The Corona Virus

[tazbot]

I think this thread is awesome and you guys are awesome for having a civilized and educated conversation on this virus. {scrubbed}

Phew, nice getting that off my chest.

[Bobb]

{scrubbed}

[Aedilred]

I think this thread is awesome and you guys are awesome for having a civilized and educated conversation on this virus. {scrub the post, scrub the quote}

Phew, nice getting that off my chest.

Something I should note (and about which I have been less than wholly clear, although I did try to clarify previously) is that I (and possibly others) have partly been using "the economy" as an imprecise shorthand for "all elements of life which are compromised by the lockdown" and this goes beyond the mere generation and distribution of money.

The effects on the economy in isolation are likely to be significant: mass unemployment, etc. But the bigger concerns for me are elsewhere. For instance:

1. Public health unrelated to the virus. Only a few months ago, we were told that isolation and loneliness was one of the biggest public health crises facing the country. The lockdown imposes something known to be damaging to public health on everybody. Deprioritisation of non-covid-related treatments and surgeries has led to greater health threats from other illnesses which would otherwise have been treated. It's estimated that the UK will suffer at least 18,000 excess deaths from cancer alone as a result of this. We already know about increases in domestic violence, and the like.

2. Effect on young people, especially with regard to education. There are over a million students in the UK due to complete a key portion of their education this summer who have had their final exams cancelled and not rescheduled. Instead their final grades will be determined by other metrics, such as how much their teacher rates them. As final grades have a signficant impact on employability and access to further education, entire cohorts of students will now have their futures determined arbitrarily and not by means they were able to prepare for, likely working to the lifelong disadvantage of tens of thousands of them at minimum. This may not be possible to undo, as the decision has already been made, but is a cost of the lockdown so far.

Those are only the most visibly affected. Younger students are missing months of their education. In many cases, this will have a major effect not just on education itself but on nutrition, because they were fed better at school than they are at home. Pre-school children are missing months of social contact at a key point which may lead to long-term social developmental problems. Unlike older students, these cost will be ongoing as long as the lockdown persists.

3. Increased social inequality. It has become clear that class, income, etc. going into this has a profound effect on your ability to weather it, and this goes particularly for children. The most disadvantaged members of society are suffering disproportionately from the effects of the lockdown and that is likely to remain the case so long as the lockdown remains, whatever relief measures are taken. The longer it goes on, the worse things will get for the people least able to deal with it.

4. Related to (1), the effect on the elderly. They have a limited amount of time left on this planet and are being forced to spend it in what amounts to house arrest. The effects of the lockdown may actually finish them off more quickly. Physical containment to care homes may increase their exposure to the virus. Isolation from family members will lead to, in many cases severe and irreversible, mental health decline. Even if the lockdown doesn't kill them, they are losing time they will never get back, and they have much less of it to spare than, for instance, I do.

5. Effect on culture and the arts. I for one believe that culture and the arts have a value unrelated to their economic activity, but the inability to perform, distribute or display at the moment will have a lasting and profound effect on individuals and institutions in this sector. We will lose a lot of artists because of this. This is related to economic damage, certainly, but it goes beyond that, because damage to this sector is about more than money and livelihoods: it diminishes society as a whole.

Those are just the top five that come to mind. So the economy in itself is important, but I also think it goes well beyond that - and a lot of the above are subject to the effects of the lockdown without necessarily being subject to the effects of "people generally being afraid of the virus" to the same extent, which is the point that informs the argument that economic damage would happen regardless so we might as well do the lockdown properly.

[veti]

The effects on the economy in isolation are likely to be significant: mass unemployment, etc. But the bigger concerns for me are elsewhere. For instance:

1. Public health unrelated to the virus.

This is a serious concern, and it is one reason why authorities in (e.g.) Sweden are appealing to be judged not solely on the casualty rates caused by the virus, but on statistics that will emerge only in the longer term. It's a difficult judgment call, but someone has to make it for each country.

2. Effect on young people, especially with regard to education. There are over a million students in the UK due to complete a key portion of their education this summer who have had their final exams cancelled and not rescheduled. Instead their final grades will be determined by other metrics, such as how much their teacher rates them. As final grades have a signficant impact on employability and access to further education, entire cohorts of students will now have their futures determined arbitrarily and not by means they were able to prepare for, likely working to the lifelong disadvantage of tens of thousands of them at minimum. This may not be possible to undo, as the decision has already been made, but is a cost of the lockdown so far.

Overstated. Students graduating this year will be able to put an asterisk on their CV, pointing out that their final grades were affected by the pandemic. It's silly to assume that future employers won't take notice of this. As for further education, I have a feeling that "pressure on limited spaces" is going to be the least of their problems for the next couple of years - it's likely that the generation graduating this summer will have a much easier time qualifying for university, if they so choose, than last year's, if only because of sharply reduced competition from overseas students in a world where, suddenly, national borders have come to seem much more significant than they did at the beginning of this year.

As for younger students - home schooling and distance learning are a thing, they are taking place right now. Yes it will have an effect, but not as great as you may imagine. Yes, there will be a disproportionate effect on economically disadvantaged students. This is always true when anything in the environment changes, for better or worse. I don't have any easy solutions to that, except to point out that if this hadn't happened as an effect of the lockdown, it would have happened anyway as an effect of the pandemic.

3. Increased social inequality. It has become clear that class, income, etc. going into this has a profound effect on your ability to weather it, and this goes particularly for children. The most disadvantaged members of society are suffering disproportionately from the effects of the lockdown and that is likely to remain the case so long as the lockdown remains, whatever relief measures are taken. The longer it goes on, the worse things will get for the people least able to deal with it.

Again, this is an effect of the pandemic, not the lockdown. Lockdown measures (e.g. wage subsidies and other payouts to employers) actually go a long way to mitigate this damage. Without lockdown, businesses would still be going under in at least as great numbers, but there'd be no mitigation of the damage on socially disadvantaged families.

4. Related to (1), the effect on the elderly. They have a limited amount of time left on this planet and are being forced to spend it in what amounts to house arrest. The effects of the lockdown may actually finish them off more quickly. Physical containment to care homes may increase their exposure to the virus. Isolation from family members will lead to, in many cases severe and irreversible, mental health decline. Even if the lockdown doesn't kill them, they are losing time they will never get back, and they have much less of it to spare than, for instance, I do.

I spoke to my nonagenarian father by Skype this morning, he doesn't seem overly bothered. It's not as if he was particularly mobile even before the lockdown. In so far as there is perceptible decline in his mental health, it has not noticeably accelerated since the lockdown.

5. Effect on culture and the arts. I for one believe that culture and the arts have a value unrelated to their economic activity, but the inability to perform, distribute or display at the moment will have a lasting and profound effect on individuals and institutions in this sector. We will lose a lot of artists because of this. This is related to economic damage, certainly, but it goes beyond that, because damage to this sector is about more than money and livelihoods: it diminishes society as a whole.

For every busker that can't perform on the street, there's a new one breaking now on YouTube. For every would-be playwright or poet or singer who can't get the usual gigs, there are new faces appearing in online channels, new people turning their hands to creativity in the spare time they've suddenly and unexpectedly been given. Of course most of them stink, but let's be honest, Sturgeon's Rule has always applied to art as much as anything else.

