3 ms·

I think we may just have different assumptions buried in the heart of our respective worldviews. To me it is axiomatic that the value of a human life is not so

I think we may just have different assumptions buried in the heart of our respective worldviews. To me it is axiomatic that the value of a human life is not something that can be measured in dollars. All lives that can be saved, should be saved unless doing so would cost more lives. To the "Institute of Economic Affairs" it's probably axiomatic that a humans only value is in their economic worth. The elderly that died therefore had little value in the first place. Their loss would mean little to that worldview. When I see statements from the article like the ones below I see it as absolute proof that we made the right decisions, or at least something close to the right decisions. When the authors saw it they concluded that these lives were too expensive. A concept I find completely alien. >Shelter-in-place (stay at home) orders in Europe and the United States reduced COVID mortality by between 1.4 and 4.1 per cent; >Business closures reduced mortality by 7.5 per cent; >Gathering limits likely increased COVID mortality by almost six per cent; >Mask mandates, which most countries avoided in Spring 2020, reduced mortality by 18.7 per cent, particularly mandates in workplaces; and >School closures resulted in a between 2.5 per cent and 6.2 per cent mortality reduction.

logifail 3y ago
> To me it is axiomatic that the value of a human life is not something that can be measured in dollars. That's a laudable view. If you were put in charge, how would you formulate policy for managing a resource-constrained health system? > I see it as absolute proof that we made the right decisions, or at least something close to the right decisions Have you seen the excess deaths data for Europe 2020-2022? https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Fqb9qDsWAAELo-m?format=jpg&name=medium https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Fqb9qDsWAAELo-m?format=jpg&name=... [EDIT: changed to the English version...]
- stevenAthompson 3y ago
  > If you were put in charge, how would you formulate policy for managing a resource-constrained health system? I would delegate those decisions to healthcare subject matter experts. I'm not qualified to make those sorts of decisions. Neither are politicians, economists, or statisticians on their own. It is a big, complicated subject and just being generally clever isn't enough to qualify someone for that type of thing. > Have you seen the excess deaths data for Europe 2020-2022? I had not, and it's concerning. I don't think it automatically counts as proof that covid interventions did more harm than the disease though. For example, I've seen other papers that suggest excess deaths are actually proof that covid deaths were wildly underreported, especially early on. That and the paper you linked earlier are certainly enough to suggest we need more research to determine which interventions worked, and which didn't, with greater certainty. This won't be the last pandemic. I may fully read the book by the statistician you cited earlier. I think he touches on the subject of those excess deaths a bit.
  - logifail 3y ago
    > I would delegate those decisions to healthcare subject matter experts. I'm not qualified to make those sorts of decisions. Neither are politicians, economists, or statisticians on their own. Like the UK NHS's NICE? "The UK’s National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) is responsible for conducting health technology assessment (HTA) on behalf of the National Health Service (NHS). In seeking to justify its recommendations to the NHS about which technologies to fund, NICE claims to adopt two complementary ethical frameworks, one procedural—accountability for reasonableness (AfR)—and one substantive—an ‘ethics of opportunity costs’ (EOC) that rests primarily on the notion of allocative efficiency."[0] "NICE’s use of ICERs, quality-adjusted life-years (QALYs) and the cost-effectiveness threshold as its preferred tools for decision-making, with some allowance for relevant social and ethical values, has been consistent since the institute’s inception"[0] and as Karol Sikora said: "QALY [is] not a perfect metric, but it’s the best we’ve got" "[NICE] guidelines are based on the best available evidence. Our recommendations are put together by experts, people using services, carers and the public"[1][2] Sounds not unlike what you suggested ... and yet they've consistently used 'value for money' measures such as QALY. [0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7387327/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7387327/ [1] https://www.nice.org.uk/about/what-we-do/our-programmes/nice-guidance/nice-guidelines/how-we-develop-nice-guidelines https://www.nice.org.uk/about/what-we-do/our-programmes/nice... [2] https://www.nice.org.uk/process/pmg20/chapter/introduction#who-is-involved https://www.nice.org.uk/process/pmg20/chapter/introduction#w...
    - stevenAthompson 3y ago
      Systems like this are necessary primarily because these programs are given lower priority than other government spending. If I were in charge the queen would've been buried in a pine box, and the money wasted on her funeral would've gone towards life saving medical treatments. Any system that prioritizes anything above human health is fundamentally broken, and that's not the SME's fault. That said, the world is finite and tough decisions do still need to be made. In those cases I would defer to the SME's. If they still thought a system like the above was necessary after being fully funded I would accept that, despite it being distasteful to me.
  - 3y ago

