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I frankly don't get where the misunderstanding is. If you take 1000 deaths and spread them across a 6months or a year instead of 2weeks, no lives have been "sa

I frankly don't get where the misunderstanding is. If you take 1000 deaths and spread them across a 6months or a year instead of 2weeks, no lives have been "saved". Similarly the act of spreading it out via general extended quarantine, does massive economic damage that will result in deaths, starvation, homelessness and impoverishment that arguably will completely eclipse whatever lives are actually saved by the quarantine (due to say availability of ventilators and medical care not being overrun). Maybe that damage isn't as large in some developed countries like Germany who can maybe afford it, but it is in many other countries.

newacct583 6y ago
> I frankly don't get where the misunderstanding is. If you take 1000 deaths and spread them across a 6months or a year instead of 2weeks, no lives have been "saved". That is not the effect of a lockdown. There is your misunderstanding. The proof is in the linked article (or data for Hong Kong, Korea, Taiwan, Hawaii, all of whom also contained the virus before reaching herd immunity).
- Johanx64 6y ago
  I suppose you are referring to having R0 below zero. Now then the question becomes what kind of measures are necessary to keep it there and if those measures are feasible long-term. If those measures are not feasible long term (this seems to be the case), that means they R0 can be held below zero only briefly. In other words, the spread of the virus is only slowed down (or even reversed briefly, with R0 < 0) and delayed, and in essence the most deaths are simply delayed and not saved. While the deaths from the quarantine measures itself doesn't seem to ever get accounted for. And that is the problem - those quarantine measure/economic damage deaths doesn't ever seem to be put into equation as if they don't exist or are negligible. Which makes me question if quarantine does net-benefit or does more harm in log term when all the externalities and knock on effects are actually accounted for. Or am I missing something?
  - Johanx64 6y ago
    Correction: R0 below 1, R0 < 1

newacct583 6y ago

> I frankly don't get where the misunderstanding is. If you take 1000 deaths and spread them across a 6months or a year instead of 2weeks, no lives have been "saved". That is not the effect of a lockdown. There is your misunderstanding. The proof is in the linked article (or data for Hong Kong, Korea, Taiwan, Hawaii, all of whom also contained the virus before reaching herd immunity).

Johanx64 6y ago
I suppose you are referring to having R0 below zero. Now then the question becomes what kind of measures are necessary to keep it there and if those measures are feasible long-term. If those measures are not feasible long term (this seems to be the case), that means they R0 can be held below zero only briefly. In other words, the spread of the virus is only slowed down (or even reversed briefly, with R0 < 0) and delayed, and in essence the most deaths are simply delayed and not saved. While the deaths from the quarantine measures itself doesn't seem to ever get accounted for. And that is the problem - those quarantine measure/economic damage deaths doesn't ever seem to be put into equation as if they don't exist or are negligible. Which makes me question if quarantine does net-benefit or does more harm in log term when all the externalities and knock on effects are actually accounted for. Or am I missing something?
- Johanx64 6y ago
  Correction: R0 below 1, R0 < 1