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Comment by siscia | Hacker News Reader

For how much I understand the need to lower the curve and reduce the R0 of the infection, I start to see also another argument.

We are basically pausing the life of younger people, indefinitely, to protect the elders.

Again, since the quarantine started in my area I exist twice to buy groceries and that's all. So I understand the need and the importance of it.

But should I really throw away on year of my life? Shouldn't we quarantine only the elders? Would your opinion change if you were living by yourself with your significant other locked up somewhere too far away to meet in two months?

And yes I am aware that also younger people died from the virus but the chance are so much smaller that I don't believe is fair to compare it.

The opportunity cost is so much different and nobody is addressing the issue.

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No one is addressing the issue right now because we aren't even in a situation to exploit the alternate arrangement. Suppose at this very moment we switch over to the quarantine the old people strategy, and go to largely unrestricted life for other age groups. Even in the 20-50 year old range, the hospitalization rate looks like 20%. Say we're actually missing 50% of cases cause they're so mild, so it's really 10%.

330 million Americans, says 70% aren't at highest risk, all become infected, at 10% hospitalization -> 23 million hospitalizations required. Spread over 18 months, that's still an additional 1.25 million hospitalizations every month. That's 0.3% of Americans in hospital for COVID, constantly (assuming average 1 month time in hospital required - yes I made that up).

For context, roughly 0.7% of Americans are incarcerated at any given time.

Still a logistical nightmare. You can tweak those numbers however you wish, but they generally all giving mind boggling logistical nightmares.

You misunderstand the current exercise. The only thing these stay at home policies are designed to do is keep the healthcare system from collapsing by slowing the spread of the virus. That's it since we are way past the point of having any hope of containing it.

Sure, the immediate beneficiaries are those at highest risk from the virus. But younger people who fall on the extreme end of the symptoms would also be dying at relatively higher rates too. Have no fear, once the powers that be are confident that society won't collapse, the stay at home orders will start lifting and life will go on... including allowing people young and old to die at 'acceptable' rates from the virus.

I agree with what you're saying, but it's not a misunderstanding - the original article really is saying that the stay at home policies are designed to contain the virus and won't end until a containment plan is in place.

Sweden uses much lighter restrictions with industry still running, most shops still open, and schools for younger children open. One of the keys in this lighter strategy was to protect the elderly, with bans on visits to homes for the elderly and so on. Unfortunately that wasn’t enough, the spread has hit many such facilities with a high number of deaths as a result.

It’s hard to isolate the elderly if they are so old that they need care by the young.

Isolating the not-quite-so-old that can self-isolate is easy.

Test the young caregivers for antibodies. Only permit those with antibodies and no viral load to get anywhere near the elderly. Pay extra if necessary, it would be much better than breaking society.

The problem is that the problem of finding staff is difficult in normal circumstances, and almost impossible right now when lots of people are sick. Add to that the fact that unlike healthcare professionals these caregivers have much less hygiene trained and currently littlr PPE available, and you have the recipe for trouble.

Antibody tests are also almost useless on an individual level: If they have 4% false positive rate and 10% have antibodies then there are 36000 false positives (4% of 900k) when a million people are tested! Antibody tests are good at a group level to measure the progress of the epidemic, but unless the incidence is high or better test methods are found, they are near useless for what you are describing, sadly.

>We are basically pausing the life of younger people, indefinitely, to protect the elders.

No, we're pausing the life of everyone to protect everyone. If you overload the hospital systems then everyone dies. If you pause and keep things barely managable then mostly only old people die.

I believe we both agree that locking down 20/30 years old people who still have to study, to meet people, to make experience, to find lovers and to find themselves is very different that lock down 70/80 years old people right?

Then there is no doubts that the virus hit hardest the elders.

Again, what I am saying is that younger people are hit by the lockdown much more than the elders while being the less concerned about the virus itself.

And we should talk also about this.

I'm 22 y.o. I simply do not understand this logic. Not being able to "find lovers" doesn't seem comparable to others dying. Yes, you will not be able to go to a bar and pick up girls/boys until things get better. These are not normal times, young people cannot act as if nothing is happening.

The argument here is about what should happen when things do get better. Many people are arguing that you shouldn't be allowed to go to a bar even then, because if you're allowed to have fun things might get worse again.

> Again, what I am saying is that younger people are hit by the lockdown much more than the elders while being the less concerned about the virus itself.

The problem with saying this is that it's incorrect. Many elders suffer during lockdown in the exact same ways and in some cases to the exact same extent that younger people do, including in the ways you imagine: socially, sexually, economically.

Additionally, there are many young people (many of them here on HN) who do just fine during lockdown because WFH and online interaction actually promote their senses of well being. [0]

The insistence with which you have been asserting that young people are being "punished" reveals adherence to an agenda more than an evenhanded analysis of the facts.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22821256

The insistence with which you have been asserting that young people are being "punished" reveals adherence to an agenda more than an evenhanded analysis of the facts.

I don't think that's fair to the OP. They seem to me to just be describing what they see and feel.

