5 ms·

Very low? You mean not that many people die, of any cause, typically? Not sure what you are getting at here.

therufa 5y ago
very low in a sense that since we discovered antibiotics, the global mortality rate went down by a factor of 10. compared to that we are still in a relatively "good" position.
- robbrown451 5y ago
  Relative to what, again? The old days, before antibiotics? I mean, if you go back far enough, 1 out of 5 people died by homocide. That still wouldn't make it reasonable to say that we're "relatively good" if only 10 million Americans a year are getting murdered. Death, and specifically premature death, is still a very unfortunate reality. Playing it down as if "well it happened more often in the old days" is, frankly, a bit bizarre.
alerighi 5y ago
Really... not many. In my city of about 14k people last year died 19 people, that is like 3/4 more than the norm, but with these numbers, we are well inside statistical error. Also we must evaluate the increase in mortality in a longer period. I can as well being that most of the people that died of COVID were either old people or people with other health issues that would have died anyway in a year or two. The problem with COVID to me seems that everyone just remembered that people will die. In the old days death was normal, there were wars, there were al sort of illnesses and infections that caused death, it was common to see people die even at young ages. And I don't talk about centuries ago, it was like that till the end of WW2. Nowadays we are used to people that lives till 90 years, we no longer have wars, we are able to cure practically every illness, so a virus that kills slightly more people that we are used to see terrifies us. But in reality, it's nature, we will all die one day, COVID or not, so there is no real reason to fear it to me. In fact, we will live worse life because of the fear of this virus, and all the restrictions that we had put in place to avoid that (without so much success, in the end).
- robbrown451 5y ago
  Well I guess I'll stop making my kid wear a helmet when she skateboards. No need to fear her premature death, it's just nature and everyone dies anyway. Are you sure you thought this whole thing through?

very low in a sense that since we discovered antibiotics, the global mortality rate went down by a factor of 10. compared to that we are still in a relatively "good" position.

robbrown451 5y ago
Relative to what, again? The old days, before antibiotics? I mean, if you go back far enough, 1 out of 5 people died by homocide. That still wouldn't make it reasonable to say that we're "relatively good" if only 10 million Americans a year are getting murdered. Death, and specifically premature death, is still a very unfortunate reality. Playing it down as if "well it happened more often in the old days" is, frankly, a bit bizarre.

alerighi 5y ago

Really... not many. In my city of about 14k people last year died 19 people, that is like 3/4 more than the norm, but with these numbers, we are well inside statistical error. Also we must evaluate the increase in mortality in a longer period. I can as well being that most of the people that died of COVID were either old people or people with other health issues that would have died anyway in a year or two. The problem with COVID to me seems that everyone just remembered that people will die. In the old days death was normal, there were wars, there were al sort of illnesses and infections that caused death, it was common to see people die even at young ages. And I don't talk about centuries ago, it was like that till the end of WW2. Nowadays we are used to people that lives till 90 years, we no longer have wars, we are able to cure practically every illness, so a virus that kills slightly more people that we are used to see terrifies us. But in reality, it's nature, we will all die one day, COVID or not, so there is no real reason to fear it to me. In fact, we will live worse life because of the fear of this virus, and all the restrictions that we had put in place to avoid that (without so much success, in the end).

robbrown451 5y ago
Well I guess I'll stop making my kid wear a helmet when she skateboards. No need to fear her premature death, it's just nature and everyone dies anyway. Are you sure you thought this whole thing through?