Ulysses wrote: ↑Sat Jul 25, 2020 7:33 am
O Really wrote: ↑Sat Jul 25, 2020 1:38 am
It's the weekend in the northwest boondocks. Two neighbouring rigs showed up and are set up for guests, and at each one, there are about 8-10 people with their heads close together over their food, hugging, high-fiving, not a mask to be seen or any remote effort at distancing. When they're through, some will leave, but they'll still stuff more people into the coaches than they were designed to sleep. This is what causes about 25% of outbreaks, behind only bars and only slightly ahead of church events. We're not ever going to get out of this mess.
So when is the average human life expectancy going to drop to, say, 60?
Interesting question, and an answer would depend on whether "life expectancy" means the average age at which a person croaks or the typical age one might be expected to live. Lady O and I like to wander in old cemetaries - really old, like with American revolution people in the US, and you find a surprising number of people who lived well into their 80's or so, but a larger number of people who died much younger - including kids, women in childbirth age, war veterans, etc. So if you have a lot of people dying young, it will bring down the life expectancy on average, but anybody who manages to live to, say, 45 or so has a good chance of living to 80.
The covid does kill off more old people than young ones, but that wouldn't bring down the life expectancy because they're already old. "Hey, we told you you could expect to live to 75 and here you are at 75. Don't be picky about what kills you, it could be worse than covid." However, it's now the 20-40 age people who are getting the most infections and even if they aren't dying in the number of the geezers, many will develop long-term issues from the covid and shorten their lives. So if we're going with the average for life expectancy, and younger people keep being idiots over not taking reasonable precautions to avoid covid, then life expectancy should indeed start to drop.
On the other hand, if those bringing down the average are Republicans who don't allow for proven ways of controlling the virus or people who just insist on assembling in big groups and partying like it was 1999, then it's not much loss.
