What Price Should We Pay to Fight COVID-19?

[Wrenchturner]

It doesn't matter what the government does if the public don't have confidence that it is safe to eat out or get on a plane. The best thing the Feds could have done is roll out a cohesive plan that will create that confidence as things reopen. They botched that and major banks are already downgrading the GDP recovery because, despite the vocal minority you see, most people are intelligent to understand that just because things are reopening does not mean certain activities are any safer than they were four weeks ago. The government can't force people to eat out or travel and they're going to realize the screw up in the coming months when small businesses start failing because their revenue never recovers to the point of profitability.

I think you make good points regarding confidence.  There was a pre-existing issue with economic confidence prior to covid, and despite the acute issues caused by the pandemic, there is also the more general impact of a confidence shock to a system that was already heavily leveraged and low on growth and return.  A great deal of the economic impact to come may be a result of this virus "pin" popping the bubble, and it therefore follows that a recovery may not correlate to the resolution of the pandemic.  It seems people collectively remembered what risk is.

[T-Money$]

I do feel that we will need to start opening things up, having more semi essential businesses open, things that are not as needed staying closed or having distancing measures put in. As others have stated, not just economically but emotionally and psychologically the stay at home orders takes a toll.

The thing I don't get, is the people who are most agitating for things to re-open, are the same people who don't want to wear a mask in public businesses. Or have rallies where they are not practising social distancing. If they understood that minor inconveniences such as mask wearing and social distancing will allow more of the US to open, I would think they would be pushing for us all to be on the same page. I have a stake in this. My boss and many colleagues in my department, given they are doctors, need to work shifts. My cousin is a nurse. A friend and collegue of hers died of COVID, doing her job. I just wish the people who don't want to social distance or wear a mask understood, it's not just about them.

Exactly this. I hear a lot about “I want” and “my rights” from libertarian virtue signalers and pseudo-patriots. Sure, we all want things to open back up so that people can go back to work.  Refusing (without a medical reason) to wear a mask to allow this to happen more safely seems like the height of selfishness. I’m so sick of people claiming that their essential rights are being infringed upon, when what they really mean is “I want to do whatever I want, whenever I want, with no restrictions or consequences.” Well, I want to buy groceries without worrying that some jerk without a mask is going to be allowed to cough viral particles all over me with no restrictions or liabilities. Whose rights are being impacted here?

Do you think someone not wearing a mask in the same store as you increases your chance of getting COVID?

If you did get infected with COVID, what do you think would happen?

[Buffaloski Boris]

It doesn't matter what the government does if the public don't have confidence that it is safe to eat out or get on a plane. The best thing the Feds could have done is roll out a cohesive plan that will create that confidence as things reopen. They botched that and major banks are already downgrading the GDP recovery because, despite the vocal minority you see, most people are intelligent to understand that just because things are reopening does not mean certain activities are any safer than they were four weeks ago. The government can't force people to eat out or travel and they're going to realize the screw up in the coming months when small businesses start failing because their revenue never recovers to the point of profitability.

You’re right. And conversely all the restrictions in the world are useless if folks won’t abide them. We’re at shutdown fatigue. So we get spotty adherence on the one hand and another group of folks not willing to come out and spend on the other. Criminy.  COVID is just the gift that keeps on giving.

[Cassie]

States are opening and really there is no choice socially, psychologically and financially. People need to decide their own comfort level.

[seattlecyclone]

I do feel that we will need to start opening things up, having more semi essential businesses open, things that are not as needed staying closed or having distancing measures put in. As others have stated, not just economically but emotionally and psychologically the stay at home orders takes a toll.

The thing I don't get, is the people who are most agitating for things to re-open, are the same people who don't want to wear a mask in public businesses. Or have rallies where they are not practising social distancing. If they understood that minor inconveniences such as mask wearing and social distancing will allow more of the US to open, I would think they would be pushing for us all to be on the same page. I have a stake in this. My boss and many colleagues in my department, given they are doctors, need to work shifts. My cousin is a nurse. A friend and collegue of hers died of COVID, doing her job. I just wish the people who don't want to social distance or wear a mask understood, it's not just about them.

Exactly this. I hear a lot about “I want” and “my rights” from libertarian virtue signalers and pseudo-patriots. Sure, we all want things to open back up so that people can go back to work.  Refusing (without a medical reason) to wear a mask to allow this to happen more safely seems like the height of selfishness. I’m so sick of people claiming that their essential rights are being infringed upon, when what they really mean is “I want to do whatever I want, whenever I want, with no restrictions or consequences.” Well, I want to buy groceries without worrying that some jerk without a mask is going to be allowed to cough viral particles all over me with no restrictions or liabilities. Whose rights are being impacted here?

Do you think someone not wearing a mask in the same store as you increases your chance of getting COVID?

Yes. This thing spreads via respiratory droplets traveling through the air. Someone whose face is covered will spew fewer of these droplets into my face as I walk by. This is the conclusion that has been reached by experts who have done the research. Who am I to contradict that?

If you did get infected with COVID, what do you think would happen?

For me? Probably not much. I have no particular risk factor. A bad cold, perhaps. Other people in the vicinity would have it much worse. Covering my face is the courteous thing to do in this situation. It's really not that bad, nothing on the scale of the discomfort I would cause by inflicting a life-threatening illness on the people I come near.

[Focus_on_the_fire]

Not every life saved is equal. Saving a young, healthy person has more value than saving an elderly person with other health issues because the young person is more likely to have more years and a higher quality of life during those years.

“Logan’s Run” had a similar premise and was equally ludicrous.

This is just one man who isn’t “valuable”: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/homeless/he-fought-in-vietnam-now-at-80-he-volunteers-every-day-in-shelters-with-clusters-of-coronavirus/.

[Bloop Bloop]

It's not ludicrous to say we have to make difficult decisions about resource allocation.

[Wrenchturner]

It's not ludicrous to say we have to make difficult decisions about resource allocation.

I'm surprised this has to keep being said.  Triage is a thing, and the economy is also a patient.

[Spud]

This is just one man who isn’t “valuable”: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/homeless/he-fought-in-vietnam-now-at-80-he-volunteers-every-day-in-shelters-with-clusters-of-coronavirus/.

There is something wrong with the man in this article, he looks like he's about 50 years old at most. I'm not joking. Even with the the mask on, you can tell he's in EXCEPTIONALLY good shape for his age, and for anywhere from 40 and above. Seriously. I know a 72 year old who is in good shape and my own father is doing well at 77, far better than most, but they don't even come close to this guy. I would say he is the exception, not the rule. More power to him though.

=======

Something that would have made lockdown easier to maintain was if this virus was killing equal numbers of people from each age group i.e. babies, toddlers, young children, teenagers, 20s, 30s, 40s etc with no concern for pre-existing conditions. That would have truly terrified people. But because data from all over the planet suggests that if you're under 70 years of age with no obvious pre-existing condition you have almost nothing to worry about, lots of folks are angry because they're not in that demographic.

=======

What's situation with schools re-opening in America? That's still a big debate in the UK, and other countries in Europe are already doing it.

=======

Are we actually fighting the virus? The global curve hasn't been flattened. Brazil, India and Saudi Arabia (and all the smaller countries that surround those 3) are all basically on fire. I'm convinced the real numbers in places like Indonesia and Malaysia are more like the numbers we're seeing coming out of Brazil and Brazil can't even report properly because of the chaos.

