Questioning Conventional Wisdom in the COVID-19 Crisis

[George K]

A long interview about what to do, whether it's as bad as everyone says, etc.

The interviewee is Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, who holds an MD and a PhD in economics. He's a professor of medicine at Stanford.

This interview was recorded on March 27 - a week ago.

I wonder how well it'll age:

Link to video

[jon-nyc]

I’m all for non-conventional wisdom on this front. Remember in February the idea that we would overrun our hospitals and shut down our economy was non-conventional.

I just want to see it done intelligently. I will watch this soon. Hopefully it isn’t warmed-over Ionnidis or worse, Richard Epstein.

[George K]

@jon-nyc That's why I commented, "I wonder how well this will age."

[Copper]

@ThatGuyintheVideo said "They shut down the economy without knowing what they are doing"

I agree

But, they might luck-out and have the facts, in the future, line up with what they said

Or, with the right media connections, they can simply re-write history, this is pretty easy to do these days

[George K]

@Copper said in Questioning Conventional Wisdom in the COVID-19 Crisis:

He speaks on the Santa Clara study in this update:

Link to video

[Horace]

I noticed that the doctor was careful to frame his argument as lives vs lives. It's not so much the problem that people lose jobs due to the economic shut down, it's that people get depressed and kill themselves. It's not so much a problem that routine medical services are unavailable, it's that people won't have their colonoscopies, and cancer won't be detected, and they'll die.

I hear this notion that it's "totally obvious" and "everybody acknowledges" that the "lives are priceless" idea is nonsense, but our social conversation steers well clear of admitting that. If you want to put a price on lives, you better quote that price in terms of lives if you want anybody to listen to you.

[jon-nyc]

I commented on this study the other day, but the selection bias potential is so extreme as to make it more or less useless.

The good news is there will be many more coming soon. The MLB one should be interesting.

[George K]

@jon-nyc said in Questioning Conventional Wisdom in the COVID-19 Crisis:

I commented on this study the other day, but the selection bias potential is so extreme as to make it more or less useless.

I know. It was just interesting hearing from the horse.

[Copper]

@Horace said in Questioning Conventional Wisdom in the COVID-19 Crisis:

the "lives are priceless" idea is nonsense,

Yes, of course.

What do insurance companies think of the price of a life these days?

Is the demand for insurance going up? If so is the price going up?

Maybe both are going down.

Those guys could give you a reasonable number to put on a life.