There are three kinds of people:
1. People who trust scientists and dutifully do what they are told. Most are vaccinated for Covid.
2. People who are skeptical of scientists and/or are bitterly resentful at being told they must get vaccinated. They are often unvaccinated.
3. People who are skeptical of scientists and bitterly resent authorities telling them they cannot get vaccinated until the FDA approves a vaccine. Most are vaccinated.
As you may have guessed, I’m in the third group. I suspect that this is by far the smallest of the three groups. I am also in the tiny group that was pro-mask at a time the CDC was discouraging mask usage. I’m a rebel.
One argument against libertarianism is that people need to be protected from themselves. I suspect, however, that statists underestimate the extent to which paternalism actually causes bad behavior:
1. A paternalistic policy regime makes people less careful. Think of moral hazard and bank depositors.
2. Paternalism annoys people, and then their instinct to be contrarian pushed them to engage in self destructive behavior.
3. Paternalism leads to regulation that creates a monoculture, making it more difficult to see what works best.
READER COMMENTS
geogavino
Dec 27 2021 at 8:31am
Are there not a huge number of people in between all these positions? For example: People who are skeptical of scientists, but think they largely do good work on vaccines. They mildly resent authorities telling them they cannot get vaccinated until the FDA approves a vaccine because of the long-term precedent, but recognize that clinical trials and testing are still very beneficial in the long run and most of the wait would have occurred even absent a robust regulatory regime. Most are vaccinated.
Jon Murphy
Dec 27 2021 at 8:50am
A small anecdote to your Point #2:
This year, I am up at Syracuse University. A few weeks ago, New York State imposed a mask mandate. Just from what I’ve witnessed wandering around campus and going about my daily life, true mask compliance (properly wearing a mask) has fallen since the mandate and non-compliance (not wearing a mask) has increased. Again, this is simply from what I have seen, so take it for what it’s worth, but it appears the mask mandate has caused some people who were voluntarily wearing masks properly to no longer do so.
Jon Murphy
Dec 27 2021 at 8:51am
One should also note that I have been told by folks who live down in NYC that mask compliance is near universal down there.
Dylan
Dec 27 2021 at 2:57pm
This had been true up until late spring I’d say. After that mask adherence declined quite a bit. It’s still pretty high in some quarters, but if you go into the local bodega chances are better than even that you’ll have at least one person not wearing a mask and the employees will have it around the chin or nose exposed.
Greg G
Dec 29 2021 at 12:31pm
Jon,
I would be more inclined to attribute the decrease to people feeling safer after vaccinations and simply mask fatigue.
I any event you haven’t show causation and neither have I.
Jon Murphy
Dec 29 2021 at 3:31pm
Agreed. And go even further: I haven’t even shown that my observation is accurate!
I wouldn’t try to publish my observation anytime soon; I’ll need far more evidence for that. Fortunately, this is the comments section of a blog, so I can get away with a lot more 🙂
Marco
Dec 27 2021 at 9:06am
I think, even in the absence of mandates, reasonable people can differ what is risky in the City versus Upstate. Almost nobody uses elevators or mass transit Upstate, while in the City even the sidewalks are frequently jammed, at least in Midtown. Upstaters eat out less frequently, and when they do, their tables are not elbow-to-elbow. Etc.
Andre
Dec 27 2021 at 10:16am
How about
People who are skeptical of scientists and/or are bitterly resentful at being told they must get vaccinated and who are vaccinated.
This is an enormous group.
David Henderson
Dec 27 2021 at 11:06am
I’m in Scott’s group 3 and your new group (group 4)?
Philo
Dec 27 2021 at 12:17pm
Me, too. I’m skeptical of everybody and bitterly resentful of lots and lots of man-made situations. (But once in a while I chill out.)
robc
Dec 27 2021 at 1:40pm
I am in 4 also.
I am vaccinated as it seemed a reasonable risk at age 51 ( now 52), but I waited until it was convenient. 20 years older and I would have been first in line. 20 years younger and I wouldnt get it.
I think this is the most reasonable risk adjusted position.
