Coronavirus Outbreak

[mrem]

Australia wide, we have responded to outbreaks by activating lockdowns. This research suggests lockdowns has cost more lives than it has saved. Thus proposing an alternative view.

The report is therefore to me nonsense.

Put it this way how would we be going now without those lockdowns. Go look at the mortality rate across the world.

You have to be able to critically evaluate reports and data. Cherry picking stuff to make up a story to suit your argument is dumb.

Science is about discovering reality. That is it.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

Check it out for yourself. Just filter on deaths per million people.

Sweden:- 1,438
Australia:- 36
New Zealand:- 5
Britain:- 1,904

To me it's pretty clear cut.

Maybe I'll rephrase this:-

1. Do you believe the countries with lesser lockdowns (note lockdowns have been everywhere it's a matter of scale) have performed better ? Can you justify that opinion when you look at the figures above ?
2. Do you believe some random report where you do not know the bias of the people involved or how well researched that report is over the raw data which appears pretty conclusive ?

So assuming the vaccination rate remains the same lockdowns have to be used. The thing is and this is the reason I mention vaccines the picture changes completely dependent on how many people are vaccinated.

Wow, a pretty aggressive response here. I'll do my best to respond to the questions.

1. How do you define better? Is it simply number of deaths due to Covid? If that was the only metric, the optimal policy response would, at the beginning of the crisis, weld everyone's door shut and only let people out when the virus has been totally eradicated. As this didn't happen, one could suggest metrics other than Covid deaths should be included to determine 'better'. The report I attached was looking at metrics other than Covid deaths to determine optimal policy response. That is why I welcomed it into the discussion.

You talk about intellectual dishonesty, I would suggest that basing arguments on univariate correlations for an undoubtedly multivariate problem could also be classified as intellectually dishonest. These figures you show are only Covid deaths and they do not take into account population density, the number of positive cases within a community before Covid was known, structure of the health system, general health of the population, deaths from non-covid reasons etc. The figures you provide above tell me very little about the success of lockdowns.

I should also stress the report does not propose no lockdowns, but rather tries to estimate the differences between mitigation vs. elimination strategies.

2. This is the bio of the author. I'll let you judge her research credentials. Note, Quantitative Economics and the Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization are A* journals which are the highest ranked journals as judged by the Australian Business Deans Council. As to her biases, I can't answer that.


Gigi Foster is a Professor with the School of Economics at the University of New South Wales, having joined UNSW in 2009 after six years at the University of South Australia. Formally educated at Yale University (BA in Ethics, Politics, and Economics) and the University of Maryland (PhD in Economics), she works in diverse fields including education, social influence, corruption, lab experiments, time use, behavioural economics, and Australian policy. Her research contributions regularly inform public debates and appear in both specialised and cross-disciplinary outlets (e.g., Quantitative Economics, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, Journal of Population Economics, Journal of Economic Psychology, Human Relations). Her teaching, featuring strategic innovation and integration with research, was awarded a 2017 Australian Awards for University Teaching (AAUT) Citation for Outstanding Contributions to Student Learning. Named 2019 Young Economist of the Year by the Economic Society of Australia, Professor Foster has filled numerous roles of service to the profession and engages heavily on economic matters with the Australian community. As one of Australia’s leading economics communicators, her regular media appearances include co-hosting The Economists, a national economics talk-radio program and podcast series premiered in 2018, with Peter Martin AM on ABC Radio National.

Foster has been pushing this view since day 1 of the Pandemic, around March 2019. It’s changed slightly and Foster has accepted lockdowns as long as they are targeted but that wasn’t always the case.

I’ll say what I said then, I would never take health advice from an economist. They are like a tradesman when your only tool is a hammer, you treat everything as if it was a nail. I’ll be sticking with the health professionals advice.

Are lockdowns the way out of the current outbreaks? My view is not on their own, vaccinations will be the main defence moving forward and the way out of lockdowns. That is the current advice from the health professionals.

Maybe you should be listening to her if she was talking about the pandemic in March 2019! Haha.

Why begrudge the poor economist? Couldn't you say the same about health professionals? Is there a relationship between economic growth and health outcomes?

The economy will still be there, some of us may not be if we take an health advice from economists.

Nobody is suggesting you should take health advice from an economist. Should we be taking economic advice from a health officer?

We can always rebuild an economy (the economists can be in their element), you can’t do that if you are dead.

What if there is a relationship between recessions and health outcomes?

Then you build in more support for those that need it.

Wow, that simple!
Do you think it would be good to try to prevent a recession? or at least mitigate one?

Not if it means killing people to do it.

What if mitigating a recession actually saved lives

Australia wide, we have responded to outbreaks by activating lockdowns. This research suggests lockdowns has cost more lives than it has saved. Thus proposing an alternative view.

The report is therefore to me nonsense.

