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Comment by holonomically | Hacker News Reader

https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/odds+are+stacked+agains...

The odds are stacked against them as in they are less likely to survive if they contract the virus without being vaccinated. Outward appearance of health are unrelated to cytokine storms because cytokine storms are a confluence of genetic factors and viral DNA and unrelated to any outward appearances of health. In any case, the links I've presented are evidence enough for me to be convinced that vaccination is the right answer and if you're not convinced then that's fine. We can agree to disagree about the risk factors.

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I am absolutely pro-vaccine in all circumstances, but you are not using the phrase "odds stacked against them" correctly.

Given that there is a highly virulent novel virus, the odds are stacked against the anti-vaxxers because if you believe that you can somehow avoid getting infected then you are not calculating probabilities properly and so you are underestimating the odds of contracting the virus and surviving, i.e. the odds are stacked against them and they don't realize it.

Now, how exactly am I using the phrase incorrectly?

You moved the goal posts. Go over the thread again. Look at what you wrote. We were talking about the risk of death.

Quoting myself so it's clear

> ...so you are underestimating the odds of contracting the virus and surviving, i.e. the odds are stacked against them and they don't realize it.

Explain how I'm using it incorrectly.

The previous poster already explained how it is incorrect to say the odds are stacked against a healthy unvaccinated person who gets the virus. Can you elaborate what else you need explained?

Yes, explain what is wrong with my statement. Where exactly is the error? Write it out and bracket the parts that are incorrect.

"Given that there is a highly virulent novel virus, [the odds are stacked against the anti-vaxxers] because if you believe that you can somehow avoid getting infected then you are not calculating probabilities properly and so you are underestimating the odds of contracting the virus and surviving, i.e. [the odds are stacked against them] and they don't realize it."

Previous poster explained why the odds are not stacked against unvaccinated people who are otherwise healthy.

Hopefully that clears everything up for you.

Yes, thank you very much. It's all very clear now. I was definitely using the phrase incorrectly but, to be fair, the odds were stacked against me as a non-native speaker.

Now you're getting it!

I was being sarcastic.

I know, but that was correct in that reply.

Seriously, despite it being more likely for an unvaccinated person to have serious adverse effects than a vaccinated person, overall an unvaccinated person is still more likely to not have serious adverse effects than to have them. Regardless of the relative difference, the absolute odds is what the phrase is referring to.

The "odds being stacked against" something declares that one is very likely to experience an unfavorable outcome, stacked suggesting a strong disadvantage.

Again, I fully agree with all of your points, you are correct in all points except the usage of that particular phrase.

Which points do you agree with? Surely not that there is a binary choice that people who get covid must either have been vaccinated or they take these new drugs (but not both)?

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