8 ms·

My Daughter was working as a temp between jobs and the work has now been stopped, she had two second interviews planned in Sydney this week now both positions h

by boznz 7y ago

My Daughter was working as a temp between jobs and the work has now been stopped, she had two second interviews planned in Sydney this week now both positions have been retracted and nobody hiring or interviewing, she has about 7 weeks of cash savings and 4 months lease on a rental. Oh and no unemployment benefit or subsidies as she is New Zealander working in Australia. Young People at the lowest risk from this virus are going to be much worse off than just catching a fucking bad cold. The UK's answer to the problem is starting to look a lot more sensible than total economic chaos being caused by all other methods. Happy to be downvoted to nothing because I am so over this.

ncallaway 7y ago
> The UK's answer to the problem is starting to look a lot more sensible than total economic chaos being caused by all other methods. The UK's answer to the problem may result in manyfold more dead than this approach. We won't be able to know until after the fact. In that state of unknown, I prefer the approach that values lives over dollars.
- zzleeper 7y ago
  Has anyone thought about what will happen once other countries start getting better? They might as well quarantine the UK as a redzone area.
- Polylactic_acid 7y ago
  Lives and dollars are not totally different things. How many lives will be ruined by total financial destruction? How many will commit suicide in the months and years after due to financial issues?
  - sb8244 7y ago
    Lives and money are not the same thing. Hard stop. I understand your point, but I just disagree with the expected outcomes here. Realistically how much would it cost to bail out these businesses and provide a safety net to people? I imagine the numbers are less than we'd first think. It's a choice. It's not inevitable.
    - icelancer 7y ago
      Death rate is highly correlated with unemployment. They are not NOT the same thing. https://news.yale.edu/2002/05/23/rising-unemployment-causes-higher-death-rates-new-study-yale-researcher-shows https://news.yale.edu/2002/05/23/rising-unemployment-causes-...
      - ekianjo 7y ago
        Why do you expect long term unemployment here? Unless the virus crisis lasts for a year, in a few months things will be back to normal hopefully and you can expect the economic activity to take off again.
        icelancer 7y ago
        ... If small businesses are not economically relieved, there will be significant - and permanent - damage to those sectors.
      - sb8244 7y ago
        This is either a straw man argument, or I disagree that there should be long term unemployment here. Govt programs and laws will probably be needed to provide that safety net. I'm not saying that death rate and unemployment are unrelated (equating lives and money together). I am saying that we should prioritize lives first, and figure out the money once we stop the damage.
        icelancer 7y ago
        >> I am saying that we should prioritize lives first, and figure out the money once we stop the damage. False dichotomy. There are plenty of economists and accountants and others who can work on the economic relief package and do so in a meaningful way while scientists and medical teams (plus politicians) handle the lifesaving operations. There is no reason they cannot run in parallel.
        sb8244 7y ago
  - ncallaway 7y ago
    > How many will commit suicide in the months and years after due to financial issues? Hopefully 0 if we provide a robust social safety net for people who's livelihoods are harmed.
    - Polylactic_acid 7y ago
      I predict a 1% chance of that happening in the US. The 1% is due to the possibility that so many people are affected that they overthrow the government.
  - nullc 7y ago
    Even if we accept your premise, how many dollars in economic activity will be destroyed by the deaths of enormous numbers of working age people because the hospitals were overloaded and they couldn't get the critical care they needed?
    - Polylactic_acid 7y ago
      I know this is horrible, but likely not too many. In Italy they are currently kicking people over 60 out of the hospitals to make way for the younger people who are more likely to survive with medical treatment.
      - ddingus 7y ago
        And they have roughly 5 times the beds per 1000 people too.
        tathougies 7y ago
        No they don't. Italy has much fewer critical care beds (the kind needed for COVID) than the United States, which is #1 in the world.
        ncallaway 7y ago
        > No they don't. Italy has much fewer critical care beds (the kind needed for COVID) than the United States, which is #1 in the world. Do you have a link to statistics that support that? Is that on an absolute basis or on a per-capita basis? On a per-capita basis, I see more hospital beds in Italy than in the US (3.18 to 2.77): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_OECD_countries_by_hospital_beds https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_OECD_countries_by_hosp... What's your source for data on critical care beds? I'd love to take a look
