10 ms·

>This isn't good news, really, not for middle-aged-adults anyway. Or for anybody who knows middle aged and older people, especially if you spend time with them

>This isn't good news, really, not for middle-aged-adults anyway. Or for anybody who knows middle aged and older people, especially if you spend time with them. I am honestly more concerned about killing my parents than dying myself of covid-19. This is why I skipped my mom's birthday for example, because I had pretty mild cold-like symptoms... or maybe mild covid-19.

nradov 6y ago
That was always a risk even before COVID-19. Regular seasonal influenza can be deadly, especially to the elderly. Patients can transmit it to others when they are asymptomatic or presymptomatic. COVID-19 has a longer incubation period and a significantly higher fatality rate but the same fundamentals still apply. Any of us could have inadvertently killed someone by giving them the flu without even realizing it.
- ianlevesque 6y ago
  Thankfully the flu has an effective enough vaccine.
  - nradov 6y ago
    Effective enough for what? In some recent years seasonal influenza vaccine effectiveness was as low as 19%. That's still much better than nothing and I encourage everyone to get vaccinated, but let's be realistic about the level of protection. https://www.cdc.gov/flu/vaccines-work/past-seasons-estimates.html https://www.cdc.gov/flu/vaccines-work/past-seasons-estimates...
- DangerousPie 6y ago
  Flu is about 1/10 as deadly as coronavirus. And there’s a vaccine.
  - __blockcipher__ 6y ago
    This is a debunked claim that arose from conflating IFR vs CFR. Please source your claim. In terms of overall IFR Influenza and COVID-19 appear to be comparable. Influenza kills at least an order of magnitude more children, and for those in between roughly 35-55 they both kill about the same, and for the very elderly COVID-19 is multiple times more deadly. The overall IFRs are very comprable except COVID-19 preferentially kills the very old. This also means when you calculate YLL (years of life lost) Influenza takes more life-years away. I’d say at most if you take a .1% IFR of Influenza then COVID-19 is about 3x as deadly. Note however that we fundamentally classify Influenza deaths differently than with COVID-19. Almost any country considers any PCR-positive person who dies to be a COVID-19 death regardless of whether it’s a baby born with intestines outside of its body, or a young man in Orange County who died in a motorcycle accident, or George Floyd. All 3 of those examples I gave are real individuals who were PCR-positive at time of death. I know for a fact that the first two were initially labelled COVID-19 deaths, not sure about Floyd. There’s a concept I call the pathological vs physiologixal distinction that is crucial to understand and has been totally violated with COVID—19. The short of it is that it is a mistake to confuse a virus with a disease. (This is also why the phrase “asymptomatic COVID-19” is an oxymoron; if you have no symptoms you have a virus but not a disease) I have acne; if you culture my skin you will find the bacteria C. Acnes, which is naively believed to “cause” acne. Yet if you culture the skin of a healthy individual without acne, they also have C. Acnes. The question then is what combination of factors leads C Acnes to be pathogenic in one case (me) and not for another. The answer like most things is complicated, some combination of lipid peroxidation compromising the skin barrier, genetic skin turnover rates, etc, but most pop-sci articles will simplify it to “bacteria cause acne”. Similarly, it is a mistake to assume that if someone dies and has a positive SARS-2 PCR test that they died of COVID. First of all due to egregiously absurd cycle thresholds, you stay PCR-positive months after infection (again, see George Floyd’s hennepin county autopsy, he “had COVID” despite having recovered from it over a month prior to his death). But more importantly even if you truly have active, replicating SARS-2 in you at time of death, you didn’t necessarily die from COVID. I really got off on a tangent there but to wrap up, even if you take the official COVID-19 numbers - which I believe are grossly inflated - at most COVID-19 is 3x as lethal. To say it is an order of magnitude more deadly means you’re still stuck in April. It’s October now, please follow the new developments in the field. There was actually a paper released recently that traces the origins of the 10x deadly meme, debunked it and attributed its genesis to conflating CFR vs IFR. I’m on mobile travelling now without my laptop so I don’t have my megalist of research articles at my fingertips but if you search around maybe you can find it.
