College re-opening or disdain for masks…or both! From WSJ:
Some public-health officials say they suspect that the large number of socially inclined students returning to the state at the end of August and start of September worked in tandem with another dynamic: a large number of state residents who don’t wear masks, they say, because many communities don’t require them or don’t enforce orders requiring them.
A Panel presented by UW–Madison’s La Follette School of Public Affairs and WisPolitics.com (October 2), video here.
When each Week, Peak Excess Deaths Gets Pushed Further Out
From Torsten Slok, now at Apollo.
A reasonable person could ask why, if we’ve done such a superb job of managing the crisis in the US, we’ve done so poorly vis a vis Canada. From FT, today.
September 22, 2020
We the undersigned express our support for the economic principles and policies of Joe Biden. While each of us has different views on the particulars of various economic policies, we believe that Biden’s overall economic agenda will improve our nation’s health, investment, sustainability, resilience, employment opportunities, and fairness and be vastly superior to the counterproductive economic policies of Donald Trump.
Throughout the coronavirus crisis, Biden has recognized that science-based, public health solutions are critical not only to saving lives, but to any viable strategy to restore economic confidence, recovery, and jobs. Similarly, on issue after issue, Biden’s economic agenda will do far more than Donald Trump’s to increase the economic strength and well-being of our nation and its people. Simply put, Biden’s policies will result in economic growth that is faster, more robust, and more equitable.
Signed by 13 recipients of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences:
George Akerlof – Professor, Georgetown University McCourt School of Public Policy
Peter Diamond – Professor Emeritus, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Oliver Hart – Professor, Harvard University
Eric Maskin – Professor, Harvard University
Daniel McFadden – Professor, University of California, Berkeley and University of Southern California
Roger Myerson – Professor, University of Chicago
William Nordhaus – Professor, Yale University
Edmund Phelps – Professor and Director of the Center on Capitalism and Society,Columbia University
Paul Romer – Professor, New York University
Robert Solow – Professor Emeritus, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Michael Spence – Professor and Dean Emeritus, Stanford Graduate School of Business
Joseph Stiglitz – Professor, Columbia University
Richard Thaler – Professor, University of Chicago Booth School of Business
Link to pdf.
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Slowing even before the pandemic…
Source: DB, “Covid-19 impact tracker,” US Economic Perspectives, 17 September 2020.
And the US is fast approaching Italy’s record.