In a recent article published in the Financial Review, Sam Lovick reviews whether the costs and benefits of Australia’s current approach to the COVID-19 pandemic stack up. Based on our modelling, which links dynamic disease modelling and broader economic modelling, we conclude that there are alternative modes of intervention that would have a much lower […]
In a recent article published in the Financial Review, Sam Lovick estimates how much Australia is likely to spend for each life saves under the current COVID-19 interventions. He arrives at the somewhat alarming figure of $6m, much more that we are typically willing to spend to prevent an avoidable deaths.
Sam Lovick Consulting presented the following at the 7th International Conference on Infectious Disease Dynamics in December 2019. It addresses the health benefits that could arise in the US from a vaccine available at pandemic onset which is not precisely matched to the circulating strain. The modelled vaccine is sufficiently closely matched to provide some […]
A nice article on Bayesian approaches to decision making in the face of risk, including whether to get a flu jab. It mentions the famous Monty Hall (three door) problem which is the prototypical example of Bayesian analysis giving an answer that is, to some, counter-intuitive. The heart of this approach is to ‘update your probabilities […]
I mentioned in my article on influenza vaccine that there are enhanced influenza vaccines. The BBC is reporting that one such example, Fluad, will be available to at risk individuals in the UK, with appropriate funding from the NHS.
Luca Belgiorno-Nettis is the founder and a director of the newDemocracy Foundation argues entertainingly in today’s Financial Review that we should abandon election in favour of selecting parliamentary representatives by lot, as if they were jurors, going back to some of the original tenets of Greek democracy. Imagine how refreshing it would be, he says, to […]
Continuing with my broadband theme, Mitch Fifield, Communications Minister, wrote a comment piece in the Age last Thursday, 18th January “Affordable broadband is the go“. It made little sense to me. The thrust of the article was two fold. First, we must be set prices that allow the NBN to operate as a commercial business. […]
Motherboard is reporting on a Harvard paper that examines the price of broadband services in the US from the large players (referenced in this article) and provided by the community. Some interesting points emerge: US coverage of the basic broadband service ( 25 Mbps down, 3 Mbps up as defined by the FCC) is limited; prices vary […]