Brazil's President Bolsonaro tests positive for coronavirus | Hacker News Reader

Brazil's President Bolsonaro tests positive for coronavirus

france24.com

98 pointsafkqs143 comments

Brazilian here: Given the insane number of venues and public events that he was attending or hosting I am actually surprised it took this far for him to get the virus.

i wonder if he nows thinks is a "little flu"

For a significant percentage of people, symptoms are mild. It wouldn't be at all surprising for someone like Bolsanaro or Trump to get a mild case and cite that as evidence - "see, I got it, and it wasn't bad at all!"

Well Trump actually is perfectly aware of the Covid risks, he is not that stupid. He really just panders to increasingly smaller radical public (and thaw would be his demise), while the moderate republicans kinda more aligned with what Pence does and says. Trump made a wrong bet, and he is going to lose.

I would say Trump is that stupid, either due to some mental degeneration or perhaps simply never being told "no" in his life. Covid should have made for a shoe-in second term. Give televised speeches reassuring and leading through a tough time, act on the advice of public health experts, and deflect the economic damage as doing the best we can. The wartime president boost. I think he could have even switched to this as late as May and still come out ahead. Instead, he continues to double down on pretending the entire problem doesn't exist.

If he was "that" stupid and thought it is just flu he would never close borders with China, he'd never sign that money stimulus bill, he'd never install Covid task force; he would never have done so many things - so he clearly understood that Covid is not flu. But politically agree - he made a huge mistake.

Of course he would close borders - he thinks trade wars are easy to win and it’s an easy sell to his racist base.

Of course he’d sign The stimulus bill - it made looting the country even easier.

Of course he’d have a task force - he’d liquidated those who could bring him to task (and incidentally do the rest of the country some good) and a task force is an opportunity to sell appointments on hand and then dispose of them with little ceremony later. Oh yeah right that task force that isn’t exactly setting policy these days.

When you have no shame, no decency and make every decision as a means to win the zero sum game immediately in front of you, well, you don’t have to be smart, you don’t need to have a plan and the most opportunistic scum will leap to your aid as a means to facilitate their own graft.

This political mistake is little different than all of his other shitty, petty, and unpardonable catastrophes. Treason big and small.

Trump is stupid, but he is also a germophobe. Bolsonaro is stupid and not a germophobe. Putin, of course, is neither, but quite happy to see the rest of the world in chaos.

Putin has become one, anecdotally.

Would love elaboration.

Wildly know rumor that Putin rarely comes out of bunker and has disinfection tunnel.

The new system to classify leaders. Now the question remains - who is stupid and a germophobe?

He definitely seems to be handling it quite alright. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mG0WaCmO56E

Boris Johnson gave speeches sounding relatively fine a couple days before winding up in the ICU. We'll see.

This is so sad. He will now go bragging how it is just a flu, as he said.

agreed :(

So did Boris Johnson, who announced his positive test on March 27 in a Twitter video which showed him perfectly lucid and without noticeable symptoms [1]. He posted regular video updates, appearing quite healthy in all of them, but his condition suddenly worsened on April 6, a full 10 days after his initial announcement video [2].

This is anecdata, of course, but Bolsonaro is 65, a full 9 years older than Johnson, so he's by no means in the clear.

[1] https://twitter.com/BorisJohnson/status/1243496858095411200

[2] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/05/timeline-boris...

Boris Johnson is 9 years younger than Bolsonaro? He sure looks rough.

I don't know, his lips look a bit purple...

Given how Bolsonaro was ignoring the pandemic, I believe that if we used contact tracing, we would probably find that Bolsonaro is the biggest single spreader of COVID-19 in Brazil.

He was one of the first to bring COVID-19 to Brazil in a visit to the US in March. So one can truly say that he has spread the virus to millions.

wouldn't it mean a 3+ month incubation period?

When the government is AWOL, M16 as a tool to "encourage" people to wear masks :

https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/13/americas/brazil-rio-favela-co...

"Young dealers, not state medical personnel, are the ones encouraging measures against coronavirus in the favela."

It is quite notable that the 3 worst hit countries - US, Brazil, Russia - are lead by the populist regimes, ie. governments using propaganda as the main tool which is naturally not an effective tool against an infectious virus. As the saying goes "these days in Russia when people die it is from pneumonia, and when people recover it is from coronavirus" (in Russia there is a criminal penalty specifically for coronavirus misinformation, which basically means any mismatch with the official info)

I believe they're referring to his aides that contracted the virus in March, not the President himself.

