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Unlike a vaccine, social distancing likely won't reduce the total of people that will get infected. Social distancing also doesn't increase your chances of surv

Unlike a vaccine, social distancing likely won't reduce the total of people that will get infected. Social distancing also doesn't increase your chances of surviving an infection. It is useful in reducing the rate of transmission, so it slows down infections rather than immunizing people against them. Trying to equate opposition to social distancing to denying the effectiveness of vaccines so so overly simplistic that I have a hard time it was written in good faith. And right that the question is to compare the actual death toll to the death toll that would have happened without social distancing. Say 310,000 people would have died without social distancing (more than 5x the current projections). That's 250,000 additional deaths. That would be $100M per death averted assuming a $2.5T cost of the social distancing measures - that's ~10% of GDP. The US so far is expecting losses about twice that.

nullc 7y ago
> social distancing likely won't reduce the total of people that will get infected. Social distancing also doesn't increase your chances of surviving an infection. There is substantial evidence for other viral infections that infection severity (spanning from asymptomatic to dead) is related to dosage. There is limited information so far for covid19 but some informal evidence that this is true for it too: Young healthcare workers appear to be dying a a much higher rate than similarly healthy members of the public who are sars-cov-2 positive. If this is the case, social distancing will reduce the number of people who get serious infections and reduce the number who die. Even if not, preventing overload of the hospitals will significantly reduce the number who die. Delaying infections until we better know how to treat the disease from anti-virals to simply care techniques will almost certantly reduce the number who die. > Say 310,000 people would have died without social distancing (more than 5x the current projections). T CDC's projection was 1.7 million dead before accounting for hospital overload.
- manfredo 7y ago
  These early predictions were based inflated fatality rates. Early on, testing was only done on sick patients. People who contract the virus and don't get sick or don't get sick enough to go to the hospital aren't counted. So this is a huge selection bias. You didn't bother to cite where you're getting this figure, but it looks like this projection dates back to March 13 [1] or earlier. If you have a study that projects what the fatalities would have been with a shorter isolation period (e.g. only march and first two weeks of April), that would be noteworthy. Pointing to this early CDC study as a figure for what would have transpired had the economy not been shut down is not sound. 1. https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/03/cdcs-worst-case-coronavirus-model-210m-infected-1-7m-dead.html https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/03/cdcs-worst-case-coro...
  - nullc 7y ago
    > These early predictions were based inflated fatality rates. Not so, for example the mortalities from the diamond princess are _higher_ than the ones being used to drive those projections. The fact that it takes time for people to die has held down the estimated mortality during exponential case growth.
    - manfredo 7y ago
      The diamond princess' fatality rate was less than 1% - lower than the 1-3% used to drive early projections. Not to mention the fact that the cruise liner is disproportionately older, and the whole vessel recirculates its ventilation. This was, quite possibly, the worst population and location to have an outbreak and yet the death rates there were lower than the figure used for country-wide projections. Effectively every reputable source is observing that the early death rate projections were substantially inflated. China's reported death rate is 0.5% - and they're the ones with the most experience with the virus. Germany only recent started random testing. They previously had a fatality rate of 2%, but after random testing they found that 14% of the population already had antibodies - thus lower the death rate down to 0.37% [1]. There's a vast difference between asking "out of the people who got sick enough to go to the hospital, what portion people infected with coronavirus died?" and "what portion of people infected with coronavirus died".
      - nullc 7y ago
        > The diamond princess' fatality rate was less than 1% - You're using old data. 2% of the diamond princess infected have died so far. Another 7% of the infected are still reported as not recovered yet. https://www.mhlw.go.jp/stf/newpage_10867.html https://www.mhlw.go.jp/stf/newpage_10867.html
CydeWeys 7y ago
You still don't seem to understand that most of the social distancing was inevitable, not a choice. There is the worst fucking worldwide pandemic going on in over a century now. People are not going to be going about their everyday business. There was always going to be many trillions of dollars in economic damage once COVID-19 reached our shores, period, end of story. You're living in a fantasy land by pretending that none of that was going to happen without the social distancing measures. I would love to be able to look inside your head and see what you think society would look like right now in the middle of an uncontained global pandemic with everyone just going about business as usual, continuing to pack bars and restaurants, no companies cutting back on jobs, etc. It's an utter, complete fantasy land.
- manfredo 7y ago
  It's not a fantasy land. It's called Sweden. Estimates are placing the actual IFR at about 0.5 to 0.3%. For comparison, the seasonal flu averages 0.1%. A country in the middle of a coronavirus epidemic looks mostly like a country that's not in the middle of a coronavirus epidemic, save for 3-5x as many people dying of coronavirus as the flu. Saying that it's not wise to devastate one's economy over such an illness is a perfectly reasonable position.
  - nullc 7y ago
    > the seasonal flu averages 0.1% That figure includes all mortality from pneumonia, a minority of which is caused by the seasonal flu.

