Comment by apatters | Hacker News Reader

Comment by apatters | Hacker News Reader

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When in history have we ever seen a disease where doctors, the public, or the media said "living in fear for your life is a good idea if you contract this disease?"

If someone contracts a dangerous disease aren't we supposed to reassure them that things will be OK? Isn't that part of good medicine? And yet all of society has turned this idea on its head when it comes to coronavirus. One report after another about how horrific it is. Constant anxiety and fear that takes a real toll on people.

Yes it's worse than the flu, if we take the stats in Los Angeles for example about 2.5% of confirmed cases have died. (Based on this it's a fair guess that less than 1% of all cases, including the unreported ones, have died.) Many people like the author have severe symptoms and then recover.

I have to wonder if this aberrant response to coronavirus says more about our times and the media we're subjected to than the virus itself. A 24/7 stream of corona terror is being pushed into our eyeballs. How does that help anyone, especially the people who get sick? Does panic, fear, and a response straight from our lizard brains help us end the pandemic? Who decided that mass terror was the best way to beat it? I didn't sign up for this strategy and I bet you didn't either.

It's a bit misleading to say this "says more about our times and the media we're subjected to than the virus itself", although it is no Ebola for sure. To me, it seems to be somewhere (disturbingly) in the middle -- a low apparent CFR and yet it still seems to cause permanent lung damage a disturbing amount of the time. Perhaps it's too early to tell and we should be cautious and reserve our judgment?

Nevermind "should" -- we should definitely be cautious, observe and reserve our judgment. It's good to be skeptical. But, draw a line at careless speculation.

"yet it still seems to cause permanent lung damage a disturbing amount of the time."

Fact check: there is no evidence of this. Even otherwise reputable sources are trading in anecdotes, and relying heavily on "may" and "could" to spread fear:

https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/conditions-and-diseas...

"While most people recover from pneumonia without any lasting lung damage, the pneumonia associated with COVID-19 MAY be severe."

Lots of illnesses can cause lung damage. The essential question is: at what rate?

Mass terror didn’t kill 200000 people.

Also, if it bleeds, it leads. There’s no grand strategy here in the US, just media doing what they always do and government not making grand strategy.

> If someone contracts a dangerous disease aren't we supposed to reassure them that things will be OK? Isn't that part of good medicine?

No. That used to be quite common, but it’s unethical to lie to patients these days.

1% of 300 million is 3 million, I think that’s the fear on a large scale. So dissemination of information is important, but the 24/7 news cycle not so much. It started its current cadence well before the pandemic, somewhere around mid-2015. I think it’s here to stay. Here at least we have an excuse of keeping people informed for their physical health, even though the amount of new knowledge about the virus itself is vanishingly small.

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