Hacker News Reader

Comment by dannyw | Hacker News Reader

I think you should consider the actual quantified risk to you and the community.

For someone living alone for example and going to work drinks with 5 people, your risk of contracting COVID is very small. Your chance of developing serious complications from COVID is also very small. Your chance of spreading COVID to others, should you isolate once you develop symptoms, is also small.

I highly recommend you research the actual numbers from WHO, CDC, papers, etc. You might find it surprising how little risk it poses to people our age.

Multiply these all together and you will probably realise that COVID is not so concerning that you should forgo all social outings for.

View on HN

And yet, 200k people in the US have died already, even with fairly extreme social distancing. Acceptable risks for the individual can translate into massive human tragedy. I have no expectation that Covid would be much more of a bad flu for me, and am not particularly worried for my own health. I socially distance for others: friends, family, and even people I don't know. Society cannot run on pure self-interest alone.

> people our age

So far as I can see, cheschire didn't say anything to indicate their age.

Careful with those assumptions!

Assuming that youth and health are sovereign against bad COVID outcomes sure is an assumption, too.

Isn’t that a statistically valid assumption for reduced risk at the population level?

Do you consider spreading to other more vulnerable people as a bad COVID outcome?

GP comment says "for someone living alone" which I would consider an answer to your question.

That death and total recovery are the only possible outcomes is also an assumption.

I do, but also think it deserves more context.

I’m not sure most of the public dialogue is framed correctly. As the parent comment stated, it’s about quantifying risk. We (humans) are generally bad at thinking about risk in statistically relevant sense.

Even before that discussion can happen we need to define what is the appropriate level of non-zero acceptable risk and how to measure it. Is it more appropriate to measure in utilitarian or absolute terms?(E.g., is the risk of death to an elderly nursing home patient equivalent to the risk of death to an otherwise healthy teenager? I.e. are ‘life-years lost’ more important than lives lost?) I don’t know the answers, but only once we understand that risk can we accurately mitigate it.

Bypassing all that is just layering assumptions upon assumptions

Sorry, my apologies!

"how little risk it poses to people our age."

You know the age of everybody on HN? And that also ignores the risk of long covid, and the risk of serious harm.

And even for young people, the risk is nothing to sneeze at (pardon the pun). See e.g. Penn State's Athletics department numbers of a 15% infection rate on their football team: https://www.centredaily.com/sports/college/penn-state-univer...

Worse, many of those infected in that particular group have rather alarming levels of myocarditis. Their age didn't spare them.

That doesn't mean we should be all "we're doomed", but glibly dismissing the risk isn't helpful either.

And while you personally might be at a lesser risk, everybody you interact with now inherits your risk. (Pre- and asymptomatic spread is a thing, isolation is not a panacea). So at the very least, include your contacts in your risk calculation. You want to see your parents and not risk killing them? Your bar of risk you can take is lower.

You spend your time exclusively with the same 5 people, in a lower age bracket, and none of them venture outside that bubble? Sure, your risk is much lower. But few of us are in a non-family bubble of 5 people who don't see anybody else.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com