How many deaths are acceptable to save the Economy?

Here is the thing if Trump acted when he was first warned we would have lowered deaths and saved jobs, now we are getting the worst of both.

DD

 

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/05/how-much-sooner-could-we-have-locked-down/

 

His actions would have been more than locking down. IT would have included ordering, and securing medical equipment, masks, tests, establishing communication with states and other local leadership.

But yes, we could have also locked down earlier. Also had he not been dishonest about it and the seriousness of it, individuals and localities could have done much of their own prep work as well.

 

https://risk-monger.com/2020/05/24/post-covid-19-blueprint-the-7-key-steps-of-risk-management/

 

Trump dumped a lot of **** for Obama handling h1n1 but you think he'd read their findings and prevention policies.

Big ****ing waste of time we're dealing with right now. Don't blame Trump for delaying lockdowns. Blame him for being clueless about masks and testing almost four months in.

People are going to starve because of the president's inaction

 

Don't blame Trump! Blame everyone else!

 

I try to forget that he's tweeting the best he can in his own privileged way.

Damn that leftwing media for following up on his garbage tweets.

 

there is no exponential spread involved with car accidents

there are annual vaccines for the flu, it is not as contagious as Covid-19, and I don’t recall the seasonal flu killing 100k and counting in only 2 months with fear of a second wave coming, and this 100k was with lockdowns and social distancing measures

opening up is fine with widely available testing, adequate contact tracing, and social distancing measures put in place to slow down the spread

 

A week ago I was at my mom's shop in Old Town Spring. She was talking to some dude who apparently mentioned that "flu is much more contagious than this thing [Covid]". I'm glad I heard it after the fact; I had to deal with this same crap more than two months ago with someone at work.

People just kind of repeat the same talking points in their circles. I could say, Please lift the lid and let in some light and some air. But stupidity, like Covid-19, is also very contagious.

The lockdown couldn't continue but watching people this Memorial Weekend flocking to parties and such with no physical distancing, no masks, it's disheartening. The Spanish flu had three major waves over the course of more than two years. It ran out of people to infect. I don't want this virus to repeat that pattern. The only thing that would remain are cockroaches and Trump.

 

1. Do you put a seat belt when you drive a car? People used to scream about their freedom about that too - now everyone does it.
2. Do you know there is a vaccine for the flu? Do you know that Covid is much worse than the flu? Do you know that it does more permanent damage to your body than the flu even if you recover?
3. Do you think that taking precautions like wearing a mask is that big of a deal? Do you think that testing is bad?

Why does the right insist on making this political when it's about health? Why can't you see that if we did nothing our economy would be in worse shape and how stupid it is that we have reopened and no one is wearing masks?

I'm sorry, but this is foolery - to think that wearing a mask is some great burden and we should just let people die because it is too hard to wear a mask is a joke. A total joke.

 

Ahh, ok. And your evidence of this is ... ???

FWIW, your argument also defeats itself. If we hadn't yet recovered from the Great Recession, then the recovery was likely to not only be lasting, but also increase.

 

You realize this involved settling on a solution that accepted some number of deaths as an acceptable economic tradeoff to the ability to use cars, right? This is very similar to gradually opening up parts of the economy and understanding Covid deaths may rise some as a result.

Flu vaccine wasn't always available or widely used, and people didn't quarantine back then. Beyond that, it's only partially effective - in 2018, for example, it was 29% effective. It has been 50+% effective once in the last decade. So like with cars and seatbelts, as a society, we clearly have accepted the idea that a certain amount of death is an acceptable tradeoff to living life. The only question is how much - and no one on either side is trying to answer that question honestly. Covid is certainly worse than the flu, of course - both in transmission and in outcomes. But the idea of permanent damage is not supported by science as of yet - it's largely anecdotal, and frankly, there just hasn't been enough time to understand the long-term effects.

The OP and this entire thread makes clear it's not only the right that's making this political. They may have largely started it, but the left has responded in kind with its own nonsense.

 

comparing Covid-19 to the flu or something like car accidents are such tired talking points that people have been using from day 1

if the flu was as contagious as Covid-19, had the same mortality rate, and had no vaccine then yes, we would absolutely be treating it as a bigger deal

I said in another thread that I know of 2 acquaintances that died from Covid-19, and they pretty much had to die alone because their family couldn’t see them at the hospital

all these people crying about wearing masks or gathering in large numbers piss me off...boo hoo, u have to wear a mask in order to enter Costo...these selfish babies are acting like they’re being forced to wear full body suits

 

There are studies and early returns are sobering. SARS attacks one lung and leaves a 1/3 with lung scarring. COVID attacks both lungs and the evidence coming is that scarring will be a higher percentage of patients - not to mention the damage caused to the heart postentially.

This isn't the flu - that's my point. And while I appreciate you taking a contrarian viewpoint, the main thrust of the left isn't advocating for anything unreasonable.

Masks aren't going to stop all deaths, but it's a simple step that reduces the mortality rate significantly and balances the need to opent he economy with public health. Not sure why that is political in nature.

