There are no winners in this fight

I wonder which will be higher - actual deaths due to COVID in 2020 or suicides of folks who lost everything due to a closed economy - not sure - I would guess suicides are up 25-45% this year

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NerdyPotato ·

A more interesting question would be how many people would have died from COVID if we hadn't closed the economy but are still alive because we did. That would allow you to weigh the benefits and damage from that decision.

ElwoodBlues · M

@NerdyPotato Here's a calculation showing the vaccines saved over ONE MILLION lives in the US in 2021 alone.

The data https://similarworlds.com/disease-illness/vaccines/4268857-Covid-Vaccine-effectiveness-data-from-the-US-2021 says 80% of US Covid deaths came from the 25% unvaxxed. Unvaxxed population = 83 million; vaxxed = 249 million. CDC estimate for US Covid deaths in 2021 is 460,000, so 368,000 deaths among the unvaxxed and 92,000 among the vaxxed - your basic pandemic of the unvaccinated.

That works out to a 0.44% death rate among unvaxxed, and a 0.037% death rate among the vaccinated. Please, get out your calculator and check my work!

If the death rate among vaxxed were equal to the death rate among the unvaxxed, that would have resulted in 1.1 million deaths instead of 92 thousand in 2021. Thus the vaccines have ALREADY saved OVER ONE MILLION lives in 2021 alone. That's a YUGE vaccine benefit!!!

And that's just deaths. In 2021, the vaccinated also benefit from a 5X lower infection rate, at least a 5X lower hospitalization rate, and a 5X lower 'long Covid' rate.

NerdyPotato ·

@ElwoodBlues that's vaccines though. The post seemed to be more about social distancing.

ElwoodBlues · M

We have the numbers on deaths in 2020. There were 550,000 deaths above baseline in 2020. Of those 550,000 excess deaths, 345,000 said Covid on the death certificate.