Covid follies

Here’s what I said in April 2020:

My general view is that social distancing is better than an explosion of coronavirus cases. I believe we were too slow to begin social distancing, at least in hindsight. At the same time, I expect that after the worst phase of the epidemic is over we’ll do too much social distancing.

And here’s Matt Yglesias today:

I’d like to claim to be some sort of Nostradamus, but anyone who has lived in the US for 65 years and has half a brain would have known that Americans would wildly overreact to Covid risks at the tail end of the pandemic. But even I could not have imagined the overreaction would be this extreme. Here’s the NYT article that Yglesias was reacting to:

Dr. Murray said boosters would undoubtedly boost immunity in an individual, but the benefit may be minimal — and obtained just as easily by wearing a mask, or avoiding indoor dining and crowded bars.

The administration’s emphasis on vaccines has undermined the importance of building other precautions into people’s lives in ways that are comfortable and sustainable, and on building capacity for testing, she and other experts said.

“This is part of why I think the administration’s focus on vaccines is so damaging to morale,” she added. “We probably won’t be going back to normal anytime soon.”

Sadly, a hysterical overreaction to minor risks has been “normal” life in America for decades, so we actually are back to normal. I recently did some traveling and found that not only does everyone have to wear a mask on airplanes, you even need to wear a mask in airports. Why?

PS. This link has lots of amusing comments:


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33 Responses to “Covid follies”

  1. Gravatar of Market Fiscalist Market Fiscalist
    18. August 2021 at 19:38

    A bit off topic but I’m curious what you think about current NZ lock-down.

    On the one hand a national lockdown after a handful of cases seems a bit extreme (and makes you wonder how they can ever re-open for international travel if their target is zero cases)

    On the other, hand they have a very low death rate from covid and one can see why they would want to be risk-adverse at this point in the epidemic.

    Curious on your views ?

  2. Gravatar of Ken P Ken P
    18. August 2021 at 20:25

    Good post Scott. At least we aren’t Australia, knocking on doors to make sure no one leaves their home. I talked to friends over the weekend who think masks should be the new normal. They say it would be worth it even without Covid because there are other vissues. Minutes later, I took the stairs to a different level and they piled into a crowded elevator with strangers. My motivation for the stairs was that I try to add small bits of activity to my day.

    I find the “building capacity for testing” to be bizarre. It should be “get out of the way of testing”.

  3. Gravatar of ee ee
    19. August 2021 at 01:52

    I agree with Matt about the stupidity of that article RE boosters vs distancing. But I also think Scott is too optimistic about this being the tail end of the pandemic. There were over 1k deaths in the US yesterday, rising fast. Vaccines are the game here to reduce deaths. Masks and testing should still have a role situationally in high case areas to add more brakes. When we get to winter we may have ANOTHER wave. Cases never really got back to normal in UK so maybe we ride with high case counts for the next 4-8 months.

  4. Gravatar of henry henry
    19. August 2021 at 02:05

    If Trump was in office, Sumner would be raging about the 150,000 cases a day. Does anyone still remember when he told us that Biden would do “marginally better”, as if Biden has this magical power to stop a prokaryote. Biden cannot even plan a logical withdrawal with three months notice.

    Sumner also continues to talk about social distancing, even after a number of studies show six feet of social distancing is ineffective. He simply refuses to acknowledge the studies.

    And the excessive fear displayed by the majority of the population is rational. It’s a direct result of CNN, NYT and MSNBC’s 24/7 fear mongering campaign. CNN displayed a death ticker on their screen until election day. They pollute the airwaves with half-truths and untruths. One of their favorites terms is: “experts say”. They won’t say “the study shows”, or “the study says”, they always say “experts say”. The problem is that experts disagree.

    Instead of silencing those who disagree; instead of working with Big Tech behind the scenes to have them banned, downvoted and “ghosted”, it makes more sense to advocate for open debate.

