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Comment by microdrum | Hacker News Reader

This is very strong evidence that the "realists" like Alex Berensen were correct. The shutdowns probably should end, while encouraging at-risk populations (mostly retired) to stay at home.

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Data from Wuhan was that in the early phase of the epidemic about 70% of infections were transmitted at home. Once they realized this, they went to rapid isolation of positive tests and quarantine of contacts in “COVID hotels” away from home.

So your suggestion is entirely unworkable unless there is a plan to remove all at-risk persons from contact with low-risk persons.

Please show your work and let us know what that plan looks like. Who will care for these people, how will they be housed, how will you prevent the care force from bringing infection to them ala nursing homes, etc.

Guess what? We have been doing it your way for 45 days. Everyone infected is now locked in a house with others. They too are now infected. Intrafamilial and nosocomial infection is much more powerful than community -- that has been proven here and in earlier epidemics.

And yet anti-science morons in SF clutch their scarf over their mouths when you jog past them.

The anti-science on HN is astounding.

nope.

Yep. You've got nothing. CFR is low, and this has been knowable for a long time. You're scared. It's OK. It's illogical and anti-scientific, but it's OK. But you won't be able to hurt ordinary people any longer.

Here's Germany's imputed CFR: https://spectator.us/covid-antibody-test-german-town-shows-1...

Here's Denmark: https://www.dr.dk/nyheder/indland/doedelighed-skal-formentli...

Here's Iceland: https://reason.com/2020/04/03/what-we-should-have-learned-fr...

More studies coming next week from LA.

Why quote Denmark but ignore Sweden? Sweden are doing what you're calling for, and they have pretty high numbers of deaths.

It's not "pretty high", it's middle of the pack and nowhere near the apocalypse that was supposed to be the outcome of their chosen path.

Deaths per 1m population in Sweden is currently 139. For Denmark it's 58, and for Norway it's 30.

This is a total failure as a talking point - it's amazing how quick it's spreading. Go compare it to Italy and Spain, which have both got the most severe restrictions. In Spain children are under house arrest, yet their outcomes are much worse than Sweden.

As I said, Sweden is in the middle of the pack. Your response is not a rebuttal to that. Lockdown is meant to avoid deaths by ensuring everyone has a bed, which in Sweden they do. Beyond that death rates will diverge for other reasons - it appears Sweden is seeing large racial disparities in deaths for some reason, as is America. So as a country that took in a lot more immigrants than Norway that would by itself be a contributing factor. But deaths due to not getting hospital beds is something we can safely say isn't happening, which means the justification for the lockdown is invalidated.

I'm really uncertain why so many people are resisting this outcome. It's a good one! Lockdowns are bad! If they have no effect then that means they should end and that's great for absolutely everyone.

No they don't. Stop being scared. Start being logical.

You are oversimplifying.

While these numbers are indicators, they are non-representative samples. Different communities spread the disease to different demographics.

A CFR of 0.4% is still huge, especially if it is very non-uniform and would mean 1.2mio deaths in the US if it saturates.

And if that isnt enough for you, we still don't have reliable information about long term effects of an infection. It could end up being persistent like herpes or HIV, make people sterile or reduce lung capacity and or increase chance of cancer.

With these, possibly small, risks, it is ethically incredibly irresponsible to allow the disease spread through the whole population. You cannot gamble with a conceivable downside like that.

CFR rate of 0.4% probably also means 2-4% lingering morbidity rate. Friend of mine almost died of sepsis. And it wrecked her health.

"if it saturates"

That sequence of words shows you do not know the basics of epidemiology. Epidemics do not affect 100% of a population.

Few non-peer reviewed papers with biased samples, questionable tests and questionable methodology don't make strong evidence. CFR just can't be that low. There are towns in Italy where the virus killed 1% of total population

https://www.ecodibergamo.it/stories/valle-brembana/il-grido-...

Given that there was a disaster (in the sense of failed containment) in the hospital of Alzano Lombardo early on (which is in the area), I wonder if that meant that more vulnerable segments of the population were exposed to the virus.

It sure can be that low. Pretty simple reason, too:

1) Studies linked above are properly statistically randomized 2) Italy population dead = old smokers, Chinese from Wuhan working in factories

The study is a random population sample. A single tiny town Italy has a highly characterized population. If you disagree, you've never been to Italy.

Stop being scared. Start being logical.

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