        tathougies 7y ago
        Oh sorry. Meant to post the article, from Forbes. US and germany are way ahead of the world. https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2020/03/12/the-countries-with-the-most-critical-care-beds-per-capita-infographic/#166e96df7f86 https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2020/03/12/the-co... Hospital beds are a different story, but not what is important for COVID, which needs ICU beds. Hospital beds are much easier to deploy anywhere (and with the emergency measures taken federally, will see a huge increase due to waived FDA requirements for inspection). An ICU is much more involved, and requires ventilators, specialty beds, special equipment, etc. Much more difficult to deploy suddenly in response to sudden upticks.
  - sitkack 7y ago
    We will not value the lives of people with money over those that do not. Financial loss is _not_ the loss of life. Our lives are literally the only thing we have in this universe.
    - Polylactic_acid 7y ago
      That's no what my comment said. The people who will be hit the hardest are those with little money and little employment protections. People working casual in these restaurants will be left with no job and no support.
  - sdkaufman 7y ago
    Governments at all levels, companies and non-profits can (and I don't doubt will) help mitigate the financial hit in the months and years ahead. The California state government has for example promised to keep paying teachers and school staff. [1] Many tech companies for example are continuing to pay maintenance staff despite office closures. [2] NBA players have donated to arena staff affected by cancellations. [3] But there is nothing anyone can do to bring back our loved ones. [1] https://edsource.org/2020/newsom-assures-districts-theyll-be-funded-during-coronavirus-closures/625750 https://edsource.org/2020/newsom-assures-districts-theyll-be... [2] https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/06/coronavirus-google-facebook-twitter-contractors-to-get-regular-pay.html https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/06/coronavirus-google-facebook-... [3] https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/13/us/nba-player-donations-coronavirus-trnd/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/13/us/nba-player-donations-coron...
  - throwaway936482 7y ago
    If there is total financial destruction at the level of people losing their homes, not being able to eat, having their utilities cut off etc. it will be entirely due to policy choices that prioritise maintaining the current economic system and protecting the interests of the wealthy for the duration of the crisis over ensuring that everyone can survive with a basic, indeed decent, standard of life. By this I mean having their basic needs of nutrition, shelter, heat etc. met. For many (and I'm writing from the UK) this would actually be an improvement over the current situation. Globally we are the richest society in history by a profoundly long way, we have enough resources to get through this crisis. There is no reason that anyone should lose their home, or starve, or be left without power. But we have to acknowledge that, just as in situations such as WWII, normal economic life and the interests of capital / shareholders / the wealthy have to take a back seat to ensuring that, as far as possible, everyone can maintain a decent standard of life.
Fiveplus 7y ago
What is UK's answer to this problem?
- dboreham 7y ago
  Not imposing as much social distancing.
- brightsize 7y ago
  "Herd immunity" or something along those lines, apparently. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22577132 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22577132
  - Fiveplus 7y ago
    Wow that twitter thread linked was a wild ride. They really are doing a huge experiment in the middle of a world-wide pandemic. I'll be really interested to see how it all works out.
    - spion 7y ago
      There is a huge backlash and they seem to be backing off of that idea. We'll see.
      - easytiger 7y ago
        Because the description in this thread is a mischaracterisation of what the approach has been
wetpaws 7y ago
>The UK's answer to the problem is starting to look a lot more sensible than total economic chaos being caused by all other methods. Closed shops can be reopened, dead people can't be brought back. EDIT: it really scares me to see there a real actual living human beings on HN here who would in all seriousness downvote this.
dmix 7y ago
What is the "UK's answer" that's different than every other country with similar rates has done? Authorities have already denied the whole "herd immunity" meme is any sort of active policy in the UK. https://politicshome.com/news/uk/health-and-care/illnesstreatments/news/110595/matt-hancock-insists-herd-immunity-not-part https://politicshome.com/news/uk/health-and-care/illnesstrea...
- mistersquid 7y ago
