3 ms·

False equivalency. Hospitals don't overflow with flu patients every winter. Meanwhile just in Italy and NY, hospitals were overflowing with Covid patients with

False equivalency. Hospitals don't overflow with flu patients every winter. Meanwhile just in Italy and NY, hospitals were overflowing with Covid patients with only a fraction of people exposed to it compared to the billions exposed to the flu every year. Same with the number of deaths. 65,000 in a really bad flu season in the US with hundreds of millions exposed to it, and Covid already has exceed that with only about 20% exposed to the virus.

fastball 6y ago
It's not a false equivalency because I'm not saying the two diseases are equivalent. I'm asking where we draw the line. Yes the flu is less severe than COVID-19. The question is not which is worse. It is how many lives do we need to save with these measures in order to make it "worth it"? Who determines that? How do we determine that? We apparently decided it is worth it for COVID-19. Ok, but then why not for the flu. It kills people too, just not as many. What about something in between the flu in COVID in terms of lethality?
- an_opabinia 6y ago
  I don’t know what to tell you, we should have probably banned tobacco a long time ago. You’re arguing against a kafkacracy, not scientists.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- watwut 6y ago
  > Ok, but then why not for the flu. It kills people too, just not as many. Literally because of "just not as many" part. Yes, real world policies do some cold calculations about "how many people die" and have arbitrary lines. Arbitrary lines are actually ok. Better then arbitrary line on either "never ever" or "totally all the time" extreme. Also, we literally close schools when flu get out of control in some area - for a week or so and that is enough for flu to get under control. There is also huge push for flu vaccines each year. It is not true that no flu management is done, there is a lot of flu management going on. Like, I dont know whether it is consequences of two party system, but the whole "we either lock everything for every reason or never nothing at all" and "we cant possibly think in probabilities and death rates and nuance" is frankly, idiotic.
- jusssi 6y ago
  Like your parent said, the difference is the tendency for COVID-19 to eat up all health care capacity. Appendicitis? Stroke? Car accident? Sorry, the hospital is full of COVID patients, we can't take you in. Go home, lie down, see if it gets better. This is the scenario we're trying to avoid. If the flu would do that, we'd have lockdowns for it too.
IronRanger 6y ago
Yes they do: https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2018/01/24/Hospitals-overwhelmed-by-influx-of-flu-patients/8171516800130/ https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2018/01/24/Hospitals-overwhe... https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-flu-demand-20180116-htmlstory.html https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-flu-demand-2018... https://www.dispatchhealth.com/blog/ers-are-overwhelmed-with-flu-patients-mobile-urgent-care-is-the-solution/ https://www.dispatchhealth.com/blog/ers-are-overwhelmed-with... https://www.cbsnews.com/news/overwhelmed-by-flu-cases-some-ers-turn-ambulances-away-california/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/overwhelmed-by-flu-cases-some-e... https://edition.cnn.com/2018/01/12/health/flu-surveillance-cdc/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2018/01/12/health/flu-surveillance-c... In Italy and Spain, aged care centres were abandoned by Eastern European workers fleeing the country before border closure, leaving residents ill cared for. In New York, symptomatic patients were ordered back into aged care homes to free up hospital space. These conditions would not have occurred without hysteria and excessive fear. COVID in Sweden is about as deadly as the 2009 flu wave: https://swprs.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/sweden-monthly-deaths-1851.jpg https://swprs.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/sweden-monthly-... Sweden is on track for an annual number of deaths in 2020 mostly the same as prior years: https://www.statista.com/statistics/525353/sweden-number-of-deaths/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/525353/sweden-number-of-...
- addicted 6y ago
  I’ll just point out the last one, because it’s terribly wrong, and how wrong it was pointed out in HN over the last couple of days itself. Sweden, through early November, has as many deaths as it has had in its worst entire years before. And Swedens death numbers increase beyond the current year, as they attribute more deaths towards the previous year in the beginning of a year. Sweden is on track to have 10-20% more deaths than normal.
  - IronRanger 6y ago
    There are no excess deaths apparent in October or November for Sweden: https://www.euromomo.eu/graphs-and-maps#z-scores-by-country https://www.euromomo.eu/graphs-and-maps#z-scores-by-country
collyw 6y ago
>Hospitals don't overflow with flu patients every winter. They do it just isn't covered as much as anything covid related. https://time.com/5107984/hospitals-handling-burden-flu-patients/ https://time.com/5107984/hospitals-handling-burden-flu-patie...

