Topic: Coronavirus outbreak

@JaxonH That would be really great if it really turned out to stop there! I definitely wouldn't count that chicken just yet given your in experience and general knowledge of people's reactions.... It's probably too soon to really move on, but that would be wonderful!

Also, what Ralizah said...

@Ralizah @NEStalgia
Reminds me of Indepence Day with Will Smith. What a classic.

"Today, we celebrate... our Independence Day!"

It's still early and no doubt, this thing has been come and go since it started, but I'm feeling pretty good about it right now.

Looking at the statistics I think the fear maybe was a tad overblown, at least for those under 60 without underlying health issues. I was so afraid when I got it, worried I might die, but now, I think I let all the nonstop reporting on it escalate my fear a bit too much. If you're healthy and not of retirement age, chances are it'll basically be like the flu. In some cases not even.

I'm beginning to wonder if this thing didn't mutate and create less lethal strains since the initial outbreak. At least anecdotally, myself, both other coworkers and my mom's friend's son, has all been relatively mild and brief.

At first blood type was suspected to explain the different reactions but, maybe this thing has like 3 different strains now, and depending on the time and region of the world you're in, maybe you're at much less risk than originally thought (it could go the other way too though and become more dangerous)

@JaxonH I'm LITERALLY watching that movie as I type this.

Anyway, the fear isn't overblown in general. People in your age range generally don't suffer terribly from it. But, spread out over millions of people, it DOES rack up a horrible body count. We're probably looking at 200,000 Americans dead from covid soon, and many more hospitalized or with more severe symptoms.

If I didn't have multiple family members in that high risk group category, I probably wouldn't be terribly paranoid.

@Ralizah
Ya, 4% of millions of people is a huge number. Incredibly unfortunate.

But on an individual level I think the hype was overblown a bit. I genuinely feared for my life when I first started noticing symptoms. You hear so much about how horrible it is, and these freak cases of young people dying, and your imagination just runs wild. Stead of looking at it calmly from a statistical sense. The chances of a younger, healthy person dying are pretty slim. Probably comparable to the flu, I imagine (for healthy people, it’s at least double or triple for the elderly or those with underlying risks).

And I knew those statistics but still, you hear those freak cases and you can’t help but wonder... will that be me?

And that’s probably partly due to fear of the unknown. We know so little about this thing. Why it affects a small percentage of people so severely. Why some experience very mild symptoms (even milder than flu). Why such variability between cases.

Well, as far as I know the deaths mostly come from people becoming unable to breathe properly, not so much other symptoms.

Basically their lungs say "I feel a bit bloated, I'mma take a nap".

It can be devastating depending on who you are what's your situation. If our imaginary friend Mr. Perez suddenly finds himself unable to breathe by himself and doesn't have access to medical attention or someone capable of helping, then that's a pickle.

Sometimes even with help it's too much for the body.

Here in my state, there's a kid that resulted positive for covid-19, and dengue. He's young so I assume he'll be alright, but still that's rough.

@JaxonH those statistics are so inconclusive i don't put much stock in them. Yeah the death statistic leans that way, but they don't talk at much about the hospitalization statistics. And even the death stats are not really conclusive. And most of America technically has the requisite preexisting high blood pressure even if not diagnosed etc. But i think if not old and prexisting, and or not working in healthcare, the odds of death are reasonably lower... But not riskless. To me the bigger threat for you was just hospitalization and some of the longer term effects they never talk about (just using a ventilator can do some hard to repair damage irregardless of covid being the need.) Etc when it comes to things that can go wrong going very wrong, statistics can be wrongly comforting. Not trying to scare you again.... Just reminding you to be practical and not let your guard down just yet. The stats only apply if you're not part of the large pool of exceptions.

You're very right about the possibility of it becoming milder via mutation. More than herd immunity that's been considered an inevitable outcome. Sars cov2 will be around forever, but eventually it will just be another common cold. Viruses don't tend to stay lethal, symbiosis is the best survival outcome for it as well. Being deadly is more a result of being unfit for human hosts still. So eventually that is the expected result, yes. The question is how long that takes and how much damage it does first.

@Eel studies have shown covid goes vascular... Which is exceedingly rare for any infectious disease. If those that died from its pneumonia form supposedly upward towards 30% really died from vascular symptoms, not respiratory. I can't recall the study...i think it was from Penn

@JaxonH Maybe, but society isn't solely composed of young, healthy people. It's not an acceptable compromise to let something run rampant that is causing mass death among older populations, and among people with pre-existing health conditions. A society should be doing what it can to protect its vulnerable populations, not throwing them to the wolves so Karen down the street doesn't have to be inconvenienced for a month or two.

