Reason Awakens

Jared Cohen: This is weird. It's like...a dream.
Sam Rogers: Oh, I don't know. Seems like we actually may have just woken up.
--Margin Call

My sense has been that hysterical, fast thinking related to COVID 19 will wane as people begin to engage their more analytical slow thinking processes. There is evidence that this is occurring.

Perhaps most important is growing realization that resources should be focused on the most vulnerable rather than on the masses. Congressman Thomas Massie:

Can we focus on a strategy that protects the most vulnerable, while allowing healthy individuals under 50-60 to carry on productive lives, until the virus has circulated such that it can’t find enough viable hosts in the general population to infect those over 50-60? 2/x

— Thomas Massie (@RepThomasMassie) March 17, 2020

And even sports show host Clay Travis:

“There’s a lot of talk about social distancing right now, and what is most important is to keep young people away from old people. This is the best way to stop the spread of the virus as 97% of all of Italy’s victims of the coronavirus have been over 60 years old.”—@ClayTravis pic.twitter.com/T5mDdp7bu3

— Outkick the Coverage (@Outkick) March 16, 2020

As Travis notes, the economic costs of across-the-board quarantines and shutdowns must be considered (particularly in highly leveraged systems such as ours):

“My concern is we are making major economic decisions without considering all the costs. The smarter play is to allow everyone under the age of 60 to go about their normal lives while everyone above 60 should be self-quarantined for 2-6 weeks.”—@ClayTravis pic.twitter.com/RZVcdBz8d5

— Outkick the Coverage (@Outkick) March 17, 2020

There is also growing realization of the size of the COVID 19 'pandemic' vs common cold, flu, and the adaptive response and flexible capacity of the health care system to the current situation:

Happening now: @MorningsMaria @FoxBusiness @ClevelandClinic ceo "we have tested over 1400 people, only 3.5% tested positive. Flu & common cold still worse. But the measures to contain shd be followed. The hospitals have the capacity to treat this"

— Maria Bartiromo (@MariaBartiromo) March 17, 2020

Finally, interesting perspective by a Nobel laureate who forecast the slowdown in Chinese COVID 19 infection rates. His basic premise, similar to one advanced in these pages, is that parabolic epi curves are unlikely to last. One interesting twist in his explanation is the idea that, because people have limited social networks in a physical sense, infection rates wane after those people who routinely interact get exposed. People are unlikely to meet new people outside of their routine networks at the same rate as inside their network, causing infection rates, after a peak, to fall.

Reasoning minds are waking up.