7 ms·

I hate to say it, but almost all major news outlets have been hysterical about this for the past several months.

by pensatoio 6y ago

inpdx 6y ago
By that definition of hysterical I'm pretty sure the media were hysterical during WWII as well.
- mjburgess 6y ago
  risk of death from c19 is, in all age groups, the same-or-lower than the general risk of death, ie., trivial. The mean age of death from c19 is 80, and even in this group they die at a rate of 1%/wk anyway, for which c19 is about as deadly. This isnt WWII
  - lastres0rt 6y ago
    Stop pretending this is just "the flu" either. When we talk about flu stats: most people have some immunity to the flu thanks to flu shots (even if they haven't gotten one for this past year) and general herd immunity, which we DO NOT HAVE for this virus, and won't gain without either a vaccine or a few million dead from this thing running rampant. The stats you're quoting are WITH the level of serious intervention we've had so far, which is why as certain states are reopening, we're starting to see the numbers ticking back up again and looking just as bad if not worse.
    - SlowRobotAhead 6y ago
      I don't think he did compare it to the flu. But look, as unpopular as that comparison is, we just don't have numbers that support the original estimates that caused lock downs of 2 million dead in the US. The media pushed worst case over and over, and still is. I think an uncomfortable stat this coming year will be just how few people will have been reported to died in 2020 of regular flu. It's not saying Covid19 isn't bad in any way to realize that number, will be almost nothing, and that will be suspicious to people going forward for NextTime.
      - DougWebb 6y ago
        We don't have those numbers because of the lockdowns, which were obeyed in part because of the media coverage. The alternative would have been China's approach of physically locking people inside their homes, or much lower compliance and higher infection and death rates.
        tathougies 6y ago
        > We don't have those numbers because of the lockdowns, which were obeyed in part because of the media coverage. The alternative would have been China's approach of physically locking people inside their homes, or much lower compliance and higher infection and death rates. Complete and utter lies. While true that the lockdown certainly reduced death rate, the death toll was never likely to be 2 million by summer, as widely was reported in the media. For example, The media reported that Sweden would have 40k deaths by now. In reality they have 3000. Sweden is the only data point, since they're the only place that didn't shut down. That is an incredibly faulty model.
        dasil003 6y ago
        Are you suggesting Swedish people have not changed their behavior?
        tathougies 6y ago
        They certainly have, but not due to a 'shutdown' like the ones that were being encouraged in every other country. The media stats said that we were in for 2m deaths in the United States if the government did not shut things down. That was wrong. A proper media response would have anticipated that -- even if the gov't didn't shut things down -- people would have been more cautious by making individual decisions. That would have lead to a better government response.
        inpdx 6y ago
        Sweden didn't have an official lockdown, but they encouraged safer behavior and already have more work from home and single people living alone than other places. That would not have worked in the US, and in truth it didn't work as well as their neighbors.
  - SomeoneFromCA 6y ago
    You are wrong because - a) Risk of death among the sickest and weakest is way higher than the "normal", across all age groups. b) We do not know much about the virus. It appears to have strange trait of being more deadly if initial exposure was higher. In Russia, for example ~7% (!) of all Covid deaths are deaths of medical workers, many of them are relatively young and apparently healthy. c) We also do not know what are long term consequences of the disease, even if you survived it just fine.
    - mjburgess 6y ago
      Nothing here you've said is true. The background rate of death in this "sickest and weakest" group is already high. C19 is no higher. Please do some research, there's an article on the BBC with a graph demonstrating this point.
  - greedo 6y ago
    You're assuming that the pandemic is over, which is far far from the truth. As one epidemiologist said, "We're not even in the second inning."
  - gnachman 6y ago
    My parents are in their 80s so your statement was very surprising. At 80 the expected death risk is under .6% per year, so you’re off by about two orders of magnitude. https://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4c6.html https://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4c6.html
    - treis 6y ago
      That's a decimal not a percentage. It's 0.058 which is 5.8%.
wbl 6y ago
Remember the Recode article and wall to wall coverage making it not a big deal in February?
- javagram 6y ago
  Memory can be a tricky thing. The Vox Recode article was bad, but Vox also published this a week before it. https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2020/2/6/21121303/coronavirus-wuhan-panic-pandemic-outbreak https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2020/2/6/21121303/coronav... “Don’t scold people for worrying about the coronavirus” By mid-February the media as a whole was already raising alarm bells, and the stock market began crashing on February 24 as a result of media coverage of the virus. To jog our memory, we could look at what people were saying in contemporary February articles... https://www.cnbc.com/2020/02/28/trump-chief-of-staff-mulvaney-suggests-people-ignore-coronavirus-news-to-calm-markets.html https://www.cnbc.com/2020/02/28/trump-chief-of-staff-mulvane... > “The press was covering their hoax of the day because they thought it would bring down the president,” Mulvaney concluded. “The reason you’re seeing so much attention to [the coronavirus] today is that they think this is going to be what brings down the president. That’s what this is all about.”
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

