Patrick McKenzie

But I remember Israel, for a variety of institutional reasons, having a broadly functional response on this, in particular around end-of-the-day shots, which end-of-the-day shots are, in the grand scheme of things, a minor issue.

But they're a...

A good like quick heuristic for do you have good epistemics on this at all?

Okay.

You know, physical reality of the COVID shots is there is five, eight or 10 shots in a single vial.

That single vial goes bad after 12 hours.

That is a bit of an oversimplification.

It doesn't actually go bad.

But for essentially regulatory reasons, we have to pretend it goes bad after 12 hours.

It can't be resealed.

Okay.

So if you vaccinate two people, then the other shots are on a timer.

And those shots will decrease in value to zero after how many hours are remaining on the timer and then get thrown in the trash can.

So quick question to test if you are a rational human being.

At the margin, would you prefer giving a shot to the most preferred patient in your queue of patients who needs it for medical needs or like the trash can?

You prefer the most preferred patient.

Now, follow-up question.

Would you prefer giving it to the least preferred patient or the trash can?

You still give it to the human rather than the trash can.

And Israel adopted the policy of like, if the shots are expiring,