The NY Times reports on a dialog between "decision makers" on who dies first. One of them states:
For Phase 1b, I haven’t presented a plan to the governor yet, but this is where I am so far: I’m very concerned with the over-75 category. When I look at my data, the average age of death from Covid for a white person is 81, but for a Latinx person it’s 67, and for a Black person it’s 72. Many of the people in these groups don’t even reach 75. I’m not sure what the right age brackets are, but I want to think about how to make it equitable and data-driven, based on the average age of death from Covid.
Statistics like this should be Bayesian. I suspect that these making those comments never heard of Bayes nor do that even have a clue. Pre-existing conditions are a significant factor and obesity is apparently the dominant one. We have argued that obesity, all too often a self inflicted condition, must and should be addressed. However just using age is a problem. I see people like this person in New Jersey where they even put the Press and Politicians at the head of the line. Since this is an election year in NJ one suspects a great many "donors" will be well at the front.
Posts
