18 ms·

> I find it amazing we can not see short term sacrifice for long term gain. Maybe because nobody successfully proved to these people (me included) that this sa

by polote 6y ago

> I find it amazing we can not see short term sacrifice for long term gain. Maybe because nobody successfully proved to these people (me included) that this sacrifice is useful. You can't tell to people, you have no risk of dying (0.5% death rate for population, much much lower for healthy and young people), people who are at risk of dying can protect themselves even around sick people (wearing a mask, staying at home, washing hands, ...) so this is not your fault if they catch it but you need to stop living your life. That can't work. And above all, what is the long term strategy, we stop everything for the rest of our lives ? (a vaccine doesn't always work, example the flu vaccine, which works approximately). It is not that people don't want to sacrifice, it is just that scarifying is the worst solution for everyone

Ascetik 6y ago
I agree, the top poster is essentially advocating for complete and total tyranny of the Communist order. Telling on people who don't necessarily agree with the official narrative, it's essentially thought policing. Edit: If you don't like what I said then go work for Xi Jinping. It's no secret a lot of people in tech are crypto or full-blown Communists. Telling on people for wanting to get on with their lives is nothing short of Commissar tactics.
esalman 6y ago
US didn't have a federal strategy to deal with the pandemic. They shot at their own foot and didn't give themselves a chance to be successful. The rest of the (developed, and many underdeveloped) world dealt with it and are moving on. I'm watching Champions league finals on TV and Wuhan pool party clips on twitter, thinking wtf went wrong here.
- polote 6y ago
  > The rest of the (developed, and many underdeveloped) world dealt with it and are moving on. I'm not really sure on that, lets take greece, which was praised for their strategy (I was in greece during the lockdown). They didnt have a strategy, they just locked down before there was an outbreak and blocked flights, so no spread. Now they have an outbreak because they stopped all there restrictions. They were just lucky Look at New Zealand, their strategy is to prevent anyone to enter the country with covid, well that works as long as not a log of people fly to NZ. Now that flights have restarted, they have like 3 cases so they lockdown the entire city, well, doesnt seem very smart in my opinion. The only countries which are doing well, are the Asian countries, China (can't really trust their figure), Taiwan, south korea same as NZ, but restricting all freedom of citizens. The smartest country of all, is Sweden, never locked down, explained to citizen the situation. Managed to get the situation under control without any lockdown, and probably will reach herd immunity before anyone else. Time will tell this is too soon to judge, but they seem well positioned for winning
  - nemothekid 6y ago
    >The smartest country of all, is Sweden, never locked down, explained to citizen the situation. Managed to get the situation under control without any lockdown, and probably will reach herd immunity before anyone else. Time will tell this is too soon to judge, but they seem well positioned for winning I keep seeing this narrative but I can never find the data to support it. When you look at the data, Sweden has the worst of both worlds. 1. Among their neighbors, only Germany has more deaths than Sweden. Norway, Denmark and Finland have fewer almost an order of magnitude less cases and deaths. 2. Despite not being government sanctioned, people still chose to self isolate meaning that the still suffered the economic fallout of that decision. Turns out, a global pandemic is bad for business whether or not your government decides to shut everything down. There is no metric by which Sweden is doing any better than anyone else, and is doing a lot worse than their neighbors.
    - polote 6y ago
      The metric by which it's doing better, is freedom. Nobody has been forced to change their lifestyle, if they did, thats because they decided so. The number of case is under control [1], almost no death now (and not hiding after a lockdown, really no death) so probably less death in the future compared to those countries [1] https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus-data-explorer?zoomToSelection=true&country=~SWE&casesMetric=true&interval=daily&hideControls=true&smoothing=0&pickerMetric=location&pickerSort=asc https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus-data-explorer?zoomToS...
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
    - bazzert 6y ago
