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

My Covid-19 Story in Brooklyn

reddit.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 215 posts

Re: My Covid-19 Story in Brooklyn

#51

Post by rkagerer »

On the face of it, seems stupid you didn't get tested. But I don't know the other side of the story. If there really is a limited supply of these tests, it makes sense for CDC to assign them accordingly. Frankly, if you don't end up with COVID-19, this is a bit of a non-story.

Regardless, it sounds like a bigger budget should be set aside for for testing. If I was in charge and had the resources, EVERYONE coming back from an infected country would be tested; symptoms or not.

If it turns out you do have it, my thoughts and best wishes go out to you. (I'm sure the media coverage will explode; shame these things don't get the attention until after the fact).

Re: My Covid-19 Story in Brooklyn

#52

Post by nickjj »

soared wrote: post #38
nickjj wrote: post #32

Hmm, this is bad. A ton of people from NYC / Brooklyn also commute back to the east end of Long Island for weekends so this has a potential to spread pretty quickly. I don't keep up with the news at all but recently I started reading some articles from major news outlets just for more info about this virus. It's mind boggling at how different each channel's reporting is (I'm in the US). I was at the store this mornin…

You seem to have made up your mind about which news channel was correctly reporting. Why do you think your opinion and that of many others conflicts with the WHO and CDC? To me it feels like the experts (WHO/CDC) are 'downplaying' while nonexperts (internet commenters who read a few articles) are doing the opposite.

I haven't made up my mind because most media outlets have conflicting information. That was why I posted the comment.

I mean, it doesn't help when you hear stories like the one posted on Reddit too. Of course it makes you think things like "why wouldn't they test him? Is it because they want to keep the registered cases down or is it because there's not enough tests to go around or maybe it's because the tests aren't accurate?".

These are questions I have as someone who isn't working at the CDC and I'm sure other regular citizens are thinking the same. I thought the media's responsibility was to take information from experts and present that information without bias to people who are not experts in the matter.

Re: My Covid-19 Story in Brooklyn

#53

Post by heartbeats »

eveningcoffee wrote: post #50
nickjj wrote: post #32

Hmm, this is bad. A ton of people from NYC / Brooklyn also commute back to the east end of Long Island for weekends so this has a potential to spread pretty quickly. I don't keep up with the news at all but recently I started reading some articles from major news outlets just for more info about this virus. It's mind boggling at how different each channel's reporting is (I'm in the US). I was at the store this mornin…

I just saw a virologist give out the flu argument in addition to presenting the naive mortality rate and making an intentional arithmetic mistake (100-3.5=97, perhaps 96.5 does not feel such a big number anymore). I would recommend to study this site https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ if you want to be more informed.

Rounding up .5 is considered proper form.

Re: My Covid-19 Story in Brooklyn

#54

Post by SteveNuts »

Consultant32452 wrote: post #17
allovernow wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Masks are considered useless unless you are infected Considering there are multiple papers out of china which suggest the virus is aerosolized, I think it's irresponsible for anyone to claim masks are useless PPE. Anything less than n99 or p99 might be useless, but that's a different story. There's also one paper which claims that treating a mask with saline solution makes it substantially more effective against vir…

Governments have other concerns besides your individual health. They need to prevent panic as much as possible, prevent economic collapse, etc. The response to events like this can be worse than the initial problem. What do you think happens if the CDC says everyone needs to wear masks, you go to your local store, and there are no masks? There would be violence in the streets.

Then why don't they have millions of masks stockpiled for an event like this?

Re: My Covid-19 Story in Brooklyn

#55

Post by majos »

endorphone wrote: post #35
tyfon wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can actually increase your odds of infection by different deceases by having a paper mask since they are often uncomfortable or fit poorly and people put their hands to the face to adjust them.

This seems like an invented rationalization given that the average person touches their face up to 3000 times a day already ( up to . It is trivial to find details of this range). If you adjust a mask a few times, but in return it stops you from touching your nose/mouth constantly, that's an enormous win. And just to clarify, again people are talking about surgical masks. N95 masks, which are still "cheap paper masks…

Tangent, but 3000 times per day is about once every 20s awake. That seems high?

