It'll be interesting to see what we think of the "let's destroy the livelihoods of a huge fraction of the population for unproven benefits" strategy a lot of areas used a decade from now.
We didn't shut down society for polio before the vaccine. That was an exponentially more fucked up disease.
The deadliest day of the COVID pandemic beats the deadliest year of polio.
Ignoring, of course, the fact that if we'd done so then the death toll would have been pretty horrendous and that if everyone's sick or afraid of getting sick the economy is still going to to get screwed.
The way I'm going to remember it is that when this country had a crisis, instead of us coming together it caused division vitriol and hatred
Plenty of people will remember it this way. Many small businesses went bankrupt and an entire generation of kids had massive educational and social setbacks.
It's absurd to even suggest that everything is back to normal and everyone is A-OK with how things worked out.
It's almost like killing a million Americans has an impact on labor availability.
> an entire generation of kids had massive educational and social setbacks
This is largely a guess at this point, unless you're Doctor Who, and we've zero information on how they might make up ground.
It will certainly be interesting to see these results between, say, red and blue states in the US with wildly different mitigation approaches.
How many do you think are born every year? The pandemic is 2 years old at this point.
Unemployment was already quite low pre-pandemic. https://imgur.com/a/pFvBFgg is bound to have an impact on ability to hire folks.
2. The demographics of the people who died with/of covid skew what, 70% over the age of 65? More? How many of those people do you think were actively looking for a job?
3. I'd say that "and we've zero information on how they might make up ground" is _exactly_ why it's unconscientious to inflict this kind of damage on them.
Pre-covid the labor participation rate for people 65+ was 26% and the 65-75 bracket was projected to climb to 30% by 2030 as the last of the baby boomers entered that range. The idea that everyone retires at 65 is not particularly accurate.
How many folks in their late 70s are still working that late in life? - Approximately 5% in the US.
Not sure that the math supports that US deaths were the decrease in the participating labor force. I don’t recall too many octogenarians waiting tables and being retail cashiers pre-pandemic. They seem to be concentrated primarily in roles where they are public health experts with piss poor communication skills (in my opinion).