      >> 1. Among their neighbors, only Germany has more deaths than Sweden. Norway, Denmark and Finland have fewer almost an order of magnitude less cases and deaths. Geographic comparisons are of limited usefulness; MA had 10x the death rate of near neighbors NH,VT& ME. There are too many other factors to consider. Sweden still did better than UK, France, Spain, Italy and many others. >> 2. Despite not being government sanctioned, people still chose to self isolate meaning that the still suffered the economic fallout of that decision. Turns out, a global pandemic is bad for business whether or not your government decides to shut everything down. Mobility data would suggest otherwise; no masks, kids still in school etc. Life has continued with some restrictions. We could have done the same with similar outcomes. Economy definitely took a hit, but less so than other eurorzone countries. >> There is no metric by which Sweden is doing any better than anyone else, and is doing a lot worse than their neighbors. The fact that the pandemic is effectively done in Sweden is one. We still dont have an exit strategy.
- makomk 6y ago
  The Champions League finals definitely aren't an indication this part of the world has dealt with it and is moving on. There's a huge amount of intrusive Covid-19 restrictions around those, from obvious things like no spectators to putting the entire teams in isolation (compliance has been... mixed), and even then I have my doubts that they'd be able to finish the season if it went on any longer due to the exponential growth in cases again in Europe.
- plussed_reader 6y ago
  >>US didn't have a federal strategy They did at the outset of the current administration but chose to fire the people trained for 'reasons'. When the pandemic finally pressed on the country, the game plan handed down from the previous admin had been abandoned for years at that point by the current administration.
  - WorldMaker 6y ago
    "Why should American taxpayers throw good money at pandemic planning when they only happen about once every hundred years in the US? The last one was what, almost exactly a hundred years ago, what are the odds it would happen during this administration?" The logic remains breathtaking, and the irony would be delicious if it weren't so deadly.
- jdminhbg 6y ago
  > I'm watching Champions league finals on TV The US also has spectator-less sports going on, I'm not sure how that's any different.
  - chillwaves 6y ago
    Do you want to pick a different metric? It's not hard to get this information. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
- Chris2048 6y ago
  I wouldn't judge how well the countries did until it's all over. Plenty felt the situation was handled, only to have another wave.
- res0nat0r 6y ago
  Also we shouldn't forget that "American independence" really also means "selfish". Many Americans can care less who dies, as long as it directly doesn't affect them, thus fights about simple things like mask compliance, or not going to a bar for a while. That in addition to the federal government not supporting people and businesses while the economy is shut down, leads to this obvious outcome we're experiencing right now.
- gjs278 6y ago
  the rest of the world is currently experiencing outbreaks and shutdowns again
jackfoxy 6y ago
I was warned very early, end of January, and locked down my family about a week before required. I track someone who reviews the literature and news and give bi-weekly updates on the state of knowledge and politics surrounding the pandemic. Originally he erred way on the side of caution, because we did not know enough. We learn more every week, and his current outlook is a lot like what you just wrote. The big remaining problem is this is not going away anytime soon. There's more politics than science going on, and there have been institutional failures world-wide from top to bottom.
ceejayoz 6y ago
> Maybe because nobody successfully proved to these people (me included) that this sacrifice is useful. > people who are at risk of dying can protect themselves even around sick people (wearing a mask, staying at home, washing hands, ...) This makes it clear "nobody successfully proved" really means "I didn't bother to listen". The messaging on masks has long been "they reduce transmission by infected people", not "they prevent you from getting it".
- eanzenberg 6y ago
  Masks haven’t been proven to work. In fact, they have been shown to do diddly squat for influenza.
- polote 6y ago
  The head of the strategy of Sweden, keep repeating that he is not sure masks are working, how you can be so sure that he is wrong, and decides that's others who are not listening ? Of course it is clear that if someone has covid and wear a mask, the probability to transmit covid will decrease (I was actually encourage people to wear a mask 6 months ago), but will it stop ? no. people can still transmit it by touching you. So yeah this is decreasing the risk, but is it decreasing the risk high enough that it will prevent the virus to spread ? Nobody has answered the question yet. In France the mask is mandatory almost everywhere and still the number of cases keep increasing
  - ceejayoz 6y ago