I don't think we're really righting the virus any more. We all know that social distancing, handwashing and not touch your face are the only weapons we actually have. At least 50% of people that end of up on ventilators don't make it. Cautious (I'm one of them for sure) people will continue their own personal lockdowns for many months even once the official restrictions have all but disappeared.

People who are not so cautious are already carrying on as normal because regardless of what anyone says, you cannot effectively enforce 100% compliance with a lockdown from everyone, everywhere, all the time. The governments of the world just don't have the manpower. People know this. they also know that in many places, the penalties for breaking the rules are largely trivial, so they just do what they want.

For example, I've seen loads of people under the age of 30 meeting up in random public places (outside of major urban centers) in cars, on foot, on bicycles, chatting, hanging out, drinking, and guess what happens if the police approach them. They rapidly disperse.

I seriously think that in the UK right now, outside of work/jobs/employment we basically have a full spectrum of lockdowns from full to non-existent, based entirely on personal circumstance and individual judgement. What the government says people should do is no longer really an issue. If they're the kind of people that are going to ignore it and do what they want, they already are. They're just keeping quiet about it.

I guess what I'm saying is, that in the US, UK, Europe and an increasing number of other places (Brazil and Mexico) the price we pay to fight COVID-19 is no longer determined by the government, but by the majority of citizens. Will they maintain the social distancing standards? Or will they ride together in the elevator of doom?

[Gremlin]

Are we actually fighting the virus? The global curve hasn't been flattened. Brazil, India and Saudi Arabia (and all the smaller countries that surround those 3) are all basically on fire. I'm convinced the real numbers in places like Indonesia and Malaysia are more like the numbers we're seeing coming out of Brazil and Brazil can't even report properly because of the chaos.

I have a good friend who lives in Malaysia.  I understand that their numbers are pretty reliable.  They are worried about the impact of Eid al-Fitr (the celebration at the end of Ramadan where traditionally everyone returns to their "home" villages and have banned movement for the event), but other than that they apparently have a reasonable degree of control.  Indonesia, on the other hand, is an absolute basket case...

[2Cent]

Am I seeing this right - no matter which way government throws the switch, both of them, the people and the economy, get run over when the trolley loops back around?

Pretty much.

[beltim]

Something that would have made lockdown easier to maintain was if this virus was killing equal numbers of people from each age group i.e. babies, toddlers, young children, teenagers, 20s, 30s, 40s etc with no concern for pre-existing conditions. That would have truly terrified people. But because data from all over the planet suggests that if you're under 70 years of age with no obvious pre-existing condition you have almost nothing to worry about, lots of folks are angry because they're not in that demographic.

This is just false.  Yes, the older you are the higher your risk.  But people are at risk of death and significant disease, with unknown and potentially life-altering after-effects at every age.  Not all of these points apply to what you said but I think they're all important points:

Statistics show healthy people are rarely effected by this virus other than at most mild symptoms.   For healthy people, this virus is literally as risky as a flu and nothing more.  The majority of people in America are clearly unhealthy and have multiple pre-existing conditions (most chronic illness is preventable and reversible).   For decades people in America have not taken their health seriously, obvious examples are obesity, diet, mental health and drug/alcohol addiction.  All of a sudden people are taking their health seriously?  I'm not buying what you are selling.   People are reacting because of irrational fear, and when people do that they are very likely to make bad choices (from my own experience).

This is false.  Disseminating this sort of false information is dangerous - you are literally advocating that people put their lives at risk because you are repeating false information.

Let's put aside the fact that the death rate from COVID-19 is 10-20 times higher than that of the flu¹.  Let's talk about how hospitalizations from COVID-19 are also 5-20 higher than that of the flu and not just affecting those with ores-existing confitions².  Let's talk about how hospitalizations in the US are hitting every adult age group without a big difference in prevalence³. And how it's about twice as infectious⁴, which since that's an exponential means that it runs through the population way more than twice as fast.  Let's talk about how those who are hospitalized (remember, at 5-20 times the rate of flu) are twice as likely to need to be in the ICU and on mechanical ventilation even compared to a "bad" flu⁵.
Let's talk about how all the things you're saying about COVID-19 being more likely to hit those with preexisting health conditions are also true for the flu⁶.  Let's talk about how Olympic athletes are saying it's the worst disease they've ever had⁷ and need to be hospitalized⁸.

This disease does not only affect the healthy.  Unless you're saying multiple Olympic athletes aren't healthy?

There's a reason people are saying that you're not taking this seriously.  You think you're invulnerable, but you're not.  You think this isn't a big deal, but it is. 

I don't have time to do the same breakdown for your other wrong points, but I assure you that the science behind quarantines, lockdowns, and social distancing is very well validated.  Look at different countries responses to this, the relative infection rates, and the relative death rates, and you'll see the real-world efficacy of different measure for this very virus.


¹https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/global-covid-19-case-fatality-rates/
² https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/index.html
³ https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/03/coronavirus-young-people-hospitalized-covid-19-chart/
⁴ https://www.livescience.com/new-coronavirus-compare-with-flu.html
⁵ https://www.statnews.com/2020/03/16/coronavirus-model-shows-hospitals-what-to-expect/  and https://www.atsjournals.org/doi/full/10.1164/rccm.201401-0066LE
⁶ https://www.medpagetoday.com/resource-centers/contemporary-approaches-influenza-a-b/icu-admission-and-mortality-during-flu-season/2391
⁷ https://www.aa.com.tr/en/latest-on-coronavirus-outbreak/olympic-gold-medalist-van-der-burgh-battling-covid-19/1775843
⁸ https://www.aipsmedia.com/index.html?page=artdetail&art=27586&CoronavirusItalyEdoardo-Melloni

[T-Money$]

The best estimate from the CDC shows an S-iFR of 0.4%, a population wide iFR of 0.3%.

Removing those deaths associated with long term care facilities the IFR is about 0.1%, removing the risk factor of obesity it’s reasonable to assume the iFR is 0.06%. 

The fatality rates are far lower than the predictions that shaped policy 2-3 months ago.

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.13.20101253v1.full.pdf

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/planning-scenarios.html

https://www.cebm.net/oxford-covid-19-evidence-service/

Over 1/3rd if the population never get symptoms from CoVID once infected.

The continued fear and obsession with CoVID as research shows a disease less and less fatal seem to be based on emotion instead of data.   I do not believe the overwhelming majority of people are at risk of serious disease from CoVID and I disagree that it is something to be fearful of and significantly damage the economy over, putting tens of millions into poverty and unemployment in the US alone.

For most people I believe the fear of CoVID is irrational and hypchondrical.  The response has caused far more damage than the disease itself.

When considering all the risks we come in contact with throughout our lives, risks that we accept without even being conscious of them, from where I stand the obsession and fear associated with CoVID is not rooted in rationality.

As Mr. Money Mustache himself said “safety is an expensive illusion”.  I’m very surprised there are so many people on this forum obsessing over CoVID as it seems contrary to the message Mr. Money Mustache delivers.   

The price that many of us have paid has been unacceptable.  Whether it was Northeast US Governors forcing CoVID infected patients into nursing homes up until a few weeks ago or the tens of millions that have lost their jobs, the response has shown the worst side of human behavior.

