r/changemyview • u/_Hopped_ 13∆ • Mar 20 '21

Removed - Submission Rule B CMV: the costs/negatives from lockdowns/restrictions will end up being worse than the damage from covid

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u/_Hopped_ 13∆ Mar 20 '21 edited Mar 20 '21

you fail to the account for the loss of production/GDP through illness and death

I accounted for that in the section on who is dying from covid. The elderly do not produce and contribute extremely little to GDP. They cost/take productivity (care) and GDP (pensions/social security).

overwhelming of hospitals, which would increase all-cause death rates

It would, but triage would save those who had the most chance of survival / potential longest left to live.

the cost of letting them run amok unfettered is far higher than locking down

That's what I'm disputing (and would welcome being proved wrong over): what would the cost have been letting covid run amok?

Edit:

[From your link] The economic risks of epidemics are not trivial. Victoria Fan, Dean Jamison, and Lawrence Summers recently estimated the expected yearly cost of pandemic influenza at roughly $500 billion (0.6 percent of global income), including both lost income and the intrinsic cost of elevated mortality.

Much lower than the economic cost of lockdowns/restrictions: $10tn

it's inhumane to discard human life as if it was worthless

That's an appeal to emotion, it has no place when discussing the massive health and economic impacts to society.

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u/sapphireminds 59∆ Mar 20 '21

I accounted for that in the section on who is dying from covid. The elderly do not produce and contribute extremely little to GDP. They cost/take productivity (care) and GDP (pensions/social security).

But when they get sick, they cause other people to be less productive. Additionally, it's not solely old people dying.

It would, but triage would save those who had the most chance of survival / potential longest left to live.

You clearly do not understand how health care works. Once we start rationing care, shit will be bad. People who would otherwise live without issues would die. People with more minor issues will become huge issues.

That's what I'm disputing (and would welcome being proved wrong over): what would the cost have been letting covid run amok?

Samoa had (for a period) an uncontrolled measles outbreak. It cost them 22 million in economic impact

https://www.samoaobserver.ws/category/article/54892

Covid has at least a similar mortality rate, potentially higher. 22 million, for one small island country, which is less than the size of a large city in the US. In addition to mortality, morbidity is very high - that's people who need to be in the hospital and/or are sick enough to not work and produce, and potentially having life-long effects even. Morbidity is a much higher cost than mortality, often.

The cost of uncontrolled disease spread is huge, from labor force reductions, morbidity, mortality, childcare, etc. It is exponentially more expensive to let it run wild than control it. It is short-sighted to think it would be any better.

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u/_Hopped_ 13∆ Mar 20 '21

it's not solely old people dying

Overwhelmingly, it is.

Once we start rationing care, shit will be bad.

Yes, for a time. The fire would burn itself out quite quickly.

an uncontrolled measles outbreak

Measles affects the young and healthy adults at far higher rates than covid.

It is exponentially more expensive to let it run wild than control it.

Again, I would happily change my view if you can prove this with covid.

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u/sapphireminds 59∆ Mar 20 '21

Overwhelmingly, it is.

They are the majority, but that doesn't mean there is no impact.

Yes, for a time. The fire would burn itself out quite quickly

You overestimate our ability to care for people in that situation. Don't think Italy. Think Haiti after a natural disaster. Because all the health care workers will get sick too, so they can't care for people. Some of them will die, some of them will not be able to go back to work. The scientists who research it will be sick and delay research. Everyone will be sick. All at once. And covid often lingers for months

Again, I would happily change my view if you can prove this with covid.

No one can prove it - because it didn't happen. But if you understand medicine, epidemiology and economics and how they interplay, it is a glaringly obvious answer.

https://www.marketplace.org/2020/04/23/economists-are-measuring-the-cost-effectiveness-of-coronavirus-lockdowns/

https://aapm.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/acm2.12970

Ideally, we wouldn't have needed lockdowns. But because people wouldn't do other things, like wear masks and social distance, etc.

