What is the value of a life?

Let me preface this post by reviewing site policy on the Coronavirus. I don't mind scientific-based discussion about it, even if not directly gambling related. However, the rule against political statements is still enforced. Granted, this can be a fine line. Any post with the name of a political party of the name of any politician is probably going to cross the "political statement" line.

That said, in answering the question about how quickly to re-open, I got to wondering what a life is worth, at least based on lives lost vs. economic wealth lost. Here are some statistics:

• Gross domestic product in 2019 = 21.43 trillion. Source: Bureau of Economic Analysis)
• Expected drop in 2020 GDP = 5.8% (Source: Kiplinger)
• Increase in GDP in 2019 = 2.3% (source: The Balance)
• CV deaths as of June 21 = 122,247 (Worldometer).
• CV deaths as of June 14 = 117,858 (Worldometer).
• CV cases as of June 21 = 2,356,657 (Worldometer).

If we assume the economic cost of the CV in 2020 is the difference between 2019 growth and the projected 2020 decline, that is a drop of 8.1%. Compared to the entire 21.43 trillion size of the GDP, that is a drop of 1.736 trillion.

At the current rate, there are 627 CV deaths per day. If we consider the 122,247 deaths thus far and assume that same rate the rest of the year, we would be at 242,631 deaths by the end of 2020. However, the death rate is decreasing slowly. To just pull a number out of thin air, let's cut future deaths by 50%, to account for the decreasing death rate. That would give us 182,439 deaths in 2020.

Dividing the cost of 1.736 trillion by 182,439 deaths, we get lost economic value per death of 9.5 million.

This does not consider that the deaths are not random people, but generally older and sicker. It also does not consider the cost of people who get CV and survive.

What do you think? The question for the poll is what is the economic value of the average life lost due to CV?

Quote: Wizard

Let me preface this post by reviewing site policy on the Coronavirus. I don't mind scientific-based discussion about it, even if not directly gambling related. However, the rule against political statements is still enforced. Granted, this can be a fine line. Any post with the name of a political party of the name of any politician is probably going to cross the "political statement" line.

That said, in answering the question about how quickly to re-open, I got to wondering what a life is worth, at least based on lives lost vs. economic wealth lost. Here are some statistics:

• Gross domestic product in 2019 = 21.43 trillion. Source: Bureau of Economic Analysis)
• Expected drop in 2020 GDP = 5.8% (Source: Kiplinger)
• Increase in GDP in 2019 = 2.3% (source: The Balance)
• CV deaths as of June 21 = 122,247 (Worldometer).
• CV deaths as of June 14 = 117,858 (Worldometer).
• CV cases as of June 21 = 2,356,657 (Worldometer).

If we assume the economic cost of the CV in 2020 is the difference between 2019 growth and the projected 2020 decline, that is a drop of 8.1%. Compared to the entire 21.43 trillion size of the GDP, that is a drop of 1.736 trillion.

At the current rate, there are 627 CV deaths per day. If we consider the 122,247 deaths thus far and assume that same rate the rest of the year, we would be at 242,631 deaths by the end of 2020. However, the death rate is decreasing slowly. To just pull a number out of thin air, let's cut future deaths by 50%, to account for the decreasing death rate. That would give us 182,439 deaths in 2020.

Dividing the cost of 1.736 trillion by 182,439 deaths, we get lost economic value per death of 9.5 million.

This does not consider that the deaths are not random people, but generally older and sicker. It also does not consider the cost of people who get CV and survive.

What do you think? The question for the poll is what is the economic value of the average life lost due to CV?

Wiz, I find the estimate of the deaths to be incalculable at this moment.

Deaths are declining but to halve the remaining deaths for the rest of the year is probably not accurate.

There is a possibility of a treatment discovery within the next two months that could reduce the mortality rate by 80 or 90% (see my Leronlimab thread)

Unfortunately there is also the possibility of a second wave in the fall that is even more deadly than the current one. This fear is based on historical data of viruses in the past particularly the Spanish Flu which killed about a million worldwide in the first wave followed by forty plus million the second wave (,same year in the fall).

Perhaps a few variations of the possibilities would be a better excercise

Most of what I'm about to post, I already posted twice on Twitter. Once in early April in response to something Scott / Vital Vegas said on the Melissa Vegas podcast, then a couple weeks later in response to Mayor Goodman's CNN interview with Anderson Cooper.