logifail 3y ago

> To me it is axiomatic that the value of a human life is not something that can be measured in dollars. That's a laudable view. If you were put in charge, how would you formulate policy for managing a resource-constrained health system? > I see it as absolute proof that we made the right decisions, or at least something close to the right decisions Have you seen the excess deaths data for Europe 2020-2022? https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Fqb9qDsWAAELo-m?format=jpg&name=medium https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Fqb9qDsWAAELo-m?format=jpg&name=... [EDIT: changed to the English version...]

stevenAthompson 3y ago
> If you were put in charge, how would you formulate policy for managing a resource-constrained health system? I would delegate those decisions to healthcare subject matter experts. I'm not qualified to make those sorts of decisions. Neither are politicians, economists, or statisticians on their own. It is a big, complicated subject and just being generally clever isn't enough to qualify someone for that type of thing. > Have you seen the excess deaths data for Europe 2020-2022? I had not, and it's concerning. I don't think it automatically counts as proof that covid interventions did more harm than the disease though. For example, I've seen other papers that suggest excess deaths are actually proof that covid deaths were wildly underreported, especially early on. That and the paper you linked earlier are certainly enough to suggest we need more research to determine which interventions worked, and which didn't, with greater certainty. This won't be the last pandemic. I may fully read the book by the statistician you cited earlier. I think he touches on the subject of those excess deaths a bit.
- logifail 3y ago
  > I would delegate those decisions to healthcare subject matter experts. I'm not qualified to make those sorts of decisions. Neither are politicians, economists, or statisticians on their own. Like the UK NHS's NICE? "The UK’s National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) is responsible for conducting health technology assessment (HTA) on behalf of the National Health Service (NHS). In seeking to justify its recommendations to the NHS about which technologies to fund, NICE claims to adopt two complementary ethical frameworks, one procedural—accountability for reasonableness (AfR)—and one substantive—an ‘ethics of opportunity costs’ (EOC) that rests primarily on the notion of allocative efficiency."[0] "NICE’s use of ICERs, quality-adjusted life-years (QALYs) and the cost-effectiveness threshold as its preferred tools for decision-making, with some allowance for relevant social and ethical values, has been consistent since the institute’s inception"[0] and as Karol Sikora said: "QALY [is] not a perfect metric, but it’s the best we’ve got" "[NICE] guidelines are based on the best available evidence. Our recommendations are put together by experts, people using services, carers and the public"[1][2] Sounds not unlike what you suggested ... and yet they've consistently used 'value for money' measures such as QALY. [0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7387327/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7387327/ [1] https://www.nice.org.uk/about/what-we-do/our-programmes/nice-guidance/nice-guidelines/how-we-develop-nice-guidelines https://www.nice.org.uk/about/what-we-do/our-programmes/nice... [2] https://www.nice.org.uk/process/pmg20/chapter/introduction#who-is-involved https://www.nice.org.uk/process/pmg20/chapter/introduction#w...
  - stevenAthompson 3y ago
    Systems like this are necessary primarily because these programs are given lower priority than other government spending. If I were in charge the queen would've been buried in a pine box, and the money wasted on her funeral would've gone towards life saving medical treatments. Any system that prioritizes anything above human health is fundamentally broken, and that's not the SME's fault. That said, the world is finite and tough decisions do still need to be made. In those cases I would defer to the SME's. If they still thought a system like the above was necessary after being fully funded I would accept that, despite it being distasteful to me.
- 3y ago