The information you get from the media on these two questions does not go as deep as what we really know from the best science and the best econometrics. Here is what I see now on these two questions:
(1) HEALTH RECOVERY ***********
On Mon, May 11, 2020 at 6:04 AM [the reali nventor of the internet, TCP/IP] wrote:
is there any evidence of immunity for COVID-19? I get the "mild cases" situation - that's my story too (although there seem to be reports of lingering problems unrelated to respiratory effects). But what, if anything, do we know about immunity? How long does it last and against what level of infection does it work?
Thank yo u.... for directly asking such an important and sane question. As I look at the world's discussions of covid, climate and the future of the internet, I have come to treasure real sanity more and more.
What amazes me is how little ANYONE knows about some of the basic obvious questions. VERY late in the game, the Germans did the first real statistical sample study of a hot spot city. My memory is that that city reached equilibrium, suggesting "herd immunity", but there were only 20% of the people with antibodies.
The follow up study in New York due to Cuomo was not as scientific, but also quite interesting: it was 20% antibodies among blacks and Hispanics (NOT due to anything unique about blacks here).
SO: WHAT LEVEL OF ANTIBODIES, in a normal general population, implies "herd immunity"? Is it 20%, with the 80% mostly having another types of immunity, or should we stand by for a second wave four times as big as the first even in those places? People have strong prior expectations, but there is plenty of room for rational differences of opinion today.
The medical mainstream seems to favor the "no special immunity school," expecting a huge second wave.
When my own life might be at stake (here in a hot spot, not so far from that dangerous eldercare facility formerly called "the puzzle palace on the Potomac"), I act mostly as if the mainstream MIGHT be right. But my wife (who has two PhDs and once ran the deepest, crossdisciplinary lab in Russia for physiologically active compounds) explained how a certain tea she mixes has an effect on cell membranes rather similar to what works here, avoiding the NEED for antibodies. (I once thought it just boosted immune systems, but that would be bad for covid. She reeducated me a few weeks ago.)
HOW LONG does the immunity work against what level?
I see LOTS of politically motivated speculation on this. We don't know. The most likely possibility, so far as I can tell, is that it will be like other viruses or flu, a few years. Deeper understanding of the mechanisms should narrow that band of uncertainty, but it is amazing what a small percentage of the R&D is truly scientific in that way. I heard a talk in 2013 in Singapore (SSCI conference) by a guy from Harvard Medical School which I really wish I had kept links to, which would give more insight on this question AND on the bigger question:
what if this is the FIRST virus of a longer-term sequence, and what is ultimately POSSIBLE for medical responses? (Degrees of freedom of the human immune system are part of the issue.)
I still have friends who oversee covid research from NSF., and we have discussed the modeling issues.
A REAL dynamical model of what happens to a human in this system would depend on the time-series CURVE of degree of viral pressure, and other variables. Viral pressure clearly matters a LOT, raising immunity but also risk and damage. The available relevant data is pathetically limited, even after the creation of new repositories of the kind of data which now exists.
You can see that there is an overlap between this (and the economic recovery issue) and the next generation internet design issue [https://www.youtube.com/
the psychoneuroses and defense mechanisms which help contaminate so many policy systems?
(2) RECOVERY OF THE ECONOMY ********
Another person in that same discussion asked: whether we may see "another Great Depression" due to the impact of covid:
Basically all countries have 3 choices.Save lives not livelihoodSave livelihood not liveMuddle between those choices depending how late your governmentStarted the process!.
My response:
I see a STRONG analogy between this choice and the choice between Growth versus Austerity in the wake of the 2008 financial collapse.
In the one year I worked on Capitol Hill, one of my closest friends was on the staff of the Joint Economic Committee, and we had LOTS of inputs on that issue, much deeper than anything I have seen on economic recovery from covid.
I was especially impressed by a study we were briefed on by a guy from the office of the President of Japan, where they worked out both DEBT implications and JOBS/DEMAND implications for a great variety of possible government actions. We still have a problem with what I call "scalar thinkers,"who focus on the tradeoff between TOTAL spending (or debt) and TOTAL demand, when survival de[ends on understnading that these things are VECTORS, ordered lists of mANY numbers. The Japanese showed how some programs would give three times as much debt per ob/demand, and others three times less. we didn't have to CHOOSE A and B. We would be better off by understanding the VECTOR, and getting the best of both worlds (understanding of course that extra demand needs to be phased out if and when we get closer to the full employment barrier). THERE IS NO WAY TO SURVIVE if we limit our thinking to scalar thinking.,
but things can be far better if we ever master vector thinking.
But with econometrics in particular, I was one of a VERY few group of people who ever built, managed, understood a truly vector dynamical model. The Wharton Annual Model was perhaps the leader of the class of models, but DRI forced them out by selling what people like money seeking users who preferred a less empirical, more tweakable model which could show what they thought their clients wanted to hear. Mine, the PURHAPS model, showed the importance of industrial structural change EVEN in just a year, in the wake of oil shocks. (See https://www.osti.gov/
Sadly, the challenge of economic recovery NOW is similar but more difficult. The opportunities for a trainwreck (like what happened in the wake of Spanish flu, hyperinflation, and what the Great Depression gave us) are all around us, and we would need new networks of dialogue to learn and apply enough advanced vector/internet economics to avoid that kind of very serious risk.
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Comment: the primary global financial system WILL be part of the internet (of things), MUCH sooner than people in general appreciate as yet. Getting THAT system to work, well enough to handle such deep structural change, would require a LOT more understanding than what I see in any of the big players today...
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