The CDC observes that the coronavirus outbreaks in Arizona, California, Florida, and Texas skew towards younger people, so the consequences will probably be less bad than the earlier outbreaks in the northeast:
Ongoing outbreaks of COVID-19 in Arizona, California, Florida and Texas are “significant,” but the younger average age of confirmed cases in these states might mean the “consequences” will be less severe, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention officials said Thursday.
In light of that, I wanted to revisit this paper out of CMU and Pitt. It shows that heterogeneous measures lead to significantly fewer deaths than homogeneous measures. In fact, heterogeneity matters much more than the strictness of the measures: even a more-moderate heterogeneous measure is significantly better than a stricter homogeneous measure. In plain English, what that means is we should be protecting the vulnerable tightly, but be looser with the less vulnerable. (And keep in mind this is just about deaths, without any consideration of ruined livelihoods or economic damage.)
This CDC observation suggests to me that these heterogeneous measures are finally happening. That’s a good thing.
POSTSCRIPT: Heterogeneous measures are better assuming they are not upside-down — as they were in New York and some other states — which locked down the general public tight but pushed coronavirus patients into nursing homes. That was insanity.
(Via Instapundit.)
Posted by K. Crary 
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