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Comment by clairity | Hacker News Reader

700K per year. ok let's let the elephant out of the bag:

why haven't we been in lockdown every year until this deadly scourge has been exterminated?

and no, it's not that the current pandemic was more uncertain. even by january/february, it was clearly less contagious and deadly than the 1918 flu. we had good bounds on potential trajectory by early march, when many lockdowns were being implemented.

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Umm, for one thing because going into lockdown wouldn’t do anything to prevent death by mosquito?

You do know that mosquitoes have wings and can move from place to place without humans right?

you know that the most effective preventative for mosquito bites are mosquito nets, like staying inside, with screens on your windows and doors, right?

The lockdown isn't intended to protect the people staying inside, although that certainly helps; it's designed to protect everyone who they'd otherwise be infecting unknowingly.

And people who live in areas where malaria is common do use nets and screens as much as possible. Unlike many people in western countries though, they don't have the luxury of locking themselves down indefinitely. Nor do they have the same expectation that the measures would only need to be temporary.

> And people who live in areas where malaria is common do use nets and screens as much as possible.

Ehh, not exactly. I used to live in Africa, parts where there were tstsi flies and mosquitos. Despite being given nets by the Gates foundation, people rarely used them. Well, some used them as hair nets, others through them away because their pastors convinced them their purpose was to sterilize the African people, etc etc.

So you dont need a lockdown. You simply need mosquito nets.

So when you have a cheap solution that works, why would you want to do something expensive that does not even work any better than the cheap solution?

Other than making a nonsensical ideological statement, that is.

even with mosquito nets that we've had for centuries, possibly millenia, we're still losing 700K+ per year, so the cheap solution (free, in many cases) isn't working.

covid is trending toward the same death rate. therefore, we should lock down against mosquitos to be consistent.

i get it, cognitive dissonance sucks, but "nonsensical ideologies" indulge in the panic and anxiety rather than fortifying your resolve against the hysteria. your fear is someone else's power.

> why haven't we been in lockdown every year until this deadly scourge has been exterminated?

Probably because 700k/year is globally, while the US alone has suffered 100k deaths in 3 months.

currently ~350K global deaths for covid, in 6 months, since december.

In about 3 months. For a disease that was growing exponentially before action was taken and even now is only just stopped growing in countries where action was taken.

And no mosquito outbreak has caused entire hospital systems to collapse in various parts of the world.

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/health_policy/influenza-and-pn...

Your reasoning is flawed. Mosquito bites don't silently and rapidly spread through human populations via close contact. If I get bit by a mosquito and walk into a crowded bar the patrons within are not at risk of becoming infected. Not true with COVID.

Where I live we're concurrently experiencing, besides COVID19, a dengue fever outbreak. Dengue fever is spread by mosquitoes -- specifically, Aedes Aegypti.

Dengue is way more serious than COVID19. Particularly worrisome, having had dengue makes subsequent reinfections more life-threatening, not less.

There are ways to eradicate the mosquito -- mainly getting rid of small clear water containers near/within your home, such as vases and empty plant pots -- but we still don't do it until it's too late and becomes a problem. A single neighbor who doesn't do this endangers the whole block. And the authorities don't give a fuck. It's infuriating, really.

So to rephrase your question, why don't we do something about it? It's way more actionable than COVID19 (though lockdowns don't work for the reasons others told you). So who knows?

yeah, that's the kind of thing that's absolutely infuriating relative to the panic and paranoia we're seeing with this pandemic just because it's novel.

> we still don't do it until it's too late and becomes a problem. A single neighbor who doesn't do this endangers the whole block. And the authorities don't give a fuck. It's infuriating, really.

You seem to be strangely unaware of the large amount of money which has been spent for decades on mosquito control by individuals and all levels of government. There are widespread control campaigns, active research into developing new weapons (e.g. traps which are effective against tiger mosquitoes), and community awareness to get more people involved with habitat control and using things like bed nets.

I mean, does this sound like not doing something?

https://www.epa.gov/mosquitocontrol/success-mosquito-control...

Several companies have been working for years on genetic modifications to disrupt mosquito spread:

https://e360.yale.edu/features/genetically_modified_mosquito...

> You seem to be strangely unaware of the large amount of money which has been spent for decades on mosquito control by individuals and all levels of government.

Which government are you talking about? I don't live in the US and you linked to EPA and Yale. I can tell you my government is doing very little to combat dengue fever, and when they do, it's too little, too late.

> widespread control campaigns [...] community awareness

There's very little of that. And one careless neighbor effectively endangers the whole apartment block.

I'm of the impression that in March and perhaps even in April "experts" (whoever they are) thought the US alone could see death tolls in the millions?

Without a lockdown, it’s still possible. Latest estimates are 0.5-1 percent fatality rate, which maps to 2-3 million people here in the US, and if everyone got ill in a short succession, because it is very contagious, the death toll would certainly be higher.

Recent birthday party, 20 people, every single one caught the disease.

The 0.5-1% fatality rate would be a LOT higher if all those people did fall sick at the same time.

Hospital systems would collapse because of the number of sick people. Doctors and nurses would be missing because they would almost all likely fall sick.

And people who would not die of COVID would die of other stuff because healthcare systems would have collapsed.

This is what happened in Italy. This is what was happening in NYC for a few days at its worst. This is what is about to happen in Brazil and possibly in India.

> Latest estimates are 0.5-1 percent fatality rate

I read just a couple of days ago that the IFR (infection fatality rate) is only ~0.25%-0.3%? Still ~four times higher than that of the flu, but not ten times greater.

yes, IFR was trending toward 0.2-0.3% even in march, and with time it's only become more likely that those are the bounds. flu averages around 0.1% IFR, so likely 2-3X as deadly.

The current CDC "best estimate" is ~0.4%, assuming an R0 of 2.5, with estimates of ~0.2% if the R0 is actual ~2 in the US and ~1% if the R0 is actually 3.

Pretty sure that 0.4% is "among people who develop symptoms" and 35% of infections are asymptomatic. So 0.4% of 65% of infections, or ~0.26% of infections.

[0]: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/planning-scena...

Thanks for the correction; everyone else, ignore what I wrote one post up.

(It's a shame HN doesn't support strike-through; that is my preferred way to retract a post without just deleting it in shame.)

No problem. This stuff is all very nuanced and rapidly changing. It's hard not to make a mistake.

it's not a single source, but certainly media editorialized that into the collective consciousness as an attention-capturing bonanza, and many politicians leapt onto the same opportunity to promote their power, agendas and careers. same for said "experts": a chance to be in the media, and if they were wrong, oh well, that's science.

"why haven't we been in lockdown every year until this deadly scourge has been exterminated?"

One does not simply question the official corona narrative here without being censored by downvoting or flagging.

But answering your question: that's because such scenario was not developed and funded. Yet.

i'm happy to pay that (tiny) cost if it makes even one person stop and question the narrative honestly for even a second.

So am I, my friend.

да на хую я вас вертел, ссыкливые минусаторы

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