
Why Doesn’t Flu Tank Economy Like Covid-19? - johntfella
https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-doesnt-flu-tank-economy-like-covid-19-11586511000
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DanBC
In these threads people often ask if we're over-counting deaths to covid-19.

It appears we're probably undercounting them.
[https://twitter.com/b_judah/status/1245852365464449025?s=20](https://twitter.com/b_judah/status/1245852365464449025?s=20)

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samizdis
De-paywalled: [https://archive.is/js5bL](https://archive.is/js5bL)

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vanniv
because we don't outlaw the economy and put everybody under house arrest for
the flu.

COVID isn't hurting the economy at all.

Turning off the economy is hurting the economy

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michaelmrose
What would millions dying do to the economy?

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vanniv
Nothing much, since 98% of those "millions" would be folks already above age
75 and with 2+ serious underlying conditions.

Only around 10,000-20,000 otherwise-healthy would die even in the worst case.

The economy would barely notice.

On the other hand, locking everyone in their houses has created 20%
unemployment in three weeks.

Another 20-40% will lose their jobs in the next month -- and now they're
starting to talk about 18 months as the "minimum" amount of time for these
house arrests.

Meanwhile, farmers are being forced to destroy their crops, dumping milk,
smashing eggs, and plowing under vegetables -- all while the store shelves are
bare. 20% of American meat processing has been permanently closed already.

We are looking at 100 million or more dead due to starvation in the coming
year, all because they frightened you about a moderately-dangerous virus.

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michaelmrose
>Only around 10,000-20,000 otherwise-healthy would die even in the worst case

>Nothing much, since 98% of those "millions" would be folks already above age
75 and with 2+ serious underlying conditions.

This is at odds with what actual experts say and actual reality as observed by
people on the ground now.

Non-mitigation was projected to result in 2.2 million fatalities in the US and
to date 46% of fatalities are under 75. This would be 968k under 75. We would
in fact lose 75k under 44. 23k under 34.

[https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-
college/medicine/s...](https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-
college/medicine/sph/ide/gida-fellowships/Imperial-College-COVID19-NPI-
modelling-16-03-2020.pdf)

[https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/COVID19/index.htm](https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/COVID19/index.htm)

>American meat processing has been permanently closed already.

How is it "permanently" closed?

>We are looking at 100 million or more dead due to starvation in the coming
year,

Where are you getting this number? The labor required for our agricultural
industry is much smaller than the total labor pool. Why are you assuming that
we can't reasonably discover enough people to keep this minority of our
economy functioning enough to keep everyone from starving? We could run the
sector with the military if we had to if the alternative was everyone dying.
We can also run it with people that have already had the disease and come
through it. On the one hand you predict that almost all young people come
through it just fine and on the other you are predicting that we can't find
enough young survivors of covid to run the minority of our economy for our
population to survive. Which is it?

We cannot make life and death decisions based on your unsupported and
unsupportable fancies we have to deal with real numbers, projections, and
models.

In reality letting it "wash over us" like you and the president want would
have killed millions including far more of otherwise healthy folk than you
imagine. Digest more information and come to better conclusions.

