Hacker News Reader

Comment by chowchowchow | Hacker News Reader

That’d be 160,000 deaths even while under social distancing and isolation measures. The number would be much higher if a large portion of the country and particularly the New York Area weren’t staying at home. We’ve made it to 70k in 2 months with social distancing.

Actually, I’ve seen this tactic of argument with the number of deaths incremented for months, including from our esteemed pres. First it was “there are NO deaths, relax,” then “all this for 3,000 deaths?”, then “this many people die from the flu!”, and now the same argument with a 160k figure and alcohol. I wonder at what point this shape of argument will stop being made.

View on HN

I think you're missing the point of the original comments. The argument is not about deaths, but about the way the media covers different topics.

I think the Post is about coronavirus and my comment is more on topic than the off topic content about alcohol that I was responding to.

"man shot 9 times dies due to corona virus".

I question how the media is counting these deaths from corona virus. The infection fatality rate keeps going DOWN not up, in peer-reviewed journals. I suspect its going to end up like swine flu. The amount of people that actually die from this will be 10x lower than the initial media outlook, once you calculate the numbers honestly.

You may suspect whatever you like. The evidence of hard hit areas like Lombardia and NYC are enough evidence of the seriousness of this to me. But clearly your evidentiary standard differs.

Moreover I haven’t seen anything to suggest IFR isn’t in the .5% to 1% range, compared to <.1% for the average flu. Do you think the 1.3% fatality rate from the Diamond Princess was just bad luck for them?

Because the data isn't random enough? They've done random studies in a bunch of places, including germany and california and the IFR is about 0.2% - 0.38% and it keeps getting lower. There's no way in hell the IFR is 1.3%, that's just media sensationalism .

I mean, it’s not media sensationalism to point out 13 of the ~1000 people on that ship who tested positive died.

You’re so heated about your media preoccupation that you’re calling facts media sensationalism while trying to present as making a rational case.

Of course it's media sensationalism.

As an exaggerated example, if I went to people who are all on stage4 cancer, and give them the corona virus, and 20% of them die, cnn will post something like "the corona virus kills 20% of people based on that sample!"

"Swine flu's" eventual death count ended up being 10x lower than what "the news" was initially predicting.

So your argument is that the recorded death toll and infection count from the boat is media sensationalism.

(I don’t recall reading it was a cruise for stage 4 cancer patients. Darn media)

I said "exaggerated example". And the cruise had a hugely disproportionate number of elderly people, which skews the "random" sample.

So yes, it's media sensationalism.

The “it” you are taking about is a straw man interpretation. The figures are what they are. I never said the ship data proves that IFR is 1.3%, you just seem to have gotten triggered and said pointing out some evidence which could help determine what the IFR may be constitutes media sensationalism.

BTW if the at risk population is 10% and the IFR for that population is 10% and 0% for everyone else, and infections are spread evenly, that works out to 1% IFR. You have some things you’re very frustrated by, I can tell, but your attempt to substantiate your emotions with data criticism is not successful.

The true IFR rate is nowhere near 1.3% or even 1%. This, in the same way that the new york true "death toll" is nowhere near what they are reporting. It's a plain-old case of "man shot nine times dies of corona virus" headlines. These are just wildly exaggerated numbers through intellectually dishonest sampling that the media is incentivized to give.

You're just repeating assertions without basis.

My "basis" is peer-review academic journals. Not commercial media sources who are incentivized to sensationalize the numbers.

Of course it is.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com