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America is giving up on the pandemic?

theatlantic.com

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Re: America is giving up on the pandemic?

#701

Post by javagram »

matwood wrote: post #132
SPQT wrote: post #16

Not a surprise, COVID19 is pretty soft compared to the historic pandemics. I'm actually suprised that this continued for so long, I gave the lockdowns 4 week, but I guess the media propaganda blessed it with longer life. Just to clarify about Covid: -The highest deathrate from it is around 1%, CDC reports 0.30 lately. -Hits predominantly the old parts of the population -The death comes in a normal way - pneumonia ->…

The problem was never the death rate alone. It was the death rate plus the high infection rate that was problematic. Even a low rate of .3-1 (which was always the estimated rate iirc) is going to kill a lot of people given how infectious COVID-19 has shown to be.

Not sure why you were downvoted as your statement that an IFR of 0.3 to 1 was always about the expected rate is completely right. E.g. https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMe2002387 published by Dr. Fauci and Dr Redfield on February 29.

Weirdly I’ve seen a lot of attempted history rewriting, I guess by people who in March didn’t understand the medical literature and confused CFR with IFR.

Re: America is giving up on the pandemic?

#702

Post by microcolonel »

It's not just America. Here in Ontario, at least in my city, the lockdown in mostly over. Social distancing is the mildest suggestion in the parks, virtually nonexistent in many businesses. Pizza slice joints, grocers, most things are pretty normal, outside legal orders against work.

It seems to me that there is U.S. tribe that worships the lockdowns despite the evidence, for no articulable reason other than a hatred for the President, or a proximity to the culture surrounding that hatred.

We have been delivered a blessing, in the reality of the matter, and it seems like some people are more upset that the good news demonstrates the hubris of their attempts to control the outbreak.

Re: America is giving up on the pandemic?

#703

Post by chasd00 »

noad wrote: post #530
scarmig wrote: post #453

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're being flagrantly irresponsible. If nothing else, messaging and public trust are key parts of any epidemic response. Right now, a conservative might look at this letter and come away with the impression that this is a case of quarantine for thee but not for me. An opinion that wouldn't be unjustified: can you imagine them doing the same thing to provide cover for abortion protests? The right to religious gathe…

Or maybe there are just bigger problems than the virus right now.

the virus doesnt care, it's going to infect as many as possible. One thing is for certain, if there isn't a huge jump in infections then there will never be a lockdown in response to a pandemic ever again.

Re: America is giving up on the pandemic?

#704

Post by _-david-_ »

grey-area wrote: post #447
Animats wrote: post #304

Total deaths in US caused by police. (2019, full year): 1112 [1] Total deaths in US caused by coronavirus (last Friday, one day): 975 [2] [1] https://www.theroot.com/here-s-how-many-people-police-killed... [2] https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries

The US is no5 in the world for police homicides, just behind countries like the Philippines, Syria, Brazil. Not a record to be proud of - 1,536 in 2019 according to wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_killings_by_law_enforc... Other countries manage to achieve numbers like 2 for Japan, 3 for the UK, 11 for Germany which is nowhere near even adjusted for population. American police kill more people per ca…

What is the violent crime rates in those countries?

If there are more violent crime its understandable that there would be more police killings,

Re: America is giving up on the pandemic?

#705

Post by lastres0rt »

bmmayer1 wrote: post #580
tootie wrote: post #548

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't weasel speak at all. They're pretty clear that it's risky. They're just saying that they won't condemn protestors as taking frivolous risks the way anti-lockdown protestors or fun-seekers are. Police brutality, systemic racism, income inequality are all major public health risks in their own right.

I don't understand -- are keeping people out of work and isolated at home not public health risks? If non-Covid related factors are being considered in weighing against the risks of exposure they should all be considered, not only some of them, selectively.

[flagged]

Re: America is giving up on the pandemic?

#706

Post by mberning »

dang wrote: post #696
mberning wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is so stupid. There are some 40 million black folks in the US. Assume half are men. 20,000,000 divided by 1,000 is 20,000. The actual number of unarmed blacks killed by the police per year is generally 20 or less. Last year it was like 10. You can look it up on the Washington Post database.

If you continue to break the site guidelines we will ban you. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3." Your comment would be fine without the first sentence.

Please do. If you could completely delete my account that would be even better.

Re: America is giving up on the pandemic?

#707

Post by nickthemagicman »

alkibiades wrote: post #602
smsm42 wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> However, as public health advocates, we do not condemn these gatherings as risky for COVID-19 transmission That's a shining example of weasel speak. They don't explicitly say it's not risky - because that would be plain lying, it is obviously risky - but they are saying they are not condemning it as risky. Which most people would take as implying it's not actually risky - even though they are not saying that. They…

i’m 25 and this whole covid debacle and seeing how public health officials handle it has soured me on all “experts” for the rest of my life. no wonder people don’t believe in global warming, these “experts” prioritize politics over everything

I'm older than you and I've lost alot of faith in 'experts' as well.

Today I read about several published studies that were retracted for unreliable data related to covid drugs.

I'm now just using all of these things as one data point to make a decision with. News, politicians, scientific publications, experts, data.

I've also lost faith in certain political parties which I was previously a member for their fanaticism and demonization of people who disagreed with their narrative and who still can't admit their thinking was flawed.

Re: America is giving up on the pandemic?

#708

Post by bittercynic »

giantDinosaur wrote: post #587

The weirdest thing to me is that we have people protesting for fairly deontological reasons - i.e. a reasonable 'killing is wrong', while being ruthlessly utilitarian - 'covid deaths are a price we must be willing to pay for reform'. Interesting!

Having your community brutalized by the very organization that is supposed to provide protection is very different from having members of the community dying of disease. Both are extremely awful, but at least the disease doesn't seem to be trying to undermine civil society.

Re: America is giving up on the pandemic?

#709

Post by yters »

schoen wrote: post #680
rayiner wrote: post #655

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oxford Textbook of Public Health: https://m.oxfordmedicine.com/mobile/view/10.1093/med/9780199... . Do you see any sections on police brutality? Not to mention, I have family in the field, I grew up with probably a dozen public health experts attending Thanksgiving dinner, and did my first internship at a public health company. At no point in hearing decades of shop talk did I ever hear police brutality being mention…

I've seen some indications that many people in the public health field feel that everything that affects morbidity and mortality is potentially within scope for them, including, for example, intentional actions like assault or murder. A difficulty with this view, at least potentially, is that it seems to allow everything in the world (certainly almost every area of public policy) to be in scope for public health, bec…

Yeah, that is a really broad definition. That results in everything becoming everything. For example, everything has some kind of economic impact, so everything becomes economics. Or, everything can have some affect on the arts, so everything becomes arts. This kind of failure to make distinctions makes the scope of every field to encompass everything, which eliminates the very notion of separate fields of study.

Probably a more sensible approach is to say the medical field concerns itself with the operation of the human body, and how to correct malfunctioning operations.

Re: America is giving up on the pandemic?

#710

Post by dang »

ta17711771 wrote: post #557
eanzenberg wrote: post #497

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, this is weasel speak: “it is obviously risky”. Anytime someone goes outside, it is a risk. Anytime you decide to drive, it is a risk. Covid is about as risky as driving a car. If covid were as deadly as claimed, as we’ve been told for months, you would think it was a death sentence for you and your grandma to partake in the protests we’ve been seeing.

Ask me how I know you haven't known anyone that's died of COVID.

Please stop posting unsubstantive and/or flamebait comments to HN.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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