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

#321

Post by timr » Fri, Nov 13, 2020, 6:52 PM UTC

mmastrac wrote: post #287

timr wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"It is more like 0.5%-1% (if not more), and the IFR once you hit 65+ is 1.5% and rises quickly." The current best estimates of IFR for SARS-CoV2 are: * 0-19 years: 0.00003 (0.003%) * 20-49 years: 0.0002 (0.02%) * 50-69 years: 0.005 (0.5%) * 70+ years: 0.054. (5.4%) https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/planning-scena...

https://www.imperial.ac.uk/mrc-global-infectious-disease-ana... "Using these age-specific estimates, we estimate the overall IFR in a typical low-income country, with a population structure skewed towards younger individuals, to be 0.23% (0.14-0.42 95% prediction interval range). In contrast, in a typical high income country, with a greater concentration of elderly individuals, we estimate the overall IFR to be 1.15%…

There have been dozens of papers in this area, primarily differing (as does your link) in the assumed balance of ages in a society.

The CDC citation is aggregating these studies, and (essentially) picking the middle. Cherry picking a single study from the larger pool is not a rebuttal.

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

#322

Post by brewdad » Fri, Nov 13, 2020, 6:54 PM UTC

caeril wrote: post #269

otterley wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't only hurt yourself. Mandating seatbelts reduces the population's overall risk of injury. When you have a society that has a public fallback for health insurance, reducing the amount of serious injuries has a beneficial impact on lowering the cost of providing healthcare to society.

If this is the rationale, why do countries with public health insurance fallback not also have mandatory BMI or tobacco/alcohol limits, given the much much higher fatality rates of cardiovascular disease and cancer versus automobile accidents?

There may not be hard limits on tobacco or alcohol use but they do tend to have very high "sin" taxes on those items. Those who use the most pay the most. It is imperfect but probably the best we can do without going full surveillance state in people's homes.

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

#323

Post by antientropic » Fri, Nov 13, 2020, 6:54 PM UTC

tasuki wrote: post #196

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…

An example of a false dichotomy if ever there was one.

In reality there is a whole continuum of options, such as reducing the number of relatives you visit, or not visiting them at the height of a wave of infections.

And of course "you die anyway a bit later" isn't true, with a vaccine on the way.

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

#324

Post by timr » Fri, Nov 13, 2020, 6:55 PM UTC

ceejayoz wrote: post #318

timr wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"There's a difference between reckless endangerment/homicide than an accident. Ridiculous false equivalency." And yet, comparison of catching a virus to homicide by gun is not.

> And yet, comparison of catching a virus to homicide by gun is not. That was not intended as a comparison , but as an obvious example of where "my body, my choice" clearly does not apply to making a slight movement of your index finger.

You can call it whatever you want, but you're using the analogy to make an argument, and the analogy is extreme.

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

#325

Post by ryandrake » Fri, Nov 13, 2020, 6:56 PM UTC

dboreham wrote: post #86

newfeatureok wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it demonstrates how weak enforcement of the rules are. Maine already had rules against such gatherings. Yet it still happened. Why?

Because some people are selfish and stupid. It's fascinating to watch, for example, people commenting on Facebook about vehicles driving too fast in winter conditions, endangering other road users. But those same Facebook commenters will say that nobody can order them to wear a mask...

If governments enforced COVID restrictions as well as they enforce speeding and DUIs, we wouldn't have to rely on people being smart and considerate. All these stay at home "orders" and mask "mandates" and they didn't mean squat and had little effect because almost nobody was fined or went to jail for violating them.

It's the easiest thing to enforce, too. In my city alone, a single police officer with two functioning eyes could probably issue hundreds of mask violations a day. It's not like you have to search someone or go out of your way to see they aren't wearing a mask.

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

#326

Post by tshaddox » Fri, Nov 13, 2020, 6:56 PM UTC

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.

Definitely not traveling for any family (or otherwise) gatherings. It will be the first Christmas I haven't done this, but it's really not a difficult choice at all.

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

#327

Post by ed25519FUUU » Fri, Nov 13, 2020, 6:56 PM UTC

beamatronic wrote: post #165

ed25519FUUU wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazing the risk management decision some people will make in exchange for their personal freedom right now in this country.

How did masks ever get conflated with “freedom” anyway. But regardless, don’t people have a sense of self-preservation? When does that kick in?

The mask mandate is part of a larger discussion on what can be required of you because of covid 19. Many places right now are testing the waters to decide who you may and may not be with during Thanksgiving as a simple example. These discussions happen together with masks, not separately.

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

#328

Post by ls612 » Fri, Nov 13, 2020, 6:56 PM UTC

slg wrote: post #283

ls612 wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Not every slope is slippery. We can move further along a spectrum without being guaranteed to fall off a cliff. Let me ask you something; Has there been any setting in the past 50 years other than changing sexual mores in which people have gained any personal freedom? And have any of the instances in which people lost bits of their freedoms in that same timeframe ever been reversed (again aside from changing sexual…

I don't see how the overall trend is relevant to this specific issue. I also don't understand why you are ignoring "sexual mores" or even what that specifically means. Does that include every increase in personal freedom related to gender and sexuality? It would be weird to ignore those because they are obviously the biggest increases in freedom over the last 50 years since many of the biggest changes of the civil ri…

Thank you, I had forgotten about the assault weapons ban and the fairness doctrine.

The reason I said that about sexual mores is because from my perspective almost all of the increases in personal freedom since the civil rights era have been related to that, and other freedoms have mostly been on a steady decline since that time. Don’t get me wrong, it’s good for people to not be forced into some religion’s definition of a ‘good relationship’, but if that’s the only thing heading in the right direction and everything else from an individual rights perspective is heading in the wrong direction it’s a distinction very much worth considering.

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

#329

Post by maxerickson » Fri, Nov 13, 2020, 6:58 PM UTC

flubert wrote: post #314

maxerickson wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I don't understand is why people don't make better personal choices? It's very strange that people won't just wear a mask (with it over their mouth and nose). There might be some tiny fraction of people that have a real issue with it, but not anywhere the number of people that feel the need to loudly object to it.

Does anyone have statistics on mask wearing compliance in public? Seems like someone could use ML to identify people with and without masks. Last time I went out shopping it was 100% compliance (and using a mask correctly) as near as I could tell.

Here, in a northern Michigan county that is spiking, compliance is decent but I see a few people pulling their mask aside pretty much anywhere I go.

(I mean inside places; I don't wear a mask outside either, as I am not going places where there are crowds outside)

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

#330

Post by tshaddox » Fri, Nov 13, 2020, 7:00 PM UTC

drc37 wrote: post #286

mmastrac wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for putting random third-party individuals in your social circle at risk.

COVID is not going anywhere. It is here with us and is not a light switch to be turned off. Eventually, everyone will get it. By hiding in your closet and afraid coming out is not the solution. I live in here in Mountain west where there is a lot of skepticism about everything with COVID. Not that it's not real, but how to approach get past it. For example, I believe that flattening the curve means staying open and g…

> Eventually, everyone will get it.

Is there any good reason to think this? The 2009 swine flu epidemic is estimated to have infected around 20% of the world population, and that was a big one (it was also probably less deadly than COVID-19, and was met with much less resistance from lockdowns).