In both cases, I agreed with most of what they said, but disagreed with the way they phrased it.

Anyway...

Is it immoral to put a life on a balance sheet? Maybe. Maybe not.

While lives will be lost if no precautions are taken, lives will also be lost BECAUSE of the precautions - particularly if taken to extremes.

I've been saying since mid-March, there's no way we come out of this without a major recession. Even in good times, there are those people who, for whatever reason, find themselves under a mountain of debt where recovery seems impossible. The inevitable recession will only exacerbate that.

While extreme, for some, suicide becomes the solution. Others make the slightly less extreme choice of avoiding medical treatment or not purchasing medications. Some find themselves slipping into homelessness.

Or any of a variety of other scenarios, none of which can be described as a favorable way to live.

THAT'S what needs to be put in the balance.

Are some lives lost worth preventing that sort of outcome? Is some number of lives today, worth a potentially greater number of lives and altered lifestyles several years from now?

Bottom line: if we don't all get back to work soon, that's where we'll find ourselves.

I personally think individual lives are worth very little. If I am not mistaken the birth rate is higher than the death rate so it isn't likely that humans willbe extinct any time soon.

How much is a life worth during the war of covid19?
A bench mark for a life in $$$$$ is at least worth $12,000,000 per the lawsuit case of Keller vs Madaris.

A Phoenix casino should be concerned when its security guard's lawyer can prove he catches COVID19 at work. The casino will be expected to pay $12,000,000 for the life of the security guard.

Hmm... lawyers have been salivating over the Apple's deep pockets, and perhaps that's why Apple Stores are closed down again in Arizona in fear of covid19 lawsuits.

One of your poll statements to vote on is "No expense should be spared to save one life." So that makes me think that you are calculating the cost of efforts to contain the virus, however, unless I missed something, you are going with the assumption that if we had not shut businesses down etc the economy would have grown normally. I think that is an incorrect assumption, it is quite likely we would have had a recession due to people refusing to fly, eat out, go to work, etc. on their own. Therefore in spite of your working so hard on this , the figure is going to remain unknown.

Or I don't understand what you meant to calculate

and there's this [leaving footnote numbers there due to laziness]

Quote: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_of_life ... "The value of life is an economic value used to quantify the benefit of avoiding a fatality. It is also referred to as the cost of life, value of preventing a fatality (VPF) and implied cost of averting a fatality (ICAF)"

United States

The following estimates have been applied to the value of life. The estimates are either for one year of additional life or for the statistical value of a single life.


$50,000 per year of quality life (the "dialysis standard",[30] which had been a de facto international standard most private and government-run health insurance plans worldwide use to determine whether to cover a new medical procedure)[31]

$129,000 per year of quality life (an update to the "dialysis standard")[32][31]

$9.1 million (Environmental Protection Agency, 2010)[33]

$7.9 million (Food and Drug Administration, 2010)[33]

$9.2 million (Department of Transportation, 2014)[34]

$9.6 million (Department of Transportation, Aug. 2016)[35]

the next time Dame Fortune toys with your heart, your soul and your wallet, raise your glass and praise her thus: “Thanks for nothing, you cold-hearted, evil, damnable, nefarious, low-life, malicious monster from Hell!”   She is, after all, stone deaf. ... Arnold Snyder

Quote: odiousgambit

however, unless I missed something, you are going with the assumption that if we had not shut businesses down etc the economy would have grown normally.

That's a good point. I did not factor that in.

To be honest, it makes me think my ratio of lost GDP to lives lost is kind of a useless statistic. The question I'm trying to get at is if we want to save one extra life, how much do we need to slow down the economy? To get at that, we should be looking at how many lives would have been lost if we took no government measure to mitigate the spread.

Quote: odiousgambit

One of your poll statements to vote on is "No expense should be spared to save one life." So that makes me think that you are calculating the cost of efforts to contain the virus, however, unless I missed something, you are going with the assumption that if we had not shut businesses down etc the economy would have grown normally. I think that is an incorrect assumption, it is quite likely we would have had a recession due to people refusing to fly, eat out, go to work, etc. on their own. Therefore in spite of your working so hard on this , the figure is going to remain unknown.

