5 ms·

> "COVID killed many more because it was particularly severe." no. covid is novel, not appreciably more severe, and that's where mortality rates are coming fro

> "COVID killed many more because it was particularly severe." no. covid is novel, not appreciably more severe, and that's where mortality rates are coming from. it's following the dynamics of the many cold and flu viruses that came before it. we just happen to be at the beginning of the dynamics rather than at relative steady-state (e.g., 'endemic'), which is where most other viruses are at. this inability to reason cogently about steady-state vs. dynamic aspects of systems is absolutely rampant across media, politics, and casual conversation, and must be a named fallacy at this point, though i don't know that name offhand.

somewhereoutth 5y ago
It is? Care to source some data on these 'dynamics'? You are engaging on wishful thinking I'm afraid - wishful thinking that is even now still killing hundreds of thousands. Perhaps there is a name for that too.
- nradov 5y ago
  The best available evidence indicates that another coronavirus HCoV-OC43 probably caused a worldwide pandemic and killed a lot of people starting in 1889. The same virus is still endemic today and the only reason it doesn't take a huge death toll is that most of us get infected when we're young and the resulting natural immunity protects us as we age. But it and other endemic coronaviruses can still be quite deadly to frail and immunocompromised patients. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-83987-3 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-83987-3 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7252012/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7252012/ https://sfamjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1751-7915.13889 https://sfamjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.111...