Covid-19 News/Discussion

[Xenos]

4 minutes ago, BobbyPhil1781 said:

Nothing in his post says he's antivax

Maybe you don’t have any experience dealing with antivaxxers but everything in his posts points to him being one. Especially the last part about all the people that were maimed or killed by the vaccine.

Edited November 5, 2021 by Xenos

[SwAg]

There are those who can make educated inferences based on a totality of circumstances, and there are

[SwAg]

Anyway, so how bout that Joe Rogan genius

[titanrick]

1 hour ago, Shanedorf said:

Big Picture: Does it matter if 750,000 people died from COVID or only 687,213 ? Is COVID somehow less of a threat to society based on those numbers ? I understand and appreciate what you're saying here and it is frustrating - but I'm not understanding how parsing the numbers actually changes anything in real life. Its not an election, there isn't a threshold of deaths to "win" the argument or carry a state. So fighting over the exact numbers seems a fools errand, especially for a novel virus. There will be some patients who die from lung scarring as the result of their COVID infection, but they may die 3 years from now during a bout with the flu. Is that a COVID death ?

If only 328,878 people died from COVID - does that mean nobody needs to get vaccinated ?
What's the magic number of deaths where mandating a safe & effective vaccine is warranted ?

That's an interesting conversation and I suspect you'd get a wide range of answers to that question depending on who you asked.

Thank you for engaging my posts in a mature manner.  It is appreciated.

Those of us in society who actually want what is good in the world more than wanting those who agree with us to smirk and pat us on the back need to change minds.  Mocking and ridiculing those with very real concerns does nothing to advance the common good.  It only advances the ego of the person doing that.  And when it gets to that level, those people are resistant to any data at all that would dare question their current beliefs. 

Here's how the difference between 750,000 and 687,213 matters.  It creates doubt which erodes the trust of people who initially were probably open to trusting "the experts" on this matter.  The experts initially told us to disinfect our groceries and change clothes in the garage.  The experts initially told us that wearing a mask was useless unless you knew you were already infected.  Anyone remember that?  If anyone questioned that at the time, they were ridiculed.  If the death numbers are artificially inflated, let's admit it and find a better way to count them.  I agree with your earlier point that it is a complex and difficult task.  I hope everyone can agree that a murder-suicide for two people with positive COVID tests but no symptoms is NOT a good way to count COVID deaths.  I also don't view the difference in the death toll as statistically significant.  But when I even dare bring up the flu, I'm told those numbers are insignificant and laughed at for bringing it up.  They're not insignificant when your son or daughter dies from the flu.

This is absolutely about numbers and dollars.  Both are viruses that have the potential to kill people.  The only difference is the number of people the virus kills.  We have deemed as a society that the seasonal flu isn't deadly enough to warrant widespread vaccine mandates, firing those who refuse, quarantines, masking, etc.  But we seem to be trying to get all of society to agree that COVID is that deadly.  It would be helpful to that cause if we talked about all the various data without the condescension and mockery of those who may simply ask clarifying questions. 

(That was just my rant - not meant to accuse you, Shanedorf, of doing that.)

[BobbyPhil1781]

22 minutes ago, Shanedorf said:

Unfortunately, I've read his posts. He's a dime- a- dozen idiot and should be shunned
End of Story

 

Hey right on. I'm not aware of his past but was just pointing out that being skeptical doesn't mean you're antivax. If there's previous supporting evidence, I get it

[BobbyPhil1781]

21 minutes ago, Xenos said:

Maybe you don’t have any experience dealing with antivaxxers but everything in his posts points to him being one. Especially the last part about all the people that were maimed or killed by the vaccine.

Doesn't matter if it points to it or not. Nothing he said there claims he's antivax. The point is you shouldn't assume

[BobbyPhil1781]

6 minutes ago, titanrick said:

Mocking and ridiculing those with very real concerns does nothing to advance the common good.

Rams, Wize, and Shane are good at not doing this. There are quite a few who are huge dbags though. You're very right in what you said here as well. 

[PackFan4Ever]

1 minute ago, Rich7sena said:

I've always found this critique to be lacking considering the increase in deaths in 2020, generally, were commensurate with reported covid deaths.

Yes.  Deaths were higher.  But I would also add that waiting for someone to get very sick, with what may be in many cases a secondary infection like pneumonia, with no early treatment was a mistake from the beginning.  Then making matters worse by admitting them to hospital and shoving an ventilator tube down their throats and blowing up their infected lungs was the kiss of death for most.