And if you wish to get political and start labeling (as has been done above), ponder this:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/25/us/politics/coronavirus-red-blue-states.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage

As far as the “staggering” death toll from CoViD, iatrogenic illness kills twice as many in the US each year, heart disease kills 8 times as many each year.   

CoViD is without a doubt a disaster, ego driven humans have turned it into a catastrophe.  If those at risk were properly isolated at the beginning of the pandemic the death toll could have been a fraction of what it was.  Instead the healthy were locked up while those at risk were put in direct contact with the virus. 

[beltim]

The best estimate from the CDC shows an S-iFR of 0.4%, a population wide iFR of 0.3%.

This is not far off from the estimates at the very beginning of 0.5 - 2.0%.

Removing those deaths associated with long term care facilities the IFR is about 0.1%,

Do these people not count?

removing the risk factor of obesity it’s reasonable to assume the iFR is 0.06%.

Do these people not count?

As far as the “staggering” death toll from CoViD, iatrogenic illness kills twice as many in the US each year, heart disease kills 8 times as many each year.   

CoViD is without a doubt a disaster, ego driven humans have turned it into a catastrophe.

Even under lockdown, deaths from COVID-19 during peak weeks exceeded deaths from all other causes combined in hard hit areas of Italy, Spain, New York, and New Jersey.  It is only because of lockdowns that that didn't happen everywhere.  And with the lockdown, it could still happen again, in the same or other places.

[T-Money$]

I believe you are making a leap of faith/confirmation bias regarding lockdowns of healthy people. 

https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/covid-19-epidemic-waves/

The countries and areas with the most stringent lockdowns, UK, Belgium, France, Italy, Spain and the Northeastern US typically had the highest death rates. 

As far as whether people matter, that goes back to an emotional argument — and if you or others wish to argue CoVID response with emotional, ego driven or political motivations have at it...I want no part of it. I’ll likely spend the next couple years trying to undue the damage such behavior has had on my family’s future as will tens of millions of other Americans.

[beltim]

I believe you are making a leap of faith/confirmation bias regarding lockdowns of healthy people. 

https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/covid-19-epidemic-waves/

The countries and areas with the most stringent lockdowns, UK, Belgium, France, Italy, Spain and the Northeastern US typically had the highest death rates. 

No, I am making evidence-based assertions.  You are confusing cause and effect.

Look at the recovery curves - the places that see a decline in new cases are those that had the most effective lockdowns – northern Italy, Switzerland, New York.  The places that are still seeing huge expanses are those that didn't have effective lockdowns – Arkansas, North Dakota, Alabama, etc.

As far as whether people matter, that goes back to an emotional argument — and if you or others wish to argue CoVID response with emotional, ego driven or political motivations have at it...I want no part of it and I’ll spend the next couple years trying to undue the damage such behavior has had on my family’s future and will tens of millions of other Americans.

You brought up adjusting death rates for different classes of people.  I don't think that's appropriate, and I want to know why you're dismissing the deaths of some categories of people.  The death rate is the death rate, and we should strive to avoid those deaths.

[Bloop Bloop]

I think the point is that if the virus mainly kills the elderly, it might be easier to ask them to lockdown (and give support to them) than asking the whole country to lockdown for their sake. I say 'might' because there is a complicated utilitarian balancing exercise at play. But put it this way, in my country the median age of death is 80.

[T-Money$]

I believe you are making a leap of faith/confirmation bias regarding lockdowns of healthy people. 

https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/covid-19-epidemic-waves/

The countries and areas with the most stringent lockdowns, UK, Belgium, France, Italy, Spain and the Northeastern US typically had the highest death rates. 

No, I am making evidence-based assertions.  You are confusing cause and effect.

Look at the recovery curves - the places that see a decline in new cases are those that had the most effective lockdowns – northern Italy, Switzerland, New York.  The places that are still seeing huge expanses are those that didn't have effective lockdowns – Arkansas, North Dakota, Alabama, etc.

As far as whether people matter, that goes back to an emotional argument — and if you or others wish to argue CoVID response with emotional, ego driven or political motivations have at it...I want no part of it and I’ll spend the next couple years trying to undue the damage such behavior has had on my family’s future and will tens of millions of other Americans.

You brought up adjusting death rates for different classes of people.  I don't think that's appropriate, and I want to know why you're dismissing the deaths of some categories of people.  The death rate is the death rate, and we should strive to avoid those deaths.

We should strive to avoid those deaths, absolutely.  My point is, we did not...many states in the Northeast US actually encouraged CoVID-19 deaths by forcing CoVID infected patients into nursing homes:

https://www.timesunion.com/news/article/Cuomo-defends-nursing-home-policies-as-long-term-15284326.php

This caused a massive amount of avoidable death.  Locking up healthy people did nothing except severely disrupt their future.  Southern states have been reopening for weeks and there has not been a substantial increase in cases. 

The New York Times blames this disparity on population density:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/25/us/politics/coronavirus-red-blue-states.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage

Yet, the policies of states were totally different:

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/05/the-covid-19-nursing-home-crisis-was-not-an-inevitability/

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/05/coronavirus-crisis-ron-desantis-florida-covid-19-strategy/

..but acknowledging policy differences could have potentially resulted in different disease outcomes doesn't fit the established political narrative.

Keeping CoVID away from those most at risk seems to be the best way to reduce the amount of deaths.  It has been far more successful than the one-size-fits-all lockdowns in the Northeast US, which is where the most of the deaths from CoVID in the US occurred. 

By all means, stay at home and wear masks if you think that is effective, but there seem to be much better ways to deal with CoVID if it does return.  Forcing others to behave in ways that are in my view, irrational, dysfunctional and destructive is not acceptable and will be increasingly challenged.  The emotional response that "people don't take CoVID seriously" or "people are selfish" is quite frankly, horseshit.  Those that are the most scared of CoVID, those States that have based their policies through fear and politics are correlated with the highest iFRs and most death.

Like Mr. Money Mustache wrote, "safety is a very expensive illusion".  The risks of CoVId range from negligible to 50% risk of death or more dependent upon several well understood factors, but acknowledging that reality seems to be impossible for people that see everything and everyone as equal.  Ideology has it's risks...

[Leisured]

It is a false contrast between reopening the economy and death rates from COVID19. If we say, what the heck, and reopen the economy, a lot of people will not turn up for work because they have been infected. I am not saying they will die, particularly if they are young. But sick workers at home are still not at work.

[Telecaster]

Keeping CoVID away from those most at risk seems to be the best way to reduce the amount of deaths.  It has been far more successful than the one-size-fits-all lockdowns in the Northeast US, which is where the most of the deaths from CoVID in the US occurred. 

This is a nonsensical comparison.  New York had widespread undetected community transmission before the lock down started, combined with being a major international hub, and very high population density.  By contrast my mother lives in a rural area that had no confirmed cases.  Why?  No subway, no mass transit at all for that matter. There might be two buildings with elevators, and there's no meat packing plant.  The opportunities for virus transmission are completely different.  It isn't valid to compare that town to New York City.  Completely different situations.   Park City UT and Ketchum ID had much higher case rates than the rest of their respective states.   Why?  Lots of people traveling from all over coming to visit. 

