Coronavirus COVID-19 Pandemic

[OverMaster]

and we get micro chipped in our mandatory vaccinations.

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This is pure James Bond sci fi, stop believing this crap.

 

[TanaNari]

As for Bird flu, I'm assuming you meant the 2002-2004 SARS epidemic even though that was not derived from avian influenza.

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No, he's probably referring specifically to bird flu, AKA: H5N1, a particularly brutal variant of avian influenza that approaches 50% lethality in humans which had an unusual spike of cases in 2009.

And the reason it's mostly ignored is because, to date, it has exceedingly low human-to-human infectivity. We can catch the virus, but we basically have to transmit it sexually (which isn't that unusual- rabies is the same), so it is impossible for a major human outbreak to occur (again, like rabies) even though it's really good at animal vectors.

So far, it's a thing that only kills in Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and Eastern Europe. And we all know how much Western Europe cares about diseases in those countries.

https://www.cdc.gov/flu/avianflu/h5n1-virus.htm

But scientists are still watching this baby with baited breath... there's no notable risk to human life, but if it does get into the states, it would ravage the poultry industry.

Otherwise, it gets ignored because it only kills impoverished people in impoverished countries, and not many of them. Putting it in the same camp as rabies and bubonic- just part of the biological background noise.

 

[Aleh]

Meanwhile, the Genesis II Church of Health and Healing, AKA the bleach people, were just ordered to stop selling people bleach as a COVID cure. Here is a video that they posted, showing their clear lack of understanding of basic civics. The, ah, "sacrements" they reference involve drinking industrial bleach to "cure" COVID... and autism, and HIV, and cancer, and... well, yeah.

Also, no, I don't recommend looking around on that platform. It's basically YouTube for conspiracy theorists and people who got kicked off of YouTube for being utterly vile loons.

 

[MadGreenSon]

The, ah, "sacrements" they reference involve drinking industrial bleach to "cure" COVID... and autism, and HIV, and cancer,

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I suppose it all depends on how you define "cure"

 

[Rakdos92]

I suppose it all depends on how you define "cure"

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Well, I think they go by Chile's definition of "cured".

 

[.We]

Latest form of Corona induced stupidity: Sweden's lax policies have created a new trend in EU where Rich Idiots spend a few thousand euros to fly to Sweden for their beauty spa bullshit, get their hair done, dine, shop, etc because their local non-essential services have been closed.
This is because Sweden hasn't closed non-essential businesses yet, and their border being closed doesn't apply to other EU countries.

At least USA isn't alone with Karens who need to get their hair done.

 

[daimahou]

Latest form of Corona induced stupidity: Sweden's lax policies have created a new trend in EU where Rich Idiots spend a few thousand euros to fly to Sweden for their beauty spa bullshit, get their hair done, dine, shop, etc because their local non-essential services have been closed.
This is because Sweden hasn't closed non-essential businesses yet, and their border being closed doesn't apply to other EU countries.

At least USA isn't alone with Karens who need to get their hair done.

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... Is it really that hard to take care of your hair by yourself/family?

Cut that shit short if it's too much of a hassle and your other option has the possibility to be infected. It will grow back, don't worry...

 

[MadGreenSon]

... Is it really that hard to take care of your hair by yourself/family?

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Key word in that post: idiots. Rich people are more likely than most to think that real world problems don't apply to them because they often don't.

 

[Nickballas]

Key word in that post: idiots. Rich people are more likely than most to think that real world problems don't apply to them because they often don't.

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Unfortunetely for them, unless they are extremely lucky, the virus does not appear to discriminate. Survival if infected also seems to be up in the air. Their choice to risk it like that though. They better stay home after if they get symptoms though. Nobody else should suffer for their choices.

 

[bryanfran36]

Regarding the cornonavirus: I'd rather look back in the near future and say to my past self, "It was better that we overreacted than be dead."

I'm thankful that we aren't in Luzon, but i can't help but facepalm when there are some news that social distancing is optional by the people in parts of Manila.

And I'm keeping a list of the politicos, influencers, and celebrities that are still being idiots and trying to obstruct and complain about everything.

 

[bryanfran36]

Motherfucker.

There's a confirmed case right the fuck now that's in a municipality that's 1 kilometer where my grandma lives. One. Fucking. Kilometer.

We can't visit her because said municipality is the gateway to her town.

Ma's hysterical here.

Whoever said that this pandemic isn't terrible should have been infected and dying horribly if the Fates were so kind!

 

[Xicree]

Fun story from my friend's even tinier Island...

