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> People should be able to take a calculated risk. That is not at all what we're talking about here. People should not be able to take a calculated risk with

> People should be able to take a calculated risk. That is not at all what we're talking about here. People should not be able to take a calculated risk with the lives of others. Let me tell you why it's not like driving: the NHTSA reports 102 car fatalities a day in 2016. NYC just got under 500 COVID deaths a day. One city. 5x the fatalities. Compared to a country of 300 million people. This is, by far, the most outrageous, insanely reckless thing I have ever read on HN. I beg you to please, stop doing this. Thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions of lives maybe are at stake.

bagacrap 7y ago
you realize when someone dies in a car accident that they may have otherwise lived another 40 or 80 years, whereas with covid they probably had two months.
- modzu 7y ago
  so it's a hard topic nobody wants to think about genuinely but isn't there truth to it? the nursigng homes that are being ravaged the most -- people are there for end of life care. by definition. they are generally under a policy of do not recussitate. thats very different than any hn readers experience (nobody here is commenting as a nursing home patient). this is not to say their lives dont matter but the context does
  - ebg13 7y ago
    > but isn't there truth to it? NO. THERE IS NOT. Less than 50% of COVID deaths are over 75 years old. That means that more than 50% are under 75. A full quarter of deaths are below 64. These are not people dying anyway. These are not people in nursing homes. These are people like you.
    - legostormtroopr 7y ago
      > Less than 50% of COVID deaths are over 75 years old That means more half of the deaths are of people over 75, and 75% of deaths are over 65.
      - evan_ 7y ago
        read what you quoted again
    - modzu 7y ago
      i wish that math and statistics were mandatory education
- missosoup 7y ago
  https://www.cbsnews.com/news/coronavirus-news-12-year-old-girl-dies-from-covid-19-in-belgium/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/coronavirus-news-12-year-old-gi... Tell this to her parents. The distribution of case fatalities from SARS-CoV-2 is still very much up for debate. But it sure as hell isn't as simple as 'they were about to die anyway'. Also something that mainstream news coverage mostly ignores is that 1: about 20% of all patients regardless of age require supplementary oxygen to survive the infection and it'll be straight up the worst experience of their life. And 2: those who develop pneumonia (again no corr to age) run a pretty high risk of suffering permanent lung damage. If you want to inflict this on yourself, go ahead. But you absolutely don't have the right to take actions that put others at risk of these outcomes. You don't even have the right to ask for a hospital bed if you end up being one of those 20% that needs oxygen if you recklessly infected yourself. That hospital bed belongs to an actual victim.
  - champagneben 7y ago
    >The distribution of case fatalities from SARS-CoV-2 is still very much up for debate. Really? It seems to follow the same pattern everywhere. >1: about 20% of all patients regardless of age require supplementary oxygen to survive the infection and it'll be straight up the worst experience of their life. You mean all patients in bad enough state to end up in the hospital? 20% of all patients who have contracted SARS-CoV-2? >And 2: those who develop pneumonia (again no corr to age) run a pretty high risk of suffering permanent lung damage. A little googling, and everything seems to corroborate that it is in fact correlated with age and given that smoking seems to be big risk factor, even if age in and of itself wouldn't be, we'd see it a lot more in older people. Pretending like massive lockdowns aren't having a very negative effect on drug abuse, mental health, domestic violence, and increasingly looking like food production as well, would be disingenuous. Now, maybe all of those negatives are outweighed by whatever would happen if we opened up, but surely it must be okay to at least have the discussion. This might be a bit provocative, but I'm genuinely curious. Let's assume that suicide hotlines are filled up due to mental health problems from being forced to stay inside. If someone is advocating for a lockdown, should they not have the right to call?
