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by mattigames
2218 days ago
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Permanent damage will only be calculated months or years from now, because x-rays and every other machine to investigate that has a slightly more important job right now, so any decision will probably have to be taken before we get the "objective facts" you want. You can call it fear mongering or whatever you want but the statistics show 1.3% death rate of infected in the us[0], meaning approx. 1 every 100 people with the virus is dying, and the white house estimates a max of 240.000 deaths before this ends[1], you could still say 1 every 2000 is not a lot, and then you may realize how important any number of deaths is its completely subjective based on your own perceived value of human lives, maybe even 3999 deaths every 4000 is not much for some people because logically speaking the surviving people can repopulate the planet, and maybe in such case we should be really worried about not injecting any fear mongering into that 1 person that will survive. [0] https://www.google.com/amp/s/medicalxpress.com/news/2020-05-... [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2020/03/31/coronavirus-... |
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I'd like to think you and I could agree in general to a broad set of known facts, and certain ranges of predictions, a set of possible outcomes, etc. But I think we'd still disagree on how to proceed! That's the part I'm curious to talk about. I don't mean to be argumentative with any of this or quibble over details, just trying to share my line of thinking, and curious about yours.
I can agree with the predicted 240k deaths in the U.S. you quoted, I guess that would be about 1 in 1375 people in a country of 330 million. I end up comparing those odds to the 863 of every 100k people how in any given year [1], which is 1 in 115, or almost 12 in 1375. These numbers vary by age, but the averages serve as decent enough discussion points when we talk about a large population in aggregate, which is how I look at this.
I'd feel differently if it were easier/possible to save those 1 in 1375 people who will die from covid, but it's not. The lockdowns were successful keeping hospitals from being overwhelmed (something I supported), but there is zero indication that we can stop this with lockdowns, quarantines, or contact tracing at this point. There are too many infected people. The odds are that there will not be a vaccine for many years, either.
Experts say that the most likely outcomes are that this virus decreases in severity to become another variant of the common cold, or comes up occasionally making for something like a bad flu year [3]
I feel bad for the tens of millions of folks in the U.S. negatively impacted by the lockdowns, especially without evidence supporting that lockdowns will make a long term difference if hospitals are not overwhelmed. I'm afraid the economic price to pay is going to be terrible for so many people, so many lives turned upside down, that the economy is going to get a lot worse before it gets better. Look what happened after the 2008 recession, the protests, the ascendency of right wing national politicians, civil wars in the middle east, etc. This looks like it could be worse. I feel horrible about the added debt being passed to the younger generation for this stuff, why should they pay with a lower standard of living because collectively we can't save for a rainy day?
At this point it seems best to me to support hospitals and what we know works, including helping the vulnerable self-isolate. I don't think it's justified to force unwilling people into lockdowns unless hospitals are becoming overwhelmed.
[1] http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/deaths.htm [2] http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/dvs/MortFinal2007_Worktable23r.... [3] https://www.statnews.com/2020/02/04/two-scenarios-if-new-cor...