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Parents are 5X as Worried about Infection and School than Work and Paying Bills

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Re: Parents are 5X as Worried about Infection and School than Work and Paying Bills

#91

Post by koolba »

_jal wrote: post #81
umvi wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I am just so confused why some people are acting like kids are a different species when it comes to covid. Well, it's not that surprising when you have a disease whose harm factor is a function of your age. The vast majority of covid deaths are the elderly. The tiniest minority of covid deaths are young children. Their ability to spread to adults is their biggest risk factor, not the disease itself.

> Their ability to spread to adults is their biggest risk factor Others have mentioned this, but just for emphasis: you do not know that. Nor does anyone else. Repeating it is irresponsible, and you should stop doing that. There have been a lot of lessons the epidemic can teach us. But one big one is that magical thinking is still accepted as a substitute for reason by a frightening number of people, and that's befor…

But we do know that. Or at least we can glean as much based upon the distribution by age for hospital admittance and death.

We don’t know what, if any, the long term consequences will be. But the short term death risk for young children appears to be minimal.

Re: Parents are 5X as Worried about Infection and School than Work and Paying Bills

#92

Post by inamberclad »

umvi wrote: post #30
roland35 wrote: post #19

Yeah this is definitely not surprising to the least! Even if I was laid off I am more worried about my children having long term health effects (or worse) than missing a few bills, and that is before considering how flexible lenders are claiming to be (I've gotten emails from all my major bills about covid related help they can provide). I am just so confused why some people are acting like kids are a different speci…

> I am just so confused why some people are acting like kids are a different species when it comes to covid. Well, it's not that surprising when you have a disease whose harm factor is a function of your age. The vast majority of covid deaths are the elderly. The tiniest minority of covid deaths are young children. Their ability to spread to adults is their biggest risk factor, not the disease itself.

We still have no idea what the long term effects of this disease are, or how they depend on severity.

Re: Parents are 5X as Worried about Infection and School than Work and Paying Bills

#93

Post by triceratops »

umvi wrote: post #30
roland35 wrote: post #19

Yeah this is definitely not surprising to the least! Even if I was laid off I am more worried about my children having long term health effects (or worse) than missing a few bills, and that is before considering how flexible lenders are claiming to be (I've gotten emails from all my major bills about covid related help they can provide). I am just so confused why some people are acting like kids are a different speci…

> I am just so confused why some people are acting like kids are a different species when it comes to covid. Well, it's not that surprising when you have a disease whose harm factor is a function of your age. The vast majority of covid deaths are the elderly. The tiniest minority of covid deaths are young children. Their ability to spread to adults is their biggest risk factor, not the disease itself.

Even if the kids are fine, if both parents get sick at the same time it's going to be hell taking care of the kids. Especially when you can't hire outside help due to social distancing requirements.

Re: Parents are 5X as Worried about Infection and School than Work and Paying Bills

#94

Post by WalterBright »

miketery wrote: post #34
roland35 wrote: post #19

Yeah this is definitely not surprising to the least! Even if I was laid off I am more worried about my children having long term health effects (or worse) than missing a few bills, and that is before considering how flexible lenders are claiming to be (I've gotten emails from all my major bills about covid related help they can provide). I am just so confused why some people are acting like kids are a different speci…

It's all about risk. Humans are terrible at understanding probability. There must be a threshold where it becomes ok to take on the risk (e.g. driving a car everyday for most Americans). So where is that threshold? Another way to think about it is, what do we do if we learn that the pandemic will not end for the next 10 years? What activities do we allow and under what new mode of operation / conditions? It might be…

> what do we do if we learn that the pandemic will not end for the next 10 years?

What societies have done throughout history for diseases like smallpox, polio, malaria, tuberculosis, the flue, etc. Essentially, we learn to accept it.

Yes, I know, eventually a vaccine was found for smallpox, etc., but those diseases had been around for centuries (millennia?). Only very recently have we found ways to deal with them.

Re: Parents are 5X as Worried about Infection and School than Work and Paying Bills

#95

Post by x87678r »

rwcarlsen wrote: post #52

I've personally heard from several tens of parents that they are primarily worried about the economic and social affects of all these so-called safety measures governments and communities are taking. Just because it's easy to measure cases and deaths and hard to measure lost human connection, depression, children being left in environments of neglect, delayed/paused innovation and economic growth, etc. doesn't mean t…

Around my city I'm seeing a lot of kids lonely, anxious and unhappy where I've never seen before. My children were really looking forward to school and seeing friends, were crushed when told it wouldn't be happening.

