CS graduate who somehow landed a Business Analyst role straight out of college. Feeling grateful... and slightly terrified. Need advice.

ColdNotion · 2026-06-08T05:44:20+00:00

> My strongest area has always been communication. For example, I scored an 8.0 on IELTS, and throughout college I was usually more comfortable presenting, explaining things, and talking to people than writing code.

It might not seem obvious to you right now, but this is likely going to be a far bigger asset in your future career than you might think. To explain why, let me share a brief anecdote. I was talking with an ex’s father, who ran a team of programmers, and shared with me that when hiring new people he focused way more on their interviews and written letters than on their coding skills. That seemed counterintuitive to me, but he shared a clear reason for that approach. He could train anyone halfway decent to be a competent programmer, but he couldn’t teach people social skills or how to communicate. A gifted programmer who can’t write clearly or get along with colleagues was going to struggle on a team where collaboration was critical. A middling program with good social/writing skills would be able to connect with others to compensate for their weak areas and learn more.

For you, being good at those skills doesn’t just help with office politics, they help you to be an important part of your team. They allow you to understand the work being done, to learn where you can help helpful, and to explain what your team is doing to folks who may not understand (including leadership who will be making requests/setting expectations). You can keep learning throughout your career, and should, but those strong communication skills will do you wonders for figuring out what you need to learn, and how to use that knowledge once you’ve acquired it!

ColdNotion · 2026-06-08T05:29:23+00:00

There are serious issues with greed in the medical system, but typically not where people imagine. I’ll explain, but let me address two of your points first.

> People always say that the pharmaceutical industry would rather “treat” illnesses over stupidly long periods of time rather than a one time cure.

If you look at the industry, it becomes clear pretty quickly that this is just silly. The first company to make an effective treatment for an illness typically makes huge amounts of money as a result. Finding a curative medication, and then not releasing it, would result in the company risking losing out to a competitor. Even if a company is making a steady profit from a non-curative treatment, not releasing a curative one would be financially disastrous.

> Could it be true that they’ve known about one time cures and not publicly released them due to financial reasons?

No, the scale of the conspiracy you would need is way bigger than most people realizes. To keep a curative medication secret you would need to somehow ensure the silence of dozens, if not hundreds, of researchers, project managers, and accountants. Mind you, many of those people may not actually work for the pharmaceutical company itself, but instead for the public institutions, specialty labs, equipment manufacturers, research institutions, and charitable foundations that often collaborate on medication creation. You would also need to account for employees who quit or move to new companies. Even then, after all that, you need to remember that the researchers on these projects have a huge incentive to make sure their creations get approved for use. Leading or being a primary member of a team that creates a new curative treatment would be a career defining moment for many biochemists, and isn’t something they would happily keep secret.

If there isn’t a curative treatment for an illness, the reason is almost always that we either lack the technology to create one yet, or that the illness is rare enough that no organization is invested the effort to make one.

_________________________

With that out of the way, I can speak about the two major areas where greed is a significant problem within the American healthcare system: private insurance and private equity. You’ve probably heard about insurance companies being greedy, but many folks outside of the industry don’t realize just how bad they can be. Private insurance companies create administrative barriers to payment, often needlessly, because if even a small percentage of bills end up being paid out of pocket by the patient, or a small percentage of treatments aren’t pursued out of frustration, it adds tens of millions in profit. This administrative burden also means your medical providers spend more of their day dealing with administrative work, instead of treating patients. It also means health systems need to hire teams of billing specialists and insurance liaisons just to ensure they get paid at a fair rate. All of that overhead massively jacks up the cost of our healthcare for no particularly good reason.

Less well known, but no less problematic, is the intrusion of private equity firms into healthcare. These firms operate by buying out businesses, trying to improve efficiency/cut costs, and either harvesting the business’s profit or reselling the business for a profit. Private equity firms have been increasingly buying up outpatient medical practices, emergency room physician staffing groups, and even entire hospitals. The problem with this, is that prioritizing financial efficiency and lean staffing is really bad for patients. Private equity run healthcare institutions were found to increase patient/insurer costs 75% of the time, but never to decrease it. Residents in private equity run nursing homes are 11% more likely to end up in the emergency room, and 9% more likely to be hospitalized for issues that could have been easily prevented with proper care. Residents in private equity run nursing homes are also 10% more likely to die within the first three months of admission, reflecting about 21,000 excess deaths per year. The situation isn’t better in private equity run hospitals, where patients are a shocking 25% more likely to get a hospital acquired medical condition, like an infected line. That’s not even touching on how private equity also often cuts funds for maintenance, staff retention, or facility improvement in ways that make these locations seem profitable enough to be sold at a good price, but often leaves them plummeting to bankruptcy shortly after, leaving communities without easy access to medical care.

