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Comment by cm2187 | Hacker News Reader

Well, Ukraine cured covid.

That's a good way to remind oneself how much our perception of a problem is manipulated by the news. That works both ways. They can blackhole a major event, or put a giant microscope on top of a tiny event. You may decide to trust or distrust the news, but you can't decide to hear about something you don't know is happening, and likewise, even if you think another "it's the end of the world" coverage is bullshit, it will still occupy the debate, and therefore your mind.

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That's one theory. Another is that people just have a finite amount of emotion they can spend worrying about something before they go back to their lives. Even if objectively there is still something worth worrying about.

More like 95% of people have caught covid and are vaxxed so at this point they’re just not interested in letting it dictate their lives. Much different place this year in terms of immunity and exasperation than prior years.

No grand conspiracies are needed.

If this is the case, it’s interesting that people are apparently now not bothered by an excess death rate near that of COVID peaks.

The things they show you on primetime news is what will bother you. ;)

Turns out uninformed is better than misinformed. That way, at least you are free to make your own opinions and decisions based on your observations and lived experience.

I agree. We had 3 years of narrative shaping and statistics.

That’s a big oversimplification of what people were worried about during the prior years.

While taking substantial precautions to limit the spread there was that many deaths and hospitals were on the brink of collapse. More spread would have started a terrible rationing of care leading to a much higher spike in excess mortality, especially in immune naive populations.

Now despite almost everyone moving on from precautions, due to substantial immunity, we’re no longer on the precipice of spiraling out of control.

Yeah it’s not nearly as newsworthy because we’re not on the edge of a cliff anymore. It wasn’t just the death rate, it was the way it could have exploded.

That’s a hard argument to make, at least here in the UK, because it looks like the strain of restarting normal healthcare with a 2+ year backlog of untreated health issues will doom the NHS.

Also - you can argue that fewer covid precautions may have resulted in a collapsed healthcare system. However, in reality, the NHS occupancy rates for 2020-2021 were double-digit less than previous years.

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