    - 7y ago
- camgunz 7y ago
  I think it would be best if we avoided engaging in the despicable, ghoulish practice of valuing one life over another.
  - nradov 7y ago
    Why would that be best? Professional medical ethicists do it every day. For example when deciding which patients receive organ transplants.
    - camgunz 7y ago
      I'm happy for those decisions to be made by educated, trained, licensed professionals according to strict guidelines and under the scrutiny of other similarly qualified people when small numbers of lives are at stake and where it has no chance of persuading anyone that it's alright to potentially let thousands and thousands of people die.
  - spiderfarmer 7y ago
    This crisis shows you who some people really are. It seems a lot of people can't care less about the life of someone they don't know. That's a good thing. I now know what to think of those people. Who to avoid. But even better: it warms my heart to know the vast majority of people think it's okay to take an economic hit to save lives, to prevent the collapse of our healthcare systems, to buy time on our way to a vaccine. We're in this together, young and old. We don't want other people to spend the last days of their lives suffocating in their own lung fluids. Not if we can help it. Some people will kill someone for a couple of bucks and there are different limits for everyone, and there comes a point where we're no longer the majority, but right now I'm happy with what I see.
    - thu2111 7y ago
      That can be easily flipped around though. From the perspective of people who see the virus as not in fact that dangerous in the grand scheme of things, it looks like a lot of people couldn't care less about the lives of others: the people who are trapped on their own for months at home under house arrest, the people who spent their lives building a business who tomorrow will have to tell their teammates it's all over, the people who are losing everything, and that's before we get to the risks of knock-on effects like food shortages, critical equipment failures due to the manufacturers of a special widget going bust and so on. I don't understand people who hear "the economy" and appear to think of going on holidays? Or gambling in a stock market? They don't think of a supply chain that leads to a replacement filter in their local water treatment plant. They don't think of the builders who are trying to grow a family by constructing their house. They don't think of food being harvested in the fields or internet companies linking loved ones by video chat. They think it's all "just a couple of bucks". It's not just user spiderfarmer above - we've seen actual politicians talk like that, which is terrifying. The economy isn't optional, the economy is life support and everything else that makes life worth living.
legostormtroopr 7y ago
Hyperbole much? People do take calculated risks with the lives of others - again driving is a dangerous activity, you take the lives of everyone in your car and those around you in your hands while driving. Even chefs are responsible for not giving people food poisoning. Because of our hyperconnected world, we depend on people taking risks around us constantly. Additionally, NYC had 500 deaths because its approaching its peak - soon most people will recover and be immune to this disease, then its gone forever. But the economic costs - the careers and education opportunities lost to regular people will impact their whole lives.
- otterley 7y ago
  Are you personally willing to be civilly and criminally liable if you injure someone by transmitting a disease to someone despite the known risk? You have to be so willing when you drive; and you can usually find an insurer to cover your civil liabilities. If you can’t find an insurer to indemnify you if you make someone ill, that should tell you something about the level of harm you could cause someone else.
- hazeii 7y ago
  Very unlikely NY is anywhere close to herd immunity as the number of those infected is probably well under half the population.
- camgunz 7y ago
