@Ayelet Wolf, I agree with you, there is no cold logical way of looking at things. It is about different goods. If you don't have conflicting values, you probably have a pretty evil outlook on life. The "good of society" is not the cold logical goal (just kill all retirees), even "life" is not the cold logical goal (we can just lock people in rooms). What is good is complex and we should be very very wary of approaches that boil things down to simple principles like quality of life or contribution to society.
I don't believe the old are "dead weight." But I do believe we can consider death in terms of life-years lost.
My mother passed away at 76 last year. It was a sadness, but not a tragedy.
My brother died when he was 7. That was a tragedy.
That said, far fewer Swedes could have died with treatment. 90% of nursing home residents who were diagnosed were never admitted to hospital. While the cost could have been lower, they have still shown us that it is possible to achieve some form of elevated community immunity.
It mutates, but is not a whole new virus. With continual exposure our immune systems can react to small changes - better than vaccine manufacturers can - and we can see significantly falling death rates. Natural immunity, if Sweden is any guide, is nearer than we might imagine.
They won't completely knock it out, but their performance is improving. The virus is killing something like 0.64 people/million in Sweden today. That is about 234 people/million/year. That is similar to a very bad flu season.
That said, they are part of the world economy. They make their money on iron, steel, machinery, trucks etc... and all of that got killed irrespective of what they did. If others follow something like their path *now* then we could all recover a lot more of our economy.
As an aside, one reason their death rate was so high was because they apparently didn't treat those over 70 and let the virus rampage in nursing homes. Earlier serological testing suggested a 5% death rate vs total infections vs. 1.4% in NY and 0.14% in Israel. So they got hit harder than necessary not just due to the virus spreading, but due to treatment.
Things might be better now for them, but they aren't overall. That said, it may well be time for us to follow in their path because the virus might be less dangerous now.
I don't really know. I live in Israel which locked down and had very few deaths. Sweden had quite a few. Sweden is interesting *not* because they chose the right path, but because they have declining deaths *despite not locking down.*
This would suggest that while individuals don't acquire longer-term immunity, communities still can. The mechanism could be repeated exposure 'reupping' individual immunities.
If death rates are falling for other reasons - better treatment, a less virulent virus, isolating the elderly etc... - then perhaps the best option is to encourage community spread among the young and healthy and get the economy back on track. For wealthy people economic problems are annoying - for those who are not wealthy they can be devastating. For the billions who live hand-to-mouth, they can be straight up deadly.
My argument is that it is a moral imperative to take the lives of the world's poor into account when we decide to shut down an economy - and if we can possibly limit deaths within rich nations while opening up (and I think we can) then we should.
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Death, Economics And Coronavirus
@Ayelet Wolf, I agree with you, there is no cold logical way of looking at things. It is about different goods. If you don't have conflicting values, you probably have a pretty evil outlook on life. The "good of society" is not the cold logical goal (just kill all retirees), even "life" is not the cold logical goal (we can just lock people in rooms). What is good is complex and we should be very very wary of approaches that boil things down to simple principles like quality of life or contribution to society.
Death, Economics And Coronavirus
This is why I think we need to baseline with antibody and T-Cell surveys.
Death, Economics And Coronavirus
I don't believe the old are "dead weight." But I do believe we can consider death in terms of life-years lost.
My mother passed away at 76 last year. It was a sadness, but not a tragedy.
My brother died when he was 7. That was a tragedy.
That said, far fewer Swedes could have died with treatment. 90% of nursing home residents who were diagnosed were never admitted to hospital. While the cost could have been lower, they have still shown us that it is possible to achieve some form of elevated community immunity.
Death, Economics And Coronavirus
Oh, and we have almost no good data about the developing world.
Death, Economics And Coronavirus
It mutates, but is not a whole new virus. With continual exposure our immune systems can react to small changes - better than vaccine manufacturers can - and we can see significantly falling death rates. Natural immunity, if Sweden is any guide, is nearer than we might imagine.
COVID-19 Mortality Rates And What It Means
It is all per capita.
COVID-19 Mortality Rates And What It Means
Could be cultural, I don't know. The WSJ wrote on that as well. Here is a relevant quote:
"About 90% of nursing-home residents who succumbed to Covid-19 in Sweden were never admitted to a hospital, according to official estimates."
www.wsj.com/.../coronavirus-is-taking-a-high-toll-on-swedens-elderly-families-blame-the-government-11592479430
COVID-19 Mortality Rates And What It Means
They won't completely knock it out, but their performance is improving. The virus is killing something like 0.64 people/million in Sweden today. That is about 234 people/million/year. That is similar to a very bad flu season.
That said, they are part of the world economy. They make their money on iron, steel, machinery, trucks etc... and all of that got killed irrespective of what they did. If others follow something like their path *now* then we could all recover a lot more of our economy.
As an aside, one reason their death rate was so high was because they apparently didn't treat those over 70 and let the virus rampage in nursing homes. Earlier serological testing suggested a 5% death rate vs total infections vs. 1.4% in NY and 0.14% in Israel. So they got hit harder than necessary not just due to the virus spreading, but due to treatment.
COVID-19 Mortality Rates And What It Means
Sweden's overall death rate is very high. I have that chart here: talkmarkets.com/.../covid-19-and-the-limits-of-modeling-science
Things might be better now for them, but they aren't overall. That said, it may well be time for us to follow in their path because the virus might be less dangerous now.
COVID-19 Mortality Rates And What It Means
I don't really know. I live in Israel which locked down and had very few deaths. Sweden had quite a few. Sweden is interesting *not* because they chose the right path, but because they have declining deaths *despite not locking down.*
This would suggest that while individuals don't acquire longer-term immunity, communities still can. The mechanism could be repeated exposure 'reupping' individual immunities.
If death rates are falling for other reasons - better treatment, a less virulent virus, isolating the elderly etc... - then perhaps the best option is to encourage community spread among the young and healthy and get the economy back on track. For wealthy people economic problems are annoying - for those who are not wealthy they can be devastating. For the billions who live hand-to-mouth, they can be straight up deadly.
My argument is that it is a moral imperative to take the lives of the world's poor into account when we decide to shut down an economy - and if we can possibly limit deaths within rich nations while opening up (and I think we can) then we should.