Hacker News Reader

Comment by steveeq1 | Hacker News Reader

Physical distancing is a costly measure. It would be economically cheaper for the young and healthy to self-infect and then self-quarantine. Their chances of dying or even hospitalization is basically a rounding error in that demographic. That way, they can't spread it to other people. Herd immunity should be accelerated, not decelerated.

The evidence so far seems to show that there is immunity to it after recovery (as well as the rest of the corona viruses). Immunity is not permanent, it last 6-18 months from what I understand.

Physical distancing is another alternative but is enormously expensive to the economy.

View on HN

Young people do die though and will with this.

Herd immunity without a vaccine is condemning thousands of people to die.

Young people can "die" from this in the same sense that they can also "die" from the flu. But the infection fatality rate is extremely low. Hell, we can start with the military, they are in great shape.

But my reasoning is that "condemning thousands of people to die" is the wrong way to look at it. You can look at it as "saving a million lives". Hell, by making driving legal "we are condemning 35,000 people to die every year". At a certain point, certain tradeoffs become reasonable.

There was an episode on Planet Money that ran cost benefit analysis and their conclusion was that it makes sense to lock down because just trying to get to herd immunity will cost more.

https://www.npr.org/2020/04/15/835571843/episode-991-lives-v...

So even by the standard of the argument you are making, it makes dollars and sense to lock down.

Some on this site seem to be ruthlessly selfish. They do not care about those who are at risk - and would rather rush back to the way things were.

It's ethically vile, and deserves nothing but spit.

That anyone will die should be reason enough to slow down and do the right thing. Covid-19 has revealed how thin some margins are for businesses we need to survive. Condemning the sick to die and going back to normal isn't just cruel and evil - it's shortsighted and foolish.

We need to change.

But some economic tradeoffs are viable. For instance, 35,000 people will die every year as tradeoff for the convenience for driving.

You first dude.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com