  Now that there is a growing backlash, the UK authorities are rejecting that they ever were trying to achieve "herd immunity” by allowing 60-80% of the “low-risk” population to be exposed to SARS-CoV-2. However, the article you link to does not differ in its details from what authorities such John Edmunds a professor Mathematical Modelling of Infectious Diseases, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine said 2 days ago [0] and Ian Donald Professor Emeritus from University of Liverpool wrote the same day [1] These authorities are backpedalling in the face of deserved widespread criticism. But rather than changing the course of UK policy, they are only disavowing the phrase “herd immunity”. [0] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=C98FmoZVbjs https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=C98FmoZVbjs [1] https://mobile.twitter.com/iandonald_psych/status/1238518371651649538 https://mobile.twitter.com/iandonald_psych/status/1238518371...
  - dmix 7y ago
    That still doesn’t answer what they are doing differently than everyone else. Seems like a whole lot of politics I’m not invested in. I guess people want far more aggressive policies but the same could be said of the majority of places. Italy and Spain are very much the exception in western countries and they are facing a higher scale. Here in Canada the federal gov has done absolutely nothing besides increased spending and repeating critiques of other countries for being too aggressive, meanwhile our prime minister is in isolation and Quebec just announced major bans of restaurants and bars, while also critiquing the prime minister for doing nothing. The current policy sounds more in line with WHO and the wider health system recommendations. Even the US has faced significant backlash for their border policies from these same countries (our health minister has repeatedly claimed it has no scientific basis to close borders to places like China). It’s hard to tell what people want vs just opportunistically critiquing politicians. I’m more curious from a practical healthcare perspective what they are expecting vs what’s actually being done. Border bans (can they do that w/o parliament)? Shutting down gatherings? Directly influence the health administration to test more? Better airport screening?
ekianjo 7y ago
> The UK's answer to the problem is starting to look a lot more sensible than total economic chaos being caused by all other methods. You mean the answer that consists in maximizing the dead count?
petre 7y ago
The UK's response is irresponsible IMHO. But we'll see.
sdkaufman 7y ago
Case A: No drastic action, your daughter gets her job in Sydney, you catch the virus in a few weeks and die. Case B: Drastic lock down, your daughter lives on your dime for a few months or a year before she gets a job. You live to see your grand kids grow up. And you'd rather risk case A?
sdkaufman 7y ago
> Young People at the lowest risk from this virus are going to be much worse off than just catching a fucking bad cold. It's not a "fucking bad cold" for young people. - Over 50% of ICU patients in Netherlands from COVID-19 are under 50. [1] - Over 50% of ICU patients in France are under 60. [2] - Over 40% of patients requiring hospitalization in China were under 50. [3] Young people are not invincible. The fact that they can use up a significant chunk of already scarce medical resources suggests that we really shouldn't be sending that message and encouraging young people to not give a sh*t about the epidemic. [1] https://www.ad.nl/dossier-coronavirus/40-a-50-nederlandse-coronapatienten-op-intensive-cares-meer-dan-de-helft-is-onder-de-vijftig~a058aad2/ https://www.ad.nl/dossier-coronavirus/40-a-50-nederlandse-co... [2] https://www.motherjones.com/coronavirus-updates/2020/03/300-people-with-coronavirus-are-in-intensive-care-in-france-most-of-them-are-under-60/ https://www.motherjones.com/coronavirus-updates/2020/03/300-... [3] https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2002032 https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2002032
- kqr 7y ago
  Those numbers measure the wrong thing. The proportion of young people in care means nothing without knowing also the proportion of young people infected.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - blueblisters 7y ago
    South Korea had a large proportion of young infected people: https://medium.com/@andreasbackhausab/coronavirus-why-its-so-deadly-in-italy-c4200a15a7bf https://medium.com/@andreasbackhausab/coronavirus-why-its-so...
    - AncientTree 7y ago
      They were part of a cult: https://thediplomat.com/2020/03/coronavirus-and-south-koreas-cults/ https://thediplomat.com/2020/03/coronavirus-and-south-koreas...
TheGallopedHigh 7y ago
Any possibility she could head back to NZ? I guess the lease is stopping this right?
jnwatson 7y ago
From a purely economic perspective, you might be right. However the cost is blood. The mortality rate goes from about 1% to above 3%, since the UK’s hospitals will quickly be overrun. The cost will be at least the delta 1.3 million preventable deaths. This doesn’t include the hundreds of thousands of folks left with pulmonary fibrosis, which has a 3-5 year life expectancy.
dang 7y ago
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22589476 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22589476.