Jose Pablo
Dec 28 2021 at 12:35am
Count me in group #4 too.
Why let your skepticism and your resentfulness to cloud your risk analysis?
Todd Kreider
Dec 28 2021 at 9:41am
Based on Oxford’s QCovid risk calculator, a 52 year old male has about a 1 in 20,000 chance of dying if they get Covid. If mildly obese like Trump then a 5% increase above that baseline or 1 in 19,000. If a BMI of 35 to 39 then 1 in 16,000 and if morbidly obese with a BMI over 40, then 1 in in 11,000.
Children who catch Covid have less than a 1 in a million chance of dying from Covid; college age students have a 1 in 750,000 chance of dying if they get Covid.
At 60, the odds of dying from Covid are 1 in 5,000 for men and 1 in 10,000 for women if healthy.
At 75, the odds of dying from Covid are 1 in 1,000 for men and 1 in 2,000 for women if healthy.
Aleksander
Dec 29 2021 at 7:49pm
I tried to replicate your first result, but I got a 1/250 chance of dying, compared to your 1/20,000. Even if the 52-year old is vaccinated, QCovid claims they have a 1/2000 chance of dying.
Todd Kreider
Dec 30 2021 at 6:47am
You are reading the wrong number. The “PCR test is positive” gives your result but doesn’t apply since there are tons of 52 year olds who never even got symptoms despite having had Covid and didn’t test. I think it was Michael Levitt who retreated physicist Orwell2024’s chart. Here is the male side:
Age Healthy Male IFR
19 0.0001%
30 0.00004%
45 0.003%
60 0.02%
75 0.09%
85 0.22%
According to UK statistics, if one is at a BMI of 30 to 34, then the risk of dying from/with Covid is 5% higher than the “healthy” baseline is 5%
Neio S
Dec 27 2021 at 12:08pm
agreed. group 4 is also my group. As so often on non-economic issues, Mr. Summer’s political views shape his conclusions. I dearly wish he was better able to empathize with and understand those who disagree with his political beliefs.
Ken P
Dec 27 2021 at 8:50pm
I’m in 3 & 4. As a scientist, it’s only natural to be skeptical about scientists. Otherwise it is more like religion.
AMT
Dec 28 2021 at 8:31pm
That’s obviously still group 2: people that don’t like being told they need to get vaccinated. You haven’t defined a new group, you’re merely disputing Scott’s definition of “often.”
Jens
Dec 27 2021 at 12:14pm
There are more than these three kinds of people.
steve
Dec 27 2021 at 1:36pm
I had anger issues when younger but since my 30s have worked pretty hard to avoid making emotional decisions, especially ones based upon anger. It would just never occur to me to make a decision based upon anger or resentment that was work related, financial or personal health related. (Ok, maybe with the in laws.) Early in the pandemic the CDC made a number of bad decisions/errors so I did not follow their directions, including masking.
I would propose group 4 or 5, though yours are good.
5) People who read the science and make their decisions based upon what they read. They are often vaccinated.
Steve
TMC
Dec 27 2021 at 4:16pm
Steve, I’d add that they make their decision based on their situation as well.
I’m struck by how many of those who do not wish to be vaccinated are professionals who are required to evaluate their own personal safely on a daily basis. Pilots, health care workers and first responders are all over represented in the non-vax crowd. The very people who have proven to make good decisions about life and death. And often the loudest vax mandate voices are those cocooned away from any of life’s perils.
Floccina
Dec 27 2021 at 2:15pm
Paternalism sometimes leads to destructive ways to route around it.
Dylan
Dec 27 2021 at 2:53pm
I’m curious, if the FDA hadn’t gated access to any of the hundred of vaccine candidates that have been studied for covid. Which vaccine would you have chosen to get and when would you have chosen to get it? What metric would you have used to guide your choice?
Scott Sumner
Dec 27 2021 at 6:22pm
I would look at the data from various vaccines.
