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Comment by dools | Hacker News Reader

Calculate 1% of the population of your country.

Here are some other useful ways to understand the severity:

Imagine that on every international flight, 8 passengers died from covid

Imagine that at every capacity game at Madison square garden (or another sports venue of your choice) 200 people died of covid.

Every time.

Now think about that and ask yourself if you might think twice before flying internationally or going to a basketball game.

You could also do some comparisons to road deaths and think about all the public health measures we have in place to prevent them and how many people still either know someone who has been impacted by road accidents.

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> Calculate 1% of the population of your country.

Then calculate the rate of other killer diseases in most developed countries, such as cardiovascular diseases, cancers, or opoid-related deaths, and how much we don't care about those usually while COVID is suddenly an extraordinary emergency that requires we lock down everything and everyone just to save people who have 3-4 comorbidities in the first place (and those should get vaccinated).

It's pure madness.

> cardiovascular diseases, cancers, or opoid-related deaths, and how much we don't care about those usually

Speak for yourself.

I speak about the authorities, who obviously don't make as much of a fuss of it as they seize every opportunity possible with COVID.

1% is conservative, the truth is much lower than that because we can't measure with reliability people who have no symptoms.

As as the other commenter pointed out, it's not random. People with multiple comorbidities are usually the ones impacted, not healthy random people. You may want to think about that before making bad analogies.

> we can't measure with reliability people who have no symptoms

Also untrue. Random sample testing is a thing.

> Also untrue. Random sample testing is a thing.

What's untrue is that testing is 100% reliable. Look at how PCR testing actually works and how many cycles they use for detection. You will come with a different mind.

> Imagine that on every international flight, 8 passengers died from covid

> Imagine that at every capacity game at Madison square garden (or another sports venue of your choice) 200 people died of covid.

> Every time.

> Now think about that and ask yourself if you might think twice before flying internationally or going to a basketball game.

Yes, in absolute terms, the number of people who have died from COVID is significant.

But your examples use random populations, which is a bit misleading because we know that the vast majority of COVID deaths are in specific populations -- the elderly, the obese, the diabetic.

Of course, some countries have seen far more deaths than others, but the statistics make it pretty clear this is because their populations are older and have more comorbidities.

See https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/04/health/obesity-covid-death-ra...

> In an analysis of data and studies from more than 160 countries, the researchers found that Covid-19 mortality rates increased along with countries' prevalence of obesity. They note that the link persisted even after adjusting for age and national wealth.

> The report found that every country where less than 40% of the population was overweight had a low Covid-19 death rate of no more than 10 people per 100,000.

As the article notes, over two-thirds of Americans are overweight so let's rephrase your question: imagine that you went to a full-capacity game at MSG and the majority of people were overweight (and 40% were obese!). Because that's what America actually looks like.

Maybe we should be thinking about that too?

Fortunately, you can't catch obesity from being in close contact with other obese people. Or take it home, and transmit it to younger and/or more at-risk people; Cheeseburgers don't work that way. More vaccinations mean better protection for everybody - this is the whole point.

> More vaccinations mean better protection for everybody - this is the whole point.

One can agree with that while at the same time acknowledging that the vaccines aren't anywhere near 100% protective. The science says that neutralizing antibodies that are produced after vaccination wane quickly (in months) and vaccinated individuals can still get and transmit the virus.

And guess what? The serious breakthrough cases appear to be happening most often in the very groups of people who are most at risk when unvaccinated -- the immunocompromised, the elderly, the overweight and obese, and the diabetic.

In short, everyone who is SARS-CoV-2 naive should seriously consider getting vaccinated if they haven't been already because it generally provides strong protection against hospitalization and death, but when assessing individual risk, let's not pretend that the risk of severe outcomes is equal in all people.

COVID is an opportunity to talk about metabolic health that we're sadly largely missing.

> More vaccinations mean better protection for everybody

You don't need children to be protected for example with vaccines because they do not suffer from COVID19-related disease. That's a fact.

All untrue. Children suffer from COVID 19 and in the United States account for over 1% of COVID 19 related hospitalizations. It's extremely rare that they die from it, but that's not what you wrote.

More to the OP's point regarding vaccination protecting everybody, vaccination reduces the odds children will spread the virus if they catch it.

