6 ms·

Fear is the right response to pneumonia. If you haven’t had it you won’t understand. I can’t swim but if you’re a swimmer you might understand a parallel - it’

by mritun 6y ago

Fear is the right response to pneumonia. If you haven’t had it you won’t understand. I can’t swim but if you’re a swimmer you might understand a parallel - it’s like not being able to swim - your head bobbing on water surface, sometimes you can breathe other times you are just gasping. If you’re in water the people will see you’re drowning and a life guard will pull you out. Pneumonia is this “almost drowning” for weeks!and then bring barely able to breathe for months. Again: fear is exactly the right response to pneumonia!

steveeq1 6y ago
The vast vast majority of the cases are mild if you are strong and healthy.
- Kaze404 6y ago
  How many people are strong and healthy?
  - kshacker 6y ago
    Ok here is a random stat, by definition itself 10% of people will be in bottom 10 percentile of the health risk profile and at huge risk. I am not countering you but the parent. Old age itself is a pre-existing condition and then we develop more for each day we live (obesity, heart attacks, diabetes). I know the numbers of true risk may be different but can we manage 5-15% of people falling extremely sick?
    - taeric 6y ago
      Strictly, this isn't right. You can have more than ten percent of a population below the tenth percentile of a measure. Consider how this stat squares the percentage of people with less than (or more than) the tenth percentile of finger count.
    - pixl97 6y ago
      The US has an enormous population of elderly, obese, and diabetics. Trying to pick a random risk factor doesn't really work.
  - Mikeb85 6y ago
    In most countries, most people. Problems with obesity and chronic health conditions are relatively recent in the history of mankind.
    - Kaze404 6y ago
      Almost 80% of people in the US are overweight as of 2015, with 35% suffering from obesity and 5% from extreme obesity. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obesity_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obesity_in_the_United_States
      - Mikeb85 6y ago
        Hence why I said most countries.
        ashtonkem 6y ago
        “People in another country who are less fat will be fine” might be technically true, but it’s less than helpful when you’re trying to decide what to do right here and right now.
        Kaze404 6y ago
        And you're still incorrect. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-adults-who-are-overweight https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-adults-who-are-o...
    - huonpine 6y ago
      It is interesting to consider what the death toll from exporting American food culture worldwide is. I think it would really help put the death toll from corona virus in perspective.
- bsanr2 6y ago
  Why are people obsessed with turning disease into a chance to pass moral judgment?
  - dividedbyzero 6y ago
    I guess it can help with coping with one's own fear and helplessness. Those people brought it on themselves, so I'm good because I didn't do the bad things they did, and it's less of a problem if they suffer, because again they brought it on themselves. Something like that maybe. I don't really get it either.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
  - bookofjoe 6y ago
    See: "Illness as Metaphor" (1978) by Susan Sontag https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illness_as_Metaphor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illness_as_Metaphor
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
aianus 6y ago
> Fear is the right response to pneumonia Yes, but not so much fear that you ride out your stroke or heart attack at home because you think venturing out of your house and into the ER is wading into certain death via pneumonia. That is the level of fear that the media has induced in some people and it's even more dangerous (at the individual level) than too little fear.
- jeromegv 6y ago
  The media? Or social media? Or random blogs and forums? It’s easy to accuse a general “media” but we get bombarded by so much content that it’s hard to really pinpoint who’s doing the fear mongering. Anecdata, I found the coverage in my city (Toronto) being much more accurate by the traditional large media than the random crap I’ve been reading on twitter / local reddit / click-baity blogs. And I wouldn’t put the 24 hours cable news channel in the same category as the newspaper either. “Medias” can mean so many things.
- derefr 6y ago
  What about the people who have the symptoms of COVID-19, where it's not severe enough for them to be hospitalized for that, so the messaging is for them to self-quarantine; but then they also get struck with some other problem (such as a heart attack)? I feel like I've heard no clear messaging on what such people are supposed to do, even from the most rational/level-headed medical authorities. I imagine being in those shoes feels a lot like it would have to need surgery when you're HIV positive, back when HIV was an eventual death sentence: you'd feel guilt/shame for exposing your doctors to this coincidental problem you have, that might get them sick. And so these people don't go, and end up dying of these other problems, likely at a much higher level than the people who are just staying indoors out of paranoia.
  - IAmEveryone 6y ago
    If you have a heart attack you call 911. There hasn’t been much messaging about that because, frankly, it’s assumed to be obvious.
    - 6y ago
shibeouya 6y ago
I can understand. I had it and got tested positive for antibodies recently. I had symptoms but it honestly was more like a mild flu. So please stop your fear mongering and holier than thou attitude, just because you had it and it was bad doesn't mean that everyone will be the same. In fact serological studies prove that the overwhelming majority barely have any symptoms, and of those who do even fewer develop into a severe illness.
- rumanator 6y ago
  > So please stop your fear mongering and holier than thou attitude, just because you had it and it was bad doesn't mean that everyone will be the same. I'm not sure you fully understand the problem you're trying to discuss. The problem is not just about ourselves catching it. The main problem is us acting as transmission vectors to anyone and everyone around us. You may believe you are magically enchanted to not have any lasting consequences from a covid19 infection, but I'm quite sure that you come across people who may fall within one of the risk cohorts. Thus you crossing their path might very well be a death sentence to them. But that shouldn't bother you, right?

by mritun 6y ago

steveeq1 6y ago

The vast vast majority of the cases are mild if you are strong and healthy.

