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What number of deaths would it take to convince you to agree to a 3-4 month shutdown? What qualifications do you have to assume this virus might kill 100k and

What number of deaths would it take to convince you to agree to a 3-4 month shutdown? What qualifications do you have to assume this virus might kill 100k and not 10 million? Are you ok with 10 million? Assuming you have friends who have elderly parents, are you ok with visiting them to tell them they are likely to die but it's for a good cause - 'the economy'.

alexandercrohde 7y ago
Well, one way to do the math is say, a 6 month shutdown is losing half-a-year for * 300m people. So it costs 150million years of dating, going to the park, the beach, etc. So if the average lifespan is 75 years, a 6 month shutdown could be viewed as costing 2million lifespans of being outside. Now this is rough, because being dead versus quarantined isn't the same. On the other hand, the people dying are predominantly at end-of-life, so the figure might really want to multiply by 10 to get a better estimate (because most of the dying people will have had < 10 years left anyways). And that's entirely aside from the economic consequences.
StillBored 7y ago
A far better plan would have been to quarantine the at risk population. Hard as that sounds, the current system is probably going to be much worse. Somewhere between a quarter and a half of working class adults aren't working right now, and that is going to make the depression look like childs play, because when those people stop paying their morgage, car payment, its going to ripple up the economy. You might be protected in IT at big CO this month but in 12 months when there is a 50% decline in revenue due to the lagging effects your going to get laid off too, which is going to just keep getting worse.
csomar 7y ago
> What number of deaths would it take to convince you to agree to a 3-4 month shutdown? None. You are either ready for a massive shutdown or you are not. I actually was convinced of the shutdown until just a couple days ago. Things start to break. Your car insurance might expire. Your heater might go down but there is no one to repair it. Cabin fever (even though I'm an introvert and probably handling it better than most people out there). Some people are stuck in one place and need to move to another place. As time goes by, I can see more and more people changing to the opinion that this was a bad idea. They are not ready and the shutdown risk completely devastating their life or worse. > What qualifications do you have to assume this virus might kill 100k and not 10 million? Are you ok with 10 million? We know it's deadly but not that deadly. The numbers from Korea, Italy and the Diamond princess are not good but they are not world-ending either. They are painful but that's it. > Assuming you have friends who have elderly parents, are you ok with visiting them to tell them they are likely to die but it's for a good cause - 'the economy'. I have elderly parents. The guideline is that they stay at home. They have a garden, a couple dogs and enough food. But at some point I expect that they'll probably be okay with the risk and seeing me rather than spending 2 year confined with no human contact.
- xur17 7y ago
  > Cabin fever (even though I'm an introvert and probably handling it better than most people out there). This part has been interesting - I live alone, and have worked from home for a while, but it's still starting to get to me. I can't imagine people that live by themselves and are used to going to the office every day / are more extroverted.
  - csomar 7y ago
    They are going bonkers. I live in a small compound with gardens. I have a strict policy for not interacting with neighbors or not getting into their affairs (for lengthy reasons). A couple days ago I was about to call the police for what's possibly a bad fight/domestic violence for the neighbors next door. The neighbor above me had decided she wants to become a singer and now (as I am typing) is loudly signing. The one above that (second floor) is dropping kitchen object every other day and comes to collect/apologize for that. This is fine.
  - therealdrag0 7y ago
    Same for me, doing okay, but kinda getting to me. On the other hand, my partner is an extrovert and has cried multiple times saying "Imagine how you would feel if you were forced to go to a crowded party every day after work. I feel stressed and overwhelmed".
  - breakbread 7y ago
    My wife and I argue [playfully, but still] about who gets to make a grocery run. I'm the introverted one, so under normal circumstances I take any chance I get to stay at home. But I do get a certain kind of energy just from being around people in public, which is why I like grocery shopping.
- ceejayoz 7y ago
  > Your car insurance might expire. Do it online, or over the phone. (I just did!) New York is waiving things like annual car inspections and registration renewals, as well. > Your heater might go down but there is no one to repair it. Most of the shutdown implementations permit emergency repairs and grocery/medicine shopping.
treis 7y ago
The problem with your question is that the options are shut down or lots of people dying. Realistically, it looks like we're going to have a shut down and then lots of people dying. The shut downs won't stop the virus. They will only delay it and they won't delay it long enough for a vaccine or treatment unless we get really really lucky.
- r00fus 7y ago
  This has been explained over and over again. The goal of reducing the spread of the virus is to allow our medical system to cope with the massive load. A too-large rush of cases will overload our system and result in medical providers succumbing to the virus as well, resulting in it shutting down. That would result in millions more suffering and possibly dying.
  - treis 7y ago
    Even in ideal conditions we don't have much impact on the lethality of the virus. If we are in a scenario where everyone gets infected lots of people are going to die. Medical care can change that by some percent but not enough to change it from "lots of people" dying. For example, something like 2/3s of patients that go on ventilators will die. Of the 1/3 that do survive a significant chunk, if not the majority, will have significant complications. They will live for another few months to a year with a poor quality of life before dying. That might make you think a ventilator surge might save 10-20% of people who otherwise would have died. But that's not true because we can choose who gets the ventilators. The actual difference in death rate will be small because we will stop ventilating the cases that still have a 95%+ chance of dying even with ventilating. Ultimately, the impact of the ventilator surge is going to be a bunch of 80+ year old patients with significant comorbidities getting pointless interventions. It's going to save few lives and will only marginally impact the mortality rate.
- smaryjerry 7y ago
  Not only will the shutdown only delay deaths, the shutdown itself will cause deaths. With 3 million people ALREADY losing their jobs after less than a few weeks of shutdowns, we could see 10 to 20 million losing their jobs if this lasts several more months. Suicides alone from the shutdown would exceed the loss expected from the virus. Then as into that the number of people kicked of healthcare from losing their jobs or that just don't have enough money to afford that expensive health treatment. Now beyond jobs effect look at what will happen to the crime rate and murder rate when poverty strikes, and as others have said if you no longer afford car or home insurance, now people on the brink lose more than everything from fires or accidents. Im not about to calculate the exact number of ancillary deaths from a shutdown, and maybe it is very difficult to quantify which is why no one is doing it but as the president said the cure can't be worse than the disease.
schadara 7y ago
I agree that every life must be saved, but every month is a battle, and there will be a war. China locked down and won a battle, but you will likely see another outbreak in a few weeks, and if they lockdown again, there will be another outbreak when they open up again. The daily cases chart will look like a dribbling ball. Notice that US officials are focusing flattening the curve, instead of a strict quarantine to prevent all infections. It's not only because they're worried about the economy or the logistics. It's because a strict quarantine only works if everyone is doing it - I mean EVERYONE in the world. If we do a Nationwide lockdown, we will need to do another one when an asymptomatic visitor/citizen enters/returns to the US. I see two outcomes: 1) Eventually, most everyone will either be infected or immunized for this pandemic to stop. 2) We do a global lockdown for 5 weeks.

