> while everyone is also thinking about getting a deadly virus every time they leave the house
Am I the only person who isn't worried about the coronavirus? I'm not exaggerating when I say it hasn't effected my life at all, except for the effort it took me to write this comment. I live in San Francisco, if it matters.
It's always difficult to determine and conceptualize personal risk, but in this case, maybe even harder: people are caught between the extremes of "I'm healthy, and it's very unlikely to harm me", vs. "this may kill millions of people around the globe unless we get lucky, and/or are very serious about the measures we take to contain it". (Both of these statements are true [for most people] yet seem irreconcilable.)
So you staying at home and not getting the virus probably doesn't make much of a difference to you, aside from not feeling crappy for a couple of weeks. But if we all do it, then on a population scale it will make a difference, as it's one of the actions that can contribute towards preventing potentially millions of people dying.
You might not feel that you would ever be responsible for transmitting the virus to a vulnerable person who then dies, and that might be true... but again on a population scale, someone is responsible, and that infection could potentially have been prevented by this (and other) measures.
I'm not hugely _personally_ worried about dying of it; people my age in otherwise good health in developed countries usually don't. I am definitely worried about its impact on others, though, and also its impact on society. Especially as it spreads in the west; for better or for worse, China was far better set up for this than most of the world. Some western countries are still basically denying that it's a problem, which has the potential to make things _much_ worse.
For older people, in particular, death rates for over 70s are truly worrying.
I'm not exaggerating when I say it hasn't effected my life at all, except for the effort it took me to write this comment. I live in San Francisco, if it matters.
San Francisco just reported its first cases today, but there's definitely been panic shopping. The city closed down Lowell today as a precautionary measure (but that leaves nearly 200 campuses open).
Even if you don't suffer any health or financial effects (unlikely) you'll still be effected if:
- More schools close, even more if parents have to take time off from work en masse
- Public transit becomes a big vector and BART or Muni try to shut down or reduce service
- People continue to panic shop. NPR had a photo from a Marin Target with shelves bare of disinfectant wipes. Rainbow in the city was almost completely out of canned tomatoes on Monday.
- On a federal level, if our idiot president succeeds in closing the Mexican border you'll definitely feel some pain
I also thought as a relatively young person there's not much to be too worried about.
However it turned out permanent and serious lung damage can occur even if the individual recovers from the disease. That certainly changed my perspective a bit. It would serve everyone well to err on the cautious side.
You might be fine, if you are young, you probably won't even notice it, however your older parents or grandparents might pass away two weeks after you meet them while being infectious...
"Precautionary decisions do not scale. Collective safety may require excessive individual risk avoidance, even if it conflicts with an individual's own interests and benefits. It may require an individual to worry about risks that are comparatively insignificant."
As with any potential threat, people take it to the extremes. Same with climate change. On one side you have the "I don't really think it's a thing, it isn't influencing me at all" folks, on the other side you have hardcore preppers and "Humanity as we know it will end in few years I can't wait to repopulate the Earth".
Huh? I’m pretty confused by this attitude. This seems pretty callous.
Obviously, media hype train is in full swing, but this is fairly infectious and fairly dangerous for those over 80 and those with other risk factors. That’s narrow, but it is not nothing.
Personal risk is pretty low for me (at my age/health status), but I’m still not super interested in getting knocked on my ass for a week. Particularly since coronavirus immunity is not believed to last for a particularly long period if time. I definitely don’t want it twice!
It’s nothing, because people can’t do anything other than wash their hands and not touch their faces. The media hype is a problem because it causes supply chain issues. People over 80 are always at risk of the flu and other crap, and again, the only thing to do is properly wash your hands and not touch your face.
I would be a lot of money that you touch your face dozens - if not hundreds of times - a day, just like everyone else. It's a normal human reaction to multiple stimuli. There's a video spreading on reddit right now of the talking heads regurgitating the same advice you're giving now, they usually last about a few seconds after telling others not to, before touch their face.
This seems non-sequitor? The main infection route is airborne droplets. Sure, washing your hands reduces risk, but it does not solve the problem. Showering is a good idea, but not relevant.
Or the people bringing it to your country in the first place. Traveling from an infected country is reckless and disrespectful for the lack of better words.
I am not either. I see a disconnect between the numbers published by the WHO and the alarmist reaction of the mainstream media. Earlier this week there was a speech from the director of the WHO on the front page of hn suggesting the virus was less contagious than the flu, I don’t see any mention in any major newspapers. It feels like one of these “facts that don’t fit the narrative will be simply omitted”.
I am concerned however about the overreaction to the virus. Like I am not concerned about catching it, but I am having second thoughts about a holiday trip in south Asia I wanted to make next month as I don’t want to find myself jailed for weeks in a military barrack for some unnecessary quarantine. And my biggest concern is the economic impact.
Hopefully this thing will go away in 2/3 months as the northern hemisphere gets warmer.
I mean, "less contagious than the flu" is a bit like saying "less poisonous than cyanide"; the flu is very contagious. If you have something that's less contagious than the flu but much more lethal than the flu, that's pretty scary.
Am I the only person who isn't worried about the coronavirus? I'm not exaggerating when I say it hasn't effected my life at all, except for the effort it took me to write this comment. I live in San Francisco, if it matters.