Flattening the curve is working! (money, roaches, engineering)

[TimTheEnchanter]

Originally Posted by Oklazona Bound

They are both important. Until when and if there is a vaccine people will keep dying from this either faster or slower. Keeping the economy shut does not stop the deaths.

Originally Posted by Exitus Acta Probat

You're presenting a Morton's Fork. What's important is that people follow the CDC guidelines, and we know what they are. Put on a mask, and stay 6' away from others whenever possible.

That wasn't the point. The person whose son was working at the grocery store was at the point of hysteria because people wanted to reopen the economy. She accused such people of wanting to kill her son. I suggested he quit to save his life, but that suggestion was rejected. So either it WASN'T a matter of life and death or her son chose his job (certain death) over unemployment.

Originally Posted by CA4Now

“Without the COVID19 being the last straw or the thing that led to the chain of events that led to death, they probably wouldn’t have died,” she said.

Not ever?

[CA4Now]

Originally Posted by TimTheEnchanter

That wasn't the point. The person whose son was working at the grocery store was at the point of hysteria because people wanted to reopen the economy. She accused such people of wanting to kill her son. I suggested he quit to save his life, but that suggestion was rejected. So either it WASN'T a matter of life and death or her son chose his job (certain death) over unemployment.

She didn't respond to your post, so who knows where you came up with that conclusion. And FWIW, you have the empathy of a rock.

[Exitus Acta Probat]

Originally Posted by looker009

How many of them had underlying health issues?

Doesn't matter -- we're not God and it's not our place to shorten the lives of others. And easily, Covid-19 can be taking years off a person's life even with a severe "underlying condition". There's just no way to know, so I prefer to error on the side of not killing people.

[goodheathen]

Originally Posted by saibot

These are the stats to date from Orange County, where more than half of deaths are ages 75+.

Age - % of total cases - % of total deaths

under 25 - 13% - 0
25-34 - 18% - 2%
35-44 - 15% - 4%
45-54 - 18% - 9%
55-64 - 16% - 14%
65-74 - 10% - 16%
75-84 - 7% - 28%
85+ - 5% - 25%

Ages 75+ account for only 12% of total cases but 53% of deaths. Your mileage may vary depending on your location, but it seems disingenuous to say that 10 years per person are being lost when about half the people who die have reached or are very close to the average life expectancy of 78.

How is it my responsibility to verify published research? Orange County hasn't had many COVID-19 deaths, and nursing homes are a sitting duck that can radically affect a small data set. I assume that the study includes New York City, which might unrealistically lower the average age at death, but I feel confident that nearly everywhere with many cases in the general population, a large chunk is under 75. It's that way in Los Angeles, statistics for which I mentioned days ago. Anybody technically can die from it, and many people by middle age have preexisting conditions. If you want to claim that only in very urban areas will many years of life be lost prematurely, I cannot refute that, but given how much of the population lives in massive cities, the research finding still is alarming. If it were as simple as hide away the elderly people and let the others go about their days almost like normal, government would follow that strategy.

[looker009]

Originally Posted by Exitus Acta Probat

Doesn't matter -- we're not God and it's not our place to shorten the lives of others. And easily, Covid-19 can be taking years off a person's life even with a severe "underlying condition". There's just no way to know, so I prefer to error on the side of not killing people.

So you prefer to error on the side of killing the economy?

[saibot]

Originally Posted by Tulemutt

While the other poster can’t verify the “10 years per person lost”, neither can you or anybody else say that statistical life expectancy averages would be the case for those fatalities. Just purely unknowable.

I have a 110 lb dog of a breed that statistically averages 10-12 years lifespan. He’s now 15. He has two debilitating conditions that generally kill within 6 - 12 months from diagnosis. He’s almost into year 3 since symptoms appeared. While his rear legs act like a hook and ladder trailer with no one at the wheel - he nevertheless is in apparently no pain, acts very happy everyday, still finds and chases his fetching dummies and various broken frisbees and balls.

People ask me when I’m going to put him down. I answer: ‘when he’s had his fill’ - which apparently ain’t yet.

You can be sure that there will be exceptions and outliers, but statistical averages are averages for a reason. It's impossible for everyone to be an outlier. Not everyone who dies of Covid at age 80+ had ten more good years coming; in fact, we can be quite sure that only a few of them would. And all the more so knowing that most had significant comorbidities.

Nice to hear that your dog is doing so well. We've had several cats and dogs that lived to ripe old ages, but they always let us know when their time had come.

[Tulemutt]

Originally Posted by saibot

You can be sure that there will be exceptions and outliers, but statistical averages are averages for a reason. It's impossible for everyone to be an outlier. Not everyone who dies of Covid at age 80+ had ten more good years coming; in fact, we can be quite sure that only a few of them would. And all the more so knowing that most had significant comorbidities.

Nice to hear that your dog is doing so well. We've had several cats and dogs that lived to ripe old ages, but they always let us know when their time had come.

I’m not sure I get your point. Seems you are saying it’s fine for society to accept the death rate since it skews strongly among the elderly. They’re mostly going to die sooner than younger folks anyway. Now, the point I’m throwing in is: throwing a mortal decision based on statistics doesn’t account for individual variances - which neither you nor I, or anybody else, is entitled to make.

Thanks for your thoughts on the mutt . He’s an inspiration with his attitude and spirit.

[oceangaia]

Originally Posted by Exitus Acta Probat

Doesn't matter -- we're not God and it's not our place to shorten the lives of others. And easily, Covid-19 can be taking years off a person's life even with a severe "underlying condition". There's just no way to know, so I prefer to error on the side of not killing people.

But you're not. The losses from poverty, depression, and deferred healthcare are harder to aggregate and see but just as real.

[goodheathen]

They don't particularly cost lives, and the healthcare issue is clearing up for many people now. I wish everyone here would stop the either/or thinking and call for a plan that reopens smartly and swiftly (as in uncovering and quarantining infected people almost immediately). We should not have to wait until the July 4 date that was reported this week.

[ohio_peasant]

Originally Posted by Exitus Acta Probat

Doesn't matter -- we're not God and it's not our place to shorten the lives of others. ...

But "if we're not God", on what grounds would it be our place to artificially lengthen the lives of others (via medical intervention, sanitary practices or the like)?

Originally Posted by saibot

You can be sure that there will be exceptions and outliers, but statistical averages are averages for a reason. It's impossible for everyone to be an outlier. Not everyone who dies of Covid at age 80+ had ten more good years coming; in fact, we can be quite sure that only a few of them would. And all the more so knowing that most had significant comorbidities.

On matters that are intensely personal, we tend to discount statistics, focusing instead on personally familiar examples. Statistically, younger people have sharper memory than the elderly. But grandma is a master bridge player, with better memory than most college kids. Statistically, sports cars are faster than minivans. But my neighbor's minivan has a big V6, and accelerates faster than a 1970s Ferrari. Statistically, kids from wealthier families are more likely to graduate from high school, than those from poor ones. But the multi-millionaires' kid down the street, dropped out of 11th grade, whereas my buddy with a PhD in electrical engineering was born in a straw-and-mud shack in El Salvador. And so forth.

Let's not lose sight of the glaring fact, that statistics - unless outright falsified - have more significance than personal anecdotes or vignettes. So, yes, maybe Bob and Phyllis are 90-year-olds at the nursing home, who caught coronavirus but recovered thanks to ventilators... whereas Tommy, aged 23, caught the virus and died 3 days later. Statistically, Tommy's chance of survival approaches 100%, whereas Bob and Phyllis would probably do well, to consider extreme measures of self-isolation.