How Many Deaths Are OK?
Over a pleasant dinner with friends tonight, the topic of recent deaths in China due to avian flu came up. What happened next shocked me.
A friend and co-worker launched into a rant about “who cares?” that a mere three people in China died.
(Paraphrasing now, but close in spirit and tone..)
“They have over a BILLION people. It’s good if a bunch of them die. There are so many, even if a MILLION people in China die in a flu pandemic it won’t make a difference.”
What struck me as odd is that the person who expressed these ideas is very left of center politically. It just didn’t seem like a progressive attitude, but what do I know.
I suggested that maybe we should send HIM (and his family) to die of bird flu. He graciously declined.
Here’s data from the UN: World Population Prospects,2004 Revision.
World population
2005: 6 464 750
(6.5 billion)China Population
2005: 1 315 844
(1.3 billion)
Objectively, yes, there are a LOT of people in the world. About 20 percent of them live in China. If five percent of the residents of China were to contract bird flu (should it mutate so it can be spread human to human) 65 million people would get sick.
So far, the mortality rate has been 50 percent of those who are reported to contract bird flu. Let’s assume only 10 percent mortality. Using those hypothetical assumptions, some 6.5 million people would die in China, many of them children.
Would China survive (and later even thrive) after the flu pandemic washes over the country? Yes. But the human toll is hard to comprehend.
The economic effects from a severe flu pandemic would be even worse. Travel would essentially cease. Trade between China and the rest of the world would slow dramatically for a while. Supply chains would collapse.
Everyone hopes this nightmare scenario does not happen. But if and when it does, my friend will think back to his flip remarks about how culling the population would be a good thing, and will (I hope) be very ashamed.