Twitter is not a perfect representation of reality, etc, etc, but this shot-and-chaser screenshot is *exactly* the sort of thing I'm worried about with the constant, ridiculous downplaying of the vaccines
For a lot of people nervous about putting newfangled chemical compounds in their body, they're hearing this:
"If you don't take this weirdo drug, you're stuck inside in a double-mask. And if you DO take this weirdo drug, you're ... also stuck inside with a double-mask."
1. Get vaccinated.
2. Because vaccinated groups can get back to doing just about everything they love most about life, almost immediately!
3. ... unless that thing is shopping maskless at your local Trader Joe's, in March.
I think two somewhat related issues deserve amplification:
1) The surprisingly global decline of COVID cases 2) The possibility that these explainers are still staring into the fog of pandemic
The COVID retreat looks pretty global. Cases are falling in the U.S., and they're falling in Canada, and the UK. They're falling in Europe, and they're falling in Africa. They're even falling in .... South Africa.
I think that the 4 variables I analyzed—partial immunity, seasonality, behavior, and vaccination—together explain a great deal of why cases have declined in the U.S. so suddenly and why hospitalizations are likely to keep going down.
@PeterHotez: “If we don’t accelerate the pace of vaccinations, we’re looking at an apocalypse ... The first out-of-the-box thing I’d do right now is release the AstraZeneca vaccine."
2. Test "First Doses First"
@ashishkjha: “I am really anxious about the next two months ... The best argument against FDF is that it goes off script from what the clinical trials suggest. But one way to solve the data shortage is to get more data.”
One theme that's emerged from my reporting and writing recently across cash welfare, public health communication, and vaccine eligibility is that I don't think we have enough of an appreciation for the virtue of SIMPLICITY in public policy.
In economics, I think the last ten years have really taken a sledgehammer to the idea that, eg, complex nudges are always best for changing public behavior. The Obama WH learned you don't get credit for policies that are designed to be sneakily invisible.
But the benefits of simplicity aren't just for "audiences" or "the public."
As @kjhealy argues, overcomplicated nuance can gum up our understanding of our own minds, our own theories, and our ability to communicate them to others. IOW: "Fuck nuance."
“Follow the science” is practically a cliche now. But who do you trust when scientific research is saying two completely different things at once?
In the last six months, it’s become near-consensus that surface-transmission of COVID-19 is very rare and that our efforts should be focused on masks, distancing, and ventilation.
But there are still new studies claiming to show that the virus survives for ONE MONTH on surfaces
The scariest fomite studies use too much virus and set ideal conditions for its survival. It's like wanting to prove you can grow mangoes in Vermont, so you build a $1b greenhouse in Burlington to produce one edible mango and say "Hey, mangoes grow in Vermont! Science says!"
It looks like new hospitalizations have declined so quickly that it's opened up a huge disconnect with deaths.
Hospitalizations are down to late-November levels while deaths are still at mid-January levels.
Cross forces here:
1. Deaths lag hospitalizations by a few weeks, typically, which suggests we should see deaths start to really decline quickly.
2. New variants could push up cases/hospitalizations just as deaths plunge.
FWIW, any effect of the new variants on daily-case decline isn't face-smackingly obvious from glancing at the national 7-day average (which I forbid you from taking me to say that the new variants aren't a problem, bc they are)
You don’t need 90% remote (or even 20%) for things to get weird.
In 2015, just ~10% of U.S. retail was e-commerce, by some measures. But that was enough for online shopping to have a massive effect on retail overall. Could be the same for remote work.
What was holding back remote work for most of this century wasn’t technology. It was culture. Telecommuting had a telephone problem.
i.e.: "How do I adopt this communications tech if I’m not confident that most people around me know how to use it?"