In my view the big "elite miss" on covid was not in misunderstanding the nature of exponential growth. Diseases vary greatly, and those initial months were decision making under high uncertainty. I can sympathize with a tendency to under-react when one doesn't have compelling evidence that a harsh response is justified.
The far bigger miss was, as you say, overreacting for years when the true nature of the disease was known. We kept schools closed, restaurants closed, and we engaged in hygiene theater of all kinds long after it was obvious that all these actions had little benefit – and tremendous cost.
My own theory is that a widespread case of preference falsification (to use Kuran's term) was at play. Social pressures pushed the elites to maintain a status quo of "we're taking this seriously". Exacerbating this was the fact that Covid took on a political tenor, at least in the US, so elites on the left were afraid to speak up for fear of branding themselves "MAGA in disguise". Lessons all around.
I agree that "stupid" elites is not really an accurate framing of the core of the issue. It is a problem that elites are not particularly smart. I would say they are also unreflective and this is at least as big a problem. The author seems to agree: "They are short-term thinkers who believe that they are doing the right thing and try to impress others like themselves with their wealth and status." In other words, elites just aren't trying to make good decisions, at least in the sense, for example, of maximizing aggregate welfare.
Here is an example of a blog post arguing that the US clearly spent too much on trying to prevent the spread of Covid: https://www.overcomingbias.com/p/we-are-over-preventing-covidhtml. I think anyone with an IQ of 115 should be able to read and understand those arguments. Maybe I'm being unrealistic, but I think anyone with an IQ of 90 should be able to do it. Similar arguments were made in many places. It was certainly possible for elites to find, read and understand those arguments. They just had no incentive to do so.
In my view the big "elite miss" on covid was not in misunderstanding the nature of exponential growth. Diseases vary greatly, and those initial months were decision making under high uncertainty. I can sympathize with a tendency to under-react when one doesn't have compelling evidence that a harsh response is justified.
The far bigger miss was, as you say, overreacting for years when the true nature of the disease was known. We kept schools closed, restaurants closed, and we engaged in hygiene theater of all kinds long after it was obvious that all these actions had little benefit – and tremendous cost.
My own theory is that a widespread case of preference falsification (to use Kuran's term) was at play. Social pressures pushed the elites to maintain a status quo of "we're taking this seriously". Exacerbating this was the fact that Covid took on a political tenor, at least in the US, so elites on the left were afraid to speak up for fear of branding themselves "MAGA in disguise". Lessons all around.
I agree that "stupid" elites is not really an accurate framing of the core of the issue. It is a problem that elites are not particularly smart. I would say they are also unreflective and this is at least as big a problem. The author seems to agree: "They are short-term thinkers who believe that they are doing the right thing and try to impress others like themselves with their wealth and status." In other words, elites just aren't trying to make good decisions, at least in the sense, for example, of maximizing aggregate welfare.
Here is an example of a blog post arguing that the US clearly spent too much on trying to prevent the spread of Covid: https://www.overcomingbias.com/p/we-are-over-preventing-covidhtml. I think anyone with an IQ of 115 should be able to read and understand those arguments. Maybe I'm being unrealistic, but I think anyone with an IQ of 90 should be able to do it. Similar arguments were made in many places. It was certainly possible for elites to find, read and understand those arguments. They just had no incentive to do so.