In my first post, I outlined what I thought would be the worst case if there was 100% exposure and it followed the rules of normal distribution (the easiest distribution rules). 8.234 million people could theoretically die in the US in that situation - yes that is massively overstated. I seriously doubt 1 million unless this becomes annualized/seasonalized like the flu. The last several paragraphs of this post are more interesting to me.
This post I say "so what" if these people die. Is the "cure" (which is not a cure but, best case scenario of delaying of the inevitable) worth it? I say definitely not.
Question 1: What is a human life worth
- This can only be answered in monetary terms (no "soft" feeling BS).
- The EPA stated the value of human life at around $10 million a few years ago. However, they did not adjust for human life depreciation. This supposedly was determined like the theoretical valuation of stocks - the sum present value of all future cashflows. I value life at far less (and many people dying in this "pandemic" have near zero or negative value.)
* So EPA estimates... $10 million and my totally unrealistic high end - $82.34 trillion
If the number of deaths would be 200,000 or so - total value $2 trillion. This does not take into account life value depreciation or non fatal health care costs.
The reality of value would be a nightmare to compute. Here is what I would propose... the value of life is spread over years 18-72 (basically 54 "productive years"). Outside that range the value is zero or negative (if net drain on the economy - like social security/medicare).
Ok, the Present value of an annuity for: 54 years, at 3% discount rate, 50,000 per year - is about $1.328 million. So, life may be worth that much (not anywhere close to the EPA rate). My college finance professors would really dislike where i'm going to take this (and how I do)...
I could probably calculate this (but let's just spitball it a little - for my ease of use). At 18, your life (according to me could be worth $1.328 million dollars or roughly 24,592 a year). I know that would be wrong and you should use present values and the like, but remember i'm just spit-balling this. If you were 70 years old, I would value your life at $48,984. That is quite a spread. If you were 73, I would value your life as zero or negative.
According to the CDC https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6912e2.htm, 80% of deaths occured in the 65+ range. Assuming those rates hold, as of March 29, 2020 - 1,950 deaths out of 2,438 were in the 65+ range. Assuming the low end of range for everyone, I would put the value of those lives lost at about 335.68 Million. At the highest level of worth, the rest of the fatalities would be worth about 648.064 million. The total value (actually it is less) I would put on this is about $983.74 million.
A complete shutdown of the country would cost about $56.136 billion dollars a day (based off of 2019 GDP). A 40% shutdown of the economy is about $33.68 billion dollars a day. A 14 day partial shutdown (at 40%) will cost the US economy about $314.38 billion. The value of lives lost is under $1 billion.
Now, I didn't include the cost of hospitalization and the like. But, i am making an argument that the government shutdown (not to minimize the outbreak, but to slow it slightly) is costing the country economically vastly more than the value of lives "saved" (which will be zero long term) by the governmental shutdowns.
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