University of Pennsylvania Model Projects 233,000 Additional Deaths From Reopening

I hadn’t seen this model.

Yahoo:

“New data from the University of Pennsylvania suggests that relaxing lockdowns across U.S. cities and states could have serious consequences for the country’s battle to contain the coronavirus, which has infected over a million people while killing more than 66,000 people.

According to the Penn Wharton Budget Model (PWBM), reopening states will result in an additional 233,000 deaths from the virus — even if states don’t reopen at all and with social distancing rules in place. This means that if the states were to reopen, 350,000 people in total would die from coronavirus by the end of June, the study found.

Kent Smetters, the PWBM’s director, said the decision to reopen states is ultimately a “normative judgement that comes down to the statistical value of life.”

He explained: “That’s not a crude way of saying we put a dollar value on life, but it’s the idea that people will take risks all the time for economic reward.”

That figure far surpasses estimates and models that the White House has cited from the University of Washington, which put the death toll at roughly 73,000 by the start of August. …”

Yikes.

I’m not taking any position on it. I will just say it is a bold prediction. Click on “full” under policy scenario and “reduced distancing” under behavior scenario.

Note: Is it really that bad, doc?

Could enough elderly White voters die from coronavirus before November to swing entire states in the 2020 election? I’ve heard the death rate is like 15% for seniors.

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11 Comments

  1. This whole disaster could have been prevented by putting everyone who tested positive in the Hospital for Free for 14 days. Isolation. Oh but that never happened….instead everybody is sent home and it spreads to family members. That’s the reason the numbers are so high. The Capitalist Pig Medical Industrial Complex caused the spike in numbers….it’s time it all ends and we have Universal Health Care and Universal Basic Income so this whole nightmare can end! Deo Vindice !

    • That’s making the grand assumption that test kits were available, they weren’t.
      How do you do tests, without test kits ?

  2. Nothing has changed between March and now regarding the virus. It is still just as transmissible. Treatment is not significantly better, so it is still just about as lethal.

    The US government just isn’t willing to suspend debt payments and rents, like less corrupt governments have done, so the states have decided to reopen and “let ‘er rip.” Feeding the parasite is the top priority of American policy. And the American people who could be asking for suspensions on debts and rents have been well trained to not ask for “big government interventions” and “handouts.” Though the plutocrats that these same people worship seem to have no problem asking for them.

  3. Could enough elderly White voters die from coronavirus before November to swing entire states in the 2020 election?

    Very hard to say if this helps Trump or Biden. Both seem to be equally popular with the boomers.

  4. “Could enough elderly White voters die from coronavirus before November to swing entire states in the 2020 election? I’ve heard the death rate is like 15% for seniors.”

    Totally irrelevant at this point. Judging by social media, Chump is finished in 2020. Republicans will have to cheat in all swing states or pray Ms. Corona kills a fuckton of Democratic voters of color whilst leaving white boomers alone.

    Won’t happen.

    MAGAshits and the Dissident Shitwing are going down in 2020, no later than 2024.

    Bet on it.

    I look forward to it. There’s no forgiving or forgetting MAGAshit betrayal.

    • Hey, cheating is what the Demoncraps do best! Let the Recucks lose with submissive grace, like always.

      • I look forward to MAGAshit reactions following election day. If I’m wrong, which is not likely, then 2024 works just as well.

        In less than a decade:

        AR-15s and 5.56 mm ammunition will be banned, but without mass confiscation.
        “Implicitly white,” lower middle-class neighborhoods in flyover country diversified.
        “Conservative” judges impeached and removed
        Full-on social credit system implemented
        Dissident shitwing websites eliminated
        Examples made of shitwing blowhards
        And much, much more.

        All done, as always, under the veneer of civil legitimacy.

  5. Kent Smetters, the PWBM’s director, said the decision to reopen states is ultimately a “normative judgement that comes down to the statistical value of life.”

    Yes, that’s exactly my position.

    Some quick math. How much would more shutdown cost? Based on the decline in 1st quarter GDP, about a trillion dollars. $1,000,000,000,000 / 233,000 = $4,291,845 per person to prevent those deaths. And that ignores January, when very few people were even thinking about covid. So it could easily be twice that.

    Is it worth it?

    I’m not sure. As a one-off measure, I could probably justify it. But I’m totally repulsed by the idea of having to pay through nose year in, year out just because that might reduce a predicted death toll.

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