The good thing is we’ll see in the end. Lots of predictions. It’s almost as if you can’t be criticized for being too cautious. Sure, but the good will won’t last forever.
The US accepts 22k deaths a year without blinking due to flu. That’s just the flu. What’s the magic number we’re willing to accept? 50k? 100? There has to be a percentage of the population we are willing to accept as casualty because we already do, just unstated.
The lockdown will ultimately spread misery far and wide if left unchecked. Massive rise in poverty, violence, drug abuse, depression, crime, suicide, homelessness, prostitution, etc.
People need to be more clear on what they’re willing to accept. Right now there is no real discussion on “what next”. Lots of obsessing over the current body count though.
The US spends a lot of effort trying to convince people to get flu shots, take antivirals if they get sick, and stay away from vulnerable populations while contagious; hospitals prepare extensively for increased use during flu season (and medical workers are vaccinated, making flu much less personally risky for them), widely distribute easy-to-administer flu tests, treat people and keep them alive as best they can, etc. Estimated flu death numbers are also not comparable to current reported Covid death numbers, because they include a ton of guesswork, since many of the people who die while infected with flu officially succumb to some other condition (according to death certificates).
We don’t go into total economic lockdown for 2 months per year, because it would be impossible to enforce and extremely expensive, but we sure did during the last comparable pandemic, the 1918 flu.
Currently (and this will hopefully change as medical knowledge improves), Covid seems to be more than 10x more deadly than seasonal flu for most demographic groups. In an unchecked Covid epidemic (with hospitals overwhelmed) it appears that on the order of 1% of the population dies. (This has happened in some towns in Italy, where a very high percentage of the population was likely infected.)
> lockdown will ultimately spread misery
Having 1% of the entire population die within a matter of months is going to cause an extremely severe economic shock with or without official actions.
The logic still applies. Obviously, I hope for zero deaths. But I also don’t forbid them from driving, despite the high number of deaths for that mode of travel. I don’t tell them to quarantine themselves every flu season.
Anyway, I’m not sure we’ve overreacted. I’m just saying it’s possible and it’s pretty amazing how it’s hard to have a conversation about it. People treat the topic like there’s only one answer and anyone who dissents is a murderer.
The risks of driving and seasonal flu are fairly well understood. And there are mitigation’s in place: seatbelts, traffic laws, theraflu, flu shots, etc.
I’m not calling you a murderer. I’m asking you to put a hard number in the risk you are willing to absorb.
To be perfectly fair, the current lockdown _IS_ going to kill people that would've survived otherwise. People that now won't go into emergency rooms out of fear of contracting Covid19, poor people whose source of income is completely dried out. And longer term, this is going to cost massive amounts of money, a fraction of which would of course be used to prolong someone's life in some way, eventually. I think the question raised in this thread is simply one of "what's the trade-off". It's very clear that there are costs to this lockdown, and at least to me it's also very clear that that some of those costs are human lives.
However, we can't estimate those costs. We do have a guess of the rough fatality rate of covid19, and we do have models that will tell us how many people will die if we don't go into lockdown. But we don't have the same luxury for estimating the amount of people hurt and dead because of it that could otherwise be saved. We can quantify the monetary loss, but not how much of that loss would've otherwise gone towards saving lives. I think the question of "what are the human costs of this lockdown" is a fair one to ask. Don't get me wrong, I too think the lockdown makes sense and overall does save lifes. But the lockdown is not without risk, and even more importantly: I have not seen any estimate of the risk. Is it lower than 0.5-5% of the population? I think so, but both of us haven't done the math, so you talking down to people who ask about it is wrong.
> To be perfectly fair, the current lockdown _IS_ going to kill people that would've survived otherwise. People that now won't go into emergency rooms out of fear of contracting Covid19
You've got the blame all wrong here. These people that are dying who would've survived otherwise are directly being killed by the pandemic, not by the lockdown. If the pandemic were completely uncontained then the hospital system would be way more overwhelmed and you'd be much more likely to die of other causes for lack of healthcare. The lockdown is saving lives by helping to preserve healthcare resources so that if you have some other need like a heart attack there might still be a doctor free.
It's not like, if the lockdown weren't happening, then there wouldn't be a pandemic. What would happen is that the pandemic would be way way worse.
> The US accepts 22k deaths a year without blinking due to flu. That’s just the flu. What’s the magic number we’re willing to accept? 50k? 100? There has to be a percentage of the population we are willing to accept as casualty because we already do, just unstated.
Unfortunately the worst case death numbers for an uncontrolled pandemic crack into the millions in the US alone. That is, frankly, more deaths than anyone with a sound conscience is willing to accept.
Also, we have vaccines for the flu that significantly decrease your chance from dying of it. I get the vaccine every year. There's a big difference between being completely at the whim of a disease and being able to take proactive measures against it to help protect yourself. The only proactive measure that works against COVID-19 (which is much deadlier than the flu mind you) right now is social distancing, so it's not surprising to see so many people using the only effective measure that currently exists. Don't underestimate people's desire to not suffer a debilitating illness that leaves them unable to breathe for a week before killing them. Social distancing would be happening regardless of the official stay at home orders.
> Lots of obsessing over the current body count though.
I mean ... yeah. These are our friends, our family, our neighbors. Each one of them was a real person who is dying unnecessarily, and more deaths like them could be spared through better social distancing. This isn't "obsessing", it's a very real concern. You'd care more if it were people you knew dying. I've already had people in my extended contacts die of it (I live here in NYC), and it's rough. Hell, I already got it, and fortunately recovered. Let me tell you, spending days unable to catch your breath even just from walking is terrifying. You'd understand more if this was affecting you more personally. It's not just some abstract discussion about numbers.
The US accepts 22k deaths a year without blinking due to flu. That’s just the flu. What’s the magic number we’re willing to accept? 50k? 100? There has to be a percentage of the population we are willing to accept as casualty because we already do, just unstated.
The lockdown will ultimately spread misery far and wide if left unchecked. Massive rise in poverty, violence, drug abuse, depression, crime, suicide, homelessness, prostitution, etc.
People need to be more clear on what they’re willing to accept. Right now there is no real discussion on “what next”. Lots of obsessing over the current body count though.