Crazy (and not-so-crazy) shit about Covid-19

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Re: Crazy (and not-so-crazy) shit about Covid-19

Postby Finny on Mon Dec 14, 2020 5:11 pm

Steve James wrote:
If it doesn't work, it's unlikely that we'll be indoor dining through 2021. Call me crazy, but I don't think the virus (or the illness it causes) will just magically go away. I watched video of a pastor being interviewed who was arguing that the whole "pandemic thing is a hoax. Yeah, covid is real; but there's no pandemic." The interviewer asks, "What is a pandemic to you?" He replied, "I've never seen a pandemic in my lifetime. This sure ain't one." The discussion went back and forth, or around and around, without ever reaching a conclusion. But, because he didn't think it was a pandemic, he said that masks and social distancing were unnecessary, and that he wasn't going to take no vaccine.


Just to elaborate on that point, with respect to Weisek's query before around the scale of the spread in the US; where I am we have had ZERO community transmitted covid cases for over 8 months - we've been dining indoors, going out without masks... I've been training (when i can make it lol).. all because our government managed the virus effectively, and our 'sheeple' willingly obeyed.
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Re: Crazy (and not-so-crazy) shit about Covid-19

Postby wiesiek on Tue Dec 15, 2020 1:32 am

Guys,
due to my age I became more conservative in thinkin`, than before, probably thinkin` I :),
anyway
my knowledge for today is,-that we (in meaning humans race), just begin to understand, that we just scratching surface of unknown;
and
this is good, `cause keepin` mind in the state of "don`t know" may open quite new "unthinkable" before possibility,
from the another hand - we are closer to >matrix< materialization, than ever before
so
we are livin` in interesting times...
in mean time while keepin` "don`t know" in the mind, I will put my bet on my own immune system

best
W
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Re: Crazy (and not-so-crazy) shit about Covid-19

Postby Giles on Tue Dec 15, 2020 4:27 am

And I sincerely hope your immune system looks after you well, Wiesiek, should you become infected with Covid-19. Even statistically speaking, the odds should still be in your favor and with a good immune system your chances should be even better. So my best wishes that it all works out well for you, and you stay healthy and your inimitable self! :)

As regards knowledge and reality: I know at the cognitive level that ‘solid matter’ is made of atoms and that in each atom there is an incredible amount of ‘nothing’, of ‘empty space’, absolutely dwarfing the tiny ‘solid’ nucleus in the middle and the ‘sort of there, sort of not there’ electron(s) whizzing around the nucleus. So I know that in that sense my body too is 99.99999 % ‘empty space’. And I also know (sometimes feel, or even use it) that I am an energy body, with some aspects of it extending some way beyond the boundary of my skin. And I also know that not only is my flesh-and-blood body almost entirely empty space, but the same is also true for a large truck (same kind of nuclei, electrons). (Not so sure about truck energy bodies, but who knows?)

So if a ‘truck’ (= pretty much empty space) were to collide with my body (= pretty much empty space) then that’s basically nothing meeting nothing.

And I'm also aware of the possibility, entertained by some highly respected physicists, that it can't be ruled out that we really are all living in an advanced simulation.

Despite all this, I will continue to look carefully before I cross roads.

And I will also willingly accept a Covid-19 vaccination when it’s my turn.

;)
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Re: Crazy (and not-so-crazy) shit about Covid-19

Postby wiesiek on Tue Dec 15, 2020 6:02 am

thank you,
knowing the Void, it is something...

I went thru the covid already, ( no big fuzz in my case),
than, I can be sure about my system, so far
after 3 months, I also don`t feel any complication.
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Re: Crazy (and not-so-crazy) shit about Covid-19

Postby Steve James on Thu Dec 17, 2020 6:32 am

Well, yesterday 3,600 people with covid in the US died. Fortunately, that's 1/4 of what the number would be if treatment methods hadn't improved. I.e., the deaths versus number of cases now is 25% of what it would have been earlier in the year. Yesterday, there were something like 250K positives. So, yeah, 3,600 deaths is a small percentage. IF it keeps up for two weeks, that's another 50K souls.
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Re: Crazy (and not-so-crazy) shit about Covid-19

Postby Bao on Thu Dec 17, 2020 9:02 am

Good to someone admit and show genuine feelings over Sweden's complete failure.