Put it this way how would we be going now without those lockdowns. Go look at the mortality rate across the world.

You have to be able to critically evaluate reports and data. Cherry picking stuff to make up a story to suit your argument is dumb.

Science is about discovering reality. That is it.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

Check it out for yourself. Just filter on deaths per million people.

Sweden:- 1,438
Australia:- 36
New Zealand:- 5
Britain:- 1,904

To me it's pretty clear cut.

Maybe I'll rephrase this:-

1. Do you believe the countries with lesser lockdowns (note lockdowns have been everywhere it's a matter of scale) have performed better ? Can you justify that opinion when you look at the figures above ?
2. Do you believe some random report where you do not know the bias of the people involved or how well researched that report is over the raw data which appears pretty conclusive ?

So assuming the vaccination rate remains the same lockdowns have to be used. The thing is and this is the reason I mention vaccines the picture changes completely dependent on how many people are vaccinated.

Wow, a pretty aggressive response here. I'll do my best to respond to the questions.

1. How do you define better? Is it simply number of deaths due to Covid? If that was the only metric, the optimal policy response would, at the beginning of the crisis, weld everyone's door shut and only let people out when the virus has been totally eradicated. As this didn't happen, one could suggest metrics other than Covid deaths should be included to determine 'better'. The report I attached was looking at metrics other than Covid deaths to determine optimal policy response. That is why I welcomed it into the discussion.

You talk about intellectual dishonesty, I would suggest that basing arguments on univariate correlations for an undoubtedly multivariate problem could also be classified as intellectually dishonest. These figures you show are only Covid deaths and they do not take into account population density, the number of positive cases within a community before Covid was known, structure of the health system, general health of the population, deaths from non-covid reasons etc. The figures you provide above tell me very little about the success of lockdowns.

I should also stress the report does not propose no lockdowns, but rather tries to estimate the differences between mitigation vs. elimination strategies.

2. This is the bio of the author. I'll let you judge her research credentials. Note, Quantitative Economics and the Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization are A* journals which are the highest ranked journals as judged by the Australian Business Deans Council. As to her biases, I can't answer that.


Gigi Foster is a Professor with the School of Economics at the University of New South Wales, having joined UNSW in 2009 after six years at the University of South Australia. Formally educated at Yale University (BA in Ethics, Politics, and Economics) and the University of Maryland (PhD in Economics), she works in diverse fields including education, social influence, corruption, lab experiments, time use, behavioural economics, and Australian policy. Her research contributions regularly inform public debates and appear in both specialised and cross-disciplinary outlets (e.g., Quantitative Economics, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, Journal of Population Economics, Journal of Economic Psychology, Human Relations). Her teaching, featuring strategic innovation and integration with research, was awarded a 2017 Australian Awards for University Teaching (AAUT) Citation for Outstanding Contributions to Student Learning. Named 2019 Young Economist of the Year by the Economic Society of Australia, Professor Foster has filled numerous roles of service to the profession and engages heavily on economic matters with the Australian community. As one of Australia’s leading economics communicators, her regular media appearances include co-hosting The Economists, a national economics talk-radio program and podcast series premiered in 2018, with Peter Martin AM on ABC Radio National.

Foster has been pushing this view since day 1 of the Pandemic, around March 2019. It’s changed slightly and Foster has accepted lockdowns as long as they are targeted but that wasn’t always the case.

I’ll say what I said then, I would never take health advice from an economist. They are like a tradesman when your only tool is a hammer, you treat everything as if it was a nail. I’ll be sticking with the health professionals advice.

Are lockdowns the way out of the current outbreaks? My view is not on their own, vaccinations will be the main defence moving forward and the way out of lockdowns. That is the current advice from the health professionals.

Maybe you should be listening to her if she was talking about the pandemic in March 2019! Haha.

Why begrudge the poor economist? Couldn't you say the same about health professionals? Is there a relationship between economic growth and health outcomes?

The economy will still be there, some of us may not be if we take an health advice from economists.

Nobody is suggesting you should take health advice from an economist. Should we be taking economic advice from a health officer?

We can always rebuild an economy (the economists can be in their element), you can’t do that if you are dead.

What if there is a relationship between recessions and health outcomes?

Then you build in more support for those that need it.

Wow, that simple!
Do you think it would be good to try to prevent a recession? or at least mitigate one?

Not if it means killing people to do it.

What if mitigating a recession saved lives?

If that was the health advice from the health professionals, but it’s not.

All Foster had done is built a conformation bias model that gives the outcome Foster wants. Foster has not tried to think outside the box. Foster is an economist, that’s the only tool available to Foster.

Fortunately those in charge also listen, for the most part, to health advice from health professionals.