  Yeah, let me rephrase. COVID is the deadliest thing most people will ever have a chance of coming into contact with, you'll spread it to others before you even know you have it, thus it's almost certain you won't be the only one "taking the risk". It's not like driving, flying, takeaway, or any other inane, minimizing comparison. It is a highly infectious, stealthy, lethal pathogen. If we let everyone get it, at even .5% fatality rate, that's millions and millions of people dead just in the US alone. It kills everyone, infants, the elderly, the healthy, the comorbid, just at different rates. Here is what you should do: - shelter in place - if you must go out, wear masks and gloves, stay at least six feet away from others if possible, and wash your hands thoroughly when you return - lots of places need volunteers, please help them if you can and follow their safety protocols - donate money to funds for responders and local business/community relief Here's what you shouldn't do: - flout shelter in place orders - minimize the risk in public forums - engage in armchair epidemiology; this isn't like having an opinion on tabs vs spaces I'm sympathetic to (indeed terrified by) the economic destruction of this, and I know it's happening right now. Let's stay alive and keep each other alive first. We'll figure the rest out later.
antpls 7y ago
> Thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions of lives maybe are at stake. You are extrapolating only to spread FUD. Covid19 could kill only a few people, but very fast, which could also explain the data we have for now. There is no evidence "that millions of lives are at stake" and the available data shows cars and tabacco have killed and will kill more people than the covid19 over 20 years "We could all die from covid19" hypothesis was valid the first 2 weeks of December. It has been long found that only a segment of the population is at risk, and we should help them, but not stop the entire economy pretending we will all die.
- camgunz 7y ago
  Even with the lowest lethality rates 1.2 million people over 55 will die from COVID if they're all exposed. That's why we need to shelter in place until we set up adequate testing. The "tobacco also kills us so we should let COVID kill us faster" argument makes no sense, by the way.
tdfx 7y ago
> NYC just got under 500 COVID deaths a day. Important to remember what led up to that. High risk people were going about their daily activities, no one was social distancing. It’s disingenuous to imply that anyone who is anti-lockdown is talking about a complete return to pre-pandemic behavior that caused the numbers we are seeing in NYC.
- camgunz 7y ago
  > It’s disingenuous to imply that anyone who is anti-lockdown is talking about a complete return to pre-pandemic behavior that caused the numbers we are seeing in NYC. Feel free to point out where I've done that.
- austhrow743 7y ago
  NYC is also a giant, dense city where public transport is incredibly popular. When you see photos of the people protesting lockdowns, it's clear that they're not city metro living yuppies. They're suburbanites and rural. Any argument that cites NYC results for restrictions on non-NYC behaviour is ignorant at best and most likely disingenuous imo.
  - camgunz 7y ago
    Yeah I'm not denying there are people who are genuinely protesting the shelter orders. But what's actually happening is a concerted, right wing political campaign [1]. > Any argument that cites NYC results for restrictions on non-NYC behaviour is ignorant at best and most likely disingenuous imo. There are outbreaks in several other cities and the recommendation is the same: either get a robust testing system in place, or shelter. Those are your options right now. [1]: https://krebsonsecurity.com/2020/04/whos-behind-the-reopen-domain-surge/ https://krebsonsecurity.com/2020/04/whos-behind-the-reopen-d...
burfog 7y ago
Those numbers are really damning for public transportation. If just one of the many diseases being spread around on the NYC subway system kills 5x as many as an entire nation of cars, it clearly isn't acceptable to operate public transportation.
- camgunz 7y ago
  It would have been fine if shelter in place had been ordered sooner. Further the first outbreak was in Westchester which is far outside the NYC subway system (there are still trains but ridership numbers are far lower).

