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> so we better double-check any new one before being ok with it. This. No government or institution should downplay seriousness of pandemic even if virus is no

> so we better double-check any new one before being ok with it. This. No government or institution should downplay seriousness of pandemic even if virus is not as deadly as Ebola.

anoncake 5y ago
Nor should it upplay it.
- quaintdev 5y ago
  No. Because you have no idea how that same virus is going to mutate when billions of people are going to get infected. The seriousness of pandemic plays major role in containing it.
  - anoncake 5y ago
    Not having an idea how a virus is going to mutate means you have no evidence that it is going to mutate in a problematic way.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- loup-vaillant 5y ago
  In the case of Covid-19, I'd say we tend to downplay it by default: we're not much afraid of it because of its low mortality rate, so we could (and did) easily overlook it's extremely high infection rate. As a result of how easily it spreads, Covid-19 likely caused many more deaths than many otherwise much scarier diseases, including Ebola.
  - anoncake 5y ago
    Its mortality rate puts an upper bound on how bad it is. Even if everyone would have been infected without any measures, saving at most ~1% of the population isn't worth stealing more than a year of everyone's life. Those who die lose on average 10 years of life. Times 1%, that's about a month. The discrepancy of how much we've sacrificed to how little we've gained is absurd.
    - loup-vaillant 5y ago
      Have we actually shortened the life of everyone by one year, on average? We put rather severe restrictions in place, and not everyone were affected the same way¹ (which is not fair, I know). My point is, it's not like we put everyone in suspended animation for a year, or instantly aged everyone by a year, or made the life of everyone miserable enough for that year that it wasn't worth living. The effects of how we handled this crisis are real, but a full year of lost life per person on average seems like a stretch. [1]: to give but one example, unemployment kills (more precisely, it's a risk factor). Rising unemployment causes additional deaths. Not a huge amount, but a measurable one for sure. We effectively killed some people to save others.
    - gregoriol 5y ago
      You are forgetting very important consequences of letting the pandemic as we know it being uncontrolled: if "everyone" get infected with covid, the hospitals get incredibly overwhelmed, as well as many other services like ambulances, oxygen, funerals, ... this is recipe for chaos and much more deaths: much less treatment possible for other illnesses even not so dangerous ones at first, difficult disposal of bodies leading to other health problems, much less medical staff available over time (they die too!), ... many more people would actually die because of this. But also who will choose who gets treatment and who doesn't? It's easy behind a screen to click on a button and say I'm ok with it, but it's different when there is a human in front of you, when there are relatives, ... and even if you are not the person who makes the choice, think about how statistics are tricky: 1 person dying out of 1'000'000 is not much on a spreadsheet, until that one is someone you know or love. Finally, it would mean not so decent deaths for many who can't get a bed or oxygen: in corridors? in the streets? suffering from respiratory troubles? Would you accept that your parents or spouse die like this? These are actually happening in some places right now, think about it, these people didn't choose the situation, it ain't pretty, we are lucky.
      - anoncake 5y ago
        Please stop the "someone you know or love" emotionalizing, it makes rational discussion impossible by making people overestimate risks. Anyway: > many more people would actually die because of this. Numbers, please? > 1 person dying out of 1'000'000 is not much on a spreadsheet, until that one is someone you know or love. ...with a probability of 1/1000000, which still isn't much. Nothing tricky about it.
  - oceanplexian 5y ago
    COVID-19 is statistically about as dangerous as the Hong Kong Flu in the 1950s, if you look at the IFR instead of the CFR (It's been obvious since they started doing serology tests that the COVID-19 CFR is wildly off from the IFR, and it's a much milder virus than advertised). The only difference is the world population today is much larger so many more people have died.
- arpa 5y ago
  Hope for the best, prepare for the worst, eh?
  - anoncake 5y ago
    Prepare for the worst with reasonable effort, yes.

> so we better double-check any new one before being ok with it. This. No government or institution should downplay seriousness of pandemic even if virus is not as deadly as Ebola.

anoncake 5y ago

Nor should it upplay it.

quaintdev 5y ago
No. Because you have no idea how that same virus is going to mutate when billions of people are going to get infected. The seriousness of pandemic plays major role in containing it.
- anoncake 5y ago
  Not having an idea how a virus is going to mutate means you have no evidence that it is going to mutate in a problematic way.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
loup-vaillant 5y ago
In the case of Covid-19, I'd say we tend to downplay it by default: we're not much afraid of it because of its low mortality rate, so we could (and did) easily overlook it's extremely high infection rate. As a result of how easily it spreads, Covid-19 likely caused many more deaths than many otherwise much scarier diseases, including Ebola.
- anoncake 5y ago
  Its mortality rate puts an upper bound on how bad it is. Even if everyone would have been infected without any measures, saving at most ~1% of the population isn't worth stealing more than a year of everyone's life. Those who die lose on average 10 years of life. Times 1%, that's about a month. The discrepancy of how much we've sacrificed to how little we've gained is absurd.
  - loup-vaillant 5y ago
    Have we actually shortened the life of everyone by one year, on average? We put rather severe restrictions in place, and not everyone were affected the same way¹ (which is not fair, I know). My point is, it's not like we put everyone in suspended animation for a year, or instantly aged everyone by a year, or made the life of everyone miserable enough for that year that it wasn't worth living. The effects of how we handled this crisis are real, but a full year of lost life per person on average seems like a stretch. [1]: to give but one example, unemployment kills (more precisely, it's a risk factor). Rising unemployment causes additional deaths. Not a huge amount, but a measurable one for sure. We effectively killed some people to save others.
  - gregoriol 5y ago
    You are forgetting very important consequences of letting the pandemic as we know it being uncontrolled: if "everyone" get infected with covid, the hospitals get incredibly overwhelmed, as well as many other services like ambulances, oxygen, funerals, ... this is recipe for chaos and much more deaths: much less treatment possible for other illnesses even not so dangerous ones at first, difficult disposal of bodies leading to other health problems, much less medical staff available over time (they die too!), ... many more people would actually die because of this. But also who will choose who gets treatment and who doesn't? It's easy behind a screen to click on a button and say I'm ok with it, but it's different when there is a human in front of you, when there are relatives, ... and even if you are not the person who makes the choice, think about how statistics are tricky: 1 person dying out of 1'000'000 is not much on a spreadsheet, until that one is someone you know or love. Finally, it would mean not so decent deaths for many who can't get a bed or oxygen: in corridors? in the streets? suffering from respiratory troubles? Would you accept that your parents or spouse die like this? These are actually happening in some places right now, think about it, these people didn't choose the situation, it ain't pretty, we are lucky.
    - anoncake 5y ago
      Please stop the "someone you know or love" emotionalizing, it makes rational discussion impossible by making people overestimate risks. Anyway: > many more people would actually die because of this. Numbers, please? > 1 person dying out of 1'000'000 is not much on a spreadsheet, until that one is someone you know or love. ...with a probability of 1/1000000, which still isn't much. Nothing tricky about it.
- oceanplexian 5y ago
  COVID-19 is statistically about as dangerous as the Hong Kong Flu in the 1950s, if you look at the IFR instead of the CFR (It's been obvious since they started doing serology tests that the COVID-19 CFR is wildly off from the IFR, and it's a much milder virus than advertised). The only difference is the world population today is much larger so many more people have died.
arpa 5y ago
Hope for the best, prepare for the worst, eh?
- anoncake 5y ago
  Prepare for the worst with reasonable effort, yes.