Super-spreading wedding demonstrates Covid-19 risk posed by holiday gatherings • Hacker News Board

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

#251

Post by war1025 » Fri, Nov 13, 2020, 5:44 PM UTC

maxerickson wrote: post #232

war1025 wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why are you conflating "aggressively addressed this problem" with a strict lockdown? The hypothetical was "Imagine if we had addressed the problem in March?" We did in fact lock the country down for several months. People seem quick to forget it for political reasons.

Yes, but it's a failure of imagination to assume that a strict lockdown is the only measure that would be part of aggressively addressing the problem.

You are putting words in my mouth. I was responding to an accusation that we didn't act strictly enough back in March.

I agree we know much more about the virus now and should be tailoring our mitigation efforts accordingly.

I would say that in general we are failing on that front however.

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

#252

Post by technofiend » Fri, Nov 13, 2020, 5:45 PM UTC

spidersouris wrote: post #215

technofiend wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I lost a family member this week. I did not attend the graveside service even though it was outside, which is anecdotally supposed to be lower risk than something indoors. The issue for me is I'm high risk combined with the fact it's possible someone could show and refuse to wear a mask. Even if everyone socially distanced and wore masks, I believe there's still a non-zero chance of transmission. Couldn't take the ri…

I'm terribly sorry. > Unless the disease is eradicated which in the face of antivaxxers seems unlikely, I don't thinks things will ever entirely return to normal. I think you're way overestimating antivaxxers. They make a lot of noise on the Internet and in some media but they are far from being a majority. I'm confident we will be able to eradicate this virus with vaccines, like we have (mostly) done so in the past…

>but they are far from being a majority. I'm confident we will be able to eradicate this virus with vaccines, like we have (mostly) done so in the past with diseases such as polio or tetanus.

No of course they're not a majority, but there are enough out there that it reduces herd immunity; I'm not epidemiologist so I can't really make an argument as to how much, but it will be > 0.

Yeah polio is unfortunately a perfect example of how one community for whatever reason choosing not to vaccinate leaves a reservoir for the disease and prevents total eradication. I'd be delighted if I'm proven wrong and we manage to eradicate Covid-19. I'm just personally skeptical compliance will be high enough to do it considering the anecdotal data just watching people wear masks now, which is frankly a much lower bar.

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

#253

Post by newfeatureok » Fri, Nov 13, 2020, 5:45 PM UTC

chasd00 wrote: post #127

newfeatureok wrote: post #11

By sheer coincidence I’ve been reading World War Z and it’s amazing how in the real world we’re making the same mistakes that countries in the book made against the zombies. Of course the situation is entirely different, but it’s interesting. Why doesn’t the government actually just enforce rules? So many lockdowns, mandates and laws but so little enforcement, or the penalty is not commensurate with the risk. What’s…

The US president (or other authorities) can't just make new laws out of thin air, that whole democracy thing gets in the way. Short of rolling tanks down the streets of cities and towns everywhere you're not going to be able to enforce much. Even then, with tanks on the streets you have a very very bad situation on your hands. People in the US don't like having liberties taken away without due process and representat…

I’m not talking about the federal government. Most major cities and states have already passed temporary mandates and orders that are not being enforced.

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

#254

Post by sachinag » Fri, Nov 13, 2020, 5:46 PM UTC

mumblemumble wrote: post #74

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.

You can tighten the circle even tighter than that. Since (non-N95) masks are mostly useful for limiting how far your own droplets spread, and don't do much to protect against incoming germs, it's really not about whether or not you personally are following the rules. It's about whether or not everyone else is. It's sort of like the pool at my kids' swim school. If other toddlers were being allowed to go in the pool w…

The "non-N95 masks don't protect yourself" was what we thought in March; it's no longer what we think after the Starbucks contact tracing and other studies.

Regular masks absolutely provide substantial - admittedly, not perfect, but substantial - personal protection.

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

#255

Post by musingsole » Fri, Nov 13, 2020, 5:46 PM UTC

pjc50 wrote: post #209

throw1122334 wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's lazy thinking. There are a whole host of things a care facility can do to mitigate risk with various cost/benefits, but the difference is there is an acute risk at the facility while a distributed risk for anyone outside. It obviously makes sense to implement more protections at the vulnerable location than blanket policies across the board.

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

#256

Post by theplague42 » Fri, Nov 13, 2020, 5:46 PM UTC

protoman3000 wrote: post #217

theplague42 wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Can you please elaborate what is so difficult to understand about the concept that when you drive fast and crash you get thrown out the windshield and possibly die? What does it mean to you that this understanding already fails?

It's a constant minor annoyance weighed against a fairly rare, hypothetical risk.

People ride motorcycles despite vastly higher death and injury rates than cars, cause it's fun. (I did for awhile and might start doing so again one day.)

I'm not disagreeing with you I don't think? I agree that it's a really stupid thing to not wear a seatbelt. I just think it's important to consider how to solve these problems without throwing up our hands and saying "people are irredeemably stupid" because that doesn't really do much good for anyone.

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

#257

Post by jlarocco » Fri, Nov 13, 2020, 5:47 PM UTC

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.

I don't think this is evidence for or against that, though.

The wedding attendees used their "personal choice" to attend the wedding and get sick. But we don't know how they transmitted it to people once they left. Were the people they infected taking precautions? Or were they also using "personal choice" not to?

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

#258

Post by abduhl » Fri, Nov 13, 2020, 5:48 PM UTC

sequoia wrote: post #161

war1025 wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

> 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…

“I weep for how spoiled and entitled our society is, living in the lap of luxury but still complaining,” they say while working from home and admitting that they have not left their house at all for the past half year, not even to feed themselves because a benevolent underclass of coronavirus immune elves delivers paychecks to their bank account and food directly to their door.

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

#259

Post by totalZero » Fri, Nov 13, 2020, 5:49 PM UTC

modzu wrote: post #244

totalZero wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The pandemic makes ongoing science/technology news, and has substantial impact upon the work culture, sector demand, and societal role of the tech sphere. Hundreds of thousands of Americans have perished from this disease and it didn't have to be this way. There is a major thrust of anti-intellectualism in the US, Brazil, and other countries. As "hackers," we try to understand what the intellectuals believe. Then, we…

your comment is fair, but the LA times article is about super-spreaders.. remember super-predators? the fearmongering pumped out of mainstream media, which well predates covid, isnt why any of us read hn. if a covid topic is to remain on hn until the pandemic is resolved, there could be better sources.

The term "super-spreader" was used to describe certain individuals in past disease outbreaks, including SARS.

It means that there are some people who produce and share far more viral material than average (right-tail individuals, so to speak).

There is no more a connection between "super-spreaders" and "super-predators," as there is between either of those two terms and "superman."

https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/06/15/1003576/whats-a-...

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

#260

Post by gagege » Fri, Nov 13, 2020, 5:49 PM UTC

cmurf wrote: post #221

gagege wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm going to travel to see my family for Christmas. I know I'll probably get hidden, flagged, whatever for saying that. I've known lots of people who have had the virus and I'm of the opinion that these news stories are quite overblown and meant to scare people. There are lots of cases, yes, but bodies aren't piling up in the streets.

Of course not. They're piling up in mobile refrigeration units. What about the news stories are overblown exactly? What's the motive for scaring people?

Same reasons the news media ever tries to scare people. Propaganda, softening people's opinions of some political party, moving the Overton window, etc.