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you are missing the point altogether as well.... people dying is a larger problem than missing income as well... income can be replaced, death is ultimate....

you are missing the point altogether as well.... people dying is a larger problem than missing income as well... income can be replaced, death is ultimate.... Also, we generally know that for every 1% increase in unemployment, there are 5000 extra death a year... (sickness, suicides, lack of basic items etc) so a 10% increase of unemployment, will cause an extra 50k deaths... Meanwhile covid has already caused 130k+ deaths. If left completely unchecked it can go into millions territory... (1-2 mil). If you halve the covid deaths, you can save at least 500k lives, at the collateral expense of 50k lives (due to rising unemployment).

umvi 6y ago
If we are going the utilitarian route... Is a covid death worth same as an unemployment death? I sort of assumed most covid deaths were elderly people that have already lived full lives so only 5-10 years of life are lost per death. A suicide of a 30 year old on the other hand is ~50 years of life down the drain...
- pessimizer 6y ago
  Assume the average covid patient had 10 years left to live, and the average unemployment suicide had 65 years left to live. If we've had 130K covid deaths, and we arbitrarily say that whatever lockdown measures you think were excessive cut covid deaths by a third - are you postulating 10K excess suicides in the last 4 months?
  - colordrops 6y ago
    No, there are other possibilities, such as enacting policies around masking and cleanliness in business and public, without shutting anything down, e.g. Sweden, which has a number of deaths in line with other countries that had lockdowns.
- TheOtherHobbes 6y ago
  The worst case outcome in a pandemic is mass panic. A lot of people don't understand that death is a threat until they start to experience a lot of it in their cohort. If that happens after exponential growth, you get a sudden phase change where a large percentage of the working population switches from "This won't touch me and I don't care" to "OMG this is going to kill me." At that point people stay at home regardless, and the economy is badly damaged anyway. The difference is it's damaged in an uncontrolled way, with panic buying and supply chain interruptions - neither of which you want. The awful truth is that it's actually better to allow some businesses to die in lockdown as a fire break than to allow a pandemic to get completely out of control - because the latter results in a much higher death toll and more severe economic damage, as well as a permanent loss of trust in effective government.
  - umanwizard 6y ago
    Even if 100% of people get covid, most people of working age won’t know anyone else of working age who dies from it. There’s no evidence to support your claim that unchecked spread of covid would lead to a worse economic disaster than the lockdowns, and in fact Sweden and Belarus seem to directly contradict it.

umvi 6y ago

If we are going the utilitarian route... Is a covid death worth same as an unemployment death? I sort of assumed most covid deaths were elderly people that have already lived full lives so only 5-10 years of life are lost per death. A suicide of a 30 year old on the other hand is ~50 years of life down the drain...

pessimizer 6y ago
Assume the average covid patient had 10 years left to live, and the average unemployment suicide had 65 years left to live. If we've had 130K covid deaths, and we arbitrarily say that whatever lockdown measures you think were excessive cut covid deaths by a third - are you postulating 10K excess suicides in the last 4 months?
- colordrops 6y ago
  No, there are other possibilities, such as enacting policies around masking and cleanliness in business and public, without shutting anything down, e.g. Sweden, which has a number of deaths in line with other countries that had lockdowns.
TheOtherHobbes 6y ago
The worst case outcome in a pandemic is mass panic. A lot of people don't understand that death is a threat until they start to experience a lot of it in their cohort. If that happens after exponential growth, you get a sudden phase change where a large percentage of the working population switches from "This won't touch me and I don't care" to "OMG this is going to kill me." At that point people stay at home regardless, and the economy is badly damaged anyway. The difference is it's damaged in an uncontrolled way, with panic buying and supply chain interruptions - neither of which you want. The awful truth is that it's actually better to allow some businesses to die in lockdown as a fire break than to allow a pandemic to get completely out of control - because the latter results in a much higher death toll and more severe economic damage, as well as a permanent loss of trust in effective government.
- umanwizard 6y ago
  Even if 100% of people get covid, most people of working age won’t know anyone else of working age who dies from it. There’s no evidence to support your claim that unchecked spread of covid would lead to a worse economic disaster than the lockdowns, and in fact Sweden and Belarus seem to directly contradict it.