4 ms·

> I prefer the known, extremely low risk of contacting COVID I'm a little confused by this. I live in King County, WA (and I work at Google). According to data

> I prefer the known, extremely low risk of contacting COVID I'm a little confused by this. I live in King County, WA (and I work at Google). According to data reported by the county (as tabulated by the NY Times), one in 19 residents have contracted COVID[0]. That's >5% -- with a 1.8% case fatality rate in the US[1]. That's a bit below a one in 1000 chance of having died of COVID if you live in my county, including the infection fraction. If you look a the risk of just contracting it, based on the county, the risk is higher than any other disease I'm aware of. Am I missing something? [0]: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/us/king-washington-covid-cases.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/us/king-washington-... [1]: https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/data/mortality https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/data/mortality

JesseMReeves 5y ago
Yes, you missed stratifying by age and preexisting conditions and BMI. This data was missing in the beginning, but we have more than the overall mortality rate now. This is indeed relevant for young people, which tech largely consists of. Here is one of many risk calculators, based on UK data: https://qcovid.org/ https://qcovid.org/ Unknown factors for the unvaccinated are the severity of new strains (against which the vaccines may not work well though, see the CureVac trials) and long covid (which does exist but is not well studied yet). Unknown factors for the vaccinated are the potential of the spike protein to create havoc in your vascular system (yet a real infection gives you an uncontrollable large dose of it), and the related anecdata about rare severe vascular side effects. Such unknowns have to be respected when making personal, political and employer decisions. Overconfidence easily slips into failure. People have issues with the related cognitive dissonances and prefer to take and rage defending sides.
DavidPeiffer 5y ago
Around 1 in 1000 may have died in King County, however the risk to an individual varies with age and comorbidities. If GP is young, isn't overweight, and doesn't work in close proximity to others, their risk of death is about an order of magnitude lower just by basic social distancing and exposure reduction. [0] shows COVID involved in about 3% of all deaths in the 18-29 group and about 13% in 85+. Personally, I can't imagine the guilt if I knew I caused a close family member or friend to contract COVID, and have remained pretty cautious even after we have all been vaccinated. [0] https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid_weekly/index.htm https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid_weekly/index.htm
pulse7 5y ago
Maybe he is living isolated in a remote location...
sennight 5y ago
> 1.8% case fatality rate That looks like a scary number until you look at it by age, then it looks very different. If you were at risk of dying from flu before COVID then your odds got worse, everybody else's risk level is largely unchanged. Should employers mandate that healthy employees get experimental vaccines in order to improve the mortality rate among non-employees who were already at risk of being taken out by a cold? Seems pretty obvious to me, but this thing went well beyond reason a long time ago. Unless Google and Facebook have a bunch of 65+ stalking their halls, it is really hard pretending that this isn't either a political move or some weird power trip. https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/dataviz8737/viz/COVID_excess_mort_withcauses_07282021/WeeklyNumberByAge https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/dataviz8737/viz/COVID...
- f6v 5y ago
  This reasoning works only if you believe the society isn’t supposed to help the vulnerable. It’s clear that the older you get, the worse your immunity works. A vaccine isn’t 100% efficient in the first place and will work worse on a 70 yo than on a 30 yo. This means that in order to protect the vulnerable, the society has to achieve herd immunity.
  - JesseMReeves 5y ago
    Herd immunity would only occur if the vaccine stopped transmission, right? Sadly, this is not the case. Vaccinated people achieve high viral loads too.
    - f6v 5y ago
      Except the viral load is decreased if you’re vaccinated https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-crucial-vaccine-benefit-were-not-talking-about-enough1/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-crucial-vacci...
      - sennight 5y ago
        ...aaand one day later the CDC says the direct opposite in order to justify a new mask mandate, citing unreleased but super scary and definitely trustworthy data. https://web.archive.org/web/20210729042140/https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/breakthrough-infections-cdc-data/2021/07/28/dcaaa6b2-efce-11eb-a452-4da5fe48582d_story.html https://web.archive.org/web/20210729042140/https://www.washi...
blindmute 5y ago
For a mid twenties healthy male, the risk of death from covid is 1 in 500,000. That is what you're missing.
- exo-pla-net 5y ago
  And you'll be missing reproductive capacity after COVID fucks up your testicles. I swear you people are like societal cancer cells who know you're defective and who are undergoing apoptosis. Don't let us slow you down. I hear seat belt manufacturers are funded by Soros. I suggest you avoid those, too.

