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Comment by steveeq1 | Hacker News Reader

Don't know why this is being downvoted. The flu kills tens of thousands a year, yet no one seemed to want to shut down the economy in the past. . .

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10s of thousands vs 100s of thousands (or millions). Between higher mortality rate and higher level of transmission, C19 is FAR more deadly than seasonal flu.

The flu is a recurring problem. We can't avoid it.

COVID is (hopefully) a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence (just as the 1918 flu was).

But death still occurs with the flu! Doesn't this mean you don't think life is more palateable than making money?

The same philosophical discussion can happen with respect to raising the speed limit by 5 miles per hour; it will result in more deaths... is it worth it?

But letting Covid-19 run unchecked is more akin to raising the speed limit by 50 miles per hour. The prudent choice is not to go with it.

But quarantining after the flu can "save lives". But my point is that it runs counter to the "That preserving life is more palatable than making money" argument. It's a tradeoff, in other words. If you REALLY wanted to "save lives", you can quarantine during every flu epidemic.

I feel like you're trying to make some sort of reductio ad absurdum argument.

Yes, the flu kills people. So do lightning strikes. Airplane crashes. And anvils falling out of windows. None at anywhere near the scale of C19.

There's a balance. I don't claim to know exactly where that is, but I'm confident that "meh, granny's gonna die anyways, and I want to buy stuff and get a pedicure" is a rather ghastly approach to the current situation.

What you gave is a strawman argument. Read what was originally written:

> What mindset? That preserving life is more palatable than making money? I'm ok with that. I'd rather be unemployed than dead.

You can "preserve life" by quarantining every flu epidemic. But this is an absurd argument. At some point the 'preserving life' argument breaks down.

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