Friday, January 15, 2021

A must read from Marginal Revolution

This is Joseph.

We get a bit testy with MR from time to time (see here) but this is completely on the mark:

A vaccine isn’t like a limited supply of water that needs to be rationed until you arrive at the next oasis. The sooner you get the vaccine out the better! Start lowering R now! If you run out of vaccine, well scarcity is bad but running out means that at least one part of your system is working well!

Now there might be other reasons why this plan is being adopted. Public health and vaccine logistics are hard -- very hard-working people are taking on once in a generation level challenges to sort out a complex cold chain and logistics problem. Hard to second guess the people in the trenches.

But the explanation should be clarified. Like is it spacing out second doses or because of clinic capacity? Or, if spacing the shots out is the sole reason, I see easy opportunities to improve vaccine delivery. 

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