Live data from Hacker News

Parents are 5X as Worried about Infection and School than Work and Paying Bills

interest.com

81–90 of 282 posts

Re: Parents are 5X as Worried about Infection and School than Work and Paying Bills

#81
post #30

Yeah this is definitely not surprising to the least! Even if I was laid off I am more worried about my children having long term health effects (or worse) than missing a few bills, and that is before considering how flexible lenders are claiming to be (I've gotten emails from all my major bills about covid related help they can provide). I am just so confused why some people are acting like kids are a different speci…

> I am just so confused why some people are acting like kids are a different species when it comes to covid. Well, it's not that surprising when you have a disease whose harm factor is a function of your age. The vast majority of covid deaths are the elderly. The tiniest minority of covid deaths are young children. Their ability to spread to adults is their biggest risk factor, not the disease itself.

> Their ability to spread to adults is their biggest risk factor

Others have mentioned this, but just for emphasis: you do not know that. Nor does anyone else. Repeating it is irresponsible, and you should stop doing that.

There have been a lot of lessons the epidemic can teach us. But one big one is that magical thinking is still accepted as a substitute for reason by a frightening number of people, and that's before you get to the outright grifters.

Re: Parents are 5X as Worried about Infection and School than Work and Paying Bills

#82
post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would have preferred we did nothing and let the old people die too. they suck up all the money and housing.

You perhaps were being sarcastic, but there is truth in the statement. And while it is unpleasant, I think it is an aspect of this pandemic that is worth considering - not necessarily in an of itself, but perhaps as a way to begin discussing our culture's unhealthy view of prolonging life at all costs. I don't want to spend my last days/weeks/months slowly rotting in a hospital bed.

[deleted]

Re: Parents are 5X as Worried about Infection and School than Work and Paying Bills

#84
post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would have preferred we did nothing and let the old people die too. they suck up all the money and housing.

You perhaps were being sarcastic, but there is truth in the statement. And while it is unpleasant, I think it is an aspect of this pandemic that is worth considering - not necessarily in an of itself, but perhaps as a way to begin discussing our culture's unhealthy view of prolonging life at all costs. I don't want to spend my last days/weeks/months slowly rotting in a hospital bed.

If you're worried you're going to die from coronavirus given the current statistics you can self isolate. No need for the entire population to do the same.

I started self isolating me and my family 4 weeks before my country imposed a lockdown, after seeing neighbouring countries being hit by the virus and not knowing what to expect. I stopped caring completely after seeing the hospitals were empty and after seeing a reported death rate of around 1% in my country.

According to my mother, who is a doctor who fought covid on the first line (despite being at risk of death, given her age and statistics), the guidelines given by the government were nonsensical: ventilators probably did more harm than good in the majority of cases and there was a stance against steroidal treatment (which would have been the first choice she would have picked if it wasn't for the guidelines) which have been subsequently reevaluated. There was also a problem with dropping requirements for counting covid deaths which created a massive statistical problem. These factors make me think covid deaths are probably over-counted and it explains why this second peak of infections doesn't have a peak in deaths.

Of course, the issue has been politicised and if you say something like the above you'll be socially ostracised - or just downvoted.

Re: Parents are 5X as Worried about Infection and School than Work and Paying Bills

#85
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's all about risk. Humans are terrible at understanding probability. There must be a threshold where it becomes ok to take on the risk (e.g. driving a car everyday for most Americans). So where is that threshold? Another way to think about it is, what do we do if we learn that the pandemic will not end for the next 10 years? What activities do we allow and under what new mode of operation / conditions? It might be…

> Another way to think about it is, what do we do if we learn that the pandemic will not end for the next 10 years? What activities do we allow and under what new mode of operation / conditions? Then we'd actually put real effort into controlling it so we could go back to life as normal even with the virus not fully eradicated. The problem with all of these simple "risk profile" analyses is that we as a country are b…

You can see the death rate dropping while cases are dramatically going up which one could argue is that exact mitigation happening.

Masks, sanitation, and distance have likely lowered the overall viral load even if one does contract it. Obviously higher testing rates contribute to the decreasing death rate but given the blind studies from asia I don't think it would be that drastic of a reduction.

