Comment by kiawe_fire | Hacker News Reader

Comment by kiawe_fire | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

Those measures are not entirely different from the measures previously suggested, though.

Obviously your quoted poster’s concerns are less about “hand washing”, “wear a mask if you have symptoms”, and “stay home” while you recover, and instead are about an overreaction in which entire businesses are forced to shut down, children without symptoms are forced to wear masks even as they run and play, and people are forcibly prevented from leaving their homes “just because it’s flu season”.

This may be necessary, at times, for COVID-19, but as you recognized, not for the normal flu.

Given the spotty record of both public and private policy with regards to using actual science as a driver, these are not invalid concerns.

Or put differently, rather than presuming that anyone against “doing something” is against “common sense” measures, perhaps we should be supportive of making sure that we do something, AND that the “something” that we do remain in the realm of common sense, to assuage the very real concerns that “doing something” could mean something more harmful than good.

The normal flu can be pretty bad. In 2018 the spike in total deaths in TX and surrounding states were between a third and a half of the covid spike in those regions. Masks might have been a good idea in 2018 and I hope they become part of our culture at least when you think you might be coming down with something. You know, that first day of a cold when you are telling yourself its allergies or drainage. Shutting down stores makes less sense.

How about a culture and social support system where you can just stay home and rest if you feel something's up? Probably a lot more efficient than a mask, and would probably help with lots of other problems as well.

Plenty of people, hourly, gig, and self-employed people don’t get paid if they don’t work. You might be able to force some of those to be paid while sick-not-working, but the last category will be very difficult to address without either missing a lot of folks or creating tons of fraud and grift risk (and represent a lot of interactions with the public).

I think this goes under culture and social support system. Perhaps worth a thought that giving more support for everybody can help everybody. This interaction is quite apparent in e.g. epidemics, but probably has similar effects for many phenomena.

Of course it falls into the category of social support system, but what the specific design choices are matter in terms of driving behavior.

If I (salaried) take a sick day, I get paid the same amount from the same source; there’s next-to-no economic incentive for me to risk the health of others by working when sick: problem is solved.

We could more or less force the same by law for scheduled hourly workers. It’s a little more difficult for gig. It’s basically impossible (as I see it) to put self-employed people at the same outcome as if they worked without substantial risks of under-comping some and over-comping others.

It seems pretty clear that the person you’re replying to agrees with you, they just committed the crime of stating your position more succinctly.

Washington state has a tax funded state paid sick leave program for anyone who has worked at least n hours in the prior year and paid into it.

But sometimes it is allergies, and you feel fine and want to get some work done. Masks aren't a big deal, I forget I have mine on, and I wear it all day. Maybe some people have more difficulty? If I vwas in construction or something more physical vthan typing I might vfeel differently.

People who are subject to allergies know they are so and allergies doesn't cause most of the same symptoms. You could probably differentiate most cases of sickness by simply taking your temperature.

I only think I have very occasional allergies by observing my health during the pandemic. I have no clue what it's from. I just assumed they were colds before, though I certainly had less illness of any kind this last year.

I think most people have allergies now don't they? It didn't used to be that way. I get colds with no fever usually.

I think only 1 in 6 or 7 are allergic to anything if you mean seasonal allergies to pollen what most people seem to mean when they say they feel poorly from allergies its only half as prevalent.

That is to say most people don't have allergies to confuse with illness and although you might wake up feeling poorly for a number of reasons flu sufferers are liable to suffer from one or more distinguishable symptoms for example for myself when I've contracted the flu I always get a really shitty body ache.

It's possible to get a cold without also having a fever. You are absolutely correct about that but even in that instance the majority are liable to be able to know when they are ill. They just don't stay home because the social pressure has been in favor of bringing your sickness to work as if you were doing everyone a favor by showing up and making your cohorts sick.

When I was a kid with allergies I think it was 15% had allergies. Now 30% of adults and 40% of kids have them. https://www.webmd.com/allergies/allergy-statistics

Sometimes my throat is sore but its just allergy drainage. It doesn't help that the things I'm allergic to line up with flu season.

7.8% of Adults suffer from hay fever. *1 Around 50 million out of around 330 or about 15% suffer from any sort of allergies according to the AAAAI *2 which references data from the CDC

https://www.aaaai.org/about-aaaai/newsroom/allergy-statistic...

https://acaai.org/news/facts-statistics/allergies

1 Hay fever, or allergic rhinitis, is a common condition with symptoms similar to those of a cold. There may be sneezing, congestion, runny nose, and sinus pressure. It is caused by an allergic response to airborne substances, such as pollen.

2 The American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology (AAAAI) is the most prominent membership organization of more than 7,000 allergists / immunologists (in the United States, Canada and 72 other countries) and patients' trusted resource for allergies, asthma and immune deficiency disorders. This membership includes allergist / immunologists, other medical specialists, allied health and related healthcare professionals—all with a special interest in the research and treatment of allergic and immunologic diseases.

WebMD's doesn't actually seem to actually source their data at all despite styling it like a link for some reason and since their is a disparity between what the CDC and AAAAI say I strongly suspect they are full of shit

"Shutting down stores makes less sense."

Depends on what you want to achieve. If you like a increase of infection, you do it like here in germany and close down hardware stores etc. multiple times on short notice, without telling when they will open again - so people try to storm them before they close, all coming closely together by doing so, which they would not have otherwise.

This particular type of unintended consequence has been repeated multiple times during the crisis, it's puzzling.

For example here in order to avoid contamination in public transports they limited the hours of service. Consequence: same number of people took transport but in less time, increasing density and contact.

Similarly with the curfew forcing shops to close earlier in the day, more people gather in less time.

We will be lucky if we can normalize washing your hands more and staying home when you are sick. The idea that we are going to react to flu with fanatical zeal and need to prepare to resist public health measures is a fantasy promoted by those who are preparing to fight a war that exists only in their own heads.

We've had, in the past year, at various times, public policies that have prevented grocery stores from selling "non-essential" items such as towels and blankets (while allowing alcohol), halted critical health services such as cancer treatments, and led to people from the same household being verbally and physically assaulted for not distancing or wearing masks - after a period of time in which people were verbally chastised for wearing masks when the official stance was not to.

We've sorted a lot of this out over the past year, but there is an all time distrust of institutions surrounding both policymakers and the public health recommendations informing them, and there's a reason for it.

We can either help assuage people's fears (whether you see them as founded or unfounded) by empathizing with their concerns and experiences and addressing them while ensuring that any measures enacted remain rooted in science that we can trust...

OR we can be part of the problem for why there's so much distrust, by ignoring anyone who may have real experiences that have caused them to lose trust in our science and health institutions, and telling them that it's all in their head.

I strongly hope for the former, myself.

OR we can shutdown social media. A lot of the misinformation has been spread through social media - it has a tendency to amplify extremism by providing 'echo chambers' people can select into to reinforce their preconceptions.

Most of the measures the public health community is pushing are:

- Paid sick leave. First and foremost.

- Increased flexibility for people WFH as possible if sick or vulnerable.

That's really about it. Maybe masking, though that well has been throughly poisoned.

> children without symptoms are forced to wear masks even as they run and play

Well, yeah, they can be asymptomatic, spread their sickness to other kids, who then take it home to their parents and grandparents.

Agreed. There seem to be too many folks frantically "doing something" these days. The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com