Re: My Covid-19 Story in Brooklyn

#56

Post by endorphone »

majos wrote: post #55
endorphone wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems like an invented rationalization given that the average person touches their face up to 3000 times a day already ( up to . It is trivial to find details of this range). If you adjust a mask a few times, but in return it stops you from touching your nose/mouth constantly, that's an enormous win. And just to clarify, again people are talking about surgical masks. N95 masks, which are still "cheap paper masks…

Tangent, but 3000 times per day is about once every 20s awake. That seems high?

That's the high, though apparently the average is more in the range of 550 times or so.

Re: My Covid-19 Story in Brooklyn

#57

Post by whatshisface »

nickjj wrote: post #52
soared wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to have made up your mind about which news channel was correctly reporting. Why do you think your opinion and that of many others conflicts with the WHO and CDC? To me it feels like the experts (WHO/CDC) are 'downplaying' while nonexperts (internet commenters who read a few articles) are doing the opposite.

I haven't made up my mind because most media outlets have conflicting information. That was why I posted the comment. I mean, it doesn't help when you hear stories like the one posted on Reddit too. Of course it makes you think things like "why wouldn't they test him? Is it because they want to keep the registered cases down or is it because there's not enough tests to go around or maybe it's because the tests aren't…

>I thought the media's responsibility was to take information from experts and present that information without bias to people who are not experts in the matter.

The media's job is to take attention from people who are not experts in the matter and present it to advertisers.

Re: My Covid-19 Story in Brooklyn

#58

Post by makomk »

dahart wrote: post #46
hsnewman wrote: post #3

This implies that our government is managing the propaganda around Covid-19 by simply not testing suspected cases. Is this true?

I’d at least entertain the possibility that this means the CDC has a limited number of test kits right now and can’t yet afford to give one to every single person who has a cough. It would be a bummer for some serious cases who wouldn’t get tested, if they had to test everyone who asked as long as they had kits available. They were pretty clear yesterday that they’re ramping up test kit production and test sites as f…

Pretty much. The CDC tried to finally roll out a test to New York City that local labs could use to carry out broader surveillance testing, after some early problems, but the local labs don't trust it and won't use it: https://www.propublica.org/article/cdc-coronavirus-covid-19-...

Re: My Covid-19 Story in Brooklyn

#59

Post by tyfon »

majos wrote: post #55
endorphone wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems like an invented rationalization given that the average person touches their face up to 3000 times a day already ( up to . It is trivial to find details of this range). If you adjust a mask a few times, but in return it stops you from touching your nose/mouth constantly, that's an enormous win. And just to clarify, again people are talking about surgical masks. N95 masks, which are still "cheap paper masks…

Tangent, but 3000 times per day is about once every 20s awake. That seems high?

The article I refer to in the sibling comment claims 23 times an hour on average so it would mean about 550 times during a day/night if you don't sleep. It sounds a bit more plausible.

Re: My Covid-19 Story in Brooklyn

#60

Post by endorphone »

tyfon wrote: post #43
endorphone wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems like an invented rationalization given that the average person touches their face up to 3000 times a day already ( up to . It is trivial to find details of this range). If you adjust a mask a few times, but in return it stops you from touching your nose/mouth constantly, that's an enormous win. And just to clarify, again people are talking about surgical masks. N95 masks, which are still "cheap paper masks…

It is what I read by an associate in microbiology and infection control [1]. I tend to listen to experts but maybe he's wrong about the field he is studying, I'm not an expert :) Translated from Norwegian: - Does a facemask help against spreading virii? - No, not when you are using it out among people. The point is that you will scratch your face and get your fingers in contact with your soft tissue. So it is counter…

But we already touch our face endlessly. Again, this sounds like he invented this on the spot. This wasn't studied, isn't the result of an analysis, it's just a lazy response. Further, again he was talking about surgical masks.

Surgical masks don't work. Surgical masks are a subset of masks, and it is grossly inaccurate to extrapolate that out to "masks don't work".

Post reply on HN