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Yes, our Politicians and physicians failed us here. Epidemiologists have been correct in their pandemic physics. >Harsh violent lockdown for 2 or 3 years can e

Yes, our Politicians and physicians failed us here. Epidemiologists have been correct in their pandemic physics. >Harsh violent lockdown for 2 or 3 years can eradicate coronavirus. >Soft lockdowns "flatten the curve". From the NYT study, this reduces death by 12% due to availability of ventilators, and find potentially other helpful drugs. >No government lockdown, where people must be personally responsible for their own health. This sacrifices the old and obese that refuse to comply with voluntary lockdown. And all of this effort is focused around a few percentage of the population, which is disproportionately unhealthy.

JoeAltmaier 6y ago
Not necessarily. A 50-something person that rides centuries on their bike and runs half marathons, is very much at risk simply because of their age. Blame-throwing is not helpful nor correct.
- oxymoran 6y ago
  Very much at risk, but the risk is very small.
  - MereInterest 6y ago
    1% chance of death and 2% chance of extended illness is not "very small". I would put those risks as "very high", since that is essentially your risk budget for the entire year. I used to play a tabletop RPG that used percentile dice. For every action, there was a 1% chance of a miserable failure. Turns out, those cropped up quite a bit.
  - xipho 6y ago
    So, if 50, you are willing to play Russian-Roulette and pick an M&M from a jar of 100 (or even 200) when, perhaps, 1-4 of them will kill you? I'd love to imagine (actually watching would be sadistic) a lineup of folks claiming they would, step up to the M&Ms, one after another, be told of the chances, and watch them pluck one, or step away. https://ourworldindata.org/mortality-risk-covid#case-fatality-rate-of-covid-19-by-age https://ourworldindata.org/mortality-risk-covid#case-fatalit...
  - JoeAltmaier 6y ago
    Nope. The risk is climbing rapidly at that age.
- pfraze 6y ago
  It's not throwing blame to say that comorbidities increase risk of long-term or fatal effects.
- base698 6y ago
  Even at 80 it only about doubles the chance they die. An 80 year old has a 5% chance of death, adding another 5% chance of death is striking no doubt, and would consider that very much at risk. 50 however... 50 year old is only about a 0.14% IFR: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02483-2 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02483-2 The IFR was close to zero for people between the ages of 15 and 44, increasing to 3.1% for 65–74-year-olds and to 11.6% for anyone older. The results of the study have been posted to the medRxiv preprint server1.
  - monadic2 6y ago
    "Only" doubles? Compared to what reasonable baseline?
    - base698 6y ago
      A standard 80 year old, which is striking as stated above. It's bad odds for sure and if 80 you wouldn't want to contract it. Only implies it's not a death sentence, roughly as dangerous as space flight.
ttul 6y ago
Plenty of perfectly healthy people are also dying of COVID-19, even with the efforts to slow its spread. If we didn’t work to slow its spread, our healthcare system would rapidly collapse.
- ekianjo 6y ago
  > If we didn’t work to slow its spread, our healthcare system would rapidly collapse. Is that really the case though? We keep hearing of a lot more infected, but at the same time the hospitals have a lot of capacity now (across several countries) so what is the risk for the healthcare system right now?
- oxymoran 6y ago
  > Plenty of perfectly healthy people are also dying of COVID-19, even with the efforts to slow its spread. If we didn’t work to slow its spread, our healthcare system would rapidly collapse. Reference please
- abstractbarista 6y ago
  Ehh, the statistics show it is far less likely the younger you are. This is simply what the numbers show, and cannot be argued otherwise.
  - cowmoo728 6y ago
    Yes, but there are at least 100 million people (probably a lot more) still at risk in the US alone. An optimistic scenario of 0.1% of 100 million over six months requiring hospital care is 17,000 people per month being admitted to hospital for covid-19 alone. The level of care many of these people require is very high. We don't have the capacity to do it with our current healthcare system, even with these generous assumptions. Individual risk is low, but collective risk is unacceptably high.
- base698 6y ago
  Citation needed. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02483-2 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02483-2
mschuster91 6y ago
> Yes, our Politicians and physicians failed us here. Politicians indeed, but a large part of the blame lies on the general public - especially those parts who believe and spread beliefs that mask wearing is unmanly/dictatorship, that vaccines cause autism and the likes.
jmull 6y ago
I'm not sure you appreciate what "no government lockdown" vs. a soft lockdown means. You can consider some of the ways it could go: (1) people/businesses do voluntarily substantially the same things as soft lockdowns codify. In that case, the impact on the economy, deaths, hospitalizations, etc, are about the same. (2) people/businesses do substantially less. Deaths/hospitalizations increase. I think the economy probably does worse -- many people get scared and avoid many kinds of economic activity, take their kids out of school, etc. Other businesses are disrupted as employees and owners get ill. In the US, the large number of seriously ill uninsured/underinsured throw an anchor on to the economy for years to come. You suggest to "sacrifice the old and obese", but it's not clear there's a payoff for that sacrifice. We may end up with 2x-5x dead and a worse, longer-lasting economic situation.