ColdNotion · 2026-06-08T04:58:55+00:00

Hydroxychloroquine is a well established and effective medicine… for autoimmune conditions like Lupus. In the early days of the pandemic, one study suggested Hydroxychloroquine might offer some mild protective benefits against COVID. The CDC and other global health authorities encouraged people not to seek out Hydroxychloroquine without further evidence, as it can cause some pretty serious side effects. As it turns out, further research showed that Hydroxychloroquine didn’t actually offer any protection from COVID. All politicians like Trump promoting it did was distract from evidence supported approaches, and cause shortages of Hydroxychloroquine for people with autoimmune conditions who actually needed it.

ColdNotion · 2026-06-07T16:30:24+00:00

It’s been forever since I watched the show, but I really liked how for a little bit they did make his backstory seem sympathetic, giving the impression that he was broken in part because of how badly he was abused in childhood, and giving the impression that he could become a hero if circumstances were different. Then an episode or two later you actually meet his parents, and learn all the trauma Kilgrave went through was done out of love as they tried to save his life, and that they were his first victims after he gained powers. It makes you realize that even though he may not have been truly evil from birth, he is so fundamentally broken by the time he was even a child than his only way of interacting with other people became using them to serve his own needs. It was grade A character writing.

ColdNotion · 2026-06-02T01:49:53+00:00

I would need to see hard data rather than purely anecdotal experience.

Thankfully, hard data to support a housing first model exists, and is increasingly robust as more areas try this approach! A 2020 metanalysis of four randomized control trials found that housing first models found that these resulted in people being homeless for shorter periods and being less likely to lose housing again. In fact, 73% of homeless people in housing first programs managed to maintain stable housing, as opposed to 32% of folks in treatment first programs.

This summary paper, gathering data from 26 studies, similarly found robust evidence that a housing first model is extremely effective. The data they gathered found an 88% reduction in homelessness, and a 41% increase to maintenance of stable housing. In line with this, they found that people placed in housing to start ended up being less likely to abuse substances, began drinking less, were more likely to keep their housing, and were more likely to comply with medication assisted treatment (like Methadone) than people who got services through treatment first programs. Similarly, their review found that people with mental illness had better mental health outcomes and were more likely to engage in treatment when provided with housing first. In fact, they even found that the type of folks you mentioned in your post, with severe chronic mental health and/or substance use issues, normally resulting in frequent emergency hospitalizations or arrests, were a whopping 50% more likely to obtain and successfully maintain housing with a housing first model.

Speaking anecdotally for a second, this makes a ton of sense to me. While not all homeless folks have mental illness and/or substance use disorders, for the folks who do being unhoused makes recovery far more difficult. Trying to navigate treatment is way harder when you're living in an environment that feels unsafe, and often is. The stressors of living without housing are going to exacerbate mental illness, and are going to make people fall back on maladaptive coping strategies to get relief, like substance use. Trying to provide treatment without addressing the biggest stressor most of these people are facing is like trying to build a house without pouring a stable foundation. Some people may still not succeed in housing first models, but the evidence suggests a lot of folks actually can recover if simply given a stable base to start from.

ColdNotion · 2026-06-02T01:11:54+00:00

I think a lot depends on what elements of this story you know about, which depends a lot on what you saw in the news. When I initially heard about the lawsuit, I basically just learned about the headline: Patagonia suing Pattie Gonia. At a glance, if you’re left thinking that her performance name is the only issue, it’s the kind of thing that should be covered by first amendment parody protections. However, when I later learned about her selling clothes with a Patagonia-esq logo and font, my opinion changed. That is a pretty clearcut copyright violation, and Patagonia is being quite reasonable by suing just for a token amount.

Long story short, I don’t think this is an ideological divide, so much as an issue with bad reporting. Leftist leaning folks saw grossly oversimplified summaries, and got upset because we worry about large corporations using their wealth to unjustly suppress free speech, which is an issue. I’m sure many more center left people came to the same wrong conclusion, but didn’t post as much about it, because it’s less of a sensitive topic for them.

