5 ms·

You're right, but it's actually even more specific than that, you have to look at the life expectancy of a frail 80-year old living at an elder care facility su

You're right, but it's actually even more specific than that, you have to look at the life expectancy of a frail 80-year old living at an elder care facility suffering from diabetes/hypertension/heart problems. Not that of a random, healthy, 80-year old. The biggest disingeniousness of the people talking about the covid-19 specific death toll is that the assumption is that if not for covid-19, everyone would have lived forever and ever, and that's simply not true. Looking at the demographics of the dead, for many, covid-19 is what happened to push them over. If not for covid-19, something else would have done it in a similar timeframe, especially since the flu seasons of 2018/19 and 2019/20 were so mild. Yes, there are people who died significantly before their time, but they're a small minority of the dead. So 10 QALY lost per dead is way too much. 1 QALY lost per dead is too little, I agree. The truth is probably somewhere in between.

tripletao 6y ago
I said ten years from a study[1] adjusting for age and comorbidities of the patients, which got 13 and 11 years for men and women respectively. That study doesn't adjust for the severity of the comorbidities, so I agree it's probably an overestimate. I'd like to see a study that predicts life expectancy using more factors (e.g., long-term care residency), but I'm not aware of one. As to masks, I also agree correct use is a problem. Here (SF Bay Area) the East Asian population seems to use them competently and consistently, but everyone else is hit or miss. I would have liked to see more public education, rather than just the unexplained mandate; but the probability that masks primarily explain East Asia's success in containing the virus seems high enough, and the cost seems low enough, that they seem like a favorable bet to me. I do also think it's quite possible that other factors (e.g., different degrees of pre-existing T cell immunity from other coronaviruses) will turn out to explain that big difference though. 1. https://wellcomeopenresearch.org/articles/5-75 https://wellcomeopenresearch.org/articles/5-75

tripletao 6y ago

I said ten years from a study[1] adjusting for age and comorbidities of the patients, which got 13 and 11 years for men and women respectively. That study doesn't adjust for the severity of the comorbidities, so I agree it's probably an overestimate. I'd like to see a study that predicts life expectancy using more factors (e.g., long-term care residency), but I'm not aware of one. As to masks, I also agree correct use is a problem. Here (SF Bay Area) the East Asian population seems to use them competently and consistently, but everyone else is hit or miss. I would have liked to see more public education, rather than just the unexplained mandate; but the probability that masks primarily explain East Asia's success in containing the virus seems high enough, and the cost seems low enough, that they seem like a favorable bet to me. I do also think it's quite possible that other factors (e.g., different degrees of pre-existing T cell immunity from other coronaviruses) will turn out to explain that big difference though. 1. https://wellcomeopenresearch.org/articles/5-75 https://wellcomeopenresearch.org/articles/5-75