Sweden has had only moderate social distancing measures.  Its peer countries of Denmark, Finland and Norway have death rates that are four, seven, and nine times lower.   Germany, which is not as directly comparable, has a death rate almost four times lower.  Sweden's per capital death rate is even higher than the United States.   It is clear that social distancing works.

I must emphasize Mr. Green's point:  The economic crisis cannot be separated from the public health crisis.  The economy will not rebound unless and until there is a vaccine or an effective treatment. 

[FactorsOf2]

I think the point is that if the virus mainly kills the elderly, it might be easier to ask them to lockdown (and give support to them) than asking the whole country to lockdown for their sake. I say 'might' because there is a complicated utilitarian balancing exercise at play. But put it this way, in my country the median age of death is 80.

The elderly and those with pre-existing conditions. I would love it if we heard from the media and from the government more emphasis on just how stratified the risk is. Try googling "COVID not dangerous to young and healthy people" - you'll probably find like I did that the first two pages of results are low-information-content pieces that say exactly the opposite of this. Thanks Google for "protecting us" from dangerous knowledge.

What I really want now is a discussion of whether it is possible to ramp up our protection of vulnerable groups while keeping the economy in gear with non-vulnerable groups. I don't know that it's possible to reconcile those two goals, but I'd at least like to see it discussed.

[T-Money$]

Here are the latest best guess symptomatic case fatality rates from the CDC stratified by age:

0-49 .05%
50-64 0.2%
65+ 1.3%

The CDC estimates about 1/3 of those infected are asymptomatic, therefore, we can assume the iFR are:

0-49 .03%
50-64 0.13%
65+ 0.86%

These numbers are thankfully very low.  Locking down healthy people under age 64 was a crime.  These numbers are approximately 20x less than the initial WHO estimates.

The economy was destroyed to satisfy those that had irrational fear.  The lockdowns were a failure.

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/planning-scenarios.html

Several state governments absolutely failed protecting those at risk.   

The vaccine (if one is developed) may not be able to be tested because the virus is going away too quickly:

https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-oxford-scientists-predict-fifty-per-cent-vaccine-trial-success-2020-5

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/coronavirus-researchers-may-have-to-chase-infections-to-do-vaccine-tests-h9kcc0wr0?wgu=270525_54264_1590438711403_eb5121e7dc&wgexpiry=1598214711&utm_source=planit&utm_medium=affiliate&utm_content=22278

[BikeFanatic]

T Money The lockdowns were not failures, my hospital just squeezed by with 130 percent ICU capacity during the height of the pandemic, if it were not for social distancing we would have been at 250 percent of capacity with many workers out with covid, this could have doubled the death rate.The lockdown was to flatten the curve and therefore save lives.

[bilmar]

What I really want now is a discussion of whether it is possible to ramp up our protection of vulnerable groups while keeping the economy in gear with non-vulnerable groups. I don't know that it's possible to reconcile those two goals, but I'd at least like to see it discussed.

I would say the answer is yes with enough money and that we have.
So if someone made me king ( or President if you believe in the Constitution) and I had access to a Trillion dollars or so I think there is a lot that could be done soon.

Federal control of all virus related equipment and supplies sales from day one. No more distributors and shady dealers involved

Fix shortages of all PPE by requiring it to be made & scale up new manufacturing in US until we have plenty to distribute to anyone, anywhere in USA.

Same for tests and supplies - both 'have it' and 'had it' .

Same for Alcohol, sanitizer, wipes etc

Protect and frequently test necessary but high risk populations and workplaces - doctors, nurses, care homes, prisons, hospitals. If you can effectively isolate a vulnerable population why not strive to keep the virus out?

Create very specific safety requirements for all businesses to follow that will earn them protection from lawsuits and/or fines. Do so with common sense  and science in mind - how likely is transmission for this business activity and can it be reduced to an acceptable risk: Nightclubs - no way to be safe, they stay closed. Churches - no singing allowed. Think about all the rules that businesses have to follow today about fire doors, ADA rules, food safety, OSHA regs etc. Have virus-only rules for each business type/size telling them what to do to keep their employees and customers safer. Since we will have plenty of US made  PPE and sanitizer that can be required and specified in detail.

Aggressive contact tracing with inspections and fines. Require businesses that fail inspection or have  infected staff to shut down for x days. Then businesses that don't care much about their employees ( meat plants) would have to do so to avoid a shutdown.

Commandeer empty hotel space to house healthcare workers & first-responders worried about infecting their family

Make free masks available to everyone and require them to wear one in public. Onerous you say? - well here in FL you have to wear shirt and shoes to enter any business and civilization has not crumbled yet.

Make that "Anyone who wants a test can get a test" BS actually true. Free test per person per week at the drug stores we were promised 2 months ago



Once you start thinking beyond 'but its expensive' there is a lot that can be done with a few Billion here and a few Billion there.

[bmjohnson35]

If the Covid-19 death numbers are accurate, we have lost more people to this virus in roughly 4 months than all of the US Soldiers lost in Vietnam War, Korean War, and the two official Gulf Wars combined.  That's significant amount that can't be ingored.  Although it appears that we are throwing a lot of money/resources toward vaccine development, it feels like we could have done more to manage the spread of the virus until a vaccine is developed.  Tests should be more readily available and protocols should be in place to manage localized spikes in the virus.  Widespread shutdowns is a crude supplement for planned management of the crisis.

BJ

[Buffaloski Boris]

What I really want now is a discussion of whether it is possible to ramp up our protection of vulnerable groups while keeping the economy in gear with non-vulnerable groups. I don't know that it's possible to reconcile those two goals, but I'd at least like to see it discussed.

Sure thing.

Possible, yes. Likely, no.  At this point I believe it’s a case of WYSIWYG. And now that partisan politics has been added to the mix, opinions have hardened at both poles of the stupidity spectrum when the strategies that will work and reduce future economic damage are more nuanced.

The key issue in my view is compliance. We’ve had what, 8 weeks of isolation, about 2 weeks of relaxed rules in VA. The numbers here in VA are spiking up. I’d say 1/2 to 3/4 of folks are masking up the in stores. Very few stores that I’ve seen absolutely require masks. Less than 5% are wearing masks while outside. I think folks are just done with it and are going to take the risk. And I’m not sure that’s the wrong response. I’m very skeptical of us seeing a vaccine in the relevant future. So, my thinking is that most of us will likely get this crud, probably by next spring. The idea behind the quarantines was to lower the infection rate so as not overwhelm the medical system. It wasn’t to prevent everyone from getting it. That goal except for relatively small, isolated places like NZ or Singapore just isn’t realistic.

[Gremlin]

One of the misnomers here seems to be that there are two outcomes if you get the virus.  In the first, you die.  In the second, you make a full recovery.  It's the second of these that we still don't know holds true, nor for what proportion of the infected population.

I have a cousin who is a medical specialist in a field a long way removed from Pulmonary Illnesses.  He's the smartest person I know.  He was saying on the weekend that he has had three new cases of a particular condition present in the past two months.  The three cases are all in their late 20s/early 30s.  This is a condition that he has never seen before in anyone under 50.  He said that this condition "is not a death sentence, but it is a life sentence".  Two of them were reported COVID cases.  He ordered the third to be tested and they had antibodies present.  All were mild cases, none had been hospitalised for COVID (the third hadn't even realised they had had it) and none had pre-existing conditions or typical comorbidities.  And they now have a life of suffering to look forward to.