- __blockcipher__ 6y ago
  This is all true, but COVID hysteria has taken hold across the entire world, and HN is no exception unfortunately. You are being reflexively down voted because people view any comparison to Influenza as illegitimate, not realizing that you are making a broader point about risk management and attribution of blame for infection as opposed to saying that SARS-2 and Influenza are literally the same viruses. Personally I find it fascinating that I was never told it was my fault if I gave someone the flu in the course of both of us living our normal lives, but if I go to a grocery store and an elderly person does too and they get COVID-19 from me (imagine in this hypothetical there is no doubt that I gave them the virus) then somehow it’s my fault and I’m guilty of any harm that befalls then. Incredibly dangerous precedent. I hope people see where it leads. And I hope they learn from the history of public health, such as when “public health officials” used to shut down gay bars “for the greater good”.
  - amelius 6y ago
    I don't see the point. There are rules now, so not following them would indeed make it your fault if someone gets sick because of your actions that were not in accordance with the rules.
    - __blockcipher__ 6y ago
      Because if I go out into the world and get infected with a disease, that’s one of the risks of living life, and we have always understood that. That’s why if you catch the flu nobody blames the man next to you at the grocery store. For COVID we throw this out the window. When you take the approach to its logical conclusion you end up in a very scary place.
      - amelius 6y ago
        > That’s why if you catch the flu nobody blames the man next to you at the grocery store. I would if he wasn't sufficiently careful about it.
      - amanaplanacanal 6y ago
onecommentman 6y ago
BTW, for those substantially younger than dirt. You may be wondering why your elder elders aren’t particularly frightened by this, but folks 40 to 60 are more sensitized. After a certain age momento mori, a reminder that you will die, start coming at you fast and furious. This is just one more. They probably care more about seeing you than this next scheduled flight to Heaven. What unique about the shutdowns and social isolation, for the 40s-60s, are this is a momento senesci (if I have the Latin right). It’s a reminder that they will mostly likely enter a stage in life called old age, the slo-go/no-go stage of old age. A time when there will be fewer friends to visit, or the logistics become too difficult. A time when they will stay at home much more, and wouldn’t it be nice to have a comfortable home to be in. A time when that next flu won’t be so easy to shake, so maybe they skip that concert. The grim reaper isn’t knocking at the door, but rather an older, frailer version of themselves. These shutdowns and social distancing are a disconcerting trial run. My take on things...
- joe_the_user 6y ago
  That older people aren't frightened by this seems like a gross generalization. Plenty of the people disturbed by the rather poor and haphazard against Covid are older people who feel personally threatened. Everyone experiences aging but in this highly individualized culture, how one interprets the experience is also individualized - varying from welcoming to acceptance to various fitness/health measures aimed to stave it off - plus there's denial and anger. Someone looking forward to enjoying old age might not want life to end in middle age, etc...
- agapon 6y ago
  I think it's "memento" not "momento".

