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Chris J. Karr's avatar

Seems like some nice testable hypotheses you've laid out here: Omicron infections won't overwhelm hospitals, etc. Do you mind scheduling a follow-up post in late January that looks back and determines whether you were correct? Right now, the uncertainty seems to be around the question of whether Omicron's transmissibility will overwhelm its (relative) mildness and we see hospital capacity dwindle as the larger growth in Omicron infections overwhelms its lower severity or the opposite where the lower severity leads to fewer hospitalizations, despite the increased transmissibility.

I can see Team Biden erring on the side of being too cautious and deploy messaging to reflect that. We had most of 2020 with Team Trump erring on the other side, and we had hundreds of thousands of excess American deaths when compared to similar peer nations like Canada (on a per-capita basis).

In terms of persuasive messaging, I'm curious what you think Biden COULD say at this point that would convince the unvaxxed to get the shot. We've tried letting the numbers speak, paying people to get the shot, making the shots free, etc. If none of those worked, what's the arrow in Biden's rhetorical quiver that you think he's not using?

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Curtis Stinespring's avatar

Billy Beer might have been worse than the messaging. I bought a six pack, drank about half of one can, used an ice pick to punch an inconspicuous hole in the bottom of the other five and set them in the sink to drain. I added them to my beer can collection which today decorates a small corner of my son's man cave.

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