[Liquor Box]

The $ is the immediate economic damage, and the flour is 'lives saved' or 'mitigation of future economic risks'. Lets say both have some kind of valuation - you really think flour is important, or you really think $ is important, or some combination of the two (in general, this doesn't have to be linear where more $ or more flour is always equally good - but it should be monotonic).

If I can make an exchange for flour in as small increments as I want, and there are a bunch of sellers offering different price points, then we can distinguish between strategies (which sellers to purchase from) which are equally rational but correspond to different relative valuations, and strategies which are irrational - in the sense that no matter what your valuation is, you would be better served by picking some other purchase strategy. The strategies corresponding to different valuations form something called a Pareto front - a boundary of a region in the space of trade-offs - with strategies lying within that region rather than at it's boundary being strictly sub-optimal no matter how you value various resources. The axes of this space are how much flour you end up with and how much cash you end up with/spend, and if your value function is linear in those quantities then the Pareto front is a convex polygon.

So my argument is, if you give me a strategy where you buy X units of flour for Y $ and you tell me that that strategy reflects your values as to how important it is to have flour or how important it is to have $, then if I give you a deal to buy X units for Y/2 $, you should prefer it. There are rational reasons not to prefer it, but they involve bringing extra elements into the scenario - this is an iterated social game and the strategy you're seen to choose will impact future costs, you have a non-monotonic value function, there are other variables which you value but we haven't included, etc.

It does become a bit more complex if we consider that sellers have minimum and maximum quantities of flour they're willing to sell. If e.g. you can buy 10kg of flour for $2 or 1kg of flour for $1 or no flour, then there are value functions for which the $1 for 1kg deal can be better to take. But if you've already shown that you're willing to pay $3, then that does still exclude the $1 for 1kg deal as being a rational choice for your value function.

So my argument is, if you've already shown a willingness to pay 6 weeks of lockdown for a partial reduction in Covid, you should be willing to pay 4 weeks of lockdown for a total removal of Covid.



In Japan there have basically been no rules at all at the government level other than the school closures. Just guidelines, and people don't particularly follow them more than other places as far as I can tell... Individual companies have their own policies, but again you hear things of people justifying going to the office every day just because they have to physically stamp paperwork with their personal seal.

But yes, if you're going to do this, 10% of people violating the lockdown could add another month, and if it's >40% then you'll still see growth even in lockdown (since R0 is ~2.5, if 40% violate lockdown then you'll have continued linear growth of cases even during lockdown and if slightly more than 40% violate lockdown you'll still see exponential growth).



I mean, unless you have a time machine... I'm not really thinking 'in 2050' here, I'm thinking 'in July or August this year when we're dealing with resurgences starting to hit countries that recently successfully passed below the 100 cases mark'. We did a set of interventions, it had an outcome, we analyze that outcome, use mechanistic understanding to evaluate counterfactuals and alternative strategies we could have used, use the time we have to prepare for the things we can predict are coming, and it's cheaper when we next have to do all of this again.

Because of the human factors, a lot of this is also about discussing what values people place on things ahead of time. Because doing all of that in the public eye amidst an emerging disaster has added complications I won't get into here.



Well, the point is that a country with a very low infection rate is still destined to be a country with a high infection rate at some future time. So this is sort of like asking 'why would I pay $3 now to save $6 in three months time?'. Unless you have some circumstance where you really need that $3 now, and you won't need $6 in three months, it's generally a good deal.



This issue though is that if you have one country that did a severe lockdown who has an important trading partner who did a mild one or no lockdown at all, then the overall course of the pandemic in the first country is going to reflect the policy of their partner and not their own. That's the 'cooperative' aspect of this game. If I play X and you play Y, then X was a bad move. If I play X and you play X, then X was a good move.

So I expect we'll start to see lots of examples of countries that had severe policies and in the end weren't spared a second bump - because their policies can't be evaluated individually in isolation.

Hey Nich, I feel like we may be talking past each other a but, and I'm not sure what the underlying point we actually disagree on is. I'm happy to address your above post point by point if your prefer, but I wonder if we might be better to reset.

My main point is that it is not obvious that isolation was (or is) the best reaction to Covid 19 because isolating for a couple of months or so will cause significantly more economic harm than taking a more light touch approach (even if that means the response is more protracted. My impression is that some people consider that the elimination of the virus is the only (or at least, by far the most important) factor to be considered when we decide what the response should be, when I think the reality is that we should weight that against other factors. My point applies whether we are talking about what a given country should have done, what a given country should do now, or what a given country should do next time.

I take your main point to be that in an ideal world countries should co-operate by taking a similar approach to one another at the same time - to avoid some countries from eliminating the virus only to have it reintroduced. Am I right that this is your point? If so, I agree that you are right in theory, but I don't think what you are suggesting is a practical reality.

Where we may disagree (and I'm not sure) is if where you say countries should co-operate you mean for them to co-operate in a certain way? I take it you are not saying that countries should co-operate to take a light touch and let the virus run its course? Is that right?

I'm not sure where I sit on the issue of whether lockdowns were worth it, but I find the tendency to declare any other opinion invalid more annoying than either the pro or con arguments.

Couldn't agree more.

Again, this is an effect of the pandemic, not the lockdown. Lockdown measures (e.g. wage subsidies and other payouts to employers) actually go a long way to mitigate this damage. Without lockdown, businesses would still be going under in at least as great numbers, but there'd be no mitigation of the damage on socially disadvantaged families.

Increased inequality is one of many byproducts of the economic damage caused by the virus. Certainly you are right that some economic damage would have resulted whatever the response to Covid was. However, the degree of economic harm (and then flow-on impact on equality) differs depending on the response. Lockdowns, at least in my opinion, exacerbate the economic harm and mean more businesses will go under (and therefore increase inequality).

The sorts of mitigants you mention (wage support or payouts to employers) need not be linked to lockdowns - they can occur whether a country goes into lockdown or not. Second, depending on the particular measures put in place, it's doubtful how effectively they can mitigate the loss. Thirdly, these sorts of mitigants will usually be funded by Gov't borrowing and this creates pressure on future government spending and decreases on future Gov't spending itself have an impact on equality.

[NichG]

Hey Nich, I feel like we may be talking past each other a but, and I'm not sure what the underlying point we actually disagree on is. I'm happy to address your above post point by point if your prefer, but I wonder if we might be better to reset.

My main point is that it is not obvious that isolation was (or is) the best reaction to Covid 19 because isolating for a couple of months or so will cause significantly more economic harm than taking a more light touch approach (even if that means the response is more protracted. My impression is that some people consider that the elimination of the virus is the only (or at least, by far the most important) factor to be considered when we decide what the response should be, when I think the reality is that we should weight that against other factors. My point applies whether we are talking about what a given country should have done, what a given country should do now, or what a given country should do next time.

I take your main point to be that in an ideal world countries should co-operate by taking a similar approach to one another at the same time - to avoid some countries from eliminating the virus only to have it reintroduced. Am I right that this is your point? If so, I agree that you are right in theory, but I don't think what you are suggesting is a practical reality.

