A couple articles in the last week demonstrate how our COVID policy, such as it is, still lacks any basis in, well, numbers. A Time article (and, boy howdy, is Time a ghost of its former self) discusses how people should carry on in the ‘new normal’ without any quantitative estimates of what various policies would mean. In addition, there was a Boston Globe article with the subhed “Doctors differ on the question, with some saying long COVID remains a significant risk, while others say that concern is overblown.”

Regarding long COVID, for me, there’s a huge difference between a 0.01% outcome (1 in 10,000) of long COVID in a vaccinated person and a one percent outcome. I’m older GenX, and if the odds of long COVID were in fact 0.01%, then even if I were infected every year, I would still be far more likely to have a serious cardiac event* over the next quarter century than long COVID. If this were the case (we’ll get to that), I would change certain habits. I would likely still mask in work-related settings, the gym, and on mass transit (I like not getting colds, and I really don’t care what strangers think), but things like indoor dining would be far more likely: in the Before Times, I didn’t stop dining out due to influenza**.

On the other hand, if the odds of debilitating long COVID are around one to two percent in vaccinated people, plus or minus, which is what I, as well as former COVID czar Ashish Jha, have estimated, then the risk calculation for a non-immunocompromised person is (or should be) different. At that point, there’s a non-trivial chance of contracting long-term, possibly permanent, disability over a twenty-five year period.

But when you read these and other articles, there are no numbers offered. For four years, most of our COVID-related policy discussions have been based on vibes, instead of data. We wouldn’t accept that for any other policy area: could you imagine discussions about Social Security cuts that concluded “you get fewer benefits”? Well, is that one dollar or one thousand dollars? There’s a difference.

It’s time for people opining about COVID to actually put some numbers up, so we can start offering serious advice and making serious policy.

*COVID infection does increase risk of cardiac events, but we’re really talking about an increase in a small number; it’s not like a COVID infection means you’ll have a ten percent chance of cardiac disease in the next six months. At the population level, if enough people are infected, that would lead to a noticeable, but not massive increase in heart disease (and, of course, it sucks if you’re one of the unlucky ones).

**To the best of my knowledge, I’ve never had influenza, or if I have, it resembled a cold (I do get vaccinated every year). That said, I’ve had several bouts of winter vomiting disease, and it was as fun as it sounds.