    Open debate would lead to more trust and less fear.

  5. Gravatar of Acebojangles Acebojangles
    19. August 2021 at 06:19

    Don’t policymakers have to take into account the resistance to things like masking and distancing? I agree that we could deal with COVID more rationally if people were willing to limit their activities and wear masks when it makes sense, but I don’t think we live in that world.

    Given that masking and distancing were never fully complied with and have now become culture war issues, vaccine boosters may be the best way to limit damage from COVID.

  6. Gravatar of Lizard Man Lizard Man
    19. August 2021 at 07:11

    I would think that the reason for masks in airports and airplanes is for PR purposes and to try to forestall health authorities from shutting them down. A single news report about people catching COVID at an airport or a flight probably results in millions of dollars of lost revenue because fewer people purchase tickets.

    As for continued masking, etc., more generally, too few people have gotten vaccinated to preserve hospital capacity, given the greater transmissibility of the currently dominant strain. Metros in Florida, Louisiana, and Texas have gotten to the point where they have run out of hospital capacity and are having to once again postpone “elective” surgeries. Maybe places with higher vaccination rates have enough protection to both slow the spread of the virus and to keep serious cases low enough that they don’t need to worry about running out of hospital capacity. Maybe not. Erring on the side of caution is probably smart, especially if workplaces will start mandating vaccines soon, and if younger kids will start getting vaccinated soon. Every additional person vaccinated should mean about one less person to worry about getting severely ill, and also should lower the reproduction rate of the virus.

    Even still, respiratory illnesses tend to spread more quickly in the winter, and the extent to which the COVID-19 virus mutates, spreads, and will cause severe illness is unknown. So a cautious approach still seems prudent to me.

    Though after this winter/spring, health authorities should have plans about how to deal with a higher baseline and peak volume of people needing hospital care due to the COVID-19 virus, even without masking or restrictions on activities and businesses. After dealing with it for two years, there should be enough data to make good guesses about what to expect from the virus in the future.

  7. Gravatar of bb bb
    19. August 2021 at 07:23

    Scott,
    This post seems odd to me. I stopped taking most precautions at the beginning of the summer because this risk seemed very low. I started taking precautions again to include masks a few weeks ago because the risk went up. I’m not overly concerned for myself, but I have a family member who is vaccinated but immunocompromised. I don’t think I’m overreacting. I expect that we will make a lot of progress on vaccinating people in the coming months at which point I hope the risk with go down. With hospitals filling up in many parts of the country, it’s an odd time to write this post.
    BTW, I’ll probably always wear masks in certain places, like riding the metro. I’ve enjoyed going a full year without catching a cold.

  8. Gravatar of G G
    19. August 2021 at 07:51

    I am not personally concerned about my covid risk, but support things like masking in airport terminals until hospitals and K-12 schools are functioning well.

    Thoughts? Many hospitals (including children’s hospitals) have run out of or are running out of ICU beds, school districts in places such as rural Texas are opening for only to shut down shortly thereafter due to an outbreak. Many children not vaccinated or eligible to vaccinated. Doctors on twitter claiming that is is reasonable to assume 1% of children’s COVID cases will require hospitalization and modeling based on rate of infection, length of stay that this is much more than the available capacity. The burden that has already been placed on some doctors and nurses seems a bit similar to war-time?

    I am a bit torn that it definitely seems like some healthy vaccinated people who mainly interact with other healthy vaccinated people are excessively risk adverse. I don’t want to have pointless restrictions, but it seems unsatisfying to give into nihilism as well without it being clear some of these institutions mentioned above are back to normal.

  9. Gravatar of ssumner ssumner
    19. August 2021 at 08:30

    Market, I can’t comment on their current policy, but I’d say the optimal policy for most countries was to do something like New Zealand’s 2020 policy until vaccines were available, and then rip the bandaid off.

    Acebojangles, You said:

    “Given that masking and distancing were never fully complied with and have now become culture war issues, vaccine boosters may be the best way to limit damage from COVID.”

