4 ms·

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 pain

by btilly 7y ago

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. I am unclear on what you mean by "not that deadly". So let's discuss exactly how deadly we are talking about. However https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(20)30243-7/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3... is a research paper published 2 days ago. Their median estimate for the infection fatality rate is 0.66%. Which, applied to the US population, suggests on the order of 2 million deaths. (More if everyone gets it, probably a bit less since only most of us would be likely to get it.) If half the world population gets it, make that about 20 million. Or about a third of the total deaths in WW 2. These kinds of evidence based numbers are rather worse than I would describe as, "...painful but that's it." But maybe your standards are different than mine.

iso1631 7y ago
> Their median estimate for the infection fatality rate is 0.66%. Which, applied to the US population, suggests on the order of 2 million deaths 3 million a year die in the U.S. each year anyway. How many of those 3 million will die of covid this year rather than cancer, or heart failure? Does that really matter?
- ceejayoz 7y ago
  Yes, it really matters.
  - iso1631 7y ago
    How much does it matter? How much are you willing to spend to kill someone from cancer in July than kill someone from pneumonia in May?
    - ceejayoz 7y ago
      The idea that every one of the millions dead from COVID-19 would've died anyways in the same year is... unsupported, to say the least.
      - DuskStar 7y ago
        The idea that many of them would have died anyways within a year or three is rather better supported, though. As is the idea that we need to run a cost-benefit analysis here.
        btilly 7y ago
        See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22751269 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22751269 for a cost benefit analysis. Long story short, it is worth it.
        DuskStar 7y ago
        As with iso1631 there, I disagree. The lockdown will only save significant numbers of lives if it lasts until we have a way to reduce population death rates (either via better treatment, prophylactics, or vaccines) OR if we can exterminate it entirely and prevent COVID-19 from becoming endemic to the US again. I think the latter is unlikely, and the former requires 6+months of lockdown. If we do three months of lockdown and then people give up and head out as normal again, we've burned a few trillion dollars, and a hundred million years of US citizen lives, for nothing. The deaths still come, just shifted back three months. That's the worst case, and it's what we might be heading for.
        ceejayoz 7y ago
        It should be entirely possible to ramp up masks and ventilators in a couple months. China is already making immense amounts. Universal mask wearing would go a long way, especially with a much lower baseline of active infections.
        iso1631 7y ago
    - btilly 7y ago
      Over $20.000. I got that figure from http://content.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1808049,00.html http://content.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1808049,0... which suggests that a year of life should be worth about $130,000. So that is a bit over $10k per month. Furthermore your hypothetical is slanted to minimizing the problem. Sure, these people are often old and sick. The median age of those killed is around 80. But they were Generally not on death’s door. From https://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4c6.html https://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4c6.html your average 80 year old has over 3 years to live. So we should be willing to spend at least $400k. Per life at the median. We are starting to talk about real money now. But even so it is still low. Because the arithmetic average of this grizzly calculation is pulled up a lot by the younger people who die. OK, I see you retort, so you’re coming to an order of a magnitude of a trillion dollars for the USA. But aren’t we doing more trillions in stimulus? Does that make sense? The answer is yes. When we “spend” trillions in stimulus, we get most of it back. (In 2008 we actually made a profit.) So even if you want to argue straight dollars and cents like an actuary does, we still come out ahead. Preserving human lives, even old people who do not have long to live, is valuable.
      - iso1631 7y ago
        Lets say average life expectency of victims if they didn't have COVID is say 15 years. Lets say 2 million would die without a lockdown. That's 30 million years of life without a lockdown. In the U.S. a year of life is under $150k, so that's an upper "value" of lockdown of $4.5T U.S. GDP is 21T, so a 25% drop in GDP caused by a lockdown would not be value for money.
        btilly 7y ago
        That is a good comparison point, and one I hadn't thought of. Currently Goldman Sachs is estimating that next quarter will see production drop by 24%. If production drops for a single quarter by that much then rebounds, this is still worthwhile on that estimate. If it drops for a whole year by that much, you are right that the implicit value we are giving these lives is more than we are willing to pay to save lives in other circumstances.
        7y ago

by btilly 7y ago

iso1631 7y ago

> Their median estimate for the infection fatality rate is 0.66%. Which, applied to the US population, suggests on the order of 2 million deaths 3 million a year die in the U.S. each year anyway. How many of those 3 million will die of covid this year rather than cancer, or heart failure? Does that really matter?

ceejayoz 7y ago
Yes, it really matters.
- iso1631 7y ago
  How much does it matter? How much are you willing to spend to kill someone from cancer in July than kill someone from pneumonia in May?
  - ceejayoz 7y ago
    The idea that every one of the millions dead from COVID-19 would've died anyways in the same year is... unsupported, to say the least.
    - DuskStar 7y ago
      The idea that many of them would have died anyways within a year or three is rather better supported, though. As is the idea that we need to run a cost-benefit analysis here.
      - btilly 7y ago
        See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22751269 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22751269 for a cost benefit analysis. Long story short, it is worth it.
        DuskStar 7y ago
        As with iso1631 there, I disagree. The lockdown will only save significant numbers of lives if it lasts until we have a way to reduce population death rates (either via better treatment, prophylactics, or vaccines) OR if we can exterminate it entirely and prevent COVID-19 from becoming endemic to the US again. I think the latter is unlikely, and the former requires 6+months of lockdown. If we do three months of lockdown and then people give up and head out as normal again, we've burned a few trillion dollars, and a hundred million years of US citizen lives, for nothing. The deaths still come, just shifted back three months. That's the worst case, and it's what we might be heading for.
        ceejayoz 7y ago
        It should be entirely possible to ramp up masks and ventilators in a couple months. China is already making immense amounts. Universal mask wearing would go a long way, especially with a much lower baseline of active infections.
      - iso1631 7y ago
  - btilly 7y ago
    Over $20.000. I got that figure from http://content.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1808049,00.html http://content.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1808049,0... which suggests that a year of life should be worth about $130,000. So that is a bit over $10k per month. Furthermore your hypothetical is slanted to minimizing the problem. Sure, these people are often old and sick. The median age of those killed is around 80. But they were Generally not on death’s door. From https://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4c6.html https://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4c6.html your average 80 year old has over 3 years to live. So we should be willing to spend at least $400k. Per life at the median. We are starting to talk about real money now. But even so it is still low. Because the arithmetic average of this grizzly calculation is pulled up a lot by the younger people who die. OK, I see you retort, so you’re coming to an order of a magnitude of a trillion dollars for the USA. But aren’t we doing more trillions in stimulus? Does that make sense? The answer is yes. When we “spend” trillions in stimulus, we get most of it back. (In 2008 we actually made a profit.) So even if you want to argue straight dollars and cents like an actuary does, we still come out ahead. Preserving human lives, even old people who do not have long to live, is valuable.
    - iso1631 7y ago
      Lets say average life expectency of victims if they didn't have COVID is say 15 years. Lets say 2 million would die without a lockdown. That's 30 million years of life without a lockdown. In the U.S. a year of life is under $150k, so that's an upper "value" of lockdown of $4.5T U.S. GDP is 21T, so a 25% drop in GDP caused by a lockdown would not be value for money.
      - btilly 7y ago
        That is a good comparison point, and one I hadn't thought of. Currently Goldman Sachs is estimating that next quarter will see production drop by 24%. If production drops for a single quarter by that much then rebounds, this is still worthwhile on that estimate. If it drops for a whole year by that much, you are right that the implicit value we are giving these lives is more than we are willing to pay to save lives in other circumstances.
      - 7y ago