There's no possible way this is going to lead to a good discussion when any sensible person will say "Hope he dies" or similar, which is unfortunate because it's such an interesting thing.

My only thought that has much public value is that the timing of the US President's sudden and strange willingness to wear a mask after mocking them for so long looks suspicious under this light.

there's almost no intellectual curiosity and open-mindedness exhibited in any of these covid-related threads, so they should be flagged according to the site guidelines.

fear manifests irrationally when control is beyond reach, including wishing the death of someone they don't know other than via press snippets (which is not to say bolsonaro is a saint, but most of us in the US know next to nothing about him except "bad").

driven by fear and the resultant impulse to control, a priori arguments are made for all sorts of interventions, because it's so hard to accept that the most effective, balanced measure is simply to distance a bit from the less-acquainted, and when we can't, wear a mask.

This is a terrible viewpoint: it's not difficult at all to find out Bolsonaro's viewpoints and actions. We don't live in the 1950s any longer: politicians broadcast their every move over the network, and through every light you can look at him, Bolsonaro has been terrible for his country; under any sensible light, he's also a terrible human being. Just look at the things he's said, you don't need to restrict what you know to "press snippets."

yes, but that requires some level of interest in, and active search for, information about bolsonaro. how many americans other than folks with connections to brazil (or thereabouts) would that be? relatively few, i'd wager.

wishing death without understanding is itself terrible, tyrannical actually. most americans don't have, or wish to seek, the context to make any definitive claims about a stranger, especially concerning death.

> yes, but that requires some level of interest in, and active search for, information about bolsonaro. how many americans other than folks with connections to brazil (or thereabouts) would that be? relatively few, i'd wager.

Sure, but I'd wager most of the HN crowd knows enough to know that he's a piece of shit. I most certainly feel like it'd be wonderful and poetic if he died to Covid!

Also what's the point of your comment other than expressing some weird kind of arrogance?

> when any sensible person will say "Hope he dies" or similar

Any utilitarian philosopher will support that sentiment if there is reason to believe that his death will prevent a large number of deaths. Sorta like a practical instance of the trolley problem.

He will probably (according to mortality rates) survive, and prove himself right that he could shrug it off. If he doesn't, it doesn't matter that he was wrong, because he won't be in a position to care.

Which will be our fate following such leaders.

It is news, but as other have noted it is not surprising given Bolsanaro's public stance. Frankly, I am more surprised US upper echelon seems largely unscathed at the moment.

Trump gets tested every day. Every person he is in contact with is testing before being given an audience. He knows how it works but it seems like he just DGAF about everyone else.

Yeah, Trump strikes me as the kind of person who would protect himself diligently regardless of what his public stance might be.

I might be wrong about this, but isn't he also known to be somewhat of a 'clean freak'?

yes, trump's moral compass only points one way, and that's toward himself.

it's dismaying that supporters fervently listen to what he says, not what he does.

Numerous elected officials and political figures have been infected as a result of going to conventions, Congress, etc.

Reuters source: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-brazil...

I'm surprised he even got tested considering he called it the "little flu"

What would happen if Bolsanaro doesn't survive? How does succession works in Brazil. Is the next person in line more or less rational than Bolsanaro. Also can it end up leading Brazil further to the right due to sympathy votes? Or will it make people realise his incompetence if something happens to him.

The vice president would become the president. He is an army general that sounds more reasonable and less frantic - but there is a risk that we will steer towards dictatorship.

The vice-president takes office. He's a retired Army General as crazy as Bolsonaro regarding social values etc but in multiple times he talked much more reasonably than the actual president about sensitive topics and he seems actually smarter, at least. He almost makes us believe he's better than the president but I think it's just a "vice-president" façade. If he also dies testing positive, then the president of the chamber of deputies takes office. If he dies, the president of the senate takes office. If he dies then the president of the supreme court takes office. I said all that assuming they are males because they are as of today (we had female supreme court presidents in the past though).

Super interesting that a member of the supreme court is in line for succession. It's not the worst idea. Say what you want about various members of the SCOTUS and their individual values -- but every single one of them at least has a sense of logic and rationality by nature of their work.

Not only that but the president of the supreme court changes every 2 years and it's always a very predictable election with the oldest member taking office unless the person has always done so in the past (and the whole process restarts after the last one, if they ever live enough as we have 10+1 justices and they are also required to retire after they are 75).

