Comments by "Jim Luebke" (@jimluebke3869) on "The Economic Trade-off of Coronavirus w/Michael Shermer | Joe Rogan" video.

  1. You can balance lives against lives. Right now, we're seeing the total death toll for this pandemic at about 60k. That's 5k-10k below the annual death toll for drug overdoses, which is between 65k and 70k. The reason this is a meaningful number here is because of the direct causal link between economic depression and suicide (especially from drug overdoses.) If we try to save any more lives from COVID-19, (and since the typical COVID-19 victim is of advanced age and has one or more health issues already) there is a serious question as to how much human life we are really preserving with these economy-cancelling efforts. Further, the more quarantine and "social distancing" we do, the slower that Herd Immunity develops in our population. (This is where a virus spreads far more slowly because people have antibodies because they've had it already; it's why we don't have epidemics all the time.) Without herd immunity, we're going to see wave after wave of COVID-19. Can our economy tolerate not only these few months of quarantine, but several months of quarantine for several years? It's possible that we'll see not only the least economic impact, but also the least death overall, if people who are likely to have few or no symptoms get CV-19 as soon as possible. In the end, we must protect those who are most likely to die of this sickness. However, the best way to do that might actually be for the rest of us to get it and get over it ASAP.
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