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 queen_annes_revenge wrote:
True, but I'm talking about us, western nations who don't do that.

https://mobile.twitter.com/ProfKarolSikora/status/1262691071399735296

UK fatalities (adjusted)

https://mobile.twitter.com/ProfKarolSikora/status/1262674959521976322

Western nations absolutely cook the numbers. President "Testing makes our numbers look bad" in the US is a prime example. If the US numbers are tending up, you can bet it's actually way worse. Same with deaths. You'll have governors in states or legislatures not test those who died so they don't have to report them as Covid deaths.

Our beaches in New Jersey opened this past weekend, and they were packed, but still called "socially distanced". We'll see what the spike looks like in two weeks.

And yet even the UK numbers might be wrong. We are somewhere between 40K and 50K extra deaths ontop of where we would be on average at this time of year. Now if we also accept that the shutdown of industry and a lot of travel we are also seeing fewer deaths from accidental sources then those numbers could be higher (however they might be complicated by increases in issues with things like heart attacks and other treatments people might be not taking due to avoiding hospitals).

Suffice to say that the extra deaths are more likely to be corona linked. As a result those numbers for the UK could be far lower than they actually are right now.


It also took a long while for the UK to add carehomes to the list which seriously pushed the numbers up by a good 6K+ on the day it happened.

The numbers will go down so long as infections go down; as infections rise again we'll see deaths rise once more because more infected means more chance of vulnerable people being infected.


We will also see spikes when key groups get affected. For example many vulnerable and over 70s are isolating in the extreme right now. If those groups relax that attitude at the same time then there will be a further surge as they become more likely to be exposed.







The theory is you lock down and thus the infection burns out in certain areas because it can't jump to a new person to infect. You then track and trace the population at large to contain those areas that still have infection going on through people spreading it unaware or taking risks.
Without the latter stage the virus is free to remain in pockets where it goes undetected or in groups that take the risk. Meaning as lockdown relaxes those groups start to infect more and more people - who in turn move about and infect others. With a week long incubation it means it will likely take a few weeks to see the numbers start to climb up and up once more. At which point you have to impose lockdown and wait out another surge rising up and up (because, again, there's that week of incubation).

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:
True, but I'm talking about us, western nations who don't do that.

https://mobile.twitter.com/ProfKarolSikora/status/1262691071399735296

UK fatalities (adjusted)

https://mobile.twitter.com/ProfKarolSikora/status/1262674959521976322

Western nations don't massage the numbers? LOL the UK governments already been caught doing exactly that with the testing at least once!

You know what I mean. we can generally be trusted with our numbers from the ONS, at least compared to china etc.

You don;t massage the numbers, you just put very strict "guidelines" on who is and who isn't tested so your overall numbers go down! I saw it happen right in my local hospital because their aren't enough tests, you ONLY get one IF you have hit two of three criteria:

1. Travel from a known hot spot (Whatever that means)
2. Been in contact with a known case (Which is hilarious considering our testing guidelines anyway)
3. Have all the symptoms and are going to hospital for them (Only 1 of 3 criteria!)

So, tons of people were not/never tested locally. Therefore, the numbers have now been fudged and used to justify Re-open. Easy!

*******************************************************

On a different note. It is amazing to me how fast "getting the Virus" has turned into an issue of "personal responsibility". If you are high-risk, then you need to do the things to protect yourself. If you think you are low risk, then you don't have to do anything.

It follows a similar trajectory as recycling, global warming, inequality, healthcare costs, etc. Obviously, no one can take "Personal Responsibility" to fix most of these issues. It doesn't matter is I recycle if 95% of the waste comes from corporations. It doesn't matter if I social distance and wear a mask if no one else does.

It is trotted out as the only "logical" response time and time again. How does this playbook keep working!

UK numbers are anything between 35K (tested and confirmed) and 55k (deaths above normal for the time of year.)
The goverment is reporting the lower number. Is this what other countries reporting? I've not check against the graphs yet.

