What US Government should do regarding Covid-19

This is (by far) the best document I have seen on what to do on the medical side.  It is about 3 pp. long and I believe it will be updated periodically.  Excerpt:

  • Consider guaranteeing top tier treatment and ICU beds for people directly working on treatments or vaccines. We need to keep relevant science labs open. (They’re likely to be closed as things stand.)
    • No doubt logistically challenging but may be necessary. Can you get scientists to keep going without this?
  • Announce $10B prizes for first vaccine and for first cure.
    • Think about mechanics. Should there be awards for second place, too? How should collaboration be factored in?
  • Issue $1B of research grants to all competent labs and organizations that could plausibly use them. They just have to report on progress every 30 days and require that they actively share all progress with other labs.
    • Proposed structure: $100M to each of 5 companies.
    • $10M to each of 40 labs.
      • Remainder based on discretion.
    • Take what’s required for treatment cases and make an “open source” version whose bill of materials costs less than $1,000. Commit to purchasing at least 100k. Even if US turns out not to need them, donate to other countries.

The author is anonymous, but I know that he/she has followed the issue very closely from the beginning, and his/her predictions have been largely on the mark.  If you are in USG I am happy to put you in touch, just write me.

Again, here is the document, highly recommended.

Comments

Comments for this post are closed