by boznz 7y ago

ncallaway 7y ago

> The UK's answer to the problem is starting to look a lot more sensible than total economic chaos being caused by all other methods. The UK's answer to the problem may result in manyfold more dead than this approach. We won't be able to know until after the fact. In that state of unknown, I prefer the approach that values lives over dollars.

zzleeper 7y ago
Has anyone thought about what will happen once other countries start getting better? They might as well quarantine the UK as a redzone area.
Polylactic_acid 7y ago
Lives and dollars are not totally different things. How many lives will be ruined by total financial destruction? How many will commit suicide in the months and years after due to financial issues?
- sb8244 7y ago
  Lives and money are not the same thing. Hard stop. I understand your point, but I just disagree with the expected outcomes here. Realistically how much would it cost to bail out these businesses and provide a safety net to people? I imagine the numbers are less than we'd first think. It's a choice. It's not inevitable.
  - icelancer 7y ago
    Death rate is highly correlated with unemployment. They are not NOT the same thing. https://news.yale.edu/2002/05/23/rising-unemployment-causes-higher-death-rates-new-study-yale-researcher-shows https://news.yale.edu/2002/05/23/rising-unemployment-causes-...
    - ekianjo 7y ago
      Why do you expect long term unemployment here? Unless the virus crisis lasts for a year, in a few months things will be back to normal hopefully and you can expect the economic activity to take off again.
      - icelancer 7y ago
        ... If small businesses are not economically relieved, there will be significant - and permanent - damage to those sectors.
    - sb8244 7y ago
      This is either a straw man argument, or I disagree that there should be long term unemployment here. Govt programs and laws will probably be needed to provide that safety net. I'm not saying that death rate and unemployment are unrelated (equating lives and money together). I am saying that we should prioritize lives first, and figure out the money once we stop the damage.
      - icelancer 7y ago
        >> I am saying that we should prioritize lives first, and figure out the money once we stop the damage. False dichotomy. There are plenty of economists and accountants and others who can work on the economic relief package and do so in a meaningful way while scientists and medical teams (plus politicians) handle the lifesaving operations. There is no reason they cannot run in parallel.
        sb8244 7y ago
- ncallaway 7y ago
  > How many will commit suicide in the months and years after due to financial issues? Hopefully 0 if we provide a robust social safety net for people who's livelihoods are harmed.
  - Polylactic_acid 7y ago
    I predict a 1% chance of that happening in the US. The 1% is due to the possibility that so many people are affected that they overthrow the government.
- nullc 7y ago
  Even if we accept your premise, how many dollars in economic activity will be destroyed by the deaths of enormous numbers of working age people because the hospitals were overloaded and they couldn't get the critical care they needed?
  - Polylactic_acid 7y ago
    I know this is horrible, but likely not too many. In Italy they are currently kicking people over 60 out of the hospitals to make way for the younger people who are more likely to survive with medical treatment.
    - ddingus 7y ago
      And they have roughly 5 times the beds per 1000 people too.
      - tathougies 7y ago
        No they don't. Italy has much fewer critical care beds (the kind needed for COVID) than the United States, which is #1 in the world.
        ncallaway 7y ago