> More to the OP's point regarding vaccination protecting everybody, vaccination reduces the odds children will spread the virus if they catch it.

Factually wrong. Vaccinated people carry just as much viral load as others when they are exposed to the virus. Already been proven in multiple publications.

> Children suffer from COVID 19 and in the United States account for over 1% of COVID 19 related hospitalizations.

Children of what age, and suffering of what comorbidities please?

Yeesh. I don’t know about “proof” but the paper that came just this month from UC Davis vis a vis viral load among the vaccinated is sobering. I just saw it this morning.

I don’t understand why one would view the presence of comorbidities as a reason to say what you said above, as if those people do not exist. There might be a case that a highly resource constrained society would want to limit vaccination among children to those with comorbidities.

That’s a fact, in the same way that up is the same as down

> Cheeseburgers don't work that way.

No, but you can't completely exclude the manipulative effects of communal eating habits. You can't exclude the multi-billion dollar tactics to promote, associate, tempt, entice and feed children, adults and families with fast food.

Nor can you exclude the actual food, including portion size, sugar content, and cost/value from having a "transmission" effect of hooking vulnerable people on convenient, cheap, endlessly available junk food. All repeatedly validated via communal eating habits, symbols, signs and billboard displayed everywhere. Imprints of these messages become part of your brain's neural network over years.

Cheeseburgers don't work like the virus, but you can wake up one day and realize you've consumed 50 kilograms of cheeseburgers, fries and coke in the last year, and wonder how the hell that happened and why you're now in the high risk category.

This is true, and irrelevant. You can’t vaccinate against the spread of obesity, which is what we are talking about

It's not irrelevant. Obesity is an epidemic. "One of today’s most blatantly visible – yet most neglected – public health problems" according to the WHO.

Someone above pointed out to you that the majority of COVID deaths are in specific populations -- the elderly, the obese, the diabetic, and that "maybe we should think about that", which you replied with "you can't vaccinate against obesity".

Vaccination is just one way to deal with an epidemic.

The WHO coined "globesity" to describe the escalating global epidemic "taking over many parts of the world".

"Its health consequences range from increased risk of premature death to serious chronic conditions that reduce the overall quality of life."

https://www.who.int/activities/controlling-the-global-obesit...

It is irrelevant to the discussion of vaccines, of which this one. Or do you believe we can vaccinate against obesity, because I am starting to think you do

The implication of the OP is that 1% is nothing to worry about. I’m putting it in terms that may illustrate just how big that risk is compared to other areas where we wouldn’t accept those risks.

The implication of your post is that 1% of people dying isn’t an issue so long as they are old or fat.

But anyway let’s take your statistic of 10 people per 100,000.

Now imagine a sports venue where every 5 games 10 people died of food poisoning but far more got really sick and some even required hospitalisation. Would you choose to eat the food at that venue when you went there?

> Now imagine a sports venue where every 5 games 10 people died of food poisoning but far more got really sick and some even required hospitalisation. Would you choose to eat the food at that venue when you went there?

Now imagine driving. You see where your line of reasoning does not make sense anymore? Everything we do in life carries risks.

Right, and imagine if somebody invented a simple injection that reduced road deaths...how many people do you think would be interested in this?

Do you have any idea how many millions of dollars car companies invest every year into making cars marginally safer?

Even if you somehow assume everybody working at a car company is somehow immoral - imagine the profit motive if they invented a car that reduced your risk of dying by 75%? People would be clamouring to license the technology.

Yes, we all want to drive, but if you could let us still drive, and be safer...

The amount of crazy conspiracy theories around COVID, and how it's about government control, or big pharma is mind-boggling.

It's a pandemic - we've had them before, except this time, we have science, and invested billions of dollars into research to get a vaccine. Sure, it's not 100% effective, but by this point in time, we have a fairly good idea that it's benefits heavily outweigh the risks across the population.

And the vaccine is free...

> imagine if somebody invented a simple injection that reduced road deaths...how many people do you think would be interested in this?

Good to see a road safety analogy that doesn't replace injections with seat belts or speeding signs. But the injection would not be popular if it were mandated for all drivers. Even for those not at high risk at becoming drowsy, or whatever the injection addresses to reduce deaths.

Particularly if more than one injection was required, and further boosters after that, with imperfect protection, and special certificates needed. People would resist.

