Grey Templar wrote: It’s delusional to think this disease will last for more than a couple years, much less a hundred. This disease will not keep killing people at the rate it is currently. It’ll sharply drop off before the next few months are over. And yes. I am against the lockdowns continuing further or how they have been hamfistingly implemented.
And have any actual EVIDENCE it's just randomly becoming weaker? ATM where death rates are dropping are countries where infection rates are dropping BECAUSE THE LOCKDOWN ARE IN PLACE!
Remove lockdowns and you get deaths go up again. It's kindergarden level logic. Aka even kindergarden kids can see.
Texas opened up, couple week later it's breaking record death rates. No surprise there.
But lockdowns can't be held infinitely. So either death rates will go up permanently or vaccine is made. No vaccine, deaths aren't shrinking down any time soon.
If you disagree feel free to provide some actual evidence rather than drivel.
Whoops a doodle! Data breach already on a Coronavirus tracking app in the U.K.
and people wonder why we want local data saving over here and why it was such a big deal that we literally stopped working with the EU because of their insistence on saving data centrally.
Insistence? Few countries in EU want centralized. Most want decentralized. UK and Norway are the outliers who are actually going with centralized.
A pretty massive but right after though (emphasis mine):
But even if that process made OC43 less deadly, it is not yet clear whether something similar would happen with SARS-CoV-2. A study in monkeys showed that they retained antibodies to SARS-CoV-2, but the researchers only reported on the first 28 days after infection, so it is unclear how long the immunity lasted12. Concentrations of antibodies against SARS-CoV also dropped significantly over a two- to three-year period13. Whether those lowered levels would be enough to prevent infection or reduce severity has not been tested. Cats, cows, dogs and chickens do not seem to become immune to the sometimes deadly coronaviruses that infect them, leaving veterinarians over the years to scramble for vaccines. Despite all the questions about whether people retain any immunity to SARS-CoV-2, some countries are promoting the idea of giving survivors ‘immunity passports’ to allow them to venture out without fear of being infected or infecting others.
Many scientists are reserving judgement on whether the tamer coronaviruses were once as virulent as SARS-CoV-2. People like to think that “the other coronaviruses were terrible and became mild”, says Perlman. “That’s an optimistic way to think about what’s going on now, but we don’t have evidence.”
Grey Templar wrote: Even if it hangs around stubbornly, its still not worth a vaccine. The death's that a vaccine might prevent over the next 5-6 years will be very small compared to what what could be saved if that $ was put towards treating the people who are sick now. Or going after other more dangerous diseases.
No. It’s the deaths going forward, not in a neat little time bundle.
See, you need to look at what happens when idiots listen to the like of Jenny ‘no medical qualifications at all, but she’s on the Internet so clearly knows all’ McCarthy. The sort that don’t even grasp that Andrew ‘struck off, disbarred, disgraced’ Wakefield’s dodgy paper was saying a single, very specific vaccine (combined MMR) May have a link to autism, not that all vaccines cause autism, refuse to get their kids vaccinated.
Diseases all but eradicated start coming back. Look into it, there’s (reliable, verifiable, scientific) evidence out there - and no few dead kids.
That is why a vaccine is important for any emergent disease. Because the thing with diseases? They don’t just go away on their own, like an irritating relative come to visit for the afternoon. Once they’re here, they’re here.
What’s the cost of treating the future cases where we don’t bother developing a vaccine?
I wholeheartedly agree with you about anti vaxxers, but it's different in this case I think. Diseases like measles and such, we know those vaccines work. The issue with CV19 is that all current human CV have no vaccines.
Grey Templar wrote: It’s delusional to think this disease will last for more than a couple years, much less a hundred. This disease will not keep killing people at the rate it is currently. It’ll sharply drop off before the next few months are over. And yes. I am against the lockdowns continuing further or how they have been hamfistingly implemented.
And have any actual EVIDENCE it's just randomly becoming weaker? ATM where death rates are dropping are countries where infection rates are dropping BECAUSE THE LOCKDOWN ARE IN PLACE!
Remove lockdowns and you get deaths go up again. It's kindergarden level logic. Aka even kindergarden kids can see.
Texas opened up, couple week later it's breaking record death rates. No surprise there.
But lockdowns can't be held infinitely. So either death rates will go up permanently or vaccine is made. No vaccine, deaths aren't shrinking down any time soon.
If you disagree feel free to provide some actual evidence rather than drivel.
.
Not yet because it's too early in the process, but you can use the same logic that people are using to assert that lockdowns work, to ta hypothesis that the virus will likely become less deadly due to a bunch of factors. Death rates aren't going to go up permanantly. That's a pretty wild assumption, but then im not really surprised at that.
I'm not an immunologist or a doctor of any sort. But, most of the reading I have done on the subject states that it is WHEN rather than IF a vaccine is found. Apparently there are 75 separate companies and organisations looking for it and vast quantities of money involved, and the common consensus is that it is achievable.
It seems like a silly comparison to make, but like trying to land on the Moon, it's a technical problem to be solved. And there is a massive vested interest - on a societal, a political, an economic level - to create one.
It may not one that is suitable indefinitely due to the nature of the virus, but if it is taken up successfully by enough populations then it will allow a herd immunity and the amount of new cases to dwindle. Hopefully there is then the possibility of some return to normality, that doesn't rely on the virus just running wildly through populations and culling the vulnerable (as much as some right wing demagogues think that this is an acceptable course of action).
I think there's a few things to consider when it comes to a vaccine
1) Language used. Governments are hinging reactivation of most of the world on a vaccine. If they use the word "IF" suddenly reactivation of the world is an if and people don't like that. It's uncertain, unsettling, scary.
2) Most problems can be overcome, however time and technology have to be there. You can throw all the money you want at a problem and it seriously helps, but if the technology and understanding are not yet developed then it might be than an answer (in this case a vaccine) might be impossible today. Now it might be that hte huge resources dedicated toward it means that a vaccine appears tomorrow and we don't wait that long. Or it could take 10 years or 50 years or 100 years.
3) Even if a vaccine proves impossible/impractical (eg has disastrous side effects); research into a vaccine and resources spent on working with the disease can all be used to help improve recovery. Developing new drugs that can help counter its effect; new and safer methods to help those infected recover etc.... Even down to more reliable and faster kits for testing.
So even if a vaccine never appears the potential risk of life and long term health impact can be reduced. Perhaps even to a point where a vaccine is no longer considered viable because we reduce its impact so much that we can more easily cure than prevent.
For anyone interested in data and graphs, OurWorldInData is probably the best site I've found. Looking at US data (since that's where I live), there's some interesting results. While overall in Per Capita terms, the US hasn't been hit as hard as some European nations, the US efforts at control in terms of flattening the infection curve and death rates appears to be less effective. Whereas Covid19 exploded spectacularly in some nations, the US avoided this to the same extent on a per-capita basis, however it's been on a slower but steadier burn in the US, and where we see significant drop offs in other nations once the curve starts to flatten, the US appears to more plateau than drop off and has taken much longer to do so.
Much as i'd love this to burn itself out like SARs and MERs,i just don't think it will,
Too many victims never show symptoms meaning loads of spread
and even those with symptoms are infectious for a few days at least before they show up so even in a perfect world where everybody recognises they have covid 19 and immediately isolates themselves as soon as symptoms show there's still plenty of time for them to spread the infection too
plus it's spread pretty much world wide so lots of scope for countries with weak health/testing systems to re-infect the rest through official travel and business let alone via refugees, illegal economic migrants, drug trafficers and other sumugglers etc
hopefully a vaccine will show up (even if we do have to re-vaccinate everybody year like we do for flu but on a much larger scale)
If not treatments will carry on improving, natural immunity (however long it lasts) will either prevent some catching it or reduce the severity when they do and we'll learn to live with it and our social habits, buildings etc will adapt
after all it's not so long ago that nobody had indoor plumbing, open sewers right beside houses were the norm
Aye the only real time we could have expected it to burn out was when it was confined to China. As soon as it started hitting major international airports it spread like wildfire. It's that long silent incubation period that's the real deal breaker in containment.
Even if a single country and lock its population and track and trace the virus to oblivion within its own population - not easy but potentially possible. The risk of infection from outside of the national "bubble" is very high. In an ideal world you could suppose that developed/affluent nations could lockdown, eradicate their own sources and then start to aid other nations in their own lockdowns. However that's a pipe dream that, whilst it could be done at a basic level, would never achieve full effectiveness.
Of course the combination of the virus potentially mutating into a less lethal strain and humanity improving medical treatment could be a duel combo enough to make it more of a measured risk in life that we grow accustomed to living with. Getting the death rate and long term health impacts down to values that are safer for the population in general.
That said if evolution of a less lethal strain requires more lethal ones to be out-bred by the victims being killed and thus not spreading. One could argue that the natural evolution could get messed up by medical treatment. Of course in theory anyone receiving high end medical treatment should be in a hospital and thus contained with those working on them shielded from infection. So there's potential that you get
the same "removal from population" of the most deadly strains.
I'm not sure about social habits though. I can see social adaptation in the short term, but I can't see beach parties, raves, musical concerts, restaurants/ workplaces - I can't see everywhere adopting long term isolation measures. Even airports and ports I can't see maintaining the whole "2 weeks isolation" aspects. They are ideal measures that would seriously inhibit any disease spread; but they are also very slow and work against both space efficiency and our natural behaviours. More likely we might see face masks become a thing with increased washing down of work/leisure places and personal grooming. Those would be more practical measures that I can see being sustainable and encouraged, esp once the fashion market latches onto face-masks.
Well, looks like white trash is going to white trash. One of my ex employees is currently living with the girlfriend of a current employee.
Ex employee didn't want to be stigmatized, so told everyone she was staying with her family for the weekend. What she was actually doing was staying with her Corona positive boyfriend in his small studio apartment, and tweeting about it.
No one found out about this for a couple days. This means ex employee exposed her roommate, roommate's baby, two of my employees, and a ton of other people since she refuses to quarantine. However this is everyone else's fault for judging her.
I now have to lay off important employees for two weeks, deep sanitize my workplace, and pray no one else shows symptoms.
18 councils in the UK so far saying they will not reopen primary schools on 1st June (covering 1,500 primaries).
Dame McLean saying that we really don't have a hope of having sufficient track and tracing in place in time, despite it having been a government stipulation for reopening, on last night's briefing can't have helped.
Honestly there's only a few weeks left of school before it all ends for the summer anyway. I still don't get the big push to have them open up. Even if it means that parents can go back to work they've only got 2 weeks before the kids are back at home. Staff are unlikely to be teaching much (the post exam period is typically a bit of a lull).
About the only thing they can achieve is successful passing around of the virus with 2 weeks to achieve it.
Too many victims never show symptoms meaning loads of spread
and even those with symptoms are infectious for a few days at least before they show up so even in a perfect world where everybody recognises they have covid 19 and immediately isolates themselves as soon as symptoms show there's still plenty of time for them to spread the infection too
plus it's spread pretty much world wide so lots of scope for countries with weak health/testing systems to re-infect the rest through official travel and business let alone via refugees, illegal economic migrants, drug trafficers and other sumugglers etc
hopefully a vaccine will show up (even if we do have to re-vaccinate everybody year like we do for flu but on a much larger scale)
If not treatments will carry on improving, natural immunity (however long it lasts) will either prevent some catching it or reduce the severity when they do and we'll learn to live with it and our social habits, buildings etc will adapt
after all it's not so long ago that nobody had indoor plumbing, open sewers right beside houses were the norm
It wont burn out, but Its possible it will fade into the background somewhat as the other human coronavirus, OC43 has. Thats what the article I posted was saying.
I'm no virologist obviously, but what that seems to suggest is that there was an initial outbreak of a new coronavirus, which then changed or combined or however they mutate, up until the 1950s when the more recent strains that are endemic now emerged. These strains we dont even notice, as they give symptoms of a common cold.
I agree that our immunity will probably adapt somewhat as we get more exposure, and hopefully that combined with the above will mean that it does just fade out into a basic irrelevance. this is all conjecture of course. before anyone crucifies me.
UK is going to start publishing recovery rates from today apparently. Hopefully that might provide something of a counterweight to the daily death figures and start to ease the culture of fear somewhat.
Overread wrote: Honestly there's only a few weeks left of school before it all ends for the summer anyway. I still don't get the big push to have them open up. Even if it means that parents can go back to work they've only got 2 weeks before the kids are back at home. Staff are unlikely to be teaching much (the post exam period is typically a bit of a lull).
About the only thing they can achieve is successful passing around of the virus with 2 weeks to achieve it.
When i was in england as exchange student in june i went to school just once. To get official papers i needed to prove my study records at home. Rest was just waiting for results to come up.
Passing virus ahead is likely the goal...corona is too convenient scapegoat so boris doesn't want it to go away quickly.
Here 5 days of school open, 9 schools have already had corona cases. Yey yey. What a success. At least only about week left and not all students at school(many parents just flat out say their kids won't show up and school rubberstamps permission) but going to result in spike up.
Too many victims never show symptoms meaning loads of spread
and even those with symptoms are infectious for a few days at least before they show up so even in a perfect world where everybody recognises they have covid 19 and immediately isolates themselves as soon as symptoms show there's still plenty of time for them to spread the infection too
plus it's spread pretty much world wide so lots of scope for countries with weak health/testing systems to re-infect the rest through official travel and business let alone via refugees, illegal economic migrants, drug trafficers and other sumugglers etc
hopefully a vaccine will show up (even if we do have to re-vaccinate everybody year like we do for flu but on a much larger scale)
If not treatments will carry on improving, natural immunity (however long it lasts) will either prevent some catching it or reduce the severity when they do and we'll learn to live with it and our social habits, buildings etc will adapt
after all it's not so long ago that nobody had indoor plumbing, open sewers right beside houses were the norm
It wont burn out, but Its possible it will fade into the background somewhat as the other human coronavirus, OC43 has. Thats what the article I posted was saying.
I'm no virologist obviously, but what that seems to suggest is that there was an initial outbreak of a new coronavirus, which then changed or combined or however they mutate, up until the 1950s when the more recent strains that are endemic now emerged. These strains we dont even notice, as they give symptoms of a common cold.
I agree that our immunity will probably adapt somewhat as we get more exposure, and hopefully that combined with the above will mean that it does just fade out into a basic irrelevance. this is all conjecture of course. before anyone crucifies me.
UK is going to start publishing recovery rates from today apparently. Hopefully that might provide something of a counterweight to the daily death figures and start to ease the culture of fear somewhat.
But, as people pointed out, there is not evidence that OC43 started out more dangerous and became less so.
Overread wrote: Honestly there's only a few weeks left of school before it all ends for the summer anyway. I still don't get the big push to have them open up. Even if it means that parents can go back to work they've only got 2 weeks before the kids are back at home. Staff are unlikely to be teaching much (the post exam period is typically a bit of a lull).
About the only thing they can achieve is successful passing around of the virus with 2 weeks to achieve it.
When i was in england as exchange student in june i went to school just once. To get official papers i needed to prove my study records at home. Rest was just waiting for results to come up.
Passing virus ahead is likely the goal...corona is too convenient scapegoat so boris doesn't want it to go away quickly.
Here 5 days of school open, 9 schools have already had corona cases. Yey yey. What a success. At least only about week left and not all students at school(many parents just flat out say their kids won't show up and school rubberstamps permission) but going to result in spike up.
This again. and yes, as last time Boris Definitely wants the worst thing that couldve happened, the thing that it destroying his public support, to his government after a stonking victory at the polls. honestly.
Pacific wrote: I'm not an immunologist or a doctor of any sort. But, most of the reading I have done on the subject states that it is WHEN rather than IF a vaccine is found. Apparently there are 75 separate companies and organisations looking for it and vast quantities of money involved, and the common consensus is that it is achievable.
It seems like a silly comparison to make, but like trying to land on the Moon, it's a technical problem to be solved. And there is a massive vested interest - on a societal, a political, an economic level - to create one.
It's a bad analogy. I think it's best to say that scientists are optimistic. It's NOT a case where a result is guaranteed given the horsepower and proper math. Vaccine development is tricky. The virus and the human body are going to decide if it's achievable, not the dollars and brainpower we throw at it.
Remember that scientists originally announced an HIV vaccine would take two years. NOW we know why that was a pipe dream, but they didn't understand that at the time. More recently they thought they could crack dengue fever, and kinda sorta did...other than the fact that it makes kids that haven't had the disease MORE likely to get serious cases. Works well for people who have already had it, though.
I get that people want to be hopeful and that politicians want to say things to keep people hopeful, but people need to know that a vaccine that brings everything 'back to normal' isn't a guarantee. And that it may be a longer process than people think. Can't cut corners on clinical development with vaccines. Just can't. And manufacturing and distribution will be the opposite of instantaneous.
cuda1179 wrote: Well, looks like white trash is going to white trash. One of my ex employees is currently living with the girlfriend of a current employee.
Ex employee didn't want to be stigmatized, so told everyone she was staying with her family for the weekend. What she was actually doing was staying with her Corona positive boyfriend in his small studio apartment, and tweeting about it.
No one found out about this for a couple days. This means ex employee exposed her roommate, roommate's baby, two of my employees, and a ton of other people since she refuses to quarantine. However this is everyone else's fault for judging her.
I now have to lay off important employees for two weeks, deep sanitize my workplace, and pray no one else shows symptoms.
This is why the re-open is a bad idea. It probably is costing you as much money as you are making at the reduce capacity. At least if I recall the margins of small food businesses correctly.
However, now if you DON'T re-open you could lose the small base of customers you have to a competitor who is not as careful with their precautions. Therefore, businesses are being rewarded for the wrong behaviors.... again.....
Disciple of Fate wrote: Most of these viruses have about a year or two worth of immunity if you get it. There are currently 4 common Coronaviruses recurring, they don't all just burn out like SARS. Not all viruses start of super deadly either. Look at Swine Flu for example, much less deadly than we know Covid-19 is so far
Swine Flu, or H1N1 was the virus responsible for the Spanish Flu.
So yes, it was very very deadly when it first showed up.
Pacific wrote: I'm not an immunologist or a doctor of any sort. But, most of the reading I have done on the subject states that it is WHEN rather than IF a vaccine is found. Apparently there are 75 separate companies and organisations looking for it and vast quantities of money involved, and the common consensus is that it is achievable.
It seems like a silly comparison to make, but like trying to land on the Moon, it's a technical problem to be solved. And there is a massive vested interest - on a societal, a political, an economic level - to create one.
Hiv vaccine is technical problem to be solved as well. Or previous corona viruses. We are still waiting those.
Now there are promising results so far but even then it's not quarantee. Vaccine might never show up(or be like 20 year+ later...) at which point time for head scratching on how to avoid worst. Maybe at least some sort of medicine to help recovery can be found. But no quarantees there either. Several failures already(including one trump is already consuming just for fun of it...)
Disciple of Fate wrote: Most of these viruses have about a year or two worth of immunity if you get it. There are currently 4 common Coronaviruses recurring, they don't all just burn out like SARS. Not all viruses start of super deadly either. Look at Swine Flu for example, much less deadly than we know Covid-19 is so far
Swine Flu, or H1N1 was the virus responsible for the Spanish Flu.
So yes, it was very very deadly when it first showed up.
Its part of the same overall virus, but not the same strain. The 2009 pandemic is different from the 1918 one. Afaik the latest theory is that we gave the 1918 flu to pigs after which it mutated and changed over time into the 2009 swine flu pandemic. Saying 'when it first showed up' is misleading in that sense, because 2009 was a new zoonotic strain, not the same one but less deadly, for all that matters it could have easily turned out worse depending on how it changed before jumping to humans.
Hiv vaccine is technical problem to be solved as well. Or previous corona viruses. We are still waiting those.
Now there are promising results so far but even then it's not quarantee. Vaccine might never show up(or be like 20 year+ later...) at which point time for head scratching on how to avoid worst. Maybe at least some sort of medicine to help recovery can be found. But no quarantees there either. Several failures already(including one trump is already consuming just for fun of it...)
There is too much money on the table for a vaccine to not be found. The issue with other coronavirus is that they were never such a big thing so the economic incentive was low and sadly vaccine development is expensive and it will not be done without the promise of money.
But with this virus threatening basically the entire planet, whoever comes up with a vaccine will basically drown in money. So for once hurrah for capitalism.
Grey Templar wrote: It’s delusional to think this disease will last for more than a couple years, much less a hundred. This disease will not keep killing people at the rate it is currently. It’ll sharply drop off before the next few months are over. And yes. I am against the lockdowns continuing further or how they have been hamfistingly implemented.
And have any actual EVIDENCE it's just randomly becoming weaker? ATM where death rates are dropping are countries where infection rates are dropping BECAUSE THE LOCKDOWN ARE IN PLACE!
Remove lockdowns and you get deaths go up again. It's kindergarden level logic. Aka even kindergarden kids can see.
Texas opened up, couple week later it's breaking record death rates. No surprise there.
But lockdowns can't be held infinitely. So either death rates will go up permanently or vaccine is made. No vaccine, deaths aren't shrinking down any time soon.
If you disagree feel free to provide some actual evidence rather than drivel.
The increase in cases in Texas isn't linked to re-opening businesses.
Relevant excerpts from the article spoilered below. Follow the link to the article to see the supporting data and charts.
Spoiler:
On Sunday CNN ran a segment on the spread of COVID-19 in Texas. The news channel promoted it with the jarring tweet “Texas is seeing the highest number of new coronavirus cases and deaths just two weeks after it officially reopened.” The segment spotlighted 1,448 new cases and 58 new deaths, and noted the increased movement of people in the state according to cellphone data, illustrating that the public was increasingly out and about.
While technically true, this information is horribly misleading, and to the extent CNN is trying to establish a causal connection between Texas’ reopening and the increase in coronavirus diagnoses and deaths in the Lone Star State, it is simply wrong. It is so wrong that it is difficult to give the benefit of the doubt here. There are three reasons for this.
First, deaths are a trailing indicator. COVID-19 does not kill quickly; the average time to death from infection varies by source, but somewhere between three and four weeks is the average. In other words, the deaths in Texas over the weekend were mostly seeded before the reopening.
Second, consider the following three charts, which use data taken from the indispensable COVID Tracking Project. The first shows the seven-day rolling average of cases in Texas. We use the seven-day average because states are inconsistent in reporting data, so what might appear to be a massive one-day spike could simply reflect cases that weren’t updated fully over the weekend, or other anomalies in the data reporting process.
...
Third, and finally, CNN fails to examine important granularity in the Texas data, which makes it very unlikely that the surge in cases is being driven by increased spread.
...
What CNN has probably discovered is not that Texas’ reopening is driving an increase in cases. Instead, it seems to have discovered yet another outbreak in meatpacking plants, a story on which CNN has reported elsewhere and which has been covered in the Lone Star State for going on a month now. These outbreaks should not be waved away; they represent a genuine problem, though this problem is mitigated by the fact that there are relatively few sick and/or elderly workers on meatpacking floors. At the same time, it has very little to do with the merits of re-opening the economy at this point.
Getting this right is important because the stakes are incredibly high here. The only way we get this right, however, is if we’re supplied with a proper balance of good news and bad news. Right now, much of the media is in full bore “bad news” mode.
This skewed information diet makes it difficult to sort things out correctly, but it has an additional negative consequence. The viewer/reader will decide for him- or herself whether this is misfeasance or malfeasance on CNN’s part, but regardless, at this point in the pandemic it ought to know to check things like the testing rate and whether there are idiosyncratic outbreaks in prisons or meatpacking plants. If you are someone who believes that the media has an important gatekeeping function in slowing the spread of misinformation and disinformation, then having a major media company spreading what is dangerously close to disinformation impairs that function and erodes overall public confidence in an important institution for democracy.
We have the biggest drive thru KFC in Ireland. When it reopened last week the queue stretched for over a mile.
O_o
I've lived within walking distance of a KFC for 8 of the last 10 years at three different places, and while I'm normally a huge fan of fried chicken, I've only been through a KFC twice in that time, both times reminded me why I shouldn't have. I'm not sure why, but KFC in particular makes me physically nauseous (something in the grease). I cannot imagine how or why it would be *that* popular. That blows my mind.
The one nearest to me is open for takeout actually, and I've seen practically nobody stop by
Quarantine does strange things I guess, though at lest with a drive thru it should be relatively safe if everything is handled properly.
We have the biggest drive thru KFC in Ireland. When it reopened last week the queue stretched for over a mile.
That is some dedication for a piece of fried chicken
The big US fast food chains are not ubiquitous in the UK by any means in the more provincial parts.
Here in rural Devon we only got a McDonalds around 20 years ago, then we had a long wait for KFC, and we had similar scenes the weekend that opened, with traffic queuing for miles, choking one of the areas most vital trunk roads, and only got a Burger King mabe 8 or 10 years ago.
I believe some counties in the UK still don't have a McDonalds. I expect parts of Ireland are similar.
Consequently there's a mystique (for want of a better word) that the chains just don't have in other countries.
I'm a fan of KFC, but funnily enough Burger King gives me a similar sensation to Vakathi has with KFC, and I'd attributed that to the grease also.
I suspect if the push to reopen schools in the UK works
(and at the moment I don't thing it will since we've not got track & trace working yet and enough councils realise we need it first)
I think we'll see schools told they're not having a summer break this year to replace the 'lost' teaching time, plus it will mean more parents can get back to work when a lot of small child minding businesses/charities who would normally pick up the slack during the holidays have gone out of business or won't be able to run economically with social distancing in place
so there's going to be a lot of pressure to keep the kids in school (as they've already been doing at weekends for key workers children)
If schools officially break, kids end their years etc it makes it a lot more complicated to do this
Relevant excerpts from the article spoilered below. Follow the link to the article to see the supporting data and charts.
Spoiler:
On Sunday CNN ran a segment on the spread of COVID-19 in Texas. The news channel promoted it with the jarring tweet “Texas is seeing the highest number of new coronavirus cases and deaths just two weeks after it officially reopened.” The segment spotlighted 1,448 new cases and 58 new deaths, and noted the increased movement of people in the state according to cellphone data, illustrating that the public was increasingly out and about.
While technically true, this information is horribly misleading, and to the extent CNN is trying to establish a causal connection between Texas’ reopening and the increase in coronavirus diagnoses and deaths in the Lone Star State, it is simply wrong. It is so wrong that it is difficult to give the benefit of the doubt here. There are three reasons for this.
First, deaths are a trailing indicator. COVID-19 does not kill quickly; the average time to death from infection varies by source, but somewhere between three and four weeks is the average. In other words, the deaths in Texas over the weekend were mostly seeded before the reopening.
