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A Couple of Quick Hits

By May 20, 2020Commentary

JP Morgan, the large and “respected” investment bank, which does have excellent research capabilities, has apparently just published a piece of research showing that easing lockdowns is correlated with a reduction in infections.  This may be related to the fact that household transmission has been found in a number of studies to be the primary source of new infections.  I don’t have the research yet but will report more on it as soon as I can.

A reader who has been enormously helpful in my understanding of the Minnesota model has pointed out to me that it predicts that when you keep kids home from school and otherwise reduce their level of contacts, you actually increase the total number of deaths and deaths in the elderly.  Now the Minnesota model twists itself into a pretzel to try to be consistent with the course of the epidemic at a certain point in time, and has other flaws, but that result actually is consistent with what I have seen in other research.  And it is consistent with household transmission being the number one source of new infections.  Sweden kept kids in school and actually has no higher rates of infection in the young than in other countries that closed schools.  The smartest strategy all along would have been to let the virus go in the young and the healthy.  Protects everyone in the long run.

Wonder if our “science driven” Governor will follow this science.

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  • Harley says:

    Was struck by how many times Walz commented on Wednesday about the inconsistency of the virus data he was seeing, Like number of deaths up sharply one day, then down sharply the next, then back up. The kind of summary you would hear from someone who either doesn’t like to make decisions or just isn’t capable of making them. Sensed much fear of being wrong. So, maybe feeling the growing pressure from the public, he announces small, incremental changes.

    Like the treatment plan from Richard Dreyfus to the paranoid patient played by Bill Murray in “What About Bob?” “BABY STEPS!”

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