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Comment by DyslexicAtheist | Hacker News Reader

one of my submissions about the restaurants and service industry yesterday[1] got flagged several times and it puzzled me tbh.

Covid19 is being aggressively framed by the political parties and media (across the world not just US) to divide the public into camps of "believers" and "non-believers". How sensitive people get about the topic (of COVID19) is almost frightening because this isn't any more about a pandemic but whether what somebody who has an opinion signals about it. People who believe in the danger are quickly labeled liberals/democrat, or conservative if they don't believe in the danger. This. Is. Nuts!

There is a real problem at our door. And it's not chickenshit such as a few people "believing in chemtrails" or that "evolution is a hoax", but whether this virus and the news around it are actually real.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22519125

View on HN

This is only temporary. When the coronavirus starts knocking on your door, everybody is a believer.

As they say

"ignorance is bliss"

it seems we're witnessing a strange situation, where a large part of society is going through the "5 stages of grief" collectively, not all at once but with individuals distributed across the stages.

For me, it is much more complex and nuanced. The reason why I flagged the occasional COVID-19 related staroy was two-fold: there was the story itself, usually they tend to be weak on facts, numbers and science and heavy on assumptions, unfounded opinion. And then were the comments, even on HN they had an uncomfortable tendency to rely on Youtube videos and the like. The underlying message tended to be "Chinese authorties are lying, it is much worse and it will spread everywhere because there is no protection and the WHO / CDC tc. don't know what they are talking about". Exactly the one thing we don't need, panic and fear mongering.

On the other hand you had the "it will just be a flu". Both sides are wrong. But it is impossible to get through with facts. Also, the comments and posts referencing the WHO and so on were clearly the minority.

SO, if you ask me the online marketing of the WHO sucks. I just had the illusion that a site like HN could, you know, help to do something against the "we are all gonna die" panic.

Turned not to be the case. Hence the flagging. And as a final note, I simply read one too much comments from programmers who thought to have built a model of the epidemic over the weekend, that was so much better than anything the true experts came up with, because he knew how to code. But nobody, neither Google or Facebook nor individuals came forward with a plan or an idea how to get stuff from the CDC / WHO / Johns Hopkins and the like on the very top of Googl results and Youtube. And I have the suspicion that there a some people on HN who have a rather good idea how that could be done.

Not sure how you can say both sides are wrong. It is now spreading widely outside of China and most of the west is very much not ready.

Yeah, it has spread to most countries by now. Thing is, Italy had the virus in the wild since January from what I understood. What ever that tells us about it.

Regarding readiness, I have the impression that we are pretty prepared by now., Europe at least, o idea how things are in the US or Canada. Measures are in place to slow the spreading of the virus, known cases are quaratined one way or the other. And besides some nut jobs starting to hord pasta and toilette paper the supply situation in Germany seems to be rather good so far.

Until the WHO or CDC or other eqivalent bodies aren't crying out that these measures aren't enough I consider them to be enough. I'm raher sure, so, that I absolutely don't listen to any politicians or other pulic functionaries talking pubicly about it.

Can you reference any epidemiologist that states that we're ready for the effects of the pandemic? I haven't seen any proof of that.

I didn't hear any alarmist outcries coming form, say, the WHO. Just that precautions and countermeasures need to be taken. For me that's good enough.

Argably, you will always find one to go on TV an tell the opposite story. Fear sells, and even experts are doing fnny things to get their 15 minutes of fame. Maybe my biggest critique I have, that scientists seem to be less aliged regarding messaging than they are for climate change.

If you want an expert opinion, it's better not to watch WHO or the television.

University lectures seem less opinionated, especially EPFL in Switzerland. The main message he has, that the oppportunity window for containing the virus closed in the last few weeks, and now it's all about mitigation, so that it doesn't overwhelm the health system.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3RQBtA4dK9s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u0cjSnAynGs

Sadly I saw some bias even in the Harvard talk when speaking about masks: saying that medical workers need them and that they don't work well against the virus anyways, so people shouldn't buy them is a contradictory statement.

The truth is that it's a locally wise decision to buy N95 / N100 masks for partial protection, at the same time it's globally a bad decision for mitigating the virus, as health workers need them more.

Personally, I like the WHO stuff. Especially since it's more or less the primary source. They suck so hard on messaging so. They don't explain the way how there numbers are calculated, they don't educate on the assumptions and the methodology. They aren't using online channels to get their information out. I would have thought they learned these lessons during SARS, MERS, bird and swine flu, Ebola. Apparently not.

