Thread by @phl43

She is right 🤷‍♂️

https://twitter.com/mkarolian/status/1467959999645298697

It's amazing how the idea that mass rapid-testing would somehow make a significant difference has become an article of faith among the sophisticates, when there is not a shred of evidence that it would. I hate the FDA as much as the next guy, but this is just magical thinking.

Smart people keep coming up with technocratic plans that totally ignore political/social realities, feed them into bullshit models that obviously don't capture the underlying transmission process and make unrealistic behavioral assumptions, which find it will save a ton of lives.

Then, when people actually try, we invariably find that it makes no meaningful difference, but this never registers and people just move on to the next technocratic plan that will also not make any meaningful difference. It just never stops.

The guy I quoted above mentioned that the UK did what Psaki rightly mocked, which many countries such as France don't. Do you think he paused to consider whether the UK was faring better than France? (Hint: it doesn't.) Of course not. He has a plan and that's what matters.

And yes I know "but you can't assume the UK is similar to those other countries, so it might still have some effect, yadda yadda yadda". I understand that, everybody with a brain understands it, thank you very much. That's not the point.

The point is that, whatever the precise effect it has, it's not a game changer. On the other hand, this succession of "plans" just fuels the hysteria, keep alive the hope that the one smart policy solution that will save us is right around the corner and delays our moving on.

There is no smart policy solution that will save us. All those plans do more harm than good merely in virtue of the fact that they push back the moment we decide to move on. And we really have to move on. I mean look at what we're doing!

https://twitter.com/phl43/status/1464295007804928003

Can't people see how crazy it is that entire societies that pride themselves on being rational are engaging in those pointless rituals and that nothing is more urgent than putting an end to this nonsense? Again, COVID-19 is not going anywhere, this could last a *long* time...

All I see when I read about those plans are a bunch of nerds who live in a fantasy world in which their grandiose policy schemes play out as they're supposed to. It reminds me of the folks who thought we could solve most social problems with "nudges". It's not real.

For a while I actually wished their fucking plans would be implemented, so that once they could see it didn't fundamentally change anything, they would just accept that we have to move on. But now I realize it will never happen. There will always be another plan. We have to stop.

Let's encourage people to get vaccinated, invest in hospital capacity if the flu + COVID-19 proves to be too much to handle this winter and move the fuck on. We'll do this sooner or later, so let's do it sooner rather than later. We can't go on with this craziness forever.

Even in the worst case scenario, we'll just lose a few years worth of mortality reduction at previous trends. Do I wish it didn't happen? Sure, but it's not the end of the world. Going on with this insanity, which doesn't even make a meaningful difference anyway, is *far* worse.