Dylan
Dec 28 2021 at 10:03am
What kind of data? Preclinical? After spending a decade+ in pharma, one of the only things I learned is that preclinical data tells you next to nothing about the success or failure of a drug. Neither does PhI safety data. Your prior should be that 90% of the drugs that look good enough in animal data to proceed to human trials, will not be effective. It’s true that vaccines have a better track record than that, but not that much better. So, I ask again how you would decide which of the many, many candidates out there you would choose to take and how much data would you want to be generated before you made your decision?
Ken P
Dec 29 2021 at 10:44am
I disagree, Dylan. Small molecule is very different from vaccines. And Coronaviruses are an easy target as far as viruses go. With viral neutralization assays We can demonstrate the immune response is relevant to protection. That provides a reasonable expectation of success especially when the vaccine platform is designed for strong T cell responses.
mRNA technology has been around for a long time but would have never been approved in the absence of a pandemic. The fact that it has never been approved is a testament to the problems with our drug approval process.
Dylan
Dec 30 2021 at 11:46am
It’s true that vaccine development has a much better success rate than small molecule drug discovery, but still only about 1 in 3 vaccine candidates make it to the market.
https://www.acsh.org/news/2020/06/11/clinical-trial-success-rates-phase-and-therapeutic-area-14845
I’m not knowledgeable enough to comment on what makes an “easy” vaccine target. And you probably know the mRNA space better than I do, however I thought that what has led to nothing being approved pre-pandemic was mostly a failure in the clinic? I thought there was some success a few years back on a vaccine target that looked promising, but the potential pandemic fizzled out before there was an opportunity to get it approved? Obviously I’m fuzzy on the details.
Ken P
Dec 27 2021 at 8:41pm
Agree with Scott. I would look at the menu and data.
If such a policy had been in place long enough for industry to adapt, there would have been similar platforms with multiple proteins, instead of only the spike protein. Also, there would be more incentive for manufacturers to raise awareness to the distinctions.
I would have preferred one that included the (RNA transcript for) nucleocapsid protein in addition to the spike protein. Technology would be far advanced by now without all the sand in the system so technologies that have been available for a long time, like T-cell repertoire sequencing would likely play a larger role in vaccine design.
Also, a variety of vaccine approaches would make it harder for escape mutants to gain traction.
bill
Jan 1 2022 at 2:41pm
Here’s how I would have liked to choose. I would have liked to see some data summaries of the Phase 3s, about 8 weeks in. I think that would have been a good time to let many more volunteers take whatever could be produced. And study them as an additional safety cohort (but with no additional control group).
Thomas Lee Hutcheson
Dec 27 2021 at 2:56pm
I’m a different type. I trust scientist but not so much the US PH authorities and wish that they would a) take account of the costs of the time they take to make decisions, b) wish they would take account the value to others of vaccinations and c) tell people thy ought to get vaccinated (and social distance and wear masks) for the good of other.
bb
Dec 27 2021 at 5:20pm
Scott,
I’m part of a fourth or sixth group of people who believed that the Public Health people actually had a playbook for communications. I bought the argument that cutting corners in the approval process would erode confidence in the vaccines. I also assumed that there would be best practice on how to communicate confidence levels in risk or recommendations. I mocked Homeland Security’s threat level color scheme after 9/11, but now realize it was a pretty good model compared the ham-handed way the various agencies communicated risks and recommendations throughout this crisis.
I agree with you the most of the mandates were counterproductive, and likely caused a backlash of non-compliance. I think a good rule of thumb going forward should be “if we aren’t going to enforce it, don’t call it a mandate”.
The anti-vaxxer movement is another story. I think it was smart not to make the vaccines mandatory initially, but I am skeptical that we can get to where we need to get without some forms of mandates, such as those for the military, college students, high school athletes, health care workers… I don’t think these folks have a right to endanger other people(I know that isn’t the point you are making) and I don’t see another path to getting a big enough portion of them vaccinated. If there was a way to let them do what they want without jeopardizing the health of others, I would support it. And if letting them do what they want would make them less likely to rebel, I would support that too. I’m just skeptical that either are true.
But I am totally sold on the idea that paternalism leads to backlash. I also think that every law/mandate is an opportunity for a dangerous interaction between police and civilians.