Of course, the plural of anecdote is not data.  There is no peer reviewed study demonstrating a link here as yet.  There just simply hasn't been time.

But it does beg the question, for those who are suggesting that we should be simply isolating the vulnerable group, who is that vulnerable group?  It may not be simply those that are dying. 

For the utilitarians, what should happen to these 20 and 30 year olds?  Their future medical expenses are almost certainly going to be more than the "value of a life".

[American GenX]

Actual death rate among closed cases in the U.S. is very high at 18%.  I'm willing to make sacrifices for lockdowns to continue for as long and as stringent as possible until there's a vaccine or very effective treatment.  The Trumpets can take their hydroxychloroquine - good luck with that.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/

[Buffaloski Boris]

One of the misnomers here seems to be that there are two outcomes if you get the virus.  In the first, you die.  In the second, you make a full recovery.  It's the second of these that we still don't know holds true, nor for what proportion of the infected population.

I have a cousin who is a medical specialist in a field a long way removed from Pulmonary Illnesses.  He's the smartest person I know.  He was saying on the weekend that he has had three new cases of a particular condition present in the past two months.  The three cases are all in their late 20s/early 30s.  This is a condition that he has never seen before in anyone under 50.  He said that this condition "is not a death sentence, but it is a life sentence".  Two of them were reported COVID cases.  He ordered the third to be tested and they had antibodies present.  All were mild cases, none had been hospitalised for COVID (the third hadn't even realised they had had it) and none had pre-existing conditions or typical comorbidities.  And they now have a life of suffering to look forward to.

Of course, the plural of anecdote is not data.  There is no peer reviewed study demonstrating a link here as yet.  There just simply hasn't been time.

But it does beg the question, for those who are suggesting that we should be simply isolating the vulnerable group, who is that vulnerable group?  It may not be simply those that are dying. 

For the utilitarians, what should happen to these 20 and 30 year olds?  Their future medical expenses are almost certainly going to be more than the "value of a life".

I've heard of all sorts of secondary effects in survivors. Neurological issues, heart issues, strokes, damaged lungs, and so on.  And we're not certain that catching the crud provides immunity or for how long.  God awful stuff.  There is no vaccine available.  We have yet to identify an effective treatment.  It's pretty much treat your symptoms and hope you live and aren't too damaged in the end. Shutting everything down for months until it runs it's course isn't a viable option, either.  Even if people were willing to abide by those restrictions for an extended period, which they've already shown that they aren't willing to.

[Paper Chaser]

Actual death rate among closed cases in the U.S. is very high at 18%.  I'm willing to make sacrifices for lockdowns to continue for as long and as stringent as possible until there's a vaccine or very effective treatment.  The Trumpets can take their hydroxychloroquine - good luck with that.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/

What good is this data, other than fear mongering? What is considered an "open case"? When is somebody moved from "open case" to "closed case"? The chart makes it seem like it's only looking at hospitalizations, and the only two options after hospitalization are being discharged (recovered) or dying. What's the fatality rate of other maladies that are bad enough to require hospitalization? For example, if you get Pneumonia severe enough to need hospitalization, what are your odds of dying? (The answer is 30% mortality for those that need ICU beds: https://www.medicinenet.com/pneumonia_facts/article.htm)

If the data that the calculation is based on only considers those who have been impacted badly enough to need hospitalization, or really any number other than total infections, then it's not an accurate picture of the danger this virus poses.

The overall infection fatality rate has been below 1% in every study of the population that I can recall. It's frequently around 0.5%. That means that of those that are infected, the number dead from this virus is below 1 in 100. And the dead are very likely to be very old. So healthy young people have even lower odds of dying from this virus.

[the_gastropod]

Here are the latest best guess symptomatic case fatality rates from the CDC stratified by age:

0-49 .05%
50-64 0.2%
65+ 1.3%

The CDC estimates about 1/3 of those infected are asymptomatic, therefore, we can assume the iFR are:

0-49 .03%
50-64 0.13%
65+ 0.86%

These numbers are thankfully very low.  Locking down healthy people under age 64 was a crime.  These numbers are approximately 20x less than the initial WHO estimates.

The economy was destroyed to satisfy those that had irrational fear.  The lockdowns were a failure.

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/planning-scenarios.html

Several state governments absolutely failed protecting those at risk.   

The vaccine (if one is developed) may not be able to be tested because the virus is going away too quickly:

https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-oxford-scientists-predict-fifty-per-cent-vaccine-trial-success-2020-5

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/coronavirus-researchers-may-have-to-chase-infections-to-do-vaccine-tests-h9kcc0wr0?wgu=270525_54264_1590438711403_eb5121e7dc&wgexpiry=1598214711&utm_source=planit&utm_medium=affiliate&utm_content=22278

Dude. You need to stop. This is delusion. 100k Americans have died from this disease in ~3 months. That is 0.033% of the US population. So unless you believe (ridiculously) that every American has already been infected, your suggested ifr is very obviously very wrong.

[Wrenchturner]

Even if people were willing to abide by those restrictions for an extended period, which they've already shown that they aren't willing to.

It also doesn't help that so-called leaders keep getting caught flouting the rules.  There was a Toronto park overrun with people on Saturday.  I think this occurred in part because it was one of few parks open that day.  The Mayor of Toronto was spotted at the park also!

[Bloop Bloop]

Here are the latest best guess symptomatic case fatality rates from the CDC stratified by age:

0-49 .05%
50-64 0.2%
65+ 1.3%

The CDC estimates about 1/3 of those infected are asymptomatic, therefore, we can assume the iFR are:

0-49 .03%
50-64 0.13%
65+ 0.86%

These numbers are thankfully very low.  Locking down healthy people under age 64 was a crime.  These numbers are approximately 20x less than the initial WHO estimates.

The economy was destroyed to satisfy those that had irrational fear.  The lockdowns were a failure.

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/planning-scenarios.html

Several state governments absolutely failed protecting those at risk.   

The vaccine (if one is developed) may not be able to be tested because the virus is going away too quickly:

https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-oxford-scientists-predict-fifty-per-cent-vaccine-trial-success-2020-5

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/coronavirus-researchers-may-have-to-chase-infections-to-do-vaccine-tests-h9kcc0wr0?wgu=270525_54264_1590438711403_eb5121e7dc&wgexpiry=1598214711&utm_source=planit&utm_medium=affiliate&utm_content=22278

Dude. You need to stop. This is delusion. 100k Americans have died from this disease in ~3 months. That is 0.033% of the US population. So unless you believe (ridiculously) that every American has already been infected, your suggested ifr is very obviously very wrong.

The 0.03% figure pertains to young people.

Here in Australia the death toll for people under 42 is 0.00%

[OtherJen]

I think the point is that if the virus mainly kills the elderly, it might be easier to ask them to lockdown (and give support to them) than asking the whole country to lockdown for their sake. I say 'might' because there is a complicated utilitarian balancing exercise at play. But put it this way, in my country the median age of death is 80.

The elderly and those with pre-existing conditions. I would love it if we heard from the media and from the government more emphasis on just how stratified the risk is. Try googling "COVID not dangerous to young and healthy people" - you'll probably find like I did that the first two pages of results are low-information-content pieces that say exactly the opposite of this. Thanks Google for "protecting us" from dangerous knowledge.

