Cure Vs Disease Part 2

[Zacs-Master]

Following on from Tora’s post, I read the following article from the NY Times magazine the other day. It has some very interesting points made by various luminaries. I was going to tag it into an answer on Tora’s thread but felt it was worth of its own post. Hope that’s OK with everyone.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/10/magazine/coronavirus-economy-debate.html

[youngmafbog]

My thoughts are still the same..

Time to start getting the economy going before it us too late.

There is no way this can continue for months, there will be civil unrest well before then and the Tories could wave goodbye to any thoughts of re-election - ever.

Personally I am still struggling to get my head round why such draconian measures. The death rates being bandied around are not actually that high and in most cases are simply accelerated deaths of people who most likey would not survive with or without Covid around. Seems to me the majority are being asked to trash their futures for a slight extension of life for a few. This might seem a harsh statement and I'm sure many on here wll get upset. But in my vie it is the truth.

[youngmafbog]

Another thing i would like to ask is what makes people who could die with Covid 19 so special it warrants billions spent on it but too often we hear of people refused a fe thousand punds of life saving treatment because it is too expensive?

Seems something is out of kilter here.

[jim360]

The death rates would be high enough that if the disease spread across the entire world then you'd be looking at tens of millions dead, minimum. That's normally enough to be concerned about.

[jim360]

And very quickly too, putting an unhelpful and crippling strain on health services.

[Zacs-Master]

Did you read the bit about ‘life years’ being a potential consideration in who to save?

[Zacs-Master]

That ^*^ was to YMB (but feel free to comment).

[fiction-factory]

> in most cases are simply accelerated deaths of people who most likey would not survive with or without Covid around.

Plus a few dozen doctors and nurses and nearly a Prime Minister.


Seems to me the majority are being asked to trash their futures for a slight extension of life for a few. The majority? Yes if it goes on for 6-12 months. Not if it can be nipped in the bud in the next 4 weeks and some sort of return to normality can be phased in from late May.

[fiction-factory]

Corrected for missing ">"

> in most cases are simply accelerated deaths of people who most likey would not survive with or without Covid around.

Plus a few dozen doctors and nurses and nearly a Prime Minister.

>Seems to me the majority are being asked to trash their futures for a slight extension of life for a few.

The majority? Yes if it goes on for 6-12 months. Not if it can be nipped in the bud in the next 4 weeks and some sort of return to normality can be phased in from late May.

[Hymie]

At the risk of the thought police deleting it again – below is posted (verbatim) a post I put on this site over two weeks ago.

Soon people are going to start taking seriously the points in the post – and the though police rethinking their thoughts.

The Corona Virus Solution

Every country around the world appears to be making the same mistake re the Corona Virus, which is costing their economies hundreds of billions.
Take the UK, things are looking very grim for a large number of business sectors, many will go bust, many will loose their jobs, many people will loose their lives. Everyone would agree the Corona Virus is going to have a devastating impact of the UK. But it need not be like that, with the correct response from governments, the virus could be transformed into a win, win.

Consider this:-
The Corona Virus has a mortality rate of somewhere around 1.5%, where about 80% of deaths are in those aged over 60, and 75% have pre-existing health conditions.
Let’s assume 30% of the UK population will catch and suffer ill effects from the virus.

With a UK population of around 60million, based on the above guestimates, approximately 300,000 will die from the virus. You may consider this an unacceptable number, but consider that more than 1% (500,000) dies every year.
As many of those 300,000 will be older citizens who are likely to be economically inactive, drawing a state pension and have a higher reliance on NHS services. There will be considerable pension payout (and other) savings once those 300,000 die.

So the only thing governments need to do is to ensure that they can dispose of the increased throughput of the dead (which is likely to be just over double the normal rate for 5-6 months), and make arrangements to treat those suffering the worst effects of the virus, as best we can.
Problem solved.

[andy-hughes]

I understand that many will be appalled at what they will see as the callous nature of Hymie's post - but in actual realistic terms, he has a point.

Somewhere we need to balance the benefits of saving lives of people who may well perish from their underlying health issues, against the annihilation of national economic structures.

It seems a Pyrrhic victory if we save lives of a relatively few, and at the same time, destroy the systems that give life and work and support to everyone - including those we are saving.

[teacake44]

300.000 older citizens die, my be that's why there turning a blind eye to numbers dying in the care homes.

[fiction-factory]

^ but the care home ones are included in the ONS statistics- it's just that it can be a few weeks sometimes before the death certs come through.
The convention across all countries is to use hospital deaths in the daily figures - and that allows better and speedier comparison with other countries who record the same way, I understand- so we compare like with like

[fiction-factory]

And the savings from the 300000 who die under that scenario (thankfully will be nothing like that) could include disabled people who cost us money or those with diabetes, dozens of younger doctors and nurses, maybe a prime minister, and school age children thus saving us even more money in NHS wages, school costs, cost of ministers. And it doesn't take account of the 20% absence rates in many sectors, including doctors, teachers, care workers, postal staff, bus drivers, shop staff, those caring for covid sufferers, and workers in shops, and the effect that has on business

[Zacs-Master]

It’s a huge moral dilemma, isn’t it for any right thinking person. Taking the emotion out of deciding whether it’s economy or lives isn’t natural for us. I hope it doesn’t come to that but we may already be too far down the road. I reckon we’ll know in about 4-6 weeks.

[Hymie]

The total number of deaths from the corona virus around the world currently stands at around 120,000 – this is less than the number that would normally die through natural causes each and every day.

While this headline figure appears in many news stories – those other 170,000 (who die every day, yesterday, today, tomorrow etc) don’t get much of a mention.

[sevenOP]

I have not read your Link Zacs as it is behind a datawall, but thank you for posting this thread which has led to many interesting answers.

Such as ymb wondering what value - £ - is put on a life ? and something is 'out of kilter' Indeed it is and will likely continue long after this current problem is fully resolved, and continue to be 'out of kilter' with no foreseeable end: starvation and diseases caused by poverty.

Everyone knows that changes happen all the time and we need to adjust/allow for it? ---- but NOT to my 'standard' of Living, Thank You! ( irony )

To me this is a fascinating - and highly suspicious - experiment on just how much value - financial and emotional - is placed on 'a'
Life, whether a deliberate experiment or not.

" trash their futures for a slight extension of life for a few" ... what does that even mean ? - go back to 'our' comfortable lifestyle whilst many others continue to starve and die of disease unnecessarily as they have done since at Least the 1980's ?

If it becomes a threat to overall survival , is that the 'right time' to make a judgement call ?

[teacake44]

22.37, the natural causes of death are accepted around the world. This is a virus / decease that the world has never seen before, or understand it, plus we have never seen a virus spread around the world at such a pace, hence the lock down and concern.

[youngmafbog]

"if the disease spread across the entire world then you'd be looking at tens of millions dead, minimum. "

Total supposition. No one has facts or figures to support that tens of millions across the World would die in addition to normal deaaths and totallly due to Covid. And you know it.

[NickorWan]

I guess we have all claimed to know better than someone else at some stage or another, but how many have claimed to know better than ‘Every country around the world’? I take my hat off to that one :)

[teacake44]

Regarding the present virus, I don't think anyone is claiming to know better than anyone else. But when some folk compare natural deaths around the world, or just in the UK, to the coronavirus, and state that its no worse than the deaths by natural courses is a bit silly. Let me ask how many doctors and nurses die treating people before they die of a natural course,? and then compare it with treating the present virus.