Corona

[OrgasmAlley]

I'm sure I have an unpopular point of view.. but I don't actually think it should annoy someone that other people are doing legal things, even if the observer would not choose to do them. Don't do them yourself, and don't be around people who do, if that's your preference.

The concept seems related to the ongoing fiction that various remediation measures are intended to keep people from getting infected, instead of flattening the curve to avoid immediate term overload of health care systems. We simply are not going to stay locked down as a society until there is a tested and approved vaccine, and whenever we emerge the virus will be with us... it's reasonably likely to be with us for at least years.

[lj]

We simply are not going to stay locked down as a society until there is a tested and approved vaccine, and whenever we emerge the virus will be with us... it's reasonably likely to be with us for at least years.

Exactly!

Here in the UK, "they" did a wargaming for a pandemic and came up with the result that we were totally unprepared for such an event. That was in 2016. What was done ? Nothing? - why? there are no votes in spending millions of public money filling warehouses with PPE etc for a one-in-a-hundred years event.

And then you have 24-hour rolling news and social media to spread the panic, so now in the UK something like 75% of the population want lockdown to continue until it is safe to lift it. How do we determine "safe" ? zero chance of catching the disease? Which politician will set a figure? Yet we all live with, and accept, the risk of our own death every time we leave our house, get in a car, bus, plane - or even stay at home! and those risks are far worse than catching covid-19.

The curve has been flattened, let's get back to normality before the economy crashes to the point that there are no jobs, no taxes and the lockdown-related deaths start climbing.

[Shannon SteelSlave]

Gaining momentum again is the rumour that Corona was man made and intentionally released into the population to cause chaos. Is it worth noting here that many credible sources are convinced that this virus was not created in a lab? What are you hearing, and who is saying it?

[Gregovic]

Gaining momentum again is the rumour that Corona was man made and intentionally released into the population to cause chaos. Is it worth noting here that many credible sources are convinced that this virus was not created in a lab? What are you hearing, and who is saying it?

For those who can manage to slog through a somewhat long article, this one about the Wuhan lab and the research conducted there is rather interesting.

TL;DR: Creating crosses between different viruses is a legitimate avenue of research, the Wuhan lab has previously been critiqued for bad safety protocols and poor handling of "research materials", the SARS-CoV-2 virus contains a lot of similarities to viruses that are known to have been studied at the Wuhan lab, including one that has not previously been known outside of that lab. It is possible someone got infected at the lab and didn't notice, infected animals got sold to the Wuhan wet-market by someone careless or unknowing about the risks or some other breach of containment occurred. It's also still possible the mutations occurred naturally, though with more data coming out (and the strong statements from the Orange Man), it seems quite possible the lab was the source. HOWEVER, it is also very UNlikely the virus was released on purpose. China would have no way of knowing what it would do to it's own population and whether it could contain it properly.

[sweh]

Yet we all live with, and accept, the risk of our own death every time we leave our house, get in a car, bus, plane - or even stay at home! and those risks are far worse than catching covid-19.

UK road deaths (year to June 2018): 1,770 ( https://www.gov.uk/government/statistic ... -june-2018 )
UK COVID-19 deaths: 30,615 ( https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/uk/)

More people in the UK are dying of COVD-19 in 3 days than died on the road in a whole year.

Heck, if you take into account _all_ reported road casualties (165,000 ) that's less than all reported COVID-19 infections ( 206,000 ).

I think the risk of COVID-19 is a lot higher than that of getting in a car!

[OrgasmAlley]

True, but the populations are different, leading to a more refined comparison.

I think it was Stanford's John Ioannidis that did the analysis to decide that someone in the US (where, of course, we do a lot more driving, have a lot more cars, and a lot more road deaths) the risk of dying from the COVID for someone under 65 without comorbidities is less than the risk from one round trip to work 10 miles away by car. I think it's inevitable that we make all sort of comparisons about causes of death. In the UK, for example, it's bound to be the case that minors are far more likely to die from an auto accident than the COVID. I doubt anyone intends to claim any of these causes of death are not deadly, though.

I agree with the contention that an intentional release is exceptionally unlikely. It could be a virus that's been human-modified or intentionally induced to cross species... I'm not sure we'll ever know that. However, the facts on the ground definitely support a likely accidental release of the thing from the Wuhan lab, IMO.

