> If you were put in charge, how would you formulate policy for managing a resource-constrained health system?
I would delegate those decisions to healthcare subject matter experts. I'm not qualified to make those sorts of decisions. Neither are politicians, economists, or statisticians on their own.
It is a big, complicated subject and just being generally clever isn't enough to qualify someone for that type of thing.
> Have you seen the excess deaths data for Europe 2020-2022?
I had not, and it's concerning.
I don't think it automatically counts as proof that covid interventions did more harm than the disease though. For example, I've seen other papers that suggest excess deaths are actually proof that covid deaths were wildly underreported, especially early on.
That and the paper you linked earlier are certainly enough to suggest we need more research to determine which interventions worked, and which didn't, with greater certainty. This won't be the last pandemic.
I may fully read the book by the statistician you cited earlier. I think he touches on the subject of those excess deaths a bit.
> I would delegate those decisions to healthcare subject matter experts. I'm not qualified to make those sorts of decisions. Neither are politicians, economists, or statisticians on their own.
Like the UK NHS's NICE?
"The UK’s National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) is responsible for conducting health technology assessment (HTA) on behalf of the National Health Service (NHS). In seeking to justify its recommendations to the NHS about which technologies to fund, NICE claims to adopt two complementary ethical frameworks, one procedural—accountability for reasonableness (AfR)—and one substantive—an ‘ethics of opportunity costs’ (EOC) that rests primarily on the notion of allocative efficiency."[0]
"NICE’s use of ICERs, quality-adjusted life-years (QALYs) and the cost-effectiveness threshold as its preferred tools for decision-making, with some allowance for relevant social and ethical values, has been consistent since the institute’s inception"[0]
and as Karol Sikora said: "QALY [is] not a perfect metric, but it’s the best we’ve got"
"[NICE] guidelines are based on the best available evidence. Our recommendations are put together by experts, people using services, carers and the public"[1][2]
Sounds not unlike what you suggested ... and yet they've consistently used 'value for money' measures such as QALY.
Systems like this are necessary primarily because these programs are given lower priority than other government spending. If I were in charge the queen would've been buried in a pine box, and the money wasted on her funeral would've gone towards life saving medical treatments.
Any system that prioritizes anything above human health is fundamentally broken, and that's not the SME's fault.
That said, the world is finite and tough decisions do still need to be made. In those cases I would defer to the SME's. If they still thought a system like the above was necessary after being fully funded I would accept that, despite it being distasteful to me.
Cause of deaths is not described. If vaccines works, why productive population still dies in high numbers during winters? Why elders are dying in same numbers?
Covid is not threat for healthy 15-44y individuals. Do we have overcrowded hospitals full of people hooked to oxygen? Did you recently hear about unexpected deaths, rapid cancers, increased suicides or myocarditis among productive generation?
Per statistic in my country, there was 0.16% deaths to my age (mid 30's) with positive PCR test during death (not necessary mean it was cause of death, there was confirmed cases when cause of death was car crash).
I personally don't know anyone, who was healthy and suddenly die because of covid and neither does anyone I ask. Most victims of covid have another comorbidities.
However I know many people (7) injured (including my family) by vaccination and 2 dead. I consulted this anecdotal evidence with my doctor and he observed similar event on his patients (around 2000 people).
- Both count as a serious threat to me.
If people that you disagree with count serious threat for you, you should probably find serious help.
> However I know many people (7) injured (including my family) by vaccination and 2 dead. I consulted this anecdotal evidence with my doctor and he observed similar event on his patients (around 2000 people).
Here's the thing... I don't believe you. It's not personal, it's just that you are making claims that are contrary to the evidence and have nothing to back them except an anonymous anecdote on the internet.
If deaths were occuring at that rate it would be devastating and obvious. Nobody could begin to hide it. What you describe are far worse outcomes than COVID itself, but we don't have enough corpses for it to have actually happened. Additionally the timing doesn't work out.
As of March 2023 13 BILLION covid vaccine doses had been given. If it had the same mortality rate as COVID itself (39 per 100,000/ the vaccine would have killed an additional 5,070,000 people, but it didn't. There aren't that many dead, and that's ignoring the disabled completely.
Sooo... If it did have side effects they were less dangerous than the disease itself. It's just math, and not even tough math.
I believe that you believe it, and I can respect that it is important to you, but I prefer science and the consensus among scientists and doctors is that you are wildly off base.
> If people that you disagree with count serious threat for you, you should probably find serious help.
I think I didn't say that clearly. I was saying that the virus doubling the risk of death and making people stupid is a serious threat.
That said, vaccine scepticism has killed a lot of people. So yes, it is a threat to all mankind.
Just answer honestly few questions. How many healthy people that died because of covid do you know personaly? How many vaccinated individuals that got covid do you personally know? Ask this questions among your family and friends and discuss it openly.
I don't know where are you from, but you can check statistics about mortality by age in your country.
Speaking about side effects of vaccines, there are plenty studies monitoring it. If you believe in science as you wrote, read it carefuly:
- Massari M. et al: Postmarketing active surveillance of myokarditis and pericarditis following vaccination with COVID-19 mRNA vaccines in persons aged 12 to 39 years in Italy: A multi-database, self-controlled case series study
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34849657/
That's a laudable view.
If you were put in charge, how would you formulate policy for managing a resource-constrained health system?
> I see it as absolute proof that we made the right decisions, or at least something close to the right decisions
Have you seen the excess deaths data for Europe 2020-2022?
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Fqb9qDsWAAELo-m?format=jpg&name=...
[EDIT: changed to the English version...]