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More than five million probable died from Covid, the vast majority since summer 2020. The pandemic isn’t over because someone decided it was. This person’s comm

More than five million probable died from Covid, the vast majority since summer 2020. The pandemic isn’t over because someone decided it was. This person’s comment is asinine.

spookthesunset 5y ago
> The pandemic isn’t over because someone decided it was. Doesn't matter. The virus has nothing to do with how humans react to it. The virus didn't tell us to shut everything up and hunker down for 2 years. We could decide to move on tomorrow if we chose. Many places moved on almost a year ago with very little repercussions.
GDC7 5y ago
- woodruffw 5y ago
  Telling people that the deaths of their loved ones are "meaningless" is not a very convincing argumentative tack.
- howinteresting 5y ago
  Let's look at years of life lost, then, shall we? https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-83040-3 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-83040-3 > YLL in heavily affected countries are 2–9 times the average seasonal influenza And that is after all the societal changes to deal with the disease. I personally think that YLL of 2-9x the flu after mitigations clearly justified the mitigations.
  - GDC7 5y ago
    They disclose a bias: "Those dying from COVID-19 may be an at-risk population whose remaining life expectancy is shorter than the average person’s remaining life expectancy"
  - sokoloff 5y ago
    It's fascinating to me that a multiple of 2-9x the median flu in YLL (after mitigations) in only a few countries "clearly justifies" the quite disruptive mitigations. I look at the same measures (and I'm implicitly estimating that the non-vaccine mitigations were around 50% effective) and conclude that the mitigations [excluding vaccines] were, in retrospect, probably not justified for as long and as impactful as they were on daily routines. They were (IMO) justified early on when vaccines were not available and when we knew a lot less about the effective treatment regimens. Imagine a reliable oracle tells you: "The flu season in 2025 will be 10x as bad as the typical flu season." Is that cause to shut down restaurants, bars, close offices, schools, and universities, shutdown borders, etc, etc. for 12 months to make it only 5x as bad? For me, that's cause to make sure I get the flu vaccine that year, wash my hands a little more, not go to work if I'm ill, and pet my dog. Some jackass tried unsuccessfully to light his shoes on fire and 20 years later we're still taking our shoes off at the airport. I hope we have a more threat-appropriate response over the long-run here.
  - School-Cotton 5y ago
    > I personally think that YLL of 2-9x the flu after mitigations clearly justified the mitigations To properly debate this claim we need to know (1) the baseline -- how many YLLs are caused by flu?, and (2) how many YLLs were _saved_ by the mitigations. (Would we have had 2x more Covid deaths without them? 10x? 1.1x?)

More than five million probable died from Covid, the vast majority since summer 2020. The pandemic isn’t over because someone decided it was. This person’s comment is asinine.

spookthesunset 5y ago

> The pandemic isn’t over because someone decided it was. Doesn't matter. The virus has nothing to do with how humans react to it. The virus didn't tell us to shut everything up and hunker down for 2 years. We could decide to move on tomorrow if we chose. Many places moved on almost a year ago with very little repercussions.

GDC7 5y ago

woodruffw 5y ago
Telling people that the deaths of their loved ones are "meaningless" is not a very convincing argumentative tack.
howinteresting 5y ago
Let's look at years of life lost, then, shall we? https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-83040-3 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-83040-3 > YLL in heavily affected countries are 2–9 times the average seasonal influenza And that is after all the societal changes to deal with the disease. I personally think that YLL of 2-9x the flu after mitigations clearly justified the mitigations.
- GDC7 5y ago
  They disclose a bias: "Those dying from COVID-19 may be an at-risk population whose remaining life expectancy is shorter than the average person’s remaining life expectancy"
- sokoloff 5y ago
  It's fascinating to me that a multiple of 2-9x the median flu in YLL (after mitigations) in only a few countries "clearly justifies" the quite disruptive mitigations. I look at the same measures (and I'm implicitly estimating that the non-vaccine mitigations were around 50% effective) and conclude that the mitigations [excluding vaccines] were, in retrospect, probably not justified for as long and as impactful as they were on daily routines. They were (IMO) justified early on when vaccines were not available and when we knew a lot less about the effective treatment regimens. Imagine a reliable oracle tells you: "The flu season in 2025 will be 10x as bad as the typical flu season." Is that cause to shut down restaurants, bars, close offices, schools, and universities, shutdown borders, etc, etc. for 12 months to make it only 5x as bad? For me, that's cause to make sure I get the flu vaccine that year, wash my hands a little more, not go to work if I'm ill, and pet my dog. Some jackass tried unsuccessfully to light his shoes on fire and 20 years later we're still taking our shoes off at the airport. I hope we have a more threat-appropriate response over the long-run here.
- School-Cotton 5y ago
  > I personally think that YLL of 2-9x the flu after mitigations clearly justified the mitigations To properly debate this claim we need to know (1) the baseline -- how many YLLs are caused by flu?, and (2) how many YLLs were _saved_ by the mitigations. (Would we have had 2x more Covid deaths without them? 10x? 1.1x?)