
Ask HN: What is your opnion on Elon Musk’s Covid-19 related tweets - stjo
While most people say the epidemic is serious and definitely not under control, he’s of the opinion the measures are way too strict and the public is being scared for nothing.<p>His proof is very limited, mostly hospital bed ocupancy being way bellow the predicted values.<p>His pinned tweet says “FREE AMERICA NOW”.
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gnusty_gnurc
I'm tired of the people who are demanding we all stay confined to our house
indefinitely. I've seen tons of buzz on twitter that seems to think leaving
with a mask and practicing social distancing is akin to murder. Suggesting
that there's a responsible way to resume some activity with appropriate
caution is viewed as reckless and inhumane.

Has anyone tried quantifying the human cost of house confinement? If people
are so concerned about the risk of not leaving, I think we need to start
putting hard numbers around what these draconian measures are costing us.
There _is_ a cost and it's not even clear that have a good grasp of what it
is. Outside of the human cost, there's major precedents and political
ramifications.

Are we entering a world where we'll constantly do similar hysterics around
trendlines of deaths and micromanaging policy? Clearly preventable, chronic
disease is a far more potent killer but less visible since it happens over a
long time period.

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ralston3
That's the thing. It currently seems to be "obey the law or people will die
and you're irresponsible" vs "I want my freedom to do as I please"

I swear, I feel like we're at a time where American's can't agree on whether
or not fire is hot.

I saw someone reference Elon's tweet as being "MAGA" because he wants to
reopen. So it's incredibly sad to see how the debate over reopening has like
everything else...turned incredibly partisan. Why do I have to be a Trump
supporter just because I want to get back to my life?

I've seen people mention that the "one size fits all approach" \- meaning that
an elderly at risk woman and I, a young healthy person both have to follow the
same rules, may not be helping the situation.

No doubt here that that our local and federal leaders have failed us once
again.

Just a really unfortunate time here the ol' US of A.

~~~
TechBro8615
I blame the media for this. And I don’t just mean during this pandemic, but
for the past couple decades (and especially from 2015 onward.) Dividing the
audience is good for business.

I really enjoyed the book _Hate Inc_ by Matt Taibbi that examines this
phenomenon.

~~~
mrfusion
Dividing the country also prevents real progress and preserves the status quo.

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elkos
I would like to point out that in April 30th NASA will be announcing the
commercial human lander awards.

[https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-to-announce-
commerci...](https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-to-announce-commercial-
human-lander-awards-for-artemis-moon-missions/)

Several politicians from the current US administration share the opinion to
open up.

Maybe mr Musk would like to open up the economy. Maybe he does believe that's
for the better, for the economy. Is that right? My understanding is that it is
not, but I'm no epidemiologist.

Is he biased? Probably! Does a CEO waiting for a federal organization to
announce if his company will win a contract from NASA looks OK when he doesn't
wait a couple of days to tweet such a controversial tweet?

I don't think so.

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farseer
Look at poor countries such as India, over 140 million people face destitution
because the economy is closed. Its either death from hunger or covid-19, and I
bet a lot of them would gladly take their chances with the virus. [1]

Lockdown is a luxury only the rich countries can afford in the first place, I
don't think it makes sense for everyone. Whether Musk is right or not in the
American context, will be determined by the end of next winter when the final
body count is tallied.

[1]. [https://www.ft.com/content/dec12470-894b-11ea-9dcb-
fe6871f41...](https://www.ft.com/content/dec12470-894b-11ea-9dcb-fe6871f4145a)

~~~
maps7
It's not their chances it's the chances for everyone around the world

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Libeste
I couldn't care less about him, I'm more concerned about what his fan club
will do.

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sloaken
In the UK here, I have heard the bed occupancy is low because people are
afraid to go to the emergency room out of fear of catching COVID. So there are
typically a number of people who die every month. Then you have the number who
have died of COVID. But now they have a larger than expected people die of
non-COVID. Question is do these extras die of COVID but not tested or the fear
of COVID and not getting help.

As for Elon Musk, and most famous people, I treat there opinions with no more
credibility than I do the grocer or the shoe shine. Just because some media
person decides to repeat your words does not make it right.

Of course if I see it on Hacker News thats a different story ... Not that it
is more accurate, but it will be better vetted. Others will chime in with
counter opinion. Its not a one way street.

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Jugurtha
> _His proof is very limited, mostly hospital bed ocupancy being way bellow
> the predicted values._

First, one question would be that _maybe_ hospital bed occupancy being way
bellow the predicted values is because measures were taken.

Similar to saying "The military is useless because nobody is attacking us" or
"See? It wasn't necessary to vaccinate everyone. Nobody has polio in
hospitals!"

Second, the measures can be seen as too strict in retrospective. However,
nobody wants to have a retrospective of lackadaisical measures that lead to
many more deaths. In other words, when in doubt is it sane to roll the dice.
Is it better to say "sorry, I pushed you because I saw the driver lose control
and kill ten people already" or "sorry, I shrugged it off and now you're
dead". Overzealous measures can be taken down a few notches. It can be hard to
recover, especially with loss of employment, but loss of life is harder to
recover from.. The consequences of lax measures lead to irrecoverable and
irreversible states.

Third, it would have been over-reacting if there were only one country dealing
with it and there were no data, but I don't think it's easy _not_ to over-
react when you see countries that were hit really hard, even with no real
data.

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Vinceo
I've got more respect for him after those tweets

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lihaciudaniel
It's not like the first time [1] when he almost got in prison for fraud last
two years

1:[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18102923](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18102923)

