Twenty-one year old with no pre-existing conditions dies from Coronavirus • Hacker News Board

Re: Twenty-one year old with no pre-existing conditions dies from Coronavirus

#81

Post by JPKab » Wed, Mar 25, 2020, 2:54 PM UTC

beat wrote: post #64

corpMaverick wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a parent of a young man. I understand why your parents have these fears. They know what they are doing, but they don´t know what you are doing other than what you tell them. Even if they trust you, this is a deeper fear. You could start lecturing your parents about how dangerous this is, so they are convinced that you are taking it seriously.

As the parent of adult children currently living at home... one of ours keeps going out to be with friends. I understand she needs to get out of the house sometimes, but it's unnerving, knowing the points of contact (she often goes to her boyfriend's house, with his five currently-unemployed roommates). Then again, she works in a children's health clinic. I know what vector is probably going to bring COVID into our h…

You're at really high risk in that living situation.

Does she not have another place she can stay? I'm assuming she is aware of the risk to you?

Never met you before, but as a fellow human being that situation sounds very high risk for you.

I'm very glad that none of my dad's five kids boomeranged right now. I had to cancel visiting him. Terrible situation.

Re: Twenty-one year old with no pre-existing conditions dies from Coronavirus

#82

Post by zuminator » Wed, Mar 25, 2020, 2:54 PM UTC

tallanvor wrote: post #3

derision wrote: post #2

Her aunt is the one claiming she had no pre-existing conditions. I'd like to see a statement from a medical professional and an autopsy

Yeah. No known preexisting conditions is very different from no preexisting conditions. That being said, it's certainly possible that she was just unlucky and the virus hit her harder than normal for people her age, or she caught some other bug at the same time.

But assuming this person had an unknown pre-existing condition is no comfort at all. It just means that anyone could equally have an unknown pre-existing condition that would similarly render then susceptible.

Re: Twenty-one year old with no pre-existing conditions dies from Coronavirus

#83

Post by SamBam » Wed, Mar 25, 2020, 2:56 PM UTC

ekvilibrist wrote: post #4

Smoking? Vaping? From what I've heard about other cases its highly unlikely but not impossible to die from Covid-19 if otherwise young and healthy...

> highly unlikely but not impossible

Looking for something else to blame when you agree that it's "highly unlikely but not impossible" simply shows how unintuitive statistics are.

How many people are known to have COVID in the US? 55,000 officially, probably 3-10x that, let's say 100k for a nice round number.

Is 1 out of 100k a "highly unlikely but not impossible" chance? Sure. So you don't need to assume that there must be other causes in the absence of other evidence.

Re: Twenty-one year old with no pre-existing conditions dies from Coronavirus

#84

Post by venantius » Wed, Mar 25, 2020, 2:57 PM UTC

Afton wrote: post #18

jhayward wrote: post #7

I'm puzzled by the intense focus on whether someone who dies had a pre-existing condition. It's like people want to convict the person for their own death, make it look like they were irresponsible, as a denial mechanism. By blaming the person for succumbing to the virus they can fall in to the US-centric mindset of blaming people for their own disfortune, poverty, illness, accident, lack of whiteness, etc. It's real…

I don't think that's it at all. It's the 'normal' person being concerned whether they are at risk. While lots of people 'know old people' or with pre-existing conditions, many people have youngish parent with already passed grandparents, who have trouble understanding why this is a fuss for them , since they imagine that it'll just be a cold (for them). Cases like this one are 'scary' because it shows that they might…

I think they're related; healthy people often (implicitly) assume they are healthy because they have done nothing wrong to deserve being ill. This then causes them to act with unexamined cruelty towards people who are ill.

Re: Twenty-one year old with no pre-existing conditions dies from Coronavirus

#85

Post by lgleason » Wed, Mar 25, 2020, 2:57 PM UTC

save_ferris wrote: post #38

sonicggg wrote: post #26

It seems that anecdotal evidence of young people dying of COVID-19 is the trend of the moment. Not sure if it's just cheap clickbait or the goal is to make younger generations to actually care about social distancing. The deal is that we are dealing with the power of large numbers. You can cherry-pick whatever case you want to fit your narrative. It does not mean its relevant information.

We’re also dealing with the fallout of living in a “post-truth” era, where we as a society can no longer agree with basic facts. Yes, it’s exceedingly rare to see a case like this, but what’s not rare is seeing the examples of people not taking this disease seriously, even some public officials. Getting people to cooperate with drastic disease mitigation efforts won’t happen if there’s a probability embedded in that…

I completely agree with us being in a "post-truth" era. And both sides are responsible for this. You have everything from people denying basic biological science to everything else in between. To be fair, some people are aware of the risks are are willing to roll the dice. Keep in mind that some of the elderly who are stubborn grew up before we had many of our modern vaccines such as measles etc.. Some of the really old ones even before antibiotics were around.

I know some who are of the opinion that they could die at any point anyways so they would rather just live life. Some also worry that prolonged quarantines could damage the country and decimate small businesses along with the middle class. For them they would rather take the risk and sacrifice for a better future for their kids. Of course there are others who are self centered jerks, but the point is that there are good arguments on both sides.

Also, with post truth... A lot of people who were, up until this pandemic started, denying basic biological facts. Some of that ideology had even begun to makes its way into the major research and medical schools. That doesn't help with credibility when the same individuals start saying that everyone needs to quarantine.

