Coronavirus COVID-19 Pandemic

[Germtheory3Z]

I don't care about conspiracy theories. If you have real data, present it.

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See this is evidence. If I nod along with you and say "I'm so scared too" I get brownie points for that. If I question the narrative I'm a monster, and it's not like you're going to apologize and give me a prize on paypal if I'm right. People would hate me more for that. That's what politicians are dealing with right now, and we were probably doomed to that the moment the media hit on using this to bludgeon Trump over even the typical hundred thousand flu deaths like he's personally responsible.

 

[MadGreenSon]

See this is evidence. If I nod along with you and say "I'm so scared too" I get brownie points for that. If I question the narrative I'm a monster, and it's not like you're going to apologize and give me a prize on paypal if I'm right. People would hate me more for that. That's what politicians are dealing with right now, and we were probably doomed to that the moment the media hit on using this to bludgeon Trump over even the typical hundred thousand flu deaths like he's personally responsible.

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Again, I don't care about that. If you have real reasons that aren't purely ideological to believe that COVID 19 isn't a big deal, I'd like to hear them. However, I am unwilling to expose my elderly father to possible death just to play along with someone's political position. Thus far, all you've got is ideology and conspiracy theory. Which is to say, you've got nothing worth acknowledging.

 

[TotalAbsolutism]

Peddling of conspiracy theories is not welcome in this thread. We've already ejected one crackpot for doomerism, I'm happy to kick out people doing the opposite.

 

[Germtheory3Z]

Again, I don't care about that. If you have real reasons that aren't purely ideological to believe that COVID 19 isn't a big deal, I'd like to hear them. However, I am unwilling to expose my elderly father to possible death just to play along with someone's political position. Thus far, all you've got is ideology and conspiracy theory. Which is to say, you've got nothing worth acknowledging.

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You don't have to though. There'd be nothing wrong with voluntarily self isolating like some especially vulnerable people do during most flu seasons. It's making it mandatory and shutting in obese people, people with depression, people with businesses to take care of etc I think's going to be seen as worse than the disease.

Peddling of conspiracy theories is not welcome in this thread. We've already ejected one crackpot for doomerism, I'm happy to kick out people doing the opposite.

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Can you clarify what thoughts you consider a 'conspiracy theory'? Overestimates of mortality, the phone tracking stuff, media/political motivations, etc? I'll take instruction but I'm not clear on what exactly I'm being told not to bring up in the thread.

 

[MadGreenSon]

You don't have to though. There'd be nothing wrong with voluntarily self isolating like some especially vulnerable people do during most flu seasons. It's making it mandatory and shutting in obese people, people with depression, people with businesses to take care of etc I think's going to be seen as worse than the disease.

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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.

 

[TotalAbsolutism]

Can you clarify what thoughts you consider a 'conspiracy theory'? Overestimates of mortality, the phone tracking stuff, media/political motivations, etc? I'll take instruction but I'm not clear on what exactly I'm being told not to bring up in the thread.

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Literally all of this:

In China's case I'd suspect it was more economically motivated than anything else. The death rate there does seem to have been higher, for whatever reason, but they had economic motives for big action. Their economy depends on foreign investment and if everyone thought China had this huge pandemic going on they'd move the money out and start buying elsewhere. So they tried to make a big move on Wuhen and when it failed started lying about their numbers and bribing the WHO to keep quiet until it became a worldwide problem and no-one had anywhere to move out of China to. Hell I wouldn't be surprised if the CCP put a few coughing agents on planes to India, Pakistan or Germany when they saw how the western media was treating this.

I doubt it'd work but if the cops are harassing people for sitting in their gardens, arresting them for not wearing masks and fining pastors for holding drive-in sermons I absolutely believe the government could get away with mandatory vaccines. The phone data is almost certainly already collected illegally by the intelligence agencies (we got that from Assange, and his head rolled for it) they just can't use it to prosecute people in open court yet, so that could get pushed through. Microchips I'm less sure about. I don't know what it's really worth compared to phone tracking, but it keeps coming up in the coverage like we're being prepared for it.

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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.

 

[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.