Mëds wrote: ↑Wed Jan 12, 2022 6:30 pm
donlever wrote: ↑Wed Jan 12, 2022 6:11 pm
5thhorseman wrote: ↑Wed Jan 12, 2022 6:09 pm
I would guess that the same or higher % of BC residents approve of taxes on cigarettes.
Cigarette use also burdens the healthcare system.
Fair point there....
Actually it's not.
When the numbers are saying that 4.6 per 100,000 cases will require hospitalization we are looking at 99.99+% of Covid sufferers will NOT be a burden on the system. Obviously those numbers are averaged and age dependent, but still.....
Where did you find those numbers?
With the original strain and delta they said roughly 3% were hospitalized.
I have a hard time believing that omicron is a thousand times less serious.
Or are these figures for those that are vaxxed? If so, they are irrelevant to this question.
But sure, smoking is a far greater burden on the healthcare sector. It's more spread out over time though. This is concentrated in time and has caused many hospitals to be overwhelmed. Especially early on. Remember the horror stories from Italy, where they had to refuse treatment to many covid patients, and India that ran out of oxygen...
Also, in a system where the government guarantees your pensions after you retire, smokers actually help cut costs in that sector...
Edit: OK, checked it up. According to cdc.gov between Feb 2020 and Sep 2021 there were an estimated 146.6 million covid infections in the USA and 7.5 million hospitalizations due to covid. That would actually translate to 5.1%, which is even higher than the 3% I have heard.
In all fairness, I think the 3% figure related to Sweden, and obesity, which is a risk factor, is more widespread in the USA, so a slightly higher level of hospitalizations there should be expected.
There is also a question as to how accurate the estimated total infections figure is. Still, 146.6 million would mean that 42% of the US population had covid within this time frame, which doesn't seem to be an extremely low estimate. The number of hospitalizations, on the other hand ought to be reasonably easy to control, eventhough it can be exaggerated by patients showing up with a fractured leg and then testing positive, ie being hospitalized
with covid rather than being hospitalized
because of covid. In all fairness, these patients still put increased strain on the hospital as they have to be isolated and treated as contagious, and they ought to be in the minority.
But even if we assume
everyone in the USA was infected, 7.5 million would be 2.1% of the entire population, or almost 500 times higher than the figure you proposed.
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-nc ... urden.html