This bothers me: if people can test negative and then go into quarantine for 8 days, and only then test positive, that argues for continued extreme social distancing until better treatment and/or a vaccine is developed.
But this also bothers me. If even the left (albeit the British left) can see the problems that accrue from continued lockdown—which accrue primarily to those at the bottom of the ladder, then what should we do?
And there’s this from Nassim Taleb. I can live with a society where people wear masks whenever they think they might be sick, or that a substantial fraction of the people they encounter might be sick.
It would be nice, too, if we had some level of widespread agreement on what we’re trying to accomplish, and what can be allowed to supercede it.
However, there is one inconvenient truth that cannot be disputed: more black Americans have been killed by three months of coronavirus than the number who have been killed by cops and vigilantes since the turn of the millennium.
Thomas Chatterton Williams in the Guardian
I’m so old, I can remember when the goal was the flatten the curve. But we live in an era where everything has to be politicized, even epidemiology.