3 ms·

> Based on the observed IFR, if Covid had run wild this would be more like 600,000 I think this is largely over-estimated. Such high fatality rate hasn't happe

> Based on the observed IFR, if Covid had run wild this would be more like 600,000 I think this is largely over-estimated. Such high fatality rate hasn't happened anywhere in the world, regardless of the lockdown policy or absence thereof. That being said, I concede that this wasn't known at the time of the first wave when strict lockdowns were put in place. Another point to take into account is that the vast majority of covid victims had very short remaining life expectancy. Not to say that their death don't count, but it is to be taken into account when comparing with suicides. Rather than number of deaths, maybe we could count number of years of life lost.

TylerE 6y ago
You’re not taking into account ICU capacity. Many hospitals are basically full NOW, if the case rate, say, doubled you’re going to have marginal cases dieing because they don’t have access to basic care like oxygen.
- dguaraglia 6y ago
  Bingo. The problem with talking about Covid-19 casualties is there's no argument that'll convince the skeptics: mortality rates are relatively high when we still have hospital capacity, imagine if we had double or triple the number of patients to ICU/hospital capacity? Well... then they'd say that people aren't really dying of Covid-19, but 'from preconditions'... which 45% of the population have at least one of. It's a thankless task.
robocat 6y ago
> Another point to take into account is that the vast majority of covid victims had very short remaining life expectancy. Source? The first result I found said “for each person in the U.S. who died after contracting COVID-19, an average of nearly 10 years of life had been lost.” From: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/09/200923124557.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/09/200923124557.h... 10 years lost... I know averages are difficult, but the population of deaths is heavily skewed towards the elderly which implies that most covid victims lost many years.
deleted 6y ago
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saberdancer 6y ago
There have been a number of studies. Finding out correct IFR was a high priority. Even in April it was possible to see this IFR. New York was reporting 0.6-1% depending on the method in April. I personally went through Italian data where they released deaths/infections by municipality and I found several municipalities where they had 0.5-1% of total population dying from Covid-19. IFR is about 0.5-1% in countries with older populations (western world). Early on there was a lot of wishful thinking hoping that IFR is much lower but it didn't turn out that way.

TylerE 6y ago

You’re not taking into account ICU capacity. Many hospitals are basically full NOW, if the case rate, say, doubled you’re going to have marginal cases dieing because they don’t have access to basic care like oxygen.

dguaraglia 6y ago
Bingo. The problem with talking about Covid-19 casualties is there's no argument that'll convince the skeptics: mortality rates are relatively high when we still have hospital capacity, imagine if we had double or triple the number of patients to ICU/hospital capacity? Well... then they'd say that people aren't really dying of Covid-19, but 'from preconditions'... which 45% of the population have at least one of. It's a thankless task.

robocat 6y ago

> Another point to take into account is that the vast majority of covid victims had very short remaining life expectancy. Source? The first result I found said “for each person in the U.S. who died after contracting COVID-19, an average of nearly 10 years of life had been lost.” From: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/09/200923124557.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/09/200923124557.h... 10 years lost... I know averages are difficult, but the population of deaths is heavily skewed towards the elderly which implies that most covid victims lost many years.

deleted 6y ago

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saberdancer 6y ago

There have been a number of studies. Finding out correct IFR was a high priority. Even in April it was possible to see this IFR. New York was reporting 0.6-1% depending on the method in April. I personally went through Italian data where they released deaths/infections by municipality and I found several municipalities where they had 0.5-1% of total population dying from Covid-19. IFR is about 0.5-1% in countries with older populations (western world). Early on there was a lot of wishful thinking hoping that IFR is much lower but it didn't turn out that way.