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Comment by whb07 | Hacker News Reader

Previously to the pandemic, I had NZ up on the liberty list. Now we know where they stand when a near flu level emergency arises, makes you wonder how they’ll behave if it was multiples or worse!

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They also put major gun restrictions in place after the mass shooting they had. It's almost like they have a definition of liberty that includes "can walk around unmasked without fear, because they took major steps early on and have been freer most of the pandemic". Like, collective action can yield better results for everyone.

I recently read three peer-reviewed papers comparing the morbidity of COVID-19 vs the flu, and what it came out to was that COVID-19 is roughly 6x more lethal per modern case.

I'm afraid I can't be bothered finding the links to those papers for you, because it was matter of curiosity. You have to take into account how easily COVID-19 spreads as well, and you don't need the finer details to see the bigger picture.

Let's do a litmus test on whether COVID-19 deaths are a problem compared to the flu. Mass graves dug for flu victims in the last 20 years: zero. Mass graves dug for COVID-19 victims in the last 2 years: a bunch.

COVID-19 IFR overall is something like 0.5% across all populations. While the typical seasonal flu is 0.1%, both are relatively harmless in the grand scheme of things. This becomes more clear if you look at ages under 50 - the IFR for them is astonishingly low, to the point that societal restrictions are effectively risk containment for the elderly or unhealthy (like the obese) at the expense of the young and healthy. I think that makes the discussion around the tradeoffs more difficult and nuanced. I’m not saying that any one approach is definitely right or wrong, but that there are legitimate perspectives and lines of reasoning to support a relatively wide set of approaches.

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