What’s driving pandemic outcomes?

A work-in-progress analysis covering vaccines, obesity, age, drug use, economic, and health outcomes in a curated selection of countries and US states

I’ve been following the pandemic since the very earliest days. In January of 2020, I was shorting cruise lines, air lines, and casinos, and watching in shock as nobody else seemed to believe that COVID-19 outbreaks would turn into a full blown pandemic that would annihilate all sorts of industries around the world and kill millions of people.

Unfortunately, I was right. The pandemic spread all over the world, financial markets crashed (temporarily), people locked up their citizens, and hospitals and morgues filled to the brim.

I have continued to follow statistics around the pandemic, tracking cases and deaths, lockdown restrictions, and the effects on oil demand. What I have noticed in observing the pandemic is how quickly narratives and correlations start breaking down when you really dig into the data. We’ve heard high vaccination rates will reduce transmission, but then observe bizarre comparisons like Israel vs Singapore: