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That remains to be seen. The consequences of current actions, while the current impact of the virus itself is basically nil, will be severe, including extra dea
by sershe 7y ago
That remains to be seen. The consequences of current actions, while the current impact of the virus itself is basically nil, will be severe, including extra deaths (and lack of births, for that matter - didn't occur to me to count that but looking at demographic articles I realized it's also lives lost in the net), and massive waste of life-years due to economic disruption that will disproportionately affect the developing world, the poor and the young. Which one is worse, I don't know, but over the last few days my opinion is starting to change towards the latter being worse.
- lm28469 7y ago> while the current impact of the virus itself is basically nil You should read about Italy, and how they're running out of hospital beds. Which means usually non life threatening issues are getting much more serious. It's not a boolean choice between "saving lives" and "saving the economy"... If you don't do anything: people get sick, sick people can't work, the economy tanks, hundred thousand people die. If you do something, less people get sick, the economy tanks anyway, but less people die. As it turns out it seems like most government prefer prioritizing human life over money.
- sershe 7y agoMost of the cases of the infection are mild. Nothing has happened yet (yes, nothing - the number of deaths currently happening in Italy is still, statistically, a blip), and yet already more people are not working for weeks than what would if everyone got sick at the same time, given the working-age mortality and complications rate. And we haven't even started yet. It hasn't seemed binary to me before about this weekend, but it's increasingly starting to seem binary as the over-reaction escalates.