6 ms·

I love what this comment - and the certainty in its conclusions - says about our current times. Having lived in NYC my whole life, I experienced life within th

I love what this comment - and the certainty in its conclusions - says about our current times. Having lived in NYC my whole life, I experienced life within the "epicenter" of this "tragic" pandemic. I have never seen the parks so full of people in December - every bench is occupied. Every bench. In my neck of the woods, many people have largely lived their lives on park benches, doing everything they can to have connections with other people in as normal a way as possible. People "socially distance" as much as they can, sitting as far apart from one another as possible, and talk. Usually with masks on. In Brooklyn, NY, this is possibly the best way to remain sane without risking being a victim of the huge increase in random senseless crimes, and without risking being a perceived nuisance to the public. It's sad to see it, because it's so obvious what trouble people are going through to get this all done. To see people bundled up in winter coats, barely able to move, so they can bare the near-freezing temperatures - just to socialize - really shows how hideous these lockdowns are and how much they threaten the human spirit.

vore 6y ago
Curious about why you choose to scare-quote "tragic": I would hope you feel that there's nothing contentious about death on such a massive scale as being anything short of tragic.
- AndrewUnmuted 6y ago
  I scare-quoted "tragic" because the tragedy of this pandemic was not the lives lost due to the introduction of a new head cold into our ecosystem - it was the illegal, violent, and world-upending implementations of fascism that governments engaged in, essentially declaring war on its own taxpaying citizens. I am in the "epicenter" of the virus - NYC. Everyone I know who has contracted the virus - male, female, old, young, thin, fat, black, and white - had about one day of illness followed by 12 hours of recovery. On day two, all of them awoke to feeling pretty much entirely over it. Anybody who's even remotely healthy has nothing to worry about with this pandemic. If people are truly being killed off by COVID-19, we have much bigger public health problems to be addressing than this stupid virus. By not ever addressing immune system strengthening, healthier diet and lifestyle choices, etc., to fight the virus, we enabled the pharmaceutical companies to continue to herd us in whatever way gives them the best chance at profits. Obviously, it is this group of people to whom our governments are directing their attention. Obviously, these self-interested elites are using government as a vehicle for compulsive adoption, turning huge profits in the meantime. The people that died from COVID were going to die of the very next infectious disease they contracted. To have died of COVID, you had to be on death's door already, or so statistically unlucky as to make your suffering a rounding error. If this is a truly global crisis, we're all fucked anyway. A typical US president amasses a 1mil+ kill count by the end of their first term in office. I am far, far more concerned by these tragic deaths. And I am quite lonely sometimes holding that contention. But I know I am right. Notice how nobody is talking about foreign policy, and hasn't for the entire year, thanks to this pandemic.
  - scrollaway 6y ago
    > Anybody who's even remotely healthy has nothing to worry about with this pandemic. Sincerely, fuck off. I've lost a dear 30 year old, very healthy friend to it. And this is in Europe, not in a broken-healthcare country like the US. This is not an uncommon thing, and others on HN will have the same story as I do. If you want to spread this kind of bullshit, stick to the toilet.
    - mikeyouse 6y ago
      Even without direct illness, my ~35yr old relative is a physician running a Covid unit and she is absolutely ruined by all the death that she's seen. She signed over 20 death certificates in one day last week. Just day after day, week after week of 'treating' patients that never get better and who are alone and scared is a massive weight we're putting on everyone in healthcare. The selfishness of this attitude is unconscionable to me.
      - AndrewUnmuted 6y ago
        Death is horrifying. We in the "civilized" world _should_ know this better than anybody. We are shielded from so much death on a daily basis and yet have to deal not at all with the death we shower on others outside our borders. We, the taxpayers from these countries, have been ruthlessly drone-bombing innocents, arming horribly violent terrorists in foreign conflicts, and running shadow campaigns against elected leaders for a century. With extremely few exceptions, just about everybody from a North American or EU country is from a place complicit in these atrocities. There is nothing new about the amount of death we are reported to be dealing with thanks to COVID-19. In fact, it's a walk in the park compared with the last 20 years of American & European foreign policy. Maybe you and your relatives are all just a bit new to the whole "death" thing, but many of us have been aware of it for some time and it just doesn't hold quite the same weight. Once you see a country's ruler getting sodomized by a bayonet until they die, a flu-like illness doesn't really read quite the same as you seem to perceive it.
    - hnuser847 6y ago
      Personal attacks are against the rules on HN. I realize you must feel extremely upset over the loss of your friend, but the data is extremely clear on this. A recent study examined the relationship between comorbidities and deaths from COVID. Of the deceased COVID-19 patients in the study, 83.29% had a preexisting comorbidity, while only 16.71% did not.[1] Age is also a major risk factor. According to the CDC's latest numbers, people 65+ account for 79.6% of all COVID deaths in US.[2] [1] https://s3.amazonaws.com/media2.fairhealth.org/whitepaper/asset/Risk%20Factors%20for%20COVID-19%20Mortality%20among%20Privately%20Insured%20Patients%20-%20A%20Claims%20Data%20Analysis%20-%20A%20FAIR%20Health%20White%20Paper.pdf https://s3.amazonaws.com/media2.fairhealth.org/whitepaper/as... [2] https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid_weekly/index.htm https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid_weekly/index.htm

vore 6y ago

Curious about why you choose to scare-quote "tragic": I would hope you feel that there's nothing contentious about death on such a massive scale as being anything short of tragic.

