[e79]

I hear this a lot: “it only kills old people” or “it only has a 1.5% death rate.” Many of these statements are followed by the suggestion that we should just let Covid run its course so we can be out of this situation sooner.

We still barely understand Covid. No public health official with an ounce of ethics and concern for their career is going to be in favor of letting a poorly understood virus just rip through entire communities. The death rate is only one part of the equation. As this article points out, scientists are now concerned about the growing number of cases in which severe symptoms stick around or even develop long after infection. When compared to the cold or flu.

We also just recently learned that antibodies only stick around for a few months.

There are reasons that public health officials are being so cautious. It’s not just to be “draconian” for the fun of it.

[jnxx]

> We still barely understand Covid.

We do not even understand well what it does to the brain of children. It definitively has neurological effects in some people and there could be really undesirable long-term effects we still do not know about.

[jonathanstrange]

I agree with you and just want to add that anyone who thinks a 1.5% death rate is low fails at elementary arithmetics, since without measures and without vaccine we'd have to expect at least 80% to be infected eventually within 1-2 years.

Luckily, the estimates for the true Infection Fatality Ratio (IFR) are lower, between 0.6% to 0.7%, for industrialized nations. That's still a very high high number if we don't keep the disease in check or don't get a vaccine.