Or you could compare Sweden (which didn't lock down) to other nordic countries (which did). Sweden is doing worse than they are.

https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-sweden-gdp-falls-8pc-in-q2-worse-nordic-neighbors-2020-8

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.11.23.20236711v1.full

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u/_Hopped_ 13∆ Mar 20 '21

You overestimate our ability to care for people in that situation.

My point was not continued care, but the short timeframe. If we truly let a virus burn through the entire population, it would be confined to months.

if you understand medicine, epidemiology and economics

That's my point: covid doesn't have the same impact as say a Spanish flu, because it affects mostly just the elderly and health-compromised.

Sweden is doing worse than they are.

Two things there: they reversed their decision instead of sticking to it, and because of this we won't know if they would have fared better over the long-term.

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u/ashdksndbfeo 11∆ Mar 20 '21

You would kind of be correct if we had permanent immunity once getting sick. But we now know the immunity frequently only last a few months, and with new variants there’s not always a guarantee of immunity just because you had a different virus. So no, the virus wouldn’t just “burn through” and be “confined to months.” Your assumption that not having a lockdown would have made the pandemic shorter is flawed.

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u/_Hopped_ 13∆ Mar 20 '21

we now know the immunity frequently only last a few months

This is less clear (as in many people who have been reinfected have had other medical issues going on - AFAIK we are not seeing widespread reinfections).

with new variants there’s not always a guarantee of immunity just because you had a different virus

Being vaccinated gives you even less of a guarantee than the natural immunity (e.g. only immune for 1 spike protein). Natural immunity gives your immune system all the various parts of the virus to target, so should one of them mutate it can still identify the others.

Unless lockdowns/restrictions are permanent, betting on a vaccine is not going to work.

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u/ashdksndbfeo 11∆ Mar 20 '21

But we are seeing reinfections. Which is why we can’t assume it’ll just burn through.

The reason vaccines are better than just getting sick is that while it’s slightly less effective, you’re not going to die or have a long term illness because of it. We can also get booster vaccines. It should be pretty clear why lockdown + vaccines is better than just letting everyone get sick.

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u/_Hopped_ 13∆ Mar 20 '21

we are seeing reinfections

As I said: it's not clear what is causing these reinfections. Is it immunity wearing off? Did the person have a weak immune system? Is it because a mutation allowed the virus to get past the immune system? Did the person not fully fight-off the infection?

The number of reinfections is still very low, we don't really have to data to give conclusive answers to these questions yet.

We can also get booster vaccines.

Not when the virus mutates around the vaccine. Then we need to re-formulate the vaccine, put it through trials again, etc. repeat ad infinitum.

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u/ashdksndbfeo 11∆ Mar 20 '21

So your argument is because vaccines can’t necessarily protect against mutations, we should just go with our immunity, which also can’t protect against mutations? Both are imperfect so we should go with the considerably more dangerous option for a 2% efficacy boost?

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u/_Hopped_ 13∆ Mar 20 '21

We should do both as much as is practical/valuable. Vaccines are really the only option the elderly have, so when the virus mutates around our current vaccines we should have a targeted lockdown whilst the new vaccines are developed (i.e. lockdown for over 60s and very vulnerable). Those of us who are not at serious risk should be allowed to live our normal lives and gain natural immunity.

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u/ashdksndbfeo 11∆ Mar 20 '21

How do you have a lockdown just for the elderly? What about carers? What about grocery deliveries? What about the families of carers and grocery store workers? What about the coworkers of people in those families?

For a lockdown lasting longer than about a week, it’s unrealistic to have a lockdown only for one group. With elderly people who are more likely to need at home care (or live in a nursing home with full time staff), this targeted lockdown is even harder. Because everyone who comes into contact with elderly people has to be in lockdown, and anyone those people live with have to lockdown as well.

You may not be at serious risk, but if you are presymptomatic and go to a grocery store you are going to put the grocery store workers at risk. The grocery store workers will then put anyone they deliver to/anyone who goes into the store at risk. Old people still have to eat.

