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Pandemics Depress the Economy, Public Health Interventions Do Not: 1918 Flu

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Re: Pandemics Depress the Economy, Public Health Interventions Do Not: 1918 Flu

#51

Post by yibg »

guscost wrote: post #44
irscott wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is your prediction based on? I really hope we're not still in this in a year. I work in soho in NYC and still have to go and handle stuff at the shop and the city is crazy right now.

“This” is looking more and more like a virus which is extremely contagious but about as deadly as a bad cold. The author of the Imperial College study which led to shutdowns in the UK and US recently revised his estimates and is now saying that the R0 value (a measure of contagiousness) is higher than previously thought, “just over three” is the latest. This would mean that lots of people have already been infected,…

But even if we assume it's no more deadly than a bad flu, doesn't it being novel and hence no immunity at all in the population, give it a much higher impact than the flu?

I mean regardless of the actual CFR and R0 value, we can take a look at Wuhan, Spain, Italy and now increasingly likely NY to see the impact. I'm not an expert but I don't think a bad seasonal flu overwhelms the local hospitals. And this is with extraordinary measures being taken to boost hospital capacity already.

Re: Pandemics Depress the Economy, Public Health Interventions Do Not: 1918 Flu

#52

Post by itsdrewmiller »

delecti wrote: post #32
xapata wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't control for that effect?

There's no control group for a single event.

They are comparing different cities that both went through WWI ending, so I think it would require a reason to believe WWI would affect different cities differently to be a threat to validity. Certainly one could imagine there might be such reasons and it is worth discussing them, but presumably that would require looking at the specific cities in the paper which I presume no one here (including me) has done.

Re: Pandemics Depress the Economy, Public Health Interventions Do Not: 1918 Flu

#53

Post by guscost »

yibg wrote: post #51
guscost wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“This” is looking more and more like a virus which is extremely contagious but about as deadly as a bad cold. The author of the Imperial College study which led to shutdowns in the UK and US recently revised his estimates and is now saying that the R0 value (a measure of contagiousness) is higher than previously thought, “just over three” is the latest. This would mean that lots of people have already been infected,…

But even if we assume it's no more deadly than a bad flu, doesn't it being novel and hence no immunity at all in the population, give it a much higher impact than the flu? I mean regardless of the actual CFR and R0 value, we can take a look at Wuhan, Spain, Italy and now increasingly likely NY to see the impact. I'm not an expert but I don't think a bad seasonal flu overwhelms the local hospitals. And this is with ex…

> I don't think a bad seasonal flu overwhelms the local hospitals.

Happens all the time, most recently during the 2017-2018 season in parts of the US: https://time.com/5107984/hospitals-handling-burden-flu-patie...

Also keep in mind that COVID-19 would be quite a bit more contagious than the flu (so it would spread more rapidly) if this theory is correct.

Re: Pandemics Depress the Economy, Public Health Interventions Do Not: 1918 Flu

#54

Post by tathougies »

itsdrewmiller wrote: post #52
delecti wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no control group for a single event.

They are comparing different cities that both went through WWI ending, so I think it would require a reason to believe WWI would affect different cities differently to be a threat to validity. Certainly one could imagine there might be such reasons and it is worth discussing them, but presumably that would require looking at the specific cities in the paper which I presume no one here (including me) has done.

But it's not quite fair to compare two different cities in an economy where only some cities are shut down. If New York shuts down but can still purchase goods from LA, then that's a remarkably different situation than the entire country being shut down, which is essentially what is going on now.

You cannot study the cities in isolation. They are not self-sufficient economies. It's possible that one city was able to isolate because it depended on the other cities to be working to receive its goods and to jump-start its economy after the isolation. These effects cannot be ignored, and are substantially different than today, when it's not just that most states are shut down but also that most countries are shut down (well the ones of economic significance, anyway).

Re: Pandemics Depress the Economy, Public Health Interventions Do Not: 1918 Flu

#55

Post by viklove »

catalogia wrote: post #50
celdon25 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Calling it the Chinese Flu because it comes from China is only racist when you move the goal posts to redefine racism as such. There is evidence that this was what happened due to pandemics traditionally being named after where they originated. You can't move the goal posts without the media being on board with it.

> "There is evidence that this was what happened due to pandemics traditionally being named after where they originated." Related aside, 'Ebola' might have been 'Yambuku' instead, named for the village where the disease was first noticed, but Peter Piot decided to name it after the nearby Ebola River instead, to avoid damning the small village's name.

He definitely didn't name it 1976 Virus though. Oh, and would you look at that -- the precursor to the Ebolavirus we know today was called "Sudan Virus," turns out it's not racist, it's just how these things are named!

Re: Pandemics Depress the Economy, Public Health Interventions Do Not: 1918 Flu

#56

Post by zzleeper »

tathougies wrote: post #19

This is ridiculous. Any economic effect of the 1918 flu is overpowered by the end of WWI. And the 1918 flu was followed by one of the most prosperous periods in history: the roaring 20s. The response to the 1918 flu was also not very centralized. Different states and cities did different things, a strategy which is today being deplored by the media and certain segments of the population. Since the response is signifi…

That's why the results are in relative terms. A city or state that is slow to react will do worst than a faster or more effective one in relative terms.

About shutting down everything, yes. If absolutely no one works, then who drives the trucks. But that's not what is happening today either.

Re: Pandemics Depress the Economy, Public Health Interventions Do Not: 1918 Flu

#59

Post by xapata »

tathougies wrote: post #54
itsdrewmiller wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are comparing different cities that both went through WWI ending, so I think it would require a reason to believe WWI would affect different cities differently to be a threat to validity. Certainly one could imagine there might be such reasons and it is worth discussing them, but presumably that would require looking at the specific cities in the paper which I presume no one here (including me) has done.

But it's not quite fair to compare two different cities in an economy where only some cities are shut down. If New York shuts down but can still purchase goods from LA, then that's a remarkably different situation than the entire country being shut down, which is essentially what is going on now. You cannot study the cities in isolation. They are not self-sufficient economies. It's possible that one city was able to…

But if the effect of WWI across different cities is random, and not correlated with the explanatory variables, then the study can still work despite WWI affecting the target variable. It'll just be part of the error term.

Re: Pandemics Depress the Economy, Public Health Interventions Do Not: 1918 Flu

#60

Post by danek »

viklove wrote: post #55
catalogia wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "There is evidence that this was what happened due to pandemics traditionally being named after where they originated." Related aside, 'Ebola' might have been 'Yambuku' instead, named for the village where the disease was first noticed, but Peter Piot decided to name it after the nearby Ebola River instead, to avoid damning the small village's name.

He definitely didn't name it 1976 Virus though. Oh, and would you look at that -- the precursor to the Ebolavirus we know today was called "Sudan Virus," turns out it's not racist, it's just how these things are named!

Sometimes. Depends. Did it already have a name that everyone was already using and then you went out of your way to call it “China virus”, when your personal brand also just happens to be based on racist dog whistles and stoking xenophobia? Is so, it’s probably racist!
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