Someone please show me some studies that a depressed economy leads to markedly more suicides / an increase in the countries' mortality rate.

People keep saying this like it naturally follows, but I honestly don't believe it does.

It is an incredible hardship for some, I do get that. But I just don't think you are going to see mass suicide that is obviously just as bad as an uncontrolled pandemic.

Maybe we're all talking past each other, but I don't think those concerns are being made either in good faith or with accurate information other than anecdotal.

The protest in Minnesota looks like it was organized by Alex Jones. Lots of Fake Crisis signs.

Just do some googling. There's a lot of articles on the topic.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/recessi...merica-europe/


So what exactly is my ulterior motive for being concerned about the economy?

I'm concerned about the economy too. There is concern, and then there is "we have to stop the Covid mitigation efforts because the residual effects on the economy are too great". Which I believe is a misinformed take.

Those worldwide suicide numbers for 3 years across an economic downturn, we'll probably have that many people die in the US in the next couple of days from Covid-19. It's not a negligible number, but if we're talking about what makes mathematical sense, that's not it.

Not everybody who expresses these concerns was partying in Florida or is protesting lockdowns. But I feel like you and others are trying to group us all together. Why else is the Florida stuff relevant to that concern? I disagree with the Florida government if they want to open everything May 1 or whatever.

The studies I've seen on the Great Depression are all over the place, but one consistent theme running through them is that malnutrition led to increased deaths from heart issues. And suicides happened, and other types of deaths were decreased, etc. I don't want to get into the nuances of debating the Great Depression though, because that's really not the issue here. I was just using it as an example.

Recent examples are far better in most ways - the economic impact wasn't as severe in more recent downturns obviously -- because we have better data gathering, the economy more closely models the modern one, etc. Things are likely to be far worse now simply because of how society has advanced. Modern medicine keeps people alive longer in so many different ways; the overall death rate at early ages is far less than it used to be, people live longer, etc. We are also more dependent on the global economy, and so on.

Take the 2008 'great recession'. It is estimated that 10k extra suicides can be traced to that, worldwide (Oxford). That's tragic, but a relative drop in the bucket. However, the Imperial College - you know, same highly-respected researchers that produced the model saying we could have 4M deaths if we did nothing on coronavirus and got things moving in a lot of ways? They estimate that the GR resulted in half a million extra deaths from just cancer alone. In other words, roughly twice as many as died from the worst modern pandemic previous to this, H1N1/swine flu. Then you throw in other causes that would increase as well, and knock-on effects that we haven't yet anticipated, and the fact that this is going to be far worse than the great recession. In some ways, it already has been.

Sustaining life in the modern world at the standard of living we have grown accustomed to relies absolutely on the global economy running smoothly. The main point isn't to quibble over how many people will die because of it, other than to appreciate that the answer is a lot. Not just a few here and there. The cost in human lives is going to be huge, no matter what we do. The only thing we can do is try to find the best balance point for the least damage - there remains no good option.

So um, is it going to be #2 Cause of Death-level suicide we're talking about?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlo...g-cause-death/

(fwiw WaPo articles pertaining to virus coverage are not behind their paywall)

How are the numbers* going to compare to gun deaths, which some camps also seem to give very little care to?


* (the delta; Suicide as it's own category is probably greater than gun deaths, though there's kind of some overlap there)

Is "we have to continue COVID mitigation efforts and plan for a new economic reality" OK?

Where's the line where we can know someone is sincere?

Just saw a Charles Schwab commercial on CNBC on the pandemic. Schwab himself was talking and thought it was tastefully done. He mentioned polio epidemic so looked it up.

Polio epidemics were a reoccurring thing until early 50's when the vaccine was developed ... so at least from 1916 to early 50's. I wonder if the concern in the early days were same as now and they eventually accepted the new-normal.

History of polio - Wikipedia

I think that there are three 20th century inventions that changed the world so fundamentally that it is hard for us to really understand what society was like before then:

(1) Antibiotics
(2) The transistor
(3) The birth control pill

You read these history books set in the 1800s, and people had 10 kids, and 3 of them died of diseases in childhood that we would cure today with one trip to the pediatrician. And that was how it was. And I literally cannot imagine what that was like. Even when I try, I just can't.

