Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Covid Took My Grandfather. But It Wasn’t What Killed Him

thecut.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 65 posts

Re: Covid Took My Grandfather. But It Wasn’t What Killed Him

#11

Post by m0zg »

w0utert wrote: post #7
m0zg wrote: post #5

> With more than 230,000 Americans dead from a virus that could have been contained It could not have been "contained" in the United States. Half the (ineffectual) stuff we do now is unconstitutional. You cannot restrict religious or other forms of peaceable assembly under our constitution. We've observed quite a bit of that in the past few months. Moreover, 230K is 1/10th the projected number of deaths (2.2M). The "…

This part of the US perspective on covid-19 I don't understand. Everywhere I keep reading comments that suggest you pretty much deserved what you got and americans only have themselves to blame because 'if everyone just wore masks' it 'could have been contained'. Literally nothing suggests that, no other country in the world shows any statistics to back this up, and the situation is pretty much as bad as or worse in…

That's pretty much a given that you'll get downvoted. I mean yeah, masks seem like a good idea regardless, and they aren't too onerous. People should wear them. They should wash their hands, too, and take vitamin D, and try to lose some weight. Same with outdoor dining or reduced occupancy. But everything else is COVID theater pretty much, and our politicians are known to make idiotic decisions under the circumstances. That's why some of our states (such as NY and NJ) have some of the highest death rates in the world - the politicians there had the bright idea to send COVID patients straight to the nursing homes, even though it was clear from the very beginning of the spread in the US that this was an extremely bad idea. The outbreak _started_ in the nursing homes in the Washington state. These same people are still there, and they're still in charge of whatever passes for "COVID response" in their states. The results are quite predictable.

Re: Covid Took My Grandfather. But It Wasn’t What Killed Him

#12

Post by m0zg »

hellotomyrars wrote: post #10
m0zg wrote: post #5

> With more than 230,000 Americans dead from a virus that could have been contained It could not have been "contained" in the United States. Half the (ineffectual) stuff we do now is unconstitutional. You cannot restrict religious or other forms of peaceable assembly under our constitution. We've observed quite a bit of that in the past few months. Moreover, 230K is 1/10th the projected number of deaths (2.2M). The "…

The 2.2 million number was the projected number (In March) of deaths with no mitigation taken. 200,000 is what Dr. Birx said then, in March. We're in November now, and it's surging again. Less people are dying as we've learned how to best treat it, but the biggest risks are with overwhelming healthcare resources and that's exactly what is starting to happen as cases begin to surge, once again. We could have done bett…

People are dying at a much lower rate, we have the highest testing throughput in the world (and still growing), and if mainstream press is to be believed, we're a month or two from deploying a "95% effective" vaccine. We'll be fine.

Re: Covid Took My Grandfather. But It Wasn’t What Killed Him

#14

Post by exogeny »

m0zg wrote: post #12
hellotomyrars wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 2.2 million number was the projected number (In March) of deaths with no mitigation taken. 200,000 is what Dr. Birx said then, in March. We're in November now, and it's surging again. Less people are dying as we've learned how to best treat it, but the biggest risks are with overwhelming healthcare resources and that's exactly what is starting to happen as cases begin to surge, once again. We could have done bett…

People are dying at a much lower rate, we have the highest testing throughput in the world (and still growing), and if mainstream press is to be believed, we're a month or two from deploying a "95% effective" vaccine. We'll be fine.

Will be fine, future tense. The future tense being “fine” does not mean that intolerable incompetence didn’t already occur.

Re: Covid Took My Grandfather. But It Wasn’t What Killed Him

#15

Post by CyberRabbi »

He was in the high risk group... 60+ with existing health complications, why didn’t he stay at home? Instead of blaming others she could easily say his own irresponsibility killed him. Either way I wouldn’t blame anyone. For people like him death is the rule, not the exception. If an unusually high number of people in their prime were dropping dead maybe she’d have a point.