Second, consider the following three charts, which use data taken from the indispensable COVID Tracking Project. The first shows the seven-day rolling average of cases in Texas. We use the seven-day average because states are inconsistent in reporting data, so what might appear to be a massive one-day spike could simply reflect cases that weren’t updated fully over the weekend, or other anomalies in the data reporting process.
...
Third, and finally, CNN fails to examine important granularity in the Texas data, which makes it very unlikely that the surge in cases is being driven by increased spread.
...
What CNN has probably discovered is not that Texas’ reopening is driving an increase in cases. Instead, it seems to have discovered yet another outbreak in meatpacking plants, a story on which CNN has reported elsewhere and which has been covered in the Lone Star State for going on a month now. These outbreaks should not be waved away; they represent a genuine problem, though this problem is mitigated by the fact that there are relatively few sick and/or elderly workers on meatpacking floors. At the same time, it has very little to do with the merits of re-opening the economy at this point.
Getting this right is important because the stakes are incredibly high here. The only way we get this right, however, is if we’re supplied with a proper balance of good news and bad news. Right now, much of the media is in full bore “bad news” mode.
This skewed information diet makes it difficult to sort things out correctly, but it has an additional negative consequence. The viewer/reader will decide for him- or herself whether this is misfeasance or malfeasance on CNN’s part, but regardless, at this point in the pandemic it ought to know to check things like the testing rate and whether there are idiosyncratic outbreaks in prisons or meatpacking plants. If you are someone who believes that the media has an important gatekeeping function in slowing the spread of misinformation and disinformation, then having a major media company spreading what is dangerously close to disinformation impairs that function and erodes overall public confidence in an important institution for democracy.
Small note to make on this, because I see a lot of hammering on this 3-4 week average. The studies I have seen that have the average time to death of three to four weeks have had a lower median age than most Covid-19 victims as the pandemic spread. Those over 70 can take on average as little as two weeks to die from the start of infection. Unfortunately I see no age related statistics amongst the deaths.
Regardless, without more statistics and some extra time, its going to be really hard to judge if it was ok or not to lift at this stage. Eventually it will become much more clear what is happening now.
Hiv vaccine is technical problem to be solved as well. Or previous corona viruses. We are still waiting those.
Now there are promising results so far but even then it's not quarantee. Vaccine might never show up(or be like 20 year+ later...) at which point time for head scratching on how to avoid worst. Maybe at least some sort of medicine to help recovery can be found. But no quarantees there either. Several failures already(including one trump is already consuming just for fun of it...)
There is too much money on the table for a vaccine to not be found. The issue with other coronavirus is that they were never such a big thing so the economic incentive was low and sadly vaccine development is expensive and it will not be done without the promise of money.
But with this virus threatening basically the entire planet, whoever comes up with a vaccine will basically drown in money. So for once hurrah for capitalism.
Eh just because you can pour and make money if you succeed does not mean you can succeed. Anybody who comes up with hiv vaccine would become rich. Money has been poured to it. Where's the rich guy?
Hell anybody coming up faster than light travel would become insanely rich. Going to be found?
Immortality? Can't claim no money to be found on that...
We have the biggest drive thru KFC in Ireland. When it reopened last week the queue stretched for over a mile.
That is some dedication for a piece of fried chicken
The big US fast food chains are not ubiquitous in the UK by any means in the more provincial parts.
Here in rural Devon we only got a McDonalds around 20 years ago, then we had a long wait for KFC, and we had similar scenes the weekend that opened, with traffic queuing for miles, choking one of the areas most vital trunk roads, and only got a Burger King mabe 8 or 10 years ago.
I believe some counties in the UK still don't have a McDonalds. I expect parts of Ireland are similar.
Consequently there's a mystique (for want of a better word) that the chains just don't have in other countries.
I'm a fan of KFC, but funnily enough Burger King gives me a similar sensation to Vakathi has with KFC, and I'd attributed that to the grease also.
Same in the Netherlands, in rural parts you would have to drive 20 minutes on the highway to get to a McDonalds (in recent years they are seriously expanding). The KFC and Burger King are mostly limited to cities, you would have to drive quite far in rural areas to get to one (far in the NL being like 30 min). Although they never closed down here, just for what can only be generously described as 'dining' there. Take out and delivery was still available.
Hiv vaccine is technical problem to be solved as well. Or previous corona viruses. We are still waiting those.
Now there are promising results so far but even then it's not quarantee. Vaccine might never show up(or be like 20 year+ later...) at which point time for head scratching on how to avoid worst. Maybe at least some sort of medicine to help recovery can be found. But no quarantees there either. Several failures already(including one trump is already consuming just for fun of it...)
There is too much money on the table for a vaccine to not be found. The issue with other coronavirus is that they were never such a big thing so the economic incentive was low and sadly vaccine development is expensive and it will not be done without the promise of money.
But with this virus threatening basically the entire planet, whoever comes up with a vaccine will basically drown in money. So for once hurrah for capitalism.
The virus doesn't care how much money you have. Neither does the human body.
Money means we're going to give it the best possible attempt. And there are reasons to be optimistic. But this straight-line path to success people have in their heads may not come to pass. Vax development tends to have twist and turns and steps forward and setbacks.
Relevant excerpts from the article spoilered below. Follow the link to the article to see the supporting data and charts.
Spoiler:
On Sunday CNN ran a segment on the spread of COVID-19 in Texas. The news channel promoted it with the jarring tweet “Texas is seeing the highest number of new coronavirus cases and deaths just two weeks after it officially reopened.” The segment spotlighted 1,448 new cases and 58 new deaths, and noted the increased movement of people in the state according to cellphone data, illustrating that the public was increasingly out and about.
While technically true, this information is horribly misleading, and to the extent CNN is trying to establish a causal connection between Texas’ reopening and the increase in coronavirus diagnoses and deaths in the Lone Star State, it is simply wrong. It is so wrong that it is difficult to give the benefit of the doubt here. There are three reasons for this.
First, deaths are a trailing indicator. COVID-19 does not kill quickly; the average time to death from infection varies by source, but somewhere between three and four weeks is the average. In other words, the deaths in Texas over the weekend were mostly seeded before the reopening.
Second, consider the following three charts, which use data taken from the indispensable COVID Tracking Project. The first shows the seven-day rolling average of cases in Texas. We use the seven-day average because states are inconsistent in reporting data, so what might appear to be a massive one-day spike could simply reflect cases that weren’t updated fully over the weekend, or other anomalies in the data reporting process.
...
Third, and finally, CNN fails to examine important granularity in the Texas data, which makes it very unlikely that the surge in cases is being driven by increased spread.
...
What CNN has probably discovered is not that Texas’ reopening is driving an increase in cases. Instead, it seems to have discovered yet another outbreak in meatpacking plants, a story on which CNN has reported elsewhere and which has been covered in the Lone Star State for going on a month now. These outbreaks should not be waved away; they represent a genuine problem, though this problem is mitigated by the fact that there are relatively few sick and/or elderly workers on meatpacking floors. At the same time, it has very little to do with the merits of re-opening the economy at this point.
Getting this right is important because the stakes are incredibly high here. The only way we get this right, however, is if we’re supplied with a proper balance of good news and bad news. Right now, much of the media is in full bore “bad news” mode.
This skewed information diet makes it difficult to sort things out correctly, but it has an additional negative consequence. The viewer/reader will decide for him- or herself whether this is misfeasance or malfeasance on CNN’s part, but regardless, at this point in the pandemic it ought to know to check things like the testing rate and whether there are idiosyncratic outbreaks in prisons or meatpacking plants. If you are someone who believes that the media has an important gatekeeping function in slowing the spread of misinformation and disinformation, then having a major media company spreading what is dangerously close to disinformation impairs that function and erodes overall public confidence in an important institution for democracy.
Small note to make on this, because I see a lot of hammering on this 3-4 week average. The studies I have seen that have the average time to death of three to four weeks have had a lower median age than most Covid-19 victims as the pandemic spread. Those over 70 can take on average as little as two weeks to die from the start of infection. Unfortunately I see no age related statistics amongst the deaths.
Regardless, without more statistics and some extra time, its going to be really hard to judge if it was ok or not to lift at this stage. Eventually it will become much more clear what is happening now.
You're right. After a few more weeks pass we'll have better data by which to judge the impact and merits of the re-opening in Texas. That's also why it is extremely disengenuous to use current data mere days from re-opening as proof that re-opening has had a negative impact.
Hiv vaccine is technical problem to be solved as well. Or previous corona viruses. We are still waiting those.
Now there are promising results so far but even then it's not quarantee. Vaccine might never show up(or be like 20 year+ later...) at which point time for head scratching on how to avoid worst. Maybe at least some sort of medicine to help recovery can be found. But no quarantees there either. Several failures already(including one trump is already consuming just for fun of it...)
There is too much money on the table for a vaccine to not be found. The issue with other coronavirus is that they were never such a big thing so the economic incentive was low and sadly vaccine development is expensive and it will not be done without the promise of money.
But with this virus threatening basically the entire planet, whoever comes up with a vaccine will basically drown in money. So for once hurrah for capitalism.
The virus doesn't care how much money you have. Neither does the human body.
Money means we're going to give it the best possible attempt. And there are reasons to be optimistic. But this straight-line path to success people have in their heads may not come to pass. Vax development tends to have twist and turns and steps forward and setbacks.
True. We may never create a vaccine. Some labs have reported progress and might achieve success. Even if they do any vaccine would have to go through a lengthy detailed trial evaluation process to make sure it is safe and effective for hundreds of millions, billions?, of people. Then production would need to create enough doses of the vaccine for all those people. We might end up with a vaccine but it's not going to be ready to use this year.
Eh just because you can pour and make money if you succeed does not mean you can succeed. Anybody who comes up with hiv vaccine would become rich. Money has been poured to it. Where's the rich guy?
Hell anybody coming up faster than light travel would become insanely rich. Going to be found?
Immortality? Can't claim no money to be found on that...
Vaccines are never quarantee.
The fact that you are comparing it to Faster Than Light travel, something that we are not even sure is possible and even if it would require technology centuries if not millennia beyond us is disingenuous.
But the fact that people do recover from COVID infection suggest a vaccine is possible, that our immune systems can overcome it and thus can be trained to do that.
The problem with HIV is that our immune system is hopeless against it, you don't recover from it. At most, with treatment, you learn to live with it.
We didn’t get our first McDonalds until ‘93 for...reasons, probably.
I mention things like this because I find that talking about these things boosts morale; remember the stuff you enjoyed that you took for granted that will hopefully be back one day soon.
Money means we're going to give it the best possible attempt. And there are reasons to be optimistic. But this straight-line path to success people have in their heads may not come to pass. Vax development tends to have twist and turns and steps forward and setbacks.
True. We may never create a vaccine. Some labs have reported progress and might achieve success. Even if they do any vaccine would have to go through a lengthy detailed trial evaluation process to make sure it is safe and effective for hundreds of millions, billions?, of people. Then production would need to create enough doses of the vaccine for all those people. We might end up with a vaccine but it's not going to be ready to use this year.
They don't screw around with vaccine trials. Trials aren't a perfect process and there are things that you only learn after it's approved and widely used. But they try hard to get those right because the stakes are high. And yeah, manufacturing will take time and potentially more time depending on what type(s) of vaccine wins. It's not like making shower current rings. Then there's distribution, which isn't as easy as people think. That's not like shipping shower curtain rings to Walmart. IIRC, the 2009 swine flu vax had various distribution issues. And then of course there's the issue of who gets it first. Even after it's 'available', most people will be waiting a while.
I'm not sure what the plans are for pediatric trials (it would make sense if are some being done more-or-less concurrently...I can look that up), but note that any vax approved for adults will need to go through the process to be approved for use in kids. It's a separate approval. Children aren't simply little adults...their bodies behave differently to drugs, vaccines, etc.
(and at the moment I don't thing it will since we've not got track & trace working yet and enough councils realise we need it first)
I think we'll see schools told they're not having a summer break this year to replace the 'lost' teaching time, plus it will mean more parents can get back to work when a lot of small child minding businesses/charities who would normally pick up the slack during the holidays have gone out of business or won't be able to run economically with social distancing in place
so there's going to be a lot of pressure to keep the kids in school (as they've already been doing at weekends for key workers children)
If schools officially break, kids end their years etc it makes it a lot more complicated to do this
Change the contracts of every state teacher in England retrospectively? All the best defeating that strike.
The gov have already said that they won't extend the school term into the summer (as much as any assurances that come out of their mouths mean anything).
So no, there isn't any logic for re-opening for that short period of time, if you are to compare the small benefit to the children and parents to the risk of further spread of the virus.
The fact that you are comparing it to Faster Than Light travel, something that we are not even sure is possible and even if it would require technology centuries if not millennia beyond us is disingenuous.
But the fact that people do recover from COVID infection suggest a vaccine is possible, that our immune systems can overcome it and thus can be trained to do that.
The problem with HIV is that our immune system is hopeless against it, you don't recover from it. At most, with treatment, you learn to live with it.
We are not sure can vaccine to this be made. Humans haven\t made one for PREVIOUS corona viruses despite attempts. It's not just "pour money, vaccine will come".
There's zero quarantee there is vaccine to be made or at least without millenias advance in technology.
Just because there's virus doesn't mean there's vaccine to be found or that it's at least in feasible timeframe. Vaccine that can be found after 1000 years isn't much of use for us now. If every virus had vaccine to be found just with money we would have vaccine for HIV and for previous corona variants. This isn't first time ever corona has appeared. You DO know that don't you?
But go ahead. Put your head under sand and pretend something that isn't quaranteed is quaranteed. It's your loss if you want to showcase your ignorance on the subject.
The reason they haven't made vaccines for the likes of SARS and MERS isn't a technical issue, it's the fact that these viruses self limited before a vaccine was complete and therefore continuing research was redundant.
We are not sure can vaccine to this be made. Humans haven\t made one for PREVIOUS corona viruses despite attempts. It's not just "pour money, vaccine will come".
There's zero quarantee there is vaccine to be made or at least without millenias advance in technology.
Just because there's virus doesn't mean there's vaccine to be found or that it's at least in feasible timeframe. Vaccine that can be found after 1000 years isn't much of use for us now. If every virus had vaccine to be found just with money we would have vaccine for HIV and for previous corona variants. This isn't first time ever corona has appeared. You DO know that don't you?
But go ahead. Put your head under sand and pretend something that isn't quaranteed is quaranteed. It's your loss if you want to showcase your ignorance on the subject.
The previous coronavirues did not have anything close to the interest COVID-19 has. The worst of them (previous to COVID-19) was SARS and it only infected over 8000 people and ceased to exist after 2004. Until recently there was no interest in vaccines for coronaviruses, at least nothing comparable to what is being done to develop a vaccine for COVID-19.
Aye but there's a vast difference not just in funding but in the staff willing and able to research. When its not a critical thing and isn't getting vast amounts of attention and funding, things will move into the background. That doesn't mean skilled people aren't working on it, just that perhaps they only work on it less than on other, more major subjects of research.
So yes the attention and money will make some big changes to the research. You'll have more teams, potentially higher skilled and better equipped teams all working toward a similar goal. If there's any international link-ups going on this also means a chance to increase research options; having different teams work on different approaches; uniting teams to focus on more likely pathways or pathways further along that show potential etc...
This, of course, does not in any way guarantee success; nor success within any given time frame. That said it does mean that humanity is making an effort to increase (in a significant way) the resources its dedicating to this endeavour. There is practical hope of a vaccine development.
Pacific wrote: The gov have already said that they won't extend the school term into the summer (as much as any assurances that come out of their mouths mean anything).
So no, there isn't any logic for re-opening for that short period of time, if you are to compare the small benefit to the children and parents to the risk of further spread of the virus.
I hadn't seen that, is it recent or was this near the start of the outbreak?
1) timetables for the autumn term are already being worked on. They won't be able to just pull a 6 week timetable out of nowhere for the summer.
2) teachers have contracts of employment that can't just be overridden
3) honestly the autumn term is long enough as it is. My kids are completely broken by the time Christmas arrives. There's no way they can just go straight through from June to Christmas.
I believe that's further confirmation of information we've had in the thread before several times - good to have. Interestingly the person doing the read out was estimating that in their opinion, the immunity would only last one or two years. This likely assumes continued mutation of the Corona virus just like we see with flue and other diseases.
well its similar to the immunity gained from other human CVs if I'm correct? or the rhinovirus that cause common colds. but yeah I imagine mutations will happen, just slower than some other virus. something to do with the number of genomes?
No cases reported in London today, 79 in the UK as a whole, and cases in hospital below 10000 for the first time since march.
Matt Swain wrote: One of the big arguments from the people arguing to not develop a vaccine is that we still haven't cured AIDS yet.
.
Is it?
Serious question, this thread moves fast with some informationally dense posts sometimes, but my hot take is that is a hopeless misrepresentation of anything anyone said. I've not seen an argument suggesting we shouldn't try developing a vaccine.
Matt Swain wrote: One of the big arguments from the people arguing to not develop a vaccine is that we still haven't cured AIDS yet.
Well, while we may not have what people want to call a cure we have treatments that effectively reduce aids to a manageable, non lethal illness.
We have treatments that reduce the viral levels to non detectable levels and make it impossible to transmit the disease.
Quite frankly I think we all ready pour too much money (proportionately) into finding a cure for AIDS. More people die of diabetes than AIDS and Cancer combined, and it's likely a much easier problem to solve, yet doesn't receive the funding.
Alas, resources are finite, and thus competition for funding will always be a thing. That said, going from the info on Cancer.Gov and theAmerican Diabetes Association, Cancer deaths in 2018 in the US were a tad over 600k with Diabetes related/contributory deaths at about 270k in 2017 (not exactly the same years, but as close as I could find on a 2 minute google search), so at least on those counts it would appear Cancer getting increased funding is justified at least on that particular count. That said, I have no idea what the relative funding levels actually are or where they should be and these are vastly different diseases with substantially different required medical responses (and personally, I would have no issues funding additional Diabetes programs myself). With respect to a Covid19 vaccine, it's also a radically different virus from AIDS, so I don't think any comparisons there work terribly well either if people are trying to argue that a lack of an AIDS vaccine is somehow a reason we shouldn't be developing one for Covid19, but I haven't seen that argument put forth anywhere else myself either.
The reason we shouldn't be focusing on a vaccine for COVID-19 is because given what we know about other coronaviruses a vaccine has multiple issues that make it a waste of time.
1) It may not be possible at all. Given the lack of past success in making coronavirus vaccines.
2) If a vaccine does get developed, it will likely be ineffective at protecting people.
3) Finally, even if the vaccine is possible and does eventually get developed, it will be developed long after this crisis has passed. We will have a vaccine for a disease that no longer plagues us.
It's going to be too little, too late, and just waste resources that would be better spent on other stuff.
People aren't trying to make a vaccine for this disease because they actually rationally thought it through and have a reasonable chance of getting it. They're doing it because there is pressure, both political and societal, to make a vaccine for it. Governments want to "do something", and throwing money at a vaccine program fits the bill. And there are plenty of virologists who will take that money even if it has no real hope. Hardly surprising given some of the ridiculous stuff that gets funded with government grants.
Grey Templar wrote: The reason we shouldn't be focusing on a vaccine for COVID-19 is because given what we know about other coronaviruses a vaccine has multiple issues that make it a waste of time.
1) It may not be possible at all. Given the lack of past success in making coronavirus vaccines.
Just because we haven't been successful before doesn't mean it shouldn't be tried. It means we need to be realistic about the expectations, but not that it shouldn't be attempted.
2) If a vaccine does get developed, it will likely be ineffective at protecting people.
Then it wouldn't be a vaccine in the way people mean when they use the term.
3) Finally, even if the vaccine is possible and does eventually get developed, it will be developed long after this crisis has passed. We will have a vaccine for a disease that no longer plagues us.
If there's no vaccine, this thing has every chance of popping right back up unless we're going to bite the eugenics bullet and actively expose everyone and accept the gargantuan numbers of potential casualties. It may not, and it doesn't necessarily mean we should continue doing what we're currently doing forever, but it doesn't mean a vaccine shouldn't be sought either.
Grey Templar wrote: The reason we shouldn't be focusing on a vaccine for COVID-19 is because given what we know about other coronaviruses a vaccine has multiple issues that make it a waste of time.
1) It may not be possible at all. Given the lack of past success in making coronavirus vaccines.
Just because we haven't been successful before doesn't mean it shouldn't be tried. It means we need to be realistic about the expectations, but not that it shouldn't be attempted.
2) If a vaccine does get developed, it will likely be ineffective at protecting people.
Then it wouldn't be a vaccine in the way people mean when they use the term.
There are many vaccines which only provide temporary protection. And many vaccines which only have moderate success rates in actually conferring immunities.
Flu vaccine efficacy hovers around the 30-50% range. Flu viruses are the same family of virus as COVID-19, we should expect a similar efficacy of any potential COVID-19 vaccine. IE: best case scenario it maybe works 50% of the time.
3) Finally, even if the vaccine is possible and does eventually get developed, it will be developed long after this crisis has passed. We will have a vaccine for a disease that no longer plagues us.
If there's no vaccine, this thing has every chance of popping right back up unless we're going to bite the eugenics bullet and actively expose everyone and accept the gargantuan numbers of potential casualties. It may not, and it doesn't necessarily mean we should continue doing what we're currently doing forever, but it doesn't mean a vaccine shouldn't be sought either.
Given how contagious it is, its not really a question of if everybody is going to be exposed. Everybody on this planet WILL be exposed to COVID-19 within the next couple of years with the exception of any totally isolated societies. All the elderly in the old folks homes, they're all going to be exposed. Its just a question of now or a few months down the road. A vaccine isn't going to happen in time for them. The best that can be done is take steps that stagger their exposure. Preferably steps that don't also involve the healthier individuals in society being unable to work to feed their children.
That is the most reasonable variation of pro-reopening; understanding and pushing that -wherever it is reasonably possible- we want to let people back out as soon and as much as we can.
I agree on that somewhat. But if you tried to inform the population that now, there would be uproar, especially, as others have mentioned, given how politicians have painted it as though a vaccine is an answer.
I wouldn't say research is totally pointless though. Hopefully it might yield results for future problems.
NinthMusketeer wrote: That is the most reasonable variation of pro-reopening; understanding and pushing that -wherever it is reasonably possible- we want to let people back out as soon and as much as we can.
We shouldn't have locked down completely to begin with. The only places that should have locked down are old folks homes and, maybe, schools. Then we could have focused resources on protecting them with minimal disruption on larger society. Given the vulnerable sectors of society free grocery and other essential supply delivery and continual health monitoring. But let anybody willing to take the risk and continue as normal do so.
Then we wouldn't have the economic woes we do now.
NinthMusketeer wrote: That is the most reasonable variation of pro-reopening; understanding and pushing that -wherever it is reasonably possible- we want to let people back out as soon and as much as we can.
We shouldn't have locked down completely to begin with. The only places that should have locked down are old folks homes and, maybe, schools. Then we could have focused resources on protecting them with minimal disruption on larger society. Given the vulnerable sectors of society free grocery and other essential supply delivery and continual health monitoring. But let anybody willing to take the risk and continue as normal do so.
Then we wouldn't have the economic woes we do now.
The people who have spent their lives studying the subject and preparing for this exact circumstance tend to think differently, the overwhelming majority for that matter. But you are sure the circumstance is different, so I am intensely curious as to how you arrived at that conclusion.
Grey Templar wrote: 3) Finally, even if the vaccine is possible and does eventually get developed, it will be developed long after this crisis has passed.
The crisis will end with vaccine or death of humanity. The virus isn't going away on it's own so it's vaccine or it's with us as long as humans exists. At which point vaccine starts to look good.
You assume this is just few month or years and then virus goes away. Sorry to break it to you but as your knowledge of viruses is clearly zero it has to be said: viruses don't work that way. They are with us. It's not going away. If we don't get vaccine it will not leave humans. It will be here.
Grey Templar wrote: 3) Finally, even if the vaccine is possible and does eventually get developed, it will be developed long after this crisis has passed.
The crisis will end with vaccine or death of humanity. The virus isn't going away on it's own so it's vaccine or it's with us as long as humans exists. At which point vaccine starts to look good.
You assume this is just few month or years and then virus goes away. Sorry to break it to you but as your knowledge of viruses is clearly zero it has to be said: viruses don't work that way. They are with us. It's not going away. If we don't get vaccine it will not leave humans. It will be here.
Death of humanity! Some* viruses very much do work that way. Even HIV, a virus that you could consider having reached a pretty good balance between virulence and host longevity, can become less lethal, shown in this study.
With Covid, either our immune system will adapt, herd immunity will start to kick in, or the virus will become less deadly through mutation. even less than it already is. (97->99% recovery rate remember) or a combination of those things. Either way, the worldwide death rate will reach the top of the bell curve, plateau, and start to fall sooner or later, probably with a shallower decline. We're not going to see death rates rise forever.
I'm amazed that being sceptical of our ability to find a vaccine, or whether it is even practicable to try equates to anti vaxxer in your mind. its fascinating to watch.
*water or mosquito borne virus often buck the trend, due to having more convenient vectors than human to human.
Grey Templar wrote: 3) Finally, even if the vaccine is possible and does eventually get developed, it will be developed long after this crisis has passed.
The crisis will end with vaccine or death of humanity.
This insanely hyperbolic. I think you're in the right side of the argument but you don't half undermine yourself with this stuff.
The virus isn't going away on it's own so it's vaccine or it's with us as long as humans exists. At which point vaccine starts to look good.
That doesn't mean everyone dies. Even in the absolute worst case scenario, were everyone to decide to just let the virus have at it and stop treating people and many, many millions of people die, society doesn't cease to be.
Grey Templar wrote: 3) Finally, even if the vaccine is possible and does eventually get developed, it will be developed long after this crisis has passed.
The crisis will end with vaccine or death of humanity.
This insanely hyperbolic. I think you're in the right side of the argument but you don't half undermine yourself with this stuff.
The virus isn't going away on it's own so it's vaccine or it's with us as long as humans exists. At which point vaccine starts to look good.
That doesn't mean everyone dies. Even in the absolute worst case scenario, were everyone to decide to just let the virus have at it and stop treating people and many, many millions of people die, society doesn't cease to be.
I didn't read that as tneva saying that corona will wipe out humanity, just that if we do not develop a vaccine then it will be with us until humanity dies.
Grey Templar wrote: 3) Finally, even if the vaccine is possible and does eventually get developed, it will be developed long after this crisis has passed.
The crisis will end with vaccine or death of humanity.
