Created: March 23, 2020
Modified: August 28, 2020
Modified: August 28, 2020
Predictions on COVID as of March 23, 2019
This page is from my personal notes, and has not been specifically reviewed for public consumption. It might be incomplete, wrong, outdated, or stupid. Caveat lector.- Predictions for:
- April 23ish (one month from now):
- Cases in the bay area will have inflected, and at a relatively lower level than NYC or elsewhere, due to our earlier shelter-in-place order.
- The shelter-in-place order will have been extended, maybe with slight relaxations. One-on-one interactions like dental exams or therapy may be possible. Schools will still be closed.
- There will be enough recovered COVID patients that there is a serious effort to collect serum with which to immunize healthcare and other 'essential' workers.
- Results of preliminary trials for remdesivir and chloroquine will be available. Who knows what they will show.
- Much of America will have prematurely relaxed their restrictions, or failed to observe them (maybe thanks to Trump), and will still be experiencing exponential growth and medical system collapse.
- Capacity to test will still be a major bottleneck; the federal government won't have done a good job scaling up capacity.
- Japan may see a second outbreak. China may as well, but we won't know about it unless it gets really bad.
- I will not have gotten Covid-19.
- The S&P 500 will have flatlined around current levels (2000-2500). This pandemic will be extremely costly in multiple ways but it won't permanently reduce the value of all US companies by 50%, which implies we're not going to go below 1700 (vs 3400 on Feb 19).
- May 23 (two months):
- Cases in the Bay Area, NYC, and Seattle will have peaked and begun declining in absolute terms. true but pessimistic
- Cases will not have peaked and may still be increasing across much of America and Europe. There will also be serious outbreaks in the developing world, but they will be poorly tested and mostly drowned out in Western news. probably about right. Brazil is bad. America is more of a slow burn than I expected
- Mask-wearing will still not be widespread in America, due partly to supply issues, but largely to cultural beliefs around individuality and openness. It will be normal for Asians and some non-Asians to wear masks in major cities (SF/LA/NYC). underestimated Americans' general willingness to wear masks, but unfortunately underrated the tribal political aspect
- We will begin to have models for long-term strategies for contending with Covid in Western democracies, starting with Italy. These might include:
- Private businesses such as stores and restaurants requiring masks and/or enforcing temperature readings to enter (this is possible, but I'm skeptical it will catch on, because masks won't be culturally universal).
- Scaled-up testing to test anyone presenting with flu symptoms, and anyone entering the country.
- We will want to test anyone entering CA, but Trump probably won't allow it, and that will mean we won't be able to stop Covid being endemic in CA.
- Bang-bang control mechanisms to institute social distancing 'code yellow', 'code red', etc based on local test results.
- I will probably not have gotten Covid-19, but I will know people who have. whoa, I know no one who has. the bay area outbreak really was better than expected
- The S&P 500 will have gradually crept up to around 2500, as the long-term picture starts to set in. whoa it's at 2955
- April 23ish (one month from now):
- Predictions for September 1, 2020:
- I will not have been back to the office (confidence: 60%)
- I will not have been on a plane (confidence: 85%)
- I will have been camping or backpacking at least once (90%) or twice (70%).
- The bay area will not have had a major (NYC-style) epidemic (95%).
- Some restaurants will be 'open' at reduced capacity. A large number will have found this untenable and shut down.
- MY and Caffenated will have opened their outdoor patio areas.
- Total US covid deaths will be around 200k (about double what they are now).
- There will be promising results from Phase III trials of at least one Covid vaccine (70%).
- The USA employment level tracked here will still be substantially lower than pre-pandemic; under 140 million jobs.
- Actually: it's at 143, but still substantially lower than pre-pandemic (which was 158) so I'll score this mostly correct.
- Biden will be substantially favored in the presidential election.
- The SP 500 will be at a level similar to, or slightly below, what it is today (2955).
- Actually: it's around 3500. whoa.
- I will not have gotten Covid, barring a vaccine challenge trial.
- I'm 50/50 on whether any vaccine challenge trials will happen.
- I will still believe that a vaccine challenge trial is appropriate.
- Actually: I believe that the morality of a challenge trial is unquestionable if it accelerates vaccine development, but now it seems like the bottlenecks now are more closely related to production. Fast efficacy data on a vaccine we don't yet have production capacity for is not useful. Existing Phase III trials will already read out before we've had the chance to really scale production capacity.
- Score: all of these were basically correct with the caveats noted here.
- Predictions for September 1, 2021:
- Multiple Covid vaccines will have been approved and widely distributed over the winter-to-spring timeframe.
- Better treatments will have become available. Covid will be seen as a bad flu, but not particularly more life-threatening than other bad flus.
- Social distancing requirements will be entirely lifted. Large sporting events and concerts will be allowed, and very popular.
- The Tokyo 2021 Olympics will have happened successfully.
- Biden will (fingers crossed) have won the US election. I'm not going to make other political predictions, except that US politics will still be a mess---the nation will still be divided and there will be an enormous amount of residual grievance among Trump supporters (even if he wins).