Hacker News Reader

Comment by simonh | Hacker News Reader

Yes it’s a dangerous precedent. So we need to quantify the relative dangers. Hundreds of thousands, and potentially many millions of dead Americans one one hand right now, against a precedent that might be abused in future in theory. It depends how much confidence we have in democracy in America.

The US had a debate and had elections even during the pandemic. Decisions about these issues are being made at state and federal level, informed by broad and local public opinion. That’s the system working.

View on HN

What do I care about the US system as an European? I certainly haven't had a single chance to vote about any issue regarding COVID, these have all been top-down decisions.

>Hundreds of thousands, and potentially many millions of dead Americans one one hand right now

whose average age is greater than the life expectancy.

But sure, let's discard our free society to prolong their lives by a bit. If history tells us anything, it's that free society is a stable attractor, so I'm sure we'll get it back in no time, right guys?

The analysis on years of life lost, including reduced life expectancy in those with long covid, has actually been done.

>Conclusion: More than 28 million excess years of life were lost in 2020 in 31 countries, with a higher rate in men than women.

Yes the chances of young people dying is individually very low, and gets tiny for the very young, but for example in Brazil it’s estimated that about 500 babies died due to complications from coronavirus exposure, and many thousands of toddlers. Those small percentages, multiplied by big enough numbers, still add up.

28 million years of life lost in 31 countries whose population appears to add up to over 1 billion people.

So what are we talking about here, maybe like 2 weeks each? Which is optimistic -- because personally I believe most of the restrictions have a very small effect. Roughly that many people were going to die anyway, whether we did Sweden's approach or Austria's approach or anywhere in between.

Well - good god, I'm really looking forward to those extra 2 weeks of my life. They will be amazing. It will definitely make up for spending my entire youth, and possibly my entire life, in a hellish surveillance state where you aren't allowed to go to school or see your family and you have to show your papers to enter a restaurant. SO WORTH IT, right?

Right, that’s the loss of life _with_ lockdowns, mass vaccinations, etc. we’ve successfully managed to limit the damage to much, much, much lower levels than it would have been otherwise. It’s been a huge success, compared to an unrestricted or minimally constrained propagation of the virus.

Sweden.

I wish we had open-source flowcharts for common debate talking points. Each could be linked to several dozen HN sub-threads where similar points were made by both sides, ending in a handful of common termination nodes. Once a flowchart exists and has been proven reusable, it could be condensed into a comic, meme or other visual mnemonic. If would also be easier to place new studies into the context of previous debates.

With repetitive graphs out of the way, discussion could focus on more nuanced points.

That's a huge assumption. Given how well Sweden has done with limited lockdowns [0] one could also jump to conclusions that lockdowns have prolonged and exacerbated a situation that would otherwise have fizzled out with herd immunity.

[0] https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-data-explor...

Even Florida it seems these days

The Swedish government regards the claim that they have not implemented lockdowns similar to many other countries as a myth:

>Swedish foreign minister Ann Linde said that the "so-called Swedish strategy" was one of many myths about Sweden, and described it as "absolutely false".

>...Remarks similar to Linde's have also been made by Lena Hallengren, Minister for Health and Social Affairs, who disagreed with the belief that Sweden had a radically different approach to the virus compared to other countries, saying she believed that there were only differences in two major regards: not shutting down schools, and not having regulations forcing people to remain in their homes.[161]

>Linde has also spoken out against reports of Swedes not practising social distancing, calling it another "myth" in the reporting about Sweden, and she said Sweden's combination of recommendations and legally binding measures had so far proven effective.

>informed by broad and local public opinion

Does it happen with censorship?

>It depends how much confidence we have in democracy in America.

After Hunter Bidens laptop story got removed from everywhere, there can be no doubt that the only correct answer to to that question is negative infinity.

> and potentially many millions of dead Americans one one hand right now,

Millions? Where does that number come from?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com