Mooney_Driver wrote:
You are very right though that the main reason for this is carelessness a d egoism as well as sheer stupidity.
You can turn that 180 degrees around. Pandemics have existed since for ever. Pandemics much worse than this has decimated the population over and over. The human race has survived, and has ended up being stronger. Better immune system. Is the well being of a few individual more important than the well being of the human race? Why should I care more for those few individuals than the well being of 99.9 % of the population? Where is the ethics and logic of that?
I don’t know. It is reasonable clear by now that this disease is not easily stopped, perhaps impossible, but it is very very far from endangering the human race. Even if we get a few vaccines, the virus mutates all the time, you can get it again and again, like influenza. It is here to stay. l think it is unreasonable (mildly spoken) for everyone to stop living their lives for the sole reason of preventing life expectancy of the population being shortened by a few weeks or a month.
LeSving wrote:
for the sole reason of preventing life expectancy of the population being shortened by a few weeks or a month.
Average age of ‘covid’ deaths is higher than average life expectancy….
I really can not understand why people just swallow the propaganda from politicians and the few scientists that politicians chose to listen to.
Tens of thousand of doctors and scientists disagree with the ‘official line’ https://gbdeclaration.org/#cosigners
A retired director pf Pfizer, worked for years on respiratory diseases:
https://lockdownsceptics.org/what-sage-got-wrong/
“Dr Mike Yeadon has a degree in biochemistry and toxicology and a research-based PhD in respiratory pharmacology. He has spent over 30 years leading new medicines research in some of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies, leaving Pfizer in 2011 as Vice President & Chief Scientist for Allergy & Respiratory. That was the most senior research position in this field in Pfizer. Since leaving Pfizer, Dr Yeadon has founded his own biotech company, Ziarco, which was sold to the worlds biggest drug company, Novartis, in 2017.”
“If, like me, you’re sure that the pandemic, as a ghastly public health event, is nearly over in UK, you will probably be with me in sheer astonishment and frustration that SAGE, the Government and 99% of the media maintain the fiction that this continues to be the biggest public health emergency in decades. I have written about the whole event in detail before (Yeadon et al, 2020). Mortality in the UK in 2020 to date, adjusted for population, lies in 8th place out of the last 27 years. It’s not been that exceptional a year from a mortality point of view.”
Maybe people will be offended by this cartoon even if I say I don’t mean to offend, I really want to know why people WANT to live in fear?
Because I really can not understand….
In the mean time, Sweden had, in September, the month with fewer deaths per population, ever….
https://sebastianrushworth.com/2020/10/24/how-deadly-is-covid-19/
“September 2020 was the least deadly month in Swedish history, in terms of number of deaths per 100,000 population. Ever. And I don’t mean the least deadly September, I mean the least deadly month. Ever. To me, this is pretty clear evidence of two things. First, that covid is not a very deadly disease. And second, that Sweden has herd immunity.”
…
“Many people think that the common cold viruses are harmless. But in fact, among elderly people with underlying health conditions, they are frequently deadly. A study carried out in 2017 found that, among frail elderly people, rhinovirus is actually more deadly than regular influenza. In that study, the 30 day mortality for frail elderly people admitted to hospital due to a rhinovirus infection was 10% . For frail elderly people admitted to hospital due to influenza, 30 day mortality was 7% .
What is my point? If you are old and frail, and have underlying health conditions, then even that most harmless of all infections, the so called “common cold”, can be deadly. In fact, it often is. Covid-19 is not a unique disease, and does not appear to have a noticeably higher mortality rate than the so called “common cold”.
"
That’s very possible, because the reduction in mixing has resulted in far fewer cases of cold and flu. I have not had as much as a sniff since coming back from skiing in Jan 2020, which is unheard of. And I have no detected antibodies.
That will translate to far fewer deaths among those who would have died of this existing stuff. And most bigger countries do get ~50k of those deaths a year… so the mere suppression of the existing stuff creates a leeway of about 50k/year before you start seeing “excess deaths”.
Nearly all the people who die of the existing stuff are old people, and quite ill younger ones. None of those would have caught it going clubbing. Well, with tinder, you never know these days. They caught it from younger people visiting them / mixing with them.
I am sure it’s not very deadly but I would prefer to be significantly less than dead, myself. Who would want to mod EuroGA?
BTW here is the latest UK infection map. I think it is quite a good effort. There is also an API so you can do your own.
I wonder what the opinions are on the likelihood of Italy being open for skiing? They are closing things like cinemas and gyms from today, but skiing is in the open… well it can be done in the open if you being a packed lunch, and there is some limitation on crowding of the enclosed ski lifts.
I see a major UK problem in the news media. There is a lack of comment on statements they quote on Covid-19 matters, but on other subjects they attribute the opinion to “leftist”, “right wing”, etc.
