# How do I counter the the flu v COVID-19 argument? **URL:** \ **Category:** The Quarantine Zone\ **Tags:** covid-quarantine\ **Created:** [March 13, 2020, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-counter-the-the-flu-v-covid-19-argument/849427 "2020-03-13T18:15:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2020, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-counter-the-the-flu-v-covid-19-argument/849427/41 "2020-03-14T13:48:49Z")
> [@Slash1972](#): > > How many Americans (A) have died because of the flu this year? How many have (B) died due to COVID-19? > > Until B \> A, morons will think “No big deal” no matter how many scientists or doctors or other “Fake News” people tell us different. This isn’t helped by the facty - and a lot of people won’t like me saying this but here we go - the fact that the wave of flu deaths is exaggerated. The number you see thrown around, about how 30,000 or 50,000 or 75,000 people die from flu in the USA every year (or whatever - the number varies from claim to claim) just aren’t true. They are broad estimates, having no relation whatsoever to the official causes of death of people who died. They heavily rely on conflating flu with other causes of death, especially pneumonia, which can be caused by flu but can be caused by many other things. It just is not true. Flu is dangerous but the wild figures being put out there are dishonest, by at least an order of magnitude COVID-19 can quite easily surpass the numbers flu REALLY kills, and the risk exists it’ll surpass the fantasy numbers too. I ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2020, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-counter-the-the-flu-v-covid-19-argument/849427/42 "2020-03-14T14:38:30Z")
OP: here’s a detailed article on that issue. No short bullet points in the article, but you might prepare some from the article and then post your bullet points and a link to the article. I would stay away from any political comments if you’re hoping to change people’s thoughts on the issue. Keep it clinical. > **[Former CDC director: Covid-19 is different from flu and we must respond...](https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2020/03/14/health/coronavirus-covid-19-flu-comparison-frieden-analysis/index.html)** > > There are similarities and differences between Covid-19 and the flu, but we know much less about the novel coronavirus. As we look at what happened in China, and what's happening now in Italy, it's easy to adopt a fatalistic attitude that "there's... ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2020, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-counter-the-the-flu-v-covid-19-argument/849427/43 "2020-03-14T20:21:02Z")
> [@MandaJo](#): > > Thanks. What about what we are doing now in the US–closing schools, banning gatherings of any size, encouraging people to stay home? There are dreadful costs to these things. Do you think we are over reacting? For most of them IMO _mis_reacting more than _over_reacting. But yes you are on point about having some appreciation for the “costs” - which include very real health harms - and balancing it against possible or theoretical benefits. To my mind job one was to get the information that we need to make actual intelligent decisions. I can think of no reason why by now there have not been good studies sampling the population at large in Hubei for antibody levels in order to determine basic critical bits of information such as what the true infection rate in different age and gender demographics was, and of those how many were completely asymptomatic, how many mildly symptomatic, etc… It seems that those who are asymptomatic or extremely minimally symptomatic and then recover are of less contagion risk than those who at least become more moderately sick. Confirming that is key. It is only with that information that experts can actually do more than wild assed guess about what sort of social distancing measures are most effective, where returns diminish, how possible containment was, and come up intelligent estimates of benefits to balance against possible costs. Without it we have no real idea what the shape of the curve might be with and without different social distancing measures. Aggressive testing, including of contact tracing, and isolation of those positive, might have been able to hold off its widely spreading in the first days of its identification in America. It seems likely to me that that opportunity is now past. So we are at a point in which we are trying to alter the shape of the curve, hopefully avoiding a peak (of it plus influenza) that exceeds health systems capacities, but doing so fairly blind, with no idea as to true infection mortality rates for each demographic, or how contagious people at different ages with different presentations are. No real idea of what the curve would look like in our demographics in any of the circumstances. And in the face of that lack there is knee jerk application of near random and somewhat extreme bits from the pandemic flu toolkit, even though one the few things we already know is that this does not follow the same patterns. School closings, preventing gatherings in which people are NOT on top of each other, broad social isolation as the norm for who knows how long, taking those of lowish risk for serious morbidity and mortality but high risk of