The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – UC Berkeley Study Finds 530 Million People Saved From COVID-19 Infections With Emergency Policies

Episode Date: June 10, 2020

UC Berkeley Study Finds 530 Million People Saved From COVID-19 Infections With Emergency Policies https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2404-8

Hi folks, Chris Voss here from thechrisvossshow.com, thechrisvossshow.com. Hey, we're coming to you with another great podcast and some interesting stuff we're going to be covering today. This is going to be pretty cool. This is from UC Berkeley, if you're familiar with them, and they put together a team that has published a paper in the journal Nature, and this thing is pretty mind-blowing. It talks about basically COVID-19 and how this great experiment that we did that's never been done in history where we quarantined pretty much like the whole world prevented

more than 500 million infections. So let's talk about this thing and what it did. If you get a chance to Google it, you can Google UC Berkeley COVID-19 measures or study. A study would be probably a good way to pull this baby up. So I got a chance to read through this. You know, someday, it's hard to get perspective on this, I think, because of everything that's going on in the world, Black Lives Matter, the protesters, what's going on with Trump, putting up fences and fascism. And, you know, it's been a crazy few weeks.

It's actually been a crazy 2020 so far, let's put it this way. But I think what's interesting about reading this emergency COVID measures study is I think someday we're going to look back on this era and we're going to be telling our grandkids or great-grandkids how we saved the world. This is our Beaches of Normandy moment where we stormed the beaches of Normandy. We didn't do anything except sit home and eat whatever popcorn, sit in front of the TV so it could save the world. But this is really interesting, some of policies that were implemented in China, South Korea, Italy, Iran, France, and the United States in the period extending through emergence of the virus in January to April 6, 2020.

They carried out the, they took a look at basically the policies that we had amended and the infections that we did have, death rates, et cetera, et cetera. And they compared them with what policies work better than other ones. So they kind of rated them. And they also took a look using that data to exponentiate what things would have been if we hadn't gone through the quarantine. And this is pretty interesting.

There'll probably be movies and stories on this in the future about how the time that we saved the world from the pandemic and we kept it from turning into a much larger nightmare that already is. So basically, according to their numbers, we averted roughly 530 COVID-19 infections across six countries in the study period, ending April 6th. Of these infections, 62 would likely have been confirmed cases giving limited testing in each country.

So, you know, what's kind of interesting about the study is we're just going off the shitty testing we had because a lot of countries didn't have testing. So, you know, even then it's then, this is probably an understatement. But 530 million infections, and I think this thing has a 1% to 2% kill rate. Hey, Google, what's 2% of 530 million? The answer is 10,600,000. 10,600,000. But if you think that 62 million would have been fully infected with confirmed cases, hold on, roughly, so that's probably asymptomatic in the 62 million. Hey, Google, what's 2% of 62 million?

The answer is 1,200,000. 1,200,000 and so on. Now, keep in mind, this is just from six countries they're doing this from. This isn't a worldwide study. They probably couldn't use some of the world figures out there because of their numbers. But basically, we avoided millions and millions and millions of stuff. Now, this is peer-reviewed analysis of these policies, but you can look at the graphs that they took and did

or the infographs they took and made, and it's crazy. Like, they show the infections of what it was, and they're just kind of like small dots across the country, and they show what it would have been if we hadn't sheltered in place, or not sheltered in place, but basically quarantined in place for a couple months, depending upon where you lived. But they show, like, huge countries overrun. Like, basically, China would have been just, like, a big, giant, dark, red blotch.

Same thing with Italy. Same thing with italy uh same thing with iran uh the usa on both of its ends of its continent would just be like huge giant red spots um freaking nuts and uh so some of the data in here is pretty interesting to take a look at so i figured we'd feature it um there are nearly seven million cases right now globally and this is a of June 9th, 2020, with over 400,000 dead, but they suggest that the death toll would have been vastly, vastly worse. I mean, just imagine if we went to over half a million infections and the losses. And then on top of that, imagine the hospitals would completely overrun. I mean, you look at what was going on in New York where the hospitals were overrun.