[Update:] Nope, they are confirmed deaths. The UK is slow to test, so the numbers here are higher than the graphs show.

Not Online!!! wrote:

If those lines are still rising, why are the death rates dropping?

politics.a few pages back there was an exemple of an intervention of politicians against medical expertise.

Russia is another exemple.
And if i may wager a bet, china fudges the numbers aswell.
Same with brazil which is at a point were cartells enforce meassures over the state and had a whole political issue going on between bolsonaro and his medical minister.

You needn't even look that far abroad. https://www.tampabay.com/news/health/2020/04/29/florida-medical-examiners-were-releasing-coronavirus-death-data-the-state-made-them-stop/
Florida is not releasing raw death data- it's being filtered through the state government now.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/usa/florida/ Scroll down to check out our mighty trajectory- which, sadly, is just continuing it's steady upward trend- totally time to stop lockdown.

We even have gyms open now. The fact is we're a tourist state, and early on we stopped counting victims that didn't live here as ours- so this is an effort to keep our economy going, despite there being no indication that the situation is getting better.


QAR, we don't have empirical data on the Corona Virus outbreak- look to history. There are many studies of what worked with the Flu of 1918, and SARS a few years back. They lay out what measures should be taken when dealing with a pandemic to reduce casualties. The best intervention we've found is vaccination. When that's not available, limiting it's spread is- quarantining victims until the disease has run its course works wonders. The issue with Corona Virus is that many people will be asymptomatic carriers- because of this, we have to treat everyone as if they have it, and that's why there have been mass social isolation and lock downs, and it's working. The better, and quicker countries have done it, the weaker the virus outbreak in their countries. The only medically sound time to break out of the social isolation is once you have a track and trace program in place, and can run each flareup into the ground before it surges again.

So, in a way, you are right- social isolation , or the lockdown, is not the best response. It's somewhere around plan C. But right now no one can do plan A (vaccinate this thing into extinction) and most can't do Plan B (track and trace most cases as they appear). So what's left, to save the largest portion of the population, is Plan C. Problem is politically and economically, Plan C sucks. So what we're seeing in the USA and various other countries is a game of high stakes chicken. How little social isolation is necessary before our linear increase in cases becomes exponential and we overwhelm our medical systems? Some states and countries will do it well, and the number of cases though higher than it would have been with a held social isolation, will remain manageable. Their economies will be stronger, and the survivors will congratulate themselves on being smarter than the surrounding countries who went further into a recession or depression to fight Corona virus. Others, inevitably won't. And the massively increased death tolls will be a totally avoidable tragedy, because a group of people shared your views, that the lock downs are worthless.

The simple answer is that in science technically nothing is provable. Best it ever does is fail to disprove. Which is ecactly what happened here.

Experts analyzed the data, predicted a curve and said "this is what will happen if nothing is done".
Then they postulated (hypothesized, if you prefer) that measures would be implemented and calculated a new curve, then said "this is what will happen if measures - ie lockdown - are implemented" .

So far, the data in countries with proper and effective lockdowns more or less follow the second curve, while countries without lockdown follow more or less the first curve, so the hypothesis of "a lockdown has this effect" was not disproved, and is now the reigning theory.
That's not post hoc ergo propter hoc, that is literally how the scientific method and by extension science itself works.

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:
You know what I mean. we can generally be trusted with our numbers from the ONS, at least compared to china etc.

More fool you.

 Easy E wrote:

It follows a similar trajectory as recycling, global warming, inequality, healthcare costs, etc. Obviously, no one can take "Personal Responsibility" to fix most of these issues. It doesn't matter is I recycle if 95% of the waste comes from corporations. It doesn't matter if I social distance and wear a mask if no one else does.

It is trotted out as the only "logical" response time and time again. How does this playbook keep working!

Psychology. That's why it keeps working.

