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Comment by AntonStratiev | Hacker News Reader

We need to just accept 2-4 million sick and elderly Americans dying. That outcome cannot be any worse than complete economic and social destruction that we seem to be pursuing in the name of virus suppression.

Edit: I am specifically referring to the Imperial College report which outlines this scenario. Here is the original report: https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-college/medicine/s...

And here is a summary: https://twitter.com/jeremycyoung/status/1239975682643357696

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That’s not the only problem. Say you aren’t high risk, great! But do you really want to live in a world without a functioning health care system. Because that is what you are promoting. When hospitals get overwhelmed, even minor issues can become catastrophic.

In a car crash? Need some surgical repair? Too bad, we’re not open for business because we’re trying to keep critically ill patients alive and need the gowns and equipment for healthcare workers.

That would only be the case for 3 months, after which those who were most vulnerable to the virus would have perished.

2.8m Americans die annually, basically we are just seeing 1-2 years of deaths brought forward into a 3 month window. It will be harrowing to triage those patients but it can be managed.

I would prefer that situation to living through a great depression. Healthcare is irrelevant without a job or any income whatsoever, with huge sections of the economy closed and extensive restrictions on what individuals can and can't do.

I have parents in their late 60s who are looking at their entire retirement portfolio evaporating.

I have a terminally ill sister and aunt who are faced with spending their final weeks/months in lockdown, with people unable to visit them or attend their funerals. They are struggling to access regular supplies due to hoarding.

The thing is these millions of elderly people dying are someone else's relatives.

It could even be yours.

Will you be ok with that?

What about the millions of elderly people who will die this year of natural causes and whose final moments on Earth will now be of loneliness, boredom, and despair?

Depending on the duration, of course, the lockdowns seem to have the potential to be much crueler and sadder than an earlier death.

> Will you be ok with that?

I am sorely tempted to answer this honestly.

Go talk to your friends who have elderly parents or grandparents and see what they think about that.

Go have the courage of your convictions and go talk to some elderly people and explain that to them, see what they think about that.

I know what I think about that.

Yes, let's put money before people to prove how great our system is!

What if the only sick thing in the first place was our economy ? At least all BS start-ups with no useful products/service living on investors money will start to drop like flies, and if you ask me I'm feeling much better about that than having to burry my parents or grandparents.

It's not just the elderly who will die if the system is overwhelmed. Nearly 40% of those that are sick enough to require hospital care are between the ages of 20 and 64[1]. If everyone is getting it at the same time and there's not enough health care to go around, those 20-64 year olds will be dying too. I'm guessing you yourself may fall into that age cohort.

[1]https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/18/health/coronavirus-young-...

A quick google suggests that 84% of the population is under 65, so this isn’t especially surprising. Every other data source I’ve seen has used age 60 as the benchmark which is probably skewing how we think of these numbers in the US context.

% of ICU patients in ages 20-44 is just 2-4%.

% of ICU patients under 60 is going to be, eyeballing it, maybe 25-30% with most of concentrated in people in their 50s.

If you’re young and would be hospitalized (not ICU), I think it’s pretty unlikely you would die from this even if just left at home.

This is a serious concern. It is not apocalyptic. If you’re young and healthy, you are still vastly likely to come out of this just fine even if infected regardless of hospitals.

I am guessing you are not in the 2-4 million people who get to die then?

No but I am in the tens of millions of Americans who will lose their job and go bankrupt if things continue this way. I could sell my possessions and move back with my elderly parents (ironically exposing them even more to the virus). Suicide is another option if the situation does not improve.

At least during a regular economic downturn, you can go to a bar, drink out your sorrows, join a construction crew. Now, during Coronavirus panic, which of these options even remain? It is completely unprecedented to have everything shut.

Those who will perish already have existing health conditions, and would have died at some point anyway:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-18/99-of-tho...

This logic doesn't make sense, you will also die eventually anyway, that doesn't mean killing you now is ok. In an earlier comment you said what you propose will be like taking all the deaths in the next few years and fitting them into next 3 months. What makes you think those people living a few years fewer is less important than young people enjoying a good economy?

I am not surprised that you are being downvoted. Most of HN does not understand that a majority of the US lives paycheck to paycheck. In their world, all work can be done remotely and this pandemic will increase the transition to remote work. I live in a city where the local economy is tourism based. I am estimating that as of this Friday, the unemployment rate in my city is closer to 70% if not more. The minimal amount of unemployment insurance is not even enough to put food on the table, let alone pay rent.

You have a 100% chance of dying someday.

So if this virus kills people in the same demographic as you instead and you are one of the people dying, you're ok if the government just let you die?

We all will have died at some point anyway.

The country has been in lockdown for, what, one week? And already you're talking about letting people die so you can keep your job, or committing suicide?

Show a little fortitude, we will get through this.

No ... this is a glimpse of the kind of changes the world needs to make anyways to stave off destructive climate change. The world needs to learn to be together virtually ... that means remote work for knowledge workers, better local communities that let residents walk to get everything they need (groceries, restaurants, bars, etc), less flying to far flung parts of the world (at great carbon cost).

We can still greatly expand our reach beyond what many people do today through technology, without having bankers and executives commuting by plane every week.

i'd love to see your calculations for that. unless you're talking about a temporary uptick in grave digger openings.

The Imperial College report:

https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-college/medicine/s...

Full suppression will require total shutdown for ~18 months.

Mitigation, specifically requiring the sick and elderly to self-isolate and quarantinging COIVD-19 cases and their families, will result in 2-4 million dead (depending on its effectiveness), with the situation over in 3 months.

Your post is grim, but I suspect that some countries will make the same calculation as time goes by. Here in Poland, we saw one of the first lockdowns for a European country, but the lockdown stopped at closing the border, schools, large restaurants and malls. Other shops remain open (I just went hat shopping today, for instance), people are traveling between the city and their country homes, and the feeling seems to be now that if you want to avoid infection, it is your own responsibility to stay home instead of expecting the economy to shut down.

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