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Ask HN: Why is everyone I talk to in the real world so unperturbed by Covid-19?

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Re: Ask HN: Why is everyone I talk to in the real world so unperturbed by Covid-19?

#21

Post by muzani »

richardknop wrote: post #19

This is my personal opinion and I could be 100% wrong. But I think this is no worse than crazy cow disease or Zika virus or SARS. Media, as always, cares about clicks and will publish sensational articles. In China the virus has peaked and the president of China declared victory over the virus today. We are 2-4 weeks behind China. It is estimated the virus will peak in 2 weeks from now. So next 2 weeks get ready for…

How do you "think" you have it? Wouldn't you get quarantined if you were likely to have it?

Re: Ask HN: Why is everyone I talk to in the real world so unperturbed by Covid-19?

#22

Post by richardknop »

muzani wrote: post #21
richardknop wrote: post #19

This is my personal opinion and I could be 100% wrong. But I think this is no worse than crazy cow disease or Zika virus or SARS. Media, as always, cares about clicks and will publish sensational articles. In China the virus has peaked and the president of China declared victory over the virus today. We are 2-4 weeks behind China. It is estimated the virus will peak in 2 weeks from now. So next 2 weeks get ready for…

How do you "think" you have it? Wouldn't you get quarantined if you were likely to have it?

Vast majority of people who contract the virus just have mild cold or flu symptoms. Very small percentage of infected people end up going to hospitals.

Re: Ask HN: Why is everyone I talk to in the real world so unperturbed by Covid-19?

#23

Post by elamje »

I think it has a balanced chance of being overestimated or underestimated. The psychology side of me recognizes the human tendency to end up in an echo chamber(twitter, HN, etc), but the other side of me wonders if this time is really different.

Only time will tell. The only thing I am certain of is that traditional news and even twitter to a certain extent has lost a lot of credibility in my eyes, long before coronavirus was a thing. One of the few industries that will absolutely win during the next few weeks and months is news, so yeah, they don’t have the best incentives to calm people’s fears.

Re: Ask HN: Why is everyone I talk to in the real world so unperturbed by Covid-19?

#24

Post by muzani »

Media fatigue/cynicism. In the past 10 years, we've had apocalyptic scenarios about anti-vax, Trump, Brexit, IS, trade war, property crisis, recession, climate change, US government shutdowns. Before that, there was cigarettes, obesity, food industry, big pharma, nuclear war, 9/11. We've also had Zika, SARS, MERS, Ebola.

I have no idea how scary this is because the media cries wolf all the time. Everyone cries wolf but life still goes on. So when something actually bad does happen, everyone's been desensitized to it. It's even worse today now that newsjacking is a thing.

Re: Ask HN: Why is everyone I talk to in the real world so unperturbed by Covid-19?

#26

Post by garren »

babygoat wrote: post #16
vanusa wrote: post #2

It's because they're still in the denial stage. The panic stage will follow very shortly. It's just a matter of social contagion. See also: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/03/four-thing...

Not really. Some people like to stock up on bottled water and toilet paper so they can play zombie apocalypse, but taking appropriate safety measures to prevent it from spreading is a sufficient response.

The run on toilet paper is what I don’t understand. I heard about it happening around the country on the radio. A guy being interviewed said something like, “toilet paper is like gold during the apocalypse.” What?!

Then a relative called me this evening to tell me about people wheeling tp out of Costco by the pallet. I was at a different store an hour ago to and the entire bath tissue isle was empty. This is in Denver. My team lead and boss (both in Toronto) were joking about it happening there too.

The only thing I can think of is that nobody wants to go into a full blown panic, yet there’s a whole lot of pent up anxiety about the situation. Somehow buying loads of tp is a kind of coping mechanism. Somebody started it, other people followed, now no there’s no tp.

My concern is that such widespread odd behavior is just the slightest hint hint of what a panic would bring.

Re: Ask HN: Why is everyone I talk to in the real world so unperturbed by Covid-19?

#27

Post by garren »

vanusa wrote: post #2

It's because they're still in the denial stage. The panic stage will follow very shortly. It's just a matter of social contagion. See also: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/03/four-thing...

Good article. I read it after commenting below, but it definitely puts the toilet paper thing into perspective. Interesting how that crosses cultures.

Re: Ask HN: Why is everyone I talk to in the real world so unperturbed by Covid-19?

#28

Post by dnqthao »

richardknop wrote: post #19

This is my personal opinion and I could be 100% wrong. But I think this is no worse than crazy cow disease or Zika virus or SARS. Media, as always, cares about clicks and will publish sensational articles. In China the virus has peaked and the president of China declared victory over the virus today. We are 2-4 weeks behind China. It is estimated the virus will peak in 2 weeks from now. So next 2 weeks get ready for…

well the number of cases in China winding down because they lockdown the whole province of 60 million people and almost stopped all activities in other parts of China. Can US afford to do that for 1 month?

Re: Ask HN: Why is everyone I talk to in the real world so unperturbed by Covid-19?

#29

Post by dnqthao »

p1esk wrote: post #20
karlh wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I understand it, the difference from flu is that it's much, much more contagious. 10 pct hospitalized is very different if there are 100,000 cases vs 100,000,000. There are roughly a million hospital beds in the U.S., I dont know how many ventilators but a lot less. The healthcare system could be easily buried if we can't "flatten the curve". The same number of people, roughly, will get sick, just not as many at a…

But the data so far indicates it’s no more contagious than a common flu (R0: 2-4). Are all of these 10% hospitalized were hospitalized because they are in a serious condition or because of the panic? The fact that the panic puts a stress on the healthcare system does not mean the panic is justified. I’m ok with the panic if the data says this is serious. So, again, do we have such data?

The mortality rate is around 1% which is more than 10 times than flu. The hospitalization rate is 15% and the ICU rate is much bigger than flu. If you run out of ICU room, more people will die.

Re: Ask HN: Why is everyone I talk to in the real world so unperturbed by Covid-19?

#30

Post by flukus »

richardknop wrote: post #22
muzani wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you "think" you have it? Wouldn't you get quarantined if you were likely to have it?

Vast majority of people who contract the virus just have mild cold or flu symptoms. Very small percentage of infected people end up going to hospitals.

> Very small percentage of infected people end up going to hospitals.

It's 10-20% according to most estimates, enough to flood every hospital system in the world. Once that happens the death toll starts creeping towards 20% as they can't treat patients and even people otherwise treatable problems can't get treated. This is the scenario that needs to be avoided.

> Vast majority of people who contract the virus just have mild cold or flu symptoms.

Mild in the medical sense, everyone not hospitalized is considered mild. In the everyday human sense this translates from nothing to extremely sick. If your friend had pneumonia you'd be concerned for them wouldn't you? Well that's a "mild" case.

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