On this day in 2020, Richard Epstein wrote a piece arguing there would only be 500 deaths in the US from the coronavirus. It would be wrong within a week.
When it proved comically wrong, he adjusted it to 2,500 deaths on March 23rd.
He then adjusted that estimate to 5,000 deaths on March 24th.
Then he would claim he actually always intended to say it was 5,000 on March 16th and that it was a typo.
And then he would claim that too was an error and his original estimate was actually 50,000.
In the piece he mocked estimates that a million would die in the US. We are up to 1.2 million deaths in the US from the coronavirus.
Reason magazine would of course interview him in March to discuss his estimate.
He would fall victim to one of the classic blunders - he would accept an interview with Isaac Chotiner of the New Yorker. Chotiner would, in a way only he can, give him the rope with which to h*ng himself.
(First part is Richard Epstein's coronavirus deaths estimate. Second part is his interview with Isaac Chotiner at the New Yorker)