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> It is now undisputed that Covid-19 should be taken seriously as a serious illness. This is heavily disputed. I wonder what the threshold really is for changi

> It is now undisputed that Covid-19 should be taken seriously as a serious illness. This is heavily disputed. I wonder what the threshold really is for changing that idea. Now that the death numbers are greater than the flu, we are still at the "those people were going to die within a year anyway" phase, and the "I am okay and have a BMI less than 30 so therefore people like me are okay" phase. Been watching the studies closely though! How is rainews as a source? This article is saying mild symptoms recovered at home have permanent lung damage and divers cannot dive anymore. edit: if anyone misread my quotes as personal opinion, they're not. It is unproductive to offer counterpoints here because you need to do that on your Facebook and Whatsapp groups if your filter bubbles even allow you to see people that say the things in quotes. This post is merely acknowledging filter bubbles exist, in the author's community it is "undisputed", in different communities it is quite disputed you can see it on the comment section anywhere. I know its hard to read things that don't match your talking points verbatim, but save the copypasta and read what I wrote.

jmiserez 7y ago
>How is rainews as a source? Seems to be part of RAI Italia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rai_Italia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rai_Italia).
- hestefisk 7y ago
  RAI is the Italian state broadcaster, ie similar to NPR.
  - BostonFern 7y ago
    NPR is not a state broadcaster, that would be more like the BBC. NPR is an independent, nonprofit organization that takes public funding, but receives most of its funding from other donors, such as charity foundations and private individuals.
nkkollaw 7y ago
RAI is Italy's state-owned TV channel(s). It's controlled by the party that is governing, and has all the problems of anything that is state-run, including a huge potential for inefficiencies, bureaucracy, and at times corruption. Given the quality level of the "experts" used by the government in this pandemic, I wouldn't give it any credit.
- leonixyz 7y ago
  State-run doesn't mean anything... BBC is also state-run. It goes to the reputation of the single journalist. In this case the journalist is just citing Frank Hartig, "Oberarzt der Universitätsklinik Innsbruck" I don't have the knowledge to judge his papers and have an opinion about his credibility, but someone else might: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Frank_Hartig https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Frank_Hartig
  - zwischenzug 7y ago
    The BBC is not state-run. It's an independent corporation funded by a specific tax. Governments have always complained about BBC bias against them since its inception.
    - orra 7y ago
      Eh, the UK Government directly appoints some of the board members, and broadly dictates the terms of the Royal Charter and Licence Fee. Yes, the BBC has some operational independence. But it is fiction to pretend the government has no influence over it. Government complaints against the BBC are largely rhetoric. The reality is the BBC's most senior political correspondent, and many of their pundits, clearly support the ruling party.
      - true_religion 7y ago
        In a popular democracy, it should never be shocking when the majority party in government receives support. They couldn’t have become the majority without appealing to people’s opinions in the first place.
dboreham 7y ago
> wonder what the threshold really is for changing that idea It won't happen until some significant proportion of the population has had someone related to them or personally known to them die.
- hef19898 7y ago
  Unfortuntaley, that seems to be the case. By which point all of us might be in for a world of pain if we are nt extremely lucky.
Funes- 7y ago
>we are still at the "those people were going to die within a year anyway" phase. No, we are not. Young and healthy people are dying too. And that's with global confinement taking place. Just imagine in what kind of hell we would be if people were still roaming around freely; heaps of people would die just because they wouldn't have access to sanitary devices (ventilators, for instance) nor medicine. In any case, if you had a close relative suffering from cancer who would otherwise live more than a year if they didn't get the virus, you wouldn't spout such bullshit. Same thing goes for your next uninformed statement: >the "I am okay and have a BMI less than 30 so therefore people like me are okay" phase. Yeah, no.
- s9w 7y ago