nullc 7y ago

> social distancing likely won't reduce the total of people that will get infected. Social distancing also doesn't increase your chances of surviving an infection. There is substantial evidence for other viral infections that infection severity (spanning from asymptomatic to dead) is related to dosage. There is limited information so far for covid19 but some informal evidence that this is true for it too: Young healthcare workers appear to be dying a a much higher rate than similarly healthy members of the public who are sars-cov-2 positive. If this is the case, social distancing will reduce the number of people who get serious infections and reduce the number who die. Even if not, preventing overload of the hospitals will significantly reduce the number who die. Delaying infections until we better know how to treat the disease from anti-virals to simply care techniques will almost certantly reduce the number who die. > Say 310,000 people would have died without social distancing (more than 5x the current projections). T CDC's projection was 1.7 million dead before accounting for hospital overload.

manfredo 7y ago
These early predictions were based inflated fatality rates. Early on, testing was only done on sick patients. People who contract the virus and don't get sick or don't get sick enough to go to the hospital aren't counted. So this is a huge selection bias. You didn't bother to cite where you're getting this figure, but it looks like this projection dates back to March 13 [1] or earlier. If you have a study that projects what the fatalities would have been with a shorter isolation period (e.g. only march and first two weeks of April), that would be noteworthy. Pointing to this early CDC study as a figure for what would have transpired had the economy not been shut down is not sound. 1. https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/03/cdcs-worst-case-coronavirus-model-210m-infected-1-7m-dead.html https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/03/cdcs-worst-case-coro...
- nullc 7y ago
  > These early predictions were based inflated fatality rates. Not so, for example the mortalities from the diamond princess are _higher_ than the ones being used to drive those projections. The fact that it takes time for people to die has held down the estimated mortality during exponential case growth.
  - manfredo 7y ago
    The diamond princess' fatality rate was less than 1% - lower than the 1-3% used to drive early projections. Not to mention the fact that the cruise liner is disproportionately older, and the whole vessel recirculates its ventilation. This was, quite possibly, the worst population and location to have an outbreak and yet the death rates there were lower than the figure used for country-wide projections. Effectively every reputable source is observing that the early death rate projections were substantially inflated. China's reported death rate is 0.5% - and they're the ones with the most experience with the virus. Germany only recent started random testing. They previously had a fatality rate of 2%, but after random testing they found that 14% of the population already had antibodies - thus lower the death rate down to 0.37% [1]. There's a vast difference between asking "out of the people who got sick enough to go to the hospital, what portion people infected with coronavirus died?" and "what portion of people infected with coronavirus died".
    - nullc 7y ago
      > The diamond princess' fatality rate was less than 1% - You're using old data. 2% of the diamond princess infected have died so far. Another 7% of the infected are still reported as not recovered yet. https://www.mhlw.go.jp/stf/newpage_10867.html https://www.mhlw.go.jp/stf/newpage_10867.html

CydeWeys 7y ago

You still don't seem to understand that most of the social distancing was inevitable, not a choice. There is the worst fucking worldwide pandemic going on in over a century now. People are not going to be going about their everyday business. There was always going to be many trillions of dollars in economic damage once COVID-19 reached our shores, period, end of story. You're living in a fantasy land by pretending that none of that was going to happen without the social distancing measures. I would love to be able to look inside your head and see what you think society would look like right now in the middle of an uncontained global pandemic with everyone just going about business as usual, continuing to pack bars and restaurants, no companies cutting back on jobs, etc. It's an utter, complete fantasy land.

manfredo 7y ago
It's not a fantasy land. It's called Sweden. Estimates are placing the actual IFR at about 0.5 to 0.3%. For comparison, the seasonal flu averages 0.1%. A country in the middle of a coronavirus epidemic looks mostly like a country that's not in the middle of a coronavirus epidemic, save for 3-5x as many people dying of coronavirus as the flu. Saying that it's not wise to devastate one's economy over such an illness is a perfectly reasonable position.
- nullc 7y ago
  > the seasonal flu averages 0.1% That figure includes all mortality from pneumonia, a minority of which is caused by the seasonal flu.