Brazil's President Bolsonaro tests positive for coronavirus • Hacker News Board

Re: Brazil's President Bolsonaro tests positive for coronavirus

#111

Post by drcongo » Tue, Jul 07, 2020, 5:38 PM UTC

toss1 wrote: post #77

brink wrote: post #4

Not to be insensitive, but what's the death rate for healthy individuals in his age range? Next to zero? Italy reported that 99% of those who died from Corona had other health issues.[1] In my county (county, not country) it was reported that 99.4% of our Covid cases have recovered, and that was just the cases that were tracked. Yes, the vulnerable should be taken care of, but legitimately asking - why is there still…

Talk about lying with statistics to make an invalid point... Those "other illnesses" include conditions that are widely prevalent in the general population, high blood pressure, diabetes, asthma (present even in athletes), etc. Blood type A is strongly related to higher infection & death rates (~+45%). Vitamin D levels also show up in some studies of death rates. Moreover death is not the only key measure - large num…

The things that get downvoted on HN never cease to amaze me.

Re: Brazil's President Bolsonaro tests positive for coronavirus

#112

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Jul 07, 2020, 5:39 PM UTC

verganileonardo wrote: post #49

anonms-coward wrote: post #20

What would happen if Bolsanaro doesn't survive? How does succession works in Brazil. Is the next person in line more or less rational than Bolsanaro. Also can it end up leading Brazil further to the right due to sympathy votes? Or will it make people realise his incompetence if something happens to him.

The vice president would become the president. He is an army general that sounds more reasonable and less frantic - but there is a risk that we will steer towards dictatorship.

[deleted]

Re: Brazil's President Bolsonaro tests positive for coronavirus

#113

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Jul 07, 2020, 5:42 PM UTC

pucallpa wrote: post #105

petre wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He still doesn't deserve to die. There are other more constructive ways to turn it into a net positive like not re-elect him.

while he makes more damage to his people ?

[deleted]

Re: Brazil's President Bolsonaro tests positive for coronavirus

#114

Post by gizmo » Tue, Jul 07, 2020, 5:42 PM UTC

doliveira wrote: post #91

gizmo wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We didn't lock down for the Hong Kong flu or similar pandemics, because the damage caused by a lockdown is immense. Health damage caused by delayed cancer screenings and organ transplants. Psychological damage caused by lockdown and unemployment. Unbelievable economic damage. How to respond to a pandemic is a trade-off. People die in traffic accidents every day. Do we set a nation-wide speed limit of 5 MPH? No. Of co…

Yours remind me of a comment from an (in)famous Brazilian political commenter that claimed that "more people die by choking" at the beginning of the pandemic.

Many people have made statements that didn't age well. Hopefully you haven't forgotten about the ludicrous statements made by prominent epidemiologists, virologists and organizations like the WHO. Meanwhile we could trust the news to produce panic porn 24/7. Mass graves in Central Park! Sweden is doing an experiment in Human Sacrifice! Hopefully when the pandemic dies down we'll reflect on how the media and the scientific community completely failed to inform the people.

Re: Brazil's President Bolsonaro tests positive for coronavirus

#115

Post by mercer » Tue, Jul 07, 2020, 5:42 PM UTC

petre wrote: post #101

abraxas wrote: post #42

I hope he doesn’t make it. The death of this person is likely to be a net positive for the health of the Amazon and thus the planet. I don’t usually wish badly upon people. This is one of the few cases where I do.

He still doesn't deserve to die. There are other more constructive ways to turn it into a net positive like not re-elect him.

> He still doesn't deserve to die.

why not?

Re: Brazil's President Bolsonaro tests positive for coronavirus

#116

Post by mercer » Tue, Jul 07, 2020, 5:45 PM UTC

jayrot wrote: post #72

A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote: post #25

It is news, but as other have noted it is not surprising given Bolsanaro's public stance. Frankly, I am more surprised US upper echelon seems largely unscathed at the moment.

Trump gets tested every day. Every person he is in contact with is testing before being given an audience. He knows how it works but it seems like he just DGAF about everyone else.

Yeah, Trump strikes me as the kind of person who would protect himself diligently regardless of what his public stance might be.

I might be wrong about this, but isn't he also known to be somewhat of a 'clean freak'?

Re: Brazil's President Bolsonaro tests positive for coronavirus

#117

Post by petre » Tue, Jul 07, 2020, 5:47 PM UTC

pucallpa wrote: post #105

petre wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He still doesn't deserve to die. There are other more constructive ways to turn it into a net positive like not re-elect him.

while he makes more damage to his people ?

He was elected by 55% of the very same people. His people. Voting is mandatory in Brazil and one gets a fine of 3.51 BRL and has to provide justification if they fail to participate.

Re: Brazil's President Bolsonaro tests positive for coronavirus

#118

Post by mindslight » Tue, Jul 07, 2020, 5:48 PM UTC

SomeoneFromCA wrote: post #108

ceejayoz wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For a significant percentage of people, symptoms are mild. It wouldn't be at all surprising for someone like Bolsanaro or Trump to get a mild case and cite that as evidence - "see, I got it, and it wasn't bad at all!"

Well Trump actually is perfectly aware of the Covid risks, he is not that stupid. He really just panders to increasingly smaller radical public (and thaw would be his demise), while the moderate republicans kinda more aligned with what Pence does and says. Trump made a wrong bet, and he is going to lose.

I would say Trump is that stupid, either due to some mental degeneration or perhaps simply never being told "no" in his life. Covid should have made for a shoe-in second term. Give televised speeches reassuring and leading through a tough time, act on the advice of public health experts, and deflect the economic damage as doing the best we can. The wartime president boost. I think he could have even switched to this as late as May and still come out ahead. Instead, he continues to double down on pretending the entire problem doesn't exist.

Re: Brazil's President Bolsonaro tests positive for coronavirus

#119

Post by ceejayoz » Tue, Jul 07, 2020, 5:50 PM UTC

ulisesrmzroche wrote: post #109

Press2forEN wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was clear back in February too. "Stop buying masks, they don't help." Then in April the consensus did a 180. Consensus doesn't equal fact.

First, that was not what they said. They do help but it was said don’t buy N95 cus supply shortages. That’s fixed now, so point 2) Things change. Data changes. Why is changing your mind and admitting mistakes a sin now? I’m not a lemming. I think that’s the real issue here, an inability to accept change or recognize nuance

It's exactly what they said.

https://twitter.com/surgeon_general/status/12337257852839321...

> Seriously people- STOP BUYING MASKS! They are NOT effective in preventing general public from catching #Coronavirus...

Re: Brazil's President Bolsonaro tests positive for coronavirus

#120

Post by mensetmanusman » Tue, Jul 07, 2020, 5:52 PM UTC

MiroF wrote: post #65

mensetmanusman wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to be insensitive, but we can’t assume a vaccine will be developed. Flattening the curve of infection (under this assumption) still has a similar area under the curve... (i.e. people are going to get infected, people are going to die because the virus is not going away).

Well the original attempt was to close to eliminate it, like many of our peer nations have done. Since we've failed at that, it's going to be touch and go so that we flatten it.

Not likely possible unless all travel between nations is halted. Also, places like north korea will still access China which the world doesn’t trust in regards to data fidelity.

Since we can’t have perfect access to information, it is impossible to stop the virus without a vaccine (and a vaccine might not be developed ever, this might be like HIV where 700k people die a year)