'Personal responsibility' is empowering- telling people they make a difference (especially in their own lives) gives them an illusion of control they want.
Telling them that their actions are worthless because 95% comes from things they can't affect? That's crushing for people's sense of self-importance.
This is one of those cases were honesty is actually the worst policy (when it comes to motivating people)

I think you missed Easy E's point. Right now there's a bunch of people who have been trotting out the argument of they shouldn't have to take measures to protect others and it's the others' fault if they don't take measures to protect themselves.

 Fenrir Kitsune wrote:

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:
You know what I mean. we can generally be trusted with our numbers from the ONS, at least compared to china etc.

More fool you.

I dont think anyone is under any illusion that I trust the government. but our numbers are more trustworthy than china. thats what I meant.

China's numbers are off by at least an order of magnitude. Doesn't justify western countries fudging their own, of course... Looking forward to some independent reports when we're past the teeth of this thing.

China has the technology to trace infected and the will to quarantine them even if it means closing entire cities.

Regardless of the numbers involved, they have a far better hold on the virus than the nonsensical stupidity that has been the response of the Western Governments.

 Tyran wrote:
China has the technology to trace infected and the will to quarantine them even if it means closing entire cities.

Regardless of the numbers involved, they have a far better hold on the virus than the nonsensical stupidity that has been the response of the Western Governments.

One key aspect is that China has been through this mill before in recent times with the earlier Sars outbreaks. The western nations basically avoided all of them. SARS, Birdflue and Swineflu mostly blow over with a huge fuss. The latter two had big impacts on the rural communities, result in big shifts toward disease control measures being put into place that had had a lasting effect. Meanwhile birdflue decimated the poultry smallholders and its never really recovered (though rising grain prices have also been a huge issue since it was a hobby dominated by retired collectors and the like).


Corona has struck in a big way and its hit the city areas in a massive way. The result is that the west has its first pandemic in a very very long while. It's also something that spreads ever so quickly and easily into the population. We are where China was decades ago.

 Tyran wrote:
China has the technology to trace infected and the will to quarantine them even if it means closing entire cities.

Regardless of the numbers involved, they have a far better hold on the virus than the nonsensical stupidity that has been the response of the Western Governments.

If only we had an totalitarian authoritarian single party state who were willing to disappear their own citizens and put dissenters into concentration camps, we could all be free of this troublesome flu!

 Tyran wrote:
China has the technology to trace infected and the will to quarantine them even if it means closing entire cities.

Regardless of the numbers involved, they have a far better hold on the virus than the nonsensical stupidity that has been the response of the Western Governments.

But China doesn’t have to worry about the things Western Governments have to worry about, like civil rights...or even just basic human rights.

 Fenrir Kitsune wrote:

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:
True, but I'm talking about us, western nations who don't do that.

https://mobile.twitter.com/ProfKarolSikora/status/1262691071399735296

UK fatalities (adjusted)

https://mobile.twitter.com/ProfKarolSikora/status/1262674959521976322

Western nations don't massage the numbers? LOL the UK governments already been caught doing exactly that with the testing at least once!

West certainly fudges numbers...just in the other direction.

Lord Damocles wrote:If only we had an totalitarian authoritarian single party state who were willing to disappear their own citizens and put dissenters into concentration camps, we could all be free of this troublesome flu!

Future War Cultist wrote:But China doesn’t have to worry about the things Western Governments have to worry about, like civil rights...or even just basic human rights.

Western Government do have the legal resource to impose a state of emergency that limits such rights. The problem of democracies is not legal, but popular. No democratic government wants to risk their reelection chances and that's why we had idiots like Trump or Boris Johnson insisting on herd immunity, reopening the economy and of course potentially sacrificing millions of people.

You don't need to be a one party state to realize that people that protest with slogans like Sacrifice the Weak cannot be allowed to endanger the quarantine, their right to free expression ends when the right to live of everyone else starts.

Edited by RiTides

queen_annes_revenge wrote:

Mario wrote:

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: Herd Immunity’

Herd immunity is getting as many people as possible vaccinated so that those who can't don't get infected and can survive. Letting everybody get randomly infected and risking the death the weaker people is not herd immunity, that's just eugenics with extra steps.