This insanely hyperbolic. I think you're in the right side of the argument but you don't half undermine yourself with this stuff.
The virus isn't going away on it's own so it's vaccine or it's with us as long as humans exists. At which point vaccine starts to look good.
That doesn't mean everyone dies. Even in the absolute worst case scenario, were everyone to decide to just let the virus have at it and stop treating people and many, many millions of people die, society doesn't cease to be.
I didn't read that as tneva saying that corona will wipe out humanity, just that if we do not develop a vaccine then it will be with us until humanity dies.
See I was willing to field that, but he said the 'crisis' will be here, which, arguably, it likely wont be a crisis for that whole time. semantics maybe
With Covid, either our immune system will adapt, herd immunity will start to kick in, or the virus will become less deadly through mutation. even less than it already is. (97->99% recovery rate remember) or a combination of those things. Either way, the worldwide death rate will reach the top of the bell curve, plateau, and start to fall sooner or later, probably with a shallower decline. We're not going to see death rates rise forever.
.
Not to directly pick on you but herd immunity, immune system adaptation, mutation of the virus comes up over and over again.
For advocates of herd immunity as a magic bullet, how many deaths are acceptable? Which member of you family or group of close friends is an acceptable death to ensure the virus is 'defeated'.
With Covid, either our immune system will adapt, herd immunity will start to kick in, or the virus will become less deadly through mutation. even less than it already is. (97->99% recovery rate remember) or a combination of those things. Either way, the worldwide death rate will reach the top of the bell curve, plateau, and start to fall sooner or later, probably with a shallower decline. We're not going to see death rates rise forever.
.
Not to directly pick on you but herd immunity, immune system adaptation, mutation of the virus comes up over and over again.
For advocates of herd immunity as a magic bullet, how many deaths are acceptable? Which member of you family or group of close friends is an acceptable death to ensure the virus is 'defeated'.
I am really curious.
I'm not touting it as a magic bullet. I believe it will happen naturally, pretty much regardless of our actions, and that its something that must factor into any considerations of strategy when talking about the virus. but your question is one posed by quite a few as an attempt to rebuke this, and whilst understandable, its still not really anything more than an appeal to emotion. My views don't make me a 'social darwinist.' I don't want any of my family or friends to die. I dont want anyone to die. As I've said before, you don't really need to state this. you can generally assume it as a given. its not really a case of stating how many deaths are acceptable. Unfortunately, nature does as it does, and If I am unfortunate to lose someone to the virus, I dont think it would change my viewpoint. That of course is not to say that I advocate doing nothing. need to get that in there.
With Covid, either our immune system will adapt, herd immunity will start to kick in, or the virus will become less deadly through mutation. even less than it already is. (97->99% recovery rate remember) or a combination of those things. Either way, the worldwide death rate will reach the top of the bell curve, plateau, and start to fall sooner or later, probably with a shallower decline. We're not going to see death rates rise forever.
.
Not to directly pick on you but herd immunity, immune system adaptation, mutation of the virus comes up over and over again.
For advocates of herd immunity as a magic bullet, how many deaths are acceptable? Which member of you family or group of close friends is an acceptable death to ensure the virus is 'defeated'.
I am really curious.
I'm not touting it as a magic bullet. I believe it will happen naturally, pretty much regardless of our actions, and that its something that must factor into any considerations of strategy when talking about the virus. but your question is one posed by quite a few as an attempt to rebuke this, and whilst understandable, its still not really anything more than an appeal to emotion. My views don't make me a 'social darwinist.' I don't want any of my family or friends to die. I dont want anyone to die. As I've said before, you don't really need to state this. you can generally assume it as a given. its not really a case of stating how many deaths are acceptable. Unfortunately, nature does as it does, and If I am unfortunate to lose someone to the virus, I dont think it would change my viewpoint.
Sure, no one wants anyone to die. However, when we are talking about Herd Immunity, you have to expect people are going to die. Who are you willing to lose?
You can see why people are not a fan of this approach and prefer to cling to the hope of "Vaccine". The idea that you can just go about and do whatever, and it is up to high risk people to take care of themselves for the good of the "herd" is where we have to accept that people will die. Why? Even if you are at low risk, you (the generic YOU) will act as a disease vector that will carry it to others and infect and possibly kill those High-Risk people. Ultimately, High-Risk people have no say in the matter as they are the minority.
High risk people are expected to "self-quarantine" or die forever; so low risk folks can live their "normal" lives with no lifestyle change. That is the societal challenge we face. Who are the winners and who are the losers from COVID-19? This time we are not talking about economic winners and losers, we are talking about the first in the sentence of "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness".
There is no simple answer, so anyone who claims to have one is a liar or is fooling themselves.
Sure, no one wants anyone to die. However, when we are talking about Herd Immunity, you have to expect people are going to die. Who are you willing to lose?
You can see why people are not a fan of this approach and prefer to cling to the hope of "Vaccine". The idea that you can just go about and do whatever, and it is up to high risk people to take care of themselves for the good of the "herd" is where we have to accept that people will die. Why? Even if you are at low risk, you (the generic YOU) will act as a disease vector that will carry it to others and infect and possibly kill those High-Risk people. Ultimately, High-Risk people have no say in the matter as they are the minority.
High risk people are expected to "self-quarantine" or die forever; so low risk folks can live their "normal" lives with no lifestyle change. That is the societal challenge we face. Who are the winners and who are the losers from COVID-19? This time we are not talking about economic winners and losers, we are talking about the first in the sentence of "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness".
There is no simple answer, so anyone who claims to have one is a liar or is fooling themselves.
I'm not willing to lose anyone. that question is not really pertinent to the debate. its an appeal to emotion as I said.
But I dont disagree with anything you've said. you are correct. This is where the issue lies. do we shut down everything? for a small minority of at risk people? in this situation, yes, we have already done so. but I think most rational people don't believe it can stay this way indefinitely. Something is going to have to give.
But like anything in this modern time, it becomes black vs white. Lives saved vs the Economy, Pro vs Anti Lockdown. And then it becomes partisan political, with people aligning themselves with a 'side' and assigning people who disagree to the other, often based on previous politics, which is beyond ridiculous, but you see it before your eyes. There needs to be balanced consideration of all factors. The potential of saving lives, Science, economics, and as always, morality and ethics.
Simply stating 'if it saves one life its worth it' is just as unhelpful as an economist coldly calculating QALY and saying that some lives arent worth however much money spent on treatment.
But this isn't happening. The lines are drawn and the trenches dug, and thats the problem.
We're humans, supposedly the most intelligent species on the planet. We can figure this out if we apply ourselves.
I took a job a few states over last week during COVID. It's within the same company but the role is fully remote now. The role would have never opened up at my current office since there hasnt been an open slot for 4 years.
The promotion would have never happened since I would never move to the rural location their office is at. My department has a dozen or so employees from India that work remote - so it's not that outside the box people in the US wouldnt work outside their own state if its full remote.
Extremely lucky but who knows if this is a new thing for others. You could work full time for a company not anywhere near you.
If a vaccine is not possible then neither is herd immunity. Vaccination works by training our immune systems to become immune to a virus. If a vaccine is not possible, then it is because our immune systems cannot become immune to it or because the virus mutates too fast or is too diverse for immunity to stick. As everyone's favorite example: AIDS. We have no vaccine for the HIV; and infected people do not recover and thus never become immune. There is no such thing as herd immunity as far as the HIV is concerned.
Herd immunity is basically the stone age equivalent of vaccination, it achieves the same thing even with a far more primitive and brutish approach and thus the properties a virus may have that makes vaccination unlikely applies tenfold to herd immunity. So If a vaccine is not possible in a realistic time frame, then neither is herd immunity and we will have to learn to live with COVID-19 for the foreseeable future. With how infectious it, that may end being true even if a vaccine is developed.
Tyran wrote: If a vaccine is not possible then neither is herd immunity. Vaccination work by training our immune systems to become immune to a virus.
If a vaccine is not possible, then it is because our immune systems cannot become immune to it or because the virus mutates to fast or is to diverse for immunity to stick.
If a vaccine cannot be developed, then herd immunity will never kick in and we will have to learn to live with COVID-19 for the foreseeable future.
With how infectious it, that may end being true even if a vaccine is developed.
I'm fairly sure that has already been covered. it is possible to gain herd immunity without vaccines. vaccines just make the process much quicker and safer.
The question is how long human immunity lasts.
The rest, I can concur with to some degree. We will have to live with it, although I put hope in the views of Prof Karol Sikora, that it will become less lethal and fade into the background somewhat.
Tyran wrote: If a vaccine is not possible then neither is herd immunity. Vaccination work by training our immune systems to become immune to a virus.
If a vaccine is not possible, then it is because our immune systems cannot become immune to it or because the virus mutates to fast or is to diverse for immunity to stick.
If a vaccine cannot be developed, then herd immunity will never kick in and we will have to learn to live with COVID-19 for the foreseeable future.
With how infectious it, that may end being true even if a vaccine is developed.
I'm fairly sure that has already been covered. it is possible to gain herd immunity without vaccines. vaccines just make the process much quicker and safer.
The question is how long human immunity lasts.
The rest, I can concur with to some degree. We will have to live with it, although I put hope in the views of Prof Karol Sikora, that it will become less lethal and fade into the background somewhat.
The argument isn't that herd immunity requires a vaccine, it's that what makes herd immunity and vaccines work is the same (the ability of human immune systems to adapt to the virus) - so if one is impossible so is the other.
There was one doctor speaking on CNN recently who explained that the ‘corona’ tips on the virus which it uses to attack cells and will be the target for antibodies are quite distinguishable and thus he was quite confident a vaccine could be developed eventually. I’m really hoping that he’s right.
NinthMusketeer wrote: That is the most reasonable variation of pro-reopening; understanding and pushing that -wherever it is reasonably possible- we want to let people back out as soon and as much as we can.
We shouldn't have locked down completely to begin with. The only places that should have locked down are old folks homes and, maybe, schools. Then we could have focused resources on protecting them with minimal disruption on larger society. Given the vulnerable sectors of society free grocery and other essential supply delivery and continual health monitoring. But let anybody willing to take the risk and continue as normal do so.
Then we wouldn't have the economic woes we do now.
The people who have spent their lives studying the subject and preparing for this exact circumstance tend to think differently, the overwhelming majority for that matter. But you are sure the circumstance is different, so I am intensely curious as to how you arrived at that conclusion.
I have that conclusion because I have multiple friends and acquaintances who are out of work because of this lockdown. As a consequence are in fear of being unable to feed their children or pay their rent beyond the next few weeks. A couple of them have actually lost their jobs because the business didn't survive. And the unemployment system is so broken down because millions are trying to file for it.
If it was my kids, I certainly wouldn't consider the ability for others to feel safe to be more important than my ability to feed my kids or keep them in a house. I'd say screw your elderly relatives, screw your desire to "feel safe".
NinthMusketeer wrote: That is the most reasonable variation of pro-reopening; understanding and pushing that -wherever it is reasonably possible- we want to let people back out as soon and as much as we can.
We shouldn't have locked down completely to begin with. The only places that should have locked down are old folks homes and, maybe, schools. Then we could have focused resources on protecting them with minimal disruption on larger society. Given the vulnerable sectors of society free grocery and other essential supply delivery and continual health monitoring. But let anybody willing to take the risk and continue as normal do so.
Then we wouldn't have the economic woes we do now.
The people who have spent their lives studying the subject and preparing for this exact circumstance tend to think differently, the overwhelming majority for that matter. But you are sure the circumstance is different, so I am intensely curious as to how you arrived at that conclusion.
I have that conclusion because I have multiple friends and acquaintances who are out of work because of this lockdown. As a consequence are in fear of being unable to feed their children or pay their rent beyond the next few weeks. A couple of them have actually lost their jobs because the business didn't survive. And the unemployment system is so broken down because millions are trying to file for it.
If it was my kids, I certainly wouldn't consider the ability for others to feel safe to be more important than my ability to feed my kids or keep them in a house. I'd say screw your elderly relatives, screw your desire to "feel safe".
The grown-up response to inadequate state support for people struggling to feed their families is 'improve state support for people struggling to feed their families' not 'tough gak if your immunocompromised kid dies'.
That's a really awful situation to be in. I would argue that individuals shouldn't be forced to fall on each other over who gets to survive or not, and that government should support so that you don't have to go out and work - get sick, bring it home, then that be responsible for the death of a friend or relative.
I think that's something definitely that the US is going to have to find some way of dealing with, as with every country that has less of a social welfare system or safety net.
NinthMusketeer wrote: That is the most reasonable variation of pro-reopening; understanding and pushing that -wherever it is reasonably possible- we want to let people back out as soon and as much as we can.
We shouldn't have locked down completely to begin with. The only places that should have locked down are old folks homes and, maybe, schools. Then we could have focused resources on protecting them with minimal disruption on larger society. Given the vulnerable sectors of society free grocery and other essential supply delivery and continual health monitoring. But let anybody willing to take the risk and continue as normal do so.
Then we wouldn't have the economic woes we do now.
The people who have spent their lives studying the subject and preparing for this exact circumstance tend to think differently, the overwhelming majority for that matter. But you are sure the circumstance is different, so I am intensely curious as to how you arrived at that conclusion.
I have that conclusion because I have multiple friends and acquaintances who are out of work because of this lockdown. As a consequence are in fear of being unable to feed their children or pay their rent beyond the next few weeks. A couple of them have actually lost their jobs because the business didn't survive. And the unemployment system is so broken down because millions are trying to file for it.
If it was my kids, I certainly wouldn't consider the ability for others to feel safe to be more important than my ability to feed my kids or keep them in a house. I'd say screw your elderly relatives, screw your desire to "feel safe".
And that's how you make a pandemic worse, and has little or nor bearing on the scientific or data driven merits, it's all feels. While the frustration is certainly understandable, everyone knows people in such situations, it's impossible not to. However, at the same time, a lot of these jobs would be lost regardless, even without legal restrictions on operations to deal with, there just isn't going to be the customer base to keep many business/organizations in operation for a variety of reasons (customers concerned about exposure risks, changing work and commuting habits, anxiety about spending, etc), or just as importantly, have insurance that will cover pandemic related issues which they can be held liable for.
queen_annes_revenge wrote: We will have to live with it, although I put hope in the views of Prof Karol Sikora, that it will become less lethal and fade into the background somewhat.
The issue with this is that mutations are random. What we can rely on is that the mutations that are beneficial to the virus will end up being dominant as that strain will get to replicate itself more successfully.
Now, you are focusing on the virus becoming less deadly. Yes, that allows the virus to replicate more as its hosts don't die.
But that is not the only possible mutation that could be beneficial to the virus. It could mutate to gain new transmission vectors or more resistance to UV light, for example. These will both allow it to more effectively infect people and spread without a compromise in its deadliness.
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Grey Templar wrote: ...And the unemployment system is so broken down because millions are trying to file for it.
Then vote for people who will fix your unemployment system and other social programs which would help alleviate suffering in this kind of scenario.
Sure, no one wants anyone to die. However, when we are talking about Herd Immunity, you have to expect people are going to die. Who are you willing to lose?
You can see why people are not a fan of this approach and prefer to cling to the hope of "Vaccine". The idea that you can just go about and do whatever, and it is up to high risk people to take care of themselves for the good of the "herd" is where we have to accept that people will die. Why? Even if you are at low risk, you (the generic YOU) will act as a disease vector that will carry it to others and infect and possibly kill those High-Risk people. Ultimately, High-Risk people have no say in the matter as they are the minority.
High risk people are expected to "self-quarantine" or die forever; so low risk folks can live their "normal" lives with no lifestyle change. That is the societal challenge we face. Who are the winners and who are the losers from COVID-19? This time we are not talking about economic winners and losers, we are talking about the first in the sentence of "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness".
There is no simple answer, so anyone who claims to have one is a liar or is fooling themselves.
I'm not willing to lose anyone. that question is not really pertinent to the debate. its an appeal to emotion as I said.
I know for me it is a matter of emotion since my wife is a High-Risk person, because she got Type I diabetes when she was 4 years old. Nothing she could do about it.
That makes the question VERY personal. I have to admit that it is hard NOT to see people ignoring the basic social distancing and CDC recommendations as a personal attack against my family. Every time I see or read someone advocating for "no masks", "herd immunity' or "no vaccine" they are essentially saying they want my wife to die or live like a leper for the rest of her life. What crime did she commit? She was born..... I really wish 40% of the population was not a direct threat to my wife's life.
Is an appeal to emotion or empathy a flaw or is it what makes us humans and not computers?
To me the issue isn't the economy, it is the fact that no one (Government or voters) wants to provide a safety net while we resolve this issue. Instead, it is everyone for themselves with no testing, no trace and quarantine, and no effort to locate and isolate those who are sick. There is no UBI while forced into isolation, worker protection, or health care without a job. Instead, we are all forced into this false decision of "working" or "Quarantining". Working means exposing yourself and loved ones so you can pay rent and buy food vs. saving others but risking your own basic needs. That is a false choice, so why do we accept this framing? Perhaps we need more empathy/emotion in the discussion, because these false choices are not acceptable.
That is exactly hpw I feel about reopening.
People think only of themselves and their immediate family, as far as others are concerned their just NPCs in a game.
Easy E wrote: To me the issue isn't the economy, it is the fact that no one (Government or voters) wants to provide a safety net while we resolve this issue. Instead, it is everyone for themselves with no testing, no trace and quarantine, and no effort to locate and isolate those who are sick. There is no UBI while forced into isolation, worker protection, or health care without a job. Instead, we are all forced into this false decision of "working" or "Quarantining". Working means exposing yourself and loved ones so you can pay rent and buy food vs. saving others but risking your own basic needs. That is a false choice, so why do we accept this framing? Perhaps we need more empathy/emotion in the discussion, because these false choices are not acceptable.
"No one" is a bit of a misnomer. The US did just pass a bill in the house expanding relief for folks effected by the lockdown. It's just not going to pass the Senate. Similarly, a lot of states have functional unemployment systems as well. It's just the ones that (purposefully) don't have kind of shown how terrible of an idea it is to artificially lower your unemployment numbers by making it impossible to actually make a claim.
queen_annes_revenge wrote: We will have to live with it, although I put hope in the views of Prof Karol Sikora, that it will become less lethal and fade into the background somewhat.
The issue with this is that mutations are random. What we can rely on is that the mutations that are beneficial to the virus will end up being dominant as that strain will get to replicate itself more successfully.
Now, you are focusing on the virus becoming less deadly. Yes, that allows the virus to replicate more as its hosts don't die.
But that is not the only possible mutation that could be beneficial to the virus. It could mutate to gain new transmission vectors or more resistance to UV light, for example. These will both allow it to more effectively infect people and spread without a compromise in its deadliness.
Easy E wrote: To me the issue isn't the economy, it is the fact that no one (Government or voters) wants to provide a safety net while we resolve this issue. Instead, it is everyone for themselves with no testing, no trace and quarantine, and no effort to locate and isolate those who are sick. There is no UBI while forced into isolation, worker protection, or health care without a job. Instead, we are all forced into this false decision of "working" or "Quarantining". Working means exposing yourself and loved ones so you can pay rent and buy food vs. saving others but risking your own basic needs. That is a false choice, so why do we accept this framing? Perhaps we need more empathy/emotion in the discussion, because these false choices are not acceptable.
"No one" is a bit of a misnomer. The US did just pass a bill in the house expanding relief for folks effected by the lockdown. It's just not going to pass the Senate. Similarly, a lot of states have functional unemployment systems as well. It's just the ones that (purposefully) don't have kind of shown how terrible of an idea it is to artificially lower your unemployment numbers by making it impossible to actually make a claim.
I know for me it is a matter of emotion since my wife is a High-Risk person, because she got Type I diabetes when she was 4 years old. Nothing she could do about it.
That makes the question VERY personal. I have to admit that it is hard NOT to see people ignoring the basic social distancing and CDC recommendations as a personal attack against my family. Every time I see or read someone advocating for "no masks", "herd immunity' or "no vaccine" they are essentially saying they want my wife to die or live like a leper for the rest of her life. What crime did she commit? She was born..... I really wish 40% of the population was not a direct threat to my wife's life.
Is an appeal to emotion or empathy a flaw or is it what makes us humans and not computers?
To me the issue isn't the economy, it is the fact that no one (Government or voters) wants to provide a safety net while we resolve this issue. Instead, it is everyone for themselves with no testing, no trace and quarantine, and no effort to locate and isolate those who are sick. There is no UBI while forced into isolation, worker protection, or health care without a job. Instead, we are all forced into this false decision of "working" or "Quarantining". Working means exposing yourself and loved ones so you can pay rent and buy food vs. saving others but risking your own basic needs. That is a false choice, so why do we accept this framing? Perhaps we need more empathy/emotion in the discussion, because these false choices are not acceptable.
That's understandable. But you can't take those things as a personal attack.
An appeal to emotion is a logical fallacy, because it basically assumes that the target has no compassion, and uses that as a tool to halt debate. So in this case, you have your vulnerable partner, and you think that anyone with a different view is wrong. But what youre not considering is that the other person likely has vulnerable people too. Anyone who has an elderly parent, grandparent etc in this case. My wife is technically at risk due to pregnancy. So unless you're talking to a legitimate sociopath, that person is also going to have skin in the game as it were. that's why bringing it up on its own is irrelevant, because it doesn't need mentioning. You can assume that the other person doesn't want anyone to die.
Understand I'm not trying to diminish your personal circumstances in anyway, just pointing out that working on pure emotion has a lot of flaws. It needs to be balanced with rationality.
I know for me it is a matter of emotion since my wife is a High-Risk person, because she got Type I diabetes when she was 4 years old. Nothing she could do about it.
That makes the question VERY personal. I have to admit that it is hard NOT to see people ignoring the basic social distancing and CDC recommendations as a personal attack against my family. Every time I see or read someone advocating for "no masks", "herd immunity' or "no vaccine" they are essentially saying they want my wife to die or live like a leper for the rest of her life. What crime did she commit? She was born..... I really wish 40% of the population was not a direct threat to my wife's life.
Is an appeal to emotion or empathy a flaw or is it what makes us humans and not computers?
To me the issue isn't the economy, it is the fact that no one (Government or voters) wants to provide a safety net while we resolve this issue. Instead, it is everyone for themselves with no testing, no trace and quarantine, and no effort to locate and isolate those who are sick. There is no UBI while forced into isolation, worker protection, or health care without a job. Instead, we are all forced into this false decision of "working" or "Quarantining". Working means exposing yourself and loved ones so you can pay rent and buy food vs. saving others but risking your own basic needs. That is a false choice, so why do we accept this framing? Perhaps we need more empathy/emotion in the discussion, because these false choices are not acceptable.
That's understandable. But you can't take those things as a personal attack.
An appeal to emotion is a logical fallacy, because it basically assumes that the target has no compassion, and uses that as a tool to halt debate. So in this case, you have your vulnerable partner, and you think that anyone with a different view is wrong. But what youre not considering is that the other person likely has vulnerable people too. Anyone who has an elderly parent, grandparent etc in this case. My wife is technically at risk due to pregnancy. So unless you're talking to a legitimate sociopath, that person is also going to have skin in the game as it were. that's why bringing it up on its own is irrelevant, because it doesn't need mentioning. You can assume that the other person doesn't want anyone to die.
Understand I'm not trying to diminish your personal circumstances in anyway, just pointing out that working on pure emotion has a lot of flaws. It needs to be balanced with rationality.
Yes, I agree. I see where you are going, because it does cloud my judgment a lot.
However, what is "rational" is just a disguise for naked self-interest, and I have learned that not everyone DOES have someone at high-risk in their lives; or really think about that fact at all. At least an emotional response is pretty clearly self-interested.
After all, I can make a very rational argument for slave labor too...... in fact, many people did for a long time..... it was looking at it on a more emotional/empathic basis that led to its end. Therefore, "rationality" can lead to there own bad decisions even if they are "logically" sound. As you say, it is a balance.
I'm sure H will jump in soon and blow us away with a lot of philosophy talk!
Now, to get back on topic a bit there is "No Balance" right now as the Federal Government in the US is just focused on re-open. There are no other mitigating circumstances to it. Social Distancing is just being reduced, each company and entity are left to create their own policy, the Federal guidelines for re-open using "gates" is being ignored, there is no increase in testing, and there is no trace/tracking in the pipeline. There is no balance, only re-open and "let God sort them out".
That is a huge problem, but there is a majority of people who do not care about that, they only want re-open NOW.
Easy E wrote: High risk people are expected to "self-quarantine" or die forever; so low risk folks can live their "normal" lives with no lifestyle change. That is the societal challenge we face. Who are the winners and who are the losers from COVID-19? This time we are not talking about economic winners and losers, we are talking about the first in the sentence of "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness".
There is no simple answer, so anyone who claims to have one is a liar or is fooling themselves.
That's a pretty harsh interpretation.
TBH, what gets me about the Coronavirus is the polarization. Every time I look at my Facebook there's dozens of people calling others stupid for going outside while saying decisions should only be made on data and science.
Where I live, 80% of mortality is with people 60+ years old, the average age is 80. The government is losing over $10 mil a day in tax revenue and there's 40% unemployment. Those figures don't seem to factor into public health policy, we're in total lockdown and there's no word on when it will let up.
My father is in a hospital, he was injured and hasn't been allowed out of bed in over a month. No one is allowed to visit him despite the fact the entire family has been in lockdown for over 2 months. Despite being mobile when he went in, now he can't walk. The mortality rate for bedridden seniors is higher than that of the virus, when you lose mobility you don't generally get it back.
He doesn't benefit from this lockdown, there's over 50 years of evidence that demonstrates the importance of exercise and human contact in clinical outcomes. Isolation is doing more harm to his health than the virus.
All this is to say, I don't see how the corpus of medical knowledge is informing decisions about public health policy. This is purely political. Focusing on a single vector - disease - is just a way of deferring mortality numbers for seniors by taking actions we know will hurt many of them in the long run. It's hard dealing with friends and family who are shrieking about how cruel people are for even noticing this, most conversation has become impossible.
Feels like what we should be having is a conversation about public health policy and positions like "quarantine until we get a vaccine" or "immediately open everything" should be the extremes. Instead, those positions dominate every conversation, there's no opportunity for people to come to any kind of agreement. I'm trying to stay analytical and tactical about the situation, but sometimes it just kills me.
Given the previous discussions on average deaths, I think this is pretty interesting. So for the Netherlands statistics have come out for traffic deaths and suicide during this pandemic. Curiously enough, even though its much less busy on the road, there was no noticeable decline (only about 5%) in traffic deaths. Attributed to the elderly cycling more and children have no school and are outside more. Suicide on the other hand has gone down by about 20%, likely due to government support and the sense of community.
