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Unherd lockdown tv3/17/2023 Also discuss the circulating notion that previous exposure to (some) other coronaviruses, or perhaps weak doses of Covid-19, might be giving some individuals partial immunity (an idea being batted around but not verified as far as I know. I say write out 500 words (with links) comparing different methods of accounting for the unexplained residuals and heterogeneities with Covid-19 (not it is not all policy, and how much of it is sheer luck and/or timing?). I am less impressed by passing potshots at the author and more interested in reading a short blog post. The contents of this article may well be wrong, as many on Twitter are suggesting, that link makes two renowned researchers/commentators or here is Kai Kupferschmidt. Speculative, and here is the full article, mostly about other matters epidemiological. Knowing it exists is useful for our preparations for any second wave, because it suggests that targeted testing of those at high risk of exposure to Covid-19 might be a better approach than non-selective testing of the whole population. This is like dark matter in the universe: we can’t see it, but we know it must be there to account for what we can see. Why? There are various possible explanations, but one that looks increasingly likely is that Germany has more immunological “dark matter” – people who are impervious to infection, perhaps because they are geographically isolated or have some kind of natural resistance. For example, it looks as if the low German fatality rate is not due to their superior testing capacity, but rather to the fact that the average German is less likely to get infected and die than the average Brit. The answers are sometimes counterintuitive. We’ve been comparing the UK and Germany to try to explain the comparatively low fatality rates in Germany. Karl Friston on “immunological dark matter” That is from a new NBER working paper by Matthew Turner, Gilles Duranton, and Geetika Nagpal. The evidence suggests the importance of an examination of how funding is allocated across modes but not of massive new expenditures. However, current annual expenditure on public transit buses exceeds that on interstate construction and maintenance. In fact, most US transportation infrastructure is not deteriorating and the existing scientific literature and does not show that infrastructure creates growth or reduces congestion. Such proposals are often motivated by the belief that our infrastructure is crumbling, that infrastructure causes economic growth, that current funding regimes disadvantage rural drivers at the expense of urban public transit, or that capacity expansions will reduce congestion. Support for massive investments in transportation infrastructure, possibly with a change in the share of spending on transit, seems widespread.
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