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California Covid-19 traffic report finds silver lining

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Re: California Covid-19 traffic report finds silver lining

#91

Post by dragonwriter »

arcticbull wrote: post #53
JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not looking good. :( I guess I thought a lot more people than that died from car crashes.

I wonder if we'll see a big drop in flu deaths as overwhelmingly only the old and sick die of COVID, and those folks are at large risk from the flu also.

> I wonder if we'll see a big drop in flu deaths

The flu season overlapped with a period that included initial reports and fear of a novel respiratory disease and then historic, mandatory countermeasures (for the vast majority of the population) against communicable respiratory disease; it would be bizarre if there wasn't a big drop in flu deaths.

Re: California Covid-19 traffic report finds silver lining

#92

Post by PeterStuer »

dehrmann wrote: post #58
JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #2

I've been meaning to ask in /r/theydidthemath if the quarantine is actually reducing violent crime, car accidents, pollution, other infectious diseases, STDs, etc. so that we may come out break even or even ahead compared to covid deaths. Just trying to find the silver lining here.

I'm expecting knock-on mental health effects to be pretty bad.

Should at least be cushioned a bit by the absence of traffic noise and pollution related stress.

Would be nice to have the benefits of both: very little motorized traffic AND no viral threat. We have no control over the latter, but we most certainly have some control over the former.

Re: California Covid-19 traffic report finds silver lining

#93

Post by bdavis__ »

WD-42 wrote: post #88
dehrmann wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. For one, this situation has nothing to do with cars, so there's no obvious lesson about cars to be drawn from it. Accidents are relatively rare, and when you frame the headline, as another commenter did, as $1 per person-day, it's a lot less impressive. It's also not viable in a lot of places. Mass transit and living close to work, shopping, and services, is only viable in certain urban centers. NYC, DC, Boston,…

Funny you say accidents are rare. The death toll from covid in the US has just barely surpassed the amount of car related deaths per year in the US.

in 2 months. 1/6 of a year.

Re: California Covid-19 traffic report finds silver lining

#94

Post by rags2riches »

evandijk70 wrote: post #85
JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #2

I've been meaning to ask in /r/theydidthemath if the quarantine is actually reducing violent crime, car accidents, pollution, other infectious diseases, STDs, etc. so that we may come out break even or even ahead compared to covid deaths. Just trying to find the silver lining here.

At least in the Netherlands, definitely not: The first Figure in this article (Dutch) shows the number of deaths from any cause. https://nos.nl/artikel/2330786-oversterfte-door-corona-blijf... During the Corona outbreak, almost double the amount of people are dying compared to the same time last year.

There must be some sort of "flushing the pipeline" effect involved, provided that the virus kills the vulnerable to some extent. So I wonder how that will affect the numbers in the near future.

Re: California Covid-19 traffic report finds silver lining

#95

Post by jfoster »

afthonos wrote: post #67
hannob wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The more interesting question is: Will we come ahead in lives saved without the covid measurements. Because it tells a very interesting story how many lives we're willing to accept to be lost in normal circumstances. Cars, air pollution, avoidable infections, ... - there's a lot of harm society could avoid and doesn't.

Those are unfortunately baked into our accounting, much like “killed by bandits” was accounted for in medieval trade until states started being able and willing to provide meaningful security.

But the assumptions in many of them were made a long time ago and don't necessarily apply anymore. In the case of air pollution for example, there probably exists a price that could be paid to significantly reduce it and improve the overall health of everyone.

Re: California Covid-19 traffic report finds silver lining

#96

Post by eropple »

3fe9a03ccd14ca5 wrote: post #84
qplex wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Just trying to find the silver lining here. Oh, we could pretty much save the planet and live happily ever after if we could keep it like this. Only to find some rock barreling down on us some day, but ah... I digress.

Ignore the skyrocketing rates of suicide, domestic violence, and child abuse.

Source?

