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I made this observation over two weeks ago, as a lot of folks were talking about Georgia’s “experiment in human sacrifice” and promising we’d see a wave of death by now. 1/n https://twitter.com/JDVance1/status/1255230240558911488
Now it looks like Georgia (and Florida) are not seeing the promised wave of new cases or deaths. https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-cases-map-high-risk-states-8ceeaa05-cc07-4e8b-b9f4-df3a3315f143.html 2/n
Here, from @DKThomp, a chart of hours worked in small businesses. As you can see, GA is recovering slightly, but is still way behind their normal baseline.
What's my point? Two things. First, people should be much more careful in assuming that life in one part of the country is radically different than in others. City policies, leftover shocks in the economy, and fear of the virus are driving behavior more than "lockdown" orders 4/
Second, after the last few years, can we please have some humility from our media and leadership? There's a lot we don't know, and making absurd predictions about the future ("mass death in GA by May!") erodes trust far more than a few random protesters in statehouses.
I remember two months ago saying the IHME model was garbage. I was of course pilloried for rendering a judgment without expertise. My core argument was that it overestimated death on the way up and underestimated it on the way down. I have been proven right in both directions.
The people who treated that model as some Platonic truth were wrong, and their repeated failures to show humility have created real mistrust in public authorities. We should all be wearing masks in public (indoor) spaces, but I understand why many mistrust that guidance.
Everyone has gotten something wrong about COVID, me included. I'm sure I'll get more wrong in the future. But a little humility would go a long way. By all means, make predictions about the future, but be honest about the uncertainty and admit when you're wrong. /rant
And in the interest of making specific predictions: barring some real seasonality (uncertainty!), I do think viral spread will pick back up in places as people tire of spending too much time at home. But I *strongly* doubt we'll get a NYC outbreak in another major city...
...not because the virus isn't bad, but because people are freaked out about it. And when there are little spikes in new cases and death, people will naturally retrench. An implication of this view is that it will be much harder/impossible to "return to normal" in dense areas.
