5 ms·

I didn't think this could still be true but apparently you are correct [1]. Wow. That being said, there are factors to contribute to this: - Essentially zero

• mensetmanusman 7y ago
  Yep, over half of GDP growth is tied to population growth. If 2% of humanity is about to die...
  • virgilp 7y ago
    2% (maybe more actually) is the mortality rate of those infected. But so far infection rate was 0.001% ; it would need to be 3 full orders of magnitude worse to even approach an infection rate of 2%....
    • travisjungroth 7y ago
      How long did it take Italy to go up three orders of magnitude in infection rate?
      • Udik 7y ago
        A bit less than 10x, an order of magnitude, every week. It's been really is very easy to see the future up until now. There's 9000 cases in Italy now; by the 16th of March, factoring in the containment measures, they could be 60-80k. About 10% need intensive care; there's probably 3000 IC beds available now. Very simple.
        • travisjungroth 7y ago
          Yeah, I'm not sure why I was downvoted. It was a leading question to point out that "3 orders of magnitude" isn't far away at all.
          • FabHK 7y ago
            From the statistics I’ve seen, unless there’s effective quarantine and countermeasures in effect, you can expect an order of magnitude (while most of the population is not yet infected, obviously) about every 2 to 3 weeks. Yay for exponential growth.
          • virgilp 7y ago
            So how many weeks for 10 orders of magnitude? Because it feels like you extrapolate linearly...
        • baq 7y ago
          good news (sort of), Italian government did the math and shut down all of Italy.
    • saystupidthings 7y ago
      Growth in cases has been exponential, as it should be. It just depends on when it turns logistical.
    • eCa 7y ago
      According to Wikipedia[0], which in turn sources material from January (mostly China), each infected person infected 2.2-3.9 others on average. So in three generations you go from 1 to 27. Three generations more, from 27 to 729 (if my math is correct). [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_reproduction_number https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_reproduction_number
    • badfrog 7y ago
      For reference, there have been 3,000 deaths out of 11,000,000 people in Wuhan. That's 0.03% of the population dead and the number of new deaths per day is declining. If the rest of the world comes even close to being as good at quarantine as Wuhan, we'll be way under 2%. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019%E2%80%9320_coronavirus_outbreak https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019%E2%80%9320_coronavirus_ou...
      • notJim 7y ago
        Meanwhile in the US, the CDC appears to be resisting testing people, and as far as I can tell, quarantines are barely even being considered. Washington state is in the top 3 of cases in the country, but 30k people attended a soccer game on Saturday. I hate to contribute to the panic and tinfoil-hat conspiracies, but I'm really concerned about the US response so far.
        • btilly 7y ago
          Meanwhile in the US, the CDC appears to be resisting testing people... They know something that you don't. Which is that the test has both a high false negative and a high false positive rate. Which means that its effectiveness as a decision making tool is limited. That said, the longer you wait to start quarantine, the longer you have to keep quarantine measures in place. But on the flip side, if extreme responses are too good, then you increase the risk that on the next serious threat, people will yawn and fail to comply. Public health has a wicked problem here. The more effective it is, the less that people feel it is needed.
      • tdfx 7y ago
        Based on the US and Iranian responses, it seems a substantial portion of the world will not come remotely close to being as effective at quarantining as Wuhan. Wuhan appears to be the maximum effectiveness, not the average.
        • jay_kyburz 7y ago
          Yeah, there is no way Police will drag people off the street or weld people into their homes in the US or here in Australia. I think a lot of people would rather just let the virus spread.
    • wahern 7y ago
      2% is the Case Fatality Rate (CFR), not mortality rate. Case Fatality Rate is deaths/confirmed, and confirmed is not the same as number of infected. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Case_fatality_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Case_fatality_rate In most outbreaks, "confirmed" usually means those sick enough to seek medical attention and get a diagnosis. If asymptomatic testing goes up then CFR declines, but then CFR ceases to be a useful metric for comparing and contrasting outbreaks. Arguably it already has diminished utility in this particular outbreak because of inconsistent testing criteria around the world. I think what most people want to know (and what they believe CFR means) is the percentage of deaths among the infected. But AFAICT this sort of number isn't very common in the literature as ascertaining the total number of infected for most outbreaks[1] is very difficult, and presumably something that can only be deduced post hoc with modeling. [1] Ebola being one possible exception, given the extremely high lethality and distinctive symptoms.
  • jmpman 7y ago
    Are those 2% that are about to die the consumers which drive consumption? Maybe in healthcare, but suspect 70 and 80 year olds aren’t buying a lot of new cars.
    • nostrademons 7y ago
      If anything that'll prop up stock prices further. We were about to hit a demographic time bomb in the mid-2020s as the baby boomers started to retire and need to sell their 401(k)s to live on and afford medical treatment. If they all die suddenly, then their assets get passed on to their prime-working-age children, who have no need to cash them out. More savings finding their way into a dwindling supply of available stock = higher stock prices. That's a few years off, though. During the crisis itself, when nobody knows whether they'll live or die or what sort of interventions they need stay alive, I expect to see massive panic selling.
      • kelnos 7y ago
        > If they all die suddenly, then their assets get passed on to their prime-working-age children, who have no need to cash them out. It feels morbid talking about this, but: It depends on how the assets are passed. If most of them are in IRAs, then they'll get passed to heirs as inherited IRAs, and the new SECURE Act in the US will require the heirs to distribute the contents of those IRAs over the next 10 years, which is likely similar to how the retirees might have timed their withdrawals.