Scott Sumner
Dec 27 2021 at 6:25pm
I’m agnostic on the question of which employer mandates make sense. I’d prefer to keep the government out of it, except (obviously) for their own employees
bb
Dec 29 2021 at 2:32pm
Scott,
That sounds reasonable to me. I think the government should recommend mandates to private employers. The OSHA move may have caused more backlash than vaccinations. Generally speaking, I prefer policies that work. I’ve read that mandates give cover to employers which is worthwhile, but who’s to say whether that is true.
The government emlpoys a lot of people. Mandating for government employees, contractors, state university students and staff, and other government funded institutions will result in a lot of vaccinations. And likely sets a standard that private entities can follow or hide behind.
But definitely don’t use the word mandate if we’re not willing to enforce it. That’s the worst of both worlds.
Andre
Dec 28 2021 at 8:07am
“I don’t think these folks have a right to endanger other people(I know that isn’t the point you are making) and I don’t see another path to getting a big enough portion of them vaccinated.”
Your post suggests you think that unvaccinated people are responsible for transmission and that vaccinated people aren’t. What are your sources for this assumption?
Covid is everywhere in my world and all of it is fully vaccinated, and in some cases, boosted folks infecting each other. The data I’ve seen clearly show that vaccination attenuates the impact of the disease, but suggest that vaccination has little effect on transmission after some point – 3-months? Given that vaccinated people are clearly spreading the virus all over the place, on what grounds should we marshal the state to go after the unvaccinated?
A fact-based, pro-mandate position at this point would seem to require ~3-month boosters for everyone, except perhaps those who have had Covid, recently, who appear to have protection that lasts longer…though I haven’t looked closely at this question, that’s my interpretation of what I’ve seen.
Of course, I have yet to see the government or a leader where I live acknowledge that prior infection confers lasting benefit that might obviate the need for a vaccine for a while. Medically speaking, demanding a vaccine within a certain window, post infection, is literally doing harm as far as I can tell – all downside.
bb
Dec 29 2021 at 2:59pm
Andre,
It’s too soon to have the type of comprehensive rigorous study that I assume you are asking for, but I’m not aware of anyone serious who doesn’t think vaccines reduce transmission. That’s kind of what vaccines do. The concept of herd immunity assumes reduced transmission. Is it possible that these vaccines don’t reduce transmission- I suppose, but that seems unlikely.
Andre
Dec 29 2021 at 4:25pm
bb –
“It’s too soon to have the type of comprehensive rigorous study that I assume you are asking for, but I’m not aware of anyone serious who doesn’t think vaccines reduce transmission. ”
I said nothing about reduced transmission.
I’m saying that the vaccinated obviously transmit Covid and therefore accusing the unvaccinated of “endangering other people” and concluding that mandates are needed to force them to stop endangering others, seems to be a solution that is not fact-prioritized.
If the goal is to reduce transmission, and given that the vaccinated catch and transmit the virus quite effectively at a certain point (vax+T), then enforced vaccination as I mentioned would only be a solution if it is required on strict time intervals, probably calibrated for age and health status.
E.g., the elderly and weak-immuned would probably need to submit to very frequent boosters. By contrast, the data might suggest that the 15 and under crowd need not be vaccinated at all, if the goal is to equalize how much of a danger they are to others – which I assume would be the fair way to look at it since that is the basis we’re hypothetically using to justify the mandates in the first place.
Given how vaccinated the population already is, and that we are hitting all-time highs for positive cases right now, if anyone thinks we can herd immunity our way out of this then their understanding of the facts is not up-to-date.
Part of the confusion is understandable: the shots are being called vaccines, but this plays on our common understanding of immunizing vaccines. These shots are not immunizing. Which is why the CDC in September changed its definition for vaccine to remove “protecting the person from that disease” and “to produce immunity to a specific disease,” replacing those phrases with “to produce protection from a specific disease.”
Regarding reduced transmission, you said, “That’s kind of what vaccines do.” I submit that that is what immunizing vaccines do, for sure. These vaccines do reduce transmission, but appear to do so in a time-limited way, unlike traditional immunizing vaccinations.