What I really want now is a discussion of whether it is possible to ramp up our protection of vulnerable groups while keeping the economy in gear with non-vulnerable groups. I don't know that it's possible to reconcile those two goals, but I'd at least like to see it discussed.

Yeah, this is a valid discussion. Do we force everyone aged 60 years or older and anyone with a diagnosed risky medical condition to go under lockdown for the foreseeable future so that the rest of us can go back to “normal”? How would that be enforced? What would that look like?

Many people in that group are still working and cannot work from home, and a forced job loss would mean that many in the USA would lose health insurance and would not be able to afford prohibitively expensive individual plans or COBRA (Medicare doesn’t kick in until age 65). How would that affect the mental and physical health of that population? What would that do to the economy, housing market, medical systems, etc.? Also, is the current US government inclined to provide extensive financial support to this rather large group of people for an undefined length of time? It seems unlikely from my perspective.

How would places like nursing homes and medical facilities be staffed? Would the younger workers also have to quarantine onsite with no offsite breaks for the foreseeable future? How would their needs be met?

Or would it be easier and more just to require that everyone adheres to strict hygiene practices (e.g., mask requirements, just like shoes are required in most public places—and no, this is not a violation of essential rights) and attempts to maintain physical distancing while encouraging and enabling people in higher-risk groups to minimize unnecessary public exposure? Can we accept that things are not normal—a pandemic is not normal—and will not immediately snap back to the old normal, no matter how much we might want that, and take rational steps to live with the situation and move forward?

[Cassie]

Jen, I totally agree with you.

[2Cent]

... removing the risk factor of obesity it’s reasonable to assume the iFR is 0.06%. ...

The obesity rate in the US is 42%! I don't think you can remove that.

[habanero]

Over here there has been done quite extensive economic analysis on what to do earlier and now. It is of course nowhere near an exact science, but the conclusion and recommendation is to get the rate of infection to a very low level (which we have managed) and then keep it low through various measures (which has worked out fine so far, but time will tell if it stays that way as more and more returns to some sense of normality). We are quite far ahead in the gradual reopening, but still droves are on government benefits due to no job to go to currently so the cost in both public money and personal financial suffering has been very, very high - on the plus side Norway has a massive pile of public money so the government does not need to take on any debt to finance it. Both the option of doing this and letting the virus spread through the population at a manageable rate comes with great costs, the the total is assumed to be significantly lower for the maintaining very low rate of infections - option.  If it's the correct approach? Noone knows for sure, of course.

While this analysis is done on local conditions, the domestic economy etc it might not translate very well to other countries, but one relevant point for the US is that in US health calculations the value of a life-year is significantly higher than for Norway, and that ain't because GBP per capita is higher in the US - it's quite a bit higher here. So everything else being equal the value put in lives saved should normally be much higher in the US in a similar analysis. This is also part of the reason for the massive health care spending in the US btw, treatments deemed not worth the cost many places come out as worthwhile in the US.   

The "kock-out-phase" which we are now done with was always gonna be much easier here than in the US. We do not have the world capital of international business, we get relatively few foreign tourists during the winter and our government did not start out by denying this was even a thing for weeks, testing on scale started earlier and we have only one major city by US standards (it wold not even make top 20 in the US in terms of population) and faith in public authorities is very high. And for these reasons and maybe some luck we never got far out on the epidemic curve and the health system has been nowhere near its capacity for Covid-19-patients. And all this has been achieved without the most draconian measures and heavy population surveillance like in China etc and most shops, malls etc have stayed open the whole time, but lots of stuff like schools, universities, sports, gyms, public gatherings, bars/restaurants in the capital etcetc has been closed, but is now reopening. Noone has been told to stay in their own home unless confirmed infected. And lots of places has temporarily closed either due to rules for social distancing or just a lack of customers as people have stayed out of public life, worked from home etc.

We currently have 39 people in hospital, of which 11 in ICU of which 7 on a ventilator. Yesterday had 8 new confirmed Covid-19-infections. 240 people have died (and we count every single individual, also those dying in care homes, at home etc). Multiply all numbers by 60 to scale to US population.

Sweden is famous for its lax attitude towards Covid-19, but in some ways regulations / recommendations are stricter in Sweden than in Norway now and by international standards ours were never terribly strict to start with, but still the strictest since WW2 by a wide margin.

[js82]

What I really want now is a discussion of whether it is possible to ramp up our protection of vulnerable groups while keeping the economy in gear with non-vulnerable groups. I don't know that it's possible to reconcile those two goals, but I'd at least like to see it discussed.

Possible, yes. Likely, no.  At this point I believe it’s a case of WYSIWYG. And now that partisan politics has been added to the mix, opinions have hardened at both poles of the stupidity spectrum when the strategies that will work and reduce future economic damage are more nuanced.

Yeah.  For instance in my opinion it shouldn't be "keep schools closed" vs. "reopen schools", but "how do we reopen schools while protecting older staff, and students who live with older, at-risk family members."

The same should be applied across other activities.  There are a small fraction of activities that comprise a comparably large portion of transmission risk - mostly those that pack people densely, and where the same people are likely to be in proximity for extended lengths of time.

The key issue in my view is compliance. We’ve had what, 8 weeks of isolation, about 2 weeks of relaxed rules in VA. The numbers here in VA are spiking up. I’d say 1/2 to 3/4 of folks are masking up the in stores. Very few stores that I’ve seen absolutely require masks. Less than 5% are wearing masks while outside. I think folks are just done with it and are going to take the risk. And I’m not sure that’s the wrong response. I’m very skeptical of us seeing a vaccine in the relevant future. So, my thinking is that most of us will likely get this crud, probably by next spring. The idea behind the quarantines was to lower the infection rate so as not overwhelm the medical system. It wasn’t to prevent everyone from getting it. That goal except for relatively small, isolated places like NZ or Singapore just isn’t realistic.

I agree with you about compliance being a central issue at this point - although I think our partisan environment contributes to that, with one political faction actively pushing non-compliance.

Again, per your above comments about nuance, I think the *right* response in the moment is to maintain sustainable actions(not shutdowns, but wearing masks in indoor spaces, etc.) - this is something that most people would accept and doesn't cause economic harm like business shutdowns do.  *and* any sustainable action that effectively lowers R still has the effect of reducing the terminal number of infections and hence saving lives.

[GuitarStv]

People are willing to pay $544,000/life saved out of their own pocket for safety improvements to cars. The NHTSA is willing to spend $3 million per life saved in traffic safety measures: https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/809835. EPA puts the number at $10 million: https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2017-value-of-life/.

Estimates I've seen showed if we did nothing we'd have around 2.2 million deaths and with all of the changes we're implementing, we'll probably be somewhere around 200k deaths.

So 2 million deaths times $544k is just over $1 trillion. If we use $3 million per life saved, that's $6 trillion. If we use the EPA's $10 million / life, thats a total cost of $20 trillion.

I think I've found upper and lower bounds for this question. That said, I think the closest comparison would be how much we paid 9-11 victims families. The federal government paid on average $1.7 million/death in the 9-11 attacks. That would put us as society willing to pay $3.4 trillion to prevent 2 million COVID-19 deaths from happening.

Not every life saved is equal. Saving a young, healthy person has more value than saving an elderly person with other health issues because the young person is more likely to have more years and a higher quality of life during those years.