spreading it about when they get it and throwing them into the communities with those of high risk, instead of containing them on campuses, and much else, are to me misreactions. Given that we are now past containment the issue is mitigation. We know that the highest numbers of deaths occur in specific populations. To my mind the ideal would be have aggressive surveillance testing across the country and as rates started to rise in certain areas implement aggressive protective measures for that population during the period of moderate to high COVID-19 in their communities. As practically as possible isolate them during the storm (wearing effective mask protection whenever visited or out) and when they come out, as rates drop back down on the other side, if this really is so contagious and 30 to 50% have been infected and are now, most of them, recovered, then they are in an environment with much reduced risk of exposure. The actual amount under the curve is reduced. If we are to aim to alter the shape of the curve do not forget that the actual curve that matters is COVID-19 PLUS influenza demands. Be very cognizant of the risk that an attempt to flatten may end up resulting in just delaying the peak to coincide with next season’s influenza demands. The less catastrophic would be to aim to backfill into a time period that we can reasonably expect influenza rates to be low. Which would imply that we want whatever it will unavoidably be to occur during weeks 16 to 42 (see the seasonal flu numbers over the years [here)](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2270306/), IOW mid April to mid October, if we knew enough to know how to do that, not to slow it to a degree that were still fairly maximal numbers of those susceptible in October and November as flu is likely to erupt. FWIW much of what is being done in the name of mitigation is NOT what is currently advised [by the CDC.](https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/downloads/community-mitigation-strategy.pdf) School closures (grade, HS, and college) are, for example, only advised when there is “substantial” community transmission (“Large scale community transmission, healthcare staffing significantly impacted, multiple cases within communal settings like healthcare facilities, schools, mass gatherings etc.”, and then mostly because of the expectation of too much staff or student body out sick. Specific to school closures [here.](https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/downloads/considerations-for-school-closure.pdf) > [@](#): > > Available modeling data indicate that early, short to medium closures do not impact the epi curve of COVID-19 or available health care measures (e.g., hospitalizations). There may be some impact of much longer closures (8 weeks, 20 weeks) further into community spread, but that modelling also shows that other mitigation efforts (e.g., handwashing, home isolation) have more impact on both spread of disease and health care measures. In other countries, those places who closed school (e.g., Hong Kong) have not had more success in reducing spread than those that did not (e.g., Singapore). Much of the extreme measures being taken in communities across this country are NOT advised by the CDC but _political_ decisions. ---
**Author:** ![PhillyGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ed655f/32.png) [@PhillyGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PhillyGuy)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2020, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-counter-the-the-flu-v-covid-19-argument/849427/44 "2020-03-14T21:26:18Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > If evidence comes out that COVID-19 is much worse than epidemiologists think (i.e., if it’s actually as bad as most non-epidemiologists think it is), then the vaccine will be approved more quickly. This article gives information rather than telling you what to think. But after reading it, I think – a vaccine this decade might be a bridge too far: [Researchers rush to test coronavirus vaccine in people without knowing how well it works in animals](https://www.statnews.com/2020/03/11/researchers-rush-to-start-moderna-coronavirus-vaccine-trial-without-usual-animal-testing/) > [@](#): > > Regulators require that a manufacturer show a product is safe before it goes into people, and while it isn’t enshrined in law, researchers almost always check that a new concoction is effective in lab animals before putting human volunteers at potential risk. . . . > > What the company doesn’t say is that it has not yet brought a single product to market, even in non-emergency times. The majority of candidate vaccines fail. Risk balancing, for release of a poorly tested pharmaceutical, requires knowing how many people have COVID-19 antibodies divided by how many people die of the disease. If something on the order of 2+ percent, a terrible risk is justified. Knowing the results of that division requires first developing an antibody test, and then testing a random sample of a population in a society where death certificate causes of death can be trusted. Before the end of 2020, we probably will have some reasonable approximation of that number. My guess is that, when good evidence is available, I’ll think abbreviated testing a big mistake. ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2020, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-counter-the-the-flu-v-covid-19-argument/849427/45 "2020-03-14T21:32:44Z")
> [@Joey\_P](#): > > Also, my ‘fear’ is that when this all blows over, people are going to running around saying that it was a huge over reaction. We cancelled just about everything and for what? Every time someone calls it an over reaction, I’ve been trying to explain that if this all blows over without amounting to much that they shouldn’t think of this as an over reaction, instead they should consider that it didn’t amount to much _because_ of how we reacted. I’ve read this and the follow ups. Not that I disagree with the assessment, and although it could be a damned if you do damned if you don’t situation, you are committing the same fallacy. As you said, we don’t know many of the answers, but by framing it this way, you are making it a praised if you do, praised if you don’t situation. If nothing much would have happened anyways, you cannot baldly claim that the overreaction without question caused the not amounting to much. One of the main CDC spokespersons said that the reason why COVID-19 may be underreported is that many people believed that they just had a bad cold and never sought treatment. Well, if that is so widespread, then it leads me to believe that this is not Dr. Tripps and that I won’t be dreaming of Randall Flagg or Mother Abigail very soon. And as Manda Jo said, we are paying a rather extreme price both economically and personally for something that for most people is very mild. And not to be an asshole, but does this whole thing boil down to giving a few 87 year olds a chance to survive this until the flu or something else minor kills them next year? I’m not trying to be so cold-hearted, but is this the bottom line here? ---
**Author:** ![Lance\_Turbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lance_turbo/32/6156_2.png) [@Lance\_Turbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lance_Turbo)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2020, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-counter-the-the-flu-v-covid-19-argument/849427/46 "2020-03-14T22:01:37Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > This isn’t helped by the facty - and a lot of people won’t like me saying this but here we go - the fact that the wave of flu deaths is exaggerated. The number you see thrown around, about how 30,000 or 50,000 or 75,000 people die from flu in the USA every year (or whatever - the number varies from claim to claim) just aren’t true. They are broad estimates, having no relation whatsoever to the official causes of death of people who died. They heavily rely on conflating flu with other causes of death, especially pneumonia, which can be caused by flu but can be caused by many other things. It just is not true. Flu is dangerous but the wild figures being put out there are dishonest, by at least an order of magnitude > > COVID-19 can quite easily surpass the numbers flu REALLY kills, and the risk exists it’ll surpass the fantasy numbers too. > > I This post contains a ton of inaccuracies and should be disregarded in its entirety. ---
**Author:** ![MandaJo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac91a4/32.png) [@MandaJo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MandaJo)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2020, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-counter-the-the-flu-v-covid-19-argument/849427/47 "2020-03-14T22:47:23Z")
> [@UltraVires](#): > > And as Manda Jo said, we are paying a rather extreme price both economically and personally for something that for most people is very mild. And not to be an asshole, but does this whole thing boil down to giving a few 87 year olds a chance to survive this until the flu or something else minor kills them next year? > > I’m not trying to be so cold-hearted, but is this the bottom line here? Everyone, please don’t conflate my views with this. I am not saying all these things aren’t worth the cost, nor do I think the lives of old people are of low worth. Some of my favorite people are old. UltraVires, it’s worse for those over 60, but it kills other people, too. It especially kills them (us, maybe, me or you or someone you love) if we are stuck in a hospital hallway in an overwhelmed medical system. Honestly, having read everything, it appears we just don’t know what we should be doing. We don’t have the information we need to make the right choice. It seems appropriate to me to err on the side of caution, just because it could be so very bad. Recognizing things have a high cost isn’t arguing that they are inappropriate. I look forward to reading the books about this, and hope they will make sense. ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2020, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-counter-the-the-flu-v-covid-19-argument/849427/48 "2020-03-14T22:49:41Z")