JoeAltmaier 6y ago

Not necessarily. A 50-something person that rides centuries on their bike and runs half marathons, is very much at risk simply because of their age. Blame-throwing is not helpful nor correct.

oxymoran 6y ago
Very much at risk, but the risk is very small.
- MereInterest 6y ago
  1% chance of death and 2% chance of extended illness is not "very small". I would put those risks as "very high", since that is essentially your risk budget for the entire year. I used to play a tabletop RPG that used percentile dice. For every action, there was a 1% chance of a miserable failure. Turns out, those cropped up quite a bit.
- xipho 6y ago
  So, if 50, you are willing to play Russian-Roulette and pick an M&M from a jar of 100 (or even 200) when, perhaps, 1-4 of them will kill you? I'd love to imagine (actually watching would be sadistic) a lineup of folks claiming they would, step up to the M&Ms, one after another, be told of the chances, and watch them pluck one, or step away. https://ourworldindata.org/mortality-risk-covid#case-fatality-rate-of-covid-19-by-age https://ourworldindata.org/mortality-risk-covid#case-fatalit...
- JoeAltmaier 6y ago
  Nope. The risk is climbing rapidly at that age.
pfraze 6y ago
It's not throwing blame to say that comorbidities increase risk of long-term or fatal effects.
base698 6y ago
Even at 80 it only about doubles the chance they die. An 80 year old has a 5% chance of death, adding another 5% chance of death is striking no doubt, and would consider that very much at risk. 50 however... 50 year old is only about a 0.14% IFR: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02483-2 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02483-2 The IFR was close to zero for people between the ages of 15 and 44, increasing to 3.1% for 65–74-year-olds and to 11.6% for anyone older. The results of the study have been posted to the medRxiv preprint server1.
- monadic2 6y ago
  "Only" doubles? Compared to what reasonable baseline?
  - base698 6y ago
    A standard 80 year old, which is striking as stated above. It's bad odds for sure and if 80 you wouldn't want to contract it. Only implies it's not a death sentence, roughly as dangerous as space flight.

ttul 6y ago

Plenty of perfectly healthy people are also dying of COVID-19, even with the efforts to slow its spread. If we didn’t work to slow its spread, our healthcare system would rapidly collapse.

ekianjo 6y ago
> If we didn’t work to slow its spread, our healthcare system would rapidly collapse. Is that really the case though? We keep hearing of a lot more infected, but at the same time the hospitals have a lot of capacity now (across several countries) so what is the risk for the healthcare system right now?
oxymoran 6y ago
> Plenty of perfectly healthy people are also dying of COVID-19, even with the efforts to slow its spread. If we didn’t work to slow its spread, our healthcare system would rapidly collapse. Reference please
abstractbarista 6y ago
Ehh, the statistics show it is far less likely the younger you are. This is simply what the numbers show, and cannot be argued otherwise.
- cowmoo728 6y ago
  Yes, but there are at least 100 million people (probably a lot more) still at risk in the US alone. An optimistic scenario of 0.1% of 100 million over six months requiring hospital care is 17,000 people per month being admitted to hospital for covid-19 alone. The level of care many of these people require is very high. We don't have the capacity to do it with our current healthcare system, even with these generous assumptions. Individual risk is low, but collective risk is unacceptably high.
base698 6y ago
Citation needed. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02483-2 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02483-2

mschuster91 6y ago

> Yes, our Politicians and physicians failed us here. Politicians indeed, but a large part of the blame lies on the general public - especially those parts who believe and spread beliefs that mask wearing is unmanly/dictatorship, that vaccines cause autism and the likes.

jmull 6y ago

I'm not sure you appreciate what "no government lockdown" vs. a soft lockdown means. You can consider some of the ways it could go: (1) people/businesses do voluntarily substantially the same things as soft lockdowns codify. In that case, the impact on the economy, deaths, hospitalizations, etc, are about the same. (2) people/businesses do substantially less. Deaths/hospitalizations increase. I think the economy probably does worse -- many people get scared and avoid many kinds of economic activity, take their kids out of school, etc. Other businesses are disrupted as employees and owners get ill. In the US, the large number of seriously ill uninsured/underinsured throw an anchor on to the economy for years to come. You suggest to "sacrifice the old and obese", but it's not clear there's a payoff for that sacrifice. We may end up with 2x-5x dead and a worse, longer-lasting economic situation.