6 ms·

I'm so tired of all reports talking about things that could happen, may happen, but fail to produce numbers of how common it is. Hundreds of millions of people

I'm so tired of all reports talking about things that could happen, may happen, but fail to produce numbers of how common it is. Hundreds of millions of people have had sars-cov-2 by now, if long-term effects were a widespread phenomenon, we would know by now. And yet, absolute crickets except rare outliers. An old friend of mine was sick for months with the virus, and she has many months of rehab in front of her before she's back to normal. That sucks, but she's still the outlier. And you can't let the outliers dictate your behaviour, or you would never leave the house for fear of falling pianos or lightning strikes.

rogerkirkness 6y ago
To be clear, since it never is, I'm commenting that scientifically it's open and shut except for heart stuff. So it's interesting to see early indications. I agree about implications, I'm not arguing for extreme measures, simply stating fact. If it is airborne HIV like people feared in April (which it is not), I would like to know.
titzer 6y ago
Trust me we are all tired. > Hundreds of millions of people have had sars-cov-2 by now, No, worldwide numbers are ~34 million confirmed. You don't get to just randomly multiply by some fudge factor that feels right to you and then reason based on that. When you do this it makes it clear that numbers really don't mean anything to you and it will just be more sophistry to justify giving up and letting the disease everywhere because of something about "others dictating your behaviour" or something or other. This attitude and shades of it are exactly why 1 million people worldwide have died. Yeah, we're tired.
- meiraleal 6y ago
  > No, worldwide numbers are ~34 million confirmed. With 34 million cases confirmed, it is probably that hundreds of millions actually had it but stayed at home, as it is the first recommendation. Yeah, we're all tired.
- _-___________-_ 6y ago
  > No, worldwide numbers are ~34 million confirmed. You don't get to just randomly multiply by some fudge factor that feels right to you and then reason based on that. Certainly any other number is entirely speculative, but given the minor symptoms it usually causes (and the lack of symptoms in many people) it seems a huge stretch to assume that confirmed cases == number of infections.
  - mattigames 6y ago
    True, but reinfections (with symptoms) have occurred[0], so numbers of confirmed may not be an important metric, further studies are needed to conclude either way. [0] https://www.google.com/amp/s/nationalpost.com/news/world/reinfections-are-possible-man-who-tested-positive-for-covid-19-twice-identified-in-nevada-says-study/wcm/b6b4abd2-cf6b-45de-a1cc-c7211739cceb/amp/ https://www.google.com/amp/s/nationalpost.com/news/world/rei...
    - zaroth 6y ago
      So that makes two people in the entire world who are known to have re-tested positive. Immunity is never 100%. Why would we highlight 2 cases out of 30 million and turn that into a talking point like it means something?
      - mattigames 6y ago
        The virus the second time it was a different strain, so 2 people can become millions if the virus keeps mutating, let's remember it doesn't even have a year in existence so we know near nothing about how it mutates.
        zaroth 6y ago
        In this fictional hypothetical, we get really good at manufacturing new vaccines, and we also get really really good at targeting suppression policies at only the highest risk individuals. Because for the majority of the population it’s less of a concern than annual flu. Back in reality, coronavirus mutates much slower than flu, and vaccines are targeted at particularly stable features even within an overall fairly stable structure.
