Coronavirus: Triple Edition

[Volourn]

"After 12 months in prison the rules will be apparent"

Agreed. Explains why the death penalty, hand chopping, lashes, long (up to life) imprisonment has completely stopped murder, robbery, rape, assault, etc. Just make a law people will stop doing it. HAHAHAHA!

[BruceVC]

18 minutes ago, Volourn said:

"After 12 months in prison the rules will be apparent"

Agreed. Explains why the death penalty, hand chopping, lashes, long (up to life) imprisonment has completely stopped murder, robbery, rape, assault, etc. Just make a law people will stop doing it. HAHAHAHA!

volo this has been explained many times and this would apply to all citizens who have decided to reject how science works, this would also have to apply to everyone. volo I hope you are now  wearing  a mask because these rules have to apply to everyone 

[Gfted1]

Were going to need a bigger jail.

[Malcador]

https://toronto.citynews.ca/video/2020/08/27/most-brass-rail-patrons-gave-fake-contact-tracing-information/

 

[213374U]

 

2 hours ago, Zoraptor said:

It's certainly not a flawless measure* but it is a good and if applied properly objective measure of overall impact**. The situation with excess deaths is analogous to the old fire in the theatre situation where x people die from the fire, and y people die from the stampede when people try to get out. The people who die in the stampede didn't burn to death, but if the fire didn't happen they almost certainly wouldn't have died so including them in the death toll is fair enough. Theoretically the excess death rate catches all the people who died because all ICU beds were full as well as dying of 'pneumonia' at home instead of diagnosed covid19.

I don't think that's terribly useful counting, though. Attributing to corona the deaths due to electives being delayed, not seeking medical attention for unrelated problems due to fear or official discouragement and, well, general healthcare chaos doesn't seem very rigorous and may even be counterproductive -- because to a degree it's conflating the problem with the "solutions". To continue with your fire example, you may not be able to completely prevent people from dying in fires, but you can largely prevent trampling deaths by having unobstructed access to well marked emergency exits and trained personnel. This requires that multiple  causes and circumstances are well identified and understood.

The excess mortality figures are interesting because you can see there's more going on than just people dying from rona.

Spoiler

For whatever reason there's a considerable increase in excess mortality from dementia and Alzheimer's and a significant decrease from ordinary respiratory diseases. I don't rightly know what's the post-mortem study situation in Britain, but I do know that here there are serious restrictions on them due to biosafety regulations, so I'd assume similar conditions. Looking at excess mortality can certainly be useful to get an idea of the overall impact of phenomena as you said, but it can be a stretch when figures are being touted to push -not necessarily by the government- for NPIs and authoritarianism.

I can understand that the excess mortality method was used to estimate deaths from an epidemic a hundred years ago, but I'd like to think that our ability to convey nuance to the masses has improved. I remain staunchly hopeful, even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the opposite, you see.

I'm taking this reply to the other thread, by the way.

Edited August 29, 2020 by 213374U

[Zoraptor]

Better fit here anyway.

Excess deaths from Alzheimers and Dementia are almost certainly unlabeled covid deaths. You can die directly of Alzheimers and other dementias but they almost always die of 'complications' rather than the dementia advancing so much it affects something critical for life. More than half our total deaths came from one dementia residential home most of them were only listed as 'probable' cases- when they died- because it's dangerous to test patients with dementia. Testing is unpleasant enough for people who know what is going on, if you cannot explain why you're ramming a swab up their nose or down their throat you're going to get bitten which isn't great at the best of times let alone if the person biting is infectious. Since our healthcare system never got close to overwhelmed all bar one (iirc) were ultimately confirmed as covid deaths; last one was someone who definitely did have covid, but died more than a month after 'recovering' so is technically excluded.

Incess deaths for respiratory diseases is probably because many of the statistical indicators for death from respiratory disease in general are the same as those for covid in particular. Many of those who would be expected to die of generalised pneumonia type effects from well known diseases will instead have died specifically from covid caused pneumonia.