Re: Covid Took My Grandfather. But It Wasn’t What Killed Him

#16

Post by hellotomyrars »

w0utert wrote: post #7
m0zg wrote: post #5

> With more than 230,000 Americans dead from a virus that could have been contained It could not have been "contained" in the United States. Half the (ineffectual) stuff we do now is unconstitutional. You cannot restrict religious or other forms of peaceable assembly under our constitution. We've observed quite a bit of that in the past few months. Moreover, 230K is 1/10th the projected number of deaths (2.2M). The "…

This part of the US perspective on covid-19 I don't understand. Everywhere I keep reading comments that suggest you pretty much deserved what you got and americans only have themselves to blame because 'if everyone just wore masks' it 'could have been contained'. Literally nothing suggests that, no other country in the world shows any statistics to back this up, and the situation is pretty much as bad as or worse in…

As another person has already pointed out, many countries have done an incredible job at controlling and containing Covid.

Unsurprisingly, most of them are countries who have been through a version of this before (2002-2004 SARS Outbreaks).

It turns out that having a strong, coordinated response and treating the issue seriously go a long way.

Re: Covid Took My Grandfather. But It Wasn’t What Killed Him

#17

Post by hellotomyrars »

m0zg wrote: post #12
hellotomyrars wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 2.2 million number was the projected number (In March) of deaths with no mitigation taken. 200,000 is what Dr. Birx said then, in March. We're in November now, and it's surging again. Less people are dying as we've learned how to best treat it, but the biggest risks are with overwhelming healthcare resources and that's exactly what is starting to happen as cases begin to surge, once again. We could have done bett…

People are dying at a much lower rate, we have the highest testing throughput in the world (and still growing), and if mainstream press is to be believed, we're a month or two from deploying a "95% effective" vaccine. We'll be fine.

There are also plenty deleterious long-term effects from Covid infections that aren't outright dying.

We'll be fine (most of us, eventually, on a long enough timeline). That doesn't excuse the failure to meaningfully respond to the issue in the first place.

Re: Covid Took My Grandfather. But It Wasn’t What Killed Him

#18

Post by pjc50 »

w0utert wrote: post #7
m0zg wrote: post #5

> With more than 230,000 Americans dead from a virus that could have been contained It could not have been "contained" in the United States. Half the (ineffectual) stuff we do now is unconstitutional. You cannot restrict religious or other forms of peaceable assembly under our constitution. We've observed quite a bit of that in the past few months. Moreover, 230K is 1/10th the projected number of deaths (2.2M). The "…

This part of the US perspective on covid-19 I don't understand. Everywhere I keep reading comments that suggest you pretty much deserved what you got and americans only have themselves to blame because 'if everyone just wore masks' it 'could have been contained'. Literally nothing suggests that, no other country in the world shows any statistics to back this up, and the situation is pretty much as bad as or worse in…

As the sibling comment says, several countries have managed to contain it.

The problem is where measures are "leaky". Like computer security, you can't tell when it's working, and it potentially only takes one leak for an outbreak to happen. It seems (and well-collated evidence is lacking for this) that it's certain workplaces where the transmission is happening, along with people who don't believe it's real continuing to meet indoors in close spaces. For example, meat processing plants: https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-health-coronavirus-meat-ex...

Re: Covid Took My Grandfather. But It Wasn’t What Killed Him

#19

Post by w0utert »

garmaine wrote: post #9
w0utert wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This part of the US perspective on covid-19 I don't understand. Everywhere I keep reading comments that suggest you pretty much deserved what you got and americans only have themselves to blame because 'if everyone just wore masks' it 'could have been contained'. Literally nothing suggests that, no other country in the world shows any statistics to back this up, and the situation is pretty much as bad as or worse in…

> Literally nothing suggests that, no other country in the world has any statistics to back this up New Zealand. Taiwan. Vietnam. South Korea.

Yeah it's a lot easier if you are an island, go into super strict lock-down, and can do super-efficient (and privacy invasive) contact tracing before the number of infections even goes over 1 in 100K, like in the countries you mentioned. ..

That doesn't contradict anything I said though, I was only commenting on the US situation and whether it could have been contained by 'just wearing masks'.

Re: Covid Took My Grandfather. But It Wasn’t What Killed Him

#20

Post by sgift »

CyberRabbi wrote: post #15

He was in the high risk group... 60+ with existing health complications, why didn’t he stay at home? Instead of blaming others she could easily say his own irresponsibility killed him. Either way I wouldn’t blame anyone. For people like him death is the rule, not the exception. If an unusually high number of people in their prime were dropping dead maybe she’d have a point.

"Why didn't he stay at home" - I recommend reading the fine article, the reason he didn't "just stay at home" is in there.
Post reply on HN