Conversation

SBF
@SBF_FTX
2) as with many, this one doesn’t bother attempting a cost benefit analysis. If it did, it would maybe notice that the claimed annual damages from the flu are around $50b. How about it’s proposed countermeasures?
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SBF
@SBF_FTX
3) well, US GDP is $20T, so we have 0.2% to play with—0.4% if you double it to include endemic COVID. Maybe his proposed interventions would halve the risk—back to 0.2%. That’s the equivalent of missing 1 day per year of work.
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SBF
@SBF_FTX
4) the proposed interventions include: A) vaccines. I think the cost of this alone is ~ 1 work day per year. B) Zoom instead of meetings. Much of our business wouldn’t have happened without in person meetings. C) staying home if you have a sick housemate (already 1/year)
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SBF
@SBF_FTX
5) D) semi-constant mask wearing … So his proposed solutions outweigh their claimed benefit by something like 5-10x. What’s up with that? Well, mostly he never bothered checking the cost vs benefits. If he had, he would have been forced to clean up his post.
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SBF
@SBF_FTX
6) one thing: I’m skeptical of the quoted cost of $11-90b/year for the flu, and comparable for endemic COVID. I would have guessed higher under his assumptions. Also, though, people are shockingly willing to permanently sacrifice significant %s of their productivity!
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SBF
@SBF_FTX
7) and, finally, the article is unimaginative. It purports to consider the long game, but ignores the possibility—I’d say the _probability_—that COVID-19 won’t be the world’s last pandemic. What happens when we keep layering them on?
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Resmond 🔺
@tomresmond
Replying to
@SBF_FTX
At best these are opinion pieces from people whose opinions don’t carry enough weight to be so widespread broadcast, at worst it’s another propaganda piece. Populism and dogma are on the rise, pragmatism and measured thinking seem to have no place in the new world