Comment by victorhooi | Hacker News Reader

Comment by victorhooi | Hacker News Reader

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I hear these sorts of sentiments from the USA a lot - where apparently people are actively rioting and protesting against the health lockdown.

I'm from Australia - where while we've had some grumblings about the health measures, on the whole, we've been pretty lucky. Our death toll is 104 people - which even though (comparative) low is still a tragedy.

Yet the USA death toll is over 130,000 people - that is a terrible thing =(. I do not get how the USA can be so blase about it.

And that is with measures in place (although I'm sure there are breaches). Imagine if you simply let it run rampant, and let the health system get overhwelmed? (See Italy).

It does seem like its overwhelming the young who are very laid back about COVID-19, and chaff the most at restrictions.

To be frank - that seems very selfish.

Imagine if the virus had a 30% mortality rate in your cohort? You'd be terrified.

(I'm young, with two young kids under 5. My parents refused to see me or our kids for a couple of months, out of fear they might catch it from us - I missed them as did their grandkids, but I understand why - it must have been scary for them).

And even that aside - have you considered that a lot of the economic downturn isn't from the actual health measures in place - but from the uncertainty, doubt and fear caused by a virus pandemic? People are scared, and that's naturally going to curb some spending. We are a interlinked global economy, and you cannot escape that.

I hope that we'll have a vaccine soon, so we can go back to normal - but in lieu of that, trying to stamp out the virus or contain it isn't a bad goal.

Australia is still much earlier on in its pandemic than the US and other countries. Wait until the lockdowns are national, and going on for months, with no prospect of any way out in sight.

They aren't much earlier; they got cases almost the same time as the US. They're just handling it way better. And it's not like Australia is a particularly well run country.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/australia/

> Yet the USA death toll is over 130,000 people - that is a terrible thing =(. I do not get how the USA can be so blase about it.

Because on a per capita basis the US actually has fewer deaths per million than multiple European countries? Ask yourself how e.g. Belgians can be so blasé about this, they’re doing worse than us in this regard!

Or maybe it’s because deaths have dropped dramatically from their peak and continue to do so?

Or maybe it’s because tens of thousands of people die every year of the flu in each and every western country and to the US, 130K Covid deaths is like 3 or 4 years worth of flu deaths, which no one really cares about?

This is not the Black Death. People don’t care about it because it’s still exceedingly rare to die of it, that’s basically all there is to it.

> 130K Covid deaths is like 3 or 4 years worth of flu deaths, which no one really cares about?

That's one way to put it. Another is it's already more American deaths than total in WWI in just a handful of months and we're not over the biggest hump yet.

True, but 'number of deaths' is a very blunt statistic because not all deaths are equal.

The death of a young male in his prime is not the same as the death of an elderly person whose 3 year survival rate was already less than 25% (made-up numbers for the sake of illustration, not accurate).

It's worth noting in your comparison that the US Population was less than 1/3 it is now, and most were young productive men just beginning their lives. Covid is more than elderly people who have had long lives (relative to historical numbers).

So relatively speaking WW1 was much more devastating.

The concern in the US is that attempts to stamp it out will fail. I hope for your sake that we're wrong, stamping it out just works, and Australia and New Zealand can survive virus free for the next year or so. But when I hear about another month of strict lockdowns in Melbourne, I get pretty worried.

The US isn't taking any of the steps that would be necessary to stamp it out, so of course we will fail. That's a forgone conclusion unless there are major policy changes.

> To be frank - that seems very selfish.

No, it seems logical: if the elderly are at risk, by all means, let them shelter at home and give them money without destroying the economy (as the elderly as less likely to be employed).

Even better, for old people who need to work, give them full pay every week, and just ask them in return to stay at home and use uber eats.

But we didn't do that. Too bad: it would still have saved a lot of money (and the actual economy)

> I hope that we'll have a vaccine soon

I will be generous enough to not claim my dose, to let you and others test it first, to make sure there are no autoimmune diseases or other bad things it can trigger

My 38 yo healthy coworker died from it. It's not just the elderly at risk.

Any comorbidities?

In Texas, the 30-39 year old group accounts for 2% of all Covid-19 deaths. The 80+ bracket accounts for 40% of all deaths.

https://txdshs.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#...

Nobody is claiming no risk for younger age groups. We have to manage risk and decide policy based on the size of the risk. Which is exceedingly small for that age group.

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