[lma22]

>Granted it is very contagious, but there are still very few cases relative to the population.

There's entire nations on lock down to stop the spread. Without such an order, you'd have much more than "very few cases". You said it, COVID-19 is "very contagious".

>And it kills so rarely!

If it spreads, there's less medical equipment, space, and personnel to help fight. This will increase the death rate. You can look at NY and Italy as an example. Not to mention, people are not statistics. If you mom dies, it doesn't comfort you that the mortality rate is so low. You want to keep mom safe.

>When I extended the questioning to all acquaintances

What's n? Is it statistically relevant? Where do you live?

>If you told me to find a Covid-19 patient I would be hard pressed to do so w/o visiting a local hospital or funeral home. Even then I doubt they would have one on hand.

What is even the point of this statement? Illness can be a danger to society without _you_ knowing where to "find" a patient.

[giardini]

The point of my post was precisely what I said in the first line of that post:

"Good article! Answer: not very scared!"

To elaborate: people are panicking unduly and they need to quit being scared, they need to calm down, they need to relax and go about their day w/o being on edge every minute. I'm not saying that people should not take precautions: I'm saying that, once you take precautions, there isn't much else one can do that will make one safer than to relax and enjoy the ride as best one can. So, for example, I read, exercise, eat right and live a somewhat normal life.

The point of my last statement was emphasis: I was emphasizing how uncommon Covid-19 is and, in particular, how rare Covid-19 deaths are.

The topic or thought of death is what seems to trigger panic in most people about Covid-19. Mention of the reality of Covid-19 is like waving a magic amulet: all I need do is utter "A Covid-19 death..." in a meeting and half the participants appear to void their bowels and the other half begin to make attempts to exit the room. Everybody needs to calm down and focus.

[WalterGR]

I was emphasizing how uncommon Covid-19 is and, in particular, how rare Covid-19 deaths are.

At one choir practice, one person spread COVID-19 to 52 people, two of whom died. During dinner at a restaurant, one person infected four people sitting at the same table, and five people sitting at other tables.

You think because COVID-19 is rare right now that we should go back to work and the 2-hour meetings in conference rooms? Working back to back with someone in a cubicle? Just... going to a restaurant and eating?

COVID-19 in the US is rare because of the lockdowns. Deaths are rare because COVID-19 infections are rare because of the lockdowns.

(For some definition of rare.)

[giardini]

I already stressed that Covid-19 was very infectious, so why you're bringing this up is beyond me. But...

"At one choir practice, one person spread COVID-19 to 52 people, two of whom died."

There were 61 people present. The sick singers' average age was 69 [shades of "Nearer My God to Thee!"]. Of those, two died of Covid-19. 2 of 61 is pretty good odds, if you ask me, BUT...

how can we be certain that both deaths were due to presence at choir practice? Maybe they caught Covid from their grandchildren, a neighbor, or the postman, .... Similarly for the restaurant case, the affected could have caught the virus from someone other than the assumed.

Did the two deceased choir members have comorbidities (e.g., heart disease, diabetes, lung disease or asthma, AIDS, cancer treatment, an immune-suppressed system, etc.)?

We should avoid the 2-hour meetings b/c they are unproductive and boring.

Back to back in cubicles puts the actual effective recommended 1 metre social spacing into play. The 2-metre value was a judgment, a non-scientific value, tossed out by a British official:

https://sports.yahoo.com/coronavirus-social-distancing-lockd...

From that URL:

"Robert Dingwall, from the New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group (Nervtag), said the [2-metre] rule was 'conjured up out of nowhere'. The sociology professor at Nottingham Trent University said scientific evidence supports a one-metre gap, but the two-metre advice was a 'rule of thumb'.

Laura Ingraham may indeed have been correct when she claimed during her May 4 Fox News broadcast:

"Although, intuitively, I think it probably seemed like social distancing would be necessary, there was no real scientific basis for believing that since it had never been studied,"

Covid-19 is rare and will remain rare. The lock-downs reduce spread but destroy the economy, which also kills people.

It remains to be seen whether the "cure" of lock-downs is any better than the disease of Covid-19. It is almost certainly not less expensive.

[lma22]

You have no point.

Entire nations are on forced quarantine. That is slowing the spread (and deaths) of COVID-19 significantly. Without the quarantine, hospitals will be filled, leaving many who would otherwise live (with treatment) to die.

There are hundreds of thousands of at-risk individuals where COVID-19 is a deadly threat. No amount of "chilling out" or "exercise" will make that not true. To this, quarantine _is_ the precaution you speak about.

US states that have started to re-open are seeing surges in infection rates. Browse Google News to learn more.

Please do the bare minimum to be educated before throwing about your childish ramblings that can lead to deaths.

[giardini]

With a few exceptions, hospitals in the USA were never filled and their ICUs were never filled. We built extra facilities that are now being dismantled:

"Houston Looking at Dismantling $17M Temp Hospital That Didn't See a Single Patient":

https://www.westernjournal.com/houston-looking-dismantling-1...

Meanwhile patients who should have gone to the hospital for conditions other than Covid-19 are sitting at home dying instead. The hospitals are mostly empty and are losing money b/c of Covid-19 panic.

Quarantine is primarily for the susceptible or the sick. To extend quarantine to everyone has proven too costly IMO.

Re-opening states are seing increases, NOT surges.

"Please do bare minimum to be educated before throwing about your childish ramblings that can lead to death."

Please complete education in English language before posting to most honorable ycombinator website using childish Eastern-language-style grammar that can lead to boredom by most respected readers!8-))

[dionian]

if the lockdowns were needed to stop the spread, then we would have seen the states that opened up 2-3 weeks ago having a dramatic increase in hospitalizations right now.

but that has not happened

also when the lockdowns started we were not sure about the details of the disease, now we have a relatively better understanding