Of course, this is a moot point now. Our window for containing this or even mitigating the damage it does is long gone.

But even for younger people, even if they don't necessarily die from it, it can still cause severe illness, and I'm guessing there will be longer-term health impacts that we'll feel generationally from the way it's damaging the bodies of its hosts.

It's not the black plague, but it's definitely still bad. I don't know if "fear" is a rational response to anything, but I think maintaining some level of fear in a populace is fine if it leads to a greater social good. I have to wonder how different our situation might have been if we didn't have Republican leaders actively downplaying the importance of following public health recommendations and not enforcing lockdowns. Actually, I think it's pretty clear: look at how many new cases we see every day, and then look at how many other countries, which are actually run by adults, have managed to flatten their curves and limit the spread of this thing.

@Ralizah
??

I’m not sure what you thought I was implying but I never said society was only composed of young healthy people, nor did I imply we should just let it run rampant. I’m not sure where you got that from.

Of course it’s bad. Of course it’s serious. Of course we need to do something about it. Most definitely. Agree 100% But that doesn’t change the fact the fear was a tad over blown for me on a personal level- I don’t care what it means for anybody else, I was talking about myself.

But since you brought it up, I will go ahead and say that probably at large it’s been over blown a bit too. Again with the caveat, unless you’re elderly, unless you have health issues. It doesn’t mean a young healthy person can’t die from it, but it does mean that young healthy people die from all kinds of other common diseases and we don’t fear that like the plague either. It’s not a binary issue where you have to metaphorically pick a side and either fear it like the wrath of God or just pretend it doesn’t even exist. There are infinite gray areas in between and what I’m saying is, that maybe on a scale of 0 to 100, instead of being 100 maybe it should’ve been a 75. That’s still a threat. That still commands a healthy level of respect and fear. But maybe it doesn’t warrant hysteria. Just because I think it was overblown a bit now in hindsight doesn’t mean I think it was grossly overblown or even no threat at all, or that we should do nothing, or just pretend it doesn’t exist, or laugh in the face of danger. Just means that I am beginning to feel it doesn’t warrant the world-is-ending hysteria it’s caused and most people shouldn’t fear catching it like it’s the bubonic plague. They should instead fear catching it like it’s a really bad new flu strain that kills 4% (mostly elderly) with a higher chance for hospitalization. That’s still a concern. But people should fear it for what it is and nothing more (not to be mistaken for fearing it less than for what it is). For most normal people not in high risk categories, statistics lie heavily in their favor.

Of course anything over a large enough number of people will result in a crazy number of deaths. 300,000 people drown every year, but that doesn’t mean you should fear for your life every time you go swimming. 1.25 million people die in road deaths each year, but it doesn’t mean you should fear for your life every time you get in a car. Even the safest activities we partake in constitute a huge number of deaths when accounting for worldwide populations. And so COVID, wow the number of deaths is alarming and concerning, And by no means is my intention to marginalize them, what I’m getting at is that while it is true there is a large number of deaths worldwide, an average person who doesn’t fall in high risk categories probably doesn’t need to fear for their life. Yes, you could still die. Just like the person swimming in the lake could drown. But the chances are low enough that it probably doesn’t warrant personal hysteria from every single case.

Hopefully that explains my feelings a little more clearly. What I’m not saying though is that it’s nothing to fear and that we should have just brushed it aside. Heck no. People need to be wearing masks. Even if you’re not high risk you could give it to somebody who is. And even then just because you don’t die from it doesn’t mean it’s a pleasant experience you want to go through. And as NES said, you might be one of the unlucky ones who ends up hospitalized or something. All I’m saying is, I feel like my perspective is starting to become more balanced and come back down to planet earth.

Ah, OK. Well, yeah, media reporting can scare people into thinking any number of statistical unlikelihoods are more possible than normal. Which is probably why so many parents are terrified of allowing their children out of their sight any more, even though, statistically, they're so much more likely to abuse their own child than a stranger is. It's unsurprising that media reports of 30-year-olds fighting for life in ICUs would cause you some nervousness, in that case. Availability heuristic, and all that. People are notoriously bad about judging risk. If they weren't, you'd have a much harder time getting people to drive around in cars as often as they do.

I haven't really seen "mass panic" around this topic, though. I've seen alarm and some level of fear, but, if anything, I think the broader (American) public response to this hasn't been fearful enough. Too many people are still way too eager to readily intermingle without paying mind to the use of ppe or socially distancing from others.

