11 ms·

Except many, many more deaths in the case of Covid, and we don't have, thankfully, a federal Covid Corps to enforce any of the related policies...

by ridaj 5y ago

nickthemagicman 5y ago
Many deaths in a certain age group above 65 y.o.. Most age groups had very few deaths.
- bedhead 5y ago
  You're wasting your time. COVID deaths could be entirely amongst 97 year old obese smokers with stage 4 cancer and half the country would still give the same obtuse responses, call you granny-killer, tell you you're selfish for not wanting to wear a mask, say "pandemic" like it's a mic drop, etc etc etc. You'll be stuck in a COVID version of the "This amp goes to 11" conversation. It turns out that shocking people with a million volts of raw terror does in fact blow a fuse in many people's brains (go figure) causing them to lose all cognitive abilities.
  - bqmjjx0kac 5y ago
    I disagree with you, even in your hypothetical situation. I'd gladly wear a mask to protect 97-year-old obese smokers, if they were a vulnerable group. I feel like you invented this group to distance the vulnerable population from "us", but it just makes it sound like you have no empathy for other humans.
    - nickthemagicman 5y ago
      There are people with severe immune deficiencies that any disease they catch could kill them. Why aren't you wearing a full body haz mat suit to protect them? Do you think people with immune deficiencies lives are worth less and its okay to kill them? Where do you draw the line where it's okay to kill some people with your bodily diseases but not others?
      - bqmjjx0kac 5y ago
        I don't claim to have all the answers, but I think wearing a mask is a reasonable accommodation and barely an inconvenience. Same goes for FDA-approved vaccines. Reductio ad absurdum doesn't always work in the real world, so your hazmat scenario just sounds silly.
        nickthemagicman 5y ago
        Let me summarize your argument. "Your haz mat argument is silly because I say it is. My argument is not silly because I say it's not." This absolute state of critical thinking in America... I can't wait till the media stops covering covid and everyone forgets that covid exists because they're on to the next thing the medium easily manipulates them over.
        bqmjjx0kac 5y ago
        My point is that your attempt at a logical argument misses a number of externalities. My refusal to engage is because you're acting like a jerk, not because I can't construct a proof. While you marvel at the "state of critical thinking" I am astounded by your lack of empathy.
        nickthemagicman 5y ago
        I literally pointed out externalities you were missing. Its hopeless conversation.
        nickthemagicman 5y ago
        Going to gym is barely an inconvenience. Mortality would have been minimal if fat people would jump on a treadmill occasionally and keep the cheeseburgers out of their face. "What is inconvenient" is subjective and that's the ultimate slippery slope argument. Your argument and thinking is so so bad, I feel like I'm being trolled.
        5y ago
- bdcravens 5y ago
  Isn't the same true of 9/11? The FAA oversees 45,000 flights per year and very rarely does anyone die.
  - bdcravens 5y ago
    Too late to edit, but that should be 45,000 per DAY
- anthony_romeo 5y ago
  In your opinion, how important are the lives of people aged 65 and older? Also, for death rates being higher in the elderly... isn't that going to be true for most diseases? Pointing this out seems tautological to me. And what does "very few" actually mean here? Is death the only negative outcome of COVID-19?
  - nradov 5y ago
    You can find CDC estimates of deaths by age group here. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/burden.html https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/burd...
    - nickthemagicman 5y ago
      Here's a much more clear data set. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1191568/reported-deaths-from-covid-by-age-us/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1191568/reported-deaths-... To put this into perspective... 36,000 people died of car accidents in 2019. In the under 50 group around 20,000 people died of Covid. The under 50 age group makes up around 80% of the population. Interpret that however you want.
  - sleavey 5y ago
    > In your opinion, how important are the lives of people aged 65 and older? I think you intended that as a rhetorical question but I want to point out that in the UK the NHS has calculated the "worth" of a single quality-adjusted life year. If a treatment gives less quality-adjusted extra life years than it costs, it isn't administered. In 2014 it was £20-60k [1]. This shows the NHS definitely does consider older peoples' lives worth less than younger peoples', on average. [1] https://www.bbc.com/news/health-28983924 https://www.bbc.com/news/health-28983924
    - anthony_romeo 5y ago
      Understood, though I'd point out that other insurance schemes will have similar sorts of calculations (either directly or indirectly in the form of premiums/annual limits in the US), so the specificity of the NHS isn't particularly helpful here, as it's one model among many. Also, based on my casual skimming of this article: https://www.nice.org.uk/process/pmg6/chapter/assessing-cost-effectiveness https://www.nice.org.uk/process/pmg6/chapter/assessing-cost-..., this particular model evaluates other factors beyond age (such as health history) and is in the context of providing specific treatments for specific conditions rather than broader actions for disease prevention. But yes, my question was rhetorical, in the sense that I've read far too much casual acceptance of the deaths of older people on HN, as if this ~15% of the population [in the US at least] are freely expendable.
- heleninboodler 5y ago
  In the 18-39 age group, COVID-19 has caused 4x as many US deaths as deaths in all age groups on 9/11.
  - nickthemagicman 5y ago
    Yet not as many as car accidents in 2019. What is sensational comparison you present.
JoshTko 5y ago
4.5 million deaths from Covid so far.
- switch007 5y ago
  From Covid or with covid (edit: I’m merely asking which stat you’re citing. Source?)? Ie the disease killed them or they tested positive while dying from something else?
  - ridaj 5y ago
    There have been clear excess deaths (mortality rate increases) from all causes combined during waves. Most evaluations of excess deaths that I've seen conclude that Covid deaths are undercounted not over counted.
    - switch007 5y ago
      They didn’t cite excess deaths however. Hence my question Again, you say “covid deaths”. That is not precise.
      - rootusrootus 5y ago
        We count flu deaths as 'with flu' instead of 'from flu', so counting covid this way keeps it as close to apples-to-apples as possible.
      - ridaj 5y ago
        Do we say "death from car accidents" or "death with car accident"? Do we discount terminal cancer patients, diabetics and asthmatics from car accident stats because they had a preexisting condition? In the case of covid as with car accidents, it's a distinction without a difference. Yes people are more predisposed to die from covid because of them, but analyses of all-causes excess mortality do not support the hypothesis that there is a large difference between deaths with covid and deaths from covid. EDIT: except when there isn't enough testing, which underreported deaths with covid towards the beginning of the pandemic.

