3 ms·

Averaging out people dying to "days lost per life"?

by mhd 4y ago

mikkergp 4y ago
Yeah, this is one of those cases where mean is really deceptive, almost to the point of shadowing the veracity of the rest of the paper, I wonder if they chose it because other numbers are just nearly impossible to grasp emotionally. It’s hard to make a cost benefit analysis if you’re convince you are in one camp (or the other, healthy people are probably convinced they’d survive and unhealthy/immunompromised not so)
- TheFattestNinja 4y ago
  Imho it's well past the point of "almost shadowing the rest". It singlehandledly makes the rest of the work (at least in my judgement) completely garbage. Which is a shame because it seems good. I don't want to sound too "emotional" but come the fuck on. Even if you want to be "rational" and just look at hard monetary data you could just take the years lost, give them a price tag (average yearly salary * years accounted for inflation of age/region bracket) and look at that. But to ask "Would you have preferred to live through a total travel ban, and total lockdowns, like Australia’s, to save yourself 10-to-15 days of life?" falsifies the thing completely: you didn't save yourself 2w of "life", you saved someone else decades of their life (and their impact to society/economy). And you didn't "pay" for it in time, you just had reduced quality for a while. If lives were only relevant "on average", then reducing birth rates wouldn't be an issue for society/economy at all right? "On average" there wouldn't be a difference.
  - DharmaPolice 4y ago
    The median age of people who died of COVID in the UK was 83 [0]. Mean average was 80. (I know it was younger in the US). Most of those did not have decades of their life left. 0 - https://www.ons.gov.uk/aboutus/transparencyandgovernance/freedomofinformationfoi/averageageofthosewhohaddiedwithcovid19 https://www.ons.gov.uk/aboutus/transparencyandgovernance/fre...
  - ZeroGravitas 4y ago
    I think it somewhat strengthens the rest of the work. This is clearly not the answer the author wanted to find. And the bit about average number of days of life lost was a desperate attempt to hold on to his previous conclusion, before he looked at the numbers, that lockdowns were authoritarian overreactions. I don't think it's fundamentally wrong to measure healthcare effects with numerical measures like QALY, but it's obviously looks even worse in the context of a big conspiracy theory about COVID. Researchers investigating QALY impacts of their proposed treatments, fair enough. Philosophical Trolley problems, sure. Someone making a political point about freedom being worth killing people, where 'freedom' seems to mostly involve ignoring sensible medical advice, is less tasteful. On the topic of total lockdowns, I thought Australia managed to keep a relatively normal life because they had a lockdown on people arriving? So they had less authoritarian stuff than a government that just let it in, could be wrong though, just how I rememebered it.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - mikkergp 4y ago
      But what does losing 1-2 weeks of life really mean. It's a phrasing with intentionally reduced emotional impact. Let's say I was willing to sacrifice 3 months of my life to have avoided COVID lockdowns. Reverse engineering that number, we get to 6 million covid deaths in the US, (1 million actual * 6 difference between 2 weeks to 3 months) and 87 million years of life lost. Converting all of that to 12 personal weeks of life lost, 1. Isn't what is actually at stake, it's a die roll and if you lose you die and 2. doesn't accurately account for the devastation. People are devastated when their loved ones lose their lives from COVID, it's not a few weeks of life lost 50 or so years from now. 132 million Americans were alive during World War 2. 300,000 of them died in the war, which is about the same ratio as COVID. But it's ok, because really it was just 2 weeks of life lost per person? I’m not saying it’s too emotional to be data driven, I’m just saying the datapoints chosen are not equivalent.
      - ZeroGravitas 4y ago
        Yeah, sorry I agree that he was intentionally trying to downplay the deaths with that phrasing. But, he did so because he'd already picked a side. I think if the numbers had came out the other way, he'd have happily stated "x million people died because of this pointless lockdown" and made it personal and emotional. But the fact that he had to try to blunt the impact of his own numers in this way, in a weird way gives them more credibility. If a marketer put "90% fat free" on a food package rather than "10% fat" it provides some evidence that there is at least 10% fat in the product because someone has made the effort to try to minimize that fact.
andybak 4y ago
Yes. I think that's a bit fishy. A life lost affects multiple people and potentially quite severely. Most people would happily accept their share of aggregate "lifespan reduction" if it stopped someone from suddenly dying. Premature bereavement can ruin lives.