More importantly, the bait-and-switch here is the huge gulf between preventing and reducing. Preventing is subtly implied; the current shots hijack our historical understanding of what a vaccine is. Rather than immunity, all we really get is a temporary reduction in transmissibility and a substantial reduction in harm for vulnerable groups.
(Consider that common parlance is “flu shot,” not “flu vaccine.” I’ve never heard anyone say, “I am vaccinated against the flu.” This is because the public knows that the “flu shot” might possibly help you if you’re at risk, but it might not. The average person out there does not go around announcing that they had their “flu vaccine.”)
Covid-19 is airborne, it’s zoonotic, and yes, it’s being caught and transmitted to others far and wide by vaccinated and even boosted folks.
It is endemic. Expanding vaccination reduces severe outcomes, but it can’t eliminate transmission.
bb
Dec 30 2021 at 12:06am
Andre,
Some of what you say makes sense, but it’s mixed with personal observations (that differ with mine), some bold overstatements of how effective the vaccines are, some paranoid over-reading of the CDC’s evolving and admittedly ham-handed messaging, and some very narrow definitions of what vaccines are and what they do. My understanding of vaccines is that they often, but not always, achieve herd immunity through “reduced” transmission (not zero transmission). They are also commonly used to decrease the incidence of serious diseases with the goal of protecting the individual and the herd. It will be a while, probably years, before we have definitive answers, but as of now the epidemiological and public health community seems to think these vaccines are our best shot.
A few notes on terminology:
The CDC calls the flu shot a vaccine. It is a vaccine.
https://www.cdc.gov/flu/prevent/flushot.htm
Per the CDC:
“Vaccine: A preparation that is used to stimulate the body’s immune response against diseases. Vaccines are usually administered through needle injections, but some can be administered by mouth or sprayed into the nose.”
Vaccination: The act of introducing a vaccine into the body to produce protection from a specific disease.
Immunization: A process by which a person becomes protected against a disease through vaccination. This term is often used interchangeably with vaccination or inoculation.
https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vac-gen/imz-basics.htm
CDC says flu vaccines are 40% to 60% effective and still recommends that people get the shot to protect others.
Misgivings about mandates is reasonable, but I still feel comfortable saying that the unvaccinated are responsible for making the situation worse and thus endangering others.
Rajat
Dec 27 2021 at 5:29pm
I’m in group 3 but I think paternalism in the form of mask mandates has been on balance beneficial in Australia. Mask-wearing started occurring here (in Melbourne) in March 2020 but only took off in July when case numbers started rising steeply. Even then it was maybe half/two-thirds (in indoor retail and supermarkets etc) in my area but rose to 75-90% after the mandate. Retailers were actually asking the government to introduce a mandate so they didn’t have to impose one themselves and either face angry customers or lose business (a prisoner’s dilemma). While one would hope that the market would work and enough shops would impose and police their own entry requirements, this just wasn’t going to happen. No shop wants to hire extra security to physically keep out or remove irate people and most customers don’t care enough to travel further to be surrounded by 10% non-wearers rather than 50% non-wearers. And we all saw scenes from the US of ugly confrontations in Walmart stores. Also, unlike restaurants and cigarette smoking – where I supported leaving it to market forces rather than the mandates that occurred here in the mid-2000s – failing to wear a mask indoors for a half-hour supermarket shop doesn’t really offer the non-wearer much utility. So I think indoor mask mandates made sense. That said, I absolutely hated our state government’s outdoor mask mandate and mostly failed to heed it when away from busy shopping strips. However, my anger at the outdoor mandate did not make me ‘rebel’ and stop wearing a mask indoors.
Finally, I think where you have a government that is fairly paternalistic generally, a failure to mandate can be seen by some as a signal that the risk in question is not a serious one. A government needs to be libertarian with some consistency for the right signals to emerge.
Scott Sumner
Dec 27 2021 at 6:31pm
Your final point is important, and relates to my first point about moral hazard. The problem of moral hazard doesn’t just occur with specific forms of paternalism; there’s also the more general problem that the public has come to expect to be protected by the government from all sorts of risks.
