PigLick on 24/7/2020 at 11:29
everytime i see strawman i think of this...
[video=youtube;-sQ3Af3DpeM]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-sQ3Af3DpeM[/video]
Gryzemuis on 24/7/2020 at 12:41
This is my favorite "wicker man" song.
(If you listen carefully, you can hear The Many singing in the background).
[video=youtube;NRC6gOO7S7g]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRC6gOO7S7g[/video]
That was a very nice song ...
Music (1983) by Dave Ball (from Soft Cell), voice by the brilliant Genesis P. Orridge. She left us last March, RIP.
BTW, in March our government (nl) and our National Health Institute advised against using masks. They said that they hardly help. And with wrong use can actually increase risk of infection. I called bullshit immediately. I suspected that that was our official standpoint, because at the time we just didn't have enough masks for everyone. Most people in NL now think masks don't help. And to this day, our government and our health institute keep insisting that masks aren't needed and aren't helpful. I don't know why. Probably so they don't have to admit they were wrong.
In the mean time, in a number of European countries, number of infections per day are slowly rising again. Nothing to worry about yet on the big scale. But if the trend keeps continueing, we're in a 2nd wave within a few months.
Thirith on 24/7/2020 at 13:15
Switzerland was similar re: masks (when none were available, the authorities said they weren't necessary), except our authorities have been pretty good from the beginning at acknowledging that they don't know everything and that they can and will change direction if it's reasonably well backed by scientific evidence. About a month ago they made wearing masks obligatory in public transport. If they hadn't done so, no one would've followed their recommendations concerning masks, but now that it's mandatory, people are okay with it. But honestly, I don't envy governments for having to find a good compromise between scientific findings, available resources and Joe Q Public and make it work somehow - though there still are governments that are doing a better job and governments that think that shitting the bed and then tweeting about it is their job.
zombe on 24/7/2020 at 17:22
Quote Posted by icemann
Over here in my state of Victoria (in Australia) we've had a massive second wave of the virus. All was going well until some major fuck ups by the state government (on choosing independent contractors in keeping watch of returning citizens from overseas). Went from 2-5 new cases per day to 300-500.
Ow, that is a big jump. Google tells pop count there is 6.36M (hoped for a bigger number) and there are also some large cities there too ... worrying indeed. Is it flaring up in the cities or somewhere more containable?
------------------------
There is a chance we could be moving towards starting the second wave too ...
So far our government has been adequate (even pretty good at times, but never particularly great so far). Our primary problem is external and internal idiots. Many (perhaps even most) of the new cases have been traced to them - and it would not surprise me when a good portion of the rest would also lead to thous (just that contact tracing has its limits).
External idiot: birthday guest from Russia who came despite having symptoms and managed to spread it around pretty darn well. Probably infected someone en route too ... but that kind of stuff is especially difficult to trace for foreigners.
Internal idiot: just recently a positively tested person decided to go on a shopping spree (inc. but not limited to a major shopping center of the city), nightclub, spa and movie theater. At least he/she is local which helps - likely most of the major risk places visited are know and reported which might help alert some unknowing new carriers. Too early to tell, but this could turn into super spreader territory. That was over several days of activity while being in the infectious stage already (first known major indiscretion was at the 18th and last at 23rd, reported at 24th and presumably caught at 23rd ... ~6 days of idiocy, a new record ... yes, this kind of shit has been caught before).
Our latest contact tracing report (moving 14 days span before the excluded recent days where work is still ongoing) gives where they got infected: 12 (56.5%) family circle, 1 (4.3%) workplace, 8 (34.8%) foreign location, 1 (4.3%) location was not identified.
SD on 24/7/2020 at 18:32
Quote Posted by Sulphur
So you're asserting that the lockdown was unnecessary because infections were eventually going to go disappear anyway, just slower sans lockdown?
I'm not asserting anything other than pointing out that they were falling pre-lockdown.
Quote Posted by heywood
SD - you're so full of shit. UK went into lockdown on Mar 23. The rate of new cases reached a peak on Apr 7, two weeks after the start of lockdown, pretty much exactly when it was expected to. It stayed more or less flat through the end of April and then started going down.
No, this isn't the case. April 7th was when the number of DEATHS peaked in the UK. There is obviously a delay from peak number of infections to peak number of deaths. The paper by Professor Simon Wood from the University of Bristol, widely covered in the UK press, shows that infections peaked approximately 5 days before lockdown.
Can I say that it's nice that the Lancet have published something that they haven't been forced to retract.
I've read it, and to say it doesn't contain compelling evidence that non-medical face coverings outside a controlled environment are good for stopping the spread of covid is an understatement.
Quote Posted by Nicker
You cherry picked some numbers that you apparently don't understand.
I understand them perfectly. Your bare assertion changes nothing.
Quote Posted by faetal
That's fucking insane, and literally ignores the basic way that human transmissible viruses work.