- whatasnail 6y ago
  You can't possibly be serious thinking that the confirmed cases is nothing more than a lower bound for the actual number of people that have been infected. Do we know the exact multiplier, of course not. But from various studies it seems like 10x is in the ballpark.
  - navd 6y ago
    I think you got downvoted on the basis that what you say is speculation... but I do not disagree and think there should be room for that in this context. Confirmed cases will never be equal to total cases unless the virus affected everyone the same and had 100% mortality with distinctive causes i.e hemorrhaging. The asymptomatic or mild case rate is so high that treating confirmed cases as anything other than a speculative baseline is hard for me to accept.
  - titzer 6y ago
    Please stop with this "10x ballpark" stuff. It just leads to absurd conclusions. For example, 10x 34 million is 340 million, leaving 7.4 billion people yet to be infected, or about 20x more than currently. 20x the number of deaths would be 20 million people. That's horrific. I don't want to even think about that. I absolutely hate this calculus. Instead I want to stop this pandemic from getting worse, and we can and should have been working together to limit the spread of this thing. I'm absolutely tired of having this conversation because it's been 6 months of this throwing around bullshit numbers (only .1% die! no only 1% die! no only 2% die! oh look it's back to 1.5%!) and people arguing from what is basically a completely selfish point of view where nothing changes, nothing impacts their lives. When in reality every time we have this conversation the absolute numbers have another zero on them. Even back when it was only 50,000 cases worldwide, experts were warning of potentially millions of worldwide deaths. And idiots were arguing not to shut things down and not to wear masks because it was overblown. Goddamn. God damn. Now there are literally one thousand times as many cases. Now 1 million people are dead. And the conversation is still the same. We'll have this argument again and again and forever and the millions of dead will keep ticking by because so many people are completely unserious about dealing with this. It is absolutely disgraceful so many people putting their own money and entertainment above the lives of others and don't even have the decency to wear goddamn masks. Sickening. Sorry, I don't mean to unload on you personally because your comment wasn't the above, but goddamn I am so tired of this throwing around numbers game. Can we just fucking fight this virus already?
- mennis16 6y ago
  To be fair on the numbers front, there is a lot of evidence suggesting the true death rate for infected individuals is under 1% - so with 1 million dead I don't think it's unreasonable to guess at least 100 million have had it. That said I am surprised how many dismissive comments there are in any thread about COVID around here. It is tiring how many people are not taking it seriously enough, and ironically this attitude also contributes to businesses not being able to safely reopen.
- goldforever 6y ago
  Afraid to die? lock yourself in your house!
- henrikschroder 6y ago
  https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/covid-19-world-in-for-a-hell-of-a-ride-in-coming-months-dr-mike-ryan-says-1.4370626?mode=amp https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/covid-19-... "An estimated 750 million, or 10 per cent of the world’s population, have been infected by Covid-19, World Health Organisation (WHO) official Dr Mike Ryan has said."
toomanybeersies 6y ago
> if long-term effects were a widespread phenomenon, we would know by now Wouldn't you have to wait until a long time period has passed before you could make any real claims in regards to "long-term effects"?

