If only we had an official independent body doing econ- epidemiology, we could chart a course through the omicron variant and adjust as news came in.
https://twitter.com/faisalislam/status/1465328843040997387
Sketched here: theguardian.com/commentisfree/…
A bunch of economists doing it off their own back is better than nothing. But
1) not good to leave the funding for this important task to chance.
1) not good to leave the funding for this important task to chance.
2) the analysis can easily be ignored.
3) there is no mechanism to ensure the appropriate balance of expertise between econ and epi, or to embrace dissent within each field.
4) you need control to make sure that economists, epidemiologists and public health researchers are focusing on the right things. Without it you can't hope that their incentives as academics/whatever will match immediate public need.
Depending on how you view the new variant, you might think that we are basically in the end phase of covid, or the beginning of a forever war. Either way, this kind of joined up advice is going to be needed for a long time.
There are decisions to be made about how we live, work, get around, how we fund our covid related health, all of which impact on our vulnerability to new variants, or entirely new epidemics. These decisions need a fusion of economics and epidemiology.
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