3 ms·

It’s very difficult to live life to the max when you’re dead, or in hospital for weeks. The idea that a rampant COVID-19 would cost a few months of life expect

by hyko 6y ago

It’s very difficult to live life to the max when you’re dead, or in hospital for weeks. The idea that a rampant COVID-19 would cost a few months of life expectancy, or that victims of the virus are not economically productive is not supported by the evidence we do have, e.g. https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2020/05/02/would-most-covid-19-victims-have-died-soon-without-the-virus https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2020/05/02/would-mo... We all want the lockdown to end as soon possible, but when we do it, we need to do it right or else risk magnifying the economic and human toll the pandemic is taking. The lockdown is a bridge to a world of virus suppression, which in turn is a bridge to medical solutions that will eliminate SARS-CoV-2 from the human population, everywhere on earth, for good.

concordDance 6y ago
I don't see how that graph supports your point. It seems to be about years of life lost per death, rather than years of life lost per infection. It's also not correct stats to bucket data this strongly as you end up assuming that the dead are a representative sample of the population in your buckets (in this case, age and number of conditions). For example, if there are two subpopulations in each bucket, one with a much lower remaining life expectancy and much higher rate of death from covid19 (fixing age bucket and number of pre-existing conditions), then you'll end up vastly overstating the numbers. (An example subpopulation here could be men/women or people with a pre-existing condition that slightly/severely complicates a covid19 infection) I can't read the article, so let me know if the above is addressed.
- hyko 6y ago
  My apologies for the paywall link and for the fact that the study doesn’t really support all the points I was trying to make. I take your point about not assuming the breakdown of the deceased group is representative of the general population. Original paper is here: https://wellcomeopenresearch.org/articles/5-75 https://wellcomeopenresearch.org/articles/5-75 The article does go on to make the claim that 20% of the deceased would be individuals in their 50s and 60s, a cohort willing and able to make substantial contributions to productivity. That runs counter to the notion that the virus would just run it’s scythe through people who would be on their death beds anyway. I would say this argument sounds like a special case of the broken window fallacy, and that allowing people to die is just a poor economic policy. Just because you’re not producing, doesn’t mean you’re economically inert–removing retirees and even care home residents from the economy would represent a significant reduction in demand, with the attendant economic headaches that creates.
  - concordDance 6y ago
    Thank you for the link, I shall read it in a bit. EDIT: Looks like they address the point on breakdown by sex but I can't tell whether they address breakdown by type of comorbidity. They don't discuss how large a factor is the unaccounted for subpopulation traits potentially causing both decrease in life expectancy and increase in covid19 morbidity (or one, but not the other, which would bias results the other way), but I suppose that's very difficult to estimate. I am unconvinced that the deaths of care home residents and retirees would be bad for the economy (setting aside its more general badness). The elderly demand for carers and other goods and services hugely exceeds the supply available at the price point they (or their NHS) can afford. The deaths of a huge number of care patients and the elderly in general would let the NHS shuffle resources around and be far less overstretched in caring for the elderly. Their consumption of other goods and services is fairly minor by comparison. Indeed, the quality of service offered by the NHS would hugely improve (I doubt the government wpild be willing to cut its budget too much for a few years). I don't have a good enough grasp of economics or the situation in the USA to speculate much on the effects, but find myself skeptical that the US economy is demand limited.
    - hyko 6y ago
      I guess one thing to point out is that the cost of social care (circa £20 billion) in the UK is not borne by the NHS, but by a mixture of local councils (70%) and private individuals (30%). Nursing home deaths will not really significantly affect the NHS budget (circa £150 billion, 10% of which is spent on people aged over 85). The wants and needs of nursing home residents create a demand, and we fulfil that demand using some of our productivity. In fact without that demand there would be no need for that sector, and our productivity would fall to match. Perhaps the savings in tax and private wealth would be directed to other sectors, but maybe not. The case for mere retirees is even more clear cut. They are spending accumulated wealth (or accumulated entitlements) and they account for a massive amount of aggregate demand because of a mixture of hard work and luck. They are not a loss to the economy just because they don’t need to work anymore; retirees are a massive component of the modern economy.
      - 6y ago

by hyko 6y ago

concordDance 6y ago

I don't see how that graph supports your point. It seems to be about years of life lost per death, rather than years of life lost per infection. It's also not correct stats to bucket data this strongly as you end up assuming that the dead are a representative sample of the population in your buckets (in this case, age and number of conditions). For example, if there are two subpopulations in each bucket, one with a much lower remaining life expectancy and much higher rate of death from covid19 (fixing age bucket and number of pre-existing conditions), then you'll end up vastly overstating the numbers. (An example subpopulation here could be men/women or people with a pre-existing condition that slightly/severely complicates a covid19 infection) I can't read the article, so let me know if the above is addressed.

hyko 6y ago
My apologies for the paywall link and for the fact that the study doesn’t really support all the points I was trying to make. I take your point about not assuming the breakdown of the deceased group is representative of the general population. Original paper is here: https://wellcomeopenresearch.org/articles/5-75 https://wellcomeopenresearch.org/articles/5-75 The article does go on to make the claim that 20% of the deceased would be individuals in their 50s and 60s, a cohort willing and able to make substantial contributions to productivity. That runs counter to the notion that the virus would just run it’s scythe through people who would be on their death beds anyway. I would say this argument sounds like a special case of the broken window fallacy, and that allowing people to die is just a poor economic policy. Just because you’re not producing, doesn’t mean you’re economically inert–removing retirees and even care home residents from the economy would represent a significant reduction in demand, with the attendant economic headaches that creates.
- concordDance 6y ago
  Thank you for the link, I shall read it in a bit. EDIT: Looks like they address the point on breakdown by sex but I can't tell whether they address breakdown by type of comorbidity. They don't discuss how large a factor is the unaccounted for subpopulation traits potentially causing both decrease in life expectancy and increase in covid19 morbidity (or one, but not the other, which would bias results the other way), but I suppose that's very difficult to estimate. I am unconvinced that the deaths of care home residents and retirees would be bad for the economy (setting aside its more general badness). The elderly demand for carers and other goods and services hugely exceeds the supply available at the price point they (or their NHS) can afford. The deaths of a huge number of care patients and the elderly in general would let the NHS shuffle resources around and be far less overstretched in caring for the elderly. Their consumption of other goods and services is fairly minor by comparison. Indeed, the quality of service offered by the NHS would hugely improve (I doubt the government wpild be willing to cut its budget too much for a few years). I don't have a good enough grasp of economics or the situation in the USA to speculate much on the effects, but find myself skeptical that the US economy is demand limited.
  - hyko 6y ago
    I guess one thing to point out is that the cost of social care (circa £20 billion) in the UK is not borne by the NHS, but by a mixture of local councils (70%) and private individuals (30%). Nursing home deaths will not really significantly affect the NHS budget (circa £150 billion, 10% of which is spent on people aged over 85). The wants and needs of nursing home residents create a demand, and we fulfil that demand using some of our productivity. In fact without that demand there would be no need for that sector, and our productivity would fall to match. Perhaps the savings in tax and private wealth would be directed to other sectors, but maybe not. The case for mere retirees is even more clear cut. They are spending accumulated wealth (or accumulated entitlements) and they account for a massive amount of aggregate demand because of a mixture of hard work and luck. They are not a loss to the economy just because they don’t need to work anymore; retirees are a massive component of the modern economy.
    - 6y ago