Others have mentioned the size of projects, which might be true.
Another factor is the incentive structure. There's immense pressure to obtain grants (due to indirect fund income) and focus on h factors increases this as well. The best case strategy given both of those incentives is to have large groups of people who each submit as many grants and papers as possible, and put each other on each submission. That way, even with a high grant failure rate each will bring some money in, and self-citations to a paper will be multiplied by the number of authors.
The missing variable in this is what happens when you lift lockdown in the absence of a treatment or vaccine.
Comparisons with eg Sweden at this point have always seemed strange to me because the whole point of a herd immunity approach is to increase exposure initially, which will necessarily involve deaths being less spread out. The real question is, after a year, what's the total excess mortality including non-COVID cases due to delayed treatments due to lockdown etc. (which are never included in the models, which focus on one disease, and would take time to manifest) ?
I'm not opposed to shelter in place but the endgame logic has always been unclear, and as such, classist. The right way to do it, for example, is to pay people to stay home.
It's not even correlational. They didn't even have a group of non-COVID patients to compare to, which would have been really easy. They could have looked at non-COVID ICU patients as well and did not. That would have at least been correlational.
Related to this is that the current circumstances are different from, say, 2008, which was a sort of internal collapse. A lot of this is external, regulation-driven. Not saying it's not a bad situation, or all government shutdowns of the economy, but there is a big element of it.
A lot of businesses are cutting back because people can't go out and do what they'd normally do legally. So when governments start easing restrictions, people [stockholders] are probably more optimistic because the situation seems more tractable. It's a lot more predictable than 2008 when people were talking about the collapse of fundamental financial institutions and systems involved in monetary supply because of their underlying structural composition.
I do think there's some disconnects in interpreting the stock market, but it seems to me investors are just seeing restrictions being eased, daily COVID case counts on a downward trajectory, etc. They're reinvesting in markets they see a path of recovery in, early.
What's less certain to me is if in say, July, this all gets worse again with overrun hospitals, etc. in a second wave. Then markets might really take a nosedive.
I'll say for a long time I was the same way, until I bought a Prius.
A little while after I bought it, prices actually went up over what I purchased it for, and I was getting letters from Toyota dealerships offering to buy it back from me above my cost.
It's declined in value since then, but still runs well (knock on wood).
This isn't saying used cars aren't worth it -- they definitely are -- but for certain scenarios I think the choice is maybe more complicated than I thought for a long time.
Well, in 2009 my Dad's also had the same experience with the dealer who wanted to give him $5k more than he paid for his year old Silverado - I think it was due to the overall market undergoing massive inflation (not reported as "core inflation") due to QE and other stimulus efforts.
I doubt the same would happen now with an economy halted.
It's interesting to me when others come up with similar conclusions independently.
There's studies of sales of works (books etc) and iirc, at least with books, the vast majority of sales are within the first several years, with income trailing after that. This has come up in discussions of zombie rights to works, where a publisher sits on something out of print without releasing new copies because the return isn't enough. It's like the textbook reason for limits on copyright terms. Last I looked at it, 30 years was more than sufficient to cover the bulk of sales in almost all cases. If you think back 30 years now, that would be works released pre 1980s and earlier. That makes intuitive sense to me.
My primary concern is all of the works that die because they're no longer commercially viable but are still locked away; I'm actually willing to make an exception for the rare blockbuster hits if it actually means everything else becomes available.
My thinking is author's life for unpublished works (to protect works-in-progress), 10 years after publication unconditionally, followed by a sequence of renewals that require some level of public availability to be granted.
Obviously, there's a lot of details to be worked out: What constitutes publication? How long is the initial unconditional period? How many renewals are allowed and how long is each? What are the actual requirements to get a renewal?
My guess is there will be mandatory testing for students wanting to return, along with heavy disease surveillance. I also suspect even places claiming "normal operation" will not actually be normal — certain things will be virtual and other things not. There will likely be some reshuffling of teaching assignments too.
I noticed also (former professor) that my institution is now heavily incentivizing early retirement for those getting close to qualifying, and are not shy about linking it to coronavirus.
Finally, I think a lot of social distancing guidelines apply technically in many situations with lectures, etc.
We have geothermal HVAC. When we moved in we had that water heating setup, but then changed the water heater (natural gas tank). When we did, we asked about hooking up the desuperheater again and were told the energy savings weren't worth it on newer water heating units because of the efficiency. This is coming from a well respected company in the area that specializes in geothermal and heat pumps, and generally has bent over backwards to suggest improvements to all sorts of things in other ways (I also am pretty sure they installed the original system).
Not sure if they were right or wrong, but my experience with a lots of these heating and cooling things is that the real world efficiencies are often different from theoretical values.
Given that both the desuperheater and the geothermal both need backup heat, the best approach is to install a small high efficiency gas boiler with 2 zones, one as an indirect heater for the desuperheater (so it'll ensure that the hot water stays hot, but won't run if not needed) and the second zone as a hydronic loop in the air handler to provide backup for those cold nights in the winter that are below the design spec.
Of course, the heat input to your house is a function of heat loss, so if the house is very well insulated and sealed against air changes, regardless of how you heat you'll save energy.
TBH, since geothermal is reversible, in that it does both heating and cooling this makes it even more attractive and efficient especially in the summertime. It should be required in new construction where possible and indeed heavily subsidized to encourage it's adoption.
Geothermal water heating just barely works out in general because efficiency drops with higher temperature differentials. If you would accept you water at noticeably below body temperature it would be great (though I suspect this is ideal for bacteria growth) efficiency. If you want your water as warm as the minimum recommended temperature by efficiency experts you are already in questionable efficiency range. If you go hotter it gets worse.
I would but I have a young child and spouse. It's not even so much the risk of serious medical complications for me, it's the complications involved in isolating myself, if that were even possible. It's one thing to increase your risk of exposure with a family; it's another to deliberately infect yourself. Definitely not saying it's morally wrong necessarily, just that I haven't quite figured out a way to do it in which my family would feel ok with it or understand.
I volunteered yesterday after seeing this article. To be clear, this is a very early expression of interest and there is no specific human challenge trial which is ready to begin at this time. Consequently, the exact trial implementation details are to be determined.
That said, I would be shocked if any such trial didn't involve the isolation of subjects in provided accommodations for the full duration of the study. It would be necessary on ethical grounds for the purpose of community safety. Obviously, that doesn't mean you should volunteer (it is still a risk to your health and extended isolation from your family would suck), but they aren't just going to infect you and then send you home to come back in a few weeks.
Another factor is the incentive structure. There's immense pressure to obtain grants (due to indirect fund income) and focus on h factors increases this as well. The best case strategy given both of those incentives is to have large groups of people who each submit as many grants and papers as possible, and put each other on each submission. That way, even with a high grant failure rate each will bring some money in, and self-citations to a paper will be multiplied by the number of authors.