Where we may disagree (and I'm not sure) is if where you say countries should co-operate you mean for them to co-operate in a certain way? I take it you are not saying that countries should co-operate to take a light touch and let the virus run its course? Is that right?

There's two points here, which I want to keep disentangled. The first point is, what is the value of lives versus GDP lost? I don't want to get into that point here because it's not really a point of fact, it's a values question and it strays into politics.

Instead, I'm saying that given however you'd like to relatively value lives to GDP, there's still a hierarchy of strategies where some strategies are inherently wasteful and others are not. If you tell me 'I'm willing for us to sacrifice 5% GDP for an intervention strategy, do the best you can' or 'I'm willing to sacrifice 50% GDP for an intervention strategy' or whatever, some plans will get you more benefit for the cost than others. That second point is what I'm focusing on here, because it isn't a question of values or politics, just a question of dynamics.

Now, there are things about the structure of the problem that I'm concluding from how growth processes work, and these may be points of disagreement, though if you want to disagree with these I'd prefer you say why rather than just 'it's an assumption!' or something like that. These are based on mechanistically what a virus is and how viruses spread.

1. There is a sharp boundary in the pay-off structure where on one side of the boundary you have the cases where Covid is driven extinct, and on the other side you have the cases where it is not. The mechanistic motivation behind this is that if you don't drive it extinct then it can still spread in susceptible people until the point of herd immunity + overshoot; or if immunity is temporary, it becomes endemic and incurs costs for every year for the rest of our lives. So a small change in the effectiveness of a strategy can make for a large change in the payoff. A corrollary of this is that the distribution of payoffs is going to be strongly bimodal - either you end up in the 'we drove it extinct' lobe or you end up in the 'most of the population was infected' lobe.

2. Strategies which result in extinction can be local in time, whereas strategies that target mitigation have to extend for the duration of the pandemic. This is the motivation between test/trace/isolate and contact tracing strategies in general - so long as the pandemic is taking place in small number outbreaks, extremely minor local interventions can drive it extinct. Once it's at the level of community transmission, you first have to get it down to that level where percolation fluctuations can have it locally die out completely.

So the point of this is that half-measures are likely to be wasteful. If you do a harsh intervention and you don't kill Covid, you should have done a light intervention. However, if you do kill Covid, it's worth orders of magnitude more in payoff than if you don't. There's a secondary calculus of how long it takes to kill Covid, where taking longer results in more deaths in the end, but that effect would be second order to the first order effect of kill-or-not.

So the important conclusion: Given all of that, if you're going to do harsh measures, its important that everyone do harsh measures in sync with one another, because otherwise you're going to pay the price but not get the payoff.

Now the more subtle point that does require dipping a little bit into the values discussion is, should anyone at all do harsh measures or should we just give up and say 'we accept that the entire population will get Covid?'. I say dipping because I don't want to debate if we should or not, I just want to point out that:

1. If you and someone else have wildly different valuations in how you assess the value of GDP versus lives, the nice thing about GDP is that it's fungible. So someone who values lives more can pay you to value GDP less, and so on. This is tongue-in-cheek at an individual level, but this point is important if we're talking about cooperation between countries. Because a country who is reluctant to shut down because of economic disadvantage could be subsidized by a consortium of others to change their policy, in order to make the economic impacts fair. So pointing out the most extreme case of economic deprivation isn't a counter-argument to a cooperate-harsh strategy.

2. If we use the behavior so far to estimate different countries' values as to GDP vs lives, we can use that to bound the distribution of payoffs needed to accomplish point #2. Countries have been willing to lock down for 6 weeks or more so far, so at least in the present valuation of things, we can get some idea of costs that countries are willing to pay. Individual values may deviate strongly of course, but at least in a theoretical and purely economical argument, the cost of subsidizing those individuals in order to be fair to them is relatively small at the country level.

So under those points, the cooperate-harsh strategy seems to be on the table in terms of total costs of that strategy. The counterargument to this would be that synchronizing harsh measures would increase the cost of implementing or bearing those measures, not 'harsh measures are expensive' - to say that NC-harsh is a better strategy than C-harsh, C-harsh has to cost more, not just cost the same.

There is another thing which has come up, which is 'would even C-harsh drive Covid extinct?'. We do have examples of places that have locally wiped out Covid or reduced levels to the degree that contact tracing can manage outbreaks, so I'd argue that even at the level we're at now, suppressing or wiping out Covid isn't a 'physical' impossibility - there are actions that could be taken that would do it without the total destruction of the country that implements them. So I'd say the evidence strongly rejects the idea that we have no recourse but to live with Covid and ride it out.

I'm not particularly stuck on C-harsh meaning lock-downs as envisioned by this or that country so far, but I would argue strongly against C-moderate or something like that - because the benefits fall off sharply as the effectiveness of the intervention falls off, due to the whole growth process thing. So generally pushing harsher for a shorter time period is going to be more effective than pushing gently for a long time period for the same cost paid.

There's a whole separate discussion about estimating risks and the values thing and so on as well, but I think all of that is mostly separate from these points. If we want to dig into that, it isn't too hard to model this kind of thing, so I can spin up a multi-locus SEIRS model or something and we can measure just what the difference in effects are between synchronized R0 reductions and desynchronized R0 reductions, or what the distribution of risks are consistent. From what I can tell, the data we have right now does not bound the parameters very tightly - I can get anything from 9000 to 1.4 million deaths in Sweden on a ten year timescale based on the existing death data. The parameter that is responsible for the biggest part of that swing is whether or not we develop long-term immunity (though there's some other stuff with the interaction between lag times to death versus overall IFR - the longer the lag time between infection and death, the more lethal the fit needs Covid to be to explain the existing data). But I think this is probably a tangent.

Edit:

Okay, I've played around with simulating this now. There's an extra factor which seems to be pretty important, which is: what is the distribution of times between infection and recovery. If that distribution is Poisson, then you need a much longer intervention period than if it's Gaussian. Mechanistically I'd expect it's Gaussian since if your immune system doesn't adapt to it quick enough, you just die of it, but if it does turn out to be Poisson then synchronized vs asynchronous interventions matter a lot less.

Edit2:

Coordinating the durations of quarantines seems to have a bigger effect than coordinating the timing. At least in a multi-locus SEIRS model, it looks like a sharp phase transition starting at a certain severity of intervention, beyond which the cooperation effect starts to matter a lot but below which there's no perceptible difference.

Hold on this, double-checking things.

[veti]

Increased inequality is one of many byproducts of the economic damage caused by the virus. Certainly you are right that some economic damage would have resulted whatever the response to Covid was. However, the degree of economic harm (and then flow-on impact on equality) differs depending on the response. Lockdowns, at least in my opinion, exacerbate the economic harm and mean more businesses will go under (and therefore increase inequality).

The sorts of mitigants you mention (wage support or payouts to employers) need not be linked to lockdowns - they can occur whether a country goes into lockdown or not. Second, depending on the particular measures put in place, it's doubtful how effectively they can mitigate the loss. Thirdly, these sorts of mitigants will usually be funded by Gov't borrowing and this creates pressure on future government spending and decreases on future Gov't spending itself have an impact on equality.