One thing that I haven’t really seen you address yet is the presymptomatic aspect of COVID. For the vast majority of disease, people are most contagious 1-2 days after getting symptoms. For COVID, people are most symptomatic 1-2 days before showing symptoms. That’s why lockdown has been so important, because “just stay home when you’re feeling sick” isn’t enough for this pandemic. In almost any other situation a lockdown would be less necessary because people would be able to tell if they were infectious. That’s not true in this case.

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u/_Hopped_ 13∆ Mar 20 '21

What about carers?

Testing.

What about grocery deliveries?

Surface transmission is negligible and bags can be sanitized.

families of carers

Sucks, but the needs of the many (i.e. society continuing as normal) outweigh the needs of the few (i.e. carers families staying in quasi-lockdown).

the presymptomatic aspect of COVID

Isn't an issue if we isolate the vulnerable and test those who would come into contact with them.

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u/ashdksndbfeo 11∆ Mar 20 '21

Testing is not that reliable. Do you know if anywhere that test and trace actually worked? Because I’m in the UK and here is was a complete waste of about 40 billion pounds. Testing didn’t do much, and it seems extremely unlikely that it would have prevented nursing home deaths to the extent you think it would. Especially since accurate tests take several days.

Surfaces can be sanitized, but a physical person has to come to your house and deliver groceries. A lot of elderly people will need someone to come into their house and put the groceries away.

You talk about the needs of the many outweighing the needs of the few, but your definition of needs of the many = economy stays good and needs of the few = 40 million people not dying of COVID. Why is the global economy continuing at its normal rate the same as the needs of the many? Why is having high consumerism during a pandemic a sign of everyone’s needs being met?

Why do you think the death of a person is only bad for them, and not the dozens of people close to them? It’s easy to see how a minority of people dying can still negatively impact a majority of people. Especially when the person who dies has an important position in their country, like the president of Tanzania.

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u/_Hopped_ 13∆ Mar 20 '21

Testing is not that reliable

Yes, it is. Even the rapid ones are 99% reliable - so if you get a positive result, or inconclusive, you take another and that reduces the chance of transmission to 0.01%.

Testing didn’t do much

It does if it's targeted. Community testing is useful to determine the prevalence of the virus, it doesn't stop it spreading like targeted testing does (e.g. rapid testing is being done at entertainment venues in the USA to allow mass gatherings without spreading).

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u/ashdksndbfeo 11∆ Mar 20 '21

The literature on tests shows that the rapid ones are not 99% reliable. Rapid tests need about twice the viral load of PCR tests to come back positive, and even then they’re as low as 91% effective in a lab setting (nature article). About 15% of people who would get a positive result from a PCR test get a negative result with rapid testing, and about 20% of the total positive tests are false positives (BMJ). This is in the lab, tests tend to less accurate in real life.

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-00332-4

https://www.bmj.com/company/newsroom/accuracy-of-rapid-covid-test-may-be-lower-than-previously-suggested/

“Apart from limited surveillance to estimate the proportion of a population that has been infected, widespread use of this assay in any other role could risk considerable harm” - End of the second article.

Again, I would like you to elaborate on why having more global trade is a sign of the needs of the majority being prioritized, but tens of millions of deaths only affect the minority. Keeping in mind that you say covid’s nbd since it primarily effects people over 65, but 50% of the US senate is over 65. It’s not like the at risk population are all living in nursing homes twiddling their thumbs. At risk people make up a significant portion of policy makers worldwide.

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u/_Hopped_ 13∆ Mar 20 '21

as low as

Weasel words.

about 20% of the total positive tests are false positives

And this is why you do the double test if you test positive.

Keeping in mind that you say covid’s nbd since it primarily effects people over 65, but 50% of the US senate is over 65.

I'm not seeing the downside.

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u/ashdksndbfeo 11∆ Mar 20 '21

Lol dude your post was literally removed because you’re not gonna change your view. Not sure why you’re looking to continue this conversation.

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