  > Young and healthy people are dying too A datapoint against that: We have a renowned pathologist in Hamburg (Prof Püschel) who examines every corona death in the city - about 60 so far. He was quoted multiple times that every single victim had severe preexisting conditions. And that none of them would have lived another year. He also challenged the idea that healthy/young people are in danger and gave the example of a young (I think ~30 yo) corona victim in Hamburg who actually had undiscovered severe illness. edit: So this will get -4'd soon - okay :o
  - akiselev 7y ago
    There are over 2.5 million confirmed cases of the virus worldwide, most of which are pre-recovery. Using a sixty person sample in Hamburg to make a definitive statement of severity is beyond the realm of idiocy. It's criminally negligent.
    - fock 7y ago
      also on criminiality this guy has some advanced things to tell us (this link is especially fun to post in forums where people are complaining: "this is a good guy, he wants us to be free from government oppression"): https://www.spiegel.de/panorama/justiz/klaus-pueschel-dna-codes-aller-menschen-in-deutschland-erfassen-a-1146775.html https://www.spiegel.de/panorama/justiz/klaus-pueschel-dna-co... (he wants to centrally store all DNA-codes of a population so the government can prevent crime...) – well, it turns out, he's just another rightwing autocrat pushing his very own agenda now as well
squiggleblaz 7y ago
Shame this piece was downvoted so hard. Downvoters may agree with pm_me_ur_fullzz that people who dispute the seriousness of covid-19 are wrong, but downvoting the person who says "there are people out there who are wrong" will not cause those people who are wrong to disappear. If you want to make a problem go away, the first step is to talk about the problem.
- DangerousPie 7y ago
  Downvoting makes it obvious to any casual reader that the comment is heavily disputed and should not be relied upon.
  - detaro 7y ago
    That there are still people thinking its not as big a deal is heavily disputed?
    - happytoexplain 7y ago
      This is dishonest. The author absolutely did not simply say "there are still people thinking it's not a big deal".
      - pm_me_ur_fullzz 7y ago
        "There are still people thinking it's not a big deal, I wonder what the threshold really is for changing that idea." username does not check out. But did you notice it doesn't really matter how people read what I wrote when > It is now undisputed that Covid-19 should be taken seriously as a serious illness. that's the point I was bringing attention to? That it is not undisputed because a non-negligible amount of people think differently?
        dang 7y ago
        I appreciate that this account has mostly been posting good comments, but would you mind changing your username? It's mildly trollish, and trollish usernames troll every thread an account posts to. Email hn@ycombinator.com with the name you prefer, or just reply here and we can change it for you.
acqq 7y ago
> if anyone misread my quotes as personal opinion, they're not. The way they are written, then simply ending them with yours "Been watching the studies closely though!" and pointing afterwards "mild symptoms recovered at home have permanent lung damage and divers cannot dive anymore." the message could still not be expected to be considered seriously. The whole message did in fact give an impression of agreement with the quotes, basically as if only those who have bigger risk should have problem with it. And it's provably not true, as we are aware that even the younger doctors died, starting from: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-51409801 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-51409801 Note the date of the article: February 7, 2020 Young? Check. Not fat? Check. And after all that happened everywhere there are still posts like this all doesn't exist.
- pm_me_ur_fullzz 7y ago
  > The whole message did in fact give an impression of agreement with the quotes, basically as if only those who have bigger risk should have problem with it. Op here. Only because you were looking for agreement. And there in lies the flaw. I stated what the filter bubbles exist and offered no opinion. Why? Because its equally as likely to encounter a hoard of people would be looking for me to agree with their point of view, and derail this whole thread if I only talked about how dangerous and problematic covid is. How about we just talk candidly about the different filter bubbles? How would one go about accomplishing that, in your words
  - acqq 7y ago
    I see your account is new. Let me explain, after many years being here, it's completely typical for HN that the posts get downvoted from those who don't share the same point of view, especially if the arguments appear to be weak (e.g. that that action reflects "a strong disagreement"). And there's some logic behind it: the intention is that the "assumed and practiced rules" somehow keep the quality of the discussion high enough. In your case, your post was a typical "low quality" post, having that "Been watching the studies closely though!" line as a (still completely trivial) contribution. On HN such posts aren't rated good, especially not when sandwiched between the claims that those who downvote see as worthless repetition of the common non-arguments. You wroute "it is heavily disputed". Then you wrote "Been watching the studies closely though!" then questioned the source, then used again often heard argument "mild, only divers." That's I personally had the impression you haven't brought any substance to the discussion this time. And it looks to me, you are also not "Op" as it is used here (i.e. you haven posted the link "Lung damage..")
