WAG -- guessing about back-to-work

was asked today:

what do you think about those US numbers? 

Given how political this has turned out to be – do you think the US gets down to near-zero cases before there is a vaccine? How do you envision ‘back to work’ working? 

Maybe half the team working remotely until vaccinated?

So, I will dust off my futurist cap and put it on

I’ve been pretty good as a futurist when it comes to economics, monetary policy

But I’m not sure that translates that well to pandemics

I am very aware of the old aphorisms, like

"Those who have knowledge, don't predict."
or
"Prediction is very difficult, especially if it's about the future."

So this is all a WAG – an informed WAG, but a wild ass guess nonetheless


but, I also agree with Kahneman, that

"Most successful pundits are selected for being opinionated, because it's interesting, and the penalties for incorrect predictions are negligible. You can make predictions, and a year later people won't remember them."

so if the following turns out to be wrong, I hope it at least is interesting...

A

1. Some people who can afford it aren’t minding this change to business as usual
2. But even most of those who can afford it DO want to get back to normal (enjoying more family time, less commuting, but going stir crazy a bit anyways)
3. More importantly, there are a lot of people who simply can't afford it
4. as good as 2k/mth in Canada seems vs what US has offered, it still doesn’t cut it for most people… they, especially, are itching to get back to normal
5. and moreso, of course, in the US, than in Canada, where a one-time $1200 is f'g ridiculous

B

1. the govt-mandated isolation measures have been bipolar and that will provoke a backlash
1. on one hand, a family of 5 gets fined $1000 by bylaw officers in Oakville for going to an empty parking lot beside a park behind a school to rollerblade in circles --- with no one else around
2. on the other hand, Florida shut down belatedly and reopened prematurely… beaches back to being busy
2. the latter are foolhardy and the ramifications of the inevitable transmission/spread haven’t yet been truly felt in a lot of states (red states, mostly, including heartland states, including rural, where hospital systems won’t be able to cope)
3. the former, and other examples like it, will rile people up and piss people off --- you don’t have to be a diehard libertarian to feel like the government is over-reaching yet again and intruding on our civil rights
4. even people who were supportive of health-related isolation measures will get fed up with supporting it if the fascist elements like $1000 fines or snitch lines persist

C

1. there are still lots of known unknowns about this virus and likely some unknown unknowns too
1. we still can't have confidence that people can’t get reinfected (see S.Korea)
2. we still don’t know how many asymptomatic carriers there are
3. we still don’t know all the impacts of the virus.. not just to lungs, but to neuro/sensory processing systems
4. etc
2. a vaccine usually takes Years
3. this vaccine will, best case, be autumn 2021 (and that’s assuming most of the unknowns get knowned)

D

1. due to A and B3, we will go back to work prematurely
1. before there is a vaccine
2. and most likely also before full testing
3. and I’ve seen reports that testing is inaccurate / faulty / unreliable in any case
2. our back to work measures will be much closer to full-on business as usual than close to current measures --- people will tinker around the edges of the old normal thinking they are doing the right thing (like, say, each employee works from home one day/wk, on rotational basis)… but which are truly pointless compromises that don’t accomplish the prevention of transmission of the virus
3. there are a lot of asymptomatic carriers that will transmit to current non-carriers who then get sick
4. our healthcare systems will then get inundated
5. we will then go back to shutdown mode, but it will be a more stringent full-shutdown mode

SPX to 1200

yields to negative

spreads to the moon