How are you feeling, by the way?

@Ralizah
I edited my post like 3 times, it’s got like multiple new paragraphs since you quoted it, but I can’t really pick apart the new and the old so maybe just give the latter half another glance because you actually reference something I add it in about automobile accidents.

I think that’s exactly the case- at large there’s not enough fear. Too many people ignoring it like it doesn’t exist and not wearing masks and taking proper precautions. They probably feel the statistics are in their favor but what they are not accounting for is the fact they could give it to somebody else and blood will be on their hands. But on a personal level, for those who do fear I think the tendency has been maybe too swing a little too much in the other direction, perhaps because people have this binary view of it where you either have to shrug it off like it’s nothing or you have to make it out to be Armageddon.

But maybe that’s peoples’ instincts for self preservation at work. It’s why people have a fear of heights even if there’s a guard rail. Your natural response is “get away from danger as fast as possible- don’t walk, RUN”

Btw, feeling great. Sucks I gotta stay off from work all this week though. Doc says 10 days from first symptoms and 72 hrs with no symptoms before clearing to go back. And I get it. Gotta be 100% sure it’s gone and not contagious anymore.

Statistics are a funny thing that can say whatever you want then to say, which is precisely what's wrong with our data driven modern society. There was a 3% chance of rain last weekend. That's a 97% probably of clear weather. It rained. Statistically improbable outcomes are only improbable until they happen, and then they're 100% chances. We like to use statistical odds to make us feel better. Which helps until the unfavorable outcome occurs. 40% chances of hurricane landfall over you home is favorable, until you're homeless.

Upward towards 30% of new hospitalizations have been under 40. That's 1 in 3. Not great odds even if statistically improbable. Even if we are taking one percent, that sounds great. But put another way, statistically if we take 100 NL forum members under 40, one of us is a dead man walking.

@NEStalgia
By that logic the 1% chance you get hit by a car or struck by lightning could also be similarly construed the same way. Probability and odds are used for a reason- it’s pure logic- there is inherent risk in everything you do in life. How you live boils down to how you personally weigh those odds. 1% isn’t great when it actually happens but 99 times out of 100 it doesn’t. And that’s why you see people out and about on the streets and not living like hermits because they have weighed the odds, of all the different things that could happen to them, be it struck by lightning, hit by a car, robbed and killed, etc, and after weight cost vs benefit, decided to take the risk anyways because it’s a small enough probability in their estimation. That doesn’t mean it never happens and it sucks when you’re the one percent. But if you REALLY believed what you just said, you likely would never leave the house. The fact you do (presumably) tells me you don’t entirely buy in to what you just said.

Point being, response should always be dictated by probability. Always. And the greater the probability, the greater the severity, The more cautious one will be with the actions they take.

Case in point. Influenza. For the sake of argument, let’s say it’s 25% as lethal as Covid. That’s better odds but it’s not that much better. Were you living your life with a mask for the last 50 years out of fear you might catch a lethal case of influenza? I’m going to take a leap and wager not. Perhaps you got vaccinated but, that’s no guarantee. It does lower the odds though. Perhaps it lowers them enough you no longer consider wearing a mask necessary? Perfect example of living by the odds and letting the probabilities shape your actions. Everyone does whether they realize it or not. And acceptable risk is different for everyone.

But I’m not getting backed into a corner defending an argument I never made here. I think the severity and probability of this disease is such that it warrants the level of caution we’ve seen, if not more. I was merely talking about overreacting in the sense of freaking out thinking you might die when the chances of that happening are roughly on par with dying from any number of other common annual viruses that go around that people don’t freak out over. And even if hospitalization is higher, it’s not the numbers you said. It’s 20% for everyone. If you only look at the younger age groups in good health, it’s a fractional amount, as shown in the study results I posted.

@JaxonH what i find odd about reactions to this disease is the obsession with the death statistic, both by people who don't care and in reverse by those that do. Even metrically, on the east coast, despite the disease killing all over europe and Asia, nobody minded. Then as soon as one person on this coast died all heck broke loose. Madness. The death count isn't the most significant factor. The hospitalization rate matters more. And that's an unusually large number and much more evenly divided among age groups. "Surviving" isn't the end game condition necessarily.