Also, looking at the demographics, it would have made more sense to isolate the vulnerable and let the virus run through the population as whole.  The fear card was played after they realized that they were completely wrong on the "there is very little risk of contracting the virus, so come out to dinner! Ride the subway!  No need for mask!" exhortations failed miserably in helping the public's understanding of what they were facing.  Weakening peoples' natural immune systems is not an answer, and yet the "officials" still will not admit they blew it and many people who never even got sick are now far worse off than they otherwise might have been.  Never mind all the others in our society whose existing medical conditions were marginalized because the rampant fear of this virus, and didn't get the help they needed for fear of going to see their physicians.

From the Barrington Declaration almost two years ago:

"In the Great Barrington Declaration, co-signed now by many thousand medical scientists and practitioners, we laid out such a middle-ground alternative, with greatly improved focused protection of older people and other high-risk groups. The aim of focused protection is to minimize overall mortality from both COVID-19 and other diseases by balancing the need to protect high-risk individuals from COVID-19 while reducing the harm that lockdowns have had on other aspects of medical care and public health. It recognizes that public health is concerned with the health and well-being of populations in a broader way than just infection control."

https://gbdeclaration.org/focused-protection/

I would add that if you look at the entirety of the situation, who has the most to gain with the current protocols?  Hospitals were paid extra for each covid patient, especially those put on ventilators.  The shot is paid for by the taxpayers.   Will the new drug from Merck be as well?  My guess would be no, since that will be distributed by prescription.

Time will tell if any of this was worth it or not.  In the meantime, Fauci continues to sit on his throne and tell us all how we should live our lives.  I'm not anti-vaccine (at least not in the tradition definition), and never was, but I am anti-tyranny.  

[MookieMonstah]

2 hours ago, OkeyDoke21 said:

This thread turns toxic so fast.  

Because people think this is a thing you get an opinion on. It really isn’t. You either believe in Science or you don’t. You’re either right or you’re wrong. 
 

This isn’t an opinion based discussion. 

[Heimdallr]

Just now, MookieMonstah said:

Because people think this is a thing you get an opinion on. It really isn’t. You either believe in Science or you don’t. You’re either right or you’re wrong. 
 

This isn’t an opinion based discussion. 

BuT JoE rOgAn

[AFlaccoSeagulls]

Every time I read some garbage like "we don't actually know how many people have died of COVID" my head instantly fills with the reaction in South Park when they start explaining all of the 9/11 conspiracy theories:

https://southpark.cc.com/video-clips/u4fr10/south-park-not-the-goddamn

Timestamp 1:15

[Shanedorf]

16 minutes ago, titanrick said:

It creates doubt which erodes the trust of people who initially were probably open to trusting "the experts" on this matter.  The experts initially told us to disinfect our groceries and change clothes in the garage.  The experts initially told us that wearing a mask was useless unless you knew you were already infected.  Anyone remember that?  If anyone questioned that at the time, they were ridiculed.  If the death numbers are artificially inflated, let's admit it and find a better way to count them.  I agree with your earlier point that it is a complex and difficult task. 

If you spend any amount of time in science, you'll realize that we're wrong about many things- especially with a novel virus. You make a hypothesis, you test it in rigorously controlled trials, you review the data and come to some conclusions. But its rarely black and white and in real time- its even harder. 

But society doesn't understand error bars or ranges of of outcomes and they demand rock solid, unimpeachable results. That's just not realistic. But the media and the masses don't want nuance, they want certainty- in a field that is filled with uncertainty. Our brains struggle with uncertainty

I would bet big money that some COVID deaths are over-reported and some are under -reported and that those balance out, not exactly, but closer than the current gaps. There is really no way to ascertain that number because there are  million different patients and scenarios.

My second cousin ( OMG, anecdotes !!) died at age 47 in great part because the hospital was overloaded with COVID patients and they just couldn't get to her in time. Had she been treated in another, less overcrowded hospital - very good chance she lives. So is that a COVID death ?

There's a million COVID stories, but very very few murder-suicide stories- they just happen to make better news bites. So if you went through, one by one, every single COVID death- I'm guessing you'd have a bell curve of outcomes with the vast majority falling in the fat part of the graph- with outliers on either end representing a small portion of the total.

[DontTazeMeBro]

The anti Rogan crowd to this day lie about Ivermectin. Over a billion doses have been prescribed to humans. I think someone one a Nobel prize for it and it cured river blindness. And they know this. It’s psychopathic behavior.

[Xenos]

33 minutes ago, BobbyPhil1781 said:

Doesn't matter if it points to it or not. Nothing he said there claims he's antivax. The point is you shouldn't assume

Then the point flew over your head like it always does.

Edited November 5, 2021 by Xenos

[Xenos]

1 minute ago, DontTazeMeBro said:

The anti Rogan crowd to this day lie about Ivermectin. Over a billion doses have been prescribed to humans. I think someone one a Nobel prize for it and it cured river blindness. And they know this. It’s psychopathic behavior.

What lie? That ivermectin is a drug meant for other things, not Covid?