8 ms·

As a nurse, what's her risk of spreading it to someone with a much, much greater risk of death?

by nkozyra 5y ago

rogerkirkness 5y ago
If we're going to run society this way, we're going to need much more difficult driving tests.
- nkozyra 5y ago
  Unless bad driving is an infectious airborne pathogen, I'm not following this analogy.
  - dgfitz 5y ago
    Sure seems to be in the mid Atlantic region of the US. Also, I’m sure you get the point they were making, why be unreasonable about it?
    - Igelau 5y ago
      Is there a better name for the "playing dumb" style of argument?
  - Smaug123 5y ago
    Come on - obviously bad driving is not primarily an infectious airborne pathogen. Bad driving is something you can unilaterally inflict on other people to permanently ruin their lives, as is an infectious airborne pathogen.
    - nkozyra 5y ago
      Well I certainly do think people should consider others when they get behind the wheel. Similarly I think people should consider the risk to others if they get this pathogen rather than just the risk to themselves.
      - Wowfunhappy 5y ago
        The problem is, 73% of drivers think they're above-average drivers[1]. So just as you can't know whether you're the one spreading COVID, you can't know if you're the bad driver. The solution is to get rid of cars as a primary mode of transport, and I really do think we should do that! 1: https://www.businessinsider.com/americans-are-overconfident-in-their-driving-skills-2018-1 https://www.businessinsider.com/americans-are-overconfident-...
        nkozyra 5y ago
        > So just as you can't know whether you're the one spreading COVID, you can't know if you're the bad the driver. This really isn't remotely analogous, particularly since you absolutely can know you're at risk of spreading COVID.
        Wowfunhappy 5y ago
        You added the "at risk" part, not me! :) Your version applies to cars too! By driving a car, you are at risk of causing a car crash!
        nkozyra 5y ago
        You said "you can't know" With COVID, you can. Pretty easily.
        Wowfunhappy 5y ago
        Sorry, I might not be understanding where you're going with this. I initially thought you meant "you can know you're at risk of spreading COVID, because everyone is at risk of spreading COVID." Certainly, anyone who receives a positive PCR test for COVID should quarantine ASAP. But if you're incubating COVID, but not infectious yet, the tests will return negative. A test only tells you whether you were infectious at the time of the test, so by the time you've seen the results, the information is already outdated.
    - rich_sasha 5y ago
      Indeed, driving lorries and buses requires an advanced license, with far more stringent testing, presumably because, like in the analogy, you could kill a lot more people behind the wheel of those?
  - TakuYam 5y ago
    Bad driving begets bad driving. Some jackass cuts you up dangerously, your adrenaline is pumping and you then follow too close behind a third driver repeat ad nauseam
- Icathian 5y ago
  I understand the point you meant to make, but to be honest I've always found it horrifying whenever I have to sit in the DMV and see who all they allow to pilot steel missiles around. Our "licensing" for drivers in the US is abhorrent.
- lovegoblin 5y ago
  > we're going to need much more difficult driving tests. Sounds good to me. Let's require regular re-testing while we're at it.
  - jasonladuke0311 5y ago
    While we are at it, mandatory breathalyzers in all cars, and all cell phones should be locked while traveling over 10 MPH. Let’s do this!
- onlyrealcuzzo 5y ago
  Your analogy doesn't really make sense to me. It's not like we are aware that there are certain drivers that are 100x more likely to kill certain members of the population. And if we were aware that certain ways of driving made you 100x more likely to kill someone, people would AT LEAST be talking about banning them. Like, if teenagers could drive around drunk just find and not kill themselves or other teenagers somehow - they probably wouldn't care if only old, sick people ended up dead from their driving. People would probably make rules or at least talk about making rules to prevent this. But that's not how driving really works.
- herbstein 5y ago
  Sounds sensible to me. The US in general has super lax driving tests. Here in Denmark it's about 3 months of theoretical classes side-by-side with driving with a certified driving instructor. We also learn the basics of cars on a closed track, and later learn to drive in slippery conditions on the same closed tracks. The closed-track tests include being able to catch the car after pulling the handbrake in a turn while going 80 km/h (50 mph). Oh, and to actually get your license you also have to drive 45 minutes with a police official checking your every move.
  - ThalesX 5y ago
