3 ms·

> We can just open up right now, if the government and especially media communicated the severity of covid realistically and appropriately. I’m curious, do you

> We can just open up right now, if the government and especially media communicated the severity of covid realistically and appropriately. I’m curious, do you mind being more specific about what “realistically and appropriately” means in this context? Exactly how did the media miscommunicate the severity of COVID? > Flu kills thousand of people as well, flu causes long term damage as well but yet doesn't cause this kind of panic. Influenza killed just over 34,000 Americans last year. We are currently sitting at 170,000 deaths, and could see 300-400k dead by the end of this year. That’s roughly 10x what we see in a typical flu season. It’s unarguably the worst public health crisis in 100 years. What about this shouldn’t have people concerned?

matz1 6y ago
>I’m curious, do you mind being more specific about what “realistically and appropriately” means in this context? Exactly how did the media miscommunicate the severity of COVID They should emphasize on recovery rate and the fact that for vast majority of people it will be either asymptomatic or only mild symptoms. But instead the government and media treat it like it's a black plaque. Learn from Sweden, they never lockdown. Their school, bar and businesses stay open, life pretty much normal. >Influenza killed just over 34,000 Americans last year. We are currently sitting at 170,000 deaths, and could see 300-400k dead by the end of this year. That’s roughly 10x what we see in a typical flu season. It’s unarguably the worst public health crisis in 100 years. What about this shouldn’t have people concerns Sure its 10x but its still only 0.05% of the population and highly skewed toward the elderly where any small diseases or complication can kill them anyway. If covid is as deadly as anthrax or ebola than that is really when people should be concerned.
- save_ferris 6y ago
  > They should emphasize on recovery rate and the fact that for vast majority of people it will be either asymptomatic or only mild symptoms. The government's job is to protect the health and safety of the community, right? How does a government do this by emphasizing that what is going isn't a big deal? We're still seeing 1,000 dead per day in the US, and they definitely aren't all old. Healthcare workers in their 20's and 30's are dying, this is definitely killing people that don't fall into your broad category of those whose lives don't matter to you. It's killing black Americans at a much, much higher rate than white Americans. Should we not care about that? And who really should get to decide which 0.05% die in this case? Do we not have a responsibility to ensure the health and safety of everyone in the country? The reality is that some ER doctors have had to make this decision. They had to decide between giving a ventilator to a young person instead of an old person. And the fact that we're still struggling to contain this and force our healthcare professionals to have to make these kinds of decisions underscores the fundamental failure that we are seeing as a society. A hundred people may have died in the few hours we've spent discussing this. They're dying as we type right now. Are you really suggesting that instead, we should focus on those who are living, and just forget that we're losing a 1,000 of our countrymen and women every day?
  - matz1 6y ago
    >The government's job is to protect the health and safety of the community, right? Yes but we can't ignore the damage caused by lockdown. Lockdown is not without downside, it incur immense cost and long term damage. Lockdown is maybe justifiable if the threat is proportional to the severity. >and force our healthcare professionals to have to make these kinds of decisions That is normal part of being healthcare professionals. >Should we not care about that? Yes we should care about them, at the same time we shouldn't make the rest suffer. Doesn't mean there is nothing that should be done, vaccine research still have to be done, finding treatment still have to be done, improving health care capacity still have to be done.
mikem170 6y ago
>It’s unarguably the worst public health crisis in 100 years. The 1968 flu killed 1-4 million people, in a world with half the population of today. The 1957 flu killed a million people. So much about covid has been exaggerated. So many screaming headlines in the news and a paucity of facts.
- save_ferris 6y ago
  We're already at 780K deaths globally with COVID, and flu season hasn't hit yet. 3.6K died yesterday[0], so we're only ~60 days away from 1M deaths, assuming that the death rate doesn't change. How are concrete numbers exaggerated? How are concrete numbers not fact? Neither of those figures you posted seem out of the realm of possibility here, we're still in the middle of this pandemic that will continue on for many more months. It's kinda hard to compare previous viruses in their totality when we're still seeing thousands dying every day, no? 0: https://ncov2019.live/ https://ncov2019.live/
  - matz1 6y ago
    780K out of 7.8 billion = 0.01% that is very low and over time death rate will be lower because of increasing number of immunity on the population and better method of treatment.
    - jquery 6y ago
      You’re right, but many people are too emotional right now to have a reasoned discussion. They read fear-porn all day about COVID-19, thinking that it’s super-aids + cancer combined. What they often don’t know is the death rate is only 3x that of the flu (since treatments have improved) and the average age at death is 78 years old.
  - mikem170 6y ago
    My apologies, my mention of exaggerations and paucity of facts was a bit off the cuff, I didn't do a good job of explaining myself. I was replying to your remark that "It’s unarguably the worst public health crisis in 100 years". Which just isn't true. It's exaggerations like this I was referring to. The flu in 1918, 1957, and 1968 were worse. If not for vaccinations the flu is a more scary disease than coronavirus - it mutates yearly, has just as much if not a worse fatality rate than covid, and causes long-term damage as often or more so. Malaria is far worse, I just heard that 3000 children die of that every day. Then there's HIV, diabetes, heart disease, etc. Through this pandemic headlines seem to always feature worst case scenarios, numbers without context, etc. This is a statistically complex subject, a moving target, and our brains are not wired for dispassionate risk assessment.

