Hacker News Reader

Comment by _djo_ | Hacker News Reader

This is inaccurate. COVID-19 has been far deadlier than any of those already-devastating existing diseases and conditions in places like India, South Africa, and Brazil.

In South Africa for instance, COVID-19 killed more people in 2020 than HIV/AIDS or TB.

View on HN

HIV, malaria, and many other diseases endemic to the third world target people in the prime of life, wreaking havoc on families. By contrast, most (not all, but most) deaths from COVID are the elderly.

Any mention of this tends to bring on "how dare you say one life is more valuable than another" downvotes, but since this thread is considering economic impact, it's a relevant factor.

You're assuming developed world demographics in your answer, which isn't accurate for countries like South Africa with relatively young populations.

Fully one fifth of South Africa's COVID-19 deaths were in the 50-59 age bracket, which includes many key experienced and highly-skilled personnel.

Another ten percent were between 40 and 49.

Sure, 44% of those who died were 60+ but to assume that had less economic impact is also incorrect: In the most hard-hit areas many of the primary caregivers for children are in that age group as grandparents who were forced to care for their grandchildren after AIDS wiped out so many of their children. COVID-19 has now left many kids double-orphaned, first with the deaths of their parents from AIDS and now the deaths of their grandparents from COVID-19.

"By contrast, most (not all, but most) deaths from COVID are the elderly."

In the developed world. Are you sure that this is true in Africa?

Because if someone already has HIV or TBC, I can imagine Covid giving him the final push, even though the patient is only 35.

Personally I see a teenage suicide as a result of lockdown far more tragic than an 83 year old death from covid (that's the average age of Covid death in the UK. The average age of death in the UK is 82). 60+ years of life lost versus a maybe 2 or 3.

To be pedantic, the remaining life expectancy if an 82 year old in UK in 2019 was 7.5 years.

https://www.ons.gov.uk/file?uri=/peoplepopulationandcommunit...

And of course, cumulatively many more "life years" would be lost in a no-lockdown world.

But the real tragedy is you thinking stopping a real, deadly disease that affects millions of people isn't worth it because of a completely preventable death.

That's without taking into account other factors such as comorbidities.

Sebastian Rushworth did an interesting article on this, pointing out that it is likely wrong.

https://sebastianrushworth.com/2020/11/29/how-many-years-of-...

Stop with the suicide myth. The suicide rate actually decreased during the Covid pandemic. People are not killing themselves at greater rates because of lockdown.

For whoever downvoted this, here's a reference:

https://www.healthline.com/health-news/why-suicides-have-dec...

Even so, preliminary numbers where available seem to show the suicide rate to be falling. So in the loss-of-years calculation, all is quite fine actually...

https://www.politico.com/states/new-jersey/story/2020/08/13/...

New rule for news consumption: stories that present poll results for a period without a baseline for comparison are trying to mislead you. What portion of people between 18-24 contemplate suicide in a given year? Turn to substance use to cope with stress?

I know that I lived my life from 18-24 without any global pandemic lockdowns and both "contemplated" suicide at different points and used substances to cope with stress. I'd assume many others did as well.

Given that we know suicides didn't go up in 2020 the way the fearmongers said they would (they went down), what are you arguing for?

How do you weigh thirty year olds that can't work or take care of their kids because they have chronic fatigue after Covid? About 10% of the milder cases still aren't fully recovered after six months. About 10% of those suffer from chronic fatigue.

Can you give me a citation on the "10% of the milder COVID cases still are not recovered after 6 months"? I haven't found any good studies on this, and the "milder" in your sentence implies that you not only found research, but you found research that breaks it down by infection severity.

My google fu is failing me when I search for it though, so I would very much appreciate a link.

I read it in the news here https://www.tagesschau.de/inland/gesellschaft/longcovid-101.... (German unfortunately and no link to the original research...)

"Epidemiologische Studien zeigen, dass etwa zehn Prozent der ambulanten Patienten nach sechs Monaten unter Long Covid leiden. Von diesen Patienten sind wiederum zehn Prozent vom chronischen Fatigue-Syndrom betroffen, schätzen Wissenschaftler. "

At least the cited scientist is easy to Google, so you could ask her directly for the studies: https://solvecfs.org/carmen-scheibenbogen/

That those diseases have a lower death-count today is a consequence of the havoc they have brought historically and of the current disruption they cause in isolating the infected, vaccinations, necessary medications and hospital beds, etc.

In all likelyhood COVID-19 will go the way of the spanish flu (with or without vaccination only changes the time it takes) and become less of a problem due to partial immunity in the population. Most children will get it once, after which any reinfection by a similar strain will be mostly harmless.

So COVID-19 will maybe continue to be a problem for 3 or 4 years, but after that we will still be stuck with HIV, TB and others, where the outlook is not so rosy.

Isn't HIV mostly a solved problem nowadays? Genuine question.

Only in more developed countries where your medical insurance pays the bills. And even there it can wreak havoc on the public health insurance system due to the excessive cost of keeping HIV-positives alive.

Generally, HIV is "solved" by a lifelong treatment with antiretrovirals. Those are not free of side-effects, very expensive and not available everywhere. In many places in less-developed countries, antiretrovirals are simply unaffordable for those affected. And even if they are affordable, the recurrent cost of the drugs keeps them in a lifelong state of poverty and dependency. Society as a whole may finance those drugs, but at the cost of other necessary things of course. Also, some countries try to produce those drugs themselves on the cheap, getting them into hot water with the western patent lobby and preventing trade agreements and the like, damaging their economy.

And the epidemic itself is still ongoing, sometimes even fueled by infected people no longer caring, due to the availability of antiretrovirals that render AIDS "harmless".

All in all, HIV is still spreading, is still not cured, treatment is problematic and it still wreaks havoc. Maybe only a little less.

Your assertion lacks nuance

TB, AIDs and poor sanitation are killers, and more deadly.

but with the exception of a cholera outbreak, they are chronic. That is, take a long time.

Covid is acute and causes services to be overwhelmed, which causes higher mortality for everyone.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com