Coronavirus is in the air – there’s too much focus on surfaces • Hacker News Board

Re: Coronavirus is in the air – there’s too much focus on surfaces

#21

Post by hilbertseries » Wed, Feb 03, 2021, 2:34 AM UTC

timr wrote: post #10

mikeyouse wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lol “renowned epidemiologists” who insisted the total US mortality would remain under 100k deaths. These clowns can be safely ignored.

None of the authors of the Great Barrington Declaration said anything of the sort. This kind of çomment is unhelpful and uncharitable. It's an ad hominem attack.

> The declaration claims that increased infection of those at lower risk would lead to a build-up of immunity in the population that would eventually also protect those at higher risk from the SARS-CoV-2 virus

We’ve seen what happens when the virus is allowed to run unchecked in populations. New variants start popping up that are resistant to the previous version. Further, this whole isolate those most likely to die doesn’t work. Due to things like... multigenerational households. Or people that don’t know they’re at risk etc.

Re: Coronavirus is in the air – there’s too much focus on surfaces

#22

Post by _jal » Wed, Feb 03, 2021, 2:34 AM UTC

mordechai9000 wrote: post #8

hanklazard wrote: post #2

Anecdotally, as someone who works in a clinic where we test for COVID-19 much of the day (and have multiple positive patient tests per day), I can tell you that this editorial certainly seems correct. Even with our caution with PPE, I’m certain that we would have had a major outbreak among staff over the past year if this thing was transmitting efficiently via fomite—it’s just too difficult to use perfect form 100% o…

It seems like people have been saying this from the beginning. But no one can say for certain that there is little or no fomite risk, and hand washing and surface cleaning gives people something to do that helps them feel like they are in control.

So one way people lose my trust is to tell me to do useless things for my perceived psychological benefit.

I have both changed doctors and jobs for this reason. Treat me like a child and you're out of my life.

Re: Coronavirus is in the air – there’s too much focus on surfaces

#23

Post by ceejayoz » Wed, Feb 03, 2021, 2:35 AM UTC

timr wrote: post #10

mikeyouse wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lol “renowned epidemiologists” who insisted the total US mortality would remain under 100k deaths. These clowns can be safely ignored.

None of the authors of the Great Barrington Declaration said anything of the sort. This kind of çomment is unhelpful and uncharitable. It's an ad hominem attack.

Here's Bhattacharya in the WSJ:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/is-the-coronavirus-as-deadly-as...

> An epidemic seed on Jan. 1 implies that by March 9 about six million people in the U.S. would have been infected. As of March 23, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there were 499 Covid-19 deaths in the U.S. If our surmise of six million cases is accurate, that’s a mortality rate of 0.01%, assuming a two week lag between infection and death. This is one-tenth of the flu mortality rate of 0.1%. Such a low death rate would be cause for optimism.

A 0.01% mortality rate as asserted would mean 34k deaths in the USA. We're well over 10x that, and we're hardly finished yet.

Re: Coronavirus is in the air – there’s too much focus on surfaces

#24

Post by legerdemain » Wed, Feb 03, 2021, 2:35 AM UTC

hanklazard wrote: post #2

Anecdotally, as someone who works in a clinic where we test for COVID-19 much of the day (and have multiple positive patient tests per day), I can tell you that this editorial certainly seems correct. Even with our caution with PPE, I’m certain that we would have had a major outbreak among staff over the past year if this thing was transmitting efficiently via fomite—it’s just too difficult to use perfect form 100% o…

Donning. As in "don we now our gay apparel," and so forth.

Re: Coronavirus is in the air – there’s too much focus on surfaces

#25

Post by dilyevsky » Wed, Feb 03, 2021, 2:35 AM UTC

timr wrote: post #10

mikeyouse wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lol “renowned epidemiologists” who insisted the total US mortality would remain under 100k deaths. These clowns can be safely ignored.

