2019-2020 coronavirus pandemic (Vaccination 2021 Edition)

Phoenixmgs

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I have a few colleagues who worked in the IMU for Covid-19 cases in Gothenburg. They went back to normal care in late summer and have been seeing a steady and increasingly drastic increase in long term sick leaves due to exhaustion or psychological issues ever since. The toll taken on healthcare personnel is already great and these people have the nerve to suggest that nursing staff should keep paying the price in overtime, ethical stress and unsustainable working conditions, because it is more important that ordinary people get to go to restaurants and parties.

Once again, since you never address the moral issues at hand: This is callous and cruel. Not just to the elderly and sick who are sacrificed so the rest of the population can pretend as if nothing is wrong, but to all the healthcare staff (predominantly nursing staff like me) that gets to work harder because infection rates will go up when people stop even trying.

You mean that the society that highly values conformity and obedience to superiors and collective good over individuals fell in line and did as demanded? Color me shocked. The USA (nor any European nation) is anywhere near Japan in that regard.

This is not about Sweden. Sweden failed catastrophically in keeping its elderly safe, which is why we have among the highest deaths per capita in Europe. The USA is on a whole other level due to a wide, systemic failure on the federal level. This has been discussed more thoroughly in other threads.

You do realize that Sweden's approach isn't the Great Barrington approach, but rather a "soft lockdown" that is meant to prevent people from gathering as normal in places like bars, restaurants, theaters and squares? That we have restrictions like 50 people max in one location, 1,5 meters between people in public places and are considering re-introducing a restriction on how far from home you can travel?
I work for IT in hospitals and at least in Crawfordsville (small town) and Lafayette (college town) both in Indiana (a "hot zone"), the hospitals are less busy than normal. If anything would be causing hospital personal to being overburdened would be the current policy that if anyone coming to a clinic (in the hospital network) has any of the like 20 covid symptoms, they MUST go to the hospital for care (for anything). I saw a lady turned away in a clinic because she had a headache and very much needed attention for a blood pressure issue. Either she goes to the hospital and has a higher bill or chooses not to because money possibly and her health is adversely affected. In a couple months or so we'll be deploying new PCs to the biggest hospital in the network in Indianapolis and I'll get to see how it looks there.

How does having a lockdown policy help the groups you're talking about being cruel to? It's not safe for the elderly to go back to "normal life" regardless of the plan enacted. And a non-lockdown plan makes it so they wouldn't have to isolate for as long. You're failing to address the moral issues on the other side. 100s of millions are starving because of the lockdowns, 10s of millions in America are going to lose their houses, the poor are being far more greatly affected than the rich, and kids are not learning correctly and missing out on basic food and nutrition (and having to do things like sit outside 7-Elevens for wifi to participate in class).

The point of the Japan example is that any country can do what Japan has done and do it extremely cheaply. Stuff like informing the population about taking supplements like vitamin d and zinc (that Japan's population naturally gets from food) would help in greatly lowering the harm the virus poses saving many lives, saving people from needing hospitalizations, saving overburdened healthcare workers from too much work. The fact that everyone wears masks in Japan means when people do get infected the viral load is much less meaning the infection is much less severe. Half of Tokyo has most likely been infected and the entire country has less than 2,000 deaths. Japan is the perfect example of somewhere that has great results that has not suppressed the virus; suppression isn't the only path to victory. It's all about looking at the data and just enacting simple common sense approaches. I've been saying that for months.

The Great Barrington Declaration is far far less of any kind of exacting guidelines and more a conversation starter IMO because of how very general it is. The main doctors that talk about their stances aren't saying anything along the lines of "everything back to normal, rope off the old people". It's not like they're saying let's have big ass conventions of 50,000 people again, have movie theaters packed, have people riding public transportation body-to-body without masks, etc. Just because their stance is against the overprotection of the "status quo" doesn't mean they are on the extreme other end.
 

Phoenixmgs

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Dr. Jay Bhattacharya is politicised science how? What facts/data/numbers is he mentioning that are misleading or straight-up false? His initial anti-body survey just after the start of the pandemic accurately gave us the real infection fatality rate (which today's numbers back up) and he was attacked for it along with his wife. He mentions all the misleading articles about the virus like the long-haulers (it happens with the flu, literally 2 of my friends last winter had "long flu"), reinfection stories are mainly fearmongering and don't understand the basics of how the immune system works, and the fact that his survey study was criticized for using tests that aren't perfectly accurate when no test is perfectly accurate and the actual inaccuracy in a survey doesn't matter because if you know a test gives say false positives at a 5% clip, you simply adjust for that via basic statistical math. Lastly, we have people doing studies that don't get peer reviewed because they don't match the narrative.

