• Chriskmee@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    Pretty sure every virus has killed people, from the cold, to flu, and of course covid. It feels like now the death rate for the latest variants of covid are pretty comparable to the flu, the virus has lost a lot of its killing power over time.

        • eatmyass [he/him]@hexbear.net
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          1 year ago
          1. the sheer number of Covid infections has made long Covid into a global crisis

          2. amazing that you recognize the existence of not only long Covid, but other post-viral illnesses, and think it gives weight to your “Covid is no big deal” argument

            • silent_water [she/her]@hexbear.net
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              1 year ago

              yes, and we should be masking for that as well. even so, covid is far more insidious because so many of the disabilities it leaves behind are invisible.

            • eatmyass [he/him]@hexbear.net
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              1 year ago

              Yeah, I misspoke in my initial comment. I was under the impression the percentage was lower, but I looked it up and it’s about the same (based on the first thing I read)

              So to me there’s two conclusions: Covid, which infects people at a much higher rate and for which the vaccine is not really that effective, is a bigger problem since it will end up giving a larger number of people long Covid. The flu is not infecting people twice a year (or more), and it’s possible to go years without catching the flu, even without masks

              Or, what I think is the correct conclusion, we should be taking flu more seriously. We saw how little flu there was during the years of the highest mask compliance. Very weird to say “oh we’ve always had post-viral illness, let’s just have even more.” How about we actually take public health seriously for once?

    • UlyssesT [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      1 year ago

      Pretty sure every virus has killed people, from the cold, to flu, and of course covid.

      False equivalency intensifies

    • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      Death rates aren’t a feeling. I want some hard numbers.

      I feel like we just don’t care if we live or die anymore.

      • AntiOutsideAktion [he/him]@hexbear.net
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        1 year ago

        Fun fact: the CDC readjusted what the ‘normal’ rate of deaths is to include the years of the pandemic so now it’s harder than ever to find hard numbers because “excess deaths” was one of the last ways to get any information at all!

        • interdimensionalmeme@lemmy.ml
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          1 year ago

          Plus a world wide fast aging population would increase the death background number even if nothing else happens.

          Anything that doesn’t make an observable, statistically significant difference, has no cause to further impose restriction on how people live their lives

          • AntiOutsideAktion [he/him]@hexbear.net
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            1 year ago

            Plus a world wide fast aging population would increase the death background number even if nothing else happens.

            Sharp edges don’t happen from demographic trends. This is pure rationalization.

            Further than what?? What restrictions??

            And what are you implying? Covid has no observable affect on public health? Tell that to the millions of people still getting disabled every year.

        • rjs001@lemmygrad.ml
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          1 year ago

          For the love of god: everyone should ignores what the CDC says. You can see for yourself how many people died from Covid under their watch. They have no morals and they made it obvious by downplaying Covid

      • Chriskmee@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        I know I’ve read reports about the latest variants being much less deadly. I did see one study recently which for patients presenting to hospital covid was a few percentage points more likely to result in death compared to hospitalized flu patients. There were a lot more covid patients though.

        Found it:

        death rates among people hospitalized for COVID-19 were 17% to 21% in 2020 vs 6% in this study, while death rates for those hospitalized for influenza were 3.8% in 2020 vs 3.7% in this study

        https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2803749

        So there is some data backing up the feelings I’ve gotten from everything I’ve been hearing and seeing.

          • Chriskmee@lemm.ee
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            1 year ago

            I mean, that’s one way to look at it. I looked at it as only a couple percent higher death rate than the flu. Either way, a little less than 2x is way better than like 5x worse.

            • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
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              1 year ago

              Obviously it’s better than before, but it’s also worth keeping in mind these deaths are in addition to the flu.

              Also, there are good and bad flu seasons. I see no reason for COVID to not be the same.

              • redtea@lemmygrad.ml
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                1 year ago

                Even if we pedantically accept that ‘almost double’ is really ‘just a few percent higher’ while we’re looking at a single digit likelihood, ‘just a few percent more’ than for the flu is a lot more people in overall numbers with something that spreads far quicker than the flu. We could get the death rate of Covid down to ½ the rate for the flu but if infections are more than double (this is just an example, I don’t know the actual stats on this one), it still means Covid would be more deadly. Unless I’m missing something obvious.

                • holland@lemmy.ml
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                  1 year ago

                  COVID is basically a year round disease where flu is seasonal. So yeah it’s gonna produce about an order of magnitude more death with just a few percent higher death rate.

                  • redtea@lemmygrad.ml
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                    1 year ago

                    That’s how I understood it, too. Turns out it’s a difficult thing to comprehend, though.

    • SkepticElliptic@beehaw.org
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      1 year ago

      That’s the same shit that businesses were pushing last time because they didn’t want to close for a few months, ended up making everything worse.

      • Chriskmee@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        I know I am a bit biased here because I didn’t get sick and didn’t really try that hard to avoid it either. I only wore a mask when I had to, I went to bars with friends, really didn’t take any extra precautions, and I washed my hands normally. If I got covid I didn’t notice it.

        Personally I would hate if we went into lockdown again, but again, I didn’t get sick, the worst I felt was when I got the vaccine.

    • Mbourgon everywhere@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I’ve you’ve been vaxxed, or had a previous infection, or get some paxlovid… yes. If not, no, not really any better. It hasn’t gotten weaker.