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by calvinmorrison·6y ago·view on hn ↗
And the risk seems fairly small if you look at the numbers. But then you're some sort of conspiracy nut. In Philadelphia, half of the cases are in nursing homes, and more than half are of people older than 60 years of age. There is risk to opening the country, but telling old people to stay home seems more sane than keeping people from being able to make ends meet
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I don't think you're a conspiracy nut, and you're right that the risk is fairly small right now in places where there have been few confirmed cases. But an exponential growth rate means the risk not small for very long. Covid-19 is the leading cause of death in the US right now. That we don't have the ability to test people before they go back to work is a huge problem. We can't even catch when someone has a fever.

> In Philadelphia, half of the cases are in nursing homes, and more than half are of people older than 60 years of age

That has little to do with the infection rate and a lot to do with who gets tested. In nursing homes people are getting monitored all day. There are many countries that are far more dense than the US that are currently open, because they test everywhere and prevent people effected from being out.

At least 0.16% of NYC is dead from COVID-19, and that number will rise as both the disease continues and we go back and discover cases we missed. If those numbers hold nationwide, you’re talking about half a million people dying or more.

I personally wouldn’t want to argue for putting half a million in an early grave for the sake of opening up.