In times of crisis, humans develop a dangerous, asymmetric view of events. We readily see the damage the crisis causes, but we don’t readily see the potential damage that proposed solutions can cause. And when information is uncertain, we tend to believe the worst about the crisis while tending to believe the best about proposed solutions. There is mounting evidence that this is playing out right now with the decision to shut down the economy in order to slow the spread of the coronavirus.

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Quick Hits

How We Deal with Lockdowns

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/04/15/coronavirus-police-maryland-town-urge-residents-wear-pants/5140750002/

Ghosts

https://www.indy100.com/article/indonesia-ghosts-terrifying-coronavirus-lockdown-stay-home-9462511

Australia Trend

https://www.sadanduseless.com/bin-isolation-outing/

Italian Toast

https://www.facebook.com/MagnificentItaly/videos/178130129869702

Llama Rentals

https://futurism.com/the-byte/rent-goats-llamas-zoom-meetings

Pet Skype Calls

https://www.themarysue.com/the-new-york-times-is-wrong-about-pets-on-video-conferences/

CO2 Supplies Diminishing

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-ethanol-beer/beer-may-lose-its-fizz-as-co2-supplies-go-flat-during-pandemic-idUSKBN2200G3

Foolishness of the Week

Covid Scam

https://wjla.com/news/nation-world/do-not-click-the-link-police-warn-of-scam-covid-19-text-messages

Topic of the Week

Flu Index

https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/index.html

United State Corona Cases

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/cases-in-us.html

Santa Clara County Case Study

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.14.20062463v1

Boston’s Homeless Testing

https://www.wbur.org/commonhealth/2020/04/14/coronavirus-boston-homeless-testing

Corona’s Reach

https://spectator.us/covid-antibody-test-german-town-shows-15-percent-infection-rate/

Quarantined Cruise Ship

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1099517/japan-coronavirus-patients-diamond-princess/

Economic Outcome

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/14/us/politics/coronavirus-economy-recession-depression.html

Intervention Cost Breakdowns

http://econ.ucsb.edu/~tedb/Courses/UCSBpf/readings/interventions.pdf

Cardiovascular Disease Spending

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3495132/

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