In a cold, utilitarian sense, the ripple effects from messing up a young life are many times more significant. If schooling, work, romance, and childbearing of young people are all disrupted, you can expect to see that in the economy for decades to come (just look at the name "baby boomers" for the opposite case). But, again in the cold utilitarian sense, if the life of someone with 10-20 years left is disrupted, that disruption doesn't last as long.

* What age defines "young person"? What's "old"? What are the mortality rates of these groups? How many hours of "home-time" should each serve daily?

* Any concern for the COVID-resilient groups running around spreading the germs to more susceptible? How do we measure what level of social life one is allowed to have while putting other groups at risk?

* Enforcement. How do we advertise and enforce these new rules? Will certain people feel discriminated against? Should police card/arrest people if they look just a little too gray/old/wrinkly?

I think just "talking" about this will be opinions vs opinions. We should start with numbers and then try to see what makes sense.

You think that old people have less of a need to socialize and have experiences?

On wednesday I was shown the obduction pictures of a ~30yo regular guy from my city, who had holes in his lung, by a friend who‘s working in ICU.

This friend basically said that if you are young and need to be ventilated you enter ICU with a better lung than older people.

So when you leave ICU you have enough lung left to not die. You would have died with an overwhelmed ICU, though, and you‘ll likely need a long time to get back the health you had before. If ever.

80 year olds not ready to die will quarantine themselves, no lockdown needed for them.

Some young people are benefiting with fewer car accidents. Some old people are having to wait longer for transplants as there are fewer organ donors dying of accidents.

Also fewer middle aged people are having myocardial infarcts.

My children are not so upset that they don’t have to go to school.

I wonder if countries benefitting from tourism will finally get rid of visas and passports to encourage international travel again. Probably not, but one can dream.

Maybe if the us ends up bailing out the entire world, there won’t be a reason to protect the borders with passports as we will have a United States of earth. Fed swap lines are already available to around a dozen countries.

I've seen a coronavirus study that estimates 90% of the economic benefit of the lockdown accrues to those over 50. (Standard quality-adjusted-life-year rates.)

I've also seen pre-coronavirus studies noting the stark disparity in wealth between baby boomers and millennials at the same point in life. Fun times indeed!

I can afford this myself, but sparks will be flying.

30 year old guy died where I live, recently. He leaves behind a young family.

Do not pretend this can't hurt young people, badly.

There's also a 12 years old girl dead in Belgium.

https://nypost.com/2020/03/31/12-year-old-belgian-girl-becom...

The article also contains accounts of two more youngsters dead, at 14 and 16.

This thing can kill anyone.

Sure, it can. But its very unlikely.

0.2% chance of death for 30 year olds is roughly the same as a 30 year old's chance of dying in any given year.

Which means doubling your chance of death in a year. Can you think of any activity you would willingly engage in that doubles your risk of death in a year? Most people won't even stand outside unprotected in a lightning storm - and this is much worse.

A quick Google suggests that if your risk is representative, a 0.2% additional risk of death equates to going skydiving around 3-400 times in a year.

Or, based on overall fatalities from motorcycles per mile, it would equate to about 8,000 miles per year.

Or, based on light aircraft fatalities per hour, it would be around 200 flight hours in a year.

Of course, you could argue that the casualties from both activities are skewed upwards by people who do stupid things early and don't live long enough to engage in the activity a lot.

Anyway, I'm not particularly agreeing or disagreeing. The risks above are considered reasonable by a lot of people and unreasonable by others.

And people will die from suicide due to economic destitution. The ones pretending are those that think public policy should be discussed in morally squeaky clean terms. Crisis policy is a dirty conversation about who sinks and who swims.

We are talking about trading people for people, and we’re saying in some trades the numbers work out better.

This issue was addressed by the original UK policy that they about-faced on. Why? Because although it does not tend to kill young people, it does tend to put them in the hospital, and we cannot handle that many people in the hospital at once.

Still at much lower rate than the elders.

And what I am saying is that the lockdown punish different class of people very differently. And the most punished are the least affected by the virus itself.

That may be true, but if it is it would lead to "slightly less lockdown for some people," not "no lockdown for some people." But to your broader point, that nobody in government is considering the finer aspects of modeling and optimization: yes, I know, I don't expect anything more from them, and I think they're a bunch of nincompoops who only know how to write legal documents and strike deals. However if I saw any push for more technical and effectiveness-oriented adjustments to the procedure I would jump on board.

Thanks for seeing my point! :)

And yes, less lockdown for someone is already something...

> it does tend to put them in the hospital,

Well no. It does sometimes, but it tends to not.

It’s going to take a while to unpack your comment.

Until then, while you mention Ro, you might not know that some recent reports show it approaching 6 in some areas, not 2.x as thought by some over a month ago. With an Ro of 2.5 and a mean infection duration of 5 days, each person can cause infection of up to 244 cases in a month.

Also, since testing is not widely and reliably available in most countries, there is no way to loosen stay-at-home as a practical matter. Pervasive testing, quick contact tracing, isolation and quarantine are the only way forward.

