COVID-19 (going forward, I refer to it as C19) was declared a pandemic by the WHO on March 11, 2020. As at that day, 326 people had died from the disease while as at today, the death toll is 464,483. Total cases today are 8,807,398, up from 6,315 on March 11, 2020. Large parts of the world shut down to curtail transmission. One criticism of the shutdown is that it is a reaction that is out of proportion to the danger. While C19 is contagious, it is not particularly lethal. Thus, shutting down society would lead to economic losses much greater than the value of the lives saved, so the argument went. Or goes. It is an argument that I find distasteful but which I agree with as explained here. I do not think being alive is good in itself. Nor do I think death is always bad.
Now, under normal circumstances, about 150,000 people die daily. If we divide total C19 deaths by the elapsed days starting from the first death on January 20, 2020 we get average daily deaths of 3,106. This is an increase of 2.01% on the normal death rate. While the dependents of the deceased would be negatively affected by the death, is it really that catastrophic to the rest of the world if the death rate is increased by 2%? Further, for the past 100 years, human population has been identified as the single biggest threat to humans and other life on the planet. Surely an impersonal culling by a disease should be a seen as an efficient way of beginning to solve the population problem.
I am actually rooting for the disease. I think it would be a net benefit for the world if human population was drastically reduced. If the reduction is in the developed countries, it would open up more spaces for migration from the 3rd world. If the reduction is in the 3rd world, there would be less pressure on the limited resources available to governments there. Whatever the case, there would be an improvement in living standards. If the reduction is drastic enough, it could solve a lot of the ongoing problems in the world because many of the conflicts are over land and other resources. Fewer people means less pressure on those resources, which would mean less conflict.