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Comment by jpster | Hacker News Reader

Are you saying that a novel airborne pathogen that killed 343,000 Americans this year should not be described as “deadly”?

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Every year from all people in the US aged between 75 and 85 about 5% dies. 85 and up it’s about 13%. A lot of things are deadly to old people, a tenth of that is a minor part and it is certainly debatable whether asking these people to live in isolation for a year is worth that 10% less chance of dying.

Compare also the 480000 US deaths yearly from tobacco, which could be prevented much easier than corona.

But anyway, it is impossible to debate weighing these statistics and measures in a civil manner so I’ll excuse myself and you can just echo around with your fellow lockdown fans.

Debating statistics and measures is hard because of the sheer quantity of slightly varied information. And even if numbers were universally agreed upon and understood, and it were as simple as 10% greater risk, we can’t make decisions by a show of hands. If 60% of people were willing to take the risk, are the rest supposed to suck it up?

> Compare also the 480000 US deaths yearly from tobacco, which could be prevented much easier than corona.

Tobacco is an epidemic too, but given that it spreads via psychological and sociological factors rather than virally, I’d make the argument that it’s actually much harder to combat.

Yes, you’re right about the show of hands. This is why the preservation of individual liberty is such a fundamental part of living in a just society.

If people want to isolate or be locked down they are free to do so, but one person’s fear is not a just claim on another person’s life or property. Locking other people in their homes because you’re afraid is immoral.

> Every year from all people in the US aged between 75 and 85 about 5% dies.

Keep in mind that right now covid-19 is the leading cause of death in the US.

https://www.webmd.com/lung/news/20201217/covid-19-ranks-as-a...

Unlike cancer and heart disease, covid19 can be prevented or even erradicated with small behavioral changes.

I think the evidence is that it cannot.

COVID has been spiking here since November and everyone is wearing masks. I'm not sure what more could be done. Complete lockdown is, like any extreme measure, not practically possible. People need to eat, essential things need to get done.

> I think the evidence is that it cannot.

Only if you if you intentionally ignore reality. Spain decimated it's spread rate during the first lockdown, running down their 800 daily deaths down to zero in amout a month of lockdown.

Every single time a restrictive lockdown was imposed for over 3 weeks, spread and death rates dropped to a fraction of their initial rate.

> I'm not sure what more could be done.

The US is renowned for doing barely anything.

Politically the US even rejects the use of facial masks. That's telling.

Minnesota lawmakers say coronavirus deaths could be inflated by 40% after reviewing death certificates

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/coronavirus-death-ce...

The Grand County coroner is calling attention to the way the state health department is classifying some deaths. The coroner, Brenda Bock, says two of their five deaths related to COVID-19 were people who died of gunshot wounds.

https://denver.cbslocal.com/2020/12/15/grand-county-covid-de...

I could post more but take a look at these.

Meanwhile, this reporting suggests that the Covid death figure is actually underreported: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/21/world/coronav...

Meanwhile, multiple sources suggest that they are vastly inflated ;

" ... That, of course, can mean anything from having had a recent positive COVID-19 test (which may or may not have been accurate) to having tested positive months earlier to simply having been declared positive based on symptoms (with hospitals facing strong financial incentives to claim COVID-19 deaths).

For the sake of argument, however, let us assume that the CDC’s numbers are valid. Out of those 164,280 deaths, the CDC calculates that just six percent of them, or 9,857, were caused solely by COVID-19. “For deaths with conditions or causes in addition to COVID-19, on average, there were 2.6 additional conditions or causes per death,” the agency says. In other words, 94 percent of those who died with COVID-19 already had two or more other serious health issues such as hypertension or diabetes." [0]

[0] ; https://thenewamerican.com/cdc-fewer-than-10-000-americans-h...

Yes, death by pneumonia caused by COVID means it’s not “solely COVID”.

This line of reasoning is specious at best, disinformation at worst.

> (...) simply having been declared positive based on symptoms

Also known as a positive diagnosis.

Are you claiming that we may find out soon that 136,000 people (40% of total Covid deaths) are not actually dead? Maybe hiding? Maybe all died of gunshot wounds? Have gun deaths spiked by 350% this year? Has any other major cause of death spiked by an exorbitant amount in 2020? If so we should really be looking into this.

How many of these people would have died in the next year without the intervention of Covid ? The general idea is that lockdowns are doing way more harm than they prevent. As acknowledged by the WHO and many others ;

" “We in the World Health Organization do not advocate lockdowns as the primary means of control of this virus,” Dr. David Nabarro said to The Spectator’s Andrew Neil. “The only time we believe a lockdown is justified is to buy you time to reorganize, regroup, rebalance your resources, protect your health workers who are exhausted, but by and large, we’d rather not do it.” " [0].

" ... thousands of medical health experts signed their names to a petition calling for the end of coronavirus lockdowns, citing the “irreparable damage” they’ve caused.

"As infectious disease epidemiologists and public health scientists, we have grave concerns about the damaging physical and mental health impacts of the prevailing COVID-19 policies, and recommend an approach we call Focused Protection,” read the petition, known as the Great Barrington Declaration. "Current lockdown policies are producing devastating effects on short and long-term public health." " [1]

[0] ; https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=915&v=x8oH7cBxgwE&feature=yo...

[1] ; https://gbdeclaration.org/