Except many, many more deaths in the case of Covid, and we don't have, thankfully, a federal Covid Corps to enforce any of the related policies...

by ridaj 5y ago

Except many, many more deaths in the case of Covid, and we don't have, thankfully, a federal Covid Corps to enforce any of the related policies...

nickthemagicman 5y ago

Many deaths in a certain age group above 65 y.o.. Most age groups had very few deaths.

bedhead 5y ago
You're wasting your time. COVID deaths could be entirely amongst 97 year old obese smokers with stage 4 cancer and half the country would still give the same obtuse responses, call you granny-killer, tell you you're selfish for not wanting to wear a mask, say "pandemic" like it's a mic drop, etc etc etc. You'll be stuck in a COVID version of the "This amp goes to 11" conversation. It turns out that shocking people with a million volts of raw terror does in fact blow a fuse in many people's brains (go figure) causing them to lose all cognitive abilities.
- bqmjjx0kac 5y ago
  I disagree with you, even in your hypothetical situation. I'd gladly wear a mask to protect 97-year-old obese smokers, if they were a vulnerable group. I feel like you invented this group to distance the vulnerable population from "us", but it just makes it sound like you have no empathy for other humans.
  - nickthemagicman 5y ago
    There are people with severe immune deficiencies that any disease they catch could kill them. Why aren't you wearing a full body haz mat suit to protect them? Do you think people with immune deficiencies lives are worth less and its okay to kill them? Where do you draw the line where it's okay to kill some people with your bodily diseases but not others?
    - bqmjjx0kac 5y ago
      I don't claim to have all the answers, but I think wearing a mask is a reasonable accommodation and barely an inconvenience. Same goes for FDA-approved vaccines. Reductio ad absurdum doesn't always work in the real world, so your hazmat scenario just sounds silly.
      - nickthemagicman 5y ago
        Let me summarize your argument. "Your haz mat argument is silly because I say it is. My argument is not silly because I say it's not." This absolute state of critical thinking in America... I can't wait till the media stops covering covid and everyone forgets that covid exists because they're on to the next thing the medium easily manipulates them over.
        bqmjjx0kac 5y ago
        My point is that your attempt at a logical argument misses a number of externalities. My refusal to engage is because you're acting like a jerk, not because I can't construct a proof. While you marvel at the "state of critical thinking" I am astounded by your lack of empathy.
        nickthemagicman 5y ago
        I literally pointed out externalities you were missing. Its hopeless conversation.
      - nickthemagicman 5y ago
        Going to gym is barely an inconvenience. Mortality would have been minimal if fat people would jump on a treadmill occasionally and keep the cheeseburgers out of their face. "What is inconvenient" is subjective and that's the ultimate slippery slope argument. Your argument and thinking is so so bad, I feel like I'm being trolled.
        5y ago
bdcravens 5y ago
Isn't the same true of 9/11? The FAA oversees 45,000 flights per year and very rarely does anyone die.
- bdcravens 5y ago
  Too late to edit, but that should be 45,000 per DAY
anthony_romeo 5y ago
In your opinion, how important are the lives of people aged 65 and older? Also, for death rates being higher in the elderly... isn't that going to be true for most diseases? Pointing this out seems tautological to me. And what does "very few" actually mean here? Is death the only negative outcome of COVID-19?
- nradov 5y ago
