4 ms·

I just don't buy that argument of "let's let people die" to save the economy. That's evil.

_-___________-_ 6y ago
Letting the economy collapse is also killing people, it's just less direct.
xenocratus 6y ago
Even when not saving the economy leads to people dying? Not sure if this is free to read, but it offers some of the reasoning behind the difficulty of shutting down the economy in poorer countries: https://www.economist.com/leaders/2020/03/26/the-coronavirus-could-devastate-poor-countries https://www.economist.com/leaders/2020/03/26/the-coronavirus... Short quote: "The worry, as Imran Khan, Pakistan’s prime minister says, is that “if we shut down the cities...we will save [people] from corona at one end, but they will die from hunger.“"
- bryanlarsen 6y ago
  According to this paper[1] public health interventions temporarily depress the economy but it quickly bounces back. OTOH widespread death due to choosing not to intervene depresses the economy for much longer. 1: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3561560 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3561560
  - xenocratus 6y ago
    You're telling me that a paper about the outcome of something that happened 100 years ago in the US is valid for something happening now in Brazil (or other less developed countries)? From their Conclusion: "Finally, when interpreting our findings, there several important caveats to keep in mind. First, our analysis is limited to data on 30 states and 43 to 66 cities. Second, data on manufacturing activity is not available in all years, so we cannot carefully examine pre-trends between 1914 and 1919 for the manufacturing activity outcomes. Third, the economic environment toward the end of 1918 was unusual due to the end of WWI. Fourth, while there are important economic lessons from the 1918 Flu for today’s COVID- 19 pandemic, we stress the limits of external validity. Estimates suggest that 1918 Flu was more deadly than COVID-19, especially for prime-age workers, which also suggests more severe economic impacts of the 1918 Flu. The complex nature of modern global supply chains, the larger role of services, and improvements in communication technology are mechanisms we cannot capture in our analysis, but these are important factors for understanding the macroeconomic effects of COVID-19."
    - bryanlarsen 6y ago
      It's not great evidence for intervention but it's good evidence against the idea that curtailing intervention will save the economy. Many people seem to be assuming the latter. Edit: I'm not advocating either. I believe that we can have our cake and eat it too: reopen the economy AND keep people from dying. It requires two things. Massive testing and tracing (https://medium.com/@sten.linnarsson/to-stop-covid-19-test-everyone-373fd80eb03b https://medium.com/@sten.linnarsson/to-stop-covid-19-test-ev...), and allowing businesses to reopen when they have proper protection, isolation and cleaning protocols in place. Of course both these things require large amounts of money so developing nations are screwed, as usual.
  - _-___________-_ 6y ago
    The public health interventions the paper covers do not appear to rise to the level of what is currently being done in many countries. There are entire sectors of the economy that are effectively producing zero output (hospitality, tourism, transportation) in most countries. Furthermore, the economy is very different today than it was in 1918.
    - xenocratus 6y ago
      You forgot the part about some (less fortunate) economies depending heavily on exporting consumer (discretionary) goods to developed countries, which means that the dip in spending in US/Europe/China will lead to a big downturn in these countries.
- woadwarrior01 6y ago
  Here's an archived copy[1] of that page. [1]: http://archive.is/CKxPG http://archive.is/CKxPG
- ipython 6y ago
  The problem is that people who contract COVID-19 don’t just wake up one morning and die. They tend to develop serious symptoms which, if presented at hospital, result in potentially prolonged care over a week or more involving the use of rare icu beds and (currently) rare and expensive ventilators. If you can convince the population to take your stance “for the good of the economy!” then have the decency to also inform them not to seek treatment and therefore not overload the health care system for those who wish to live.
  - xenocratus 6y ago
    I'm not sure you understand that my point is that this is a compromise between dwo plights that cannot be resolved by armchair economists and epidemiologists. Sure, Bolsanaro might be wrong, but there are leaders out there who have to make a decision about which of the two options would affect their countries more. Simply defaulting to "just quarantine EVERYONE" might be correct from an epidemics perspective, but people don't only die or suffer from diseases. So just keep an open mind.
    - ipython 6y ago
      Ah, the classic false dilemma logical fallacy. There are more than two ways to address this problem. I am not an epidemiologist but I did watch a 3blue1brown video on YouTube last night. As I understand it, one of the most effective containment strategies is to test everyone, then take anyone who is infected as well as recent contacts of that person and ask them to self-isolate. Imagine if we had rapid-result test kits that were deployed at all central choke point locations (say supermarkets, doctors offices, etc). If you needed food, you would have a test and the test would determine whether you contracted the disease. If the test was positive, you would have to submit your recent activities and contacts (perhaps aided by technology, such as tracking phone records or an app that tracks nearby bluetooth). The sick people would be placed into isolation and the contacts would be asked to quarantine. What I see is a lack of foresight and innovative thinking from the very leaders we are seeking advice from. They're just giving us lazy answers that serve their own agenda. It's disgusting. We could have had effective testing in the US by now - we have made a conscious choice (probably out of inaction) not to develop them.
- jussij 6y ago
  Many political leaders around the world seem to be downplaying the severity of this virus. So lets consider some details: 1. Looking at past events, pandemics do kill (i.e. many tens of millions where killed by the Spanish Flu). 2. This Covid 19 also kills (i.e. high deaths tolls in Italy/Spain and rising etc). 3. Covid 19 also appears to be highly contagious (i.e. look at New York). 4. From what I have read the reason the virus kills is hospital get overrun so patients have zero treatment options (i.e. hospitals run out of ventilators, medical staff, space, drugs etc etc). Now I suspect if Pakistan goes down the path of trying to save its economy before tying to control the virus, they are in for a world of hurt.