What's worse, it seems very clear -- particularly given the decision to close Wuhan to China-internal travel while leaving it open to international destinations -- that China intentionally let the rest of the world get infected too. And in the end they will almost certainly benefit from that decision.

[Kinbaku]

Everyone is free to have their own opinion about this, but I regret the deaths for this because they have come into contact with people who have become infected by going to parties. Compare the death rates between Sweden (3040), where they do not take it so seriously with that of similar countries Norway (217) and Finland (255). The most dangerous thing about this virus, I think, is that you still feel healthy in the beginning, but you can still transmit the virus to older and weaker people. Those people who didn't go to those parties, but become infected and die.
Who is the cause and / or whether the wanted happened? The annoying thing is that we have to deal with it and have to deal with it until a solid vaccine is found.

[Shannon SteelSlave]

I'm sure I have an unpopular point of view..

I hope I am not such an ogre that people are afraid to disagree with me. I admit, I was venting a bit as I wrote what I wrote, not entirely my usually cool self. I now live in the 3rd most infected place in the US.

We simply are not going to stay locked down as a society until there is a tested and approved vaccine, and whenever we emerge the virus will be with us... it's reasonably likely to be with us for at least years.

I was just saying the other day, that they better have a handle on this thing by holiday time. There is no way people will stand for quarantine that long or at that time.
I would hate to admit that I would probably be well suited to be a contact tracer. 2 things keep me from signing up. I don't actually believe in the cause of tracing, and I don't like telling people what to do.
I do like hearing peoples' opinions and having a discussion that helps us all see things every way possible.

[bound_jenny]

There are a lot of grumblings about how long this lockdown has been going on. A few demonstrations in front of state houses and provincial parliaments, etc.

Gaining momentum again is the rumour that Corona was man made and intentionally released into the population to cause chaos. Is it worth noting here that many credible sources are convinced that this virus was not created in a lab? What are you hearing, and who is saying it?

I figure that the origin may or may not have been intentional, either a natural occurrence or an accidental containment breach. From there, however, it becomes interesting.

[WARNING: the following opinion may raise hackles, hell or other horrible stuff that starts with "h" or any other letter. The intent is to provoke thought, not incendiary exchanges.]

Considering that China held back on giving the rest of the world a heads-up until the latter were already infected; that China did not restrict travel outside of China (the considerate thing to do if you're playing nice with the other countries, which they are NOT)...

I submit that China decided to use this situation to its own advantage by letting it out and infecting the world, causing huge economic and social chaos, rampant fear and panic, reducing some populations to becoming "social distancing snitches" on snitch hotlines set up for the purpose. Among other things, like setting fire to cell towers because the 5G network spreads the coronavirus - even if the towers in question had no 5G equipment...

Basically, they got back at the USA for losing the last trade staring contest.

As a biological weapon in the pure sense of the term, it's not very effective. It mostly decimates the older, weaker population who are far from being either of military age or of good health. That's what you would want in any biological weapon - kill the healthy, strong ones so the enemy's defensive capability is weakened.

But as a psychological and economic weapon, the coronavirus gets top marks. Especially in the USA where politics are already highly polarized and fractured and anyone will use and do anything to get back at the opposing party. Chaos. Unbridled spending, plunging the country into even deeper debt. Plus the Keystone Cops management circus on the state and local level. Or provincial, like up here.

China got their money's worth with little effort spent. They had a weapon of opportunity delivered on a silver platter - be it a natural occurrence or a Homer Simpson-like blunder in the Wuhan lab.

It's time they paid the bill.

jm2c.

Jenny.

[ruru67]

I submit that China ...

I've always subscribed to Hanlon's Razor: never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.

China's system has virtues and faults. The virtues in this case came to the fore when they finally got a handle on what they were up against, and could mobilise against it, building hospitals in record time and so-forth. The faults lay in a system that required minor functionaries to refer decisions upward to those actually in power, while discouraging them from actually doing so. If you watched the Chernobyl mini-series, this will be familiar - the system and the people in it denied and minimised initially, but once they were unable to hide from the enormity of the situation, responded on a massive scale.

