An update as of early August: I’m slowly inching to believing (60-40) that underreaction is likely and worse than overreaction, at least in terms of US and international coordination mechanisms. I’m less sure about national responses of other countries.
I don’t have any “smoking gun” for this update, it’s mostly a) I thought about this answer and surrounding evidence a few more times and thought that the evidence for underreaction was a bit stronger (in ways that would be in-principle knowable when I wrote it in June), plus b) I observed a bit more about how the world reacted since and haven’t seen many examples of “inexperienced driver slamming on the brakes” phenomenon during the middle of the pandemic (which means it’s less likely to happen at the end). Instead c) countries who I’d expect to be quite competent (like Israel) nonetheless reopened and had uncontrolled spread.
An update as of early August: I’m slowly inching to believing (60-40) that underreaction is likely and worse than overreaction, at least in terms of US and international coordination mechanisms. I’m less sure about national responses of other countries.
I don’t have any “smoking gun” for this update, it’s mostly a) I thought about this answer and surrounding evidence a few more times and thought that the evidence for underreaction was a bit stronger (in ways that would be in-principle knowable when I wrote it in June), plus b) I observed a bit more about how the world reacted since and haven’t seen many examples of “inexperienced driver slamming on the brakes” phenomenon during the middle of the pandemic (which means it’s less likely to happen at the end). Instead c) countries who I’d expect to be quite competent (like Israel) nonetheless reopened and had uncontrolled spread.