4 ms·

I'll admit I'm not super well informed on covid, so my opinion on this is weakly held, but isnt that an insanely small percentage of people? I was under the im

by totony 6y ago

I'll admit I'm not super well informed on covid, so my opinion on this is weakly held, but isnt that an insanely small percentage of people? I was under the impression that vaccine + immunity will just lead to herd immunity and the disease to go away on its own.

estebank 6y ago
US population: ~330 million people Confirmed cases: 13.4 million people Confirmed deaths: 267 thousand people deaths / confirmed: ~2% 2% of the US dead (assumes homogeneous 2% death rate, which is incorrect but an upper bound): 6.6 million people Distribution of deaths by age bracket, including population distribution: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid_weekly/index.htm https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid_weekly/index.htm About half the population is over ~45 years old. Anything we do now to reduce the R0 of this disease will disproportionally enable people to live long enough for herd immunity to be attained, courtesy of the exponential growth curve. The amount of people that has to get sick to overwhelm hospitals is smaller than you might think. When hospitals get overwhelmed people die of other preventable cases due to reduced resources, tired physicians, lack of time to see patients at all and people being scared of even going to the hospital in the first place. Old people are not "disposable" and for younger people that happen to have the genetic (or other) predisposition to bad or fatal cases it will be hard to tell them "sucks to be you" when the preventive steps are well understood by now: interact with people as little as possible and when you do, do so outside while wearing masks. Also, the death rate among poorer people is a multiple of that of the general population, among other reasons because they are working essential jobs to not starve. Those of us that can isolate and don't are saying that these people's lives (essential workers, including health care workers) have no value, they are just meat for the meat grinder.
- nradov 6y ago
  You appear to have confused case fatality rate with infection fatality rate. There have been far more infections than confirmed cases because most never get tested or formally diagnosed. The actual IFR is under 1%. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/planning-scenarios.html https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/planning-scena...
- totony 6y ago
  That comment was meant to answer two people at once, my bad. I was referring to the proportion of population that was not at risk. That population has an insanely small chance of having long term side effects from data I've seen. Which was the reason I'm not sure why we would force them to get these vaccines. EDIT: To be more precise; Of course we want a vaccine and vulnerable people to get it. You'd rather risk getting whatever potential side effects of that vaccine than get covid. I'm more torn about why healthy young people should get it.
  - DanBC 6y ago
    > I'm more torn about why healthy young people should get it. So they don't infect and kill their older relatives.
    - totony 6y ago
      But those would get the vaccine first, no?
      - DanBC 6y ago
        Maybe. Not everyone can get the vaccine. We don't know yet if the vaccine is 100% effective (although it does look very good).
        totony 6y ago
        >Not everyone can get the vaccine. But the proportion of people who are both at risk and can't get the vaccine (and alternatives) must be small (from intuitive maths, I actually haven't looked into this). Why would this vaccine be mandatory while plenty of other aren't? E.g. I've never got flu-tested before a concert/the flu shot, even though it could pass to other people/kill people. I'm wondering where's the line between freedom to one own's body and other people's well being. IMO it's not as clear-cut as people make it out to be.
        estebank 6y ago

by totony 6y ago

estebank 6y ago

US population: ~330 million people Confirmed cases: 13.4 million people Confirmed deaths: 267 thousand people deaths / confirmed: ~2% 2% of the US dead (assumes homogeneous 2% death rate, which is incorrect but an upper bound): 6.6 million people Distribution of deaths by age bracket, including population distribution: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid_weekly/index.htm https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid_weekly/index.htm About half the population is over ~45 years old. Anything we do now to reduce the R0 of this disease will disproportionally enable people to live long enough for herd immunity to be attained, courtesy of the exponential growth curve. The amount of people that has to get sick to overwhelm hospitals is smaller than you might think. When hospitals get overwhelmed people die of other preventable cases due to reduced resources, tired physicians, lack of time to see patients at all and people being scared of even going to the hospital in the first place. Old people are not "disposable" and for younger people that happen to have the genetic (or other) predisposition to bad or fatal cases it will be hard to tell them "sucks to be you" when the preventive steps are well understood by now: interact with people as little as possible and when you do, do so outside while wearing masks. Also, the death rate among poorer people is a multiple of that of the general population, among other reasons because they are working essential jobs to not starve. Those of us that can isolate and don't are saying that these people's lives (essential workers, including health care workers) have no value, they are just meat for the meat grinder.

nradov 6y ago
You appear to have confused case fatality rate with infection fatality rate. There have been far more infections than confirmed cases because most never get tested or formally diagnosed. The actual IFR is under 1%. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/planning-scenarios.html https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/planning-scena...
totony 6y ago
That comment was meant to answer two people at once, my bad. I was referring to the proportion of population that was not at risk. That population has an insanely small chance of having long term side effects from data I've seen. Which was the reason I'm not sure why we would force them to get these vaccines. EDIT: To be more precise; Of course we want a vaccine and vulnerable people to get it. You'd rather risk getting whatever potential side effects of that vaccine than get covid. I'm more torn about why healthy young people should get it.
- DanBC 6y ago
  > I'm more torn about why healthy young people should get it. So they don't infect and kill their older relatives.
  - totony 6y ago
    But those would get the vaccine first, no?
    - DanBC 6y ago
      Maybe. Not everyone can get the vaccine. We don't know yet if the vaccine is 100% effective (although it does look very good).
      - totony 6y ago
        >Not everyone can get the vaccine. But the proportion of people who are both at risk and can't get the vaccine (and alternatives) must be small (from intuitive maths, I actually haven't looked into this). Why would this vaccine be mandatory while plenty of other aren't? E.g. I've never got flu-tested before a concert/the flu shot, even though it could pass to other people/kill people. I'm wondering where's the line between freedom to one own's body and other people's well being. IMO it's not as clear-cut as people make it out to be.
        estebank 6y ago