Our Covid Response

crimson5pheonix

It took 6 months to read my title.
Legacy
Jun 6, 2008
36,177
3,387
118
They need to keep you in one place long enough to get the microchips in the air to plant themselves into your brain so that you start eating soy and turn into hippies who won't fight back when The Chinese invade. I knew it!
Don't be ridiculous. They just want to cut into your golf time so they can shut down the golf course and turn it into a communist wind farm.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Mister Mumbler

Cheetodust

Elite Member
Jun 2, 2020
1,582
2,290
118
Country
Ireland

If we had given the vaccine IP to everyone we wouldn't be here.
Me: Oh great, they're finally not just blindly attributing it to the first country in the developing world to discover it.

Western media: Just to be clear the person it has been traced back to has been in Africa before.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Seanchaidh

Agema

You have no authority here, Jackie Weaver
Legacy
Mar 3, 2009
8,598
5,963
118
Every day Covid has proven the old meme correct

The People: HELP US!!!
Republicans: No
Democrats: No ❤🏳️‍🌈#BLM
I am not without sympathy for the government.

Covid is endemic. Without breakthrough technology, we can't eradicate it. We'll have covid next year, in five years, in ten years, and probably to the point every one of us dies of old age (or covid, when we're old and vulnerable). Covid at some point has to transition into being responded to similarly to influenza. Vaccines have already provided huge mitigation to facilitate this, and in molnupiravir we now have a drug which can very significantly reduce risk of serious symptoms, too. More may be on the way.

As part of this we need to adapt healthcare management - for instance accepting that at any one time many more people need hospital facilities, so expanding provision to cope. It means rolling vaccines out more widely across the world. Retaining the principle of mask usage (so effectively becoming more like East Asia already was) as a societal responsibility. But the idea that we spend several weeks/month every year enduring lockdowns, heavy absenteeism due to isolating, etc. is not, I fear, sustainable as a permanent answer.
 

McElroy

Elite Member
Legacy
Apr 3, 2013
4,583
377
88
Finland
In a democracy every worker is essential or nobody is, bar under martial law. It's a libertarian wet dream to have those out-of-work waiters take up shortages in healthcare, but that's not our reality, thus a lot of service sector workers sit on their asses for the time being. Sure, Finnish welfare makes sure nobody's going broke, but it's an economic gut punch to those making a living in those jobs. Jobs that could end up disappearing for a while.

They should reduce the hospital burden through hard caps on COVID patients.
 

tstorm823

Elite Member
Legacy
Aug 4, 2011
6,557
930
118
Country
USA
sufficient isolation for a month would do it. just have to do it everywhere.
If we imagine that sufficient isolation for every human on the planet was actually feasible and we did it, and it was successful, and the virus was eradicated from the entire human population... we'd catch it from animals again because most of the planet (not just humans) has been enveloped by the virus already.
 

Silvanus

Elite Member
Legacy
Jan 15, 2013
11,211
5,875
118
Country
United Kingdom
If we imagine that sufficient isolation for every human on the planet was actually feasible and we did it, and it was successful, and the virus was eradicated from the entire human population... we'd catch it from animals again because most of the planet (not just humans) has been enveloped by the virus already.
This is just categorically false. Don't really know where you got this from.

This virus was quite likely able to jump from animals to humans because of the uniquely awful and infection-condusive environment that is an unregulated wet market.
 

tippy2k2

Beloved Tyrant
Legacy
Mar 15, 2008
14,341
1,543
118
I am not without sympathy for the government.

Covid is endemic. Without breakthrough technology, we can't eradicate it. We'll have covid next year, in five years, in ten years, and probably to the point every one of us dies of old age (or covid, when we're old and vulnerable). Covid at some point has to transition into being responded to similarly to influenza. Vaccines have already provided huge mitigation to facilitate this, and in molnupiravir we now have a drug which can very significantly reduce risk of serious symptoms, too. More may be on the way.

As part of this we need to adapt healthcare management - for instance accepting that at any one time many more people need hospital facilities, so expanding provision to cope. It means rolling vaccines out more widely across the world. Retaining the principle of mask usage (so effectively becoming more like East Asia already was) as a societal responsibility. But the idea that we spend several weeks/month every year enduring lockdowns, heavy absenteeism due to isolating, etc. is not, I fear, sustainable as a permanent answer.
There are plenty of other things our government could do that isn't a lockdown or forced vaccination. They could send out tests to everyone (yeah, they're allegedly finally about to do it this month in Year Fucking 3, great job being on the ball guys). They could send masks to everyone (huge too because I keep getting mixed messages about what kind of mask I should be wearing to the point where I've given up on getting a new mask because I have no idea what I should be getting, it's expensive to replace my masks and I can't afford to keep doing it if I am indeed supposed to keep buying disposable N95s). They could guarantee sick time for employees to go get the shots AND guarantee the sick time if said employee has side effects from the shot. It'll never ever happen because God forbid we adopt socialism but M4A in the middle of a pandemic so people who feel sick can actually go to the doctor would be super. And then back to my usual nitpick, amazing how our VP tweets about how everyone should be getting $2,000 a month to ride this shit out when they have no power but as soon as they're in office, radio silence (I haven't forgotten about the $600 you still owe me old man).

This is just shit off the top of my head. I'm sure there are other things I'm not thinking of that they could at least PRETEND to fight for that could help but everything that could help might cause their Corporate Overlords to lose money so obviously all of that is off the table. "Some of you may die but that is a sacrifice I am willing to make". But throwing their hands up and saying "Well we have a vaccine, nothing more we can do I guess" is bullshit.

Trump almost certainly lost in 2020 because of his absolute piss poor management of Covid (anyone here think Biden would have had a snowballs chance in Hell of winning in 2020 had Covid not shown up?) and Biden will only have himself to blame when Trump comes waltzing back into the White House in 2024.

So yes, tbf, Covid is now an endemic that is tough to deal with and will likely never be fully dealt with. But it should have never gotten to this point and it getting to this point doesn't give Biden and company a blank check to just wash their hands over doing Jack shit about it right now.
 

Agema

You have no authority here, Jackie Weaver
Legacy
Mar 3, 2009
8,598
5,963
118
This is just categorically false. Don't really know where you got this from.

This virus was quite likely able to jump from animals to humans because of the uniquely awful and infection-condusive environment that is an unregulated wet market.
No, he's right.

Our pets catch it. Our zoo animals catch it. A lot of wild animals will catch it. We passed it to them, and they are now another reservoir to pass it right back.
 

Silvanus

Elite Member
Legacy
Jan 15, 2013
11,211
5,875
118
Country
United Kingdom