> The amount of crazy conspiracy theories around COVID, and how it's about government control...

Yes there's some over-cooked conspiracies. But in Australia, our state government has mandated the vaccine for more than a million workers. Office workers, all workers not working from home. Plus no entry to cafes, haircuts etc. Everyone must carry proof of vaccination, preferably via the government's app.

There is no option to get a negative test and visit your work or other places. There is no option for proof of natural immunity. It's vaccination or nothing. "Government control" is not easy to brush aside after 250 days in lockdown. Even though we are 70% double-vaxxed, we must wear masks outside, and could lose jobs if not vaccinated. If not "government control" would you be willing to accept "over-zealous" at least? Or do you stick with "greater good" and "necessary public health measures"?

> Now imagine driving. You see where your line of reasoning does not make sense anymore? Everything we do in life carries risks.

According to that analogy antivaxers and antimaskers are drunk drivers, making things more dangerous for other people through their own stupid decisions.

(Except drunk drivers are considerably lower in number, and not contagious... you can take an analogy too far.)

Have you looked at how few people die from road deaths, and then compared that with the extent to which we go to prevent road deaths?

> The implication of your post is that 1% of people dying isn’t an issue so long as they are old or fat.

Nowhere did I state or suggest that it's not a big deal if old and "fat" (your words, not mine, interestingly) people die.

The fact that the death rate is magnitudes of order higher in countries where over 40% of the population is overweight is not a tidbit of no importance. It's hugely important because it reflects the disparity of risk that exists in groups with certain comorbidities.

Other figures are just as stark. For instance, according to the CDC, 513 children 0-17 have died from COVID during the entire pandemic. Obviously, all of those 513 lost lives had value but if you ignore the fact that 745 times more people 75 and over have died from COVID than those aged 0-17, you will miss the forest for the trees.

In short, how can we have an honest discussion about COVID risk without acknowledging that the risk is very clearly not equal in all individuals?

How are these figures at all comparable to COVID? If we're going to have an intelligent conversation about COVID risk, pulling numbers out of thin air and using irrelevant comparisons isn't constructive.

I was using your numbers!

Food poisoning is a horrible comparison because anyone can be done in by food poisoning. If I'm not in a high-risk COVID group, my odds of becoming seriously ill when I eat contaminated food is much higher than my risk of being hospitalized or dying from COVID.

But I used your reduced risk numbers based on reduced risk factors of 10 in 100,000! I’m saying you wouldn’t accept the same level of risk if it were food poisoning

> Of course, some countries have seen far more deaths than others, but the statistics make it pretty clear this is because their populations are older and have more comorbidities

The statistics you cited make clear they are correlated. You can't infer causation without first considering why those countries have fewer comorbidities. E.g.,

> > The report found that every country where less than 40% of the population was overweight had a low Covid-19 death rate of no more than 10 people per 100,000.

It could be that the reason they have less overweight people is that they are more prone to follow health and nutrition advice in general, and this same propensity led them to also follow advice on avoiding COVID.

Looking at a US obesity rate map, there is reasonable correlation between high obesity rate states and states for which COVID has had high second and third wave death rates.

But there is also a good correlation between high death rate states and states where people are lax in taking preventative measures. That seems to be better than the obesity rate correlation. Florida, for example, is noticeably lower on obesity than the rest of the South, being more in line with most of the Northeast and the Northwest but is a leader in not taking COVID preventative measures, and has had terrible second and third waves compared to states with comparable obesity rates.

But they are higher in elderly, an even higher correlation.

> But there is also a good correlation between high death rate states and states where people are lax in taking preventative measures. That seems to be better than the obesity rate correlation. Florida, for example, is noticeably lower on obesity than the rest of the South, being more in line with most of the Northeast and the Northwest but is a leader in not taking COVID preventative measures, and has had terrible second and third waves compared to states with comparable obesity rates.

A better correlation according to who?

According to one report, the two greatest risk factors for COVID are age and weight[1]. Over 20% of the population in Florida is 65+, the second highest percentage in the nation, and Florida also happens to be the third most populous.

Florida isn't an outlier if you look at the age distribution of deaths: over 77% of deaths are in those 65+.

[1] https://www.worldobesityday.org/assets/downloads/COVID-19-an...

[2] https://theconversation.com/severe-covid-in-young-people-can...

