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This seems incredibly dangerous. Are the speakeasy gyms requiring negative COVID tests? Are they doing temperature screenings upon entry? How diligently are the

This seems incredibly dangerous. Are the speakeasy gyms requiring negative COVID tests? Are they doing temperature screenings upon entry? How diligently are they sanitizing equipment? How well ventilated are these various areas? Why are people ignoring all of these risks, what kind of threat model do they have?

AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago
It is very easy for people to casually ignore risk when mitigating it is inconvenient if they have no direct experience with the negative results.
gambiting 6y ago
>> what kind of threat model do they have? The exact same one - "it won't happen to me". I mean, is it really that surprising? I see this all the time everywhere.
hammock 6y ago
You don't have to go if you don't want to. Surely your indignation would be better directed at employers, schools and others who are requiring in-person attendance.
- Ansil849 6y ago
  > You don't have to go if you don't want to. Are you implying that the people going to these speakeasy gyms are then self-quarantining and not interacting with people who did not go to the gym? Because if not, then this is a non sequitur of a response. > Surely your indignation would be better directed at employers, schools and others who are requiring in-person attendance. Except OP is not about employers, schools and others.
  - hammock 6y ago
    Interacting with other people is a two-way street. If you are afraid someone across from you might have been to one of these gyms, then walk away from them.
    - Ansil849 6y ago
      And if they go up to someone like a cashier?
    - vharuck 6y ago
      Because of community networks and a contagious disease, that's effectively asking me to quarantine all the time.
      - hammock 6y ago
        Now you're on the right track. Imagine how a daily churchgoer feels.
- danilocesar 6y ago
  This kind of answer shows why covid is hitting so hard in america. "I do whatever I want, you do whatever you want" it's not about the individual, what he wants or do. It's about this individual spreading the virus to the community later on.
  - slumpt_ 6y ago
    It makes me sad seeing a community I’d otherwise regard as intelligent being so profoundly ignorant. But I also acknowledge this is a western culture issue more than one of intelligence alone. Discouraging nonetheless. We’ve really messed up.
    - SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
      It seems terribly unfair to call it profound ignorance. As you say, it's a values difference. If you remember learning about "individualism", that's what it means; it's the idea that the collective doesn't have unbounded authority to tell individuals what to do.
    - Chris2048 6y ago
      > It makes me sad seeing a community I’d otherwise regard as intelligent being so profoundly ignorant I feel the same about religion, so AFAIK this has always been so - move along, nothing to see here. Except religion has been around long enough to excuse itself from the obvious, or a least to bare its fangs at anyone thinking of commenting on the emperor's new clothes..
- flanbiscuit 6y ago
  > You don't have to go if you don't want to... Except that these people go there and then go home and spread it to their family and other friends. They go to grocery stores and other locations and touch things or cough/sneeze it in to the air. It's never about one person's individual choice. > Surely your indignation would be better directed at employers, schools and others who are requiring in-person attendance. Yes this deserves it as well but that does not negate the concerns
- gowld 6y ago
  Time to update the old "Your right to swing your fist ends at my nose" to "Your right to spittke ends at my nose".
- squeaky-clean 6y ago
  I'm okay with this answer as long as the people who go to the gym aren't allowed in the grocery store, bank, on public transport.... Because I do have to go there whether I want to or not. Give any gym-goer a 2 week temporary tattoo on their forehead so I know to avoid them. Then we're cool.
  - hammock 6y ago
    You'll have to talk to your local grocery store or bank manager about that.
    - squeaky-clean 6y ago
      I actually edited out a /sarcasm because I thought it was that obvious. Oh boy.
Enginerrrd 6y ago
I'd guess the threat model is something like: relatively low local disease prevalence rate, the likelihood that infected people show up to workout is lower than other activities like office-work, and relatively low likelihood of personal adverse outcomes in someone healthy enough to be going to an underground gym. Further, there are major benefits to psychological state, social/emotional state, mental acuity, health, and maintenance/progression of physical capacity. I'd love to see you try and add all that up in micromorts of personal risk and show me that it's actually a bad rational decision. I suspect it would be very marginal for your argument at best, and most likely neutral or positive. That's all to say it's probably rational decision making, though certainly selfish thinking.
- dqpb 6y ago
  Most people don’t know how to monitor the local disease prevalence rate.
  - Enginerrrd 6y ago
    Within a certain range on the lower end, definitely. Above that range, I disagree strongly. People generally know when there's "a bad cold/flu going around" or "a stomach bug" or w/e. There's some good intuitive reasoning there, but I'd agree that they aren't very good at it within a regime where it's prevalent enough to matter, but not quite prevalent enough to see/feel out intuitively.
- vharuck 6y ago
  >I'd love to see you try and add all that up in micromorts of personal risk and show me that it's actually a bad rational decision. On an individual level, I have no doubt you're right. The health benefits from exercise would definitely outweigh the risk of COVID-19 (assuming the individual's not over 65 or has a majorly risky health condition). But this is a pandemic, so decisions are made on the community level. The disease spreads. Healthy people don't live in separate cities from those at risk. Even if everyone is careful, mistakes happen: an unexpected sneeze, unconsciously rubbing your eyes, getting caught in a crowd. We're trying to minimize the number of mistakes (especially the more likely ones). That's not too say whatever policy is current in your area is right. But if you think things can be done safely, consider reaching out to your representatives with a plan backed up by medical research. I know my state desperately wants to reopen businesses; the government doesn't benefit from closures.
SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
They're not constructing a complex threat model and deciding that the hedonic value of gym attendance outweighs the disease risk. They're just going to the gym because they decided they'd like to. The article's parallel to alcohol prohibition is exactly on point; there was a famous policy where the government ordered industrial alcohol to include increasingly strong poisions, but consumers kept on drinking it anyway, because they weren't doing a risk-benefit analysis in the first place.
parliament32 6y ago
They are doing exactly zero of those things, because of prohibition. That's the whole point of the article -- if you prohibit something, it'll happen anyway but quality will go down. A much better approach would be to require the things you mentioned (like my area did) by law instead of a blanket ban.
- Ansil849 6y ago
  Yes, I agree. Which area are you in which does this? It would be a good counterpoint article.
  - parliament32 6y ago
    BC, Canada. Details: https://www.worksafebc.com/en/about-us/covid-19-updates/covid-19-returning-safe-operation/gyms-and-fitness-centres https://www.worksafebc.com/en/about-us/covid-19-updates/covi...
Swizec 6y ago
I go to a boxing class in the park. We meet 2x/week and train together. You can’t distance while boxing. Here’s my threat model: - we’re all young, healthy, and in good shape - we all wear masks during normal life, some of us even while training - we all social distance and follow the right protocols outside of boxing - it’s always the same group of people - 2x/week seems like low enough frequency that exposure won’t add up - we stay home or even cancel class when someone feels off - we’re outside so it’s nice and windy - we keep distance when not punching each other and groups of 2 are kept far apart So far so good. It feels like an acceptable level of risk to me. Going to the farmer’s market (with masks) every week is probably way more risky than the boxing class.
- Jommi 6y ago
  It seems like an acceptable level of risk to me as well. But is it an acceptable level to all the people you counteract with say within a week? Is the cashier at your supermarket, that lives with their 6+ family members, ok with you doing this? Is your elderly neighbour that also uses your elevator OK with this? This is the moral and societal conundrum we are in.
  - Swizec 6y ago
    Well I’m not out there licking their face. Isn’t distancing, the plexiglass screens, and mask wearing supposed to fix my risk to others? If memory serves, the probability of transmission is under 1% with those measures.
    - Jommi 6y ago
      Its supposed to reduce it, but we don't know how much. We also don't know how well those standards are adhered to. Could you link the study that backs the 1%? How is that statement better than just coming up with a number?
      - Swizec 6y ago
        Here’s the best I can find. The 1.5% comes from a viral image of why masks are important. CDC says the numbers “show the right idea” but we don’t yet have studies that yield a specific percentage. https://www.wusa9.com/article/news/health/coronavirus/verify-viral-image-about-masks-gets-the-numbers-wrong-but-the-idea-right/507-ff915e39-5a79-483d-86b7-98ecc796c8e5 https://www.wusa9.com/article/news/health/coronavirus/verify...
maerF0x0 6y ago
The rational goes something like this: If the screenings work, why are we closed? If the screenings dont work, why bother doing it? In some ways the gov't has played itself by not being consistent, and by giving people a shitty education.
breck 6y ago
By my rough calculations, for a 35M, going to the gym during Covid for an hour a day, for 160 straight days (so 6.67 days of gym time), can be expected to cut one's life expectancy by about 10 days. Odds of dying this year: 0.002138 [1]. Odds of dying this year if they get Covid: 0.00271 (~n*1.3) [2] Odds of contracting Covid over 160 days if going to gym: 60% Odds of contracting Covid if not going to Gym: 43% (assuming 10 people at the gym each time, 1 hour workout durations, odds of someone at Gym having it in any one session at .025%, and odds of catching it 20% at gym). Now what about the negative second order affects of spreading it to others? I did not model those, but I think at this point there could be a compelling case that not catching it now might be net harmful to the folks at high risk, since they would need to remain in lockdown if there remains a large number of people around who are not immune. [1] https://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4c6.html https://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4c6.html [2] https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.07.23.20160895v3 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.07.23.20160895v...
- VLM 6y ago
  Aren't the cofactors for COVID death highly unusual for gym exercisers? High BMI, low cardio health stats, diabetes, high blood pressure... Going to the gym is my only prevention for those cofactors... Looking at the stats I'm more likely to spread the disease if I go to the gym, but much less likely to personally die of the disease if I stay healthy by going to the gym. Complicating the situation is due to work and food delivery situation, I can't actually spread the disease to anyone at risk because they just aren't in my life.
squeaky-clean 6y ago
Just turn on showdead in your HN settings and look at how many deniers are in this very thread.
s1artibartfast 6y ago
What do you consider incredibly dangerous? In the US, roughly 150 per 1m people catch covid per day. Infection fatality for 20-29 is about 7/100,000. For 365 days, that is about a 1/million chance of dying of covid (for a 20 something year old) . For context[1]: For similar ages, the suicide rate is 200/ million. Deaths from unintentional injury is 600/ million Deaths from heart disease is roughly 100/ million When I put this into a threat model, I should put about 1000X more effort into these areas. A 10% reduction in risk of heart disease is an equal trade-off with +900% chance of contracting covid. [1] https://webappa.cdc.gov/cgi-bin/broker.exe https://webappa.cdc.gov/cgi-bin/broker.exe

AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago

It is very easy for people to casually ignore risk when mitigating it is inconvenient if they have no direct experience with the negative results.

gambiting 6y ago

>> what kind of threat model do they have? The exact same one - "it won't happen to me". I mean, is it really that surprising? I see this all the time everywhere.

hammock 6y ago

You don't have to go if you don't want to. Surely your indignation would be better directed at employers, schools and others who are requiring in-person attendance.

Ansil849 6y ago
> You don't have to go if you don't want to. Are you implying that the people going to these speakeasy gyms are then self-quarantining and not interacting with people who did not go to the gym? Because if not, then this is a non sequitur of a response. > Surely your indignation would be better directed at employers, schools and others who are requiring in-person attendance. Except OP is not about employers, schools and others.
- hammock 6y ago
  Interacting with other people is a two-way street. If you are afraid someone across from you might have been to one of these gyms, then walk away from them.
  - Ansil849 6y ago
    And if they go up to someone like a cashier?
  - vharuck 6y ago
    Because of community networks and a contagious disease, that's effectively asking me to quarantine all the time.
    - hammock 6y ago
      Now you're on the right track. Imagine how a daily churchgoer feels.
danilocesar 6y ago
This kind of answer shows why covid is hitting so hard in america. "I do whatever I want, you do whatever you want" it's not about the individual, what he wants or do. It's about this individual spreading the virus to the community later on.
- slumpt_ 6y ago
  It makes me sad seeing a community I’d otherwise regard as intelligent being so profoundly ignorant. But I also acknowledge this is a western culture issue more than one of intelligence alone. Discouraging nonetheless. We’ve really messed up.
  - SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
    It seems terribly unfair to call it profound ignorance. As you say, it's a values difference. If you remember learning about "individualism", that's what it means; it's the idea that the collective doesn't have unbounded authority to tell individuals what to do.
  - Chris2048 6y ago
    > It makes me sad seeing a community I’d otherwise regard as intelligent being so profoundly ignorant I feel the same about religion, so AFAIK this has always been so - move along, nothing to see here. Except religion has been around long enough to excuse itself from the obvious, or a least to bare its fangs at anyone thinking of commenting on the emperor's new clothes..
flanbiscuit 6y ago
> You don't have to go if you don't want to... Except that these people go there and then go home and spread it to their family and other friends. They go to grocery stores and other locations and touch things or cough/sneeze it in to the air. It's never about one person's individual choice. > Surely your indignation would be better directed at employers, schools and others who are requiring in-person attendance. Yes this deserves it as well but that does not negate the concerns
gowld 6y ago
Time to update the old "Your right to swing your fist ends at my nose" to "Your right to spittke ends at my nose".
squeaky-clean 6y ago
I'm okay with this answer as long as the people who go to the gym aren't allowed in the grocery store, bank, on public transport.... Because I do have to go there whether I want to or not. Give any gym-goer a 2 week temporary tattoo on their forehead so I know to avoid them. Then we're cool.
- hammock 6y ago
  You'll have to talk to your local grocery store or bank manager about that.
  - squeaky-clean 6y ago
    I actually edited out a /sarcasm because I thought it was that obvious. Oh boy.