Re: Parents are 5X as Worried about Infection and School than Work and Paying Bills

#96

Post by x87678r »

roland35 wrote: post #19

Yeah this is definitely not surprising to the least! Even if I was laid off I am more worried about my children having long term health effects (or worse) than missing a few bills, and that is before considering how flexible lenders are claiming to be (I've gotten emails from all my major bills about covid related help they can provide). I am just so confused why some people are acting like kids are a different speci…

I know 7 people now that have had it. The worst affected one had to stay in bed a day, most of the others just lost taste or felt a bit run down. Children had sniffles. 2 were asymptomatic.

Re: Parents are 5X as Worried about Infection and School than Work and Paying Bills

#97

Post by renewiltord »

buhhh wrote: post #57
umvi wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I am just so confused why some people are acting like kids are a different species when it comes to covid. Well, it's not that surprising when you have a disease whose harm factor is a function of your age. The vast majority of covid deaths are the elderly. The tiniest minority of covid deaths are young children. Their ability to spread to adults is their biggest risk factor, not the disease itself.

Are you confusing harm with death rates? It's a novel virus and we still do not know the long term health impacts of it.

Everything novel has this problem, and fortunately our epistemology is up to the task. We set our priors to a weighted linear combination of other similar things and then revise as evidence comes in.

For instance, MMR II was approved in 1978. How do we know that people who were given MMR II won't spontaneously die at the age of 60? Or perhaps to bring it closer to another problem, how do we know they won't spontaneously develop Autism Spectrum Disorder at the age of 60? There hasn't been time. It's a pretty novel vaccine.

Re: Parents are 5X as Worried about Infection and School than Work and Paying Bills

#98

Post by zaroth »

inamberclad wrote: post #92
umvi wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I am just so confused why some people are acting like kids are a different species when it comes to covid. Well, it's not that surprising when you have a disease whose harm factor is a function of your age. The vast majority of covid deaths are the elderly. The tiniest minority of covid deaths are young children. Their ability to spread to adults is their biggest risk factor, not the disease itself.

We still have no idea what the long term effects of this disease are, or how they depend on severity.

We don’t know an infinite number of things. You can’t make decisions based on unknowns. You have to make decision based of evidence, not the lack of evidence.

Re: Parents are 5X as Worried about Infection and School than Work and Paying Bills

#99

Post by triceratops »

brink wrote: post #61
gibrown wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plus we know nothing about the long term health consequences. Kids may not be dying at a high rate but they may suffer long term heart, lung, or organ damage. It feels like everyone is just assuming that if it isn’t death then it is fine. Just because you survive something doesn’t make you stronger.

> Plus we know nothing about the long term health consequences. I'm not anti-vax, but anti-vaxers use this same tactic; they use ambiguity to breed fear against vaccines. I get that some unknowns are dangerous, but there has to be a limit, right? We can't be afraid of everything we don't know.

Most vaccines have been in use for years, sometimes decades. They're given nearly universally. We've had ample time and sample size to uncover their dangers (if any). Covid hasn't even been around for a year. The two situations are nothing alike.

Re: Parents are 5X as Worried about Infection and School than Work and Paying Bills

#100

Post by WalterBright »

Eric_WVGG wrote: post #60
miketery wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's all about risk. Humans are terrible at understanding probability. There must be a threshold where it becomes ok to take on the risk (e.g. driving a car everyday for most Americans). So where is that threshold? Another way to think about it is, what do we do if we learn that the pandemic will not end for the next 10 years? What activities do we allow and under what new mode of operation / conditions? It might be…

I think this is textbook confirmation bias. When you have two seemingly equivalent theories (the threat of C-19 is serious vs overblown), you select the one that is more convenient for your worldview. Mr. and Mrs. Applecart both have full-time jobs and four children; they don't have time to home-school and wouldn't know how if they did. Their lives would be more functional if the threat is overblown, so they believe…

> yes, I know, confirmation bias cuts both ways

Indeed. I suspect people who are adamant for more aggressive lockdowns are those who have good WFH options and good job security.

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