We asked ProfEmilyOster— an economics professor at Brown University who specializes in data-driven approaches to decision-making — to help make sense of all the confusing and often contradictory coronavirus advice
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Today, in the midst of a global pandemic, we face an unprecedented level of risk and uncertainty in our daily lives — with very little reliable information to guide us. Our political leaders have been at best inconsistent, and at worst flat-out wrong, when it comes to communicating how to protect ourselves and each other.
How much riskier does having a comorbidity make all of the decisions I make on a daily basis? Is it a multiplier? Even in a half-full restaurant, your exposure to other people is greater — more people may touch your plate, for example, and they may breathe on you. If you take good precautions, though, the risk is still low — but not as low as grocery shopping.There’s no evidence that COVID-19 is contracted from food — hot or cold. If someone who is infected sneezes on your food, it could make you sick. But if you eat at places with good hygiene practices, this shouldn’t happen. So feel free to eat salad.
Think about it like this: The worst case is someone with COVID-19 coughs right in your face and tons of virus particles get on you. Now let’s say you are in a store and near someone and they cough. The air is fairly still, so some virus particles may get to you. Lower odds, but still potentially bad. If you’re outside, air movement disrupts the path from the other person’s face to you, meaning fewer droplets get to your face.
The natural question is how much exposure they have to other people. Are they going to work? Are their kids interacting with other kids? Have they been out to bars or gone to the gym? My brother-in-law just came back from a golf trip to Florida , and now we’re supposed to spend a week together at the beach. Should I demand he get tested before we go?
There is some speculation that Vitamin D helps, which may explain why viruses often taper off in the summer. It’s also true that when the virus lands on a surface outside and is exposed to UV light, it decays more quickly than it would inside. However, this is very different from saying that UV light is some kind of magic disinfectant. It doesn’t kill the virus on contact, and airborne droplets can still spread it.
Whether that’s in the same trip or a different trip is irrelevant. Same goes for friends. If you see one friend, the risk of adding one more is the same as if you saw them separately. Also friends and stores. The friend is risky; the store is risky. Add the risks! Waiting outside is less risky because you are removing the store risk.
You are completely right that testing only tells you what is going on at the moment of the test. And if people respond to a negative test by thinking, Great, now I can do whatever I want, it’s likely to be counterproductive. We can do some comparison of state trends even in the absence of perfect data. The best testing and tracking data is here, at Johns Hopkins. They report the number of tests and the share of tests that are positive, among other things.
What’s interesting about the tests is that you hear about both false positives and false negatives. Both are a problem — but for different types of tests. However, there’s a stronger argument for using saliva to get a general sense of population spread. Accurate testing is great, but only if people do it. And — surprise, surprise — people would rather spit than get a swab jammed up their nose. Australia, for example, is using saliva tests because people refused to be tested with a nasal swab. UC Berkeley is giving it a try, too.It is likely that people are immune for some time after infection and cannot get it again.
Vaccines have traditionally worked by introducing weakened or dead viruses into the body, which stimulate the body to preemptively produce antibodies. That’s an effective approach, but a slow one to develop, since there are a lot of safety concerns. More recently, new vaccine approaches have relied on introducing only a portion of the virus, called an antigen. That still prompts the body to make antibodies, without introducing the entire virus.
Okay, that sounds like a bad idea. What about treatments? Is there any progress on something akin to a coronavirus Tamiflu that might be effective at treating mild bouts? Photo: Bobby Doherty Will a second wave mean that schools that decide to go in person in the fall end up having to close again? Is it legal for my employer to require me to be tested for antibodies? Can they ask people who have the antibodies to come back to work before those who don’t?
What does the use of masks and isolation do to the development of young children? Are babies going to have social or emotional problems as a result of all this? Above all, we might make more progress if we make the ask less extreme. When we tell people “wear a mask all the time,” they may decide it’s just not feasible. I have seen advice urging people to wear a mask during sex. I’m not making that up. It isn’t hard to imagine someone seeing that and deciding that the whole enterprise is insane. If we focus on the most important message — wear a mask in stores or public transit — we might get better compliance.
In the end, I just don’t know what to think any more. I find myself vacillating between feeling like I’m too paranoid and worrying about other people who seem to be taking it all too lightly. I’m basing all of my judgments and decisions on flimsy impressions from a mishmash of sources, and the lack of reliable information is really frustrating.
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