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Super-spreading wedding demonstrates Covid-19 risk posed by holiday gatherings

latimes.com

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Re: Super-spreading wedding demonstrates Covid-19 risk posed by holiday gatherings

#201

Post by protoman3000 »

spidersouris wrote: post #176
protoman3000 wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can we live good if there exists a significant amount of people rejecting seatbelts? We need to face the reality that on average people make bad choices which leads to substantial negative outcomes for any group. In particular, the COVID-19 pandemic again confirms empirically that humans on average don’t have self-responsibility. How can philosophical ideas that are founded on principles such as “humans have self…

> How can we live good if there exists a significant amount of people rejecting seatbelts? Is there really? One thing that has always struck me since the beginning of this pandemic is precisely why people would be more willing to attach their seatbelts than to wear a mask. Perhaps not the best comparison to make, though.

> Is there really?

From personal experience and the experience of many friends I can confirm (anecdotally, but still) that in Eastern Europe there exist many societies where putting on a seatbelt is socially stigmatized.

Re: Super-spreading wedding demonstrates Covid-19 risk posed by holiday gatherings

#202

Post by wombatmobile »

quantified wrote: post #154
protoman3000 wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can we live good if there exists a significant amount of people rejecting seatbelts? We need to face the reality that on average people make bad choices which leads to substantial negative outcomes for any group. In particular, the COVID-19 pandemic again confirms empirically that humans on average don’t have self-responsibility. How can philosophical ideas that are founded on principles such as “humans have self…

Not wearing a seatbelt hurts yourself only. If Covid were an STD there would be huge social pressure on it even though it would be passed less frequently.

> If Covid were an STD there would be huge social pressure on

HIV/AIDS was that.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/HIV/AIDS

Re: Super-spreading wedding demonstrates Covid-19 risk posed by holiday gatherings

#203

Post by theplague42 »

protoman3000 wrote: post #179
quantified wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not wearing a seatbelt hurts yourself only. If Covid were an STD there would be huge social pressure on it even though it would be passed less frequently.

> Not wearing a seatbelt hurts yourself only. And yet people in many countries reject it. If a significant amount of people already makes a bad choice at this point where it affects themselves we cannot expect these people to make good choices to protect others.

Because the average person has a very bad understanding of risk and consequences?

Also, the laws aren't solely about the wearer; not wearing seatbelts at scale has societal costs.

Re: Super-spreading wedding demonstrates Covid-19 risk posed by holiday gatherings

#204

Post by pjc50 »

war1025 wrote: post #109
sequoia wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

'fighting the virus harms the economy' Would you believe it if I told you that not fighting the virus has an even bigger toll on the economy? Imagine if we'd aggressively addressed this problem back in March, how much less economic impact would have resulted. But then, as now, we wanted to "protect the economy" and avoid restrictions as long as possible. But this time the strategy will work? I have trouble believing…

> Imagine if we'd aggressively addressed this problem back in March, Europe had about the strictest lockdown you can imagine and their economy isn't exactly peaches and cream right now. And they have spiking case counts just like the US right now.

Europe is not a single country with a single policy.

Heck, even the UK isn't a single country with a single policy; we've had on-and-off lockdowns and nightlife restrictions all over the place.

Re: Super-spreading wedding demonstrates Covid-19 risk posed by holiday gatherings

#205

Post by sequoia »

war1025 wrote: post #180
sequoia wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And they have spiking case counts just like the US right now. What lead to this recent spike, in your opinion? "peaches and cream" it's a global pandemic, I don't think "peaches and cream" is on the table right now. What we need is to survive to have peaches and cream another day, and that takes discipline and PERSONAL SACRIFICE not everyone whining and moaning about how they can't just pretend nothing is going on…

> What we need is to survive to have peaches and cream another day, Great news! As a collective we will survive this just fine no matter what happens. Individually some people won't be so lucky. Coronavirus is a tragedy, but it is far from an existential threat.

Also: wow. So 1.3 million avoidable deaths worldwide (or 250k in the US if you're there) is an acceptable loss to you, but staying home for the holidays is unacceptable?

