Comment by katmannthree | Hacker News Reader

Comment by katmannthree | Hacker News Reader

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I think this is a terrific example of normalcy bias, a "tendency for people to believe that things will always function the way they normally have functioned and therefore to underestimate both the likelihood of a disaster and its possible effects"[0].

China has provided roughly a month's advance warning on how this virus plays out in terms of infectivity and severity (~20% of cases are serious / require medical attention, ~5% are critical, and ~2% are fatal).

People prefer to believe that media coverage of the effects in China are fearmongering or even a political "hoax"[1], that it will peter out with warmer weather (it's spread quite quickly in Singapore which is hot and humid at the moment), and that because it's possible to misuse masks and because they don't provide complete protection by themselves they're useless and should be left for healthcare workers[2].

The kind of critical thinking that helps you prepare for things like this seems to be in short supply. Last week people thought I was silly for stocking up on dried goods and essentials, this week every store around me is sold out of hand sanitizer, clorox wipes, and isopropanol.

[0]: Wikipedia, right now

[1]: The US president, at a rally a couple of days ago

[2]: The US surgeon general's twitter page, a couple of days ago

In Italy at the moment the data is far worse.

We have a total of 2263 currently infected people of which 1000 with few symptoms, 1034 hospitalized and another 229 under emergency treatments [0]

If the number of infected keeps growing (+400 today) and the percentage of hospitalized remains the same, hospitals will have serious problems very soon

[0] https://www.ansa.it/sito/notizie/cronaca/2020/03/03/coronavi...

The virus is certainly quite concerning, but those numbers are misleading. Italy almost certainly has far more than 2263 infected cases of covid-19. 2263 is just the number of individuals that sought medical attention, were given the test, and tested positive.

The big unknown is how many of those that are infected do not even seek medical attention (or were not administered the test). For instance, children appear to show either mild or no symptoms when infected.

Additionaly, speaking for myself, if I came down with something, with mild flu like symptoms, I wouldn't really be going to the hospital. I'd just take some over the counter medicine and power through. I would only seek medical attention if symptoms became severe. It stands to reason that this is how most people would be expected to behave. Therefore, people with severe symptoms would be much more likely to get medical attention, and therefore be tested, and to be hospitalized, or require emergency treatments.. making the stats look a lot worse than they are.

>2263 is just the number of individuals that sought medical attention, were given the test, and tested positive.

My understanding was until recently Italy was testing people that were asymptomatic but since that got them in trouble by making their situation look worse than other countries they have brought their behavior in line with these other countries.

Don't they test close contacts of cases? So even if not all of the cases are severe, the severe cases will discover a lot of the more mild cases by proxy.

But I guess the incubation period is so long that those more mild cases may resolve before they can be tested.

Italy has been running a lot of tests. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/covid-19-testing/

I think that includes many tests on people who were simply exposed to it somehow, in order to try and stop the spread.

I really don't get the seeming dismissal of masks as a tool to contain spread. I understand that there's a shortage and healthcare workers are the priority (as they should be), but it seems to me that in theory the absolute fastest way to contain this would be to get everyone on the planet wearing masks for a month or two.

I keep seeing statements to the effect of "a mask only helps if you're already sick", but we don't know who's sick and who isn't! The only way to ensure all the sick people are wearing masks is to get everyone wearing masks. But perhaps it isn't possible to ramp up production fast enough to make this realistic?

You can't ramp production that fast, especially since so many factories moved to China. So given a limited resource, you have to discourage people from buying out all the supply so you can preserve your healthcare capability of the medical staff. I would guess it's a judgement call that ensuring medical personnel have masks is a greater epidemic fighting effect relative to the epidemic reduction in casual people wearing masks.

You can always publicise an alternate policy when the mask supply does increase later..

> get everyone on the planet wearing masks for a month or two.

There aren't enough to go around, and they need to be changed after something like 2 hours - or is it 4?

It's easier to just keep people isolated, I guess.

Masks are dangerous if worn improperly. They can create a warm moist environment on your face that promotes microbial growth. Also, the mask itself can get infected. Disposable masks aren't built to he reused and cleaned, so you can end up transferring the infection around on your mask if you reuse a disposable. Finally, the idea that masks reduce touching your face might be false, it's possible something itchy and irritating like a mask caused people to touch their faces more.

The great thing about badly fitting masks is people wearing them tend to touch their face a lot more.

Afaik the primary method of transmission is believed to be saliva droplets in the air, expelled via talking, sneezing, or coughing. I think even a badly fitting mask would cut this drastically?

Washing hands, avoiding touching your face, and other measures like these mainly help with what seems to be a far less common vector of transmission via surfaces and physical contact, where the virus only remains active for a very short time.

You have it backwards. Droplets on surfaces are the primary transmission mechanism. The virus can survive on surfaces for hours. People then touch surfaces with their hands then touch their faces.