    The head of Sweden's response is quoted as saying: > "If we were to run into the same disease, knowing exactly what we know about it today, I think we would end up doing something in between what Sweden did and what the rest of the world has done." https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/06/03/868567924/swedens-coronavirus-response-chief-acknowledges-potential-for-improvement https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/0... He's on record saying mask requirements will be needed if cases started going back up: https://www.thelocal.se/20200804/tegnell-if-we-see-problems-again-well-look-at-face-masks-and-other-measures-sweden https://www.thelocal.se/20200804/tegnell-if-we-see-problems-... and Sweden wound up with de-facto lockdowns anyways, as many people did it on their own without government instruction. The end result: Same economic damage as the other Nordic countries, but substantially higher deaths. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/07/business/sweden-economy-coronavirus.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/07/business/sweden-economy-c... > no. people can still transmit it by touching you. That's an argument for "don't touch people", not "don't wear masks".
alexbanks 6y ago
You've just identified the difference between "Proven" and "Proven to me." The former has already been done, but obviously the latter requires a person to not actively refuse to listen. If you're ready to listen, the proof is already there.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
kbenson 6y ago
> Maybe because nobody successfully proved to these people (me included) that this sacrifice is useful. It's not a matter of proof, it's a matter of weighing the cost of action vs the possible outcome. Just like insurance, there's a low cost of action (low continuous payments) to hedge against a possible large negative outcome. It's also worth noting that some types of insurance are mandated because people are bad at calculating risk in general, and when they fail, we as a society don't necessarily want that to have too extreme an outcome, so we have societal guards in place to help. Mandated insurance shifts the burden from society (taxes) back the the individual. We see this in health insurance, car insurance, home insurance, etc. Sometimes it depends on region (some localities requires fire/earthquake/flood, etc insurance). > people who are at risk of dying can protect themselves even around sick people (wearing a mask, staying at home, washing hands, ...) To clarify, wearing a mask, as recommended by most officials currently, is not about protecting oneself, but about protecting those around you in the case you are unknowingly contagious. It greatly reduces the spread of your contagion, it does not greatly reduce your chance of being infected unless you are using a high-grade mask very securely fastened such that all airflow is through the mask and not around it. > so this is not your fault if they catch it It very well may be your fault if someone catches it if you're contagious but ignoring recommendations about avoiding gatherings of people, or not wearing a mask, etc. They could literally catch it directly from you with little ability to block it. A sneeze can travel very far, yelling expels particles with more force, and direct contact with people or surfaces they touch shortly after and then may touch themselves or something else they touch after washing their hands is not something easily protected against. > but you need to stop living your life. This, right here is the crux of the issue. What is being asked for from people ranges from not working to curtailing social group gatherings and activities. The work portion is horrible, and life altering, and actual affects people living their lives. The group activities being classified as "living your life" is both a) relatively recent for the vast majority of the world, which did not have the free time or money to do such things on a regular basis decades ago, and b) shows a complete mismatch by people of what the need and what they like and want. A vanishingly small number of people actually need to go to the gym (those in physical therapy that need certain equipment), and the others can get basic exercise at home or outside without anyone around. Nobody needs to go to a bar. That we classify these niceties as "living our life" is really just a shift of priorities of modern people in first world countries away from actually having to worry about survival. But this is a matter of survival, and those thought patterns are doing us real harm as a society during this crisis. > It is not that people don't want to sacrifice, it is just that scarifying is the worst solution for everyone No, it's that people are unwilling to separate simple and (relatively) easy sacrifices from hard sacrifices, and acting like they're all the same. Get food from restaurants, but limit or eliminate the in-restaurant eating/time (you don't have to