I missed this earlier, but was re-reading the thread and wanted to comment.


Not every life saved is equal - agreed.  But the assumption that saving a young healthy person has more value than saving an elderly person with health issues is flat out wrong.


I think that this is rooted in the implicit assumption that 'quality of life' and number of years lived determine value.

Take an honest look here, and tell me . . . does the younger guy's better quality of life really make him the more valuable human being?







The problem with attempting to assign a different value to individuals lives is that doing so always means you will make bad assumptions . . . and bad assumptions lead to bad conclusions.  The only I can see way to avoid getting bogged down in an flawed argument of "who's live has more value" is to treat all lives as having the same value.

[T-Money$]

I agree with you about compliance being a central issue at this point - although I think our partisan environment contributes to that, with one political faction actively pushing non-compliance.

Again, per your above comments about nuance, I think the *right* response in the moment is to maintain sustainable actions(not shutdowns, but wearing masks in indoor spaces, etc.) - this is something that most people would accept and doesn't cause economic harm like business shutdowns do.  *and* any sustainable action that effectively lowers R still has the effect of reducing the terminal number of infections and hence saving lives.

While I like your second paragraph your first is full of shit.

About one-half of the US deaths from COVID-19 were from nursing homes.  That number is in reality likely higher:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/theapothecary/2020/05/26/nursing-homes-assisted-living-facilities-0-6-of-the-u-s-population-43-of-u-s-covid-19-deaths/#40e8dceb74cd

Instead of protecting those that have risk from COVID-19, it was the Democratic Governors of New York, Michigan and PA forced COVID-19 patients into nursing homes, thereby seeding the virus into areas that house the populations with the most risk.   Earlier this week the New York Times reported COVID has been more severe in Democratic areas.  The reason should be obvious, because the policies enacted by Democratic Governors were irrational and a failure. 

PA:

https://www.buckscountycouriertimes.com/news/20200501/states-ordered-nursing-homes-to-take-covid-19-residents-thousands-died-how-it-happened

NY:

https://nypost.com/2020/04/23/nursing-homes-cant-reject-coronavirus-patients-cuomo-says/

MI:

https://www.detroitnews.com/story/opinion/editorials/2020/05/20/editorial-whitmer-order-endangers-nursing-homes-end-now/5220929002/

Each state has "celebrated" left wing Governors that seem to appear on TV stations like CNN daily, even though their policies were extremely destructive.  Not only did these states have much higher death rates than their right-wing counterparts, but the widespread lockdowns (which are still on-going to this day) hurt their economies even more.

Florida locked down nursing homes and prioritized shipments of personal protective equipment (PPE) to those facilities, putting them on the same level as hospitals.  Florida is God's waiting room, so the lack of COVID-19 fatalities is truly remarkable.

At the onset of the pandemic it was reasonable to isolate and protect those most vulnerable.  Left wing politicians rejected that idea, instead going for a theoretical and extremely unlikely (if not impossible) worst case scenario that killed more people and was much more destructive to the economy -- there is no correlation between long-term widespread lockdown and reducing COVID death, in any nation.

Much of the economy can be opened up without seeing huge viral spikes, yet the Northeast Democratic Governors still have much of their lockdowns in place, quarantining the healthy and those not at risk while they bury those that should have been protected.

So what were you saying about "partisan compliance" again?  Demanding equal outcomes when humans are inherently different from one another is a cornerstone of modern left wing thought.  Safety is an expensive illusion, in the hands of left wing ideology it also is apparently much more fatal.

[habanero]

The problem with attempting to assign a different value to individuals lives is that doing so always means you will make bad assumptions . . . and bad assumptions lead to bad conclusions

Well, pretty much all health-care analysis is done based on the assumption that they are assigned different values in economic terms. Calculations putting a monetary value on (quality-adjusted) life-years is commonplace and done all over the world in various forms. And in the current debate, this extends to how much costs society as a whole should be willing to spend on minimizing loss og life-years, not only lives. The public response to this disease would look massively different if it mainly affected people under say 30 years of age with no underlying health conditions which in essence is the same logic applied from the opposite direction.

Everyone who looks around in soiciety should see it's very obvious that lives are not sacred, and nowhere near that. Tons of stuff is allowed which is pretty dangerous, leads to lots of loss of lives every day and no government tries to save as many lives or life-years as possible without taking the cost in terms of finances or lack of liberty into account.

[JGS1980]

I agree with you about compliance being a central issue at this point - although I think our partisan environment contributes to that, with one political faction actively pushing non-compliance.

Again, per your above comments about nuance, I think the *right* response in the moment is to maintain sustainable actions(not shutdowns, but wearing masks in indoor spaces, etc.) - this is something that most people would accept and doesn't cause economic harm like business shutdowns do.  *and* any sustainable action that effectively lowers R still has the effect of reducing the terminal number of infections and hence saving lives.

While I like your second paragraph your first is full of shit.

About one-half of the US deaths from COVID-19 were from nursing homes.  That number is in reality likely higher:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/theapothecary/2020/05/26/nursing-homes-assisted-living-facilities-0-6-of-the-u-s-population-43-of-u-s-covid-19-deaths/#40e8dceb74cd

Instead of protecting those that have risk from COVID-19, it was the Democratic Governors of New York, Michigan and PA forced COVID-19 patients into nursing homes, thereby seeding the virus into areas that house the populations with the most risk.   Earlier this week the New York Times reported COVID has been more severe in Democratic areas.  The reason should be obvious, because the policies enacted by Democratic Governors were irrational and a failure. 

PA:

https://www.buckscountycouriertimes.com/news/20200501/states-ordered-nursing-homes-to-take-covid-19-residents-thousands-died-how-it-happened

NY:

https://nypost.com/2020/04/23/nursing-homes-cant-reject-coronavirus-patients-cuomo-says/

MI:

https://www.detroitnews.com/story/opinion/editorials/2020/05/20/editorial-whitmer-order-endangers-nursing-homes-end-now/5220929002/

Each state has "celebrated" left wing Governors that seem to appear on TV stations like CNN daily, even though their policies were extremely destructive.  Not only did these states have much higher death rates than their right-wing counterparts, but the widespread lockdowns (which are still on-going to this day) hurt their economies even more.

Florida locked down nursing homes and prioritized shipments of personal protective equipment (PPE) to those facilities, putting them on the same level as hospitals.  Florida is God's waiting room, so the lack of COVID-19 fatalities is truly remarkable.

At the onset of the pandemic it was reasonable to isolate and protect those most vulnerable.  Left wing politicians rejected that idea, instead going for a theoretical and extremely unlikely (if not impossible) worst case scenario that killed more people and was much more destructive to the economy -- there is no correlation between long-term widespread lockdown and reducing COVID death, in any nation.

Much of the economy can be opened up without seeing huge viral spikes, yet the Northeast Democratic Governors still have much of their lockdowns in place, quarantining the healthy and those not at risk while they bury those that should have been protected.

So what were you saying about "partisan compliance" again?  Demanding equal outcomes when humans are inherently different from one another is a cornerstone of modern left wing thought.  Safety is an expensive illusion, in the hands of left wing ideology it also is apparently much more fatal.

This is another right wing talking point that has "some basis" in truth, but overall is just BS.

