Comment by erentz | Hacker News Reader

Comment by erentz | Hacker News Reader

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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'

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