Easy E wrote: High risk people are expected to "self-quarantine" or die forever; so low risk folks can live their "normal" lives with no lifestyle change. That is the societal challenge we face. Who are the winners and who are the losers from COVID-19? This time we are not talking about economic winners and losers, we are talking about the first in the sentence of "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness".
There is no simple answer, so anyone who claims to have one is a liar or is fooling themselves.
That's a pretty harsh interpretation.
TBH, what gets me about the Coronavirus is the polarization. Every time I look at my Facebook there's dozens of people calling others stupid for going outside while saying decisions should only be made on data and science.
Where I live, 80% of mortality is with people 60+ years old, the average age is 80. The government is losing over $10 mil a day in tax revenue and there's 40% unemployment. Those figures don't seem to factor into public health policy, we're in total lockdown and there's no word on when it will let up.
My father is in a hospital, he was injured and hasn't been allowed out of bed in over a month. No one is allowed to visit him despite the fact the entire family has been in lockdown for over 2 months. Despite being mobile when he went in, now he can't walk. The mortality rate for bedridden seniors is higher than that of the virus, when you lose mobility you don't generally get it back.
He doesn't benefit from this lockdown, there's over 50 years of evidence that demonstrates the importance of exercise and human contact in clinical outcomes. Isolation is doing more harm to his health than the virus.
All this is to say, I don't see how the corpus of medical knowledge is informing decisions about public health policy. This is purely political. Focusing on a single vector - disease - is just a way of deferring mortality numbers for seniors by taking actions we know will hurt many of them in the long run. It's hard dealing with friends and family who are shrieking about how cruel people are for even noticing this, most conversation has become impossible.
Feels like what we should be having is a conversation about public health policy and positions like "quarantine until we get a vaccine" or "immediately open everything" should be the extremes. Instead, those positions dominate every conversation, there's no opportunity for people to come to any kind of agreement. I'm trying to stay analytical and tactical about the situation, but sometimes it just kills me.
Are you really surprised though? everything becomes partisan nowadays. even things that arent partisan. I honestly thought the same as you when this whole thing started, but its always in vain. its twitter politics. theres no civility any more.
Feels like what we should be having is a conversation about public health policy and positions like "quarantine until we get a vaccine" or "immediately open everything" should be the extremes. Instead, those positions dominate every conversation, there's no opportunity for people to come to any kind of agreement. I'm trying to stay analytical and tactical about the situation, but sometimes it just kills me.
I agree with you, as they should be extremes. Sadly, in the US that "extreme" position of "immediately open everything" as soon as expediently possible is the mainstream position.
At least that is my perception in a deep red, rural state.
queen_annes_revenge wrote: Are you really surprised though? everything becomes partisan nowadays. even things that arent partisan. I honestly thought the same as you when this whole thing started, but its always in vain. its twitter politics. theres no civility any more.
Of course not.
But the tension is not between civility and politics, it's about misinformation and echo chambers. People can't stop chirping long enough to do basic math, everything has to be about experts, learning from others, using data and science to find our way out, etc.
In other words, slogans that mean nothing and just make people feel smarter, as if they have the only answers and everyone else is dumb.
We've replaced critical thinking with repeat and amplify. Kind of like a virus. I would be pro-Coronavirus lockdowns were not for always-on internet.
Easy E wrote: However, what is "rational" is just a disguise for naked self-interest, and I have learned that not everyone DOES have someone at high-risk in their lives; or really think about that fact at all. At least an emotional response is pretty clearly self-interested.
After all, I can make a very rational argument for slave labor too...... in fact, many people did for a long time..... it was looking at it on a more emotional/empathic basis that led to its end. Therefore, "rationality" can lead to there own bad decisions even if they are "logically" sound. As you say, it is a balance.
I'm sure H will jump in soon and blow us away with a lot of philosophy talk!
Whoa, I did not realize I had gained a reputation, let alone an onus to uphold it! Let me see if I can find my "smart" hat to put on, so as to not embarrass myself too much.
I'm not quite sure what to add though. Frankly, I think I'd be apt to agree with your general assessment, but this is hardly an area where I could even imagine to have much by way of knowledge. The question is, just what is "rational?" Just like trying to give a comprehensive answer to just what "truth" is or what "casality" actually is, it seems as if it would be trivially easy, but the more you dig in, the less clear it seems to be. You could say, in a casual sense, "well, rationality is the use of reason." The we need to say, "what then is reason?" And we are unlikely, I think to get to a "bottom" along those lines.
I think I want to tentatively say that "rationality" and "reason" are just something like normative claims. I don't really have any way to fill that out though, as I said, it is not something I've really managed to dive into. That being said though, I think, if we look at things with something of a historical lense, there are a number of reasons why we aren't all just Logical Positivists now. The notion of logic and/or reason as sufficient just isn't really, well, sufficient.
I think this pandemic has revealed how insufficient all of our personal philosophies really are. Some take on a hard-line utilitarian stance, other adopt an ad hoc libertarianism, others find a sort of safetyism, and so on. Which is part of why, in my ill-informed way, I am something of a Hegelian-circa-Žižek, that I don't think there is a unified Absolute (anything). The Absolute is an opening, in a way, to quote Žižek:
Spoiler:
Here, again, my critic misreads my claim that "the 'transcendent world of formlessness' (in short: the Absolute) is at war with itself; this means that (self-)destructive formlessness (absolute, self-relating negativity) must appear as such in the realm of finite reality": he reads these lines as if I am asserting that the Hegelian Absolute is the abstract negativity of a Universal suspending all its particular content, the proverbial night in which all cows are black, and then triumphantly makes the elementary point that, on the contrary, the Hegelian Absolute is a concrete universal. But the choice proposed here by my critic-the choice between abstract universality and concrete organic system in which the universal engenders and contains the wealth of its particular determinations-is a false one: what is missing here is the third, properly Hegelian, choice, precisely the one I invoked in the quoted passage, namely the choice of abstract universality as such, in its opposition to its particular content, appearing within its own particular content (as one of its own species), encountering among its species as its own "oppositional determination:' It is in this sense that "the 'transcendent world of formlessness' (in short: the Absolute) is at war with itself" and that "(self-)destructive formlessness (absolute, self-relating negativity) must appear as such in the realm of finite reality": this abstract universality becomes "concrete" not only by deploying itself in the series of its particular determinations, but by including itself in this series. It is because of this self-inclusion (self-referentiality) that the Absolute is "at war with itself' as in the case of Revolutionary Terror, where abstract negativity is no longer a transcendent In-itself, but appears "in its oppositional determination;' as a particular force opposed to and destroying all (other) particular content. In more traditional Hegelian terms, this is what it means to say that, in a dialectical process, every external opposition, every struggle between the subject and its external opposite, gives way to an "internal contradiction;' to a struggle of the subject with itself: in its struggle against Faith, Enligbtenment is at war with itself; it opposes itself to its own substance. Denying that the Absolute is "at war with itself" means denying the very core of the Hegelian dialectical process, reducing it to a kind of Oriental Absolute, a neutral or impassive medium in which particulars struggle against each other."
This post certainly was not as good as I'd hoped it would be, but, sometimes you hit a homerun and sometimes you strike out.
Grey Templar wrote: ...And the unemployment system is so broken down because millions are trying to file for it.
Then vote for people who will fix your unemployment system and other social programs which would help alleviate suffering in this kind of scenario.
Sorry, but I have no faith in a government solution to a problem the government caused.
If people are destitute because the government set in motion a chain of events that caused to become unemployed, the solution is not to have the government fix some other broken aspect of itself. The solution is to stop what made the people unemployed in the first place. Only after that can we talk about fixing something else that is wrong.
We could have taken steps to counter Coronavirus without shutting down the economy. Focused protection of vulnerable individuals, not sweeping restrictions on everybody.
Vaktathi wrote: And that's how you make a pandemic worse, and has little or nor bearing on the scientific or data driven merits, it's all feels. While the frustration is certainly understandable, everyone knows people in such situations, it's impossible not to. However, at the same time, a lot of these jobs would be lost regardless, even without legal restrictions on operations to deal with, there just isn't going to be the customer base to keep many business/organizations in operation for a variety of reasons (customers concerned about exposure risks, changing work and commuting habits, anxiety about spending, etc), or just as importantly, have insurance that will cover pandemic related issues which they can be held liable for.
I think you are overestimating the damage the virus could have caused if it was allowed to rampage unchecked. At least in terms of jobs and businesses lost. Unless you are elderly or otherwise immunocompromized, which is a tiny portion of the population, this disease would at worst give you a very bad flu. Most people wouldn't even get that.
For restaurants, that means maybe a few employees are out for a couple weeks and at the same time they have a reduction in customers. Most likely, it hurts but it doesn't sink the business. On the other hand, a forced closure for 6+ weeks like has happened in some areas absolutely will kill the business and put the people who would never have gotten sick out of work.
I seriously doubt that we would have anywhere near comparable business losses if the disease had been allowed to rampage. This is, relative to past pandemics, a pretty mild one. It doesn't strike down the healthy same as the feeble like Bubonic Plague did.
But again, we could have done a middle ground. We could have said you can remain open but must have social distancing where possible, wear masks, and keep the old folks isolated and focus public resources on protecting and treating the vulnerable population. but instead, we had to cause major damage to everybody and everything.
I'm with you there. Even if you say well we don't know how this is going to affect every different group, you can make a targeted approach using educated hypotheses of who was likely to be worst affected, then offered those support for staying away from or adjusting their employment etc.
Well, I don't think anyone imagined they would reach 60% infection rate in just 2 months. They are still social distancing. I don't think herd immunity was their explicit goal either?
queen_annes_revenge wrote: Well, I don't think anyone imagined they would reach 60% infection rate in just 2 months. They are still social distancing. I don't think herd immunity was their explicit goal either?
Yeah it spreads fast but if they hit 60% with social distancing in only 2 months that would be an insane rate of spread. Then again a lot can vary on country. I would wager France could spread very fast without lockdown and social distancing due to how much is focused around Paris. Sweden, far as I recall, has a generally more dispersed population which likely helps a lot.
It highlights how some different approaches can work, but only if the geography and setup of a country allow for them to work.
Grey Templar wrote: If anything, they are proof that you could still fight the virus effectively without total lockdown.
Did you mean South Korea, or New Zealand?
Sweden is not a success story.
Or, if you feel that it is, could you explain how? The data I'm looking at shows new cases continuing to rise, and a death toll that is not tapering off.
Saying unless you're old or compromised it will be nothing more than a bad flu is just sticking your head in the sand. Look at all the reports of side effects and permanent damage it can cause in even young people. There is absolutely no guarantee that if you catch it, it will just be a 'bad flu' at worst, this is the worst kind of hubris.
Just yesterday the news covered a white, marathon running, doctor in his 50s with no underlying conditions who caught it, went on to a ventilator for a month and had only just made it home. Other than maybe children, he is about as far outside of all the demographics that have been adversely affected as one can get.
He stated he didn't think he'd run a marathon again, and the news item was post-scripted with the fact that subsequent to the filming concluding he'd ended up being readmitted for further treatment.
Grey Templar wrote: If anything, they are proof that you could still fight the virus effectively without total lockdown.
Did you mean South Korea, or New Zealand?
Sweden is not a success story.
Or, if you feel that it is, could you explain how? The data I'm looking at shows new cases continuing to rise, and a death toll that is not tapering off.
There are some who believe that places like that have merely deferred their peaks though. Maybe not SK, but NZ. They can't keep their borders closed forever. I hope that isn't the case, but who knows.
Grey Templar wrote: If anything, they are proof that you could still fight the virus effectively without total lockdown.
Did you mean South Korea, or New Zealand?
Sweden is not a success story.
Or, if you feel that it is, could you explain how? The data I'm looking at shows new cases continuing to rise, and a death toll that is not tapering off.
There are some who believe that places like that have merely deferred their peaks though. Maybe not SK, but NZ. They can't keep their borders closed forever. I hope that isn't the case, but who knows.
Technically if they absolutely wanted to achieve such a Level of isolation they'd need to be autark.
And for that you need ressources and Manpower and money to develop them and the whole chain .
Disciple of Fate wrote: Saying unless you're old or compromised it will be nothing more than a bad flu is just sticking your head in the sand. Look at all the reports of side effects and permanent damage it can cause in even young people. There is absolutely no guarantee that if you catch it, it will just be a 'bad flu' at worst, this is the worst kind of hubris.
Every case I've seen of a supposedly healthy young person getting it super bad has turned out to have been a person who had some other underlying condition. That by default puts them in the compromised category.
queen_annes_revenge wrote: Easy there chap. Someone will come and batter you over the head with Denmark's statistics if you're not careful.
My daughter is returning to nursery at the start of June. This is great news. The lack of socialising has definitely affected her these past few weeks
No need to, he can go back 2-3 pages and realise it for himself.
Oh that gotcha.
I'll admit I didn't know how to manipulate that graph, and yes now I can see that Swedens stats arent starting to turn downwards as much as most other countries seem to be right now, but they aren't really going upwards either so... I guess it will be one to watch.
Disciple of Fate wrote: Saying unless you're old or compromised it will be nothing more than a bad flu is just sticking your head in the sand. Look at all the reports of side effects and permanent damage it can cause in even young people. There is absolutely no guarantee that if you catch it, it will just be a 'bad flu' at worst, this is the worst kind of hubris.
Every case I've seen of a supposedly healthy young person getting it super bad has turned out to have been a person who had some other underlying condition. That by default puts them in the compromised category.
I think the point is that many more people are potentially "compromised" without realising it. Furthermore some of those arguing that "its not all that bad" as such when their influence is their own personal situation (eg young, considered healthy); are going to be compromised, they just don't realise it.
There's also the fact that many times you can be in a balance whereby you could potentially develop something more serious, but your overall health has thus far warded you off. Corona can be an element that tips the scales.
Sweden has again increased higher then the Day before though.
Then again i am also expecting a hike in Central europe after the reopening of Shops because people just can't help themselves after witnessing today....
Disciple of Fate wrote: Saying unless you're old or compromised it will be nothing more than a bad flu is just sticking your head in the sand. Look at all the reports of side effects and permanent damage it can cause in even young people. There is absolutely no guarantee that if you catch it, it will just be a 'bad flu' at worst, this is the worst kind of hubris.
Every case I've seen of a supposedly healthy young person getting it super bad has turned out to have been a person who had some other underlying condition. That by default puts them in the compromised category.
Isn't that convenient? So anyone that gets more than a bad flu just gets piled on the compromised pile. Being compromised gives a greater chance of permanent problems, its not just the only decider. Vox has an article that features a collection of studies and interviews that underline the risk increases with underlying conditions, but isn't exclusive too:
Long term immunity is unnecessary. It only needs to last a couple of years, which is typical of other viruses of this type. That is enough time for the virus to be destroyed via natural causes. It either wastes itself in people who are immune or it mutates itself into something irrelevant.
Remember, all flu viruses were once super deadly bugs like COVID-19. Then people became resistant and the virus was just another flu virus among the millions of boring viruses that wash about each year.
We won't have to lock down next year or the year after because everybody will have already had it. The absolute worst case scenario for the virus has it being over within 2 years. A vaccine is much further away than 2 years in any realistic sense. So since we can't get a vaccine before the disease goes away on its own then there is no point in wasting energy on it.
This post is many levels of wrong. Viruses don't just get "destroyed via natural causes" or magically "mutate itself into something irrelevant". *Some* viruses do, but far from all of them, and based on other Coronaviruses, its unlikely that this is one of those types of viruses.
As far as the flu is concerned, thats not really true about all flu viruses once being deadly superbugs, but even if it were, that would be aided by the fact that influenza is a virus family known for a very uncommonly high degree of mutability. I.E. it mutates rapidly, and sometimes dramatically, whereas Coronavirus is basically the opposite in that its a relatively stable virus not prone to frequent or large mutation. In more direct terms, its unlikely that COVID will become less lethal in time, at least not in any appreciable time scale, and will likely persist for quite some time without the presence of a vaccine.
In reality though, once we've hit that theoretical herd immunity threshold (which may be a challenge given the generally short 2-3 year immunity period associated with other coronavirus strains it definitely *won't* be next year, at the present rate it will probably take 2-3 years to reach that point), even though it will be persistent it won't necessarily be enough of a problem to warrant maintaining lockdowns or heavy social distancing efforts. While it may be significantly deadlier than the flu, the lack of mutability will mean that the overall caseload will be suppressed by a lack of other strains that might bypass immunization, etc. and that whatever degree of natural herd immunity we may have attained will help keep it in check to some degree.
Basically what (I can't believe I'm saying this) QAR posted with reagrds to OC43 is likely spot on.
It’s delusional to think this disease will last for more than a couple years, much less a hundred. This disease will not keep killing people at the rate it is currently. It’ll sharply drop off before the next few months are over.
Whats delusional is the idea that the diseases ability to kill people will sharply drop off within a few months. Latest news out of Sweden is that only 7.3% of Stockholm - i.e. that hardest hit city in the country that *didnt* lock down, have had the virus.
If we extrapolate a bit on that, it will take about 30 months - not weeks, MONTHS - for Stockholm (and for the hell of it we will assume the rest of Sweden as well) to reach a theoretical herd immunity, thats about 2.5 years. With that, you can expect another ~20,000 deaths past the ~3k or so they have seen so far, i.e. a roughly 500-600% increase in bodies.
Mind you, this will vary from place to place, NYC was hovering around ~21% infected about a month ago, if that rate of spread continued then you could expect a theoretical herd immunity point to occur around the November/December timeframe (except now that curve-flattening has kicked in it will take longer), at the cost of another ~20k dead there. Meanwhile, the rest of New York state looks more like Sweden - another 2.5-3 years for herd immunity at the cost of another 100k or so bodies.
1) It may not be possible at all. Given the lack of past success in making coronavirus vaccines.
I guess the Wright Brothers were fools for pursuing powered manned flight, what with all the lack of success by others prior to their launch of the Wright flyer
2) If a vaccine does get developed, it will likely be ineffective at protecting people.
How do you figure? If a vaccine is successfully developed and deployed, by default it will be effective at protecting people, otherwise you haven't really created a vaccine.
3) Finally, even if the vaccine is possible and does eventually get developed, it will be developed long after this crisis has passed. We will have a vaccine for a disease that no longer plagues us.
I understand that you have delusions as to the timeframe of this situation, but given taht we expect another 12-15 months for a vaccine, and most of the country (and indeed the world) will have to wait 2-3 years before herd immunity kicks in, simple math says this is incorrect.
Flu vaccine efficacy hovers around the 30-50% range. Flu viruses are the same family of virus as COVID-19, we should expect a similar efficacy of any potential COVID-19 vaccine. IE: best case scenario it maybe works 50% of the time.
Flu viruses are an entirely different family of vaccines from Coronavirus. Coronavirus is part of the Coronaviridae family wheres Influenza is part of the Orthomyxoviridae family. The closest point of taxonomic relationship between them is four taxonomic classifications up - they are both in the same Kingdom: Orthornavirae. In relative terms, Coronavirus and Influenza are about as related as a human being and an octopus are within the tree of life. In any case, the reason for the flu viruses low efficacy is because theres 4 or 5 different types of flu viruses and thousands of strains. The vaccine only ever innoculates you against a literal handful of them (seriously - this years I think was only useful against 4 or 5 strains across 2 of the different types). You can still get sick from the flu after getting vaccinated because you're not guarded against the vast majority of flu strains out there, on top of that because flu testing isn't generally widespread due to how common it is, the efficacy rate is estimated based on all illnesses exhibiting flu-like symptoms, which includes coronaviruses, rhinoviruses, and other similar illnesses. To top it all off, influenza mutates so rapidly that within months of the flu vaccine being rolled out its ability to safeguard against the endemic/prevalent strains is significantly reduced because they are often entirely new strains that have formed from the previous ones as a result of antigenic drift.
All of this is to say that comparing Coronavirus to Influenza is useless, because the two are absolutely nothing alike and you cannot derive any meaningful conclusions about coronavirus vaccines from influenza.
We shouldn't have locked down completely to begin with.
Sweden is proving that this is 100% wrong.
The only places that should have locked down are old folks homes
Who do you think staffs the old folks homes? How do you intend to keep becky and joe, the 20-something year old orderlies/nurses/rec coordinators, etc. from going out on the town in the midst of the pandemic from bringing that back into the old folks home? How do you intend to keep Bob, the 40 year old staff clinician, from catching it from his teenage kids hanging out at the mall and bringin it into work at the care home? You are horribly short-sighted and failing to understand or appreciate nth order consequences or the inter-related web of interactions and relationships that exist in society. There really is no feasible way to "lock down the old folks but leave everything else open". Attempts at doing just that (again - Sweden) have shown us that its effectively impossible.
The crisis will end with vaccine or death of humanity.
Thats a bit dramatic. I understand that Grey Templar has been posting a lot of inaccurate information, but being hyperbolic and posting something equally outrageous in the opposite direction doesn't really help the argument against him.
I have that conclusion because I have multiple friends and acquaintances who are out of work because of this lockdown. As a consequence are in fear of being unable to feed their children or pay their rent beyond the next few weeks. A couple of them have actually lost their jobs because the business didn't survive. And the unemployment system is so broken down because millions are trying to file for it.
If it was my kids, I certainly wouldn't consider the ability for others to feel safe to be more important than my ability to feed my kids or keep them in a house. I'd say screw your elderly relatives, screw your desire to "feel safe".
So you derived a scientific conclusion from.... anecdotal stories about the misfortunes suffered by friends and loved ones? I fail to see what bearing "people I know are struggling financially and emotionally" has on what an effective epidemiological response to a pandemic looks like. As others posted, the correct response to the predicament your friends and family find themselves in would be to expand the social safety net, whether it be temporarily or permanently, so economic inequality and living hand to mouth doesn't become a driver for widespread illness and death. As I've pointed out to sqrorhar in the past, there is an economic impact associated with death - there is enough evidence and data that shows that the dollar cost of the death toll brought on by the virus would far and away exceed the cost of maintaining the lockdown for the majority of the year. Put another way, while your friends and family might be struggling economically and financially at the moment in light of the likedown, their situation would likely be far worse if we *didnt* lockdown, as there would be a good possibility that some of them would be dead - or would have immediate family members who have died as a result of the virus - PLUS they would likely still be facing some degree of layoffs or economic hardship as a result of the economic downturn/recession that would have resulted from the death toll.
Now, you are focusing on the virus becoming less deadly. Yes, that allows the virus to replicate more as its hosts don't die.
But that is not the only possible mutation that could be beneficial to the virus. It could mutate to gain new transmission vectors or more resistance to UV light, for example. These will both allow it to more effectively infect people and spread without a compromise in its deadliness.
Its worth pointing out too that in this case there isn't any evolutionary pressure on COVID to evolve to become less deadly/more benign. COVID has a lengthy pre-symptomatic contagious period which allows it to rapidly and effectively spread well before symptoms kick in - by the time indicators of illness start showing up the host will have already exposed countless others to the disease, well before lethality ever begins to factor into the equation. Diseases that become more benign due to mutation do so because evolutionary pressure usually means that the host has a very small window to infect others, and the mutations which do survive as a result are those that lengthen that window one way or another. COVID doesn't have that problem, its actually more likely to mutate into something *more* lethal than it is into something less lethal,
Feels like what we should be having is a conversation about public health policy and positions like "quarantine until we get a vaccine" or "immediately open everything" should be the extremes. Instead, those positions dominate every conversation, there's no opportunity for people to come to any kind of agreement. I'm trying to stay analytical and tactical about the situation, but sometimes it just kills me.
Its a shame that the standard-bearers for the cause of reducing economic harm opened the discussion up in a rather polarizing way - "old folks should be willing to die for our youngs economic future" and insisting that re-opening be immediate or that lockdown never be implemented in the first place is a bad way to open up a serious discussion about how long this should last, what measures should be taken to minimize hardships and impact, etc. I imagine the dialogue would have gone differently if instead the opening salvo were along the lines of "you know, this is going to cause serious economic stress to a lot of people, theres a lot of data out there about the long term harm that can come from the economic impact of what we're doing. We need to get serious and do some serious data-driven cost-benefit analysis on this and figure out what course of action will do the least harm and the most good for the most people possible, and use that data to intelligently inform policy - whether that be the phasing, timeline, key indicators and milestones of a social distancing program, or it be the crafting of legislation designed to expand the social safety net to protect the economically vulnerable and minimize the potential damage that could result from an economic shutdown. The cure can't be worse than the disease." Unfortunately thats not what we got, but partisan hacks gonna partisan hack, I suppose - and the other side will always respond proportionally, if not escalate.
I feel that Russian and Chinese influences have probably taken advantage of the situation in the process and exacerbated the partisanship and the cultural divide that we are seeing as the crisis unfolds (oh calm down, its not a conspiracy, this is legitimately their MO at this point, they shovel millions/billions of dollars into PSYOPS against the US population every single year to destabilize domestic politics and slow our response and resolve, "get inside our OODA loop" as it were. Its a neat trick taht they picked up from watching us do it for decades, sadly it seems that its working really well for them).
Well, I don't think anyone imagined they would reach 60% infection rate in just 2 months.
Originally they estimated herd immunity in Stockholm would kick in by May - until casual observers pointed out that the underlying math that lead them to that conclusion was effectively impossible given the constraints of reality (IIRC, the numbers they used would have required the population of Stockholm to be greater than the population of Sweden as a whole country), they ended up retracting it. But - i'll get a cheap dig in here - Grey Templar seems to be of the opinion that herd immunity will kick in within a couple more months - its not quite the 2 month timeframe you referenced, but its still unreasonably and unrealistically short.
If anything, they are proof that you could still fight the virus effectively without total lockdown.
Except the opposite of that. Don't know how many times people need to bring up all the data that shows how horrifyingly bad the numbers for Sweden would be if they had a larger or denser population.
I have that conclusion because I have multiple friends and acquaintances who are out of work because of this lockdown. As a consequence are in fear of being unable to feed their children or pay their rent beyond the next few weeks. A couple of them have actually lost their jobs because the business didn't survive. And the unemployment system is so broken down because millions are trying to file for it.
If it was my kids, I certainly wouldn't consider the ability for others to feel safe to be more important than my ability to feed my kids or keep them in a house. I'd say screw your elderly relatives, screw your desire to "feel safe".