  You can find CDC estimates of deaths by age group here. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/burden.html https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/burd...
  - nickthemagicman 5y ago
    Here's a much more clear data set. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1191568/reported-deaths-from-covid-by-age-us/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1191568/reported-deaths-... To put this into perspective... 36,000 people died of car accidents in 2019. In the under 50 group around 20,000 people died of Covid. The under 50 age group makes up around 80% of the population. Interpret that however you want.
- sleavey 5y ago
  > In your opinion, how important are the lives of people aged 65 and older? I think you intended that as a rhetorical question but I want to point out that in the UK the NHS has calculated the "worth" of a single quality-adjusted life year. If a treatment gives less quality-adjusted extra life years than it costs, it isn't administered. In 2014 it was £20-60k [1]. This shows the NHS definitely does consider older peoples' lives worth less than younger peoples', on average. [1] https://www.bbc.com/news/health-28983924 https://www.bbc.com/news/health-28983924
  - anthony_romeo 5y ago
    Understood, though I'd point out that other insurance schemes will have similar sorts of calculations (either directly or indirectly in the form of premiums/annual limits in the US), so the specificity of the NHS isn't particularly helpful here, as it's one model among many. Also, based on my casual skimming of this article: https://www.nice.org.uk/process/pmg6/chapter/assessing-cost-effectiveness https://www.nice.org.uk/process/pmg6/chapter/assessing-cost-..., this particular model evaluates other factors beyond age (such as health history) and is in the context of providing specific treatments for specific conditions rather than broader actions for disease prevention. But yes, my question was rhetorical, in the sense that I've read far too much casual acceptance of the deaths of older people on HN, as if this ~15% of the population [in the US at least] are freely expendable.
heleninboodler 5y ago
In the 18-39 age group, COVID-19 has caused 4x as many US deaths as deaths in all age groups on 9/11.
- nickthemagicman 5y ago
  Yet not as many as car accidents in 2019. What is sensational comparison you present.

JoshTko 5y ago

4.5 million deaths from Covid so far.

switch007 5y ago
From Covid or with covid (edit: I’m merely asking which stat you’re citing. Source?)? Ie the disease killed them or they tested positive while dying from something else?
- ridaj 5y ago
  There have been clear excess deaths (mortality rate increases) from all causes combined during waves. Most evaluations of excess deaths that I've seen conclude that Covid deaths are undercounted not over counted.
  - switch007 5y ago
    They didn’t cite excess deaths however. Hence my question Again, you say “covid deaths”. That is not precise.
    - rootusrootus 5y ago
      We count flu deaths as 'with flu' instead of 'from flu', so counting covid this way keeps it as close to apples-to-apples as possible.
    - ridaj 5y ago
      Do we say "death from car accidents" or "death with car accident"? Do we discount terminal cancer patients, diabetics and asthmatics from car accident stats because they had a preexisting condition? In the case of covid as with car accidents, it's a distinction without a difference. Yes people are more predisposed to die from covid because of them, but analyses of all-causes excess mortality do not support the hypothesis that there is a large difference between deaths with covid and deaths from covid. EDIT: except when there isn't enough testing, which underreported deaths with covid towards the beginning of the pandemic.