 

Trump would declare victory!

 

The US methodology overestimates compared to every other country, which means for "most experts" to believe that, the world really is in on a conspiracy, the more likely scenario is the "most experts" tag was used as a messaging tool in a media article to create uncritical belief from its readers.

The US is tagging everyone who dies that tests positively as a covid death, most countries require the symptoms to be specifically covid related and some are only counting ARDS deaths of positive tests.

The US method was to prompt the states, if you promise money for covid cases/deaths, it motivates them to test as many people as possible (worked too), also means that you cut off individual states ballooning numbers (by removing the judgement calls that other countries are using) to take a higher amount of federal resources by deliberately setting everyones numbers to the top end, forcing apples to apples rather than being concerned with apples to oranges issues.

once the virus is in and communal spread is occurring, evidence is showing lockdowns make it worse not better (spain for example found even when adjusting for age/health, that essential workers who went into lockdown were hospitalised at a higher rate than those who continued to work), If the local authority can stop it before communal spread, awesome, but after that, no, lockdowns aren't positive, perhaps if we could have full drone delivery of everything, but while people still needed to go to grocery stores etc, we were just setting up infection in aisle 3, only people stuck in their houses would also start getting vitamin d deficiencies.

 

Oh my god with the ****ing car accidents.

Which is worse:

1,000 people using car accident analogies and idiot common sense for a highly contagious pandemic to avoid responsibility for their own idiotic behavior within society

or

1,000 people just following the science and the guidelines from scientists so they don't get everyone around them killed.


It would help if we had a competent President that would have coordinated a national response with cities and states so that testing is widely available for EVERYONE so that people could start returning to work and not kill their customers and co-workers in the process. Instead we basically have a wild west of businesses opening up and customers shopping not wearing masks or gloves or maintaining social distancing, basically just pretending that talk radio and Fox News provides them some kind of protective common sense shield to the virus.

 

A death is a death. You would want to take any net positive trade-off.

How do you calculate future death?

How do you determine what to associate future death to? How do you determine which is caused by our natural response? Which is caused by government policies, by non-government policies?

There is a balance scale between direct covid19 death and economic impact vs secondary death and economic impact caused by government intervention. There is also a balance scale between direct covid19 death and economic impact vs secondary death and economic impact caused by natural reaction. Natural reaction is dependent on government intervention as well. It's not so easy to separate the two. The big picture is the same - we have a problem with the virus and you can play around with balancing your reaction to some range, but that range is limited. e.g. Non government intervention can lead to greater fear, which lead to secondary death and greater economic impact. Wuhan style government intervention can lead to larger secondary death and greater economic impact. That's a very difficult balancing act, especially early on. I doubt the best balance for the US lies on either extreme end (do nothing, Wuhan style).


Take it for what's it worth. Study by fed economics of the 1918 pandemic indicated that early intervention and aggressive response lead to faster growth after the pandemic is over (the long term effect), and of course lower direct mortality.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Papers.cfm?abstract_id=3561560

What are the economic consequences of an influenza pandemic? And given the pandemic, what are the economic costs and benefits of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPI)? Using geographic variation in mortality during the 1918 Flu Pandemic in the U.S., we find that more exposed areas experience a sharp and persistent decline in economic activity. The estimates imply that the pandemic reduced manufacturing output by 18%. The downturn is driven by both supply and demand-side channels. Further, building on findings from the epidemiology literature establishing that NPIs decrease influenza mortality, we use variation in the timing and intensity of NPIs across U.S. cities to study their economic effects. We find that cities that intervened earlier and more aggressively do not perform worse and, if anything, grow faster after the pandemic is over. Our findings thus indicate that NPIs not only lower mortality; they may also mitigate the adverse economic consequences of a pandemic.

 

Fed intervention kept it afloat and they're doing the same x20 right now. Why do you think 38 million people are unemployed but the stock market's rising once again?

 

Umm not similar at all.

You make it sound like cars just started LOL.
what a fuc*king joke man.

People have used vehicle since the late 1800s.

Once you get above 5 mph it becomes more dangerous.

Windshields, bumpers were never tradeoff solutions at the time either nor was seat belts. Cmon man.

These are all safety measures against an act of transportation that can hurt and kill.

This whole notion of acceptable is crap since there are certain levels of danger that involve living. You start getting into philosophical talk about whether we should swim or not even operate heavy machinery. Preventative safety measures have zero to do with acceptable.

The notion of this trade off is utter sh**it.

10,386 people die from a fall involving beds. So its sleeping on a bed an acceptable trade off?

I will willingly go near deep water if there are life jackets and I will ride in a car if it has a windshield , bumper and seatbelt.

4 wheeler, scuba, skydive, motorcycle are not acceptable deaths and I wont do them but many do and thats on them.

To compare it to a disease that you are seemingly ok to spread around and impose your sh*it ass safety standards is offensive and way off anything.

The car thing is so tired its more cliche then evacuating katy.

The right or talking points around cars is uttter dog sh*it