Or I don't understand what you meant to calculate

I admit that poll choice needs some clarification.

On the face of it I think he is saying a life should have no cost put to it. Nine million or ninety million is not enough or more.

Or the poll choice is precisely the opposite in meaning. Not one penny should be spent to save a life (no expense).

I am certain he meant the former as it's more common to say a life is too valuable to place a dollar figure on it.

The very hard part is to answer the question cogently when we have NO IDEA how many lives were saved by the pseudo-shutdowns we tried. As Bob has pointed out, well over 1/2 of all businesses were up and running during the 'shutdowns', as 'essential' was laughable at best. If today the governors all decided to simultaneously open everything up with absolutely no restrictions, who can even guess how much the economy will still be hamstrung? My in laws, the casinos' best friends (two old slot players who get enough comps they must lose high 4 figures if not 5 figures every year), are NOT going back until there is a vaccine, or a truly effective treatment.

The best way to do this might be to look at malpractice cases. If there is a 'clear kill', say a 40 year old healthy guy, I think they end up settling for 3-6 million or so.

I agree that malpractice cases are a good way to look at it.

However, as long as I'm on my train of thought, let's try to think of the question as the cost per life saved not life lost.

A big question to answer this if did only nearly free things to mitigate the CV, like hand washing and face masks, what percentage of the population would at least contract CV? To just throw out anything, let's say 3% (infection rate per million in population in Qatar is 3.15%).

The rate of deaths to infections is 5.16%.

The US population is about 331 million.

population * 5.16% * 3% = 512,183 deaths.

As mentioned before, I estimated 182,439 under the status quo. That means non-free efforts saved 329,744 lives. That comes down to a cost of $5,264,181 per life saved.

Given half the states don't believe in testing anymore because of their overlord, states are going to have to shutdown their borders to each other. The Florida/New York rivalry is turning the tables: first Florida didn't want NYers coming in without a 2 week quarantine, now it could turn into the reverse. Flights out of Miami are 10% of normal and NYS could just ban flights from Florida. Ohio had a border check with NYS a few months ago and you needed a valid excuse to continue through the state or face a 2 week quarantine. Hawaii has a 2 week quarantine on everybody coming in from out of state.

Every state is going to be insolvent starting next month (there might be an exception for small mid-western states who didn't shutdown for much time this last quarter) when their fiscal year starts. In Minnesota, a budget shortfall usually means all the interstate rest stops are shutdown so traffic driving to and through the state will have nowhere to piss. All these budget shortfalls will dwarf any rainy day fund the states have. It will be up to the states to decide what to shutdown but the delay of the bill in the Senate to bail out the states this month guarantees mass confusion on July 1st.

I read that 30% of mortgage payments were missed in June but the banks are flush with cash from stimulus payments so it will be interesting to see how that balances out on bank balance sheets when defaults count. The Fed could just bail out everybody who has a mortgage, or maybe just the banks with the defaulted loans.

I've gotta get dressed and mail my mail-in ballot amidst a severe thunderstorm.

I love the effort, but cannot agree with the methods. To illustrate the problem, lets look back at the 2008-09 financial / real estate recession. Very quick research shows the GDP lost about $0.6 trillion, when it was expected to grow by about that much, so lets say it lost $1.2 trillion. How many people died from it? Maybe some stress related heart attacks, maybe some people could no longer afford medication. Even if we say 1,000 (which seems way high), does that really mean the "value" of each life was really $1.2 billion?

In certain economic discussions, "value", is whatever people are willing to spend. Environmental protection, OSHA regulations, traffic laws, all have the potential to preserve life and all come at a cost. Sometimes we go ahead and spend it, sometimes we don't.

Quote: Wizard

If we assume the economic cost of the CV in 2020 is the difference between 2019 growth and the projected 2020 decline, that is a drop of 8.1%. Compared to the entire 21.43 trillion size of the GDP, that is a drop of 1.736 trillion.

This is the result with intensive government intervention. If there was no mandated "shut-down", and every individual and private company made their own decision, there almost certainly would have also been a major economic impact. The "correct" numerator is the actual 2020 GDP subtracted from what the GDP would have been without shutting down.