order door-dash, just pick it up). You don't have to stop drinking, or talking to friends, but you shouldn't do those in person when avoidable. Collectively, people stopping the non-essential gatherings such as gyms and bars will not only reduce the spread and save lives, if everyone did it we might get back to the point where the increase in cases was so low more optional services could reopen again, lessening the economic impact. It's not about scarifying, it's about making people actually understand how this works, and how their actions actually play into this when carried out by massive amounts of people. And when it comes to bars and gyms and people being unwilling to change their habit, it is also a bit about people not wanting to sacrifice. In the grand scheme of things, those are fairly small changes to ask for, and if people can't even bother to do that, what hope is there that they'll follow through with other things?
SQueeeeeL 6y ago
Lol, we're so fucked
michaelmrose 6y ago
If people like you wont wear a mask or social distance and the portion that are asymptomatic pass it around you will help it spread far and wide maximizing the chances that even careful people will become ill eventually. Wearing a mask is mostly about keeping the respiratory droplets of the ill, including the 40-50% which don't have obvious symptoms from spreading around. If only the vulnerable wear masks they wont be safe.
- polote 6y ago
  I'm sorry, but I'm not willing to sacrifice a lot of my freedom to prevent unhealthy or old people to die. You could tell me that I'm wrong, but as far as I know, I'm the only one able to know how I want to live my life
  - ItsAlwaysMe 6y ago
    What about their freedoms? You're a spoiled brat. Me, me, me, me, me! All about me!
  - jason0597 6y ago
    What do you have a problem with, mask wearing or social distancing? Or the lockdown?
    - polote 6y ago
      Closing the gyms has always been the worst thing to me. Do anything you want but don't close the gym
      - ItsAlwaysMe 6y ago
        Most fit poeple I know are still working out. Then again, they actually are fit, not pretending to be such at a gym.
        richardknop 6y ago
ItsAlwaysMe 6y ago
>nobody successfully proved to these people (me included) >sacrificing is the worst solution for everyone >this is not your fault if they [high risk people] catch it >we stop everything for the rest of our lives This is nothing more than a tantrum. Nobody can "prove" it. Humanity is still learning about COVID-19. No model is going to predict the outcome of closing the economy. It has not been done in modern times at this scale. >0.5% death rate for population Google is showing the death rate at ~3% worldwide. 6 times higher than your nonsense 0.5% water-level figure. You're commenting later down the chain that you wish to frolic at the beach. The fact is, you're sick of inconvenience and will stomp your feet until someone hears how sick of it you are. Go cry elsewhere.
- lambda-11235 6y ago
  It is important to differentiate terminology here. According to DDG (which closely aligns with Google's results) the case fatality rate, the ratio of deaths to confirmed case, is 3.5%. For the death rate, the ratio of deaths relative to population size, is 0.01%. Confirmed Cases: 21,991,954 Deaths: 777,018 World Pop.: ~7,800,000,000 Case Fatality Rate = Deaths/Confirmed Cases = ~3.5% Death Rate = Deaths/World Pop. = ~0.01%
  - aktenlage 6y ago
    It would be ridiculous to assume the Deaths/World Population figure is the risk for yourself. That's similar to claiming that, because only 93% of all humans ever born have died so far, your risk of dying is 93%. It may be mathematically sound, but completely ignores the context of the problem: That for the living/not-yet-infected the result is still outstanding.
    - Peepootoler 6y ago
      Unfortunately your risk of dying is 100%.
  - gadders 6y ago
    Case Fatality rate in the uk is ~1.5%, and still dropping: https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/the-declining-case-fatality-ratio-in-england/ https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/the-declining-case-fatality-ra... It is also very strongly correlated with pre-existing conditions and age.
lobotryas 6y ago
Agreed. All these vulnerable hypothetical “grandmas” can stay home and take extra precautions themselves if they feel threatened.
tgsovlerkhgsel 6y ago
It's also a tragedy of the commons style issue: Why should I sacrifice when others won't, and as a result, my own sacrifice will be useless. The "masks only protect others from you" narrative (which may turn out to be false) certainly increased that.
imtringued 6y ago
Masks protect people who aren't sick yet. Their primary mode of operation is making it harder for the virus to spread. But since we don't know when people get sick they have to wear a mask before they get sick for masks to be effective.
gvjddbnvdrbv 6y ago
Some of us think about other people than ourselves...