You hopefully lucked out and got it mild. Hopefully. That's something we can be grateful for. But dam the statistics... Let's not pretend that was a given because you're not 90 with lymphoma. You're fortunate and that's what counts, but while death is a possible outcome, the statistics that skew older hide that a lot of that skew comes from the fact the young are more likely to endure the trauma from a bad case than the old. Be very very grateful if you didn't have to endure that. Surviving doesn't necessarily mean surviving in tact, and the young definitely should be avoiding it "like the plague"... You were not wrong to react that way originally. I'm just glad it didn't get that far (hopefully!) For you.

@JaxonH You should always be careful. Even if there’s just a 1% chance of catching COVID if you’re at a party (not true statistics, just a scenario) you still shouldn’t risk it.

The thing about COVID isn’t how bad it is, it’s how fast it’s spreading. Masks aren’t a necessity for other diseases, but the spread rate of COVID is what’s really bad.

@NEStalgia

I’m not sure if it’s just the expectation of polarized viewpoints that has resulted in a simple statement of “maybe it was a tad overblown in hindsight” to be responded to as if I said “eh, this Covid thing is a hoax, why is anyone even wearing masks in the first place- there’s no risk here, back to normal everyone”.

Which is not even remotely close to what I said, but from the responses I’m getting, I feel as if people automatically assume that’s the stance I must therefore take because clearly, anyone who doesn’t take the exact stance they take, or deviates from the expected opinion even by a fraction of a percent, must therefore adhere to a bullet point ideology from the complete other side of the spectrum.

But my beliefs aren’t formed by bullet points or group think. You will never be able to predict my opinion on something because my opinion will never align with one side or the other or some group or larger narrative all of the time, or even most of the time for that matter. So when I say something, I’m not implying I’m taking a stance beyond what I said at face value. I mean what I say and nothing more should be read between the lines.

Because I think for myself, always have.

I don’t think it’s a matter of being “wrong” to react that way, but I do think my reaction was... unjustified. That doesn’t mean my response should’ve just been “eh, it’s nuthin, fuggetaboutit” but at the same time, it shouldn’t have been “omg I might die!” praying to God every waking second (not that I’m saying I shouldn’t pray to God more, but you get the point).

I never said it was “a given”. I said it was unlikely (and... it is, that’s just a fact). Because it’s NOT a given is why it warrants SOME concern. I never said it warranted NO concern. But because it’s unlikely is precisely is why it doesn’t warrant OUTRAGEOUS concern. Grey areas. Land in between extremes, that’s where I live. As in, does it warrant SOME concern? Yes. Because it can happen, even if the odds are low. Does it warrant freaking out and hyper ventilating like the world is coming to an end because you’ve got a 0.35% chance you might die? No. It does not. Land in between guys. And it is the death rate I was concerned about, and I think most are concerned about. Ya, hospitalization sucks. But life goes on. What really scares people is death. That’s the fear driver. Even if another outcome is unpleasant, as long as you can recover, that’s not what truly scares people. That’s not what scares me.

But what really gets me is why anybody would care if I felt that way in the first place. So I feel in hindsight the fear was a little overhyped. So what? Why are so many people so eager to rebut that as if it challenges their dogma or something, I don’t get it.

@BabyYoshi12
Even if there’s just a 1% chance of catching COVID if you’re at a party (not true statistics, just a scenario) you still shouldn’t risk it.

Never argued otherwise. I’m in complete agreement. The point of contention was never about risk taking behavior, but about personal reaction and metal state in response to the presence of such risk.

@JaxonH Sorry to butt in...

It's not just about the death rate though. You're right that hospitalization sucks but if you don't die, then you move on. I agree with that. BUT if the disease continues unchecked there wont be enough medical professionals to deal with it. Then we end up with a situation where people start being triaged and people start dying more frequently from other issues too. And we have people who should have survived but don't because they can't be treated.

I've been seeing this argument more and more "Oh the actual death rate is much lower than we thought, see? It was not a big deal after all!" Speaking of group think, I've been seeing comments like that all over.

But first, like I said, there's a limit to how many sick people medical professionals can treat, and second, even if the death rate was 0.1% - if we're talking millions of people sick that's still a lot of dead folks. It's a lot of dead moms, dads, brothers, sisters, friends, lovers, coworkers, students, teachers, neighbors and enemies.

I feel like many many people focus on the number so they can distance, in their minds, what that number actually is - human lives.

Anyways, I hope you're doing well, from the sound of it, you are getting by. But I suppose you could be lying in bed half dead and still typing. I hope that's not the case.

@Heavyarms55
Again, I don’t understand your response or any of these responses. We’re in agreement. There’s literally no disagreement here. I don’t understand where the point of contention is coming from.

