Paul Romer: preference

Transcript context

…How does your testing idea differ from Glen Weyl’s testing idea? I think Glen and I are in agreement that tests are very valuable. Glen thinks that we can target the tests. I’m saying just test everybody on a regular basis. Glen is saying you don’t have to test everybody. What you can do is target your tests to people who are more likely to be infectious. I agree that if you can target tests effectively, then you don’t have to test as many people because really all you have to do is find enough positives and get them into isolation. But I think Glen is assuming that the way we’re going to predict safely and reliably who’s infectious is through apps that do digital contact tracing, and I’m skeptical that that’s going to be ready in time and ready in the sense that everybody will be comfortable using it. I’m saying if we want to have a plan that we know we can execute now, where we know we’re not going to have a divisive fight and get stuck because we can’t make a decision, the way to do that is just don’t make the digital contact tracing part of the critical path. Just create a path where we get there, whether or not apps could work. If it works, great. I’m not opposed to targeting the tests if you’ve got a good way to do it, but don’t make that a requirement for the path that protects us all. Would you ever get involved in another charter city project?…

Stored transcript either side of the excerpt. The highlighted words are the published quote; the surrounding text is unedited source, never generated.