10 ms·

Doesn't seem very well thought out. The economic cost of the first scenario (numerous deaths in peak period) would likely be the highest with the impact both on

• mtsr 7y ago
  I interpreted it like this: deaths are less expensive than lost productivity. This might actually hold given the groups that are the most at risk are probably least productive: the old and the infirm.
  • lotsofpulp 7y ago
    And they’re owed pensions or other tax expenditures like healthcare.
    • mtsr 7y ago
      Cynical but probably true.
  • Cthulhu_ 7y ago
    Sounds like some dystopian eugenics shit to be honest, get rid of those who no longer contribute to society. I for one am working towards my old age, I'd hate to be left to just die.
    • the8472 7y ago
      The outcome may sound dystopian. But once you put monetary value on a life - I think insurances do around a few million per person - then the economic damage will be worth several lives anyway no matter which scenario you choose. And that kind of calculation does make sense because at some point economic damage starts to translate directly to deaths, at the latest when your food and medical supply collapses, probably sooner than that. So you end up trading some deaths for other deaths. Of course I'm not saying that anyone has done those tradeoffs optimally, especially considering that those relations probably are non-linear in practice.
      • JediWing 7y ago
        But we are nowhere near that point. Issue some Fiat money to businesses most heavily impacted. Reduce the spread of the virus. Save lives. Worry about the money later.
    • AllegedAlec 7y ago
      > eugenics That word doesn't work when describing people who are no longer part of the reproducing population.
      • bujak 7y ago
        they call it deadwood trimming in corporatespeak
    • Nasrudith 7y ago
      It is worse than that - a dystopia is a result of humanity's folly. It being favored is a sad inherent result of "evolutionary" systems where it isn't what is more than what is morally right or wrong much less optimal. It rests upon one dumb tautology: All other things equal things which perpetuate spread more than things that do not. The process while producing quite a bit of emergent complexity is fundamentally dumb. Self perpetuation is fundamentally based only on the implications of the strategy. If keeping elders alive past nominal utility helps spread well then it is effectively favored. Which may or may not be known ahead of time. That said by being smarter than it we have both the ability and responsibility for the consequences for decisions to follow or defy its nudges as we can and see fit.
  • rcMgD2BwE72F 7y ago
    Even in the red scenario, the number of people who will end up sick for a long time and require a lot of care outnumbers the death toll. Caring well is always better than not caring. Unless we won't care in the green scenario either. But then, who think we won't care if we have time and resources?
  • helij 7y ago
    Not aimed at you, but, I am disgusted at even a mention of these kind of 'calculations'. And yes, I am prepared to take a hit in my earnings, paying higher taxes if needed after this if that is what it takes for at least one person more to live.
    • deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    • benmmurphy 7y ago
      Another way of thinking about it is that there are other non-coronavirus interventions you can perform that will convert money into lives. if you spend money performing coronavirus interventions then you retard your ability to perform these other interventions that might be more efficient at converting money into lives.
    • antepodius 7y ago
      Just give some money to an old person, then.
    • 0x8BADF00D 7y ago
      How about 99% of your income? Your assets? How much is a stranger’s life worth to you.
      • JediWing 7y ago
        Slippery slope fallacy. We are nowhere near that point.
        • mardifoufs 7y ago
          What? This has nothing to do with the slippery slope fallacy. . It's not because we're aren't there yet that saying that it could happen is a fallacy. With that logic any type of planning or forecast about the virus is just a slippery slope since we aren't there. And If you agree that forecasts about the virus are okay, I dont see why forecasts about the economy depending on what policy is enforced (full isolation that would ruin the economy or allow people to get infected to keep it going) are worst?
  • b0rsuk 7y ago
    This may explain why sexually-transmitted diseases get so much attention. They're probably the only kind of diseases that hit younger population much harder than senior citizens. THOSE are the diseases that make the rich earn less money. From an ethical point of view, governments owe seniors the money and care, because they had worked for state prosperity. Also, if young people had more foresight, they would realize the way seniors are treated today will be more less the way they themselves will be treated. But old age and death is a depressing topic and no one likes to dwell on it.
    • michaelt 7y ago
      > This may explain why sexually-transmitted diseases get so much attention. At least in my country, we spend radically more per-capita on healthcare for the old than we do for the young [1] simply because the old need more of it. For men age 5-45 we spend less than £1000, for men age 80-85 we spend more than £4500. It's a similar story for women, but with a bump for women of childbearing age. I don't see any evidence of a bias in favour of the working-age population. [1] http://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/135407/ http://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/135407/
      • b0rsuk 7y ago
        As with many things, there are two ways of looking at this. One is that old people need it the most. Another is that helping younger people is more cost-effective because they have more life ahead of them and if you cure them they're unlikely to get another disease soon. The latter is more heartless, but you can't deny there's some merit to it.
    • Shmebulock 7y ago
      "This may explain why sexually-transmitted diseases get so much attention. They're probably the only kind of diseases that hit younger population much harder than senior citizens. THOSE are the diseases that make the rich earn less money." This seems implausible to me. Given that the rich tend to be of rather old age themselves, I'd wager that they'd invest in preventing their own deaths
  • dx034 7y ago
    Of course it's true, but do we want to live in a society where we prioritize economic output over the life of people? Many do not and governments were elected by those.
