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Comment by beervirus | Hacker News Reader

The fact that they’re planning for years in the future doesn’t mean it’ll take that long for things to get back to normal.

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That also depends what "normal" means to you.

If normal just means you get to hug your grandmother who lives an hour away it might be safe right now (in a bunch of countries) or permitted but perhaps unwise (in a lot more countries) and it's likely that for most HN readers it will become a reasonable thing to do around mid-2021.

If it means snogging random strangers at a crowded nightclub after a night of drinking that is safe in a very few places (only a handful of countries with elimination or close enough have "crowded nightclubs" in the first place, those aren't a thing on tiny Pacific islands many of which are COVID free) and legal but unwise in some parts of the world right now but it might not be a reasonable thing to do until late 2021 or after for most of us.

If it means spending a week on safari in some poor country to see exotic wildlife, that likely will not be a reasonable thing to do until at least 2022 and maybe later, it may be technically safe for you earlier, but it probably needlessly exposes the locals to a virus they have yet to receive immunisation for so you shouldn't do it.

> If it means spending a week on safari in some poor country to see exotic wildlife, that likely will not be a reasonable thing to do until at least 2022 and maybe later

But this is a problem. Wildlife conservation efforts in East Africa and Madagascar depend almost entirely on income from tourists, because state support is meagre. Already some activists on the ground in Kenya have complained that the past year with no tourists has severely impacted conservation efforts, and poaching and illegal landuse has already begun to return.

Also, public-health exhortations like yours operate on the assumption that every life must be saved. In the real world, that just isn’t the case: now that the vaccines are out, some countries will accept some degree of higher mortality in order to extract vital income from tourism. Even during this COVID year, several countries have remained open to tourists for that reason.

> "If it means snogging random strangers ... might not be a reasonable thing to do until late 2021 or after for most of us"

7000 people ages 18-39 have dies of covid19 in the U.S. [0][1]. There's at least 75 million people in that age group! (maybe more, sorry no handy/easy/exact reference)

That's 1 in 10,000 odds of dying for that age group. They are 20 times more likely to die of something else.

I think it is unreasonable that any of these people are restricting themselves out of fear. The 1 in 10,000 odds don't justify missing out on loosing the enjoyment of 1-2 in 20 years of their youth.

For those who are healthy and not old the numbers do not appear to back up the prevailing fearful narrative around this virus.

[0] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1191568/reported-deaths-...

[1] https://data.cdc.gov/NCHS/Provisional-COVID-19-Deaths-Counts...

Quite a few people 18-39 have friends and family in more vulnerable age groups they can spread it to, and the "one-in-tens-of-thousands" odds are with unprecedented global mitigation measures.

"The odds are low with distancing and closed nightclubs" is a weird argument for packed nightclubs being safe.

Why did you put "one-in-tens-of-thousands" in quotes?

I looked it up, in 2019 there were 89 million 20-39 years olds in the U.S. [0], and 7000 ages 18-39 died dies of covid19 [1]. Mathematically that works out to 1 in 12,714, and would be a bit higher were 18-19 years added to the denominator. I didn't mean to exaggerate this number.

You mentioned family in vulnerable groups. Lets grant common sense, that someone who lives with their Grandparent's isn't going to go clubbing? EDIT: People need to use common sense, and they seem to, even in when they are not being forced.

I wish that we could measure the effectiveness of mitigations. This may be your strongest counterpoint. I end up extrapolating worst case numbers sometimes. I'd love to see you come up with a worst case number. I've got the feeling we could agree on a number, but still might disagree on how we react to that number.

Every weekend the beach bars near the Florida city I'm located in are busy. The majority of people are not wearing masks, sometimes almost nobody, sometimes that includes staff. Some places, with DJs and bands, are literally packed shoulder to shoulder as the night wears on. Like it was 2019 again!

I've also been in NY for part of the pandemic, and keep up with my circle there. As far as I know it's like you said, the Florida beach bar scene would not be tolerated. The rules are a bit stricter in NY, better enforced, with less exceptions, with more state backing.

So why are per capita covid19 deaths higher in NY than in Florida? Florida has 1500 deaths per million, and NY has 2500. [2]

EDIT: I was replying to your points, and don't mean to sidetrack us. Perhaps we need to back up? Do you think it is unreasonable for a young person to go clubbing under any circumstances at the moment? IS a definite 1-2+ years of restrictions worth avoiding a small possible (1/1000 at worst?) chance of harm.

[0] https://www.statista.com/statistics/241488/population-of-the...

[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1191568/reported-deaths-...

[2] https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/

> Lets grant common sense, that someone who lives with their Grandparent's isn't going to go clubbing?

Our recent history does not make me feel comfortable granting that.

> Do you think it is unreasonable for a young person to go clubbing under any circumstances at the moment?

I think it's unreasonable for local governments to permit said club to be open in the first place.

> So why are per capita covid19 deaths higher in NY than in Florida? Florida has 1500 deaths per million, and NY has 2500.

