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Ezra Klein Profile picture
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2 Jan, 4 tweets, 1 min read
Supply-side COVID-ism!
Previous thread, for context:
Another example: It looks like CDC is going to revisit ending quarantine after 5 days without a test. But there isn't an available supply of rapid tests in many areas.

So we're going to have possibly infectious people driving from drugstore to drugstore, looking?
You need better supply of COVID-prevention and detection tools to let people make better individual decisions.

The question here isn't government vs. individual responsibility. It's how governments can empower individuals to be responsible.

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More from @ezraklein

Ezra Klein Profile picture
31 Dec 21
I enjoyed this @VitalikButerin post on the Bulldozer vs. Vetocracy axis, but I think the problem is vetocracies are, by nature, complex and opaque, and people often don't even know the vetocracies shaping their lives. vitalik.eth.limo/general/2021/1…
Which is to say: This might be a good way of thinking about the problems of different societies, i.e., China's has bulldozer problems, America has vetocracy problems.

But I'm skeptical it's a good way of thinking about individual or even collective preferences.
Also: People's preference for veto points tend to change a lot with who's in power. I don't find that irrational or insincere, as some do, but it makes it harder to pinpoint an abstract preference in the area.
Read 5 tweets
Ezra Klein Profile picture
31 Dec 21
I'm seeing this too, and I...don't think it's great.

There are more options here than, as @EricTopol puts it, inevitability vs. avoidance. This is what I've been trying to tease out pushing for a clearer description of goals.
There are other camps one can fall into, rather than seeing this as a binary between "let 'er rip" and "lock back down" (which seems to me to be what's obviously demanded by many arguments here, but since it won't happen, few are directly advocating it)
Here's mine: People are going to have very different risk tolerances, different needs, and little patience for lockdowns. No strategy that doesn't accept that can work.

So I want policymakers to make sure people have a full supply of risk management tools.
Read 13 tweets
Ezra Klein Profile picture
29 Dec 21
This isn’t a “best books of 2021” list. I don’t read enough for that. And this isn’t a list of books published in 2021.

These are the books I read or reread in 2021 that I still find myself thinking about the most. They did the most to shape me this year.
“Under a White Sky,” by Elizabeth Kolbert. penguinrandomhouse.com/books/617060/u…
“The Alignment Problem,” by Brian Christian brianchristian.org/the-alignment-…
Read 18 tweets
Ezra Klein Profile picture
28 Dec 21
The implied population-level infection numbers here are just wild. Avoiding this thing will be very, very hard, in a way I’m not sure our public conversation has caught up to.

Strong case for being very, very cautious if you have immunocompromised people in your life.
I’d really like to hear more public health officials or elected officials clearly state their goal at this point. Is it spacing out hospitalizations? Minimizing cases? Minimizing severity of cases through vaccination?
And note that the goal for public health might be different than the goal for any individual or family.

But what is the public health goal now? Because I think a lot of people still think it’s to minimize cases, and I’m not sure it is, or if it is, if that’s achievable.
Read 4 tweets
Ezra Klein Profile picture
28 Dec 21
I’m all for rapid tests but I am kind of puzzled as to how we’ve gotten maximally focused on their power at the same time we’re seeing them clearly swamped in Europe.
Two things can be, and are, true:

1. We should have far more rapid tests approved and distributed, and there’s been both an FDA and administration failure here.

2. Rapid tests, within any real world usage level we’ve seen, will not contain Omicron.
Pay particular attention to the UK on that chart. They’ve had pretty much the ideal approach to rapid tests. And Omicron is just exploding.
Read 5 tweets
Ezra Klein Profile picture
16 Dec 21
“The thought experiment that helped me is if I could die, or have a member of my family die, by being euthanized by gas, or have what I just described happen to them, what would I give to get the gas? And the answer is everything.” nytimes.com/2021/12/16/opi…
This isn't just a parade of horrors though. This is a piece about amazing groups trying to build a better future, and how you can support them: @GoodFoodInst, @humaneleague, @MercyForAnimals, @NewHarvestOrg and the Material Innovation Initiative.
I'm indebted to the great work done by @AnimalCharityEv and @Open_Phil have done evaluating the workings and result of groups trying to build a more humane world for animals on factory farms.
Read 4 tweets

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