Today several bishops are quoted asking for measures to be removed for Christmas, with no comment.
What would have been the response, in Germany and the UK, to a request for the usual Christmas lights at churches, 80 years ago?
Peter wrote:
That’s very possible, because the reduction in mixing has resulted in far fewer cases of cold and flu.
The data does not support that:
Flu and pneumonia have continued to kill people at only a slight bit lower than average. In fact those deaths have stayed constant through lockdown, which raises interesting questions of why the flu continued to spread, but Covid deaths eventually fell. If you say that people did not follow the rules, when why did Covid almost stop. If the rules worked, why did flu continue to kill?
Peter wrote:
They caught it from younger people visiting them / mixing with them.
I don’t think you have any data to back that up. Any comparisons that say that young people are ‘now’ being more infected are meaningless as there was no widespread testing in March and April. Remember that in NY, 60% of those going to hospital where self isolating at home.
Peter wrote:
I am sure it’s not very deadly but I would prefer to be significantly less than dead, myself. Who would want to mod EuroGA?
I’ve said multiples I don’t want any avoidable deaths, and I’m happy that you are in good health and keeping the lights on at EuroGA :-)
You are free to exercise any caution you want and manage your own risk.
As for the infection map, I’ll pass, as ‘infections’ mean less than nothing, the ‘tests’ have lots of issues, and ‘positive’ cases of healthy people when it was shown that asymptomatic transmission was a myth, is only good for scary headlines, with no actionable content at all.
BeechBaby wrote:
The issue is that the majority of the populations are effectively left destitute. No Job, no money, no future.
It is therefore very difficult to self discipline, to accept house arrest, movement restriction, when the kids are hungry.
But we’re not talking about “house arrest”, at least here in Germany. All the public is asked to do is restrict “unnecessary” social interaction, such as private parties etc.
Everyone is supposed to go to work, although working from home – where possible – is strongly recommended. Going shopping is no problem, nor is using public transport – although masks and, whenever possible, keeping 1.5 m of distance is required.
We’re not talking about a “shutdown” or “lockdown” in the strict sense of the word, yet some people aren’t even willing or able to keep their masks on where appropriate and not go partying every other night.
And yes, I am aware that some sectors of the economy are badly hit nevertheless, especially hospitality, tourism, event management, aviation etc., but at least over here, nobodies kids need to “go hungry” because of that.
I am also at a loss why some commentators, including on EuroGA, it seems, still don’t grasp that this is not about individual choice or freedom. According to current data from Germany, about 6% of all Covid-19 cases require stationary hospital treatment. If the disease spreads exponentially, as would be it’s nature with an R0 of about 3, then you would overwhelm our hospital capacity within weeks. We have about 8 beds per 1000 population and are already way ahead of most countries (the UK is at 2 per 1000, IIRC). Yet with exponential growth, you will fill those beds very quickly. Remember that all other diseases still exist and will require the same level of treatment as before, so you’re not getting 8 per 1000 population beds just for Covid-19…more like 1 per 1000 if you’re lucky.
So once 1,6% of the population are infected simultaneously (I multiplied by 16 because of the 6%), hospital capacity will be overwhelmed. That is not a lot of the population with such a highly contagious disease.
MedEwok wrote:
According to current data from Germany, about 6% of all Covid-19 cases require stationary hospital treatment.
How is that different than every other respiratory disease in every winter?
MedEwok wrote:
If the disease spreads exponentially, as would be it’s nature with an R0 of about 3, then you would overwhelm our hospital capacity within weeks
It never went exponentially anywhere, and very few regions had any kind of overwhelmed hospitals. The peak was in April for most of Europe.
No other recent ‘epidemic’ had a second wave. 1918 was too in the past to be of any usefulness in that regard. This hysteria is completely groundless.
How do you explain Sweden? Is the virus different there?
What about those states in the US like South Dakota?
This is just rebranded flu/cold and we all fell for it.
Hmng – why do you think the govts are all, or nearly all, following the line which you say is wrong? Why is everyone, or almost everyone, not “getting it”?
MedEwok wrote:
While this is not much of a problem in “peace” times, if we disregard the ecological impact of this ideology, it is a problem in times of crisis. Because there is no discipline, no regard for society at large, no willingness to accept restrictions to the individual wishes for the greater good.
Again you are very right. Yes, it is not the fault per se of the democratic system, but of the perception that democracy means no authority, which obviously is wrong from a legal standpoint alone.
BeechBaby wrote:
It is therefore very difficult to self discipline, to accept house arrest, movement restriction, when the kids are hungry.
You know, the tragedy is that nothing of this would be necessary if people would simply accept the basic rules in this: keep hygiene, keep your distance, wear a mask in public, refrain from unnecessary close contact to others. But they don’t. So restrictions are necessary to enforce it and the spiral gets tighter and tighter.
