Thread by @ASI

And we're off!

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https://twitter.com/ASI/status/1323646181696806914

We're kicking off with @s8mb who recently wrote 'Covid: The War We Never Fought' which you can read here: sambowman.substack.com/p/covid-the-wa…

@s8mb Some believe that the winter spike and a choice between a second lockdown or hundreds of thousands dying was inevitable. That's simply not true, says @s8mb.

@s8mb Secondary schools being opened was a colossal mistake, along with Eat Out to Help Out, allowing mass foreign holidays, and winding down furlough prematurely. @s8mb's not happy!

@s8mb Things that @s8mb thinks we could have done to reduce the R rate:

- A genuine shift to outdoor drinking and dining
- Grants for businesses moving outside and improving ventilation inside
- Stricter measures on quarantining foreign travellers
- Teaching pods rather than schools

@s8mb The cost of Covid itself to the UK economy is around £20bn per month.

Higher spending (on things like furlough until the crisis is over) is worth it. And @s8mb ends it there!

@s8mb Next up we have @ATabarrok!

He opens by explaining that Covid externalities may, alongside climate change, be the biggest externalities in the history of the world!

@s8mb @ATabarrok Both the British and the American governments have been "penny-wise and pound-foolish" in their response to Covid-19, says @ATabarrok.

@s8mb @ATabarrok Think about Covid like a war and attack it like a war.

Mobilise national resources at a grand scale, invest in vaccine production capacity now.

That's the key message from @ATabarrok!

@s8mb @ATabarrok It's worth remembering that even with no government intervention, there would still be a very significant hit to the economy!

Covid is causing much of the economic loss rather than lockdowns and restrictions, says @ATabarrok.

@s8mb @ATabarrok Now @s8mb makes the point that even though the average age of death for Covid is high, there are long tails to this average.

It's still pretty lethal for those in their 40s and 50s. Hundreds of thousands of them could die under a 'Great Barrington' approach!

@s8mb @ATabarrok Covid isn't just about externalities - it is also a classic collective action problem.

@s8mb points out that a few people breaking the rules can impose enormous costs on everybody.

@s8mb @ATabarrok Early on, the CDC utterly failed in the USA.

@ATabarrok highlights that in combination with the FDA they prohibited private firms from using their own tests.

Emergencies are precisely the time when you should deregulate to allow quick and more efficient responses!

@s8mb @ATabarrok There's a Laffer Curve for tests.

More tests = more cases to start with, but once you are doing enough tests you can begin to suppress the virus.

So there isn't a good political incentive to back away from testing - sadly not what President Trump seems to believe.

@s8mb @ATabarrok South Korea did the exact opposite to the United States.

They brought all companies capable of producing tests together and said "GO!" - we'll approve it later.

This decentralised approach, also practiced in Germany, is best, says @ATabarrok.

@s8mb @ATabarrok The UK and USA should be having a 'Sputnik moment' over Covid, says @ATabarrok.

Why aren't we doing as well as other countries that have less state capacity?

@s8mb @ATabarrok What's the exit strategy from lockdowns and restrictions?

@ATabarrok answers that it's therapeutics like monoclonal antibodies and the development of a vaccine. Simple!

@s8mb @ATabarrok And @s8mb is pretty annoyed about some libertarians acting like their caricatures - protesting mandatory mask wearing and helping to create the conditions that made a second lockdown necessary.

@s8mb @ATabarrok And to finish up, we have a couple of minutes on tonight's US Elections!

@ATabarrok - Usually I don't care but Trump has been uniquely incompetent in this emergency. Biden will win - significantly.

@s8mb - I've bet a fair amount on Biden and hope it'll be a large margin.

@s8mb @ATabarrok And that's it for this evening's webinar!

Thanks for tuning in and be sure to join us next Tuesday for our next one!