The average COVID-19 death in Italy is 78 years old and sick.
The average hunger death is going to be young, otherwise healthy, and in the developing world (likely somewhere in sub-saharan Africa).
You can draw your own measures, but I would not personally weight these lives saved equally. I would personally throw several 78 year olds under the COVID-bus to save the life of one young child. I think most people would draw similar lines.
> The first thing that jumps out from the medical history section of Table 1 is that 93% of those critically ill with COVID-19 were “able to live without assistance in daily activities” prior to developing the disease. That typically suggests reasonable health. 3/8
> Secondly, just 7% of 2,124 intensive care admissions had “very severe comorbidities”. That’s significantly less than typical viral pneumonia patients (as illustrated in table 1)
> So 19 out of 20 were free of the most severe life-limiting conditions. 4/8
> Lastly, for now, the age distribution. Most critical cases are aged between 50 and 80.
> People of this age, without severe comorbidities, could reasonably have expected to have years of life ahead of them before they contracted this disease. 5/8
Not making any comments on the rest of your points, but I have to heavily disagree with this one. Sure, people who have cardiovascular and heart issues, diabetes, asthma, etc. are all "able to live without assistance in daily activities". That doesn't suggest reasonable health to me at all, it just tells me that they are able to live their lives without a caretaker by their side.
And data from Italy suggests that over 99% of the people who died from COVID had existing conditions like those[0].
0. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-18/99-of-tho...
They need to be intentional choices, with an understanding of the costs, where the costs are often paid by people we don't see or frequently think about.