Derek Thompson Profile picture
Feb 4 7 tweets 3 min read
I wrote about why Denmark is done with COVID

theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…

This week, Denmark led the world in infections per capita. It also suddenly voted to end all restrictions—no mask mandate, no COVID passports. I talked to researcher and govt adviser @M_B_Petersen about why.
When I say Denmark leads the world in COVID cases per capita, I mean, literally—if you don't count the South Pacific archipelago of Palau—it's number one in cases per million people.

But the relationship between cases and ICU admits has been shattered.
There's no mystery here.

Denmark broke the tether between cases and severe outcomes bc it's one of the most vaccinated countries in the world.

- 81% of adults are doubly vaxxed
- 61% have booster shots

Denmark's booster-shots-per-capita is about 2.5X higher than the U.S.
So, Denmark is different. But it's instructive.

Denmark's pandemic restrictions are only extended on a temporary basis for the country. Pandemic restrictions expire. And the govt must vote to extend them.

This builds trust that ALL restrictions are TEMPORARY.
In the U.S., there is a fierce debate—even among doubly and triply vaccinated people—about an "off-ramp" to "normal" so we can be "done."

Forcing the govt to vote every 90 days to re-up temporary restrictions might ease fears of, eg, "forever masking" in this debate.
One more thing I found fascinating.

In the U.S,, it's less common to find public health officials who are loudly pro-vaccine and loudly anti–vaxx mandate.

But in Denmark, pro-vaccine and anti-mandate is the standard position.
Denmark is not America.

Its decision to lift restrictions is downstream of its vaxx rate. And its vaxx rate is downstream of extraordinary public trust.

But it's still useful to hear from other countries—if only to imagine what's possible in ours.

theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
 

Keep Current with Derek Thompson

Derek Thompson Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @DKThomp

Jan 31
Every once in a while, an aspiring journalist will ask for writing tips and I make something up on the spot.

So, for today's newsletter, I wrote down all my tips—well, 4 of them; tips are hard!—so I'll always have a cheat sheet if somebody asks again.

theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…
1. Simple is smart.

School rewards people who learn and use big words. But the real superpower is the ability to use simple language to decode important and complicated ideas. Beware the illusion that "complexity = intelligence."
2. Be interesting.

Interesting = novel + important
Read 6 tweets
Jan 25
New pod w/ @morganhousel on crypto's crash and 3 big stock market myths

open.spotify.com/episode/4hYBOf…

1) Bitcoin is digital gold—a hedge against inflation and equities
2) 10% market corrections are rare phenomena
3) COVID was a boon for pandemic darlings like Peloton and Zoom
1) "Think of Bitcoin like digital gold"

This is almost a double-negative myth. Bitcoin has been an awful hedge; it's down more than the Nasdaq, making it more like a tech stock on steroids.

But as @morganhousel says, gold is historically a terrible inflation hedge, too!
So in a way, you could say that Bitcoin really *is* like digital gold—just not for the reasons that its advocates claim.

Both Bitcoin and gold are volatile assets that people claim as a useful hedge even though their long-term histories suggest the opposite.
Read 6 tweets
Jan 22
Many thanks to @JimPethokoukis for interviewing me about my abundance agenda

fasterplease.substack.com/p/-doomsday-ec…

If you want a 1-paragraph summary of the abundance agenda and how it makes contact with 2022's problems, here's my best shot —>
This is the original abundance agenda article

theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…
The abundance agenda is a public policy platform.

But it's also a mentality—experiments over ideology; inventing over venting—that can extend to the private sector.

Take, for example, the blossoming of science-funding experiments in Silicon Valley—>

theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…
Read 4 tweets
Jan 21
Last week, I asked: What's the most incredible, statistical-outlier accomplishment in U.S. major sports history?

I got several thousand responses. Here are my top 10.

theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…
10. The 2010 San Diego Chargers

As far as I know, only one team in professional sports history has finished 1st in offense, 1st in defense, and also missed the playoffs.
9. Bob Beamon's record-breaking long jump in the 1968 Olympics.

Hard to think of another sports achievement so outlierish that officials had to stop the game to figure out WTF just happened and the player, upon learning of the record, was so shocked that he suffered a seizure
Read 13 tweets
Jan 21
New pod: @JamesFallows joins the show to talk about the Democrats' very rough week

podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/202…

- the deep story of the voting rights bill
- a clinic on US filibuster history
- Biden polling exegesis
- negativity bias vs. agency bias in political media
Our discussion toward the end about news biases was one of the most interesting conversations I've had about political media in a while.

In short:

1. The press has a negativity bias (duh).
2. That's in part bc audiences have a negativity bias.
3. Media also has "agency bias."
News orgs can A/B test headlines with positive and negative frames. I've done it. It's clear that readers click more when the framing is negative. You can see this on Twitter, too.

Our (the media's) negativity bias both drives and reflects your (the audience's) negativity.
Read 5 tweets
Jan 20
Abundance requires innovation.

Innovation begins with science.

But scientific funding in the U.S. is broken—it's too slow, risk-averse, and old.

I wrote about a surprising coalition of tech founders and star scientists who are trying to fix it.

theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…
What's the problem with U.S. scientific funding?

There are 4.

1. The trust problem
2. The specialization problem
3. The silo problem
4. The experiment problem
1. The trust problem

Liberals say "trust science!" but our science-funding programs don't trust scientists. We wrap them in rules that restrains their most novel research.

A new solution: ARC's open-ended, no strings attached funding (via @SKonermann, @patrickc, & @pdhsu)
Read 7 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!


This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Don't want to be a Premium member but still want to support us?

Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal

Or Donate anonymously using crypto!

Ethereum

0xfe58350B80634f60Fa6Dc149a72b4DFbc17D341E copy

Bitcoin

3ATGMxNzCUFzxpMCHL5sWSt4DVtS8UqXpi copy

Thank you for your support!

:(