Like most people who get infected, its very unlikely he is going to die from this, he'll recover and move on.

.2 percent in his age cohort. Unlikely, but not very.

Not to be insensitive, but what's the death rate for healthy individuals in his age range? Next to zero? Italy reported that 99% of those who died from Corona had other health issues.[1] In my county (county, not country) it was reported that 99.4% of our Covid cases have recovered, and that was just the cases that were tracked. Yes, the vulnerable should be taken care of, but legitimately asking - why is there still hysteria over this?

[1]: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-18/99-of-tho...

Because that 1% of people are lives that still matter??? WTF... I can't believe this.

Of course they do. So advise the 1% that's at risk to quarantine until we get a vaccine.

They tried that in Sweden and ended up killing a bunch of people.

Assuming an effective vaccine doesn't come anytime soon, which thusfar seems a safe assumption, other countries will have many deaths as well, just spread out more over the coming months/year[s?]. A flattened curve has the same area under it.

Not the same 'died because of insufficient facilities' curve, not at all. Flattening is so healthcare capacity is not exceeded. Not-flattening has dire consequence, far beyond 'the same area under the curve'. Its the peaks of the curve that trigger the consequences.

> Flattening is so healthcare capacity is not exceeded.

Sweden avoided that scenario. Their system was strained but did not collapse. They're still on track to have the same area under their curve.

> The pandemic has put the Swedish healthcare system under severe strain, with tens of thousands of operations having been postponed. Initially, Swedish hospitals and other facilities reported a shortage of personal protective equipment. At the start of the pandemic, concerns were made that Swedish hospitals wouldn't have enough capacity to treat all who could become ill with the disease, especially in regard to those needing intensive care. Swedish hospitals were eventually able to double the number of intensive care beds in a few weeks, and the maximum capacity was never exceeded.

Furthermore while their number of cases per day has been growing rapidly, the number of ICU hospitalizations per day and deaths per day have both been falling since April. Reports of Sweden's demise have been greatly exaggerated.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_pandemic_in_Sweden

Edit:

> Compared to other Scandinavian nations, Sweden has experienced a much higher number of COVID-19 deaths; eight times that of Denmark and 19 times higher than Norway, despite being only twice those nations' populations

Yes, that's exactly what you'd expect from a country that doesn't flatten their curve. A country that doesn't flatten their curve will have more deaths up front, but that doesn't mean they'll have more deaths in total when all is said and done.

I'm glad for them. What works in Sweden, may not work the same elsewhere.

> Reports of Sweden's demise have been greatly exaggerated.

Reports of Sweden's success are likely premature, though. The world has a long way left to go.

I don't think it's premature to say Sweden has been successful. It may not be over yet, but this trend is pretty clear: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_pandemic_in_Sweden#De...

The US chart of infections looked like that a few weeks back; things change quickly, especially if people get to thinking they're done. A second wave in Sweden (and elsewhere) would hardly be surprising.

From wiki article

This in unrealistic Sweden tried that and failed. It still imposed some limitations though, yet they have very large death rate. Besides, no one really know how susceptible he or she is to the disease; there are hundreds of examples of sickly 100+ old people having light cold and young seemingly healthy 35 y old people dying. Even more importantly, the diseases seems to have long term consequences even for the healthier people.

It's all just statistics until your loved ones are in the ICU because of covid.

you can't expect 0% death, its unrealistic.

This is a strawman. No one reasonable thinks that you can eliminate deaths. But, when all it takes to avoid _the majority_ of fatalities is some mask wearing, hand-washing, and effort on the part of institutions (testing, contact tracking, etc) you can avoid _unnecessary_ deaths quite well; see South Korea for an example.

I'd argue that this year we've learned that the percentage of psychopathy in the general population is way higher than the 2% I've seen being estimated before.

I would argue our relentless pursuit of data driven outcomes and return on investment thinking has skewed the way people think about other human beings. We are just seeing the impact of that now as we face a significant enough species impacting event.

Fun times.

Not to be insensitive, but we can’t assume a vaccine will be developed.

Flattening the curve of infection (under this assumption) still has a similar area under the curve... (i.e. people are going to get infected, people are going to die because the virus is not going away).

Well the original attempt was to close to eliminate it, like many of our peer nations have done. Since we've failed at that, it's going to be touch and go so that we flatten it.

Not likely possible unless all travel between nations is halted. Also, places like north korea will still access China which the world doesn’t trust in regards to data fidelity.

