Tuesday, August 4, 2020

Lockdown Effects = What Nobody Talks About...

SCOTT W. ATLAS, JOHN R. BIRGE, RALPH L KEENEY AND ALEXANDER LIPTON, The COVID-19 shutdown will cost Americans millions of years of life
Our governmental COVID-19 mitigation policy of broad societal lockdown focuses on containing the spread of the disease at all costs, instead of “flattening the curve” and preventing hospital overcrowding. Although well-intentioned, the lockdown was imposed without consideration of its consequences beyond those directly from the pandemic.

The policies have created the greatest global economic disruption in history, with trillions of dollars of lost economic output. These financial losses have been falsely portrayed as purely economic. To the contrary, using numerous National Institutes of Health Public Access publications, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Bureau of Labor Statistics data, and various actuarial tables, we calculate that these policies will cause devastating non-economic consequences that will total millions of accumulated years of life lost in the United States, far beyond what the virus itself has caused.

Pandemics have afflicted humankind throughout history. They devastated the Roman and Byzantine empires, Medieval Europe, China and India, and they continue to the present day despite medical progress.

The past century has witnessed three pandemics with at least 100,000 U.S. fatalities: The "Spanish Flu," 1918-1919, with between 20 million and 50 million fatalities worldwide, including 675,000 in the U.S.; the "Asian Flu," 1957-1958, with about 1.1 million deaths worldwide, 116,000 of those in the U.S.; and the "Hong Kong Flu," 1968-1972, with about 1 million people worldwide, including 100,000 in the U.S. So far, the current pandemic has produced almost 100,000 U.S. deaths, but the reaction of a near-complete economic shutdown is unprecedented.

The lost economic output in the U.S. alone is estimated to be 5 percent of GDP, or $1.1 trillion for every month of the economic shutdown. This lost income results in lost lives as the stresses of unemployment and providing basic needs increase the incidence of suicide, alcohol or drug abuse, and stress-induced illnesses. These effects are particularly severe on the lower-income populace, as they are more likely to lose their jobs, and mortality rates are much higher for lower-income individuals.

Statistically, every $10 million to $24 million lost in U.S. incomes results in one additional death. One portion of this effect is through unemployment, which leads to an average increase in mortality of at least 60 percent. That translates into 7,200 lives lost per month among the 36 million newly unemployed Americans, over 40 percent of whom are not expected to regain their jobs. In addition, many small business owners are near financial collapse, creating lost wealth that results in mortality increases of 50 percent. With an average estimate of one additional lost life per $17 million income loss, that would translate to 65,000 lives lost in the U.S. for each month because of the economic shutdown.

In addition to lives lost because of lost income, lives also are lost due to delayed or foregone health care imposed by the shutdown and the fear it creates among patients. From personal communications with neurosurgery colleagues, about half of their patients have not appeared for treatment of disease which, left untreated, risks brain hemorrhage, paralysis or death.

Here are the examples of missed health care on which we base our calculations: Emergency stroke evaluations are down 40 percent. Of the 650,000 cancer patients receiving chemotherapy in the United States, an estimated half are missing their treatments. Of the 150,000 new cancer cases typically discovered each month in the U.S., most – as elsewhere in the world – are not being diagnosed, and two-thirds to three-fourths of routine cancer screenings are not happening because of shutdown policies and fear among the population. Nearly 85 percent fewer living-donor transplants are occurring now, compared to the same period last year. In addition, more than half of childhood vaccinations are not being performed, setting up the potential of a massive future health disaster.

The implications of treatment delays for situations other than COVID-19 result in 8,000 U.S. deaths per month of the shutdown, or about 120,000 years of remaining life. Missed strokes contribute an additional loss of 100,000 years of life for each month; late cancer diagnoses lose 250,000 years of remaining life for each month; missing living-donor transplants, another 5,000 years of life per month — and, if even 10 percent of vaccinations are not done, the result is an additional 24,000 years of life lost each month.

These unintended consequences of missed health care amount to more than 500,000 lost years of life per month, not including all the other known skipped care.

If we only consider unemployment-related fatalities from the economic shutdown, that would total at least an additional 7,200 lives per month. Assuming these deaths occur proportionally across the ages of current U.S. mortality data, and equally among men and women, this amounts to more than 200,000 lost years of life for each month of the economic shutdown.

