First wave of policy decisions globally were driven by “flatten the curve” crowd and “extreme infection/death model” makers. However as the time passed, neither the curve flattened nor extreme infection deaths happened on predicted timelines (NewYork Officials had estimated that 140,000 hospital beds might be needed to treat coronavirus patients by 11th April 2020 but in reality only 18500 were in use as on 11th April 2020 (almost 86% lower) as per news in NewYork Times).

While there is much noise and lot of mathematical modelling on spread and damage by Covid19, there is hardly any crystal gazing when it comes to general economy. The way things are, I think both side will turn up wrong big time.

What if Naseem Taleb and all experts of gloom & doom turn out to Malthus of our time? While Taleb is a super genius guy, but he is extremely wired towards black swans or extreme events. The important thing to remember about models is that in the ned they are mere mathematical models only. On Maths, remember what Einstein said “As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality.”