Since we can’t have perfect access to information, it is impossible to stop the virus without a vaccine (and a vaccine might not be developed ever, this might be like HIV where 700k people die a year)

One point of flattening the curve is so people won't die waiting for a hospital bed to open up. Some of those people would have died anyway, but not all of them. Even supportive care like oxygen and intubation does actually seem to save some lives, and doctors are getting better at it with time.

Additionally, treatments are getting better. Do you want to get sick in 6 months when everyone can get remdesivir and Regeneron's antibody therapy[0], or do you want to get it during a spike where you can't even be treated?

[0] https://www.forbes.com/sites/siladityaray/2020/07/06/regener...

Don't discount treatment methodologies. People who get the virus now are more likely to live than those who got it early, since health professionals are learning which treatments work. The area under the curve will not be the same if we buy time for our doctors and researchers to understand more about the virus and its effect on the body.

We didn't lock down for the Hong Kong flu or similar pandemics, because the damage caused by a lockdown is immense. Health damage caused by delayed cancer screenings and organ transplants. Psychological damage caused by lockdown and unemployment. Unbelievable economic damage. How to respond to a pandemic is a trade-off.

People die in traffic accidents every day. Do we set a nation-wide speed limit of 5 MPH? No. Of course not. We accept that the benefit of travel are worth it, and we strive to make travel safer because every death is a tragedy. That's a balanced approach. For mild pandemics we should also seek such a balanced approach where we protect the old and the vulnerable and let everybody else live life as normal.

Yours remind me of a comment from an (in)famous Brazilian political commenter that claimed that "more people die by choking" at the beginning of the pandemic.

Many people have made statements that didn't age well. Hopefully you haven't forgotten about the ludicrous statements made by prominent epidemiologists, virologists and organizations like the WHO. Meanwhile we could trust the news to produce panic porn 24/7. Mass graves in Central Park! Sweden is doing an experiment in Human Sacrifice! Hopefully when the pandemic dies down we'll reflect on how the media and the scientific community completely failed to inform the people.

Hong Kong flu was significantly less deadly than Covid in United states, perhaps 3 to 10 times. NYC death rate is at least .2% which would translate to 600 000 death across the US, and that is a very rough estimate. Even more importantly without lockdowns you'd get even worse clusterhell in the hospitals, which would have to do triage between neverneding stream of Covid patients and "normal" patients, who need an urgent surgery, and that would lead to enormous death rate rise so your argument is backwards actually.

At least a million people died of the Hong Kong flu. Much more as a percentage of the world population. And Covid19 doesn't seem to take hold anywhere in the pacific rim, regardless of policy. Lockdown or not, masks or not, good or bad hospitals, it doesn't matter. None of the countries in the rim got hit hard. This tells us it's all about herd immunity, and about getting there with as few casualties as possible.

NYC locked down after peak infection; completely pointless. If you're going to lock down you have to do it way early, before the virus has spread everywhere. Sweden didn't lock down. Did we see uncontrolled spread there? Nope. The virus came and petered out after infecting a critical mass of people.

The NYC death rate would never hold over the entire US because a large part of it was the result of disastrous policy of sending covid patients to care homes, and an aggressive venting policy that killed many. Bear in mind that covid19 is a hotspot disease and some parts of the world are always going to get hit much worse than other parts of the world. Extrapolating from outlier hotspots is bad science.

I am not talking about whole world; I was talking in particular about US. It is still unclear about the final death tall of Covid, but it clearly is going to be close to a million, perhaps 2 or so. You operate with a very odd definition of Pacfifc Rim btw, USA, Canada, Mexico, Equador were all hit badly - all of them are countries of pacific rim.

Sweden is actually an excellent example of a bad policy. Economically doing as bad as their neighbors, and had enormous death toll compared to Norway, Germany, Iceland, Denmark and Finland, countries (esp. Norway) with similar culture and attitudes. Also we are in summer now, and the virus may well come back and hit Sweden with a lot bigger force, just because so much more of it there.

Not locking down during the Hong Kong flu was by the way a terrible decision. Had they introduced at least some measures, such masks and limited lockdowns the number of dead would have been much lower.

I by the way divided NY rate by 3, I counted as if all of NYC had acquired the disease. So no, .2% is reasonable expectaion, and .1% of total population of will clearly be reached within several months, it is already halfway there.

Pacific Rim definition I use: https://www.yourdictionary.com/pacific-rim. I'm not talking about the Americas.

