It will have been a year in a month and a half. We are currently at 1.33 million deaths. We are not going to have 3.7 million deaths in the next month. For why that won’t happen regardless of the amount of policy attention see https://thezvi.wordpress.com/.
I don’t follow. I know there won’t be 3.7M deaths in a month and a half, I’m arguing that without policies we would be at more than 1.33 million deaths and would plausibly end the year at more than 5M. If you disagree, could you point me to an article instead of the whole zvi website? I have no idea where to look.
We know COVID has a barrier to reinfection, so Covid is very unlikely to “circle the world for years”. Also the tobacco deaths are actually going to continue for decades, so this can’t be an argument for more marginal attention to Covid.
I didn’t say the deaths that would happend at the n’th time around the earth would all be as high. I meant to say that there would be deaths chronically as opposed to just from this year.
Tobacco will be around for decade
That’s a fair point. But I think you dismiss too easily the possibility for covid to stay around for years. There are still numerous unknown around animal reservoir also. So covid could plausibly, gently circle the earth several times per decade, reinfecting some houmans and infecting younglings etc. I have no competence to judge on this matter but I can’t see how that’s not to be taken into account.
Do you believe the marginal cost of preventing a Covid death is lower than the marginal cost of preventing a tobacco death? Why or why not?
I am terrible at this but my guess is that there is a diminishing return when trying to reduce tobacco below a certain threshold as (somewhat) opposed to covid where you need more ressources to completely erase it but if you do it’s done. Addiction cannot be that “easily” defeated given how diverse our psychiatric profiles are.
I don’t follow. I know there won’t be 3.7M deaths in a month and a half, I’m arguing that without policies we would be at more than 1.33 million deaths and would plausibly end the year at more than 5M. If you disagree, could you point me to an article instead of the whole zvi website? I have no idea where to look.
I didn’t say the deaths that would happend at the n’th time around the earth would all be as high. I meant to say that there would be deaths chronically as opposed to just from this year.
I am terrible at this but my guess is that there is a diminishing return when trying to reduce tobacco below a certain threshold as (somewhat) opposed to covid where you need more ressources to completely erase it but if you do it’s done. Addiction cannot be that “easily” defeated given how diverse our psychiatric profiles are.