I am once again screaming at the top of my lungs that it isn’t less fucking lethal. Whoever the first person to say that was needs to be strung up from a fucking light post. That claim is based on a complete misunderstanding of hospitalization numbers and one yet-to-be-peer-reviewed study in hamsters with a tiny sample size.
And even if it WAS less lethal (it’s not!) seeing as it’s as infectious as the god damn measles now, a less lethal virus will STILL KILL A LOT MORE PEOPLE. Less lethal + Much more infectious = More death
And I just read this again, it says FAR less lethal! It’s not!!!! Why are you claiming that???? Who the fuck do you think you are Rob Arnott?? Kill yourself you dangerous fucking moron!
And even if it WAS less lethal (it’s not!) seeing as it’s as infectious as the god damn measles now, a less lethal virus will STILL KILL A LOT MORE PEOPLE. Less lethal + Much more infectious = More death
exactly. let's say it killed only half as many people, but infected 4 times as many people. that's still 0.5 x 4 = 2 times the deaths. but hey, i'm not an economist :agony: to be perfectly clear: i pulled these numbers out of my ass
The modern flu kills in the neighborhood of 12k-61k Americans every year. The Spanish Flu was killing into the six-digit totals, around 600k between 1917 and 1918.
That's "less lethal" in both an absolute sense and a per-capita sense. But its a far cry from non-lethal. Its also a serious shift in expectations. I'm old enough to remember Op-Eds about the value of ending Influenza like we've ended Small Pox and Polio. Now we're getting articles that are pure Learned Helplessness. Just sorta shrugging and surrendering to a virus that - purely on WSJ-idiolized GDP terms - is carving out huge chunks of the economy annually, in the fanciful hope that next year we'll be marginally better off than the last one.
I am once again screaming at the top of my lungs that it isn’t less fucking lethal. Whoever the first person to say that was needs to be strung up from a fucking light post. That claim is based on a complete misunderstanding of hospitalization numbers and one yet-to-be-peer-reviewed study in hamsters with a tiny sample size.
And even if it WAS less lethal (it’s not!) seeing as it’s as infectious as the god damn measles now, a less lethal virus will STILL KILL A LOT MORE PEOPLE. Less lethal + Much more infectious = More death
And I just read this again, it says FAR less lethal! It’s not!!!! Why are you claiming that???? Who the fuck do you think you are Rob Arnott?? Kill yourself you dangerous fucking moron!
if he wants to kill himself, fine, but stop taking us down along the way.
ok but did you consider that I’ll lose money this year if we protect human lives from this virus
exactly. let's say it killed only half as many people, but infected 4 times as many people. that's still 0.5 x 4 = 2 times the deaths. but hey, i'm not an economist :agony: to be perfectly clear: i pulled these numbers out of my ass
Simpson paradox.
The modern flu kills in the neighborhood of 12k-61k Americans every year. The Spanish Flu was killing into the six-digit totals, around 600k between 1917 and 1918.
That's "less lethal" in both an absolute sense and a per-capita sense. But its a far cry from non-lethal. Its also a serious shift in expectations. I'm old enough to remember Op-Eds about the value of ending Influenza like we've ended Small Pox and Polio. Now we're getting articles that are pure Learned Helplessness. Just sorta shrugging and surrendering to a virus that - purely on WSJ-idiolized GDP terms - is carving out huge chunks of the economy annually, in the fanciful hope that next year we'll be marginally better off than the last one.