Comment by ArkVark | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ArkVark | Hacker News Reader

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The response to COVID is fundamentally irrational, when we tolerate 'an invisible menance' that kills 100,000 Americans each year - much more than influenza: Air Pollution.

https://www.usnews.com/news/national-news/articles/2019-04-0....

And those who don't die suffer all kinds of ill effects like asthma, reduced cognitive performance, infertility.

If we ignored COVID, but spent 2020 replacing all coal and oil fueled cars, trucks and powerplants, we would save 10x as many lives as would have been lost to COVID this decade, and make significant progress on climate change. A shameful missed opportunity.

I'm so sick of this response. Deaths stack. People are dying of pollution AND coronavirus. Just because pollution also kills lots of people doesn't mean COVID-19 isn't killing lots of people. Furthermore, last I checked, I can't die of pollution just from being in the same room for 15 minutes with someone who is also dying of pollution.

It's possible to have multiple disasters at once.

(Table 1, col 4): https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/index.htm

CDC Influenza and pneumonia deaths by influenza season and age: United States, 2008–2015: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/health_policy/influenza-and-pn... (these are not estimates, see the footnote)

  2015-2016
  Flu: 7,961
  Pneumonia: 131,858 
  All: 1,769,940

Excess deaths are the only accurate measure of a pandemic: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/excess_deaths.htm

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