In regards to the relationship between recessions and health outcomes you could consider
https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1186/s12889-016-2720-y.pdf
http://rricketts.ba.ttu.edu/sullivan_vonwachter_job%20displacement%20and%20mortality_qje.pdf
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/1475-5890.12230
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4880023/?utm_source=fbia
https://businesslaw.curtin.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2020/09/129339-AJLE-Vol-23-No-2-2020-2527-FINAL.pdf

for a paradox consider
https://libres.uncg.edu/ir/uncg/f/C_Ruhm_Are_2000.pdf
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Mateusz-Filipski/publication/46554066_Why_Are_Recessions_Good_for_Your_Health/links/02e7e527b3d08da938000000/Why-Are-Recessions-Good-for-Your-Health.pdf


For a more rounded discussion you should also read the references in each paper.

The links I provided are mostly highly cited studies. Of course I have not posted the entirety of the research. I believe from the balance of evidence that recessions have a negative impact on health outcomes. I would be interested to know why you don't believe there is a relationship between recessions and health outcomes.

Simply focussing on daily Covid numbers as a gauge of policy effectiveness is incredibly myopic and dangerous. I am hoping we can have a more holistic discussion, which is why I provided the link originally. I am more than happy to read any well thought out research in this area. I must stress however, this is not a discussion of lockdowns vs no lockdowns, but rather a discussion on mitigation vs elimination.

I would also be interested in the methods that Foster has used that you believe lead to spurious results and what methods she should have used instead? Particularly the methods from this paper
https://clubtroppo.com.au/files/2021/04/THE-COSTS-AND-BENEFITS-OF-A-COVID-LOCKDOWN-6.pdf

You are presenting a false choice between health and the economy.

Of course, in a vacuum, a recession would have worse health outcomes for many people than a booming economy.

But every single country than has gone soft on covid has had bad economic outcomes as well. i.e. in trying to put the economy ahead of health, you end up with a trashed health system AND a trashed economy.

**You are presenting a false choice between health and the economy. **

What a complete an utter mischaracterisation of my posting. If this is your takeaway it demonstrates a complete misunderstanding of the literature. The literature points to a relationship between the economy and health outcomes. I.e. They jointly impact each other with feedback loops.

Not much more I can say beyond that.

 

[mike]

Telling people to bugger off, yeah, that'll encourage people to get vaccinated. One cannot whine about anyone that doesn't have a choice not being vaccinated or anything else for that matter if options are not availed to them.

We need to encourage people. Carrots are much more effective than a stick.

A $300 carrot would be nice.

 

[TillLindemann]

The literature points to a relationship between the economy and health outcomes.

Exactly, and I acknowledged that. But you are coming from an assumption that going softer on covid would be better for the economy.

A lockdown *may* lead to a recession, but allowing the pandemic to get out of control will *definitely* lead to a recession.

That is not an assumption, that is what the result has been, in every single country on earth where covid has got out of contol.

 

[tigger]

We should also add the stock market has boomed. It’s boomed no matter where you are. It’s boomed in a pandemic.
So it’s pretty hard to state lockdowns have devastated economies as well.

I agree with the concept of well targeted, short, sharp lockdowns. Until such time as we have achieved widespread take-up of an effective vaccine, lockdowns appear to be the most effective way of handling coronavirus.

I disagree with your comments that a booming stock market is an indication that lockdowns have not had an adverse effect on the economy. Firstly, because stock market movements do not reflect the underlying economy. Secondly, because the booming stock market is more likely to be a result of low interest rates. In other words, if you have cash to invest, and you are looking at traditional markets, where else are you going to put it? (Property is a very long term investment option).

I suspect that all lockdowns will have had an adverse impact on the economy but I also think that the economic impact of inadequate lockdowns, or of failure to lockdown at all, would likely be greater than short, sharp well defined lockdowns.

 

[TillLindemann]

We should also add the stock market has boomed. It’s boomed no matter where you are. It’s boomed in a pandemic.
So it’s pretty hard to state lockdowns have devastated economies as well.

Stockmarkets have boomed globally due to governments and central banks pumping in liquidity to stimulate struggling economies, as well as emergency-level low interest rates etc. It might sound counter-intuitive, but right now, for the large part, soaring stock markets are a symptom of struggling economies, not evidence of booming economies.

 

[Tim Sheens]

If you really want to get your teeth into something, then perhaps think about why Australia still does not have dedicated quarantine facilities away from the most economic important and populous cities in the nation. Had this been in place there would be no need for any lock-down what-so-ever or this discussion. It’s not like the politicians were not warned prior to Covid. It’s now been 16 months on and still zipO. Covid will not be the only outbreak like this and the next one may be much more deadly and we are still are not prepared.

This ^^^^^

Lack of facilities has never been an issue as they could have been up and running in a matter of weeks, but were always thwarted by the one that doesn't want to hold a hose that wanted to defer to the states, despite it being a federal responsibility.