I don't agree.

A couple of months ago, I read a story about British pub and restaurant owners being furious with the prime minister for not ordering them to close (at that time). The point being that their business was in the toilet anyway, nobody was going to those places - but until they were actually ordered to close, they couldn't claim for losses from their business insurance.

I was typing more here, but I don't think I can keep it from veering into politics, so I'll leave it at this: I strongly disagree with your premise. I think a limited lockdown, of the sort we've had, for a limited time is by far the least damaging option both economically and socially, at least starting from the position we were in as of mid-March. (If we'd taken action in February there would have been better options, but as you've pointed out previously, it wasn't clear at that point that it would be needed.)

[snowblizz]

Students graduating this year will be able to put an asterisk on their CV, pointing out that their final grades were affected by the pandemic. It's silly to assume that future employers won't take notice of this.

Yeah they will take note. And pick someone else who doesn't have this blotch on the record.

Someone with a lower grade and a certificate of learning disability won't get treated as equal to someone with a better grade either. No matter how much people think it's a great idea to get off easier. Yes, I've met people who thought this.

With hundreds of applciations to a position you don't want to be the one who has to asterix your grade.

[Wardog]

Is that really.comparable though?

With learning disabilities, you are talking about a small portion of people every year, who are likely less capable by definition.

With CV-related issues, you are talking about pretty much the entier graduating cohort, so an employer who wants to recruit from new graduates or a university that wants to accept school leavers will have to take from them.

Plus, the employer or university may be more interested in ability or aptitude (rather than specific skills or knowledge), if they would expect to train recruits anyway, so being top of the class in a year when everyone got low grades for known reasons may still be more important that actual grade.

***

Also, to add to veti's observation: if one pub voluntarily shuts down, it would be put at a disadvantage vs competitors that did not, whereas a compulsory lockdown affects all equally, and means they don't have to worry about harming themselves by doing the right thing. (Aka: the best solution to the Prisoner's Dilemma is change the rules of the game).

[snowblizz]

Is that really.comparable though?

It kinda is. It's an outside factor that impacts your grades. And will kepe on dogging you unless you actually "fix" it.

With CV-related issues, you are talking about pretty much the entier graduating cohort, so an employer who wants to recruit from new graduates or a university that wants to accept school leavers will have to take from them.

Why would I. There's a class from last year and there'll be another class next year to pick from. Meanwhile the class that didn't get a complete grade will always have that hanging over them.

Plus, the employer or university may be more interested in ability or aptitude (rather than specific skills or knowledge), if they would expect to train recruits anyway, so being top of the class in a year when everyone got low grades for known reasons may still be more important that actual grade.

The point I want to make is that the solution is not to just shrug and think it'll be sorted, everyone will understand. You can't just let people graduate below the bar "because reasons", whether they be good or not. The solution has to be getting proper exams and proper grading. And yes they'll have to study extra most likely.
How that works out will differ from system to system, but here you can already do the 3 year pre-Uni college in 4 years if you so desire. More people probably have to go that way or retake and complement what was done in spring during the fall opportunity.

Other options for other system, but not "well everyone will just understand it was a tough year and we hope for the best".

[Strigon]

It kinda is. It's an outside factor that impacts your grades. And will kepe on dogging you unless you actually "fix" it.

It's not comparable at all; one reflects an anomaly with the person being tested (the one you're hiring,) and one reflects an anomaly with the test itself. The two are very different.

Why would I. There's a class from last year and there'll be another class next year to pick from. Meanwhile the class that didn't get a complete grade will always have that hanging over them.

You would because only a fool considers exclusively the last year of grades, either for a job or post-secondary education. Other experiences count for at least as much as grades, and there are (depending on your region) three more years of secondary school data to pick from.
If I were to pick between these students:

A - 93%, 88%, 91%, 68%*
B - 78%, 82%, 76%, 78%

I would pick A.

It also assumes how you do in high school follows you for life. As soon as you start working, that's what employers care about. In 2030, nobody will care how you scored on an exam in 2020. They will very much care about the work you performed in 2029, though.

[Rockphed]

It's not comparable at all; one reflects an anomaly with the person being tested (the one you're hiring,) and one reflects an anomaly with the test itself. The two are very different.

You would because only a fool considers exclusively the last year of grades, either for a job or post-secondary education. Other experiences count for at least as much as grades, and there are (depending on your region) three more years of secondary school data to pick from.
If I were to pick between these students:

A - 93%, 88%, 91%, 68%*
B - 78%, 82%, 76%, 78%

I would pick A.

It also assumes how you do in high school follows you for life. As soon as you start working, that's what employers care about. In 2030, nobody will care how you scored on an exam in 2020. They will very much care about the work you performed in 2029, though.

A couple years ago I was talking to a military recruiter. Despite me being in my late 20s, with a degree in engineering (and a decent GPA in college) he wanted to see my SAT or ACT scores and my high-school transcript. Do not underestimate the power of bureaucratic inertia.

[Tvtyrant]

Yeah they will take note. And pick someone else who doesn't have this blotch on the record.

Someone with a lower grade and a certificate of learning disability won't get treated as equal to someone with a better grade either. No matter how much people think it's a great idea to get off easier. Yes, I've met people who thought this.

With hundreds of applciations to a position you don't want to be the one who has to asterix your grade.

I work in finances and formerly worked at Yahoo!, in my life only a grocery store ever asked me what my grades were.

[Friv]

It kinda is. It's an outside factor that impacts your grades. And will kepe on dogging you unless you actually "fix" it.


Why would I. There's a class from last year and there'll be another class next year to pick from. Meanwhile the class that didn't get a complete grade will always have that hanging over them.


The point I want to make is that the solution is not to just shrug and think it'll be sorted, everyone will understand. You can't just let people graduate below the bar "because reasons", whether they be good or not. The solution has to be getting proper exams and proper grading. And yes they'll have to study extra most likely.
How that works out will differ from system to system, but here you can already do the 3 year pre-Uni college in 4 years if you so desire. More people probably have to go that way or retake and complement what was done in spring during the fall opportunity.

Other options for other system, but not "well everyone will just understand it was a tough year and we hope for the best".

Got to say, no one in my entire career has ever asked me for my grades. The only place I could imagine it mattering would be for people seeking a master's, and I definitely believe that the universities are going to understand the thing they themselves are doing.

[Aedilred]

Overstated. Students graduating this year will be able to put an asterisk on their CV, pointing out that their final grades were affected by the pandemic. It's silly to assume that future employers won't take notice of this. As for further education, I have a feeling that "pressure on limited spaces" is going to be the least of their problems for the next couple of years - it's likely that the generation graduating this summer will have a much easier time qualifying for university, if they so choose, than last year's, if only because of sharply reduced competition from overseas students in a world where, suddenly, national borders have come to seem much more significant than they did at the beginning of this year.

This problem might rectify itself, but it might not.

