Hacker News Reader

It is weird to me to see people treating the 6ft like a hard barrier rather than a probabilistic guideline.

People don't understand the underlying mechanisms and assumptions that lead to the rule of thumb being what it is so they follow the rule of thumb religiously as if it guarantees everything will turn out alright.

If you look you'll see this behavior across a wide range of issues.

Almost any societal level health policy, about breast cancer screening, colonoscopy recommendations, or whatever... people misunderstand all the time and announce "well that's because it's not effective under X circumstance".

It's always hard to explain, and then after explaining the probability stuff ... you get to explain that it is the probability ... that we know of.

For anyone who wants hard facts on COVID-19... science will tell us in 2 or 3 years I suspect.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com