Proper dedicated facilities should have been built within months and demountable buildings placed. If it had been done our club would still be working out of similar facilities at Concord, instead of being in QLD who's majority of people are also in lockdown from yet another leak.

Whilst some continue to argue about the merits and detriments of this and that, it all begins at this issue and though there are still avenues at ports, apart from international travel our economy should be humming along and more importantly, not a single one of us in lockdown.

 

[Tim Sheens]

We should also add the stock market has boomed. It’s boomed no matter where you are. It’s boomed in a pandemic.
So it’s pretty hard to state lockdowns have devastated economies as well.

Stockmarkets have boomed globally due to governments and central banks pumping in liquidity to stimulate struggling economies, as well as emergency-level low interest rates etc. It might sound counter-intuitive, but right now, for the large part, soaring stock markets are a symptom of struggling economies, not evidence of booming economies.

Yeah, tiered economys.

 

[earl]

We should also add the stock market has boomed. It’s boomed no matter where you are. It’s boomed in a pandemic.
So it’s pretty hard to state lockdowns have devastated economies as well.

Stockmarkets have boomed globally due to governments and central banks pumping in liquidity to stimulate struggling economies, as well as emergency-level low interest rates etc. It might sound counter-intuitive, but right now, for the large part, soaring stock markets are a symptom of struggling economies, not evidence of booming economies.

It's interesting right. I don't think it's counter intuitive. I think it's just as you state pumping the economy up via all the additional payments.

I think what happen is small businesses suffer. Do you have stock in Pfizer ? They are going great. I have mates that have small businesses. I saw a friend about a week ago who lives in my area. He has a great job in that he is a personal trainer for fighters. Do you think he can train people now ? He would be paying rent for his facilities.

I'm considerably wealthier now. I bet on the stockmarket. People have bet on their small businesses.

I'm not putting a value judgement on any of this.

 

[earl]

We should also add the stock market has boomed. It’s boomed no matter where you are. It’s boomed in a pandemic.
So it’s pretty hard to state lockdowns have devastated economies as well.

Stockmarkets have boomed globally due to governments and central banks pumping in liquidity to stimulate struggling economies, as well as emergency-level low interest rates etc. It might sound counter-intuitive, but right now, for the large part, soaring stock markets are a symptom of struggling economies, not evidence of booming economies.

Yeah, tiered economys.

I just said this. It's not as simple as the economy suffers. It creates winners and losers.

 

[Nelson]

We should also add the stock market has boomed. It’s boomed no matter where you are. It’s boomed in a pandemic.
So it’s pretty hard to state lockdowns have devastated economies as well.

Stockmarkets have boomed globally due to governments and central banks pumping in liquidity to stimulate struggling economies, as well as emergency-level low interest rates etc. It might sound counter-intuitive, but right now, for the large part, soaring stock markets are a symptom of struggling economies, not evidence of booming economies.

Yeah, tiered economys.

I just said this. It's not as simple as the economy suffers. It creates winners and losers.

It doesn't really "create" winners and losers, it further entrenches wealth inequality. Those that already had wealth can accumulate greater wealth and those who did not lose the opportunity to accumulate wealth because their opportunities to engage in paid employment dry up. It's not a good thing.

 

[mrem]

Australia wide, we have responded to outbreaks by activating lockdowns. This research suggests lockdowns has cost more lives than it has saved. Thus proposing an alternative view.

The report is therefore to me nonsense.

Put it this way how would we be going now without those lockdowns. Go look at the mortality rate across the world.

You have to be able to critically evaluate reports and data. Cherry picking stuff to make up a story to suit your argument is dumb.

Science is about discovering reality. That is it.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

Check it out for yourself. Just filter on deaths per million people.

Sweden:- 1,438
Australia:- 36
New Zealand:- 5
Britain:- 1,904

To me it's pretty clear cut.

Maybe I'll rephrase this:-

1. Do you believe the countries with lesser lockdowns (note lockdowns have been everywhere it's a matter of scale) have performed better ? Can you justify that opinion when you look at the figures above ?
2. Do you believe some random report where you do not know the bias of the people involved or how well researched that report is over the raw data which appears pretty conclusive ?

So assuming the vaccination rate remains the same lockdowns have to be used. The thing is and this is the reason I mention vaccines the picture changes completely dependent on how many people are vaccinated.

aus and NZ islands
sweden significantly colder - does this have an impact?
GB hottest days on record - does this have an impact?

its far too hard to compare countries on the opposite side of the earth with soft borders, aus and NZ are decent comparisons; stones throw away, both islands

You are right to be asking questions like that. These factors should be taken into account. Simply basing inferences on a simple statistic is not science. It can often be misleading and no researcher worth their salt would do that.

I ask that we open our minds to multiple factors to address a complex question.

 

[TheDaBoss]

Australia wide, we have responded to outbreaks by activating lockdowns. This research suggests lockdowns has cost more lives than it has saved. Thus proposing an alternative view.

