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

[Ian C. Kuzushi]

It's obvious why vaccine skeptics and anti-maskers would want to refocus everything on ivermectin. Don't fall for it. It's not important unless it turns out that it can be an effective treatment without being more harmful than it is helpful. That looks increasingly unlikely. I'm sure it will be something else next month.

Meanwhile, deaths are way up in all the states run and populated by vaccine skeptics and anti-maskers. Imagine that...

[wiesiek]

I don`t know exact number of "pure covid" deaths in US ,
but
if you compare a new cases in Poland (around 200) to let`s say - ONLY cancer diagnosed in the same time:
cancer patients outnumbered covids cases...
This is just statistic, we can play around with the numbers, it is not my point. Something is covered by covid hype, which showed that king is naked , and this is bright side of the pandemy.
US citizens eating shit everyday in Mc Donalds or PizzaHut outnumbered eating healthy staff, if you add "cocktails vaccination" from kindergarten all what you get is butchered immune system.
So,
basically you don`t have a choice - only Chemical Rockefeller Brothers can save your arses, if you allow them to do so.
My shot is, that on the end of the >covid< story we (humankind), became more dependent from chemicals industry than ever.

[Dmitri]

"Both sides..."

I wrote "all sides" to stress that the apparent division of everyone into (only) two giant camps is what's responsible for a lot of the mess and what needs to stop. It's not two giant buckets with a binary "either you're in this one, or you're in the other one" presumption. Nobody is squarely, 100% on "one side" of anything, because those sides/camps/buckets/labels/etc. are illusory artifacts of humans' tendency to gather in groups and judge "the others".
The world is gray, with shades and hues, and even those are in a neverending state of flux and transition...

You both missed and made my point, and typing out truisms can't change that.

How's that? What was your point, that you attempted to make with so little typing (two words)?

[Dmitri]

...what is your point in posting this?

This thread is approaching 200 pages, with reasonably intelligent and knowledgeable people from "both sides" convinced that they're right and the others -- wrong, and vice versa. It's a mini-version of what's been happening in politics in the past few years, and the medium (RSF serving as "social media" here) exacerbates the divisiveness dramatically -- if not creates it.

[Steve James]

Well, this thread is irrelevant. The corona virus won't going away because people stop arguing about it. People filling hospitals is the problem. It's too bad some people are opposed to being vaccinated or wearing masks. If I thought it was a matter of "sides," I'd take Napoleon's approach: I.e., "If your enemy is making a mistake, don't interrupt him." If I were an enemy of the American people, which "side" would I want to win?

I get what you're saying about fruitless debate where no one will change their mind. However, I don't see pro-vaxxers attacking parents or health care workers. I don't see them promoting conspiracy theories about 5G, Gates, researchers, etc.

Yes, I'm on the side that considers refusing the vaccine on the basis of any conspiracy to be political lunacy and not legitimate arguments. Otoh, if Fauci or the WHO/CDC says that I should not take the vaccine next year, I won't. If there is no covid around, I expect suggestions may change. I'm not married to any medical/health decision because of of a political view --just because some issues are politicized to the point that anyone who goes against the party line is tossed out.

One "side" has always argued that the virus isn't the problem, but the virus ignores that argument. Herbert Caine caught covid; Jesse Jackson and his wife have it. Oscar de la Hoya and Joe Rogan have it. In each case, some were vaccinated; some weren't.

[Dmitri]

Well, this thread is irrelevant.

...to the covid situation? Of course. But it is relevant as an example of what I was trying to point out. Everyone's going nuts when they're online. Just think back to all the "this is not internal" insanity on this very forum (which I was definitely a part of). I'd like to think I've learned to know/do better, since then...

I don't see pro-vaxxers attacking parents or health care workers. I don't see them promoting conspiracy theories about 5G, Gates, researchers, etc.

...and you just lumped everyone who is pro-vaccine into another giant bucket. There are many people out there who are vaccinated AND promote various other conspiracy theories. Here's one example -- according to West Virginia's governor's website, 75% of people over 65 years old have been vaccinated as of June 10th. On the other side, according to this poll, a whopping 43% of West Virginians believe the 2020 election was rigged/a fraud (obviously a conspiracy theory). Now, I don't know the exact numbers of that overlap, but it obviously exists.

And on the other side of that, I bet you the vast majority of anarchists who were responsible for most of the violent attacks and property damage and intimidation in the past couple of years are vaccinated and wearing masks.

The point being, ...it's complicated, and every time someone paints with a too-wide a brush and says "the left", or "the right", or "them" -- they are contributing to the mess we're in.

(agreed with the rest of what you're saying)

[windwalker]

Don’t look at it it is of right or wrong, or a political affiliation.
Might have a bias based on my own experiences in the 70s with the swine flu virus while the military as an Army medic.