wbronitsky 7y ago
It is incredibly difficult to read posts like this in good faith. More and more people come here to tell us not to believe facts, to disregard what our eyes and ears tell us. It is not hard to connect the dots
- detaro 7y ago
  You do realize that the commenter does not hold those opinions, but gives them as examples of opinions other people voice? And then people started arguing with the content of the examples, which is a bit pointless when nobody even claims their content is true.
  - happytoexplain 7y ago
    The most charitable interpretation of the comment is that the author's only opinion is that whether the disease is serious is heavily debated, which is still an opinion that can be disagreed with.
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DanBC 7y ago
> we are still at the "those people were going to die within a year anyway" phase, and the "I am okay and have a BMI less than 30 so therefore people like me are okay" phase. That doesn't appear to be true if we look at the UK ICU data. BMI < 30 means lower risk, not no risk. https://www.icnarc.org/Our-Audit/Audits/Cmp/Reports https://www.icnarc.org/Our-Audit/Audits/Cmp/Reports https://www.icnarc.org/DataServices/Attachments/Download/c9b491af-ea80-ea11-9124-00505601089b https://www.icnarc.org/DataServices/Attachments/Download/c9b... Body mass index, n (%) [N=4811] <18.5 31 (0.6) 18.5-<25 1239 (25.8) 25-<30 1696 (35.3) 30-<40 1499 (31.2) 40+ 346 (7.2) Over 60% of people admitted to ICU for Covid-19 have BMI under 30. When we look at frailty we see that 90% of people admitted to ITU were able to live without any assistance in their day to day life before being admitted. (Although we don't know how many frail people were not admitted to ITU because of their frailty). We know that Covid-19 is causing excess mortality in people who are not old and don't have comorbidities. We don't know yet how much, but it's wrong to say that covid-19 isn't a problem for this group.
- pm_me_ur_fullzz 7y ago
  Op here, good information, now convince the people that actually say those things I quoted? Why did you post this, out of curiousity? I'm start to see a re-reading of how people interpreted my post, I thought the quotes were clear that I was talking about what other people say, in phases as they move the goal post.
moogleii 7y ago
The downvotes are unfortunate, and sure people should read more carefully, but your wording and prose could be improved. I know it takes time to craft a well-written comment, but it’s usually worth it for contentious subject matters. For what it’s worth, I agree with what you’re saying, at least with regards to right wing elements in the States.
mirimir 7y ago
Why the fuck have so many downvoted this? > This is heavily disputed. That is a fact. > edit: if anyone misread my quotes as personal opinion, they're not. I know that discussing downvotes is boring. But this is so egregiously stupid that it's justified.
- happytoexplain 7y ago
  It's ridiculous to claim as fact something as subjective as "[whether COVID-19 is serious] is heavily disputed" (emphasis on the highly subjective words). It's also disingenuous to imply that the only thing a statement communicates is the factual part of the words. And, even disregarding all of that, you're ignoring this statement: >we are still at the "those people were going to die within a year anyway" phase.
  - detaro 7y ago
    We sadly still are in the phase where some people are saying that.
    - mirimir 7y ago
      Yes, very sadly, we are. And I'd say that it's more than some. But unless you get inside the filter bubbles, you might not be aware just how many there are. For example, given my anarchistic tendencies and love of the lulz, Trump's election was not at all a surprise to me. All my mainstream liberal friends were saying "no way", at least partly based on the polling. But I knew that many hard-core supporters would ignore the "damn libtard media" pollsters. Justa sayin' ;)
  - mirimir 7y ago
    The full quote is: > Now that the death numbers are greater than the flu, we are still at the "those people were going to die within a year anyway" phase, and the "I am okay and have a BMI less than 30 so therefore people like me are okay" phase. The user you're criticizing is expressing puzzlement at how many are still at those phases. They're not agreeing with those assessments. So you're picking a fight with the wrong person. Indeed, you're picking a fight with someone who likely agrees with you on the substantive issues.