One solution is to make the regulations voluntary. I’d guess that if the Australian government had merely recommended that all businesses have a mask mandate, that might have been enough.
Todd Kreider
Dec 28 2021 at 9:48am
Hey Scott, this is from one of your main sources of Covid information a few days ago:
“(CNN) Cloth masks are little more than facial decorations. There’s no place for them in light of Omicron,” said CNN Medical Analyst Dr. Leana Wen, an emergency physician and visiting professor of health policy and management at the George Washington University Milken Institute School of Public Health”
After 20 months, she and CNN have done a complete 180. It must have been all that new data that she analyzed between mid-November and mid-December.
AMT
Dec 28 2021 at 8:35pm
You call that a 180? ROFL
Scott Sumner
Dec 28 2021 at 11:01pm
Perhaps Todd meant they did a 360. 🙂
Todd Kreider
Dec 29 2021 at 12:40am
Oh, I didn’t realize that CNN has been saying non-stop for 20 months: “Cloth masks are little more than facial decorations.”
Dale Doback
Dec 29 2021 at 11:16am
It may surprise you to learn that “little more” also means “more”. The “little” is obviously relative to N95’s. So no not at all a 180.
Todd Kreider
Dec 29 2021 at 11:22am
The problem here, as it often is with Scott about Covid, is that I can’t tell if you are sarcastic or not. “Little more” clearly means not more helpful than a facial decoration, which Fauci and others have known since before the pandemic. Fauci was being truthful (must have been hard for him) when he said on 60 Minutes that the surgical masks don’t help either since the virus not only goes through the mask but around it.
Mark Barbieri
Dec 27 2021 at 6:49pm
Paternalism is an incredibly useful tool for people seeking rents. Tired of lower skilled people competing with you on price? Have your trade group work with the government to “protect” consumers from unlicensed competitors. Tired of new products competing against your brands? “Protect” consumers by making it expensive for competitors to get their products approved.
Phil H
Dec 27 2021 at 8:40pm
No, these are “first world problems”.
“1. A paternalistic policy regime makes people less careful.” – but a complete lack of paternalistic policies makes people more dead. We know this because there aren’t any societies without paternalistic policies. They all died.
“2. Paternalism annoys people…self destructive behavior” – but a complete lack of paternalism leaves people more dead, because they do all the things that dad would have told them not to do. We know this because…
“3. Paternalism leads to regulation that creates a monoculture, making it more difficult to see what works best.” – but the existence of monocultures makes possible massive coordination, which opens up entirely new spaces of possibility.
All of the criticisms are right, but small. I think they massively underestimate the new potential for doing stuff that coordination (driven by paternalism) enables. A small share of the literally unlimited potential of people working together infinitely outweighs the loss of potential that government regulation imposes. We know this because the most successful cultures in the world are massively regulated. And the unregulated ones are Somalia.
Scott Sumner
Dec 27 2021 at 11:07pm
“And the unregulated ones are Somalia.”
If you think Somalia is “unregulated”, then I agree that a lack of regulation is bad. But that’s not how most people define regulation.
Actually, economic freedom is strongly correlation with prosperity. More highly regulated countries tend to be poorer.
Phil H
Dec 30 2021 at 12:50pm
The recently-popular term “state capacity” is the missing link in the argument. Your point about economic freedom and prosperity is well-taken. I agree that markets require degrees of freedom (among other things), and that there are many countries that have stifled progress by failing to provide that freedom. Given that, the big picture that I see is: where a country has very low state capacity, development is not possible (Somalia); where a country has reasonable state capacity, limited development is possible (canonical example: India); where a country has reasonable state capacity *and* allows fair markets to operate, complete development is possible (W. Europe & USA).
“If you think Somalia is “unregulated”, then I agree that a lack of regulation is bad. But that’s not how most people define regulation.”
Then perhaps we have a genuine vocabulary disagreement, because I think the opposite! I can’t imagine anyone would tell me that Somalia has a comprehensive legal & regulatory system, much less a functioning implementation of such systems. When we talk about “regulation,” I would imagine Somalia is the last place we’d look.
