Vaccinations and COVID Testing Through the Prism of Risk/Reward Assessments
1/16/22
Having worked for the lion’s share of my career as an economist focusing on financial issues, assessing risk and reward in a world of uncertainty has been central to my professional concerns. Now, however, with COVID 19 taking up so much oxygen, that same orientation has spilled over into the personal.
In any risk/reward assessment, one quickly comes to appreciate that different people make different determinations. For every buyer there’s a seller. Obviously, multiple motivations may come into play in any market decision. In many cases, however, speculators bet against each other with one betting “up” and the other betting “down,” albeit, presumably, operating with the same set of facts.
In virtually all markets (save those that may be manipulated or otherwise constrained), excess demand will foster price increases, and vice versa. Ultimately, however, the very fact of those price changes alters the calculus. That is, with sufficiently large price changes, excesses of supply or demand will be eliminated; and, in fact, if those price changes happen to be too generous, at least some portion of the original price adjustment would reverse. In financial markets, these kinds of adjustments happen virtually continuously, making it difficult to assess whether any observed price change should be seen as indicative of a new price trend that will continue or something that would be more short term, subject to a reversion. Put in other words, it’s often a difficult call as to whether or not some prospective reward would justify bearing the risk.
I don’t see this kind of difficulty underlying decisions relating to COVID 19, in connection with taking vaccinations. We know the following:
(a) COVID is highly transmissible.
(b) Unvaccinated people are more susceptible to contracting COVID than vaccinated people.
(c) Those who contract COVID 19 have a substantially higher probability of being hospitalized and dying, as compared to the general population.
(d) A huge population of vaccinated people has shown these vaccinations to be extremely safe, with little or no basis for assigning any significant concern as to longer term negative consequences.
(e) The risk of serious illness for children who are too young to qualify to be vaccinated is not zero, but it is significantly lower than that of older populations.
By any rational risk assessment, the risk of not vaccinating far exceeds those of vaccinating. Sure, some may have special circumstances relating to the state of their particular immune system that might be overriding; but for the vast majority of us, I simply have to look at the choice to not vaccinate as an irrational one.
As I write this, a first cousin of mine is in the hospital with COVID, on a ventilator. I’m told this was a political decision on his part. The idea that this political principle was worth risking his life seems crazy to me; and the idea of respecting this decision is equally nuts. Non-vaxxers put the rest of us at risk. They don’t deserve consideration; they deserve ostracism and condemnation; and we can put the six conservative justices of the Supreme court who ruled against expanding vaccination mandates on this list, as well as the assorted Republican governors and legislators who’ve also sabotaged sane public health responses to this hazard. As far as I am concerned, these people, along with anti-vaxxers more broadly, have blood on their hands.
With substantial numbers committed to staying unvaccinated, I’m ready to throw in the towel. It seems to be their choice. Unfortunately, the consequences of their convictions will extend beyond themselves and spill over to their loving families — a tragic but totally avoidable outcome. And what about the rest of us? How should we be dealing with this threat, going forward? My perspective as to our future orientation is colored by the fact that I had recently tested positive for COVID, myself. I had symptoms for about six days, but nothing of any concern. Still, I wanted to do the right thing, and I looked to the CDC and other resources for guidance. The consistent instructions I found were to isolate for between 5–10 days, depending on my symptoms.
I was surprised to learn, however, that no health authority had advised me to base the end of my quarantine on a negative test. The justification for this posture was that the virus could live within my body for long after my virus stopped being transmissible — i.e., possibly for several months. Put another way, while COVID testing could validate whether or not I had been infected, it couldn’t definitively tell if I were contagious.
I was learning about this just as the Biden administration began rolling out a dramatic increase in testing — a policy direction that, in light of my current investigation, I don’t find makes much sense. That is, given the limitations of these tests to assess transmissibility, the huge expense and effort associated with the ramping up testing seems unwarranted.
As a practical matter, unless or until some better tests can be created that assess transmissibility, I’m advocating turning the page and, rather than testing, letting symptoms dictate actions. In other words, as with any illness, if you’re sick, you should stay home. If you’re not, go about your business.
The one reservation I have with my attitude has to do with the vulnerabilities of those who can’t get vaccinated as a matter of eligibility or personal circumstances making vaccinations inappropriate for them. Through no fault of their own, these people necessarily will have to bear a larger risk then the rest of us. I don’t see any way around this circumstance, given the current prospects for expanding vaccine mandates. My only hope is that science will move quickly to extend available protections to address the special needs the youngest among us and those with compromised immune systems. The rest of those who remain unvaccinated won’t get any sympathy from me. I’m no longer willing to restrict my mobility to protect those who are unwilling to protect themselves.
