Relative to your expectations, how well did government respond to COVID? How about regular people? How about business?
Before you answer you have to ponder your general expectations for government, regular people, and business. In my case, I expect absolute performance to be awful for government, mediocre for regular people, and excellent for business. Since I expect government to do poorly, government can (and occasionally does) exceed my expectations by attaining mediocrity.
Feel free to share your assessments in the comments. Here are mine:
1. Government (all levels, all nations) did even worse than I expected. I remain stunned that official shutdowns went on for more than a couple of weeks. And by my calculations, it would have been far better to do nothing. Overall, I put government at the 10th percentile of my already low expectations.
2. Regular people did vastly worse than I expected. The initial level of paranoia was no surprise, but its sheer durability continues to shock me. One of the main lessons of happiness research is that pleasant interaction with other humans is our most important source of happiness. And one of the main lessons of COVID is that a mild risk wrapped in official nagging is enough to get roughly half of all people to throw their most important source of happiness in the garbage. Overall, I put regular people at the 2nd percentile of my initially mediocre expectations.
3. Business in general moderately exceeded my high expectations. Yes, grocery stores ran out of “essential” products. And almost all business subjected customers to mind-numbing COVID propaganda. But they started reimagining their business model ASAP, and restarted the wheels of production almost as soon as the law allowed. Overall, I put business in general at the 60th percentile of my high expectations.
4. The performance of the pharmaceutical industry was straight out of science fiction. I would have expected a vaccine to take at least three years. I would have given a 30% chance that a COVID vaccine never happened. After all, there’s still no vaccine for AIDS. Instead, people started getting their shots less than a year after the crisis began. This wasn’t merely a triumph of science; it was a triumph of business. Knowing is half the battle, but mass producing and distributing the vaccine is the other half. And the pharmaceutical industry did it all. Overall, I put the pharmaceutical industry at the 99th percentile of my high expectations. Maybe the 99.99th percentile.
5. While we’re on the subject, the FDA also did far better than I expected. I’ve long deemed the FDA awful. And they could have saved a lot of lives by abolishing themselves a year ago. Still, I expected them to drag out pharmaceutical approval for at least a year. The damage of the Johnson and Johnson pause is a rounding error compared to the pig-headed, innumerate foot-dragging I’ve come to expect from the FDA. Overall, then, I’d put the FDA at the 80th percentile of my rock-bottom expectations.
P.S. Sales for my #FearMeNot COVID t-shirts are at the 60th percentile of my modest expectations…
READER COMMENTS
MikeW
May 11 2021 at 11:29am
Very good points.
Francisco Garrido
May 11 2021 at 11:55am
Everyone performed wildly differently from what you expected. To what do you attribute your miscalculations?
MikeP
May 11 2021 at 7:59pm
To the fact that he didn’t bet.
Floccina
May 11 2021 at 12:03pm
Your rankings are about what I would say, though I think people did a little better than you rated them.
How would you rate the Swedish Government’s response? New Zealand’s, S Korea etc. Quiet different.
Joe Denver
May 11 2021 at 12:34pm
1. At least for the US, government actually exceeded my expectations. Though it sounds as though my expectations were even lower than Bryan’s. So that’s not saying much. For example, both Trump and Biden may have been able to declare a state of emergency, cracked down on states unwilling to lock down, or otherwise imposed totalitarian measures in the name of controlling this disease. Indeed, Trump doing this may have improved his election odds (via the “rally around the flag” effect). But neither administration even came close to doing this, and largely respected the decisions of individual states.
2. I would say regular people met my expectations. I expected them to be hysterical and irrational, and they largely were. Even the smart people who ought to have known better. Indeed, this whole ordeal smelled quite similar to my recollections of 9/11.
3. Agreed that businesses moderately exceeded expectations. At the very start of the pandemic, before everyone was wearing masks, I was outright turned away from Costco, because I didn’t have a mask on the first day they implemented a mask policy (without warning). That wasn’t pleasant. But my pandemic experience was greatly improved by Amazon, Uber Eats, and Netflix.
4. Absolutely agree that the pharmaceutical industry deserves high praise. I was also quite skeptical that a vaccine would be found. However, looking at the history of mRNA vaccines, I also think we just got really lucky. If COVID had been even a year or two earlier, it’s likely things would not have gone as smoothly.
