[jhayward]

I'm puzzled by the intense focus on whether someone who dies had a pre-existing condition. It's like people want to convict the person for their own death, make it look like they were irresponsible, as a denial mechanism.

By blaming the person for succumbing to the virus they can fall in to the US-centric mindset of blaming people for their own disfortune, poverty, illness, accident, lack of whiteness, etc.

It's really stupid, unless you are a physician treating cases, to focus this way. It keeps us from dealing with the reality of the pandemic.

Edit: for those objecting to my observation, see the responses linked below, which were the only ones present when I replied. I've seen this pattern often enough over the last few days to realize that it's not simply people seeking information about the nature of the disease, it is something else, more reactionary and emotional.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22684440

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22684570

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22684817

[Afton]

I don't think that's it at all. It's the 'normal' person being concerned whether they are at risk.

While lots of people 'know old people' or with pre-existing conditions, many people have youngish parent with already passed grandparents, who have trouble understanding why this is a fuss for them, since they imagine that it'll just be a cold (for them). Cases like this one are 'scary' because it shows that they might still be at risk. Which, in some sense, is good if it makes 'normal people' scared enough to actually stay home/self-quarantine.

I really don't think this has anything to do with the "US-centric mindset of blaming people for their own [snipped]".

[venantius]

I think they're related; healthy people often (implicitly) assume they are healthy because they have done nothing wrong to deserve being ill. This then causes them to act with unexamined cruelty towards people who are ill.

[viklove]

The implication of "it only affects people with a pre-existing condition, so it's not a big deal" is "it doesn't matter to me if people with pre-existing conditions die."

I'm 25, and at 23 I had my lung collapse (spontaneous pneumothorax) twice, due to nothing but random chance (according to my doctors). Does that mean it doesn't matter if I die from the coronavirus? Should we stop lockdowns and resume economic activity despite the dangers this virus presents to people like me?

[dcolkitt]

Imagine the news was running a sensationalized story about "Man dies after drinking Diet Coke. Diet Coke can kill you!"

Except then the comments all point out that the man had PKU, and that Diet Coke won't will you unless you have PKU. And that virtually everybody who has PKU already knows they have it. That the typical person has nothing to worry about from Diet Coke.

Would you object to the comments pointing this out? Would you say they're blaming the person who died? Or would you just say that they're contextualizing a very important piece of information that the news is overlooking to sensationalize its story.

[zdragnar]

The answer being sought is just how deadly is this virus? Knowing that helps everyone plan, and thus far, mortality rates haven't been very high at all except in very vulnerable populations.

However, should the virus mutate, or otherwise start posing a larger problem to the general public, the calculus of just how under-prepared are we radically changes.

It has nothing to do with blame and everything to do with dealing with the reality of the pandemic. Are we facing an extremely contagious flu, or are we facing an extremely contagious 1918 / Spanish flu? There is a pretty serious difference between the two in terms of preparedness needed.

[beat]

A mortality rate of 2-3% is "very high". And it's not just "very vulnerable populations". I'm 55, in generally good shape, but I have (medically controlled) hypertension. So my odds of dying are like 5%.

My daughter is 26, and winds up in the ER once a year or so for asthma. What are her odds? My mother is 78, has had open heart surgery, and is overweight and gets almost no exercise. I'm more or less assuming I will never see her again.

"Mortality rates haven't been very high at all" is easy to say when you're not in any way vulnerable.

[zdragnar]

The question wasn't "are vulnerable people vulnerable" it was "why is there a focus on whether a person might have had another condition?". The answer potentially changes the extent to which our hospital systems are inadequate to treat patients.

Keep in mind that 2-5% is likely way overblown given how little testing has been done. Unless I am misinformed, the Diamond Princess cruise that had been infected and quarantined had a fatality rate under 1%, and that presumably had a more vulnerable population. A more realistic mortality rate is well below 1% https://www.statnews.com/2020/03/17/a-fiasco-in-the-making-a...

In either case, I am actually more vulnerable than the standard healthy young adult, and it is very easy to say that mortality rates havent been high, especially in the context of a discussion over whether the virus might be mutating to become even more deadly than it already is.

[beat]

If you want to play pedantic with the numbers, you need to be a lot more aggressive with the whys. Italy currently has a 7.2% mortality rate, but... they believe they are undercounting fatalities due to the virus, because the medical system is overwhelmed and many are dying without seeing doctors or being tested/treated.

Needless to say, a collapse of the medical system and an inability to treat those who are sick has a severe negative effect on the survival rate. That's what social distancing is about - reducing the rate of infection so we lower the peaks striking the medical system. If you develop pneumonia and go to a hospital and get put on a ventilator, you could well survive. If you can't get a ventilator because we as a civilization are out of them, well... you'll probably die, either directly from the virus or from opportunistic secondary bacterial infection.

