CEPOS logo

Paul Romer’s focus is wrong

Udgivet d.

7. maj 2020 - 15:22

English

Sundhed

Paul Romer’s focus is wrong

Abstract

This paper argues that testing participation – and not testing capacity – is the biggest obstacle to a successful “test and isolate”-strategy, as recently proposed by Paul Romer. If R0=2.5, at least 60 percent of a population needs to participate in a testing program to make it theoretically possible to achieve an effective reproduction rate . I also argue that Paul Romer’s assumption about quarantine length is problematic, because it implicitly assumes that an infected and tested person is quarantined during the entire duration of the illness. With more realistic assumptions, where the fraction of the illness duration that is spent in quarantine depends on the test frequency, at least 80 percent of the population must participate to keep R0’<1, even if participants in the test program are tested every five days. Comprehensive testing, as proposed by Romer, is probably still a very cost-effective means of reducing the reproduction rate of the infection compared to mandatory lockdown policies, but it seems less promising than he suggests. However, comprehensive testing might also reduce voluntary social distancing in a non-cost-effective way.

Relateret artikel

Udsigten til Pia Olsen Dyhr som finansminister er ganske foruroligende

27. maj 2025

Hvis der var valg i dag, ville SF ifølge Voxmeter , Verian og Epinion for DR være Danmarks næststørste parti. Hvad det skyldes, kan kun de adspurgte vælgere svare på. Men én ting er sikkert.

Relateret artikel

Donald Trumps handelskrig bør minde os om frihandlens gevinster

9. maj 2025

Trumps protektionistiske eksperimenter burde få opbakningen til deregulering og frihandel til at blomstre selv langt ind på venstrefløjen.

Støt os

En personlig donation til CEPOS støtter vores mission om frihed, ansvar, privat initiativ og begrænset statsmagt for "Et friere og rigere Danmark"
Støt os månedligt som

Privat

Støt os månedligt som

Virksomhed