Excellent article as usual. I'm surprised to not see any discussion of UBI, though. With so many jobs depending on public contact I don't see how society will continue to function over the next six months without some sort of direct cash transfer to replace lost income among those who don't currently work digitally.
Thank you. I have begun to avoid reading most Covid articles, but this one is useful. "Buying time" is a new argument to me and... it landed.
To John Ennis, I have written about "why UBI" in my November 2019 book - no, I didn't predict Covid - and think it's the most efficient fiscal response right now.
@KevinFlanagan - surely we haven't "let" people die from seasonal flu / road accidents / alcoholism? Is it not, rather, that these deaths occur despite governments attempts to protect us all from such fates. Likewise there will be many deaths from covid19, and without any government action it seems that that number could make this worst single-cause-of-death humans have experienced. Of course, how much government does, and what impact that action has on society (and the the economy etc), is the business of politics to sort out. Hopefully it is precisely because of government action that this will not be as big a deal as it could have been. No doubt that many sections of the press will always work to amplify our worst fears, but it does seem that governments have so far not encountered something worse than covid19 to be distracted by.
I would like to point out that a fundamental assumption of the Ferguson paper is the mortality rate. There are 2 key problems with Covid-19, the asymptomatic, typically 20 year olds(from S Korean data), and the lack of a quick cheap test, though Senegal may solve this. As a result S Korea is the only place where somewhat comprehensive testing has been done and while 4 X the next highest it is still only 4,000/1m population. An epidemiologist from John Hopkins extrapolates from the S Korean data that the mortalitity rate is capped, ie it may even be lower due to untested asymptomatics, at 0.6% which is between 5X and 8X lower the estimated mortality of the 1918 pandemic. Also this seems to target people with comorbidities and/older while 1918 targeted younger people already decimated by WW1. I wonder how much of the reaction has been driven by the 24 news cycle?
Excellent article as usual. I'm surprised to not see any discussion of UBI, though. With so many jobs depending on public contact I don't see how society will continue to function over the next six months without some sort of direct cash transfer to replace lost income among those who don't currently work digitally.
Thank you. I have begun to avoid reading most Covid articles, but this one is useful. "Buying time" is a new argument to me and... it landed.
To John Ennis, I have written about "why UBI" in my November 2019 book - no, I didn't predict Covid - and think it's the most efficient fiscal response right now.
@KevinFlanagan - surely we haven't "let" people die from seasonal flu / road accidents / alcoholism? Is it not, rather, that these deaths occur despite governments attempts to protect us all from such fates. Likewise there will be many deaths from covid19, and without any government action it seems that that number could make this worst single-cause-of-death humans have experienced. Of course, how much government does, and what impact that action has on society (and the the economy etc), is the business of politics to sort out. Hopefully it is precisely because of government action that this will not be as big a deal as it could have been. No doubt that many sections of the press will always work to amplify our worst fears, but it does seem that governments have so far not encountered something worse than covid19 to be distracted by.
Thankful for the debate and positive efforts from all. Excellent to have access to all this. Thanks all, thanks Azeem as ever will read in full.
Here is a critique from a different perspective TLDR S Korea’s approach of comprehensive testing, tracing and isolation can reduce lockdown to a local level with cross border quarantine and testing https://necsi.edu/review-of-ferguson-et-al-impact-of-non-pharmaceutical-interventions
I would like to point out that a fundamental assumption of the Ferguson paper is the mortality rate. There are 2 key problems with Covid-19, the asymptomatic, typically 20 year olds(from S Korean data), and the lack of a quick cheap test, though Senegal may solve this. As a result S Korea is the only place where somewhat comprehensive testing has been done and while 4 X the next highest it is still only 4,000/1m population. An epidemiologist from John Hopkins extrapolates from the S Korean data that the mortalitity rate is capped, ie it may even be lower due to untested asymptomatics, at 0.6% which is between 5X and 8X lower the estimated mortality of the 1918 pandemic. Also this seems to target people with comorbidities and/older while 1918 targeted younger people already decimated by WW1. I wonder how much of the reaction has been driven by the 24 news cycle?