Originally Posted by BoilerUP

Case fatality ratio for the 0-17 age group is 0.025%.

https://www.cdc.gov/covid-data-track...l#demographics

Originally Posted by Duffman

Ok instead of wild speculation, here's some numbers from the CDC datasets, sorted by age:

https://data.cdc.gov/NCHS/Provisiona...vsak-wrfu/data


Current Date 17 Aug 2020

COVID19 deaths

<1 yr old: 32

1-4 yr old: 20

5-14 yr old: 46

15-24 yr old: 484

25-34 yr old: 2266

35-44 yr old: 5780

45-54 yr old: 15,440

55-64 yr old: 37,158


So 99 kids under high school age have died from COVID so far. 484 kids, high school to college age, have died. It really takes off at the 45-54 yr old age group. I'm not a parent nor in a high risk age group but I think letting it rip is a terrible idea.


If you're itching to get some more juice out of the economy, you're gonna have to support some pretty intense laws and heavy fines for not wearing proper masks the proper way so it takes the 'personal choice' aspect out of the equation. It's just like speed limits; if they were a suggestion I'd never pay attention to them. If you're not willing to do that, the majority of middle class work from home families and business travelers are just gonna wait this out. They don't care about your furlough in October. And taking the libertarian route of expecting some Walmart greeter getting paid $10/hr to get in a knock-out fight with Walmart quality anti-maskers several times a day is not a viable solution. Call me a pessimist, but the market will evolve to one without a travel and leisure industry before people will just decide to let it rip, and if they ever decide to do that, it'll be after all the vaccines have proven to fail. The best hope for all of us is an effective vaccine, and without some legislation that changes things, expect much of the same until then.

And to make it clear, my goal is to make an honest and realistic assessment of the situation, so I can be prepared to react accordingly because I'm not steering this ship, I'm just on it.

Originally Posted by BoilerUP

Case fatality ratio for the 0-17 age group is 0.025%.

https://www.cdc.gov/covid-data-track...l#demographics

Originally Posted by Duffman

And out of 74M kids under 18 that's 18,500 fatalities assuming they all get it.

Originally Posted by tallpilot

Thank you for rational arguments.


The trebling at 45-54 is troubling although I suspect many of those individuals were erroneously put on vents in the early days and they would fare better with the new protocols. Regardless, those are odds I'd personally take to maintain a normal existence. However I am fine with people choosing to stay home; they just need to be fine with me going about my business. I'm absolutely not trying to force people onto airplanes so I can keep my job but I would like to be left alone to drink away my sorrows at the local watering hole without wearing a biohazard suit.


55+ would be well advised to wear masks and avoid nonessential contact. I'm tired of people wanting me to dramatically change my life to reduce their risk. That's collectivist nonsense. Let them reduce their own risk as they so choose. Are we no longer adults?


Walmart is scared to death of liability so they make everyone wear masks. The person stocking the shelves is wearing the same pair of gloves for the entire 8 hour shift. We can't turn the entire planet into an infectious diseases ward. Yes, the protocols work in a completely controlled environment. No, they don't work in the airport or the subway station. This whole nonsense is health theater to go along with the TSA security theater. It accomplishes nothing but I guess it makes people feel good.


It's too late to let it rip anyway. The recession is baked into the cake now.




See! It's obvious why we can't have schools open. It's for the children! The second order effects of keeping them home don't even need to be factored into the equation. /sigh

Originally Posted by BoilerUP

That is the straight math...but it is also a very big assumption that everybody in that demographic will get COVID. It also is based on confirmed positive cases (CFR) not actual infections (IFR), which is likely even higher in children than the CDC’s cumulative 10:1 estimate.

Originally Posted by Duffman

I agree that people are out of control about masks, on both anti-mask and the nazi enforcer side., Also a lot of people don't understand what they're doing or why.


The big issue, I think, is that if masks protected the wearer most of this would be a non-issue. If people wanted to guarantee they wouldn't get the virus, they'd just wear a mask and you do you. If you don't want to wear a seat belt or ride a sick crotch rocket, that's your choice. But the current prevailing belief that's well supported is that masks will prevent someone with the virus from spraying it everywhere, kinda like putting a mesh bucket over a sprinkler head, but if you breathe infected air with a mask on, it'll go right through your mask. That's why this is such an issue.


N95 masks are the only ones proven effective to protect the wearer, and I bet if everyone had access to them, 90% of our problems would be solved. So if anyone wants to figure out how to mass produce certified N95s... probably a lot of money there. You're welcome.

Originally Posted by Mesabah

Covid doesn't meet the scientific definition of an airborne virus, it's probably a stomach bug, similar to Norovirus transmission. This completely explains the cruise ship outbreaks, but not on aircraft. However, there are airborne cases of Norovirus transmission if it gets mechanically aerosol-ed. Technical study out of Oak Ridge: https://elifesciences.org/articles/59177

Originally Posted by BoilerUP

10:1 actual infections to confirmed positives makes it 1850 pediatric COVID deaths...fewer than annual drowning and drug overdoses combined. Fewer than texting-related auto accidents.

But yes, people will emotionally react in part because we’re terrible at risk assessment when we allow emotion to override rationality.