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Yes, definitely self medicate with untested drugs for what basically is the flu as long as you're under 60 years old, what could possibly go wrong ...

At a lower bound estimate of 30-60x the case fatality rate of flu and some unexplained reinfection mechanism, 'it's just the flu bro' is getting really disingenuous.

A simple way to explain this to simple minded people is: ever heard of international travel and massive sports events being cancelled, and armies getting mobilised because of just the flu? No? That's because that's not what this is.

Poster made it clear that the drug is untested an experimental, but ultimately each individual is responsible for their own wellbeing and should be aware of last-ditch options if things get dire.

> 30-60x the case fatality

Under 60 years old, certainly not.

> some unexplained reinfection mechanism

unexplained and more importantly totally unproven.

It certainly is more dangerous than the flu but if you're not weak or old taking some random untested drugs recommended on an internet forum by someone who has no idea what he's talking about is most likely more risky than just following health organisations recommendations.

> unexplained and more importantly totally unproven.

What do you mean unproven? There are reinfection cases with incredibly low latencies being reported all over the globe. A handful of reports might be written off as misunderstandings or outliers but there are multiple reports per day from reputable sources. Reinfection is certainly a factor, the only question is by what mechanism.

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3048320/chin...

https://twitter.com/OH_mes2/status/1233346594428186627

> weak or old

Does a 29 year old healthy male sound weak or old?

https://twitter.com/lilkuo/status/1230699297508745217

> just following health organisations recommendations

You mean like the CDC which is being actively dismantled while the president of the US goes on national TV and calls their messaging fake news?

The health of every individual is ultimately in their own hands. Being informed of everything pertinent to their health including experimental last-ditch treatments is in everyone's interest. Don't look to authorities to babysit you through a pandemic, especially not in poor countries or USA. By hitting the downvote button on the grandparent comment, you're electing to censor it in some sort of misguided do-gooding effort, inspite of HN guidelines.

> What do you mean unproven?

I haven't seen any serious source talking about reinfections.

> Does a 29 year old healthy male sound weak or old?

You're statistically very very very very unlikely to die of it if you're young and healthy, just like the regular flu, but of course some people will still die from it, just like some people get cancer at 20. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/coronavirus-age-se...

> The health of every individual is ultimately in their own hands.

Then go ahead and tell people to inject random chemicals in their body, if you don't have the honesty to lay out all the facts people like us will lay them out for you.

> By hitting the downvote button on the grandparent comment,

I probably up/downvoted less than 5 comments in my life, and you're not one of them.

A false negative doesn't make a reinfection.

There are going to be a lot of still positive people that test negative with a test that has a high enough false negative rate.

Patients only get retested after they appear to have recovered. That means their symptoms have subsided.

You can get super pedantic with semantics and call it a false negative, which might be technically true if the virus subsides but has the ability to persist - which is one of the potential mechanisms for reinfection, but has not been confirmed.

But none of that changes the fact that people are getting reinfected and sometimes dropping dead after appearing to have recovered by all measures. This is clearly different to 'it's just the flu bro'.

30-60x the case fatality rate of flu

30-60x the risk of something that happens very, very rarely, is still a very small risk.

> estimate of 30-60x the case fatality rate of flu

so what do you call comparing cfr of a novel disease that so far has often went unreported, had a small sample size, is often misdiagnosed with pneumonia or the common flu and has no immunization, with another where people at risk get vaccinations and there's large statistical data coming from decades of modern countries tracking strains efficiently?

no, comparing cfrs is disingenuous.

not to say that this disease isn't severe, but enough already with the flu multipliers. it's bullshit and is not making any point across.

Flu multipliers are the most effective way to convey the risk of this disease to simple-minded people who dismiss it as 'just the flu'.

In a more technical context, I would entirely agree with you and not use such figures.

yeah but people will look up the figures, figure out the statistics are misleading, and be even more entrenched in their 'just the flu' assumption.

there needs to be a better way and I think "your elders' and your friends elders' are vaccinated against the flu, not this and are gonna catch it from you and 30%^ of them straight up dies" seems a better angle and more solid against argumentation.

^ or whatever % is today

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