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March 23, 2020 - Dennis Prager Show
06:45
Where’s the Evidence of Social Disaster?
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And by the way, whatever your position, you have to explain something I reported very early on, that I think it was a two-to-one ratio.
Do you recall the number of Democrats to Republicans deeply worried in an alarmist mode?
Yes, I believe that's right.
Yeah, so I just want to say to my listeners, Left or right, it is worthy of asking the question, why, generally speaking, there are undoubtedly exceptions, generally speaking, the conservatives are more worried about the price we're paying.
Well, actually, I know what the left would answer.
Conservatives care about money more than people.
Okay, as if the issue is money and the issue is not people.
I mean, people out of work for the foreseeable future, people who've made businesses that are destroyed, that's people.
But all right, I want to get back to you now.
So the metric of using number of cases doesn't tell us much.
The severe symptoms and death, that's what matters.
So how do you answer, at the rate we are going, it is now 400-something deaths in the United States, increasing at a pretty regular rate, apparently, we won't overwhelm our hospitals?
I mean, I think that's a really good question.
I think the point of my sort of broader piece was to think about, Other things beyond only just the virus.
That there has to be weighting of other costs.
And that there's a lot of actions being taken, in my view, that are not directional according to reducing severity and reducing the number of cases, as your question implies.
But then there's this other problem that will compare to what?
Right?
Like, there's a famous saying from Hans Rohling, one of the world's most famous data scientists, that says, like, never trust a lonely number.
Right?
So, as an example of, like, let's say that, you know, I think everyone now knows that the virus is here.
So, the question is, like, are we increasing measurement of already an existing pool of people that have it, or is the virus actually spreading?
Well, if you're just increasing measurement, it will always increase.
Right?
Even though the virus itself may actually not be spreading.
And I think that that lack of data transparency is one of the things that, like, I'm citing is that, like, it's hard to know right now.
And we should totally be concerned, and I don't want anyone to not be concerned, because we totally should be concerned.
And at the end of my piece, I list out that we should be implementing reasonable social distancing.
We should be focusing on hygiene.
We should be protecting those we know that are most vulnerable, like the elderly, and people have serious underlying pathologies.
But that question about...
What will actually be the severity rate is we're kind of walking right now a little bit blind.
So the debate I think we should have is, well, what's our cost-benefit analysis like?
How are we thinking about approaching this problem so that people are not, hospitals are not overwhelmed, but at the same time not doing unnecessary damage to other parts of the economy in people's lives?
Right, but we may not know the answer now.
Yeah, like in the sense of your question about the hospitalization rate?
Yeah, well, about what?
In other words, the people who are for what we're doing would answer.
The New York Times had a very long piece on the whole thing.
One very long piece, many pieces.
And they said in it, if we could, through magic, have everybody at home for two weeks, it would be over.
So if that is the belief of the consensus belief today, why won't it be largely over a week from now?
Well, I think that, as I presented in my piece, that there are other strategies that I think are more evidence-based, that doesn't require such a...
Drastic measure, right?
That, you know, the new Fed numbers are predicting like 30% unemployment, 50% decline in GDP. Goldman Sachs is predicting a decline of growth this quarter of 22%.
So like the things that are, because it's basically you can kill the virus through other means we already know, right?
Other things that the CDC has already shown through basic things you do for like the influenza virus, right?
And so...
What I think is a more reasonable approach, a more balanced approach, is implementing those things.
We have evidence to show that it actually will work.
Monitor and push resources to areas that we know are seriously impacted, like Washington and California and New York.
But, you know, as Governor Abbott of Texas said today, when he did not go for a shelter in place, he said, why would I do that when 200 counties don't have any cases?
Right?
Like, why wouldn't we think about moving resources from places that do not have cases to places that do have cases?
Like, you know, basically thinking about it more from that perspective rather than, like, an outright total, you know, restriction, a draconian action like that, something that is more driven by evidence and looking at measurements.
Because what we want to avoid, which I know you're really concerned about, is significant, massive confirmation bias because the decisions we're making now are so drastic.
That being able to roll back and say that you were wrong is basically not going to happen.
And that precedent, to me, is really concerning.
Where can one see your piece?
Oh, we just learned.
I just learned as I asked it.
We already put it up at our website.
Okay.
Oh, well, there you go.
All right.
Thank you very much.
Aaron Gin's piece.
What's frightening is that medium took it down.
If you have any questioning, The notion that you can question the consensus if the left supports the consensus is that you should be shut, shut down.
Shut up and shut down.
Isn't that funny?
Up and down.
Shut up and shut down.
See, if I had a magic wand, this is what my magic wand would do.
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