Agree - age, co-morbidities, healthy lifestyle a plus for Utahns
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I wish we had numbers from solely post vaccines being available to all, but according to the NYT, Mississippi and Arizona are the worst two states for per capita deaths and Hawaii and Vermont are the best (USVI, then Puerto Rico coming in right after those two, though of course, theyâre not states).
One might have to click on All Time and Deaths per Capita to get the list. The default is usually recent and Iâve no idea if my picking and choosing carried over in the link.
I think the answers are readily apparent. For example, if you take a look at the death rates for various states and regions during the Delta wave, and you see drastically higher death rates between areas with and without covid restrictions. This applies even in states with relatively high vaccination rates but relatively lax mediation measures, like Florida. Compare deaths Florida and California during this period, for example.
It is also readily apparent if you look at death rates at the county level during the post vax periods. There is a strong correlation between lax covid requirements, and death rate.
It all needs further study, but the writing is certainly on the wall.
The non-peer reviewed survey cited by The Washington Times focuses only on the very early stages of covid, and conveniently excludes studies which reach opposite conclusions. For example, this prominent study is excluded: Estimating the effects of non-pharmaceutical interventions on COVID-19 in Europe | Nature
Also, its headline grabbing finding seems to be little more than a simple comparison to an early prediction of the possible number of deaths without remediation measures compared to the number of the actual deaths.
They examined deaths early during the pandemic and determined that, by end of the lockdown period studied, on May 20, 2020, a total of 97,081 people had died of COVID-19 in the U.S.
A prominent study at the time had estimated there would be 99,050 deaths without lockdowns.
So, X thought there might be Y number of deaths without measures, and it turned out there were (.98)Y deaths . . . therefore the measures werenât effective. Hardly dispositive or even newsworthy.
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I guess it is not as obvious to the rest of us as it is to you. Florida has a large elderly population which might have suggested far higher death rates even with vaccination than actually experienced, since vaccine effectiveness is lessened with age. At some point the various costs of all this will be tallied. Staggering, no doubt. Nowhere in the developed world closed public schools for as long as California. I hope they feel it was worth it; I am not sure how one would balance that tradeoff.
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The pattern extends far beyond Florida and far beyond just the elderly demographic in Florida.
As for California schools, I am not sure whether your blanket statement is true or not. My understanding is that schools in different parts of California have/had different rules depending on the local conditions. Also, there is an important distinction between between a school being closed and a school being online.
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That is just not accurate. Several countries closed schools for 18+ months. Regionally, there are even more examples of school closures being longer than Californiaâs.
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Not really, no so far as measured learning outcomes. Our national experiment in online learning was not by and large a success. In any event, it would seem most useful for researchers to focus on the extent of the tradeoff-did Texas open schools cost 10k lives, and if so, is that a reasonable tradeoff for the benefit to children? Did Californiaâ closed schools result in 100k more dropouts than expected, and if so what is that cost to society? I donât think the answers are clear at all
I did change my earlier post to reflect the developed world and public schools
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Just so I understand, are you seriously asking whether 10,000 deaths (and many more severe illnesses) in Texas alone would be a fair tradeoff to avoid a few months of online learning?
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Yes, I am. If the vast majority of those deaths were in the very elderly with short life expectancies anyway, compared to a lockdownâs disruption and secondary deaths due to suicide, overdoses, delayed diagnosis and dropouts, then I think many might find that tradeoff acceptable. Early on, the Newark superintendent insisted the school system should close if it would prevent a single death. Obviously, people disagree on the level of tradeoffs acceptable.
One might equally question how you could accept a million extra school dropouts among children ( McKinsey estimate) largely condemned to short lives of poverty, crime and despair.
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I very much respect you (@Creekland is the only one that I have given more likes to in my history), but I respectfully disagree here. Thereâs simply no way to say who/what age someone would be who would die. There will be young people who would die as well, and immunocompromised people. I have an 84 year-old father in Texas. I certainly wouldnât want him to be sacrificed for the good of the economy or so that a child could go to school. And those 10,000 and many more would flood the hospitals in Texas, meaning otherwise healthy people would die waiting for access to the healthcare system for what would be an otherwise treatable disease (I remember the veteran who died in Houston with what I think was gallstone pancreatitis - a treatable condition but he died waiting for a bed).
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I guess it is easy for some to bargain with the unnecessary deaths of others, especially if we can rationalize it by saying that many were going to die eventually anyway.
As for the McKinsey estimate, it isnât limited to the impact on online learning but also includes the impact of the pandemic overall, much of which is beyond the control of school boards. The same report estimated that that by the end if last year 98% of students ad returned to in-person learning. Also estimate is based on the dubious assumption that the increase in absenteeism during a pandemic will follow a similar pattern as pre-pandemic, and even the report acknowledges that this may not be the case.
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I like you too, tiger. Might I point out that we make those calculations everyday, in insurance, actuarial, legal and medical decisions? We calculate expected life years lost, try to assign some value to those years, and weigh that value against the potential costs/harms of a medical procedure or in compensation for a life lost.
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Ah, I see where you are coming from now. Completely understand!
But when those decisions are made, they are weighing the cost/benefit of a decision on the same person, not deciding the value of a personâs life against the wants/needs of another person. Thatâs justâŠ.Not even an ethical dilemma, IMO.
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Does anyone here follow the Twitter account Faces of Covid? It is painful, but I feel it is important to bear witness to what has happened. Often the family members will comment on their loved ones mention. Their pain is palpable.
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Thanks for sharing. Didnât know about it.
Sad to see people younger than me posted on there.
There is a Covid memorial page on FB that I follow for people in my profession. Saw a classmate and previous BF on there. Sobering.
Tradeoffs are done for entire classes of people. Colonosopies arenât done over a certain age ( 70 or 75?) Nor will insurance routinely cover them, based on the understanding that with such a slow moving cancer, it does not make sense to conduct them on older people who will likely die of something else first. Same with mammograms. Or organ transplants, which are understandably prioritized to the younger patients. All difficult questions, to be sure, but more common and routine than some seem to expect.
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Colonoscopies are not performed beyond a certain age because the RISK of harm to the patient (perforated colon) outweighs the benefit of identifying a slow growing cancer. Mammograms are not performed because at a certain age the RISK to the patient involved with treating the cancer (radiation, chemo) outweigh the benefit. See the theme here? The risk and benefits calculated pertain to the patient. No one would ever suggest not treating an older person for a disease because of the emotional distress it might cause someone else.
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But if we just let the old people die we could use the money we saved to buy all the grade schools new tether balls. Is it worth saving these people if it means depriving kids of new tether balls?
(Thatâs satirical, in case anyone missed it.)
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Itâs satirical but itâs also dismissive. I just heard on the news that Oakland Unified, that serves many low income students, has to close a bunch (maybe 6?, I donât remember the exact number) of schools due to declining enrollment. The declining enrollment is a common theme in areas where online schooling has been the default move of Covid mitigation policies. When students are not doing well, parents that have options, exercise that choice. Parents that donât have options can not. And this is in the very liberal San Francisco Bay Area. Had my sonâs high school not gone back to in-person instruction this year, we would also have been looking at alternatives.
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