Right now, hospitals are getting overrun. Arizona is overrun. I know not Georgia. I think Georgia is having a hard time, but there's Alabama is overrun. So that's kind of interesting. So basically these large-scale policies helped us from epidemiological modeling and they took and ranked how they worked and everything else. The China policies, their policies averted roughly 37 million more confirmed cases

corresponding to 285 million total cases, including confirmed cases. So they would have had about 37 million more. Now, they clamped down the hardest, China did. South Korea would have had 11.5 million confirmed cases and 38 million total cases averted. So they would have had basically four times the amount that they had. So instead of 11 million, if they hadn't done something, they would have 38 million. And you just think of how the decks death numbers, um, and then just flooded hospitals. I mean, just, I mean, we, we would add countries wiped out. It would have been like, I mean, basically we've,'ve beaten the pandemic of the 2018 pandemic.

Of course, we think we have. Let's put it that way because here in Utah where I'm at, we're seeing cases skyrocket. They're doubling and they're staying doubled, and we're not seeing less testing. That's actually – or more testing. That's actually with less testing. So I told that to a friend, and they would go, well, that's just because there's more testing. It's like, no, there's actually with less testing so i told that to a friend and they would go well that's just because there's more testing it's like no there's actually less testing so the fact that double just means that well we've opened so iran had 5 million confirmed cases and they averted 54 million total cases so it'll be 10 times the amount that they had if they hadn't put in rules and regulations.

Italy had 2.1 million confirmed cases. Holy shit. With Italy, if I recall right, with Italy, Italy's problem was they didn't clamp down. They thought it was a joke and shit. And then finally, when it really became ugly, they finally clamped down. But check this out. Italy, 2.1 million confirmed cases. But because of what they did or didn't do with their implementation of policies,

they would have had 49 million total cases. 49 million total cases. Do the math there. They had 2.1 million cases. If they hadn't averted the disaster and implemented policies, they're at 49 million. That's like, hey, Google, what's the population of Italy? I think it's 66 million. In 2019, the population of Italy was 60 million 300.

Yeah, it's 60 million 300. Holy shit, that would have been like, oh my God. That's basically 50 million cases. Like 90% of their country would have had COVID. Holy crap. France had 1.4 million confirmed cases and 45 million total cases averted. France had 4. France is 1.4 and 45 million. United States,

4.8 million confirmed cases with 60 million cases averted, which I think is about a million point two deaths, more deaths on top of what we already have. So we were at 100,000 deaths. We have about 1.3, 1. million now keep in mind we're no longer at home now we're seeing explosion of cases so this is just what they had through I believe April they did not estimate how many lives would be saved by the policies but so many infections fatality rates was much higher than anything observed today so the percentages would probably have gone up so they basically went through and they they went through all the stuff than anything observed to date, so the percentages would probably have gone up.

So they basically went through all the stuff. They took a look at people's policies, how it affected what they were going through. I mean, you probably see other reports that show that if I think New York had closed or America had closed one week earlier, we would have saved 60,000 people out of the 100,000 people that had died. Just one week. That's all we needed to do was just if we nailed this thing in the bud. And if you're familiar with what's going on,

New Zealand just announced a few days ago they are coronavirus-free. There are no new cases of coronavirus-free, and they're still blocking access to the country, which they should. I want to go to New Zealand. But they were one of the people who locked down earliest and fastest, and they did a hard lockdown. Now their whole country is coronavirus free. How's that for apples and oranges? You don't have to walk around with a mask or something, I guess. I don't know, but there are a country that lives on tourism, so they've got that going for them.

So this is really interesting what they got into. And they didn't, of course, measure the 180 other countries that weren't included in the analysis. I guess there was only so much data they could go through really quickly. This took a lot of stuff. 1,717 local, regional, and national non-pharmaceutical interventions deployed during the pandemic in China, South Korea, Italy, France, and Iran in the United States. They used reduced form economic metrics,

commonly used to measure the effects of policy on economic growth to empirically evaluate the effect that these anti-contagion policies have had on the growth rate of infections. In the absence of policy actions, we estimate that early infections of COVID-19 exhibit exponential growth rates of roughly 38% per day. Man, I wish my stock portfolio could grow 38% per day. That thing exhibited exponential growth rates of 38% a day, or they estimate that it would have done it with the absence of the policy actions. That thing would have grown at 38% a day if we hadn't locked down.