So you derived a scientific conclusion from.... anecdotal stories about the misfortunes suffered by friends and loved ones? I fail to see what bearing "people I know are struggling financially and emotionally" has on what an effective epidemiological response to a pandemic looks like. As others posted, the correct response to the predicament your friends and family find themselves in would be to expand the social safety net, whether it be temporarily or permanently, so economic inequality and living hand to mouth doesn't become a driver for widespread illness and death. As I've pointed out to sqrorhar in the past, there is an economic impact associated with death - there is enough evidence and data that shows that the dollar cost of the death toll brought on by the virus would far and away exceed the cost of maintaining the lockdown for the majority of the year. Put another way, while your friends and family might be struggling economically and financially at the moment in light of the likedown, their situation would likely be far worse if we *didnt* lockdown, as there would be a good possibility that some of them would be dead - or would have immediate family members who have died as a result of the virus - PLUS they would likely still be facing some degree of layoffs or economic hardship as a result of the economic downturn/recession that would have resulted from the death toll.
Given that unemployment is skyrocketing, its hardly just anecdotal evidence.
If the solution to a problem causes more damage than the problem itself, then the solution should not be implemented. And I simply have not seen anything that shows that the damage to everyone's financial situation would be worse if the lockdown had not been implemented, or had been implemented in a more sensible limited fashion.
A few tens of thousands of additional deaths across a country the size of the US would not have caused an economic downturn on the scale we are seeing now. And its pretty hard for anybody, let alone you, to justify people struggling to feed their children against the possibility that they might have struggled to a lesser extant but a few more people would have died. At least they might stand a chance with a less stringent lockdown.
A few tens can quickly rise if there's very few measures against that value rising; esp if the medical system gets overwhelmed (and esp in the USA where many might not seek medical attention because they cannot afford it).
What happens when the news gets out (and it would) and the population goes from "Oh its flu" to panic mode? You can't run businesses if your staff are scared and your customers aren't coming through the door. When people start to take holidays all at the same time and flee the cities to the rural landscape.
You could just as easily see businesses shut down through panic in such a situation and the economic damage of a run-away situation could be far more costly than a controlled situation. An uncontrolled situation can spiral in so many different directions and the costs of trying to then put in place lockdown and other measures could be far harder.
I feel that Russian and Chinese influences have probably taken advantage of the situation in the process and exacerbated the partisanship and the cultural divide that we are seeing as the crisis unfolds (oh calm down, its not a conspiracy, this is legitimately their MO at this point, they shovel millions/billions of dollars into PSYOPS against the US population every single year to destabilize domestic politics and slow our response and resolve, "get inside our OODA loop" as it were. Its a neat trick taht they picked up from watching us do it for decades, sadly it seems that its working really well for them).
Given that unemployment is skyrocketing, its hardly just anecdotal evidence.
Fair - but irrelevant. This has no bearing on the epidemiological threat or outcome of the situation.
If the solution to a problem causes more damage than the problem itself, then the solution should not be implemented. And I simply have not seen anything that shows that the damage to everyone's financial situation would be worse if the lockdown had not been implemented, or had been implemented in a more sensible limited fashion.
The studies don't put the financial damage of not shutting down in the context of individual harm - but if the costs of *not* social distancing is trillions more than the cost of the distancing/lockdown measures, then its safe to assume that that cost will be felt by individuals in many of the same ways they are feeling now. To put it into perspective, per the SSRN study:
Based on our SIR model, the total number of infections is
projected to reach 287 million without social distancing and 188 million with social distancing.
When combined with the differential mortality rates when the health system capacity threshold is
exceeded versus when not, the difference between the infection curves translates into about 1.24
million lives saved. Using a $10 million value of reduced mortality risk (VSL) for the lives saved,
the benefits of social distancing are $12.4 trillion. The cost of social distancing is the difference in
present value terms of the GDP losses without ($6.49 trillion) and with ($13.7 trillion) the policy,
which is $7.21 trillion. The main result is in the bottom row: under our benchmark assumptions,
social distancing generates net benefits of about $5.16 trillion.
Put another way, in more absolute terms - not social distancing would cost the GDP $18.89 trillion dollars - thats the VSL cost of preventable deaths ($12.4 trillion) + the cost of COVID on the economy when left unchecked as a result of decreased productivity and economic friction ($6.49 trillion). The cost of the shutdown, based on economic forescasts, and assuming they remain in place for the duration of the crisis, is $13.7 trillion. What we are seeing now is the impact of the $13.7 trillion hit to our economy - what do you think an $18.89 trillion hit would look like?
The AEI study arrives at a similar conclusion though some of the dollar values are different - the key takeaway from it though is that the optimal length of the shutdown would be to extend it an additional 11 to 18 weeks from May 1st in order to derive the most effective suppression of the virus possible while *still* saving a cool $3-4 trillion dollars vs not shutting down at all.
Grey Templar wrote: A few tens of thousands of additional deaths across a country the size of the US would not have caused an economic downturn on the scale we are seeing now. And its pretty hard for anybody, let alone you, to justify people struggling to feed their children against the possibility that they might have struggled to a lesser extant but a few more people would have died. At least they might stand a chance with a less stringent lockdown.
We have ways and means to feed people who have fallen on hard times, from social programs, food stamps, community pantries, meals on wheels, soup kitchens, charities, etc, in what is the wealthiest nation in the history of the planet and a government that is entirely able, if it chooses to do so, to increase and provide that assistance. We do not have ways and means to bring back tens of thousands of dead people. I can find no information that access to food is a major issue in the US, or that people in the US are literally starving to death, as a result of the actions taken in response to the current pandemic. Not a single death due to being unable to obtain sustenance as a result of quarantine procedures that I can find. We do however now have nearly 100,000 dead people in a couple months as a result of this disease and nearly 5,000 dead since Monday this week according to OurWorldInData.
That is not to say that people are not being negatively impacted, that people are not facing hard times and hard choices and serious decreases in quality of life, however, access to food and sustenance in and of itself, due to pandemic restrictions does not appear to be a widespread systemic pressing issue.
Your argument is that tens of thousands of more deaths is an acceptable solution to a problem that does not appear to exist, and is not otherwise be beyond our means to address.
Grey Templar wrote: A few tens of thousands of additional deaths across a country the size of the US would not have caused an economic downturn on the scale we are seeing now. And its pretty hard for anybody, let alone you, to justify people struggling to feed their children against the possibility that they might have struggled to a lesser extant but a few more people would have died. At least they might stand a chance with a less stringent lockdown.
Ah yes isn't it lovely when people value money more than human lives. Let's kill off people. As long as I live and get money it's all right.
And if US can't ensure people get food then something's badly wrong in US system. Less rich countries per people(so don't go "US has more people" garbage. This is adjusted to population size...) can ensure people get fed. If US can't then that's the decision by US goverment rather than capablity.
Human lives are more valuable than bit's of 1's and 0's.
Lets not forget that this pandemic hasn't really affected the food supply chain at all. The food delivery end has been impacted by major overbuying due to a large portion of the population both:
Panic buying
Buying one to two weeks worth of food at once
Shifting from an ad-hock food buying pattern to weekly/biweekly and thus buying greater amounts of food in bulk rather than spread out.
However even though there are some local limits (eg flour in small bags in the UK); in general people have been able to buy food. Urban areas have seen shortages; but again its not that we don't have the food, its that the food couldn't get from source to supply fast enough*. Heck the UK is expecting vast over-production of potatos due to closed fish and chip shops; some fishing fleets have also stopped going out as often as a result. In addition the beef market has seen a dramatic drop in demand (no more burgers at fast food outlets). So if anything we've (in some sectors) potential food surplus.
I suspect this is a pattern mirrored (with local variation) in other countries (at least developed ones). There's also no sign on the horizon that the virus would cause a food shortage - food production plants and farming can self-isolate fairly effectively and were (at least in the UK) already pretty clinical in aiming for clean work environments.
So I'd second the view that the system should be able to feed the population even if work becomes hard to get for a larger portion of the population. It would involve government intervention to set it up and ensure the provision was achieved, but the nations can achieve it. There is food in the system its simply a matter of ensuring distribution.
*most rationing wasn't about a lack of food to eat, it was about curtailing food hoarding (and some profiteers) habits and ensuring steadier supply for the more vulnerable and at risk and key workers. Hence why supermarkets and the like had policies of restricting access based on age/work style etc... Helping to ensure the more key and vulnerable were able to get at the food that is in the system. Ergo it was distribution rather than supply that was the issue.
No one is valuing money over human lives.(in this situation) why is it so difficult to understand that its not a zero sum game? economic downturn will cost lives in itself. there is plenty of evidence for that.
Furthermore in the UK, a weakened economy will have negative consequences for the NHS, that institution we constantly espouse wanting to 'protect' with such religious fervour.
queen_annes_revenge wrote: No one is valuing money over human lives.(in this situation) why is it so difficult to understand that its not a zero sum game? economic downturn will cost lives in itself. there is plenty of evidence for that.
Furthermore in the UK, a weakened economy will have negative consequences for the NHS, that institution we constantly espouse wanting to 'protect' with such religious fervour.
Yes but the continual argument being made is that the economic downturn of a lockdown (or several) is less than the economic downturn of no lockdown. Ergo that taking deliberate and controlled shutdown is going to cost less and have less long lasting damage than letting the virus run rampant without any shutdown measures. As proven many times social distancing is very hard to enforce and is quite situational. The same person who ensures 2m in the supermarket might happily lay on the beach with friends well within 2m distance.
The balance then comes on how much and when you relax lockdowns - allow business to recover and then prepare for either a surge and lockdown or a surge that only just meets limits of the health system.
There's also a waiting game going on; the longer you draw things out the more time science has to develop better methods to tackle the virus. Even without considering a vaccine, the longer you treat people the more understanding you build up. Allowing for better treatment options which can speed recovery and improve recovery rates. Without lockdowns things happen much much faster; that means systems can get overwhelmed; public panic can set in (again just look at my previous post and how we had ample food but there were shortages and needs to ration/limit access to ensure fairer distribution); populations star to faulter and then you've got jobs shutting down with no government payouts because customers won't come to buy and workers won't come to work. Even though its not the Black Death its still scary.
Lol no wonder UK got to their target amount in tests so big faster than others. Not only they counted SENT tests(some which didn't even work) whether it's used or not but they also counted saliva and nassal sample from same person as 2. Okay technically 100% accurate but not particularly useful to double test counts reported when # of people tested is only half the that...
Good testing strategy. Guess # in papers is more useful than actual # tested.
Michael Bay will produce what may be the first major film shot in Los Angeles during the coronavirus pandemic lockdown. Deadline reported Tuesday that “Songbird,” directed by Adam Mason, will begin production within five weeks.
While it’s unclear exactly how Mason and his team will pull it off, the production could offer a blueprint for completing films when traditional means of production are off limits.
Mason (Hulu/Blumhouse’s “Into the Dark”) co-wrote a script with Simon Boyes (“Misconduct”) that takes place two years in the future, when the pandemic has not gone away and lockdowns have been reinstated as the coronavirus continues to mutate. Casting is underway
Disciple of Fate wrote: Saying unless you're old or compromised it will be nothing more than a bad flu is just sticking your head in the sand. Look at all the reports of side effects and permanent damage it can cause in even young people. There is absolutely no guarantee that if you catch it, it will just be a 'bad flu' at worst, this is the worst kind of hubris.
Every case I've seen of a supposedly healthy young person getting it super bad has turned out to have been a person who had some other underlying condition. That by default puts them in the compromised category.
Unfortunately I don't think that's the case. Have heard of fit, relatively young (30s, 40s) being absolutely ruined by the virus even if you survive. Also people being placed in induced comas because the coughing was giving them brain damage. It can potentially have horrendous side effects, but it's the variability (sometimes you might just get sniffles or not even know you have had it) that really makes it a problem. A virus that was always more incapacitating and reduced the ability of a host to move and spread it would actually be less dangerous in some ways in that it would be easier to control without such complex and labour intensive tracking and tracing processes.
Here in the US the pro-opener sentiment is very much that. To the point of people literally stating that re-opening the economy is more important than the lives lost.
why is it so difficult to understand that its not a zero sum game? economic downturn will cost lives in itself. there is plenty of evidence for that.
I would definitely be interested in evidence that you have, I want to see what sort of research has been done on the matter. But regardless of that the numbers mean there is no comparison; the virus will kill far more people far more quickly, and from the looks of things cause more chronic health damage, than a downturn which quite frankly we were due for anyways.
And that is a factor I think has gone unstated; while it can be debated I personally think we were going to hit an economic crash within the next 5 years anyways. Without going into an off-topic diversion, the economy had/has become an integrated system of wealth transfer that was unsustainable.
Here in the US the pro-opener sentiment is very much that. To the point of people literally stating that re-opening the economy is more important than the lives lost.
It is if keeping the economy closed is causing lives to be lost or irreparably damaged as well. You are not considering the human cost of keeping the economy closed. Suicides are already being reported on the rise in the Bay Area of CA, and many psychiatrists are warning of grim problems if the lockdown isn't lifted. Plus how do you value someone losing a business they've spent years building only to lose it all and slide into poverty. All because people like you needed to feel safe.
The problem is there is a danger to prematurely opening, not only in terms of the additional danger but also how much improvement it can actually bring to the economy. Look at the restaurants and shops in some States that have been re-opened but are hardly getting any customers - the reason being it's all well and good saying "we are open for business" but unless this is built on a foundation of trust that things are safer then a lot of people still won't take the risk. And the 'halfway house' just means that things will drag on and on.
Reading about the response in South Korea, they massively front-loaded their efforts to control the spread of the virus though a huge investment in manpower and strong central control towards testing and tracing. Through this early investment, their economy is managing to rebound because you haven't got the presence of the virus looming over everything and the public has confidence that outbreaks will be contained. Schools are re-opening, businesses, factories etc. I think it probably helped that they had a process ready for the previous SARS scare and could enact that doctrine, but contrast that to the UK where the results of our own audit on pandemic preparedness were ignored (actually reducing financial support for departments, equipment and personnel even after the exercise warned of severe shortcomings and the need for investment). When the virus emerged in China and then gradually moved to Europe, we had a head-start, we knew what was coming, and it represents an utter failure in governance that it's now midway through May and there is still not an effective testing and tracking regimen in place - and so this half-way house of abortive lockdown, and all the damage to the economy that it entails, must continue.
A 100.000 people, probably more, have died of the virus in the US. But people just wanting to 'feel' safe is being thrown around like some sort of sneer. You know what else is based on 'feelz'? The economy, if people worry about a pandemic they're not going to go out and prop up that economy with what they 'feel' is their life, lockdown or not...
Here in the US the pro-opener sentiment is very much that. To the point of people literally stating that re-opening the economy is more important than the lives lost.
It is if keeping the economy closed is causing lives to be lost or irreparably damaged as well. You are not considering the human cost of keeping the economy closed. Suicides are already being reported on the rise in the Bay Area of CA, and many psychiatrists are warning of grim problems if the lockdown isn't lifted. Plus how do you value someone losing a business they've spent years building only to lose it all and slide into poverty. All because people like you needed to feel safe.
There is truth in what you're saying. It is very sad that people are unemployed or have lost their businesses.
Personally, I've lost 3 or 4 jobs, though thankfully I have stayed in my career. My wife's lost about a half dozen, and has bounced around to 3 or 4 careers (computer and accounting skills transfer well, teaching skills don't).
The funny thing is- we always got better from losing our jobs, and being poor for a time. I don't know that you ever really recover from losing a loved one, but I do know you don't ever recover from dying.
If you want to argue human cost.... well, nothing matters more, in human terms than life, or being crippled (which the virus can do as well). You would be much more successful if you tried to lay out a way we could reopen the economy while minimizing losses, rather than continuing to support the position that the lockdown was worse than allowing a plague to sweep the country unchecked. We've already seen you can have both- healthy populations, and no general lockdowns- it just requires effective trace and track and extensive testing.
Here in the US the pro-opener sentiment is very much that. To the point of people literally stating that re-opening the economy is more important than the lives lost.
It is if keeping the economy closed is causing lives to be lost or irreparably damaged as well. You are not considering the human cost of keeping the economy closed.
Please read my entire post before responding to it, thanks.
Well no, people like me want to follow the advice of experts on the subject (FYI, expert economists tend to agree that virus deaths would cause more damage to the economy than the shutdown). You, by your own admission, are basing your viewpoints off personal feelings. So this is not only untrue, but a deeply hypocritical accusation to level at me.
On the subject of suicides I'd argue that a person in a mental state where isolation is driving them to suicide might well do no better (and perhaps worse) in a situation where you've got effective isolation and mass fear due to a pandemic with no government control. At least with a controlled lockdown people mostly know where they stand - it presents a more predictable situation even for all its unpredictability.
I think it also allows for more effective community support because there is a lockdown, it is organised and thus people are more aware of, say, taking care of vulnerable people. Of checking on others. It's much easier to coordinate and promote that public good will and service when you've a system that is formally declared and established. Rather than a chaos where one city or town might be reacting very different to another and where people are blind to what they should or might do and what is safe and sensible.
NinthMusketeer wrote: The issue of suicide and mental health in the US is far, far larger than the context of the pandemic anyways.
And frankly there's a whole other aspect tied to it relating to the costs of someone who might have crippling debt from having sought out medical treatment. Pretending that it's simply associated with "keeping the economy closed" or other nonsense like that is irresponsible at best and downright partisan bullcrap at worst.
Overread wrote: On the subject of suicides I'd argue that a person in a mental state where isolation is driving them to suicide might well do no better (and perhaps worse) in a situation where you've got effective isolation and mass fear due to a pandemic with no government control. At least with a controlled lockdown people mostly know where they stand - it presents a more predictable situation even for all its unpredictability.
I think it also allows for more effective community support because there is a lockdown, it is organised and thus people are more aware of, say, taking care of vulnerable people. Of checking on others. It's much easier to coordinate and promote that public good will and service when you've a system that is formally declared and established. Rather than a chaos where one city or town might be reacting very different to another and where people are blind to what they should or might do and what is safe and sensible.
The toll of the lockdown will never be fully known. How could we possibly track people who decide to turn to crime (a dangerous profession) because they can't afford to feed their family? Financial consequences created by people being unemployed can take years to develop too. There is no disputing this. Poverty and unemployment cause rates of suicide/crime to rise. So lockdowns kill people too. The longer it goes the worse it gets. Even to the point of international crisis and wars starting because of these lockdown. Plus realistically - the lockdowns we have in place aren't restrictive enough to make a big difference. For example...In NYC they didn't even close the subways (a subway car is probably the worst place to be in a pandemic). People crowd into grocery stores to fight over toilet paper and pork chops waiting in lines around the building. These are pretty ineffective measures to begin with.
The main thing that is frustrating is even now in this thread is people still tote that lockdowns save lives. They don't beyond keeping the hospitals from being overrun - which here in the US has never been an issue. It's not an issue in Sweeden where there were no lockdowns. A prolonged lockdown actually has the potential to cause the virus to kill more people as it ensures there is an active body of people who can transmit the virus. It really is too bad this thing has been politicized because it is undoubtedly costing more lives.
Xenomancers wrote: A prolonged lockdown actually has the potential to cause the virus to kill more people as it ensures there is an active body of people who can transmit the virus. .
You're going to have to explain this one.
A lockdown restricts population movement and population interaction and duration of those interactions. Any infected "pockets" of population should, with the lockdown and self isolation due to infection, remain more isolated and thus reduce the potential spread of the virus to new populations and people. Done right with track and trace so you can put infected (and those who came into contact with infected) into not just lockdown, but full isolation for a few weeks, means that you contain and eliminate the virus spread.
Overread wrote: On the subject of suicides I'd argue that a person in a mental state where isolation is driving them to suicide might well do no better (and perhaps worse) in a situation where you've got effective isolation and mass fear due to a pandemic with no government control. At least with a controlled lockdown people mostly know where they stand - it presents a more predictable situation even for all its unpredictability.
I think it also allows for more effective community support because there is a lockdown, it is organised and thus people are more aware of, say, taking care of vulnerable people. Of checking on others. It's much easier to coordinate and promote that public good will and service when you've a system that is formally declared and established. Rather than a chaos where one city or town might be reacting very different to another and where people are blind to what they should or might do and what is safe and sensible.
The toll of the lockdown will never be fully known. How could we possibly track people who decide to turn to crime (a dangerous profession) because they can't afford to feed their family? Financial consequences created by people being unemployed can take years to develop too. There is no disputing this. Poverty and unemployment cause rates of suicide/crime to rise. So lockdowns kill people too. The longer it goes the worse it gets. Even to the point of international crisis and wars starting because of these lockdown. Plus realistically - the lockdowns we have in place aren't restrictive enough to make a big difference. For example...In NYC they didn't even close the subways (a subway car is probably the worst place to be in a pandemic). People crowd into grocery stores to fight over toilet paper and pork chops waiting in lines around the building. These are pretty ineffective measures to begin with.
The main thing that is frustrating is even now in this thread is people still tote that lockdowns save lives. They don't beyond keeping the hospitals from being overrun - which here in the US has never been an issue. It's not an issue in Sweeden where there were no lockdowns. A prolonged lockdown actually has the potential to cause the virus to kill more people as it ensures there is an active body of people who can transmit the virus. It really is too bad this thing has been politicized because it is undoubtedly costing more lives.
Another one to reference back some pages behind about sweden.
Also sidenewsflash, the economy of sweden is also struggling so, no regardless if you enforce a lockdown or not this will have consequences on the economy, an economy that is anyways just chugging along since 2008 because god forbid we'd let some banks die at the time.
Literally none of what Xenomancers has posted is true. It's the kind of nonsense that has no business being repeated and why I stated early on that there is no way to refute some of this stuff without going into politics. NYC didn't shut down their subway system, but they did operate at reduced capacity--and they shut down every night to deepclean the subway cars. They're also in the process of examining the efficacy of ultraviolet lights for the subway cars as a sterilizing measure.
Xenomancers wrote: A prolonged lockdown actually has the potential to cause the virus to kill more people as it ensures there is an active body of people who can transmit the virus. .
You're going to have to explain this one.
A lockdown restricts population movement and population interaction and duration of those interactions. Any infected "pockets" of population should, with the lockdown and self isolation due to infection, remain more isolated and thus reduce the potential spread of the virus to new populations and people. Done right with track and trace so you can put infected (and those who came into contact with infected) into not just lockdown, but full isolation for a few weeks, means that you contain and eliminate the virus spread.
I think the idea is that because we have restricted where people can go it will cause everybody who does go out to go to the same places. Which results in more people being in proximity than they would otherwise. IE: If people would normally go to X, Y , and Z, but during lockdown only Z is open, then everybody will go to Z. Which results in everybody being in 1 place as opposed to 3.
I certainly know at Costco that we've had much higher numbers of people in the store at all times compared to normal. Its like a busy weekend, but every day of the week rather than just on the weekend.
Michael Bay will produce what may be the first major film shot in Los Angeles during the coronavirus pandemic lockdown. Deadline reported Tuesday that “Songbird,” directed by Adam Mason, will begin production within five weeks.
While it’s unclear exactly how Mason and his team will pull it off, the production could offer a blueprint for completing films when traditional means of production are off limits.
Mason (Hulu/Blumhouse’s “Into the Dark”) co-wrote a script with Simon Boyes (“Misconduct”) that takes place two years in the future, when the pandemic has not gone away and lockdowns have been reinstated as the coronavirus continues to mutate. Casting is underway
..when you thought things couldn't get worse....
What horrors this world has wrought upon us...
Not sure how I feel about that, "too soon" seems to apply here, though subtlety and tact I guess aren't things Michael Bay has ever been accused of
Here in the US the pro-opener sentiment is very much that. To the point of people literally stating that re-opening the economy is more important than the lives lost.
It is if keeping the economy closed is causing lives to be lost or irreparably damaged as well. You are not considering the human cost of keeping the economy closed. Suicides are already being reported on the rise in the Bay Area of CA, and many psychiatrists are warning of grim problems if the lockdown isn't lifted. Plus how do you value someone losing a business they've spent years building only to lose it all and slide into poverty. All because people like you needed to feel safe.
That is not just people needing to "feel" safe, it's because almost hundred thousand people have died in a couple of months due to a virulent pandemic, over 1200 since my post yesterday and rising, and the overwhelming consensus among epidemiology and health professionals both in the US and across the entire planet was that temporary quarantine procedures were the most effective, least harmful (not harm-free) immediate action option. The deaths of tens of thousands, and the sickening of hundreds of thousands or millions, likewise is going to have a powerful economic impact in and of itself.
Again, we have mechanisms to deal with people and businesses who fall on hard times, and plenty of resources and options to devote to such if that is a concern government decides it wants to address directly, with lots of people advocating for government to do exactly that to help keep those businesses afloat.
Likewise, many businesses were going to face difficulty and potential closure regardless as a result of drops in demand due to exposure concerns, shifts in consumer behaviors and spending priorities, inability to insure themselves against pandemic related liability and losses, etc keeping them from operating or sustaining a critical mass of transactions. For example, even if a game store wasn't told to close temporarily, packing the store for bread and butter Magic nights that pay the bills wasn't exactly going to happen, and still isn't even when they're now being allowed to re-open. For any business operating with little or no reserves, as is not at all uncommon, any economic disruption was going to have the potential to tank them without outside assistance.
There's absolutely discussion to be had about re-opening and easing of restrictions and the most effective ways of doing that, most places appear to be in that process now to varying degrees, and there should be discussions about avenues for assisting those people and businesses in need. Pretending that all of this was unnecessary and did no good and was all just for "feels", or that all these people and businesses wouldn't have faced significant levels of disruption otherwise, and that the deaths of uncountable thousands would have been a worthy price to pay and that other options to address economic problems aside from opening everything back up don't exist, does not have much traction.
Kanluwen wrote: Literally none of what Xenomancers has posted is true. It's the kind of nonsense that has no business being repeated and why I stated early on that there is no way to refute some of this stuff without going into politics. NYC didn't shut down their subway system, but they did operate at reduced capacity--and they shut down every night to deepclean the subway cars. They're also in the process of examining the efficacy of ultraviolet lights for the subway cars as a sterilizing measure.
How can you say that literally none of what I said is true and then state oh but this part is true. Literally everything I said is true and from the heart. I didn't say they weren't taking precautions. I inferred the subways being open at all is a mistake.
This virus transmits mostly through human contact. It is not good at transmitting off of surfaces. Being in an enclosed place with other people for extended periods of time is bad. Subways should not be operating PERIOD. Heck in laxydasical Florida you cant even get an uber right now but NYC didn't shut down the friggen subway? No wonder they have 14x more covid deaths than Florida which has been chastized in the media whilst having the lowest covid death rates even regionally.