Looks like they've changed their methodology a fair bit, last time I checked the excess death rate was 50% but it's about 25% now. I'd suspect that they're better able to accurately assign deaths now that the health system has some spare capacity and isn't being clogged up. The dementia stats back that up a fair bit too, at the outbreak height there's a very significant number of excess deaths without covid listed as a complication but as it winds down almost all deaths are assigned covid as a complication. End of the day if the choice is keeping someone alive or checking exactly what someone else died of option 1 is going to be emphasised.

So in the more general sense, excess deaths are useful when the system is under too much strain to be reporting accurately and for estimating total system rather than the specific impacts. And yeah, as always, consideration has to be given to how they are being used and by whom.

Edited August 30, 2020 by Zoraptor

[Raithe]

 

[Gromnir]

4 hours ago, Raithe said:

tweet

the reason you are less likely to see in the US is 'cause with the way covid-19 has been politicized in this country and given how the blue line tends to vote trump, too many o' our police and sheriffs is lockstep legionnaires in the bat sh!te crazy tinfoil hat brigade, posting on qanon sites, refusing to enforce mask mandates, indulging in 5g conspiracies and likely still hoarding eggs and toilet paper as they prepare for the possible biden/harris apocalypse.

we has always (well, at least since we matured a bit and lost our reflex pugnacity) been cautious when dealing with cops not 'cause we thought they were all racist but 'cause they have guns, are authorized to use such weapons with little provocation, and 'cause a few cops is indeed racist. if you don't know, then is better to err on the side o' caution. no harm in being a little extra polite.

the thing is, nowadays, too many cops is also hyper politicized and indulging in the bat crap craziness mainstreamed by our President. we got no idea what might set off such folks? 

is there a coded phrase qanon folks share to let each other identify themselves? "i am concerned about friday's weather forecast." something inane they slip into any conversation so they might recognize a fellow adherent? could be worth looking into just to be on the safe side.

kidding 'bout the code phrase, but the rest...

HA! Good Fun!

[Bartimaeus]

16 minutes ago, Gromnir said:

we has always (well, at least since we matured a bit and lost our reflex pugnacity) been cautious when dealing with cops not 'cause we thought they were all racist but 'cause they have guns, are authorized to use such weapons with little provocation, and 'cause a few cops is indeed racist.

The frequent lack of accountability and proportional consequences for blatant bad actions taken by 'bad apples' probably doesn't do any favors for moderating their dispositions or encouraging patience and understanding either, I'm sure. I posted a Twitter image a while back whose content was essentially, "Why are store clerks better at de-escalating situations than cops?", to which the top reply was, "Because we get fired if we don't."

Edited August 30, 2020 by Bartimaeus

[Gromnir]

3 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

The frequent lack of accountability and proportional consequences for blatant bad actions taken by 'bad apples' probably doesn't do any favors for moderating their dispositions or encouraging patience and understanding either, I'm sure. I posted a Twitter image a while back whose content was essentially, "Why are store clerks better at de-escalating situations than cops?", to which the top reply was, "Because we get fired if we don't."

cop training and cop culture. cops is trained to act reflexive and the cops who try and de escalate instead o' taking immediate and decisive action run the risk o' running afoul o' cop code.

am not able to stress just how much our current law enforcement problems is the result o' decades o' seeming homogenized cop training poor suited for 2020 demands.

but am not wanting to derail too much. 

FDA fires brand new spokesperson after Trump exaggerates plasma as coronavirus 'breakthrough' at RNC

HA! Good Fun!

