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COVID-19 is an on-going pandemic. We talk about how to understand models of the progression and what changes are likely to happen as a result of this experience.


  • Why were the projections so far off? Why are they being reduced?
    • I’ve been running my own projections
    • Measure ARE working
    • It’s like being warned to hit the breaks
  • Tracking the growth of disease is like looking at how far and fast something went
    • Imagine a train on a straight track
    • Every day, we hear about total cases - that is distance - how far down the track it went
    • If you compare yesterday’s total to today’s, you get the new cases. That’s like the speed. Cases per day is like miles per hour
    • If you compare yesterday’s new cases to today’s, you get the new case growth rate - that is acceleration.
  • Treatments
    • Current state: Supportive care
    • Everything else unproven
    • Therapeutics
    • Vaccine
  • Economic Stress
    • The longer a country waits to address the problem, the harder it is to address
    • Taiwan and South Korea both have experience with this and were able to address it quickly
    • Some other countries lack experience or the leaders lack understanding and delay
    • Ways of dealing with this:
      • Just let it happen
      • Freezing the economy
      • Safety net
      • Which will be best?
    • Lessons have been learned by central bankers
    • The financial structure will likely hold up
    • Risk of moral hazard is much lower
  • Lasting effects
    • What was the lasting effect of the great depression?
    • How often can we afford to do this?
      • We will need to get better
      • New laws, better respect for health researchers
      • Remember the engineers of the space race
    • Social changes
      • Hand shakes are probably on the way out
      • People will be more aware of hygiene
      • Stronger families
      • More desire for nature
      • Less trusting of big crowds
      • Less eating out

References

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