5 ms·

You can't argue with the fact that hospitals can't take the pressure even at negligible death rate. Hospitals fucked = lots of other people are screwed as they

You can't argue with the fact that hospitals can't take the pressure even at negligible death rate. Hospitals fucked = lots of other people are screwed as they depend on unrelated treatments. Heath system going out has huge cascading problems for society.

logicchains 7y ago
>Heath system going out has huge cascading problems for society. Worse than the huge cascading problems caused by making a double digit percentage of the population unemployed indefinitely?
- ethbro 7y ago
  Well, there are a bit north of 1.2M Americans who die of heart disease or cancer every year. That's deaths. With a functioning, advanced health care system. Those numbers don't get better without that.
  - logicchains 7y ago
    In America at least, the functioning, advanced health care system is a barely accessible to people who are unemployed, and the government doesn't look like it's going to do anything to change that soon.
    - ethbro 7y ago
      https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_Medical_Treatment_and_Active_Labor_Act https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_Medical_Treatment_...
      - logicchains 7y ago
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_debt#United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_debt#United_States "Studies have found people are most likely to accumulate large medical debts when they do not have health insurance to cover the costs of necessary medications, treatments, or procedures" In most cases, no job = no health insurance
        ethbro 7y ago
        You mentioned accessibility, which is guaranteed. If you want to talk about insurance and affordability: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patient_Protection_and_Affordable_Care_Act https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patient_Protection_and_Affor... That's what the entire marketplace concept was about. Admittedly, there are issues, but it's an improvement and something we can go farther with.
- monkeynotes 7y ago
  You think there would not be widespread panic if we just let the health system melt down? What do you think a world without a health system would look like? Unemployment is going to be very hard to deal with, but it really feels like the best option out of the very difficult choices we have in front of us. Fact is, shit is seriously bad whichever way you look at it.
  - logicchains 7y ago
    If we look at the Spanish flu, which was worse than this, there wasn't much panic and the economy recovered fairly quickly. Here's a random article I found online arguing that we'd get better results (both for public health and the economy) by testing more and isolating the at-risk populations than by quaranting everyone: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/20/opinion/coronavirus-pandemic-social-distancing.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/20/opinion/coronavirus-pande...
    - watwut 7y ago
      Spanish flu was right after WWI. That affected economy and its recovery quite a lot.
      - greedo 7y ago
        Also, disease and death from disease was more a cultural norm at the time. From scarlet fever, diptheria, rubella, smallpox, dysentary, cholera, mumps, measles, chickenpox, on and on. Disease hadn't been conquered to the extent that the 21st Century world assumes. We've lived for almost eighty years with penicillin etc. This shapes how we will handle the pandemic.
  - yotamoron 7y ago
    A prolonged lockdown will cause - as a certainty - such a huge economical crisis, that all those people at risk we are trying to save today - will die tomorrow from non-existant care (along with many many others who will die and suffer). The sad truth is that a lockdown and huge economic crisis that will definitely follow can't really save them (other options might help - but not this one).
- Consultant32452 7y ago
  Merkel publicly estimated 40-70% of the population of Germany would catch Corona this year. Let's assume that holds true for the US. The most reliable public numbers so far suggest 1-3% death rate. Let's assume that holds true in the US also. US population is 330 million. The lower bound of the estimates above (40% catch, 1% of those die) is 1.32 million people die. The upper bound (70% catch, 3% of those die) is 6.9 million people die. Just to put the above numbers into perspective. A fairly normal number of deaths in the US without Corona is 2.6 Million from all causes. We're looking at potentially more than tripling the number of people who die this year. I don't care to get into the debate any deeper than that, just want to make sure we all understand the stakes. edit: corrected doubling to tripling
  - tmountain 7y ago
    With your upper bound estimate it would be a 360% increase if you included the 2.6M from all causes.

logicchains 7y ago

>Heath system going out has huge cascading problems for society. Worse than the huge cascading problems caused by making a double digit percentage of the population unemployed indefinitely?

ethbro 7y ago
Well, there are a bit north of 1.2M Americans who die of heart disease or cancer every year. That's deaths. With a functioning, advanced health care system. Those numbers don't get better without that.
- logicchains 7y ago
  In America at least, the functioning, advanced health care system is a barely accessible to people who are unemployed, and the government doesn't look like it's going to do anything to change that soon.
  - ethbro 7y ago
    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_Medical_Treatment_and_Active_Labor_Act https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_Medical_Treatment_...
    - logicchains 7y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_debt#United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_debt#United_States "Studies have found people are most likely to accumulate large medical debts when they do not have health insurance to cover the costs of necessary medications, treatments, or procedures" In most cases, no job = no health insurance
      - ethbro 7y ago
        You mentioned accessibility, which is guaranteed. If you want to talk about insurance and affordability: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patient_Protection_and_Affordable_Care_Act https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patient_Protection_and_Affor... That's what the entire marketplace concept was about. Admittedly, there are issues, but it's an improvement and something we can go farther with.
monkeynotes 7y ago
You think there would not be widespread panic if we just let the health system melt down? What do you think a world without a health system would look like? Unemployment is going to be very hard to deal with, but it really feels like the best option out of the very difficult choices we have in front of us. Fact is, shit is seriously bad whichever way you look at it.
- logicchains 7y ago
  If we look at the Spanish flu, which was worse than this, there wasn't much panic and the economy recovered fairly quickly. Here's a random article I found online arguing that we'd get better results (both for public health and the economy) by testing more and isolating the at-risk populations than by quaranting everyone: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/20/opinion/coronavirus-pandemic-social-distancing.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/20/opinion/coronavirus-pande...
  - watwut 7y ago
    Spanish flu was right after WWI. That affected economy and its recovery quite a lot.
    - greedo 7y ago
      Also, disease and death from disease was more a cultural norm at the time. From scarlet fever, diptheria, rubella, smallpox, dysentary, cholera, mumps, measles, chickenpox, on and on. Disease hadn't been conquered to the extent that the 21st Century world assumes. We've lived for almost eighty years with penicillin etc. This shapes how we will handle the pandemic.
- yotamoron 7y ago
  A prolonged lockdown will cause - as a certainty - such a huge economical crisis, that all those people at risk we are trying to save today - will die tomorrow from non-existant care (along with many many others who will die and suffer). The sad truth is that a lockdown and huge economic crisis that will definitely follow can't really save them (other options might help - but not this one).
Consultant32452 7y ago
Merkel publicly estimated 40-70% of the population of Germany would catch Corona this year. Let's assume that holds true for the US. The most reliable public numbers so far suggest 1-3% death rate. Let's assume that holds true in the US also. US population is 330 million. The lower bound of the estimates above (40% catch, 1% of those die) is 1.32 million people die. The upper bound (70% catch, 3% of those die) is 6.9 million people die. Just to put the above numbers into perspective. A fairly normal number of deaths in the US without Corona is 2.6 Million from all causes. We're looking at potentially more than tripling the number of people who die this year. I don't care to get into the debate any deeper than that, just want to make sure we all understand the stakes. edit: corrected doubling to tripling
- tmountain 7y ago
  With your upper bound estimate it would be a 360% increase if you included the 2.6M from all causes.