 

[teknoman2]

On 8/28/2020 at 3:59 PM, Volourn said:

"After 12 months in prison the rules will be apparent"

Agreed. Explains why the death penalty, hand chopping, lashes, long (up to life) imprisonment has completely stopped murder, robbery, rape, assault, etc. Just make a law people will stop doing it. HAHAHAHA!

there are people who don't need laws because they willingly do the right thing

there are people who don't care about laws and will do evil at will

the laws are for the 3rd and biggest group of people who would do evil but are afraid of the potential punishment and hold back

 

regarding the virus itself, denying its existence is stupid. it exists and there is more than enough evidence of it. what i'm skeptical of however, is the level of threat. i believe that government and media are exaggerating about how dangerous the virus is and i find some of the reports on the matter questionable at best. there was a report lately that asymptomatic patients can develop serious heart problems in the future because of the virus and my question was "where did they find a large enough sample size of asymptomatic patients to test and come up with this finding?". asymptomatic patients don't even know they are sick so nobody will check them for the virus much less test the effects of the virus on them and even less the long term effects considering that the virus is new. this finding that was reported as fact, is at best speculation and at worst fabrication.

Edited August 30, 2020 by teknoman2

[Gromnir]

so...

ignoring the +185k dead for a moment, a considerable large number o' people had to be hospitalized and a noteworthy number o' those folks will indeed face respiratory problems perhaps for the rest o' their lives. nevertheless, 'cause o' some random report you don't link, you are wondering if the concerns 'bout the virus is overblown.

...

okie dokie.

ignoring the asymptomatic stuff complete, though the asymptomatic spread makes the disease more dangerous 'cause is no obvious way to detect who may be spreading (particular as US testing, tracing and quarantine is so bad) +185k deaths and any a significant number o' people with long term diminished health should be enough to convince any sane person that the virus is a serious threat.

now show us a report from a dr. which claims covid-19 will make you susceptible to the demon sex trump's dr. warned us 'bout. we would dismiss outta hand and covid-19 would not be any less a serious threat 'cause we ignored the possibility o' losing our soul 'cause a previous covid-19 infection.

the stuff you already know 'bout covid-19, stuff which ain't actual debateable, should be more than enough to convince you covid-19 is an unparallelled health threat the likes o' which we has not seen for a long time. 

HA! Good Fun!

Edited August 30, 2020 by Gromnir

[majestic]

  

52 minutes ago, teknoman2 said:

 there was a report lately that asymptomatic patients can develop serious heart problems in the future because of the virus and my question was "where did they find a large enough sample size of asymptomatic patients to test and come up with this finding?". asymptomatic patients don't even know they are sick so nobody will check them for the virus much less test the effects of the virus on them and even less the long term effects considering that the virus is new. this finding that was reported as fact, is at best speculation and at worst fabrication.

Five seconds of google-fu says they MRI'ed 100 asymptomatic patients who tested positive for this study and found more than half of them (60%) having myocarditits. You don't need to study Covid-19 to know that having myocarditits can lead to long term heart problems. Covid-19 seems to cause a precursor condition for future heart damage or failure, therefore the statement "Covid-19 leads to long term heart problems" might appear to be sweeping and hyperbolic, but it's a logically sound conclusion given the data available.

Whether or not the sample size was enough or one study enough to draw a definitive conclusion is an entirely different matter. But based on the data available there's at the very least an extremely strong correlation, and as it always is with health issues, it's probably better to err on the side of caution...

I mean, sure, we could also have a study of Wakefieldish fakeness here, but meh. That's what peer reviews are for.

Edited August 30, 2020 by majestic

[Zoraptor]

3 hours ago, teknoman2 said:

there was a report lately that asymptomatic patients can develop serious heart problems in the future because of the virus and my question was "where did they find a large enough sample size of asymptomatic patients to test and come up with this finding?". asymptomatic patients don't even know they are sick so nobody will check them for the virus much less test the effects of the virus on them and even less the long term effects considering that the virus is new. this finding that was reported as fact, is at best speculation and at worst fabrication.

It's certainly not just speculation; from what is known about other viruses it would be speculative to say that it didn't cause long term effects even when otherwise asymptomatic (asymptomatic often means low symptoms, practically, not no symptoms). Information on the extent of damage is probably not very accurate and largely anecdotal but there's very good reason to say that for some people including some without appreciable other symptoms a bout of sarscov2 will result in long term negative effects.

