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Comment by matz1 | Hacker News Reader

I wake up long time ago when I realized the virus is not as dangerous as the media reported it. You too should wake up right now and live your life. Stop being afraid.

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Three of my dead family members (edit for clarity: not my immediate nuclear family, but people I'm still close to) don't feel the same way (nor do those who were impacted by the hundreds of thousands of excess deaths in the US), but I'm glad you've found this whole thing to be overblown.

Who said I was afraid? I'm literally locked in my house in England, and all of the pubs are shut, and I'm banned from hanging out with my friends or my family. I want all that to end. I want to get back to seeing the world and going to festivals and for everyone to be able to do the same. I want my elderly grandmother to be able to see us again without worry. It's nothing to do with me being afraid.

Why shouldn't I be afraid? If my parents get infected there's a close to 100% chance that they'll die, due to their existing conditions. And I have to visit them, so do others. There's a real risk of infection there.

Maybe you should be, but if they are in bad shape, the 100% figure will apply to many diseases. On a long enough time line, they will of course die, just like you and everyone else.

Just like the planets and the stars and the universe itself. How is this relevant in any way to the discussion at hand?

I see my parents regardless. They are happy to see me. There are always a risk of some kind regardless of covid. My parents are old too, they have high chance of death and likely also have some kind of existing condition. Covid or not they have high chance of death at anytime.

This is what a subtle misunderstanding of risk and probability looks like. "It has not affected me so it probably doesnt affect anyone"

Where is the misunderstanding ?

>It has not affected me so it probably doesnt affect anyone

I didn't say it won't affect me or it won't affect anyone.

Covid isn't a particularly pleasant way to die though...

>I wake up long time ago when I realized the virus is not as dangerous as the media reported it. You too should wake up right now and live your life. Stop being afraid.

This is really exciting news. How did you find out? Shouldn't we alert the public?

How dangerous did you assess it to be?

Vast majority of the cases are asymptomatic or only have mild symptoms.

The vast majority of single rounds of Russian Roulette are won too.

Only 83.3%.

I don't think anybody disputes this.

But each new person who gets it is a potential spreader, which increases the likelihood of an at-risk person getting it. Someone who may be elderly or immunocompromised, who can be seriously hurt or killed by it.

Sure but how about the risk/damage due to lockdown?

Given the level of lockdowns we've seen so far, that is minimal. Especially if the government is smart enough to simply pay the wages of people who are forced to not work (which would also give a massive boost to the economy).

So what? 1% IFR is very, very high. If 90% of world population gets sick with it, 70 000 000 will die. Compare that with 700 000 flu death every year.

here cdc estimate of ifr https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/planning-scena...

0-19 years: 0.00003 20-49 years: 0.0002 50-69 years: 0.005 70+ years: 0.054

I wouldn't consider it high at all.

I'm not againts vaccine, I'm againts lockdown.

At least for me I consider the cost/risk from lockdown is greater than the cost/risk from covid.

Do you understand that it is not percents? Those are ratios? Do you realize that for 70+ IFR is 5%, and for 50-69 is 0.5%? You can consider anything I cannot force ypu to tyhink otherwise, but something that kills 1 in 18 senior citizen is something of extreme public health concern.

Of course the number seems high if you focus on a particularly vulnerable group. All that matters is the IFR across the entire population, as the entire population is being harmed by lockdowns.

I know its a ratio. You can consider it too high/extreme, I cannot force you to think otherwise. I'm not against doing something about it. What I'm against is if the answer of 'doing something about it' is lockdown. To me this cure is worse than the disease.

Stalin loved statistics because he could make arguments like that and not seem like one of the most evil men to ever have lived.

Glad to hear the virus is not dangerous, a pity you've informed us all so late!

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