BVI (British Virgin Islands): 3 cases covid, 24 hour lockdown for three weeks

Three weeks pass, two cases recover

Two days before reopening, random woman who had been concealing her symptoms shows up at hospital, is tested then dies

Confirmed covid

She lived with 7 other people, they get placed under quarantine

They escape quarantine and are now missing

So we are now 1 case (recovering), 1 case deceased, but infected from community transmission

And instead of cooperating with contact tracing, her people have fled

So the govt is now hunting them down instead of contact tracing and quarantining to figure out who gave it to her.



https://www.284media.com/local/2020...1X2FQXUirRMXLpmsDSqNAlKgLTf3lveYzFWBFjDO10L3g

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So yeah... apparently Zombie movies were right. There's ALWAYS one hiding it...

 

[eager slacker]

You would think that they would be rational enough to know that running is exactly how they'd get into trouble AND put their lives at risk. As stupid as it sounds there will always be people dumb and short-sighted enough to put everyone's lives at risk for a few days of pleasure.

 

[Derrandoo]

There are a good number of places that have a reflexive distrust of medical authorities and especially foreign medical authorities.

Remember, families broke out Ebola patients in quarantine because they didn't trust foreign doctors.

Turns out if you only get access to medical attention in a crisis you don't respond well to quarantines and "medically necessary" practices.

 

[d.fish]

Even if you do, you could have a situation like I do here. No one wants to go to the hospitals because everyone can't trust them.

 

[bryanfran36]

Even if you do, you could have a situation like I do here. No one wants to go to the hospitals because everyone can't trust them.

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Have your hospitals fucked up badly?

 

[Imabot]

Have your hospitals fucked up badly?

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Fishie is from China. Nuff said I think.

 

[Germtheory3Z]

Numbers. Data. Actual verifiable facts. Present some. Thus far you've been communicating with vague bullshit and soundbites just like one of the talking heads. You sound more like you're pushing an agenda than trying to inform and educate.

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A lot of the facts aren't going to be in for a very, very, long time but you can still see the sheer scale of the overreaction just from the known cost to death ratio. The US spending bill is over $2 Trillion dollars, plus the GDP lost, plus the State level spending, plus your lost business or job, plus the many other costs like sticking abused people inside their home, depressed people not getting socialised, fat people not exercising etc. In comparison around 1-2 million seems to be the talking head's guestimate of deaths without 'drastic action' ie lockdown. Even if we credit them with saving literally everyone we're starting with an extremely low estimate of $1 million dollars a head in government spending we'll all have to pay for on top of everything else we're losing out on privately. You'll find similar costs elsewhere, like a 35% drop in GDP in the UK for the quarter and £218 Billion pounds of government debt to save around half a million people, meaning £500,000 a head plus huge private costs even if we assume a partial lockdown would have done nothing.

Maybe you think there would be far more deaths than that, but the deadliest flu ever with a perfect storm of factors in 1918 only killed maybe 3% of the population. That was with millions of crippled veterans, millions of men living in appalling conditions, governments distracted by the war and millions of civilians starved from shortages. The ~3% mortality rate for Corona is based on confirmed cases, meaning there's been a test and around 1% of people have actually been tested. People with mild symptoms aren't being tested so like with normal flu there are probably tens, if not hundreds, of millions of people who've had it but not gone to hospital or been tested. There were tests in Iceland showing half of people didn't even have symptoms and another in Massachusetts that showed as many as a third of people have had it already. Flus don't tend to spread to more than about 30% of the population so we could already have reached the high point.

We also know who's being effected here and it's the usual suspects, the elderly and those with underlying conditions. They could have been put under lockdown without running up an absurd bill for everyone who wasn't really at much risk at all. So I say all of the costs of this full scale lockdown, that we'll be paying for for decades, are only going save a limited number of lives on the margin for several million a head, maybe tens of millions a head.

Now every life is precious, yes, but any amount of money can be spent to save or improve people's lives in a lot of different ways. If, like I suspect, this is only a little worse than a normal flu we'll be back to normal in a month (just long enough for the pain to outweigh the fear) with a hell of a hangover from this. Millions of people will have lost jobs that won't come back, small businesses will have gone under, people are going to have been murdered or beaten by abusive families, people will have killed themselves, government spending is going to have to be cut including welfare and medical spending to pay for this, and so on. Then we can compare those costs and the difference in death rates between the countries that locked down, and those that didn't, and decide whether this was worth it.