Vaccinated with what?

With a vaccine… if we had one. That's why we all the those precautions about wearing masks, stoping huge concentrations of people, social distancing, and so on. It's better than just letting the virus run rampant. We don't have a vaccine so we can't afford to let the virus just spread randomly.

NinthMusketeer wrote:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herd_immunity

a form of indirect protection from infectious disease that occurs when a large percentage of a population has become immune to an infection, whether through vaccination or previous infections, thereby providing a measure of protection for individuals who are not immune

Emphasis mine.

(Mine in cyan) Okay, that technically correct but also seems to be practically completely useless from how the virus seems to propagate. The issue is that is seems that getting to a significant number of "previous infections" in the context of corona is rather difficult without sacrificing a lot of those vulnerable people (who would usually be the ones who benefit from herd immunity).

I'd still say that these plans that were based on the idea to let corona do a "Australian bushfire" over a whole population missed the whole point of why herd immunity is used (to protect those who can't survive otherwise). Those plans were just cruel ideas because those people put the economy before human lives and were willing to sacrifice people for their cause.

 Lord Damocles wrote:

 Tyran wrote:
China has the technology to trace infected and the will to quarantine them even if it means closing entire cities.

Regardless of the numbers involved, they have a far better hold on the virus than the nonsensical stupidity that has been the response of the Western Governments.

If only we had an totalitarian authoritarian single party state who were willing to disappear their own citizens and put dissenters into concentration camps, we could all be free of this troublesome flu!

You'd be surprised how many people think this is a good idea. Just go on twitter

The WFH Revolution will be ending soon.....

My company has decided that now the politicians have decided that it is safe to go back to work, all buildings are expected to go back to the office. WFH will be over because.... fear of labor laws and punch laws is leading the decisions. Workers get 0 input in it.

Those protests are paying great dividends for their astroturf sponsors. I would be impressed if i was sitting on the moon watching it all play out. In the thick of it, I am less impressed.

My company is taking the opposite approach, its seeing WFH as a huge potential financial boon and wants to push it as the new normal in perpetuity.

So report from the weekly shop - MY GODS THERE ARE CARS ON THE ROAD

With businesses starting to open up there was a very different air going around today. First up you can tell builders are working again. Concrete is moving around; work lorries and trucks are doing the rounds and whilst the builders merchants gates were still shut, they've a man on the gate and they are admitting trade vehicles. Clearly popping in for one or two items is out; but for those needing supplies they can now get at them.

Shopping wise a few more groups in the supermarkets yet again; lines and movement were pretty standard but there's a general air of things relaxing just a bit here and there around the place. More cars on the road - even an actual attempt at rush-hour. More people still out and around walking.

You can still see social distancing going on, you can still see edges of caution; but there's also a bit of an air of "Oh are we near the end".


Even though government has only technically relaxed things a little.

Thats what I'm seeing here in NJ over the past week or so. When all this started there was a very noticable lack of other cars on the road, I wouldn't have to wait at certain traffic crossings to cross the street, parking lots and drive thrus were empty, etc. etc. etc. over the past 1-2 weeks I'm seeing a "return to normalcy" in peoples traffic and shopping patterns that is pretty worrying considering that most things are still closed up, etc. Has me wondering where everyone is going and doing.

And then there was the whole Wisconsin situation, state Supreme Court struck down the governors lockdown/stay at home orders and a bunch of businesses immediately reopened. The videos and photos of packed pubs filled with partyers and staff not observing distancing rules or wearing masks, etc. speaks volumes.

Apart from studies not showing much if any? Plus better to assume this corona is like previous corona virus unless evidence points otherwise. Previous corona viruses haven"t given much of longterm immunity. And being 4-8 weeks safe isn't much of help.

As I understand it other coronaviruses give a 2-3 year immunity period, which would still, theoretically, be enough for herd immunity to matter.

Virus mutation is entirely random, due to errors in the RNA replication process. You can't definitely say it will or won't mutate, or that it will or won't become less deadly as a result.

