Any good resources to counter people who downplay COVID-19 (e.g. "99% of people are fine," re: long-term effects)

[CitizenVectron]

One of the biggest hurdles I run into when talking to people who downplay the pandemic is that they often say something like "it's not a big deal, 99% of people are fine." While it's true that only 1% die (which is horrible in and of itself, and should not be downplayed), it's also true that there are many long-term complications we are discovering.

I thought it would be a good idea to put together a list of sources for this, and was hoping others could pitch in. Here are a few that I find helpful, to start:

20% of people who recover from COVID-19 develop mental illness within 90 days:

• https://www.reuters.com/article/health-coronavirus-mental-illness-int-idUSKBN27P35N

Up to 10% of people could have long-term lung scarring:

• https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02598-6

Evidence of fatigue, cough, and congestion after recovery in 30-40% of people:

• https://www.who.int/docs/default-so...e-36-long-term-symptoms.pdf?sfvrsn=5d3789a6_2

Please add anything you think is helpful!

 

[Rocket Schnauzer]

I'd recommend not arguing with stupid people in the first place, but that's up to you. I'd respond that 1% of a massive number is still a lot of people dead.

 

[Deleted member 10629]

Invite them to a round of Russian roulette. 5/6 chances they'll be fine!

 

[mernst23]

Would you get on a plane if you knew 1 out of a hundred would crash? Based on thr amount of flights per day that would be like having 50 to 60 plane crashes a day.... that seem ok?

 

[Keyser S]

Is this a US thing? 1% of you population is 3.6million if they dont care about that then fuck them

 

[TheBaldEmperor]

Not even gasping for breath before their death will convince some that this is even real. Save your breath and move on,

 

[Deleted member 44129]

People who point out that only 1% die are so short sighted and selfish. 1% of the global population that catch the virus is a disasterous and MASSIVE number of unnecessary deaths. We have a global population of 7,800,000,000 people ffs.

 

[reclaimerzzzzz]

I think saying almost a quarter million people have died in the US should be more than enough. If they can't accept that then I doubt they would care about the other issues this virus leaves in its wake.
1% (isn't it less) might sound good on paper but there is no way more than 200,000 dead sounds good in any context.

 

[shnurgleton]

socially distance yourself from them

 

[TOM 2]

When said people cling to shitbags like Tucker Carlson and Glenn Beck and are evangelical anit-vaxxers, there's virtually no point.

 

[Keyser S]

ⓘ 𝗢𝗳𝗳𝗶𝗰𝗶𝗮𝗹 𝘀𝗼𝘂𝗿𝗰𝗲𝘀 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗶𝘀 𝗳𝗮𝗹𝘀𝗲 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗺𝗶𝘀𝗹𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴

 

[Jmdajr]

It's not just about dying. Not dying might mean weeks in the hospital. Or...killing someone else.

 

[Deleted member 12224]

They'll only maybe care about COVID when their family members die.

So fuck them. Don't waste your time.

 

[HStallion]

There are 350 million people in the USA alone. If even one percent of them died from the Corona virus that's millions of people dead.

 

[Steel]

Would you get on a plane if you knew 1 out of a hundred would crash? Based on thr amount of flights per day that would be like having 50 to 60 plane crashes a day.... that seem ok?

Click to shrink...

To add to this, you getting on the plane might cause another plane to crash.

 

[terrible]

Killing 1% of the population to own the Libs. If people can't even agree that less people dying is better than more people dying I'm not sure they are worth even talking to.

 

[DeltaRed]

The biggest thing some people fail to grasp is all the deaths and infections so far are with lockdowns and protective measures. Without them the numbers would be unfathomable and health services everyone would be collapsing.

 

[Deleted member 1849]

I'd recommend not arguing with stupid people in the first place, but that's up to you. I'd respond that 1% of a massive number is still a lot of people dead.

Click to shrink...

Sometimes we need to.

Signed, someone who's flatmate is one of these crazy fuckers.

 

[Dark Ninja]

I would ask them why they are wearing a mask if it's not a big deal go out and get infected. People talk a big game till they are at deaths door.

 

[Lyrick]

There are 350 million people in the USA alone. If even one percent of them died from the Corona virus that's millions of people dead.

Click to shrink...

looking for a GIF that says your sentiment is good, but your math is bad...

[EDIT] Good to see you got rid of the "tens of millions" part

 

[PunchyMalone]

Going by our infection count and our death count, isn't the US sitting around a 2.2% mortality rate?

 

[Roliq]

ⓘ 𝗢𝗳𝗳𝗶𝗰𝗶𝗮𝗹 𝘀𝗼𝘂𝗿𝗰𝗲𝘀 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗶𝘀 𝗳𝗮𝗹𝘀𝗲 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗺𝗶𝘀𝗹𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴

Click to shrink...

