4 ms·

If unemployment is better than death, why stop at doing this for Covid-19? For example, the flu kills quite a lot of people each year, and even though Covid-19

by makomk 7y ago

If unemployment is better than death, why stop at doing this for Covid-19? For example, the flu kills quite a lot of people each year, and even though Covid-19 is somewhat more deadly that's counterbalanced by the fact that stronger, longer measures are required to stop it. Why not shut down parts of the economy every flu season? (I've generally seen this kind of not one life argument go hand in hand with the idea that Covid-19 cannot be compared to any other cause of death, for obvious reasons.)

steveeq1 7y ago
Don't know why this is being downvoted. The flu kills tens of thousands a year, yet no one seemed to want to shut down the economy in the past. . .
- alistairSH 7y ago
  10s of thousands vs 100s of thousands (or millions). Between higher mortality rate and higher level of transmission, C19 is FAR more deadly than seasonal flu. The flu is a recurring problem. We can't avoid it. COVID is (hopefully) a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence (just as the 1918 flu was).
  - steveeq1 7y ago
    But death still occurs with the flu! Doesn't this mean you don't think life is more palateable than making money?
    - throwphoton 7y ago
      The same philosophical discussion can happen with respect to raising the speed limit by 5 miles per hour; it will result in more deaths... is it worth it? But letting Covid-19 run unchecked is more akin to raising the speed limit by 50 miles per hour. The prudent choice is not to go with it.
      - steveeq1 7y ago
        But quarantining after the flu can "save lives". But my point is that it runs counter to the "That preserving life is more palatable than making money" argument. It's a tradeoff, in other words. If you REALLY wanted to "save lives", you can quarantine during every flu epidemic.
    - alistairSH 7y ago
      I feel like you're trying to make some sort of reductio ad absurdum argument. Yes, the flu kills people. So do lightning strikes. Airplane crashes. And anvils falling out of windows. None at anywhere near the scale of C19. There's a balance. I don't claim to know exactly where that is, but I'm confident that "meh, granny's gonna die anyways, and I want to buy stuff and get a pedicure" is a rather ghastly approach to the current situation.
      - steveeq1 7y ago
        What you gave is a strawman argument. Read what was originally written: > What mindset? That preserving life is more palatable than making money? I'm ok with that. I'd rather be unemployed than dead. You can "preserve life" by quarantining every flu epidemic. But this is an absurd argument. At some point the 'preserving life' argument breaks down.
alistairSH 7y ago
Who made a "not one life" argument? I certainly didn't. Self-quarantine/shelter-in-place isn't about saving everybody. It's about keeping ICU units below capacity so we don't have more deaths than necessary. It's about giving scientists and doctors time to develop treatment plans.
ModernMech 7y ago
> Why not shut down parts of the economy every flu season? The flu doesn't threaten healthcare capacity every season. A lot of focus is on the death statistics, but if someone recovers this does not mean they aren't a drain on hospital resources. Quite the opposite, it takes many more resources to nurse someone back to health than if they had died quickly. Corona is more contagious, leads to more hospitalizations as a proportion of those who are infected, and those hospitalizations are twice as long compared to the flu. And yes, it's also more deadly. If a hospital system collapses, then all other causes of death skyrocket. Our hospital system can handle flu without the economy shutting down, it can't handle corona. That's why we don't shut down every flu season. "Data from China show that 20% of COVID-19 patients, though, are serious enough to get sent to the hospital. That's about 10 times more often than flu. Even though a great many people are hospitalized for the flu — the preliminary data for the 2018-19 flu season is nearly half a million — the rate of hospitalization is far lower: 1%-2% of cases, according to the CDC." ... "Once a patient with a serious case of the coronavirus is hospitalized, the average stay is 11 days, according to a study based on January data from Wuhan — about twice as long as the five- to six-day average stay for flu. The additional days mean additional stresses on the health care system. "To take care of intensive, really unwell people can often require two to three medical staff at one time, all in protective gear, for hours and hours," says Michael Ryan, director of the World Health Organization's Health Emergencies Program." https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/03/20/815408287/how-the-novel-coronavirus-and-the-flu-are-alike-and-different https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/03/20/8154082...