        > No they don't. Italy has much fewer critical care beds (the kind needed for COVID) than the United States, which is #1 in the world. Do you have a link to statistics that support that? Is that on an absolute basis or on a per-capita basis? On a per-capita basis, I see more hospital beds in Italy than in the US (3.18 to 2.77): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_OECD_countries_by_hospital_beds https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_OECD_countries_by_hosp... What's your source for data on critical care beds? I'd love to take a look
        tathougies 7y ago
        Oh sorry. Meant to post the article, from Forbes. US and germany are way ahead of the world. https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2020/03/12/the-countries-with-the-most-critical-care-beds-per-capita-infographic/#166e96df7f86 https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2020/03/12/the-co... Hospital beds are a different story, but not what is important for COVID, which needs ICU beds. Hospital beds are much easier to deploy anywhere (and with the emergency measures taken federally, will see a huge increase due to waived FDA requirements for inspection). An ICU is much more involved, and requires ventilators, specialty beds, special equipment, etc. Much more difficult to deploy suddenly in response to sudden upticks.
- sitkack 7y ago
  We will not value the lives of people with money over those that do not. Financial loss is _not_ the loss of life. Our lives are literally the only thing we have in this universe.
  - Polylactic_acid 7y ago
    That's no what my comment said. The people who will be hit the hardest are those with little money and little employment protections. People working casual in these restaurants will be left with no job and no support.
- sdkaufman 7y ago
  Governments at all levels, companies and non-profits can (and I don't doubt will) help mitigate the financial hit in the months and years ahead. The California state government has for example promised to keep paying teachers and school staff. [1] Many tech companies for example are continuing to pay maintenance staff despite office closures. [2] NBA players have donated to arena staff affected by cancellations. [3] But there is nothing anyone can do to bring back our loved ones. [1] https://edsource.org/2020/newsom-assures-districts-theyll-be-funded-during-coronavirus-closures/625750 https://edsource.org/2020/newsom-assures-districts-theyll-be... [2] https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/06/coronavirus-google-facebook-twitter-contractors-to-get-regular-pay.html https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/06/coronavirus-google-facebook-... [3] https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/13/us/nba-player-donations-coronavirus-trnd/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/13/us/nba-player-donations-coron...
- throwaway936482 7y ago
  If there is total financial destruction at the level of people losing their homes, not being able to eat, having their utilities cut off etc. it will be entirely due to policy choices that prioritise maintaining the current economic system and protecting the interests of the wealthy for the duration of the crisis over ensuring that everyone can survive with a basic, indeed decent, standard of life. By this I mean having their basic needs of nutrition, shelter, heat etc. met. For many (and I'm writing from the UK) this would actually be an improvement over the current situation. Globally we are the richest society in history by a profoundly long way, we have enough resources to get through this crisis. There is no reason that anyone should lose their home, or starve, or be left without power. But we have to acknowledge that, just as in situations such as WWII, normal economic life and the interests of capital / shareholders / the wealthy have to take a back seat to ensuring that, as far as possible, everyone can maintain a decent standard of life.