"King of Sweden blasts 'failed' Covid strategy in rare royal rebuke

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPB8rYjk9Fs



https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/ ... tals-cases
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Re: Crazy (and not-so-crazy) shit about Covid-19

Postby Steve James on Thu Dec 17, 2020 11:08 am

Imo, it was worse here. The Swedes didn't do it for political reasons.

Today Representative James Clyburn (D-SC), who chairs the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis, revealed documents from senior appointees in the Trump administration overriding the work of the career officials in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Those documents show that the political appointees at the Department of Health and Human Services called for dealing with the coronavirus crisis by pursuing a strategy of “herd immunity,” deliberately spreading the coronavirus to try to infect as many people as possible, with the theory that this approach would minimize the dangers of the pandemic. While doing so, they downplayed what they were doing, tried to hide the dangers of the virus, and blamed the career scientists who objected to this strategy for the rising death rates.

Although the White House has tried to distance itself from senior Health and Human Services Adviser Paul Alexander, last summer he was widely perceived to speak for his boss Michael Caputo, the Health and Human Services Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs whom Trump had appointed, and for the White House itself. Alexander, a part-time university professor from Canada, defended Trump against scientists, accusing CDC Principal Deputy Director Dr. Anne Schuchat of lying when she provided accurate public information about the worsening pandemic. When she suggested everyone should wear a mask, he claimed: “her aim is to embarrass the President.” Alexander attacked Anthony Fauci for his attempts to protect Americans. “He just won’t stop!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” wrote Alexander on July 3, 2020 (yes, I counted the exclamation points); “does he think he is the President???”

Alexander advocated spreading the infection to younger Americans: “So the bottom line is if it is more infectiouness [sic] now, the issue is who cares? If it is causing more cases in young, my word is who cares…as long as we make sensible decisions, and protect the elderely [sic] and nursing homes, we must go on with life….who cares if we test more and get more positive tests.”

Alexander wrote to Caputo: “There is no other way, we need to establish herd, and it only comes about allowing the non-high risk groups expose themselves to the virus. PERIOD.” On the same day, he wrote: “Infants, kids, teens, young people, young adults, middle aged with no conditions etc. have zero to little risk….so we use them to develop herd…we want them infected…”

On July 24, he wrote to FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn and Caputo: “it may be that it will be best if we open up and flood the zone and let the kids and young folk get infected” as a strategy to get “natural immunity…natural exposure,” an argument that illuminates Trump’s insistence this summer that schools and colleges must open.
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Re: Crazy (and not-so-crazy) shit about Covid-19

Postby Bao on Thu Dec 17, 2020 1:07 pm

"Sweden registers record 8 881 new COVID-19 cases"
https://www.arabnews.com/node/1778881/world

No wonder ... take a look at the Stockholm Metro, a picture taken today, Dec 17th

Image
Last edited by Bao on Thu Dec 17, 2020 1:09 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Crazy (and not-so-crazy) shit about Covid-19

Postby Steve James on Thu Dec 17, 2020 1:33 pm

This reminds me of NYC in May. When I hear talk of "excess" deaths and false covid diagnoses, I wonder why the full hospitals are seen as normal. I really don't know how anyone can compare the situation now to any other year. I've never seen it half this bad.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ruleR76aEIw

Where will scenes like this occur next?
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Re: Crazy (and not-so-crazy) shit about Covid-19

Postby Giles on Thu Dec 17, 2020 2:21 pm

@ Steve
Those quotations from Alexander are truly hardcore. :P He was 'consistent' in his thinking, but also consistent in being driven by narrow political reasons, not by science.