by polote 6y ago

Ascetik 6y ago

I agree, the top poster is essentially advocating for complete and total tyranny of the Communist order. Telling on people who don't necessarily agree with the official narrative, it's essentially thought policing. Edit: If you don't like what I said then go work for Xi Jinping. It's no secret a lot of people in tech are crypto or full-blown Communists. Telling on people for wanting to get on with their lives is nothing short of Commissar tactics.

esalman 6y ago

US didn't have a federal strategy to deal with the pandemic. They shot at their own foot and didn't give themselves a chance to be successful. The rest of the (developed, and many underdeveloped) world dealt with it and are moving on. I'm watching Champions league finals on TV and Wuhan pool party clips on twitter, thinking wtf went wrong here.

polote 6y ago
> The rest of the (developed, and many underdeveloped) world dealt with it and are moving on. I'm not really sure on that, lets take greece, which was praised for their strategy (I was in greece during the lockdown). They didnt have a strategy, they just locked down before there was an outbreak and blocked flights, so no spread. Now they have an outbreak because they stopped all there restrictions. They were just lucky Look at New Zealand, their strategy is to prevent anyone to enter the country with covid, well that works as long as not a log of people fly to NZ. Now that flights have restarted, they have like 3 cases so they lockdown the entire city, well, doesnt seem very smart in my opinion. The only countries which are doing well, are the Asian countries, China (can't really trust their figure), Taiwan, south korea same as NZ, but restricting all freedom of citizens. The smartest country of all, is Sweden, never locked down, explained to citizen the situation. Managed to get the situation under control without any lockdown, and probably will reach herd immunity before anyone else. Time will tell this is too soon to judge, but they seem well positioned for winning
- nemothekid 6y ago
  >The smartest country of all, is Sweden, never locked down, explained to citizen the situation. Managed to get the situation under control without any lockdown, and probably will reach herd immunity before anyone else. Time will tell this is too soon to judge, but they seem well positioned for winning I keep seeing this narrative but I can never find the data to support it. When you look at the data, Sweden has the worst of both worlds. 1. Among their neighbors, only Germany has more deaths than Sweden. Norway, Denmark and Finland have fewer almost an order of magnitude less cases and deaths. 2. Despite not being government sanctioned, people still chose to self isolate meaning that the still suffered the economic fallout of that decision. Turns out, a global pandemic is bad for business whether or not your government decides to shut everything down. There is no metric by which Sweden is doing any better than anyone else, and is doing a lot worse than their neighbors.
  - polote 6y ago
    The metric by which it's doing better, is freedom. Nobody has been forced to change their lifestyle, if they did, thats because they decided so. The number of case is under control [1], almost no death now (and not hiding after a lockdown, really no death) so probably less death in the future compared to those countries [1] https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus-data-explorer?zoomToSelection=true&country=~SWE&casesMetric=true&interval=daily&hideControls=true&smoothing=0&pickerMetric=location&pickerSort=asc https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus-data-explorer?zoomToS...
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
  - bazzert 6y ago
    >> 1. Among their neighbors, only Germany has more deaths than Sweden. Norway, Denmark and Finland have fewer almost an order of magnitude less cases and deaths. Geographic comparisons are of limited usefulness; MA had 10x the death rate of near neighbors NH,VT& ME. There are too many other factors to consider. Sweden still did better than UK, France, Spain, Italy and many others. >> 2. Despite not being government sanctioned, people still chose to self isolate meaning that the still suffered the economic fallout of that decision. Turns out, a global pandemic is bad for business whether or not your government decides to shut everything down. Mobility data would suggest otherwise; no masks, kids still in school etc. Life has continued with some restrictions. We could have done the same with similar outcomes. Economy definitely took a hit, but less so than other eurorzone countries. >> There is no metric by which Sweden is doing any better than anyone else, and is doing a lot worse than their neighbors. The fact that the pandemic is effectively done in Sweden is one. We still dont have an exit strategy.
makomk 6y ago
The Champions League finals definitely aren't an indication this part of the world has dealt with it and is moving on. There's a huge amount of intrusive Covid-19 restrictions around those, from obvious things like no spectators to putting the entire teams in isolation (compliance has been... mixed), and even then I have my doubts that they'd be able to finish the season if it went on any longer due to the exponential growth in cases again in Europe.
plussed_reader 6y ago
>>US didn't have a federal strategy They did at the outset of the current administration but chose to fire the people trained for 'reasons'. When the pandemic finally pressed on the country, the game plan handed down from the previous admin had been abandoned for years at that point by the current administration.
- WorldMaker 6y ago
  "Why should American taxpayers throw good money at pandemic planning when they only happen about once every hundred years in the US? The last one was what, almost exactly a hundred years ago, what are the odds it would happen during this administration?" The logic remains breathtaking, and the irony would be delicious if it weren't so deadly.
jdminhbg 6y ago
> I'm watching Champions league finals on TV The US also has spectator-less sports going on, I'm not sure how that's any different.
- chillwaves 6y ago
  Do you want to pick a different metric? It's not hard to get this information. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
Chris2048 6y ago
I wouldn't judge how well the countries did until it's all over. Plenty felt the situation was handled, only to have another wave.
res0nat0r 6y ago
Also we shouldn't forget that "American independence" really also means "selfish". Many Americans can care less who dies, as long as it directly doesn't affect them, thus fights about simple things like mask compliance, or not going to a bar for a while. That in addition to the federal government not supporting people and businesses while the economy is shut down, leads to this obvious outcome we're experiencing right now.
gjs278 6y ago
the rest of the world is currently experiencing outbreaks and shutdowns again