Your lack of empathy for your fellow humans is staggering. A day may come when tragedy strikes your family, I hope you are shown more empathy than you are choosing to extend to others here.

Re: Super-spreading wedding demonstrates Covid-19 risk posed by holiday gatherings

#206

Post by rrss »

president wrote: post #141
ceejayoz wrote: post #5

It also demonstrates why the "personal choice" stuff is BS here. I see a lot of folks going "why are you worried if you're following the rules yourself?", and yet... > None of the victims who lost their lives had attended the party.

No, it demonstrates overwhelming information asymmetry from what the general population is learning from mainstream media vs what the actual stats are. If you look at the actual CDC [1] COVID death count numbers, it is not much more than the annual flu death count. I don't fault the general public for this, it's the media trying to instill unnecessary fear among people. [1] https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid_we…

> it is not much more than the annual flu death count.

Which numbers on that page are you looking at? Here's what I see:

all deaths involving covid-19: 223,984

all deaths involving influenza, with or without covid-19 or influenza: 6,789

Re: Super-spreading wedding demonstrates Covid-19 risk posed by holiday gatherings

#207

Post by snazz »

sequoia wrote: post #82
exabrial wrote: post #35

Case count != actual risk of death or permanent injury. You have to be in a high risk group. I wish we'd evaluate actual risk rather than perceived.

> You have to be in a high risk group. You have to be in a high risk group for what? To die? As far as I know, while some health conditions or age raise risk of covid death or morbidity, there is no group that is without risk of death, i.e. anyone might die from Covid19. Is that your understanding as well, or do you know of some demographic group that has experienced 0 deaths?

To play the devil's advocate, the line of reasoning you used in your comment isn't very useful. Just because more than zero 5- to 14-year-olds have died from covid does not negate the fact that their risk is minuscule compared to other age groups. With a large enough sample size, there are always going to be outliers.

Re: Super-spreading wedding demonstrates Covid-19 risk posed by holiday gatherings

#208

Post by [deleted] »

RationalThought wrote: post #129
goalieca wrote: post #54

There are “high-risk” people in care homes who want to visit their relatives for the holidays. To call these people selfish is way off the mark. Human beings are more than a simple statistic to optimize for political benefit. Perhaps it’s the politicians and others who are being selfish by imposing their will and desires. Viewpoints on liberty and consent aside, there doesn’t seem to be much of a strategy or timeline…

No - it's people like you. Humans are more than a statistic - and you putting high-risk in scare-marks and asking if politicians asking us to wear a fucking mask and social distance are the problem is exactly the kind of selfish thinking that made this pandemic so bad. Some in this thread seem to think we need to let people die. High risk includes kids. It includes software-engineers who are in their 20s. It isn't ju…

[deleted]

Re: Super-spreading wedding demonstrates Covid-19 risk posed by holiday gatherings

#209

Post by pjc50 »

throw1122334 wrote: post #117
otterley wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does the care facility deserve more blame?

Because it's literally their job to protect their patients from infection? It's not like we've just recently found out that the elderly are especially vulnerable to Covid-19. If a website left their admin portal open, didn't set a password and then got hacked, would you put the blame for that on the script kiddie who did it, or on the website's security team?

The only way they could have done this was .. preventing their staff from going to the wedding. Or maybe even preventing them from leaving the site.

Re: Super-spreading wedding demonstrates Covid-19 risk posed by holiday gatherings

#210

Post by otterley »

quantified wrote: post #154
protoman3000 wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can we live good if there exists a significant amount of people rejecting seatbelts? We need to face the reality that on average people make bad choices which leads to substantial negative outcomes for any group. In particular, the COVID-19 pandemic again confirms empirically that humans on average don’t have self-responsibility. How can philosophical ideas that are founded on principles such as “humans have self…

Not wearing a seatbelt hurts yourself only. If Covid were an STD there would be huge social pressure on it even though it would be passed less frequently.

It doesn't only hurt yourself. Mandating seatbelts reduces the population's overall risk of injury. When you have a society that has a public fallback for health insurance, reducing the amount of serious injuries has a beneficial impact on lowering the cost of providing healthcare to society.
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