• dexen 7y ago
  >The economic cost of the first scenario (numerous deaths in peak period) would likely be the highest with the impact This is self-evident, both due to first-order and second-order effects. How the author manages to stand it on its head is amazing. It's worth noting that approaching, or exceeding, the capacity of the medical system (or any other) drives the costs sky high by and of itself - not to mention other, unrelated cases that also need treatment. With a few weeks worth of disruption to healthcare, even mild cases of other illnesses can spiral out of control and become costly (or even deadly) on their own. I wouldn't read too much into a country having a muted or slow response to the pandemic; it's the expected outcome of political and economical systems differing across the globe. There is always a slow country to act, and its citizens might feel entitled to the kind of far-fetched speculation the author posted.
  • davedx 7y ago
    > There is always the slowest country to act, and its citizens would feel entitled to the kind of far-fetched speculation the author posted. Sounds about right. Belgium and the Netherlands aren't doing very much yet. One interesting fact I discovered when discussing with my wife last night that I think does shape the discussion here: In the Netherlands, seasonal influenza has ~1% mortality rate -- in the U.S. it's more like 0.1%. This leads to different framings of the comparative severity of Coronavirus in the Netherlands.
    • dexen 7y ago
      >In the Netherlands, seasonal influenza has ~1% mortality rate -- in the U.S. it's more like 0.1%. (I'm not a healthcare professional nor actuarian; the following is freehand speculation) There are two key factors. Firstly, USA is much less densely populated, with various additional compounding aspects: social stratification, with many segments of society living mostly in their own areas, and lesser dependence on mass transport. Modern technology and abundance of land allows maintaining a degree of isolation when needed. Secondly, the healthcare system in USA vs Netherlands is tale of semi-private vs nationalized system. The former has more incentives to be proactive and minimize costs, vs the later having incentives to make a good showing, with payments being assured anyway.
• lazyier 7y ago
  No it's not. It's just one guy making up random shit on a blog and is pretending that governments think like him. The reality is probably closer to the fact that there isn't anything governments can do about it. They can try to shut down the borders of the country, but that is going to a lot worse and probably won't stop it anyways. Just because governments can do something and do do something doesn't mean that that something is meaningful or will have a positive impact. Many things are just outside of their control.
  • rcMgD2BwE72F 7y ago
    Denmark did close every school and most administrations. France did not. Many decisions can be taken, but are not (for various reasons). Most experts recommend to limit contacts rather than closing down borders, and no one is pretending to stop the virus but they all should try to flatten the curve. You don't seem to pay attention to the current situation.
    • duckMuppet 7y ago
      The fact that they refuse to do things like closing borders and immediately ceasing all travel by foreigners or citizens who've traveled traveled abroad meanwhile ending arbitrary social events is the reason you know it's hype up media nonsense. Most of the actions taken are those most likely not affecting those in the target older or immuno-compromised demographic likely to have the serious consequences. https://omny.fm/shows/inside-the-huddle/03-dr-laura-power-on-covid-19-031120 https://omny.fm/shows/inside-the-huddle/03-dr-laura-power-on...
      • JediWing 7y ago
        Is that why now two countries have had mass quarantines? It's a balancing act between lowering infections/death and economic impact.
      • maest 7y ago
        Shutting down borders helps if the virus hasn't reached your country. If it has, there's no point in banning incoming people (maybe you can stop people from leaving so other regions don't get infected, but that's a less strong incentive). If you already have the virus in your country, the best thing you can do is slow its spreading, by banning large groups of people from congregating.
• paulmd 7y ago
  > The economic cost of the first scenario (numerous deaths in peak period) would likely be the highest with the impact both on workforce and market sentiment The deaths from Coronavirus are mostly not people of working age. The death rate for 50-59 is around 1%, below that it drops to 0.2%. For seniors it's as high as 20%. If you want to be cold-blooded about it, there is certainly a case to be made for shrugging and plowing on, as that will minimize the duration of the impact (quarantines, etc) and the people who will die are mostly not economically productive. To be even more crass - before long we will probably be in a triage situation where there are more cases than resources available to treat. There are only about 20 full-service respirators per 100k people, around 62k nationwide, and many of those are already in use (people will still get in car accidents, have strokes, get meningitis, whatever). We can't treat everybody. So who gets it? Little Timmy who has a long and productive life ahead of him, or great-aunt Susan who's 75 and barely gets around anymore? https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21149215 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21149215 At a first approximation there will be around 100 times as many seniors who need treatment as youngs. From a social perspective it's pretty obvious that treatment should be prioritized for those younger patients. (reminder that not making a choice is still making a choice, whether that means treatment ends up being first-come first-serve or a financial/insurance basis. Triage sucks, but you have to prioritize your resources somehow or other, the whole problem is there is not enough treatment to go around.)
• LorenPechtel 7y ago
  Most of the deaths will be of retirees, not workers. The fast as possible scenario is preferable from a purely economic standpoint.