Virus mutation is random but virus survival/evolution is not (well, it is, but its predictable). A less lethal virus has more opportunities for transmission, which means that as a "species" that strain of virus is more survivable and more likely to pass on its traits. Generally speaking, more lethal viruses kill their hosts to quickly and efficiently to become widespread because the host doesn't survive long enough to allow a sufficient number of others to become hosts in turn and perpetuate its life cycle. There are rare exceptions to this like HIV/AIDS which is more or less 100% fatal but take so long to kill you that they have plenty of opportunity to spread, but these are exceptions rather than norms.

What is the average American feeling down there? Are people concerned? You can’t tell from US media because it’s so partisan. It seems like 100,000 deaths will be coming an about a week. Will that benchmark alarm people or are folks kind of over this whole Coronavirus virus thing?

For me, life hasn't changed much as I still go to my office job daily, I just wear a mask now when I do it and all meetings are via conference call instead of in-person. My girlfriend on the other hand has been working from home so she only gets to go outside once in a bit, we try to go for walks through the park daily to help keep her sane. Personally, I think I'm more caught up in the politics revolving around the disease than I am in the disease itself. I'm not living in fear that COVID will kill me, in fact I'm probably more afraid that someone will attack me for wearing a mask or promoting good hygiene than I am about getting sick. We've been eating out more, trying to support local businesses weather the storm, etc. and accepting whatever risks might be inherent to that - we assume that the employees at said establishments are taking reasonable measures themselves to prevent the spread.

And when the death toll climbs ever further, and worse, the virus mutates again, we can at last point to every single pseudo-science cretin, every woo peddler. Every agent provovacteur claiming it’s 5G, or Bill Gates behind it. Every last anti-Vaxxer. Every single idiot screwing this all up, and say?

[i]This. Is. On. You. You did this. No-one else.

Im kinda of the same mindset, especially since it seems like that crowd would be amongst the most likely to suffer and die from it in the process, i.e. doing the rest of us a favor by removing themselves from the gene pool and gestalt consciousness.

Of course, not enough of them would go or have their viewpoints broken for it to matter, and those that survived would easily be able to find a way to excuse themselves and look the other way, so theres no winning in this scenario.

The death toll is dropping daily.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/coronavirus-death-rate/

Why is that, do you think?

In my opinion the government is in the middle of a sunk cost dilemma. They can't relax things any further without having to admit they were wrong, which would cause them a huge hit politically.

This implies that they were wrong to begin with - all evidence points to the contrary.

I'm not buying the herd immunity theory. Anyone have any evidence as to why i should?

You made some good points, for the most part the herd immunity criterion we rely on for most serious diseases is enabled by vaccination rather than by infection, whereas those preaching a "herd immunity" strategy are doing so with the intent of infection because no vaccine is yet available. This distinction seems to have been lost by those who have responded to you as they all are pointing out examples of diseases that relied on said vaccinations.

So even if we assume evolution could produce a herd immunity effect in as little as 5 generations it's 90 years until that fifth generation happens, at a minimum.

Except thats not how herd immunity works, chief. Herd immunity is produced by self-infection or vaccination, its generally not something thats passed on generationally. I.E. you get herd immunity by getting x% of the population sick with it (where x is probably around 50-60%), and hope that theres a resulting antibody resistance that persists for a period long enough for it to matter (needs to be several years minimum). You maintain herd immunity by maintaining a % of the population with antibody resistance above that x% threshold - which means people will continue to get sick in perpetuity.

Lets be clear here - herd immunity does not mean that nobody will ever get sick from the disease again and that the disease is eradicated. It means that the diseases ability to ravage a population is limited by there being a proportion of individuals who cannot act as transmission vectors as a result of having become immunized through some past event, thus combating the diseases ability to spread freely. People will still get sick from it and die, but at a much lower rate.

There will be a vaccine, in due course. Because this is a Flu variant. We’re even in the (accelerated) human testing stage.