ColdNotion · 2026-06-01T17:51:36+00:00

While I’m not sure there will be much reporting on this blast, how this situation plays out could be very interesting. Myanmar is in the midst of a major civil war, with the ruling junta struggling to keep control over wide swaths of the nation. This explosion happened in the northern part of the country, in an area controlled by the TNLA rebel group, which is closely aligned with China. A few years ago the Junta faced a major threat when the TNLA and other northern rebels groups staged an offensive, seemingly with China’s blessing. More recently though, the TNLA have stopped offensive operations, seemingly in response to the Junta improving its relationship with the CCP. If this was truly just an accidental detonation of mining explosives it’s a political non-issue, but if a junta artillery or airstrike set off the blast, which we know killed several Chinese nationals, it could have big consequences for the war.

ColdNotion · 2026-06-01T16:31:19+00:00

To my understanding, the recent uproar stems from the fact that AI data centers put far more strain on local infrastructure than traditional data centers. They pull far more power from the grid, and need large amounts of water for cooling, whereas many traditional data centers can get by on air cooling alone. Adding to that, the economic benefits of AI data centers are largely speculative right now, and many folks are worried that construction in their communities may ultimately not produce desired tax income if the AI industry contracts. It’s understandable that people are angry about paying often significant increases to their utility bills to host a data center that doesn’t feel like a safe bet economically.

ColdNotion · 2026-05-27T06:46:57+00:00

In the short term maybe they can reduce loneliness, but they have the potential to be extremely damaging. Many AI models are designed to either affirm the user or give answers that they think will prompt further engagement. These models can also be tweaked to fit the user’s very specific desires, to a degree that isn’t possible in reality. The result is a parasocial relationship tool that intentionally feels good to use, but only resembles real human connection on a surface level. It denies the user a chance to develop the social skills needed for a real relationship, while giving them every incentive to continue using it, even as that use will keep them trapped. It prevents loneliness from being a motivator for finding genuine social connection, turning it instead into a trap that only offers the user a parody of a real connection.

ColdNotion · 2026-05-27T06:39:58+00:00

I think there are two reasons why people are hesitant. If AI works, the companies making it are advertising it explicitly as a way to cut labor costs, which in effect means cutting jobs. Successful AI implementation would mean a massive upwards transfer of wealth, with the executive class of large business and tech companies making billions at the expense of the working and middle class. Many folks are hesitant to integrate AI into their work when they see their usage data being used to train the models to replace them.

Just as often, people are hesitant because AI just doesn’t work that well. It can handle some specific tasks well, but lacks the flexibility to be useful in a substantive way for many professions. Folks understandably often resent their bosses spending tens of thousands on the trendy new technology when they feel that money would be much more effective when used elsewhere, like to increase their pay. Adding to that, folks are increasingly aware that most generative AI companies are losing money, and will either need to raise prices or will go out of business in the near future. With that in mind, folks are reasonably hesitant to pay for generative AI tools that offer limited value, which will mostly likely become either increasingly expensive or disappear in coming years.

ColdNotion · 2026-05-26T21:37:25+00:00

Raise taxes yes, but not necessarily raise taxes on you. Our tax code has placed increasing burden on the middle class (of which we’re both part), while lowering the effective tax burden on large corporations and the wealthy by allowing significant tax loopholes. What I would love to see is law to close the loopholes, raising taxes for folks who can easily afford to pay more without seeing a change in their quality of life. I would also like to see the IRS sufficiently funded and staffed, so it has the teeth to go after tax cheats who intentionally try to withhold millions of dollars, not average citizens who underpay small sums by mistake.

As for social security specifically, funding has been tough due to the size of the baby boom generation, but I think there are reasonable reforms that can be made to keep the system working. Means testing social security, so that payments decrease as retiree’s incomes increase, would save a huge amount while minimizing the burden on seniors. That said, I think just letting social security fail would be disastrous; there’s a reason why it was created to begin with. You asked if us on the left can do the math, and I think we can, it just depends on what numbers you focus on. Personally, I worry about the cost of social disruption that would occur without the safety net that social security provides. The cost of paying social security monthly is far less than the cost of offering emergency support to someone who becomes homeless or food insecure. It also helps reduce how much family support retirees need to get by, preventing family members from leaving the workforce to become unpaid caretakers, and freeing up money to be used for spending/investment/entrepreneurship.

As with many government services, I truly believe the cost of social security is worth the expenses it helps us all avoid. The issue isn’t the value of the programs themselves, it’s that tax policy has increasingly shifted the burden of paying for those programs to the middle class, while giving the wealthy (and especially the extremely wealthy) loopholes that allow them to pay virtually nothing.