AndrewUnmuted 6y ago
I scare-quoted "tragic" because the tragedy of this pandemic was not the lives lost due to the introduction of a new head cold into our ecosystem - it was the illegal, violent, and world-upending implementations of fascism that governments engaged in, essentially declaring war on its own taxpaying citizens. I am in the "epicenter" of the virus - NYC. Everyone I know who has contracted the virus - male, female, old, young, thin, fat, black, and white - had about one day of illness followed by 12 hours of recovery. On day two, all of them awoke to feeling pretty much entirely over it. Anybody who's even remotely healthy has nothing to worry about with this pandemic. If people are truly being killed off by COVID-19, we have much bigger public health problems to be addressing than this stupid virus. By not ever addressing immune system strengthening, healthier diet and lifestyle choices, etc., to fight the virus, we enabled the pharmaceutical companies to continue to herd us in whatever way gives them the best chance at profits. Obviously, it is this group of people to whom our governments are directing their attention. Obviously, these self-interested elites are using government as a vehicle for compulsive adoption, turning huge profits in the meantime. The people that died from COVID were going to die of the very next infectious disease they contracted. To have died of COVID, you had to be on death's door already, or so statistically unlucky as to make your suffering a rounding error. If this is a truly global crisis, we're all fucked anyway. A typical US president amasses a 1mil+ kill count by the end of their first term in office. I am far, far more concerned by these tragic deaths. And I am quite lonely sometimes holding that contention. But I know I am right. Notice how nobody is talking about foreign policy, and hasn't for the entire year, thanks to this pandemic.
- scrollaway 6y ago
  > Anybody who's even remotely healthy has nothing to worry about with this pandemic. Sincerely, fuck off. I've lost a dear 30 year old, very healthy friend to it. And this is in Europe, not in a broken-healthcare country like the US. This is not an uncommon thing, and others on HN will have the same story as I do. If you want to spread this kind of bullshit, stick to the toilet.
  - mikeyouse 6y ago
    Even without direct illness, my ~35yr old relative is a physician running a Covid unit and she is absolutely ruined by all the death that she's seen. She signed over 20 death certificates in one day last week. Just day after day, week after week of 'treating' patients that never get better and who are alone and scared is a massive weight we're putting on everyone in healthcare. The selfishness of this attitude is unconscionable to me.
    - AndrewUnmuted 6y ago
      Death is horrifying. We in the "civilized" world _should_ know this better than anybody. We are shielded from so much death on a daily basis and yet have to deal not at all with the death we shower on others outside our borders. We, the taxpayers from these countries, have been ruthlessly drone-bombing innocents, arming horribly violent terrorists in foreign conflicts, and running shadow campaigns against elected leaders for a century. With extremely few exceptions, just about everybody from a North American or EU country is from a place complicit in these atrocities. There is nothing new about the amount of death we are reported to be dealing with thanks to COVID-19. In fact, it's a walk in the park compared with the last 20 years of American & European foreign policy. Maybe you and your relatives are all just a bit new to the whole "death" thing, but many of us have been aware of it for some time and it just doesn't hold quite the same weight. Once you see a country's ruler getting sodomized by a bayonet until they die, a flu-like illness doesn't really read quite the same as you seem to perceive it.
  - hnuser847 6y ago
    Personal attacks are against the rules on HN. I realize you must feel extremely upset over the loss of your friend, but the data is extremely clear on this. A recent study examined the relationship between comorbidities and deaths from COVID. Of the deceased COVID-19 patients in the study, 83.29% had a preexisting comorbidity, while only 16.71% did not.[1] Age is also a major risk factor. According to the CDC's latest numbers, people 65+ account for 79.6% of all COVID deaths in US.[2] [1] https://s3.amazonaws.com/media2.fairhealth.org/whitepaper/asset/Risk%20Factors%20for%20COVID-19%20Mortality%20among%20Privately%20Insured%20Patients%20-%20A%20Claims%20Data%20Analysis%20-%20A%20FAIR%20Health%20White%20Paper.pdf https://s3.amazonaws.com/media2.fairhealth.org/whitepaper/as... [2] https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid_weekly/index.htm https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid_weekly/index.htm