nradov 6y ago

That was always a risk even before COVID-19. Regular seasonal influenza can be deadly, especially to the elderly. Patients can transmit it to others when they are asymptomatic or presymptomatic. COVID-19 has a longer incubation period and a significantly higher fatality rate but the same fundamentals still apply. Any of us could have inadvertently killed someone by giving them the flu without even realizing it.

ianlevesque 6y ago
Thankfully the flu has an effective enough vaccine.
- nradov 6y ago
  Effective enough for what? In some recent years seasonal influenza vaccine effectiveness was as low as 19%. That's still much better than nothing and I encourage everyone to get vaccinated, but let's be realistic about the level of protection. https://www.cdc.gov/flu/vaccines-work/past-seasons-estimates.html https://www.cdc.gov/flu/vaccines-work/past-seasons-estimates...
DangerousPie 6y ago
Flu is about 1/10 as deadly as coronavirus. And there’s a vaccine.
- __blockcipher__ 6y ago
  This is a debunked claim that arose from conflating IFR vs CFR. Please source your claim. In terms of overall IFR Influenza and COVID-19 appear to be comparable. Influenza kills at least an order of magnitude more children, and for those in between roughly 35-55 they both kill about the same, and for the very elderly COVID-19 is multiple times more deadly. The overall IFRs are very comprable except COVID-19 preferentially kills the very old. This also means when you calculate YLL (years of life lost) Influenza takes more life-years away. I’d say at most if you take a .1% IFR of Influenza then COVID-19 is about 3x as deadly. Note however that we fundamentally classify Influenza deaths differently than with COVID-19. Almost any country considers any PCR-positive person who dies to be a COVID-19 death regardless of whether it’s a baby born with intestines outside of its body, or a young man in Orange County who died in a motorcycle accident, or George Floyd. All 3 of those examples I gave are real individuals who were PCR-positive at time of death. I know for a fact that the first two were initially labelled COVID-19 deaths, not sure about Floyd. There’s a concept I call the pathological vs physiologixal distinction that is crucial to understand and has been totally violated with COVID—19. The short of it is that it is a mistake to confuse a virus with a disease. (This is also why the phrase “asymptomatic COVID-19” is an oxymoron; if you have no symptoms you have a virus but not a disease) I have acne; if you culture my skin you will find the bacteria C. Acnes, which is naively believed to “cause” acne. Yet if you culture the skin of a healthy individual without acne, they also have C. Acnes. The question then is what combination of factors leads C Acnes to be pathogenic in one case (me) and not for another. The answer like most things is complicated, some combination of lipid peroxidation compromising the skin barrier, genetic skin turnover rates, etc, but most pop-sci articles will simplify it to “bacteria cause acne”. Similarly, it is a mistake to assume that if someone dies and has a positive SARS-2 PCR test that they died of COVID. First of all due to egregiously absurd cycle thresholds, you stay PCR-positive months after infection (again, see George Floyd’s hennepin county autopsy, he “had COVID” despite having recovered from it over a month prior to his death). But more importantly even if you truly have active, replicating SARS-2 in you at time of death, you didn’t necessarily die from COVID. I really got off on a tangent there but to wrap up, even if you take the official COVID-19 numbers - which I believe are grossly inflated - at most COVID-19 is 3x as lethal. To say it is an order of magnitude more deadly means you’re still stuck in April. It’s October now, please follow the new developments in the field. There was actually a paper released recently that traces the origins of the 10x deadly meme, debunked it and attributed its genesis to conflating CFR vs IFR. I’m on mobile travelling now without my laptop so I don’t have my megalist of research articles at my fingertips but if you search around maybe you can find it.
__blockcipher__ 6y ago
This is all true, but COVID hysteria has taken hold across the entire world, and HN is no exception unfortunately. You are being reflexively down voted because people view any comparison to Influenza as illegitimate, not realizing that you are making a broader point about risk management and attribution of blame for infection as opposed to saying that SARS-2 and Influenza are literally the same viruses. Personally I find it fascinating that I was never told it was my fault if I gave someone the flu in the course of both of us living our normal lives, but if I go to a grocery store and an elderly person does too and they get COVID-19 from me (imagine in this hypothetical there is no doubt that I gave them the virus) then somehow it’s my fault and I’m guilty of any harm that befalls then. Incredibly dangerous precedent. I hope people see where it leads. And I hope they learn from the history of public health, such as when “public health officials” used to shut down gay bars “for the greater good”.
- amelius 6y ago
  I don't see the point. There are rules now, so not following them would indeed make it your fault if someone gets sick because of your actions that were not in accordance with the rules.
  - __blockcipher__ 6y ago
    Because if I go out into the world and get infected with a disease, that’s one of the risks of living life, and we have always understood that. That’s why if you catch the flu nobody blames the man next to you at the grocery store. For COVID we throw this out the window. When you take the approach to its logical conclusion you end up in a very scary place.
    - amelius 6y ago
      > That’s why if you catch the flu nobody blames the man next to you at the grocery store. I would if he wasn't sufficiently careful about it.
    - amanaplanacanal 6y ago

onecommentman 6y ago

BTW, for those substantially younger than dirt. You may be wondering why your elder elders aren’t particularly frightened by this, but folks 40 to 60 are more sensitized. After a certain age momento mori, a reminder that you will die, start coming at you fast and furious. This is just one more. They probably care more about seeing you than this next scheduled flight to Heaven. What unique about the shutdowns and social isolation, for the 40s-60s, are this is a momento senesci (if I have the Latin right). It’s a reminder that they will mostly likely enter a stage in life called old age, the slo-go/no-go stage of old age. A time when there will be fewer friends to visit, or the logistics become too difficult. A time when they will stay at home much more, and wouldn’t it be nice to have a comfortable home to be in. A time when that next flu won’t be so easy to shake, so maybe they skip that concert. The grim reaper isn’t knocking at the door, but rather an older, frailer version of themselves. These shutdowns and social distancing are a disconcerting trial run. My take on things...

joe_the_user 6y ago
That older people aren't frightened by this seems like a gross generalization. Plenty of the people disturbed by the rather poor and haphazard against Covid are older people who feel personally threatened. Everyone experiences aging but in this highly individualized culture, how one interprets the experience is also individualized - varying from welcoming to acceptance to various fitness/health measures aimed to stave it off - plus there's denial and anger. Someone looking forward to enjoying old age might not want life to end in middle age, etc...
agapon 6y ago
I think it's "memento" not "momento".