BTW: what the fuck is Canada doing wrong? We know the USA and UK just made a hash of it, but even these have basically flat daily infection and death rates, while Canada's continue to rise - a pattern shared mainly with Brazil, which is run by an idiot who refuses to acknowledge that there is even a problem.

[Kinbaku]

what the fuck is Canada doing wrong? We know the USA and UK just made a hash of it, but even these have basically flat daily infection and death rates, while Canada's continue to rise - a pattern shared mainly with Brazil, which is run by an idiot who refuses to acknowledge that there is even a problem.

As I said, the most dangerous thing is that you can infect each other before you notice something is going on.
Most cases in Canada occur in Ontario and Quebec, close to New York. So it is "normal" that there is now an outbreak there and this needs its time to level off.

In Belgium, there has been a flare-up among young people instead of 80-year-olds. This is dedicated to the loose act of young people who had had enough of being locked up during the sunny Easter holidays. However, there is also good news. Because most people adhere to the precautions, we are gradually softening the measures here. Of course it remains a difference before and after the Corona and we have to keep in mind the outbreak of a second wave, but as things stand, things are going in the right direction. I regret that some politicians such as in Brazil are not smarter and look at the numbers, because behind every number is the life of a person.

[OrgasmAlley]

Quebec and Ontario certainly aren't closer to New York City than Vermont and New Hampshire... I don't think that proximity theory holds.

China's travel decisions -- again, allowing international travel after banning internal travel out of Wuhan/Hubei -- was certainly not made by minor functionaries, and speaks clearly to intentional action. Personally, I think the CCP thought something like: "We're getting ravaged by this thing. We can contain it, and it only hurts us. Or we can NOT contain it, and not be the only country taken down a notch." And decided letting the world get it provided more opportunity than talking the brunt themselves. They're right, too. Collectivist regime as the source of evil, yet again.

Aside from the bureaucratic problems with the FDA literally preventing testing rollouts, and a couple of truly horrid decisions in New York, the US has had quite an excellent reaction to the COVID. Along with Italy, we were the earliest to ban inbound travelers from China,and no hospitals anywhere in the US have every been overwhelmed. It's certainly in favor to bash anything and everything Trump in the major media, and this is no exception... and as a country we could have responded more aggressively were we a top-down regime instead of a union of states, but then of course we would also lose the unique advantages of the latter.

A recent study indicated that some 65% of US outbreaks of the COVID were due to early travelers coming from NYC. We might then look at why NYC was such an hot spot, and so early (while places like SF, where there is a massive Chinese population and large number of travelers to/from China, were not). That boils down to two basic decisions: forcing elderly care facilities to take infected patients discharged from hospitals, and leaving the subways open and encouraged... even reducing routes to focus users into fewer, more tightly packed cars.

[bound_jenny]

BTW: what the fuck is Canada doing wrong? We know the USA and UK just made a hash of it, but even these have basically flat daily infection and death rates, while Canada's continue to rise - a pattern shared mainly with Brazil, which is run by an idiot who refuses to acknowledge that there is even a problem.

Well, it is true that our Prime Pothead Justin Trudeau is about as competent as a banana peel in this situation. For giving breathless speeches and throwing around buzzwords, he's got an A+. But in managing the situation, that's way down in the D- or less range.

Another thing that was done wrong, especially in the long-term care homes, is rotating the staff between the facilities. Nice way to spread it around, eh? At one point, there was a severe shortage of care workers because they were either already ill or too scared to come in for their shifts. Whoever was left was overworked and overtired. Way to go! But at least the Canadian Forces came in with their personnel, and after a bit of training, gave a much-needed hand to the folks that were left.

because behind every number is the life of a person.

You got that right. They are not numbers, they are people! (to semi quote Patrick McGoohan).

Jenny.

[tiemeupalso]

what really bothers me is we have thousands of people who supposedly died of this virus.
not a single autopsy has been done or reported.so the numbers they have cant be correct.some of these people already had lung problems.
I don't believe the numbers,i just think the MSNM is just exploiting the whole thing

[Shannon SteelSlave]

not a single autopsy has been done or reported.so the numbers they have cant be correct.some of these people already had lung problems.I don't believe the numbers,i just think the MSNM is just exploiting the whole thing

Does anyone know the vetting process for determining a confirmed Corona death? Or fact checking parameters that determine that news can be broadcast as truth?