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Comment by jgalt212 | Hacker News Reader

> For instance, while an epidemiologist can provide valuable guidance on measures that could reduce the spread of a virus, they might not be equipped to assess the broader implications of these measures on aspects like the economy, child development, or mental health

Amen to that. Some / most of them seemingly had little grasp of the the concept of cost / benefit analysis. And we let these jackasses (some, not all of them) drive the bus!

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I don't agree anyone let scientists drive the bus. Scientists advised and the responsibility of balancing that advise against factors such as the economy was entirely the responsibility politicians and leaders.

de facto vs de jure

> Some / most of them seemingly had little grasp of the the concept of cost / benefit analysis

Massive economic impact from social distancing vs massive economic impact from mass casualties and complete collapse of the healthcare system. Those are your choices lol.

Except there were no mass casualties and no first world healthcare system collapsed. Covid was not space aids. We knew this within weeks of “two weeks to flatten the curve” and rather than celebrate the models got it wrong, society decided to double down on the insanity.

At least a million people died in the United States of Covid, and that's probably an underestimate. Imagine if we had done nothing. The healthcare system remained intact because we took public health measures to slow down the spread of the disease.

protecting the young and physicall healthy had zero impact on that number. For the counter argument, you can look at excess deaths in Sweden and some red states (who probably made the right decision for the wrong reason--just do the opposite of what the progressives want).

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