Was I wrong about the Covid infection fatality rate? | Hacker News Reader

Was I wrong about the Covid infection fatality rate?

unherd.com

12 pointsnradov6 comments

I think we know by now there were many deep, life altering mistakes made by those in charge and those with influence. Jobs were lost, livelihoods ruined, families broken, people on their death bed with no loved ones around.

Now the question is - what are we going to do about it?

absolutely nothing. Because politics is not a game about learning from mistakes but about getting the votes. And getting votes is about having a cool message not about actual improvements. Or in other words it is about selling not about doing.

ok normally I don't like posts like what I just described because it's basically drive-by bashing but let's be honest here: If a new virus (e.g. H5N1 with viral attributes) or crazy variant comes around, which country would take the lessons from covid seriously? Certainly not US, UK, Germany (where I am from), China. Maybe Portugal, which has astonishing vaccination rates (90% or so), so their messaging and politics - at least for covid - seems to have been top notch. Probably also because there were a lot less social media garbage around in Portugal and probably because their media is less antagonistic than elsewhere. But most importantly because their politicians simply did the right thing and put someone in front of microphones who was trusted with his message (a military veteran).

Are you suggesting retribution, or to learn and prepare for future pandemics?

Punishment is not retribution.

Allowing evil to propagate without consequences is madness.

Ignore the problem and pretend it doesn’t exist

I still don't know if we have enough distance to evaluate the pandemic in a productive way.

But here are my thoughts:

- So isn't this article conflating two things. There is the fatality rate of covid when it started, and the fatality rate "over 3 years." It's my understanding that general consensus is that the later variants were less severe as the virus evolves to be less deadly (as happened with Spanish flu).

- Also, the official count is 1 million deaths in America. Current population 339 million. So by those numbers the fatality rate must be at a minimum (assuming EVERYBODY GOT IT, so underestimate) .29%. The author proposed it was between .01% and .05%.

So author almost certainly wasn't right. Of course it's not like other people weren't wrong in the other direction too.

Also, sometimes you can be right in hindsight but if nobody can understand your reasoning of course they will doubt you.

Anyways, this topic is too nuanced and emotional, and somebody wanting to talk about it still is usually a signal against their ability to discuss it emotionlessly/factually.

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