JesseMReeves 5y ago

Yes, you missed stratifying by age and preexisting conditions and BMI. This data was missing in the beginning, but we have more than the overall mortality rate now. This is indeed relevant for young people, which tech largely consists of. Here is one of many risk calculators, based on UK data: https://qcovid.org/ https://qcovid.org/ Unknown factors for the unvaccinated are the severity of new strains (against which the vaccines may not work well though, see the CureVac trials) and long covid (which does exist but is not well studied yet). Unknown factors for the vaccinated are the potential of the spike protein to create havoc in your vascular system (yet a real infection gives you an uncontrollable large dose of it), and the related anecdata about rare severe vascular side effects. Such unknowns have to be respected when making personal, political and employer decisions. Overconfidence easily slips into failure. People have issues with the related cognitive dissonances and prefer to take and rage defending sides.

DavidPeiffer 5y ago

Around 1 in 1000 may have died in King County, however the risk to an individual varies with age and comorbidities. If GP is young, isn't overweight, and doesn't work in close proximity to others, their risk of death is about an order of magnitude lower just by basic social distancing and exposure reduction. [0] shows COVID involved in about 3% of all deaths in the 18-29 group and about 13% in 85+. Personally, I can't imagine the guilt if I knew I caused a close family member or friend to contract COVID, and have remained pretty cautious even after we have all been vaccinated. [0] https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid_weekly/index.htm https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid_weekly/index.htm

pulse7 5y ago

Maybe he is living isolated in a remote location...

sennight 5y ago

> 1.8% case fatality rate That looks like a scary number until you look at it by age, then it looks very different. If you were at risk of dying from flu before COVID then your odds got worse, everybody else's risk level is largely unchanged. Should employers mandate that healthy employees get experimental vaccines in order to improve the mortality rate among non-employees who were already at risk of being taken out by a cold? Seems pretty obvious to me, but this thing went well beyond reason a long time ago. Unless Google and Facebook have a bunch of 65+ stalking their halls, it is really hard pretending that this isn't either a political move or some weird power trip. https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/dataviz8737/viz/COVID_excess_mort_withcauses_07282021/WeeklyNumberByAge https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/dataviz8737/viz/COVID...

f6v 5y ago
This reasoning works only if you believe the society isn’t supposed to help the vulnerable. It’s clear that the older you get, the worse your immunity works. A vaccine isn’t 100% efficient in the first place and will work worse on a 70 yo than on a 30 yo. This means that in order to protect the vulnerable, the society has to achieve herd immunity.
- JesseMReeves 5y ago
  Herd immunity would only occur if the vaccine stopped transmission, right? Sadly, this is not the case. Vaccinated people achieve high viral loads too.
  - f6v 5y ago
    Except the viral load is decreased if you’re vaccinated https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-crucial-vaccine-benefit-were-not-talking-about-enough1/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-crucial-vacci...
    - sennight 5y ago
      ...aaand one day later the CDC says the direct opposite in order to justify a new mask mandate, citing unreleased but super scary and definitely trustworthy data. https://web.archive.org/web/20210729042140/https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/breakthrough-infections-cdc-data/2021/07/28/dcaaa6b2-efce-11eb-a452-4da5fe48582d_story.html https://web.archive.org/web/20210729042140/https://www.washi...

blindmute 5y ago

For a mid twenties healthy male, the risk of death from covid is 1 in 500,000. That is what you're missing.

exo-pla-net 5y ago
And you'll be missing reproductive capacity after COVID fucks up your testicles. I swear you people are like societal cancer cells who know you're defective and who are undergoing apoptosis. Don't let us slow you down. I hear seat belt manufacturers are funded by Soros. I suggest you avoid those, too.