bagacrap 7y ago

you realize when someone dies in a car accident that they may have otherwise lived another 40 or 80 years, whereas with covid they probably had two months.

modzu 7y ago
so it's a hard topic nobody wants to think about genuinely but isn't there truth to it? the nursigng homes that are being ravaged the most -- people are there for end of life care. by definition. they are generally under a policy of do not recussitate. thats very different than any hn readers experience (nobody here is commenting as a nursing home patient). this is not to say their lives dont matter but the context does
- ebg13 7y ago
  > but isn't there truth to it? NO. THERE IS NOT. Less than 50% of COVID deaths are over 75 years old. That means that more than 50% are under 75. A full quarter of deaths are below 64. These are not people dying anyway. These are not people in nursing homes. These are people like you.
  - legostormtroopr 7y ago
    > Less than 50% of COVID deaths are over 75 years old That means more half of the deaths are of people over 75, and 75% of deaths are over 65.
    - evan_ 7y ago
      read what you quoted again
  - modzu 7y ago
    i wish that math and statistics were mandatory education
missosoup 7y ago
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/coronavirus-news-12-year-old-girl-dies-from-covid-19-in-belgium/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/coronavirus-news-12-year-old-gi... Tell this to her parents. The distribution of case fatalities from SARS-CoV-2 is still very much up for debate. But it sure as hell isn't as simple as 'they were about to die anyway'. Also something that mainstream news coverage mostly ignores is that 1: about 20% of all patients regardless of age require supplementary oxygen to survive the infection and it'll be straight up the worst experience of their life. And 2: those who develop pneumonia (again no corr to age) run a pretty high risk of suffering permanent lung damage. If you want to inflict this on yourself, go ahead. But you absolutely don't have the right to take actions that put others at risk of these outcomes. You don't even have the right to ask for a hospital bed if you end up being one of those 20% that needs oxygen if you recklessly infected yourself. That hospital bed belongs to an actual victim.
- champagneben 7y ago
  >The distribution of case fatalities from SARS-CoV-2 is still very much up for debate. Really? It seems to follow the same pattern everywhere. >1: about 20% of all patients regardless of age require supplementary oxygen to survive the infection and it'll be straight up the worst experience of their life. You mean all patients in bad enough state to end up in the hospital? 20% of all patients who have contracted SARS-CoV-2? >And 2: those who develop pneumonia (again no corr to age) run a pretty high risk of suffering permanent lung damage. A little googling, and everything seems to corroborate that it is in fact correlated with age and given that smoking seems to be big risk factor, even if age in and of itself wouldn't be, we'd see it a lot more in older people. Pretending like massive lockdowns aren't having a very negative effect on drug abuse, mental health, domestic violence, and increasingly looking like food production as well, would be disingenuous. Now, maybe all of those negatives are outweighed by whatever would happen if we opened up, but surely it must be okay to at least have the discussion. This might be a bit provocative, but I'm genuinely curious. Let's assume that suicide hotlines are filled up due to mental health problems from being forced to stay inside. If someone is advocating for a lockdown, should they not have the right to call?
  - 7y ago
camgunz 7y ago
I think it would be best if we avoided engaging in the despicable, ghoulish practice of valuing one life over another.
- nradov 7y ago
  Why would that be best? Professional medical ethicists do it every day. For example when deciding which patients receive organ transplants.
  - camgunz 7y ago
    I'm happy for those decisions to be made by educated, trained, licensed professionals according to strict guidelines and under the scrutiny of other similarly qualified people when small numbers of lives are at stake and where it has no chance of persuading anyone that it's alright to potentially let thousands and thousands of people die.
- spiderfarmer 7y ago
  This crisis shows you who some people really are. It seems a lot of people can't care less about the life of someone they don't know. That's a good thing. I now know what to think of those people. Who to avoid. But even better: it warms my heart to know the vast majority of people think it's okay to take an economic hit to save lives, to prevent the collapse of our healthcare systems, to buy time on our way to a vaccine. We're in this together, young and old. We don't want other people to spend the last days of their lives suffocating in their own lung fluids. Not if we can help it. Some people will kill someone for a couple of bucks and there are different limits for everyone, and there comes a point where we're no longer the majority, but right now I'm happy with what I see.
  - thu2111 7y ago
    That can be easily flipped around though. From the perspective of people who see the virus as not in fact that dangerous in the grand scheme of things, it looks like a lot of people couldn't care less about the lives of others: the people who are trapped on their own for months at home under house arrest, the people who spent their lives building a business who tomorrow will have to tell their teammates it's all over, the people who are losing everything, and that's before we get to the risks of knock-on effects like food shortages, critical equipment failures due to the manufacturers of a special widget going bust and so on. I don't understand people who hear "the economy" and appear to think of going on holidays? Or gambling in a stock market? They don't think of a supply chain that leads to a replacement filter in their local water treatment plant. They don't think of the builders who are trying to grow a family by constructing their house. They don't think of food being harvested in the fields or internet companies linking loved ones by video chat. They think it's all "just a couple of bucks". It's not just user spiderfarmer above - we've seen actual politicians talk like that, which is terrifying. The economy isn't optional, the economy is life support and everything else that makes life worth living.

legostormtroopr 7y ago

Hyperbole much? People do take calculated risks with the lives of others - again driving is a dangerous activity, you take the lives of everyone in your car and those around you in your hands while driving. Even chefs are responsible for not giving people food poisoning. Because of our hyperconnected world, we depend on people taking risks around us constantly. Additionally, NYC had 500 deaths because its approaching its peak - soon most people will recover and be immune to this disease, then its gone forever. But the economic costs - the careers and education opportunities lost to regular people will impact their whole lives.

