https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-death-rates-by-a...
20-29: 0%
30-39: 0.1%
40-49: 0.1%
50-59: 0.4%
60-69: 1.5%
70-79: 4.3%
80+: 7.2%
ie: if you have cov2 you have a 7% chance of dying from it but dont you already have say a 50% chance of dying in your 80s anyway?
to be strictly logical and not emotional about this moral question: are we unhinging society (effects we cannot begin to calculate) to keep the fatality rate for the population 80+ at 50% instead of 57%?
in terms of costs to the healthcare system, might this equate to a net relief if the peak were accelerated instead of flattened?
80 5.8%
81 6.4%
82 7.1%
83 7.8%
84 8.7%
85 9.7%
86 10.7%
87 11.9%
88 13.3%
89 14.8%
That's a standard actuarial problem, answered with life tables (https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr61/nvsr61_03.pdf -- pdf, US 2008). In said life tables, there is a 7% death rate between ages 83 and 84.
To an order-of-magnitude approximation, infection with the novel coronavirus seems to impose roughly one year's worth of mortality risk on the victim.
It’d be interesting to see how many healthy 80+ year olds have died.
There's a ~6% chance of dying during the year you turned 80. That chance goes up dramatically every year you get older. By 85 it's nearly 10%.
It would be interesting to calculate how this virus changes those rates. I feel like these kind of analysis are completely lacking in any reporting.
And then it's also about the rest of the population that needs medical attention for a different reason.
Imagine the medicial facilities being flooded by COVID-19 patients. There are enough severe cases already in many countries that non essential operations are suspended.
Good luck getting adequate treatment for your broken leg.
https://www.statnews.com/2020/03/16/coronavirus-model-shows-...
And all of that is ignoring the possibility of people suffering nonfatal chronic health problems, which has been reported.
Meanwhile, remdesivir and lopinavir/ritonavir are in trials and once we actually have drugs available the hospitalizations would be shorter and the death rates much lower. At that point quarantine becomes less important.