Why? Because viruses with similar effects to SARSCoV2 and viruses that are related to SARS2 both can cause long term deleterious effects without much in the way of symptoms. Myocarditis would be an example of such an effect, often people aren't aware of anything specific that has caused it (viruses including otherwise innocuous ones like common cold viruses, or more well known ones like flu, being the most common though since it's an inflammatory effect it can be caused by a lot of things) because the initial infection often just makes you feel a bit tired or a bit under the weather. Myocarditis is a secondary effect that can outright kill you though, or lead to long term heart damage.

More generally, sentinel testing and the like can be used to try and determine who has had sarscov2 even if they were low/ no symptom cases, or symptomatic and missed a confirmatory test. Antibody tests and the like aren't 100% accurate but then very few tests actually are. Proving the extent of long term damage is intrinsically difficult for a new pathogen, but in order to say it doesn't happen an argument would have to be made that sarscov2 is uniquely different to otherwise similar viruses, in that specific respect. And while the evidence is new and thus unreliable it indicates that it actually is a typical virus in that regard*.

Fact is that for most people sarscov2 will be neither fatal nor have long terms effects. While true arguments based on that are, at heart, saying that you're OK with say 1% of the population dying and 2% having long term health problems; which here would be saying I'm OK with 50,000 deaths and 100,000 people needing long term help. I'm not OK with either.

*Analogy time: it's effectively like saying that if you have evidence that a Ford, Toyota, GM, Nissan and VW car can kill someone if it hits them the default position is that a Mazda car also will even if you don't have the rigorously scientific evidence to prove it yet, because they're otherwise similar. An argument that a Mazda won't kill someone requires evidence that other unmentioned but similar car marques like Kia won't either, or evidence that the Mazda is for some reason uniquely able to avoid killing people.

 

[teknoman2]

any virus can be deadly, some are more than others. the point is that while this pandemic is ongoing and we are locked in our homes terrorized by the media saying "another one died-another one died", legislators vote away our rights without opposition and i fear we will come out of this quarantine in an authoritarian dystopia. in my country at least i see all sorts of things the government did using the virus to keep people from revolting. they repealed the law on overtime work, they cut pensions, they reduced salaries, they increased taxes,  they moved public school teachers from being state employees to being municipal employees (meaning their pay is cut almost in half), they took funding away from public schools and diverted it to private schools (public schools will be at the mercy of the mayor's management skills and they will often be understaffed and without books). instead of hiring more doctors and buying ambulances (it takes 3 hours if you are lucky to have an ambulance come to your home in an emergency because there aren't enough) they diverted funds from the already understaffed public hospitals to gift equipment to private hospitals (who often send the serious cases away to a public hospital because they don't want the responsibility of the patient dying on them). and many more stuff like that but nobody speaks, nobody goes out to protest because if they do they risk getting the virus.

EDIT: and they gave away a total of 20M euros to the media and to news sites (or even directly to high profile journalists) with no disclosure on who got how much or why

so yes, i believe that the threat level is exaggerated because keeping us afraid to come out of our homes is very convenient to those in power.

and since you made a car analogy, there are people who drive drunk out there. will you stay at home all your life to make sure you don't get run over by some drunkard? you will keep an eye out for them as much as you can and go about your day and if you happen to get hit well, bad luck. same thing with any virus, the only way to prevent infection is to live locked up in a sterile room. either that or you take some precautions and go about your day and if you happen to get  infected well, bad luck. 

as for the 100 people tested, yes that's the report i'm talking about. 100 people are a very small sample size to give any definitive results in any medical research and i was not referring to the researches when i said "speculation or fabrication" i was referring to the media. the scientists probably said "this may happen to some" and the media reported "this will happen to all". and to go full tinfoil hat here for fun, why should i believe that the numbers and results reported by the media are real or more so that this test even happened... this is what you get when you have the news reporting system equivalent of the boy who cried wolf.

Edited August 31, 2020 by teknoman2

[213374U]

12 hours ago, Zoraptor said:

Fact is that for most people sarscov2 will be neither fatal nor have long terms effects. While true arguments based on that are, at heart, saying that you're OK with say 1% of the population dying and 2% having long term health problems; which here would be saying I'm OK with 50,000 deaths and 100,000 people needing long term help. I'm not OK with either.

