Bjorn LomborgVarmennettu tili

This fundamentally tells us that doing *some social distancing* is better than doing nothing I think this is correct — here is their basic illustration of cost paths However, I'd like to highlight one major concern and some interesting pointspic.twitter.com/OiOtI2b23i

The analysis ignores 2nd wave — what happens after we have successfully reduced infections in the first wave It just assumes that there will be treatment or vaccine for the 2nd wave arriving in the fall This could dramatically underestimate the cost of strong social distancingpic.twitter.com/lGv9v8qiZG

We know from Spanish Flu a century ago that social distancing is effective, but "overeffective" policies (too strict lockdowns) are less effective because they drive a second wave This cost-benefit analysis misses the costs of "too effective" lockdowns https://www.pnas.org/content/104/18/7588 …pic.twitter.com/RRpY6Oynzb

Beyond that, the paper does great sensitivity It estimates a GDP cost from social distancing of 6.2% in first year. If the actual GDP cost is higher than 8.5% of GDP in first year, it turns out that social distancing policies led to an overall *worse* outcome for the USpic.twitter.com/KaJellUWNB

Corona and climate are exactly opposite in cost and benefit streams: With corona, the benefits are upfront, and costs are longterm in lower GDP over next decades Indeed, if the planning horizon is longer than 63 years, current social distancing leads to worse outcomespic.twitter.com/IX6CHQ7hZv

Finally, given that most corona victims are old, it is worth considering whether $10 million per VSL is correct. Indeed, if value of saved life is less than $5.85m, social distancing leads to worse outcomepic.twitter.com/4CLU0Ncuri