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"They Blinded Us From Science"

Posted: 19 Aug 2020 05:22 AM PDT
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(Don Boudreaux)




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This report, written by Sonal Desai, on Americans enormous misconceptions
about the risks posed by covid-19 is well worth a careful read. Its not
long. (I thank my colleague Dan Klein for alerting me to this report.)

Here are some highlights:

Six months into this pandemic, Americans still dramatically misunderstand
the risk of dying from COVID-19:

On average, Americans believe that people aged 55 and older account for
just over half of total COVID-19 deaths; the actual figure is 92%.
Americans believe that people aged 44 and younger account for about 30% of
total deaths; the actual figure is 2.7%.
Americans overestimate the risk of death from COVID-19 for people aged 24
and younger

by a factor of 50; and they think the risk for people aged 65 and older is
half of what it actually is (40% vs 80%).

These results are nothing short of stunning. Mortality data have shown from
the very beginning that the COVID-19 virus age-discriminates, with deaths
overwhelmingly concentrated in people who are older and suffer
comorbidities. This is perhaps the only uncontroversial piece of evidence
we have about this virus. Nearly all US fatalities have been among people
older than 55; and yet a large number of Americans are still convinced that
the risk to those younger than 55 is almost the same as to those who are
older.

..

For the last six months, we have all read and talked about nothing but
COVID-19; how can there be still such a widespread, fundamental
misunderstanding of the basic facts? Our poll results identify two major
culprits: the quality of information and the extreme politicization of the
COVID-19 debate:

People who get their information predominantly from social media have the
most erroneous and distorted perception of risk.
Those who identify as Democrats tend to mistakenly overstate the risk of
death from COVID-19 for younger people much more than Republicans.


This, sadly, comes as no surprise. Fear and anger are the most reliable
drivers of engagement; scary tales of young victims of the pandemic,
intimating that we are all at risk of dying, quickly go viral; so do
stories that blame everything on your political adversaries. Both social
and traditional media have been churning out both types of narratives in
order to generate more clicks and increase their audience.

The fact that the United States is in an election year has exacerbated the
problem. Stories that emphasize the dangers of the pandemic to all age
cohorts and tie the risk to the Administration’s handling of the crisis
likely tend to resonate much more with Democrats than Republicans. This
might be a contributing factor to why, in our survey results, Democrats
tend to overestimate the risk of dying from COVID-19 for different age
cohorts to a greater extent than Republicans do.

..

This misinformation also causes another fundamental problem. The policy
decision of what activities to keep shut and for how long is a very
difficult and consequential one. It requires balancing two opposite effects
of uncertain scale: on the one hand the benefits in terms of slowing
COVID-19 contagion, on the other hand the harm to the economy and to
people’s long-term health and livelihoods. This decision is strongly
influenced by public perceptions of dangers, not only because politicians
are sensitive to the public’s concerns but also because politicians are
people too, subject to some of the same biases. Our poll results suggest
fundamental misperceptions of the risk of death or serious adverse health
consequences from COVID-19 could be distorting these decisions.




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Some Links

Posted: 19 Aug 2020 04:47 AM PDT
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(Don Boudreaux)




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Nick Gillespie debunks the recent and inexcusably mistaken highest
single-day of COVID-19 deaths report. Heres Nicks conclusion:

The COVID-19 story is a tough one, with new information emerging all the
time. But the media, never infallible in the first place, seem increasingly
prone to running stories that are not even internally consistent but
instead are a hodgepodge of anxiety and apocalypticism. Under such
circumstances, its more important than ever to develop razor-sharp
media-literacy and bullshit-detection skills. Whether or not a coronavirus
vaccine ever arrives, but can at least inoculate ourselves against the more
obvious failures of the Fourth Estate.

Bruce Yandle writes that the U.S. economy isnt improving fast enough.

James Pethokoukis: If prosperity and freedom aren’t enough for you, there’s
also the ‘moral’ case for market capitalism.

Ben Zycher applauds the Trump administrations reform of Obama’s misguided
methane-emissions rule.

William McGurn praises the courageous Jimmy Lai. A slice:

Soon Jimmy will go to trial on charges from sedition to colluding with
foreign powers. It’s utter rot, of course. If he finds himself facing
prison, it is only because Communist China, for all its size and power,
fears any Chinese who insists on speaking the truth.

In this way Jimmy might be thought of as Hong Kong’s Thomas More, the
difference being that while King Henry VIII wanted More to speak up,
Beijing wants Jimmy to shut up. In the more than two decades since Hong
Kong was handed back to China, most Hong Kong elites have cut their
consciences to accommodate their new overlords. Which leaves Jimmy Lai and
his printing press as Hong Kong’s single most important counter to official
propaganda.

My colleague Bryan Caplan wisely isnt buying Paul Krugmans skepticism about
what economics can say about economic growth.

Art Carden reviews Steve Horwitzs Austrian Economics: An Introduction.




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Quotation of the Day

Posted: 19 Aug 2020 03:52 AM PDT
[link removed]

(Don Boudreaux)




Tweet
is from page 107 of the late Hans Rosling’s 2018 book, Factfulness:

Yet here’s the paradox: the image of a dangerous world has never been
broadcast more effectively than it is now, while the world has never been
less violent and more safe.

Fears that once helped keep our ancestors alive, today help keep
journalists employed. It isn’t the journalists’ fault and we shouldn’t
expect them to change. It isn’t driven by media logic among the producers
as much as by attention logic in the heads of consumers.

DBx: It is indeed a paradox, one with a significant impact. As the world
becomes more and more safe, even small negative deviations from this trend
become more and more unusual and, hence, noticeable and newsworthy. And
these deviations not understood in historical context cause outsized
anxiety and fear.

Ironically, this anxiety and fear can become self-fulfilling. Because, as
Rosling notes, we human beings do not reason well regarding the long run
when we are gripped by fear, fear leads us to make choices that in
fact will make us worse off in the long run. Most obviously, fear leads us
not only to tolerate the state grabbing more power over us, but even to
demand that the state slap on us more binds and shackles. Yet bound and
shackled, we cannot continue to innovate and create the prosperity that
alone can truly reduce our exposure and susceptibility to the physical
hazards that for so long mercilessly mowed down our ancestors.




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Bonus Quotation of the Day

Posted: 18 Aug 2020 11:20 AM PDT
[link removed]

(Don Boudreaux)




Tweet
is from pages xi-xii of Kristian Niemietz’s superb 2019 book, Socialism:
The Failed Idea That Never Dies:

Yet while socialists distance themselves from contemporary and historical
examples of socialism, they usually struggle to explain what exactly they
would do differently. Socialists tend to escape into abstraction, and talk
of lofty aspirations rather than tangible institutional characteristics.

DBx: The same escape into abstraction and expressions of aspirations is
performed also by all advocates of industrial policy.

Nothing is easier than to express lovely aspirations. Equally easy is
simply to suppose that the state possesses the combination of god-like
power and god-like goodness necessary to transform these aspirations into
reality. Much, much more difficult is the task of describing the
institutional details that flesh-and-blood human beings will confront and
the actions these individuals will realistically take to acquire the
knowledge necessary to achieve outcomes remotely close to the lovely
aspirations.




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