Posted on 04/27/2020 10:46:43 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
I am one of the purportedly most vulnerable among us, elderly and with chronic lung problems, so I appreciate all the sacrifices the rest of society are making to protect my life. But even as an ostensible beneficiary of the lockdown, I worry that these sacrifices are just not worth it. I appreciate the efforts to save my life, but I would rather my children and grandchildren face a world that is not bankrupt.
I think many of us in the later stages of life worry less about prolonging the lives we have already lived for so many years and more about the world we are leaving to "our scared honor ... and posterity," as the signers of the Declaration of Independence put it. We have already gone a long way down life's path, but there are others who have yet to get very far.
In that vein, an elderly reader, seeing my thoughts via email, produced this calculus of the monetary cost of prolonging the lives of the elderly:
I ran a few simple numbers to gauge the cost to the US per life saved by shutting down the economy and it is mind blowing.
The average death rate in the US is about 9 per thousand population and with 330 million people this comes to 2.97 million deaths annually.
The cost for shutting down the economy, as per current instructions, will run at least $5 trillion between the various government stimulus and assistance bills and lost tax revenues by the Federal and State governments.
If we did not order everyone to quarantine in place and let business go on as normally as possible, then we might realize 500 thousand deaths to this virus, a 16% increase over normal.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
With the current guidelines the death estimate is about 100 thousand, or 3.3% above normal. Then, what we are paying per life saved, is $5 trillion/ 400 thousand, or $12,500,000 per life saved.
THE AUTHOR ( A SENIOR CITIZEN ) MADE THIS COMMENT:
The majority of people dying are elderly (like me), 79% over age 65 or 92% over age 55. With hindsight it would seem that it would have made more sense to quarantine those over 65 and let the economy continue as close to normal as possible. This would also have let the younger generation build up a herd immunity to the virus.
How about we just not send infected patients into nursing homes? What does locking down young, healthy people do for that?
What is the cost of hydroxychloroquine treatment?
Remember that many of the advocates of “mitigation” very recently favored denying care to elders to “bend the cost curve” of medical care.
Live and learn.
My mom is 98 and is my best friend. She is worth it.
We could just send the olden ones out on the tundra with a blanket.
Sheesh.
No. the greatest generation does not get the chance to save the world again by their sacrificing... no.
it is the millenials turn and that other generation, the one that is so selfish, but not the elderly.
quality of life doesn’t matter... living virus free does./ sarc
The Dems already have plans if they take over full power in 2021 (God forbid). The death panel model will be based on “how many old people can our socialist health system afford to allow to live?”
And THEY are claiming to be compassionate now to save us old people by total economic destruction of America by continuing long term shelter-in-place? Hypocrites.
God bless your mother. I would think you’d be as incensed as I am if your governor sent infected people in to your mom’s vicinity.
How about if we identify the U.S elitists with the highest carbon footprint and eliminate them first? Do it to save the earth! /sarc
Speak for yourself, I’d say to the author. What an evil mindset.
The question presumes that there are no resulting chronic conditions that will affect the young who get this disease.
The black-and-white, binary choice of 1) economic freedom or 2) you will kill grandma is a false choice.
You don’t have to collapse the economy to take steps to protect those vulnerable ... unless you think it’s unfair to them that those less at risk don’t have to suffer too.
Or unless you’d rather have a Depression than a second Trump term.
So end your own life and quit using "we" when explaining your views.
That’s why there is no Eskimo name for Eastborne.
Arnold Rimmer.
the real question is, is it worth prolonging their lives which are almost up by a few months or maybe years at most to destroy the entire worlds economy
“If we did not order everyone to quarantine in place and let business go on as normally as possible, then we might realize 500 thousand deaths to this virus, a 16% increase over normal.”
Wait a minute!! Since we KNOW the HUGE majority of deaths from this China Virus are among those in the 75+ age group and who have multiple morbidity’s, how do you know how many of the 500,000 you claim will die from the China Virus wouldn’t have died anyway?
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