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> 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 yo

by 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.
  - derefr 6y ago
    People tend to call 911 while they're having a heart attack; but a first heart attack doesn't tend to kill people, so if they live through it, they tend to think it isn't an urgent problem in need of calling 911, and instead just go to the hospital at their earliest convenience. The problem here guilt/shame delaying "earliest convenience."
  - aianus 6y ago
    Washing your hands and covering your mouth while you cough is obvious too; that doesn't mean the messaging is unnecessary.
    - rumanator 6y ago
      It isn't obvious, unless you happen to suffer from hypochondria.
ashtonkem 6y ago
So far COVID-19 has killed 0.25% of NYC, with that number continuing to rise. The idea that fear is more dangerous than that is facile. Edit: Updated fatality percentage from 0.16% to 0.25%, to reflect the latest numbers.
- fuckknows 6y ago
  No it's absolutely not. Your risk of dying, or of having life altering chronic illness, from not immediately seeking medical attention if you are having a heart attack or stroke is far higher than your risk from COVID, and those people aren't showing up at hospital right now.
  - ashtonkem 6y ago
    Update: updated the stat to 0.25%, based on the official fatality count of 21,045 and a population of 8.4mil. In 2018, NYC’s premature death rate was 189 per 100,000, or 0.189% of the population. In a single quarter COVID-19 has already surpassed all causes of premature death combined. And that’s before the epidemic is done, and before we’ve had a chance to re-test earlier deaths to adjust the numbers properly. You’re not wrong that some people will die from otherwise treatable heart attacks, and that’s tragic. But to assert that more will die from staying home than not requires some pretty extraordinary evidence.
    - joshuamorton 6y ago
      This is a terrible take. Assuming you have a heart attack, your chance of dying is 20%. Higher if you don't get treatment. That's as high or higher than your chance of dying from covid-19 assuming you're in the highest risk group. A conservative estimate of likelihood to catch covid if you go to a hospital at this point is 5%. In reality it's probably lower. These end up mostly cancelling out, so if you the I the chance you're suffering from a heart attack is higher than the chance of catching covid you should go to the hospital. (And this is me still fudging the numbers to make covid look comparatively more dangerous than it really is). People will needlessly sir if we collectively overstate tht dangers of covid. That's without a doubt true. People will also die if we understate them and don't take reasonable precautions.

by aianus 6y ago

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.
- derefr 6y ago
  People tend to call 911 while they're having a heart attack; but a first heart attack doesn't tend to kill people, so if they live through it, they tend to think it isn't an urgent problem in need of calling 911, and instead just go to the hospital at their earliest convenience. The problem here guilt/shame delaying "earliest convenience."
- aianus 6y ago
  Washing your hands and covering your mouth while you cough is obvious too; that doesn't mean the messaging is unnecessary.
  - rumanator 6y ago
    It isn't obvious, unless you happen to suffer from hypochondria.

ashtonkem 6y ago

So far COVID-19 has killed 0.25% of NYC, with that number continuing to rise. The idea that fear is more dangerous than that is facile. Edit: Updated fatality percentage from 0.16% to 0.25%, to reflect the latest numbers.

fuckknows 6y ago
No it's absolutely not. Your risk of dying, or of having life altering chronic illness, from not immediately seeking medical attention if you are having a heart attack or stroke is far higher than your risk from COVID, and those people aren't showing up at hospital right now.
- ashtonkem 6y ago
  Update: updated the stat to 0.25%, based on the official fatality count of 21,045 and a population of 8.4mil. In 2018, NYC’s premature death rate was 189 per 100,000, or 0.189% of the population. In a single quarter COVID-19 has already surpassed all causes of premature death combined. And that’s before the epidemic is done, and before we’ve had a chance to re-test earlier deaths to adjust the numbers properly. You’re not wrong that some people will die from otherwise treatable heart attacks, and that’s tragic. But to assert that more will die from staying home than not requires some pretty extraordinary evidence.
  - joshuamorton 6y ago
    This is a terrible take. Assuming you have a heart attack, your chance of dying is 20%. Higher if you don't get treatment. That's as high or higher than your chance of dying from covid-19 assuming you're in the highest risk group. A conservative estimate of likelihood to catch covid if you go to a hospital at this point is 5%. In reality it's probably lower. These end up mostly cancelling out, so if you the I the chance you're suffering from a heart attack is higher than the chance of catching covid you should go to the hospital. (And this is me still fudging the numbers to make covid look comparatively more dangerous than it really is). People will needlessly sir if we collectively overstate tht dangers of covid. That's without a doubt true. People will also die if we understate them and don't take reasonable precautions.