Xenomancers wrote: A prolonged lockdown actually has the potential to cause the virus to kill more people as it ensures there is an active body of people who can transmit the virus. .
You're going to have to explain this one.
A lockdown restricts population movement and population interaction and duration of those interactions. Any infected "pockets" of population should, with the lockdown and self isolation due to infection, remain more isolated and thus reduce the potential spread of the virus to new populations and people. Done right with track and trace so you can put infected (and those who came into contact with infected) into not just lockdown, but full isolation for a few weeks, means that you contain and eliminate the virus spread.
I think the idea is that because we have restricted where people can go it will cause everybody who does go out to go to the same places. Which results in more people being in proximity than they would otherwise. IE: If people would normally go to X, Y , and Z, but during lockdown only Z is open, then everybody will go to Z. Which results in everybody being in 1 place as opposed to 3.
I certainly know at Costco that we've had much higher numbers of people in the store at all times compared to normal. Its like a busy weekend, but every day of the week rather than just on the weekend.
This explanation explains why the lock-down measures aren't very effective. People are still coming into contact with lots of people. So the virus still spreads.
The reason lockdowns can kill more people specfic to the virus is it can cause the pandemic to reach more people based on a longer time to spread because of the lack of herd immunity in communities.
Xenomancers wrote: A prolonged lockdown actually has the potential to cause the virus to kill more people as it ensures there is an active body of people who can transmit the virus. .
You're going to have to explain this one.
To be as polite as possible; it may be best if you leave that line of discussion be.
Xenomancers wrote: A prolonged lockdown actually has the potential to cause the virus to kill more people as it ensures there is an active body of people who can transmit the virus. .
You're going to have to explain this one.
A lockdown restricts population movement and population interaction and duration of those interactions. Any infected "pockets" of population should, with the lockdown and self isolation due to infection, remain more isolated and thus reduce the potential spread of the virus to new populations and people. Done right with track and trace so you can put infected (and those who came into contact with infected) into not just lockdown, but full isolation for a few weeks, means that you contain and eliminate the virus spread.
I think the idea is that because we have restricted where people can go it will cause everybody who does go out to go to the same places. Which results in more people being in proximity than they would otherwise. IE: If people would normally go to X, Y , and Z, but during lockdown only Z is open, then everybody will go to Z. Which results in everybody being in 1 place as opposed to 3.
I certainly know at Costco that we've had much higher numbers of people in the store at all times compared to normal. Its like a busy weekend, but every day of the week rather than just on the weekend.
This explanation explains why the lock-down measures aren't very effective. People are still coming into contact with lots of people. So the virus still spreads.
The reason lockdowns can kill more people specfic to the virus is it can cause the pandemic to reach more people based on a longer time to spread because of the lack of herd immunity in communities.
But herd immunity (without vaccine) requires the virus to spread to the majority of the population in order to take effect. I think the number quoted is at least 60% of the population being exposed.
Speeding things up doesn't help the virus reach less people, if anything it would reach more because there's no curtailment on infection spread. Furthermore you note that hospitals were not overwhelmed, whilst accepting that the lockdown reduced the rate of spread. Clearly if the lockdown reduces the rate of spread then that makes it easier for hospitals to deal with the cases they do get without being overwhelmed which saves lives.
Furthermore the longer you draw things out the more time the medical community has to train, study, prepare and research the virus. Developing new methods to treat it; learning the danger signs better; having a greater understanding and heck just being able to have more time to purchase essential drugs, ppe and other required resources. Heck the UK hasn't had "overwhelmed medical services" and yet there's been a PPE shortage the whole time in some sectors; we've had huge problems with the medical care for care homes and we've had doctors pulling longer and longer shifts to cover those they did get. Sure perhaps not every corona bed was filled; but the system already was showing cracks before reaching that bed capacity. Wtihout lockdown we'd have hit those limits hard; then hit the bed limits to the point where you can't go to hospital because there won't be a bed on the ICU ward; there won't even be a chair in the waiting lobby.
Xenomancers wrote: A prolonged lockdown actually has the potential to cause the virus to kill more people as it ensures there is an active body of people who can transmit the virus. .
You're going to have to explain this one.
A lockdown restricts population movement and population interaction and duration of those interactions. Any infected "pockets" of population should, with the lockdown and self isolation due to infection, remain more isolated and thus reduce the potential spread of the virus to new populations and people. Done right with track and trace so you can put infected (and those who came into contact with infected) into not just lockdown, but full isolation for a few weeks, means that you contain and eliminate the virus spread.
I think the idea is that because we have restricted where people can go it will cause everybody who does go out to go to the same places. Which results in more people being in proximity than they would otherwise. IE: If people would normally go to X, Y , and Z, but during lockdown only Z is open, then everybody will go to Z. Which results in everybody being in 1 place as opposed to 3.
I certainly know at Costco that we've had much higher numbers of people in the store at all times compared to normal. Its like a busy weekend, but every day of the week rather than just on the weekend.
This explanation explains why the lock-down measures aren't very effective. People are still coming into contact with lots of people. So the virus still spreads.
The reason lockdowns can kill more people specfic to the virus is it can cause the pandemic to reach more people based on a longer time to spread because of the lack of herd immunity in communities.
But herd immunity (without vaccine) requires the virus to spread to the majority of the population in order to take effect. I think the number quoted is at least 60% of the population being exposed.
Speeding things up doesn't help the virus reach less people, if anything it would reach more because there's no curtailment on infection spread. Furthermore you note that hospitals were not overwhelmed, whilst accepting that the lockdown reduced the rate of spread. Clearly if the lockdown reduces the rate of spread then that makes it easier for hospitals to deal with the cases they do get without being overwhelmed which saves lives.
Furthermore the longer you draw things out the more time the medical community has to train, study, prepare and research the virus. Developing new methods to treat it; learning the danger signs better; having a greater understanding and heck just being able to have more time to purchase essential drugs, ppe and other required resources. Heck the UK hasn't had "overwhelmed medical services" and yet there's been a PPE shortage the whole time in some sectors; we've had huge problems with the medical care for care homes and we've had doctors pulling longer and longer shifts to cover those they did get. Sure perhaps not every corona bed was filled; but the system already was showing cracks before reaching that bed capacity. Wtihout lockdown we'd have hit those limits hard; then hit the bed limits to the point where you can't go to hospital because there won't be a bed on the ICU ward; there won't even be a chair in the waiting lobby.
I am not arguing against the initial lockdown. That has merit because #1 we didn't know exactly what we were dealing with. and #2 it gave our medical facilities time to get things in order. I am arguing against prolong lockdown. Our medical facilities have had time to build up their resources and we know what we are dealing with a lot better now. In regards to herd immunity the closer to you get to 100% exposure obviously the better it works but the fewer number of people who are capable of spreading the virus means the virus will reach less people. Not to mention the fact that this virus DOES NOT KILL people under 60 at a scary rate. Developing herd immunity in the active under 60 population is what is important because it is actually quite easy to isolate the vunerable from the young and healthy for a few months.
The toll of the lockdown will never be fully known. How could we possibly track people who decide to turn to crime (a dangerous profession) because they can't afford to feed their family? Financial consequences created by people being unemployed can take years to develop too. There is no disputing this. Poverty and unemployment cause rates of suicide/crime to rise. So lockdowns kill people too.
Nobody is arguing that quarantines don't have downsides, but society has options and resources to address these problems as well, particularly the wealthiest and most powerful society in human history. And, once again, significant economic disruption was almost certainly going to occur anyway, see my example on the previous page about game stores.
Plus realistically - the lockdowns we have in place aren't restrictive enough to make a big difference. For example...In NYC they didn't even close the subways (a subway car is probably the worst place to be in a pandemic). People crowd into grocery stores to fight over toilet paper and pork chops waiting in lines around the building. These are pretty ineffective measures to begin with.
There is space to debate specific measures, but just because one feels that the NYC subway system wasn't properly handled doesn't mean that the larger issue of temporary quarantines was invalid. NYC also went to great lengths to actively disinfect those subways and reduce travel on them, and has a uniquely high population density with all that entails. Most of the gigantic lines and waits were at the outset of the crisis. Toilet paper crunches haven't been a thing for a while.
The toll of the lockdown will never be fully known. How could we possibly track people who decide to turn to crime (a dangerous profession) because they can't afford to feed their family? Financial consequences created by people being unemployed can take years to develop too. There is no disputing this. Poverty and unemployment cause rates of suicide/crime to rise. So lockdowns kill people too.
Nobody is arguing that quarantines don't have downsides, but society has options and resources to address these problems as well, particularly the wealthiest and most powerful society in human history. And, once again, significant economic disruption was almost certainly going to occur anyway, see my example on the previous page about game stores.
Plus realistically - the lockdowns we have in place aren't restrictive enough to make a big difference. For example...In NYC they didn't even close the subways (a subway car is probably the worst place to be in a pandemic). People crowd into grocery stores to fight over toilet paper and pork chops waiting in lines around the building. These are pretty ineffective measures to begin with.
There is space to debate specific measures, but just because one feels that the NYC subway system wasn't properly handled doesn't mean that the larger issue of temporary quarantines was invalid. NYC also went to great lengths to actively disinfect those subways and reduce travel on them, and has a uniquely high population density with all that entails. Most of the gigantic lines and waits were at the outset of the crisis. Toilet paper crunches haven't been a thing for a while.
Those were just examples. People are still going to grocery stores in mass because they can't go to restaurants. The point is there is still a lot of contact between people. Not to mention people who work in the essential businesses having excessive contact. So everyone who goes shopping for food comes into contact with people who have come into contact with everyone in the local community. Masks and distancing have some effective in mitigation but it is far from perfect. I'm just saying the measures aren't great and IMO not great to the point they have basically no effect over doing nothing. Except - doing nothing does not have the economic destruction which also ends lives.
Let's talk about "essential businesses" for a second here.
What qualifies as "essential businesses" varies from state to state...and it really is a Red v Blue thing as to how the "essential businesses" are being monitored. My youngest brother's job was considered "an essential business"...and he works in fast food. That stuff isn't "essential". It's convenient, not essential. Essential is things like EMS, police, fire, grocery stores, medical services, gas stations, insurance/home repair related items, etc. If his bosses hadn't been willing to accommodate him because of his asthma & compromised immune system? He was going to flat-out quit.
I'm sure someone will be along to say that I'm being "elitist" or whatever, but the people whose jobs were looked down upon prior to this are suddenly now considered "essential" and yet measures were not really taken to showcase this until it started affecting corporations.
queen_annes_revenge wrote: It depends on how you quantify essential. one could make the argument that all jobs are essential to the holder of that job.
Essential job" means that the job is an essential service.
There's no "quantifying" that changes this. Gamestop wasn't an "essential service".
Xenomancers wrote: The main thing that is frustrating is even now in this thread is people still tote that lockdowns save lives. They don't beyond keeping the hospitals from being overrun
Xenomancers wrote: The main thing that is frustrating is even now in this thread is people still tote that lockdowns save lives. They don't beyond keeping the hospitals from being overrun
You were so close to getting it.
What am I missing exactly? Because I went on to explain that hospitals aren't being overrun anywhere. So perhaps a lockdown could be effective in the right circumstance or in a specific region but here in the states where we have more hospitals than we need really - the only thing lock-downs do is make initial #'s of deaths lower while essentially saving 0 lives in the long run. They can potentially be causing more death by slowing the rate of herd immunity and they will certainly cause MORE deaths in the long run through economic hardships. That is basically my argument in a nutshell. Whats missing?
Lockdowns don't save lives lost to the virus depending on how it spreads, the point is to prevent pointless loss of life in a swamped healthcare system. The virus kills about 1% as far as we're aware. As was shown in Italy, that % can shoot up if you can't manage the infection rate. These first lockdowns were implemented to get a grip on the spread so that the point of Italy wouldn't be reached.
I'm also very confused how slowing the rate of herd immunity will cause more deaths? If about 1% dies of the virus, how does that suddenly go up by slowing down the road to herd immunity?
Kanluwen wrote: My youngest brother's job was considered "an essential business"...and he works in fast food. That stuff isn't "essential".
On some level I agree, however there are actually a fair number of locales where such establishments unfortunately comprise a significant proportion of local food supply, and in general restaurants have been allowed to continue operating as long as they were take-out only. Most anything food related that could be done without dine-in generally appears to have fallen under the "Essential" category.
What was odd to me was that my job, an office job that could be done remotely, was deemed "essential", I've been working from home for over two months
Those were just examples. People are still going to grocery stores in mass because they can't go to restaurants. The point is there is still a lot of contact between people. Not to mention people who work in the essential businesses having excessive contact. So everyone who goes shopping for food comes into contact with people who have come into contact with everyone in the local community. Masks and distancing have some effective in mitigation but it is far from perfect. I'm just saying the measures aren't great and IMO not great to the point they have basically no effect over doing nothing. Except - doing nothing does not have the economic destruction which also ends lives.
There is no perfect answer or clear solution or method to keep everyone from being harmed, significant economic damage was going to occur either way, however there are more proactive means of addressing that which can be explored if government chooses to do so. The bulk of the epidemiology and professional medical community would disagree that the the steps taken had basically no effect.
What am I missing exactly? Because I went on to explain that hospitals aren't being overrun anywhere.
Which was the point, the quarantines appear to have worked as intended in that regard.
the only thing lock-downs do is make initial #'s of deaths lower while essentially saving 0 lives in the long run. They can potentially be causing more death by slowing the rate of herd immunity and they will certainly cause MORE deaths in the long run through economic hardships.
There is no data to support the idea that the economic issues will cause more deaths in the long run, and again, the wealthiest and most powerful society in the history of the human race has options and resources to address those economic hardships.
Disciple of Fate wrote: Lockdowns don't save lives lost to the virus depending on how it spreads, the point is to prevent pointless loss of life in a swamped healthcare system. The virus kills about 1% as far as we're aware. As was shown in Italy, that % can shoot up if you can't manage the infection rate. These first lockdowns were implemented to get a grip on the spread so that the point of Italy wouldn't be reached.
I'm also very confused how slowing the rate of herd immunity will cause more deaths? If 1% dies of the virus, how does that suddenly go up by slowing down the road to herd immunity?
We still aren't at a point yet were we can adequately rely on these mortality rates. Without knowing the total number infected in a region you can not come up with a reliable mortality rate. Deaths per 100k pop are the best indicator right now of problem areas. The mortality rate should be approximately the same everywhere with only slight differences based on geographic and demographic criteria. Also there seriously ill on this virus die anyways. 9 out of 10 people that go on ventilators don't make it. So I don't think it's really even access to medical care. A good portion of people who are saved in hospitals are saved because they were kept off the ventilators. The point is - other than assisting people with breathing that don't require ventilators (probably weren't going to die anyways) there inst really a lot they can do.
Disciple of Fate wrote: Lockdowns don't save lives lost to the virus depending on how it spreads, the point is to prevent pointless loss of life in a swamped healthcare system. The virus kills about 1% as far as we're aware. As was shown in Italy, that % can shoot up if you can't manage the infection rate. These first lockdowns were implemented to get a grip on the spread so that the point of Italy wouldn't be reached.
I'm also very confused how slowing the rate of herd immunity will cause more deaths? If 1% dies of the virus, how does that suddenly go up by slowing down the road to herd immunity?
We still aren't at a point yet were we can adequately rely on these mortality rates. Without knowing the total number infected in a region you can not come up with a reliable mortality rate. Deaths per 100k pop are the best indicator right now of problem areas. The mortality rate should be approximately the same everywhere with only slight differences based on geographic and demographic criteria. Also there seriously ill on this virus die anyways. 9 out of 10 people that go on ventilators don't make it. So I don't think it's really even access to medical care. A good portion of people who are saved in hospitals are saved because they were kept off the ventilators. The point is - other than assisting people with breathing that don't require ventilators (probably weren't going to die anyways) there inst really a lot they can do.
Yes, hence the "as far as we're aware" line. But that doesn't even matter to the overall argument you're making. If a hospital is full because of virus patients, if there is no more room on the ICU, people who could be saved are going to die. Resources are limited, healthcare personnel is limited. They have two hands, two feet and need to rest like the rest of us. Cramming infections into a short period of time is going to overload not just hospital space, but also burn out the people supposed to keep it running.
H wrote: The question is, just what is "rational?" Just like trying to give a comprehensive answer to just what "truth" is or what "casality" actually is, it seems as if it would be trivially easy, but the more you dig in, the less clear it seems to be. You could say, in a casual sense, "well, rationality is the use of reason." The we need to say, "what then is reason?" And we are unlikely, I think to get to a "bottom" along those lines.
I think I want to tentatively say that "rationality" and "reason" are just something like normative claims. I don't really have any way to fill that out though, as I said, it is not something I've really managed to dive into. That being said though, I think, if we look at things with something of a historical lense, there are a number of reasons why we aren't all just Logical Positivists now. The notion of logic and/or reason as sufficient just isn't really, well, sufficient.
I don't know if that's of much use but I recently re-read How We Decide (pop science) by Jonah Lehrer (plagiarism and quote fabrication scandal, so who knows how accurate that is but he quotes scientists in that book so it might be worth looking into the underlying research) and there are chapters about morality, rationality, and decision making (trying to connect it on a biological/neurological level). I think the conclusion about relying on rationality was that too much of it leads to self-doubt and indecision, and people with neurological issues that cause extremely rationality end up making really bad decisions or no decisions at all. They end up prioritising the wrong data points as they can't evaluate the importance of things or they just can't decide at all.
People who feel like they are being rational or reasonable in their decision making are often just rationalising everything, and not being rational or reasonable at all. Their brain just likes that decision and convinces itself that they made a good decision. Nothing feels as good as feeling right.
Grey Templar wrote:
Disciple of Fate wrote: Saying unless you're old or compromised it will be nothing more than a bad flu is just sticking your head in the sand. Look at all the reports of side effects and permanent damage it can cause in even young people. There is absolutely no guarantee that if you catch it, it will just be a 'bad flu' at worst, this is the worst kind of hubris.
Every case I've seen of a supposedly healthy young person getting it super bad has turned out to have been a person who had some other underlying condition. That by default puts them in the compromised category.
The problem seems to be that "underlying conditions" has a really wide spectrum. Stuff that—in the USA—wouldn't even count as a pre-existing condition. There were reports of otherwise healthy people (technically not in danger) where the virus was harsh on their respiratory system. There are a bunch of people who officially count as survivors but who'll have a hard time doing even light sports for the rest of their lives. And it seems that the virus can also attack the circulatory system, depending on how good/bad your immune system is. Even some teenagers have died. These early guidelines (about who's affected the worse) may have just been lucky in that they covered a sizeable chunk of potentially critical indicators but it seems like there's more that we just don't know too much about because those are not as easy to categorise as "old" and "bad health". Even with a lower than expected death rate the amount of people who'll end up with really bad after effects seems significant on its own.
Not Online!!! wrote:Then again i am also expecting a hike in Central europe after the reopening of Shops because people just can't help themselves after witnessing today....
I think so too, we had multiple protests here in Germany and some people are behaving really carelessly. They wear masks pro forma but don't care how good of a fit it has (some don't even cover their noses, others use scarves in a way can only loosely be described as a mask).
When I was buying groceries two days ago the couple behind me at the checkout was standing right behind me as if it's still 2019. I didn't say anything because I didn't know if they were "corona truthers" or if they were just a bit careless and I didn't want to risk an escalation with idiots so I just tried to crate some distance between us. But for some reason my "I didn't shower for a day" scent didn't dissuade them from reducing that distance every time I tried to escape them :/
H wrote: The question is, just what is "rational?" Just like trying to give a comprehensive answer to just what "truth" is or what "casality" actually is, it seems as if it would be trivially easy, but the more you dig in, the less clear it seems to be. You could say, in a casual sense, "well, rationality is the use of reason." The we need to say, "what then is reason?" And we are unlikely, I think to get to a "bottom" along those lines.
I think I want to tentatively say that "rationality" and "reason" are just something like normative claims. I don't really have any way to fill that out though, as I said, it is not something I've really managed to dive into. That being said though, I think, if we look at things with something of a historical lense, there are a number of reasons why we aren't all just Logical Positivists now. The notion of logic and/or reason as sufficient just isn't really, well, sufficient.
I don't know if that's of much use but I recently re-read How We Decide (pop science) by Jonah Lehrer (plagiarism and quote fabrication scandal, so who knows how accurate that is but he quotes scientists in that book so it might be worth looking into the underlying research) and there are chapters about morality, rationality, and decision making (trying to connect it on a biological/neurological level). I think the conclusion about relying on rationality was that too much of it leads to self-doubt and indecision, and people with neurological issues that cause extremely rationality end up making really bad decisions or no decisions at all. They end up prioritising the wrong data points as they can't evaluate the importance of things or they just can't decide at all.
Which hits on the point that true rationality accounts for emotion, and that making decisions solely based on 'cold logic' is, quite ironically, irrational. But someone who has never experienced normal emotions will be unable to properly evaluate that element. Yet to be truly rational one must be able to feel the emotions involved, while also being able to evaluate the situation without their own emotions interfering. The result is that the 'ideal' rationalize-er would be able to feel emotions normally but also 'turn them off' as needed. Obviously no one can do that, so we settle with getting as close as we can. For the overwhelming majority of people emotion and ignorance pose the largest interference with analyzing a situation, thus leading to the meaning of logical generally pushing towards less-emotion-equals-better-logic.
Long story short; just because logic is not perfect does not mean it is not important. And that the more emotion is involved in a situation the more critical it is to evaluate it's impact, BUT also the more critical it is to keep emotion out of one's own evaluation.
Anyone checked the numbers? Denmark, Austria, Holland, France, and Switzerland have all started easing lockdown around 2 weeks ago or before. Any sign of spikes?
Kilkrazy wrote: I think the point is that everyone can measure 2 metres rationally but you have to acknowledge that a lot of people either won't or will ignore it.
Measuring isn't always easy. Whilst we might all know what 2m is on a tape measure, it doesn't mean we are all familiar with it as a distance in realty. That's why the government advice keeps saying things like "1bed, 2 fridges, a trolley etc..." ergo things people can relate to in their environments and life as a reference point. As gamers (esp if you ever played Warmachine MK1 or 2) you really saw this in how some people with practice could measure distances really well by eye; others couldn't until the tape measure was on the board. Reality is just the same, only most people aren't landscapers or buildres measuring stuff all the time.
The other aspect is its an alien behaviour to us. It's really different and you're going up against decades of normal life. In addition its not consistent. There are many many times you are going to go within the 2m spacing; both casually and deliberately in different situations. It thus becomes a hard thing to continually maintain vigilance with. Even though its a really simple concept.
queen_annes_revenge wrote: Anyone checked the numbers? Denmark, Austria, Holland, France, and Switzerland have all started easing lockdown around 2 weeks ago or before. Any sign of spikes?
Here in Ontario, a lot of things opened up on the 19th. We just hit our 4th day in a row of increased cases. I can only imagine how bad the numbers will be in 2 weeks. We were on a serious downward trend too.
I see that on the chart. Bear in mind though that your incline started later than those in Europe, so you may just be hovering around a peak before declining again, possibly?
queen_annes_revenge wrote: Anyone checked the numbers? Denmark, Austria, Holland, France, and Switzerland have all started easing lockdown around 2 weeks ago or before. Any sign of spikes?
Here in Ontario, a lot of things opened up on the 19th. We just hit our 4th day in a row of increased cases. I can only imagine how bad the numbers will be in 2 weeks. We were on a serious downward trend too.
Where I live, we just had a federal judge appointed by a very specific political party that is all about "religious freedom" for one group strike down a restriction on in-person, indoors church services. So we're expecting a biiiiiiiiiiiig spike soon.
queen_annes_revenge wrote: I see that on the chart. Bear in mind though that your incline started later than those in Europe, so you may just be hovering around a peak before declining again, possibly?
I hope so, but honestly I think the weather was doing more to keep people isolated than anything else. We were ten degrees below seasonal for 4 weeks running. It was fething cold for quite a while. Now that we're consistently over 20 degrees C, I expect there will be way more community transmission as people start going out and enjoying the weather.
Next monday Markus 14 days for us, including incubation time we will probably See a first rise in cases over the weekend and further forwards more again.
Hence my comment.
The behaviour has changed completely schizophrenucally from 0-100 for some people...
queen_annes_revenge wrote: Possibly, many seem to think that outdoor activity doesn't seem to be the main driver of it though
It depends on the nature of that outdoor activity.
Walking in the woods 2m apart fine. Basking on a crowded beach where you're lazing around shoulder to shoulder; then lining up at a busy kiosk for icecreams and then all busying in and out of the same carpark at the same time and touching the same surfaces in quick succession etc.. - totally different story and potential for exchange. Being outside in itself is not a protection, its just less likely than in an enclosed space. Furthermore crowds and dense populations of people are still a huge risk no matter if you are inside or out.
I fail to see how a lockdown is going to cost lives. Cabin Fever doesnt kill, Corona does
Now if you mean that people lost their jobs and their medical insurance and way to eat, that sounds like a problem the government should be fixing and we should as well.
But hey, as long as people die in order to get their precious haircuts and golf, i guess it is fine.
I fail to see how a lockdown is going to cost lives.
Really?
Without thinking...
- fatalities as domestic abuse worsens due to prolonged close proximity
- suicide because mental health issues escalate
- people don't seek urgent medical treatment due to poor understanding of limits
queen_annes_revenge wrote: Anyone checked the numbers? Denmark, Austria, Holland, France, and Switzerland have all started easing lockdown around 2 weeks ago or before. Any sign of spikes?
Here in Ontario, a lot of things opened up on the 19th. We just hit our 4th day in a row of increased cases. I can only imagine how bad the numbers will be in 2 weeks. We were on a serious downward trend too.
Did your number of tests increase? Our raw numbers have gone up but our rate of positive tests has gone down.
Measuring isn't always easy. Whilst we might all know what 2m is on a tape measure, it doesn't mean we are all familiar with it as a distance in realty. That's why the government advice keeps saying things like "1bed, 2 fridges, a trolley etc..." ergo things people can relate to in their environments and life as a reference point. As gamers (esp if you ever played Warmachine MK1 or 2) you really saw this in how some people with practice could measure distances really well by eye; others couldn't until the tape measure was on the board. Reality is just the same, only most people aren't landscapers or buildres measuring stuff all the time.
'3 paces' is the commonly used guideline over here. Telling people to estimate multiple fridges just seems needlessly awkward.
queen_annes_revenge wrote: Anyone checked the numbers? Denmark, Austria, Holland, France, and Switzerland have all started easing lockdown around 2 weeks ago or before. Any sign of spikes?