"If I had to characterize the American response, it's exactly backwards. We have quarantined the healthy and we've exposed the vulnerable to the disease."

"I think one of the unfortunate things of this pandemic has been to train people to think of other human beings as just bags of germs to be avoided."

"It is more unsafe to not let kids go back to school than to open up for school."


 

lil devils x

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My Sister in law's Mother just died of COVID-19. She was a nurse in her 50's and not overweight and had no known preexisting conditions. This was not the same brother that was hospitalized, but one of my younger brother's wife's mother. She died rather quickly after symptoms appeared, within 3 days of saying her throat hurt.
 

Kwak

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200000 new cases and 2000 deaths per day.
So, herd immunity any day now...
 

McElroy

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At this point I'm struck with great pettiness. We've had all these restrictions because of the risk groups getting hospitalized and dying and I want revenge. They should get the vaccine last.

Also this thread will be outdated next month.
 

bluegate

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In the next 24 hours the American death number will reach the 100 NineEleven threshold.

In the next 48 it will most likely tick over 300.000.

Rest in peace a lot of American souls.
 

Gordon_4

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The vulnerable are already self-isolating for the most part. Tons of nonvulnerable are isolating as well because the media doesn't tell you the actual risks. For the vast majority of people, driving is more dangerous yet they don't have a problem with that. I'm sure medical staff that work with the vulnerable just normally feel guilty doing something "risky" because they could potentially transmit it possibly causing a death. I don't see how this really changes much with regards to the groups you mentioned honestly. The virus spreading faster through the nonvulnerable means it becomes safe faster for those vulnerable.

It's based off SARS-COV-1 granting immunity for at least 17 years (as it's still going) and it conferring immunity to SARS-COV-2 so both viruses are similar enough that the same anti-bodies kill Covid. The virus is also very slow to mutate so that shouldn't be an issue. Plus, vaccines are close to being ready it seems. Most signs point to the virus not hanging around long. Not that it's 100% or anything. I'd expect no restrictions whatsoever by next summer.


It's more so an idea vs an full-fledged optimal plan. It's basically like "hey, we've learned this virus is not very deadly at all to most people, the hardships from the lockdowns are producing more harm than the virus so we shouldn't be doing that." That's the general message, what did they omit? The one guy I know somewhat is Dr. Jay (not looking up his last name right now), and he from the start wanted to know the actual infection fatality rate (IFR) and was one of the 1st people doing anti-body surveys. If you don't know how deadly or undeadly something is, you can't really make proper policies/guidelines/restrictions/etc. Now that we know the numbers, the lockdowns just don't make sense. I don't personally think going 100% back to normal (while protecting the vulnerable) is the best solution, but a bunch of policies don't make sense. The UK recently/still has? the "rule of 6" in place meaning you can't be with 7+ people EVEN OUTSIDE, that makes no sense. I work IT for hospitals and if you need to go to a clinic for something, they're making you go to the actual hospital if you have like any symptom (like a headache) and costing people way more money in medical costs just for basic care. I heard this one nurse wanting to super thoroughly clean something (I forget what it was) because the person had covid 2 MONTHS ago and the other nurse wiped it down normally. A doctor today didn't realize she borrowed my pen to sign an agreement for the new laptop I gave and said I should wiped down the pen, and I said "Nah, I'm good". Hotels shrink wrap the TV remotes when house keeping could just set it on the window-sill in the sun for a couple minutes while they clean the room if they're so concerned about it. Chances are very slim you transmit the virus from surfaces but everybody is so fucking paranoid. I'm for policies that make sense with the data/numbers we have, and that's currently not what's happening.


You don't get what either Dunning-Krueger is and/or not understanding what I'm saying. I'm not saying based on my research and knowledge on the subject, this is my opinion. I'm saying these doctors/experts based on their knowledge and the data we have are saying this and that. The guy, Michael Osterholm, that literally wrote the book on a hypothetical pandemic from China literally said at the beginning of it was that closing schools is probably not a good idea. Dr. Peter Hotez said a SARS vaccine would work and he was right, it wasn't my knowledge that came to that hypothesis. He also said seeing friends and stuff was fine way back in March so I wasn't one of the "stay home at all costs" people because I listened to actual doctors instead watching the horrible media that can't get any facts right. Look at this video and the media saying "look all these lawmakers not wearing masks and hugging", they're fucking outside, you don't need masks. Everything in the media has some stupid agenda to it instead of the facts. So if I say you shouldn't close schools, it's not my opinion, it's Osterholm's opinion and I'm trusting the expert's opinion. I listen to both opinions on any subject and the side the produces the stronger argument and has more evidence, I'm going to go with. Being for hydroxy is very dissenting in US for example and the fact that Trump boasted it would make me be highly skeptical since I hate Trump. But I'm going where the data leads, not what I want. It has literally nothing to do with my understanding of medicine but what doctors and experts are saying. I understand some basics but not nearly enough to have a legit opinion just based on that.
“Trains are impartial too, but if you lay the tracks that is the direction they follow”.

