Hacker News Reader

Comment by ashtonkem | Hacker News Reader

You need to balance not jut your chance of death, which is low if you’re very young, but your chances of getting very very sick. Spending a few weeks in the ICU is a good way to bankrupt yourself on the path towards returning to regular work, let alone how hard a ventilator is on even survivors.

Plus, we have no idea what happens to the infected a few years or a decade from now. If given the choice, not getting sick at all is the best possible outcome.

View on HN

> Spending a few weeks in the ICU is a good way to bankrupt yourself

Only in the US :|

LOL yes, only in the US your worst fear about spending a few weeks in a ICU are the bankrupting costs.

I don't know why you would think the risk of death is dependent on age but the risk of severe illness is not. Age affects both. You're highly unlikely to get put in an ICU if you're young. It would be pretty improbable for a disease like this to have long term consequences unless you start going hypoxic and have organ damage. not impossible, but probably a low concern.

> Spending a few weeks in the ICU is a good way to bankrupt yourself on the path towards returning to regular work, let alone how hard a ventilator is on even survivors.

Ok, I'm willing to consider devil's argument, but this is just plain ridiculuous. The great bulk of infected people classsify this as "mild". If you're young, strong, and healthy, your chances of dying from this are basically zero in any common sense way. And far more people are going to "get bankrupt on the way to work" as you say using the current method. We're not trying to find a perfect solution, we are trying to find the better one.

> If you're young, strong, and healthy, your chances of dying from this are basically zero in any common sense way

There are zero longitudinal studies about the long-term effects of infection. For all we know, young healthy people could appear to beat the virus, only for it to hide out and plague you with severe health problems down the road. We could have an massive epidemic of a neurodegenerative disease caused by Covid-19 twenty years from now.

I have no desire to roll the dice on that even if the odds look good for me at the moment.

Oh come on, you can say that for any flu epidemic.

Yes you can[1], which is exactly why you don't really want to roll the dice even if you appear okay after the initial infection.

[1] https://epmonthly.com/article/neuropsych-complications-flu-v...

But you "roll the dice" with every flu epidemic.

The flu doesn't generally involve rolling the dice so quickly that morgues run out of space.

"Man shot 9 times die of corona virus." I question how these numbers are calculated sometimes.

That sounds like you’re starting to talk about a conspiracy theory.

The "conspiracy" theory is the news often exaggerates or gives misinformation on a particular subject to fulfill a particular agenda or make more money on ads.

This is hardly a conspiracy theory.

The media isn't the only group with an agenda[1].

[1] https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/salvadorhernandez/coron...

"Mild" COVID-19 means you're bedridden with fever and breathing problems for a week.

Please don't make things up. A mild case is mild. Bedridden with fever for weeks is not mild.

https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/03/13/8146910...

> In 80% of known cases, COVID-19 causes mild to moderate illness, according to a report of a joint World Health Organization-China mission of 25 infectious disease experts held in China late last month.

> At a press conference on March 9, Maria Van Kerkhove, technical lead of the WHO Health Emergencies Program, said: "[A] mild infection starts normally with a fever, although it may take a couple of days to get a fever. You will have some respiratory symptoms; you have some aches and pains. You'll have a dry cough. This is what the majority of individuals will have."

> It is "nothing that will make you feel like you need to run to a hospital," says Dr. Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security.

> A mild case of COVID-19 in and of itself is not dangerous.

The best I can say for myself here is that I was sincerely misinformed. I apologize, and will make sure I don't repost the misinformation.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com