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>Personally, I'll measure Canada's performance throughout this pandemic by the final number of per-capita deaths. That doesn't seem like a good measure. At the

• tobyjsullivan 5y ago
  It's certainly not the only measure. But I'd argue it's one of the best I have available. (Wishing we had metrics or data which we don't actually have doesn't count for much)
  • totony 5y ago
    If you don't have a good metric to measure something with, relying on a bad one is arguably harmful as it gives a false sense of authority/trust. The metric can still be used in extensive studies (that take nuance into account), but using it as a metric on its own is fallacious imo.
• whimsicalism 5y ago
  Australia has 9 doses per 100 compared to Canada's ~30. Based on your metric, Australia would be a failure. Australia was a clear success case. Number of deaths per capita should absolutely be the primary metric we are using to judge pandemic success.
  • totony 5y ago
    >Australia has 9 doses per 100 compared to Canada's ~30. I'm not sure what you are saying, doses of vaccines? Number of deaths per capita don't take QoL into account over the period you analyze and the response's effect in the future.
    • whimsicalism 5y ago
      Doses of vaccine, yes. I'm curious, what QoL increase makes up for 400k additional deaths over Canada's number?
      • totony 5y ago
        >Doses of vaccine, yes. I have not claimed doses of vaccine to be a good metric. >I'm curious, what QoL increase makes up for 400k additional deaths over Canada's number? Who has 400k more? You also have to take into account that policy differences do not solely explain the difference in death toll. Saying 400k more death over canada = canada good response is a reductionist view when there are other factors in play.
        • whimsicalism 5y ago
          Okay, so what does explain the difference in death toll? I certainly don't think it is only policy diffferences. > Who has 400k more? If we had Canada's per capita rate, 400k fewer people would have died.
          • totony 5y ago
            I am not familiar with Australia's response enough to give a conjecture on how good its policy is. Although I am familiar with Canada's response and (independently of death toll) think it was very suboptimal. >I certainly don't think it is only policy diffferences. And I agree with you, which is why I think using death toll as a single metric is a bad idea. EDIT: >If we had Canada's per capita rate, 400k fewer people would have died. Even with the same policy as Canada, it is unlikely that the death toll would just transpose (it's a bad assumption, because policy doesn't define the death toll - it affects it)
  • tick_tock_tick 5y ago
    With the vast majority of people who died in first world counties already being close to deaths door I don't think that's a good stat maybe something more like total estimated years of life lost.
    • whimsicalism 5y ago
      Estimates for average life lost per covid death is around ~15 years. Sure, it killed plenty of old people, but it also killed plenty of middle aged/older middle aged people that had plenty of time left. But I'll cede to you that YLL is also a good metric. When comparing two developed nations like Canada and US, most of the difference there will probably be explained by per capita deaths though.
      • jdhn 5y ago
        >Estimates for average life lost per covid death is around ~15 years Source?
        • whimsicalism 5y ago
          https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-83040-3 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-83040-3 I also saw a US specific article but can't find it off the top of my head.
      • ryandrake 5y ago
        As someone getting up there in age, it's kind of shocking how cavalier a few people seem to be about old people dying from COVID. "Close to death's door?" Years of Life Lost as a measurement? Really? It's like we're living in Logan's Run. My parents are elderly but they might just live for 25 more years--who knows? If they or someone else's grandparents were to die of COVID it would be no less tragic than if a 30 year old died of it.
        • whimsicalism 5y ago
          I don't think we should be cavalier about the deaths of elderly and I generally agree with you about the rhetoric, but I can't say I really agree about the "no less tragic" comment.
  • Tsarbomb 5y ago
    Not only are you 100% correct, but anyone thinking otherwise has the luxury of not being born poor or a minority based on how deaths are working out in first world countries.
• deleted 5y ago
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• cdot2 5y ago
  "At the extreme, enforcing a stay-at-home order would make this number 0" I don't think this is true.