So the numbers may be underestimated as well as overestimated. It's very much a circumstantial question, and when we haven't scaled cases into the millions yet, we haven't seen the worst of what can happen.

[9nGQluzmnq3M]

Huh? It's well documented by now that comorbidities increase the risk of death from COVID considerably. Articles like this make the news because they're fighting the myth that the young and healthy cannot die from it.

[jhayward]

> Articles like this make the news because they're fighting the myth that the young and healthy cannot die from it.

Yes, but look at the comments from when I made mine: they were all of the nature of "I bet they had some other problem". Once you've seen this reaction enough it begins to look less like information-seeking and more like denial.

[SpicyLemonZest]

What you're calling denial is an important part of information seeking. When you see an anecdote that contradicts something you believe, you say "either this anecdote or my belief is incomplete". So if you're pretty confident in your belief, it's reasonable to probe the anecdote for potential flaws; it's not a matter of denial but of trying to find the truth.

[xtracto]

Reminds me of the questions people make here in mexico when someone gets murdered: was he in drugs? Was he in as bad place? Surely he was onto something? Was he showing off?

Human brains have to justify things to try to disassociate the bad events with their reality. It is difficult to accept that calamity is very close to them.

[runawaybottle]

Also it’s the standard script gossipy low class people resort to right away. I don’t want to absolve too much of humanity’s standard operating procedure.

[jedieaston]

It's not victim blaming. It's trying to ascertain whether or not young people that don't have a health condition are at critical risk of dying if they catch the disease, which until this story, many believed they were not.

If they already have something like a compromised immune system and die from the coronavirus, then it's not really surprising. if they were perfectly healthy, it's a bit more interesting.

[throwanem]

I don't think it's about blaming the victim this time. Instead I think it's about being able to say to oneself, "well, unlike them, I'm basically healthy, so I don't have to fear that the same will happen to me."

It's probably not wise, but it's very understandable.

[runawaybottle]

We’ve certainly stigmatized the outbreak. Initially it was straight up racism against Asians, but now we’ve shifted to ‘well you must be an asshole’. It’s pretty standard modern day mutation of American ‘exceptionalism’.

[StrictDabbler]

Usually I'd agree that focusing on pre-existing conditions is victim-blaming, but in this case there's a nasty braid of fear:

* Some young people believe they're immune and don't care if they spread the disease. Spring break in Florida.

* Some old people are envious of this and looking for reasons it isn't true.

* Other old people are scared for their offspring and ready for their fears to be confirmed.

* Health officials are selling the story that young people are in more danger than we thought to try to convince them to stay home. Again, spring break in Florida.

* Media outlets focus on the rare youth deaths because the above factors drive clicks.

The data from China is pretty clear. Young people rarely notice having COVID, and that even among symptomatic cases the level of death is incredibly low. I know we're all skeptical of Chinese government numbers but their total lockdown and testing regime gives them the unequaled opportunity to say "everybody in this town was exposed, absolutely every person, and here's how things came out." They're the only country in a position to definitively comment on asymptomatic cases.

It's hard to see why they'd fake a risk curve that increases very slowly through young years and then swoops upward in middle age. Something about the Chinese respect for elders? I can't see it.

Here in the West, you get a half-dozen articles about one 21-year-old who died and appears to have had no pre-existing conditions, a similar number about some doctor who died or priest who refused a ventilator, and no articles detailing each of the thousands of older people who are dying.

Our culture is trying to believe that young people are vulnerable. We "want" a more even risk curve.

So... is this ok? We have a weird circumstance where the usual bad science is serving a public health purpose by propagating a probable untruth. Meanwhile, the "everything's fine, it's just the flu" side is working as hard as possible to spread a different untruth that is very dangerous to public health.

Is it morally defensible to tell people on the internet that young people are almost all going to be fine? Not immune, but probably fine?

This is where many of you who are convinced that young people are in significantly more danger start speaking up. "Some young people do, this young person did, no pre-existing conditions, this article says half the deaths are under 50..."

If the population in general had the death rate that we've seen among young people this virus wouldn't be a big deal. That's what matters. Some young people will get sick and die but not in sufficient quantities to overwhelm the hospital and mortuary systems. The deaths of the middle-aged and old are what will paralyze our countries.

You probably won't know a young person who dies. You probably will know an old person who does.

[redis_mlc]

> By blaming the person for succumbing to the virus

Intelligent people just want to know how severe the corona virus is, and what the risk factors are.

I can't speak for other people. :)

I was reading about the 1918 Spanish Flu (H1N1) today, and it sounds a lot like severe corona virus - blood frothing from lungs.

[adamc]

Trying to understand the risk factors is not blame.