Here in Ontario, a lot of things opened up on the 19th. We just hit our 4th day in a row of increased cases. I can only imagine how bad the numbers will be in 2 weeks. We were on a serious downward trend too.
Did your number of tests increase? Our raw numbers have gone up but our rate of positive tests has gone down.
The opposite, actually. They've gone down. Ontario now has a huge backlog even amidst the rising numbers of infections.
queen_annes_revenge wrote: Yup, except your survival rate with a Velociraptor contact is probably significantly lower than 99%...
if anything the survival rate would 100% over here because let's just say that locals tend to react with guns against predators of all kinds touching livestock over here.
Even if the species is endangered.
queen_annes_revenge wrote: Yup, except your survival rate with a Velociraptor contact is probably significantly lower than 99%...
if anything the survival rate would 100% over here because let's just say that locals tend to react with guns against predators of all kinds touching livestock over here.
Even if the species is endangered.
queen_annes_revenge wrote: Yup, except your survival rate with a Velociraptor contact is probably significantly lower than 99%...
if anything the survival rate would 100% over here because let's just say that locals tend to react with guns against predators of all kinds touching livestock over here.
Even if the species is endangered.
Can regular citizens carry over there?
theorethically and practically yes , allbeit it is difficult to get a license to carry one just willy nilly when there is an Obligatorisches or any other shooting festival (which there are a lot ), then nobody tends to ask questions, but like with all things switzerland, does the "regular" citizen care enough to give a crap about the opinion of the federal government?
Not everywhere, considering how fast wolves and bears end up as pelts when they dare touch livestock, especially in rural cantons.
queen_annes_revenge wrote: Yup, except your survival rate with a Velociraptor contact is probably significantly lower than 99%...
That is offset by the fact that the number of velociraptors doesn't scale with the population.
Yeah, a direct comparison would require a new velociraptor to possibly spawn and attack anyone who comes to close to anyone else currently being attacked, or anyone being stalked by a velociraptor but so far unaware of its presence...
hotsauceman1 wrote: I fail to see how a lockdown is going to cost lives. Cabin Fever doesnt kill, Corona does
Now if you mean that people lost their jobs and their medical insurance and way to eat, that sounds like a problem the government should be fixing and we should as well.
But hey, as long as people die in order to get their precious haircuts and golf, i guess it is fine.
It kills the elderly or those with severe medical illnesses almost universally. Just like influenza for those who do not get the influenza vaccine.
The average age of death from coronavirus in Australia is 80 years old... I had read similar in the US but cannot find the article, sure young people will die, and healthy ones. Big news in my local town last year when a healthy 36 year old woman died of influenza.
The ridiculous hype generated by the media was disgusting. Did anyone in the US die from the lack of a ventilator? Last month a shortage was a huge portion of the panic, yet now The mainstream media says/writes nothing because the need never arose.
The ridiculous hype generated by the media was disgusting. Did anyone in the US die from the lack of a ventilator? Last month a shortage was a huge portion of the panic, yet now The mainstream media says/writes nothing because the need never arose.
The answer is: we won't know. Not because "tHe MaInStReAm MeDiA!1!!" won't report on it, but because some localities that are being hit hard(Florida, the Midwest, other Republican governed states) have been found to be fudging the numbers. Couple that with either undertesting, not testing at all, or an inability to test?
It presents an issue to say definitively what was or wasn't an issue. And it wasn't just the shortage that was the panic--it was the fact that the federal stockpile supply of ventilators and PPE were being sent to countries and Republican-centric states friendly to the current administration while other states(NY and CA being notable examples) were being told that they had to "buy them for themselves".
Ah yes, the old mixed case mock. the universal sign of the straw man.
its perfectly valid to point out the media conveniently not correcting things that differ from previous things they said. if anything, its important we call it out to keep the news media at least somewhat honest.
I'd prefer the media be willing to say, look this is what we thought, but it turns out this is actually the case now we're further down the road, than to just not mention it and hope no one notices.
hotsauceman1 wrote: I fail to see how a lockdown is going to cost lives. Cabin Fever doesnt kill, Corona does
Now if you mean that people lost their jobs and their medical insurance and way to eat, that sounds like a problem the government should be fixing and we should as well.
But hey, as long as people die in order to get their precious haircuts and golf, i guess it is fine.
It kills the elderly or those with severe medical illnesses almost universally. Just like influenza for those who do not get the influenza vaccine.
The average age of death from coronavirus in Australia is 80 years old... I had read similar in the US but cannot find the article, sure young people will die, and healthy ones. Big news in my local town last year when a healthy 36 year old woman died of influenza.
The ridiculous hype generated by the media was disgusting. Did anyone in the US die from the lack of a ventilator? Last month a shortage was a huge portion of the panic, yet now The mainstream media says/writes nothing because the need never arose.
The treatment also changed substantially. Ventilators are a last ditch effort and substantial evidence is coming out that it can make things worse in a lot of ways from excessively high pressure etc. A Zinc Ionophore + Zinc can help prevent the more severe symptoms from developing if given early enough while plasma therapy is pretty effective for treating some of the more advanced cases. More recovered people means more potential sources for the antibodies needed in plasma therapy so it has a snowball effect in a positive way.
The ridiculous hype generated by the media was disgusting. Did anyone in the US die from the lack of a ventilator? Last month a shortage was a huge portion of the panic, yet now The mainstream media says/writes nothing because the need never arose.
Not a mad fan of the deification of the nhs, but great to see communities giving support. Here in Northern Ireland our tradition mural painters have turned their hands to add to that support. Some photos here might be of interest to everyone in the rest of UK.
The ridiculous hype generated by the media was disgusting. Did anyone in the US die from the lack of a ventilator? Last month a shortage was a huge portion of the panic, yet now The mainstream media says/writes nothing because the need never arose.
Lord Damocles wrote: They know Captain Moore was in WWII and not on the Western Front during WWI, right..?
I think the silhouette of a soldier is used as it’s a fairly common symbol of soldiery in battle used in murals. After all they used the statue of the US troops raising the flag at Iwo Jima in another mural to symbolise the ‘battle’. No ones suggesting the drs are US marines
queen_annes_revenge wrote: Possibly, many seem to think that outdoor activity doesn't seem to be the main driver of it though
It depends on the nature of that outdoor activity.
Walking in the woods 2m apart fine. Basking on a crowded beach where you're lazing around shoulder to shoulder; then lining up at a busy kiosk for icecreams and then all busying in and out of the same carpark at the same time and touching the same surfaces in quick succession etc.. - totally different story and potential for exchange. Being outside in itself is not a protection, its just less likely than in an enclosed space. Furthermore crowds and dense populations of people are still a huge risk no matter if you are inside or out.
Some of the articles I have read seem to indicate outdoor transmission is unlikely (parks, walking, things like that), as you say other than when you are coming into close contact. That being said, a study in NY thought that it can be transmitted by talking (not even coughing or sneezing) within a couple of feet. A study in China indicated that the virus can transmit through ventilation systems in buildings (there was an example of an individual catching it on another floor of a restaurant). Finally, an infected person in a church in Korea they believe passed the virus to around 500 people that were in the same building (!) So, it sounds like it is extremely virulent, and if these instances are true, you don't want to be in any kind of enclosed space with someone that has the virus.
The ny study that "thought" it could be transmitted is dubious to extend to outdoor circumstances, where the dynamics of windflow are very different.
Inside cases like buses, churches, school rooms, parties, or such include a high likelyhood of either unstirred air layers that "hang out" next to the talker, or recirculated air that pumps the same virus back into the same room constantly. Neither applies to outdoor situations, where air is constantly (even if imperceptibly) stirred, and where dispersion rather than recirculation is the result.
It presents an issue to say definitively what was or wasn't an issue. And it wasn't just the shortage that was the panic--it was the fact that the federal stockpile supply of ventilators and PPE were being sent to countries and Republican-centric states friendly to the current administration while other states(NY and CA being notable examples) were being told that they had to "buy them for themselves".
The worst death rate per million of any country is Belgium with as of today 797 per million deaths or 0.0797%.
The highest detected infection rate in a country with substantial numbers is Spain with 6040 cases per million. Or 0.604%.
The Black Death where 1/3 of the population of Europe is wiped out this is not.
Be sensible, have social distancing, don’t go out if unwell with respiratory symptoms, wash your hands and secure those at high risk like the extreme elderly or people with multiple co-morbidities.
queen_annes_revenge wrote: Belgium seems to allow docs to put CV 19 on death certs on s basis of if they feel like it, eg without lab confirmation.
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So a professional with years of schooling and experience is allowed to use their professional judgement and save the existing tests for people who aren't dead/dying. Sounds like a good thing. Better than refusing to count someone as dead from Covid-19 unless they are specifically tested for it and making the test impossible to get. Sounds like a great way to cover up the number of fatalities from this pandemic.
Did I express an opinion on the matter either way?
If they do do that, it seems pertinent (to me at least) that the deaths should at least be confirmed at a later date , and totals be amended accordingly, or have a separate category for suspected not confirmed.
If they do do that, it seems pertinent (to me at least) that the deaths should at least be confirmed at a later date , and totals be amended accordingly, or have a separate category for suspected not confirmed.
I do not recall you displaying nearly the same level of concern for deaths by covid that are not counted as such, of which there are a huge number. Certainly your response given the relative situations seems considerably lopsided, and I am curious as to why that is.
Tests should are in a limited supply and should be limited to those they can help. It's ridiculous to keep dead bodies around to wait for a test that won't help them at all.
Limiting death numbers to those that are 'proven' by tests only has the purpose of empowering bad faith actors that want to lie sbout how bad this disease is to fit their agenda.
Adding a different number for 'suspected' cases only empowers these bad faith actors that would intentionally ignore those numbers and make dishonest arguments.
I'm not sure why you're concluding that the tests on samples from a cadaver are the same as tests for living people. Have you fact checked this at all?
Those who want to manipulate statistics on a more extreme level for an agenda will do so no matter what you present to them. They will use every trick they can (and that's before media twists and spins on reporting) to miss represent.
I think the key is not to necessarily worry about them, but to ensure a fair and accurate production of the data.
If you allow doctors to pronounce a persons condition and cause of death as something without testing for the condition (which we have a test for). Then there is a risk, not just of miss representation of deathrate figures, but that other medical data associated with that patient, might be combined into data in assessing an analysing patterns regarding the disease. It might throw up oddities which might distract investigating researchers who then waste valuable time and resources chasing a red herring that could have been avoided.
The safest approach is to permit doctors to record the suspected cause or contributing factor toward death as being Corona, but to keep that data as a separate group from confirmed cases. That thus means that any research on that data can be conducted in a sensible manner. Abnormalities between the two data groups can then be better understood to potentially be the result of the lack of confirmation within one data group.
Sure someone might then pick the single confirmed number to report on instead of the confirmed and suspected; but they can do that anyway. Heck the UK government for a long while was only reported confirmed cases in hospitals and not including cases outside of hospitals (and deaths) even when they were confirmed with testing. This was done for quite a while, but now that data has been rolled into one.
Keep the source of data clear and don't combine groups that are not the same or which are not proven the same by the same testing processes and such. That at least keeps data clear for study by professionals even if media and government groups then spend time playing with the numbers.
Quite frankly, testing post-mortum is not a good use of lab or technician time. Not to mention, it delays the bodies being released to the families. We can just trust the skilled professionals.
Yes, errors will occur, but we're talking dozens or hundreds out of over 100k deaths already. This is not a statistically significant number. Especially since covid-related deaths are already under reported.
However he also had a blood alcohol level of .55. That is 2 bottles of whiskey in an hour and then maintaining at least 2 drinks per hour to keep it there. The county coroner found he had died from alcohol poisoning, not the coronavirus.
The state had to change the way deaths are reported due to the legal ramifications so now you can die ‘with’ or ‘from’ COVID19, how it should have been from the start.
What if he had been in a car crash and injured someone? His insurance could claim he had coronavirus and coughed, causing the crash as that was the cause of death.
If a patient of mine gets influenza, then pneumonia, I list pneumonia as cause of death with influenza as an antecedent cause.
If a diabetic patient dies from heart attack, diabetes is an antecedent cause, not THE cause of death.
Waaagh_Gonads wrote: The state had to change the way deaths are reported due to the legal ramifications so now you can die ‘with’ or ‘from’ COVID19, how it should have been from the start.
Medical questions like these are never simple or cut and dried, that said, such issues aren't new or unique to this disease either, and data is always *far* messier than people think, and there's a reason that often deaths for a certain cause have "-related" attached to them. Same way nobody dies of AIDS directly, it doesn't kill in and of itself, it's the other diseases and conditions it opens the body to that actually does people in. It's also why research takes so long, cleaning data for stuff like that is extremely laborious. I have enough trouble at work just fixing part numbers in database tables
As a somewhat amusing/morbid side note, when people on death row are put to death, it's typically noted as a homicide by the medical examiner.
skyth wrote: Quite frankly, testing post-mortum is not a good use of lab or technician time.
It absolutely is. When you're trying to contain a worldwide epidemic, knowing how has it (or had it) and who they come in contact with is very, very helpful.
Knowing whether a household and workplace is potentially exposed to the virus or not is extremely important.
Opting to know less information is never helpful. Knowing more can save lives.
There are a number of steps people are using between simple high-flow oxygen and full invasive ventilation, which are successful in many patients. Non-invasive ventilation is really benefiting a lot of patients. Ventilation is also successful for some patients- (in the UK) they are only intubating those patients who are failing to maintain oxygenation on non-invasive ventilation who are going to die anyway, so any of those that survive, survive because of the ventilator.
Kilkrazy wrote: London hospitals never got overwhelmed because of several reasons.
For one thing, they set up lots of extra ICU wards in operating theatres and so on.
Another rather creepy factor is the number of people who died in care homes without ever seeing a hospital. It's something ike 5,000.
If a lot of them had been admitted, the NHS might have found something useful to do with the Nightingale Hospital at the Excel.
ITU beds have long been heavily rationed in the UK (and I reckon this is probably true in most countries), that isn't new with the pandemic, it is just even more stringent. Elderly people do really poorly on ITU- once an elderly patient gets onto multi-organ support, it is usually impossible to wean them off, and the ITU bed is really just prolonging the suffering of someone who has reached the end of their life.
So anaesthetists are reluctant to accept all but the fittest of elderly patients for good reason. It is much kinder, and just as effective, to keep elderly patients with end-stage organ failure comfortable. I wouldn't have wanted my grandmother to go onto ITU when she passed away last September- she would have required dialysis to treat her organ damage and that would have been a lot more awful for everyone involved.
So in all honestly, the majority of those 5000 people would likely have died just the same in hospital too- nursing homes and many other care homes have access to oxygen, which is the primary treatment for COVID pneumonia. Unlike bacterial pneumonias, COVID does not typically cause shock and intravenous treatments are not very helpful as a result.
queen_annes_revenge wrote: Belgium seems to allow docs to put CV 19 on death certs on s basis of if they feel like it, eg without lab confirmation.
I have seen some evidence that that might be the case here too but can't 100% guarantee accuracy.
It is 100% true, I've discussed this with one of the medical examiners at my hospital. Deaths can be listed as COVID pneumonia for confirmed cases, but as probable COVID pneumonia for unconfirmed cases. The virus actually has a lot of pathognemonic signs on investigations and a characteristic progression in severe cases that make it pretty recognisable. Good examples are the types of xray or CT thorax findings, or the way the pneumonia causes a profound hypoxia without shock. The PCR tests have a fairly high false negative rate, so we are using other signs quite a lot in many patients to guide treatment.
Having said this, I have no idea how the powers that be are using that data when collating statistics, but the data is being collected at least. I doubt the government is using figures with both groups in at present, but who knows?
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There was some discussion awhile ago that I cannot be bothered to dredge up about if/how shift patterns have changed in order to potentially eliminate the weekend effect. This being in relatin to the way COVID statistics are published and there being a spike after the weekend.
I can assure everyone that in England this is the case for sure, and I believe in other regions of the NHS as well (the training organisations differ so the specifics will be different elsewhere). The shift pattern for all junior doctors below registrar has followed an emergency rota completly divorced from the usual week structure and I've frankly lost track of weekends as a result. In my deanery, juniors are on 3 day shifts, followed by 3 days off, followed by 3 night shifts, followed by 3 days off, followed by 3 day shifts- the whole cycle rinsing and repeating. All shifts are 12.5 hours long.
Having half my shifts as nights is totally abnormal, and that aspect of the rota is pretty punishing. Having said that, the rota is actually better than my routine one- I only work 43 hours a week average, rather than 48, and the long shifts mean I am commuting a lot less.
This isn't universal around England, I have a friend who has some blocks of 4 days.
Registrars are on some mad rota at my trust, they have blocks of 4 shifts and blocks of 3.
Consultants have adjusted workloads too- all the medical consultants have been given night shifts to cover the acute medical take- there are not usually consultants overnight for this. There are a lot of medical consultants though, so they get something like 1 night shift in 2 months...
There have also been massive redeployments of doctors to new roles- most of the surgical juniors have been rolled into the medical team to fill the rota. Basically all elective surgery aside from cancer surgery has stopped, and acute surgical admissions are way down on usual.
In short, part of the reason the capacity in the NHS was never filled at the current peak is because huge amounts of reorganisation were carried out behind the scenes to accommodate a big increase in medical patients.
That depends though. Wasn't it expected that the summer would cause a drop in new cases, alongside the the UK has been in lockdown which should increase the reduction in overall cases. Any reaction to the steady relaxing of lockdown is likely to take a few weeks to be felt.
Meanwhile there's still high potential that there will be many pockets of the virus around well into the autumn and winter months, thus providing ample regions for it to survive and then rise up once more.
Of course with several strains already out there its possible that an early vaccine might not be targeted toward the variation that rises up in the winter months. Though in theory if we've got one vaccine then development of a modified version for a new strain should potentially be easier/faster
Also if the newspaper is reporting weekend numbers those are generally always lower than the weekly averages by quite a bit; we typically get an early/mid week spike as the data from the weekend filters through the system.
I guess all we can do is suck it and see. If you look at what prof Karol sikora is saying, he believes it will basically just burn itself out. It might not be as easy as sars 1 and mers but hopefully he's right.
There will be a lot of ass covering to do in hindsight if that is the case though.
Still not seeing the 've day spike' yet either. Give it a week before I'd say anything for definite but it looks like it may have been unfounded.
If it burns itself out then that's utterly fantastic news, I get the feeling it might not and that a vaccine and a winter resurgence are still on the cards.
That said if things turn out only for the best then at the very least this has been a very harsh and rough awakening for the world on the state of how well prepared for epidemics and how fast they can spread. The kind of thing that serves as a powerful lesson to multiple world governments.
Yup. I was surprised to find out that our pandemic plans were based on influenza. I know we've had swine and bird flu recently, but you'd think with sars and mers that they would've at least had those in mind.
On the covid front there's a new movement to refuse to wear masks based on belief of divine protection, people are claiming a right to not wear masks based on their faith.
Also, according to some polls 40% of americans believe that a covid vaccine would be a plot by bill gates to insert microchips into people.
As to the first, people not practicing spread control of covid affects others, so no, it's not a right to refuse to practice viral spread control.
As to the second, hey, fine. If there's a vaccine that protects people i believe people should be able to choose not to get it. Not getting the covid vaccination only puts them in danger, not people who choose to get it.
Matt Swain wrote: Not getting the covid vaccination only puts them in danger, not people who choose to get it.
That's not quite true. Not taking the vaccine would render a person likely to catch and be a carrier for at least a week (this assumes taking the vaccine means that you cannot become a carrier). As a result any refusing to take it in large enough numbers could represent a threat to population groups who are not receiving the vaccine first in line. Even if we have a vaccine it will not roll out in one day, it will likely take months to filter through the population. So that places people at risk. It also places those abroad at risk if those who refuse to take it then travel to other countries.
Of course there are justifiable reasons not to want to take the vaccine. If its very new and very rushed out, those in "healthy" or low risk groups, esp the young, might want to refuse on the grounds of wanting to wait longer to see if there are potential longer term side effects. This, of course, is a gamble because Corona itself has potential long term effects, even for the young (such as lung damage).
So its not quite clear cut, but yes I'd say if your concern is that Bill Gates is going to start tracking you then, well, honestly I hope those people don't own a mobile phone or tablet because those already track you so that you can get google maps to the nearest restaurant.
Adeptus Doritos wrote: Well, seems like this are not going to be nearly as bad as projected. Hopefully there's a plan for people to get back to working safely.
That stipend's coming out of your taxes next year, kiddos. Don't get too reliant on that.
By that do you mean the 'Stimulus Checks' that the US Government handed out to many families?
Here's a great opportunity to help out, and find out if you've had it- oneblood, a blood collection company in the US, will test your blood for Covid 19 antibodies if you donate.
Matt Swain wrote: On the covid front there's a new movement to refuse to wear masks based on belief of divine protection, people are claiming a right to not wear masks based on their faith.
Also, according to some polls 40% of americans believe that a covid vaccine would be a plot by bill gates to insert microchips into people.
As to the first, people not practicing spread control of covid affects others, so no, it's not a right to refuse to practice viral spread control.
As to the second, hey, fine. If there's a vaccine that protects people i believe people should be able to choose not to get it. Not getting the covid vaccination only puts them in danger, not people who choose to get it.
No. Declining a vaccine isn't acceptable. It _does_ put other people at risk. We've been seeing hundreds of cases of measles where there were effectively none exactly because of that kind of idiocy. Deaths from measles shrank from nearly a million a year down to tens or hundreds per year over the course of the 20th century, now its back up over 100,000. That isn't acceptable, and its entirely due to people refusing to have it done.
There are people who can't take a vaccine because of allergies or extensive health problems, voluntarily passing puts those people at risk, as well as children too young to be vaccinated.
Adeptus Doritos wrote: Well, seems like this are not going to be nearly as bad as projected. Hopefully there's a plan for people to get back to working safely.
That stipend's coming out of your taxes next year, kiddos. Don't get too reliant on that.
By that do you mean the 'Stimulus Checks' that the US Government handed out to many families?
It's very curious/darkly amusing to see how many out there theories have come up due covid-19. Everything from wealthy people getting microchips to divine punishment on one group or another. I'm going to be honest, I live in AU and have not worn a mask to this point. But am seriously thinking about it now with the looming threat of the second wave. If we get a repeat of the Spanish Flu and have a second even more pronounced outbreak I'd rather not get it or be a spreader even i'm unlikely to be fatally effected.
No. Declining a vaccine isn't acceptable. It _does_ put other people at risk. We've been seeing hundreds of cases of measles where there were effectively none exactly because of that kind of idiocy. Deaths from measles shrank from nearly a million a year down to tens or hundreds per year over the course of the 20th century, now its back up over 100,000. That isn't acceptable, and its entirely due to people refusing to have it done.
There are people who can't take a vaccine because of allergies or extensive health problems, voluntarily passing puts those people at risk, as well as children too young to be vaccinated.
Both measles and polio resurged because of this idiocy. Both were very nearly eradicated just like smallpox was, reduced to a few far-off regions in the middle east and africa when these idiotic anti-vax theories began to spread. In the middle east at least it was religious anti-vax rather than the current even stupider movement in the West, but still.
No. Declining a vaccine isn't acceptable. It _does_ put other people at risk. We've been seeing hundreds of cases of measles where there were effectively none exactly because of that kind of idiocy. Deaths from measles shrank from nearly a million a year down to tens or hundreds per year over the course of the 20th century, now its back up over 100,000. That isn't acceptable, and its entirely due to people refusing to have it done.
There are people who can't take a vaccine because of allergies or extensive health problems, voluntarily passing puts those people at risk, as well as children too young to be vaccinated.
Both measles and polio resurged because of this idiocy. Both were very nearly eradicated just like smallpox was, reduced to a few far-off regions in the middle east and africa when these idiotic anti-vax theories began to spread In the middle east at least it was religious anti-vax rather than the current even stupider movement in the West, but still.
Less religious, more political. Which wasn't helped by the fact that the CIA actually DID pose as vaccine workers in those countries.
Well, as I understood the situation the political leadership (also?) used religious arguments to set the population against the vaccines, but I may have been misinformed.
Well, lockdown seems to over here, plenty of people out last night, parks were rammed, got invited from people but stayed in anyway. Couple of friends going to visit family today. Mate is planning a big multiplayer one evening next week in his garden, using all the stuff we’ve collectively painted during lockdown.
“If Cummings is allowed to ignore the rules, then so can we”
Future War Cultist wrote: So a Corvid 19 vaccine is a plot by Bill Gates to insert microchips into people is it? Is this the backup plan after the failure of the Zune?
Jesus Christ these people are getting my fething blood boiling with this kind of idiotic bollocks.
it came up multiple times , in the conspiracy theories thread.
and it is not just in the US, it has spread like a Virus.
The vaccination issue is a tricky one. I believe in vaccines, and I have all mine, as does my daughter, but I don't believe in government enforced vaccines. I don't think we should legislate that vaccines must be had. Now, on the other hand, allowing business and industries or nurseries and schools to require them of workers/kids is acceptable in my opinion.
queen_annes_revenge wrote: The vaccination issue is a tricky one. I believe in vaccines, and I have all mine, as does my daughter, but I don't believe in government enforced vaccines. I don't think we should legislate that vaccines must be had. Now, on the other hand, allowing business and industries or nurseries and schools to require them of workers/kids is acceptable in my opinion.
There's a argument to be made that in states were the school is governmental through and through you might aswell enforce it overall...
Fenrir Kitsune wrote: Well, lockdown seems to over here, plenty of people out last night, parks were rammed, got invited from people but stayed in anyway. Couple of friends going to visit family today. Mate is planning a big multiplayer one evening next week in his garden, using all the stuff we’ve collectively painted during lockdown.
“If Cummings is allowed to ignore the rules, then so can we”
We can use that to gauge spikes in 2 weeks time, and apply that to see if lockdown was responsible for the virus progress.
Fenrir Kitsune wrote: Well, lockdown seems to over here, plenty of people out last night, parks were rammed, got invited from people but stayed in anyway. Couple of friends going to visit family today. Mate is planning a big multiplayer one evening next week in his garden, using all the stuff we’ve collectively painted during lockdown.
“If Cummings is allowed to ignore the rules, then so can we”
We can use that to gauge spikes in 2 weeks time, and apply that to see if lockdown was responsible for the virus progress.
Who cares? Even if they do try for another lockdown, no ones gonna listen. Boris ceded the governments authority with the public to save Cummings.
