We are all concerned about both the effects of distancing during the Covid threat and the effects of keeping society, the economy, and schools closed.
We’re in new territory. No one knows the answers, and we are all justifiably concerned about the positive and negative aspects of practically any course of action we take.
I thought I would try to quantify the difference of deaths in opening vs keeping society closed, and so I made up a spreadsheet that takes some educated guesses and compares deaths based on opening society, the economy, and schools as opposed to keeping the economy and schools mostly closed.
Currently the US has a population of roughly 330 million. Of those who catch Covid, about 4% become seriously ill and currently about ½ of 1% die. And we also know that about 80% of those who die are over 60 years old.
If we fully open society, and roughly half the population catches Covid, we should expect that about 825,000 people will die. That’s 0.25% of our population. Of those who die, if 80% are over 60, then about 660,000 people over 60 will die, which is just under 1% of the over 60 population. Those over 60 who catch Covid will have just under a 2% chance of dying (1.76% in this simulation).
| Open Economy | Closed Economy | |
| Total Population | 330,000,000 | 330,000,000 |
| People not infected | 165,000,000 | 297,000,000 |
| Infected, not serious | 157,575,000 | 31,515,000 |
| Seriously ill, but live | 6,600,000 | 1,320,000 |
| Number of people who die | 825,000 | 165,000 |
| Over 60 population | 75,000,000 | 75,000,000 |
| Over 60, not infected | 37,500,000 | 67,500,000 |
| Over 60 Infected, but live | 36,840,000 | 7,467,000 |
| Number of Over 60 who die | 660,000 | 132,000 |
We can’t compare this to zero, because even if we try to shut things down, some people will still catch the disease. If we said that instead of 50%, just 10% catch the disease if we shut down, then instead of 825,000 deaths, there will be 165,000. Those are big numbers, but it means that instead of 0.25% of the population dying, 0.05% will; both very small percentages.
Here is a link to the spreadsheet with assumptions. You can copy it to your own drive or download it to your computer if you want to play with your own assumptions.
No one wants to sentence innocent people to death, but I can see reasonable people disagreeing on the extent of shutdown based on these figures. Some will say that losing ¼ of 1% of the population is a reasonable price to pay for the benefits of being able to socialize, work and learn face to face.
Others can point out that 825,000 people is too high a price, and we should wait a year until we have a vaccine. Some might focus on at-risk groups, that losing almost 1% of our over 60 population is especially steep, and suggest less stringent policies and procedures that protect those who are most vulnerable.
Some will say that assuming 50% will contract Covid is too high, or two low. Anyone can point out that there are other groups at risk, those with respiratory issues, or that the risks more often fall on the poor or on people of color, and so we shouldn’t be talking just about aggregate numbers or only segmenting out those over 60.
There are a lot of trade-offs. People are going to die, and people are going to die from Covid no matter what action we take. Having an idea of the numbers of people involved should make for better decision making than not having plausible dat. It then boils down to what tradeoffs of deaths vs benefits of opening, closing, or something in between are you comfortable making.