The same people who were censoring people based on ideology, at times over facts, are now claiming that they are censoring "mis-information". Once again, many people are naturally skeptical. In many ways this is one of the natural result of "post truth" fiction and ideology being favored over facts. We reap what we sew.

Re: Twenty-one year old with no pre-existing conditions dies from Coronavirus

#86

Post by JPKab » Wed, Mar 25, 2020, 2:57 PM UTC

save_ferris wrote: post #38

sonicggg wrote: post #26

It seems that anecdotal evidence of young people dying of COVID-19 is the trend of the moment. Not sure if it's just cheap clickbait or the goal is to make younger generations to actually care about social distancing. The deal is that we are dealing with the power of large numbers. You can cherry-pick whatever case you want to fit your narrative. It does not mean its relevant information.

We’re also dealing with the fallout of living in a “post-truth” era, where we as a society can no longer agree with basic facts. Yes, it’s exceedingly rare to see a case like this, but what’s not rare is seeing the examples of people not taking this disease seriously, even some public officials. Getting people to cooperate with drastic disease mitigation efforts won’t happen if there’s a probability embedded in that…

I just want to point out that the public health authorities and the news media in the United States have completely lied about the efficacy of face masks. Their goal was to preserve a dwindling stockpile of N95 masks, and in the process they told the public that face mask of any kind don't help prevent the spread of the disease and this is patently false.

so let's keep this in mind before we get in our high horse about people not listening to the media and the government because of this crap. The R0 of the disease is much lower in countries where everyone is wearing face masks of any kind.

Everyone on reading this should Google the fact that that homemade face mask made out of cloth are actually highly effective in reducing the spread of this illness.

Re: Twenty-one year old with no pre-existing conditions dies from Coronavirus

#87

Post by andrewzah » Wed, Mar 25, 2020, 3:00 PM UTC

LanceH wrote: post #68

dahart wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is relevant information when the previous narrative was that 0 young people had died of COVID, and that the “only” old people who had died had co-morbidity factors. BTW, this isn’t “anecdotal evidence”. This is an actual, verifiable data point.

Maybe doctor's and research scientists should present this as a data point instead of instead of yorkshirecoastradio relaying some facebook posts. While this narrative may fit what is perceived as a good cause, do we want it at the expense of truth? Do we want every story to first be questioned, "what are they trying to get us to do by telling us this?"

> Do we want every story to first be questioned, "what are they trying to get us to do by telling us this?"

This should already be the standard operating procedure.

Re: Twenty-one year old with no pre-existing conditions dies from Coronavirus

#88

Post by fortran77 » Wed, Mar 25, 2020, 3:00 PM UTC

JPKab wrote: post #86

save_ferris wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We’re also dealing with the fallout of living in a “post-truth” era, where we as a society can no longer agree with basic facts. Yes, it’s exceedingly rare to see a case like this, but what’s not rare is seeing the examples of people not taking this disease seriously, even some public officials. Getting people to cooperate with drastic disease mitigation efforts won’t happen if there’s a probability embedded in that…

I just want to point out that the public health authorities and the news media in the United States have completely lied about the efficacy of face masks. Their goal was to preserve a dwindling stockpile of N95 masks, and in the process they told the public that face mask of any kind don't help prevent the spread of the disease and this is patently false. so let's keep this in mind before we get in our high horse abo…

I started wearing a well-fitting home-made face mask that completely covers my nose and mouth after reading papers I found on nih.gov and who.int that talked about their effectiveness.

I meet doubters all the time who tell me that "home made masks make it worse" when the masks (not the n95 respirators) worn by nurses, that are loose fitting but prevent particles of saliva from entering nose or mouth are generally accepted as helpful.

Re: Twenty-one year old with no pre-existing conditions dies from Coronavirus

#89

Post by derision » Wed, Mar 25, 2020, 3:01 PM UTC

klyrs wrote: post #44

dreary_dugong wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd argue that Occam's razor would state that this article is inaccurate rather than the plethora of sources about age and pre-existing conditions.

I'd argue that this is a single datapoint out of nearly 20k deaths. Are the odds of dying young with zero pre-existing conditions on the order of 1:20k, or exactly zero ? Is death from covid rare or impossible ?

Most of what I've seen so far seems to suggest it works more like AIDs, where it weakens something (in this case, epithelial cells in the lungs) which allows other opportunistic issues to arise (bacterial pneumonia for example). So rather than dying "from the virus", you die from another underlying issue. Similar to how AIDs doesn't kill you, it just makes it easier for everything else to kill you

Re: Twenty-one year old with no pre-existing conditions dies from Coronavirus

#90

Post by lgleason » Wed, Mar 25, 2020, 3:03 PM UTC

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #53

save_ferris wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We’re also dealing with the fallout of living in a “post-truth” era, where we as a society can no longer agree with basic facts. Yes, it’s exceedingly rare to see a case like this, but what’s not rare is seeing the examples of people not taking this disease seriously, even some public officials. Getting people to cooperate with drastic disease mitigation efforts won’t happen if there’s a probability embedded in that…

But that mindset is exactly why we're in a post-truth era. If a news outlet's primary goal is convincing people to do the right thing rather than accurately communicating information, why should we trust that the information they communicate is accurate?

Exactly. Many are the same outlets who also are happy to do the bidding of the Chinese government that has a horrible human rights record, be overtly political/partisan, shill for corporate interests over facts and the best interests of the average person and who regularly moralize instead of reporting. Thanks, but no thanks.