For everyone complaining that current COVID19 restrictions are “overkill” and “models are wrong” or “what about cost vs benefit?”:

consider this thought experiment …

1/3
Imagine you and your family is in a snowy mountain cabin, in the path of an on-coming avalanche. The only protection option is to build a wall.

How big/thick do you build the wall?

2/3
Assuming you want to save your family, the wall will be very big and thick. It will be “overkill” in most realizations – i.e. how bad the avalanche turns out to be.

If you only protect against the “average” or “expected” avalanche, you’ll be wiped out half of the times.
3/3
(Scenario: you are in mountain cabin facing both blizzard and avalanche risk)

Which estimation task will you and your family do better on?

A) Estimate amount of snowfall at 90th percentile (ie 10% would be > X)

B) Estimate 90th % avalanche size
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