After that there's going to be the emotional battle when the next pandemic scare comes up. Now the precedent is set the public and media are going to remember and people are going to blame seasonal flu deaths on people who didn't act enough and want to do this again. I'm hoping that enough people lost money that the politicians will be leaned on not to let it happen again, but who knows.

Like I said earlier there are some simpler things we could all keep doing after this though, like making wearing masks socially acceptable in public or keeping hand sanitizer outside of shops. That's more of a thing in Asia and it seems to help them. There's also not much reason not to keep some bottled water and canned or dried food if you've got the space.

Literally all of this:

This is unsubstantiated, unproven, borderline unproveable fearmongering at best and outright dishonesty at worse. This is what a conspiracy theory looks like. It's also a substantial Rule 8 violation as well.

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Well thank you giving me a warning instead of a ban. I have my opinions but I'll try to respect forum rules and take any notices on board.

This is pure James Bond sci fi, stop believing this crap.

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The microchip comment was more tongue in cheek, but I do expect the vaccine to be at least soft-mandatory. Other civil rights are being ignored so even if I don't see people holding you down for the vaccine I do expect the Corona one to be pushed far harder than normal. It's going to be 'the end' in the minds of a lot of people so of course they'll want to push it.

 

[MadGreenSon]

A lot of the facts aren't going to be in for a very, very, long time

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Then this is where you should stop. Because from looking at your links, you've got nothing except an ideology driven agenda, a fairly blase disregard for risks as long as it's other people taking them, and zero backup for it other than wishful thinking.

 

[OverMaster]

The microchip comment was more tongue in cheek, but I do expect the vaccine to be at least soft-mandatory.

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As it should be, in my opinion. One's right to choose being infected stops being valid as soon as it threatens others' right not to be infected from oneself.

Regarding not going to hospitals, since they seem to be such large clusters for the virus, even infecting the staff despite having safety measures, in my family we pretty much would rather gambling braving an eventual infection at home rather than going there and being exposed to a larger viral exposure that would be harder to fight for our systems, especially considering how there's no actual medication to receive to compensate for that risk.

 

[wichajster]

You'll find similar costs elsewhere, like a 35% drop in GDP in the UK for the quarter and £218 Billion pounds of government debt to save around half a million people, meaning £500,000 a head plus huge private costs even if we assume a partial lockdown would have done nothing.

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2 500 000 $ per person sounds as a good a trade, even assuming that full scale pandemic would be without financial costs (on the other hand it also assumes no deaths caused by lockdown, hopefully it is balanced).

Now every life is precious, yes, but any amount of money can be spent to save or improve people's lives in a lot of different ways.

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2 500 000 $ per person sounds as a good a trade.

If, like I suspect, this is only a little worse than a normal flu

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Like I care at all about what you suspect. Interpreting data is not easy but I am confused why you think that your baseless unexplained "suspicion" is worth anything. It is clear that it is not "little worse".

And if there is a credible data that it is flu-level lethal then link data.

 

[evildice]

2 500 000 $ per person sounds as a good a trade, even assuming that full scale pandemic would be without financial costs (on the other hand it also assumes no deaths caused by lockdown, hopefully it is balanced).

2 500 000 $ per person sounds as a good a trade.

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The economic cost of a quarantine should be balanced against the cost of a full-blown epidemic, not against the economy without the disease.

Price in the deaths due to the disease itself, the deaths and injuries due to the medical system failing under stress, the deaths and injuries due to the rioting which would happen when various shops & services shut down (from a lack of workers, due to illness & death, not from government orders).


A quarantine may be significantly better than doing nothing, in both moral and GDP terms.

 

[Aleh]

2 500 000 $ per person sounds as a good a trade, even assuming that full scale pandemic would be without financial costs (on the other hand it also assumes no deaths caused by lockdown, hopefully it is balanced).

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He is also reducing the costs to deaths, while ignoring other forms of morbidity... while disregarding the fact that the death and morbitity rates are substantially higher in an overwhelmed health care system due to people who need treatment (for both the disease and for other conditions) not being able to get it.

Edit: Also, he's rhetorically treating COVID like it's a flu. Again. It's not.

 

[TanaNari]

Price in the deaths due to the disease itself, the deaths and injuries due to the medical system failing under stress, the deaths and injuries due to the rioting which would happen when various shops & services shut down (from a lack of workers, due to illness & death, not from government orders).

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To say nothing of general global instability. As it stands, I'm a little surprised certain nations haven't taken advantage of the pandemic threat to invade a vulnerable neighbor or two.

