4 ms·

Sweden only messed up if you consider the variable to optimise to be the number of deaths. If you attempt to minimise sum decrease in quality of life as a conse

by DC-3 6y ago

Sweden only messed up if you consider the variable to optimise to be the number of deaths. If you attempt to minimise sum decrease in quality of life as a consequence of the pandemic, then as callous as it may sound, the severe lockdown strategies come out of the equation quite poorly.

mnm1 6y ago
Better optimize then for haircuts. How many haircuts can we trade for one death? Haircuts are so much more important that we should accept some number of deaths so that people can get their haircuts. What's this number to you? Callousness doesn't even begin to address the stupidity of this argument.
- DuskStar 6y ago
  Depends on who's dying, but somewhere between 10k and 500k haircuts per death. (A teenager or child is "worth" more than someone in a nursing home - and if you go by life expectancy, it's more than 50x higher) So 10k @$20/haircut is $200k, near the top of the statistical value of a year of life. (And the life expectancy of someone entering a nursing home in the US is less than a year) 500k @$20/haircut is $10m, or at the top end of what federal agencies put as the value of a life in the US. At either conversion rate opening up for haircuts alone is remarkably silly.
- caseysoftware 6y ago
  If you think the debate is about haircuts, I'd wager you have a work from home friendly job with direct deposit where you don't have to decide between "staying home & going broke" vs "working & feeding my family."
  - mnm1 6y ago
    I'd wager you don't get sarcasm. I'd also wager the people who are out of work aren't protesting with signs demanding haircuts. Then again, I might lose this second wager if these protestors are that stupid, dumber than even I previously thought.
tripletao 6y ago
Strictly, Sweden messed up if you consider the variable to optimize to be the number of short-term coronavirus deaths. If no vaccine or effective treatment comes available soon enough, then other countries may pay the same cost in mortality after reopening, just later. Theirs could even be worse, if e.g. they accidentally push their second wave into winter and the weather effect turns out to be significant. And that's before considering the second-order cost in mortality. Society has existing treatments for various diseases that we know statistically would save lives, but that we don't pay for because they're not cost-effective, often defined around $100k per quality-adjusted life year (QALY) in the West. Assuming about 10 QALY lost per coronavirus death, the coronavirus has so far cost Sweden the same mortality as a $4B cut in health spending, about 1% of their GDP. So if you favored an intervention that would have cut that mortality to zero but cost Sweden an extra 2% of GDP, then in a meaningful statistical sense, you're killing people--you're proposing to allocate limited resources from a place where they save more lives to a place where they save fewer. The only difference is that we see coronavirus victims dying now, but the future deaths due to an under-resourced medical system will be lost in the noise. None of this is to say that Sweden's response is obviously right. For example, if a treatment is discovered next month that dramatically cuts the IFR, then they'll regret not delaying cases until after that. To criticize Sweden's response solely on the basis of their current death count is not useful, though.

by DC-3 6y ago

mnm1 6y ago

Better optimize then for haircuts. How many haircuts can we trade for one death? Haircuts are so much more important that we should accept some number of deaths so that people can get their haircuts. What's this number to you? Callousness doesn't even begin to address the stupidity of this argument.

DuskStar 6y ago
Depends on who's dying, but somewhere between 10k and 500k haircuts per death. (A teenager or child is "worth" more than someone in a nursing home - and if you go by life expectancy, it's more than 50x higher) So 10k @$20/haircut is $200k, near the top of the statistical value of a year of life. (And the life expectancy of someone entering a nursing home in the US is less than a year) 500k @$20/haircut is $10m, or at the top end of what federal agencies put as the value of a life in the US. At either conversion rate opening up for haircuts alone is remarkably silly.
caseysoftware 6y ago
If you think the debate is about haircuts, I'd wager you have a work from home friendly job with direct deposit where you don't have to decide between "staying home & going broke" vs "working & feeding my family."
- mnm1 6y ago
  I'd wager you don't get sarcasm. I'd also wager the people who are out of work aren't protesting with signs demanding haircuts. Then again, I might lose this second wager if these protestors are that stupid, dumber than even I previously thought.

tripletao 6y ago

Strictly, Sweden messed up if you consider the variable to optimize to be the number of short-term coronavirus deaths. If no vaccine or effective treatment comes available soon enough, then other countries may pay the same cost in mortality after reopening, just later. Theirs could even be worse, if e.g. they accidentally push their second wave into winter and the weather effect turns out to be significant. And that's before considering the second-order cost in mortality. Society has existing treatments for various diseases that we know statistically would save lives, but that we don't pay for because they're not cost-effective, often defined around $100k per quality-adjusted life year (QALY) in the West. Assuming about 10 QALY lost per coronavirus death, the coronavirus has so far cost Sweden the same mortality as a $4B cut in health spending, about 1% of their GDP. So if you favored an intervention that would have cut that mortality to zero but cost Sweden an extra 2% of GDP, then in a meaningful statistical sense, you're killing people--you're proposing to allocate limited resources from a place where they save more lives to a place where they save fewer. The only difference is that we see coronavirus victims dying now, but the future deaths due to an under-resourced medical system will be lost in the noise. None of this is to say that Sweden's response is obviously right. For example, if a treatment is discovered next month that dramatically cuts the IFR, then they'll regret not delaying cases until after that. To criticize Sweden's response solely on the basis of their current death count is not useful, though.