Averaging out people dying to "days lost per life"?

by mhd 4y ago

Averaging out people dying to "days lost per life"?

Yeah, this is one of those cases where mean is really deceptive, almost to the point of shadowing the veracity of the rest of the paper, I wonder if they chose it because other numbers are just nearly impossible to grasp emotionally. It’s hard to make a cost benefit analysis if you’re convince you are in one camp (or the other, healthy people are probably convinced they’d survive and unhealthy/immunompromised not so)

TheFattestNinja 4y ago
Imho it's well past the point of "almost shadowing the rest". It singlehandledly makes the rest of the work (at least in my judgement) completely garbage. Which is a shame because it seems good. I don't want to sound too "emotional" but come the fuck on. Even if you want to be "rational" and just look at hard monetary data you could just take the years lost, give them a price tag (average yearly salary * years accounted for inflation of age/region bracket) and look at that. But to ask "Would you have preferred to live through a total travel ban, and total lockdowns, like Australia’s, to save yourself 10-to-15 days of life?" falsifies the thing completely: you didn't save yourself 2w of "life", you saved someone else decades of their life (and their impact to society/economy). And you didn't "pay" for it in time, you just had reduced quality for a while. If lives were only relevant "on average", then reducing birth rates wouldn't be an issue for society/economy at all right? "On average" there wouldn't be a difference.
- DharmaPolice 4y ago
  The median age of people who died of COVID in the UK was 83 [0]. Mean average was 80. (I know it was younger in the US). Most of those did not have decades of their life left. 0 - https://www.ons.gov.uk/aboutus/transparencyandgovernance/freedomofinformationfoi/averageageofthosewhohaddiedwithcovid19 https://www.ons.gov.uk/aboutus/transparencyandgovernance/fre...
- ZeroGravitas 4y ago
  I think it somewhat strengthens the rest of the work. This is clearly not the answer the author wanted to find. And the bit about average number of days of life lost was a desperate attempt to hold on to his previous conclusion, before he looked at the numbers, that lockdowns were authoritarian overreactions. I don't think it's fundamentally wrong to measure healthcare effects with numerical measures like QALY, but it's obviously looks even worse in the context of a big conspiracy theory about COVID. Researchers investigating QALY impacts of their proposed treatments, fair enough. Philosophical Trolley problems, sure. Someone making a political point about freedom being worth killing people, where 'freedom' seems to mostly involve ignoring sensible medical advice, is less tasteful. On the topic of total lockdowns, I thought Australia managed to keep a relatively normal life because they had a lockdown on people arriving? So they had less authoritarian stuff than a government that just let it in, could be wrong though, just how I rememebered it.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - mikkergp 4y ago
    But what does losing 1-2 weeks of life really mean. It's a phrasing with intentionally reduced emotional impact. Let's say I was willing to sacrifice 3 months of my life to have avoided COVID lockdowns. Reverse engineering that number, we get to 6 million covid deaths in the US, (1 million actual * 6 difference between 2 weeks to 3 months) and 87 million years of life lost. Converting all of that to 12 personal weeks of life lost, 1. Isn't what is actually at stake, it's a die roll and if you lose you die and 2. doesn't accurately account for the devastation. People are devastated when their loved ones lose their lives from COVID, it's not a few weeks of life lost 50 or so years from now. 132 million Americans were alive during World War 2. 300,000 of them died in the war, which is about the same ratio as COVID. But it's ok, because really it was just 2 weeks of life lost per person? I’m not saying it’s too emotional to be data driven, I’m just saying the datapoints chosen are not equivalent.
    - ZeroGravitas 4y ago
      Yeah, sorry I agree that he was intentionally trying to downplay the deaths with that phrasing. But, he did so because he'd already picked a side. I think if the numbers had came out the other way, he'd have happily stated "x million people died because of this pointless lockdown" and made it personal and emotional. But the fact that he had to try to blunt the impact of his own numers in this way, in a weird way gives them more credibility. If a marketer put "90% fat free" on a food package rather than "10% fat" it provides some evidence that there is at least 10% fat in the product because someone has made the effort to try to minimize that fact.

andybak 4y ago

Yes. I think that's a bit fishy. A life lost affects multiple people and potentially quite severely. Most people would happily accept their share of aggregate "lifespan reduction" if it stopped someone from suddenly dying. Premature bereavement can ruin lives.