthwhile. I don’t think the specific percentage of people who will eventually get infected is a crux of my argument. An individual’s decision should IMO relate mainly to the chance that that individual will eventually get infected, for any reason including through choice.
Since I don’t wish to treat my arguments as soldiers: the presence of a meaningful level of immunity very much IS a crux of my argument. If that isn’t true, it erases pretty much all of my other points and means we need to stamp this thing out even if the cost of doing so is unbelievably high.