In principle I agree. But the real world question is actually twofold. First, what is the death threshold we would be OK with. And second, to what lengths are we willing to go to prevent deaths beyond that. The implications are not academic because there are myriad public health problems causing thousands of deaths every year, and interventions are not without costs. Ultimately, any public health policy question comes down to settling for an acceptable number of deaths, usually in the thousands.

I have no answers myself, and I guess I'm thankful that I don't have to decide.

 

16 hours ago, majestic said:

  Five seconds of google-fu says they MRI'ed 100 asymptomatic patients who tested positive for this study and found more than half of them (60%) having myocarditits.

I failed to find this... guess my Google-fu is weak. But I did find an analysis of an international survey of cardiologists about results for some 1,200 patients that found evidence of myocarditis in 3%. Evidence of severe cardiac disease in patients without known pre-existing conditions was ~13%. Which one is right? Further compounding the matter is the fact that heart disease is (was) the #1 killer in developed countries before this started, so you'd have to find a similar pre-rona analysis to put things in perspective.

As for the people constantly preaching about "science", it pays to remember that a large amount of the body of the "science" being used to inform public opinion and political decisions actually doesn't meet the standard to be deserving of the name, not having gone through independent peer review -- either because there hasn't been enough time (preprints), or because it was never meant to. In the latter category is the famous Imperial College report whose conclusions were not reproducible (even by its main author, because of his black box mathematical model), and yet was both taken as gospel and missed the mark egregiously. A scientist's opinion is not automatically "science". It's often just an educated guess. In a sense it's amusing how scientists have become the new priests and so many people just parrot whatever they have heard one say... or think they have, because they literally cannot read and interpret the source material. Alternately it's evidence that the age of reason is well and truly dead.

[majestic]

1 hour ago, 213374U said:

I failed to find this... guess my Google-fu is weak. But I did find an analysis of an international survey of cardiologists about results for some 1,200 patients that found evidence of myocarditis in 3%. Evidence of severe cardiac disease in patients without known pre-existing conditions was ~13%. Which one is right? Further compounding the matter is the fact that heart disease is (was) the #1 killer in developed countries before this started, so you'd have to find a similar pre-rona analysis to put things in perspective.

I just searched for "does Covid-19 cause heart disease" and found pretty much a number of articles, including a scathing take down article on Russia Today (although admittedly on duckduckgo, not on google).

https://cardiovascularnews.com/frankfurt-study-finds-high-rate-of-cardiac-complications-in-recovered-covid-19-patients/

Looks like the numbers of the study were off due to mistakes that should have been caught even before the first draft:

https://www.tctmd.com/news/message-unchanged-say-researchers-criticized-covid-19-cmr-study

Anyhow, while the original authors stand by their conclusions it's certainly not nearly as clear cut as the original paper suggested.

Science at work, I guess. I mean, except for the objections you raised anyway about pre-prints being used to make decisions due to the nature of the pandemic and the media making a fuzz as if even a mild case of Covid-19 will kill you in the future (as if all instances of myocarditis end deadly or cause permanent heart damage).

So, yes, flawed study by the looks of it, causing a media spectacle. As to why, anyone's guess as good as mine. Terror inspiring conspiracies, malice, greed... wanting some more clicks, leftist media attacks on our freedom, pick one. Personally I'd go with being greedy for clicks and headlines like "Corona is going to kill us all through cardiac arrest" are perfect in this day and age, yes?

The conclusions of this study might shock you. Picture #5 is amazing!

Edited August 31, 2020 by majestic

[Gromnir]

8 minutes ago, majestic said:

I just searched for "does Covid-19 cause heart disease" and found pretty much a number of articles, including a scathing take down article on Russia Today (although admittedly on duckduckgo, not on google).

https://cardiovascularnews.com/frankfurt-study-finds-high-rate-of-cardiac-complications-in-recovered-covid-19-patients/

Looks like the numbers of the study were off due to mistakes that should have been caught even before the first draft:

https://www.tctmd.com/news/message-unchanged-say-researchers-criticized-covid-19-cmr-study

Anyhow, while the original authors stand by their conclusions it's certainly not nearly as clear cut as the original paper suggested.