Enginerrrd 6y ago

I'd guess the threat model is something like: relatively low local disease prevalence rate, the likelihood that infected people show up to workout is lower than other activities like office-work, and relatively low likelihood of personal adverse outcomes in someone healthy enough to be going to an underground gym. Further, there are major benefits to psychological state, social/emotional state, mental acuity, health, and maintenance/progression of physical capacity. I'd love to see you try and add all that up in micromorts of personal risk and show me that it's actually a bad rational decision. I suspect it would be very marginal for your argument at best, and most likely neutral or positive. That's all to say it's probably rational decision making, though certainly selfish thinking.

dqpb 6y ago
Most people don’t know how to monitor the local disease prevalence rate.
- Enginerrrd 6y ago
  Within a certain range on the lower end, definitely. Above that range, I disagree strongly. People generally know when there's "a bad cold/flu going around" or "a stomach bug" or w/e. There's some good intuitive reasoning there, but I'd agree that they aren't very good at it within a regime where it's prevalent enough to matter, but not quite prevalent enough to see/feel out intuitively.
vharuck 6y ago
>I'd love to see you try and add all that up in micromorts of personal risk and show me that it's actually a bad rational decision. On an individual level, I have no doubt you're right. The health benefits from exercise would definitely outweigh the risk of COVID-19 (assuming the individual's not over 65 or has a majorly risky health condition). But this is a pandemic, so decisions are made on the community level. The disease spreads. Healthy people don't live in separate cities from those at risk. Even if everyone is careful, mistakes happen: an unexpected sneeze, unconsciously rubbing your eyes, getting caught in a crowd. We're trying to minimize the number of mistakes (especially the more likely ones). That's not too say whatever policy is current in your area is right. But if you think things can be done safely, consider reaching out to your representatives with a plan backed up by medical research. I know my state desperately wants to reopen businesses; the government doesn't benefit from closures.

SpicyLemonZest 6y ago

They're not constructing a complex threat model and deciding that the hedonic value of gym attendance outweighs the disease risk. They're just going to the gym because they decided they'd like to. The article's parallel to alcohol prohibition is exactly on point; there was a famous policy where the government ordered industrial alcohol to include increasingly strong poisions, but consumers kept on drinking it anyway, because they weren't doing a risk-benefit analysis in the first place.

parliament32 6y ago

They are doing exactly zero of those things, because of prohibition. That's the whole point of the article -- if you prohibit something, it'll happen anyway but quality will go down. A much better approach would be to require the things you mentioned (like my area did) by law instead of a blanket ban.

Ansil849 6y ago
Yes, I agree. Which area are you in which does this? It would be a good counterpoint article.
- parliament32 6y ago
  BC, Canada. Details: https://www.worksafebc.com/en/about-us/covid-19-updates/covid-19-returning-safe-operation/gyms-and-fitness-centres https://www.worksafebc.com/en/about-us/covid-19-updates/covi...

