4 ms·

Couldn’t you make that same argument any poor health choice such as obesity?

• Arnt 5y ago
  Yes, you could, but most things are in the noise (where I live at least, don't know about the world generally). You may die 20 years earlier without adding a lot of extra working hours for the hospital that treats your final illness, see? Smoking was the only one that made a significant difference, the rest had too small effects to care (when I looked at it, at the time of the great smoking ban debate here, n years ago). Corona is different. It's able to swamp the hospitals, and even the intensive care units, where patients need a lot of expensive working hours in addition to a bed and some floor space.
  • mrfusion 5y ago
    It’s not as different as you’d think. We had a bad flu season in 2018 that strained a lot of hospitals. https://www.statnews.com/2018/01/15/flu-hospital-pandemics/ https://www.statnews.com/2018/01/15/flu-hospital-pandemics/ Limited hospital resources are just a fact of life until we commit to expanding them.
    • Arnt 5y ago
      The flu is hardly a "poor health choice", as you put it, and the well-run countries I know well spend a lot of resources on flu vaccination, so what is the conclusion of what you say?
      • mbg721 5y ago
        They spend a lot of resources on flu shots, the guess at the dominant strain of the year is often wrong, and for most people they're optional.