I hate that centrists use the fact that Twitter is marking those tweets as false that it will lead to a "slippery slope" when the reason they are doing that is due the circumstances (The fucking president is lying to everyone)

 

[SpaceCrystal]

It's not worth wasting your time arguing with idiots about it. Let them find out the hard way.

 

[Danby]

All you can say is that many more than 1 percent are hospitalized and/or 1 percent of Americans is over 3 million dead if we aren't careful. There's not a whole lot more you can do.

 

[AndyD]

I'd recommend not arguing with stupid people in the first place, but that's up to you. I'd respond that 1% of a massive number is still a lot of people dead.

Click to shrink...

This. Not worth it as most people are not open to any reasoning. I would point out that we have hundreds of thousands of unnecessary deaths, even if the raw % is low.

 

[davepoobond]

If these people were amenable to facts and science you wouldn't need to convince them in the first place...

 

[JaggedSac]

First, ask if they consider themselves pro-life.

 

[Conditional-Pancakes]

What a lot of people downplaying COVID-19 aren't understanding (especially younger people), is that it's not a matter of you being sick or not. It's true that most people are only mildly affected by the virus, but it's also very true that the virus is absolutely devastating for specific groups of people and some demographics.

So not taking this seriously and risking spreading the virus around means you could be directly responsible for the death of somebody. Maybe not you, maybe not somebody you know, but down the infection chain it could be somebody's parent or grandparent, or maybe someone that's fighting some other illness or condition and has a weaker immune system... What if the infection chain you started ends up in a nursing home?

This thing is very serious, and you don't want to be personally responsible for someone else's death.

 

[Don Fluffles]

It's important to figure out if the ones making this BS argument are willing to change their mind in the first place. If they just want to be inflammatory or get attention, it's not worth it.

Irrc, according to what I learned in speech classes:
If they are, a good way is to just listen to their points without judgment. Then summarize them and talk as if they're "correct" and then provide information and opinions that slowly turn the argument in your favor.

 

[LProtagonist]

It's been nearly a year, nothing is going to change these people's minds.

 

[Weston]

I had a rapid test done on Monday. I told my coworker and she said you know those tests are only 30% accurate.

I said I dont think that's right.

She said where she heard it and mainstream media blah blah blah.

I said but if they were just guessing they would have a 50% of getting it right and tests are supposed to be worse than that?

She said no that's not how it works and then there was an awkward silence.

 

[softie]

Well it won't be "only" 1% if we didn't go into lockdowns, close stuff, etc. since risking it to become more than that 1% would directly break our whole health system and then shit would be so bad that people would die everywhere without any hope of getting help from healthcare. There are at least in some parts of the world smart enough people wanting to prevent the worst scenario possible.
If that doesn't ring any bells, I wouldn't bother arguing with someone being fine with 1%and beyond since it just means they're deliberatingly ignoring basic thinking and want to be stupid idiots.

 

[Imperfected]

I mean, I know this isn't what you want because it's not going to be convincing to dumb-dumbs, but it's important to remember:

1. It hasn't been long term since the virus evolved, and therefore we do not have actual firsthand information on the long-term effects. There are potentially any number of viral complications that might not be immediately apparent in the pathology.

2. Most infected people aren't actually receiving long-term care after initial recovery, anyway, because the sheer number of infected make that wildly impractical. A lot of long-term care right now is going to be focused on people who self-report obvious complications (ie, "I get winded walking down the street"), and it won't be until things have calmed down considerably that we can really start to look for more subtle impacts (ie, everyone who had COVID has a 95% higher chance of developing liver conditions, or something).

So the actual response to these people is, "We don't know what the long-term impact is, but the best evidence we have is that there might be significant effects."

 

[Deleted member 45617]

Invite them to a round of Russian roulette. 5/6 chances they'll be fine!

Click to shrink...

Even a 1 in 100 chance would be a deterrent

 

[kickz]

One thing I don't get about the 1% thing is, if you can catch it again and again, wouldn't that negate it since you up your odds.

 

[Cotton McKnight]

I'd recommend not arguing with stupid people in the first place, but that's up to you. I'd respond that 1% of a massive number is still a lot of people dead.

Click to shrink...

I have just stopped conversing with the deniers completely. I just don't want to be surrounded by selfish people.