Just bear that in mind.
 

Agema

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The USA just heroically broke through the 3000 barrier for covid-19 death reports in a day. Truly world-beating.

Next achievement - 3500 in a day. I reckon there's a decent chance it'll get there in about 1-2 weeks.
 

Phoenixmgs

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Lockdowns don't work unless you're going for a smothering strategy, which the US never went for. It was all about flattening the curve, not smothering the virus like New Zealand. Before we even did anything, it was kinda impossible to smother the virus at that point because it was too widespread already. 20% of NYC already had the virus in April. US-style lockdowns are just a temporary band-aid because you can't stay locked down until a vaccine is available, even countries that are far better with public welfare programs, you just don't have the money to keep everyone home for like a year. Plus, in the US when you lockdown, people get fired/furloughed and lose their health insurance.

There's numerous things you can do slow the spread and keep the death rate down without doing lockdowns, just look at Japan. The fact is we haven't really done any of those things. I'm not sure how many wear masks in the US. I live in the Chicagoland area where wearing masks in public has always been followed pretty well, I'm guessing my area is above average in that regard compared to most of the country. Wearing masks helps in lowering the death rate because it lowers the initial viral load, which lowers the severity of the infection. We also don't treat patients very well in the US, I work at hospitals and some of the policies are just plain stupid. And we also use drugs like remdesivir that just don't work. We also don't treat covid early either and wait for it to get bad enough to need hospital care when late treatments are less effective than early treatments. Just try googling 'early covid treatments' and you really have to scour google to find the information. Hell, even something like WebMD doesn't even mention something as basic as vitamin d.
 

Agema

You have no authority here, Jackie Weaver
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But hey, at least it would be over by Easter (2020), right?
Mm. They might have the most vulnerable sectors of the populace mostly immunised by then, at which point the pressure is off. More likely between July to December for the majority of the population. I figure there will be little effect on casualty figures from the vaccination program by the time Biden rolls in to town, but it should start kicking in after that.

I couldn't help but notice Trump flubbed signing up to additional doses the Pfizer vaccine. A little part of me wonders if that is political bullshit because Pfizer developed its vaccine in conjunction with the German firm BioNTech independently, whereas Moderna had US federal backing.

Yeah, but is it the virus or do many Americans really need to work on their health/diet?
It won't have helped, but judging by the casualty rates in lots of other "healthier" countries, I don't know it would have made a particularly big difference either. Bear in mind people with particularly bad diet and lifestyle won't have even survived to the highest risk category of later old age.
 

Gergar12

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That greedy, selfish, despicable prick McConnell of course wants to make it so you can't solve your employers for negligence in exchange for a 1200 dollar check. The people of Kentucky are out of their minds for voting for him over McGrath.

Like I predicted he is the one stalling on the stimulus, and while it costed Trump dearly to not get checks out, it didn't even cost McConnell his reelection, what a sick joke our democracy is.
 

Agema

You have no authority here, Jackie Weaver
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That greedy, selfish, despicable prick McConnell of course wants to make it so you can't solve your employers for negligence in exchange for a 1200 dollar check. The people of Kentucky are out of their minds for voting for him over McGrath.
Maybe, maybe not.

McConnell brings nothing into Kentucky, really, and they certainly don't appear to like him much. But he represents the state, and the simple fact of being Senate majority leader means the people of Kentucky - an economically poor and politically weak state - can feel that their state has relevance, visibility, punch above its weight, is up there with TX, NY and CA, give them some pride. Are they really going to exchange that for a dull, uninspiring Democrat of no particular note who promises no material improvement in their lives?
 

Eacaraxe

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I'd like to take a minute to go back to a post I made 35-40 pages ago, about how the actual problem with COVID-19 is logistical, and how the <1% mortality rate isn't the problem, but rather the 20% moderate-to-severe symptom range, and the ~5% with severe symptoms that require intensive care, and the burden that puts on infrastructure and the health care system. The one that got pooh-poohed by quite a few posters, including a couple who ought to know better.


From the article: "Many of them are most likely indirectly related to the virus and caused by disruptions from the pandemic, including strains on health care systems, inadequate access to supplies like ventilators or people avoiding hospitals for fear of exposure to the coronavirus."

Looks like mainstream media is finally catching onto that little point.