4 ms·
I've been super self isolated. I live lone. I've seen 6 people since march 15th and those were just 2hr walks outdoors with masks on. That's it. But, it's reas
by throwaway83844 6y ago
I've been super self isolated. I live lone. I've seen 6 people since march 15th and those were just 2hr walks outdoors with masks on. That's it.
But, it's reasonable question to ask, what's the acceptable number of casualties. The answer is not zero. We have plenty of other diseases that kill lots of people. COVID is more but we still have to pick a number.
Is 1 in 100 ok? 1 in 500? 1 in 1000? 1 in 5k? (the car rate), 1 in 10k? (the flu rate).
I heard about this thinking on the Sam Harris podcast. He mentioned some people claiming if we lifted all restrictions by their estimates deaths would be 1 in 300. He and his interviewee dismissed out of hand without giving it any thought which was very disappointing. Whether or not it actually would be 1 in 300 we still have to pick a number below which we'd accept the losses. Is there a reasonable way to decide that number? Flu is around 1 in 10k (or at least my 30 seconds of searching seem to put it in the same order of magnitude) so apparently that's an acceptable number and we don't apparently get upset as a society that people go around spreading the flu. (though I get super upset personally)