In what universe does a virus just go away apropos of fuck all?
There is a limited number of people who are vulnerable to the disease. As that pool dwindles, it naturally follows that the capacity for the disease to spread drops too. Eventually you run out of low-hanging fruit.
Yes, you ought to read up about how viruses work. You can start with the Russian flu pandemic of 1889-90 that killed 1 million people, which was probably caused by HCoV-OC43, one of the four coronaviruses that causes the common cold these days.
Quote Posted by Thirith
SD, your dismissal (or wilful ignorance) of research into masks and what they're good for with a glib comment about virtue signalling doesn't exactly speak to your ability or willingness to really discuss this. In the meantime, I'm happy to stick with what a majority of experts seem to agree with, namely that masks go some way towards protecting others.
You're claiming a scientific consensus that just doesn't exist. Sorry.
If there was a time you could argue masks should have been brought in here, it was months ago. To mandate them now, when the virus has been virtually eliminated, is just crazy.
nickie on 24/7/2020 at 18:56
Quote Posted by SD
There is a limited number of people who are vulnerable to the disease. As that pool dwindles, it naturally follows that the capacity for the disease to spread drops too. Eventually you run out of low-hanging fruit.
.
I find it hard to believe that you are as callous as you sound. Are you really consigning me and mine to death for no good reason. Do you want to consign people like Captain Tom to death. He only raised 32.7 million for NHS charities. Perhaps he should have done more.
To think that I've agreed with things you've said in the past. Maybe you're just not expressing yourself very well. I'd rather think that.
Sulphur on 24/7/2020 at 19:20
Quote Posted by SD
I'm not asserting anything other than pointing out that they were falling pre-lockdown.
Then there's really no point in mentioning that if you don't have a follow-through. It doesn't matter, actually, because the graphs show it (
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/uk/) spiked in April with the biggest one on 10th April, weeks after the lockdown on 23rd March anyway. (Or if that's not reliable enough here's the (
https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/) UK government version with a spread of spikes around the same timeframe.) Given a 7-14 day incubation period, this means that everyone probably had a feeding frenzy and threw caution to the wind just before the lockdown. Which, well, is the trend just about
every country has displayed so far when faced with potential supply shortages before being barred in at home.
Quote:
There is a limited number of people who are vulnerable to the disease. As that pool dwindles, it naturally follows that the capacity for the disease to spread drops too. Eventually you run out of low-hanging fruit.
No, everyone who isn't asymptomatic is vulnerable to the disease. Whether they
die from it is a separate issue. The people who're dying aren't just the old and the infirm, they're those with comorbidities like diabetes and compromised immune systems. But it's clear that this isn't really important to you, because in your eyes it's just an uncommonly fatal flu that kills only a percentage of the population, and for you those are acceptable losses.
Unfortunately for you, the rest of us aren't from the operational mindset that reduces people to mere numbers, and I don't need my family or friends dying from something that could have been avoided if the people around them had decided to be a little more sensible.
So basically: piss off, and I hope no one around you dies because of your monstrously shallow fuckshittery.
P.S.: I'd say faetal knows how viruses work far more than you ever could.
Nicker on 24/7/2020 at 20:15
Quote Posted by nickie
I find it hard to believe that you are as callous as you sound.
SD seems to think that nobody noticed.
Quote:
I understand them perfectly. Your bare assertion changes nothing.
You understand the value of cherry picked and dubious numbers in supporting your own bare and irresponsible assertion that people under 50 are at negligible risk. We don't know the real infection rate in the USA because of data tampering and the personal risk to an infected person is not the only risk that needs to be calculated.
All of this in service of a value judgement about the negligible lives of others.
I agree with nickie. I'd like to think you just need to reassess your argument.
Renzatic on 24/7/2020 at 20:40
Since we're on the topic of healthcare.
You know, I'm getting to that age where my doctor suggest I do blood tests and stuff. It sucks, but barring divine intervention, and/or a car driving down the streets with no headlights at 3AM, getting old was bound to happen to me sooner or later.
I got it done about a week ago. This very serious lady took a whole bunch of blood out of me. It was an uncomfortable experience overall, one that I wouldn't recommend. After she finished extracting my vital life juices, she said she'd run it off to a lab, and I'd get my results back in 3 to 5 business days.
...that day has arrived. The results are in. I have...oh god...I have high cholesterol! They said I should cut back on the tacos and hamburgers, eat lots more fish, vegetables, nuts, and whole grains. Might also consider getting at least 2 hours of exercise in a week.
2020 has truly been the worst year ever.
Though my blood sugar levels are perfect. That was surprising, considering all those brownies I eat.
heywood on 24/7/2020 at 20:48
I think SD has been infected with the wingnut virus.
This is almost as useless as arguing with a conspiracy theorist, except believing in conspiracies doesn't kill people.