As to Friv's point above, about being asked for grades, that's going to depend on sector and so forth. It's not just undergrads, either, it's school leavers at all relevant levels. Many of them will have conditional offers from universities predicated on getting certain grades. A number of sectors here (the civil service, for instance) sets minimum grade boundaries for its graduate recruitees. In either case, they might factor in difficulties for this year's cohort - but they probably won't. Firstly, a lot of these systems will be automated so students who've been "asterisked" will have to go around the normal recruitment procedures in order to get anyone even to look at their case. And presumably the actual distribution of grades will be set against a curve based on normality, so the actual numbers of students attaining the required grades won't go down and they won't have an undersubscription problem, they'll just be the "wrong" students. At an overall, cohort-based level, it may not make a difference. For the individuals affected, I think the effect will be very serious.

And while competition for university places may be depressed as a result of this, competition for paying jobs (which are relevant to both university graduates and school-leavers not attending university) will likely be heightened.

I suspect I may be particularly sensitive to this because I tended to underperform during the year and then make it up in the final exams. Cancelling my final exams and basing it on work to date - and in some cases, how much your teacher/tutor likes you - would have utterly screwed me over, both at the point of getting into university at all, and in terms of the quality of degree I got.

As for younger students - home schooling and distance learning are a thing, they are taking place right now. Yes it will have an effect, but not as great as you may imagine. Yes, there will be a disproportionate effect on economically disadvantaged students. This is always true when anything in the environment changes, for better or worse. I don't have any easy solutions to that, except to point out that if this hadn't happened as an effect of the lockdown, it would have happened anyway as an effect of the pandemic.

The "it's the pandemic, not the lockdown" argument is easy to make, but I'm not so convinced. If the schools had stayed open, those students would be able to attend, and get a better education than they're getting now, irrespective of the effects of the pandemic. Some parents may have stopped sending their children to school for fear of the pandemic, but most didn't.

I spoke to my nonagenarian father by Skype this morning, he doesn't seem overly bothered. It's not as if he was particularly mobile even before the lockdown. In so far as there is perceptible decline in his mental health, it has not noticeably accelerated since the lockdown.

Well, that's obviously going to be subjective. My nonagerian uncle is finding this extremely difficult, and would rather be able to see his family while he can and run the risk of getting ill than die alone in a hospital bed never seeing them again.

For every busker that can't perform on the street, there's a new one breaking now on YouTube. For every would-be playwright or poet or singer who can't get the usual gigs, there are new faces appearing in online channels, new people turning their hands to creativity in the spare time they've suddenly and unexpectedly been given. Of course most of them stink, but let's be honest, Sturgeon's Rule has always applied to art as much as anything else.

But this Darwinian approach is essentially the same as has been rejected when applied to treatment of the virus overall, for being excessively callous.

[quote]

It's not comparable at all; one reflects an anomaly with the person being tested (the one you're hiring,) and one reflects an anomaly with the test itself. The two are very different.

You would because only a fool considers exclusively the last year of grades, either for a job or post-secondary education. Other experiences count for at least as much as grades, and there are (depending on your region) three more years of secondary school data to pick from.
If I were to pick between these students:

A - 93%, 88%, 91%, 68%*
B - 78%, 82%, 76%, 78%

I would pick A.

But that's not the way the system here tends to work. Employers don't see your annual results unless you've had national exams in that year and you don't have a GPA. You get a final grade for each level of education and that's it. If that is the level of education you intend to be your last one and it gets screwed up, you can ask for employers or universities to look at previous (lesser) qualifications and take them into account but, again, you're having to ask them to do you a favour in even considering those, which already puts you at a disadvantage compared to other candidates with better prima facie results.

The higher up you get, the less this is the case, and how your university grading is determined will vary by unversity, but even so our system is very final-assessment heavy.

A couple of months ago, I read a story about British pub and restaurant owners being furious with the prime minister for not ordering them to close (at that time). The point being that their business was in the toilet anyway, nobody was going to those places - but until they were actually ordered to close, they couldn't claim for losses from their business insurance.

I think the main complaint was that the advice was not to attend these places, but they weren't being ordered to shut, which left them in the worst of all positions. In fact, and while trade was a bit suppressed, the reason that advice had to be given is that people didn't stop going to restaurants and pubs even when they arguably should have done. Even after the lockdown was announced, many pubs were full that night, before the closure bit the next day. Purely anecdotal, but about a week before lockdown started - with the pandemic already occupying 100% of news - I went out with my parents, to successively a café, a pub and a restaurant, and they were all rammed.

So I remain sceptical of the overall argument that it's the pandemic, not the lockdown. There will always be people who will lock themselves up at the first sign of trouble and there will be those who go out no matter what. The majority are somewhere in the middle. I don't actually know where the balance of opinion lies, firstly because there seems to be a surprising dearth of polling on the subject and also because in those sorts of behavioural polls people lie.

But it's also clear that even under lockdown there is a significant proportion of the population that wants to be able to go about its life if not as normal then as close to it as possible, and if the lockdown were lifted, they probably would do. Which is why the lockdown is (supposedly) necessary at all. If everyone were so scared of the pandemic that it would cause the same societal damage as lockdown has, we wouldn't need an actual lockdown: it would just happen.

[veti]

The "it's the pandemic, not the lockdown" argument is easy to make, but I'm not so convinced. If the schools had stayed open, those students would be able to attend, and get a better education than they're getting now, irrespective of the effects of the pandemic. Some parents may have stopped sending their children to school for fear of the pandemic, but most didn't.

More and more would, as the statistics rose. Moreover, they would be, first and predominantly, better-off families who could afford to take a month or two off work to look after their kids. Leaving only the poorest and disadvantaged to attend the schools. How does that play into your worries about social cohesion?

An advantage of lockdown is that it affects everyone, rich and poor alike. Of course the rich have advantages, as always, but the lockdown puts a hard limit on them. Calls to let people make their own decisions amount, in many cases, to "let the privileged take advantage of their privilege".

But this Darwinian approach is essentially the same as has been rejected when applied to treatment of the virus overall, for being excessively callous.

The complaint was that culture would be crimped because, for a time, people wouldn't have access to it. I replied that that wasn't true because it took an unreasonably limited view of what constitutes "culture", discounting lots of activities because they happen in the "wrong" places or by the "wrong" people or something. I don't see how that can be called "Darwinian", even if I accept the premise that that's a slur.

The higher up you get, the less this is the case, and how your university grading is determined will vary by unversity, but even so our system is very final-assessment heavy.

Again, you seem to assume that people are incapable of adapting to an epoch-defining event. We've always done things one way because it's worked well enough as long as there was no very compelling reason to vary it. But a disruption that affects a whole cohort of students, plus to a lesser extent every year below them, very clearly qualifies as a compelling reason to look at those candidates differently.

[Forum Explorer]

It also assumes how you do in high school follows you for life. As soon as you start working, that's what employers care about. In 2030, nobody will care how you scored on an exam in 2020. They will very much care about the work you performed in 2029, though.

Very much this. The only time my grades has mattered is when I've wanted to expand my education. So going to university or college. Otherwise? They only care if I've passed. Did I graduate from High School? Did I get a degree from University? Did I get a Masters? Did I get a PhD?