jmiserez 7y ago

>How is rainews as a source? Seems to be part of RAI Italia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rai_Italia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rai_Italia).

hestefisk 7y ago
RAI is the Italian state broadcaster, ie similar to NPR.
- BostonFern 7y ago
  NPR is not a state broadcaster, that would be more like the BBC. NPR is an independent, nonprofit organization that takes public funding, but receives most of its funding from other donors, such as charity foundations and private individuals.

nkkollaw 7y ago

RAI is Italy's state-owned TV channel(s). It's controlled by the party that is governing, and has all the problems of anything that is state-run, including a huge potential for inefficiencies, bureaucracy, and at times corruption. Given the quality level of the "experts" used by the government in this pandemic, I wouldn't give it any credit.

leonixyz 7y ago
State-run doesn't mean anything... BBC is also state-run. It goes to the reputation of the single journalist. In this case the journalist is just citing Frank Hartig, "Oberarzt der Universitätsklinik Innsbruck" I don't have the knowledge to judge his papers and have an opinion about his credibility, but someone else might: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Frank_Hartig https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Frank_Hartig
- zwischenzug 7y ago
  The BBC is not state-run. It's an independent corporation funded by a specific tax. Governments have always complained about BBC bias against them since its inception.
  - orra 7y ago
    Eh, the UK Government directly appoints some of the board members, and broadly dictates the terms of the Royal Charter and Licence Fee. Yes, the BBC has some operational independence. But it is fiction to pretend the government has no influence over it. Government complaints against the BBC are largely rhetoric. The reality is the BBC's most senior political correspondent, and many of their pundits, clearly support the ruling party.
    - true_religion 7y ago
      In a popular democracy, it should never be shocking when the majority party in government receives support. They couldn’t have become the majority without appealing to people’s opinions in the first place.

dboreham 7y ago

> wonder what the threshold really is for changing that idea It won't happen until some significant proportion of the population has had someone related to them or personally known to them die.

hef19898 7y ago
Unfortuntaley, that seems to be the case. By which point all of us might be in for a world of pain if we are nt extremely lucky.

Funes- 7y ago

>we are still at the "those people were going to die within a year anyway" phase. No, we are not. Young and healthy people are dying too. And that's with global confinement taking place. Just imagine in what kind of hell we would be if people were still roaming around freely; heaps of people would die just because they wouldn't have access to sanitary devices (ventilators, for instance) nor medicine. In any case, if you had a close relative suffering from cancer who would otherwise live more than a year if they didn't get the virus, you wouldn't spout such bullshit. Same thing goes for your next uninformed statement: >the "I am okay and have a BMI less than 30 so therefore people like me are okay" phase. Yeah, no.

s9w 7y ago
> Young and healthy people are dying too A datapoint against that: We have a renowned pathologist in Hamburg (Prof Püschel) who examines every corona death in the city - about 60 so far. He was quoted multiple times that every single victim had severe preexisting conditions. And that none of them would have lived another year. He also challenged the idea that healthy/young people are in danger and gave the example of a young (I think ~30 yo) corona victim in Hamburg who actually had undiscovered severe illness. edit: So this will get -4'd soon - okay :o
- akiselev 7y ago
  There are over 2.5 million confirmed cases of the virus worldwide, most of which are pre-recovery. Using a sixty person sample in Hamburg to make a definitive statement of severity is beyond the realm of idiocy. It's criminally negligent.
  - fock 7y ago
    also on criminiality this guy has some advanced things to tell us (this link is especially fun to post in forums where people are complaining: "this is a good guy, he wants us to be free from government oppression"): https://www.spiegel.de/panorama/justiz/klaus-pueschel-dna-codes-aller-menschen-in-deutschland-erfassen-a-1146775.html https://www.spiegel.de/panorama/justiz/klaus-pueschel-dna-co... (he wants to centrally store all DNA-codes of a population so the government can prevent crime...) – well, it turns out, he's just another rightwing autocrat pushing his very own agenda now as well