by makomk 7y ago

steveeq1 7y ago

Don't know why this is being downvoted. The flu kills tens of thousands a year, yet no one seemed to want to shut down the economy in the past. . .

alistairSH 7y ago
10s of thousands vs 100s of thousands (or millions). Between higher mortality rate and higher level of transmission, C19 is FAR more deadly than seasonal flu. The flu is a recurring problem. We can't avoid it. COVID is (hopefully) a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence (just as the 1918 flu was).
- steveeq1 7y ago
  But death still occurs with the flu! Doesn't this mean you don't think life is more palateable than making money?
  - throwphoton 7y ago
    The same philosophical discussion can happen with respect to raising the speed limit by 5 miles per hour; it will result in more deaths... is it worth it? But letting Covid-19 run unchecked is more akin to raising the speed limit by 50 miles per hour. The prudent choice is not to go with it.
    - steveeq1 7y ago
      But quarantining after the flu can "save lives". But my point is that it runs counter to the "That preserving life is more palatable than making money" argument. It's a tradeoff, in other words. If you REALLY wanted to "save lives", you can quarantine during every flu epidemic.
  - alistairSH 7y ago
    I feel like you're trying to make some sort of reductio ad absurdum argument. Yes, the flu kills people. So do lightning strikes. Airplane crashes. And anvils falling out of windows. None at anywhere near the scale of C19. There's a balance. I don't claim to know exactly where that is, but I'm confident that "meh, granny's gonna die anyways, and I want to buy stuff and get a pedicure" is a rather ghastly approach to the current situation.
    - steveeq1 7y ago
      What you gave is a strawman argument. Read what was originally written: > What mindset? That preserving life is more palatable than making money? I'm ok with that. I'd rather be unemployed than dead. You can "preserve life" by quarantining every flu epidemic. But this is an absurd argument. At some point the 'preserving life' argument breaks down.

alistairSH 7y ago

Who made a "not one life" argument? I certainly didn't. Self-quarantine/shelter-in-place isn't about saving everybody. It's about keeping ICU units below capacity so we don't have more deaths than necessary. It's about giving scientists and doctors time to develop treatment plans.

ModernMech 7y ago

> Why not shut down parts of the economy every flu season? The flu doesn't threaten healthcare capacity every season. A lot of focus is on the death statistics, but if someone recovers this does not mean they aren't a drain on hospital resources. Quite the opposite, it takes many more resources to nurse someone back to health than if they had died quickly. Corona is more contagious, leads to more hospitalizations as a proportion of those who are infected, and those hospitalizations are twice as long compared to the flu. And yes, it's also more deadly. If a hospital system collapses, then all other causes of death skyrocket. Our hospital system can handle flu without the economy shutting down, it can't handle corona. That's why we don't shut down every flu season. "Data from China show that 20% of COVID-19 patients, though, are serious enough to get sent to the hospital. That's about 10 times more often than flu. Even though a great many people are hospitalized for the flu — the preliminary data for the 2018-19 flu season is nearly half a million — the rate of hospitalization is far lower: 1%-2% of cases, according to the CDC." ... "Once a patient with a serious case of the coronavirus is hospitalized, the average stay is 11 days, according to a study based on January data from Wuhan — about twice as long as the five- to six-day average stay for flu. The additional days mean additional stresses on the health care system. "To take care of intensive, really unwell people can often require two to three medical staff at one time, all in protective gear, for hours and hours," says Michael Ryan, director of the World Health Organization's Health Emergencies Program." https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/03/20/815408287/how-the-novel-coronavirus-and-the-flu-are-alike-and-different https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/03/20/8154082...