It's all yes and no answers. No one looked at how well I passed a milestone, only if I did or not.

Now that can very well be cultural with different societies looking at it differently. But I understand the logic of how we do things here. If you have whatever milestone they are looking for then you have the minimum skills needed, and they can train you the rest of the way. What's far more important is proof that you are a good employee, so your work record is much much more important, and that's why employers here pretty much only care about your references and work history rather than your education.

[Chen]

Also wondering why people are going to get lower grades without a final. If it goes pass/fail it generally doesnt impact your GPA anyways. I guess it hurts those who goofed off all year and were going to make it up in the finals.

[Aedilred]

More and more would, as the statistics rose. Moreover, they would be, first and predominantly, better-off families who could afford to take a month or two off work to look after their kids. Leaving only the poorest and disadvantaged to attend the schools. How does that play into your worries about social cohesion?

Actually, that would worry me a lot less than sending everyone home. Because the privileged kids will probably get some sort of an education wherever they are, not to mention a decent meal, wheareas the poorer ones will only get one at school. So if the privileged ones are whisked home to be coddled by parents while the otherwise disadvantaged are left to take advantage of schooling facilities with smaller class sizes to boot? That sounds like a win-win.

If the virus were dangerous to children, or easily spread by them, this would be more of a problem - but everything I've seen recently suggests that that isn't the case, which is one of the reasons why schools were already the last places to close and will be among the first to reopen.

The complaint was that culture would be crimped because, for a time, people wouldn't have access to it. I replied that that wasn't true because it took an unreasonably limited view of what constitutes "culture", discounting lots of activities because they happen in the "wrong" places or by the "wrong" people or something. I don't see how that can be called "Darwinian", even if I accept the premise that that's a slur.

Well sure, the stuff that can go on in lockdown can go on in lockdown, but there's no reason that couldn't be happening anyway. A lot of stuff though - orchestras, theatres - and so on, can't. A lot of these institutions were surviving fairly hand-to-mouth before the lockdown and this could finish them off. Not only because you can't get a live audience in but because you can't get the artists themselves together.

I may have got the wrong impression from your post regarding what you were advocating though.

Again, you seem to assume that people are incapable of adapting to an epoch-defining event. We've always done things one way because it's worked well enough as long as there was no very compelling reason to vary it. But a disruption that affects a whole cohort of students, plus to a lesser extent every year below them, very clearly qualifies as a compelling reason to look at those candidates differently.

Very much this. The only time my grades has mattered is when I've wanted to expand my education. So going to university or college. Otherwise? They only care if I've passed. Did I graduate from High School? Did I get a degree from University? Did I get a Masters? Did I get a PhD?

It's all yes and no answers. No one looked at how well I passed a milestone, only if I did or not.

Now that can very well be cultural with different societies looking at it differently. But I understand the logic of how we do things here. If you have whatever milestone they are looking for then you have the minimum skills needed, and they can train you the rest of the way. What's far more important is proof that you are a good employee, so your work record is much much more important, and that's why employers here pretty much only care about your references and work history rather than your education.

As I say, it depends on sector. I have had recruitment experiences that haven't looked at my grades. I've also had some which have - and those have been the times where it actually mattered and went or would have gone somewhere and have been important to my career. I'm also not the only one in this thread who's had that experience.

But I've also sat on the other side of the desk. And it's all very well to say "well, people will take account of these things" but will they actually? In my experience and unless the pool of applicants is very small, you're looking for reasons to cull the list down to a manageable level at an early a stage as possible. "Not making the grade" is one of those factors, and also one of the easiest to apply. Now, sure, if the recruiter is feeling generous, they might let a few who don't through to the next stage of the process where you actually read the submissions in detail, but only if they don't already have enough candidates who do.

That's assuming that the first stage of filtering is actually done by a human. If it's via an online form-filling process, as many organisations (including most government ones that I've encountered) do now, it might get filtered out automatically before it even reaches their desk.

It is something it is probably possible to correct for, but it nevertheless needs to be corrected for and presupposes a generosity and patience on the part of the individual recruiter which in my experience (from both sides) exists relatively rarely and certainly can't be relied on. It is, in essence, an additional disadvantage for this cohort of students which is likely to damage their further education and career prospects.

Yes, there may come a point at which your grades don't matter and they look solely at experience. Although that hasn't happened to me yet. But you still need to get the experience in the first place, even so, and these things are cumulative. Failing to get the right "starter" job (the point where your grades matter most) has a knock-on effect, as demonstrated by studies done on the generation who entered the workforce around the time of the last financial crisis: they've never made up the difference.

Some of these kids now will be fine. Some of them will get the grades they should have got anyway. Others will lose out on grades but be unaffected in the job market through good fortune or contacts or whatever. Some will do better than they ought to have done, get overpromoted and generally make a nuisance of themselves. But some will do worse than they should have, miss out on opportunities, and be worse off for the rest of their lives.

I don't know how many, and I don't know how much, but I would bet my life that there will be some. Now, we may consider that to be a price worth paying, but we still have to recognise that it is a price we are paying in order to factor it into the overall cost-benefit analysis, and it can't be swept under the carpet with a general "oh it'll probably be fine."

Because, apart from anything else, something else that'll "probably be fine" is the vast majority of individual coronavirus infections.

[Friv]

If the virus were dangerous to children, or easily spread by them, this would be more of a problem - but everything I've seen recently suggests that that isn't the case, which is one of the reasons why schools were already the last places to close and will be among the first to reopen.

I've seen this claim a lot, and it is not quite accurate.

First, coronavirus appears to be less lethal in kids, which is not the same thing from being not lethal. Reported infections are lower, which might be because they get infected less, or might be because testing has overwhelmingly focused on front-line workers and kids aren't front-line workers so they haven't been tested for coronavirus to nearly the same level. The report I linked specifically says that drawing conclusions about kids is kind of impossible right now because so little secondary data has been included at the moment.

Among reported cases, 20% of the kids whose hospitalization status was known were hospitalized. That's about two-thirds the levels of adults, which is much lower but not enough lower to dismiss. There have only been a few known deaths, but we're seeing a lot of evidence of lifelong lung damage if you're hospitalized, so that's not great.

And all of that is without touching on your second point - the evidence is that kids usually have milder symptoms when they get sick, but there's absolutely nothing to suggest that they are less able to spread the virus to the adults in their lives. Schools would be a nightmare hotspot for covid in poor families.

[NichG]

I can come up with interventions to deal with a year of graduates with weird grade statistics - job placement programs, subsidies, letting them re-take classes that were impacted or have opportunities for re-testing to adjust their grade appropriately or even 'lets just give everyone a 100% in impacted classes' which makes recruiters' jobs 10% harder and costs universities a bit of reputation, but prevents those students from suffering disadvantages from something that was out of their control.

But I can't really come up with any way to raise the dead.

[veti]

If the virus were dangerous to children, or easily spread by them, this would be more of a problem - but everything I've seen recently suggests that that isn't the case, which is one of the reasons why schools were already the last places to close and will be among the first to reopen.