Its not a flu variant, coronavirus is a completely different virus family from influenza. This is like saying that cats are a form of dog. Its simply incorrect. For the record - there is not a vaccine for any of the other coronaviruses, in part because longstanding herd immunity, low mutability, and low severety of other coronaviruses has limited the need for one, but also because previous attempts at producing vaccines for them haven't worked.

Saying 'lockdown has worked' is just an assertion. There is no solid empirical evidence to back this up. It just is.

Amazing. Every word you just said is wrong. It amazes me how people of a certain belief just seem to make unfounded statements that buck all empirical evidence and long-standing scientific knowledge and expect hat everyone will just take them at their word. Social Distancing works, its a longstanding fact and has been part of counter-epidemic playbooks for decades and theres a huge body of historical and scientific evidence to support that, including countless peer-reviewed studies. A lockdown is a government enforced extension to social distancing - by default, they work. I could entertain an intelligent debate as to the extent to which a lockdown improves the effectiveness of social distancing measures and whether those benefits are worth the cost (in this case theres a large number of economic cost-benefit analyses by numerous reputable think-tanks and economists that say that yes, in fact, lockdowns have greater financial and economic benefits than they do costs), but I will not tolerate the abject stupidity associated with making completely unfounded statements that fly in the face of science, logic, and reason.

They are literally talking about ICU capacity.

https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus-sweden?country=SWE

Sweden is following the exact same curve as every other country.

No they aren't, but if I was mathematically and statistically illiterate I would understand why you would think that. Theres no such thing as the "same exact curve". I already explained to sporebar why this is a faulty and flawed argument, you can scroll back if you want to understand why.

The very fact that Sweden is below many other countries in deaths and cases, without lockdown, shows that lockdown is not a particularly relevant factor. if it wasnt the case, then their rates should still be rising, higher than everyone else.

Sweden had the highest deaths per capita in Europe last week and amongst the highest in the world, despite being one of the least densely populated nations in both categories, and in fact their rates *are* still rising.

https://www.pennlive.com/coronavirus/2020/05/could-herd-immunity-curb-coronavirus-so-far-in-sweden-that-doesnt-appear-to-be-the-case-report.html
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-sweden-casualties-idUSKBN22V26A
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-05-sweden-nears-horrifying-deaths-coronavirus.html
https://www.businessinsider.com/sweden-coronavirus-per-capita-death-rate-among-highest-2020-5
https://www.newsweek.com/sweden-coronavirus-rate-1501250
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/daily-covid-deaths-per-million-7-day-average?country=KOR+CAN+SWE+NOR+DNK+FIN+NZL
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/daily-covid-deaths-per-million-7-day-average?yScale=log&country=KOR+CAN+SWE+NOR+DNK+FIN+NZL
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/daily-covid-deaths-per-million-7-day-average?country=KOR+CAN+SWE+NOR+DNK+FIN+NZL+GBR+USA+ESP+ITA+FRA+DEU
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/daily-covid-deaths-per-million-7-day-average?yScale=log&country=KOR+CAN+SWE+NOR+DNK+FIN+NZL+GBR+USA+ESP+ITA+FRA+DEU
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/daily-covid-deaths-3-day-average?country=CAN+DNK+FIN+NZL+NOR+KOR+SWE
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/daily-covid-deaths-3-day-average?yScale=log&time=2020-02-21..&country=CAN+DNK+FIN+NZL+NOR+KOR+SWE
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/daily-covid-deaths-3-day-average?country=CAN+DNK+FIN+FRA+DEU+ITA+NZL+NOR+KOR+ESP+SWE+GBR+USA
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/daily-covid-deaths-3-day-average?yScale=log&country=CAN+DNK+FIN+FRA+DEU+ITA+NZL+NOR+KOR+ESP+SWE+GBR+USA

Seriously, do you even research the gak you spew before you post it??? If Sweden had a larger population the numbers coming out of there would be catastrophic.

I've looked at the other countries. but death rate alone is not really an indictaor. the curve is following the same path.