Science at work, I guess. I mean, except for the objections you raised anyway about pre-prints being used to make decisions due to the nature of the pandemic and the media making a fuzz as if even a mild case of Covid-19 will kill you in the future (as if all instances of myocarditis end deadly or cause permanent heart damage).

So, yes, flawed study by the looks of it, causing a media spectacle. As to why, anyone's guess as good as mine. Terror inspiring conspiracies, malice, greed... wanting some more clicks, leftist media attacks on our freedom, pick one. Personally I'd go with being greedy for clicks and headlines like "Corona is going to kill us all through cardiac arrest" are perfect in this day and age, yes?

The conclusions of this study might shock you. Picture #5 is amazing!

all of which ignores the point how the dubious aspect of a single study was being used to undermine the danger of covid-19 in general. it is unnecessary to chase rabbits.

the known dangers of covid-19 is terrible enough to make any sane person wonder why, just as a random example, the US efforts to combat the threat were so lackadaisical and uninspired. is there authoritarian strongmen doing the reverse and using the virus to crush dissent? yeah, but such exploitive behaviour doesn't change the already facts regarding the dangers o' covid-19. 

again, is no question those in power may/will exploit fear for selfish reasons. is fair to question the motives and means o' authoritarian actors when they magnify real dangers.

that said, just another virus responses is not particular constructive or wise given how readily this virus spreads in addition to the known mortality and additional long-term health consequences faced by many survivors... not that am accusing majestic o' such. opposite. even so, is best to not let the naysayers distract with relative irrelevancies.  one dubious study, accurate reported, does not somehow undermine the known dangers o' covid-19.

HA! Good Fun!

 

[Gfted1]

CDC: 94% of coronavirus-related deaths have underlying medical conditions.

[Gromnir]

old people tend to have multiple health conditions so, duh.

HA! Good Fun!

[teknoman2]

1 hour ago, Gromnir said:

all of which ignores the point how the dubious aspect of a single study was being used to undermine the danger of covid-19 in general. it is unnecessary to chase rabbits.

the known dangers of covid-19 is terrible enough to make any sane person wonder why, just as a random example, the US efforts to combat the threat were so lackadaisical and uninspired. is there authoritarian strongmen doing the reverse and using the virus to crush dissent? yeah, but such exploitive behaviour doesn't change the already facts regarding the dangers o' covid-19. 

again, is no question those in power may/will exploit fear for selfish reasons. is fair to question the motives and means o' authoritarian actors when they magnify real dangers.

that said, just another virus responses is not particular constructive or wise given how readily this virus spreads in addition to the known mortality and additional long-term health consequences faced by many survivors... not that am accusing majestic o' such. opposite. even so, is best to not let the naysayers distract with relative irrelevancies.  one dubious study, accurate reported, does not somehow undermine the known dangers o' covid-19.

HA! Good Fun!

 

i didn't mention that one research to undermine the problem but to give an example of how sensationalist reporting makes things look worse than they are. i also question if that kind of exaggerated reporting is plain ignorance, clickbait or government sponsored. because one thing i didn't mention before is that the doctors who go on tv over here and talk about the virus, usually change their tune in line with the government's agenda... or the needs of those in office as is the case when the brother of a minister started overnight a mask making business and the next day the doctors' opinion changed from "masks are mostly useless but its better to have one than not" to "masks are very effective and should be obligatory" and by the end of the day there was an executive order to give a 150 euro fine to whoever was going around without a mask.

another thing that i was told from a neighbor who has a funeral service business, is that some hospitals declare as covid deaths anyone who died of any cause as long as the relatives are willing to sign the paperwork (and they get paid to sign because a hospital with covid cases gets extra funding)

[Gromnir]

so sensationalist reporting which was accurate (it were the study which were flawed,) #s couldn't even find, and included reporting o' the flaws in the study? that sensationalist reporting?

am also kinda worried 'bout your sources. brother of a minister said something and some guy you know who runs a funeral service...

people say...

i heard...

alternatively

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

meanwhile we got other folks finding something new in what has been reported consistent and accurate by the sensationalist media since february/march: the people most susceptible to death from covid-19 is old people and those with preexisting conditions. duh.