Quote: Wizard

IAt the current rate, there are 627 CV deaths per day. If we consider the 122,247 deaths thus far and assume that same rate the rest of the year, we would be at 242,631 deaths by the end of 2020. However, the death rate is decreasing slowly. To just pull a number out of thin air, let's cut future deaths by 50%, to account for the decreasing death rate. That would give us 182,439 deaths in 2020.

This is how many lives are lost, not how much was spent to save a life. The "correct" denominator is how many people died subtracted from how many would have died without spending anything on interventions.

Unfortunately, the method I propose is much more "dirty" (for lack of a better word). While I would trust certain experts to make a reasonable attempt at estimates, any discussion would end up devolving into silly and worthless political talk.

Quote: Wizard

The rate of deaths to infections is 5.16%

That is 5% deaths to positive test, not infection. There are certainly lots of people who get infected and recover, but never have a positive test. Of course some of them also die from "pneumonia", and don't count in the death numbers either. During the 2009 pandemic, there were only 18,000 confirmed deaths world wide, but estimates in the mid-six figures. May have to wait a few years to be able to step back and get a true picture of the numbers.

There are many places where you have to tradeoff lives vs cost or inconvenience for others and I don't think it's clear cut.

(i) Sometimes there are strict rules such as seat belts in cars, this makes sense as it saves lives and is sound advice.
(ii) Adult activities such as smoking, drinking, drugs, gambling etc. Sometimes places leave the decisions up to individuals but some have put in some safeguards such as 18+. Some countries have a total ban for more serious drugs, others don't.
(iii) Road (etc) safety - there are unlimited speed limits on some parts of the motorway in Germany (the fast ones I have be on tend to be straight and flatter than elsewhere). I don't know the figures but sense they seem to drive responsibly, my personal experience is they respect people over 100mph and move over to let you through. Drink driving also has stricter limits in some countries - I remember they were pulling everyone over on a main road in Norway on Sunday morning - so don't drink and drive there!
(iv) NHS (this is UK) - it is a real-life situation that it doesn't have unlimited funds so occasionaly has to make critical choices who to treat or which drugs for which illnesses it can afford.

The question here is whether governments should [have] take lockdown measures or adopt a more relaxed approach. The lockdown has had a drastic economic effect and some places will go out of business. However the difficulty now is the best way to unlock, it's rather like war: easy to get into, difficult ro get out of. I sense in the UK that people are beginning to take some of their own decisions; the countryside seems to be much busier than most Junes (pre school summer holidays). The good news is people, while going out more, still keep about 1-2m apart and are happy to queue outside shops etc.

Personally I think we need to get business going again but adapt to the new environment. I also see cashless transactions becoming more widely accepted.


I'm looking forward to when we can go back for a drink in a pub!

Quote: Wizard

I agree that malpractice cases are a good way to look at it.

However, as long as I'm on my train of thought, let's try to think of the question as the cost per life saved not life lost.

A big question to answer this if did only nearly free things to mitigate the CV, like hand washing and face masks, what percentage of the population would at least contract CV? To just throw out anything, let's say 3% (infection rate per million in population in Qatar is 3.15%).

The rate of deaths to infections is 5.16%.

The US population is about 331 million.

population * 5.16% * 3% = 512,183 deaths.

As mentioned before, I estimated 182,439 under the status quo. That means non-free efforts saved 329,744 lives. That comes down to a cost of $5,264,181 per life saved.

I've not got my maths head on, but if allowed to spread unchecked, exponentially with r rate of about 3, wasn't this expected to very quickly infect 70 - 80% of population before it ran up against herd immunity?

If, say 1% of those infected died, then we have 1% of 80% of 331million = 2.65 million

But if the 1% is only so low because of hospital ICU's being available, then at the point that hospitals get over-run, the death rate could soar.

Plug in more accurate figures for death rate when untreated, if you have them,

I'm gonna go with a 15% COVID-19 death rate after the hospitals fail, and 20% more because people can't get to the hospital, die in riots, or starve to death when more than meat plants shutdown. So you could be looking at over 100 million deaths in the USA and 20 million deaths in the UK. The plague of locusts are for other countries.

Omega Man - News Report - How the world ended - YouTube - 1971
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6q_fLr7hCZE

Quote: ChumpChange

I'm gonna go with a 15% COVID-19 death rate after the hospitals fail, and 20% more because people can't get to the hospital, die in riots, or starve to death when more than meat plants shutdown. So you could be looking at over 100 million deaths in the USA and 20 million deaths in the UK. The plague of locusts are for other countries.