otterley 7y ago
Are you personally willing to be civilly and criminally liable if you injure someone by transmitting a disease to someone despite the known risk? You have to be so willing when you drive; and you can usually find an insurer to cover your civil liabilities. If you can’t find an insurer to indemnify you if you make someone ill, that should tell you something about the level of harm you could cause someone else.
hazeii 7y ago
Very unlikely NY is anywhere close to herd immunity as the number of those infected is probably well under half the population.
camgunz 7y ago
Yeah, let me rephrase. COVID is the deadliest thing most people will ever have a chance of coming into contact with, you'll spread it to others before you even know you have it, thus it's almost certain you won't be the only one "taking the risk". It's not like driving, flying, takeaway, or any other inane, minimizing comparison. It is a highly infectious, stealthy, lethal pathogen. If we let everyone get it, at even .5% fatality rate, that's millions and millions of people dead just in the US alone. It kills everyone, infants, the elderly, the healthy, the comorbid, just at different rates. Here is what you should do: - shelter in place - if you must go out, wear masks and gloves, stay at least six feet away from others if possible, and wash your hands thoroughly when you return - lots of places need volunteers, please help them if you can and follow their safety protocols - donate money to funds for responders and local business/community relief Here's what you shouldn't do: - flout shelter in place orders - minimize the risk in public forums - engage in armchair epidemiology; this isn't like having an opinion on tabs vs spaces I'm sympathetic to (indeed terrified by) the economic destruction of this, and I know it's happening right now. Let's stay alive and keep each other alive first. We'll figure the rest out later.

antpls 7y ago

> Thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions of lives maybe are at stake. You are extrapolating only to spread FUD. Covid19 could kill only a few people, but very fast, which could also explain the data we have for now. There is no evidence "that millions of lives are at stake" and the available data shows cars and tabacco have killed and will kill more people than the covid19 over 20 years "We could all die from covid19" hypothesis was valid the first 2 weeks of December. It has been long found that only a segment of the population is at risk, and we should help them, but not stop the entire economy pretending we will all die.

camgunz 7y ago
Even with the lowest lethality rates 1.2 million people over 55 will die from COVID if they're all exposed. That's why we need to shelter in place until we set up adequate testing. The "tobacco also kills us so we should let COVID kill us faster" argument makes no sense, by the way.

tdfx 7y ago

> NYC just got under 500 COVID deaths a day. Important to remember what led up to that. High risk people were going about their daily activities, no one was social distancing. It’s disingenuous to imply that anyone who is anti-lockdown is talking about a complete return to pre-pandemic behavior that caused the numbers we are seeing in NYC.

camgunz 7y ago
> It’s disingenuous to imply that anyone who is anti-lockdown is talking about a complete return to pre-pandemic behavior that caused the numbers we are seeing in NYC. Feel free to point out where I've done that.
austhrow743 7y ago
NYC is also a giant, dense city where public transport is incredibly popular. When you see photos of the people protesting lockdowns, it's clear that they're not city metro living yuppies. They're suburbanites and rural. Any argument that cites NYC results for restrictions on non-NYC behaviour is ignorant at best and most likely disingenuous imo.
- camgunz 7y ago
  Yeah I'm not denying there are people who are genuinely protesting the shelter orders. But what's actually happening is a concerted, right wing political campaign [1]. > Any argument that cites NYC results for restrictions on non-NYC behaviour is ignorant at best and most likely disingenuous imo. There are outbreaks in several other cities and the recommendation is the same: either get a robust testing system in place, or shelter. Those are your options right now. [1]: https://krebsonsecurity.com/2020/04/whos-behind-the-reopen-domain-surge/ https://krebsonsecurity.com/2020/04/whos-behind-the-reopen-d...

burfog 7y ago

Those numbers are really damning for public transportation. If just one of the many diseases being spread around on the NYC subway system kills 5x as many as an entire nation of cars, it clearly isn't acceptable to operate public transportation.

camgunz 7y ago
It would have been fine if shelter in place had been ordered sooner. Further the first outbreak was in Westchester which is far outside the NYC subway system (there are still trains but ridership numbers are far lower).