Hacker News Reader

Comment by PaulDavisThe1st | Hacker News Reader

So on the one hand we have:

   1) negative impacts on individuals and societies of SARS-COV-2
   2) negative impacts on individuals and societies of policies designed to tackle (1)

and then we have the claim that because (2) is a non-empty set and contains specific sorts of issues that it inevitably will come to be understood as worse than (1).

That's a hell of claim to make. It seems to hinge mostly on one or both of two theories about the world (and the disease):

   a) deaths due to the virus were going to be about the same no matter what
   b) the deaths somehow count for less than the afflictions of the living

View on HN

Good observation.

a) will be forever unknowable, although we can make some broad observations across various countries' responses to Covid and the overall outcome. EG: Australia has had strict lockdowns since March 2020, yet their cases are now spiking horribly (as I've heard so many times, with deaths lagging a few weeks). Where I live (Wales, UK) has had a mask mandate since September 2020. We were not allowed other people in our houses from March 2020 till mid-2021. Most places of entertainment have been closed around half the time, etc etc. Yet our observed outcome is objectively terrible.

All I can say is that my subjective experience has been dominated by the side-effects of Covid restrictions. I personally know only one person who has had anything more than relatively minor symptoms from Covid. I accept that my experience is probably biased in one direction, but I doubt there are comparatively many people whose life has been dominated by Covid itself.

b) is a contentious subject, and our inability to discuss it shows that we have become too detached from the reality of life and death as a society. Tell me - is it better that a young child has been correctly "isolated" in their room for many days, and told that it's necessary so they don't kill anyone with Covid, and grows up into a disturbed adult, or that an elderly person with several chronic health issues dies a year or so earlier than "expected"?

Death is not the worst thing.

as of Jan 12th, official deaths from COVID in the below 64 range: 213337

Same date, deaths in above 64 and older range: 621617

(EDIT: numbers are for the USA, but the general proportions seem to apply worldwide)

> it's necessary so they don't kill anyone with Covid, and grows up into a disturbed adult, or that an elderly person with several chronic health issues dies a year or so earlier than "expected"?

is pushing the bounds of reality a little when 1/3 of the deaths are in a demographic that is hardly described by what you've written above.

Consequently, I think a closer summary of your position would be that the psychic/emotional harm to people caused by our attempts to stop COVID from overwhelming the health care system outweighs the deaths of at least 200k people who were far from the end of life.

I don't consider that an indefensible position, but it needs to be stated clearly, with numbers so that people can see the numerical weight behind your moral take on this.

Yes, that is a good enough summary of my position.

I'm not too familiar with data and methods related to Covid deaths in the US, but here's a breakdown of deaths with Covid from the UK for 2020:

https://www.ons.gov.uk/aboutus/transparencyandgovernance/fre...

The deaths with Covid for the above 65 age group outweigh those in the below 65 group by 10:1 (and continue to drop exponentially with age).

Even with the large elderly and frail populations in the Western countries we inhabit, and the (frankly) enthusiasm for counting deaths as Covid deaths [1], the absolute number of Covid deaths is also still relatively small. It's certainly nowhere near the scale of the great historical pandemics, nor does the disease itself present as much of a horror as diseases that ran rampant within living memory - for example, smallpox.

[1] Early in 2020, medical guidance in the UK was changed such that it became significantly easier to record any viral respiratory death as Covid, the requirement for a confirming test was removed, and the requirement for a cornonary investigation was also removed. I can link the documents if required.

Re: counting. From my perspective, the excess death count is the only sensible count. That generally comes up with numbers significantly higher than the usual numbers.

Also, to repeat myself from so many past threads in so many places: the issue with COVID is a public health problem, not a personal health problem. The risk of death can be (and is) fairly low, but the risk of hospitalization is high enough that the primary public health care motivation is not preventing death from COVID but "flattening the curve" so that health care systems are not overrun. When that happens, normally non-fatal accidents and diseases become vastly more serious, and the overall risk and demographics of risk expand dramatically. This is why it makes little sense to focus on the mortality rate for COVID - that was never the central issue.

You are right about excess deaths, and once again, I am very grateful that the UK makes this data publicly available. I always struggle to find this kind of information for the US.

As for issues with healthcare - this is very pertinent for me here in the UK, as "protect the NHS" was the mantra for almost everything we've done since March 2020. It would seem that one of the side-effects of Covid restrictions (esp. as they apply to healthcare) is that, despite all of us sacrificing so much to "protect" our health service, and despite the NHS admitting record low numbers of patients since March 2020 (the data is publicly available), it has collapsed anyway.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com