There have been 7M-13M excess deaths worldwide during the pandemic • Hacker News Board

Re: There have been 7M-13M excess deaths worldwide during the pandemic

#461

Post by eyelidlessness » Mon, May 17, 2021, 4:26 PM UTC

giantg2 wrote: post #445

eyelidlessness wrote: post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the part I object to: > just makes it so you can't taste or smell anything for a few days along with fatigue and flu-like symptoms Maybe for the “vast majority” that’s true, I can’t speak to the distribution of ongoing impact people are experiencing or will over time. But there are a lot of people who have been infected, have survived, and have ongoing complications that go well beyond this description.

It's about 20-35% for non-hospitalized cases according to the CDC. "Maybe for the “vast majority” that’s true" That's why they qualified it as such. Even the flu has long term impacts in 10% of patients. So yeah, long term impacts are a concern, but the attitudes of many people (the commenter's point) are based on the fact that the majority of people are fine. For example, have you ever considered that you have a 10%…

That’s a lot of cases! And not counting hospitalized cases. Yes I understand why they characterized it that way, but it’s still minimizing a very large problem.

Re: There have been 7M-13M excess deaths worldwide during the pandemic

#462

Post by dang » Mon, May 17, 2021, 4:45 PM UTC

spankyspangler wrote: post #402

dang wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you please stop posting flamewar comments to HN? We ban accounts that do that, as you know. We're trying to have a different quality of discussion than what this sort of thing leads to. Please make your substantive points thoughtfully. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27178252 .

Ahh, you not only detached the subthread but also crippled my ability to reply. Your intentions to swiftly protect the feelings of your user base and shield them from difficult conversations is laudable, though misguided because you inadvertently left the "The “become COVID-19 carriers to own the libs” strategy kinda worked." comment up. Or is that what you mean by different quality of discussion? It was certainly no…

I rate limited your account, which is standard practice when an account has been posting too many low-quality comments too quickly. It hasn't crippled your ability to reply; it just means you need to wait a bit. We're happy to take rate limits off when people give us reason to believe that they've taken the intended spirit of the site to heart and will post fewer and more substantive comments in the future. That would be the opposite direction from things like "I will continue to call out" and so on—we're trying to avoid online callout/shaming culture, denunciatory rhetoric, and things like that, because they're so tedious.

Intention not to start flamewars is good but not sufficient. You also have to actually not start them (or perpetuate them). https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...

Re: There have been 7M-13M excess deaths worldwide during the pandemic

#463

Post by clairity » Mon, May 17, 2021, 5:52 PM UTC

pasabagi wrote: post #452

thu2111 wrote: post #430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you insane? There are tons of countries that are not totalitarian, with big land borders, that have done far better than the US .... There are obviously thousands of things that could have been differently and or better. The latter part doesn't follow logically from the first. It can be that performance is essentially random, or determined by geographical factors, or by the pre-existing health of the population,…

"I was at a hospital the other night where I think there were a few, there were actually a few coronavirus patients, and I shook hands with everybody, you'll be pleased to know, and I continue to shake hands," - Boris Johnson Anybody who thinks the UK represents competent totalitarianism needs to really think about where they are getting their news from. The UK's response was objectively worse than similar countries,…

it’s ironic that you use the phrase “overwhelmingly non-skeptical” to negate a totalitarian supposition, when totalitarianism, or more narrowly authoritarianism, requires, and in fact subjugates their populace to being (via propaganda), a docile and unquestioning public. “skeptical yet willing” would be more deserving of credit than “obliviously following”. the public should absolutely question and challenge ‘experts’ (i take issue with this framing itself but that’s a discussion for another time), because not only are experts often wrong but not doing so sets a dangerous sociopolitical precedent.

Re: There have been 7M-13M excess deaths worldwide during the pandemic

#464

Post by throwaway3699 » Mon, May 17, 2021, 6:11 PM UTC

whatever1 wrote: post #202

throwaway3699 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're getting downvoted but I do believe you're correct. I'm a healthy 21 year old, please govt., give my vaccine to other countries. I will take it if offered, but I'd prefer to give it to those who really need it all things considered. Let me get the vaccine when others are safe.

I am confident that HN crowd has heard about graph theory. We try to deactivate a network, we care firstly for the nodes of high connectivity to kill the virus transmission network. Vaccinating a grandpa helps the grandpa. Vaccinating a super social young person helps everybody else.

I'm not allowed to be super social by law. I've seen about five people in a year. If I'm going to be forced into depression then it might as well be for a good reason.