I hate to say it, but almost all major news outlets have been hysterical about this for the past several months.

inpdx 6y ago

By that definition of hysterical I'm pretty sure the media were hysterical during WWII as well.

mjburgess 6y ago
risk of death from c19 is, in all age groups, the same-or-lower than the general risk of death, ie., trivial. The mean age of death from c19 is 80, and even in this group they die at a rate of 1%/wk anyway, for which c19 is about as deadly. This isnt WWII
- lastres0rt 6y ago
  Stop pretending this is just "the flu" either. When we talk about flu stats: most people have some immunity to the flu thanks to flu shots (even if they haven't gotten one for this past year) and general herd immunity, which we DO NOT HAVE for this virus, and won't gain without either a vaccine or a few million dead from this thing running rampant. The stats you're quoting are WITH the level of serious intervention we've had so far, which is why as certain states are reopening, we're starting to see the numbers ticking back up again and looking just as bad if not worse.
  - SlowRobotAhead 6y ago
    I don't think he did compare it to the flu. But look, as unpopular as that comparison is, we just don't have numbers that support the original estimates that caused lock downs of 2 million dead in the US. The media pushed worst case over and over, and still is. I think an uncomfortable stat this coming year will be just how few people will have been reported to died in 2020 of regular flu. It's not saying Covid19 isn't bad in any way to realize that number, will be almost nothing, and that will be suspicious to people going forward for NextTime.
    - DougWebb 6y ago
      We don't have those numbers because of the lockdowns, which were obeyed in part because of the media coverage. The alternative would have been China's approach of physically locking people inside their homes, or much lower compliance and higher infection and death rates.
      - tathougies 6y ago
        > We don't have those numbers because of the lockdowns, which were obeyed in part because of the media coverage. The alternative would have been China's approach of physically locking people inside their homes, or much lower compliance and higher infection and death rates. Complete and utter lies. While true that the lockdown certainly reduced death rate, the death toll was never likely to be 2 million by summer, as widely was reported in the media. For example, The media reported that Sweden would have 40k deaths by now. In reality they have 3000. Sweden is the only data point, since they're the only place that didn't shut down. That is an incredibly faulty model.
        dasil003 6y ago
        Are you suggesting Swedish people have not changed their behavior?
        tathougies 6y ago
        They certainly have, but not due to a 'shutdown' like the ones that were being encouraged in every other country. The media stats said that we were in for 2m deaths in the United States if the government did not shut things down. That was wrong. A proper media response would have anticipated that -- even if the gov't didn't shut things down -- people would have been more cautious by making individual decisions. That would have lead to a better government response.
        inpdx 6y ago
        Sweden didn't have an official lockdown, but they encouraged safer behavior and already have more work from home and single people living alone than other places. That would not have worked in the US, and in truth it didn't work as well as their neighbors.
- SomeoneFromCA 6y ago
  You are wrong because - a) Risk of death among the sickest and weakest is way higher than the "normal", across all age groups. b) We do not know much about the virus. It appears to have strange trait of being more deadly if initial exposure was higher. In Russia, for example ~7% (!) of all Covid deaths are deaths of medical workers, many of them are relatively young and apparently healthy. c) We also do not know what are long term consequences of the disease, even if you survived it just fine.
  - mjburgess 6y ago
    Nothing here you've said is true. The background rate of death in this "sickest and weakest" group is already high. C19 is no higher. Please do some research, there's an article on the BBC with a graph demonstrating this point.
- greedo 6y ago
  You're assuming that the pandemic is over, which is far far from the truth. As one epidemiologist said, "We're not even in the second inning."
- gnachman 6y ago
  My parents are in their 80s so your statement was very surprising. At 80 the expected death risk is under .6% per year, so you’re off by about two orders of magnitude. https://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4c6.html https://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4c6.html
  - treis 6y ago
    That's a decimal not a percentage. It's 0.058 which is 5.8%.

wbl 6y ago

Remember the Recode article and wall to wall coverage making it not a big deal in February?

javagram 6y ago
Memory can be a tricky thing. The Vox Recode article was bad, but Vox also published this a week before it. https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2020/2/6/21121303/coronavirus-wuhan-panic-pandemic-outbreak https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2020/2/6/21121303/coronav... “Don’t scold people for worrying about the coronavirus” By mid-February the media as a whole was already raising alarm bells, and the stock market began crashing on February 24 as a result of media coverage of the virus. To jog our memory, we could look at what people were saying in contemporary February articles... https://www.cnbc.com/2020/02/28/trump-chief-of-staff-mulvaney-suggests-people-ignore-coronavirus-news-to-calm-markets.html https://www.cnbc.com/2020/02/28/trump-chief-of-staff-mulvane... > “The press was covering their hoax of the day because they thought it would bring down the president,” Mulvaney concluded. “The reason you’re seeing so much attention to [the coronavirus] today is that they think this is going to be what brings down the president. That’s what this is all about.”

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]