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This is: Covid 12/24: We’re Fed, It’s Over, published by Zvi on LessWrong.
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UPDATE 7/21/2021: As you doubtless know at this point, it was not over. Given the visibility of this post, I'm going to note here at the top that the prediction of a potential large wave of infections between March and May did not happen, no matter what ultimately happens with Delta (and the prediction was not made with Delta in mind anyway, only Alpha). Some more reflections on that at the bottom of this post here.
A year ago, there were reports coming out of China about a new coronavirus. Various people were saying things about exponential growth and the inevitability of a new pandemic, and urging action be taken. The media told us it was nothing to worry about, right up until hospitals got overwhelmed and enough people started dying.
This past week, it likely happened again.
A new strain of Covid-19 has emerged from southern England, along with a similar one in South Africa. The new strain has rapidly taken over the region, and all signs point to it being about 65% more infectious than the old one, albeit with large uncertainty and error bars around that.
I give it a 70% chance that these reports are largely correct.
There is no plausible way that a Western country can sustain restrictions that can overcome that via anything other than widespread immunity. This would be the level required to previously cut new infections in half every week. And all that would do is stabilize the rate of new infections.
Like last time, the media is mostly assuring us that there is nothing to worry about, and not extrapolating exponential growth into the future.
Like last time, there are attempts to slow down travel, that are both not tight enough to plausibly work even if they were implemented soon enough, and also clearly not implemented soon enough.
Like last time, no one is responding with a rush to get us prepared for what is about to happen. There are no additional pushes to improve our ability to test, or our supplies of equipment, or to speed our vaccine efforts or distribute the vaccine more efficiently (in any sense), or to lift restrictions on useful private action.
Like last time, the actions urged upon us to contain spread clearly have little or no chance of actually doing that.
The first time, I made the mistake of not thinking hard enough early enough, or taking enough action. I also didn’t think through the implications, and didn’t do things like buying put options, even though it was obvious. This time, I want to not make those same mistakes. Let’s figure out what actually happens, then act upon it.
We can’t be sure yet. I only give the new strain a 70% chance of being sufficiently more infectious than the old one that the scenario fully plays out here in America before we have a chance to vaccinate enough people. I am very willing to revise that probability as new data comes in, or based on changes in methods of projection, including projections of what people will decide to do in various scenarios.
What I do know is we can’t hide our heads in the sand again. Never again. When we have strong Bayesian evidence that something is happening, we need to work through that and act accordingly. Not say “there’s no proof” or “we don’t know anything yet.” This isn’t about proof via experiment, or ruling out all possible alternative explanations. This is about likelihood ratios and probabilities. And on that front, as far as I can tell, it doesn’t look good. Change my mind.
The short term outlook in America has clearly stabilized, with R0 close to 1, as the control system once again sets in. Cases and deaths (and test counts) aren’t moving much. We have a double whammy of holidays about to hit us in Christmas and New Year’s, but after that I expect the tide to turn until such time as we get whamm...
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