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Comment by usaar333 | Hacker News Reader

When comparing policies, you have to factor in the costs though.

As a more straightforward example, it's simpler to compare countries with closed pandemics - say Iceland or New Zealand. Iceland has much higher deaths per capita, but they didn't lock down nearly as hard (groups limited to 10, schools open for kids below age 10, etc.). If you do the math, Iceland lost about 120 extra years of life, or something like ~3 hours per person. Is depriving everyone of additional liberties for a month worth increasing life expectancy by 3 hours?

The case for France vs. Sweden is a bit more complex, since Sweden, even though it isn't locked down, will be "unsafe" for large numbers of people longer. The raw math and projection models suggests Sweden will lose an extra 1-2 days of life per person, but more analysis is needed to really understand benefits and costs.

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> If you do the math, Iceland lost about 120 extra years of life

The problem with "extra years of life" metrics is that they artificially play down the death wave on older segments of the population, as if those dying from covid19 who happen to be older than 40yo should not matter to society.

The consequences of this nonsensical pick of statistics indicators is that a death wave of thousands of people per day that happens to hit harder on the > 40yo segment is watered down with "all this just to gain 3 hours of life" nonsense, as if all the coffins were only piling up because instead of being delivered on scheduled they needed to be delivered 3 hours earlier.

So someone with 1 day left in their life is equal to someone with 70 years?

It does seem to me that a more just system would consider "time lost" as a metric since surely it can't be binary.

> So someone with 1 day left in their life is equal to someone with 70 years?

You're the one trying to quantify the value of life.

To me, my parents and grandparents are more important than your 1yo son/daughter, so YMMV.

Still, you're missing the whole point. The point is that it makes absolutely no sense to downplay an epidemic just because it hits hardest on those suffering from pre-existing medical conditions or being over 40. The coffins piling up on makeshift morgues make it quite obvious that the real effect of the death wave is not anticipating death by a couple of hours, and it matters nothing if those doing the dying are sick, old, or disabled.

Wow, you’d sacrifice a 1yo to save your grandparents? I find that genuinely shocking.

I think the argument is more akin to not sacrificing anybody, and trying to save everyone.

But in real world that is not possible. There's somewhere a line you have to draw. How many man-hours would you be willing to spend to save someone who would die in a week anyway?

According to that logic you should have all 7+ billion people working that whole week to keep this person alive.

Would the man-hours spent saving that person have to be exactly the same as saving someone who has further life expectancy of 70 years?

That's not really the choice here. The choice is we squelch the virus and my dad and his grand children get to see each other again. Vs you not being inconvenienced.

Since you are trying to make things personal... I'm personally not inconvenienced, I love WFH and having a good reason not to meet people.

So once again is that choice also appropriate if 7+ bln people have to spend 3 months working in order to save your dad? Obviously a lot of other people die because if they have to work 3 months saving your father it means the doctors are not saving other people, we won't have food etc.

I'm trying to show that there must be a line drawn somewhere and it can't be binary.

You're pretending that the economic dislocations are do to measures to combate the virus instead of the virus killing people. Countries that acted swiftly and forcefully are returning to normal right now. While countries that are handling the way you want are seeing no end to this. Meaning you are 180 degrees wrong, your way kills people from the virus. You way kills people via extended economic dislocation.

I couldn't reply for the other comment, maybe because it's too nested, but I'm replying to:

> You're pretending that the economic dislocations are do to measures to combate the virus instead of the virus killing people. Countries that acted swiftly and forcefully are returning to normal right now. While countries that are handling the way you want are seeing no end to this. Meaning you are 180 degrees wrong, your way kills people from the virus. You way kills people via extended economic dislocation.

1. I haven't made a choice on what is the best option.

2. There's no "my way", all I'm saying that these aspects should be considered and math should be ran and it is possible that another option could be better, a combination of some options etc. And in order to determine what is the best way should be using calculations.

3. It should also be discussed how to do these calculations. Should we consider death as a binary or should we consider "time left", "quality time left". How do we calculate loss of life, time, resources that stems from people unable to be productive etc, because certainly there are consequences to that.

4. I'm trying to prove that this should not be binary and there should be a line drawn somewhere considering all the pros and cons from the both sides, assigning weights to those and trying to predict what is best option from that.

These discussions should still be held even if it's not about coronavirus, but other similar decisions as well.

That is not what was being said - they said that they personally value the lives of their own parents more than the life of someone else's child; this in the context of someone trying to argue that the life of a 1 year old is inherently more valuable than the life of a 60 year old because the 1 year old can expect 79 more years of life, while the 60 year old can only expect 20 more.

And otherwise, assume there is a fire and you are in the middle of a corridor. On one end there is your mother, on the other there is some 1 year old you don't know in any way. Which would you rush to save first? I know I would rush to save my mother before the 1 year old.

So the implication is that we should calculate the emotional pain value instead of expected years left and act based on that? So if for example the 1 year old in question has no parents because they died due to an accident and no other relatives it means no-one will really mourn this death so we would choose this death over a popular 80 year old person?