It'd be so much worse if the pandemic ran rampant and it started to look like the major force for peace was having a problem controlling a plague through her armed forces. Seriously, though... America's promise to metaphorically face-fuck the aggressor of all foreign conflicts is probably the only reason we haven't had WW3 yet.

Remember, this fucking virus (as is fairly typical of a novel disease) kills men at least twice over as much as it kills women (thanks to the reality of lacking a second x chromosome)... and most soldiers are men. You do the math.


And both Iraq and Afghanistan have cost about a trillion dollars each... so a couple trillion dollars to prevent the risk more of that seems like a sound economic investment in its own right. With or without discussing factors such as morality and human life.

I mean, except for people whose goal is to maximize the number of dead young men... I suppose they'd prefer the 'spread the plague' plan. Those people should be boiled alive in a vat of their own feces.

 

[MadGreenSon]

And both Iraq and Afghanistan have cost about a trillion dollars each... so a couple trillion dollars to prevent the risk more of that seems like a sound economic investment in its own right. With or without discussing factors such as morality and human life.

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Also, stopping quarantine and having the death toll spike and continue to do so will fuck over the economy worse than the quarantine will, it's just that it feels better to those advocating for an end to the lockdown to look like they're doing something to fix it.

 

[evildice]

Remember, this fucking virus (as is fairly typical of a novel disease) kills men at least twice over as much as it kills women (thanks to the reality of lacking a second x chromosome)... and most soldiers are men. You do the math.

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That math says that we're living in the pilot episode of a wish-fulfillment harem "romance" anime.

(Then we get NEKOVID-21 which turns half the remaining population into catgirls.)


Also, have some memes:

(... but is there is no Cure)

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Careful, last one's a doozy.


EDIT: Removed one which, when I read it again, seemed more political than necessary.

 

[Germtheory3Z]

Then this is where you should stop. Because from looking at your links, you've got nothing except an ideology driven agenda, a fairly blase disregard for risks as long as it's other people taking them, and zero backup for it other than wishful thinking.

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I've done a share of legwork so now I'd like to hear what you think the proportionate cost is going to be here. What would the 'nothing done' death rate have been, what would a 'lesser lockdown' death rate have been and what do you think the total costs are going to add up to? Even taking the official numbers at face value I can only see it as completely out of proportion to all our usual priorities.

I don't expect you to believe me now I just hope you check in next month and compare the cost difference of lockdown vs no lockdown countries to anything else you'd like the money spent on, like doctors without borders, roads, schools or whatever.

As it should be, in my opinion. One's right to choose being infected stops being valid as soon as it threatens others' right not to be infected from oneself.

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I disagree with the precedent even if I'd voluntarily take this one but arguing why would really go off topic.

2 500 000 $ per person sounds as a good a trade, even assuming that full scale pandemic would be without financial costs (on the other hand it also assumes no deaths caused by lockdown, hopefully it is balanced).

2 500 000 $ per person sounds as a good a trade.

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The cost wouldn't be £500,000 per person, that's the absolute minimum if we assume they save everyone, there are zero private costs like long term unemployment, defaulting on mortgages, losing a business etc and lesser measures wouldn't have saved anyone. The numbers are going to be far, far, higher for the marginal difference when we compare lockdown and non-lockdown countries. Now there is an argument for the lost value of the dead, definitely, but I'd argue the sensible rebuttal is what else could the money be spent on that would save more lives more cheaply? In the UK the money could go directly into the national health service to be spent on anything.

Like I care at all about what you suspect. Interpreting data is not easy but I am confused why you think that your baseless unexplained "suspicion" is worth anything. It is clear that it is not "little worse".

And if there is a credible data that it is flu-level lethal then link data.

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Psychologically here's what I see going on. Until March everyone who looked at this agreed this was a bad flu like all the other bad flus. Then thanks to the media monofocus it became a political football and the out parties were suddenly able to blame all the deaths on the in parties and the public believed them. That forces the in parties to call their bluff and have huge expensive interventions until the pain of them outweighs the fear of Corona and the public wants them stopped. Meanwhile the out parties want to argue for the highest possible danger to make the in party look irresponsible for doing nothing and the in party wants to argue for the highest possible danger if they'd done nothing, so whatever actually happens seems like proof their efforts did something. Meanwhile most of the public is going to assume because we're doing something this big there has to be a reason. You'll be able to look back in a month or two and see how this really went by comparing countries outcomes.

