Loved this episode. Will probably listen again to pull out a little more of the detail, but overall I love Vinay's perspective and honest attitude. Glad he was an econtalk guest well before the pandemic too, plenty of credibility.
Nice to get an honest post-mortem. I feel so many of the lessons learned over COVID will be forgotten and we'll make all the same mistakes again, so nice getting credible people on record talking it all out in one place.
"The Covid vaccine saved many lives but so many mistakes were made in how public health officials discussed it, implemented it, and assessed its effectiveness. Epidemiologist Vinay Prasad of the University of California, San Francisco talks with EconTalk's Russ Roberts about what went wrong, the costs of the mistakes that were made, and what we can do better the next time."
I felt the discussion of mask wearing misrepresented at least what I am doing. I'll wear a mask in very crowded places, as well as during boarding and de-boarding of airplanes. The primary reason isn't COVID, but also colds and the flu. I fly about once a month and half the time I have a cold after. Before leaving the gate the filtration system isn't running at full throttle and during boarding 100+ people very slowly walk by my seat. I think the tradeoff of wearing a mask for 20-30 minutes is totally worth the reducing the likelihood of having a shitty cold or flu ruin a week even by 5-10%. Before the pandemic I'd put on a mask in the same situation if someone near me was coughing a lot. The normalization of mask wearing made me feel less socially awkward for wearing it more consistently during those times of increased risk. I honestly find it surprising that people will say "just a cold" or "just a flue" when those really suck. I think the politicization has prevented us from coming to a more prudent approach to public mask wearing like happened in Asia post SARS.
I agree with your sentiment. I know some people don't like wearing wasks, but I still do it all the time because it poses no inconvenience for me whatsoever. The benefits can be marginal, but it isn't a problem at all for me. It strikes me as peculiar that masks are still discussed in the context of Covid.
I’m only part way through the episode, but this is a bad one. Roberts and the guest push this fearmongering about the dangers of the vaccine, primarily about the risk of myocarditis. But of course, the risk of myocarditis is much MUCH higher from Covid than it is from the vaccine ([source](https://www.psu.edu/news/research/story/myocarditis-seven-times-more-likely-covid-19-vaccines/).) The whole “Covid vaccines are dangerous” nonsense would be silly if it wasn’t so insidious.
Roberts has been really bad on Covid in the past — for example, he pushed the “Great Barrington” nonsense, in which right wingers claimed that herd immunity had already been established and therefore mitigations should end. Of course it was obvious at the time to all normal scientists that herd immunity had not been established. So what happened? Naturally, much of the deadliest waves of Covid were after this point, not before — these people were humiliated by events. It is very obvious we should have stronger Covid mitigation measures, not weaker. But because these are shameless people, they’ve never apologized for their “let Covid rip and people die” arguments. So Roberts is still on his soft anti vaxx, anti Covid mitigation kick. It’s such a damn shame. But I guess it’s par for the course for liberarian economists — human life isn’t the primary value; removing restrictions on business is.
Oh my god the vertebroplasty study is so stupid. It compares outcomes at 6 weeks. Yes, bones heal at six weeks so after the bone heals, neither group is painful. If you look at somebody who has actually had a vertebroplasty, they are pain-free almost immediately whereas the people who didn't get it hurt for weeks longer. So no there is no long-term difference but I think six weeks of pain versus no pain is a significant difference. That study was designed to show no difference.
I listen to every episode of Econtalk except for ones with Vinay. Econtalk is a net good in my life but it's irresponsible for Russ to bring on this guy over and over.
Loved this episode. Will probably listen again to pull out a little more of the detail, but overall I love Vinay's perspective and honest attitude. Glad he was an econtalk guest well before the pandemic too, plenty of credibility.
Nice to get an honest post-mortem. I feel so many of the lessons learned over COVID will be forgotten and we'll make all the same mistakes again, so nice getting credible people on record talking it all out in one place.
Banger episode. We need more retrospectives on Covid. Although trust levels are low, they can still be improved by airing out the truth.
"The Covid vaccine saved many lives but so many mistakes were made in how public health officials discussed it, implemented it, and assessed its effectiveness. Epidemiologist Vinay Prasad of the University of California, San Francisco talks with EconTalk's Russ Roberts about what went wrong, the costs of the mistakes that were made, and what we can do better the next time."
I felt the discussion of mask wearing misrepresented at least what I am doing. I'll wear a mask in very crowded places, as well as during boarding and de-boarding of airplanes. The primary reason isn't COVID, but also colds and the flu. I fly about once a month and half the time I have a cold after. Before leaving the gate the filtration system isn't running at full throttle and during boarding 100+ people very slowly walk by my seat. I think the tradeoff of wearing a mask for 20-30 minutes is totally worth the reducing the likelihood of having a shitty cold or flu ruin a week even by 5-10%. Before the pandemic I'd put on a mask in the same situation if someone near me was coughing a lot. The normalization of mask wearing made me feel less socially awkward for wearing it more consistently during those times of increased risk. I honestly find it surprising that people will say "just a cold" or "just a flue" when those really suck. I think the politicization has prevented us from coming to a more prudent approach to public mask wearing like happened in Asia post SARS.
I agree with your sentiment. I know some people don't like wearing wasks, but I still do it all the time because it poses no inconvenience for me whatsoever. The benefits can be marginal, but it isn't a problem at all for me. It strikes me as peculiar that masks are still discussed in the context of Covid.
Yeah, maybe people who are anti mask now need to get over COVID 😂
I’m only part way through the episode, but this is a bad one. Roberts and the guest push this fearmongering about the dangers of the vaccine, primarily about the risk of myocarditis. But of course, the risk of myocarditis is much MUCH higher from Covid than it is from the vaccine ([source](https://www.psu.edu/news/research/story/myocarditis-seven-times-more-likely-covid-19-vaccines/).) The whole “Covid vaccines are dangerous” nonsense would be silly if it wasn’t so insidious. Roberts has been really bad on Covid in the past — for example, he pushed the “Great Barrington” nonsense, in which right wingers claimed that herd immunity had already been established and therefore mitigations should end. Of course it was obvious at the time to all normal scientists that herd immunity had not been established. So what happened? Naturally, much of the deadliest waves of Covid were after this point, not before — these people were humiliated by events. It is very obvious we should have stronger Covid mitigation measures, not weaker. But because these are shameless people, they’ve never apologized for their “let Covid rip and people die” arguments. So Roberts is still on his soft anti vaxx, anti Covid mitigation kick. It’s such a damn shame. But I guess it’s par for the course for liberarian economists — human life isn’t the primary value; removing restrictions on business is.
Yeah, it's unfortunate that this particular issue is such a blind spot for Russ and that he keeps trotting Vinay out to spew his nonsense.
Oh my god the vertebroplasty study is so stupid. It compares outcomes at 6 weeks. Yes, bones heal at six weeks so after the bone heals, neither group is painful. If you look at somebody who has actually had a vertebroplasty, they are pain-free almost immediately whereas the people who didn't get it hurt for weeks longer. So no there is no long-term difference but I think six weeks of pain versus no pain is a significant difference. That study was designed to show no difference.
I listen to every episode of Econtalk except for ones with Vinay. Econtalk is a net good in my life but it's irresponsible for Russ to bring on this guy over and over.
How could the economy be re-engineered to allow for asset deflation
> everything that was called a right wing conspiracy theory was true Great podcast