    My friend living in Denmark, with a driver’s license from a corrupt country where literally anyone can get it, would render your whole 3-months intensive system useless. He is in fact driving, and could cause quite a crash, with all this amazing procedure you describe. We are a somewhat globalized civilization and the same as this security theatre about keeping airports open with countries with 2% vaccination rate can be said about driving.
    - rasz 5y ago
      But Mum, Kevin does drugs and he is fine, why cant I?
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
  - pandaman 5y ago
    Why would you want to pull the handbrake in a turn while going 50 mph? And what is going to happen if you pull the handbrake at 50 mph other than the handbrake burning out? I have not had a car with a handbrake at all but I drove a few rentals with one and they drove normally even when I forgot to take them off the handbrake, the thing is just a lever with a wire, it cannot stop the car even on idle. Or do they use a rally car with a hydraulic handbrake that does something at that speed?
    - 5y ago
nvr219 5y ago
The website doesn't have that info.
clairity 5y ago
also tiny, since they have rigorous procedures and properly-deployed ppe for all sorts of transmissible infections, not just covid (and where masks can actually help, unlike most mask usage). the treatment risk calculation is also entirely different, since "someone with a much, much greater risk of death" is already flirting with death in other material ways.
- citboin 5y ago
  You’re making uninformed assumptions and obviously don’t work at a Covid center in the USA. Personnel are now careless, many are fatigued and/or disillusioned, protocolsuu are not universal or enforced, many buy into the political drama and don’t mask when outside the facility and patients have become argumentative about masking. The moment I have another career option is the moment I quit. PPE use / enforcement and availability is also spotty. People are tired of arguing with their coworkers about it, too.
  - clairity 5y ago
    buddhism suggests we focus on the things we can control, like perception and attitude in the face of otherwise uncontrollable circumstances. i've no doubt the situation for many medical professionals is quite frustrating, even infuriating, but it would have been so in any of the myriad of realistic scenarios. the virus is, and was always going to be, endemic, which means hospitalization and death rates are pretty well bounded no matter what we realistically did. the frustration comes from believing that this isn't true, that there was something that could be done to significantly reduce these rates, but that's mediopolitical messaging, not realistic possibility. accepting this could possibly relieve some of your frustration. also, no assumption was involved, just the simple logic of multiplying two tiny numbers resulting in another tiny number.
dQw4w9WgXcQ 5y ago
What's a parents' risk of having children that eventually die? What's your risk of driving and having a seizure at the same time and wiping out kids on the sidewalk? What's your risk that while leaving Home Depot you dropped a few nails on the ground and someone's car tire picked them up and now they'll have a blowout on the highway? We can take this stupid premise to its logical end and never do anything out of fear that we might eventually harm someone else, but that's not how life has gone on for millennia. We have the vaccine which is the solution, by and large the data supports that the sustained overreaction is now disproportionate to the actual risks, time to let the science we supposedly all believe in aka natural selection run its course.
- Grakel 5y ago
  No way, the 6th booster will definitely do it! Or maybe the 7th!
- shkkmo 5y ago
  We can take a realistic look at the increased risks involved with particular behaviors and the relative gains. There are people who don't have kids of their own because of the high risk of passing potentially fatal genetic defects to their children. If you are an at risk epileptic, driving regularly is something you should avoid. If an you are contemplating an activity that has a significant risk of causing harm to others, you have a moral obligation to consider if the benefits are big enough to be worth that risk. If you have a higher than average level of contact with vulnerable populations, you should take higher than normal precautions to reduce your chances of infection. This is just basic moral common sense.
fredophile 5y ago
I don't understand the point you're trying to make. Should we stop having nurses treat covid patients so they don't spread it to people who are more likely to have severe reactions? Should we stop having nurses treat people with compromised immune systems and other health issues so they can treat covid patients?