As for data, even official announcements think the case fatality rates are seriously underestimating the number of cases. The case rate given is around 3% [2] and the number of people infected is around ten times higher than confirmed, tested, cases.

https://www.usnews.com/news/health-...us-cases-may-have-topped-9-000-scientists-say

As of Saturday, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website reported 164 confirmed and presumptive cases in the United States. However, on Sunday, most media reported more than 500 cases in the country.

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More than 9,000 people in the United States may have been infected with the new coronavirus as of March 1 -- a figure much higher than reported, researchers say.

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https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-51857856

There have been 596 confirmed cases across the country. However, the actual number of people infected could be between 5,000 and 10,000, the government's chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance said.

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https://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2020/03/24/science.abb3221

We estimate 86% of all infections were undocumented (95% CI: [82%–90%]) prior to 23 January 2020 travel restrictions.

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If the case fatality rate is only ~0.3% that's really not much worse than a bad flu season. It would warrant a bigger response but only something proportional to that, like maybe 5 times as much.

There's another argument to be made there about residents in a Chinese industrial city with huge smog problems being more vulnerable to a respiratory problem than most populations too, so those figures might be higher than they would be with a larger sample. Smokers appear to have more problems with this so maybe being exposed to that much air pollution raises your risk similarly?

https://coronawiki.org/page/covid-1...-cessation-during-respiratory-virus-epidemics

Definitive evidence on whether current smokers are at increased risk of disease, morbidity and mortality from covid-19 are, to our best knowledge, not yet available. An article reporting disease outcomes in 1,099 laboratory confirmed cases of covid-19 reported that 12.4% (17/137) of current smokers died, required intensive care unit admission or mechanical ventilation compared with 4.7% (44/927) among never smokers.

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[zup]

Careful, last one's a doozy.

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It made both laugh and cry. Good job finding it.

 

[MadGreenSon]

So now you look like you're doing a malevolent con job. Congratulations, you've made yourself look actively evil.

How many people are dead right now? Why are you only pulling shit from more than a month ago?

 

[wichajster]

Now there is an argument for the lost value of the dead, definitely, but I'd argue the sensible rebuttal is what else could the money be spent on that would save more lives more cheaply? In the UK the money could go directly into the national health service to be spent on anything.

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Yes, lives can be saved more efficiently.

I still think that as far as our society spends money 2 500 000 $ (or 5 000 000 $ or 10 000 000 $) to save one life is still above average of how we spend money so I see no problem with that.

If you have evidence that costs of lockdowns, compared to cost of no lockdowns are actually higher then provide sources.

So far estimates provided by "lockdowns should be ended" people are in my opinion supporting continuation of lockdowns.

Psychologically here's what I see going on. Until March everyone who looked at this agreed this was a bad flu like all the other bad flus.

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Maybe in media that you consumed, in what I was encountering there was also "just flu, bro" but also plenty of opinion pointing out evidence indicating that may be clearly worse than any flu since 1918.

And anyone even a bit informed was aware that it is virus distinct from flu.

(note, I am not from USA)

If the case fatality rate is only ~0.3% that's really not much worse than a bad flu season. It would warrant a bigger response but only something proportional to that, like maybe 5 times as much.

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It is also possible that we are underreacting to flu. Note that we are undercounting both infections and deaths. If you have decent sources discussing real infection fatality rate then please link it. And yes, case fatality rate is badly affected by undertesting or testing heavily ill people so statistics like 10% fatality rate over population are clearly a nonsense.




https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/global-covid-19-case-fatality-rates/

Our current best assumption, as of the 9th April, is the CFR is 0.72% – the lowest end of the current prediction interval and in line with several other estimates.
Evaluating CFR during a pandemic is, however, a very hazardous exercise, and high-end estimates should be treated with caution as the H1N1 pandemic highlights that original estimates were out by a factor greater than 10.

(...)

Taking account of historical experience, trends in the data, increased number of infections in the population at largest, and potential impact of misclassification of deaths gives a presumed estimate for the COVID-19 IFR somewhere between 0.1% and 0.36%.*
Data from COVID deaths in Gangelt, Germany, suggests an IFR of 0.37%. A random sample of 1,000 residents of Gangelt found that 14% were carrying antibodies (2% were detected cases), which led to the lowering of the IFR estimates
*Demographic changes in the population could vary the IFR significantly. If younger populations are infected more the IFR will be lower. Comorbidities will have a significant impact to increase the IFR: the elderly and those with ≥ 3 comorbidities are at much higher risk.

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So it appears to be 3 to 4 times deadlier than flu, even with an extreme reaction. Though given uncertainties it may be between "less deadly than flu (after heavy reaction) to ten times deadlier than flu (even after reaction)".