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Comment by Fargren | Hacker News Reader

I have an issue with this. I hear a lot of this argument, that we should "accept a certain risk of catching COVID". But that risk is not what keeps me from going out, I'm personally willing to catch it. What keeps me home is the risk that I might be unwittingly spreading the disease. It seems really irresponsible of me (and of other people) to go out just because I'm feeling bad and seeing friends will make feel less bad. I still do it, but I feel guilty about it and I feel really judgemental of other people doing it. And I don't like being judgy, so I bottle it up with people I'm not extremely close to, but that's not conducive to great conversations.

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Risk is best thought of in terms of expected value rather than probability alone.

There's a non-zero but low probability of you spreading a virus you don't know you have as long as you're following good practices, and the severity of doing so seems relatively minor (99% of people you infect will have minor symptoms. Not to say that's ok, but it is normal for people to get sick occasionally). A low probability multiplied with a relatively minor severity gives you a very small number.

On the other hand, if you're already finding yourself socially deprived, the probability of suffering severe effects from it is high, perhaps even approaching 1. The severity for some people could also be very bad: declining health, ruined relationships, perhaps even suicide. A high probability multiplied with a high severity gives you a very large number.

It's hard to quantify and everyone is different. The point is, it's better for someone to go socialize when they need to rather than go insane, and it can be a perfectly reasonable decision.

Yes, this is more or less exactly what I tell myself. I think it's a rational and logical way to look at this.

I still feel very uneasy about it though. We don't know the long term effects of COVID. I worry that I could be contributing to something terrible. It's not just the direct chance of me getting someone sick, there's also the fact that each person that goes out sends the message that going out is fine. Which maybe it is? But it seem that if everyone did small sacrifices could help a lot, so it would be wrong not to personally do these sacrifices.

In the prisoners' dilemma that we all find ourselves in, I really don't want to be the defector. And it bothers me that so many people are willing to be. I think it goes against my internal belief of what being a good person is.

But it seem that if everyone did small sacrifices could help a lot

Wearing a mask in a grocery store is a small sacrifice. Eliminating all physical proximity with other humans for months or years is very much not.

I think it goes against my internal belief of what being a good person is.

Those friends you're sometimes visiting, after which you beat yourself up for being selfish? Probably many of them are suffering quietly, and seeing you gives them the strength to get through the day.

> Eliminating all physical proximity with other humans for months or years is very much not.

Agreed. That is excessive and is not what I'm doing. I meet with friends roughly two out of three weekends, and I see my girlfriend every weekend (can't really see her more than that, she's working 15 hours per day during the week). But I'm not going to boardgaming meetups, to museums, to the gym, out to eat or to the cinema, which are things I would do three to five times per week on normal circumstances. I'm basically avoiding all activities where I would be in contact with strangers for more than a few minutes.

> Those friends you're sometimes visiting, after which you beat yourself up for being selfish? Probably many of them are suffering quietly, and seeing you gives them the strength to get through the day.

Thanks, that's nice to think about.

That sounds like a perfectly reasonable balancing of risks and benefits, and as far as I'm concerned you have nothing to feel guilty about.

It seems really irresponsible of me (and of other people) to go out just because I'm feeling bad and seeing friends will make feel less bad.

Before the pandemic, you and everyone else were constantly doing "unnecessary" things that put other people at risk. Every time you see other people you could be spreading any number of diseases that kill hundreds of thousands of people every year. Every time you take a car trip you're increasing the risk of a fatal accident to other drivers and pedestrians.

COVID makes some activities more risky, and will shift some of them from "acceptable" to "unacceptable". But it doesn't mean that you're a bad person if you put more than zero weight on your mental health.

I work in the family business, and my mom is older and absolutely crucial to the business (and therefore to the financial health of both her and our households), so most of our decisions are based around preventing her from getting sick, though my wife and I are personally not particularly worried about us or our kids catching it.

My wife has had multiple friends with similarly aged children try to convince her that it's not dangerous for her or the kids when she refuses play-dates, and no matter how many times we tell them that it's not us we're worried about, they still frame it in those terms.

The challenge, going forward:

If we cannot get our government to help us tackle the pandemic in an effective fashion, we are increasingly forced to contemplate questions like, "well, if this goes on forever, how do we adapt to preserve the other important things in life?"

This epidemic can still be won, but it takes effective and coordinated leadership to do so. When our government's response mirrors the reality of the situation, rather than proclaiming that we are doing a sufficient job, and nurtures a united approach to mitigation, we will start winning. Case rates are falling slowly -- we are on the cusp of improving the situation substantially if we can get our act together further.

When we start to win, winning gets easier. Such is the nature of confronting an exponential adversary.

> If we cannot get our government to help us

We are the government. There is no magical "them" out there.

Absolutely agreed. The fact that our country is failing is our responsibility.

There are multiple timescales involved to effect change. No matter how hard we push, the government we have three minutes from now will be almost the same as the one we have at this moment.

At present, I have largely given up hope that the present administration or the present configuration of Congress will take responsibilities seriously. Thus, the minimum timescale for meaningful change is months. Working within that framework, one can imagine an environment in which our federal government cannot provide an improved mitigation strategy until January at the earliest.

>What keeps me home is the risk that I might be unwittingly spreading the disease.

We did this before this most recent coronavirus also. What is important is the cost/benefit comparison, including mental health.

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