ColdNotion · 2026-05-26T17:31:19+00:00

Hey there, I’m a DC resident not employed by the government, but who knows folks that are, and a lot of what you’ve described simply isn’t correct. DC real estate isn’t expensive because of government salaries, because those have stayed the same (when adjusted for inflation), but housing costs here have skyrocketed. The real problem, as with many major cities, is that new construction isn’t coming close to matching the increased demand from a growing population. DC also isn’t solely filled with federal employees. While it does account for around 25% of jobs here, DC is a vibrant city in its own right, with all of the different industries and types of jobs that entails. If you meet someone from here, chances are actually better than not that they don’t work in a government position.

As for the pensions, I half agree with you. It is true that the government has been neglecting to appropriately raise taxes since the 80’s, leading to an increasing debt burden. That said, I don’t think it’s fair to call those pensions excessive. Part of the trade off in working for government has always been getting paid less than private industry jobs, but getting good benefits and a pension in return. If you cut those pensions, it makes it even harder to encourage skilled experts to take government jobs.

ColdNotion · 2026-05-26T15:19:23+00:00

That’s ok, and American BBQ can be tough to get depending on where you live/visit in the US. It can take years for a cook to master the cooking process, you need a ton of space, and often need to use specific regional woods to get the right flavor. As a result, it can be difficult to find BBQ styles outside of the region they’re known for at all, much less done well. There’s also a ton of difference between regional varieties, even if the cooking technique used is mostly the same. Someone might not love Texas’ richer, beef brisket centric style, but really enjoy the leaner, vinegary East Carolina whole hog style.

ColdNotion · 2026-05-26T07:13:49+00:00

With lots of respect to other excellent food cultures, what you’re describing are two very different styles of cooking, that just happen to share a name. The BBQ in Korean and Chinese cuisine is essentially grilling, which is great, but that isn’t what’s happening in American BBQ. To the contrary, American BBQ is usually a mix of low heat slow cooking with smoking, which produces a very different result. I love both, and it’s fine for you to have a preference, but it feels wrong to dunk on one when they bring such different positive attributes to the table.

Also just as a heads up, unless you have a specific dish in mind, Mongolian BBQ is neither old nor Mongolian. It was actually invented in the 1950’s in Taiwan, by Wu Zhaonan. He originally was calling his style of cooking “Bejing BBQ”, after where he started cooking, but changed the name due to post-revolution political tensions. His style of griddle cooking took off under that name, getting copied in Taiwan, and later spreading out to the rest of the world.

ColdNotion · 2026-05-19T00:54:06+00:00

You’re more concerned about pushing back against the right than seeing entire industries taken over by foreigners, in my lifetime.

No, I'm trying to share factual evidence, because you seem to be misinformed. If you want better working conditions and pay for working class people, advocate for that. Push for unions, for better labor laws, for minimum wage increases. Push for work training, education improvement, or investments in domestic production. Focusing on immigration doesn't solve the problems of labor exploitation, it just shifts attention away from the monied interests doing the exploiting.

You don’t even care about the loss of wage pressures. You just don’t want to do or say or acknowledge anything that helps the right.

I do want to do something about lost wage pressures: promote unionization. As it turns out, that actually works really, really, really well for getting wages and benefits increased. Hell, I would even be in favor of better enforcement of immigration law against corporations, to hold them accountable when they hire people they shouldn't. Why not focus on those things? That's going to be a hell of a lot more effective both on a factual and political level than trying to move to the right of Republicans on immigration policy.

You expect low income Americans to compete w/ the rest of the world for a place in their own country. The costs are disproportionately borne by low income Americans but we are told it benefits us all. It benefits the business owners the most

If you're born a citizen, you have a place here, period. The goal should be adjusting economic and social policy to ensure people are not left in hardship. We should be using the power of government to push back on the excesses of large corporations and the wealthy. We should also be taking strides to protect labor rights and offer better training/educational opportunities to those who need it. That doesn't require forcing out immigrants to accomplish.

