Some links to information sources that I’ve been using:
- Metaculus
- Wikipedia
- Scott Sumner
- LessWrong comments on the effects of weather – they look significant to me, even though the virus still spreads in hot climates if people take few precautions.
- Slate Star Codex
- I altered my supplements in response to Chris Masterjohn’sadvice
Food delivery is erratic in Berkeley. GoodEggs seems to have major food shortages, and maybe some labor shortages. Model Meals has been working almost as smoothly as normal, providing I place my order a day before their deadline – they are selling out of most things near their deadlines. I tried Instacart for the first time, and it seems substantially degraded by high demand – I had problems with getting 2 apples when I ordered 2 3-lb bags of apples (no that wasn’t listed as a substitution – the intentional substitutions worked fine). I’m guessing I’ll want to go back to shopping at grocery stores in person in a week or so. Infection rates are almost certainly dropping here now that the shelter-in-place rules have been around for a while, but it will likely be a week before much evidence confirms that.
I hiked in Briones Regional Park on Friday. I expect to see no more than 5 cars at the trailhead on a weekday; this time there were more than 30! People seemed unusually friendly. Most were making a decent effort to keep a 6 foot distance from me, but a few of the younger ones seemed to not care.
I think OPEC just collapsed, and nobody celebrated. I suppose the climate change implications might be a bit bad, but most effects will be pretty good.
Will auto sales be up or down a year from now? Loss of wealth will delay some purchases, and a fair number of existing drivers will drive less. But some people will switch from public transport to owning a car; others will switch from UberPool to UberX.
A modest number of maids will be replaced by Roombas [disclosure: I just bought stock in iRobot].
Politicians are talking about bailing out airlines, with terms that prevent them from stock buybacks. I expect that restriction to be purely symbolic – it will be a while before airlines are tempted to do buybacks anyway. If politicians were really upset about buybacks, they would instead deny the bailout to a single airline that was the most reckless in buybacks (maybe the one that achieved the worst debt to tangible equity ratio? I think that’s Delta). Alas, politicians won’t do that. After all, it might help people see that bailouts are somewhat targeted at helping bond and stock holders, and that the planes, workers, etc., don’t just vanish in the (somewhat unlikely) event that bankruptcy proceedings cause one company to shut down.
Some senators are under fire for insider trading on some sort of COVID-19 insights. If they profited from improved analysis of public information, I think that’s great! I’d like them to have an incentive to listen to experts. It would be suspicious if they profited from secret data, but I can’t find much reason to think that’s what happened – as far as I can tell, the relevant evidence was made public fairly quickly, and what mattered was competent evaluation of that evidence. And the most important question is what else they did to prepare. If, as the news storytellers vaguely imply, they did little else to warn people, then either they were more confused than the reports suggest, or they were recklessly negligent.
Shutting borders can hurt:
One issue has been restrictions on travel intended to stem the spread of coronavirus, which has affected [U.S. ventilator maker] ResMed’s Singapore factory which employs many workers from neighbouring Malaysia. He said ResMed has appealed to the Malaysian government for an exemption so its workers can travel to Singapore.
Biomerica has a new COVID-19 test with some apparently nice features that differ from the common PCR-based tests. However:
Biomerica is positioned to begin filling large international orders of this disposable one-use tests within weeks, assuming international product shipping channels remain open and active.
In addition, Biomerica has begun the application process with the FDA under the COVID-19 Emergency Use Authorization (EUA), aimed at the possible clearance and eventual use of the test in the US. At this time, the product is not available for sale or use in the US.
And finally, some related entertainment about flattening the curve of armchair epidemiology.