jackfoxy 6y ago

I was warned very early, end of January, and locked down my family about a week before required. I track someone who reviews the literature and news and give bi-weekly updates on the state of knowledge and politics surrounding the pandemic. Originally he erred way on the side of caution, because we did not know enough. We learn more every week, and his current outlook is a lot like what you just wrote. The big remaining problem is this is not going away anytime soon. There's more politics than science going on, and there have been institutional failures world-wide from top to bottom.

ceejayoz 6y ago

> Maybe because nobody successfully proved to these people (me included) that this sacrifice is useful. > people who are at risk of dying can protect themselves even around sick people (wearing a mask, staying at home, washing hands, ...) This makes it clear "nobody successfully proved" really means "I didn't bother to listen". The messaging on masks has long been "they reduce transmission by infected people", not "they prevent you from getting it".

eanzenberg 6y ago
Masks haven’t been proven to work. In fact, they have been shown to do diddly squat for influenza.
polote 6y ago
The head of the strategy of Sweden, keep repeating that he is not sure masks are working, how you can be so sure that he is wrong, and decides that's others who are not listening ? Of course it is clear that if someone has covid and wear a mask, the probability to transmit covid will decrease (I was actually encourage people to wear a mask 6 months ago), but will it stop ? no. people can still transmit it by touching you. So yeah this is decreasing the risk, but is it decreasing the risk high enough that it will prevent the virus to spread ? Nobody has answered the question yet. In France the mask is mandatory almost everywhere and still the number of cases keep increasing
- ceejayoz 6y ago
  The head of Sweden's response is quoted as saying: > "If we were to run into the same disease, knowing exactly what we know about it today, I think we would end up doing something in between what Sweden did and what the rest of the world has done." https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/06/03/868567924/swedens-coronavirus-response-chief-acknowledges-potential-for-improvement https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/0... He's on record saying mask requirements will be needed if cases started going back up: https://www.thelocal.se/20200804/tegnell-if-we-see-problems-again-well-look-at-face-masks-and-other-measures-sweden https://www.thelocal.se/20200804/tegnell-if-we-see-problems-... and Sweden wound up with de-facto lockdowns anyways, as many people did it on their own without government instruction. The end result: Same economic damage as the other Nordic countries, but substantially higher deaths. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/07/business/sweden-economy-coronavirus.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/07/business/sweden-economy-c... > no. people can still transmit it by touching you. That's an argument for "don't touch people", not "don't wear masks".