Here in Germany, which did fairly well earlier in the year, we went into a stricter lockdown again yesterday. But still not so strict as in France and Spain earlier this year - we can still go out freely for solo exercise, sport etc. The first hospitals in some areas of the country are on the brink of applying triage for the first time. Give it a few more weeks and I fear this will be widespread. We ('Germany') could probably have avoided this situation and even stayed with the semi-lockdown/shutdown if everyone had stuck to the existing rules. Most people did, more or less. But there have been too many people ignoring the rules and recommendations on how and when you meet people, wear masks, keep distance etc. Countless recorded or experienced cases of people not wearing masks (properly) in public transport or shops; ignoring all the rules in places like bars, at weddings, at 'corona demonstrations' etc.; quite a few reports of the police raiding illegal parties, raves and stuff like that, and probably 10 of these that didn't get found out for every one that did.
In other words, not so much that the rules, the 'measures', were ineffective, but more that too many people were ignoring them some of the time or all of the time.
All that, adding to the number of infections that will happen anyway, even when masks and a degree of distancing reduce the chances of infection, have pushed us up to critical level and now we're all paying for it.
Still, probably just a few months to get through and then by around April (?) the warmer weather and the vaccines rollout should mean that things start shifting slowly back to normal.
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Re: Crazy (and not-so-crazy) shit about Covid-19

Postby Steve James on Thu Dec 17, 2020 3:07 pm

Still, probably just a few months to get through and then by around April (?) the warmer weather and the vaccines rollout should mean that things start shifting slowly back to normal.


Yeah. This too will pass. One difference between the US and Germany is that you have universal health care. But, there'll always be the dissenters and deniers. So, I follow the same strategy I had six months ago and try to make sure I don't catch or spread the/a virus.

Hey, I hear that patients need two doses of the vaccine. I'd guess that it'll be relatively "safe" when 1/3 of the population are vaccinated. How long will it take to administer 200 million doses.
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Re: Crazy (and not-so-crazy) shit about Covid-19

Postby Ian C. Kuzushi on Thu Dec 17, 2020 4:03 pm

My wife will be getting the first dose on Saturday, but it won't change anything for us in terms of behavior. There will be some more peace of mind for me as she will be less likely to bring it home, but it's still going to be masks and distancing for the foreseeable future.

Really, we have been very, very lucky. I did lose a couple of big grant opportunities and my wife got her benefits frozen, but compared to losing our jobs or dying, we are very grateful this holiday season.
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Re: Crazy (and not-so-crazy) shit about Covid-19

Postby everything on Fri Dec 18, 2020 8:51 am

That's good news!
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Re: Crazy (and not-so-crazy) shit about Covid-19

Postby Bao on Sun Dec 20, 2020 3:18 am

A Chinese 5 minutes sum up of the uncertainties with the US vaccines.

- Is it a fair description?
- Do these things make you worried?
- Do you believe that China’s vaccines are better or worse?
- What vaccine would you prefer to use if you had a choice?

https://youtu.be/I6I3o0DvWL0



Oh, and BTW, now the Swedish government “advices” the people to wear face mask in public transportations and crowded areas... starting from Jan 7. So, after the Holidays when People already have travelled. -loco-

So, after almost a year of telling the people that face mask is bad and more dangerous than giving protection, the Swedish government has decided that the population is smart enough to handle using face masks from Jan 7.

This might be a government with a collective IQ just barely matching Trump’s own IQ.
Last edited by Bao on Sun Dec 20, 2020 3:28 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Crazy (and not-so-crazy) shit about Covid-19

Postby Steve James on Sun Dec 20, 2020 7:44 am

Would I take the Chinese (or Russian) vaccine? Double nah :) Not that I'd have the opportunity, anyway. Afa side effects, it's almost certain that out of the millions of patients given a dose, some will get very sick or die. It's true of all vaccines (afaik), peanuts, and bee stings. Allergic reactions can kill. That doesn't indicate that a vaccine or drug is unsafe.

Afa Sweden, imo it doesn't make much sense to wait until January 7th to start doing anything that might help. I understand that it's a way to avoid disrupting the holiday season, but the tradeoff may be more funerals now and fewer friends and family at gatherings next year. It's likely that Sweden will eventually become as dependent on achieving "herd immunity" through vaccination as everyone else. The only places where vaccines are unnecessary are places where there are few or no cases.

Anyway, there have been problems distributing the vaccine. Of course, now that every state wants it, but it is still a huge research experiment. We will have the equivalent to years of testing (with humans) after millions of people have received the vaccine. There is no other way to determine the percentage of people who may have a negative reaction. Otoh, if the vaccine works, "it can't be worse than the disease it prevents."
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