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Comment by ggffryuuj | Hacker News Reader

I just finished listening to a veteran virologist give a 2 hour interview. It’s being blown way out of proportion. Nobody under the age of 9 has died, period. Under the age of 30 your mortality probability is vanishingly small. It’s only a threat to people who have a compromised immune system because of age, diabetes or something like that. This is nothing like the Spanish flu. Unlike influenza viruses, these viruses don’t mutate in a way that would cause their recurrence every year. The chances of a more deadly strain popping up are extremely small.

I listened to trump address the nation in the rose garden live today. The npr correspondent confidently said that this virus “isn’t going away.” It’s a flat out lie and hysteria.

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Would love to see your sources. I’m shocked there are still people like you claiming this is all an overreaction while the smart folk are all bracing for impact.

You gotta get it together man, this is bigger than anything you’ve ever seen in your life. If we’re very lucky it’ll be bad in the coming weeks and months, if we’re not it’ll be much much worse.

I would love to see a source that contradicts what I said. My source is the testimony of a virologist with 40 years of experience and other qualified people. I’m sorry to be blunt but there simply isn’t anything to brace for. The worst case scenario is that a very small number of people die before herd immunity slows the spread to nothing, after which the virus will basically disappear probably before we even have a vaccine for it. That’s what happened with Zika and some others. That’s what’s going to happen here. The number of people who die will be similar to deaths from the flu, car accidents and other things. Can you offer a single substantive counter argument to anything I’ve said? I will enjoy reading it.

" I’m sorry to be blunt but there simply isn’t anything to brace for."

This is appallingly wrong.

If you're commenting here on HN and referring to legit medical sources, then you're also smart enough to see what has happened in Wuhan and Italy where hospitals are completely overwhelmed, where triaging is leaving many people without any care. Over 65? Comorbidities? Sorry, 'just die' or hopefully not, is the medical response because they are overwhelmed.

That under 30 are less likely to die is irrelevant when most of the population is >50 and the rate of spread, the severity of cases is such that health services are completely overwhelmed.

Hospitals around the world are facing 'Denial of Service' attacks and everything is crumbling.

The way to make this survivable is to control the spread of the disease so as to make care available and give enough time for rapid trials etc..

"The worst case scenario is that a very small number of people die before herd immunity slows the spread to nothing"

No! The 'worst-case scenario' is 10's of millions of infected, (possibly over 100 million in the US), 1000-to-1 infected to ventilator ratio, total and complete overwhelming of US medical services, several million dead, 10's of millions out of work and isolated for many weeks, unable to work, contribute, teach, provide medical services, run the 'toilet paper factory', etc..

Literally the worst disaster in US history - worse than WW2 or the Civil War (~2% death rate) in terms of domestic turbulence.

Now - add in how many people are going to die from 'regular things' because the healthcare system is null.

Appalling. That’s so funny. The morbidity rate is far less than 3%. Most people who get it probably don’t even realize they have it which makes the numbers look worse than they are. Look I’m not saying nothing should be done. If nothing were done the. We might see something that vaguely resembles what you are describing. If people wouldn’t panic and if antibiotics were prescribed remotely and if people did a few basic things like wash their hands and stay at home if they have a preexisting medical condition, then basically nothing would happen. The only one we don’t have is a lack of panic. People are trying to see their doctors and get tests while they have no symptoms. I’m sorry man but you’re wrong this time.

>>> "We might see something that vaguely resembles what you are describing."

No, there's a 100% chance we will see it if we don't take measures. Watch the news from Wuhan, Italy - it's apoplectic. It's really bad, and if they didn't shut everything down, it would be a zombie movie.

We know that 'shutting things down' works because in China, the virus is contained, at least for now and medical facilities are starting to be able to cope.

>>> "The morbidity rate is far less than 3%"

Source? Because every credible source and the data coming out of various countries puts the rate at somewhere near 3%, not 'far less than' 3%. Some facts [1]

Even a 1.5% death rate is existentially problematic, we're still talking millions of people dead.

Moreover, if you bother to look at the data, you'll see that morbidity rates are a function of access to care, meaning that when Hospitals are 'overwhelmed' - people die at much greater rates. In Italy, it's 5%.

But there's a bigger issue: 20% of people who get it requires specific medical intervention, and at least 5% of them 'intensive care'. COVID is totally overwhelming medical the medical system in 100% of the areas wherein the contagion has let loose; people getting zero treatment, medical staff getting infected, people dying in the hallways, in their homes.

FYI 20% of 330M Americans is 66M people, only a fraction of whom need to be infected for 'zombie apocalypse' in the Hospitals, again: see Italy, Wuhan for what will happen.

>>> Antibiotics?? Antibiotics are not part of this equation.

>>> "and if people did a few basic things like wash their hands and stay at home if they have a preexisting medical condition, then basically nothing would happen. "

No - absolutely not. Having a few people 'wash their hands' and having the elderly 'stay home' will do very little to quash the pandemic.

The evidence from other countries is writ large, the variables are established: extensive testing, restricted travel, social distancing, isolation for any sick person, aggressive operational preparation by medical staff, keeping social order, restriction on large scale events etc. etc..

This is the 'new normal' for at least a few months.

[1] https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-act-today-or-peop...

Antibiotics don't work for viruses!

because the hospitals could become overloaded, that means a lot more people with other medical problems would be getting triaged than just coronavirus. not only that but this exponential curve can be blunted saving thousands of lives, including your own elderly acquaintances.

It'd be super great if you'd cite your source. Like... a name? A link?

https://youtu.be/WWNuDT4t-TM

And even though this guy destroys all of your panic driven assumptions and ideas, you probably won’t upvote me will you?

> Unlike influenza viruses, these viruses don’t mutate in a way that would cause their recurrence every year.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_coronavirus_OC43

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_coronavirus_229E

Both of these viruses do exactly that. They're among the many that give us colds.

"Coronaviruses have a worldwide distribution, causing 10–15% of common cold cases. Infections show a seasonal pattern with most cases occurring in the winter months."

Consider the possibility that your source is full of it. It happens to the best: https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Nobel_disease

"It’s only a threat to people who have a compromised immune system because of age, diabetes or something like that."

Yeah forget those people.

I would love to see you link/source.

I have watched https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3URhJx0NSw&t=2357s with Michael Osterholm as guest. This is not a flat out lie.

I saw that too. He isn’t a virologist and also is hawking his book. And he’s not very articulate or dispassionate. And he still hasn’t contradicted me in any way. Not unambiguously.

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