    Vaccines are the best solution regardless of how people feel about masks and social distancing.

    bb, You said: “I’ll probably always wear masks in certain places, like riding the metro. I’ve enjoyed going a full year without catching a cold”

    Me too, but the mask was not the primary reason you did not catch a cold, rather cold and flu viruses didn’t circulate very much due to all the social distancing and hand washing. (And I’m someone who believes that masks work to some extent.)

    Everyone, I suppose hospital overcrowding might be an issue in a few places, but not where I was traveling. This is the new normal, as Covid is not going away. We need to accept that almost everyone will be exposed to the delta variant, and get on with our lives (or deaths, if that’s what you prefer to a needle.)

    BTW, Our hospitals are handling about 700 deaths a day (albeit rising), vs. 3500/day in an earlier peak, so for the country as a whole the situation is manageable.

  10. Gravatar of Todd Kreider Todd Kreider
    19. August 2021 at 10:20

    Scott: “I’d say the optimal policy for most countries was to do something like New Zealand’s 2020 policy until vaccines were available, and then rip the bandaid off.”

    Right, because most countries are islands with very small populations out in the middle of the ocean.

  11. Gravatar of Lizard Man Lizard Man
    19. August 2021 at 13:42

    How many doctors and nurses have retired, changed profession, or quit working in hospitals in the recent past? So far as I have read, that is the capacity restraint the overwhelmed hospitals are facing. Marketplace did a story recently claiming hospitals were increasingly short staffed not just due to more patients, but also due to a lot of staff ceasing to work in hospitals, though they didn’t cite any data. So hospital capacity could be decreasing. Also, ironically, health systems that mandate vaccines might also see staff shortages as anti-vaxers decide to try to find other employment.

  12. Gravatar of Gene Frenkle Gene Frenkle
    19. August 2021 at 16:22

    “Hysterical overreaction to minor risks” like waging a $5 trillion 20 year War on Terror after 20 men hijacked 4 planes with box cutters??? And literally an hour after the events of 9/11 terrorists could never replicate that attack if America spent several million dollars making cockpit doors stronger. That was literally the only change that would cost money that was truly necessary to prevent another 9/11. The other thing we could have done is have 100 people thinking up ways they would do a terrorist attack and then implement measures like stronger cockpit doors before a terrorist attack.

  13. Gravatar of rinat rinat
    19. August 2021 at 17:07

    Sumner tried to make George Mason “woke”, and got destroyed today.

    Judge absolutely lambasted the woke dorks for not providing a medical exemption for a law professor who already had antibodies from a previous infection. George Masons “woke” lawyer practically leaves the courtroom in tears.

    Louisiana Judge also strikes down LSU. Nothing pleases me more than to watch our big beautiful constitution, strike down the woke thugs, and totalitarian creeps, who propagate “their way or the highway”.

    We’d all be better off if Sumner and his cabal would just go to China. Don’t like democracy – I’ll help you pack your bags.

  14. Gravatar of G G
    19. August 2021 at 17:12

    In terms of the hospitals, I am definitely a bit influenced by my own priors living in Texas but Austin getting to 1 ICU bed and Dallas temporarily running out of pediatric ICU beds – these are well known cities, not small towns.

    It also seems like we are in uncharted territory with children — I am inclined to think the one-off, one in a zillion deaths, while horrible are mostly extremely bad luck and risks aren’t outsized compared to other risks children.

    But it does seems there are a decent number of hospitalizations and some doctors claim children require different staff,etc. to be treated effectively and we have relatively low capacity and have not stressed it yet in a fall school openings + high R0 delta + no or minimal remote learning environment (and in some cases without masks).