I'd add air conditioning.

That is why it was a side note to the rest of this post. It was actually separate from my explanation of why I am leery of the reopening of Florida.

That is why I specifically said I am not making any accusations so as to not to make a blanket statement. That is specifically why I said I hope the concern for these issues continue after the lock down is over.

It is acknowledgement that the concern for the issues are higher than they usually are. I would like to see this level of concern be maintained after the lock downs are over.

It’s not just poverty that leads to it, it is the change in state. In my own family, my grandfather had a suicide attempt when he was going through a bankruptcy in the late 80s due to a bad business venture. My parents went through issues with alcohol dependency due to similar circumstances. That said, my family has also had issues with depression which magnify these issues.

Had a high school friend whose parents divorced because her father was having issues at work, he developed a gambling problem, which led to bankruptcy, alcoholism, etc.

Are these isolated circumstances? Sure, no argument, but two were within my family, and another in the family of a close friend. But the study for the numbers is more than looking at mental issues of those in poverty or well off, it is confined to those going through that change of state which is different and what leads to the fear that leads to the issue.

This is also something I never understood with my mom. She grew up extremely poor, and even going through a bankruptcy was still in much better shape than she was when growing up so what was the issue? But she was always waiting for the other shoe to drop where I am always thankful for what I have.

For realz? There are between 40-50k suicides per year in the US. Even an increase of 25% (Which would be a statistical outlier) would be a drop in the bucket. Nearly 40k have died of Covid-19 in a month and it may be underreported. Let's actually stop and think about numbers, we are of course, on a football sim board.

New cases look to be much lower than trend today, with deaths high again, above 2,500.

Well damn. I guess my BIL isn't worthless afterall.

Should ask him for a stock tip.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/busin...ls-may-follow/

Could just be Trump slowing testing down so we can ‘connect deaths to it. He is obviously trying to manipulate things to make it look like things are calming down when in fact deaths are now going up nationally. I am wondering if we hit 60k by May1?

It’s more than just suicides, you have addiction and other factors playing a role. In my case above, only one of the four mentioned attempted suicide. The other 3 had issues with addiction. Also, one of my grandmothers had depression, but she had that before their change in circumstances. This is limited and anecdotal, but it is why I am sensitive to the issue.

Also, I do not disagree with what we have done on this front, with quarantining, etc. However, in different areas we will be getting to the point where the benefit of the quarantine is outweighed by the economic impact. It might be next week, it might be 3 weeks, but there will be a point where the economic and societal impact is greater than the benefit.

One of the items I have been watching closely is the number of meat processing plants being closed due to the virus. How long before that begins to impact the amount of meat we see in grocery stores? I do not worry as much about vegetable plants because workers are not as densely packed as in meat plants and thus less susceptible to a virus outbreak.

Thinking about going to Kroger/Publix for first time in 2+ weeks. I'll have a mask and will practice social distancing.

It occurred to me as part of the "transition period" these stores (and like) should make available real-time info on how many customers are in the store at any given time.

Piggy backing, just coming back from Costco because of this (and our local supplier of cows does not have on ready for slaughter), and our. Costco was pretty limited in selection. There was some ground beef, a couple of roasts, and tenderloins. I picked up one of the last two ribeye roasts. There was some lamb and quite a bit of pork. I saw no chicken at all outside of 5e frozen section.

At first plant closures were not a big deal because of excess capacity and diversion to other plants, but as more plants close we are losing that flexibility.

We may hit it by next weekend at this rate.

It's pretty obvious with context for most when you can know their motivation. This board is having the most civil discussion of anywhere I've seen on the internet, no joke. I don't think anybody here is necessarily insincere. But I do think this idea that a prolonged economic downturn will make for more deaths than a quick conversion to what is essentially a herd immunity strategy is incorrect.

Agree with this 100%. It's getting ugly out there.

Yeah, in just about every board out there there is either so much vitriol that no discussion can take place or it's an echo chamber because having diverse opinions is banned.

