4 ms·

Exactly. We need some humility in people. It is okay to admit that this is (thankfully!) not as bad as we thought, but it is still bad. It will still kill a lot

Exactly. We need some humility in people. It is okay to admit that this is (thankfully!) not as bad as we thought, but it is still bad. It will still kill a lot of people. We need to take it seriously, but not as seriously as we feared. The doomers need to have the humility to admit that, and the hoaxers need to have the humility to admit that it is worse than the seasonal flu. Again, I fear people don't realize that this isn't a game. This is disastrously bad and getting worse every. single. day.

luckylion 6y ago
> the hoaxers need to have the humility to admit that it is worse than the seasonal flu. I don't believe any significant number actually thinks that, it's their counter to "everybody will die, the science is settled". They will aim for something on the opposite extreme, that is a pretty common reaction. Imho: if you don't try to convince them that an asteroid is about to crash into earth, but instead tell them that lots of people are scared to death of an asteroid crashing into earth, they'll have a much easier time saying "okay, sure, I don't want them to be scared, I can wear a mask when I go shopping, I guess". > Again, I fear people don't realize that this isn't a game. This is disastrously bad and getting worse every. single. day. Where you live, maybe. Where I live, we haven't had a case in 10 days in the county of 330k people, we've had laughably low deaths to begin with, the curve was pretty much flattened the moment we went into constraints ... and we still have mandatory masks with no end in sight, and our local government still does not go back to normal mode, the trash is still getting picked up on irregular schedules etc. It's neither disastrous here, and it's not getting worse. But a lot of people are still scared out of their mind. And we need to help them to breathe and calm down, and tell them that it was scary, but that it's okay to go back outside. And at some point we'll have to tell them that they need to go back outside because we can't keep society running around them without them.
- salmon30salmon 6y ago
  I mean the response is a disaster, not the epidemic itself. The fact that 40m are unemployed, that income tax receipts have nosedived, that business are shuttering leading to blight etc. Those are the long term disasters in the making.
  - luckylion 6y ago
    Oh, my mistake, I misunderstood. Thanks for clearing that up!
umvi 6y ago
> and the hoaxers need to have the humility to admit that it is worse than the seasonal flu. Seasonal flu happens every year. Novel virus pandemics happen once per century. Seasonal flu is much more deadly, just spread out over longer timeline. And estimated covid mortality rate for my age group falls every week. I'm still not convinced it's measurably worse than the flu (for my age group).

luckylion 6y ago

> the hoaxers need to have the humility to admit that it is worse than the seasonal flu. I don't believe any significant number actually thinks that, it's their counter to "everybody will die, the science is settled". They will aim for something on the opposite extreme, that is a pretty common reaction. Imho: if you don't try to convince them that an asteroid is about to crash into earth, but instead tell them that lots of people are scared to death of an asteroid crashing into earth, they'll have a much easier time saying "okay, sure, I don't want them to be scared, I can wear a mask when I go shopping, I guess". > Again, I fear people don't realize that this isn't a game. This is disastrously bad and getting worse every. single. day. Where you live, maybe. Where I live, we haven't had a case in 10 days in the county of 330k people, we've had laughably low deaths to begin with, the curve was pretty much flattened the moment we went into constraints ... and we still have mandatory masks with no end in sight, and our local government still does not go back to normal mode, the trash is still getting picked up on irregular schedules etc. It's neither disastrous here, and it's not getting worse. But a lot of people are still scared out of their mind. And we need to help them to breathe and calm down, and tell them that it was scary, but that it's okay to go back outside. And at some point we'll have to tell them that they need to go back outside because we can't keep society running around them without them.

salmon30salmon 6y ago
I mean the response is a disaster, not the epidemic itself. The fact that 40m are unemployed, that income tax receipts have nosedived, that business are shuttering leading to blight etc. Those are the long term disasters in the making.
- luckylion 6y ago
  Oh, my mistake, I misunderstood. Thanks for clearing that up!

umvi 6y ago

> and the hoaxers need to have the humility to admit that it is worse than the seasonal flu. Seasonal flu happens every year. Novel virus pandemics happen once per century. Seasonal flu is much more deadly, just spread out over longer timeline. And estimated covid mortality rate for my age group falls every week. I'm still not convinced it's measurably worse than the flu (for my age group).