Maine has the same 65+ percent as Florida, a higher obesity rate, yet their delta wave peak was about 1/3 of Florida's by cases per capita, and around 1/4 of Florida's by deaths per capita. Maine's overall COVID profile looks a lot like Washington's, which is around 40th in 65+ percentage and has obesity rates about the same as Florida.

Age and obesity are certainly significant risk factors, but it sure looks like how well those risk factors translate into cases and deaths depends greatly on what protective measures against COVID are taken.

Perhaps it might be better to compare Maine to other rural states like Idaho or Montana rather than, you know, Florida.

Montana is 18% 65+, compared to 20% Maine (and Florida). Its obesity rates are about the same as Florida (25-30%) behind Maine's 30-35%.

Montana's delta peak in cases per capita was about 2x Maine's. Montana's delta peak per capita death rate was a little more than 2x Maine's.

Idaho is 15% 65+, which puts then around 30th in rank. Obesity rates in the 30-35% range like Maine.

Idaho's per capita delta peak was a little under twice Maine's for cases, but over 3x Maine's for deaths (almost as high as Florida's).

Serious people measure death rates, not "cases". Cases is pretty arbitrary.

If you want, you can do serological studies to estimate the proportion of a population that was infected, but please don't think there is any value to "cases", and serological studies are generally done after a disease is over, because diseases hit different areas in different times. They spread over time, going from place to place, so one area with a low infection rate may simply not have been hit yet. A great example of this is Singapore, which everyone thought had licked the disease, when in reality it was just hit later. Similarly everyone was blaming New York, but even though New York made some mistakes with nursing homes, it's biggest crime was to be one of the places hit first. Similarly, after the disease burned through New York and started growing in Arizona, that didn't mean that suddenly New York had better policies than Arizona. That's why you wait until everything is over and then you do serological studies before jumping to conclusions.

FYI lowest death rates (as of 3 days ago) are Vermont, Maine, Alaska, Hawaii. Hawaii is a bit of an outlier as it is an island that for a while had strict protocols limiting visitors. I suspect Hawaii merely delayed its day of reckoning, similar to Australia or New Zealand, but I could be wrong. Time will tell.

Highest death rates are Mississippi, New Jersey, New York, Louisiana, Alabama.

Massachusetts has a higher death rate than Florida. Does that mean it has worse policies? No you can't conclude that, it just means there are a lot of confounding variables and you can't conclude efficacy of policies like that. California has a higher death rate than Utah, does that mean it has worse policies? No, you can't conclude that either. That's not how you do science.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1109011/coronavirus-covi...

We'll need to wait until it's all over to get the final tally. Then we can also do serological studies to determine extent of infection.

You are looking at death rates over the entire course of the pandemic so far. To see how measures against COVID affect deaths you need to look how rates change during the pandemic because measures taken changed over time.

Massachusetts, New Jersey, and New York all had a huge spike in deaths in the first couple of months of the pandemic. After that, their months were roughly in the middle of the pack compared to other states until vaccines.

In the post vaccine months they have been bottom 20%, while Florida has been in the top 20%.

> To see how measures against COVID affect deaths you need to look how rates change during the pandemic because measures taken changed over time.

The problem with this is that you're assuming the rates changed primarily or exclusively because measures changed (if they even did).

There are bigger factors you're not considering. Take, for example, New York. It was one of the first epicenters of the pandemic in the US. Large numbers of people got infected early on, and decisions were made that actually contributed to the spread of the virus in some of the highest risk groups. As a result, lots of people got natural immunity or died in New York in the first waves, so there were fewer people to infect in the later waves.

Anyway, the data has clearly established that in terms of the risk of any individual anywhere dying from COVID if they become infected, age, weight and metabolic comorbidities (namely diabetes) are the primary factors.

You've been arguing that if you live somewhere where your risk of being infected in the first place is reduced by restrictions/preventative measures, that's a bigger factor. That's totally irrelevant to the discussion of individual risk when infected.

700,000 Americans died. That is approximately 0.21%. Over almost 2 years. Not 1%.

And that's assuming the count is even accurate. We now know that in some places they categorized people as dying from COVID even if they died from completely unrelated causes just because they did a COVID test on top. So the truth is certainly less.

No, we don’t now know that unless we are victims of misinformation

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