Letting the economy collapse is also killing people, it's just less direct.

Even when not saving the economy leads to people dying? Not sure if this is free to read, but it offers some of the reasoning behind the difficulty of shutting down the economy in poorer countries: https://www.economist.com/leaders/2020/03/26/the-coronavirus-could-devastate-poor-countries https://www.economist.com/leaders/2020/03/26/the-coronavirus... Short quote: "The worry, as Imran Khan, Pakistan’s prime minister says, is that “if we shut down the cities...we will save [people] from corona at one end, but they will die from hunger.“"

bryanlarsen 6y ago
According to this paper[1] public health interventions temporarily depress the economy but it quickly bounces back. OTOH widespread death due to choosing not to intervene depresses the economy for much longer. 1: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3561560 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3561560
- xenocratus 6y ago
  You're telling me that a paper about the outcome of something that happened 100 years ago in the US is valid for something happening now in Brazil (or other less developed countries)? From their Conclusion: "Finally, when interpreting our findings, there several important caveats to keep in mind. First, our analysis is limited to data on 30 states and 43 to 66 cities. Second, data on manufacturing activity is not available in all years, so we cannot carefully examine pre-trends between 1914 and 1919 for the manufacturing activity outcomes. Third, the economic environment toward the end of 1918 was unusual due to the end of WWI. Fourth, while there are important economic lessons from the 1918 Flu for today’s COVID- 19 pandemic, we stress the limits of external validity. Estimates suggest that 1918 Flu was more deadly than COVID-19, especially for prime-age workers, which also suggests more severe economic impacts of the 1918 Flu. The complex nature of modern global supply chains, the larger role of services, and improvements in communication technology are mechanisms we cannot capture in our analysis, but these are important factors for understanding the macroeconomic effects of COVID-19."
  - bryanlarsen 6y ago
    It's not great evidence for intervention but it's good evidence against the idea that curtailing intervention will save the economy. Many people seem to be assuming the latter. Edit: I'm not advocating either. I believe that we can have our cake and eat it too: reopen the economy AND keep people from dying. It requires two things. Massive testing and tracing (https://medium.com/@sten.linnarsson/to-stop-covid-19-test-everyone-373fd80eb03b https://medium.com/@sten.linnarsson/to-stop-covid-19-test-ev...), and allowing businesses to reopen when they have proper protection, isolation and cleaning protocols in place. Of course both these things require large amounts of money so developing nations are screwed, as usual.
- _-___________-_ 6y ago
  The public health interventions the paper covers do not appear to rise to the level of what is currently being done in many countries. There are entire sectors of the economy that are effectively producing zero output (hospitality, tourism, transportation) in most countries. Furthermore, the economy is very different today than it was in 1918.
  - xenocratus 6y ago
    You forgot the part about some (less fortunate) economies depending heavily on exporting consumer (discretionary) goods to developed countries, which means that the dip in spending in US/Europe/China will lead to a big downturn in these countries.
woadwarrior01 6y ago
Here's an archived copy[1] of that page. [1]: http://archive.is/CKxPG http://archive.is/CKxPG
ipython 6y ago
The problem is that people who contract COVID-19 don’t just wake up one morning and die. They tend to develop serious symptoms which, if presented at hospital, result in potentially prolonged care over a week or more involving the use of rare icu beds and (currently) rare and expensive ventilators. If you can convince the population to take your stance “for the good of the economy!” then have the decency to also inform them not to seek treatment and therefore not overload the health care system for those who wish to live.
- xenocratus 6y ago
  I'm not sure you understand that my point is that this is a compromise between dwo plights that cannot be resolved by armchair economists and epidemiologists. Sure, Bolsanaro might be wrong, but there are leaders out there who have to make a decision about which of the two options would affect their countries more. Simply defaulting to "just quarantine EVERYONE" might be correct from an epidemics perspective, but people don't only die or suffer from diseases. So just keep an open mind.
  - ipython 6y ago
    Ah, the classic false dilemma logical fallacy. There are more than two ways to address this problem. I am not an epidemiologist but I did watch a 3blue1brown video on YouTube last night. As I understand it, one of the most effective containment strategies is to test everyone, then take anyone who is infected as well as recent contacts of that person and ask them to self-isolate. Imagine if we had rapid-result test kits that were deployed at all central choke point locations (say supermarkets, doctors offices, etc). If you needed food, you would have a test and the test would determine whether you contracted the disease. If the test was positive, you would have to submit your recent activities and contacts (perhaps aided by technology, such as tracking phone records or an app that tracks nearby bluetooth). The sick people would be placed into isolation and the contacts would be asked to quarantine. What I see is a lack of foresight and innovative thinking from the very leaders we are seeking advice from. They're just giving us lazy answers that serve their own agenda. It's disgusting. We could have had effective testing in the US by now - we have made a conscious choice (probably out of inaction) not to develop them.
jussij 6y ago
Many political leaders around the world seem to be downplaying the severity of this virus. So lets consider some details: 1. Looking at past events, pandemics do kill (i.e. many tens of millions where killed by the Spanish Flu). 2. This Covid 19 also kills (i.e. high deaths tolls in Italy/Spain and rising etc). 3. Covid 19 also appears to be highly contagious (i.e. look at New York). 4. From what I have read the reason the virus kills is hospital get overrun so patients have zero treatment options (i.e. hospitals run out of ventilators, medical staff, space, drugs etc etc). Now I suspect if Pakistan goes down the path of trying to save its economy before tying to control the virus, they are in for a world of hurt.