And in that absence of hard facts all kind of theories strive. Usually entertained by amateurs in the particular field. The WHO should be out there, every day, every hour. With all experts on cable news, I think the slots would be there.

And thanks for sharing these links!

The WHO predicted that 150 million people would be killed by avian flu [1]. Nothing happened. They predicted 750,000 people would die in the UK, it was more like 200. For swine flu it was minimum possible deaths of 11k but up to 70k. It was more like 400. They got upset when people wouldn't use their case fatality rates which turned out very wrong.

Over half a million people died of flu related deaths last year. Don't recall reading a single news article about it

1, https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/emergency...

2, https://jech.bmj.com/content/62/6/555.abstract

I don't think it's so hard to understand why users would flag that. The title is baity, and the top subthread is a generic discussion about the virtues of Canada.

> Covid19 is being aggressively framed by the political parties and media (across the world not just US) to divide the public into camps of "believers" and "non-believers"

This is absolutely untrue anywhere that I visit. There's literally one entity trying to downplay the risks, and it's the Trump Administration -- and it's not even all of it! Members of the administration are "believers" as you put it.

No serious person thinks this is a hoax.

There’s a wide gulf between “this is a hoax” and “you know, this isn’t totally unprecedented and I think some of these measures are ill-considered over-reactions”.

Specifically, I think the idea that this can be “contained” by political boundaries drawn on maps is utterly ridiculous. (I’m in favor of social distancing and trying to make the inevitable pandemic take longer, but somehow that gets spun into fantasies of containment.)

100% agree. But voicing the idea that some of the actions being taken might be overreactions gets very strong reactions about "burying your head in the sand" or "being in denial".

The worst part is that after it's blown over, the same people will be saying how we dodged a bullet and it would have been a lot worse if the extreme measures hadn't been taken, with no self-reflection over which measures worked and which made no difference (and were actively harmful in other ways, like economic damage - which can have a direct and significant impact on people's lives).

It's not just the Trump administration. Plenty of the people in my social networks who lean left believe it's "just a flu" or "not that bad" and "overblown"

I have the impression the downplaying is the major trend in Europe as well, so no, it’s not something limited to the Trump administration.

It is telling that Taiwan, which is super close geographically and culturally to China has now less cases than Italia, France and Germany. I’ve been there at the end of January when the thing started to be on TV and the difference in gov and public reaction with my country is huge.

Taiwan: 99% people outside wearing masks starting from the first days, government putting money to open a new mask factory, mask rationing so that they are available with healthcare card, some people limiting their move, people putting themselves in quarantine when coming back from China.

France: every media and the government saying there is no problem for more than a month, even when a close European country closed some schools. People going their live as usual even in regions with lot of cases. No quarantine, no border control. My family reaction: the virus is overrated, complaining about events cancelled (the trend just started this week), goes to public events even now.

Japan: government and people actions in-between West and East. Japan handled the ship semi-seriously, yet started taking other measures really lately. People bought every masks and toilet paper rolls out there, government did nothing so that we can each have some. Gel available at most shop or public place. Some information here or there about the importance of washing hands.

As someone in Taiwan, I have appreciated the 'over reaction.' Masks are still on 80% of the people riding public transport even though cases have hardly budged in weeks. What people don't get is even if you're young and just get sick, it's possible this will cause long lasting respiratory issues like SARs did. Why risks that just you can enjoy a one off public event?

Haha, in Germany it is the other way round. Lets simply say, people who liked Obama and dislike Trump are rather _not_ afraid of the virus.

Why would we simply say that? I’m in Germany and I honestly have no idea what you’re talking about.

Not disagreeing with you, but there is a real difference between say the way Bangkok and Munich are treating it (I have recently been in Bangkok, now in Munich). In Bangkok 90%+ of people are walking around with masks (a combination of P2/N95 and surgical masks), hand sanitizer at the door of every shopping center. Security guards using temperature guns on everyone that enters a building.

I went for a massage and the receptionist used a temperature gun on me.

Here in Munich, it's invisible, except for a whole bunch of people that are working from home. Both are fairly close to hotspots, and yet there are very different behaviors.

Exactly, the German mainstream/government mainly is "no fear", and the opposition naturally criticizes that the wrong decisions have been made, and that the state is not ready.

At the same time, the German mainstream/government criticizes the Trump presidency.

All the same seems to happen in the USA, however the other way round: again, the opposition bolsters fear and criticizes the government for not being ready. However the opposition=democrats, hence the fearful criticize Trump at the same time.

Conclusion:

* the Trump critics in the USA overstate the risk of SARS-CoV2

* the Trump critics in Germany downstate the risk SARS-CoV2

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