It strikes me that internationally we have mostly been ignorant of the 'normal' level of winter deaths from influenza, data I saw a couple of weeks ago shows that in the UK the current rate of deaths in the UK attributed to Covid (incidentally other data shows that around 45% of those are not DUE to Covid but the Covid infection is incidental) is LOWER that the 'normal' rate of deaths from 'flu.
Surely that suggests that we have become over sensitive to the death rate from Covid since a higher death rate from 'flu has received little or no attention for many years ('unusual' 'flu variants excepted)?
Dave: I believe that you are correct about the tendency for the sensitivity of communities to alter with the amount of attention that is given to a topic. I suspect this is just the nature of being human.
That said, I'm not sure how one gauges what is an appropriate level of sensitivity for anything - or if a particular level of community sensitivity is a measure of the veracity of a thing, or not. Or even if it is at all possible to measure community sensitivity as a single number (or as a definitive range of numbers)
For example- most in the community have an aversion to killing an animal for consumption. Of course it's not "wrong" (if the slaughter is done humanly) to do so - ALL non-vegetarians (me) depend on this practice to survive. But nevertheless, the sensitivity persists and most in the community accept and understand the obvious hypocrisy. Does this mean that everyone should be forced to slaughter animals for their own food because the sensitivity is incorrect? Clearly a rhetoric question!
I can't remember on what side of the COVID debate you sit - but I can recall the position that COVID is no more dangerous than another version of the common flu being posed in this thread in the past. I suspect that it is yet another convenient arrow in the quiver of "nay-sayers'" arsenal
I could cite numerous studies that support the position that the impact from the COVID global pandemic is very different to the common flu - but I've absolutely no doubt that the "nay-sayers" can reply with a barrage of studies that conclude the opposite. We ALL know from past experience that the battle of citations does very little to advance argument in this place!
As I have said, I have no idea whether the current level of community sensitivity about COVID deaths is appropriate! Ask some-one who has lost a relative/close friend to COVID and they will give you a completely different answer to someone who has the fortunate luxury of viewing COVID deaths as an academic exercise in numbers.
Of course, the latter will claim that they have the truth of science. However, community sensitivity to the death of our neighbors/friends/loved-ones is NOT something to which science can add much meaning - because community sensitivity is about feeling; it's an emotional response, it's not a logic response! And no, at least for this human response to trauma, logic is not the bastion of truth!!
Nevertheless, it's an interesting question. If indeed it is possible to turn what is ostensibly a melange of individual value judgements into a single meaningful metric - and if there is common agreement on this single number - and if the answer is "yes" - what does this mean?
Don