As a nurse, what's her risk of spreading it to someone with a much, much greater risk of death?

rogerkirkness 5y ago

If we're going to run society this way, we're going to need much more difficult driving tests.

nkozyra 5y ago
Unless bad driving is an infectious airborne pathogen, I'm not following this analogy.
- dgfitz 5y ago
  Sure seems to be in the mid Atlantic region of the US. Also, I’m sure you get the point they were making, why be unreasonable about it?
  - Igelau 5y ago
    Is there a better name for the "playing dumb" style of argument?
- Smaug123 5y ago
  Come on - obviously bad driving is not primarily an infectious airborne pathogen. Bad driving is something you can unilaterally inflict on other people to permanently ruin their lives, as is an infectious airborne pathogen.
  - nkozyra 5y ago
    Well I certainly do think people should consider others when they get behind the wheel. Similarly I think people should consider the risk to others if they get this pathogen rather than just the risk to themselves.
    - Wowfunhappy 5y ago
      The problem is, 73% of drivers think they're above-average drivers[1]. So just as you can't know whether you're the one spreading COVID, you can't know if you're the bad driver. The solution is to get rid of cars as a primary mode of transport, and I really do think we should do that! 1: https://www.businessinsider.com/americans-are-overconfident-in-their-driving-skills-2018-1 https://www.businessinsider.com/americans-are-overconfident-...
      - nkozyra 5y ago
        > So just as you can't know whether you're the one spreading COVID, you can't know if you're the bad the driver. This really isn't remotely analogous, particularly since you absolutely can know you're at risk of spreading COVID.
        Wowfunhappy 5y ago
        You added the "at risk" part, not me! :) Your version applies to cars too! By driving a car, you are at risk of causing a car crash!
        nkozyra 5y ago
        You said "you can't know" With COVID, you can. Pretty easily.
        Wowfunhappy 5y ago
        Sorry, I might not be understanding where you're going with this. I initially thought you meant "you can know you're at risk of spreading COVID, because everyone is at risk of spreading COVID." Certainly, anyone who receives a positive PCR test for COVID should quarantine ASAP. But if you're incubating COVID, but not infectious yet, the tests will return negative. A test only tells you whether you were infectious at the time of the test, so by the time you've seen the results, the information is already outdated.
  - rich_sasha 5y ago
    Indeed, driving lorries and buses requires an advanced license, with far more stringent testing, presumably because, like in the analogy, you could kill a lot more people behind the wheel of those?
- TakuYam 5y ago
  Bad driving begets bad driving. Some jackass cuts you up dangerously, your adrenaline is pumping and you then follow too close behind a third driver repeat ad nauseam
Icathian 5y ago
I understand the point you meant to make, but to be honest I've always found it horrifying whenever I have to sit in the DMV and see who all they allow to pilot steel missiles around. Our "licensing" for drivers in the US is abhorrent.
lovegoblin 5y ago
> we're going to need much more difficult driving tests. Sounds good to me. Let's require regular re-testing while we're at it.
- jasonladuke0311 5y ago
  While we are at it, mandatory breathalyzers in all cars, and all cell phones should be locked while traveling over 10 MPH. Let’s do this!
onlyrealcuzzo 5y ago
Your analogy doesn't really make sense to me. It's not like we are aware that there are certain drivers that are 100x more likely to kill certain members of the population. And if we were aware that certain ways of driving made you 100x more likely to kill someone, people would AT LEAST be talking about banning them. Like, if teenagers could drive around drunk just find and not kill themselves or other teenagers somehow - they probably wouldn't care if only old, sick people ended up dead from their driving. People would probably make rules or at least talk about making rules to prevent this. But that's not how driving really works.
herbstein 5y ago
Sounds sensible to me. The US in general has super lax driving tests. Here in Denmark it's about 3 months of theoretical classes side-by-side with driving with a certified driving instructor. We also learn the basics of cars on a closed track, and later learn to drive in slippery conditions on the same closed tracks. The closed-track tests include being able to catch the car after pulling the handbrake in a turn while going 80 km/h (50 mph). Oh, and to actually get your license you also have to drive 45 minutes with a police official checking your every move.
- ThalesX 5y ago
  My friend living in Denmark, with a driver’s license from a corrupt country where literally anyone can get it, would render your whole 3-months intensive system useless. He is in fact driving, and could cause quite a crash, with all this amazing procedure you describe. We are a somewhat globalized civilization and the same as this security theatre about keeping airports open with countries with 2% vaccination rate can be said about driving.
  - rasz 5y ago
    But Mum, Kevin does drugs and he is fine, why cant I?
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
- pandaman 5y ago
  Why would you want to pull the handbrake in a turn while going 50 mph? And what is going to happen if you pull the handbrake at 50 mph other than the handbrake burning out? I have not had a car with a handbrake at all but I drove a few rentals with one and they drove normally even when I forgot to take them off the handbrake, the thing is just a lever with a wire, it cannot stop the car even on idle. Or do they use a rally car with a hydraulic handbrake that does something at that speed?
  - 5y ago

