The immorality of "let's let the old people die off" is presumably obvious. A few other points (thread):
(1) "At the very least, Congress should wait a week or two, while half the nation or more is home, to see how the infection rates look as millions of test kits go out."
Written by someone who totally fails to undertand the idea of EXPONENTIAL GROWTH.
Written by someone who totally fails to undertand the idea of EXPONENTIAL GROWTH.
Even one day makes a huge difference in the number of cases you have, and the strain on your hospitals, before the epidemic peaks. "A week or two" is absurd. As is "as millions of test kits go out."
What test kits?
What test kits?
(2) I am all for making decisions on the basis of as much data as possible. But our government screwed up the testing so badly that we don't have the data we need. That's a fact, and bemoaning the lack of data is not an argument for not making urgent decisions.
(3) This one just for the lulz: the author (who may for all I know be an award-winning epidemiologist, but does not disclose any qualifications in her bio) discusses some possible problems with the models. They might be overstating the death rate. All that sacrifice for nothing!
What are these problems, you might ask? Here's the first: "They underestimate the rate of adaptive responses, which should slow down the replication rate."
The very adaptive measures the author is urging us not to take.
Sigh.
The very adaptive measures the author is urging us not to take.
Sigh.
I think this piece would actually be a really good example to use in a class on motivated reasoning. Every possible flaw with the modeling produces an overstatement of the risks; the idea of the opposite error does not seem to occur to her.
Sigh.
Sigh.
