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Comment by think814 | Hacker News Reader

The reason why extreme cases are showcased, is because it fits a certain narrative. We all know what that narrative is - that Covid prevention should take precedence over everything else.

The fact that the prevention is worse than the disease, in terms of economic hardship, depression, deprivation of education, etc; the fact that prevention measures hit poor people and minorities much more than rich people (who can move around and educate their kids in private schools that largerly do not shut down) - these are all inconvenient facts.

At least be honest - say you know lockdowns are horrible for many people that even if they got the disease would be fine (save for the extreme anecdotes!) but we still decide to impose them.

Really hard to have an honest conversation based on facts these days.

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Countries that actually are serious close bars not schools. Life is basically normal in Wuhan and New Zealand. Meanwhile Christmas is cancelled this year because Western governments didn't do exactly what China did.

Wuhan's lockdown was extreme however; literally locking people inside their homes. Most western societies will not stand for that.

New Zealand had the advantage of having a huge amount of experience with protecting their biodiversity. I'm willing to bet a lot of that experience was transferrable to this situation.

Nonsense. Everything New Zealand or Taiwan or South Korea or now also Australia has done is public knowledge, very simple, and easily implementable in any developed nation that cares to. Australia had a big second wave surge with anti-social anti-maskers protesting too (not surprisingly most of their press is owned by Murdoch). They took the necessary action, enforced mask rules, got case numbers down to zero. Now they can start to live like normal.

Being an island. Yada yada. Has nothing to do with it. It’s all about the simple actions they took that we could repeat but some people don’t want to because they’ve been conned.

Being anti-mask and knowing it puts others at risk is purely an antisocial behavior. It’s a FU to everyone else. It costs nothing to do, it saves lives, and ironically is what would enable us to be as normal as we possibly can by controlling this thing. Being anti-mask and believing it doesn’t put others at risk is a sign they were conned by a few sociopaths who wanted to exploit this for their own political gain.

Well we could also have normal life by ignoring this pandemic.

? How do you force people to ignore an increased chance of death and disability? Can you mandate it?

You tell them that it's in the noise w.r.t. the danger of being alive - because it is. But instead we have news and social media shouting from the rooftops that everyone is going to die or have some nightmarish long-term effects. All of which are no more significant than the risks people take every day on _purpose_. Driving, hiking, swimming, socializing, getting drunk, etc. Sure it's communicable - we've been happily spreading communicable diseases for millennia that kill people. Nature is cruel. But don't expect society to stop "living" to avoid dying.

>You tell them that it's in the noise w.r.t. the danger of being alive - because it is.

If you remember, this is exactly what China did. It failed because despite how hard you try to tell people that it's nothing to worry about, people will start to realize that hospitals are overrun. Your solution is not only demonstrably poor, but is also how we ended up in this mess. It's a tall order to tell people there's "nothing wrong" while nurses are working 12 hours shifts.

It's a problem that fixes itself quickly. Things suck for a few months, then it's done. Rip the bandaid off quick.

What data is this based on? Can I see the source? I would hate to think you are suggesting actions that would lead to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people based off nothing but an ignorant opinion.

It's a matter of extrapolating the fatality/damage rates out to everyone on the globe. We take that hit plus a bit of fallout - or we can try to continue dealing with things in the big, long, drawn-out, messy way much of the world has been doing. Sucks both ways. Some people prefer one suck - and others prefer a different suck.

If someone told me that the increased risk of dying from covid is just a part of life and that I should ignore it, I would very much ignore that person's advice on all things going forward. I would also very much not vote for that person. Covid is additive risk, its additional, controllable risk on top of existing risk. As its controllable and communicable, I choose not to contract it and not to spread it. My spending choices reflect those choices; so do the spending choices of hundreds of thousands of other people. Get the virus under control and lets get the economy back. Your advice is very much in the nature of 'lets not use seat belts, wear helmets, or masks'

I would argue a large part of the economic hardships in the US are not due to lockdowns but due to changing spending habits caused by the virus. There is a large amount of economic uncertainty right now and so people increase savings. Restaurants around me are open right now but I don't go to them as I have no desire to risk getting Covid, I used to spend ~$500 a month eating out. I now spend close to 0. I think many tens / hundreds of thousands of people are doing the same as I am. So despite a non locked down economy, restaurants are going out of business.

Until the virus is cured, people will continue to increase savings where possible as the virus causes economic uncertainty regardless of lockdown status. To think that if we just lifted all restrictions life would go back to normal is not accurate. If we lifted mask requirements in stores, my spending would sink even lower as my risk would go up.

Agreed, changing up my habits to wearing a mask in public was definitely a much bigger hardship compared to the lucky few that met their maker.

Let’s try to keep snark and sarcasm out of the discussion, and instead argue out of data or first principles. HN is a rare bastion of light on the internet - a refuge of civil discussion

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