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Comment by JPKab | Hacker News Reader

"The lockdown and resulting economic damage is much less an effort of state enforcement than it is individuals being (correctly) terrified to engage in commerce unless absolutely necessary."

What makes you so sure that average people should be CORRECTLY terrified of this virus?

If I'm in a high-risk category, I get it. But what about others? Are the rates of severe infection remotely high in people who aren't elderly, immuno-compromised, or with underlying conditions?

Keep in mind, the advice on this SHOULD be different depending on where you are. NYC? Sure, be incredibly vigilant. Nebraska? Probably not a big deal.

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Considering that Nebraska is turning into a hotspot, you might want to reconsider your last statement.

Source for Nebraska turning into a hotspot?

Looking at all the trackers I have bookmarked I'm not seeing much of an indication of this. Yes, confirmed cases seem to be up in the last week, but that seems to track with increased testing (a good thing). The rate of positives is showing a decline over the same time period.

More indicative of an outbreak would be increased hospitalizations or deaths. Hospital bed usage has been at the same level since mid April, and deaths have been at a steady 1 to 3 per day since the end of April.

Sources:

https://coronavirus.1point3acres.com/en/test?state=NE

https://covid19.healthdata.org/united-states-of-america/nebr...

https://infection2020.com/#

https://covid19-projections.com/us-ne

and

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/nebraska-coronav...

are the two I count on the most. I don't really trust any of the confirmed case counts to matter much since testing isn't consistent. In most parts of the state you can't get tested unless you're exhibiting symptoms.

One of the local hospitals reported that they're currently at 50% ICU capacity just with COVID-19 patients.

Nebraska's not a hot spot. Another poster put data and references down supporting this.

The reason you have a few hot spots WITHIN Nebraska is due to 4 different meat processing plants in 4 different counties. The worst hit county, Dakota County, is home to a massive Tyson facility.

And explain to me why this doesn't make Nebraska a hotspot?

Do those workers magically teleport elsewhere after work? Do they not go to the grocery? Do some of them go to church? Do they not wind up in the local hospital?

You don't just ignore inconvenient data.

I think it's a simple fact that these are localized infections. The reason meat processing facilities have been hot spots has to do with close quarters combined with cold temperatures. When the employees leave those buildings they're not interacting with the general public in refrigerated facilities.

The point I'm making is that if this was a dispersed infection that was spreading through normal community interactions it would be much worse and harder to contain than if it's at a few facilities..

It's almost like depending on where you are and what the data says you should have a different action to optimize the outcome... And that's the point. This one size fits all everybody act like we live in Wuhan isn't working well.

>What makes you so sure that average people should be CORRECTLY terrified of this virus?

50% of Asymptomatic and 80% of Symptomatic cases on the Diamond Princess had ground glass opacity on CT scans. Usually indicates irreversible lung damage. Care to gamble on decreased lung capacity for the rest of your life?

https://pubs.rsna.org/doi/10.1148/ryct.2020200110

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