The report is therefore to me nonsense.

Put it this way how would we be going now without those lockdowns. Go look at the mortality rate across the world.

You have to be able to critically evaluate reports and data. Cherry picking stuff to make up a story to suit your argument is dumb.

Science is about discovering reality. That is it.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

Check it out for yourself. Just filter on deaths per million people.

Sweden:- 1,438
Australia:- 36
New Zealand:- 5
Britain:- 1,904

To me it's pretty clear cut.

Maybe I'll rephrase this:-

1. Do you believe the countries with lesser lockdowns (note lockdowns have been everywhere it's a matter of scale) have performed better ? Can you justify that opinion when you look at the figures above ?
2. Do you believe some random report where you do not know the bias of the people involved or how well researched that report is over the raw data which appears pretty conclusive ?

So assuming the vaccination rate remains the same lockdowns have to be used. The thing is and this is the reason I mention vaccines the picture changes completely dependent on how many people are vaccinated.

Wow, a pretty aggressive response here. I'll do my best to respond to the questions.

1. How do you define better? Is it simply number of deaths due to Covid? If that was the only metric, the optimal policy response would, at the beginning of the crisis, weld everyone's door shut and only let people out when the virus has been totally eradicated. As this didn't happen, one could suggest metrics other than Covid deaths should be included to determine 'better'. The report I attached was looking at metrics other than Covid deaths to determine optimal policy response. That is why I welcomed it into the discussion.

You talk about intellectual dishonesty, I would suggest that basing arguments on univariate correlations for an undoubtedly multivariate problem could also be classified as intellectually dishonest. These figures you show are only Covid deaths and they do not take into account population density, the number of positive cases within a community before Covid was known, structure of the health system, general health of the population, deaths from non-covid reasons etc. The figures you provide above tell me very little about the success of lockdowns.

I should also stress the report does not propose no lockdowns, but rather tries to estimate the differences between mitigation vs. elimination strategies.

2. This is the bio of the author. I'll let you judge her research credentials. Note, Quantitative Economics and the Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization are A* journals which are the highest ranked journals as judged by the Australian Business Deans Council. As to her biases, I can't answer that.


Gigi Foster is a Professor with the School of Economics at the University of New South Wales, having joined UNSW in 2009 after six years at the University of South Australia. Formally educated at Yale University (BA in Ethics, Politics, and Economics) and the University of Maryland (PhD in Economics), she works in diverse fields including education, social influence, corruption, lab experiments, time use, behavioural economics, and Australian policy. Her research contributions regularly inform public debates and appear in both specialised and cross-disciplinary outlets (e.g., Quantitative Economics, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, Journal of Population Economics, Journal of Economic Psychology, Human Relations). Her teaching, featuring strategic innovation and integration with research, was awarded a 2017 Australian Awards for University Teaching (AAUT) Citation for Outstanding Contributions to Student Learning. Named 2019 Young Economist of the Year by the Economic Society of Australia, Professor Foster has filled numerous roles of service to the profession and engages heavily on economic matters with the Australian community. As one of Australia’s leading economics communicators, her regular media appearances include co-hosting The Economists, a national economics talk-radio program and podcast series premiered in 2018, with Peter Martin AM on ABC Radio National.

Foster has been pushing this view since day 1 of the Pandemic, around March 2019. It’s changed slightly and Foster has accepted lockdowns as long as they are targeted but that wasn’t always the case.

I’ll say what I said then, I would never take health advice from an economist. They are like a tradesman when your only tool is a hammer, you treat everything as if it was a nail. I’ll be sticking with the health professionals advice.

Are lockdowns the way out of the current outbreaks? My view is not on their own, vaccinations will be the main defence moving forward and the way out of lockdowns. That is the current advice from the health professionals.

Maybe you should be listening to her if she was talking about the pandemic in March 2019! Haha.

Why begrudge the poor economist? Couldn't you say the same about health professionals? Is there a relationship between economic growth and health outcomes?

The economy will still be there, some of us may not be if we take an health advice from economists.

Nobody is suggesting you should take health advice from an economist. Should we be taking economic advice from a health officer?

We can always rebuild an economy (the economists can be in their element), you can’t do that if you are dead.

What if there is a relationship between recessions and health outcomes?

Then you build in more support for those that need it.

Wow, that simple!
Do you think it would be good to try to prevent a recession? or at least mitigate one?

Not if it means killing people to do it.

What if mitigating a recession actually saved lives

Australia wide, we have responded to outbreaks by activating lockdowns. This research suggests lockdowns has cost more lives than it has saved. Thus proposing an alternative view.

The report is therefore to me nonsense.

Put it this way how would we be going now without those lockdowns. Go look at the mortality rate across the world.

You have to be able to critically evaluate reports and data. Cherry picking stuff to make up a story to suit your argument is dumb.

