3 ms·

“Approximately 75%–88% of excess deaths were directly associated with COVID-19. Excluding deaths directly associated with COVID-19, an estimated 63,700–162,400

“Approximately 75%–88% of excess deaths were directly associated with COVID-19. Excluding deaths directly associated with COVID-19, an estimated 63,700–162,400 more persons than expected died from other causes.” The numbers you want are out there - many in the report I linked. (The preceding quote is from it as well.) I’ll leave it as an exercise to the reader to attach a, what, dollar amount loss or amount of appropriate grieving to each person’s death.

rsj_hn 5y ago
> The numbers you want are out there The long term cost numbers will become known. But let's say that over a 3 year period there are 600,000 excess deaths, of which 80% are due to covid, so that would be 1.4 million life years, and then after that it goes back to normal (I'm not claiming these are the numbers -- in the future we will know the numbers). Assuming that one battle death in a war reduces 40 life years, then this would be 35,000 military deaths, in terms of life years. You would need 14 million life years to get 350K ~ WW2 deaths. And 28 million life years to get ~ Civil War. But the relevant number is how many more life years would be lost if we didn't adopt these measures. And here, it's not clear at all what the covid life years saved as a result of the lockdowns would be. I do think in the future we will get estimates of this, but we certainly don't have that data today, so merely arguing that many are dying today is not a good justification for the today's policies. I am really confused by how any criticism of today's policies is responded by how many have died under those policies, as if that was some kind of defense for the efficacy of the policies. On the other side, start counting the costs of the policies, which will continue for many years, and compare to the number of life years saved if some of these measures weren't taken. Measures that resulted in perhaps 10 million people losing their career, millions of small businesses going bankrupt, tens of millions of children losing 1 year of schooling, etc. Then look at mortality effects of these things. It's not at all clear that a less strict lockdown would have cost more lives than it would have saved. In fact it's hard to ascribe lifeyears saved to any specific policy profile. At least not to me. Unlike the other side, I am not making strident claims that because a lot of people are dying with lockdowns, that the lockdowns are necessary. But again time will tell -- people insisting the answer is obvious don't make any sense to me.
peteradio 5y ago
How many of those 75-88% were truly preventable deaths? And how many of those "other causes" were truly preventable? If a 90 year old man with failing health catches Covid is that a truly preventable death? Its at least murky what is meant there. My great uncle had both legs amputated the day before he died in some vain attempt to extend his life. Was that intervention necessary? He was doomed to die by all estimates within the week.

rsj_hn 5y ago

> The numbers you want are out there The long term cost numbers will become known. But let's say that over a 3 year period there are 600,000 excess deaths, of which 80% are due to covid, so that would be 1.4 million life years, and then after that it goes back to normal (I'm not claiming these are the numbers -- in the future we will know the numbers). Assuming that one battle death in a war reduces 40 life years, then this would be 35,000 military deaths, in terms of life years. You would need 14 million life years to get 350K ~ WW2 deaths. And 28 million life years to get ~ Civil War. But the relevant number is how many more life years would be lost if we didn't adopt these measures. And here, it's not clear at all what the covid life years saved as a result of the lockdowns would be. I do think in the future we will get estimates of this, but we certainly don't have that data today, so merely arguing that many are dying today is not a good justification for the today's policies. I am really confused by how any criticism of today's policies is responded by how many have died under those policies, as if that was some kind of defense for the efficacy of the policies. On the other side, start counting the costs of the policies, which will continue for many years, and compare to the number of life years saved if some of these measures weren't taken. Measures that resulted in perhaps 10 million people losing their career, millions of small businesses going bankrupt, tens of millions of children losing 1 year of schooling, etc. Then look at mortality effects of these things. It's not at all clear that a less strict lockdown would have cost more lives than it would have saved. In fact it's hard to ascribe lifeyears saved to any specific policy profile. At least not to me. Unlike the other side, I am not making strident claims that because a lot of people are dying with lockdowns, that the lockdowns are necessary. But again time will tell -- people insisting the answer is obvious don't make any sense to me.

peteradio 5y ago

How many of those 75-88% were truly preventable deaths? And how many of those "other causes" were truly preventable? If a 90 year old man with failing health catches Covid is that a truly preventable death? Its at least murky what is meant there. My great uncle had both legs amputated the day before he died in some vain attempt to extend his life. Was that intervention necessary? He was doomed to die by all estimates within the week.