alexandercrohde 7y ago

Well, one way to do the math is say, a 6 month shutdown is losing half-a-year for * 300m people. So it costs 150million years of dating, going to the park, the beach, etc. So if the average lifespan is 75 years, a 6 month shutdown could be viewed as costing 2million lifespans of being outside. Now this is rough, because being dead versus quarantined isn't the same. On the other hand, the people dying are predominantly at end-of-life, so the figure might really want to multiply by 10 to get a better estimate (because most of the dying people will have had < 10 years left anyways). And that's entirely aside from the economic consequences.

StillBored 7y ago

A far better plan would have been to quarantine the at risk population. Hard as that sounds, the current system is probably going to be much worse. Somewhere between a quarter and a half of working class adults aren't working right now, and that is going to make the depression look like childs play, because when those people stop paying their morgage, car payment, its going to ripple up the economy. You might be protected in IT at big CO this month but in 12 months when there is a 50% decline in revenue due to the lagging effects your going to get laid off too, which is going to just keep getting worse.

csomar 7y ago

> What number of deaths would it take to convince you to agree to a 3-4 month shutdown? None. You are either ready for a massive shutdown or you are not. I actually was convinced of the shutdown until just a couple days ago. Things start to break. Your car insurance might expire. Your heater might go down but there is no one to repair it. Cabin fever (even though I'm an introvert and probably handling it better than most people out there). Some people are stuck in one place and need to move to another place. As time goes by, I can see more and more people changing to the opinion that this was a bad idea. They are not ready and the shutdown risk completely devastating their life or worse. > What qualifications do you have to assume this virus might kill 100k and not 10 million? Are you ok with 10 million? We know it's deadly but not that deadly. The numbers from Korea, Italy and the Diamond princess are not good but they are not world-ending either. They are painful but that's it. > Assuming you have friends who have elderly parents, are you ok with visiting them to tell them they are likely to die but it's for a good cause - 'the economy'. I have elderly parents. The guideline is that they stay at home. They have a garden, a couple dogs and enough food. But at some point I expect that they'll probably be okay with the risk and seeing me rather than spending 2 year confined with no human contact.