Sweden did a lot better in Q1. It was the only western European country with positive growth, and it vastly outperformed everybody else. I expect they'll also outperform the rest of Europe in subsequent quarters, but this will remain to be seen. The death toll in Sweden is completely in line with its neighbors. This is evident when you look at All Cause Mortality. Their definition of "with covid" deaths is far more generous than their neighbors, so comparing the numbers from worldometers is not apples-to-apples.

My analysis suggests Sweden is very close to herd immunity, and they won't have a second wave. The countries that haven't reached herd immunity yet can choose between locking down in perpetuity or dragging out the process for no gain. There is no vaccin and the virus can't be contained or exterminated. People in the west won't put up with a totalitarian China style lockdown.

The research on mask effectiveness is still very contradictory. The health organizations of Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and Finland all claims masks don't work, as did the CDC and WHO. Research clearly indicates some viral load is blocked by masks, but there aren't any studies that connect mask use with actual infection rates. We don't even know to what degree asymptomatic infections are a thing. I suspect a large percentage of infections happen because symptomatic people refuse to stay home, and anecdotal evidence from superspreading events supports this.

Deaths in the US are trending down and will continue to trend down in 95% of counties. There will be hotspots here and there in places that didn't get hit in the last few months, but there won't be a second wave. You see deaths doubling from here, I think that's exceedingly unlikely.

I do not operate with "all cause mortality". I look at the excess death in April May, and in Sweden is so much higher it is not a serious conversation to even dispute that.

Epidemiologists look at annual deaths cumulative from the start of the flu season, exactly because we care about total mortality and not about noisy spikes in the data. And that picture looks completely different: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EcTV1OmWsAE3kAs?format=jpg&name=...

Remember that 2018 and 2019 were unusually mild flu seasons, so many people had already outlived their actuarial life expectancy when covid hit.

I do not play in creative accounting. There is a visible by naked eye large bulge of excess death in April and May in Sweden, which exctly equal to number of counted covid deaths, and same for Norway - a much smaller bulge, exactly equal to number of death from Covid. What you are engaging in is exactly kind of accounting caused credit crunch in 2008.

How does not knowing how bad Covid is or might be figure into your approach?

I find this ironic in that the same people now suddenly believe every single life needs to be protected were the same people who supported drone strikes throughout the Middle East when it was Obama taking the lives. Now the "other guys" are risking lives and it's politically expedient, so everyone on one side of the political spectrum just joins this chorus of every life matters sans critical thought, devoid of any want or curiosity about the actual facts.

Depending on who you ask, drone strikes have killed somewhere between a couple hundred and a couple thousand civilians. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_casualties_from_U.S._...)

1% of the world is 78 million people dead. (The virus won't hit 100% of people, but the numbers are already in the hundreds of thousands worldwide.)

So because it was a smaller number, they’re less important? All I’m asking (and it applies to everyone of any political ideology) is where is the outrage when your favored party either allows or is responsible outright for deaths? Also, unintentional deaths are in the same ballpark as coronavirus deaths, why don’t we criminalize vehicles, bubble wrap our homes, or avoid anything that could possibly harm us? It’s a fair question in my mind.

> So because it was a smaller number, they’re less important?

On a public policy level, sure. A million deaths tends to matter more than a thousand. This is hardly controversial.

> Also, unintentional deaths are in the same ballpark as coronavirus deaths, why don’t we criminalize vehicles, bubble wrap our homes, or avoid anything that could possibly harm us?

We do the cost/benefit analysis on a lot of such things. Cars are now larger, heavier, and more expensive because we've added various things that make occupants safer. Building codes have done the same for houses.

Why do you think my comment he anything to do with politics? Your country is not the only country in the world. I'm not even from your continent.

It isn't a binary kind of thing. You could survive with all sorts of long term issues. And here's the real "fun": nobody really knows what they are. Hence, recovering is rather relative.

Because the number of people with "other conditions" is massive.

Grab any family tree and shake it and somebody immunocompromised or asthmatic or with COPD or heart disease or whatever will fall out.

Saying "oh, only people who aren't like me are at risk" is essentially what we're talking about when we talk about "conditions".

It's practically narcissism.

I really wish people (not you) would stop pushing the idea that death is the only consequence of COVID. Three different NFL players have said their lungs still aren't recovered and they're still getting winded months after having COVID. These are people in their 30s and younger and in some of the best fitness in the world.

