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Comment by dchyrdvh | Hacker News Reader

With 95% infected not showing any symptoms, contact tracing is pointless, as it will be about tracing contacts of those few severely ill. With this in mind, contact tracing is really just a way to sell survelliance to people and then seal it in laws.

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But it is more 5-40% of infected that don't show any symptoms. It is also not clear how infectious people that don't show symptoms are.

They are doing well. The symptoms are the same as mild flu or allergy, and the effects are nearly non existent except in already old and sick. If half of infected got severe complications, it would be a blood bath with military on the streets already.

Average life expectancy based on age and comorbidities of the people who die is around 10-13 years. That is not an insignificant lifetime reduction.

0.5%-2% of the people who get it, die. That is much worse than the flu that kills 0.04-0.1% of the infected. The flu itself is already pretty deadly and this is much deadlier.

But it's not deadly enough to reverse the climate change. Humans are smart animals: they will adopt to the virus real quick, restart the dirty economy machine, get their previous life expectancy back and suffocate in dirty air, water and unbearable weather. But they will die on their terms, with pride and dignity.

> With 95% infected not showing any symptoms

Got a source for that? I believe I've read it's somewhere closer to 50%.

The source is a very simple observation that if every 5th New Yorker has antibodies, half of those with symptoms would be noticeable.

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