Quote:
Originally Posted by CaliNative
^^^
You say..."a year of life in one's 20s, 30s or 40s is worth more than one in their 80s". I'd take one Einstein or Mandela over a thousand ignorant and self absorbed 20 somethings. Life is precious for all, including those in their last years, and wisdom does come with age and experience. You would condemn your parents and grandparents to sickness and possible death? Don't you know that the key to opening up the economy (until vaccines and widely available therapeutics are available) is stamping out the virus by social distancing, masks and contact tracing? It has worked where it has been tried. New Zealand is now practically virus free. The economy will be depressed as long as the virus is spreading like a wild fire. And by the way, some under 40s ARE at risk from the virus. Plenty have been sickened and some have died. The long term effects of this disease are still unknown. Letting the virus run wild in a misguided attempt to get "herd immunity" would be a disaster for people and the economy.
We are all in this together, young and old. If this disease mainly attacked the young, as the 1918 "Spanish" flu apparently did, I would be in favor of all measures to contain it. Saying the lives of some are worth more than others, as you appear to do, is a path to be avoided.
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I disagree with pretty much all of this.
I’m not making a judgement between an Einstein and a regular Joe, which is a completely different debate about whether exceptional people’s lives are worth more than average (or below average) ones.
That regular Joe’s 30s are still worth more than his 80s. This isn’t even that controversial - an actuary or Britain’s own National Health Service would implicitly say the same thing when they ascribe a monetary value to a life.
Beyond simple enjoyment and realisation of potential (harmed significantly by Covid interrupting the educations, careers and social development of younger people), old people are generally retired, and so their activity has less importance for the economy. They tend to live in larger homes, and so can more easily cope with “stay at home” orders. They are more likely to be homebodies anyway, frankly. And they are the ones at risk.
The measures you mention have NOT worked where they have been tried - countries in Europe that had incredibly strict lockdowns in the spring are currently in a second wave. Sweden pursued “herd immunity” (while advising the elderly and vulnerable to protect themselves, which they did) and is not suffering from a second wave today. Their approach has been validated. New Zealand is a special case and is likely to have huge outbreaks whenever they open their borders again to foreign travel. And you place far too much faith in a vaccine.
They should not be ruining 2 years of everyone’s life in order to save mostly people in nursing homes with in most cases not much more than that left. The average age of people dying from Covid is greater than average life expectancy!