Droplets in the air are a transmission mechanism but only for short range (3-6 feet) and only a danger from people who cough or sneeze on you. Respirators are effective at stopping that transmission but they are most useful for people treating the sick. But they aren't effective if worn improperly. For most people, avoiding the sick is enough.

Surgical masks are useful for the sick to keep cough and sneeze droplets from spreading. They are also useful to keep people from touching their face.

Just for completion.

The current understanding is that the transmission mechanisms for Covid-19 are:

1. Contact 2. Droplets (particles > 20 microns), AND 3. Aerosol (particles < 5/10 microns)

The last one - Aerosol transmission - really adds to why this virus is so infectious.

Unlike balistic droplets, an aerosol plume can stay in a room for a very long time after someone coughs or sneezes. An aerosol plume can stay in the air long after someone flushes fecal matter down a toilet.

As a comparison aerosol transmission is what makes tuberculosis and measle so challenging in terms of containment and infection rate.

Thanks for this perspective, but this conflicts with other info I'm seeing. It's hard to know what to believe--do you have any good sources supporting this?

For example, a quick google of "how does coronavirus spread" brings up this article as the top result: https://www.livescience.com/how-coronavirus-spreads.html

It says:

"The new coronavirus spreads mostly through person-to-person contact within about a 6-foot (1.8 meters) radius, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). People with COVID-19, which is the disease caused by the coronavirus, spread viral particles through coughing and sneezing. The particles can land in the mouths or noses of those nearby.

It might also be possible to catch SARS-CoV-2 by touching a surface where the virus has recently landed and then touching one's mouth, nose or eyes, but CDC officials believe this method of transmission is less common."

Even a non-surgical or home-made mask is better than no mask at all.

> The kind of critical thinking that helps you prepare for things like this seems to be in short supply. Last week people thought I was silly for stocking up on dried goods and essentials, this week every store around me is sold out of hand sanitizer, clorox wipes, and isopropanol.

It is still silly to stock up things you will most probably not need, and if you do, can still get if people like you would not unnecessarily stock up on them.

Trump did not call COVID-19 a hoax.

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-coronavirus-rally-re...

He did not.

However his rhetorical style is to put emotionally laden words in close conjunction and then repeat them over and over again. People therefore walk away with an emotional message that does not necessarily logically follow from any facts that they were given.

At an emotional level, he is associating COVID-19, Democrats and hoax. With the message that everything that Democrats say is a hoax, including what they say about COVID-19.

Did you read the article you linked? He inferred that the media coverage is fearmongering and an attempt to hurt him. He specifically used the word hoax. He didn't call the virus a hoax, he called the coverage and criticism of the US's handling and response to the outbreak a hoax.

From the page you linked: "During a Feb. 28, 2020, campaign rally in South Carolina, President Donald Trump likened the Democrats' criticism of his administration's response to the new coronavirus outbreak to their efforts to impeach him, saying "this is their new hoax." During the speech he also seemed to downplay the severity of the outbreak, comparing it to the common flu."

A transcript of his exact words at the rally: "Now the Democrats are politicizing the coronavirus. You know that, right? Coronavirus. They’re politicizing it. We did one of the great jobs. You say, ‘How’s President Trump doing?’ They go, ‘Oh, not good, not good.’ They have no clue. They don’t have any clue. They can’t even count their votes in Iowa, they can’t even count. No they can’t. They can’t count their votes.

One of my people came up to me and said, ‘Mr. President, they tried to beat you on Russia, Russia, Russia. That didn’t work out too well. They couldn’t do it. They tried the impeachment hoax. That was on a perfect conversation. They tried anything, they tried it over and over, they’ve been doing it since you got in. It’s all turning, they lost, it’s all turning. Think of it. Think of it. And this is their new hoax."

> He didn't call the virus a hoax, he called the coverage and criticism of the US's handling and response to the outbreak a hoax.

How does this differ from the person you responded to who said, "Trump did not call COVID-19 a hoax"?

I never said he called the virus itself a hoax. He calls _reporting on COVID-19 and criticism of the US response_ a hoax intended to discredit him, and that is backed up by the quotes from the snopes article the other commenter linked.

Yeah, agreed, the parent phrasing definitely confused me. First 3 sentences make it seem like he is trying to head-on rebut the comment he is replying to, and then the last sentences of the 1st paragraph just reiterate and expand on what the grandparent comment said and agree with it. While what the parent said makes sense, reading it definitely threw me off a bit.

But katmannthree didn't say "Trump called COVID-19 a hoax". So airstrike is arguing a strawman and katmannthree is simply reiterating what he originally said with quotes from the primary sources.

If he doesn't want people misinterpreting his statements and spreading fake news, he should stop spreading fake news himself first.

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