None of the authors of the Great Barrington Declaration said anything of the sort. This kind of çomment is unhelpful and uncharitable. It's an ad hominem attack.

I googled that for you - https://www.wsj.com/articles/britains-professor-reopen-11591...

Gupta said 500k deaths worst case in uk was bollocks (bc according to her everyone already got it). They are already at 100k with aggressive lockdowns. Does that sound like crackpottery to you?

Re: Coronavirus is in the air – there’s too much focus on surfaces

#26

Post by timr » Wed, Feb 03, 2021, 2:35 AM UTC

mikeyouse wrote: post #16

timr wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of the authors of the Great Barrington Declaration said anything of the sort. This kind of çomment is unhelpful and uncharitable. It's an ad hominem attack.

If you want to play the childish “list off logical fallacies” game, the original post was an appeal to authority. Feel free to read up on all the “amazing” work done by the signatories and their colleagues at Hoover and other beclowned institutions but whats the point of litigating something that’s been so conclusively proven already.

I didn't "list off logical fallacies". You dismissed the authors, wholesale, because you asserted that they made a claim about something unrelated.

That's an ad hominem attack.

Re: Coronavirus is in the air – there’s too much focus on surfaces

#27

Post by jacobkg » Wed, Feb 03, 2021, 2:36 AM UTC

Serious Question: I have been super paranoid about surfaces for the past year. Disinfecting groceries, quarantining packages, washing hands after touching the mail or opening takeout, etc. This is pretty draining. Should my takeaway be that all of these precautions are unnecessary?

Re: Coronavirus is in the air – there’s too much focus on surfaces

#28

Post by staunch » Wed, Feb 03, 2021, 2:36 AM UTC

mordechai9000 wrote: post #8

hanklazard wrote: post #2

Anecdotally, as someone who works in a clinic where we test for COVID-19 much of the day (and have multiple positive patient tests per day), I can tell you that this editorial certainly seems correct. Even with our caution with PPE, I’m certain that we would have had a major outbreak among staff over the past year if this thing was transmitting efficiently via fomite—it’s just too difficult to use perfect form 100% o…

It seems like people have been saying this from the beginning. But no one can say for certain that there is little or no fomite risk, and hand washing and surface cleaning gives people something to do that helps them feel like they are in control.

If you're locked down at home, so not sharing air with strangers, then fomites are basically the only risk of exposure. There's no good reason not reduce it to near zero with basic sanitation procedures.

Re: Coronavirus is in the air – there’s too much focus on surfaces

#29

Post by ceejayoz » Wed, Feb 03, 2021, 2:37 AM UTC

timr wrote: post #20

DanBC wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who on that list is a "renown epidemiologist"?

Sunetra Gupta is a professor of epidemiology at Oxford University: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunetra_Gupta Jay Bhattacharya is a professor of Medicine at Stanford University, and a long-time researcher into public health policy: https://profiles.stanford.edu/jay-bhattacharya Martin Kulldorff is a professor of medicine at Harvard University and Brigham and Women's Hospital, with a long history of research into epi…

Gupta: "I think that the epidemic has largely come and is on the way out in [the United Kingdom]", in May 2020.

Renowned people can still be full of shit.

> All of the authors are respected academics in the field of medicine, health policy and epidemiology.

s/are/were

Re: Coronavirus is in the air – there’s too much focus on surfaces

#30

Post by lambda_obrien » Wed, Feb 03, 2021, 2:37 AM UTC

legerdemain wrote: post #24

hanklazard wrote: post #2

Anecdotally, as someone who works in a clinic where we test for COVID-19 much of the day (and have multiple positive patient tests per day), I can tell you that this editorial certainly seems correct. Even with our caution with PPE, I’m certain that we would have had a major outbreak among staff over the past year if this thing was transmitting efficiently via fomite—it’s just too difficult to use perfect form 100% o…

Donning. As in "don we now our gay apparel," and so forth.

I'm just amazed he got doffing correct but donning incorrect, most people don't know the word doffing in my experience.