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Comment by logicchains | Hacker News Reader

>Seriously, the list of scientist and medical organizations advising through this period is so long, I don't know why anyone who isn't at equally experienced tries to counter-claim their insights.

The average scientist or medical organisation has no more economic knowledge than a layman. The costs of the lockdown are primarily economic. We couldn't possibly make the best decisions by listening to people who are only in a position to identify the benefits of the lockdown (medical) and not the costs (economic). In that regard, some random blogger is just as qualified to assess the economic costs as some random doctor or epidemiologist.

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Why is a intelligent, qualified, experienced team of epidemiologists "only in a position to identify the (medical) benefits of the lockdown and not the costs."

After all, you were able to recognise both parameters?

Epidemiologists also talk to economists and other healthcare professionals, and are considerably more likely to be familiar with studies on short and long term health impacts of economic downturns, stress induced by disruption, cancellation of non-critical medical appointments etc than the average smart layman...

Not to mention the fact the core competency of an epidemiologist is statistical analysis and predicting human behaviour with mathematical models at a high level of abstraction, so it's not like the interdisciplinary understanding is a stretch for them

Epidemiologists are not equipped to understand the economic ramifications that occur when large portions of society are forced to halt their business operations. This seems self-evident.

Public policy wrt Covid basically occurs at the intersection of epidemiology and economics. The epidemiologists can help tell you what will happen under different scenarios, and the economists can tell you what will happen economically speaking in those same scenarios.

We're basically balancing the economic impact directly attributable to sick days and to COVID-19 deaths, with the impact of the shutdown itself.

As you already know, my conclusion is that the latter is far more severe. But that balancing act is of course precisely what all the debate is about.

They aren't, but you are. Right

Thus why I don't engage in gatekeeping. I'm just pointing out the obvious hole in your view.

There's no hole in my view because I believe that experts are right more often than not, but I also believe that they can get things wrong, or fail to see the ramifications of certain policies.

Thus why so much of the discussion seems to be optimizing for a single variable - COVID-19 deaths - while ignoring plenty of other dimensions that we care about (deaths from all causes in the long run, quality of life, etc).

In particular quality of life is absolutely missing from the analysis in many who claim that the lockdown is justified.

Well, the problem that at least where I live the experts make statements on public policy outside their domain (e.g., organization of public transport) that are barely practical, if not down right impossible to carry out.

OTOH, someone well versed in economy but not in epidemiology or medicine would fail to understand some of the health implications of the current epidemic.

It's not a problem per se, but that's where the discussion on public policy comes in, weighing all the opinions from the stakeholders, then making a decision (right or wrong, but taking responsiblity for it).

That's why I'm wary of statements like "we will reopen when the scientists say so": it's a deflection of responsibility (they don't carry the burden, rightly so, for their decision, but politics does), and for the politics, a serious step back from its duties.

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