And I’m not sure you are factoring in that Covid-19 positive people can be contagious before they show ANY symptoms.

So if you’re not concerned about older people or people with comorbidities generally, you might look around at the people you know and care about.

The other part of this is the impact on health care providers and first responders. They are getting infected and dying. The have more pressing issues than those you mention.

I find thinking about my community and taking certain matters of personal responsibility seriously helps me dwell less on myself.

Good luck...

Sorry I wasn't clear.

Personally I am myself in the stricter form of quarantine I can do.

However, the argument I brought forward will start to raise stronger and stronger. And if we don't discuss about it, and if we don't do it fast, it will be problematic for everybody.

I personally don't even mind that much the lockdown, but I am not the only youngest around...

> But should I really throw away on year of my life?

You don't have to throw it away. There are plenty of productive ways to spend your time.

Yes, social isolation is burdensome. But it's damn sight better than being dead.

I just don't agree with the analysis. If I had a choice between a 2% chance of dying and isolation for the rest of my life, I'd roll the dice.

But it's not the rest of your life. It's just until we come up with a treatment or a vaccine, most likely a year or two. Yes, that's an annoyingly long time, but still better than being dead.

There's no way we should trust a dystopian regime to just quietly abolish itself once its rationale for existence disappears.

Certainly nobody is making the following fictional argument: "I'm not going to die anyway, and it's better for you to be dead than for me to be socially isolated."

Nobody is saying that.

Young people die also when the health system is overloaded.

Still much less than the elders and I am not sure what your comment means.

Again, what I am saying is that the lockdown punish purple differently, the most punished are the least affected by the virus itself

Young people will die not just from the virus, but from inadequate medical care caused by overloaded hospitals.

It’s a shit situation for young adults, but sometimes life isn’t fair.

Sure, but younger have less need of medical care in general.

Moreover, lock down all the elders and the ICU won't be so busy...

How do you lock down elders? Do you expect cops to look at people's IDs and check if they're 65+? This is ridiculous, the only practical way is to close places where people are inclined to gather such as bars/restaurants etc.

If we can ban people under 21 from bars we can ban people over 65. I'm not sure we should, but it's not a logistical impossibility.

> Sure, but younger have less need of medical care in general.

True, but that doesn't mean a whole lot of young people wouldn't needlessly die.

You seem really committed to turning this into a generational thing.

Do you not consider it a "punishment" to lose your family members an avoidable way? How about avoidably dying when you have a car accident because the ICU is overloaded?

Do you think people over 60 (or wherever the fatality rate spikes) existed in a self-isolated bubble staying home alone before now? Have you talked to any of them recently? The ones I know are having a rough time of it, at least as much as the younger people I know.

If locking down "just the elders" was a workable solution, what do you think it would really look like?

Yes! I think many people don't realize that COVID by itself is not the problem so much as the additional burden it places on the healthcare system, which could be used to help people with other problems. We are already seeing cases of people with cancers having surgeries delayed because hospitals are trying to conserve PPE.

I was unlucky enough to fracture my ankle right before California instituted shelter-in-place and to fracture it in a way that needed corrective surgery. I was lucky that CA managed to avoid the worst of it, so that my surgery was able to proceed on schedule. Otherwise I was looking at potential long term complications in addition to being off my feet for 5-6 months instead of the 2 months they expect now.

To protect the elders, yes, but also the young, the frail, the immunocompromised, the asthmatics, the poor, the homeless; human life in general. Also, we are attempting to ensure people going to the hospital for anything else are still actually able to receive care, as healthcare labor is limited and resources are strained. Screw the market.

The longer this goes on, the more traction this argument will gain.

People have been making this argument since before the lock down. But on the contrary to your prediction, the argument has seemed sillier and sillier the more we see the effects of the virus. Things are really freakin bad, and that's with a lockdown. I suspect that all but a very small minority will be able to see the sense in spending serious effort on mitigation for the foreseeable future.

Even if people somehow manage to forget the horror and deaths of the past couple of weeks, a loosened lockdown and the inevitable spread of disease that will follow would quickly remind them.

I believe we seriously understimate how widespread is the virus.

Let not-so-at-risk people go around will also helps in not moving completely blond in this episode.

I know people that are sure to have caught it, didn't get tested, it pass away, and now are still locked down for the foreseeable future.

In Italy it was asked to several people to donate blood, all of them though to have never got the virus, turns out 60% of them already got it.

We need something more than just staying at home.

The argument against a few weeks of lockdown has seemed sillier and sillier. The situation's very bad, and it's worth spending serious effort to mitigate for the foreseeable future.

A ban on all social activity for years is far beyond "serious effort to mitigate". Millions of lives isn't worth a global dystopia.

Years of lockdown really would be draconian and I think we could start to compare it to the value of human lives. I think we need much more focus on how and when the isolation ends.

Are you saying that the people with least risk of dying are suffering most?

If not, can you explain again what you are saying?

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