> [@MandaJo](#): > > Everyone, please don’t conflate my views with this. I am not saying all these things aren’t worth the cost, nor do I think the lives of old people are of low worth. Some of my favorite people are old. > > UltraVires, it’s worse for those over 60, but it kills other people, too. It especially kills them (us, maybe, me or you or someone you love) if we are stuck in a hospital hallway in an overwhelmed medical system. > > Honestly, having read everything, it appears we just don’t know what we should be doing. We don’t have the information we need to make the right choice. It seems appropriate to me to err on the side of caution, just because it could be so very bad. Recognizing things have a high cost isn’t arguing that they are inappropriate. > > I look forward to reading the books about this, and hope they will make sense. I have no views to be conflated with. I am not saying old people are of low value. I am asking if this is indeed the choice we are making. ---
**Author:** ![MandaJo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac91a4/32.png) [@MandaJo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MandaJo)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2020, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-counter-the-the-flu-v-covid-19-argument/849427/49 "2020-03-14T23:11:42Z")
> [@UltraVires](#): > > I have no views to be conflated with. I am not saying old people are of low value. I am asking if this is indeed the choice we are making. It’s not. It doesn’t only kill old people, certainly not only people in their late 80s. ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2020, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-counter-the-the-flu-v-covid-19-argument/849427/50 "2020-03-14T23:43:55Z")
> [@UltraVires](#): > > I have no views to be conflated with. I am not saying old people are of low value. I am asking if this is indeed the choice we are making. It is estimated that 20-somethings who have been infected by COVID-19 have a 0.2% risk of dying (assuming they have access to adequate healthcare). This doesn’t seem like a big risk when we’re talking about low numbers. But let’s say 30% of Americans ages 20-39 get infected by the end of the year. That’s a little over 12 million people. 0.2% of that number is 24,000. \*That’s just 20-somethings. \* And of course, that 0.2% is based on statistics from China, where people were literally welded into their homes for a month to keep this thing contained. China built extra hospitals and mobilized an army of doctors and nurses so that people of all ages would be treated. Needless to say, we aren’t doing this here. ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2020, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-counter-the-the-flu-v-covid-19-argument/849427/51 "2020-03-15T00:50:23Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > It is estimated that 20-somethings who have been infected by COVID-19 have a 0.2% risk of dying (assuming they have access to adequate healthcare). > > This doesn’t seem like a big risk when we’re talking about low numbers. > > But let’s say 30% of Americans ages 20-39 get infected by the end of the year. That’s a little over 12 million people. 0.2% of that number is 24,000. > > \*That’s just 20-somethings. \* > > And of course, that 0.2% is based on statistics from China, where people were literally welded into their homes for a month to keep this thing contained. China built extra hospitals and mobilized an army of doctors and nurses so that people of all ages would be treated. Needless to say, we aren’t doing this here. Here are the numbers from South Korea: > **[One chart shows how the coronavirus is more deadly than the flu even in South...](https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-death-rate-south-korea-compared-to-flu-2020-3)** > > South Korea has reported lower coronavirus death rates than other countries. But even those rates indicate COVID-19 is far more deadly than the flu. 0.0% under 30 0.09% 40-49 up to the highest at 8.23% above age 80 Much more deadly than the seasonal flu, but nowhere near your numbers. And if we have a bunch of people who never even go to the hospital because they think they just have a bad cold, then those numbers are vastly overstated. France and Spain have closed all businesses except grocery stores and pharmacies. What more would/could they do if this was the actual Black Death of the 1300s, or Captain Tripps from The Stand? I’m not saying that we are overreacting. I don’t know enough to say that. But it would seem to a layperson that we are. ---
**Author:** ![Chingon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chingon/32/17645_2.png) [@Chingon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chingon)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2020, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-counter-the-the-flu-v-covid-19-argument/849427/52 "2020-03-15T01:02:29Z")
How are you not a layperson here? ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2020, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-counter-the-the-flu-v-covid-19-argument/849427/53 "2020-03-15T01:19:50Z")
