[2006alum]

He is not the only expert that is more optimistic about this pandemic than others.  Here is a NYT opinion piece that cites several experts that don't disagree with Dr. Ioannidis:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/20/opini...comes.html

For what it's worth, Chicago Card already cited that piece in the very first response to your initial post up above...

He is also quoted among others by Nicholas Kristof in his latest NY Times piece...

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/20/opini...comes.html

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Goldman Sachs says 2nd quarter GDP will contract 24%.  There are 30.2 million small businesses in the USA (defined as fewer than 500 employees).  How many of them will survive two months with no revenue and bills piling up?  How will they come back?  They'll be forced to consume what resources they have left, there will be millions in layoffs.

Yes, the coronavirus is tragic and people will die.  How many people will die because of economic reasons?  How many suicides?  How many because they can't pay their rent and become homeless?  40% of Americans can't afford an unforeseen $400 expense and 50% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck.  You really think America is going to be whole and bounce back economically from this?

I guess the problem is that all those things would happen anyway in the event that the pandemic spread widely and unchecked - in places like Wuhan and Italy where they were very slow to identify (and acknowledge, in the case of China) what was happening, they still had to shut down their economies altogether while the virus raged through those regions. It wasn't a question of "if" but "when."

I'm totally on your side that this is going to have a catastrophic economic impact, but I guess I'm not sure what the alternative is. Whether or not London Breed tells me to shelter in place, if half my friends are coming down with COVID-19 and 1/5th of those need hospitalization, I'm still not going to go participate in the economy. And those who would end up getting very sick would be unable to participate in the economy, all the while straining our hospital system even further. I'm fairly confident the reason universities and large corporations went online and WFH so quickly was in part legal liability and costs to business of doing nothing -- they did this voluntarily, in many cases a week or two before any sort of shelter in place order went into effect. Even if all government authorities had said "carry on as usual," Stanford had already determined the risks of doing so were not acceptable.

So I guess the question is what you think the alternative would be, from the governmental actor standpoint. As the Kristof article notes in the "best case scenario model," the only viable model that seems to have reduced the economic impact has been the model of Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Singapore, which involves rapid and widespread (and free) testing, invasive and effective contact tracing and isolation, and a very willing and cooperative population. And in this respect, that is what I think chrisk was referring to as "inaction," for well over a week after the promise that "anyone who wants to be tested can get tested," the vast majority of Americans can't. Now as we roll out tests, we lack reagents. We're also critically low on PPE. At every step, the feds have seemed to overpromise and under-deliver, despite having clear warnings weeks to months in advance of what needed to be done. We also have limited infrastructure in place for contact tracing, and as everyone has been noting, we don't seem to be great at the isolation part. So I'd say we're 0/3 on the testing, contact tracing, and isolation. That, to me, is inaction of the highest order. 

So what I'd love to hear is, what's the proposed alternative?

[2006alum]

He is not the only expert that is more optimistic about this pandemic than others.  Here is a NYT opinion piece that cites several experts that don't disagree with Dr. Ioannidis:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/20/opini...comes.html

For what it's worth, Chicago Card already cited that piece in the very first response to your initial post up above...

He is also quoted among others by Nicholas Kristof in his latest NY Times piece...

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/20/opini...comes.html

---

Goldman Sachs says 2nd quarter GDP will contract 24%.  There are 30.2 million small businesses in the USA (defined as fewer than 500 employees).  How many of them will survive two months with no revenue and bills piling up?  How will they come back?  They'll be forced to consume what resources they have left, there will be millions in layoffs.

Yes, the coronavirus is tragic and people will die.  How many people will die because of economic reasons?  How many suicides?  How many because they can't pay their rent and become homeless?  40% of Americans can't afford an unforeseen $400 expense and 50% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck.  You really think America is going to be whole and bounce back economically from this?

I guess the problem is that all those things would happen anyway in the event that the pandemic spread widely and unchecked - in places like Wuhan and Italy where they were very slow to identify (and acknowledge, in the case of China) what was happening, they still had to shut down their economies altogether while the virus raged through those regions. It wasn't a question of "if" but "when."

I'm totally on your side that this is going to have a catastrophic economic impact, but I guess I'm not sure what the alternative is. Whether or not London Breed tells me to shelter in place, if half my friends are coming down with COVID-19 and 1/5th of those need hospitalization, I'm still not going to go participate in the economy. And those who would end up getting very sick would be unable to participate in the economy, all the while straining our hospital system even further. I'm fairly confident the reason universities and large corporations went online and WFH so quickly was in part legal liability and costs to business of doing nothing -- they did this voluntarily, in many cases a week or two before any sort of shelter in place order went into effect. Even if all government authorities had said "carry on as usual," Stanford had already determined the risks of doing so were not acceptable.

So I guess the question is what you think the alternative would be, from the governmental actor standpoint. As the Kristof article notes in the "best case scenario model," the only viable model that seems to have reduced the economic impact has been the model of Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Singapore, which involves rapid and widespread (and free) testing, invasive and effective contact tracing and isolation, and a very willing and cooperative population. And in this respect, that is what I think chrisk was referring to as "inaction," for well over a week after the promise that "anyone who wants to be tested can get tested," the vast majority of Americans can't. Now as we roll out tests, we lack reagents. We're also critically low on PPE. At every step, the feds have seemed to overpromise and under-deliver, despite having clear warnings weeks to months in advance of what needed to be done. We also have limited infrastructure in place for contact tracing, and as everyone has been noting, we don't seem to be great at the isolation part. So I'd say we're 0/3 on the testing, contact tracing, and isolation. That, to me, is inaction of the highest order. 

So what I'd love to hear is, what's the proposed alternative?