I’ve theorized, supported by observations offered over the years by analysts and, hey, Fox News viewers themselves, that Fox News is popular because it offers news and, more importantly, analysis that makes those viewers happy. Not informed (as Bruce Bartlett will tell you), but happy.
And that’s just what came to mind when I read this:
Conservatives close to Trump and numerous administration officials have been circulating an article by Richard A. Epstein of the Hoover Institution, titled “Coronavirus Perspective,” that plays down the extent of the spread and the threat. The article, published last week, had predicted that deaths would peak at 500, the milestone surpassed Monday. [WaPo]
It sounds to me like these conservatives found an article by some respected scholar that was far more comforting than the analyses offered by epidemiologists and other experts and decided that it was the right one.
But that level of analysis isn’t fair. The name, Richard Epstein, rings a faint and garbled bell for me, so I looked him up, thinking maybe he’s a distinguished epidemiologist with a different take on things. Yeah?
Richard Allen Epstein (born April 17, 1943) is an American legal scholar known for his writings on subjects such as torts, contracts, property rights, law and economics, classical liberalism, and libertarianism. Epstein is currently the Laurence A. Tisch Professor of Law and director of the Classical Liberal Institute at New York University, the Peter and Kirsten Bedford Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, and the James Parker Hall Distinguished Service Professor of Law emeritus and a senior lecturer at the University of Chicago. [Wikipedia]
Guess not. Just another lawyer getting outside of his field. Now, I’ll be scrupulous and note that his article now includes an addendum. First, the paragraph over which he feels some regret:
From this available data, it seems more probable than not that the total number of cases world-wide will peak out at well under 1 million, with the total number of deaths at under 50,000 (up about eightfold). In the United States, if the total death toll increases at about the same rate, the current 67 deaths should reach about 5000 [this number was 500, I surmise, in the original publication of the article – HAW] (or twn [sic] percent of my estimated world total, which may also turn out to be low). [See correction & addendum at the end of this essay.]
And the addendum:
That estimate is ten times greater than the 500 number I erroneously put in the initial draft of the essay, and it, too, could prove somewhat optimistic. But any possible error rate in this revised projection should be kept in perspective. The current U.S. death toll stands at 592 as of noon on March 24, 2020, out of about 47,000 cases. So my adjusted figure, however tweaked, remains both far lower, and I believe far more accurate, than the common claim that there could be a million dead in the U.S. from well over 150 million coronavirus cases before the epidemic runs its course.
But I add that out of politeness only; I see little reason to take a lawyer’s estimate of an epidemiology problem’s effect over an expert in the field, at least not until the lawyer has built up some credit in the field.
But while looking over his paper – and, I confess, as he doesn’t seem to have bona fides, I lost interest and wandered off – it did occur to me that all of the curve graphs really need an enhancement, and maybe one of my readers has run across it. Let’s take this example:
Source: FlattenTheCurve
First, get rid of the blue area.
Next, add in a line reflective of how the death rate will change as we run out of hospital beds. Maybe the rate goes from 1% to 3%, I dunno.
Now add in other occupants of those beds: critical car accident victims, gunshot victims, flu victims, severe asthma suffers, etc etc. See how those lines change as we suddenly run out of hospital beds.
I think it’s a mistake to graph the anticipated costs of COVID-19 in isolation, because hospital beds, while not being perfectly fungible, are, to some extent, interchangeable; the same holds true for medical personnel. We should put those graphs up, all estimates, of course, just to bring home to people who don’t want to take this too seriously, how themselves and their relatives becoming ill not only impacts other COVID-19 sufferers, but other patients who need a hospital bed.
Good graphs can mostly be improved. Here’s my favorite visual display of data ever.