Fenrir Kitsune wrote: Well, lockdown seems to over here, plenty of people out last night, parks were rammed, got invited from people but stayed in anyway. Couple of friends going to visit family today. Mate is planning a big multiplayer one evening next week in his garden, using all the stuff we’ve collectively painted during lockdown.
“If Cummings is allowed to ignore the rules, then so can we”
We can use that to gauge spikes in 2 weeks time, and apply that to see if lockdown was responsible for the virus progress.
Who cares? Even if they do try for another lockdown, no ones gonna listen. Boris ceded the governments authority with the public to save Cummings.
Agreed - So many of us have obeyed the spirit and letter of the law and now its all going to fall apart due to Cummings.
Agreed - So many of us have obeyed the spirit and letter of the law and now its all going to fall apart due to Cummings.
It's not all due to Cummings. A government scientist/epidemic advisor Neil Furguson broke quarantine and resigned/was persuaded to resign. Scotland's chief medical officer Catherine Calder Wood broke quarantine and resigned/was persuaded to resign. Neither of their actions caused this much of a ruckus because they left their positions quickly.
It isn't just that Cummings broke quarantine - it's those above/around him haven't sacked or persuaded him to resign. There's more to blame than just Cummings if your average UK citizen sees this as the green light that the pandemic is over.
It probably doesn't help, given his past antics with the media, that the press has an axe to grind with him personally. They smell blood and they're going to sew some chaos til they get what they want - regardless of the damage it may cause to UK health.
Given the current PM has a track record of back stabbing and throwing people under busses (metaphorically), one has to wonder exactly what dirt The Sinister Slaphead has on him...
COVID-19 is a man-made virus created in a wuhan lab, it was a weapon used to damage the western economy (it hasn't damaged china's.)
Due to the west not being able to compete with china's 3 billion nationalist slaves (no free information or human rights in China) the west have used the opportunity to adopt strict lockdowns and instigate a "new world" sentiment. Future generations are easier to manipulate and will conform to less rights like the Chinese, who have already adopted GPS tracking and facial recognition, however the Chinese people's loyalty is being bought with their vast steel/export money.
I think you should prepare to get your view removed, because that is so political and of such a conspiracy theory level that there is no reasonable way to engage that.
Cummings isn't even the main issue - people were relaxing as soon as government said "we might start talking about relaxing". Furthermore reactivation of a good few jobs like building has put more cars on the road; more people out and about working and doing jobs. Life is "getting back to normal" and because there's no draconian lockdown forcing people to stay at home, people are just drifting back to normal life.
We must remember as logical and simple as lockdown is to understand, its highly abnormal behaviour for humanity. Whilst we live a very unnatural life, lockdown is unnatural in the extreme for us.
The impression given is that Cummings is the real person in charge and rules don't apply equally. I guess the consideration is that this will be old news the next time an election rolls around.
Dreadwinter wrote: Somebody TL;DR this thread for me. Did Peter Wiggin ever show up?!
TL;DR, endless back and forth over lockdown versus economy. Some general commentary on vaccines and the virus in perspective.
A.D. wrote: COVID-19 is a man-made virus created in a wuhan lab, it was a weapon used to damage the western economy (it hasn't damaged china's.)
Due to the west not being able to compete with china's 3 billion nationalist slaves (no free information or human rights in China) the west have used the opportunity to adopt strict lockdowns and instigate a "new world" sentiment. Future generations are easier to manipulate and will conform to less rights like the Chinese, who have already adopted GPS tracking and facial recognition, however the Chinese people's loyalty is being bought with their vast steel/export money.
That's my view.
Erm, you realise that chinas economy has not just grinded to a halt but quite heavily collapsed right?
This year marks the first year they dont prognostice a target for growth.
Also if that were the case in regards to less resistance to authoritharian governments then we would have been a dictatorship a long time ago.
Cummings took his kids to his parents when he starts displaying symptoms of the virus - in accordance with the Deputy Chief Medical Officer's advice of a couple of days before.
(And then some random guy claimed that he saw somebody who looked like Cummings on another day. I'm going to press X to doubt on that...)
The media were so concerned about Cummings' activities that they then all broke quarantine and crowded around him/his house in flagrant breach of social distancing guidelines. Hmm...
Disciple of Fate wrote: I think you should prepare to get your view removed, because that is so political and of such a conspiracy theory level that there is no reasonable way to engage that.
Why would my view be removed it doesn't break any rules and it's on topic. If you wan't a discussion where controversial views are removed and everything is PC then you're closed minded in my opinion. Not only are there reasonable ways to engage (if you wanted to, you could just move on and ignore it) but 50% of people know it's fishy but just don't have answers.
A.D. wrote: COVID-19 is a man-made virus created in a wuhan lab, it was a weapon used to damage the western economy (it hasn't damaged china's.)
Due to the west not being able to compete with china's 3 billion nationalist slaves (no free information or human rights in China) the west have used the opportunity to adopt strict lockdowns and instigate a "new world" sentiment. Future generations are easier to manipulate and will conform to less rights like the Chinese, who have already adopted GPS tracking and facial recognition, however the Chinese people's loyalty is being bought with their vast steel/export money.
That's my view.
Erm, you realise that chinas economy has not just grinded to a halt but quite heavily collapsed right?
This year marks the first year they dont prognostice a target for growth.
Also if that were the case in regards to less resistance to authoritharian governments then we would have been a dictatorship a long time ago.
Look at what they did to the oil prices which is basically what the dollar is based on.
China doesn't rely on exports anymore they import just as much and are now self sufficient. They are already the strongest economy based on productivity.
Overread wrote: Also China's economy relies on a rich west to buy products - if the west collapses China will have a huge industry with no one to sell too.
tbf china's economy hasn't beeing all that well for some time now, with a vast increase in stateowned zombie companies before the whole covid 19 crisis.
Fun fact, with the increase in worse economic dates Chinas government got alot more aggresive in it's foreign politics. Porbably because the only legitimisation resaon of the government is the increase in general wealth.
and we saw increased dissent even within the party against Xi with the outbreak and misshandling of the case.
Look at what they did to the oil prices which is basically what the dollar is based on.
China doesn't rely on exports anymore they import just as much and are now self sufficient. They are already the strongest economy based on productivity.
China has no oil production capacity or raw oil ammunt to even just make a dent within the oil market you realise that?
So how should china, an oil importer , affect the oilprice, if anyone is to blame, blame the US, Russia and the saudis for beeing morons launching a price war .
Lord Damocles wrote: Cummings took his kids to his parents when he starts displaying symptoms of the virus - in accordance with the Deputy Chief Medical Officer's advice of a couple of days before.
(And then some random guy claimed that he saw somebody who looked like Cummings on another day. I'm going to press X to doubt on that...)
The media were so concerned about Cummings' activities that they then all broke quarantine and crowded around him/his house in flagrant breach of social distancing guidelines. Hmm...
That advice was stay at home and self isolate if you have symptoms. Not “stay at home or drive up the country to another home, your choice, use your instincts”
So, if Cummings is fine, then anyone now displaying symptoms of Covid can choose to self isolate where they fancy and when they fancy.
As for the media scrum - why should they follow rules when questioning someone who chooses not to and is leading on this. A member of SAGE should be leading by example, not demanding people follow rules that he chooses to ignore. The media used their instincts and judgement in this, just like Boris said is permissible.
Overread wrote: Also China's economy relies on a rich west to buy products - if the west collapses China will have a huge industry with no one to sell too.
tbf china's economy hasn't beeing all that well for some time now, with a vast increase in stateowned zombie companies before the whole covid 19 crisis.
Fun fact, with the increase in worse economic dates Chinas government got alot more aggresive in it's foreign politics. Porbably because the only legitimisation resaon of the government is the increase in general wealth.
and we saw increased dissent even within the party against Xi with the outbreak and misshandling of the case.
Look at what they did to the oil prices which is basically what the dollar is based on.
China doesn't rely on exports anymore they import just as much and are now self sufficient. They are already the strongest economy based on productivity.
China has no oil production capacity or raw oil ammunt to even just make a dent within the oil market you realise that?
So how should china, an oil importer , affect the oilprice, if anyone is to blame, blame the US, Russia and the saudis for beeing morons launching a price war .
Because a lockdown means low oil demand - tanking the prices. They obviously know lockdowns will be enforced when they send the virus to the west.
Let's face it we are in a cold war.
These governments are run by evil criminal mafias, they will happily murder their own people and stage events in order to impose stricter control on their population and to damage the economies and start wars with other countries (e.g 9/11) You know that.
I don't know anything as fact but either does anyone else. I just don't believe what I see on the news and I do my own research, and I like to express the views that most people are scared to.
As for the media scrum - why should they follow rules when questioning someone who chooses not to and is leading on this. A member of SAGE should be leading by example, not demanding people follow rules that he chooses to ignore. The media used their instincts and judgement in this, just like Boris said is permissible.
Fenrir Kitsune wrote: As for the media scrum - why should they follow rules when questioning someone who chooses not to and is leading on this. A member of SAGE should be leading by example, not demanding people follow rules that he chooses to ignore. The media used their instincts and judgement in this, just like Boris said is permissible.
The media clearly are not actually concerned if they're willing to be crawling all over each other with no masks etc.
So why should I be concerned that they're concerned about somebody else doing the thing* which they're not really concerned about, and isn't illegal?
*(Not that being in a car is likely to spread the virus all over the place anyway)
Lord Damocles wrote: Cummings took his kids to his parents when he starts displaying symptoms of the virus - in accordance with the Deputy Chief Medical Officer's advice of a couple of days before.
Date and citation and wording of advice, please.
(And then some random guy claimed that he saw somebody who looked like Cummings on another day. I'm going to press X to doubt on that...)
1 named source who took down registration plate at Barnard Castle and another unamed source but whom three different newspapers have spoken to saw close enough to eavesdrop at Bluebell Woods.
Because a lockdown means low oil demand - tanking the prices. They obviously know lockdowns will be enforced when they send the virus to the west.
Let's face it we are in a cold war.
China's economy is dependent on selling stuff. China can't export to countries which are in lockdown because ALL demand breaks down.
That is why your point inherently makes no sense.
These governments are run by evil criminal mafias, they will happily murder their own people and stage events in order to impose stricter control on their population and to damage the economies and start wars with other countries (e.g 9/11) You know that.
Proclaiming an authoritharian communist party an mafia is an interesting but not really valid comparison. No, for them any disruption of trade is an inherent challange to their position of power, making this also verifyably untrue.
I don't know anything as fact but either does anyone else. I just don't believe what I see on the news and I do my own research, and I like to express the views that most people are scared to.
just let me get this straight, you belive, for reasons, that the chinese, which run an export orientated economy on the up and up and which sole claim of the governing elite to power is the improving living conditions, would willfully target their own market, in order to do what excactly? At that stage you'd assume that the comunist chinese party has an collective deathwish.
I was wondering when the Cummings dam was going to break. I declined from mentioning it myself, due to its nature.
You all know my views on the lockdown. Hes an adult, made a decision. I respect him for not backing down, and allowing the media to show their true nature. eg a bunch of screeching, witch hunter, lynch mob 'Karen's'. Led by the new appointed 'karen' in chief, piers Morgan. It's been hard to watch.
queen_annes_revenge wrote: I was wondering when the Cummings dam was going to break. I declined from mentioning it myself, due to its nature.
You all know my views on the lockdown. Hes an adult, made a decision. I respect him for not backing down, and allowing the media to show their true nature. eg a bunch of screeching, witch hunter, lynch mob 'Karen's'. Led by the new appointed 'karen' in chief, piers Morgan. It's been hard to watch.
It's entirely political, but flagrant misrepresentations need challenged.
Obviously you'll be on his side in terms of 'using common sense', but it's kinda surprising you wouldn't even pass comment on the hypocrisy of the man who is behind all the communications you've been so opposed to.
Regarding Cummings: In the UK we are like omg a politician broke lockdown rule he must be sacked. Don't you think we have bigger things to care about? Haven't we all broken the lockdown rule and are all human? Maybe the guy is important in his job? People should be more worried about the tracking app they trying to roll out being bent over by their government than some politician trying to spend time with his family rightfully or wrongfully. People got some strange priorities. *shrug*
queen_annes_revenge wrote: I was wondering when the Cummings dam was going to break. I declined from mentioning it myself, due to its nature.
You all know my views on the lockdown. Hes an adult, made a decision. I respect him for not backing down, and allowing the media to show their true nature. eg a bunch of screeching, witch hunter, lynch mob 'Karen's'. Led by the new appointed 'karen' in chief, piers Morgan. It's been hard to watch.
It's entirely political, but flagrant misrepresentations need challenged.
Obviously you'll be on his side in terms of 'using common sense', but it's kinda surprising you wouldn't even pass comment on the hypocrisy of the man who is behind all the communications you've been so opposed to.
Well I keep hearing that, but I don't know enough about it to comment yet. If he did contribute to the blanket lockdown, then yeah i'll judge accordingly
Do these images not make you sick to your stomach? Is it in the public interest to enforce these lockdowns for something that kills less than flu? And for the rest of TIME we will have to deal with new strict controls. Absolutely NOT in anyones interest. It's the globalists interest.
So aside from all the numbers and science showing that it kills more than flu and the fact that lockdowns were designed to be temporary measures to contain the spread. I mean what benefit is shutting beaches - or is this a great ploy to finally once and for all destroy icecream vendors by killing their entire market.
Seriously just pause and logically ask yourself who benefits from lockdowns and shutdowns. Companies don't as there's no workers nor customers; governments don't because there's no one generating money to pay them nor the country. It's a net loss for all that's why people hate them, but its done because the other option is mass pandemic.
also it's flagrant misrepresenation of that case, if it is indeed the same one i have in mind, because the one i know about was due to the surfer going through and then needed rescuing on top of closed beaches.
China's economy is dependent on selling stuff. China can't export to countries which are in lockdown because ALL demand breaks down.
That is why your point inherently makes no sense.
No you're absolutely wrong. China's economy is not based on exports anymore. It was 10+ years ago so you're just a bit behind. Not to worry.
just let me get this straight, you belive, for reasons, that the chinese, which run an export orientated economy on the up and up and which sole claim of the governing elite to power is the improving living conditions, would willfully target their own market, in order to do what excactly? At that stage you'd assume that the comunist chinese party has an collective deathwish.
.
I don't want to get too crazy but SARS was also a synthesised virus (evidence provided by a russian scientist, Kolesnikof i believe) except that was created by the US to be used against China, this obviously has been in the works as retaliation since then. In my view.
They don't need the wests money anymore, they are richer than us. They are importing almost as much as they are exporting. And their export economy is based on a steel monopoly rather than cheap consumer goods. They are buying all of our luxury cars and our designer clothing, they are on a massive flex. They will of course take a hit to the Ren in order to achieve their global agenda. These things become trivial once you are self sufficient with 3 billion (unofficial) population. China is up and running even during COVID, they only locked down Wuhan, we are not though.
They don't need the wests money anymore, they are richer than us. They are buying all of our luxury cars and our designer clothing, they are on a massive flex. They will of course take a hit to the Ren in order to achieve their global agenda. These things become trivial once you are self sufficient with 3 billion (unofficial) population. China is up and running even during COVID, they only locked down Wuhan, we are not though.
Ahh yes they are buying all our stuff - the stuff we weren't making because of Corona? So not only can't they export but they can't import either.
Also you're behind the times, China locked down another city semi-recently - I believe one person slipped the track and trace net and carried it in. Showing how effective corona is at spreading.
Do these images not make you sick to your stomach? Is it in the public interest to enforce these lockdowns for something that kills less than flu? And for the rest of TIME we will have to deal with new strict controls. Absolutely NOT in anyones interest. It's the globalists interest.
So aside from all the numbers and science showing that it kills more than flu and the fact that lockdowns were designed to be temporary measures to contain the spread. I mean what benefit is shutting beaches - or is this a great ploy to finally once and for all destroy icecream vendors by killing their entire market.
Seriously just pause and logically ask yourself who benefits from lockdowns and shutdowns. Companies don't as there's no workers nor customers; governments don't because there's no one generating money to pay them nor the country. It's a net loss for all that's why people hate them, but its done because the other option is mass pandemic.
also it's flagrant misrepresenation of that case, if it is indeed the same one i have in mind, because the one i know about was due to the surfer going through and then needed rescuing on top of closed beaches.
So like triple stupidity in one.
I won't answer your other points. I don't have time.
Disciple of Fate wrote: I think you should prepare to get your view removed, because that is so political and of such a conspiracy theory level that there is no reasonable way to engage that.
Why would my view be removed it doesn't break any rules and it's on topic. If you wan't a discussion where controversial views are removed and everything is PC then you're closed minded in my opinion. Not only are there reasonable ways to engage (if you wanted to, you could just move on and ignore it) but 50% of people know it's fishy but just don't have answers.
It breaks the no politics rule quite obviously. This kind of debate has been tried and deleted in this thread before, including comments of mine on the subject from the opposite view of the general argument you made. Hence giving you a heads up and letting you know that for others to engage is basically pointless by the time the next mod sweeps through this thread again.
Do these images not make you sick to your stomach? Is it in the public interest to enforce these lockdowns for something that kills less than flu? And for the rest of TIME we will have to deal with new strict controls. Absolutely NOT in anyones interest. It's the globalists interest.
So aside from all the numbers and science showing that it kills more than flu and the fact that lockdowns were designed to be temporary measures to contain the spread. I mean what benefit is shutting beaches - or is this a great ploy to finally once and for all destroy icecream vendors by killing their entire market.
Seriously just pause and logically ask yourself who benefits from lockdowns and shutdowns. Companies don't as there's no workers nor customers; governments don't because there's no one generating money to pay them nor the country. It's a net loss for all that's why people hate them, but its done because the other option is mass pandemic.
also it's flagrant misrepresenation of that case, if it is indeed the same one i have in mind, because the one i know about was due to the surfer going through and then needed rescuing on top of closed beaches.
So like triple stupidity in one.
I won't answer your other points. I don't have time.
Proof:
Proven wrong on what I can prove.
Didn't know Malibu is in new jersey?
not to mention the first pic you post shows an UK cop if i am not mistaken.
Whilest the video looks like the states?
They don't need the wests money anymore, they are richer than us. They are buying all of our luxury cars and our designer clothing, they are on a massive flex. They will of course take a hit to the Ren in order to achieve their global agenda. These things become trivial once you are self sufficient with 3 billion (unofficial) population. China is up and running even during COVID, they only locked down Wuhan, we are not though.
Ahh yes they are buying all our stuff - the stuff we weren't making because of Corona? So not only can't they export but they can't import either.
Also you're behind the times, China locked down another city semi-recently - I believe one person slipped the track and trace net and carried it in. Showing how effective corona is at spreading.
Let's not get too pedantic.
I meant Hubei province not Wuhan city sorry.
Question: Does ANYONE here, know a single person (not a friend of a friend) who has COVID-19?
@Not Online!!
There were 2 pictures one is from the video the other is from the UK.
Irrelevant. The point is they are arresting him for enjoying a beach and it could you be you next.
While I agree that lockdown policing across the country has sat between common sense and outright lunacy, I'm not going to link it to any conspiracy theories.
I believe scientists have analysed the virus and concluded it developed naturally. However the fact there is a virology institute in Wuhan, which was studying bat coronavirus, makes it easy to see how people could get sucked into conspiracy theories.
Believing the virus was engineered requires a poor understanding of biology and genetic engineering--once one does it is plain to see how impossible such a claim is. If someone tells you it was engineered, ask them to explain how.
NinthMusketeer wrote: Believing the virus was engineered requires a poor understanding of biology and genetic engineering--once one does it is plain to see how impossible such a claim is. If someone tells you it was engineered, ask them to explain how.
I think you mean man made and not engineered, assuming the conspiracy is true (I do not believe it is) then it could easily be argued that studying a virus and experimenting with it and then it escaping somehow would be considered "engineered" even though no actual genetic engineering takes place, the set of circumstances are put in place through human interference, they are engineered.
All we know is this Virus either came from people studying the Virus or from people hunting the bats it allegedly came from, either way it does not really matter as the end result was the same, China lied, the W.H.O complied, the media denied and people died.... its a total and complete failure across the board.
A.D. wrote: Regarding Cummings: In the UK we are like omg a politician broke lockdown rule he must be sacked. Don't you think we have bigger things to care about? Haven't we all broken the lockdown rule and are all human? Maybe the guy is important in his job? People should be more worried about the tracking app they trying to roll out being bent over by their government than some politician trying to spend time with his family rightfully or wrongfully. People got some strange priorities. *shrug*
Cummings is not a politician he is a very highly paid advisor to the Prime Minister.
No I have not borken the Lockdown rule and many of the people I know have not either which is why people are so angry. People have not been able to see their ill, fragile or dying relatives but because this man is protected by his friend and employer he is allowed to say FU to everyone.
It also promotes the idea that he and others (like the other gov advisors that had to resign when they broke their own rules) were proclaiming "one rule for you lot, different rule for me" - once that takes hold, everyone says well why bother obeying the rules if those who are setting them ignore them as well.
Let's see what his public statement is this afternoon first. Not that he has to make one... And the public hounding him is unacceptable. It's disgusting to see what has become of the British public.
Question: Does ANYONE here, know a single person (not a friend of a friend) who has COVID-19?
Yes. I personally know three. One’s currently recovering from the lung damage, the other two are still bed ridden but likely to recover.
Then there’s friends and family who work in the healthcare profession; there’s deaths everyday.
Both myself and my twin sister got it then my housemate got it.
Did you all make a swift recovery? No lasting damage I hope? I’ve heard about what it’s done to a family friend (it literally ruined him) so I’m always concerned to hear about it.
queen_annes_revenge wrote: Let's see what his public statement is this afternoon first. Not that he has to make one... And the public hounding him is unacceptable. It's disgusting to see what has become of the British public.
Personally its disgusting to see a highly paid gov offical showing such contempt for anyone questioning him in any was evident from his replies.
The Bishops and others calling for him to resign that I have seen have been calm and measured and simply stating that he is destroying the public trust and undermining the message that the majorty of people have been obeying no matter what their individual situation was.
Yes some Conservatives have it in for him, but thats irrelevant to the issue here.
A.D. wrote: Question: Does ANYONE here, know a single person (not a friend of a friend) who has COVID-19?
I received the news today that I have tested positive for COVID- I've been isolating since I developed symptoms on Thursday and was tested on Saturday.
I've also directly cared for patients with COVID-19, and patients I have cared for have died of the disease.
One of my immediate colleagues is still suffering after-effects 2 months on from contracting it. I have a friend working elsewhere whose consultant died from it.
queen_annes_revenge wrote: I was wondering when the Cummings dam was going to break. I declined from mentioning it myself, due to its nature.
You all know my views on the lockdown. Hes an adult, made a decision. I respect him for not backing down, and allowing the media to show their true nature. eg a bunch of screeching, witch hunter, lynch mob 'Karen's'. Led by the new appointed 'karen' in chief, piers Morgan. It's been hard to watch.
It's entirely political, but flagrant misrepresentations need challenged.
Obviously you'll be on his side in terms of 'using common sense', but it's kinda surprising you wouldn't even pass comment on the hypocrisy of the man who is behind all the communications you've been so opposed to.
Well I keep hearing that, but I don't know enough about it to comment yet. If he did contribute to the blanket lockdown, then yeah i'll judge accordingly
Well, he has a seat on SAGE despite not being a scientist and is a very senior figure within Johnson's inner circle. He at the very least has had a lot of influence on government stategy throughout its response to COVID.
Question: Does ANYONE here, know a single person (not a friend of a friend) who has COVID-19?
Yes. I personally know three. One’s currently recovering from the lung damage, the other two are still bed ridden but likely to recover.
Then there’s friends and family who work in the healthcare profession; there’s deaths everyday.
Both myself and my twin sister got it then my housemate got it.
Did you all make a swift recovery? No lasting damage I hope? I’ve heard about what it’s done to a family friend (it literally ruined him) so I’m always concerned to hear about it.
We were all fine, it just felt like a bad cold to me but my house mate was down for the count for over a week, sister is in the high risk category but she was fine too thankfully, we all work for the NHS in different jobs so all got tested positive for the Rona which is how we knew it was that.
queen_annes_revenge wrote: I was wondering when the Cummings dam was going to break. I declined from mentioning it myself, due to its nature.
You all know my views on the lockdown. Hes an adult, made a decision. I respect him for not backing down, and allowing the media to show their true nature. eg a bunch of screeching, witch hunter, lynch mob 'Karen's'. Led by the new appointed 'karen' in chief, piers Morgan. It's been hard to watch.
It's entirely political, but flagrant misrepresentations need challenged.
Obviously you'll be on his side in terms of 'using common sense', but it's kinda surprising you wouldn't even pass comment on the hypocrisy of the man who is behind all the communications you've been so opposed to.
Well I keep hearing that, but I don't know enough about it to comment yet. If he did contribute to the blanket lockdown, then yeah i'll judge accordingly
I suppose it's possible that a swathe of prominent Tories are lying about it, and that no one from government has thought it worth disputing, despite bending over backwards to (pretend to) clarify everything else, and that every account of his being an iron-fisted controller of policy and comms in every advisory job he's had is also false, and that no one has ever thought it worth disputing any of them either, but it doesn't seem massively likely.
At the very least, government explicitly lied about his father's interaction with police, then called the cops liars for saying otherwise, then decided that wasn't the case and that they spoke about something else as well as his presence in Durham so it doesn't count, and that seems worthy of at least a hint of curiosity?
It's probably torpedoed tons of fines handed out for breaking lockdown, so I imagine you're glad it's hit the news hard for that reason, if nothing else?
I don’t know anyone personally that has caught it, but I do have a brother in law and his wife whom both work in a hospital in Spain as nurses.
They have said it’s horrifying and they have never seen anything like COVID19. They both work in ICU and the entire hospital was closed to anything but COVID patients for almost 2 months. The people that go into ICU are already on their way out from what they have told me, and at most patients last a couple of weeks once they are on a ventilator.
Both of them are nurses with the wife working as a pacemaker installer, but she was pulled to cover COVID instead. They have personally stated that they think it’s a bio weapon due to the way it attacks and the way it will atrophy lung tissue. It basically turns your lung tissues into stone, which is why those affected have such a hard time breathing.
It’s a horrifying illness from what they have said. It’s not something I want anyone to catch just based on their first hand information.
I think it's best to say that scientists are optimistic. It's NOT a case where a result is guaranteed given the horsepower and proper math. Vaccine development is tricky. The virus and the human body are going to decide if it's achievable, not the dollars and brainpower we throw at it.