nvr219 5y ago

The website doesn't have that info.

clairity 5y ago

also tiny, since they have rigorous procedures and properly-deployed ppe for all sorts of transmissible infections, not just covid (and where masks can actually help, unlike most mask usage). the treatment risk calculation is also entirely different, since "someone with a much, much greater risk of death" is already flirting with death in other material ways.

citboin 5y ago
You’re making uninformed assumptions and obviously don’t work at a Covid center in the USA. Personnel are now careless, many are fatigued and/or disillusioned, protocolsuu are not universal or enforced, many buy into the political drama and don’t mask when outside the facility and patients have become argumentative about masking. The moment I have another career option is the moment I quit. PPE use / enforcement and availability is also spotty. People are tired of arguing with their coworkers about it, too.
- clairity 5y ago
  buddhism suggests we focus on the things we can control, like perception and attitude in the face of otherwise uncontrollable circumstances. i've no doubt the situation for many medical professionals is quite frustrating, even infuriating, but it would have been so in any of the myriad of realistic scenarios. the virus is, and was always going to be, endemic, which means hospitalization and death rates are pretty well bounded no matter what we realistically did. the frustration comes from believing that this isn't true, that there was something that could be done to significantly reduce these rates, but that's mediopolitical messaging, not realistic possibility. accepting this could possibly relieve some of your frustration. also, no assumption was involved, just the simple logic of multiplying two tiny numbers resulting in another tiny number.

dQw4w9WgXcQ 5y ago

What's a parents' risk of having children that eventually die? What's your risk of driving and having a seizure at the same time and wiping out kids on the sidewalk? What's your risk that while leaving Home Depot you dropped a few nails on the ground and someone's car tire picked them up and now they'll have a blowout on the highway? We can take this stupid premise to its logical end and never do anything out of fear that we might eventually harm someone else, but that's not how life has gone on for millennia. We have the vaccine which is the solution, by and large the data supports that the sustained overreaction is now disproportionate to the actual risks, time to let the science we supposedly all believe in aka natural selection run its course.

Grakel 5y ago
No way, the 6th booster will definitely do it! Or maybe the 7th!
shkkmo 5y ago
We can take a realistic look at the increased risks involved with particular behaviors and the relative gains. There are people who don't have kids of their own because of the high risk of passing potentially fatal genetic defects to their children. If you are an at risk epileptic, driving regularly is something you should avoid. If an you are contemplating an activity that has a significant risk of causing harm to others, you have a moral obligation to consider if the benefits are big enough to be worth that risk. If you have a higher than average level of contact with vulnerable populations, you should take higher than normal precautions to reduce your chances of infection. This is just basic moral common sense.

fredophile 5y ago

I don't understand the point you're trying to make. Should we stop having nurses treat covid patients so they don't spread it to people who are more likely to have severe reactions? Should we stop having nurses treat people with compromised immune systems and other health issues so they can treat covid patients?