    I’m sure people there are people who may disagree with some of this, but was an interesting thread here:
    https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1426318422808449029.html

    I am not trying to advocate for any particular change to the status quo or school policy but am a bit worried as schools reopen that there will be more hysteria and not less. From that perspective, it would seem it people are a bit too risk adverse but it is done in a way with low economic/psychological cost, that is perhaps preferable to knee jerk changes in behavior or starting new topics for covid culture wars.

  15. Gravatar of nick nick
    19. August 2021 at 20:01

    It will take a civil war to defeat the radical left.

    The burning and looting, and terrorizing will stop when the center and conservative right starts burning the radical left homes down, and beating them to a pulp. And “eye for an eye”.

    Communists, and totalitarians, only respond to violence. Words and logic will not stop them.

  16. Gravatar of foosion foosion
    20. August 2021 at 02:58

    “you even need to wear a mask in airports. Why?”

    Because they are indoor spaces that often are crowded or at least have crowded areas.

    “We need to accept that almost everyone will be exposed to the delta variant, and get on with our lives”

    And while we are accepting that, it would be helpful to take reasonable measures to mitigate the risks.

    Almost everyone is exposed to the risks of auto accidents, we accept that, but we require seatbelts, ban speeding and drunk driving, etc., etc.

  17. Gravatar of jayne jayne
    20. August 2021 at 06:35

    We have more proof today of the democrat party sicko’s.

    A nurse at the University of Washington Medical Center just removed a 64 year old man from the heart transplant waiting list because he refused to take the vaccine.

    I think we should round up these mentally sick “demopigs” and place them all in Alaska. The sickos can call it the “Alaskan Communist Party” – perhaps a flag of Satan or Klaus Schwab, whoever it is they worship. Let them implement their great reset up there. I’ll wait with bated breath to see how long it takes before they are organ harvesting, killing newborns, and begging conservatives for humanitarian aid.

    Another utilitarian dystopia that will be in the dust bin of history.

    Jeremy Bentham might have been Satan!

  18. Gravatar of harry harry
    20. August 2021 at 06:59

    It’s quite appalling that we live in a society where hospital staff are refusing organ transplants because an individual has a conscientious objection to a vaccine that lowers t-cells, increases risk for heart attacks & blood clots, and has a laundry list of other potential serious side effects.

    The CDC doesn’t mandate it for their employees, and neither does Pfizer, but of course the democrat party wants to mandate it for those plebeians.

    Kind of like Obama and Kerry, two mega losers, who walk around without a mask. But they want you and your kids “masked up”.

    One set of rules for the privileged autocrats, and one for all those beneath them.

    Sounds a lot like the CCP!

  19. Gravatar of jg jg
    20. August 2021 at 08:05

    Yesterday I read a post that showed flu deaths for youngsters over the past several years exceed covid deaths for the same age group. After wwii my father and his peers played with leftover ammunition left in the field. One of his friends got hurt, but grandma did not stop him and His brothers from going outside to play. Life is much different now.

  20. Gravatar of ssumner ssumner
    20. August 2021 at 08:46

    Gene, You said:

    ““Hysterical overreaction to minor risks” like waging a $5 trillion 20 year War on Terror after 20 men hijacked 4 planes with box cutters???”

    Yup, another good example.

    G, We should vaccinate children.

    foosion, We are almost all going to get covid, so just get the vaccine if you are worried about the consequences. That’s what I did.

    Experts suggest that Covid will become endemic. Is that wrong?

    jg, You said:

    “Life is much different now.”

    Unfortunately, this is true.

  21. Gravatar of Spencer Bradley Hall Spencer Bradley Hall
    20. August 2021 at 09:52

    re: “a hysterical overreaction to minor risks has been “normal” life”

    Look at Biden talk. Biden looks like he’s got Parkinson’s disease.

  22. Gravatar of Christian List Christian List
    20. August 2021 at 10:34

    I don’t understand what’s so bad about wearing a mask. Isn’t it just as typically American (or typically Western) that people get artificially upset about even the smallest restrictions? “Oh no, I have to wear a mask in an airport, how horrible.”

