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Comment by westwing | Hacker News Reader

"Coronavirus in Scotland: People are taking risks because vaccine is close, says John Swinney"

This reminds me of the speculative rationalizations that are given after-the-fact whenever the stock market rises or falls.

So let me chime in with the speculation:

The biggest factor is probably the realization that COVID is not as big a personal risk as feared, no matter what the media or the government says. People are gladly using COVID as an excuse to work from home or avoid meeting their elderly relatives, but when it comes to avoiding infection in order to save "the system", enough people simply don't care anymore. It's too abstract.

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Doesn’t feel that way in the Midwest. My Wisconsin relatives had been actively downplaying the existence (not just severity) of COVID until people they know started being hospitalized. So it goes, I guess - but the tone has changed.

Of course, the perceived risk is quite different from the statistical risk.

Currently, about one in 4000 Scots is hospitalized, which says that approximately only one in 40 Scots directly knows someone hospitalized with COVID, assuming they know 100 people each.

However, the chance of directly knowing someone that had a positive COVID test is 1 in 40, which says most Scots will know someone who had a mild case of COVID.

Exactly, early on we weren't sure what the risk of covid was to the average person. It feels like now their is enough data on cases, broken down by age, where you can assess your own risk.

If you are under 25, the risk to you from Covid is basically tiny. I can understand young people not accepting having their life destroyed from living under a lockdown over a virus that is unlikely to do them harm.

In Scotland

            Infections       Hospitalization     Deaths
    0-4      1,137             62                  0
    5-14     2,973             30                  0
    15-19    6,771             41                  0
    20-24    7,896             65                  1

I think we need something smarter than a blanket lockdown that affects everyone the same regardless of age. How we are 9 months into this and still haven't figured out anything better is really disappointing. We are destroying peoples lives, income and mental health when for the majority of them there is no risk.

Even if the risk were greater, it would be unreasonable to assume that the age group of 15-25, which is most likely to die from risky behavior, could easily be convinced to change said behavior.

It may not be a risk to the young people, but they need to understand that their actions have consequences for the people around them (which is exactly why people are encouraged to wear masks). A lockdown may not be the best solution, but it surely makes it so young people have a harder time infecting those who are immuno-compromised.

"I think we need something smarter than a blanket lockdown that affects everyone the same"

We have this in NY and CA among other places. That the Midwest and South are going from "pretend everything is fine" to "full scale lockdown again" was a decision those states made. But NY and CA are still far from requiring a second full scale lockdown and are instead focusing on specific areas and counties.

Due to a limitation in technology, people are forced to take the population risk as their own, which aligns self interest with collective interest. However, that will not always be the case and, at some point, people will be able to see their own individual risks. I find it interesting that people have no problem justifying their selfishness by showing that they are just being selfish. It will be interesting to see how that will develop.

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