It gives me some hope we can lower the risk enough to have children interact with the caveat being adults actually enforce masks/sanitation/distance.

Re: Parents are 5X as Worried about Infection and School than Work and Paying Bills

#86
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plus we know nothing about the long term health consequences. Kids may not be dying at a high rate but they may suffer long term heart, lung, or organ damage. It feels like everyone is just assuming that if it isn’t death then it is fine. Just because you survive something doesn’t make you stronger.

Or people are assuming that the long term effects of COVID on children are similar to that of the flu on children, given similar death rates. (Which seems plausible, if you count '10x higher' as 'similar'. Overall, the flu is about 1/30th the IFR of COVID-19, but apparently most of the difference is at older ages) EDIT: And, in fact, the CDC says that the Flu is more dangerous to healthy children than COVID-19: https…

10x higher for people in their 80’s. Show me where the death rate is 10x higher than the flu for people under 40.

Re: Parents are 5X as Worried about Infection and School than Work and Paying Bills

#87
post #81
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I am just so confused why some people are acting like kids are a different species when it comes to covid. Well, it's not that surprising when you have a disease whose harm factor is a function of your age. The vast majority of covid deaths are the elderly. The tiniest minority of covid deaths are young children. Their ability to spread to adults is their biggest risk factor, not the disease itself.

> Their ability to spread to adults is their biggest risk factor Others have mentioned this, but just for emphasis: you do not know that. Nor does anyone else. Repeating it is irresponsible, and you should stop doing that. There have been a lot of lessons the epidemic can teach us. But one big one is that magical thinking is still accepted as a substitute for reason by a frightening number of people, and that's befor…

Nobody knows anything for sure, but "the virus might be causing huge hidden damage to kids" is in the same kind of unlikely tail risk as "social distancing might be building up so much social pressure it'll cause a violent revolution". Sure, it might be, but speculation like that can't be a primary factor in decisionmaking.

Re: Parents are 5X as Worried about Infection and School than Work and Paying Bills

#88
post #43

There is a massive, silent demographic who wants a return to status quo. There was a conference call with the school district the other night. A friend in the district was in awe at how many parents want their children to return to school, are upset about sports, etc. Many people want to look at this as a black and white issue - either you believe social distancing and masks are necessary, or you believe that Bill Ga…

Silent?

On the Internet, I believe so. You see the crazies and the anti-maskers but anyone worried about e.g. the mental health of their children or the viability of their family business is filtered out.

We are seeing waves of permanent restaurant closings where I am from, and people seem reluctant to put 2 and 2 together.

Re: Parents are 5X as Worried about Infection and School than Work and Paying Bills

#89
post #74
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Another way to think about it is, what do we do if we learn that the pandemic will not end for the next 10 years? What activities do we allow and under what new mode of operation / conditions? Then we'd actually put real effort into controlling it so we could go back to life as normal even with the virus not fully eradicated. The problem with all of these simple "risk profile" analyses is that we as a country are b…

>Whereas with the pandemic we seemingly are just accepting high death rates Except the death rates are very low. The risk due to lockdown are greater than this virus.

The thing is, a lock down isn't required to stop the virus.

Re: Parents are 5X as Worried about Infection and School than Work and Paying Bills

#90
post #30

Yeah this is definitely not surprising to the least! Even if I was laid off I am more worried about my children having long term health effects (or worse) than missing a few bills, and that is before considering how flexible lenders are claiming to be (I've gotten emails from all my major bills about covid related help they can provide). I am just so confused why some people are acting like kids are a different speci…

> I am just so confused why some people are acting like kids are a different species when it comes to covid. Well, it's not that surprising when you have a disease whose harm factor is a function of your age. The vast majority of covid deaths are the elderly. The tiniest minority of covid deaths are young children. Their ability to spread to adults is their biggest risk factor, not the disease itself.

There is absolutely no proof that children will not have long term health impacts that could reverberate for the rest of their lives. There are signs of chronic health repercussions for adults who have been infected. There is no telling yet what we can expect for children as they grow.
Post reply on HN