I think the whole premise is faulty here. When you are dealing with numbers so minuscule (a potential .01% shift in the death rate) there are so many factors that come into play that can result in a much larger impact on those numbers both good or bad that it makes little sense to plan policy hyper focused on one set of numbers.
Harsh social distancing has its own undeniable impacts. Increase in obesity, sedentary lifestyle, suicide (hotlines are currently flooded in the United States). People skipping preventive care, well visits and necessary dental work etc. On the other hand there are far less work accidents and automobile deaths. Any one of these factors on its own could potential he have a larger than .01% impact. (Who is going to quantify the folks skipping their skin cancer screening who end up with melanoma etc. etc.)
Then there are the impacts that this is likely to have down the road. Countries that go into a severe recession because of the shutdown of their economies , (and economists agree and even those that start re-opening are going to face severe financial difficulties and a long road to financial recovery) especially Sweden and Denmark that have nationalized healthcare are going to be facing massive budget shortfalls and cutbacks. What kind of impact do you think that is going to have on their healthcare system. They are going to further ration expensive procedures and diagnostic tests like mammograms and CAT scans. Research and development will be slashed. Expensive cutting edge medical equipment purchases will be put off. And on and on. These are likely to have major impacts on the mortality rate going forward, especially in those categories that will be the first to see healthcare rationed further than it already is in a single payer system such as the elderly and terminally ill.
So it’s really kind of shortsighted to focus on just one tiny aspect, and one tiny number. Much of this is probably applicable to New York and New Jersey as well, although to a lesser degree since they have a private payer healthcare system. Nevertheless, they are negative impacts that will likely never be quantified.
There are so many moving parts here in the macro picture that it’s really hard to make a snap judgment that New York and New Jersey all doing the right thing and the Southern states are the ones killing people. That Denmark is right and Sweden is being reckless. There’s just so much more to the picture than that.