    And the zero covid strategy of countries like Australia and New Zealand now looks nowhere near as good as it did in the beginning. These countries are kind of trapped in a perpetual lockdown because they don’t seem to have enough really good vaccines.

    Even the strategy in CCP China (aka West Taiwan) now seems more questionable than ever. They do have vaccines, they manufactured their own junk that doesn’t really work well, but in their propaganda they said that it was the best vaccine in the world ever and that the European mRNA vaccine was really bad — and now they have to explain to their people why the CCP miracle vaccine is not so great after all and why the Chinese people should inject Biontech instead. Apparently they are now selling the Biontech vaccine as a “Chinese invention”. What a mendacious, ruthless fraud regime.

    And by the way, the laboratory theory is among the “probable hypotheses” for him at the moment, said Danish scientist Peter Ben Embarek, who led the WHO mission in Wuhan, on Danish television Thursday.

    This is further evidence that Scott’s commentary “The rapidly shrinking lab leak hypothesis” from a few days ago was exactly backwards in both its reasoning and conclusions.

  23. Gravatar of G G
    20. August 2021 at 11:09

    I agree we should vaccinate children.

    Given that many children are not vaccine eligible yet or their parents may discourage it, so long as we are imposing restrictions on children in a large number of places (requiring masks in school, etc), I see some value/consistency in trying to keeping some of the current anti-covid measures in place at things like public/mass transit, large gatherings open to the public such as concerts or basketball games, etc.

    I don’t claim to know what the right policy is for schools and maybe it depends on local factors but I would prefer to demonstrate that we can keep most schools open without masks (i.e. without real safety concern or parental/school board/teacher’s union hysteria) before we get rid of mask mandates for things like airports, airplanes, and subways.

  24. Gravatar of Todd Kreider Todd Kreider
    20. August 2021 at 12:54

    Scott: “We should vaccinate children.”

    The British and German health departments do not think so nor does the inventor of the mRNA vaccine.

  25. Gravatar of ssumner ssumner
    20. August 2021 at 15:05

    Christian, You said:

    “Apparently they are now selling the Biontech vaccine as a “Chinese invention”. What a mendacious, ruthless fraud regime.”

    Imagine that! A government that repeatedly lies to its people on Covid-related issues.

    You said:

    “I don’t understand what’s so bad about wearing a mask. Isn’t it just as typically American (or typically Western) that people get artificially upset about even the smallest restrictions? “Oh no, I have to wear a mask in an airport, how horrible.””

    No one said it was horrible. At least I didn’t. I said it was pointless. Repeat after me: Covid isn’t going away. We need to live with it.

    I’ve been vaccinated. I suggest others do the same.

  26. Gravatar of ee ee
    20. August 2021 at 19:25

    Scott: you don’t think it’s worth it to wear a mask to diminish infection risk until one’s children are vaccinated?

  27. Gravatar of Peter Peter
    21. August 2021 at 00:22

    @henry “studies show social distancing doesn’t work”

    Would love you to link that because personally I’ve never heard of a hermit in the woods or a person with agoraphobia catching a socially communicable sickness. Please show me these studies that COVID magically teleports from person to person without regard to distance.

    Just like abstinence and pregnancy, social distancing is the only 100% protective method, it’s just inconvenient so nobody does.

  28. Gravatar of steve steve
    21. August 2021 at 04:20

    “We are almost all going to get covid, so just get the vaccine if you are worried about the consequences. That’s what I did.”

    Not sure what you are saying here but almost no one gets measles and it is more infectious that Covid though Delta is probably close. if we could get people vaccinated we have the possibility of having Covid as rare as measles. Only a possibility since we dont really know how stable the virus will remain, but with our ability to make the RNA vaccines for boosters if needed that isn’t such an issue, so we dont all have to get covid. Now if you are saying that since so many people refuse to get vaccinated we will all end up with it that may be true.

