3 ms·
> Even at 0.3% IFR you're still talking about ~700k total fatalities in the US alone Yes, there are a lot of people in the US, so even things with a very tiny
by umanwizard 6y ago
> Even at 0.3% IFR you're still talking about ~700k total fatalities in the US alone
Yes, there are a lot of people in the US, so even things with a very tiny chance of killing you will cause large numbers of deaths in absolute terms.
On the other hand, to be fair, if you’re considering absolute numbers of deaths, you _also_ have to consider absolute quantities of suffering from the lockdown. Take the probability of a person being thrust into poverty, or developing serious mental health problems, or just spending some of their precious time on earth unable to socialize normally... and multiply that by 300,000,000.
There would be many ways of saving 700,000 or more lives that are much less invasive than the current lockdowns, like heavily restricting meat consumption or driving. However, we don’t implement them because the per-capita increase in life expectancy is judged not to be worth the decrease in life quality.
- woeirua 6y agoNo one is denying that the lockdowns are having serious repercussions throughout all of society. There will definitely be many unintended deaths from other causes that would not otherwise have happened without Coronavirus. That said, you are just flat out wrong about how many people die in the US from driving and Coronary Heart Disease each year. Together, those two account for ~400k fatalities each year. In the best case scenario, Covid may cause almost double that number in less than 12 months. In the worst case scenario, it could be many times that number. Also, we need to keep in mind that while covid predominately kills the elderly, some younger people will still die from it. CHD pretty much only kills the elderly.
- umanwizard 6y agoI never said “per year”. I am comparing the total lifetime impact of Covid on some cohort of people to the total lifetime impact of other ailments.