Traditionally public health did not use death numbers as a primary metric because in the end EVERYBODY DIES. They use a metric of years of potential life lost (YPLL),

The rationale is that resources spent to save a 16 year old - who has a life expectancy of another 64 years - are better spent than the same resources being spent on an 80 year old who has a life expectancy of maybe 84 years.

By that metric, the Spanish Flu, which disproportionately affected Young healthy twenty and thirty-something’s, was far more serious than COVID - 19, which disproportionately affects people living in nursing homes and long term care facility residents

You can't even get an ATP until you're 23. Nobody knows what the industry will look like in a year, let alone five. Learn from this event and decide if you really want to fly for a living. This will not be the only catastrophic event to happen. They tend to happen every 10 years or so.

No, by the time you get your degree and 1500 hours things likely will be at a point the regionals will start hiring again. My guess that will be 5 or 6 years away. Even if it is a year or two longer, it is better to have everything out of the way and keeping your application active. You can take a job doing something else at that point. If you defer getting your 4 year degree and your 1500 hours, when they are ready to call, they will not call you. You won’t be ready.

Pilot shortage still expected after the pandemic. I could certainly believe it for foriegn airlines, if not so much in the US.

https://skift.com/2021/02/01/airline...c-downsizings/

Certainly agree. Often times people only see the crisis in front of them and not where things will be 3 - 5 years from now. Mandatory retirements are still happening. As an example (as of a couple of years ago) 2/3 of all AA pilots were scheduled to retire in the next decade. I have not seen any forecast of downsizing that would even come close to that, as a matter of fact there will be growth down the road in a few years. And foreign airlines will have an even greater percentage of growth.