alexbanks 6y ago

You've just identified the difference between "Proven" and "Proven to me." The former has already been done, but obviously the latter requires a person to not actively refuse to listen. If you're ready to listen, the proof is already there.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

kbenson 6y ago

> Maybe because nobody successfully proved to these people (me included) that this sacrifice is useful. It's not a matter of proof, it's a matter of weighing the cost of action vs the possible outcome. Just like insurance, there's a low cost of action (low continuous payments) to hedge against a possible large negative outcome. It's also worth noting that some types of insurance are mandated because people are bad at calculating risk in general, and when they fail, we as a society don't necessarily want that to have too extreme an outcome, so we have societal guards in place to help. Mandated insurance shifts the burden from society (taxes) back the the individual. We see this in health insurance, car insurance, home insurance, etc. Sometimes it depends on region (some localities requires fire/earthquake/flood, etc insurance). > people who are at risk of dying can protect themselves even around sick people (wearing a mask, staying at home, washing hands, ...) To clarify, wearing a mask, as recommended by most officials currently, is not about protecting oneself, but about protecting those around you in the case you are unknowingly contagious. It greatly reduces the spread of your contagion, it does not greatly reduce your chance of being infected unless you are using a high-grade mask very securely fastened such that all airflow is through the mask and not around it. > so this is not your fault if they catch it It very well may be your fault if someone catches it if you're contagious but ignoring recommendations about avoiding gatherings of people, or not wearing a mask, etc. They could literally catch it directly from you with little ability to block it. A sneeze can travel very far, yelling expels particles with more force, and direct contact with people or surfaces they touch shortly after and then may touch themselves or something else they touch after washing their hands is not something easily protected against. > but you need to stop living your life. This, right here is the crux of the issue. What is being asked for from people ranges from not working to curtailing social group gatherings and activities. The work portion is horrible, and life altering, and actual affects people living their lives. The group activities being classified as "living your life" is both a) relatively recent for the vast majority of the world, which did not have the free time or money to do such things on a regular basis decades ago, and b) shows a complete mismatch by people of what the need and what they like and want. A vanishingly small number of people actually need to go to the gym (those in physical therapy that need certain equipment), and the others can get basic exercise at home or outside without anyone around. Nobody needs to go to a bar. That we classify these niceties as "living our life" is really just a shift of priorities of modern people in first world countries away from actually having to worry about survival. But this is a matter of survival, and those thought patterns are doing us real harm as a society during this crisis. > It is not that people don't want to sacrifice, it is just that scarifying is the worst solution for everyone No, it's that people are unwilling to separate simple and (relatively) easy sacrifices from hard sacrifices, and acting like they're all the same. Get food from restaurants, but limit or eliminate the in-restaurant eating/time (you don't have to order door-dash, just pick it up). You don't have to stop drinking, or talking to friends, but you shouldn't do those in person when avoidable. Collectively, people stopping the non-essential gatherings such as gyms and bars will not only reduce the spread and save lives, if everyone did it we might get back to the point where the increase in cases was so low more optional services could reopen again, lessening the economic impact. It's not about scarifying, it's about making people actually understand how this works, and how their actions actually play into this when carried out by massive amounts of people. And when it comes to bars and gyms and people being unwilling to change their habit, it is also a bit about people not wanting to sacrifice. In the grand scheme of things, those are fairly small changes to ask for, and if people can't even bother to do that, what hope is there that they'll follow through with other things?

