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Is there any reasonable modelling that puts worst case US recession deaths in the hundreds of thousands? I saw a pretty spun looking number in (I think) The Fe

Is there any reasonable modelling that puts worst case US recession deaths in the hundreds of thousands? I saw a pretty spun looking number in (I think) The Federalist back in March that claimed a staggering 40k deaths if we didn't open up right away. Needless to say that spin didn't survive reality well, that's not only the median worst case of the viral outbreak it's the status quo.

mewpmewp2 7y ago
I would be interested in seeing such model as well Some things to consider is also the type of deaths. Now I haven't calculated myself which decision is the correct one here, but just throwing out some factors that might (or might not) be favourable towards the decision to open markets sooner. If most people who die are elderly and they would die in few years anyway are these deaths comparable to younger people who commit suicides or die from poverty due to recession - who otherwise might be productive members of society for the following 30 years? If 75%+ of people who die are non-working elderly and maybe 80-90% of those would have died in the following 0-8 years would that mean 0-8 years of saved resources/care/medicine costs meaning economy would be better off and in the following 0-8 years we can expect proportionally fewer deaths? Probably more factors here, but I would like to go to the next point now... The steps on how to decide should be: 1. Predict deaths (and what kind of deaths) for each following week/month due to economic recession, plus any other damages. Lost technological advancements etc which can indirectly also mean more deaths. Consider all the things that can indirectly cause deaths. There's also decrease in some type of deaths like traffic accidents during quarantine. Should we consider these? I tried to Google for how many deaths 2008 caused - first thing I found was 260,000 extra cancer deaths, but I have no idea about validity: https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/press-releases/economic-downturn-excess-cancer-deaths-atun/ https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/press-releases/economic-do... This is 2.5x more than current deaths from coronavirus and probably within more productive demographic. Just citing that to suggest there's some possibility that recession could cause more deaths. 2. Consider the pace on how fast can hospitals increase their capability to handle steeper curve. 3. Predict how fast Corona would spread after opening. How would hospitals fare? Would this mean more deaths overall from Corona or same amount as if we had keeping a flatter curve. I think the only real way to know this is to start touching the waters, so in this case it seems like reasonable to try with few places first and get measurements from there to see if it's worth it.
- maxerickson 7y ago
  Sure, they are comparable. Maybe not 1 to 1, but you could make up some metric that evened things out a bit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quality-adjusted_life_year https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quality-adjusted_life_year (even if you don't agree with that metric, equivalence at some ratio is pretty clear, unless old people are just completely disposable) At the moment it seems that individual susceptibility is a bigger factor than medical capacity, and we are researching dozens of possible treatments and working towards a vaccine. Makes it even harder to gauge the trade offs, as an effective treatment would pay big dividends when combined with a slowed spread. I also wonder about attributing poverty deaths to economic shut downs. They are pretty preventable, and more a failure of our broader society than a result of the specific policy. The societal failure when it comes to suicide is less direct, but it's a factor there also.
  - mewpmewp2 7y ago
    > I also wonder about attributing poverty deaths to economic shut downs. But this is always the case. If you can't solve this issue during normal times, how could you solve this issue during crisis? Force part of the society to pay more taxes during this time? There's certainly a lot of people dying all over the world due to poverty - these deaths could be prevented as well. Since there's less production things are probably even more scarce and expensive during crisis - if economy is shut down and people can't be productive. Regarding ethical/moral dilemmas, to me it seems like the trolley problem is definitely highlighted during this crisis (it to some extent exists also during normal times), but now it's extremely apparent in my opinion. Especially because also another question is very apparent - how valuable are different human lives? Loosening economy means less deaths within general population, while it means more deaths specifically for elderly. Loosening isn't binary either so there's a balanced line that you have to draw. So you have to draw that balance between somewhere where you have to weigh economic damage, young productive human lives vs lives that are about to end anyway. For instance. Would you save 20 people who were expected to live 1 year compared to a person who would go on to live 40 years? If we considered years and probably higher quality years it would be 40 > 20 however death count would be 1 < 20

mewpmewp2 7y ago

I would be interested in seeing such model as well Some things to consider is also the type of deaths. Now I haven't calculated myself which decision is the correct one here, but just throwing out some factors that might (or might not) be favourable towards the decision to open markets sooner. If most people who die are elderly and they would die in few years anyway are these deaths comparable to younger people who commit suicides or die from poverty due to recession - who otherwise might be productive members of society for the following 30 years? If 75%+ of people who die are non-working elderly and maybe 80-90% of those would have died in the following 0-8 years would that mean 0-8 years of saved resources/care/medicine costs meaning economy would be better off and in the following 0-8 years we can expect proportionally fewer deaths? Probably more factors here, but I would like to go to the next point now... The steps on how to decide should be: 1. Predict deaths (and what kind of deaths) for each following week/month due to economic recession, plus any other damages. Lost technological advancements etc which can indirectly also mean more deaths. Consider all the things that can indirectly cause deaths. There's also decrease in some type of deaths like traffic accidents during quarantine. Should we consider these? I tried to Google for how many deaths 2008 caused - first thing I found was 260,000 extra cancer deaths, but I have no idea about validity: https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/press-releases/economic-downturn-excess-cancer-deaths-atun/ https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/press-releases/economic-do... This is 2.5x more than current deaths from coronavirus and probably within more productive demographic. Just citing that to suggest there's some possibility that recession could cause more deaths. 2. Consider the pace on how fast can hospitals increase their capability to handle steeper curve. 3. Predict how fast Corona would spread after opening. How would hospitals fare? Would this mean more deaths overall from Corona or same amount as if we had keeping a flatter curve. I think the only real way to know this is to start touching the waters, so in this case it seems like reasonable to try with few places first and get measurements from there to see if it's worth it.

maxerickson 7y ago
Sure, they are comparable. Maybe not 1 to 1, but you could make up some metric that evened things out a bit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quality-adjusted_life_year https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quality-adjusted_life_year (even if you don't agree with that metric, equivalence at some ratio is pretty clear, unless old people are just completely disposable) At the moment it seems that individual susceptibility is a bigger factor than medical capacity, and we are researching dozens of possible treatments and working towards a vaccine. Makes it even harder to gauge the trade offs, as an effective treatment would pay big dividends when combined with a slowed spread. I also wonder about attributing poverty deaths to economic shut downs. They are pretty preventable, and more a failure of our broader society than a result of the specific policy. The societal failure when it comes to suicide is less direct, but it's a factor there also.
- mewpmewp2 7y ago
  > I also wonder about attributing poverty deaths to economic shut downs. But this is always the case. If you can't solve this issue during normal times, how could you solve this issue during crisis? Force part of the society to pay more taxes during this time? There's certainly a lot of people dying all over the world due to poverty - these deaths could be prevented as well. Since there's less production things are probably even more scarce and expensive during crisis - if economy is shut down and people can't be productive. Regarding ethical/moral dilemmas, to me it seems like the trolley problem is definitely highlighted during this crisis (it to some extent exists also during normal times), but now it's extremely apparent in my opinion. Especially because also another question is very apparent - how valuable are different human lives? Loosening economy means less deaths within general population, while it means more deaths specifically for elderly. Loosening isn't binary either so there's a balanced line that you have to draw. So you have to draw that balance between somewhere where you have to weigh economic damage, young productive human lives vs lives that are about to end anyway. For instance. Would you save 20 people who were expected to live 1 year compared to a person who would go on to live 40 years? If we considered years and probably higher quality years it would be 40 > 20 however death count would be 1 < 20