Re: California Covid-19 traffic report finds silver lining

#97

Post by jacobwilliamroy »

JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #2

I've been meaning to ask in /r/theydidthemath if the quarantine is actually reducing violent crime, car accidents, pollution, other infectious diseases, STDs, etc. so that we may come out break even or even ahead compared to covid deaths. Just trying to find the silver lining here.

Violent crime should increase. Most violent crime is domestic abuse. Now all of America's abusive parents are out of work, stuck at home with their kids who are also stuck at home. So I think the pandemic will lead to more violent crimes in the household, at least. Dunno how other parts or life will be affected.

Re: California Covid-19 traffic report finds silver lining

#98

Post by arcticbull »

Exmoor wrote: post #86
lisper wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> your risk of dying from a COVID infection is 0.37% I'm 55 so I'm pretty sure my risk is higher than that. Also, the covid risk is highly front-loaded. If I'm gong to die from covid, I'm likely to do so now whereas if I'm going to die in a car crash that might happen now or it might happen later. I don't really care about dying per se. Sooner or later it's going to happen. What I care about is dying sooner and more…

Your risk of dying is, accepting the 0.37% for the sake of argument, 0.37% if you're infected . The actual chance of anyone, even of someone in a more dangerous demographic, of dying of Covid in their lifetime is significantly lower than that. Additionally, I believe the 1% chance of dying in a car crash is over the course of a lifetime. A 55 year old has likely lived well over half their life and has also aged past…

> Your risk of dying is, accepting the 0.37% for the sake of argument, 0.37% if you're infected. The actual chance of anyone, even of someone in a more dangerous demographic, of dying of Covid in their lifetime is significantly lower than that.

I personally believe that given the R0 and the large number of asymptomatic cases, there's no putting this genie back in the bag, and I agree with prominent epidemiologists that we're all going to get it one way or the other -- because nobody's going to stay inside the 18 months it'll take to develop a widespread vaccine. That's why I support Sweden's model. [1] So I just rounded up to 100% and projected out.

> Additionally, I believe the 1% chance of dying in a car crash is over the course of a lifetime. A 55 year old has likely lived well over half their life and has also aged past a significant chunk of the riskiest time to be in a car (likely 16-30).

Good point! I wonder if it's a bimodal distribution. I assume older folks can't get out of the way fast enough as pedestrians and are more likely to get into accidents when driving.

[1] https://thehill.com/changing-america/well-being/prevention-c...

Re: California Covid-19 traffic report finds silver lining

#99

Post by lukevdp »

rags2riches wrote: post #94
evandijk70 wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least in the Netherlands, definitely not: The first Figure in this article (Dutch) shows the number of deaths from any cause. https://nos.nl/artikel/2330786-oversterfte-door-corona-blijf... During the Corona outbreak, almost double the amount of people are dying compared to the same time last year.

There must be some sort of "flushing the pipeline" effect involved, provided that the virus kills the vulnerable to some extent. So I wonder how that will affect the numbers in the near future.

My guess is it will slip to slightly below the norm after the pandemic has passed. There are still a lot of people dying that had many years of life ahead of them.

Re: California Covid-19 traffic report finds silver lining

#100

Post by Taniwha »

JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #2

I've been meaning to ask in /r/theydidthemath if the quarantine is actually reducing violent crime, car accidents, pollution, other infectious diseases, STDs, etc. so that we may come out break even or even ahead compared to covid deaths. Just trying to find the silver lining here.

I think it depends on the country, here in New Zealand we locked down early, and hard - we've only had 12 deaths - but the reduction in the road toll in the same time is roughly 20-30 so yes we're technically ahead on the deal.

Generally though, covid deaths go up exponentially while road tolls likely don't go down the same way, our trade off is probably only likely if you get in early.

In other news we're likely taking the first step of getting out of out ~1 month lock down later this coming week - our idea of getting out has been described as "lockdown with KFC", roughly equivalent to California's

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