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Culture War Roundup for the week of May 11, 2026

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The school closures were useless because by then it was far too late, and even then it was already established the virus was not nearly as deadly as feared especially among young people. For the vast majority of people, Covid was like a bad cold.

if the Hantavirus can be confined to the ship, then a stronger case can be made for quarainte, with appropriate monetary compensation.

On Polymarket, a Hantavirus pandemic in 2026 trades at around 10%. This is obviously limited by the usual effects -- even if you believe that the probability is zero, 10% gain over seven months or so is not that great of a return of investment. It would be useful if there were pandemic bonds traded on the open market (so one could compare their prices to what they are usually), but from what I can tell there are none.

Out of money put options on index funds can also accomplish this. The problem is these tend to be cash incinerators 95-99% of the time. If you throw 1% of your net worth on these , you can make a nice profit if this is a repeat of Covid...a few people did this in early 2020. This is unlikely though, from Google "Hantavirus is generally not highly contagious between people and does not spread like common respiratory viruses such as COVID-19 or flu."

Yes put prices would be a good indicator. And a big reason why you know polymarket market isn’t legitimate or sized. It’s not that 13% isn’t a great return - you could actually easily arb it with index puts. Bet no at 13% and buy a certain amount of index puts with the 13%. Cross collateralize them.
If a pandemic occurs again

  1. I am fairly certain markets crash so long outs would offset (30-year t-bond calls might be even better).
  2. The market might crash without a pandemic. The no bet is ONLY betting on a pandemic (simplistically I assume pandemic = 100% crash)