[throwanem]

It's easy to find an article like this very frightening, if you're young and healthy and have been thinking there's thus no chance you'll die of COVID-19 if (more likely when, tbh) you get it. I already have it, so I totally understand that.

But this is the first time we know of that anyone young and healthy has died of the disease, and we're over a hundred thousand confirmed cases in. Even assuming the current understanding is accurate, and this person didn't have some undiagnosed comorbidity, that's on the order of a .001% chance of dying.

For a pandemic disease, those are very good odds.

Yes, it's frightening, and in frightening times. But it's important to keep a sense of perspective. After all, stressing out over this can only weaken your defenses.

[jamesrcole]

> this is the first time we know of that anyone young and healthy has died of the disease

It may be the first one that’s been in the news here, but what about in China? I’m wondering if there have been any cases there, that haven't been officially reported in the news.

The whistleblower doctor who died was only 34. I don't know if he had any prexisting conditions. https://nypost.com/2020/02/09/coronavirus-doctor-li-wenliang...

[throwanem]

Overwork at the very minimum, I'd imagine.

We can wonder all day about any number of things. Does it help, though? Does it make you less likely to contract COVID-19, or more likely to have a mild case if you do get it?

Your odds of that are pretty good, by the way; based on what apparently reputable information I've found, assuming no risk factors like advanced age or comorbidity, it's about 85% likely you have an uncomplicated disease course, with no serious symptoms and requiring no medical support to resolve.

What beneficial influence on those already good chances do you expect to see by worrying yourself halfway into a panic, about something over which you have no control in any case?

[jamesrcole]

You don't mention anything about potential (permanent) lung or organ damage. That seems to happen though I don't know if there's a clear picture yet of how frequently it occurs.

> What beneficial influence on those already good chances do you expect to see by worrying yourself halfway into a panic, about something over which you have no control in any case?

I am amazed by how often people will accuse others of being panicked or hysterical in relation to covid-19 when they've demonstrated no such traits.

Pretty much everyone who took it seriously earlier on, got told they were panicking or being hysterical, when it was just that they were informed of what was coming and took it seriously. Taking something seriously does not equal being panicked.

Where is the panic in this thread you are referring to?

[rm_-rf_slash]

The survival rate with treatment isn’t the important factor though, it’s survival rate without treatment. If you show up at the hospital with covid and there aren’t any ventilators or beds for you, you’re rolling the dice whether you’re 17 or 70.

Or maybe you’re diligent and you haven’t left the home in weeks and one day you slip and fall in the bathtub and break a bone. How long until an ambulance shows up, if at all? How long until you have surgery, if at all? And then you catch covid anyway.

[IkmoIkmo]

> that's on the order of a .001% chance of dying.

Not exactly, there's factors pushing that way down, and some up.

We shouldn't look at [mortality /infected numbers], but rather at [mortality / resolved cases]. Given the exponential growth, most infected occurred very recently, and their death may still be pending, bound to occur in the coming weeks. For example, suppose an infection takes 1 month to resolve. If in January 100 get infected, in February 1000, and in February all the 100 infected from January have died, the mortality rate isn't 100/1100, it's 100/100.

Instead, looking at just the resolved numbers: either death, or recovery, are more accurate. This is still not fully reliable given the cases resolving in death or recovery may have different timing, but it's better than just looking at gross infected rates. This pushes up the 0.001% figure.

More importantly though, our infected numbers are way, way off. Probably 10 times higher. Most countries only test people who are hospitalised. The rest must stay home. There's no country that I know of that is going to people's homes to test people at scale. And there's only a few countries with a drive-through testing kind of model. Given there is evidence that substantial percentages (perhaps 50%) are asymptomatic, and that weak and mild cases aren't being tested either, the true infected numbers are way worse. (which pushes down your 0.001% figure).

[toss1]

This is not even close to "first time we know of that anyone young and healthy has died of the disease", even though such diagnosed & reported cases are relatively rare.

Even if you like those "very good odds", do you really think it is smart to risk playing Russian Roulette at 1/1000 odds for a pizza party?

More critically, even if you like those odds, all the people you meet when you fail to maintain distance, wear PPE, etc. did NOT knowingly decide that those odds are OK for them.

The hospital resources consumed by you or those you unwittingly expose will also prevent treatment of many completely unrelated accidents & health issues, e.g., we now have examples like neurologists staffing ERs, which means their neuro patients get punted.

The sense of perspective to maintain is not "this isn't a big deal", but that this is an exponentially growing deadly threat to a significant portion of the population, and every person even those at minimal personal risk to themselves need to take on the larger responsibility of helping the society survive.

[throwanem]

I'm coming at this with the assumption that the people I'm talking to are already doing the right thing in that regard. People who aren't taking it seriously enough by this point seem pretty unlikely to listen to anything I say.

[Symbiote]

A 13 year old died in Panama on Monday, but again, no confirmation on her health from a doctor.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/03/panama-13-year-girl-c...

[throwanem]

One in fifty thousand is still damn good odds.

I'm sure there will be more such cases. As other folks here are pointing out, sometimes that's just how it goes, even for somebody who "should" be in no danger. Sometimes 20-year-olds die of the flu.

But you still don't help yourself by getting into a tailspin over it. If you're sick, that just depletes your energy and makes it harder to take care of yourself so you can get better. If you're not, the same stress weakens your immune system and makes it harder to stay well.

[atwebb]

While we're here because it mentions a younger death, it is way less about your (or my) chances and more about where we will spread it. At this point, I have seen it first hand, a spring breaker coming back, carrying it for a few days, and interacting with many people in office settings.

Just because the virus doesn't kill doesn't mean you aren't being used.