5 ms·

For poor countries, lockdowns cost more lives than they save

39 points by hncurious 5y ago

bawolff 5y ago
Not really that convincing imo. They assume that since high gdp = high life expectancy, short term gdp fall = deaths. I don't think it follows that short term gdp trends would have the same effect as long term. I'm not saying the article is neccesarily wrong (i have no idea), just that the argument was not compelling.
guscost 5y ago
I suspect this is true of all countries, after enough time.
- Retric 5y ago
  After enough time it’s simply swamped by random noise. Killing person X might avoid or cause WWIII. That said, killing several million extra people without any forms of lockdown would have also had very serious economic repercussions. People would have started voluntarily staying home even if it meant quitting their jobs and thus presumably making them ineligible for unemployment insurance etc. Some stay at home orders might have actually minimized economic disruption, though we simply don’t know.
  - twofornone 5y ago
    >People would have started voluntarily staying home even if it meant quitting their jobs I think the fact that this didn't even come close to happening excluding maybe a 2-3 month period of panic suggests that the virus was not really as deadly as we initially believed. If this were the plague, you wouldn't need to force people to stay home.
  - brezelgoring 5y ago
    >killing several million extra people without any forms of lockdown would have also had very serious economic repercussions Political, too. Some heads would be bound to roll after that election cycle, in Argentina the ruling party that mishandled the economic and sanitary aspects of the campaign, lost about 30~40% of their electorate and indirectly caused the emergence of a liberal movement in a country that previously was overwhelmingly pro-welfare state. I think the political consequences would be more of an incentive not to try this, the economic part is just a statistic.
- happytoexplain 5y ago
  I don't think anybody is arguing that lockdown cons don't outweigh the pros after an arbitrarily long time.
hn_throwaway_99 5y ago
Recently I feel like I've seen a lot of articles on Covid strategy pros and cons that make it to the front page for a short while and then get flagged. And it's frustrating because I think usually the topic is worth discussing but the article is so blatantly biased that I flag it because I know it will just bring up the same flamewars I've seen again and again. Just want to highlight I didn't feel that about this article at all, so thank you. Whether you agree or disagree (I think there are reasons to fall on either side), I feel like the article raised an important point in a fair manner that hasn't really been discussed much in a rational way.
- 0des 5y ago
  You can vouch for the post to continue the discussion. Click the timestamp near the post title, then click 'vouch'
  - hn_throwaway_99 5y ago
    You've misunderstood my comment (took me a while to understand what you were talking about because I don't normally have the showdead option on, so I normally don't see the 'vouch' link). It's NOT that I want to bring back these articles that have been flagged. Indeed, oftentimes I'm doing the flagging. It's that I see so many articles that cover important Covid strategy topics, but instead of looking at the pros/cons of any individual strategy is a dispassionate manner, I see the same old "Forcing masks is killing our freedom!!" or "Not staying at home is killing grandma!!" shit. All I'm saying was that it was nice to see an article that, in my opinion, looked at some of the downsides of Covid lockdowns in a pretty rational manner without falling in the blatant tribalism I see everywhere these days.
- Timshel 5y ago
  I feel the article is just one line : "In poor country GDP is linked to life expectancy. So maybe Lockdown is not the best solution". But no number to try to judge the scale of both, no mention of flattening the curve, no mention of for example Sweden which had important recession even without lockdown (economy dependency of a country will change but no mention of it). So a really poor article in my opinion.

39 points by hncurious 5y ago

Not really that convincing imo. They assume that since high gdp = high life expectancy, short term gdp fall = deaths. I don't think it follows that short term gdp trends would have the same effect as long term. I'm not saying the article is neccesarily wrong (i have no idea), just that the argument was not compelling.

guscost 5y ago

I suspect this is true of all countries, after enough time.

Retric 5y ago
After enough time it’s simply swamped by random noise. Killing person X might avoid or cause WWIII. That said, killing several million extra people without any forms of lockdown would have also had very serious economic repercussions. People would have started voluntarily staying home even if it meant quitting their jobs and thus presumably making them ineligible for unemployment insurance etc. Some stay at home orders might have actually minimized economic disruption, though we simply don’t know.
- twofornone 5y ago
  >People would have started voluntarily staying home even if it meant quitting their jobs I think the fact that this didn't even come close to happening excluding maybe a 2-3 month period of panic suggests that the virus was not really as deadly as we initially believed. If this were the plague, you wouldn't need to force people to stay home.
- brezelgoring 5y ago
  >killing several million extra people without any forms of lockdown would have also had very serious economic repercussions Political, too. Some heads would be bound to roll after that election cycle, in Argentina the ruling party that mishandled the economic and sanitary aspects of the campaign, lost about 30~40% of their electorate and indirectly caused the emergence of a liberal movement in a country that previously was overwhelmingly pro-welfare state. I think the political consequences would be more of an incentive not to try this, the economic part is just a statistic.
happytoexplain 5y ago
I don't think anybody is arguing that lockdown cons don't outweigh the pros after an arbitrarily long time.

hn_throwaway_99 5y ago

Recently I feel like I've seen a lot of articles on Covid strategy pros and cons that make it to the front page for a short while and then get flagged. And it's frustrating because I think usually the topic is worth discussing but the article is so blatantly biased that I flag it because I know it will just bring up the same flamewars I've seen again and again. Just want to highlight I didn't feel that about this article at all, so thank you. Whether you agree or disagree (I think there are reasons to fall on either side), I feel like the article raised an important point in a fair manner that hasn't really been discussed much in a rational way.

0des 5y ago
You can vouch for the post to continue the discussion. Click the timestamp near the post title, then click 'vouch'
- hn_throwaway_99 5y ago
  You've misunderstood my comment (took me a while to understand what you were talking about because I don't normally have the showdead option on, so I normally don't see the 'vouch' link). It's NOT that I want to bring back these articles that have been flagged. Indeed, oftentimes I'm doing the flagging. It's that I see so many articles that cover important Covid strategy topics, but instead of looking at the pros/cons of any individual strategy is a dispassionate manner, I see the same old "Forcing masks is killing our freedom!!" or "Not staying at home is killing grandma!!" shit. All I'm saying was that it was nice to see an article that, in my opinion, looked at some of the downsides of Covid lockdowns in a pretty rational manner without falling in the blatant tribalism I see everywhere these days.
Timshel 5y ago
I feel the article is just one line : "In poor country GDP is linked to life expectancy. So maybe Lockdown is not the best solution". But no number to try to judge the scale of both, no mention of flattening the curve, no mention of for example Sweden which had important recession even without lockdown (economy dependency of a country will change but no mention of it). So a really poor article in my opinion.