In comparison, COVID-19 fatalities have fallen disproportionately on the elderly, particularly in nursing homes, and those with co-morbidities. Based on the expected remaining lifetimes of these COVID-19 patients, and given that 40 percent of deaths are in nursing homes, the disease has been responsible for 800,000 lost years of life so far. Considering only the losses of life from missed health care and unemployment due solely to the lockdown policy, we conservatively estimate that the national lockdown is responsible for at least 700,000 lost years of life every month, or about 1.5 million so far — already far surpassing the COVID-19 total.

Policymakers combatting the effects of COVID-19 must recognize and consider the full impact of their decisions. They need to be aware of the devastating effects in terms of lost life from shutting down significant parts of the economy. The belated acknowledgement by policy leaders of irreparable harms from the lockdown is not nearly enough. They need to emphatically and widely inform the public of these serious consequences and reassure them of their concern for all human life by strongly articulating the rationale for reopening society.

To end the loss of life from the economic lockdown, businesses as well as K-12 schools, public transportation, parks and beaches should smartly reopen with enhanced hygiene and science-based protection warnings for any in the high-risk population. For most of the country, that reopening should occur now, without any unnecessary fear-based restrictions, many of which repeat the error of disregarding the evidence. By following a thoughtful analysis that finally recognizes all available actions and their consequences, we can save millions of years of American life.

When the next pandemic inevitably arises, we need to remember these lessons and follow policies that consider the lives of all Americans from the outset.

32 comments:

  1. predisent Dotard: ...we had to close our country -- we had to close our economy. ...I had to turn it off to get to a point where we are today.

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  2. I don't agree with everything DJT does. I've said before, this was his mistake... listening to Fauci. A leader needs to be willing to send his troops into battle where people will die. Sometimes it will be for naught. This is the burden of "leadership".

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  3. Truman was famous for saying, "The buck stops here". Too many citizens today think that it doesn't, and won't follow their leaders orders. That is NOT a good situation. But if you want to hide under your bed and not go to work because of Covid, that should be YOUR problem, not the President's.

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  4. Dotard is the leader of enemy forces waging war upon the American people and the American economy. Allow the virus to spread by ignoring it (and pretending it would go away) for months, then destroy the economy though lockdowns before opening prematurely. That way we get both economic calamity and an unnecessarily high death toll. He may as well be taking orders from Putin (if he isn't). Now the Senate republicans are refusing to pass legislation to prevent millions from becoming homeless, likely plunging us into a depression. #WorstPresidentEver

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  5. The MSM is the leading force killing the American economy, not China. or Putin. Want to place blame? Look in the mirror!

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  6. I just looked in the mirror -- I didn't see Dotard's face. Not that I was expecting to, but you assured me I would.

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  7. How could you see your mirror from under your bed, where you're hiding from the Covid virus?

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  8. I'm not hiding. I'm living my life pretty much as normal.

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  9. Social distancing is normal for you? Franco must have been right vis your halitosis!

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  10. btw - Did you know that Chronic Lower Respiratory Disease is the 4th largest killer of Americans every year (160k)? They say that Covid will make the top 10 list this year. I't'll also be interesting to hear what CLRD's rating falls to... or if it even makes the top ten list this year. Funny that, eh?

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  11. I have never met that asshole. He knows nothing about things we'd have to meet in person for him to know. He knows no one who knows me either. Besides, he explained that it's a metaphor. The TRUTHS I tell about Dotard are, to him, like someone with halitosis speaking. Even though he's reading. The guy is an idiot. Even more so than you. You criticize Shaw because she doesn't want you to publish your BS on her blog, but what about Franco? I tried to comment on his blog, but he just deletes what I write.

    As for covid killing people being funny, don't you think whatever numbers are released, they'll be a "hoax"? Isn't the pandemic over? Even though Dotard hasn't announced the end of the pandemic... yet. I assume you think he will... soon. But WHEN? What's he waiting for? If it's over he should be announcing it daily and loudly. If it's a hoax and he's going along with the hoax -- then he's a part of the problem (as you wrongly perceive it).