Maybe you missed it, but the virus has produced some very scary effects among children. And I'm not aware of any half-way plausible research suggesting they can't spread it. The reason schools were kept open as long as possible is that because closing schools automatically means closing a huge part of the economy - because parents, who tend to be among the most economically productive people in any society, can't go to work.

Well sure, the stuff that can go on in lockdown can go on in lockdown, but there's no reason that couldn't be happening anyway.

There is for my example of people who now have unexpected free time on their hands, who can turn themselves to drawing or painting or writing for the first time. And yes, orchestras and theatres are suffering -but if your city orchestra announced that it was holding a $30-per-ticket concert in your city's biggest venue, tonight, how many people do you think would turn up? - even without a lockdown?

Scared people lock themselves down to the extent they can, and leisure activities like concerts are the easiest thing to cut out of your schedule.

But I've also sat on the other side of the desk. And it's all very well to say "well, people will take account of these things" but will they actually?

Yes.. They actually will. I'm confident about that because I too have experience of that position, and I know that while "cutting out CVs because they don't contain the right buzzwords" is fine, "systematically disadvantaging an entire generation of applicants - specifically, the youngest (and therefore probably cheapest) applicants" - is not a level of bias that would be allowed to fly. Not for a nanosecond.

Some of these kids now will be fine. Some of them will get the grades they should have got anyway. Others will lose out on grades but be unaffected in the job market through good fortune or contacts or whatever. Some will do better than they ought to have done, get overpromoted and generally make a nuisance of themselves. But some will do worse than they should have, miss out on opportunities, and be worse off for the rest of their lives.

I don't know how many, and I don't know how much, but I would bet my life that there will be some. Now, we may consider that to be a price worth paying, but we still have to recognise that it is a price we are paying in order to factor it into the overall cost-benefit analysis, and it can't be swept under the carpet with a general "oh it'll probably be fine."

You talk as if "business as usual" were some sort of nirvana of absolute fairness. I don't think that's the case. But leaving that aside, you also seem to be neglecting the fact that "business as usual" is not an option right now. The pandemic would have these effects, to a greater or lesser degree, with or without the lockdown. For "some will do worse than they should have", read "some will get sick or lose family members". It's not precisely the same "some", but who's to say whether the number of this "some" is larger or smaller than the first "some"?

Yes, life for some people will suck. I'm sorry for that, really I am. (As of tomorrow, I'll be on my way to becoming one of them - my contract ends, and there's basically no chance of renewing or replacing it right now.) But that "some people, through no fault of their own, have hard times", while it might make a compelling argument for extending help to people who need it, is not in itself an argument against lockdown. Because you haven't demonstrated, or even argued, that this is going to affect a bigger number of people than the alternative courses.

[Aedilred]

You talk as if "business as usual" were some sort of nirvana of absolute fairness. I don't think that's the case. But leaving that aside, you also seem to be neglecting the fact that "business as usual" is not an option right now. The pandemic would have these effects, to a greater or lesser degree, with or without the lockdown. For "some will do worse than they should have", read "some will get sick or lose family members". It's not precisely the same "some", but who's to say whether the number of this "some" is larger or smaller than the first "some"?

Yes, life for some people will suck. I'm sorry for that, really I am. (As of tomorrow, I'll be on my way to becoming one of them - my contract ends, and there's basically no chance of renewing or replacing it right now.) But that "some people, through no fault of their own, have hard times", while it might make a compelling argument for extending help to people who need it, is not in itself an argument against lockdown. Because you haven't demonstrated, or even argued, that this is going to affect a bigger number of people than the alternative courses.

I'm not going to bother replying to the other points in detail because we can go round the houses on this all day. Nobody actually knows what the right answer is and anyone who's certain about anything in all this that's more complex than "virus bad, lockdown also bad" is deluding themselves. Including me, to the extent I am certain, which I'm not about much of it outside my own experience.

In each of these cases I'm talking about one part of one thing that's affected by the lockdown, one of the many, many things, some of which we won't be able to identify until all this is over, by way of illustration of the potential scale of the damage being caused - which needs to be taken into account if there is to be an informed decision about whether the lockdown is "worth it".

As to the pandemic having this effect anyway, well, it would, but not to anywhere near the same extent. Leaving aside any evidence of the degree to which a number of things were still ticking along ok in that window between "the virus being taken seriously at a media level" and "the lockdown's being imposed", the assumption that people would voluntarily lock themselves down to the same extent as an imposed lockdown seems to be prima facie flawed, because as I say above, if that were the case, we wouldn't actually need a lockdown. The difference between what people would do in the absence of a lockdown and what they can do under lockdown is the difference of effect, and while that's not 100% of normal, it's not negligible either.

I can come up with interventions to deal with a year of graduates with weird grade statistics - job placement programs, subsidies, letting them re-take classes that were impacted or have opportunities for re-testing to adjust their grade appropriately or even 'lets just give everyone a 100% in impacted classes' which makes recruiters' jobs 10% harder and costs universities a bit of reputation, but prevents those students from suffering disadvantages from something that was out of their control.

But I can't really come up with any way to raise the dead.

And this is glib but disingenuous. You don't get to play the trump card of "the virus kills people" when we're talking about adding up the other side of the scales. We know the virus kills people and that's not in dispute. It's also not in dispute that people dying is bad. You know what else will kill people? The lockdown. So now that we've established moral equivalency between the two in terms of inability to raise the dead, we can look at the actual point.

The point is in trying to calculate the total cost to society as a whole so that we can make a better judgment of the cost of saving the lives that the virus would otherwise take. It's a total, cumulative cost. The point about students' grades being damaged and their prospects? That's probably less than 1% of the total sum of what concerns me about the lockdown (much of which can't be discussed here). Obviously, on its own it's not comparable to letting the virus loose. But you have to throw it on the pile. Unless you don't think it is actually a factor (in which case I disagree, but ok) or you think it doesn't matter (in which case that's your call, but it has to not matter for a reason other than "the virus will kill people".)

[NichG]

And this is glib but disingenuous. You don't get to play the trump card of "the virus kills people" when we're talking about adding up the other side of the scales. We know the virus kills people and that's not in dispute. It's also not in dispute that people dying is bad. You know what else will kill people? The lockdown. So now that we've established moral equivalency between the two in terms of inability to raise the dead, we can look at the actual point.

The point is in trying to calculate the total cost to society as a whole so that we can make a better judgment of the cost of saving the lives that the virus would otherwise take. It's a total, cumulative cost. The point about students' grades being damaged and their prospects? That's probably less than 1% of the total sum of what concerns me about the lockdown (much of which can't be discussed here). Obviously, on its own it's not comparable to letting the virus loose. But you have to throw it on the pile. Unless you don't think it is actually a factor (in which case I disagree, but ok) or you think it doesn't matter (in which case that's your call, but it has to not matter for a reason other than "the virus will kill people".)

The point, which I don't think is glib, is that it's not an equal comparison to take the cost of a thing that we could fix as the cost when we haven't chosen to fix it, in comparison to a cost that we have no way of fixing.