Science is about discovering reality. That is it.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

Check it out for yourself. Just filter on deaths per million people.

Sweden:- 1,438
Australia:- 36
New Zealand:- 5
Britain:- 1,904

To me it's pretty clear cut.

Maybe I'll rephrase this:-

1. Do you believe the countries with lesser lockdowns (note lockdowns have been everywhere it's a matter of scale) have performed better ? Can you justify that opinion when you look at the figures above ?
2. Do you believe some random report where you do not know the bias of the people involved or how well researched that report is over the raw data which appears pretty conclusive ?

So assuming the vaccination rate remains the same lockdowns have to be used. The thing is and this is the reason I mention vaccines the picture changes completely dependent on how many people are vaccinated.

Wow, a pretty aggressive response here. I'll do my best to respond to the questions.

1. How do you define better? Is it simply number of deaths due to Covid? If that was the only metric, the optimal policy response would, at the beginning of the crisis, weld everyone's door shut and only let people out when the virus has been totally eradicated. As this didn't happen, one could suggest metrics other than Covid deaths should be included to determine 'better'. The report I attached was looking at metrics other than Covid deaths to determine optimal policy response. That is why I welcomed it into the discussion.

You talk about intellectual dishonesty, I would suggest that basing arguments on univariate correlations for an undoubtedly multivariate problem could also be classified as intellectually dishonest. These figures you show are only Covid deaths and they do not take into account population density, the number of positive cases within a community before Covid was known, structure of the health system, general health of the population, deaths from non-covid reasons etc. The figures you provide above tell me very little about the success of lockdowns.

I should also stress the report does not propose no lockdowns, but rather tries to estimate the differences between mitigation vs. elimination strategies.

2. This is the bio of the author. I'll let you judge her research credentials. Note, Quantitative Economics and the Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization are A* journals which are the highest ranked journals as judged by the Australian Business Deans Council. As to her biases, I can't answer that.


Gigi Foster is a Professor with the School of Economics at the University of New South Wales, having joined UNSW in 2009 after six years at the University of South Australia. Formally educated at Yale University (BA in Ethics, Politics, and Economics) and the University of Maryland (PhD in Economics), she works in diverse fields including education, social influence, corruption, lab experiments, time use, behavioural economics, and Australian policy. Her research contributions regularly inform public debates and appear in both specialised and cross-disciplinary outlets (e.g., Quantitative Economics, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, Journal of Population Economics, Journal of Economic Psychology, Human Relations). Her teaching, featuring strategic innovation and integration with research, was awarded a 2017 Australian Awards for University Teaching (AAUT) Citation for Outstanding Contributions to Student Learning. Named 2019 Young Economist of the Year by the Economic Society of Australia, Professor Foster has filled numerous roles of service to the profession and engages heavily on economic matters with the Australian community. As one of Australia’s leading economics communicators, her regular media appearances include co-hosting The Economists, a national economics talk-radio program and podcast series premiered in 2018, with Peter Martin AM on ABC Radio National.

Foster has been pushing this view since day 1 of the Pandemic, around March 2019. It’s changed slightly and Foster has accepted lockdowns as long as they are targeted but that wasn’t always the case.

I’ll say what I said then, I would never take health advice from an economist. They are like a tradesman when your only tool is a hammer, you treat everything as if it was a nail. I’ll be sticking with the health professionals advice.

Are lockdowns the way out of the current outbreaks? My view is not on their own, vaccinations will be the main defence moving forward and the way out of lockdowns. That is the current advice from the health professionals.

Maybe you should be listening to her if she was talking about the pandemic in March 2019! Haha.

Why begrudge the poor economist? Couldn't you say the same about health professionals? Is there a relationship between economic growth and health outcomes?

The economy will still be there, some of us may not be if we take an health advice from economists.

Nobody is suggesting you should take health advice from an economist. Should we be taking economic advice from a health officer?

We can always rebuild an economy (the economists can be in their element), you can’t do that if you are dead.

What if there is a relationship between recessions and health outcomes?

Then you build in more support for those that need it.

Wow, that simple!
Do you think it would be good to try to prevent a recession? or at least mitigate one?

Not if it means killing people to do it.

What if mitigating a recession saved lives?

If that was the health advice from the health professionals, but it’s not.

All Foster had done is built a conformation bias model that gives the outcome Foster wants. Foster has not tried to think outside the box. Foster is an economist, that’s the only tool available to Foster.

Fortunately those in charge also listen, for the most part, to health advice from health professionals.