Kaze404 6y ago
How many people are strong and healthy?
- kshacker 6y ago
  Ok here is a random stat, by definition itself 10% of people will be in bottom 10 percentile of the health risk profile and at huge risk. I am not countering you but the parent. Old age itself is a pre-existing condition and then we develop more for each day we live (obesity, heart attacks, diabetes). I know the numbers of true risk may be different but can we manage 5-15% of people falling extremely sick?
  - taeric 6y ago
    Strictly, this isn't right. You can have more than ten percent of a population below the tenth percentile of a measure. Consider how this stat squares the percentage of people with less than (or more than) the tenth percentile of finger count.
  - pixl97 6y ago
    The US has an enormous population of elderly, obese, and diabetics. Trying to pick a random risk factor doesn't really work.
- Mikeb85 6y ago
  In most countries, most people. Problems with obesity and chronic health conditions are relatively recent in the history of mankind.
  - Kaze404 6y ago
    Almost 80% of people in the US are overweight as of 2015, with 35% suffering from obesity and 5% from extreme obesity. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obesity_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obesity_in_the_United_States
    - Mikeb85 6y ago
      Hence why I said most countries.
      - ashtonkem 6y ago
        “People in another country who are less fat will be fine” might be technically true, but it’s less than helpful when you’re trying to decide what to do right here and right now.
      - Kaze404 6y ago
        And you're still incorrect. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-adults-who-are-overweight https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-adults-who-are-o...
  - huonpine 6y ago
    It is interesting to consider what the death toll from exporting American food culture worldwide is. I think it would really help put the death toll from corona virus in perspective.
bsanr2 6y ago
Why are people obsessed with turning disease into a chance to pass moral judgment?
- dividedbyzero 6y ago
  I guess it can help with coping with one's own fear and helplessness. Those people brought it on themselves, so I'm good because I didn't do the bad things they did, and it's less of a problem if they suffer, because again they brought it on themselves. Something like that maybe. I don't really get it either.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- bookofjoe 6y ago
  See: "Illness as Metaphor" (1978) by Susan Sontag https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illness_as_Metaphor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illness_as_Metaphor
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

aianus 6y ago

> Fear is the right response to pneumonia Yes, but not so much fear that you ride out your stroke or heart attack at home because you think venturing out of your house and into the ER is wading into certain death via pneumonia. That is the level of fear that the media has induced in some people and it's even more dangerous (at the individual level) than too little fear.

jeromegv 6y ago
The media? Or social media? Or random blogs and forums? It’s easy to accuse a general “media” but we get bombarded by so much content that it’s hard to really pinpoint who’s doing the fear mongering. Anecdata, I found the coverage in my city (Toronto) being much more accurate by the traditional large media than the random crap I’ve been reading on twitter / local reddit / click-baity blogs. And I wouldn’t put the 24 hours cable news channel in the same category as the newspaper either. “Medias” can mean so many things.
derefr 6y ago
What about the people who have the symptoms of COVID-19, where it's not severe enough for them to be hospitalized for that, so the messaging is for them to self-quarantine; but then they also get struck with some other problem (such as a heart attack)? I feel like I've heard no clear messaging on what such people are supposed to do, even from the most rational/level-headed medical authorities. I imagine being in those shoes feels a lot like it would have to need surgery when you're HIV positive, back when HIV was an eventual death sentence: you'd feel guilt/shame for exposing your doctors to this coincidental problem you have, that might get them sick. And so these people don't go, and end up dying of these other problems, likely at a much higher level than the people who are just staying indoors out of paranoia.
- IAmEveryone 6y ago
  If you have a heart attack you call 911. There hasn’t been much messaging about that because, frankly, it’s assumed to be obvious.
  - 6y ago

shibeouya 6y ago

I can understand. I had it and got tested positive for antibodies recently. I had symptoms but it honestly was more like a mild flu. So please stop your fear mongering and holier than thou attitude, just because you had it and it was bad doesn't mean that everyone will be the same. In fact serological studies prove that the overwhelming majority barely have any symptoms, and of those who do even fewer develop into a severe illness.

rumanator 6y ago
> So please stop your fear mongering and holier than thou attitude, just because you had it and it was bad doesn't mean that everyone will be the same. I'm not sure you fully understand the problem you're trying to discuss. The problem is not just about ourselves catching it. The main problem is us acting as transmission vectors to anyone and everyone around us. You may believe you are magically enchanted to not have any lasting consequences from a covid19 infection, but I'm quite sure that you come across people who may fall within one of the risk cohorts. Thus you crossing their path might very well be a death sentence to them. But that shouldn't bother you, right?