by | BLOG, BUSINESS, COVID, ECONOMY, FREEDOM, GOVERNMENT
The WSJ had a thoughtful opinion piece a couple of days ago. The author wanted to “quantify how many deaths were caused by delayed shutdown orders on a state-by-state basis”as a means to examine the efficacy of quick shutdown. Below are some key takeaways, and you can read the piece in full here.
“To normalize for an unambiguous comparison of deaths between states at the midpoint of an epidemic, we counted deaths per million population for a fixed 21-day period, measured from when the death rate first hit 1 per million—e.g.,‒three deaths in Iowa or 19 in New York state. A state’s “days to shutdown” was the time after a state crossed the 1 per million threshold until it ordered businesses shut down.
We ran a simple one-variable correlation of deaths per million and days to shutdown, which ranged from minus-10 days (some states shut down before any sign of Covid-19) to 35 days for South Dakota, one of seven states with limited or no shutdown. The correlation coefficient was 5.5%—so low that the engineers I used to employ would have summarized it as “no correlation” and moved on to find the real cause of the problem. (The trendline sloped downward—states that delayed more tended to have lower death rates—but that’s also a meaningless result due to the low correlation coefficient.)
No conclusions can be drawn about the states that sheltered quickly, because their death rates ran the full gamut, from 20 per million in Oregon to 360 in New York. This wide variation means that other variables—like population density or subway use—were more important. Our correlation coefficient for per-capita death rates vs. the population density was 44%. That suggests New York City might have benefited from its shutdown—but blindly copying New York’s policies in places with low Covid-19 death rates, such as my native Wisconsin, doesn’t make sense.”
The author then went on to examine Sweden’s policies (less restrictive than ours) and integrated those into his analysis:
“How did the Swedes do? They suffered 80 deaths per million 21 days after crossing the 1 per million threshold level. With 10 million people, Sweden’s death rate‒without a shutdown and massive unemployment‒is lower than that of the seven hardest-hit U.S. states—Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Louisiana, Connecticut, Michigan, New Jersey and New York—all of which, except Louisiana, shut down in three days or less.
We should cheer for Sweden to succeed, not ghoulishly bash them. They may prove that many aspects of the U.S. shutdown were mistakes—ineffective but economically devastating—and point the way to correcting them.”
Only time will tell what methodologies worked and what didn’t, but this is an important conversation to have, especially since the economy continues to worsen.
by | BLOG, BUSINESS, COVID, ECONOMY, GOVERNMENT
It might not be so crazy after all for relatively young people who are going broke and having their lives torn out from under them to try to get back to normal in as careful a way as possible: going to gyms, salons, and other businesses. Might it be reasonable for some people to try it out to see if it can help with the infection rate? Can we trust people to be careful?
Some businesses such as FedEx, supermarkets, and medical practices are open and more are starting to or trying to open up, and yet they are not getting a lot of business because people are afraid, or told they need to be afraid. But why not open up and if people are willing to take the risk and practice social distancing and mask-wearing, we should let them.
The economy is horrific the way it is, and it just cannot remain like this. Many people’s lives are now devastated. For many, we have probably passed the point where the cure is worse than the disease.
We know by now that the virus does pose a risk of death, but we also know that in the vast majority of situations, the virus is more mild than it is lethal – especially for certain cohorts. People are well-educated enough to be able to make an informed decision as to what level of socializing they want to engage in for themselves. We should let them make that choice and start to get back to the business of doing business.
by | BLOG, COVID, ECONOMY, FREEDOM
One of the most important takeaways from this COVID affair is the clear evidence of how critically important free markets are. While the free market is developing workarounds for providing necessities and developing relevant new products, the government can’t get out of its own way in terms of what it is trying to do and is finding that an overabundance of regulations has hampered its responsiveness.
There have finally been some recent changes, such as allowing telemedicine across state lines, modifications of certificates of need, and loosening of licensing requirements; perhaps the CDC, FDA, and other agencies will realize they don’t need as much regulation in the first place and such barriers actually inhibit health and economic well-being. Temporary, but more importantly, permanent reductions in regulations would be a step in the right direction. Because what is missing right now is the robustness of the private sector – but we can see its potential.
We are witnessing the incredible ingenuity of the American people as they are finding new ways to respond to this crisis. People are out there trying to figure out how to meet toilet paper demands, create new testing mechanisms, make and provide medical equipment, ventilators, masks, and vaccines. Nearly all of this is being done without the government. It’s the 325 million people out there trying to figure out what they can do to make things better and providing for a new and different need. Services are being changed to provide a product without prolonged human interaction. Door-to-door deliveries are being established. Companies are learning how to find their own ways to adapt.
All of this, it must be noted, has virtually nothing to do with the government. Whether it’s Amazon, pharmacies, FedEx, or restaurants, people know their own industries. They’re changing for their customers and for their company. This is, quite simply, real people knowing best what they need to do instead of some faceless government bureaucrat or rule telling them what to do because someone thinks he knows better about industry operations than the movers and shakers do.
The COVID crisis is a great opportunity for growth and deregulation. This will be the strength of our economic recovery. This is the free market at its best.
