4 ms·

And around 110,000 from other causes.

by pbreit 6y ago

tunesmith 6y ago
Which are still happening. Your point would have resonance if Covid were replacing a sufficient number of those deaths. But, it's additive.
- aianus 6y ago
  The lockdown is causing deaths too which also need to be considered. We shut down cancer screening and gyms for 3 months in Ontario; that’s almost certainly going to kill more people than COVID did.
  - wonderwonder 6y ago
    How will shutting down gyms for 3 months kill more people that covid? ~2600 people died from covid in Ontario. Are you saying that they gyms being closed caused more than that?
    - aianus 6y ago
      At ~10y of life lost per COVID death that's about 320,000 months of life lost to COVID in Ontario. If there are ~1 million gym patrons in Ontario, then the gym lockdown (which is still ongoing) only needs to decrease a gym patron's lifespan by 10 days on average to be worse than COVID. Also, I claimed cancer screenings + gyms combined. Hundreds of people get diagnosed with malignant tumors every day in Ontario and those tumors are now 3 months more advanced than they should be (and will be for a long time after the lockdown until the queues for medical care clear up).
      - wonderwonder 6y ago
        That's just silly. You would get into the most ridiculous moral quandaries with thinking like that. If 75,000 people commute 1 hour each day on a highway and then someone offers to reconfigure the highway to cut the time in half and all he is asking for is the lives of 100 children, its a good trade! At an avg lifespan of 78 years, 100 kids is ~68 million hours. 30 minutes saved a day / 261 days / year for 75,000 people is ~9.7 million hours a year, so after 7 years, it basically free. Except we would never do that because we don't measure human value in hours because the people in power would be free to make some really terrible optimizations. You are right though, you did include cancers and I ignored it so we can call it a tie.
    - pbreit 6y ago
      "and cancer screening"
  - tunesmith 6y ago
    Please show your calculations of excess cancer deaths being greater than the projected non-lockdown Covid deaths over the same time period?
  - kaitai 6y ago
    That's why the Paleolithic had shorter lifespans than moderns... no gyms....
    - aianus 6y ago
      Heart disease and cancer kill more people per day than COVID even now. Edit: and it's not just the gym obviously, we've removed any incidental exercise one might get from work or leisure activities that were locked down too
- wrycoder 6y ago
  Global coronavirus death toll could be 60% higher than reported https://www.ft.com/content/6bd88b7d-3386-4543-b2e9-0d5c6fac846c https://www.ft.com/content/6bd88b7d-3386-4543-b2e9-0d5c6fac8...
- catalogia 6y ago
  What was the average life expectancy last year, and what is it now?
- Zach_the_Lizard 6y ago
  50% of those could be nursing home patients. Could be more or less, depending on your region. Those are absolutely moving deaths forward by a couple months at best. I'd be willing to put money on a fair amount of the rest of the deaths also being people who are pretty ill. Not all, of course. Maybe not even most of the rest. But enough to not be a rounding error.
wonderwonder 6y ago
So due to coronavirus the US has experienced a 7% increase in general mortality. That seems pretty significant.
ScottBurson 6y ago
The operative point is not how many have died — it's how many could die. If we gave up altogether on mask-wearing and social distancing, the numbers would get to be much larger. This is partly because the ratio of deaths to infections would increase as the hospitals were overwhelmed. The relentless march of exponential growth would see to that. The fact that the numbers don't seem that dramatic yet doesn't mean that measures to slow the progress of the virus aren't important.

And around 110,000 from other causes.

by pbreit 6y ago

And around 110,000 from other causes.

Which are still happening. Your point would have resonance if Covid were replacing a sufficient number of those deaths. But, it's additive.

aianus 6y ago
The lockdown is causing deaths too which also need to be considered. We shut down cancer screening and gyms for 3 months in Ontario; that’s almost certainly going to kill more people than COVID did.
- wonderwonder 6y ago
  How will shutting down gyms for 3 months kill more people that covid? ~2600 people died from covid in Ontario. Are you saying that they gyms being closed caused more than that?
  - aianus 6y ago
    At ~10y of life lost per COVID death that's about 320,000 months of life lost to COVID in Ontario. If there are ~1 million gym patrons in Ontario, then the gym lockdown (which is still ongoing) only needs to decrease a gym patron's lifespan by 10 days on average to be worse than COVID. Also, I claimed cancer screenings + gyms combined. Hundreds of people get diagnosed with malignant tumors every day in Ontario and those tumors are now 3 months more advanced than they should be (and will be for a long time after the lockdown until the queues for medical care clear up).
    - wonderwonder 6y ago
      That's just silly. You would get into the most ridiculous moral quandaries with thinking like that. If 75,000 people commute 1 hour each day on a highway and then someone offers to reconfigure the highway to cut the time in half and all he is asking for is the lives of 100 children, its a good trade! At an avg lifespan of 78 years, 100 kids is ~68 million hours. 30 minutes saved a day / 261 days / year for 75,000 people is ~9.7 million hours a year, so after 7 years, it basically free. Except we would never do that because we don't measure human value in hours because the people in power would be free to make some really terrible optimizations. You are right though, you did include cancers and I ignored it so we can call it a tie.
  - pbreit 6y ago
    "and cancer screening"
- tunesmith 6y ago
  Please show your calculations of excess cancer deaths being greater than the projected non-lockdown Covid deaths over the same time period?
- kaitai 6y ago
  That's why the Paleolithic had shorter lifespans than moderns... no gyms....
  - aianus 6y ago
    Heart disease and cancer kill more people per day than COVID even now. Edit: and it's not just the gym obviously, we've removed any incidental exercise one might get from work or leisure activities that were locked down too
wrycoder 6y ago
Global coronavirus death toll could be 60% higher than reported https://www.ft.com/content/6bd88b7d-3386-4543-b2e9-0d5c6fac846c https://www.ft.com/content/6bd88b7d-3386-4543-b2e9-0d5c6fac8...
catalogia 6y ago
What was the average life expectancy last year, and what is it now?
Zach_the_Lizard 6y ago
50% of those could be nursing home patients. Could be more or less, depending on your region. Those are absolutely moving deaths forward by a couple months at best. I'd be willing to put money on a fair amount of the rest of the deaths also being people who are pretty ill. Not all, of course. Maybe not even most of the rest. But enough to not be a rounding error.

wonderwonder 6y ago

So due to coronavirus the US has experienced a 7% increase in general mortality. That seems pretty significant.

ScottBurson 6y ago

The operative point is not how many have died — it's how many could die. If we gave up altogether on mask-wearing and social distancing, the numbers would get to be much larger. This is partly because the ratio of deaths to infections would increase as the hospitals were overwhelmed. The relentless march of exponential growth would see to that. The fact that the numbers don't seem that dramatic yet doesn't mean that measures to slow the progress of the virus aren't important.