> [@UltraVires](#): > > Here are the numbers from South Korea: > [How Coronavirus Death Rate in South Korea Compares to Flu](https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-death-rate-south-korea-compared-to-flu-2020-3) > > 0.0% under 30 > 0.09% 40-49 > > up to the highest at 8.23% above age 80 > > Much more deadly than the seasonal flu, but nowhere near your numbers. And if we have a bunch of people who never even go to the hospital because they think they just have a bad cold, then those numbers are vastly overstated. > > France and Spain have closed all businesses except grocery stores and pharmacies. What more would/could they do if this was the actual Black Death of the 1300s, or Captain Tripps from The Stand? > > I’m not saying that we are overreacting. I don’t know enough to say that. But it would seem to a layperson that we are. The layperson is often wrong about stuff. Of course there’s a lot we don’t know. We do know that we aren’t testing at the same rate that SK is, though. We don’t have the kind of healthcare system that SK has ([SK has four times the number of hospital beds the US has, per capita](https://www.statnews.com/2020/03/10/simple-math-alarming-answers-covid-19/)). So we shouldn’t use SK’s outcomes to inform us of our risk. We seem to be following more of the path of Italy, which chose to take a wait-and-see approach until shit got too real. Since we don’t have the political will to do what SK has done with testing and we can clearly see that Italy’s approach has been disastorous, then it makes perfect sense to be as proactive as we can without literally welding people into their homes. Our strategy my not end up being a good one either, but what is the alternative? No one is saying what we’re doing is the best way. So I guess I don’t know what point you’re trying to make. ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2020, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-counter-the-the-flu-v-covid-19-argument/849427/54 "2020-03-15T01:30:07Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > The layperson is often wrong about stuff. > > Of course there’s a lot we don’t know. We do know that we aren’t testing at the same rate that SK is, though. We don’t have the kind of healthcare system that SK has ([SK has four times the number of hospital beds the US has, per capita](https://www.statnews.com/2020/03/10/simple-math-alarming-answers-covid-19/)). So we shouldn’t use SK’s outcomes to inform us of our risk. We seem to be following more of the path of Italy, which chose to take a wait-and-see approach until shit got too real. Since we don’t have the political will to do what SK has done with testing and we can clearly see that Italy’s approach has been disastorous, then it makes perfect sense to be as proactive as we can without literally welding people into their homes. Our strategy my not end up being a good one either, but what is the alternative? No one is saying what we’re doing is the best way. > So I guess I don’t know what point you’re trying to make. I guess the short, short version of my point is that we are taking an awfully goddamn drastic approach to something that we don’t know very much about. Panicking people and trashing the economy and people’s lives: marriages canceled, vacations canceled, sports cancelled, high school seniors no prom or graduation ceremonies, unemployment, businesses going to close, lost opportunities, social distancing, and the like. All for “we don’t know.” ETA: And from being around town, bars, strip clubs and tattoo parlors are still running as usual, but not schools. ---
**Author:** ![Lance\_Turbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lance_turbo/32/6156_2.png) [@Lance\_Turbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lance_Turbo)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2020, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-counter-the-the-flu-v-covid-19-argument/849427/55 "2020-03-15T01:30:37Z")
> [@UltraVires](#): > > I’m not saying that we are overreacting. I don’t know enough to say that. But it would seem to a layperson that we are. Maybe Newt Gingrich can convince you… [NEWT GINGRICH: I AM IN ITALY AMID THE CORONAVIRUS CRISIS. AMERICA MUST ACT NOW—AND ACT BIG | OPINION](https://www.newsweek.com/newt-gingrich-i-am-italy-amid-coronavirus-crisis-america-must-act-now-act-big-opinion-1492270). > [@](#): > > These steps are not an overreaction. The coronavirus is out of control of in Northern Italy. As of 6 p.m. local/1 p.m. EST on March 10, there were 15,113 total cases in Italy, with 12,839 active cases, 1,016 deaths and 1,258 recoveries. And there were 162 total cases here in Rome. > [@](#): > > Because the demand for respirators and intensive care has been beyond any previous planning, doctors have been forced into the kind of triage thinking developed for intense battlefield casualty situations. There are reports that emergency room doctors are allotting respirators to those with higher life expectancy due to the limited equipment in the hardest hit areas of the province. If you are older or have other illnesses, you may simply not be eligible for treatment. > [@](#): > > The lesson of Italy is that the sooner you act, the fewer lives you will lose and the less damage you will do to your economy. ---
**Author:** ![Chingon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chingon/32/17645_2.png) [@Chingon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chingon)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2020, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-counter-the-the-flu-v-covid-19-argument/849427/56 "2020-03-15T01:35:12Z")
Newt is part of the Deep State now. ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2020, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-counter-the-the-flu-v-covid-19-argument/849427/57 "2020-03-15T01:40:52Z")
So now Newt Gingrich is the authoritative cite for the SDMB??? The world really is going to end. ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2020, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-counter-the-the-flu-v-covid-19-argument/849427/58 "2020-03-15T01:43:14Z")