5. Agreed that the FDA exceeded expectations, but only because expectations were rock bottom to begin with.
zeke5123
May 11 2021 at 12:35pm
I generally agree with your assessments (both pre and post). A question and a comment:
Why did people perform so abysmal? Was it because covid became a tribal issue?
You said:
“And almost all business subjected customers to mind-numbing COVID propaganda.”
Incentives matter and businesses are merely reacting to demand from customers.
Jason Ford
May 11 2021 at 1:11pm
If the FDA had allowed human challenge tests, gave people the option to take the vaccines as early as last summer when there was a lot of evidence they were working, approved the AZ vaccine when other countries did, and pushed for first vaccines first, we could have cut the death toll in half.
I suspect you agree with all or most of this. Is so, the fact that FDA actions and inactions only killed 300,000 people exceeded your expectations. I’m neither questioning your statements nor disagreeing. I’m just marveling at how FDA has come to deserve such low expectations.
MikeP
May 11 2021 at 9:05pm
I think these assessments are quite reasonable.
I do have to say that I was outright shocked by both the government reaction and the population’s reaction. I would put them both in the 1st percentile.
But the group that shocked me the most was the media. They completely abdicated their responsibility to question government and became government’s cheerleader and messenger and shamer. You would expect that there are some people somewhere in media organizations who can make editorial decisions that allow them to question authority. You would think that questioning authority is one of the things that led them to that field in the first place. You would think that some company would take a contrary position just to be contrary. You would be massively wrong, for every major media institution.
First percentile again.
The reaction to coronavirus is the greatest self-inflicted disaster in the US since World War I. And it continues! No one has any hindsight whatsoever! They would all do the exact same thing again! It is beyond comprehension.
Monte
May 12 2021 at 10:26am
But the group that shocked me the most was the media. They completely abdicated their responsibility to question government and became government’s cheerleader and messenger and shamer.
I will qualify this by pointing out that there are two medias, the liberal media (most outlets) and the conservative media (Fox, Newsmax, etc.). Both abdicated their responsibility by checking to the power of whomever they favored (Trump Inc., or Biden/Harris, LLP). Both exceeded expectations when questioning those they did not.
MattC
May 14 2021 at 4:23am
I hate posting from twitter, but the greatest reply of all time is relevant: https://twitter.com/leyawn/status/1391060125448867845
MikeP
May 14 2021 at 11:59am
Heh.
Read this and weep: https://www.npr.org/2021/05/13/996617539/once-you-are-fully-vaccinated-2-weeks-after-your-last-dose-you-can-shed-your-mas
Here we have a host on NPR talking to the head of the CDC on the new guidance for vaccinated people, and one cannot escape the conclusion that she thinks masks are more effective than vaccines. More. Effective. Than. Vaccines.
It would be hilarious if it weren’t so sad.
To these people, masks are to COVID what garlic necklaces are to vampires — i.e., perfectly effective. To people who actually look at the evidence, masks are to COVID what garlic necklaces are to vampires — i.e., a useless totem in community settings.
Henry
May 11 2021 at 10:37pm
Relitigating the “we are over-preventing Covid” argument – I really don’t buy the argument that the appropriate counter-factual for Covid restrictions is “normal times”. As Scott Sumner said in that post:
>However one should also consider the extra death toll with no social distancing, perhaps another million people. Then consider who much people dislike having a loved one die, compared to missing a few college parties.
robc
May 12 2021 at 6:50am
The proper counter-factual is not “normal times”, it is “personal responsibility”, which both prevents death AND allows for college parties.
Joseph Hertzlinger
May 12 2021 at 12:31am
“One of the main lessons of happiness research is that pleasant interaction with other humans is our most important source of happiness.”
Some people disagree.
https://babylonbee.com/news/nations-nerds-wake-up-in-utopia-where-everyone-stays-inside-sports-canceled-social-interaction-forbidden
mark
May 12 2021 at 9:28am
Germany here. Politics under-performed and still does so, people were weird, biz was ok (i.e. great, as always), pharma did as wonderfully as I thought (but I was very optimistic – proof: I have a quora-answer from May ’20 where I expected a vaccine by autumn ’20) and the potential of mRNA may be the best Corona has ever done for us. Publicly financed TV + most newspapers: an expected disappointment – except the Swiss NZZ.