 

[AlwaysSalty]

I wouldn't bother. It takes a certain level of delusion to downplay the pandemic at this point. You can bet they are also a anti-mask, anti-vax, flat-earther, conspiracy nut. You can't fix stupid with one argument, so don't bother. They will figure it out when they get eventually get sick. There's this guy at work that got covid along with our dispatcher. Guys wife stops coming to work a few days later and I have to cover for her. I end up working with the wife's aid and she's an anti-mask(but wearing one because she has to) Trump supporter. And she's talking about how people are getting collapsed lung from wearing masks. At the end of her stupid rant she coughed up a damn lung. And I tried to be subtle about getting her to test herself since when I started hinting at it she said she had no symptoms. And I'm like hey, if your work partner got it, and her husband got it, and he worked with the dispatcher and she got it... then maaaaaybe you should check just to be safe. She did and now she's out for 2 weeks. All I could do was smh, glad I kept my distance and mask on at all times.

 

[Sunster]

the days of winning arguments by citing verifiable evidence are over op. there's "alternative facts" now. what you're asking for is pointless.

 

[night814]

Is this a US thing? 1% of you population is 3.6million if they dont care about that then fuck them

Click to shrink...

Imagine there's stuff like this everywhere but it's amplified like crazy in the US. Social media has been full of this sort of shit since Covid and the lockdowns first started and our president has done a terrible job.

 

[Damaniel]

Don't even engage - we're officially in a post-truth society, and reality is whatever you want it (or what Trump wants it) to be.

 

[Mesoian]

America Is Trapped in a Pandemic Spiral

As the U.S. heads toward the winter, the country is going round in circles, making the same conceptual errors that have plagued it since spring.

www.theatlantic.com

It's not a checklist, but it does a pretty good job at getting to what's actually wrong about the fallacies of pandemics in general.

But honestly, they don't want to hear it. It's too much for them.

 

[oofouchugh]

If those people are unmoved by the 250k dead then fuck em they're not worth keeping around.

 

[AndyD]

I had a rapid test done on Monday. I told my coworker and she said you know those tests are only 30% accurate.

I said I dont think that's right.

She said where she heard it and mainstream media blah blah blah.

I said but if they were just guessing they would have a 50% of getting it right and tests are supposed to be worse than that?

She said no that's not how it works and then there was an awkward silence.

Click to shrink...

You should know that while the rapid test accuracy is not bad, it's their sensitivity that sucks. It could effectively be quite that low in the end.

That is because you need a sufficiently high viral load for them to detect it. So they are not ideal but for those potentially at a particular stage of infection. So if people take it prematurely (before load is high enough in the body) it yields a false negative. So it could well be that it only works in 30% of cases where it is administered, but that's not because it's wrong the other 70% but because it may not be taken at the right time to indicate infection or not.

 

[bananab]

You are better off just conspicuously demonstrating safe behavior and limiting interaction with these people as best you can for your own safety. I realize it's not always possible. Getting into debates with them a) reinforces the idea that it's debatable and b) probably just make em dig their heels in.

 

[RobertM]

I'd recommend not arguing with stupid people in the first place, but that's up to you. I'd respond that 1% of a massive number is still a lot of people dead.

Click to shrink...

"I'll take my chances" this is the response you'll get, stop being complacent and actively fight misinformation.

 

[Nerokis]

I wouldn't emphasize the side-effect thing. For one thing, while those side-effects are significant and, in the aggregate, part of the reason covid has been so burdensome, zooming in on them requires leaning on unsettled science and reporting, and also sort of concedes the point about mortality. You just need to point out what 1% means: over 200,000 dead even with a massive societal response, a number that would've easily been multiple times higher if we didn't do anything at all. The danger of the disease is partially in the fact it isn't likely to kill the average person, and so it has an easier time spreading around, causing havoc across a society and playing a deadly numbers game that especially affects the most vulnerable among us.

It's deadlier than the flu, and preventing this thing from killing a million plus people required extreme action. Much of that action was just people altering their behavior: social distancing, wearing masks, going out less. We still could've done a much better job, but that's what it took to bend the curve at all. You do that stuff for your health, and the health of your loved ones, but you also do it to be part of the overall solution.

Of course, a bunch of people are just immune to logic and facts, but that's the #1 thing I'd do: reframe what it means for a contagious disease to have a 1% mortality rate. It's not about the danger to you, individually, it's about the massive loss of life that inevitably results (...well, did result) if we don't take it seriously.

 

[Lobster Roll]

Are you forced to interact with them (e.g. coworkers)? The best counter is to ghost them.

 

[Mammoth Jones]

Your arguments are based upon the assumption that facts actually matter to a person that denies science. They don't so don't waste your breath.

 

[Deleted member 29280]

My experience is arguing with these people about anything is pointless. You can cite all the facts you want, they have been conditioned to immediately think "FAKE NEWS" when they hear something they disagree with

 

[ShadowSoldier89]

my experience is its completely worthless to even try, people are fucking stupid, and are only willing to believe stupid things that pro9ve their stupidity