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Well, if the bulk of the population is left inconvenienced and unemployed for too long, I can imagine some ugly scenarios where the population demands, broadly
by joe_the_user 7y ago
Well, if the bulk of the population is left inconvenienced and unemployed for too long, I can imagine some ugly scenarios where the population demands, broadly speaking, that those demographics simply be triaged out of treatment so that they don't overwhelm the healthcare system for everyone else.
People imagining such triaging seem to think that a willingness to be appalling brutal means such brutality could be achieved with limited costs.
Italy's situation is far from the worst-case scenario. It's death rate is not that much higher than a seasonal flu, it's just the death-process that is far more messy.
Which is to say, let the infection rate get high enough and you'll have hospitals crowded with the young and healthy even if carry the old directly to the morgue.
Moreover, authorities shouting "all clear" in the midst of this dreck isn't going just summon a phalanx of consumers ready to go to restaurants, death chance or not.
In short, just because you're evil doesn't mean you aren't stupid too.
- greedo 7y agoThe death rate is in no ways comparable to the seasonal flu. It's quite higher: https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus#case-fatality-rate-of-covid-19-compared-to-other-diseases https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus#case-fatality-rate-of...
- joe_the_user 7y agoIndeed, If you read my parent post in context, I hope it's clear that I mean currently in Italy, people are not dying at a rate higher than the seasonal flu BUT this has a big potential change if the infection rate were to shoot up (we know this is prevented by extreme quarantine measures, enforced by the army).
- greedo 7y agoYour point still isn't clear or accurate. The worldwide CFR is over 4%. In Italy, it's currently at over 11%. The flu is nowhere near that level of risk. It's normally around 0.1% depending on demographic. Are you saying that the seasonal flu in Italy normally kills 11% of those who become infected? If that's the case, the facts don't bear that out.
- zwily 7y agoBut the CFR is mostly just a function of how many people get tested, no? And Italy seems to only be testing at hospitalization.
- greedo 7y agoAnd how does Italy test the flu? In the US, there's minimal flu testing and most of the metrics are based around surveys.
- SkyPuncher 7y agoI'm not disagreeing with you. However, at this point, some of the flu estimates are actually inferred/modeled by the CDC. The flu is a well-enough study disease that they're able to, relatively accurately, model population statistics based on a sub-set of tested patients.