So if you're thinking about how hard it was to lock down for that month or two that you took in lockdown and how torture it was and how awful it was, you saved an exponential growth rate of that virus of 38% per day. You probably saved, you know, collectively, you probably saved a couple million lives. It's crazy. And then, of course, you think of all the lives that would have been lost that couldn't get into the hospital because that would have I'm just imagine what that would have done to our hospital beds it would have just overwhelmed them and

overwhelmed New York and and New York had policies that's crazy. It basically prevented or delayed the order of 62 million confirmed cases, averting to roughly 530 million total infections. So that's pretty crazy, man. So if you hear people making fun of how we locked ourselves up and all those different things they did, this is the results of what we did. If you want to read the details on how they measured it, how they tracked it, how they took out their different math abilities, you can do that as well. This thing is really interesting. and when you watch the the articles where they show the infographs of the

what it looked like the way it happened and went down and the way it would have happened if it would have had the growth rates it's just crazy just look at it you're like oh my gosh and then they show like I don't know what you'd call this but they show a chart of the different countries and when they enacted their policies in week one, week two, week three, week four, and how they kicked them in and then the effects that they had on the reduction of empirical estimates. Just crazy. Some of the details. If you love charts and you love graphs and you love love math this is pretty interesting to take and watch um it's still it's also interesting to take a look how a lot of

countries worry will nip this in the bud south korea seems to have had the best success at nipping this in the bud um and getting control of it fairly early on um looks like italy had a long trajectory um looks like China of course nipped in the bud fairly early they could do that because they're they're non-democratic ways France of course went up the United States is one and going up and still going up pretty darn interesting and they even sure some of the math well there's some algebra here so there you go deep deep algebra.

So anyway, if you get a chance, go check it out. You can give a read on their thing. Just Google UC Berkeley case counts. Right now we're starting to see a ton of growth still in the marketplace for COVID-19. But, you know, you can save this. And then you can write your kids someday and go, hey, um, you know, you can save this and then you can write your kids someday and go, Hey, grandpa saved the world. Hey. And you're like, what did you do?

Grandpa? Did you storm the beaches in Normandy? Did you go to space? Did you, what'd you do? And you're like, nope. Save the world. Sitting home, eating Cheetos, watching reruns of game of Thrones. They'll be like, what?

How do you save the world that way, Grandpa? You're like, son, let me tell you a story. 500 million infections. Holy shit, man. Can you imagine? I mean, can you imagine? Just think about how cataclysmal that would have been in our world. Like, you know, people had heart attacks they couldn't

get in the hospital every heart i mean it would be it would be catastrophic to a sort of uh it'd be like the end times like the apocalypse you'd have people you know they we'd have tents outside of every hospital and it would just be like, cause what people don't realize with the, with our hospital system is one of the reasons you have to wait so long to get in the hospital system. It runs at 95, I think 95, 97% capacity at all times. So there wasn't room for COVID-19. There was maybe a 3% margin for an increase of a new, of a new, uh, thing that would cause hospitalizations. They're just, you know, they hospitalizations they're just you know they're they're running it they're running at a high rate of a fill as it is so that was why you saw ships

being sent to la in new york that's why you saw them building you know 10 cities in in um in the the park there in new york um and you you know, a lot of companies and people freaking out because no one knew how big this thing was going to get or if it was going to be huge. But it largely looks like, you know, I mean, it's still growing. I think it's at a rate of 1,000 per day. And that's not anything fun or exciting to think about or whatever. Those are 1,000 people that people loved, families loved um and no one deserves to die you know the the there's a lot of ugly things

are said by ugly people online who are like well they were you know some of these people were old and you know it was just waiting for them to happen hey man no one deserves to die no one desires to die horrible no one deserves to die where they can't hold the hands of their loved ones who can't be with them uh no one desires to die and their family can't even attend their funeral i mean that's just horrific man i can't even imagine having someone die and i can't hold their hand i can't be with them at their last moments to comfort them and shit that's that's fucked up um and the other thing is too is like a lot of these people would probably live for i don't know a long time without this covid19 and you think of all the years that you could have spent with somebody if you ever had someone die around you i just some people say

that it's just stupid so there you go uc berkeley uh check out the covid19 study how they recommend it you go to Berkeley dot edu you can even google their news and you can find it but you may want to give it a read share it with some friends maybe save it your Evernote file the infographs really cool to look at like you look at how it went down and there's just like little red dots in each country and then you look at how it could have been and just like it just looks like somebody took a red marker and just basically redded the whole country out you're just like holy fuck that

was bad so anyway guys that's some of the topics we're looking at thinking about today you'll see more of uh topical stuff on what's going on from day to day and what we think stands out and we'll talk about why it's standing out and what it's about. So there you go. Pretty interesting day today with the rest of the world. We'll get into some of that on the next show. Be sure to give us a like, subscribe to us on YouTube, and we'll see you next time.