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Comment by ryankemper | Hacker News Reader

I think it totally makes sense why you would feel that way.

I do want to mention that we know that somewhere between 25-50% of COVID-19 cases appear to be entirely asymptomatic (as opposed to pre-symptomatic). So almost half of people who get it won't even realize it, of those with symptoms, only a small fraction will go on to experience the serious respiratory issues that characterize COVID-19.

So it makes sense that you know first-hand how horrible breathing problems are. But I just wanted to be clear that, it's actually not irrational for someone to not want to stay inside for months to avoid a disease that in their specific case would almost certainly be mild. It just goes into what a person's priors are.

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For sure and to be completely clear, I don't want to stay inside, I just think it's the most responsible move.

Like you said though it comes down to priors, and I'll add risk tolerance, and some pro-social behavior (I won't risk my neighbor even if it might be fine for me). I work in startups and have a few failed companies under my belt my risk tolerance in business is very high but not with health, you read that as 25-50% of cases are asymptomatic and an even smaller percent develop the very horrible symptoms, I read that as there is a 75%-50% chance I'd be symptomatic and a non 0 chance I'd be seriously ill with symptoms I'm already averse to through experience with them even though I'm otherwise young and healthy.

Edit: I'll add in, besides the above my biggest motivator for staying inside is that even if I was fine, to me its untenable to potentially spread it to someone who has a higher chance of not being fine through no fault of their own.

> we know that somewhere between 25-50% of COVID-19 cases appear to be entirely asymptomatic (as opposed to pre-symptomatic).

Which is not a big number at all, at least, not big enough to suggest that infecting more people is a solution. Considering that the chances to have symptoms and die rise exponentially with age, the estimated 25-50% are young and lucky ones. Still, it is known that even kids (unlucky, i.e. not in great proportion) do die:

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/11576622/uk-death-toll-rises-a...

"Six-week-old baby dies of coronavirus as UK death toll hits 31,241 after 626 more killed"

France, March:

https://www.france24.com/en/20200327-16-year-old-girl-become...

"16-year-old girl becomes France’s youngest coronavirus victim"

etc.

By the way, from the older investigations about how people self-report their respiratory illnesses, it is already known that some significant percentage would not report anything and when asked claim not to have any symptoms even when they demonstrably do have them.

Even now, in the middle of coronavirus pandemics, there are people who "become used" to less oxygen in their blood, and behave as "not ill" even as their body becomes permanently damaged by the low concentration of the oxygen destroying their tissues.

So "asymptomatic" in the sense "the patient or the person filling up the questionnaire didn't feel being ill" is totally different from "the doctors didn't find any symptoms."

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