Re: There have been 7M-13M excess deaths worldwide during the pandemic

#465

Post by pasabagi » Mon, May 17, 2021, 6:35 PM UTC

clairity wrote: post #463

pasabagi wrote: post #452

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I was at a hospital the other night where I think there were a few, there were actually a few coronavirus patients, and I shook hands with everybody, you'll be pleased to know, and I continue to shake hands," - Boris Johnson Anybody who thinks the UK represents competent totalitarianism needs to really think about where they are getting their news from. The UK's response was objectively worse than similar countries,…

it’s ironic that you use the phrase “overwhelmingly non-skeptical” to negate a totalitarian supposition, when totalitarianism, or more narrowly authoritarianism, requires, and in fact subjugates their populace to being (via propaganda), a docile and unquestioning public. “skeptical yet willing” would be more deserving of credit than “obliviously following”. the public should absolutely question and challenge ‘experts…

Firstly, I don't think skepticism is the inverse of docility, or even necessarily aligned with being questioning. Skepticism is traditionally characterized by an attack on the methods of knowledge-production, and as such, can engender docility and make questioning incoherent.

Vaccine skepticism isn't based on a question or challenge towards experts - questions or challenges exist within a specific framework, a specific body of knowledge. Rather, it is based on a challenge to the value and nature of expertise itself. As such, it's absolutely compatible with docility, totalitarianism, and antipathy towards questioning. In fact, since experts are experts by virtue of their existence within a specific body of knowledge, they are always by their very nature open to questions and challenges. Attacking the idea of expertise can as such be a way of attacking these areas of open questioning and challenge.

A good example of this is how authoritarian governments are typically hostile to academic institutions.

Re: There have been 7M-13M excess deaths worldwide during the pandemic

#466

Post by EricE » Mon, May 17, 2021, 6:39 PM UTC

exegete wrote: post #302

orblivion wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Heh, well there you go. I wanted to avoid that point to avoid politics (per the OP's request), but yes. Also I think I heard NY wasn't the only state that did this.

NJ also did this

Michigan too. all with disastrous results.

Re: There have been 7M-13M excess deaths worldwide during the pandemic

#467

Post by EricE » Mon, May 17, 2021, 6:42 PM UTC

belltaco wrote: post #250

wernercd wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd say "Florida secured their elderly population more quickly and carefully than in New York" misses the fact that New York ACTIVELY put its elderly in harms way by requiring nursing homes take patients. If New York ONLY ignored the problem that'd be one thing... but they actively made decisions that led to a large number of deaths - and more importantly those decisions were AGAINST the CDC guidelines.

>If New York ONLY ignored the problem that'd be one thing So where would recovered nursing home residents go? Keep staying in the hospital which would mean active covid patients would die in the streets? Or the streets?

To the big floaty hospital ship the Orange Man sent to NY harbor? That would be a good start. They also converted Javits Center into an emergency hospital that was barely utilized too.

And on top of that, the actively hid deaths of nursing home residents that happened in hospitals to further downplay the impact of COVID to the nursing homes.

If you only watch the main stream media it's no wonder you haven't heard any of this :p

Re: There have been 7M-13M excess deaths worldwide during the pandemic

#468

Post by EricE » Mon, May 17, 2021, 6:44 PM UTC

sam_4675 wrote: post #334

belltaco wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If New York ONLY ignored the problem that'd be one thing So where would recovered nursing home residents go? Keep staying in the hospital which would mean active covid patients would die in the streets? Or the streets?

From experience in another state, they go first to the hospital, secondly back into nursing home but into isolated quarantined floors with specially trained fully covered ppe'd staff until several times testing negative, then into warm floor, then back to normal resident floor. Not as I believe initially was case in NY from hospital directly into regular resident floor.

They also sent non eldery COVID infected patients to nursing homes.

https://www.wxyz.com/news/region/detroit/20-year-old-beating...

And Cuomo has the balls to write a book patting himself on the back for doing such a good job? Utterly disgusting!

Re: There have been 7M-13M excess deaths worldwide during the pandemic

#469

Post by EricE » Mon, May 17, 2021, 6:45 PM UTC

orblivion wrote: post #301

belltaco wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If New York ONLY ignored the problem that'd be one thing So where would recovered nursing home residents go? Keep staying in the hospital which would mean active covid patients would die in the streets? Or the streets?

I think this is a fair question. I don't think it was anybody's intention to deliberately kill people. Even assuming the worst about people's nature, it's just not great for political careers. I imagine there was a reason for the decision however ill considered.

Orange Man Bad seems to be the only justification for not using the hospital ship and temporary hospitals the feds sent.

Pretty shitty. That people are willing to gaslight around it over politics is shittier still.

Re: There have been 7M-13M excess deaths worldwide during the pandemic

#470

Post by ceejayoz » Mon, May 17, 2021, 6:57 PM UTC

raydev wrote: post #389

ceejayoz wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"the rise in cases only reversed after we shut down schools both times" implies a causal relationship, though, while ignoring the other mitigations that went into effect. The point is not "is it wise to take precautions"; that's obvious. The point is we don't necessarily have great data on which precautions work better than others because they're largely all being put into effect at the same time.

> point is we don't necessarily have great data on which precautions work better than others We actually do, though, and it's preventing close contact of non-household members and preventing sharing enclosed spaces with non-household members for long periods of time. People spread the virus before they even know they're sick, and a subset of sick people either need to go to work despite being sick, or they just don't…

Again, all those restrictions were typically implemented at the same time - distancing, capacity limits, masking, etc.

It's going to take time and years of research to tease out things like "did closing schools specifically help".