I agree that expecting a more competent government response than we actually saw (almost anywhere [1]) was entirely reasonable, and that premised on that extreme action to manage tail risks was prudent for the first half of 2020.
Subsequently, I think the rationalist community underperformed wrt. understanding the ongoing crises; we’ve had excellent epistemology but only inconsistently translated that into “winning” as the problem moved from extreme uncertainty and tail risk, to a set of more detail-rich operational challenges. In a slogan, we’ve been long-Sequences and short-CFAR.
[1] In Australia we’ve had a lot of inadequate and needlessly costly policy responses to COVID—for example, I still see more concern about hand hygiene than masks, let alone ventilation—but substantially better than the USA or UK. Between what we did get right, geography, and luck daily life is back to normalish; though the vaccine rollout is inexcusably slow—even with literally nobody dying of COVID (~0.5 daily cases per million people; almost all incoming travellers in supervised quarantine) the economic benefits of moving faster would be huge (allowing potential-superspreader-events again; reduced cost-in-expectation of expensive+unlikely lockdowns). Overall I give Australia as a country a C- on the basis that what we did was barely adequate, and an B+ on the basis that it worked and substantially outperformed most peers.
I’m curious, what countries have and haven’t seen substantial focus on hand hygiene?
Japan has the three C’s of avoiding closed spaces, crowded places and close-contact settings as a main guidance. Japan also performed much better at outcome metrics.
I agree that expecting a more competent government response than we actually saw (almost anywhere [1]) was entirely reasonable, and that premised on that extreme action to manage tail risks was prudent for the first half of 2020.
Subsequently, I think the rationalist community underperformed wrt. understanding the ongoing crises; we’ve had excellent epistemology but only inconsistently translated that into “winning” as the problem moved from extreme uncertainty and tail risk, to a set of more detail-rich operational challenges. In a slogan, we’ve been long-Sequences and short-CFAR.
[1] In Australia we’ve had a lot of inadequate and needlessly costly policy responses to COVID—for example, I still see more concern about hand hygiene than masks, let alone ventilation—but substantially better than the USA or UK. Between what we did get right, geography, and luck daily life is back to normalish; though the vaccine rollout is inexcusably slow—even with literally nobody dying of COVID (~0.5 daily cases per million people; almost all incoming travellers in supervised quarantine) the economic benefits of moving faster would be huge (allowing potential-superspreader-events again; reduced cost-in-expectation of expensive+unlikely lockdowns). Overall I give Australia as a country a C- on the basis that what we did was barely adequate, and an B+ on the basis that it worked and substantially outperformed most peers.
I’m curious, what countries have and haven’t seen substantial focus on hand hygiene?
We have that here in Canada.
Japan has the three C’s of avoiding closed spaces, crowded places and close-contact settings as a main guidance. Japan also performed much better at outcome metrics.