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12 Oct, 18 tweets, 6 min read
Have lockdowns been bad for the economy?

A new report from the International Monetary Fund has a very interesting answer to the question 1/n
2/n The report is here, and well worth reading. At the outset I should say that ALL OF THIS EVIDENCE IS UNCERTAIN

The IMF is great, and has tried very hard to be accurate, but it is important to take care when reading these findings imf.org/en/Publication…
3/n The basic summation is simple:

- lockdowns probably cause economic harm
- large outbreaks of COVID-19 also cause harm
- it is hard to disentangle this complexity
- there are almost certainly situations in which lockdowns are beneficial to the economy
4/n On the first point, it is quite clear that lockdowns are associated with greater economic decline. Countries with harsher lockdowns saw worse financial outcomes
5/n BUT, as the IMF notes, lockdowns were not the only issue!

When cases rose very quickly, people VOLUNTARILY reduced their mobility to similar levels as when governments took action
6/n The IMF modelling suggests that lockdowns were associated with a short-lived drop of ~25% in mobility

However, for every doubling of daily COVID-19 cases, there was an associated LONG-lived drop of ~2.5%
7/n In fact, the IMF estimates that in advanced economies this VOLUNTARY restriction had the biggest impact on mobility (and thus the economy) NOT lockdowns
8/n This leads to an interesting point, which is that if people feel like they are still at risk from COVID-19, the impact of relaxing restrictions economically is very low, but the impact on new cases is quite high

So, relaxing lockdowns early may be DETRIMENTAL economically
9/n Depressingly, this also means that there is no easy answer here - despite what the contrarians have been saying, it's unlikely that simply lifting all restrictions will lead to immediate economic recovery
10/n Also depressingly, the IMF found strong evidence that the negative impact of lockdowns was felt disproportionately, with women and younger people bearing the brunt of the downturn
11/n There are also some very important implications here for public policy in terms of HOW lockdowns and other measures are introduced

For example, while all lockdowns carry economic harms, some may not confer public health benefits!
12/n While locking down was usually associated with a reduction in COVID-19 cases, the IMF found that in places where there were already many cases the impact was much lower
13/n Moreoever, lockdown STRINGENCY and LENGTH was important. Protracted mild lockdowns were associated with long tail ends of economic harm, but a much smaller reduction in cases
14/n On the other hand, short sharp lockdowns tended to substantially reduce cases with less economic damage (because fewer cases means a faster recovery), leading to this recommendation
15/n And important to note that this work is subject to very substantial limitations, and it is really quite hard to disentangle the relationships here
16/n To sum up:

- lockdowns cause harms
- so does COVID-19
- in some situations, a lockdown may be economically beneficial
- if lockdowns are pursued, short tight ones may be better than long loose ones
- more research is needed to discern precisely which policies are best
17/n It's also worth noting, as the IMF does, that other public health policies play an important role that is hard to capture in this analysis. Places with really good testing and contact tracing may avoid many of these issues entirely
28/n Alternatively, as was the case where I live, a short sharp lockdown to improve testing/tracing capacity may be a very good option long-term

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More from @GidMK

14 Oct
John Ioannidis, of "Most Published Research Findings Are False" fame, has now had his paper on IFR published

Let's do one, final, twitter peer-review on the study 1/n Image
3/n I should say at the outset here - the only personal comment I would like to make about Professor Ioannidis is that he is a very smart man who I respect tremendously

I will, however, examine the paper, because I think that is what science is all about
Read 37 tweets
13 Oct
Imagine if someone was to say "COVID-19 hasn't caused most businesses to close, they were all doing badly anyway"
"Lots of businesses close every year, how do we know that they didn't just close WITH COVID-19 rather than FROM it?"
"All this economic impact is overblown. My friend's cousin's third ex-wife lost her business, but it was in the red anyway"
Read 6 tweets
12 Oct
Recently, John Ioannidis, of "Most Published Research Findings Are False" fame, published a commentary piece on COVID-19 and global action

I thought it would be good to do a bit of peer-review on twitter 1/n
2/n You can find the paper here - it is a classic commentary piece, which means it is mostly the perspective of the author: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ec…
3/n Given the author's very strong public stance since early March, it is perhaps unsurprising that the main message of the piece appears to be that COVID-19 is not very bad but government actions are
Read 39 tweets
10 Oct
It's fascinating what turns out to work in terms of helping people if you ignore empty moralizations about what we should and shouldn't do

This is but one example
For example, there's good evidence that an effective treatment for heroin abuse disorder is prescription (safe) heroin

bmj.com/content/327/74…
Safe injecting spaces - while counter-intuitive because you're assisting people in taking drugs - are arguably the most effective way to reduce the harms of some illegal drugs

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/P…
Read 6 tweets
8 Oct
Apparently, there is a fly on Pence's head

I am not watching the debate
Every person in the U.S. simultaneously googles "Is fly on head a sign of COVID-19?"
Oh hey look
Read 4 tweets
7 Oct
Men* with deep voices more likely** to be unfaithful***, research**** claims

*Chinese university students
**p=0.018
***to score higher on a self-report tool rating attitudes towards infidelity (r² = 0.22)
****single correlational study, n=234

FIXED IT
Honestly, this is a hilarious example of somewhat meaningless research being touted far and wide in the media
Read 11 tweets

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