Plenty of stories of blood clotting leading to many other issues in the general population during and past recovery. We don't know the consequences of this virus. No it's not a death sentence - but it's also not a minor flu.

Have a link to a story about the nfl players? Hadn’t heard that one.

>These are people in their 30s and younger and in some of the best fitness in the world.

Professional athletes are known to be playing fast and loose with performance enhancing substances. So I am not sure that fitness and healthy are synonymous for them.

I don't know why you are being downvoted! I agree with you... just because you are a professional athlete doesn't automatically place you in the "healthy" category. Its not just performance enhancing drugs either. These guys and gals beat the living crud out of their bodies and have to maintain body weight and strength that may not benefit their health. It is complex, but I don't for one second correlate healthy to professional athletes there are just too many cases that point toward, "its complicated and actually points toward, it is dangerous for your health to be a professional athlete."

Aren't we all going to catch this sooner or later, especially with recent reports that it spreads 30 feet in the air through just breathing [1]?

So while there are lasting effects on some who are infected, the vast majority probably handle it totally fine, there are probably more people who have had it than we previously thought, especially considering we're changing our assumptions on how contagious it is, and we're all going to get it anyway right?

[1] https://knowridge.com/2020/07/covid-19-may-spread-10-meters-...

> Aren't we all going to catch this sooner or later,

You can get it if you want. I'm gonna opt for the vaccine instead.

Of course covid19 can spread through the air because viral droplets can be tiny. But infection-at-a-distance has not been demonstrated. The null hypothesis should continue to be that infection risk is proportional to viral exposure and time. An infected person can shed billions of viral particles per day, and yet, they don't infect that many people even if they're careless. The human immune system is remarkably good and it won't get overwhelmed when exposed to only a tiny amount of viral mass. The WHO hasn't accepted the conclusions from this paper because it doesn't provide evidence that simply exhaling produces sufficient viral mass to cause infection at a distance.

> Aren't we all going to catch this sooner or later...

Not necessarily. China and most of Europe have done a pretty good job of reducing spread to the point where it's likely that most people won't get it, assuming we get a working vaccine eventually.

In the U.S., we've flattened the curve but whether we end up with the "herd immunity" scenario where most people get it or one where we get spread under control and it slowly dies out depends on our actions in the coming months. (We also might get different outcomes in different parts of the country.)

You're talking anecdotes, not data. Chronic illness is not a common side-effect for those who recover from COVID-19. It's in line with the side-effects you would expect to see when people catch a serious RTI. Influenza also causes lung scarring, exhaustion, blood clots, and so on. If you have a study that shows COVID-19 causing lasting damage in an significant number of cases I'd like to see it.

Ever had pneumonia? Same deal.

I had Covid, felt sluggish for a few months after all symptoms went away. Just yesterday did a 25km hike, felt great. It's shitty and a tad worse than the flu, but I have no doubt that 99% will eventually be 100% better.

The hysteria is about hospital saturation.

People recover, but a lot of people recover after spending a long time under intensive care and breathing machines (which are available in a limited quantity).

So if a lot of people get sick at the same time then a lot of them will die just because there are not enough beds and intensive care units available.

Dude don't be dismissive, this shit is serious.

Not sure if it is about hospitals any more. The confusion is we don’t have a goal in mind we agree on.

e.g. Many hospitals are almost empty and they have to furlough doctors/nurses...

> e.g. Many hospitals are almost empty and they have to furlough doctors/nurses...

Hospitals are huge organizations with many different functions. You can be maxed out on ICU capacity at the same time you're furloughing the folks who work in elective plastic surgery, dermatology, mammography, etc.

I think that's another issue. Surgeries and therapies are being delayed and rescheduled. That part (empty hospitals) is not about intensive care.

At least over here in NL, while hospitals are not over-taxed anymore, those who work in them really need a break.

> Dude don't be dismissive, this shit is serious.

So is type 2 diabetes, so are traffic deaths, so is terrorism, so are heart attacks. All of which are somewhat preventable.

Mostly not contagious, though.

1k heart attacks aren't likely to spread to 2k additional people in a matter of a few days.

I'm pretty sure we'd be in mass hysteria too if it turned out heart attacks or diabetes is contagious.

Are you an epidemiologist? Physician specializing in blood and/or respiratory diseases?

Failing that, have you scoured the available literature with a completely open mind, and can summarize the arguments ranging from taking this incredibly seriously to blowing it off as just a "flu?"