squiggleblaz 7y ago

Shame this piece was downvoted so hard. Downvoters may agree with pm_me_ur_fullzz that people who dispute the seriousness of covid-19 are wrong, but downvoting the person who says "there are people out there who are wrong" will not cause those people who are wrong to disappear. If you want to make a problem go away, the first step is to talk about the problem.

DangerousPie 7y ago
Downvoting makes it obvious to any casual reader that the comment is heavily disputed and should not be relied upon.
- detaro 7y ago
  That there are still people thinking its not as big a deal is heavily disputed?
  - happytoexplain 7y ago
    This is dishonest. The author absolutely did not simply say "there are still people thinking it's not a big deal".
    - pm_me_ur_fullzz 7y ago
      "There are still people thinking it's not a big deal, I wonder what the threshold really is for changing that idea." username does not check out. But did you notice it doesn't really matter how people read what I wrote when > It is now undisputed that Covid-19 should be taken seriously as a serious illness. that's the point I was bringing attention to? That it is not undisputed because a non-negligible amount of people think differently?
      - dang 7y ago
        I appreciate that this account has mostly been posting good comments, but would you mind changing your username? It's mildly trollish, and trollish usernames troll every thread an account posts to. Email hn@ycombinator.com with the name you prefer, or just reply here and we can change it for you.

acqq 7y ago

> if anyone misread my quotes as personal opinion, they're not. The way they are written, then simply ending them with yours "Been watching the studies closely though!" and pointing afterwards "mild symptoms recovered at home have permanent lung damage and divers cannot dive anymore." the message could still not be expected to be considered seriously. The whole message did in fact give an impression of agreement with the quotes, basically as if only those who have bigger risk should have problem with it. And it's provably not true, as we are aware that even the younger doctors died, starting from: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-51409801 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-51409801 Note the date of the article: February 7, 2020 Young? Check. Not fat? Check. And after all that happened everywhere there are still posts like this all doesn't exist.

pm_me_ur_fullzz 7y ago
> The whole message did in fact give an impression of agreement with the quotes, basically as if only those who have bigger risk should have problem with it. Op here. Only because you were looking for agreement. And there in lies the flaw. I stated what the filter bubbles exist and offered no opinion. Why? Because its equally as likely to encounter a hoard of people would be looking for me to agree with their point of view, and derail this whole thread if I only talked about how dangerous and problematic covid is. How about we just talk candidly about the different filter bubbles? How would one go about accomplishing that, in your words
- acqq 7y ago
  I see your account is new. Let me explain, after many years being here, it's completely typical for HN that the posts get downvoted from those who don't share the same point of view, especially if the arguments appear to be weak (e.g. that that action reflects "a strong disagreement"). And there's some logic behind it: the intention is that the "assumed and practiced rules" somehow keep the quality of the discussion high enough. In your case, your post was a typical "low quality" post, having that "Been watching the studies closely though!" line as a (still completely trivial) contribution. On HN such posts aren't rated good, especially not when sandwiched between the claims that those who downvote see as worthless repetition of the common non-arguments. You wroute "it is heavily disputed". Then you wrote "Been watching the studies closely though!" then questioned the source, then used again often heard argument "mild, only divers." That's I personally had the impression you haven't brought any substance to the discussion this time. And it looks to me, you are also not "Op" as it is used here (i.e. you haven posted the link "Lung damage..")