Politics: We lost count of the ever changing rules. The inability of our paper-based bureaucracy to handle their own rules. The insolence of state offices toward their own rulz … (if you see office workers without mask, you must be at a public office!) Now one third got a first jab, all the old (minus some conspiracists et al.). And my 4 year old is still not allowed back to Kindergarten. Huge DIY-centers and furniture shops still closed. Zoo/haircut only with a negative test (the up-the-nose-till-you-cry one, valid 1 day). Still no fake-proof way to show you got the shot.
The EU making such a bad vaccine deal, my 79 year old mother only got her vaccine end of March by rigging the system, slightly.
People: Really got me. Not the run for toilet paper (maybe the one on fresh yeast, rofl). But the fact, that we, the people, seemed utterly unable to put on a mask without the gov. telling us to. Even though most thought it might actually be a good idea. And nearly all put it on, a.s.a.-gov-said-so. Most in agreement. But not a day earlier. And not in a place where it is not mandatory, no matter how full.
Biz had to do, what the gov said. A few failed in details. Workers in Aldi without mask “I have a medical attest, that I don’t have to wear one (asthmatic)”. The 10€ / a haircut-barbers: Ignoring all the rules. Being mostly ignored by the admin: As the boss of my town’s “OrdnungsAmt” said to me: “Better leave them alone. We don’t want the papers to write we closed down an Arab barber. (Run the checks on German hair-cutters, they make no trouble.)” Toilet-paper was back before ours ran out, capitalism works just fine.
Our EU-FDA (EMA) was as useless as usual but not worse than expected. Same as the US-FDA, it was much too afraid of people and politics to drag approval of THIS medicine. EMA as FDA will continue their ol’ mores with other treatments.
Ryan M
May 12 2021 at 3:03pm
Couldn’t disagree more.
What has disappointed me most about people has been the unquestioning adoption of masks, which provide zero benefit and an amazing amount of harm. That we have permitted governments to force this atrocity on us is quite possibly the worst thing to come from the covid hysteria. I am exceedingly grateful that there were enough people who refused to go along with masking, so that it could be revealed as the totalitarian farce that it is.
Now if only people will come to their senses and observe the clear evidence.
MikeP
May 12 2021 at 6:19pm
I don’t blame people so much about masks. How would they know? But masks are certainly damning for the so-called scientists.
The effects of masks are supposed to be seen in exponents. If they were at all measurably effective, they wouldn’t result in a few percentage points difference here or there. The difference would be multiples.
I am firmly convinced that if Trump had been gung ho on mask wearing, we would not be wearing them today. That’s where we started back in March 2020, with the well known 2019 understanding that masks are next to useless in community settings.
But the powers that really be — i.e., not the president — decided that mask wearing was going to be the battlefield. And so it was.
Ryan M
May 13 2021 at 12:55pm
You are exactly right. If Trump had supported mask wearing, the CDC’s website would still contain all of the studies showing that mask wearing is useless. As it stands, this became a purely political issue, and we got to see how powerful the various bureaucracies can actually be when it comes to propaganda. Perhaps the most damming of all was the only rigorous study to be done on masks specifically with respect to covid, which was rejected by 3 publications before finally being published. The actual science shows that masks are, if anything, harmful, and that this is still denied for political purposes is absolutely disgraceful.
Ryan M
May 12 2021 at 2:59pm
If the FDA has exceeded expectations, it should be noted that the CDC has come in far, far below expectations (which were rock bottom to begin with.) The CDC continues to make a case for it’s complete dismantling.
Thomas Lee Hutcheson
May 13 2021 at 8:19am
I’d rather see a discussion of what people think optimal response should have been and be going forward.
Ryan M
May 13 2021 at 1:04pm
To be brutally honest, the most optimal response from governments would have been no response at all. Their interventions have been disastrous. The reality is, people will adjust their own behavior as they see fit. We don’t live in an era where information doesn’t spread, and the “official” information coming from governments is, if anything, more prone to corruption and manipulation than are any of the other sources that people would otherwise have.
The single thing that I think would have been far better in the grand scheme of things, would be if the government, instead of spending massive resources on propaganda campaigns, regulation, and handouts, directed that money toward grants for vaccine research (which, again, would likely have been given to political favorites) and potentially in purchasing vaccine doses to be widely distributed.