Or have you seen one or two essays that seem persuasive, and quote the studies that happen to support the argument the author's wish to make? And are now passing that cherry-picked information around as if no other information exists?

Science is not a "narrative," and describing it as such makes me deeply suspicious that you do not take this subject seriously. You pushing a point of view that is not the consensus amongst people who actually consider all of the data, and supporting it with one essay that happens to say what you want to hear... That is a narrative.

It is quite possible for someone to have all the credentials you specified and still agree with OP.

Trying to credential-shame someone out of the conversation doesn't help anyone.

Then find them and quote them.

We have enough problems dealing with the noise without the ignorant and uninformed jumping in with their convenient hot-takes. I _am_ going to credential-shame them, because this is not a time when we need to listen to idiots and amateurs -- it is time for those people to sit down and shut up.

Doesnt mean it’s very likely. Scientific consensus around masks is pretty clear

Not everybody’s opinions are valid regardless of credentials

It was clear back in February too. "Stop buying masks, they don't help." Then in April the consensus did a 180.

Consensus doesn't equal fact.

I might be wrong here, but I am pretty sure that it was "stop buying N95 masks".

I'll go back and look, though.

First, that was not what they said. They do help but it was said don’t buy N95 cus supply shortages. That’s fixed now, so point 2) Things change. Data changes. Why is changing your mind and admitting mistakes a sin now? I’m not a lemming.

I think that’s the real issue here, an inability to accept change or recognize nuance

It's exactly what they said.

https://twitter.com/surgeon_general/status/12337257852839321...

> Seriously people- STOP BUYING MASKS! They are NOT effective in preventing general public from catching #Coronavirus...

Late reply, but I think this is important.

I agree about credential-shaming, however, note my second paragraph, which was "failing that , did you..."

I feel the same thing about programming. Do you have an education? Failing that, are you experienced with and do you follow the practices accepted by the industry?

Likewise, I also point out that not doing a thorough review of the literature, but only reviewing part of the literature is a bad practice when arguing against the consensus reached by people who review all of the literature and data.

It was totally up to the author of that comment to say, "Yes, I am an epidemiologist." Or to say, "No I'm not, but I subscribe to the following journals and have read 82 results, here they are."

Nobody needs to have credentials for anything in my book, but if someone doesn't have them, the onus is really on them to show that they reached their conclusion via method and rigour.

Otherwise, they are really, REALLY vulnerable to unconscious bias, which means that I am not willing to give their conclusion much weight, even if it seems supported by the results they choose to cite.

Tons of people here have backgrounds in maths, statistics and so on. There's enough data available out there that I'm sure plenty of HN commentators can make informed posts on this subject.

"I'm sure plenty of HN commentators can make informed posts on this subject."

So am I, that's why I come here.

But again, when you're an "Amateur X," when you break from the "Professional X" consensus, the onus is on you to show that you reached your conclusion with method and rigour.

To add to what the other commentor said, it's often overlooked that the outcomes are more complicated than life-or-death. There are more cases of people ending up permanently crippled by organ damage than dieing.

For every death, there's an unknown number of people with severe, long-lasting effects that aren't currently captured in any statistics. Just ask Richard Quest. There's many, many more like him. This thing seems to do long-term damage to people, even people with "mild" courses of disease that don't even send them to hospital.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/07/health/richard-quest-covid-we...

This.

I have lung damage from sloppy drywall mudding without a mask and overusing an orbital sander. It was my first time doing a large-scale drywall project, like 15 years ago.

Let me tell you, it sucks. I have borderline asthma now. When it gets bad the wheezing sounds like an accordion in my throat and keeps me up half the night. On bad days I can taste the lung damage. When I do physical exercise I hack like a dying smoker.

This is mild lung damage. And it does not heal fully - it's a "rest of my life" thing. As I understand it, this is what many Covid survivors have to look forwards to.

Buy stock in corticosteroid inhaler manufacturers.

Three things:

  1. He is 65 years old.
  2. 0.6% of the population is a LOT of people.
  3. Infected people linger in the ICU for a long time.  If you are in a car accident, will they have room for you?

What fraction of the population would you estimate has a pre-existing condition? Think carefully, considering that obesity is a pre-existing condition. This article says even being overweight has a higher risk.

You’re also focussing on the death rate, but many of those hospitalized see after effects.

https://www.bmj.com/content/369/bmj.m2237?fbclid=IwAR1nV_GMu...

