[FRIAM] lockdowns

Tue Apr 6 14:54:38 EDT 2021

Dave, and all, 

One of the central ideas of the original (French, 19 century) positivism is the idea that some phenomena (like crime) are very stable at the aggregate level, even though high unpredictable at the individual level.  (i.e., we are much better at predicting how many murders there will be in Paris this year than we are at predicting who will murder whom.)  (I say this with all the confidence of an Old Fart who is losing his memory but not his confidence in his memory.)   Now, I have been trying to work out a theory concerning the relation between lockdowns and fear based on my assumption that the statistical relation between fear and transmission is precise, but the relation between lockdowns and transmission and lockdowns and fear is wooly.  I am assuming that there is a delayed feedback relation between fear and transmission such that when transmission is down, fear goes down and then transmission rises and then fear rises, resulting in the wild oscillations characteristic of delayed feedback systems.  Ok, so let's start with the assumption that if we were able to abstract this delayed feedback cycle from the data, would there be any variance left to attribute to lockdowns and other forms of public policy.  I am not entirely sure what the effect of lockdowns is on fear.  I can imagine that lockdowns actually reduce fear in some people.  Seeing that others are careful, I am a little less careful, etc.  But I can also imagine that lockdowns increase compliance is some other people, whose social anxiety is stronger than their viral anxiety.   Could these two effects more or less cancel one another out?  Or could their effect be to enhance the oscillation in the basic delayed feedback system, since public policy has characteristically been a follower, not a leader, of fear.  

But Dave, as often, I detect in you a desire that lockdowns be nugatory.   What is the basis for that desire?

Nick

Nick Thompson

ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com

https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

-----Original Message-----
From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> On Behalf Of u?l? ???
Sent: Monday, March 15, 2021 4:19 PM
To: friam at redfish.com
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] lockdowns

Both Bhattacharya and Ioannidis have been vocal in opposing lockdowns, even to the extent of lobbying for herd immunity. That they *confirmed* their political biases is not news. It would be interesting to see if they preregistered their hypotheses and analysis methods.

On 3/15/21 2:56 PM, Prof David West wrote:

> the AP published a study that seems to demonstrate lock downs had no effect on Corona spread. South Dakota and Connecticut (small states) had very similar outcomes despite widely variant degree of lock down. So too Florida and California, the latter draconian while the former laissez-faire.

> 

> Of course all the usual caveats applicable to such studies apply.

> 

> I wonder if any country/state would dare to do an honest cost-benefit study?

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