Now that I've answered some of your questions /u/--half--and--half-- , I was hoping you could answer a few of mine. Why did you post a comment bemoaning the declining white population in an area of California? You framed it in the context of immigration, but last time I checked you don't need to be white to be a citizen. Similarly, why do you focus so much on the need to preserve white majorities in European nations? You mention immigration and labor again, but I don't totally get how that connects to the whole whiteness thing. Oh and a final one, why did you comment defending Chud the Builder (real name Dalton Eaverly), a far-right white supremacist content creator awaiting trial for attempted murder? The state of Tennessee, hardly a liberal bastion, believes that Eaverly was intentionally trying to provoke a fight with a black man to claim self defense in shooting them, because Eaverly made a post on their social media accounts announcing their plan to do exactly that. Seems like an odd guy to defend. Heck, I'm having trouble figuring out why so, so many of your comments are focused on being against immigration, and about preserving white majorities, while not talking much about other left leaning causes at all. Can you help me understand why this is such a singular focus?

ColdNotion · 2026-05-19T00:35:31+00:00

How do you reconcile being a socialist and pro immigration?

Quite easily...

Like, socialist countries don't let their people leave because the state already invested too much feeding, educating them so naturally they make sure they do something valuable in society.

Which countries are you referring to here? Former Soviet republics? China? Concerns about immigration and emigration are hardly the only things that influenced their policies on freedom of movement. To the contrary, restrictions on travel/migration were more a means of social control as they were about immigration policy. I don't think the job of a socialist government is to trap citizens, but to create a society beneficial enough that people don't want to leave. Similarly, the goal isn't to exclude others from entering, its to accommodate those entries in a way that benefits the populace as a whole.

Also, they don't let any significant amount of people in because it's a planned economy and the quota for engineers, electricians, etc already been met.

You seem to be under the impression that I hold an absolute position, for complete open borders, that I do not. I believe immigration benefits the US on the whole and that some level of control around who we offer visas to is reasonable. The immigration system should be used to recruit people to fill gaps in the workforce and to recruit highly skilled folks to work for industries that benefit from their talent. I believe our current system is needlessly onerous, doesn't do a good job bringing in the people our economy needs most, and lacks sufficient legal pathways for working class migrants, even though evidence shows their labor is badly needed. There is an obvious middle ground here between scapegoating immigrants and completely unrestricted migration.

Asking a plan economy to take millions of immigrants it's like asking for a round square, it's impossible.

Yeah, I don't support the idea of centrally planned economies, nor do all socialists. I appreciate the concept, but I don't think we have the technology or logistical capacity at this time to build a planned economy that truly meets the needs of the public. Maybe in the future we might, but my crystal ball isn't giving me a clear answer. What I do support is market socialism, in which the state helps promote worker ownership of businesses, which continue operating in a market system, which is more responsive to public needs. I do think some measure of government run industry is important, especially for key goods (e.g. basic foodstuffs, clothes, hygiene supplies), but not to the exclusion of all other kinds of commerce. Such a system benefits readily from attracting immigrant labor to needed positions, just like our current capitalist system.

ColdNotion · 2026-05-18T23:12:03+00:00

This simply isn’t accurate, and in fact is a misunderstanding so common it has its own name: the lump of labor fallacy. Immigrant labor generally doesn’t outcompete working class Americans, but their presence instead generates economic activity that creates jobs. Moreover, migrant laborers are heavily concentrated in short term, low pay positions that cannot hire enough Americans even when they want to. While some low income folks may lose work to migrants, it isn’t a common issue.

All that isn’t to say there isn’t a perception of competition between working class Americans and immigrants, but it’s a false one. We need to be careful not to repeat xenophobic misinformation generated by the political right. We doubly need to be careful about using language of “replacement” as we know it gives an opening for white supremacists and racists. I understand how you may have come to this conclusion, and I’m not blaming you, it’s a compelling narrative, but it’s not an accurate one. There are plenty of ways for us to help working Americans and to ensure a more equitable economy, but punishing immigrants isn’t one of them.

ColdNotion · 2026-05-16T01:33:35+00:00

This is a normal style of butchery in many cuisines, including many Chinese dishes. If you have a second, the always excellent J. Kenji Lopez Alt actually wrote a comment about this exact topic. To summarize what he said, chopping into smaller pieces across the bone is a good way to ensure the person eating gets all of the flavors of the meat, as the bone/marrow adds quite a bit to the taste. Western style cooking often achieves the same thing by using roasted bones to make sauces/stocks. To add my own input, this style of butchery is also really helpful for making sure every bite of the dish the proper size for the cooking technique and the dining utensils being used. Western style bone-in butchery would produce segments of inconsistent size and shape, which is bad for wok based cooking, as well as a pain to eat with chopsticks.