wbronitsky 7y ago

It is incredibly difficult to read posts like this in good faith. More and more people come here to tell us not to believe facts, to disregard what our eyes and ears tell us. It is not hard to connect the dots

detaro 7y ago
You do realize that the commenter does not hold those opinions, but gives them as examples of opinions other people voice? And then people started arguing with the content of the examples, which is a bit pointless when nobody even claims their content is true.
- happytoexplain 7y ago
  The most charitable interpretation of the comment is that the author's only opinion is that whether the disease is serious is heavily debated, which is still an opinion that can be disagreed with.
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DanBC 7y ago

> we are still at the "those people were going to die within a year anyway" phase, and the "I am okay and have a BMI less than 30 so therefore people like me are okay" phase. That doesn't appear to be true if we look at the UK ICU data. BMI < 30 means lower risk, not no risk. https://www.icnarc.org/Our-Audit/Audits/Cmp/Reports https://www.icnarc.org/Our-Audit/Audits/Cmp/Reports https://www.icnarc.org/DataServices/Attachments/Download/c9b491af-ea80-ea11-9124-00505601089b https://www.icnarc.org/DataServices/Attachments/Download/c9b... Body mass index, n (%) [N=4811] <18.5 31 (0.6) 18.5-<25 1239 (25.8) 25-<30 1696 (35.3) 30-<40 1499 (31.2) 40+ 346 (7.2) Over 60% of people admitted to ICU for Covid-19 have BMI under 30. When we look at frailty we see that 90% of people admitted to ITU were able to live without any assistance in their day to day life before being admitted. (Although we don't know how many frail people were not admitted to ITU because of their frailty). We know that Covid-19 is causing excess mortality in people who are not old and don't have comorbidities. We don't know yet how much, but it's wrong to say that covid-19 isn't a problem for this group.

pm_me_ur_fullzz 7y ago
Op here, good information, now convince the people that actually say those things I quoted? Why did you post this, out of curiousity? I'm start to see a re-reading of how people interpreted my post, I thought the quotes were clear that I was talking about what other people say, in phases as they move the goal post.

moogleii 7y ago

The downvotes are unfortunate, and sure people should read more carefully, but your wording and prose could be improved. I know it takes time to craft a well-written comment, but it’s usually worth it for contentious subject matters. For what it’s worth, I agree with what you’re saying, at least with regards to right wing elements in the States.

mirimir 7y ago

Why the fuck have so many downvoted this? > This is heavily disputed. That is a fact. > edit: if anyone misread my quotes as personal opinion, they're not. I know that discussing downvotes is boring. But this is so egregiously stupid that it's justified.

happytoexplain 7y ago
It's ridiculous to claim as fact something as subjective as "[whether COVID-19 is serious] is heavily disputed" (emphasis on the highly subjective words). It's also disingenuous to imply that the only thing a statement communicates is the factual part of the words. And, even disregarding all of that, you're ignoring this statement: >we are still at the "those people were going to die within a year anyway" phase.
- detaro 7y ago
  We sadly still are in the phase where some people are saying that.
  - mirimir 7y ago
    Yes, very sadly, we are. And I'd say that it's more than some. But unless you get inside the filter bubbles, you might not be aware just how many there are. For example, given my anarchistic tendencies and love of the lulz, Trump's election was not at all a surprise to me. All my mainstream liberal friends were saying "no way", at least partly based on the polling. But I knew that many hard-core supporters would ignore the "damn libtard media" pollsters. Justa sayin' ;)
- mirimir 7y ago
  The full quote is: > Now that the death numbers are greater than the flu, we are still at the "those people were going to die within a year anyway" phase, and the "I am okay and have a BMI less than 30 so therefore people like me are okay" phase. The user you're criticizing is expressing puzzlement at how many are still at those phases. They're not agreeing with those assessments. So you're picking a fight with the wrong person. Indeed, you're picking a fight with someone who likely agrees with you on the substantive issues.