Omega Man - News Report - How the world ended - YouTube - 1971
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6q_fLr7hCZE

Your schtick about this is getting REALLY played out.

Quote: ChumpChange

I'm gonna go with a 15% COVID-19 death rate after the hospitals fail, and 20% more because people can't get to the hospital, die in riots, or starve to death when more than meat plants shutdown. So you could be looking at over 100 million deaths in the USA and 20 million deaths in the UK. The plague of locusts are for other countries.

Omega Man - News Report - How the world ended - YouTube - 1971
/watch?v=6q_fLr7hCZE

100 million deaths in the USA? Yes, I think so.
More lives will be lost due to people's freedom to do things in the wrong time:
1) thousands of facemaskless "peaceful protesters" on streets every day, especially in the 'Autonomous Zone',
2) thousands of facemaskless attendees in Bok Center,
3) thousands of facemaskless mourners in funeral processions,
4) thousands of facemaskless gamblers in casinos,
5) thousands of facemaskless beachgoers at the shores,
what else have I missed?

Quote:

CDC's covid19 stats:
As of 6/22/2020
Year to date: TOTAL CASES in USA
2,275,645
27,616 New Cases*
TOTAL DEATHS
119,923
308 New Deaths*
*Compared to yesterday's data

Almost 20,000+ new cases of covid19 pop up every day. Don't be 1 of the 20,000 patients. Wear a n95facemask.

Utah faces 'complete shutdown' from COVID-19, state epidemiologist warns
"If we do not reach a rolling 7-day average of 200/cases per day by July 1, we need to move the entire state to orange."
https://www.fox13now.com/news/coronavirus/local-coronavirus-news/utah-faces-complete-shutdown-from-covid-19-state-epidemiologist-warns

If 100 million people in the U.S. die of Covid, even I would get alarmed.

I can only put an economic value of a person as their income lost and whatever value they bring to society through their actions when not producing an income. Maybe the term is wrong for what is being discussed or the intended message in the numbers.

Quote: onenickelmiracle

I can only put an economic value of a person as their income lost and whatever value they bring to society through their actions when not producing an income. Maybe the term is wrong for what is being discussed or the intended message in the numbers.

People's fortunes can rise and fall. Ceo's of major companies can declare bankruptcy. If you had used your metric a decade ago Bernie Madoff would have been so amazingly valued as a life.

Meanwhile Vincent Van Gogh would have barely fetched a pennie during his lifetime.

You cant look at "lifes" alone, you have to factor in lost/gained "life years" as well.

if you use a monetary calculation to put a value on a person's life then for example:

a migrant refugee forced into this situation by war, such as a Syrian living in a camp made up of tents on the Turkish side of the border - he has no earnings at all - and his prospect for future earnings may not be zero, but nonetheless is pretty grim

so, would that then mean that his life has little value and no serious amount of money should be spent to protect him from the virus?

In a plague genocide, you reach a point of no return and you can't calculate the value of life unless it is zero.

Quote: onenickelmiracle

I can only put an economic value of a person as their income lost and whatever value they bring to society through their actions when not producing an income. Maybe the term is wrong for what is being discussed or the intended message in the numbers.

In baseball they have a term called WAR which is wins above replacement. How much more are you worth than the person that will replace you.

I think this applies to life too. If I lose my life someone is going to replace what I do. How much better or worse will that person be? I think that would determine your worth.

I think the better methodology is to look at health system decisions on paying for medical procedures that will provide an increase in the patient's ability to survive a disease. (Although this information is hard to find.)

Insurance companies will not pay $1 million for a procedure that will improve an 80-year's survival rate of a disease by 11%. Not even close. So, saving the life of an 80+ years old person is not worth $9 million.

Medical statistics on cancer use a metric called "quality-adjusted-life-year" to recognize that saving an elderly person's life is not as valuable as saving a 4-year old's life.

A good place to start is this Wikipedia article: Quality-adjusted_life_year

There was a case going back to where I lived in Nassau County.
Holly Patterson was a County nursing home and two county employees were transporting a man in his 90s when somehow the gurney went down a flight of stairs, the man struck his head and died. The county was sued, and lost but no money was awarded. The jury valued his life as nothing.

