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Comment by rwcarlsen | Hacker News Reader

Comments level getting to deep - trying to reply to a sibling. But 1% of planes crashing kills more evenly across demographics. The 1% here are almost exclusively the elderly and infirm who were contributing (directly anyway) almost nothing to the economy - and in many cases actually being a drain on the economy. Just like the parent comment - I'm not saying they aren't worth saving at economic cost, but just saying that them living also is an economic burden.

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Just because the elderly are more vulnerable it does not mean other age groups are not experiencing a higher death rate due to covid.

Per the CDC: "Overall, an estimated 299,028 excess deaths have occurred in the United States from late January through October 3, 2020, with two thirds of these attributed to COVID-19. The largest percentage increases were seen among adults aged 25–44 years and among Hispanic or Latino (Hispanic) persons."

https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6942e2.htm

I would argue that "adults aged 25–44 years" are a pretty integral component of the economy and more of them dying than normal is not great.

The largest percentage increase may have been in that age group, but since the base rate is very low, it still amounts to few deaths overall.

I ask this in all seriousness - do you have parents who are still alive? Do they have any chronic conditions that make them more vulnerable?

The economy is not the only thing that matters, and if children can have their grandparents for another 5-10 years, then that's massively important to them, while being irrelevant to GDP.

Full disclosure: Both my mother and my wife's parents are in the age group that is super vulnerable to Covid, and I'd like my daughter to remember them.

Not having vulnerable people close to you is not the only way you can hold my position/view. I have three grandparents who I love dearly in their 80s - one with diabetes, one with rheumatoid arthritis, and the other with lung scarring from tuberculosis. My parents are approaching 60. My wife's parents are in their 70s (both have had covid already). And I have several of my own children. My position is that, yes covid sucks. In my personal view/opinion, the danger/risk levels of covid don't warrant anything nearly so severe as what has been going on all over the world. Let people live. Don't treat them like babies that need to forced to take their medicine. We've long since crossed the liberty/safety threshold I'm comfortable with.

It seems you were lucky enough to not have a detrimental COVID experience with your immediate family members. I wonder how much your view would change, had you lost one or more family members. You seem to lack empathy for the 1M+ people that have lost someone (globally), and probably millions more that were potentially permanently damaged by COVID.

100% agree with your take in this comment and your others in this thread. Thanks for the nuance and perspective!

I bet the experience differs a lot for different people and different cultures. My mother has diabetes and is in the vulnerable age group but from all the adults I know, she and her friends around her age are the people who were the least concerned about the virus since the beginning of the epidemics. No isolation, no masks, they just don't care and even get angry at the attempts to keep them isolated. And to be fair, I totally get it. Kind of, it is better to die standing than to live kneeling. We'll all die sooner or later.

for what it's worth, my mom and aunt are in their 70s and will have cleared COVID this coming Thursday. When she said they both had COVID i was in tears thinking it was a death sentence given what I've read online. My mom had a fever for one day and just sniffles and body aches since. Same goes for my aunt who is also a breast cancer survivor.

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