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Comment by lukastr0 | Hacker News Reader

"Do not prevent spreading" suggests a kind of black-and-white perspective. This is not about fully preventing, it's about reducing the risk. Vaccines substantially reduce the risk of spreading or catching Covid.

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2294250-how-much-less-l...

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Isn't without vaccines the death rate from Covid is around 4%? I read earlier 80% of unvaccinated in 2018-2020 stage, won't even show much symptoms. Singapore even gone thru extensive testing and their death rate was very low well below 1% and this was before availability of vaccines. So reducing the risk of that 4% chunk isn't significant.

The death rate is nowhere near 4%. The CDC estimated the infection fatality rate in the US at 0.6% back when almost no one was vaccinated. The vaccines and other improved treatments have now cut that risk way down.

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/burd...

> The death rate is nowhere near 4%.

Your own source shows quite clearly that the estimated death rate for >65yo lies between 3.8% and 4.0%.

The >65yo cohort is both the one reporting the lowest number of total infections (~18M) and the highest death count (~700k).

Yes and the CFR in people 20 - 30 appears to be about 0.01% (very roughly). Obviously some subpopulations are more or less vulnerable. Averaged over the whole population it generally comes to somewhat under 1%.

Check out the CFR for RSV (a common cold virus) or influenza in people over 80. Viruses that almost never incapacitate let alone kill healthy younger adults can often kill the medically weak.

There are fates worse than death, and so much in-between.

> There are fates worse than death (...)

...said the person who hasn't died of COVID.

Meanwhile, those who died from COVID typically undergo an excruciating death.

https://www.vox.com/2021/2/20/22280817/covid-19-deaths-us-nu...

And those with long covid — 20-30% of victims, last I read — typically undergo an excruciating life.

I think you misunderstood my point. I meant that the percent of deaths understates the suffering of our species.

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