In regards to the relationship between recessions and health outcomes you could consider
https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1186/s12889-016-2720-y.pdf
http://rricketts.ba.ttu.edu/sullivan_vonwachter_job%20displacement%20and%20mortality_qje.pdf
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/1475-5890.12230
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4880023/?utm_source=fbia
https://businesslaw.curtin.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2020/09/129339-AJLE-Vol-23-No-2-2020-2527-FINAL.pdf

for a paradox consider
https://libres.uncg.edu/ir/uncg/f/C_Ruhm_Are_2000.pdf
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Mateusz-Filipski/publication/46554066_Why_Are_Recessions_Good_for_Your_Health/links/02e7e527b3d08da938000000/Why-Are-Recessions-Good-for-Your-Health.pdf


For a more rounded discussion you should also read the references in each paper.

The links I provided are mostly highly cited studies. Of course I have not posted the entirety of the research. I believe from the balance of evidence that recessions have a negative impact on health outcomes. I would be interested to know why you don't believe there is a relationship between recessions and health outcomes.

Simply focussing on daily Covid numbers as a gauge of policy effectiveness is incredibly myopic and dangerous. I am hoping we can have a more holistic discussion, which is why I provided the link originally. I am more than happy to read any well thought out research in this area. I must stress however, this is not a discussion of lockdowns vs no lockdowns, but rather a discussion on mitigation vs elimination.

I would also be interested in the methods that Foster has used that you believe lead to spurious results and what methods she should have used instead? Particularly the methods from this paper
https://clubtroppo.com.au/files/2021/04/THE-COSTS-AND-BENEFITS-OF-A-COVID-LOCKDOWN-6.pdf

Why do i get the feeling i will get a bitcoint miner installed on my phone if i click those links lol

 

[earl]

We should also add the stock market has boomed. It’s boomed no matter where you are. It’s boomed in a pandemic.
So it’s pretty hard to state lockdowns have devastated economies as well.

Stockmarkets have boomed globally due to governments and central banks pumping in liquidity to stimulate struggling economies, as well as emergency-level low interest rates etc. It might sound counter-intuitive, but right now, for the large part, soaring stock markets are a symptom of struggling economies, not evidence of booming economies.

Yeah, tiered economys.

I just said this. It's not as simple as the economy suffers. It creates winners and losers.

It doesn't really "create" winners and losers, it further entrenches wealth inequality. Those that already had wealth can accumulate greater wealth and those who did not lose the opportunity to accumulate wealth because their opportunities to engage in paid employment dry up. It's not a good thing.

I agree with you in relation to general trends however I have friends that run small businesses who are wealthy. Their businesses are now in trouble.

Big business though is okay.

My son is 17 yo of age and is getting disaster payments that mean he is relatively rich.

The real poor suffer and this is not an Australian trend. I think if anything it is significantly worse if we consider the whole world. Look at Indonesia. What about Africa ?

In Australia I see the lockdown on those 8 LGA"s is going to hurt the poorer and marginalized much worse than people in the wealthier suburbs. I live in one of those LGA"s and my only concern is going for my daily walk with my mask on. It sucks. Complaining about that while people are dying especially the poorer and those that have listened to the political disinformation is in my opinion terrible.

Let's agree that it sucks.

 

[Radoush]

It is a well known psychological tactic to create heroes to influence the behaviour of others

At first it was the front line health professionals and it largely still is unless they want to resist the jab or express an alternate view to the prevailing narrative, then they quickly become zeroes

Those getting jabbed are feted as heroes also, you see it all the time in this very forum - “doing my bit for Australia”, “proud of my son/daughter”, “well done mate”. There are whole ad campaigns built on this, celebrities push it in the same manner, so do most large corporations

The question is why? One possibility is that they genuinely fear the virus and are concerned for their fellow humans’ health. That could be so but celebrities are among the most self centred individuals in society and major corporations are rarely concerned with the average Joe except for appearances sake. For example, consider Woolworths, they sell cigarettes, alcohol and own hotels that inflict misery on families with gambling addiction issues. Yet they express a concern which at best is disingenuous, at worst manipulative

I post this not for those committed to the very well crafted narrative that is corona, nor for the vaxxed who have made their (hopefully well considered) choice

I don’t seek to tell anyone what to do, it’s their choice. I do encourage everyone to choose wisely after they have extensively weighed up the pros and cons and considered various opposing views on the matter

Don’t just do it to avoid not fitting in or because Scotty Cam told you to

Well said and very true

 

[earl]

I ask that we open our minds to multiple factors to address a complex question.

Mate - you can see what happens when you do this. You've formed your opinion which is cool.

Let's not try and hide the reality of the situation though. It might be unpalatable but opening up is going to lead to increased deaths. We can mitigate this via vaccines but the political disinformation being propagated is going to make this less effective.

My mind is though completely open. I understand where you are coming from.

 

[Radoush]

We should also add the stock market has boomed. It’s boomed no matter where you are. It’s boomed in a pandemic.
So it’s pretty hard to state lockdowns have devastated economies as well.