Do find information presented interesting, with counter arguments often amusing

More than 900 pages of materials related to US.-funded coronavirus research in China were released following a FOIA lawsuit by The Intercept.
Sharon Lerner, Mara Hvistendahl

Newly released documents provide details of U.S.-funded research on several types of coronaviruses at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China. The Intercept has obtained more than nine hundred pages of documents detailing the work of the EcoHealth Alliance, a U.S.-based health organization that used federal money to fund bat coronavirus research at the Chinese laboratory. The trove of documents includes two previously unpublished grant proposals that were funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, as well as project updates relating to the EcoHealth Alliance’s research, which has been scrutinized amid increased interest in the origins of the pandemic.

The documents were released in connection with ongoing Freedom of Information Act litigation by The Intercept against the National Institutes of Health. The Intercept is making the full documents available to the public.

“This is a roadmap to the high-risk research that could have led to the current pandemic,” said Gary Ruskin, executive director of U.S. Right To Know, a group that has been investigating the origins of Covid-19.

https://theintercept.com/2021/09/06/new ... inese-lab/

Might have come from a lab that the US funded, at least by those currently head of the same organizations that they were back then.

[GrahamB]

Well done Dmitri, you've pointed out that everybody on social media (on both sides!) is nuts, apart from you of course.

Now, what will you do with you new found powers of omnipotence? I hope you use them for good, not evil. Or will you just turn into the next Watcher....

[GrahamB]

It's obvious why vaccine skeptics and anti-maskers would want to refocus everything on ivermectin. Don't fall for it. It's not important unless it turns out that it can be an effective treatment without being more harmful than it is helpful. That looks increasingly unlikely. I'm sure it will be something else next month.

Meanwhile, deaths are way up in all the states run and populated by vaccine skeptics and anti-maskers. Imagine that...

Absolutely - it will be another harebrained thing in 2 weeks time, then another, then another. The news cycle demands it.

[Steve James]

The point being, ...it's complicated, and every time someone paints with a too-wide a brush and says "the left", or "the right", or "them" -- they are contributing to the mess we're in.

I agree with that. I don't use those terms. As I said, conceiving them as sides is the problem, particularly when reduced to names. However, when it comes to a specific issue, there is a choice. I don't make choices because of the side I'm on. It's just a matter of what I consider right or wrong. I consider feeding, clothing, sheltering and providing health care for ever homeless veteran would be right; so, what side does that make me on? Does that make me liberal, socialist, or Christian? If people hold certain positions and consider themselves on the right or left, conservative or progressive, it doesn't matter. It comes down to what they do.

[windwalker]

The point being, ...it's complicated, and every time someone paints with a too-wide a brush and says "the left", or "the right", or "them" -- they are contributing to the mess we're in.

I agree with that. I don't use those terms. As I said, conceiving them as sides is the problem, particularly when reduced to names. However, when it comes to a specific issue, there is a choice. I don't make choices because of the side I'm on. It's just a matter of what I consider right or wrong. I consider feeding, clothing, sheltering and providing health care for ever homeless veteran would be right; so, what side does that make me on? Does that make me liberal, socialist, or Christian? If people hold certain positions and consider themselves on the right or left, conservative or progressive, it doesn't matter. It comes down to what they do.

Yep just happens what’s posted always aligns with a side

Kinda amazing, maybe not.

[windwalker]

Some of What’s happening in the US

Rutgers University has banned a student from attending virtual classes because they are unvaccinated.
Logan Hollar, 22, is taking online classes over 70 miles away from the New Brunswick campus, but the university claims that the vaccine mandate still applies to him.

I’m not in an at-risk age group. I’m healthy and I work out. I don’t find COVID to be scary,” Hollar told NJ.com. “If someone wants to be vaccinated, that’s fine with me, but I don’t think they should be pushed.”
Rutgers was the first university to mandate vaccines for all students last Spring, but originally did not require them for students who were learning remotely.

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/0 ... accinated/

At least in China, The government is very clear in exercise of its control directly, not allowing or counting on private enterprise or industry to do it for them.

[Dmitri]

Well done Dmitri, you've pointed out that everybody on social media (on both sides!) is nuts, apart from you of course.

Now, what will you do with you new found powers of omnipotence? I hope you use them for good, not evil. Or will you just turn into the next Watcher....

The "apart from you" is a completely unsubstantiated assumption, and it is wrong. I'm very well aware I'm part of it. Are you?

[Steve James]

At least in China, The government is very clear in exercise of its control directly, not allowing or counting on private enterprise or industry to do it for them.

Yay, communism.

[GrahamB]

Well done Dmitri, you've pointed out that everybody on social media (on both sides!) is nuts, apart from you of course.

Now, what will you do with you new found powers of omnipotence? I hope you use them for good, not evil. Or will you just turn into the next Watcher....

The "apart from you" is a completely unsubstantiated assumption, and it is wrong. I'm very well aware I'm part of it. Are you?

Look, if you want to muse about the nature of reality in some sort of philosophical coma, you knock yourself out. Fill your boots.