But vocab issues aren’t actually important. I would be happy to change my use of words for the sake of smoother communication. Whatever word we use, I suggest that the facts on the ground in Somalia are: there is neither a comprehensive legal system nor practical rule-of-law.
Mark Z
Dec 27 2021 at 11:17pm
What’s the question to which you’re answering “no?”
“but a complete lack of paternalistic policies makes people more dead. We know this because there aren’t any societies without paternalistic policies. They all died.”
Ok, why don’t you name these societies that had no paternalistic policies that died out because of it? It seems to me, rather, that every society has a degree of paternalism, not that some Darwinian process has weeded out non-paternalistic societies. Paternalism is a natural, and perhaps therefore inevitable, feature of any society, but that doesn’t make it good, and shouldn’t be resisted, or that a less paternalistic society wouldn’t be a great innovation, like democracy. One could have said what you wrote – much more accurately in fact – about democratic societies until a few hundred years ago. My guess is many of your favorite public policies were non-existent until a few decades ago.
This trope about Somalia as a quintessential unregulated society (Al-Shabaab, you might be interested to learn, isn’t exactly a libertarian party) is even more preposterous than the idea of North Korea as a quintessential regulated society. Most poorly developed countries are actually quite ‘well-regulated,’ which means only a small number of well-off rent-seekers who can afford to bribe their way out of the rules.
Phil H
Dec 30 2021 at 12:59pm
As with my reply to Scott above, if there is a vocab issue, I’m happy to change my wording.
However…
“‘well-regulated,’ which means only a small number of well-off rent-seekers who can afford to bribe their way out of the rules.”
I find this kind of language… unnecessarily question-begging. I mean, if you want to define “regulation” as all-that-is-bad, then fine… but that means that when you conclude “regulation is bad” you will have achieved precisely nothing.
To offer an alternative, I’d suggest something like: regulation is rules imposed on residents by a state authority (roughly, whichever authority claims a local monopoly on violence). Regulation can be further analyzed into theoretical regulation (roughly, written laws and regulations) and practical regulation (facts on the ground, usually the product of theoretical regulation x state capacity). Related concept: rule of law, which is the extent to which the actions of state operatives match up with theoretical regulation.
If you ever happen to read my comments in the future, I’ll probably be using definitions like these; so if you interpret “regulation” as something else, you won’t be understanding what I’m getting at.
Thomas Lee Hutcheson
Dec 28 2021 at 2:59am
Masking and social distancing and vaccinating should not be communicated as “paternalistic” but as information and in some circumstances a mandate about how the person can, at little risk or inconvenience to himself help protect others from catching a potentially deadly disease.
Knut P. Heen
Dec 28 2021 at 7:32am
You can also divide the population in four.
Group 1: Seriously ill of Covid without the vaccine, seriously ill of Covid with the vaccine
Group 2: Seriously ill of Covid without the vaccine, mildly ill of Covid with the vaccine
Group 3: Mildly ill of Covid without the vaccine, seriously ill of the vaccine
Group 4: Mildly ill of Covid without the vaccine, mildly ill of Covid with the vaccine
Only group 2 needs the vaccine. Group 3 should not get the vaccine.
Suppose you think you belong to group 2 and group 3 with equal probability. What should you do? Not take the vaccine because you do not get Covid with certainty. Hence, you need to attach a higher probability to belonging to group 2 than to belonging to group 3 in order to take the vaccine.
FDA approval probably says something about the size of group 3, but if you attach a high enough probability to being in group 2, you may want a non-approved-vaccine anyway. If you are young and healthy, you may not want an approved-vaccine because group 3 is too large anyway. This is rational behavior independent of your attitude towards scientists or authorities. Obviously, your attitude towards scientists and authorities may change in a negative direction if they tell you to behave irrationally.
Thomas Lee Hutcheson
Dec 29 2021 at 1:19am
The analysis is flawed by ignoring the other-protecting nature of vaccines.