Yes, Covid patients were discharged to Nursing Homes.  But remember that NYC, PA, MI per your examples were also in the process of being overwhelmed by the sick. These folks needed 24/7 care but did not need to be in the hospital any longer. They could not go home either. Where else could they go? Meanwhile MORE people would die if those hospital beds didn't open up. Big grab bag of crappy choices. Don't forget, T-Money, that many of these infections originated in those same Nursing Homes (see Washington state).

That talking point is just a way of distracting from the body count. You should be smarter than this T-Money, this far into this thread.

By the way, I'm a physician and I often discharge patients to Nursing Homes and Skilled Nursing Facilities after hospitalization.

[bigblock440]

If the Covid-19 death numbers are accurate, we have lost more people to this virus in roughly 4 months than all of the US Soldiers lost in Vietnam War, Korean War, and the two official Gulf Wars combined.  That's significant amount that can't be ingored.  Although it appears that we are throwing a lot of money/resources toward vaccine development, it feels like we could have done more to manage the spread of the virus until a vaccine is developed.  Tests should be more readily available and protocols should be in place to manage localized spikes in the virus.  Widespread shutdowns is a crude supplement for planned management of the crisis.

BJ

But not as much as we lost to influenza during that same time frame.

[GuitarStv]

If the Covid-19 death numbers are accurate, we have lost more people to this virus in roughly 4 months than all of the US Soldiers lost in Vietnam War, Korean War, and the two official Gulf Wars combined.  That's significant amount that can't be ingored.  Although it appears that we are throwing a lot of money/resources toward vaccine development, it feels like we could have done more to manage the spread of the virus until a vaccine is developed.  Tests should be more readily available and protocols should be in place to manage localized spikes in the virus.  Widespread shutdowns is a crude supplement for planned management of the crisis.

BJ

But not as much as we lost to influenza during that same time frame.

Not sure I understand your comment here.  Are you claiming that in the past four months more people have died of flu than covid-19?  Or are you claiming that more people were lost from flu than the Vietnam War, Korean War, and the two official Gulf Wars when combining those time periods?

[bigblock440]

If the Covid-19 death numbers are accurate, we have lost more people to this virus in roughly 4 months than all of the US Soldiers lost in Vietnam War, Korean War, and the two official Gulf Wars combined.  That's significant amount that can't be ingored.  Although it appears that we are throwing a lot of money/resources toward vaccine development, it feels like we could have done more to manage the spread of the virus until a vaccine is developed.  Tests should be more readily available and protocols should be in place to manage localized spikes in the virus.  Widespread shutdowns is a crude supplement for planned management of the crisis.

BJ

But not as much as we lost to influenza during that same time frame.

Not sure I understand your comment here.  Are you claiming that in the past four months more people have died of flu than covid-19?  Or are you claiming that more people were lost from flu than the Vietnam War, Korean War, and the two official Gulf Wars when combining those time periods?

The second one, we lost more people to the flu during the time period those wars were taking place.  I'm comparing the flu to those wars, not to covid, just as the OP is comparing the covid to those wars. 

[MudPuppy]

I don’t think anyone is saying the flu is not also bad.

[OtherJen]

I don’t think anyone is saying the flu is not also bad.

Yeah, it's not an either-or thing. I don't know why people are having trouble with this concept. I had H1N1 during the second wave in fall 2009. I had flu symptoms for 2 weeks, and the inflammation seemed to trigger latent celiac disease to a very active status, and it was another 3 months before I got that diagnosis and another 6 months until my gut fully recovered (and now I have to remain gluten-free for the rest of my life). Yeah, I get my flu vaccines.

I don't want to catch SARS-CoV-2 because it feels like Russian roulette: will I be asymptomatic (but potentially pass it onto someone else who could become very sick) or will I become too sick to work for a few weeks and/or experience potentially long-term and life-altering health complications? Who knows?

[Buffaloski Boris]

I don’t think anyone is saying the flu is not also bad.

Yeah, it's not an either-or thing. I don't know why people are having trouble with this concept. I had H1N1 during the second wave in fall 2009. I had flu symptoms for 2 weeks, and the inflammation seemed to trigger latent celiac disease to a very active status, and it was another 3 months before I got that diagnosis and another 6 months until my gut fully recovered (and now I have to remain gluten-free for the rest of my life). Yeah, I get my flu vaccines.

I don't want to catch SARS-CoV-2 because it feels like Russian roulette: will I be asymptomatic (but potentially pass it onto someone else who could become very sick) or will I become too sick to work for a few weeks and/or experience potentially long-term and life-altering health complications? Who knows?

Everybody reacts differently. I picked up H1N1 as well. I was mildly ill for about 3 days. I’ve had colds that were worse. I have zero interest at all in finding out how I react to COVID. My neighbor could be asymptomatic and I end up on a respirator. Unfortunately I think most of us are going to get it anyways absent a vaccine.

[Bloop Bloop]

People are willing to pay $544,000/life saved out of their own pocket for safety improvements to cars. The NHTSA is willing to spend $3 million per life saved in traffic safety measures: https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/809835. EPA puts the number at $10 million: https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2017-value-of-life/.

Estimates I've seen showed if we did nothing we'd have around 2.2 million deaths and with all of the changes we're implementing, we'll probably be somewhere around 200k deaths.

So 2 million deaths times $544k is just over $1 trillion. If we use $3 million per life saved, that's $6 trillion. If we use the EPA's $10 million / life, thats a total cost of $20 trillion.

I think I've found upper and lower bounds for this question. That said, I think the closest comparison would be how much we paid 9-11 victims families. The federal government paid on average $1.7 million/death in the 9-11 attacks. That would put us as society willing to pay $3.4 trillion to prevent 2 million COVID-19 deaths from happening.

Not every life saved is equal. Saving a young, healthy person has more value than saving an elderly person with other health issues because the young person is more likely to have more years and a higher quality of life during those years.

I missed this earlier, but was re-reading the thread and wanted to comment.


Not every life saved is equal - agreed.  But the assumption that saving a young healthy person has more value than saving an elderly person with health issues is flat out wrong.


I think that this is rooted in the implicit assumption that 'quality of life' and number of years lived determine value.

Take an honest look here, and tell me . . . does the younger guy's better quality of life really make him the more valuable human being?







The problem with attempting to assign a different value to individuals lives is that doing so always means you will make bad assumptions . . . and bad assumptions lead to bad conclusions.  The only I can see way to avoid getting bogged down in an flawed argument of "who's live has more value" is to treat all lives as having the same value.

Of course lives are of different value. The fact that a generalisation fails to take into account outliers doesn't mean that the generalisation shouldn't be made. Obesity correlates with poor health but there are plenty of thin people who are unhealthy and there are plenty of fat people who are healthy. The presence of outliers and anecdotal contradictions isn't an argument against a principle.

[js82]

While I like your second paragraph your first is full of shit.

No, you're the one who's full of it.  You just went on a diatribe without addressing my point - i.e. the stupidity of the partisanship around mask-wearing.
 You went on a tangent instead of making any attempt to address my original assertion regarding the partisan nature of pushing non-compliance with sustainable social distancing measures / mask use.

Yes, discharging still-contagious patients to nursing homes was a major mistake.  But that does not negate the fact that partisanship associated with people actively discouraging mask-wearing is also utterly stupid.  One stupid does not negate another stupid.

Representatives from both parties have had their share of screw-ups during this crisis.