SQueeeeeL 6y ago

Lol, we're so fucked

michaelmrose 6y ago

If people like you wont wear a mask or social distance and the portion that are asymptomatic pass it around you will help it spread far and wide maximizing the chances that even careful people will become ill eventually. Wearing a mask is mostly about keeping the respiratory droplets of the ill, including the 40-50% which don't have obvious symptoms from spreading around. If only the vulnerable wear masks they wont be safe.

polote 6y ago
I'm sorry, but I'm not willing to sacrifice a lot of my freedom to prevent unhealthy or old people to die. You could tell me that I'm wrong, but as far as I know, I'm the only one able to know how I want to live my life
- ItsAlwaysMe 6y ago
  What about their freedoms? You're a spoiled brat. Me, me, me, me, me! All about me!
- jason0597 6y ago
  What do you have a problem with, mask wearing or social distancing? Or the lockdown?
  - polote 6y ago
    Closing the gyms has always been the worst thing to me. Do anything you want but don't close the gym
    - ItsAlwaysMe 6y ago
      Most fit poeple I know are still working out. Then again, they actually are fit, not pretending to be such at a gym.
      - richardknop 6y ago

ItsAlwaysMe 6y ago

>nobody successfully proved to these people (me included) >sacrificing is the worst solution for everyone >this is not your fault if they [high risk people] catch it >we stop everything for the rest of our lives This is nothing more than a tantrum. Nobody can "prove" it. Humanity is still learning about COVID-19. No model is going to predict the outcome of closing the economy. It has not been done in modern times at this scale. >0.5% death rate for population Google is showing the death rate at ~3% worldwide. 6 times higher than your nonsense 0.5% water-level figure. You're commenting later down the chain that you wish to frolic at the beach. The fact is, you're sick of inconvenience and will stomp your feet until someone hears how sick of it you are. Go cry elsewhere.

lambda-11235 6y ago
It is important to differentiate terminology here. According to DDG (which closely aligns with Google's results) the case fatality rate, the ratio of deaths to confirmed case, is 3.5%. For the death rate, the ratio of deaths relative to population size, is 0.01%. Confirmed Cases: 21,991,954 Deaths: 777,018 World Pop.: ~7,800,000,000 Case Fatality Rate = Deaths/Confirmed Cases = ~3.5% Death Rate = Deaths/World Pop. = ~0.01%
- aktenlage 6y ago
  It would be ridiculous to assume the Deaths/World Population figure is the risk for yourself. That's similar to claiming that, because only 93% of all humans ever born have died so far, your risk of dying is 93%. It may be mathematically sound, but completely ignores the context of the problem: That for the living/not-yet-infected the result is still outstanding.
  - Peepootoler 6y ago
    Unfortunately your risk of dying is 100%.
- gadders 6y ago
  Case Fatality rate in the uk is ~1.5%, and still dropping: https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/the-declining-case-fatality-ratio-in-england/ https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/the-declining-case-fatality-ra... It is also very strongly correlated with pre-existing conditions and age.

lobotryas 6y ago

Agreed. All these vulnerable hypothetical “grandmas” can stay home and take extra precautions themselves if they feel threatened.

tgsovlerkhgsel 6y ago

It's also a tragedy of the commons style issue: Why should I sacrifice when others won't, and as a result, my own sacrifice will be useless. The "masks only protect others from you" narrative (which may turn out to be false) certainly increased that.

imtringued 6y ago

Masks protect people who aren't sick yet. Their primary mode of operation is making it harder for the virus to spread. But since we don't know when people get sick they have to wear a mask before they get sick for masks to be effective.

gvjddbnvdrbv 6y ago

Some of us think about other people than ourselves...