        • nostrademons 7y ago
          Unless consumer spending goes up significantly (also possible, and also good for the economy), the actual funds will likely get rolled into other investments after paying taxes, though. That's what I did after inheriting my dad's IRA: I didn't need the money, so it came out as an RMD and then went straight back into a different investment account. I guess it could also go toward the down payment of a house, inflating the housing market even more. If lots of old people die the stock of houses on the market should go way up though, somewhat blunting the impact of this.
  • arcticbull 7y ago
    2% of humanity is absolutely, in no way, shape or form about to die. The Korean numbers are approaching 0.5% case fatality rate, and those numbers continue to fall. It's about the same as the flu, and no, the flu isn't killing 2% of humanity either. Y'all need to settle down and get back to work.
    • philwelch 7y ago
      I fully expect South Korea to be an outlier in this respect.
      • arcticbull 7y ago
        The WHO is reporting 0.6% in China excluding Wuhan so probably not.
        • empath75 7y ago
          the number of cases seems to have an impact on the CFR. If the health care system is overwhelmed, it'll shoot way up. That's why shutting down travel and events is important. It's the difference between .5% CFR and 3.5% CFR.
    • bugzz 7y ago
      Looking at Korea's numbers, they are reporting 7478 cases, with 53 deaths. But they are also reporting only 133 recoveries so far. So looking at Korea's death rate so far is in no way, shape, or form accurate, as more than 97% of their cases have not yet resolved by dying or recovering. It takes time to die.
    • throwaway_tech 7y ago
      Why use S.Korea's numbers? Haven't they lead the best response in terms of testing and don't they have universal healthcare? It seems to me fatality rates would likely be higher in countries that: 1) aren't testing so aggressively and 2) don't have universal access to care. Maybe I am wrong though and there is good reason to believe S.Korea is the best example right now to use as a statistics model to apply across the entire world.
  • malandrew 7y ago
    I'm wondering if what 2% dies matters. This disease is mostly going to kill people past their prime working years. There are going to be tons of sociological changes. Just speculating here: - Social security could have it's date of insolvency extended. It's currently predicted to be insolvent by 2037. Most pension programs in the world will be relieved of pressure if many of those over 60 years of age die. Many states with pension crises may delay those crises many years. - we may see the largest wealth transfer in history in a short period of time as many older folks die and leave their heirs with whatever wealth they have that they were unable to consume in retirement. - The economy will "lose" the spending power of this older generation, but that spending power will be transferred to a younger generation. Except for what the government steals via a death tax, this should be net zero in terms of money spent in the economy. What will change is what the money is being spent on. - Many homes may go on the market as these older folks that own much of the housing stock pass away. Those inheriting the homes will sell or rent. In the case of multiple children sharing the inheritance, homes will be put on the market as those children want their liquid share now. - Those in their prime productive years should carry on, so hopefully productivity as measured by GDP remains more stable than if this disease killed more people in their prime working years. - What's most worrying is the people this disease kill between 40 and 65 years of age, since their is a lot of accumulated wisdom, knowledge and expertise in that cohort that is still being actively contributed to society through work and other forms of productive engagement. If this really does take out 2% and that 2% is largely isolated to those over 60 years of age, we're going to be living in very very interesting times. My biggest concern is losing a lot of that voting block as older voters often serve as a check against naive ideas that younger voters have such as wanting to try socialist policies wholesale at scale at the federal level instead of experimenting with those ideas in the safe confines of state or local municipalities to determine if they are actually workable ideas.
    • claudeganon 7y ago
      Yes, the people who think that universal healthcare might be necessary to beat back this pandemic, as compared to the patchwork cruelty and parasitism of the current American system, are the ones who are naive. The problem with rugged Capitalism in healthcare is eventually you run out of other people’s immune systems.
  • deleted 7y ago
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  • kelnos 7y ago
    Even if the fatality rate were as high as 2% (which is exceedingly unlikely), "2% of humanity is about to die" assumes that 100% of all humans will get the disease, which is unlikely.
• JackFr 7y ago
  > - A government and a system that propped up an insolvent banking system that likely extended the downturn significantly Very true. "Extend and pretend" was the rule of thumb on debt. By failing to let firms go bankrupt, you ended up with tremendous capital (and labor) resources in enterprises which do not create value.
• beambot 7y ago
  US fertility rate is approx. 1.8, well below population sustainability. If it weren't for immigration (a political policy question), the US would have negative population growth too.
  • pjkundert 7y ago
    We’re about to discover that uncontrolled immigration != societal regeneration, unfortunately.
    • akhilcacharya 7y ago
      Is that why American society declined in the early 20th century when there were effectively open borders? Oh wait, no it didn’t.
      • pjkundert 7y ago
        A 3-month harrowing journey into unforeseen circumstances is an excellent filter, indeed. Please do not be flippant or purposely obtuse.
        • itsameta4 7y ago
          Like, for instance, thousands of miles through the desert? Or are only sea voyages from Europe harrowing enough?
        • jessaustin 7y ago
          Please do not be flippant or purposely obtuse. If you're saying this, the real conversation is taking place over your head.
    • thereare5lights 7y ago
      Immigration is more controlled today than it was in the past.
  • cletus 7y ago
• dv_dt 7y ago
  America has all three of those except immigration is allowing for population growth; immigration that the Trump admin is busy reducing to zero it seems. And when you look at replacement births you have to think about all the economic conditions that cause people to decide not to have children.
• hardtke 7y ago
  Aren't all of these factors true for China today?
  • neural_thing 7y ago
    China's credit bubble is worse than Japan's was. And now they are hit with a supply/demand shock. Worst crisis in history
• grey-area 7y ago
  Sounds just like the situation in the west after 2008.
• FabHK 7y ago
  As I highlighted above, the Nikkei ignores dividends, and as such does not reflect actual investment results. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22530040 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22530040
• deleted 7y ago
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