Apr 2, 2020 | Business, Politics
Yaron Brook, in an excellent Twitter thread, makes an off the cuff outline of how he thinks a free-market would respond to the COVID-19 crisis:In a truly capitalist society, here is how the market responds:1. Health insurance companies monitor for health risks (they have an economic interest to do so).2. Warn early -- implement plans with hospitals, that have been developed well in advance.3. Demand from hospitals for extra equipment, causes prices to go up quickly.4. The market responds by bringing on new capacity quickly.5. Groceries raise prices on high in-demand goods, thus reducing "hoarding" and assuring continued supply.6. Hospitals (all private, and in a completely private market) activate emergency plans (which they have a profit-motive to have) for additional beds (in mothballed buildings, local hotels, or other facilities).7. Private pharmaceutical companies and labs develop tests at the request of hospitals and clinics.8. Private clinics start testing in mass.9. Goverment's job -- to make sure those who are a threat to others, are isolated.10. Private media and health experts, provide objective (non-political) advice to individuals and companies on how to deal, in the context of their own lives, with the pandemic.11. Testing provides individuals and companies with the kind of information crucial to making rational decisions.12. Private labs and pharma companies rush to innovate treatments and vaccines.13. Private testing and certification organizations ("FDA" replacements) ramp up to approve test kits, treatments, and vaccines.14. Business adjusts to peoples' preferences for safety. Put in necessary protections and conveniences...15. People who don't follow the reasonable guidelines suffer social ostracism and left to suffer consequences.16. Insurance contracts could be written in ways that say -- if you want to be covered, behave...Feel free to add -- private market responses to pandemic...
You can read the original thread and the responses here.Mar 30, 2020 | Business, Politics
The Battelle Corporation has a technology that can decontaminate face masks making them reusable -- unfortunately, FDA regulations limited its use until today.From "Battelle gets full approval for mask sterilization"/ Dayton Daily News:The FDA gave full approval to Battelle to utilize new surgical mask sterilization technology, which can decontaminate up to 80,000 masks a day per unit.
[...]The FDA initially limited Battelle’s approval to 10,000 masks a day, drawing criticism from Gov. Mike DeWine and Lt. Gov. Jon Husted.“The FDA’s decision to severely limit the use of this life-saving technology is nothing short of reckless,” DeWine said in a statement. “Battelle’s innovative technology has the capability to protect health care professionals and first responders in Ohio and across the country, but in this time of crisis, the FDA has decided not to support those who are risking their lives to save others.”Added DeWine: “This is a matter of life and death. I am not only disappointed by this development, but I’m also stunned that the FDA would decline to do all it can to protect this country’s frontline workers in this serious time of need.”For days running, DeWine has publicly pleaded with the FDA to issue an emergency waiver for the use of the new technology that could sterilize up to 160,000 personal protective face masks every day.
After this crisis is over, the power the FDA yields to halt innovation and progress needs to be abolished.Mar 25, 2020 | Business, Politics
Professor Jaana Woiceshyn's marvelous book on business ethics, How to Be Profitable and Moral: A Rational Egoist Approach to Business, has just been released as an audiobook narrated by Sean Salsbury.
Does one have to sacrifice business profits to be moral?
Dr. Woiceshyn says "no", and explains why, by introducing business students a set of rational, logical, scientific principles on how they can maximize profits in the long run by acting morally.
Required reading -- or listening -- for all employees, business students, and CEOs.
Get it here.
p.s. We will have a full review posted shortly!
Mar 23, 2020 | Politics
In his essay on COVID19: A Path Forward, Dr. Amesh Adalja, a virus, bio-security expert writes on the importance of how draconian measures to foght COVID-19 can be worse then virus itself:
Plans of prolonged, enforced confinement aimed at preserving life at any cost are premised on a misunderstanding of human life and what makes it worth living. When discussing treatment options with a patient, I often invoke the concept of “quality of life”. Patients regularly choose to take on some risk to their longevity in order to preserve or enhance their quality of life. Individual preferences and shared decision-making with physicians guide medical decision making and also should apply to each individual’s decision regarding the degree of social distancing that is appropriate for them.
A degraded quality of life, particularly over time, itself generates its own risks of death. If the lockdown is prolonged, we can expect increases in deaths from cancer, cardiovascular disease, stroke, mental illness, and substance abuse. How many cancers will metastasize while colonoscopies or biopsies deemed “elective” will be postponed?
Quality of life consists largely in the ability to engage in the activities that make up our lives, and central to these activities is work. Most of us need to work to support ourselves, and many people, including myself, derive meaning from their work. Moreover, humans, as a species, survive by productive work. Jobs cannot be easily parsed into “life-sustaining” and “non-life-sustaining” enterprises. All work consists in the creating of something we need to sustain human life physically and psychologically. Some of these needs are more acute than others, but all contribute to our ability and will to live. Stopping people from working is like depriving a limb of blood flow. Though action is sometimes necessary in an emergency, irreparable and irreversible harm will occur if it is prolonged. A prolonged freeze of the economy — even in the face of a deadly pandemic — will cause a long-term damage far greater than any purported benefit.
He also presents five recommendations, and concludes on a positive note:
In the past infectious diseases claimed more lives per capita than are projected to be at risk from this pandemic, but humans rarely responded by retreating from activity. In the years when smallpox ravaged the planet and rubella crippled babies, humans went to the moon.
Mar 22, 2020 | Politics
- 10-minute test for coronavirus exposure utilizing blood from a finger prick can be performed anywhere by trained professionals, e.g. airports, schools, work, doctor’s office
- Biomerica has begun shipping samples of this COVID-19 test to multiple Ministries of Health and government agencies that have requested the product through the Company’s distributors in the Middle East, Europe, and other countries
- Price point of this single-use, disposable product as low as $10 per patient
- Biomerica has filed a provisional patent on rapid test technology to identify multiple coronavirus strains including the strain responsible for COVID-19
Read more here.
Updates:
How does a coronavirus home test kit work, and how do I get one?
The UK Government has bought 3.5million finger-prick antibody tests that could soon radically transform the UK's response to Covid-19.
Ten-Minute Coronavirus Test for $1 Could Be Game Changer
U.K. company, Senegalese institute developing hand-held kit. Kits to be manufactured in Africa, sell for less than a dollar