Swizec 6y ago

I go to a boxing class in the park. We meet 2x/week and train together. You can’t distance while boxing. Here’s my threat model: - we’re all young, healthy, and in good shape - we all wear masks during normal life, some of us even while training - we all social distance and follow the right protocols outside of boxing - it’s always the same group of people - 2x/week seems like low enough frequency that exposure won’t add up - we stay home or even cancel class when someone feels off - we’re outside so it’s nice and windy - we keep distance when not punching each other and groups of 2 are kept far apart So far so good. It feels like an acceptable level of risk to me. Going to the farmer’s market (with masks) every week is probably way more risky than the boxing class.

Jommi 6y ago
It seems like an acceptable level of risk to me as well. But is it an acceptable level to all the people you counteract with say within a week? Is the cashier at your supermarket, that lives with their 6+ family members, ok with you doing this? Is your elderly neighbour that also uses your elevator OK with this? This is the moral and societal conundrum we are in.
- Swizec 6y ago
  Well I’m not out there licking their face. Isn’t distancing, the plexiglass screens, and mask wearing supposed to fix my risk to others? If memory serves, the probability of transmission is under 1% with those measures.
  - Jommi 6y ago
    Its supposed to reduce it, but we don't know how much. We also don't know how well those standards are adhered to. Could you link the study that backs the 1%? How is that statement better than just coming up with a number?
    - Swizec 6y ago
      Here’s the best I can find. The 1.5% comes from a viral image of why masks are important. CDC says the numbers “show the right idea” but we don’t yet have studies that yield a specific percentage. https://www.wusa9.com/article/news/health/coronavirus/verify-viral-image-about-masks-gets-the-numbers-wrong-but-the-idea-right/507-ff915e39-5a79-483d-86b7-98ecc796c8e5 https://www.wusa9.com/article/news/health/coronavirus/verify...

maerF0x0 6y ago

The rational goes something like this: If the screenings work, why are we closed? If the screenings dont work, why bother doing it? In some ways the gov't has played itself by not being consistent, and by giving people a shitty education.

breck 6y ago

By my rough calculations, for a 35M, going to the gym during Covid for an hour a day, for 160 straight days (so 6.67 days of gym time), can be expected to cut one's life expectancy by about 10 days. Odds of dying this year: 0.002138 [1]. Odds of dying this year if they get Covid: 0.00271 (~n*1.3) [2] Odds of contracting Covid over 160 days if going to gym: 60% Odds of contracting Covid if not going to Gym: 43% (assuming 10 people at the gym each time, 1 hour workout durations, odds of someone at Gym having it in any one session at .025%, and odds of catching it 20% at gym). Now what about the negative second order affects of spreading it to others? I did not model those, but I think at this point there could be a compelling case that not catching it now might be net harmful to the folks at high risk, since they would need to remain in lockdown if there remains a large number of people around who are not immune. [1] https://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4c6.html https://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4c6.html [2] https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.07.23.20160895v3 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.07.23.20160895v...

VLM 6y ago
Aren't the cofactors for COVID death highly unusual for gym exercisers? High BMI, low cardio health stats, diabetes, high blood pressure... Going to the gym is my only prevention for those cofactors... Looking at the stats I'm more likely to spread the disease if I go to the gym, but much less likely to personally die of the disease if I stay healthy by going to the gym. Complicating the situation is due to work and food delivery situation, I can't actually spread the disease to anyone at risk because they just aren't in my life.

squeaky-clean 6y ago

Just turn on showdead in your HN settings and look at how many deniers are in this very thread.

s1artibartfast 6y ago

What do you consider incredibly dangerous? In the US, roughly 150 per 1m people catch covid per day. Infection fatality for 20-29 is about 7/100,000. For 365 days, that is about a 1/million chance of dying of covid (for a 20 something year old) . For context[1]: For similar ages, the suicide rate is 200/ million. Deaths from unintentional injury is 600/ million Deaths from heart disease is roughly 100/ million When I put this into a threat model, I should put about 1000X more effort into these areas. A 10% reduction in risk of heart disease is an equal trade-off with +900% chance of contracting covid. [1] https://webappa.cdc.gov/cgi-bin/broker.exe https://webappa.cdc.gov/cgi-bin/broker.exe