I have been wanting to note for a while that my assessment of Adam Creighton and his ilk (economist Paul Frijters, for one, who Nicholas Gruen has let overrun his blog with "BUT YOU ARE ALL WRONG AND PANICKING UNNECESSARILY" guff about COVID) has moved from something like "dismissive of such clownishness" to "you absolutely disgust me".
I mean - it is just so freaking obvious that COVID spread and optimal responses to it are hugely complicated questions with wildly varying effects across wildly varying cultures and populations such that it is going to be years, if ever, that unpicking the evidence is going to provide anything like definitive answers that are 100% clear. Yet Creighton, Frijters and other economics types (for the most part) decided a position at the very start and are determined to promote it and attack all others (including, of course, public health officials whose lifetime job has been devoted to these issues) as if the answers are obvious and that those against them are the real ones causing unnecessary trouble.
It's a level of arrogant certainty and pig headedness that just makes me sick to read. I guess I could say I tend towards the same feeling now towards climate change denial - certainly towards the likes of politically motivated gadflies like Andrew Bolt and Tim Blair who promote stupidity in the media - but with COVID it's the immediacy of the problem that has intensified my anger and disgust with the economists who think they know best and will not change position or admit there is substantial evidence against them.
Update: just a couple of days after I wrote this, Adam outdid himself:
There are many funny replies rubbishing him.
Ah yes the Fritjers fraud.
ReplyDeleteIf he had his way what would occur.
1% of those affected 70% of the population at a minimum would ie.
At least 10% would get long term covid and not be able to work for a long time.
Now we learn 1 in 8 would die of other causes acerbated by covid.
The economy would be worse and of course the health outcomes would be worse.
Like all insecure people he will not answer basic questions about the policy he advocates.
He is now the Troppo version of Kates