So much for the "Swedish way"!

[RBM]

17 minutes ago, OnMyWay said:

 

You guys are not taking to account all the posts here and especially the video about the Florida approach.  In these recent posts, I didn't list out all the pros and cons of all the two main approaches:  Lockdown or no lockdown.  There are pros and cons in both approaches, and in my view, properly executed no lockdown  wins hands down over lockdown.  I think I did see a list somewhere and if I can find it, I will post it.

When I was mentioned the ages in the last few posts, it was just to bring awareness to those facts, not to say "let's sacrifice the old folks".  In previous posts, it was noted that properly executing either a lockdown or a "no lockdown" is extremely important to the elderly.

And as I have mentioned in other posts and was mentioned in the video, the first step is to "protect the elderly and the most vulnerable".  Devote your resources to that!  Exactly the opposite of what you are insinuating.  I'm not sure how Sweden handled the elderly and perhaps they could have done better there.

In Florida, where they have many retirees and different types of facilities for the elderly, they took extreme steps to protect these facilities right away, and it has worked!  Compare that to New York, who basically did kill their elderly with their decision making.  Again, I repeat, 50% of all Covid deaths in the U.S. are in nursing homes! 

Yet, in Florida, all you see in most media is, "they are opening the beaches, we are all going to die!".

The strong lock down and results obtained in NZ would indicate it was a good approach.

As per the Swedish approach we will be able to form a better opinion in a few months.

[intrepid]

2 hours ago, GeoffH said:

A month is low but certainly a year or two and it's reasonable to say 'they died from Covid-19.'  And taking away the last year or two of life from someone is still 'killing them' and that's not 'acceptable collateral damage' from where I stand. 

In the US I had read there is a debate on the cause death in many states and locations.  Although many deaths have been listed as "Death from Covid-19", there are now changing to list "Death with Covid-19" .  As stated before I think from Don, many locations have a financial interest in listing the death as "From Covid-19".  This should be straightened out to be more accurate for analysis of this virus.

 

[GeoffH]

19 minutes ago, intrepid said:

Although many deaths have been listed as "Death from Covid-19", there are now changing to list "Death with Covid-19" .  As stated before I think from Don, many locations have a financial interest in listing the death as "From Covid-19".  

There is strong political motivation to list deaths as 'with Covid-19' instead of 'from Covid-19', I strongly suspect that whilst any financial motivations to fudge the numbers upwards are more than countered by the political motivation to fudge them downwards.

[intrepid]

2 hours ago, GeoffH said:

We have a general responsibility, as a civilized society to look after the young and the old and the weak or else we simply become animals fighting for the biggest chunk of food with the strong winning and the weak left to die.  That's not civilization, that's anarchy.

Okay Geoffh,  I do agree with you your comment above.  Any loss of life that could have been saved is unacceptable.  However, I hope this question is not misunderstood.  Do leaders of countries ever consider during a pandemic like covid-19 what is an acceptable loss of life vs loss of economy? Similar to a military operation.   Placing a figure on life is never easy to do but there are examples in civil law suits where a death was caused by another.  In the cases I have set in on they used factors such as age, education, income and expected income and working lifespan.   So for countries to do a lock down for 30-90+ days and loose billions or trillions of dollars and additionally loss of jobs and business due to fallout, again is consideration ever given to an acceptable number of loss of life?

[Heeb]

1 hour ago, OnMyWay said:

No, it was mostly pro-Swedish, but they mentioned "the critics" and I was referring to that.

