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It seems like you are assuming a much larger asymptomatic rate than what has been published. Because population fatality rate without healthcare would probably

It seems like you are assuming a much larger asymptomatic rate than what has been published. Because population fatality rate without healthcare would probably be in the 3-7% range, and true asymptomatic cases are only around 20% (at least based on Diamond Princess data). There are around 1.2 billion people in Africa, yielding a death toll on that continent around 36M souls at the low end. Four years of childhood poverty-related deaths. Even without any public health intervention, a death toll like this would spark a major recession most folks withdrew from economic activity out of fear. Even if you ignored it at the governmental level, it would quickly be impossible to ignore at the social level. Pretending that we can just push through that many deaths is a fantasy. I doubt your prediction of a doubling of extreme poverty would come to pass. The folks we're talking about are already in many cases living at a subsistence level. They are not depending on an export economy to keep their households fed. But even supposing it does, it would take four years of that to make up for the losses due to unchecked COVID-19, and that's assuming that such a scenario caused no economic setbacks, which is just not plausible. Anyway, none of that is going to happen. No political regime would survive sitting idly by as 2-3% of the population expires. So lockdown and public health intervention will ultimately be the order of the day everywhere. The theory that any other approach would do better will not be tested.

guscost 7y ago
> would Let’s argue about hypotheticals in a few months when we have more perspective. Both of your lines of reasoning are filament-thin and stitched together using way too many assumptions right now.
- asdfasgasdgasdg 7y ago
  I noticed you were claiming that the Sars Cov 2 pandemic was starting to wind down a week ago. But as of today the situation is much more explosive than it was when you made that claim, basically everywhere except Italy, which is on full lockdown. In much of the world there is every indication that the bad is only accelerating. Do you think that maybe it's your predictions and lines of reasoning that are actually miscalibrated?
  - guscost 7y ago
    In the US the deaths are accelerating, but they lag by many weeks or even months in some cases. Lots of new cases are being identified with the increase in testing, but the proportion of positive tests is not changing, which is evidence that the spread is well past the "explosive" point. But each community follows its own mini-epidemic, and there's still tons of uncertainty. We will see how good of a prediction it was eventually.

guscost 7y ago

> would Let’s argue about hypotheticals in a few months when we have more perspective. Both of your lines of reasoning are filament-thin and stitched together using way too many assumptions right now.

asdfasgasdgasdg 7y ago
I noticed you were claiming that the Sars Cov 2 pandemic was starting to wind down a week ago. But as of today the situation is much more explosive than it was when you made that claim, basically everywhere except Italy, which is on full lockdown. In much of the world there is every indication that the bad is only accelerating. Do you think that maybe it's your predictions and lines of reasoning that are actually miscalibrated?
- guscost 7y ago
  In the US the deaths are accelerating, but they lag by many weeks or even months in some cases. Lots of new cases are being identified with the increase in testing, but the proportion of positive tests is not changing, which is evidence that the spread is well past the "explosive" point. But each community follows its own mini-epidemic, and there's still tons of uncertainty. We will see how good of a prediction it was eventually.