NYC got hit at the very beginning, before we'd settled on how to effectively treat, and before most of the mitigation was in place. Peaked at over a thousand deaths a day.

https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2021/feb/26/instagram-...

You bring up a valid point about NY vs. FL. NY [0] had more initial cases (initial outbreaks), Florida [1] had more over the summer (perhaps inside with a/c?), and they have been pretty much identical the last several months. I don't propose that Florida is doing better. But numerically it's hard to say they are doing worse. And there are at least some crowded nightclubs in Florida, and have been for months. I don't know of that happening in NY, I've heard of the ones there that tried getting shut down.

I'm not sure what to do with the idea of the someone who would willingly expose their Grandmother. Some grandmothers don't care. Some care a lot and won't take any chances. Most young people don't live with their grandmother's. I wouldn't go clubbing if I lived with my grandmother. When I'm visiting other people I'm sure to let them know about any recent exposure I've had, allowing them to decide if they're comfortable.

Maybe we should return to the main question of this thread, so we don't stray too far: Is it reasonable for young healthy people (who don't live with vulnerable people) to go out clubbing?

Given the numbers (7000 out of 89+ million 19-39 year olds have died in the country), my answer is still "yes!"

Another way of looking at it (for young people): Young people are 20x more likely to die of something besides covid [2]. Nobody thinks it's reasonable to hide from those other things, do they?

I'm in a different demographic, my odds aren't as good as those of an 18-39 year old, and I'm still comfortable going out and ignoring the pandemic when the urge strikes and I'll have a good time. I've paid close attention to the numbers, and only 1 in 600 people have died from this so far, tending to be older and with existing health issues. So my odds are even better than 1 in 600.

You may look at the same numbers and asses the risks differently. Everyone's entitled to their opinion, and to isolate as they see fit.

Perhaps a better way to continue this conversation would be to agree on some numbers, then discuss why we look at the numbers differently?

[0] https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/usa/new-york/ [1] https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/usa/florida/ [2] https://data.cdc.gov/NCHS/Provisional-COVID-19-Deaths-Counts...

1 in 10,000 is the death rate so far, not the individual odds of dying if everyone in the age group gets sick.

Sure, but its the data we have, and therefore the best estimate we have of the likelihood, on average.

The denominator could be an estimate of the number of people in the group that have been infected, that would probably be a better estimate of the individual risk from getting infected than just averaging the deaths so far out over the whole group.

I believe that 1 in 10000 number is what you want it to be, the number of deaths per infection in that age group, not the number of deaths per population of that age group. 1 in 10000 infections leading to death gives us a presumably reasonably accurate likelihood of death rates if everyone in that age group were to get infected.

It's literally 7000/75 million, look at the numbers in the post I replied to and do the arithmetic.

I used the population of that age group as the denominator.

The numbers of infected by age group are not as easy to find, and perhaps not so accurate (confirmed vs non-confirmed, etc).

I've approached this numerically since numbers started coming out of NYC last spring. It's just the way I've been comfortable estimating/qualifying the risk.

1/2 the population is almost certainly closer than all of it.

I think that I see what you mean, and that sounds fair to me. Basically that the disease may have only moved through half that population so far, if I follow your logic.

Dying is 1 in 10,000. But about 10% of people who get coronavirus have some problems for months thereafter.[1] This is not well understood. "More than a third of them hadn’t returned to their usual state of health 2 to 3 weeks after testing positive. The older the patients, the more likely they were to say they their pre–COVID-19 health hadn’t come back. But even a quarter of the youngest, those aged 18 to 34 years, said they had not yet regained their health."

[1] https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2771111

There is a lot of precedent for this. For example, here's a paper talking about the flu and heart swelling: [0]

> During the Sheffield, England influenza epi- demic from 1972 to 1973, the cases of 50 consecutive patients who were initially diagnosed as mild cases and were treated on an outpatient basis were followed. Transient electrocardiogram (ECG) changes were seen in 18 patients, and long-lasting changes were seen in 5 patients.

It could be that the flu is worse than covid in this regard, the few studies I looked at were surprising/sobering. They were talking for years about "long-flu" after the 1918 pandemic.

Until we have numbers to back it up I would not make the assumption that covid is any worse or different in this regard. Conventional wisdom is that every virus that attacks the body leaves some people with long term lung, heart, and or brain damage.

The article you referenced itself references a paper that has that 10% figure, that many patients who remain unwell beyond three weeks (an example was given of a healthy 40 year old laid low, but back to moderate exercise after 12 weeks). The article you linked to mentioned that a quarter of 18-34 year olds were still affected after 2-3 weeks.

I appreciate the additional numbers, the most impactful that anyone has brought up in this thread. It doesn't change my personal equation, but I appreciate the data. The world is a dangerous place. 18-39 years olds are about 20 times more likely to die of something beside covid [1]. Life goes on.

[0] http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.685...

[1] https://data.cdc.gov/NCHS/Provisional-COVID-19-Deaths-Counts...

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