Andre
Dec 29 2021 at 1:15pm
Let’s say we have two demographic twins: one catches Covid-19 and is sick for a couple of days while the other gets the vaccine and has an uncomfortable 24 hours and is back in business.
Seven months post-event:
Which of the two is less likely to catch Covid?
Which of the two is less likely to transmit Covid?
Do we have good answers to the above?
Dale Doback
Dec 28 2021 at 6:46pm
I trust scientists and largely do what I am told, but also resent not being allowed to take the vaccine before the FDA approves it. I don’t think that’s a contradiction. Most people think libertarians are weird and don’t take them seriously probably because they always water down their message with antisocial statements like they’re a rebel and they don’t trust anyone.
Scott Sumner
Dec 28 2021 at 11:04pm
Good comment. I don’t “trust” scientists; I “respect” scientists. There’s a subtle distinction.
Tom West
Dec 29 2021 at 2:42am
Well, As a Canadian reader, I think paternalism has worked reasonably well here. I can count the number of unmasked individuals in stores in the last two years on two fingers, and our vaccination numbers are decently high.
At least so far, we seem to be getting away with ~ 1/3 the US death rate.
Now one can debate that the measures were not worth the lives saved, but I don’t think one can deny that, at least in Canada’s case, paternalism saved a fair number of lives. You just need the right culture for paternalism to succeed.
Todd Kreider
Dec 30 2021 at 7:09am
I’ll say that the draconian measures and paternalism in Canada did nothing to reduce Covid deaths.
The U.S. and Canada are very different countries. Two examples: 11% of Americans are diabetic compared to 9% of Canadians and 42% of Americans are obese compared to 28% of Canadians. Moreover, 18% of Americans are severely obese (BMI>35) compared to only 5% of Canadians.
Tom West
Dec 30 2021 at 12:04pm
Seriously? Canada also had <1/3 the number of cases (pre-omicron) and you think public health measures had no effect at all?
I understand deciding that draconian measures and paternalism weren’t worth the lives saved. I understand the claim that American culture wouldn’t tolerate the measures that Canada took. But claiming the measures had no effect at all in the face of the data feels an awful like “I don’t like the cost, therefor any claim to a benefit must be wrong.”
Everything is a trade-off.
Todd Kreider
Dec 30 2021 at 1:34pm
The U.S. tested twice as much per capita as Canada during the summer of 2020, the winter of 2021 and again during the fall Delta wave of 2021.
There are boat loads of studies that have shown lockdowns don’t work and several RCTs that show no evidence that masks are effective in reducing Covid cases.
Also, only 2% of Canadians were vaccinated during the winter of 2021 wave when cases and deaths sharply declined. The same as in Japan and similar to the U.S. although the vaccination effect occurred a little earlier.
Scott Sumner
Jan 2 2022 at 7:18pm
“The U.S. and Canada are very different countries. Two examples: 11% of Americans are diabetic compared to 9% of Canadians and 42% of Americans are obese compared to 28% of Canadians. Moreover, 18% of Americans are severely obese (BMI>35) compared to only 5% of Canadians.”
This is a classic example of innumeracy. These differences don’t even come close to explaining the huge difference in death rates.
Ken P
Dec 29 2021 at 12:10pm
The starting point is the question which scientists are the ones to listen to? The economics analogy would be for a given issue is Paul Krugman correct or Vernon Smith? They’re both quite smart and knowledgeable about economics. Do what you are told by which scientists?
Grand Rapids Mike
Dec 30 2021 at 9:26pm
I think there are more than 3 categories. I am in the 70’s so looking at the data on my own, didn’t need a scientist to tell me, I know I am in a high risk group. So I had the vaccine, but selected the Pfizer jab, based on the fact that Israel selected it, considering their sophistication. I hate the masks. BTW this whole situation has pushed me deeper in the distrust the goverment camp.
Matthias
Dec 31 2021 at 6:47pm
This situation might be an argument against coercive paternalism, but it leaves the case for paternalism by selecting defaults intact.
(Not sure I agree with either kind, but the latter is more defensible.)
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