These are very very tough questions. Trying to minimize sickness while keeping people's livelihoods afloat is incredibly hard. But most of us can agree that we should focus on health and economic well being.

Then there are these fuckers:

Jacksonville Beach reopened 26 minutes ago. This is a live picture. pic.twitter.com/tC6voQ3BAn

— Travis Akers (@travisakers) April 17, 2020

Married to a Vegan who plans all the meals, does all the grocery shopping and makes all the food. This doesn't stress me out one bit.

He had a nice little joke downthread:

Don’t worry folks. It’s just the Jacksonville Jaguars on the beach.

We know they can’t catch or pass anything.
— Travis Akers (@travisakers) April 18, 2020

SI

LOL thats flipping awesome.

THIS^^^


Thank you butter for putting this far more politely than I can. The people screaming at the storm about economic issues are not looking at this from a big picture angle, they have one focus, money and little else.

No. I kinda get it.

Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness is an old American mantra

Well, we may have the first right now, but a lot of people are missing the other two. It goes back to 9/11 and "If we hide, the terrorists will have already won".

Just that this isn't terrorism we're facing. It's a virus. It doesn't care whether we hide, or who we pray to. It just wants to spread.

I knew a girl like this once.

BA-DUM-BUM.....

People can be looking at the big picture and just come to a different conclusion than we do.

What’s the citation for that? Never saw it before.

A bored mom on Facebook probably

Did Lack of Social Distancing in 1918 Pandemic Cause More Deaths Than WWI?

Yeah the data I am looking at from Europe (one graph on Wikipedia for the UK, for example) show the second wave peaking at the end of October/start of November. Parades would not have started until 11/11, and most show the virus in decline after that (rather than spiking, which you would expect from parades).

That said, we do have the case of the parade in Philly, but again, that was during the war, not after.

I just like how they put it in quotes to make it seem legitimate.

I’m getting aggravated reading sources that claim armistice parades led to the increased spread of the virus when every chart I am finding shows it peaking before armistice day.if the armistice parades were responsible for the spread, the peak should be after 11/11.

Went to Kroger at 8am (7-8am was reserved for the frontline and pre-existing folks). Not a lot of folks there, my guess is 15-20 customers.

Pleasantly surprised. There was plenty of meats (more than a couple weeks ago) and stocked up for a just-in-case-BIL-warning. They removed the limits on eggs and milk. I found regular and bread flour. And to top it off, they had Bounty paper towels and Kroger brand toilet paper that "looked" good vs. el cheapo office brand (but that aisle was still pitiful). No hand sanitizers though (WTF is up with that). Lots of vegetables, fruits & bread.

All Kroger folks were wearing masks except for the cashier and bagging kid. There was a sign that said "please don't spray the keypad".

Don't know if my Sat 8am is typical but it was a good time for a grocery run.

So up till about a week ago, I thought the reason we weren't testing more was a capacity issue. I can't find any good quotes, just a variety of sources vaguely referencing 'WH health officials', but the reporting lately indicates that isn't the case and that we don't even have a good handle on why all the capacity isn't being used.

That's … really depressing, if true. It'd be depressing if we knew why and hadn't fixed it yet at this point, but not even understanding where the gaps are this late in game?

Much of what relative optimism I had went down the drain.

I was talking to a friend in the medical industry last night. She was going on about how the test for this has an error rate of 10%. The test was also dependent upon what the background rate was, meaning in our county of 235,000 people with only 93 cases, the test is useless unless many more people have it due to the margin of error. That made no sense to me at all. It came up because ?I was talking about figuring out a way I could get tested and she had said it was pointless where we live.

She was pissed no one was talking or reporting this because it is substantially higher than tests for other diseases. Also, for illnesses like strep, they can treat and there is no major downside treating a false positive for strep. The other problem is we are making policy decisions based upon lousy tests.

Hmm ... Can't speak to the US (CDC has a different Test than used in most of Europe), but as i understand it from a friend working with Covid Patients it is not that 'our' test is producing that many Errors (and 95% of those are false positives because it is calibrated so sensitively) but that you can simply miss the viral RNA with a swap.* Which is why over here people need 2 comsecutive daily negative tests to be released from hospital and quarantine is 14 days without exception, you don't do a test after 7 and can go out again (because then you needed 2 at least and those are needed elsewhere).

