This approach to tradeoffs makes sense for the USA in 2021.
I just don’t want our analysis to lose sight of the fact that facing these tradeoffs is stupid and avoidable, and that almost every country could have done so much better. Avoiding outbreaks is so much cheaper and easier than dealing with them that the choice to do so should have been overdetermined.
The background risk rate in Australia is roughly zero. We occasionally get “outbreaks” of single-digit cases, lock down one city for a few days to trace it, and then go back to normal.
It’s not even worth wearing masks here.
Australia is taking a (frustratingly) slow and cautious approach to the vaccine rollout. This will probably cost zero lives (though with a scary right-tail), plausibly saving some from avoided adverse reactions. IMO we should be going way faster on tail-risk and economic grounds, but...
TLDR: it’s much better to be careful instead of exponential growth than after it.
I’d just like to point out that while “facing these tradeoffs is stupid and avoidable” (which I agree with), it’s much, much more accurate to say instead “facing these tradeoffs is effectively impossible to avoid even though it’s stupid and avoidable”. We might not like reality, but it’s not going to go away no matter how much we call it stupid and avoidable.
I think it’s a valuable post, and agree that as an individual in the USA in 2021 it’s worth thinking carefully about these tradeoffs. In Australia though, it’s trivial to avoid facing these tradeoffs, because of the different policies we followed through 2020. (I will never claim they were great policies, but they were good enough)
My broader point is that the policy playbook we learn from COVID should be how and why to avoid such situations, not about how to live with R0≈1 for extended periods. Just do the proper lockdown for four-six weeks at the start instead of the end, and it’s over! We wouldn’t even need vaccines, let alone masks!
I agree in principle that We Can Do Better, but would caution that these kinds of discussions should either explicitly ban (pseudo) island nations like Australia, South Korea, Taiwan etc., or argue how their (sometimes temporary) superior performance isn’t entirely dependent on lucky geography which can’t be replicated by most nations.
Are there any non-island-ish nations that have had similarly successful early Covid policy?
This approach to tradeoffs makes sense for the USA in 2021.
I just don’t want our analysis to lose sight of the fact that facing these tradeoffs is stupid and avoidable, and that almost every country could have done so much better. Avoiding outbreaks is so much cheaper and easier than dealing with them that the choice to do so should have been overdetermined.
The background risk rate in Australia is roughly zero. We occasionally get “outbreaks” of single-digit cases, lock down one city for a few days to trace it, and then go back to normal.
It’s not even worth wearing masks here.
Australia is taking a (frustratingly) slow and cautious approach to the vaccine rollout. This will probably cost zero lives (though with a scary right-tail), plausibly saving some from avoided adverse reactions. IMO we should be going way faster on tail-risk and economic grounds, but...
TLDR: it’s much better to be careful instead of exponential growth than after it.
I’d just like to point out that while “facing these tradeoffs is stupid and avoidable” (which I agree with), it’s much, much more accurate to say instead “facing these tradeoffs is effectively impossible to avoid even though it’s stupid and avoidable”. We might not like reality, but it’s not going to go away no matter how much we call it stupid and avoidable.
I think it’s a valuable post, and agree that as an individual in the USA in 2021 it’s worth thinking carefully about these tradeoffs. In Australia though, it’s trivial to avoid facing these tradeoffs, because of the different policies we followed through 2020. (I will never claim they were great policies, but they were good enough)
My broader point is that the policy playbook we learn from COVID should be how and why to avoid such situations, not about how to live with R0≈1 for extended periods. Just do the proper lockdown for four-six weeks at the start instead of the end, and it’s over! We wouldn’t even need vaccines, let alone masks!
(Late comment.)
I agree in principle that We Can Do Better, but would caution that these kinds of discussions should either explicitly ban (pseudo) island nations like Australia, South Korea, Taiwan etc., or argue how their (sometimes temporary) superior performance isn’t entirely dependent on lucky geography which can’t be replicated by most nations.
Are there any non-island-ish nations that have had similarly successful early Covid policy?
Vietnam