Just asking questions https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/what-should-the-government-spend-to-save-a-life
Yep. What it comes down to is how much you value the lives saved and how many deaths you actually think you are avoiding. In the paper the article references, the value to saving 1.7 million people is $8 trillion. The estimate of lives saved is based on the Imperial College report, which is an extremely pessimistic view of the number of deaths due to coronavirus. They also give a $10 million valuation to each life saved, which is extremely high given the population being saved.
I'd discount the number lives saved by a minimum of 50% due simply to disagreement on the mortality rate, not to mention all of the other variables. I'd also discount the value of each life being saved by a minimum of 50% as well. The 37% mentioned in the article does not adjust for the comorbidities of those that are dying from the coronavirus.
So given that, I'm putting the value of lives saved at a maximum of $2 trillion. The recent stimulus cost $2.2 trillion. If these social distancing policies last until October 1, as I believe the paper assumes, the cost is going to be multiples of $2.2 trillion.
Don’t you think it is just slightly presumptuous that you assume you can model pandemics better than epidemiologists? I get that you want to be responsive to new data, but saying “if we did nothing we wouldn’t really have had x number of deaths is pretty different.”
Also, what would the costs have been for “doing nothing?” Haven’t seen you give a good answer to that.
It's not that I think I can model better, but I can look at the assumptions made, and decide what I think is the best estimate for different assumptions. The CFR used in the Imperial College study is 0.9%, which I think is much too high. I think the CFR is 0.1 - 0.5%. Also, there are other models out there besides the Imperial College one, but all of the advocates for shutting the economy down like to use it because it paints such a dire picture. If the Imperial College model's estimates of deaths is on the high end of the models out there, I tend to think that the most likely outcome is not that high then. Lastly, I do actually know how to model health issues and I am well-versed in biology, economics, medicine, comparative health outcomes and health policy.
I think the economic cost from doing nothing would not be that high. People have shown that they don't feel all that threatened by the coronavirus. Otherwise, the lockdown orders would not be necessary. Maybe $300 billion? The main costs would be people that can't get healthcare due to overwhelmed hospitals, but those people are already assumed into the analyses.
I also think hospitals will be overwhelmed either way, so there are going to be people that can't get healthcare even with social distancing. I think this is missed in the studies. I also think hospitals will be overwhelmed for longer with social distancing since everything will take longer than doing nothing. I don't think the curve can actually get flattened enough for hospitals to not be overwhelmed. The best comparison I can make is that it doesn't matter if you drown in 1 foot of water or 10 feet of water. If hospitals are drowning in 1 foot of water for a long time, that means they won't really be able to serve other patients for a long time. If they drown in 10 feet of water for a shorter period of time, they will be able to serve more patients once they are no longer drowning.