*Which also explains people Testing negative but the positive later re: 're-infection' cases in South Korea.

And in a way she is right. PCR Tests only make sense if you use them targeted. You just can't do an unlimited amount and test everybody as ressources are limited: You need people doing them, PPE for those, labs to work them and chemicals to process them (which are finite and need to be produced, same as masks).
Doing twice as many tests does not help if results take twice as long or you run out of ressources.

You test people with symptoms and ideally those in contacts with persons that tested positive or care homes with a positive or suspicion due to deaths.
Countries with very limited testing can only test those with pretty clear symptoms (France and UK, Italy/Spain early on) and a portion if healtcare professionals which is why they have 40% positives.
Germany or Austria test with much milder symptoms, many more contacts and healthcare workers. Which is why the rate of positives is under 10%. The more ressources, the more lenient the criteria for testing. But that can not be scaled up infinitely until a good antigen tests comes out.

Yeah, with the scope of the pharmaceutical (and related) Industries there is no way you should not be able to manage more than what Italy, Spain or Germany can manage now per capita rather than less. My guess is that the organisation is the issue ...


Gruesome reports coming out of Ecuador btw, the hardest hit province for the last 6 Weeks had 11k deaths where in previous years they had 3k. And the majority of those in April. The country has 421 official Covid19 deaths.

Ecuador's death rate soars as fears grow over scale of coronavirus crisis | World news | The Guardian

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/14/w...guayaquil.html

Gives a glimpse at how far off official numbers and the real toll will be and how devastating this thing can be in countries with a fraction of the ressources that we have available (and even here there will be major discrepancies and already there are with deaths outside hospital often not counted).

The major nations need to get their shit together as quickly as possible, because without their help the Rest of the World might be set back to a degree they might not recover from. And in the end this will hurt all of us, too.

From Molson's link:
There is a lot of truth in the above-displayed meme, for instance:

The majority of deaths during the 1918-19 pandemic occurred during the “second wave.”
More people died worldwide during this pandemic (50 to 100 million) than in all of World War I (about 20 million).
The end of WWI and subsequent military parades enabled a resurgence of influenza.
Generally speaking, there was an increase in influenza cases in places where social distancing rules were ignored.

However, the timeline presented in this meme is inaccurate and, contrary to what the text implies, the second wave of this pandemic was not fueled mainly by a lack of social distancing.

Unfortunately this study doesn't follow up with rates since that initial increase. In the county I work in, mental health issues and suicide rates have continued to go up even with the roaring national economy.

Additionally, I cant imagine the number of people who will lose loves ones from the virus will be helpful for mental health.

The total number of covid deaths is not the total number of people affected by the deaths. The people dying are fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, best friends, caretakers, mentors, teachers, etc. Gigantic increases in total deaths will have far greater negative effects than just those people that died

More and more Reports from within the medical community in Germany/Austria that damage to the lungs is significant even in mild cases and it being permanent becomes more and more likely as a possibility as you get further away from the period of illness and imagery of the lungs shows virtually no improvements for many patients with mild to moderate still struggling to 'catch their breath' over a month later.

Added to the growing indication of unusual damage during the illness to heart, kidney and even significant nerve damage including even many mild patients still not recovering their sense if smell/taste weeks after discharge.

I really hope that's just bad news being disproportionately spread and that the long-term effects are not actually that bad for a lot of people.

But if theses reports turn out to be true and the truth becomes known, it would put a real crimp in the plans of those telling us all to just get herd immunity.

Can you link to some reports?

Try lung damage or nerve damage as searchwords to get some articles, then you can take sources you trust :)
but the english language reports are a bit more vague from a quick search i had, clearest i heard it were TV/Radio Interviews over here with doctors. And for what it's worth both a friend i have working with Covid Patients now and another in Radiology are both pretty spooked ... Neither is a scientist, but both make a living judging the state of other peoples lungs ...

Might be that with the good grip on spread and fatalities there is more interest for doctors to concentrate on this over here and german media more kean to do Interviews on it ...