> So the implication is that we should calculate the emotional pain

Wrong, the implications is that it makes absolutely no sense to state that society should just let old people die simply because you're so self-centered that you even fail to register the devastating effect of an epidemic just because you believe it doesn't affect you personally.

So are you saying it's entirely binary? It's either terrible and should be avoided at all costs, or it's no-one dying?

You are bringing out facts such as "coffins are piling up" etc, this fact could be true if in one morgue in two places in the world there were coffins piling up. Maybe these morgues can only handle 5 deaths at once and now there's 5 more for each?

You need to quantify things to understand how bad they are. Otherwise these statements are meaningless.

You are essentially quantifying - any statement you do you is actually quantifying. For instance if you bring out the argument about coffins piling you seem to be considering potentially 10 deaths (which could cause coffins piling) to be the same as the whole world population dying.

> So are you saying it's entirely binary?

I'm stating the exact opposite: that crudely abusing statistics to pretend that people over 40 don't count for nothing because they will die in a few years is abhorrent, and downplays the real impact of the whole covid death wave.

> Is depriving everyone of additional liberties for a month worth increasing life expectancy by 3 hours?

This analysis is flawed, because it compares the entire cost to only parts of the gain. Economic depression because no-one dares to go outside of fear for their lives, has for instance negative value too.

I never thought of it this way. This is a really good observation in my opinion.

There's a lot of math and viewpoints that should be considered here. It does not seem to me that proponents of lockdowns are even doing any maths, it seems like they take it for guaranteed that lockdowns are the only choice.

No, they just treat human life as valuable and tend to err on the side of caution - reducing people to numbers is a slippery slope, because you can prove almost any point with statistics. Then you end up with [Star Trek-style dystopias](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Half_a_Life_(Star_Trek:_The_Ne...) like euthanising everyone at the age of 60 - after all, society as a whole is better off if you do that...

But when you are calculating active cases and death rates you are also reducing people to a number, it's just binary in this case, 1 = death, 0 = no deaths.

Are you open to the possibility that those proponents actually have considered those viewpoints and come to a different conclusion than you for reasons other than being too stupid to understand math?

> Iceland has much higher deaths per capita

We can’t know this number conclusively until a few years from now. The pandemic is still ongoing and does not have a flat distribution of impact over time.

So all this analysis is based on a false premise.

1 death is a tragedy, thousands of deaths is statistics.

That "3 hours" mean that you're likely to loose one of the relatives or friends who are in high risk group. Suddenly a month of lockdown is worth to give your loved ones years or even decades.

> That "3 hours" mean that you're likely to loose one of the relatives or friends who are in high risk group. Suddenly a month of lockdown is worth to give your loved ones years or even decades.

Not even close. For example, no one I know has been directly hurt by the coronavirus. And neither has anyone they know, including my friend from Wuhan.

(Why "directly"? I do know someone who had a mental breakdown related to isolation.)

Most people know more people than the average HN commenter.

I suspect you don't know the fate of everyone known by everyone you know.

> I suspect you don't know the fate of everyone known by everyone you know.

Certain information is significantly more likely than average to be broadcast. Do I know what those people are doing? Do I have any idea who they are? No.

But I do know they haven't been hurt by the coronavirus.

If your personal experience doesn't match statistics, are statistics wrong?

> That "3 hours" mean that you're likely to loose one of the relatives or friends who are in high risk group

Not arguing one way or the other, but I most certainly would not call it likely. Germany had more deaths than Iceland per capita and none of my relatives or friends are or know anyone even infected, let alone dead.

In Germany, you’d need to know about 440 people to even know someone who has been confirmed infected, in Iceland still around 200. To know someone who died, you’d need to know 9,661 in Germany and 36,363 in Iceland.

Anecdata vs statistics? Some people did die. Some do know them. If no people you know died, does it makes it a media hoax?

Sure its sucks for some people who die or know people who died but for most other people they won't even notice.

What's what I said up the thread. It's a tragedy for people directly involved even though averaged-out it becomes a cold statistics.

Personally I'd rather not gamble wether I'd end up on tragedy or statistics side.

Technically, life itself is a series of gamble, every choice has its risk and benefit.

Yes, I used statistics. You said it’s likely. I gave numbers on how many people you’d need to know to, on average, know someone who died. Which, considering how high that number is, does not make it seem "likely"

Edit:

> does it makes it a media hoax

Honestly, you completely lost me there. Did you read some other comment and attributed it to me?

edit2: FWIW, I wear a mask when going to the store despite it being only required inside, one of maybe 5% of people who do that. And that’s in a city of 200k with 0 known active cases.

I don't live in one of the US hotspots, yet I personally know a person who had COVID (and lived), and have multiple friends who have had relatives die from COVID.

I have a feeling as things open up, more people are going to have my experience.

Of course some people will know someone. I’m not arguing against the danger, or changes, or anything but that it’s "likely to know someone".

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