xur17 7y ago
> Cabin fever (even though I'm an introvert and probably handling it better than most people out there). This part has been interesting - I live alone, and have worked from home for a while, but it's still starting to get to me. I can't imagine people that live by themselves and are used to going to the office every day / are more extroverted.
- csomar 7y ago
  They are going bonkers. I live in a small compound with gardens. I have a strict policy for not interacting with neighbors or not getting into their affairs (for lengthy reasons). A couple days ago I was about to call the police for what's possibly a bad fight/domestic violence for the neighbors next door. The neighbor above me had decided she wants to become a singer and now (as I am typing) is loudly signing. The one above that (second floor) is dropping kitchen object every other day and comes to collect/apologize for that. This is fine.
- therealdrag0 7y ago
  Same for me, doing okay, but kinda getting to me. On the other hand, my partner is an extrovert and has cried multiple times saying "Imagine how you would feel if you were forced to go to a crowded party every day after work. I feel stressed and overwhelmed".
- breakbread 7y ago
  My wife and I argue [playfully, but still] about who gets to make a grocery run. I'm the introverted one, so under normal circumstances I take any chance I get to stay at home. But I do get a certain kind of energy just from being around people in public, which is why I like grocery shopping.
ceejayoz 7y ago
> Your car insurance might expire. Do it online, or over the phone. (I just did!) New York is waiving things like annual car inspections and registration renewals, as well. > Your heater might go down but there is no one to repair it. Most of the shutdown implementations permit emergency repairs and grocery/medicine shopping.

treis 7y ago

The problem with your question is that the options are shut down or lots of people dying. Realistically, it looks like we're going to have a shut down and then lots of people dying. The shut downs won't stop the virus. They will only delay it and they won't delay it long enough for a vaccine or treatment unless we get really really lucky.

r00fus 7y ago
This has been explained over and over again. The goal of reducing the spread of the virus is to allow our medical system to cope with the massive load. A too-large rush of cases will overload our system and result in medical providers succumbing to the virus as well, resulting in it shutting down. That would result in millions more suffering and possibly dying.
- treis 7y ago
  Even in ideal conditions we don't have much impact on the lethality of the virus. If we are in a scenario where everyone gets infected lots of people are going to die. Medical care can change that by some percent but not enough to change it from "lots of people" dying. For example, something like 2/3s of patients that go on ventilators will die. Of the 1/3 that do survive a significant chunk, if not the majority, will have significant complications. They will live for another few months to a year with a poor quality of life before dying. That might make you think a ventilator surge might save 10-20% of people who otherwise would have died. But that's not true because we can choose who gets the ventilators. The actual difference in death rate will be small because we will stop ventilating the cases that still have a 95%+ chance of dying even with ventilating. Ultimately, the impact of the ventilator surge is going to be a bunch of 80+ year old patients with significant comorbidities getting pointless interventions. It's going to save few lives and will only marginally impact the mortality rate.
smaryjerry 7y ago
Not only will the shutdown only delay deaths, the shutdown itself will cause deaths. With 3 million people ALREADY losing their jobs after less than a few weeks of shutdowns, we could see 10 to 20 million losing their jobs if this lasts several more months. Suicides alone from the shutdown would exceed the loss expected from the virus. Then as into that the number of people kicked of healthcare from losing their jobs or that just don't have enough money to afford that expensive health treatment. Now beyond jobs effect look at what will happen to the crime rate and murder rate when poverty strikes, and as others have said if you no longer afford car or home insurance, now people on the brink lose more than everything from fires or accidents. Im not about to calculate the exact number of ancillary deaths from a shutdown, and maybe it is very difficult to quantify which is why no one is doing it but as the president said the cure can't be worse than the disease.

schadara 7y ago

I agree that every life must be saved, but every month is a battle, and there will be a war. China locked down and won a battle, but you will likely see another outbreak in a few weeks, and if they lockdown again, there will be another outbreak when they open up again. The daily cases chart will look like a dribbling ball. Notice that US officials are focusing flattening the curve, instead of a strict quarantine to prevent all infections. It's not only because they're worried about the economy or the logistics. It's because a strict quarantine only works if everyone is doing it - I mean EVERYONE in the world. If we do a Nationwide lockdown, we will need to do another one when an asymptomatic visitor/citizen enters/returns to the US. I see two outcomes: 1) Eventually, most everyone will either be infected or immunized for this pandemic to stop. 2) We do a global lockdown for 5 weeks.