Edit: is your argument seriously “uhm actually, event X happens 0.054% of the time, so when you said {more rare version of X} doesn’t happen you’re wrong”
And yep, that’s my argument! The frequency of deadly viruses escaping from a bio lab is even lower, so if we’re going to eliminate possibilities based on percentages there are a few others that should get thrown out.
It’s a minor point but, as I said, it’s sloppy reasoning. If the anonymous researcher had said “low probability” I wouldn’t care. Instead, this reads like someone who’s willing to hand wave specifics for the sake of rhetoric.
But if you’re here to be put off by the smallest use of rhetoric, sure pop off on that.
It’s a contentious, difficult debate. I do actually think it’s bad to dismiss arguments you disagree with with casual rhetoric.
One thing to consider is not so much an individual's health and risk of getting serious ill, but rather that as the numbers grow geometrically, health care systems like hospitals can (and in fact, did) become severely overwhelmed.
Even with measures in place, here in Los Angeles we were at a point where for example if you had a heart attack at home, an ambulance / hospital couldn't deal with you.m https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/05/us/los-angeles-county-califor...
You should know the survival rate of a heart attack is far far lower than most expect, especially after 20 minutes of failed active attempts to resuscitate. The only real reason to take someone into a hospital after that is if they’re hypothermic or just so you can say “we did everything we could”.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-cpr-expectations-i...
At one point, LA had to resort to Fire Trucks because ambulances were unavailable.
If you don't think health care services were severely stretched, in some cases beyond breaking point (incl. staff unavailability because they themselves were sick), I really don't know what to say. This happened in New York as well.
Staff being unavailable because they’re sick is quite literally “normal day to day operations” that every company must be able to account for, not “beyond the breaking point”.
But if you “don’t know what to say” beyond vague emotional appeals unsupported by the very sources you claim to cite, I’m glad we agree on that at least.
[1] https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2021/0...
[2] https://www.politico.com/news/agenda/2021/10/26/lack-hospita...
[3] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/covid-us-hospital-icu-bed-short...
[4] https://www.whsv.com/2021/08/27/man-dies-waiting-icu-bed-fam...
[5] https://www.businessinsider.com/man-covid-dead-doctors-icu-b...
[6] https://www.ketv.com/article/auburn-man-dies-in-des-moines-h...
[7] https://www.newsweek.com/kansas-man-dies-after-waiting-icu-b...
And how many millions of children have ongoing severely stunted development in both academics and social skills? More than 7 million. By some estimates 77 million, in fact.
The real question is how many more will die as a result of our horribly irresponsible treatment of our most valuable national resource: the children.
We could have just embraced that blessing and let children continue to go to school and not experience massive declines in intelligence. But here we are.
“Think of the really old people” was truly hilarious. Indeed, all we could do was “think” when my grandpa died alone because visiting the nursing home was banned.