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Comment by annamargot | Hacker News Reader

On top of that, downplaying the severity of covid is critical to the arguments of those who want this to be over for political, economic, or any reasons.

The focus by many has been deaths. Mortality rate can be spun to make covid seem not so bad.

If we start talking about the percentage of people whose lives are significantly affected, we create a much bigger percentage. If you’re trying to paint the opposite picture, it’s not in your interest to acknowledge or increase awareness of that percentage.

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well tell that to the cancer, diabetes and high blood pressure ,depression victims who don't get diagnosed in time or havent gotten the proper treatment. Tell that to the people who's lifework have been destroyed and I could go on with people being significantly affected. Its not that simple.

The suggestion that everyone who is pro- aggressive disease containment has not had their life turned upside down by the global pandemic is lacks logic. Shutdowns are necessary to contain the virus, and the economic damage done from not containing the virus is far worse than the alternative. We know this because we have data.

There are multiple countries that were hit very hard in the first wave, and then managed to contain the virus and accelerate their economies after; France, Spain and Italy are all great examples. IIUC, France now has 3.6% unemployment. They had strict lockdowns, followed by mask wearing, social distancing, and contact tracing. The same tactics are working for NYC in the US.

We do ourselves a great disservice to act as if virus containment is bad because it destroys economies. No, the virus destroys economies, and containment allows us to continue once mitigated. That’s what the data clearly shows.

Shutdown is not a good strategy:

https://unherd.com/thepost/oxford-epidemiologists-suppressio...

It is interesting that these doctors in the UK are claiming that tactics that have already worked elsewhere don’t actually work, while their country continues to suffer a massive outbreak of the virus.

On the other hand, here is a study showing two countries that have made great strides in containing the virus, after massive waves and deaths, and did so with a harsh lockdown https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S004896972...

That paper doesn't actually shows that its the lockdown that responsible for the decline. Its the classic correlation does not necessarily mean causation.

Good luck with the "doing nothing" strategy then?

Who says doing nothing ? There are lot of thing that can be done : vaccine research, method of treatment improvement, promote hygiene, increase medical capacity (if needed), etc

> promote hygiene

You mean like wearing masks? Because that's apparently a "political opinion" right now

The mental gymnastics is incredible.

The economy is going down the shitter no matter what. Might as well make it temporary instead of permanent (which is exactly what's gonna happen if "1%" of the entire world dies, and many more get severely injured due to COVID complications).

No it's not going to be permanent if 1% of the worlds population dies not sure where you are getting that idea from.

First of all why the strawman? I was responding to a post that claimed there were no argument against.

You can't compare the entire US with a country. The EU have had roughly as many deaths as the US per capita. That's the correct comparison. Some countries like some states did well other didn't some areas in states did well others didn't.

To claim that the tactics are working for NYC is absurd. NYC have had the highest amount of dead, we are still mostly on lockdown here and very few things are open.

I have had two melanomas and so I get checked 4-6 times a year. So far I have been tested in january and not since.

I am not sure what data you are talking about and I am pretty sure this aint over yet.

Furthermore I would challenge you to find single country who would do lockdowns again if this happened.

They locked down because they were unprepared (it's their job to be prepared) not because it was the right thing to do.

Obviously you should do what you feel comfortable with, but now is a good time to go the doctor and get that checked out. The numbers are pretty low and stable for the moment. And FWIW, I had surgery last week so I'm not giving advice that I wouldn't follow myself.

I don't have a choice. My dermatologist have not been available for "non-essential" situations.

That's unfortunate. Try a different dermatologist? I've gone to flatiron dermatology in the past, and they're solid.

I am on Sloan Memorial with one of the best in the world as I have more than a thousand moles. So I can't really do that.

>The EU have had roughly as many deaths as the US per capita

I don't believe this is true, and probably hasn't been for a while. Talking points tend to outlive changing conditions.

Europe has had 270-310 per million, depending on whether you include Russia, while the US is up to 433. And the gap continues to widen because every day twice the number of people are dying in the US compared to all of Europe.

Conversely whatever is being done clearly is working for NYC and has been long enough for the death rate to follow the new case rate down. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense to say that because of all the people who died, the efforts that stopped people dying didn't work. There were ten deaths yesterday in Manhattan+Brooklyn+Bronx+Staten Island+Queens. Miami-Dade county had almost triple. But that underestimates what's coming, because new cases were over 3200 (in a day) compared to about 300 in NYC. People have steadfastly refused to believe that new cases become new deaths over time, but you can see the numbers going up.

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

You can calculate it yourself.

Europe (exl Russia) is around 176000

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