    “I said it was pointless. ”

    Assuming that a lot of people will never get vaccinated that may be true, but we should certainly make clear to people it is a good option to help control their risks especially in some places and times. With people masking (and distancing) flu and RSV essentially disappeared. We now have RSV back in spades. With flu season coming up we may find out what really happens when people have Covid and flu concurrently. It looks like RSV + Covid means an increase in hospitalization risk. Dont know about mortality risks yet. (Not enough cases yet to be certain but looks headed that way.) Masks and distancing made flu go away last year so if we start seeing lots of people with both and the combo is more deadly it should be an option.

    https://www.keranews.org/health-wellness/2021-08-14/texas-children-and-childrens-hospitals-are-under-siege-from-two-viruses-rsv-and-covid-19

    Steve

  29. Gravatar of Justin Justin
    21. August 2021 at 05:45

    –“Not sure what you are saying here but almost no one gets measles and it is more infectious that Covid though Delta is probably close. if we could get people vaccinated we have the possibility of having Covid as rare as measles.”–

    The current vaccines aren’t good enough to prevent COVID spread. They reduce the odds of infection and substantially reduce the odds of a severely negative outcome. But the virus will still circulate and mutate even in a fully vaccinated population.

    To provide an example of how useless the vaccines are at preventing mere infection, In Los Angeles, 30% of cases are now among the vaccinated. And there is now selection pressure on the virus to evolve into a new variant in which current vaccines are less effective.

    https://deadline.com/2021/08/los-angeles-breakthrough-infections-covid-amount-cases-1234818477/

    Looking ahead, Novovax’s COVID vaccine looks promising. Early data seem to show better protection, and it’s not one of the mRNA vaccines which may be scaring people off. Hopefully we do end up with a very effective vaccine that people are willing to take, and maybe then COVID may become like the measles for us. But that’s probably the 2nd half of 2022 at earliest, and the virus is always mutating. There may be another variant or two which reduces the efficacy of our best vaccines. To the degree that happens, I think we just need to accept that COVID is a fact of life and, to reduce the odds of severe illness, keep up with vaccinations.

  30. Gravatar of Justin Justin
    21. August 2021 at 05:49

    Once the vaccines became available, I think the obvious way forward was to go back to normal life and let people who don’t want to be vaccinated white knuckle it.

    Separately, with regards to masking for children, this should be a time to push school choice. It would be better if parents had options whether to send their kid to a school that wears masks, a school that doesn’t, a school that is in person, or a school that is remote.

  31. Gravatar of Todd Kreider Todd Kreider
    21. August 2021 at 06:53

    Steve: ” With people masking (and distancing) flu and RSV essentially disappeared.”

    The problem with this causal claim is that masks don’t slow the spread of a virus much, if at all, and influenza was in steep decline before people distanced or wore masks.

  32. Gravatar of rinat rinat
    21. August 2021 at 14:33

    The libtards are now arresting political dissidents and those that exercise free speech. Owen Shroyer was arrested for standing on the capitol building steps. Meanwhile, the ANTIFA and BLM thugs can kill and loot at will, without prosecution.

    I suspect this is the end of the republic. I would encourage those that care about liberty to join Lin Wood’s “strike back” movement, which will hopefully put financial pressure on the corrupt. If that fails, and these thugs continue the political arrests, looting, and violence against citizens, then we will simply have to return the favor.

    It’s our duty to preserve liberty for future generations, and unfortunately, these types of thugs only respond to equal force.

    It’s precisely why we have the second amendment. There is nothing that pleases thugs more than to remove those freedom weapons from the public. They know we can overtake them.

  33. Gravatar of ssumner ssumner
    21. August 2021 at 14:40

    ee, My child is vaccinated. In any case, the Covid risk to children is tiny. Would you not drive somewhere because it’s risky for children?

    Steve, I wish everyone would get vaccinated, but it’s not going to happen. Accept that fact and get on with life.

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