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> Isn’t the real question why other countries aren’t doing the same? Perhaps because they are not willing to take a gamble? This is, to put it bluntly, idiotic

> Isn’t the real question why other countries aren’t doing the same? Perhaps because they are not willing to take a gamble? This is, to put it bluntly, idiotic - you do not play games with people's lives and hope it turns out well.

kryptiskt 7y ago
There is no safe choice, all anybody can do is to set some policies and hope it turns out well.
- cpach 7y ago
  As a fellow Swede I agree. Hospitals all over the world will be overwhelmed because of the pandemic. Even countries doing lockdowns will have a really hard time. I sincerely believe that the Public Health Agency in Sweden are handling the situation in a good way. Will we fare better or worse than other, similar countries? We can’t know for sure, it’s only after it’s over that we can get a verdict.
  - heartbeats 7y ago
    > Will we fare better or worse than other, similar countries? We can’t know for sure, it’s only after it’s over that we can get a verdict. That is the whole point - they're taking a gamble. You can draw up a matrix. If they don't do a lockdown, and it turns out to be not-very-dangerous, they will have saved the economy. If they don't do a lockdown, and it turns out to be very dangerous, they will have the blood of hundreds of thousands on their hands. But the worst consequence that they can suffer is not getting re-elected. Think of it like Russian roulette. If the payouts are [+10, +10, +10, +10, +10, -1000], your expected value is -158.3, but if your downside is limited to -20, your expected value is +5. It is not morally justified to take a 20% chance of killing 100'000 people for an 80% chance of raising GDP by 5% ($26 billion). That's 20'000 people for $21.2 billion, or $1.1 million per person.
- minipci1321 7y ago
  But aren't some choices, while arguably no more safe, more ethical than others? If you know that your action will bring certain death to some category of people, shouldn't you choose to refrain from doing it? The OP, dated Apr 4th, sounds like it is from 3 months ago. We learned a lot more since then about how reasonable people are in their behaviors and how inclined they are to understand sensible explanations.
liquidify 7y ago
I'm not claiming anyone is right, but you aren't addressing the authors point that the gamble is actually the lockdown. No countries have ever done that before. The author accurately states that the repercussions of lockdown are unknown and that it is possible that more people could die from the lockdown than from the disease. However since nobody really knows, his point was that it was strange that the vast majority of the world chose the unknown path of lockdown. I think his point is worth looking into. Most people are loosing money, which has a direct impact on health. And I for one had my Dr. Appointments canceled which were for testing. But the delay of those tests can potentially have lasting consequences. Point is that it is important to analyze both the immediate and long term costs in any strategy fairly. But instead of that, the entire world went with lockdown with very little data to back it up, primarily based on the idea of flattening a curve in order to not overwhelm the health care system.
- heartbeats 7y ago
  The downsides are of different characters - lockdowns will have a bad but generally predictable downside in the field of economy, whereas not locking things down will have an unpredictable downside where lots of people - how many we do not know - die. During the Great Depression, death rates went down, so it doesn't seem very substantiated to claim that lockdowns are going to kill people.

kryptiskt 7y ago

There is no safe choice, all anybody can do is to set some policies and hope it turns out well.

cpach 7y ago
As a fellow Swede I agree. Hospitals all over the world will be overwhelmed because of the pandemic. Even countries doing lockdowns will have a really hard time. I sincerely believe that the Public Health Agency in Sweden are handling the situation in a good way. Will we fare better or worse than other, similar countries? We can’t know for sure, it’s only after it’s over that we can get a verdict.
- heartbeats 7y ago
  > Will we fare better or worse than other, similar countries? We can’t know for sure, it’s only after it’s over that we can get a verdict. That is the whole point - they're taking a gamble. You can draw up a matrix. If they don't do a lockdown, and it turns out to be not-very-dangerous, they will have saved the economy. If they don't do a lockdown, and it turns out to be very dangerous, they will have the blood of hundreds of thousands on their hands. But the worst consequence that they can suffer is not getting re-elected. Think of it like Russian roulette. If the payouts are [+10, +10, +10, +10, +10, -1000], your expected value is -158.3, but if your downside is limited to -20, your expected value is +5. It is not morally justified to take a 20% chance of killing 100'000 people for an 80% chance of raising GDP by 5% ($26 billion). That's 20'000 people for $21.2 billion, or $1.1 million per person.
minipci1321 7y ago
But aren't some choices, while arguably no more safe, more ethical than others? If you know that your action will bring certain death to some category of people, shouldn't you choose to refrain from doing it? The OP, dated Apr 4th, sounds like it is from 3 months ago. We learned a lot more since then about how reasonable people are in their behaviors and how inclined they are to understand sensible explanations.

liquidify 7y ago

I'm not claiming anyone is right, but you aren't addressing the authors point that the gamble is actually the lockdown. No countries have ever done that before. The author accurately states that the repercussions of lockdown are unknown and that it is possible that more people could die from the lockdown than from the disease. However since nobody really knows, his point was that it was strange that the vast majority of the world chose the unknown path of lockdown. I think his point is worth looking into. Most people are loosing money, which has a direct impact on health. And I for one had my Dr. Appointments canceled which were for testing. But the delay of those tests can potentially have lasting consequences. Point is that it is important to analyze both the immediate and long term costs in any strategy fairly. But instead of that, the entire world went with lockdown with very little data to back it up, primarily based on the idea of flattening a curve in order to not overwhelm the health care system.

heartbeats 7y ago
The downsides are of different characters - lockdowns will have a bad but generally predictable downside in the field of economy, whereas not locking things down will have an unpredictable downside where lots of people - how many we do not know - die. During the Great Depression, death rates went down, so it doesn't seem very substantiated to claim that lockdowns are going to kill people.