rogerkirkness 6y ago

To be clear, since it never is, I'm commenting that scientifically it's open and shut except for heart stuff. So it's interesting to see early indications. I agree about implications, I'm not arguing for extreme measures, simply stating fact. If it is airborne HIV like people feared in April (which it is not), I would like to know.

titzer 6y ago

Trust me we are all tired. > Hundreds of millions of people have had sars-cov-2 by now, No, worldwide numbers are ~34 million confirmed. You don't get to just randomly multiply by some fudge factor that feels right to you and then reason based on that. When you do this it makes it clear that numbers really don't mean anything to you and it will just be more sophistry to justify giving up and letting the disease everywhere because of something about "others dictating your behaviour" or something or other. This attitude and shades of it are exactly why 1 million people worldwide have died. Yeah, we're tired.

meiraleal 6y ago
> No, worldwide numbers are ~34 million confirmed. With 34 million cases confirmed, it is probably that hundreds of millions actually had it but stayed at home, as it is the first recommendation. Yeah, we're all tired.
_-___________-_ 6y ago
> No, worldwide numbers are ~34 million confirmed. You don't get to just randomly multiply by some fudge factor that feels right to you and then reason based on that. Certainly any other number is entirely speculative, but given the minor symptoms it usually causes (and the lack of symptoms in many people) it seems a huge stretch to assume that confirmed cases == number of infections.
- mattigames 6y ago
  True, but reinfections (with symptoms) have occurred[0], so numbers of confirmed may not be an important metric, further studies are needed to conclude either way. [0] https://www.google.com/amp/s/nationalpost.com/news/world/reinfections-are-possible-man-who-tested-positive-for-covid-19-twice-identified-in-nevada-says-study/wcm/b6b4abd2-cf6b-45de-a1cc-c7211739cceb/amp/ https://www.google.com/amp/s/nationalpost.com/news/world/rei...
  - zaroth 6y ago
    So that makes two people in the entire world who are known to have re-tested positive. Immunity is never 100%. Why would we highlight 2 cases out of 30 million and turn that into a talking point like it means something?
    - mattigames 6y ago
      The virus the second time it was a different strain, so 2 people can become millions if the virus keeps mutating, let's remember it doesn't even have a year in existence so we know near nothing about how it mutates.
      - zaroth 6y ago
        In this fictional hypothetical, we get really good at manufacturing new vaccines, and we also get really really good at targeting suppression policies at only the highest risk individuals. Because for the majority of the population it’s less of a concern than annual flu. Back in reality, coronavirus mutates much slower than flu, and vaccines are targeted at particularly stable features even within an overall fairly stable structure.
whatasnail 6y ago
You can't possibly be serious thinking that the confirmed cases is nothing more than a lower bound for the actual number of people that have been infected. Do we know the exact multiplier, of course not. But from various studies it seems like 10x is in the ballpark.
- navd 6y ago
  I think you got downvoted on the basis that what you say is speculation... but I do not disagree and think there should be room for that in this context. Confirmed cases will never be equal to total cases unless the virus affected everyone the same and had 100% mortality with distinctive causes i.e hemorrhaging. The asymptomatic or mild case rate is so high that treating confirmed cases as anything other than a speculative baseline is hard for me to accept.
- titzer 6y ago
  Please stop with this "10x ballpark" stuff. It just leads to absurd conclusions. For example, 10x 34 million is 340 million, leaving 7.4 billion people yet to be infected, or about 20x more than currently. 20x the number of deaths would be 20 million people. That's horrific. I don't want to even think about that. I absolutely hate this calculus. Instead I want to stop this pandemic from getting worse, and we can and should have been working together to limit the spread of this thing. I'm absolutely tired of having this conversation because it's been 6 months of this throwing around bullshit numbers (only .1% die! no only 1% die! no only 2% die! oh look it's back to 1.5%!) and people arguing from what is basically a completely selfish point of view where nothing changes, nothing impacts their lives. When in reality every time we have this conversation the absolute numbers have another zero on them. Even back when it was only 50,000 cases worldwide, experts were warning of potentially millions of worldwide deaths. And idiots were arguing not to shut things down and not to wear masks because it was overblown. Goddamn. God damn. Now there are literally one thousand times as many cases. Now 1 million people are dead. And the conversation is still the same. We'll have this argument again and again and forever and the millions of dead will keep ticking by because so many people are completely unserious about dealing with this. It is absolutely disgraceful so many people putting their own money and entertainment above the lives of others and don't even have the decency to wear goddamn masks. Sickening. Sorry, I don't mean to unload on you personally because your comment wasn't the above, but goddamn I am so tired of this throwing around numbers game. Can we just fucking fight this virus already?
mennis16 6y ago
To be fair on the numbers front, there is a lot of evidence suggesting the true death rate for infected individuals is under 1% - so with 1 million dead I don't think it's unreasonable to guess at least 100 million have had it. That said I am surprised how many dismissive comments there are in any thread about COVID around here. It is tiring how many people are not taking it seriously enough, and ironically this attitude also contributes to businesses not being able to safely reopen.
goldforever 6y ago
Afraid to die? lock yourself in your house!
henrikschroder 6y ago
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/covid-19-world-in-for-a-hell-of-a-ride-in-coming-months-dr-mike-ryan-says-1.4370626?mode=amp https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/covid-19-... "An estimated 750 million, or 10 per cent of the world’s population, have been infected by Covid-19, World Health Organisation (WHO) official Dr Mike Ryan has said."

toomanybeersies 6y ago

> if long-term effects were a widespread phenomenon, we would know by now Wouldn't you have to wait until a long time period has passed before you could make any real claims in regards to "long-term effects"?