Some Thoughts About The Lower Mortality Estimates

The news media has recently been discussing the reduction in mortality estimates for the US, from a 100,000 to 240,000 range to more like 60,000. Why did this occur? This National Review article by Jonah Goldberg caught my eye:

My American Enterprise Institute colleague Lyman Stone, an economist based in Hong Kong, makes the case that the essential variable in “flattening the curve” isn’t central planning but behavior change. Many businesses closed down well before they were ordered to. Millions of people practiced social distancing and refused to get on planes not because they were commanded to, but because they were convinced this was a wise course of action for themselves and their loved ones.

People change their behavior when they are given clear information about risks. 

This doesn’t mean that governments have no role to play; closing government schools was probably a good idea. (Heck, it’s been a good idea for 200 years.) And many average people look to government leaders for advice. This is one area where Sweden’s leaders may have fallen short.

I’ve done a number of posts pointing to the unusually low number of recent cases on the West Coast (which is where the epidemic began in America). We did adopt official social distancing policies before the rest of the country, but not far enough ahead to fully explain the difference. On March 23rd I said:

My wife is well connected with the Asian community out here, and told me of numerous events being cancelled back when the total case numbers were still tiny.  I thought the actions were excessive, but now those cancellations now look much more sensible. . . .

It seems to me that the Asian community in California was especially aware of the severity of coronavirus, and that may explain why it spread much less rapidly here, after presumably entering California via travelers from China. After all, the previous SARS epidemic made a much greater impression on the psyche of Asian people than on Westerners.  East Asian countries also seemed better prepared than Western countries.

(BTW, there are significant cultural differences between the Asian communities here and in places like New York.)

Since I wrote that post, the West Coast disparity is becoming ever more obvious. I recall reading a few weeks ago that California expected 11,000 deaths. A more recent estimate is only 1700, not that many for a state with 40 million people. And while the Asian community comprises only a modest portion of the West Coast’s population, it’s also the population where the coronavirus first took root.

At the time, I thought the local Chinese were foolish to cancel social events when the whole US had only a few dozen cases, but now their response looks more reasonable.

Orange County (where I live), has a big Chinese community and previously had lots of flying back and forth with China. While my county has almost 1% of the total US population, we have less than 0.1% of deaths from coronavirus (18 deaths out of 3.2 million people.) We are very lucky.

The NR article ends as follows:

Information doesn’t just come from governments. The death tolls in Italy and New York probably did more to change behavior on the ground than all of Trump’s press conferences or Dr. Anthony Fauci’s TV appearances.

And this raises another complication for those who think the government can just “re-open” the economy with the flick of a switch. Trump and all of the governors could lift the stay-at-home orders and federal advisories tomorrow. That wouldn’t necessarily fill the restaurants, airplanes, or stadiums. People would still need to be convinced it’s safe. Such persuasion comes via clear, believable information, not orders from on high.

And that’s how it should be in a free society.

I’ve been arguing that we did far too little social distancing in the early part of the epidemic, and we’ll probably do too much during the latter stages of the epidemic. I still feel that way. As for now, I think we need to continue aggressive social distancing for a while.

Update: It occurs to me that the final paragraph gives a misleading impression that I was prescient. Not so. I meant that in retrospect we clearly did too little social distancing in late February and early March. I was also behind the curve at the time.