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1. It's about as made up as the WHO's 3.4% figure. 2. Most thinkers I know and follow widely believe this to be the case as well, it also passes the common sen

1. It's about as made up as the WHO's 3.4% figure. 2. Most thinkers I know and follow widely believe this to be the case as well, it also passes the common sense test. (OK, 3.4% of reported cases, my point is they have thrown out death rates as well, all of them can be considered fantasy because we have zero clue what the denominator is)

esoterica 6y ago
The WHO never said the infection fatality rate is 3.4%. Here's the actual transcript the number is taken from: https://www.who.int/dg/speeches/detail/who-director-general-s-opening-remarks-at-the-media-briefing-on-covid-19---3-march-2020 https://www.who.int/dg/speeches/detail/who-director-general-... > Globally, about 3.4% of reported COVID-19 cases have died. They said that 3.4% of REPORTED cases had died, which was true at that point. > Most thinkers I know and follow widely believe this to be the case as well, it also passes the common sense test. 0.015% of the Swedish population has died so far from the coronavirus. On the other hand ~0.15% of NYC has already died from the coronavirus. If the majority of the Swedish population is already infected, why is the death rate only 1/10th that of NYC? How does that pass the "common sense test"?
iforgotpassword 6y ago
> Most thinkers I know I hope that doesn't translate to "people in the same Facebook groups like me", i.e. the typical echo chamber effect. It's amazing how there can be a hundred experts plus hard figures, studies, whatnot, which then get strictly ignored by those "just the flu" folks, which forward the same handful of interviews with some doctor or virologist on WhatsApp or Facebook claiming we're overreacting, it's just a slightly more aggressive kind of flu, mass panic, coming up with excuses why Wuhan, Italy and NY don't quite fit what they're saying, but no convincing counter argument yet. Sure it would be the more convenient truth, or you just feel woke, but there are more and more places on this planet that simply show this is not true.
- thu2111 6y ago
  But they could argue the reverse: it's amazing how there can be so many experts plus hard figures, studies, papers all saying that this is hardly more dangerous than the flu, and all that is strictly ignored by those who insist that the situation in two or three places is the only data that should be used and everything else should be ignored. there are more and more places on this planet that simply show this is not true. But there are far more places that seem to show it is true. So whose data do you believe? At some point it boils down to the same way people make decisions in every other area of politics.
  - mbrameld 6y ago
    Can you link to some of the studies and papers?
    - thu2111 6y ago
      See my other comments. This is the best link collection I know of: https://swprs.org/a-swiss-doctor-on-covid-19/ https://swprs.org/a-swiss-doctor-on-covid-19/ It's concise, dense and to the point.
  - iforgotpassword 6y ago
    But that's exactly the point. I haven't seen any of these things from those people. Just hand waving and statements like the ones I gave above, without serious further attempts to strengthen them by, you know, logic and arguments. Like saying it's caused by mass panics because of the fear of the unknown, now that it has a name that is not the flu. When this thing started in China, it was initially assumed to be just that, then when evidence showed up it wouldn't be, there was the initial cover-up phase. Everybody involved at that point was pretty much doctors and other experts which aren't exactly the random dork that just panics, as well as government officials who's last desire is to have that go public. Yet they reached the point where they couldn't deny it anymore and started taking drastic measures. No good explanation for this I've come across so far. Then Europe, Italy first. Again the government and the people ignored this as much as possible. It's the China flu, it can't affect normal humans like us. Milan had the famous "let's keep going" campaign. There was absolutely no sort of panic, besides maybe the panic buying of toilet paper etc. People only really started to change when their hospitals got overloaded and you could actually see the effects of this in everyday life. Yet those claiming this is just the flu like to change it around and say there was panic first which somehow lead to overcrowded hospitals. Even that part isn't very clear, given that testing was ramped up slowly, initially you couldn't just get the test if you didn't have any contact with an infected person, or were in China recently. Even if you were tested positive you were sent home if your symptoms were only mild. So even assuming there was some sort of panic, hospitals wouldn't suddenly have accepted people with mild symptoms (just like with the flu every year before). So how did the hospitals get so full? Then I've heard a German virologist say that Italian hospitals have terrible hygiene, and people with covid19 who would have otherwise survived then got other infections in the hospital and died of those, so just died with covid19 but not of. Why didn't that happen the years before with regular flu patients? Again it's not like the hospitals accepted people with mild symptoms because they thought it would be funny to fill up the hospital beds. Also I guess by the same logic HIV is no biggie since you only die with it.