Quote: onenickelmiracle

I can only put an economic value of a person as their income lost and whatever value they bring to society through their actions when not producing an income. Maybe the term is wrong for what is being discussed or the intended message in the numbers.

That would be the value of their labor, not their life. If that was really the only value of a persons life, all the money we spend on public health and safety is completely irrational.

Quote: Wizard

Let me preface this post by reviewing site policy on the Coronavirus. I don't mind scientific-based discussion about it, even if not directly gambling related. However, the rule against political statements is still enforced. Granted, this can be a fine line. Any post with the name of a political party of the name of any politician is probably going to cross the "political statement" line.

That said, in answering the question about how quickly to re-open, I got to wondering what a life is worth, at least based on lives lost vs. economic wealth lost. Here are some statistics:

• Gross domestic product in 2019 = 21.43 trillion. Source: Bureau of Economic Analysis)
• Expected drop in 2020 GDP = 5.8% ml]Source: Kiplinger)
• Increase in GDP in 2019 = 2.3% (source: The Balance)
• CV deaths as of June 21 = 122,247 (Worldometer).
• CV deaths as of June 14 = 117,858 (Worldometer).
• CV cases as of June 21 = 2,356,657 (Worldometer).

If we assume the economic cost of the CV in 2020 is the difference between 2019 growth and the projected 2020 decline, that is a drop of 8.1%. Compared to the entire 21.43 trillion size of the GDP, that is a drop of 1.736 trillion.

At the current rate, there are 627 CV deaths per day. If we consider the 122,247 deaths thus far and assume that same rate the rest of the year, we would be at 242,631 deaths by the end of 2020. However, the death rate is decreasing slowly. To just pull a number out of thin air, let's cut future deaths by 50%, to account for the decreasing death rate. That would give us 182,439 deaths in 2020.

Dividing the cost of 1.736 trillion by 182,439 deaths, we get lost economic value per death of 9.5 million.

This does not consider that the deaths are not random people, but generally older and sicker. It also does not consider the cost of people who get CV and survive.

What do you think? The question for the poll is what is the economic value of the average life lost due to CV?

I think this is a fair question to bring up. However there are many more things to consider which makes this in practice an insolvable question. Number of direct US deaths is indeed unsure but you will never be ballpark wrong with the 182,439. But things like:

- Are more people going to die because they lost their wealth (eat unhealthy, start smoking, drinking etc) resulting in long term increase in deaths and economic unproductivity
- How about people in countries that we do a lot of import from. For example India where people literally die of hunger when our demand of their products decreases
- Was this economic growth lost due to corona virus lost anyhow at some point in the future?
- To what extent do closed borders and the increased risk of international conflicts (E.G. between China keeping closed borders and US/Europe opening up) make wars more likely. Even a few percent chance of wars significantly influence economic and death forecast. I'm a resident of Hong Kong so I see first hand how China is using Covid to pursue political goals. US/Europe is probably doing the same. Don't want to get political but the whole virus situation at least increases tensions world wide.
- What are the effects of monetary policy on the value of the USD. Does it increases the risk of hyper inflation (thereby effectively decreasing the net value loss of an x amount of pre covid dollars). Does it lead to deflation (Increasing the net value of the usd lost).
- How many of the people were going to die anyway (you already brought this point up). I'm Dutch and I know Dutch health departments reports every covid-related death as solely corona virus cause. So cases where someone had late stage-leukemia or lung cancer, then get covid would also be reported as corona virus deaths. To what extent does covid decrease death rates in future years because the vulnerable have already died this year and therefore increase economic productivity in the future.
- Does the situation now materially impact how the world looks like in 10-15 years. Would 2030's economic value now be lower than it would be without covid? If not, does temporary loss of economic value even counts?

All above points are largely guessing issues and I don't think anyone would be able to estimate the impact of these issues accurately. My personal thought is that the 9.5 million per death you come up with is probably very reasonable

Quote: TomG

That would be the value of their labor, not their life. If that was really the only value of a persons life, all the money we spend on public health and safety is completely irrational.

I know the value of my life if I was kidnapped and ransomed, not very much.

You cannot value life if you do not see it in your life.