Stockmarkets have boomed globally due to governments and central banks pumping in liquidity to stimulate struggling economies, as well as emergency-level low interest rates etc. It might sound counter-intuitive, but right now, for the large part, soaring stock markets are a symptom of struggling economies, not evidence of booming economies.

Yeah, tiered economys.

I just said this. It's not as simple as the economy suffers. It creates winners and losers.

It doesn't really "create" winners and losers, it further entrenches wealth inequality. Those that already had wealth can accumulate greater wealth and those who did not lose the opportunity to accumulate wealth because their opportunities to engage in paid employment dry up. It's not a good thing.

I agree with you in relation to general trends however I have friends that run small businesses who are wealthy. Their businesses are now in trouble.

Big business though is okay.

My son is 17 yo of age and is getting disaster payments that mean he is relatively rich.

The real poor suffer and this is not an Australian trend. I think if anything it is significantly worse if we consider the whole world. Look at Indonesia. What about Africa ?

In Australia I see the lockdown on those 8 LGA"s is going to hurt the poorer and marginalized much worse than people in the wealthier suburbs. I live in one of those LGA"s and my only concern is going for my daily walk with my mask on. It sucks. Complaining about that while people are dying especially the poorer and those that have listened to the political disinformation is in my opinion terrible.

Let's agree that it sucks.

A mate went on a mission to India 6 months
to help the poor maybe you can do somethink like that to help

 

[mrem]

If you really want to get your teeth into something, then perhaps think about why Australia still does not have dedicated quarantine facilities away from the most economic important and populous cities in the nation. Had this been in place there would be no need for any lock-down what-so-ever or this discussion. It’s not like the politicians were not warned prior to Covid. It’s now been 16 months on and still zipO. Covid will not be the only outbreak like this and the next one may be much more deadly and we are still are not prepared.

This ^^^^^

Lack of facilities has never been an issue as they could have been up and running in a matter of weeks, but were always thwarted by the one that doesn't want to hold a hose that wanted to defer to the states, despite it being a federal responsibility.

Proper dedicated facilities should have been built within months and demountable buildings placed. If it had been done our club would still be working out of similar facilities at Concord, instead of being in QLD who's majority of people are also in lockdown from yet another leak.

Whilst some continue to argue about the merits and detriments of this and that, it all begins at this issue and though there are still avenues at ports, apart from international travel our economy should be humming along and more importantly, not a single one of us in lockdown.

Completely agree with both of you in regards to a dedicated quarantine facility. It's a massive policy blunder.

 

[mrem]

I ask that we open our minds to multiple factors to address a complex question.

Mate - you can see what happens when you do this. You've formed your opinion which is cool.

Let's not try and hide the reality of the situation though. It might be unpalatable but opening up is going to lead to increased deaths. We can mitigate this via vaccines but the political disinformation being propagated is going to make this less effective.

My mind is though completely open. I understand where you are coming from.

And what exactly is my opinion?

 

[mrem]

The literature points to a relationship between the economy and health outcomes.

Exactly, and I acknowledged that. But you are coming from an assumption that going softer on covid would be better for the economy.

A lockdown *may* lead to a recession, but allowing the pandemic to get out of control will *definitely* lead to a recession.

That is not an assumption, that is what the result has been, in every single country on earth where covid has got out of contol.

Now you are making an assumption about my assumptions.

I have never stated that we should let Covid get out of control. You are making a straw-man argument here. This is about enriching a debate around mitigation vs. elimination. It is not binary but rather a scale of possible policy responses.

By simply correlating the relationship between severity of lockdown with economic outcomes, you are making an assumption about the diction of causality. You are assuming the policy response is exogenous, when in fact it could have been endogenous. Perhaps countries with strong economies had the fiscal power to support the vulnerable, which is why they pursued a harder lockdown. Perhaps countries with weaker economies didn't have the fiscal power to support the vulnerable which is why they pursued a weaker lockdown.

 

[TillLindemann]

The literature points to a relationship between the economy and health outcomes.

Exactly, and I acknowledged that. But you are coming from an assumption that going softer on covid would be better for the economy.

A lockdown *may* lead to a recession, but allowing the pandemic to get out of control will *definitely* lead to a recession.

That is not an assumption, that is what the result has been, in every single country on earth where covid has got out of contol.

Now you are making an assumption about my assumptions.

I have never stated that we should let Covid get out of control. You are making a straw-man argument here. This is about enriching a debate around mitigation vs. elimination. It is not binary but rather a scale of possible policy responses.

By simply correlating the relationship between severity of lockdown with economic outcomes, you are making an assumption about the diction of causality. You are assuming the policy response is exogenous, when in fact it could have been endogenous. Perhaps countries with strong economies had the fiscal power to support the vulnerable, which is why they pursued a harder lockdown. Perhaps countries with weaker economies didn't have the fiscal power to support the vulnerable which is why they pursued a weaker lockdown.

Just come out and say what you think. What do you believe we should do, specifically?