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Comment by sp332 | Hacker News Reader

That is a lot of people. 200,000 deaths already attributed to COVID-19 in the USA. That's 0.0006 of the entire population dead already. Is it good that it's not that contagious? Yes. Is it killing a lot of people? Also yes.

All-causes mortality is up quite a bit too.

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This is the part where it become very subjective. I disagree that its a lot, to me is not a lot.

Though i could understand that for some people even 1 death is a lot.

How much is a lot for you? A million? Two? At what level will you admit that you're just plain wrong about all this? Or is it all fine as long as you get through in one piece?

Wrong about what? It is a fact that vast majority of cases are asymptomatic or only have mild symptoms.

What about million people suffering due to lockdown? To you they should just endure it right?

How about you, how much low is low to you ? 0 death ? 1 death ?

How much is lockdown suffering is acceptable to you ?

So, no answer then. Ok.

It's hard to define "a lot" for 2 reasons:

1. The human population is very large so even the smallest fraction is a sensational number.

2. Any death is a tragedy for someone, not the least the person who died.

This creates a situation where you have lots of people talking past each other.

Maybe it's easier to understand as a rate. Around the beginning of May, the all-causes mortality rate in the USA was about 50% higher than normal. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02497-w

It sure sounds like a lot but historically its not, not yet anyway.

This is a graph of historical deaths in Sweden which has a similar death rate as the US. https://twitter.com/PanData19/status/1297919439212552193/pho...

While this year isn't over yet there has been years in my life time with worse death rates that went by completely unnoticed. Looking back in a couple of years I don't think people are gonna say that a lot of people died this year.

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