HA! Good Fun! 

 

 

[Zoraptor]

4 hours ago, 213374U said:

The implications are not academic because there are myriad public health problems causing thousands of deaths every year, and interventions are not without costs. Ultimately, any public health policy question comes down to settling for an acceptable number of deaths, usually in the thousands.

Sure, that's the rationale behind not having a full roll out of flu vaccine for example: the cost balance is that you target the vulnerable because a $1 vaccine saves a lot of money keeping 70+ year olds with flu out of hospital, but doesn't save money keeping 30 year olds out of hospital. However, covid-19 not being well understood is a double edged sword in that regard since we don't and can't know where the cost/ benefit level lies. If it turns out there aren't significant long term effects on many people then the balance is at one end, if it's a significant number it's at the other. I'd be pretty confident in saying that there will be some long term effects even among some of those who had mild symptoms, and since the virus is 'new' it's going to effect a lot more people than seasonal flu. If we went by the last similar event of Spanish American Flu the estimate was 35% of the world population infected, if even 1% of that number had long term effects we'd be talking 200 odd million people.

The big question would be whether there was/ is anything that could be done to prevent it anyway and whether you plan for the worst or plan for the best.

1 hour ago, Gfted1 said:

CDC: 94% of coronavirus-related deaths have underlying medical conditions.

The vast majority of deaths from any cause have underlying medical conditions too. Die from a stroke? Hypertension, weight, diabetes, heart problems, dementia as underlying causes. Die from a heart attack? Hypertension, weight, diabetes, arrythmias, genetic defects.

5 hours ago, teknoman2 said:

..legislators vote away our rights without opposition..

That's ultimately a problem with your legislators. If they want to do that sort of thing they'd just use a different excuse for it when presented be it terrorism or external interference or whatever. Solution is ultimately to elect better legislators.

Quote

.."masks are mostly useless but its better to have one than not" to "masks are very effective and should be obligatory"..

I don't know the specifics of timing, but that change was made here too, and fines have been brought in for not wearing masks on public transport (though you have to be a knob to get one, as they're handing out masks to those who don't have them). It's due to the WHO changing their advice since there is now evidence some strains at least can aerosolise, and masks reduce risk from aerosol sprays.

[teknoman2]

2 hours ago, Gromnir said:

so sensationalist reporting which was accurate (it were the study which were flawed,) #s couldn't even find, and included reporting o' the flaws in the study? that sensationalist reporting?

am also kinda worried 'bout your sources. brother of a minister said something and some guy you know who runs a funeral service...

people say...

i heard...

alternatively

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

meanwhile we got other folks finding something new in what has been reported consistent and accurate by the sensationalist media since february/march: the people most susceptible to death from covid-19 is old people and those with preexisting conditions. duh.

HA! Good Fun! 

 

 

the minister's brother didn't say anything. he started a company that made masks and the next day the government's policy on masks changed to facilitate his profits. as for that neighbor, he's not the only one who said that about the hospitals. i know people who work in hospitals and i have a friend in the police who said that some people are trying to sue hospitals about this practice of naming every death a covid case.

my point in all this is that its hard to take the virus seriously when you see it being blatantly exploited for profit while you are sitting in your home with no job, no income and a constant bombardment by the media about how you will die if you get out. meanwhile, whenever i see a politician (or any celebrity) on tv, be it in a studio or on the street, no one is wearing a mask but i will get fined if i don't.

also, i hear every day about some new case of some famous person who was diagnosed with covid... i've yet to hear about any one of them dying of it or even going to the hospital because the case was serious.

Edited August 31, 2020 by teknoman2

[Bartimaeus]

wat