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  12. Does Franco impersonate and modify/ re-write your posts and then attribute the changed comments to you?

    THAT is what I criticize pShaw for. She takes dishonesty to the NEXT level.

    As for the "Excess deaths" reported by the CDC, I have no problem a with them all being attributed to Covid. But please, today's report of 2,000 deaths in a 24 hour period? Please. Reclassifying deaths from 2 months ago as Covid and reporting them all on a single day for "shock effect" is just stupid.

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  13. This is the extent of the Covid problem... and this problem is rapidly disappearing on its' own as anyone with half a functioning brain can see..

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  14. From the page you linked to: "Excess deaths are typically defined as the difference between the observed numbers of deaths in specific time periods and expected numbers of deaths in the same time periods".

    "Reclassifying deaths from 2 months ago as Covid and reporting them all on a single day".

    As per the previous article you posted, "In Florida, the deaths announced on a given day could be from several days earlier because the state information does not include the exact date of death".

    It says several days earlier, not 2 months earlier. btw, these people did died. And, as per the comment you just made "I have no problem a with them all being attributed to Covid". FYI, Florida has a republican governor. If he wants the exact day reported, I think he could do something about it. Is Ron DeSantis in on the hoax that's dragging down his own approval ratings?

    btw, there is no "p" in front of Shaw's blogger ID. In any case, she runs her blog how she sees fit. I admit I wouldn't like it if a comment I wrote was rewritten and attributed to me. But that has never happened to me on Shaw's blog. Clearly she doesn't want you commenting on her blog. Her chosen tactic seems to work.

    Franco tries to get commenters to leave a blog that is't his to control via viscous and disgusting ad hominem (absurd and fantastical fabrications). I think you can guess which one I view as worse. Significantly worse.

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  15. pShaw doesn't engage in ad hominem? Who knew?

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  16. I attached qualifiers to "ad hominem". Her ad hominem is incredibly mild compared to Franco's.

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  17. Spoken as one who lives in a woke bubble and has never been the subject of it. You think being called "racist" isn't "vicious"?

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  18. It's truthful. Quite unlike Franco's disgusting lies -- which I have a legitimate right to be offended by. If being called out for writing something racist offends you -- don't do it. Although I realize that's not something you are able to do. Yet it's hardly someone else's fault.

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  19. lol! Truthful only in the Nietzschean sense. Not in the truthfullness sense that exposes the racial aspects of criminality in America.

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  20. The comment you just made is racist :(

    btw, if my pointing out your racism is "vicious", why does almost every comment of your's include an "LOL"? My "viciousness" doesn't seem to bother you in the least. In fact, I'd say the PURPOSE of your last comment was to see if you could get me to call you out.

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  21. Blacks aren't convicted of violent crimes more often and in disproportionate numbers that whites? Who knew that knowledge of proven facts made one a racist?

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  22. Are these statistics lies developed to impugn the morality of African Americans? If so, why does the government print them?

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  23. Is it sexist to state that males have a higher criminality than females?

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  24. Your "solution" to the problem = more police brutality, public whipping and branding. aka fear will keep the low IQ criminally-inclined Blacks in line.

    Real solution that would work = anti-poverty programs, community policing, school funding not based on property taxes, etc.

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  25. How's that working out for all the rioters on Chicago's Magnificent Mile? lol!

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  26. National Institute of Justice: Sending an individual convicted of a crime to prison isn't a very effective way to deter crime. Prisons are good for punishing criminals and keeping them off the street, but prison sentences (particularly long sentences) are unlikely to deter future crime. Prisons actually may have the opposite effect: Inmates learn more effective crime strategies from each other, and time spent in prison may desensitize many to the threat of future imprisonment.

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  27. Punishment alone is fine with me. :)

    btw - If there off the street, are they committing future crimes? lol!

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  28. Because your preference is to see people cycling in and out of prison? That seems pretty stupid to me. Also a lot more expensive. If a private prison industry can make money, that's great with you? Apparently Dotard agrees. FYI, most people who spend time in prison eventually get out. The US already has the largest prison population in the world. You think it should be even larger?

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  29. Like I've said before, I'm all for saving the taxpayer a buck and bringing back Colonial Justice ie-corporal punishment/pillorying/branding.

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