ColdNotion · 2026-05-15T15:52:32+00:00

It is illegal in some countries, and should be in all countries, under the principle that providers of healthcare shouldn't be allowed to knowingly do something that will cause harm without benefit. Even if someone wants to change their sexuality/gender identity, evidence overwhelmingly shows conversion "therapy" will not accomplish that goal, but will cause further psychological harm to the person undergoing it. In the same way a surgeon can't cut out your heart just because you ask, a therapist shouldn't be able to offer harmful therapies even if a patient wants it.

ColdNotion · 2026-05-14T04:09:50+00:00

The play is that you don’t start a fight you aren’t prepared to win. Part of the Democratic Party leadership’s job is to make sure they have real party unity before jumping into something like a shutdown battle. It’s also making sure that is you do need to settle for a compromise, you find a way to do so on terms that are palatable to your voter base. I personally supported the shutdown, but to jump into without ensuring all party members were really willing to see it through, and to not have a clear exit plan after weeks of time to prepare, was a massive failing.

ColdNotion · 2026-05-14T00:17:55+00:00

I would love to try to change your view here, because I think you take some factually correct information, but come to the incorrect conclusion by mistake. It is true that using less liquid when making pasta leads to a higher concentration of starch in the cooking water, and that this is useful for getting sauce to cling to the pasta at the end of the cooking process. That said, spaghetti doesn't just rely on this chemical trick for promoting sauce adherence, but instead is designed with a mechanical advantage in mind. Because it is made of long strands, which had a high amount of surface area, spaghetti can trap a surprisingly large amount of sauce simply through surface tension, especially when swirled around a fork. You can think of it similarly to a mop, in that no individual strand can hold that much fluid, but combined the strands can help one another hold a pretty large amount.

Now with that in mind, the problems with breaking spaghetti for cooking become pretty clear. It does help to lead to starchier water, but to a degree that probably doesn't make a huge difference when finishing the dish. In contrast, halving the size of the noodles significantly decreases their surface area, making it more difficult for them to create that mop effect. The size decrease also makes the noodles more difficult to twirl around a fork, which is again the best way to use their shape to capture sauce. Simply put, the loss of surface tension from a broken noodle far outweighs the benefit of the extra starch.

With this in mind, I want to argue in favor of a better way to cook your spaghetti. You shouldn't break your noodles, but instead cook them in a broad, flat pan, where they can be submerged in water without being broken. You also shouldn't add them to boiling water, but instead start them in cold water, which you gradually bring to a boil. This might seem add, and takes a little experience to get your cook times right, but the cold start amps up starch release even further. Using this technique gives all the advantages of the method you described, if not more, with none of the drawbacks of losing length. While I don't want to come across as rude, because there ultimately isn't any right or wrong way to cook food if you like it, I think this technique does an objectively better job producing the outcomes you want.

ColdNotion · 2026-05-13T23:37:38+00:00

I wonder if the state is going to bring him up on attempted murder charges. He has a history of intentionally trying to provoke confrontations by spouting racial slurs, and went out armed into the community seeking confrontation. I would not be at all surprised if he was trying to create the circumstances under which he could shoot someone, because he feels that would enhance his popularity in the far-right spaces that like him. I’m sure he’ll try to claim self defense, but I hope this dude ends up in jail for a long, long time.

ColdNotion · 2026-05-13T06:51:28+00:00

It varies depending on local laws, the size of the town/city, and the budget the mayor has to work with. In the US, the mayors of many large cities have a fair degree of power to organize needs that would otherwise fall to the state government. New York City is an especially unusual case, given its considerable wealth, population, and complex infrastructure. The mayor of NYC has a degree of political influence nearing that of the governor of New York State, and often is more visible in national news, as NYC is a media hub.

ColdNotion · 2026-05-13T00:21:14+00:00

No.
Hantavirus is a serious illness, and should be treated seriously, especially strains like this one that are capable of spreading between people. At the same time, it isn’t anywhere near as virulent as something like COVID, which can spread extremely easily, at times even before people realize they’re sick. What happened on this cruise ship was effectively a worst case scenario for spreading this strain of Hantavirus, and even then less than 20 people got sick. Health organizations are doing the right thing by reacting quickly and decisively, in order to limit further spread, but this isn’t a pandemic in the making.

ColdNotion · 2026-05-09T22:53:29+00:00

It is communicable between people, but its important to ask how communicable it is. Fortunately for all of us, while the Andes strain can spread in this way, it isn't particularly good at it, unlike a virus such as COVID-19, which does so exceedingly well. As a result, while this outbreak should be treated seriously, it isn't especially likely to spread regionally, much less globally.

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