matz1 6y ago

>I’m curious, do you mind being more specific about what “realistically and appropriately” means in this context? Exactly how did the media miscommunicate the severity of COVID They should emphasize on recovery rate and the fact that for vast majority of people it will be either asymptomatic or only mild symptoms. But instead the government and media treat it like it's a black plaque. Learn from Sweden, they never lockdown. Their school, bar and businesses stay open, life pretty much normal. >Influenza killed just over 34,000 Americans last year. We are currently sitting at 170,000 deaths, and could see 300-400k dead by the end of this year. That’s roughly 10x what we see in a typical flu season. It’s unarguably the worst public health crisis in 100 years. What about this shouldn’t have people concerns Sure its 10x but its still only 0.05% of the population and highly skewed toward the elderly where any small diseases or complication can kill them anyway. If covid is as deadly as anthrax or ebola than that is really when people should be concerned.

save_ferris 6y ago
> They should emphasize on recovery rate and the fact that for vast majority of people it will be either asymptomatic or only mild symptoms. The government's job is to protect the health and safety of the community, right? How does a government do this by emphasizing that what is going isn't a big deal? We're still seeing 1,000 dead per day in the US, and they definitely aren't all old. Healthcare workers in their 20's and 30's are dying, this is definitely killing people that don't fall into your broad category of those whose lives don't matter to you. It's killing black Americans at a much, much higher rate than white Americans. Should we not care about that? And who really should get to decide which 0.05% die in this case? Do we not have a responsibility to ensure the health and safety of everyone in the country? The reality is that some ER doctors have had to make this decision. They had to decide between giving a ventilator to a young person instead of an old person. And the fact that we're still struggling to contain this and force our healthcare professionals to have to make these kinds of decisions underscores the fundamental failure that we are seeing as a society. A hundred people may have died in the few hours we've spent discussing this. They're dying as we type right now. Are you really suggesting that instead, we should focus on those who are living, and just forget that we're losing a 1,000 of our countrymen and women every day?
- matz1 6y ago
  >The government's job is to protect the health and safety of the community, right? Yes but we can't ignore the damage caused by lockdown. Lockdown is not without downside, it incur immense cost and long term damage. Lockdown is maybe justifiable if the threat is proportional to the severity. >and force our healthcare professionals to have to make these kinds of decisions That is normal part of being healthcare professionals. >Should we not care about that? Yes we should care about them, at the same time we shouldn't make the rest suffer. Doesn't mean there is nothing that should be done, vaccine research still have to be done, finding treatment still have to be done, improving health care capacity still have to be done.

mikem170 6y ago

>It’s unarguably the worst public health crisis in 100 years. The 1968 flu killed 1-4 million people, in a world with half the population of today. The 1957 flu killed a million people. So much about covid has been exaggerated. So many screaming headlines in the news and a paucity of facts.

save_ferris 6y ago
We're already at 780K deaths globally with COVID, and flu season hasn't hit yet. 3.6K died yesterday[0], so we're only ~60 days away from 1M deaths, assuming that the death rate doesn't change. How are concrete numbers exaggerated? How are concrete numbers not fact? Neither of those figures you posted seem out of the realm of possibility here, we're still in the middle of this pandemic that will continue on for many more months. It's kinda hard to compare previous viruses in their totality when we're still seeing thousands dying every day, no? 0: https://ncov2019.live/ https://ncov2019.live/
- matz1 6y ago
  780K out of 7.8 billion = 0.01% that is very low and over time death rate will be lower because of increasing number of immunity on the population and better method of treatment.
  - jquery 6y ago
    You’re right, but many people are too emotional right now to have a reasoned discussion. They read fear-porn all day about COVID-19, thinking that it’s super-aids + cancer combined. What they often don’t know is the death rate is only 3x that of the flu (since treatments have improved) and the average age at death is 78 years old.
- mikem170 6y ago
  My apologies, my mention of exaggerations and paucity of facts was a bit off the cuff, I didn't do a good job of explaining myself. I was replying to your remark that "It’s unarguably the worst public health crisis in 100 years". Which just isn't true. It's exaggerations like this I was referring to. The flu in 1918, 1957, and 1968 were worse. If not for vaccinations the flu is a more scary disease than coronavirus - it mutates yearly, has just as much if not a worse fatality rate than covid, and causes long-term damage as often or more so. Malaria is far worse, I just heard that 3000 children die of that every day. Then there's HIV, diabetes, heart disease, etc. Through this pandemic headlines seem to always feature worst case scenarios, numbers without context, etc. This is a statistically complex subject, a moving target, and our brains are not wired for dispassionate risk assessment.