> [@UltraVires](#): > > I guess the short, short version of my point is that we are taking an awfully goddamn drastic approach to something that we don’t know very much about. Panicking people and trashing the economy and people’s lives: marriages canceled, vacations canceled, sports cancelled, high school seniors no prom or graduation ceremonies, unemployment, businesses going to close, lost opportunities, social distancing, and the like. All for “we don’t know.” But we _do_ know what’s happening in Italy. We’d be fools to not use what’s happening in Italy (and now Spain) to motivate us to take an awfully goddamn drastic approach. > [@](#): > > ETA: And from being around town, bars, strip clubs and tattoo parlors are still running as usual, but not schools. Because bars, strip clubs, and tattoo parlors are run by people who won’t be held accountable if a public health disaster happens. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2020, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-counter-the-the-flu-v-covid-19-argument/849427/59 "2020-03-15T01:48:04Z")
An analysis that looked at the decisions by the lens of economics is very hard to do with the information we have **UltraVires** , but it would include what is called [“Quality Adjusted Life Years” (QALY)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quality-adjusted_life_year). [QALY’s monetary value](http://conversableeconomist.blogspot.com/2018/06/whats-value-of-qaly.html) is not applied consistently but seems to generally range between $50 to 150K at full health value. So yes economic analysis values a healthy 30something with 50 years of presumed life ahead as worth much more than an 81 year old with significant disability. In 2008-2009 the H1N1 pandemic had a significant impact on QALY because it impacted younger people more commonly than the old and infirm. The analysis would have to know how many QALYs are likely to be preserved at what net cost. I’m gathering that most have accepted the concept that the goal now is “flattening the curve” and understand that the concept assumes the same number of total cases in each age cohort but in one case more occurring in a circumstance in which the system is over its capacity threshold, and in another the threshold is never breached. So applying the economic analysis lens would have to be able to estimate how many more of which age groups (and thereby how many QAYs) would die as a result of the threshold being breeched that could be avoided by investing in these costs today? And then add in the other economic costs (lost productivity, so on) and/or (_cold_ this) savings of those lost lives. Anyone doing such a modeling exercise could use a variety of hypothetical assumptions, of different fractions getting infected in each demographic and different true mortality rate, and different impacts of avoiding the threshold being breeched, and even different odds of the investment having that avoiding breeching capacity payoff to different degrees. Doing such might offend some people, making decisions on its basis likely third rail, but it would still be an interesting and important analysis. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2020, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-counter-the-the-flu-v-covid-19-argument/849427/60 "2020-03-15T02:03:30Z")
A little Google finds [this](https://reason.com/2020/03/05/covid-19-and-qalys/) not too dissimilar take! > [@](#): > > We could use a metric like QALYs (quality-adjusted life years) to aggregate the burden of COVID-19. Then, in assessing public policy interventions, such as closing schools and limiting travel, we could at least informally perform some sort of cost-benefit analysis, assessing the economic cost of an intervention and comparing it with the benefit in reduced deaths and illness. > > Yet the QALY does not seem to enter into discussions of COVID-19. We see a great deal of discussion of mortality rates among those infected by the novel coronavirus, including reports of how those rates vary by age band. The question, though, is not just the age of those who have died, but how much longer they would have lived. I have not seen any systematic attempt to convert these mortality rates into a QALY number, let alone any formal cost-benefit analyses assessing how different interventions might save QALYs. … > > … I have no idea which steps to slow the spread of COVID-19 are cost-justified and which steps are not. My own ignorance doesn’t matter, but I worry that health organizations and governments may not even be trying to compare costs and benefits in any systematic fashion. Overreaction in the form of an availability cascade is especially likely at the beginning of a crisis, yet there is also a danger of complacency. There may be some good reasons not to base policy decisions solely on comparisons of QALYs and costs, but production of at least back-of-the-envelope estimates could be useful in anchoring serious policy discussion, even in or maybe especially in times of crisis. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-counter-the-the-flu-v-covid-19-argument/849427.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-counter-the-the-flu-v-covid-19-argument/849427.md?page=4)