COVID-19 -- Gambler's Questions

Revisiting some of yesterday's themes, I have to ask some basic questions.

If the speed of the virus transmission has been a surprise in Italy, Iran, and elsewhere, why wasn't the likelihood of a high percentage of asymptomatic transmissions taken more seriously sooner? A large percentage of asymptomatic transmission seems to be the most likely evidence-based conclusion, and it's the conclusion that merits the most caution and the quickest, most disruptive but most potentially effective, action. If bureaucracies, whether state or federal, are going to err one way or the other on the percent of asymptomatic transmission, shouldn't they err by presuming the worst? That "lean" would save the most lives and circumvent the most dire economic outcomes.

Why err on the side of lowballing the number of asymptomatic transmissions? How did the CDC come to use the lowballing language with the degree of certainty that it did? And why? Who specifically was responsible for that language?

I have no real answers for this; I don't even have any reasonable speculations. I leave this to those who know much more about the machinations and priorities of state and federal governments.


The Wynn Casino

Returning again also to the situation at the Wynn casino, did Wynn management really think through the temperature-taking? Did they truly believe this would have some effect on disease spread? Or was it a cynical halfway step to keep the doors open and the public mollified? Did the Wynn really think that asymptomatic transmission wasn't a major problem?

I don't want to come down too hard on the Wynn. The Wynn was basically copying protocols various international banks had already instituted weeks ago, taking temperatures of all visitors. The Wynn strategy was dated, but the Wynn probably isn't used to making quick, flexible decisions. Besides, the federal government's missteps far outstrip the Wynn's.


Airports -- March 14/15

Americans returning from other countries are stuck in long lines waiting to be screened at major airports, including Chicago O'Hare. People are trapped in lines for up to seven hours in close proximity to others, and all being screened as a high risk group. Airports are under federal jurisdiction. What is going on? How could this happen? How could the feds not anticipate this? Somebody must have done the capacity math? Right?

The airports may, in all probability, be causing more COVID-19 transmission than the travel ban is preventing.

In previous gambling columns, I have often commented on the fact that what appear as superficial solutions may create situations inimical to those solutions. Multi-step thinking, in other words multi-step math, must be done to avoid short-sighted "solutions" that are anything but. How can the feds, with access to all of the math tools and personnel in the world, not do the math?

I do not mean to make light of life-and-death situations by analogizing them with their gambling world parallels. I actually think, however, that keeping math in mind with its cost/benefit context overriding political spin and hunches and wishful wannabe projections, is useful and even necessary. Hard, rational protocols need to be applied to practical matters.

The sudden travel restrictions and the speed of the outbreak have created nightmare airport scenarios that quite likely are doing inestimable harm. These should have been anticipated. The math exists to do just that.


March 15, 2020
Bob Dietz