No its not, the last few links I shared should pretty much prove that to you. If not maybe this one will:

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/total-deaths-covid-19?country=DNK+FIN+NZL+NOR+SWE

or this one which will hopefully give you a better picture of what the curves, in practice, are actually telling you - note that every nation has a DIFFERENT curve, and in Swedens case they have NOT "bent" the curve, which would mean beating the virus:

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/confirmed-covid-19-deaths-total-vs-daily?country=DNK+FIN+NZL+NOR+SWE

This could also be helpful to you:

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/covid-confirmed-daily-deaths-epidemiological-trajectory?country=DNK+FIN+NZL+NOR+SWE

They're all following the same trajectory. It's really not that hard to understand.

Do you know what "logarithmic" means? Im guessing no, because if you did you would understand how absolutely wrong this statement is. Heres a hint, the horizontal lines on the graph aren't increasingly linearly - Denmark, Norway and Finland are all at or below the 10,000 line, the line below the 10,000 line is 1,000, the line above the 10,000 line is 100,000. I.E. Sweden is sitting at the halfway point between the 10,000 and 100,000 line. The curves *look* similar because they are being displayed non-linearly, thats how *all* similar datasets are going to look when viewed under a logarithmic scale.

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:

 Lord Damocles wrote:

 Tyran wrote:
China has the technology to trace infected and the will to quarantine them even if it means closing entire cities.

Regardless of the numbers involved, they have a far better hold on the virus than the nonsensical stupidity that has been the response of the Western Governments.

If only we had an totalitarian authoritarian single party state who were willing to disappear their own citizens and put dissenters into concentration camps, we could all be free of this troublesome flu!

You'd be surprised how many people think this is a good idea. Just go on twitter

Right, because Twitter reflects reality. Just ask Bernie Sanders.

Yeah, that wasn't meant to be a serious comment.

6 out of 748 Premiership footballers & staff just tested in the UK were positive for the virus (bbc news just now)

so just under 1% which given the fact they're not going to have needed to go out and about working is a fairly depressing snapshot of the levels of infection still around

(of course they could have been being stupid and not hiding in their mansions)

 Kanluwen wrote:
I think you missed Easy E's point. Right now there's a bunch of people who have been trotting out the argument of they shouldn't have to take measures to protect others and it's the others' fault if they don't take measures to protect themselves.

Eeeeexactly. They should be able to be idiots (to the tune of "It's our Constitutional Right to be free and un-oppressed!!!!), at the expense of others being hyper-vigilant.

It's the age-old method of making it someone else's fault/problem.

Which is hilarious, because that means sacrificing someone ELSES freedoms so yours, which are supposedly held so dear, aren't restricted. Or we could all just sacrifice together as an example of compassion and solidarity. Most of society and economy could work with responsible social distancing, masks all around (on everyone who can wear them) to keep infected people with no symptoms from infecting others, and occasionally using gloves when really needed (when you don't have a quick way to wash hands). Then it becomes mostly infection by accident, which supposedly can be more easily managed as smaller outbreaks happen.

 Kanluwen wrote:
I think you missed Easy E's point. Right now there's a bunch of people who have been trotting out the argument of they shouldn't have to take measures to protect others and it's the others' fault if they don't take measures to protect themselves.

Yes, I know. And politicians keep trotting out 'this playbook' because its what those people want to hear. Their illusions are worth more to them than other people's lives.

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:
You know what I mean. we can generally be trusted with our numbers from the ONS, at least compared to china etc.

LOL no. Get real. At least one state in the US has ordered their medical examiners to obscure the cause of death to hide the coronavirus numbers, presumably to protect their tourism season. I strongly doubt that's the only state doing that.

Pretending we're better than them is willingly embracing ignorance for the sake of a bizarre, misguided sense of superiority. I mean, do that if that's what you need to do, but don't pretend it's anything other than what it is.

Watch the political comments, folks. I'll burn this thread to the ground out of sheer laziness.

Are the fake numbers from untrustworthy governments the same numbers that prove the lockdown is effective? Asking for a friend.