Fiveplus 7y ago

What is UK's answer to this problem?

dboreham 7y ago
Not imposing as much social distancing.
brightsize 7y ago
"Herd immunity" or something along those lines, apparently. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22577132 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22577132
- Fiveplus 7y ago
  Wow that twitter thread linked was a wild ride. They really are doing a huge experiment in the middle of a world-wide pandemic. I'll be really interested to see how it all works out.
  - spion 7y ago
    There is a huge backlash and they seem to be backing off of that idea. We'll see.
    - easytiger 7y ago
      Because the description in this thread is a mischaracterisation of what the approach has been

wetpaws 7y ago

>The UK's answer to the problem is starting to look a lot more sensible than total economic chaos being caused by all other methods. Closed shops can be reopened, dead people can't be brought back. EDIT: it really scares me to see there a real actual living human beings on HN here who would in all seriousness downvote this.

dmix 7y ago

What is the "UK's answer" that's different than every other country with similar rates has done? Authorities have already denied the whole "herd immunity" meme is any sort of active policy in the UK. https://politicshome.com/news/uk/health-and-care/illnesstreatments/news/110595/matt-hancock-insists-herd-immunity-not-part https://politicshome.com/news/uk/health-and-care/illnesstrea...

mistersquid 7y ago
Now that there is a growing backlash, the UK authorities are rejecting that they ever were trying to achieve "herd immunity” by allowing 60-80% of the “low-risk” population to be exposed to SARS-CoV-2. However, the article you link to does not differ in its details from what authorities such John Edmunds a professor Mathematical Modelling of Infectious Diseases, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine said 2 days ago [0] and Ian Donald Professor Emeritus from University of Liverpool wrote the same day [1] These authorities are backpedalling in the face of deserved widespread criticism. But rather than changing the course of UK policy, they are only disavowing the phrase “herd immunity”. [0] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=C98FmoZVbjs https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=C98FmoZVbjs [1] https://mobile.twitter.com/iandonald_psych/status/1238518371651649538 https://mobile.twitter.com/iandonald_psych/status/1238518371...
- dmix 7y ago
  That still doesn’t answer what they are doing differently than everyone else. Seems like a whole lot of politics I’m not invested in. I guess people want far more aggressive policies but the same could be said of the majority of places. Italy and Spain are very much the exception in western countries and they are facing a higher scale. Here in Canada the federal gov has done absolutely nothing besides increased spending and repeating critiques of other countries for being too aggressive, meanwhile our prime minister is in isolation and Quebec just announced major bans of restaurants and bars, while also critiquing the prime minister for doing nothing. The current policy sounds more in line with WHO and the wider health system recommendations. Even the US has faced significant backlash for their border policies from these same countries (our health minister has repeatedly claimed it has no scientific basis to close borders to places like China). It’s hard to tell what people want vs just opportunistically critiquing politicians. I’m more curious from a practical healthcare perspective what they are expecting vs what’s actually being done. Border bans (can they do that w/o parliament)? Shutting down gatherings? Directly influence the health administration to test more? Better airport screening?

ekianjo 7y ago

> The UK's answer to the problem is starting to look a lot more sensible than total economic chaos being caused by all other methods. You mean the answer that consists in maximizing the dead count?

petre 7y ago

The UK's response is irresponsible IMHO. But we'll see.

sdkaufman 7y ago

Case A: No drastic action, your daughter gets her job in Sydney, you catch the virus in a few weeks and die. Case B: Drastic lock down, your daughter lives on your dime for a few months or a year before she gets a job. You live to see your grand kids grow up. And you'd rather risk case A?

sdkaufman 7y ago

> Young People at the lowest risk from this virus are going to be much worse off than just catching a fucking bad cold. It's not a "fucking bad cold" for young people. - Over 50% of ICU patients in Netherlands from COVID-19 are under 50. [1] - Over 50% of ICU patients in France are under 60. [2] - Over 40% of patients requiring hospitalization in China were under 50. [3] Young people are not invincible. The fact that they can use up a significant chunk of already scarce medical resources suggests that we really shouldn't be sending that message and encouraging young people to not give a sh*t about the epidemic. [1] https://www.ad.nl/dossier-coronavirus/40-a-50-nederlandse-coronapatienten-op-intensive-cares-meer-dan-de-helft-is-onder-de-vijftig~a058aad2/ https://www.ad.nl/dossier-coronavirus/40-a-50-nederlandse-co... [2] https://www.motherjones.com/coronavirus-updates/2020/03/300-people-with-coronavirus-are-in-intensive-care-in-france-most-of-them-are-under-60/ https://www.motherjones.com/coronavirus-updates/2020/03/300-... [3] https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2002032 https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2002032

kqr 7y ago
Those numbers measure the wrong thing. The proportion of young people in care means nothing without knowing also the proportion of young people infected.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- blueblisters 7y ago
  South Korea had a large proportion of young infected people: https://medium.com/@andreasbackhausab/coronavirus-why-its-so-deadly-in-italy-c4200a15a7bf https://medium.com/@andreasbackhausab/coronavirus-why-its-so...
  - AncientTree 7y ago
    They were part of a cult: https://thediplomat.com/2020/03/coronavirus-and-south-koreas-cults/ https://thediplomat.com/2020/03/coronavirus-and-south-koreas...

TheGallopedHigh 7y ago

Any possibility she could head back to NZ? I guess the lease is stopping this right?

jnwatson 7y ago

From a purely economic perspective, you might be right. However the cost is blood. The mortality rate goes from about 1% to above 3%, since the UK’s hospitals will quickly be overrun. The cost will be at least the delta 1.3 million preventable deaths. This doesn’t include the hundreds of thousands of folks left with pulmonary fibrosis, which has a 3-5 year life expectancy.

dang 7y ago

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22589476 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22589476.