I will also add that perhaps the biggest mistake we ever made to blow this “crisis” wildly out of proportion was with respect to PCR testing. We should have reserved testing solely for hospitals, and we should have been far more careful about the manner in which we tested. What we did created the impression of a disease that was far more widespread and had far more impact than this disease actually had, which created panic (stoked by media) and all of the accompanying devastation that panic brings.
Todd Kreider
May 13 2021 at 9:20am
Scott Sumner was quoted above: “However one should also consider the extra death toll with no social distancing, perhaps another million people. Then consider who much people dislike having a loved one die, compared to missing a few college parties.”
There is no basis for this estimate at all. This counterfactual doesn’t make sense either since it assumes people don’t socially distance when they get the flu even though the vast majority do.
Ryan M
May 13 2021 at 1:13pm
It also assumes that the disease essentially kills indiscriminately. How many people have made these sorts of assumptions? The projections of virtually all modelers were insanely high. Yet, somehow, we continue to hold to this myth that “without social distancing” (which, by the way, is something that people have virtually never practiced, in spite of what you say, beyond the common sense staying home when sick) we would see these massively inflated numbers.
In reality, we have absolutely no idea whether “social distancing” has made even 1 death worth of difference, much less millions. And though they were all ignored, there were quite a number of well-respected epidemiologists who argued that viruses of this nature (as opposed to ebola or smallpox or historical diseases that might wipe out entire villages, pre- modern medicine) need only run their course, and that there really aren’t any measures that we should be taking against them. Common sense says that if you are sick you stay home … but nature has a funny way of getting there even without government coercion. Most people who are very sick don’t want to leave their beds, much less their houses.
Todd Kreider
May 13 2021 at 1:21pm
“(which, by the way, is something that people have virtually never practiced, in spite of what you say, beyond the common sense staying home when sick)”
I just meant staying at home when sick. That is a type of social distancing even if not called that until last year.
Ryan M
May 13 2021 at 2:04pm
Which is pretty interesting, isn’t it? Nobody would have ever thought to refer to “staying home when sick” as “social distancing.” The former is just something that virtually everyone does, if only for the purpose of getting better, but also because when you are visibly sick, you try to avoid infecting others (generally). How often in the past have you come to work with a cold but then avoided shaking hands?
The concept of “social distancing” is something that I view as extremely nefarious, because it has nothing to do with being sick. It is essentially an entire philosophy that says people should avoid one another because contact is somehow dangerous, and avoidance is “safe.” This is anti-social to its very core, and is extremely destructive. It goes right along with masks, which further reduce meaningful human contact.
I have never believed that this is a massive conspiracy, but it is true that this utter dehumanization and shifting of our priorities and values is probably the stuff of socialist fantasies, as any soviet-era dystopian novel (generally written by people who experienced it first hand) makes clear. That it was so quickly accepted by vast swaths of the public shows a deep ignorance having taken hold in an amazingly short period of time. This would have immediately been recognized by the WWII generations, and by cold war generations as exceedingly dangerous … except, of course, for those who reside on the political left, who seem to make up the bulk of our bureaucratic institutions, and who believe these things are desirable.
Keith K.
May 20 2021 at 11:02am
The damage of the Johnson and Johnson pause is a rounding error compared to the pig-headed, innumerate foot-dragging I’ve come to expect from the FDA. Overall, then, I’d put the FDA at the 80th percentile of my rock-bottom expectations.
Incidentally, can anyone point me to some good source material fleshing out how the FDA’s innumerate foot dragging has caused mountains of damage? I know this is true but my actual list of empirical sources demonstrating this is lacking, but I know they exist.
Enoch A Lambert
Jun 2 2021 at 7:35pm
This take fails to consider the desire of individuals to prevent transmission to the most vulnerable; the fact that pleasant interactions with people were still available in a variety of ways; the role of the fed in helping business; the role of Congress and executive branch in providing relief; the role of government funded science and previous public investment into the development of the vaccine. Typically slanted take.
It’s weird to talk about expectations for “business” as a whole, as if expectations for the decision-making of WalMart, etc. should be any indicator for the decision-making of small restaurants, etc. To the extent that tons of small businesses did “excellent,” guess what, that reflects on tons of individuals! Corporations are different obviously, and many had/have far more breathing room than small businesses.
Caplan’s quantitative assignments are arbitrary. But we could have all bet that he would have concluded about as he did!!
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