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Comment by learc83 | Hacker News Reader

Those 2 numbers aren’t comparable.

A 1% death rate with a disease as contagious as COVID means more than 50 million dead globally at some point (not everyone will get it but the majority will eventually).

Near universal vaccination with a vaccine that is 95% effective at preventing severe cases means saving 47.5 million lives in that scenario. Despite the disease having a 99% survival rate.

If the vaccine provides sterilizing immunity (or just reduces your ability to pass it on), it could save more, and wouldn’t even require universal vaccination to do so.

Furthermore, people are staying home voluntarily in many places. An effective vaccine will alleviate their fears and help the economy. In a way that telling people not to worry about a <1% chance or death will not.

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One of the lessons I learned from Thinking, Fast and Slow, is that people who present a number as a percent scale can (but might not) have an agenda, as can people who report an absolute magnitude. What I took from this is that if you want to have a rational reaction to the data, you need to have both numbers in mind while deciding how to feel about the situation.

That means 1% aka 70 million dead. Which I interpret as the Uncanny Valley. 70 million is more than enough for vigorous response. But 1% will mean friction from - and for - policy makers.

The problem is, as virologists have told us for decades, Ebola isn't a very effective plague because it's too deadly, too fast. If we don't react to 1% mortality rate, then the end game is we select for viruses that kill 1% of us, and if the mutation rate or family for that virus is large, we get a unique variant every 5-10 years for the rest of time. If the mortality isn't selecting for the same genotype, then that's almost 10% of us overall, death by a dozen cuts.

We have to have protocols in place for reducing R. We have to have the 'pump' primed for putting out fast-track vaccines. We have to have 'red phone' protocols for world leaders to move faster when these situations are developing.

When COVID-25 comes, we'll be either repeating this experience or blaming all of our leaders for learning nothing.

> you want to have a rational reaction to the data, you need to have both numbers in mind

That's exactly what Hans Rosling says in "Factfulness", always be wary of lonely numbers.

That is not quite the case as the you're double counting quite a number of people.

set A = The set of all people who die from covid

set B = The set of people who were going to die that year from cancer, heart, age etc

Nearly all of set A fits inside set B. For evidence see either CDC or even the Italian health ministry data set they even published as far back as April 2020 where the median age of death was 79 and 50% had 3+ other diseases and sub 1% had no other diseases.

1. The median age of death at 79, and 50% of people have 3+ diseases doesn't imply that "Nearly all of the people who die from COVID had a life expectancy of < 1 year" as you say. Those 3+ diseases you mention include diabetes, high blood pressure, and obesity etc... Diseases that people commonly live with for decades. The median remaining lifespan of a person who dies of COVID has been estimated to be around 12 years [1,2].

2. Lets say you are correct and 90% of people who die of COVID would have died within 1 year. And let's assume that you have some magic PR method that will convince 100% of the population that this is true.

That means that COVID is still more deadly than the Flu, and some large percentage of people will still choose to remain home, stop traveling, stop eating out etc...

These people will continue to damage the economy until an effective vaccine is available. And even in your scenario a vaccine that is 95% effective will still save millions of lives.

An effective vaccine will save lives, and it will improve the economy. There is no logical reason to deny that fact.

[1] https://wellcomeopenresearch.org/articles/5-75 [2] https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.06.08.20050559v...

It would do everyone in this conversation some good if you just directly linked to the data you’re talking about.

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