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What other result could come from the global economy basically crawling to a halt for - best case scenario - a month or two? Not to be glib but I think most pe
by nkozyra 7y ago
What other result could come from the global economy basically crawling to a halt for - best case scenario - a month or two?
Not to be glib but I think most people understand this.
- umvi 7y agoSometimes I wonder if the harm reduced by "flattening the curve" is greater than the harm introduced by flattening the global economy...
- nkozyra 7y agoI get the sentiment, but consider: the economy will recover. Some people exposed to corona virus will not.
- cortesoft 7y agoWe have ways as a society to make sure an economic downturn doesn't kill anyone. We can't say the same thing about an unchecked pandemic.
- blaser-waffle 7y agoNot in the US, but yeah -- societies have safety nets for economic downturns. This also assumes the rest of the world is mostly functioning. A global pandemic that breaks everything everywhere is a different story. If your house burns down but your neighbors are fine, it's easy to get them to help to pitch in rebuild a little. If everyone's houses are torched then you're on your own...
- asveikau 7y agoIs that to say it's better to be dead than unemployed? Not meaning to be glib nor overly dramatic. But I thought the whole point is that flattening the curve eases load on hospitals meaning they turn away fewer people, and thus more of them survive. So the question you are asking is: how much is preventable loss of life worth?
- zulgan 7y agodeath will follow either way, like 2008 https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/05/25/financial-crisis-caused-500000-extra-cancer-death-according-to-l/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/05/25/financial-crisis... https://www.bmj.com/content/347/bmj.f5239 https://www.bmj.com/content/347/bmj.f5239 https://www.forbes.com/sites/melaniehaiken/2014/06/12/more-than-10000-suicides-tied-to-economic-crisis-study-says/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/melaniehaiken/2014/06/12/more-t... damned if we do, damned if we don't
- hervature 7y agoThere have been studies showing that unemployment directly increases mortality here is just one [0]. [0] - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1448606/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1448606/
- asveikau 7y agoThat's interesting, sad, and makes intuitive sense. But I'm not sure we can take it back and say "we need to allow more people to die from coronavirus so that fewer die from unemployment". Ideally we would want to minimize both.
- nitrogen 7y agoOne day when we have the benefit of hindsight someone will do an analysis on the quality-adjusted life years gained and lost by the different responses to this.
- ummonk 7y agoThe alternative is letting it widely infect the population leading to 5%+ of symptomatic cases dying (which could be as much as 2% of the overall population) and people being unable to get critical medical attention for any ailments while this is happening. You don't think the economy would shut down in the scenario, if only from upper-middle-class and up individuals quitting their jobs and bunkering down to save their own skins?
- grey-area 7y agoFlattening the curve is not an alternative to letting it widely infect the population, it is just managing the rate of infection slightly. The same number end up infected.
- ummonk 7y agoThat is correct, which is why flattening the curve (as the UK intends to do) is not the optimal response - the optimal response is to contain the virus and prevent it from spreading to most of the population, as South Korea, China, Taiwan, and Singapore have all done. And as Italy is belatedly in the process of accomplishing.
- grey-area 7y agoItaly is way too late for that. Also I think you’re a little early declaring victory for China etc.
- mytailorisrich 7y agoThe UK is giving contradictory signals. Trying to get herd immunity by winter is not flattening the curve to a level remotely manageable.
- CraigJPerry 7y agoThat’s exactly the controversy in the UK government’s off-piste response to this scenario. If it pays off, Britain will win handsomely out of this. That’s one hell of a massive “if”.
- youareostriches 7y agoIn the case of the former, it's the virus that kills people. If deaths occurred by way of the latter, it would be only because the wealthy ruling class refused to pay their fair share (via the subversion of our democracy) to support basic necessities of food, shelter, and health care.
- yongjik 7y agoItaly has 24,747 reported cases and 60 million people. That's 0.04% of Italy's population. If we conservatively(?) assume that there are x10 actual patients, then it's still 0.4%. If, without intervention, 40% of all people may contact coronavirus, then each country is going to be hit x100 worse than where Italy stands now. I doubt there would be a "global economy" to speak of after that. Flattening the curve is our only hope.