fastball 6y ago

It's not a false equivalency because I'm not saying the two diseases are equivalent. I'm asking where we draw the line. Yes the flu is less severe than COVID-19. The question is not which is worse. It is how many lives do we need to save with these measures in order to make it "worth it"? Who determines that? How do we determine that? We apparently decided it is worth it for COVID-19. Ok, but then why not for the flu. It kills people too, just not as many. What about something in between the flu in COVID in terms of lethality?

an_opabinia 6y ago
I don’t know what to tell you, we should have probably banned tobacco a long time ago. You’re arguing against a kafkacracy, not scientists.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
watwut 6y ago
> Ok, but then why not for the flu. It kills people too, just not as many. Literally because of "just not as many" part. Yes, real world policies do some cold calculations about "how many people die" and have arbitrary lines. Arbitrary lines are actually ok. Better then arbitrary line on either "never ever" or "totally all the time" extreme. Also, we literally close schools when flu get out of control in some area - for a week or so and that is enough for flu to get under control. There is also huge push for flu vaccines each year. It is not true that no flu management is done, there is a lot of flu management going on. Like, I dont know whether it is consequences of two party system, but the whole "we either lock everything for every reason or never nothing at all" and "we cant possibly think in probabilities and death rates and nuance" is frankly, idiotic.
jusssi 6y ago
Like your parent said, the difference is the tendency for COVID-19 to eat up all health care capacity. Appendicitis? Stroke? Car accident? Sorry, the hospital is full of COVID patients, we can't take you in. Go home, lie down, see if it gets better. This is the scenario we're trying to avoid. If the flu would do that, we'd have lockdowns for it too.

IronRanger 6y ago

Yes they do: https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2018/01/24/Hospitals-overwhelmed-by-influx-of-flu-patients/8171516800130/ https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2018/01/24/Hospitals-overwhe... https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-flu-demand-20180116-htmlstory.html https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-flu-demand-2018... https://www.dispatchhealth.com/blog/ers-are-overwhelmed-with-flu-patients-mobile-urgent-care-is-the-solution/ https://www.dispatchhealth.com/blog/ers-are-overwhelmed-with... https://www.cbsnews.com/news/overwhelmed-by-flu-cases-some-ers-turn-ambulances-away-california/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/overwhelmed-by-flu-cases-some-e... https://edition.cnn.com/2018/01/12/health/flu-surveillance-cdc/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2018/01/12/health/flu-surveillance-c... In Italy and Spain, aged care centres were abandoned by Eastern European workers fleeing the country before border closure, leaving residents ill cared for. In New York, symptomatic patients were ordered back into aged care homes to free up hospital space. These conditions would not have occurred without hysteria and excessive fear. COVID in Sweden is about as deadly as the 2009 flu wave: https://swprs.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/sweden-monthly-deaths-1851.jpg https://swprs.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/sweden-monthly-... Sweden is on track for an annual number of deaths in 2020 mostly the same as prior years: https://www.statista.com/statistics/525353/sweden-number-of-deaths/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/525353/sweden-number-of-...

addicted 6y ago
I’ll just point out the last one, because it’s terribly wrong, and how wrong it was pointed out in HN over the last couple of days itself. Sweden, through early November, has as many deaths as it has had in its worst entire years before. And Swedens death numbers increase beyond the current year, as they attribute more deaths towards the previous year in the beginning of a year. Sweden is on track to have 10-20% more deaths than normal.
- IronRanger 6y ago
  There are no excess deaths apparent in October or November for Sweden: https://www.euromomo.eu/graphs-and-maps#z-scores-by-country https://www.euromomo.eu/graphs-and-maps#z-scores-by-country

collyw 6y ago

>Hospitals don't overflow with flu patients every winter. They do it just isn't covered as much as anything covid related. https://time.com/5107984/hospitals-handling-burden-flu-patients/ https://time.com/5107984/hospitals-handling-burden-flu-patie...