3 ms·

The millions of deaths comes from most models, which is why governments the world over are willing to endure economic devastation. Also, we are talking about t

The millions of deaths comes from most models, which is why governments the world over are willing to endure economic devastation. Also, we are talking about the US specifically, so bringing in the worldwide death toll from 5th order effects (why not 20th?) seems disingenuous. Finally, the UK changed their strategy away from sequestering the 70+ population because Imperial College told them that would only halve their death toll, and it would still remain solidly in the millions (for a country of 66 million).

scottLobster 7y ago
Clearly we've been looking at different sets of models with different assumptions. I haven't done an objective survey, but I'd dispute "most" predict millions of causalities. But if we're just talking about the US: The range from the CDC models last I checked is anywhere from 163,000 - 1.7 million for a country of ~330 million. By comparison the opioid epidemic alone has already killed somewhere between 100,000 - 200,000+ over the last 5 years. And that was largely the result of a kinder, gentler, less dramatic economic shock known as the 2008 recession and decades of preceding industrial decline. We've already compressed shocks that took months in 2008 to weeks, not the least of which is the record unemployment filings in the posted article. Hence the largest stimulus package in world history being passed in days. "The economy" is not some vague abstract number on the evening news, and economic shocks do kill people, it's just less tangible than a virus. If this continues for more than a month or two I expect people returning to work out of desperation and then receiving death threats for doing so, and things will get uglier from there if the lockdowns continue.