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To put this number in perspective, in 1945 US population was 140 million, compared to today's 330 million. So, WWII had around 3.5 times deaths per capita, over

by xyzzyz 6y ago

To put this number in perspective, in 1945 US population was 140 million, compared to today's 330 million. So, WWII had around 3.5 times deaths per capita, overwhelmingly among very young people, compared to COVID-19 deaths, which are overwhelmingly among elderly. If, instead of deaths, you look at the years of life lost, then considering that typical WWII casualty had something like 50 years ahead of them, compared to 10 years of COVID-19 casualty, WWII deaths were probably 15-18 times worse than COVID-19. Here are another numbers to consider. 2017-2018 was a pretty bad flu season, and according to CDC, resulted in around 70 000 deaths. When you look at COVID-19 death trends and fit the curve, we're looking at probably 270 000-300 000 deaths before the current epidemics ends. So, COVID-19 is going to be around 4 times as bad as a bad flu season. 2017-2018 flu season was bad, but was not extraordinary. An extraordinary flu season happened in 1968, a so-called Hong-Kong flu. It had, according to CDC, around 100 000 victims, back when US population was 200 million. When you consider per-capita death rates, COVID-19 is less than twice as bad as Hong Kong flu was. We didn't lock down for Hong Kong flu, and I don't think people really paid much attention to it -- the year was 1968, after all. The above was of course medical harms. The non-medical harm due to COVID-19 is wholly disproportional to non-medical harms for flu, it's orders of magnitude worse. The economic cost (in terms of actual production/GDP lost) COVID-19 just in the US is estimated to have similar economic cost to WWII. What did we gain for it? What was the point of the lockdowns, if we're just letting them up now anyway? We could have just told people to put on masks back in February and have them get on with their lives.

Jommi 6y ago
Your final statement is completely missing the huge swath of research intelligence and advancements we have now compared to February. Even if removing the spike is not possible, moving it to a time with better knowledge of the virus or even a vaccine will reduce spike of deaths quite a bit.
TheAdamAndChe 6y ago
> The non-medical harm due to COVID-19 is wholly disproportional to non-medical harms for flu, it's orders of magnitude worse.... What did we gain for it? We're lowering the curve. If we let the infection spread unabated, most hospital systems will swiftly be overrun. Just as in Italy when the outbreak first occurred, we would have people dying in the streets due to lack of care, leading to complete and total collapse of trust in the healthcare and governmental systems. The lockdowns are absolutely necessary to avoid panic and potential societal breakdown. It's hard to imagine because it's not the path we've taken. The lockdowns happened specifically because at the time, the two places with widespread spread of the virus(China, Italy) had overrun hospitals. The lockdown was implemented to pause the system and determine just exactly how bad this was and come up with a response.
- xyzzyz 6y ago
  > If we let the infection spread unabated, most hospital systems will swiftly be overrun. There is no reason to believe that. The hospitals weren't overrun in New York City, where the infection was not only not abated, but in fact the policy of sending infected people to nursing homes, and requiring them to accept them. Texas and Florida had very little cases before they locked down, and only started growing after lockdowns were mostly lifted. At no point were their hospital systems overwhelmed. > The lockdowns are absolutely necessary to avoid panic and potential societal breakdown. No, it's the lockdowns that are inducing panic. There was no panic during 1968 Hong Kong flu, which up until recently was worse than COVID-19 -- it only recently over took it. Where was the panic in Sweden? > The lockdown was implemented to pause the system and determine just exactly how bad this was and come up with a response. Why did so many lockdown measures persist, then? Sheer arbitrariness of it all shows pretty clearly that at this point is more about politician's power trip and sending message of doing something, and not actual public health concerns.

by xyzzyz 6y ago

Jommi 6y ago

Your final statement is completely missing the huge swath of research intelligence and advancements we have now compared to February. Even if removing the spike is not possible, moving it to a time with better knowledge of the virus or even a vaccine will reduce spike of deaths quite a bit.

TheAdamAndChe 6y ago

> The non-medical harm due to COVID-19 is wholly disproportional to non-medical harms for flu, it's orders of magnitude worse.... What did we gain for it? We're lowering the curve. If we let the infection spread unabated, most hospital systems will swiftly be overrun. Just as in Italy when the outbreak first occurred, we would have people dying in the streets due to lack of care, leading to complete and total collapse of trust in the healthcare and governmental systems. The lockdowns are absolutely necessary to avoid panic and potential societal breakdown. It's hard to imagine because it's not the path we've taken. The lockdowns happened specifically because at the time, the two places with widespread spread of the virus(China, Italy) had overrun hospitals. The lockdown was implemented to pause the system and determine just exactly how bad this was and come up with a response.

xyzzyz 6y ago
> If we let the infection spread unabated, most hospital systems will swiftly be overrun. There is no reason to believe that. The hospitals weren't overrun in New York City, where the infection was not only not abated, but in fact the policy of sending infected people to nursing homes, and requiring them to accept them. Texas and Florida had very little cases before they locked down, and only started growing after lockdowns were mostly lifted. At no point were their hospital systems overwhelmed. > The lockdowns are absolutely necessary to avoid panic and potential societal breakdown. No, it's the lockdowns that are inducing panic. There was no panic during 1968 Hong Kong flu, which up until recently was worse than COVID-19 -- it only recently over took it. Where was the panic in Sweden? > The lockdown was implemented to pause the system and determine just exactly how bad this was and come up with a response. Why did so many lockdown measures persist, then? Sheer arbitrariness of it all shows pretty clearly that at this point is more about politician's power trip and sending message of doing something, and not actual public health concerns.