A lockdown might kill people, but it doesn't have to. Whether it does or not depends on how it's implemented. If you literally lock everyone in their house, weld the door shut, and come back in a month then that lockdown will kill everyone. But that isn't an appropriate measure to establish the cost of a lockdown, even if it's a possible cost of a possible lockdown.

So if you say 'the lockdown is killing people because they don't have the income to pay for food' then my response is 'that's not because lockdowns kill people, it's because you're not implementing a lockdown that incorporates appropriate policies to mitigate its harmful effects'. There are quarantines and lockdowns which don't have this problem - I keep going back to South Korea as an example, where someone who is quarantined receives food delivers, calls twice a day to check in on them, has a dedicated case worker, etc.

Similarly, if we're talking about the educational impact of the lockdown, a fair discussion has to include the possibility that we actually implement reasonable strategies to mitigate the damage rather than just assuming that we all walk away and leave people to fend for themselves. It might turn out that in the end and after all is said and done, we do end up all walking away and leaving people to fend for themselves. But then that's on us - it's an intentional decision we've made as to the outcome we are willing to pursue, and not just some inevitability.

If we're tallying up costs between two options, it should be the costs under the best policy we can think of under one option, versus the costs under the best policy we can think of under the other. Not the status quo policy or worst policy.

[Forum Explorer]

As I say, it depends on sector. I have had recruitment experiences that haven't looked at my grades. I've also had some which have - and those have been the times where it actually mattered and went or would have gone somewhere and have been important to my career. I'm also not the only one in this thread who's had that experience.

I'm actually curious which sectors do look at grades out of high school. Please elaborate. Like I've said, I've never experienced that, but then, I went straight from high school to university and didn't start looking for serious jobs until I got a degree.

Now it's worth noting that this is an international forum. You're in Britain, I'm in Canada, and as close as our nations are culturally, we do still do things differently.

Case in point, how we implemented our lockdowns. Our schools were the first thing we closed and likely won't open until next fall.

[veti]

As to the pandemic having this effect anyway, well, it would, but not to anywhere near the same extent. Leaving aside any evidence of the degree to which a number of things were still ticking along ok in that window between "the virus being taken seriously at a media level" and "the lockdown's being imposed", the assumption that people would voluntarily lock themselves down to the same extent as an imposed lockdown seems to be prima facie flawed, because as I say above, if that were the case, we wouldn't actually need a lockdown. The difference between what people would do in the absence of a lockdown and what they can do under lockdown is the difference of effect, and while that's not 100% of normal, it's not negligible either.

Absolutely, without the lockdown people would still be going out a lot more. They'd be going to work, schools, daycares, shops, all the places they have to go to maintain their accustomed income and, as far as practicable, lifestyle.

However, they wouldn't be going - at least, not in anything like the usual numbers - to concerts, pubs, restaurants, theatres, football games, and anywhere else they don't have to go, that involves being shut in with a crowd of strangers for any length of time. In those parts of the world where a formal lockdown hasn't been imposed - South Dakota, for instance, there's no official lockdown there - how many SD'ans do you think booked themselves into luxury cruises this month? (No, I don't know either, but my guess would be "as near zero as to be undetectable in a company's earnings report".)

As you say, a lot of artistic groups have a very hand-to-mouth existence at the best of times. What do you think would happen to them if their audiences suddenly drop by, say, 25%? - for months on end?

(And the actual drop would probably be a great deal more than that, certainly in the short term. Audiences might start to drift back after a while, but I would bet there will be a sizeable component that would hold out for at least the rest of the year.)

Despite not locking down, South Dakota's budget is still shot to heck, its economy is tanked and unemployment has spiked by 6% of the workforce in 2 months. Do you think the artists of South Dakota are thriving in this environment? Are they heck. That is the closest we are likely to see to a "business as usual" scenario anywhere in the developed world.

Conclusion: cancelling the lockdown would not be enough to save those troubled orchestras and theatres. They're going to need help anyway.

[factotum]

Also wondering why people are going to get lower grades without a final. If it goes pass/fail it generally doesnt impact your GPA anyways. I guess it hurts those who goofed off all year and were going to make it up in the finals.

It's already been pointed out that in the UK there isn't any such thing as a GPA--your entire school career gets summed up in the exams you take, so people not taking those exams is a problem for them.

[Forum Explorer]

It's already been pointed out that in the UK there isn't any such thing as a GPA--your entire school career gets summed up in the exams you take, so people not taking those exams is a problem for them.

That sounds horrible. I mean, I personally test horribly.

[snowblizz]

I'm actually curious which sectors do look at grades out of high school. Please elaborate. Like I've said, I've never experienced that, but then, I went straight from high school to university and didn't start looking for serious jobs until I got a degree.

The first job I got for summer when I had started Uni and wanted something remotely related to what I was doing (because finishing university and never having worked anywhere means you get sent last in line again) the recruiter looked at my GCSE equivalent grade and went "holy cow". I spent the subsequent summerholidays at the company for the duration of my studies.

But am sure it may have been my non existent workrecord or snazzy shirt that swayed him. Or some other factor. Gut feeling? Only person who applied? It is of course impossible to tell what other factors impacted his decision. I do know my grades where noticed because he remarked on them. And showed me off to the rest of the department on the way out. I got the feeling a decision had already been made.

But we can prove anything with anecdotal evidence.

All I'm saying is we can't just shrug and go meh people will just understand and for all eternity keep in mind this person had this one thing that happened. Because obviously there will never be something else that might happen... Or that grades never really matters anyway.

That's not a proper solution. A proper solution is to ensure people get the ability to sort out their gradeing and schooling in a way that gets them as close to "nothing happened" as possible. Exams in the fall, summerschool, whatever that may be.

[Forum Explorer]

The first job I got for summer when I had started Uni and wanted something remotely related to what I was doing (because finishing university and never having worked anywhere means you get sent last in line again) the recruiter looked at my GCSE equivalent grade and went "holy cow". I spent the subsequent summerholidays at the company for the duration of my studies.

But am sure it may have been my non existent workrecord or snazzy shirt that swayed him. Or some other factor. Gut feeling? Only person who applied? It is of course impossible to tell what other factors impacted his decision. I do know my grades where noticed because he remarked on them. And showed me off to the rest of the department on the way out. I got the feeling a decision had already been made.

But we can prove anything with anecdotal evidence.

All I'm saying is we can't just shrug and go meh people will just understand and for all eternity keep in mind this person had this one thing that happened. Because obviously there will never be something else that might happen... Or that grades never really matters anyway.

That's not a proper solution. A proper solution is to ensure people get the ability to sort out their gradeing and schooling in a way that gets them as close to "nothing happened" as possible. Exams in the fall, summerschool, whatever that may be.

I totally agree with you. Mind you, I'm not 100% sure what Canada is doing education wise. I do know we've sent work home with the students, and wherever possible, teacher's are teaching online. But I don't know what they are doing about testing, particularly in regards for students in their final year of high school. However the idea that your grade is 100% determined by your exams is foreign to me and sounds like a really bad idea. The solution might be to switch to a different grading system.

Also that in no way answers my question. As neat as your anecdote was, it didn't actually tell me what sector of work you applied in.