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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

#191

Post by nostromo »

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…

> High risk includes kids. It includes software-engineers who are in their 20s.

This is false.

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

#192

Post by theplague42 »

nostromo wrote: post #80

It’s interesting that the reporter here is shaming a wedding reception and not the long-term care facility where the deaths actually occurred. And not shaming for people for going to work with obvious Covid-19 symptoms, both to a prison and a long-term care facility . It’s clear the editors needed a story about family gatherings and not yet another story about old folks homes being high risk.

The wedding makes the jobs of the facility employees a lot harder.

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

#193

Post by pjc50 »

relieferator wrote: post #79

Why do people go to work when they're sick? I don't understand for the life of me, how someone thinks it's ok? If you don't feel well, your company (or money) is not worth your life or the lives of others. Stay home ffs.

COVID can make you infectious but without symptoms. Which means that it's very likely that people can infect their workplaces before realising that they are even sick.

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

#195

Post by beachy »

__al__ wrote: post #112
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…

Couldn't agree more. You're asking 330 million Americans to give up some of their freedoms without any real plan or timeline; of course there is going to opposition.

> without any real plan or timeline

There's a very real plan, which is to develop a vaccine. And that plan seems to be going pretty well. The timeline will be dictated by the success of the plan, but it seems that most experts are reasonably confident that vaccines will be available next year.

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

#196

Post by tasuki »

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…

In my experience, most of the "high-risk" people in care homes would easily risk their life to visit their relatives for the holidays.

The two options are:

- Go for it, you have guaranteed quality time with family and (unknown) risk of dying.

- Stay isolated, guaranteed miserable time alone, then you die anyway a bit later.

I'm not surprised at their choices. We should not be optimizing for length of life at the cost of its quality.

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

#197

Post by cmurf »

atty wrote: post #20

What are HNers planning to do for the holidays? We’re seriously considering not seeing anyone, not even parents, even though my SO has had COVID already (she works at a hospital and contracted it from COVID patients). Stories like this are the main reason. Even if no one at the party gets very ill, the chance of further spreading it to others seriously scares me.

Holiday gatherings are cancelled for the rest of the year as far as I'm concerned.

In Denver, public and private gatherings are limited to 5 people. Statewide, gatherings limited to members from two households.

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

#198

Post by timr »

vbordo wrote: post #174
exabrial wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So... my body, _not_ my choice?

This is a misapplication of an ideological statement about abortion. Disregarding the guidance of health professionals such as wearing a mask and socially distancing means endangering other people's lives.

"Disregarding the guidance of health professionals such as wearing a mask and socially distancing means endangering other people's lives."

...which isn't different than any other year.

Every year, the flu kills tens of thousands (in the US -- higher worldwide). Disproportionately children.

Every year, driving kills hundreds of thousands, even when you exclude the effects of alcohol.

Every year, people have sex without condoms, and pass on harmful -- possibly fatal -- viruses.

Every year, millions of people die from communicable disease of every sort, ranging from pneumonia to HIV.

This is the first time in my life that we've tried to apply transitive risk logic to justify curtailing of individual freedoms. Masks are one thing, but telling people that they can't have family gatherings because it might hurt you?

This seems wrong to me. You can use this logic to justify literally any curtailment of personal freedom.

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

#199

Post by jliptzin »

irq11 wrote: post #120
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.

The flu kills tens of thousands of people a year - disproportionately many of whom are young, unlike SARS-CoV2 - and is a transmissible disease. Driving kills hundreds of thousands of innocent people a year. Where is the line when it’s OK to control peoples lives because you are afraid? This is how authoritarianism starts.

Wear a piece of cloth in front of your fucking face until a global pandemic gets under control != “control people’s lives”

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

#200

Post by ntsplnkv2 »

war1025 wrote: post #78
smeyer wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Over the next 38 days, the virus spread to 176 other people. Seven of them died. Seven people died. This isn't some hypothetical where people are acting like there's risk where there isn't; it's a story of seven real, living, breathing humans passing away.

People die. I'm becoming more and more callus about the whole thing and beginning to think we just need to adjust our expectations and accept that people die . I was told recently that my town is in terrible shape and the hospitals are nearly overwhelmed. Listening further, I learned that "nearly overwhelmed" meant we had capacity for two or three people to be really sick with Coronavirus. If we need to decimate our…

Why can you accept people dying, but not accept the economy not doing well?

The economy goes up and down. It's a fact of life. Why worry about it?

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