It’s almost as if I’m saying one thing and people are reading it as something else. Like I’m saying “blue“ and people are reading “red”.

I never made this about the death rate or it justifying a cavalier attitude or inadequate response or treating this as anything less than a crisis. I was talking about personal levels of fear and being maybe, just maybe, a tiny little itty-bitty bit overblown. Not “ Nobody should fear anything at all, just look at the death rate, you’ll probably not get it so go back to living normally!”

Please read my response to NES, Cause I really feel like I’m starting to repeat myself here and I don’t know how many times I can say it or how many ways I can say it before I can convince people that when I say blue, I don’t mean red. And it’s just leading to frustration.

We’re in agreement, the pandemic is horrible.
We’re in agreement, even small percentages over large numbers means incredibly huge loss of life.
We’re in agreement, It shouldn’t be taking lightly.
We’re in agreement everyone should be wearing masks and practicing social distancing,
We’re in agreement, hospitals are at risk.
We’re in agreement, this is a crisis.
We’re in agreement, we’re in agreement, we’re in agreement.

We’re in agreement.

What I said was, I feel that maybe the hysteria was a tad over blown. And I do feel that way now. That doesn’t mean nobody should fear anything. It doesn’t mean that no level of caution is warranted. It doesn’t mean that just because the odds are low you should have no concern at all. That doesn’t mean the situation isn’t bad or that the hospitals aren’t at risk of being overflowing, or that this isn’t a crisis in any way.

Don’t understand how what I’m saying is being misconstrued. What I’m saying, and I really and truly don’t know how else I can put it than this, is that for the average, non-high risk category person, they probably don’t need to be freaking out about this thing (again, doesn’t mean disregard, doesn’t mean take no precaution, doesn’t mean any of that nonsense). They’re more than welcome if they want to, but I don’t feel it’s warranted. As if worrying can change anything anyways. But the chances of you even getting it in the first place are in your favor, and then the chances that it would actually result in death if you do happen to get it (again, for non-high-risk demographics which are the majority) is incredibly small once again. When you multiply those probabilities together you can conclude that the average healthy person that’s not in a retirement home maybe doesn’t need to be hyperventilating about this. Maybe tone it down a smidge. They’ll probably be OK. It’s not a guarantee but nothing in life is. It’s not worth freaking out about. Or living life like we’re in the Middle Ages and you’ll catch the plague any day now. That’s all I’m saying. It seems a relatively neutral and non-contentious opinion to me.

Sorry, but my frustration is at its limit having like five different people respond to me rebutting an argument I never made. My point to NES was that fear of death is what drives us. Yeah all the other stuff that comes with it sucks but it’s death that really puts the fear of God in people. Speaking from personal experience, I didn’t give two thoughts over hospitalization, except inasmuch that I might never come out. In no way am I saying “death rate is such and such, ergo, no worries”. Yes there’s worries. Obviously. I’m not arguing for a polar opposite binary response here, to go from hysteria to cloud nine, I’m saying maybe it should get dialed back from a 10 to an 8. That’s it. That’s all I’m saying. Is that really so contentious? Dial it back from a 10 to an 8?

@JaxonH FWIW your earlier post really did come across as if to say you think the media has been overhyping it and that if you're not old and sickly you don't need to beware of it, as though your (hopefully) brief, mild case have gave you new clarity that it's not so bad and is "only an old people problem" more or less. The comment on people not living like hermits etc solidified that, as it stands in contrast to what proved effective in countries other than tinpot cesspools. May not be what you intended to say but at least Ralizah and I got that impression from it.

But my main point is that in general using deaths as the major metric of what to legitimately fear and what demographic is most affected is a false metric and I don't understand the obsession with that statistic in particular. There are reasons beyond just death for avoiding this at all costs that affects a heck of a lot more people than the death count, and is a lot less age skewed and the media at large seems to gloss over that aspect entirely which is why so many people do come away with the "I'm young and it so it doesn't matter"mentality, falsely. That's not targeted Y you specifically, especially if your earlier comment wasnt meant to imply that... But it's a broad misrepresentatation. Even if nobody ever died from it, it would still be a crisis from it's potential effects. But everyone glosses over that.

But above all even if you feel fine still, just a reminder to not let your guard down. It's the weirdest disease in how it behaves. Make sure you're fine for weeks. And remember you may not come out immune... There's debate about that still... So they're is potential to just get it again... Especially if theres multiple strains starting to emerge.