Lots of reasons, but here's one: Saturation of healthcare resources. People who get sick with Covid are more likely to use hospital beds and resources, and for longer as well.

Also, as you get older the more health issues you will pick up, statistically speaking. So if at age 70, 60% of the population have serious health issues, something like 60% of the population is vulnerable. Saying 99% of fatalities had other serious health issues is almost the same as saying that older populations are more vulnerable.

1% dies, ~ 10% are hospitalized, and many of those will have lifelong issues after recovering. So yeah, the body count piling up when not even 10% of the population has caught the disease kind of disproves your point.

And 1/3 of the population has "existing conditions", so no, you're not just being insensitive.

It’s not just about the specific mortality of the disease. The virus is bad enough that a significant quantity of people need hospitalization. COVID patients in the hospital take a long time to recover or die. So if you fill a hospital to the brink with COVID patients, it takes a while for that capacity to be released.

If the pandemic is left unattended, there won’t be space in the hospital for heart attacks, stroke, car crashes, or any number of other treatable conditions. Mortality for everything goes up.

If we assume that 1% of people who got the disease died, what is 1% of 209.5 million?

When you put it to a percentage it may seem low, but when you calculate how many people would actually die as a result, you get a far different picture. That's just people that died, not counting the people who have reduced lung capacity or other damages as a result of the virus.

its been politicized so people have taken sides and people cant have their ideology be wrong. it will be many years before there is a consensus on how this pandemic was handled.

Many of us are concerned because when lots of people die, we think it's bad, even if those people "had other health issues." That doesn't seem so hysterical to me.

You say that you are legitimately asking, so in the spirit of HN, I will assume good faith.

Here is a RAND corporation whitepaper on chronic disease in the USA. Right at the top, it states that 60% of american adults have at least one chronic health condition. Obesity is also a big risk factor and we all know how many US adults have that comorbidity.

http://www.fightchronicdisease.org/sites/default/files/TL221...

Excluding everyone perfectly healthy from the coronavirus death statistics is the ultimate exercise in data cherry-picking.

Let's say you were granted complete immunity, would you willingly kill all your family members that are above 80?

Is your county a fair representation of all demographics in your country?

Are you taking into account the rise in annual deaths this year when Covid related deaths are removed?

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullar...

Why are there more people dying from non-covid related deaths if everyone is in quarantine?

Just wanted to note that while in your county the deaths from covid haven't exceeded (yet) 1% of infected, the article you link to states that in Italy, 8% of the infected have died (even though it acknowledges that this is higher than in other countries).

Talk about lying with statistics to make an invalid point...

Those "other illnesses" include conditions that are widely prevalent in the general population, high blood pressure, diabetes, asthma (present even in athletes), etc.

Blood type A is strongly related to higher infection & death rates (~+45%).

Vitamin D levels also show up in some studies of death rates.

Moreover death is not the only key measure - large numbers of cases are also seeing serious long-term consequences, strokes, organ damage, overwhelming fatigue, etc. - especially in the young & otherwise healthy cases. While it is still early for studies, go check out "Covid long hauler" forums - you really don't want to risk this.

tl;dr: this is 50-100X more deadly than flu, more contagious, and has far more serious & longer lasting consequences in substantial numbers of survivors. Suggesting that concerns should be minimized is foolish at best.

The things that get downvoted on HN never cease to amaze me.

According to that article, Italy was including high blood pressure as one of those "other illnisses." Bolsonaro is a 65 year old Brazilian, it's very possible he has high blood pressure and may not be considered healthy. Blood pressure is a significant health concern in Brazil (not that Brazil is special in this respect, many countries have problems with blood pressure).

Edit to address your question about why there is hysteria over this: Because normally people with minor health complications can live just fine. Sure, a smoker might get winded if they run, and a diabetic might have to watch their diet, but most people can live a normal life even with a minor health issue. Now all of a sudden we have a disease going around that significantly raises their chance of dying. So if everyone in your family is perfectly healthy and you only rely on other perfectly healthy people at the places you work and shop, then it might seem overblown. But for many people we have relatives that could be at risk if they catch the disease or our livelihoods could be impacted if people are dying around us. I don't think we should be "hysterical" but there is cause for concern.

I find useful to transform percentages to population scales. In your case, 99.4% recovery rate equals a 0.6% fatality rate. That translates to 1 fatality for every 166 people infected. Think about your social circle, how big is it? How many people there would be affected?

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