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> The current worst case scenarios on the table are between 1% and 5% of the individuals catching the disease dying (there are better numbers, but we're worst c

> The current worst case scenarios on the table are between 1% and 5% of the individuals catching the disease dying (there are better numbers, but we're worst casing it). For achieving herd immunity, numbers like 40-70% of the population infected and recovered are bandied about. Yes, those numbers apply if it spreads indiscriminately throughout your entire population. But we know the virus is here, we know who is in the risk group, which means that if you isolate and self-quarantine people in the risk group, and let the virus slowly roll through the rest of the population, you will get a much lower death rate. There's a ton of variables that determine the death rate, and yet everyone is just staring themselves blind at the first best numbers we have. No. Come on. It depends on the quality of the care available, it depends on the knowledge of doctors who have experience with it, but most importantly it depends on the demographics of the people who get infected. > shutting down the entire US economy for a year makes sense Except "the economy" is made up of millions of individuals. Some will still have an ok quality of life, but many people won't. They'll be fired, or their companies will have gone bankrupt, they'll have no money, no food.. Then what? Do you think hungry people won't food riot just because there's a quarantine? Or go stir crazy? Or ignore it? Or spread propaganda that the entire thing is a hoax so that the New World Order can take over?

saalweachter 7y ago
> Some will still have an ok quality of life, but many people won't. They'll be fired, or their companies will have gone bankrupt, they'll have no money, no food.. Then what? The point isn't to actually shut down the entire economy. The point is that when you are talking loss numbers in the trillions, interventions that cost hundreds of billions or even "smaller numbers of trillions" to avert the big losses make economic sense; helicopter dropping a trillion dollars to allow people besides tech workers to self-isolate and socially distance themselves for a few months could be cheap, in the long run.
- henrikschroder 7y ago
  > The point is that when you are talking loss numbers in the trillions The main part of my argument above is that you pulled that number out of your ass, you didn't address any of my points against why that number is baseless, yet you continue using the number. Your number is a worst-case "cost" of doing absolutely nothing and just letting people die, and then you say that your suggested strategy of dumping cash on the population is much cheaper. While true in itself, the error is that you're equating the UK strategy with the worst-case doing-nothing strategy, and that therefore your strategy is better. The case for the UK strategy is that by letting the virus spread uncontrolled through the not at risk population, health care systems won't ever be overwhelmed, death rates will be much, much lower than current measured ones, and you'll emerge on the other side with a herd immune population, without doing too much damage to your economy, and the at-risk population won't ever get infected in the first place. And by doing that, the total death toll will be lower, than having the virus slowly go through the entire population, at-risk or not.
  - dTal 7y ago
    >letting the virus spread uncontrolled through the not at risk population Sounds excellent. Did we remember to tell the virus?
    - saalweachter 7y ago
      Or at the very least, to divide the UK into two non-interacting populations of at-risk and not-at-risk individuals?

saalweachter 7y ago

> Some will still have an ok quality of life, but many people won't. They'll be fired, or their companies will have gone bankrupt, they'll have no money, no food.. Then what? The point isn't to actually shut down the entire economy. The point is that when you are talking loss numbers in the trillions, interventions that cost hundreds of billions or even "smaller numbers of trillions" to avert the big losses make economic sense; helicopter dropping a trillion dollars to allow people besides tech workers to self-isolate and socially distance themselves for a few months could be cheap, in the long run.

henrikschroder 7y ago
> The point is that when you are talking loss numbers in the trillions The main part of my argument above is that you pulled that number out of your ass, you didn't address any of my points against why that number is baseless, yet you continue using the number. Your number is a worst-case "cost" of doing absolutely nothing and just letting people die, and then you say that your suggested strategy of dumping cash on the population is much cheaper. While true in itself, the error is that you're equating the UK strategy with the worst-case doing-nothing strategy, and that therefore your strategy is better. The case for the UK strategy is that by letting the virus spread uncontrolled through the not at risk population, health care systems won't ever be overwhelmed, death rates will be much, much lower than current measured ones, and you'll emerge on the other side with a herd immune population, without doing too much damage to your economy, and the at-risk population won't ever get infected in the first place. And by doing that, the total death toll will be lower, than having the virus slowly go through the entire population, at-risk or not.
- dTal 7y ago
  >letting the virus spread uncontrolled through the not at risk population Sounds excellent. Did we remember to tell the virus?
  - saalweachter 7y ago
    Or at the very least, to divide the UK into two non-interacting populations of at-risk and not-at-risk individuals?