esoterica 6y ago

The WHO never said the infection fatality rate is 3.4%. Here's the actual transcript the number is taken from: https://www.who.int/dg/speeches/detail/who-director-general-s-opening-remarks-at-the-media-briefing-on-covid-19---3-march-2020 https://www.who.int/dg/speeches/detail/who-director-general-... > Globally, about 3.4% of reported COVID-19 cases have died. They said that 3.4% of REPORTED cases had died, which was true at that point. > Most thinkers I know and follow widely believe this to be the case as well, it also passes the common sense test. 0.015% of the Swedish population has died so far from the coronavirus. On the other hand ~0.15% of NYC has already died from the coronavirus. If the majority of the Swedish population is already infected, why is the death rate only 1/10th that of NYC? How does that pass the "common sense test"?

iforgotpassword 6y ago

> Most thinkers I know I hope that doesn't translate to "people in the same Facebook groups like me", i.e. the typical echo chamber effect. It's amazing how there can be a hundred experts plus hard figures, studies, whatnot, which then get strictly ignored by those "just the flu" folks, which forward the same handful of interviews with some doctor or virologist on WhatsApp or Facebook claiming we're overreacting, it's just a slightly more aggressive kind of flu, mass panic, coming up with excuses why Wuhan, Italy and NY don't quite fit what they're saying, but no convincing counter argument yet. Sure it would be the more convenient truth, or you just feel woke, but there are more and more places on this planet that simply show this is not true.

thu2111 6y ago
But they could argue the reverse: it's amazing how there can be so many experts plus hard figures, studies, papers all saying that this is hardly more dangerous than the flu, and all that is strictly ignored by those who insist that the situation in two or three places is the only data that should be used and everything else should be ignored. there are more and more places on this planet that simply show this is not true. But there are far more places that seem to show it is true. So whose data do you believe? At some point it boils down to the same way people make decisions in every other area of politics.
- mbrameld 6y ago
  Can you link to some of the studies and papers?
  - thu2111 6y ago
    See my other comments. This is the best link collection I know of: https://swprs.org/a-swiss-doctor-on-covid-19/ https://swprs.org/a-swiss-doctor-on-covid-19/ It's concise, dense and to the point.
- iforgotpassword 6y ago
  But that's exactly the point. I haven't seen any of these things from those people. Just hand waving and statements like the ones I gave above, without serious further attempts to strengthen them by, you know, logic and arguments. Like saying it's caused by mass panics because of the fear of the unknown, now that it has a name that is not the flu. When this thing started in China, it was initially assumed to be just that, then when evidence showed up it wouldn't be, there was the initial cover-up phase. Everybody involved at that point was pretty much doctors and other experts which aren't exactly the random dork that just panics, as well as government officials who's last desire is to have that go public. Yet they reached the point where they couldn't deny it anymore and started taking drastic measures. No good explanation for this I've come across so far. Then Europe, Italy first. Again the government and the people ignored this as much as possible. It's the China flu, it can't affect normal humans like us. Milan had the famous "let's keep going" campaign. There was absolutely no sort of panic, besides maybe the panic buying of toilet paper etc. People only really started to change when their hospitals got overloaded and you could actually see the effects of this in everyday life. Yet those claiming this is just the flu like to change it around and say there was panic first which somehow lead to overcrowded hospitals. Even that part isn't very clear, given that testing was ramped up slowly, initially you couldn't just get the test if you didn't have any contact with an infected person, or were in China recently. Even if you were tested positive you were sent home if your symptoms were only mild. So even assuming there was some sort of panic, hospitals wouldn't suddenly have accepted people with mild symptoms (just like with the flu every year before). So how did the hospitals get so full? Then I've heard a German virologist say that Italian hospitals have terrible hygiene, and people with covid19 who would have otherwise survived then got other infections in the hospital and died of those, so just died with covid19 but not of. Why didn't that happen the years before with regular flu patients? Again it's not like the hospitals accepted people with mild symptoms because they thought it would be funny to fill up the hospital beds. Also I guess by the same logic HIV is no biggie since you only die with it.