Understand, I agree with your earlier post, we aren't experts but there's enough data out there for us to come to the conclusion that this virus is dangerous for older people and the immunocompromised but not much worse than the flu for everyone else but the impact on the economy and quality of life has a huge impact on everyone, even people who didn't lose there jobs are affected by this, investments have taken a hit, and possibly higher taxes are looming, homes will be worth less. I went through a tough period after 9/11 as I was an aircraft avionics tech, I was living in Seattle and was laid off along with 30,000 others in the area, I had a mortgage and was out of work for a whole year, I applied for Walmart jobs and 500 people would show up for the same job, couldn't get hired because I was "overqualified". I ended up taking a job in mobile Alabama at Singapore aerospace working on boeing 777 and left my wife at home, i lived in the back of an Astrovan and slept in rest areas in 90 degree heat, I had no money for a hotel. My alternator went out in the middle of nowhere, and it's a miracle i had a spare with me, i spent half of a day trying to get a stripped out bolt, I almost gave up and if I had a gun I might have shot myself....seriously, it was and option i considered, I was worth more dead than alive. Lucky for me I got the call to start a new career outside of aviation, and I only had to move across state. I feel for people that are in similar situations, even with unemployment it's not enough for most and it's still scary not having a job and no prospects of finding one, and this situation is way worse than post 9/11 which mostly affected the aviation industry.

I need to add that even retirees on a pension will see impact, austerity is looming, social security, medicare, medicaid, government pensions will all be on the chopping block.

Edited May 28, 2020 by Heeb

[GeoffH]

1 hour ago, OnMyWay said:

You guys are not taking to account all the posts here and especially the video about the Florida approach.  In these recent posts, I didn't list out all the pros and cons of all the two main approaches:  Lockdown or no lockdown.  There are pros and cons in both approaches, and in my view, properly executed no lockdown  wins hands down over lockdown.  I think I did see a list somewhere and if I can find it, I will post it.

 

IMO by restricting your argument (and your post data) to specifically USA based information you're not taking into account all of the relevant information.

And yes there are pros and cons to both approaches and in my view a properly executed lockdown in a first world western country will be proven in time to (as you put it) win hands down over no lockdown.  Threres no doubt that the economic cost to countries that lock down is somewhat higher, I just don't think that in a first world rich country that's enough reason.  

Social support systems exist (except notably for the USA) in first world countries fully capable of handling a lockdown of a few months in duration and using the lack of such social support systems to justify coming out of lockdown early (rather than some introspection about why on earth the country with the worlds largest GDP doesn't have them) is... disingenuous.

Edited May 28, 2020 by GeoffH

[earthdome]

1 hour ago, RBM said:

Well from what I see on TV the appalling obesity in the States  is certainly not applicable to the poor people. 

I don't know what you are watching on TV, but in the USA the poor people are the ones who are more likely to be obese. You see them shopping in walmart then using their government welfare debit card to  buy all the sweet fattening junk foods and soda.

[GeoffH]

22 minutes ago, intrepid said:

Do leaders of countries ever consider during a pandemic like covid-19 what is an acceptable loss of life vs loss of economy? Similar to a military operation.   Placing a figure on life is never easy to do but there are examples in civil law suits where a death was caused by another.  In the cases I have set in on they used factors such as age, education, income and expected income and working lifespan.   So for countries to do a lock down for 30-90+ days and loose billions or trillions of dollars and additionally loss of jobs and business due to fallout, again is consideration ever given to an acceptable number of loss of life?

Hard as it is that calculation has to be made, in Australia (just an example) the death of an individual has an 'average' cost of just over a million dollars.

Using that figure the purely economic cost of the 100,000 additional USA deaths would be 100,000 million dollars (yes that's an oversimplification),

And I don't think you're taking into account that countries that haven't had a strict lockdown (like Sweden) are still experiencing mostly the same economic crash as countries that aren't.   If not having a lockdown doesn't stop the economic pain and it increases case numbers then where's the benefit?

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/30/coronavirus-sweden-economy-to-contract-as-severely-as-the-rest-of-europe.html

https://www.ft.com/content/93105160-dcb4-4721-9e58-a7b262cd4b6e

 

Edited May 28, 2020 by GeoffH

[OnMyWay]

2 hours ago, RBM said:

Well from what I see on TV the appalling obesity in the States  is certainly not applicable to the poor people. 

I'm not sure I understand.  Are you being sarcastic?  Poor people in the U.S. are often obese.

[Old55]

Don is correct. It's true many poorer US citizens are overweight or obese. There have been a number of studies and findings that support this fact.