Coronavirus - Overall
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Well Rugby is about to start up so I’m showing my face. In New Zealand I imagine that you don’t come across room many people who have had Covid. I got the first vaccine over two weeks ago and will have the second vaccine in March. The primary reason why I personally got it because I thought it might be good to have on the resume if I planned on leaving the country on a dive trip or something but alas it’s not a get out of jail free card. There’s always something new and scary out there on the horizon. So last Saturday I came down with a pretty good fever which lasted for about a day and a half. Since I was seeing patients the next day I decided to get tested and I was positive. So I’m out for 10 days. My ex-wife and her husband probably had it a couple weeks earlier although they did not get tested. So I most likely got it from the kids. How do you keep away from your kids? So after the fever broke my symptoms were pretty similar to the flu. Actually if Covid did not exist I would put this down to my usual sinus infection that I get around this time of the year. Pretty much the same symptoms. Now whether the vaccination mitigated the symptoms is unknown. There’s always a possibility that having the vaccine might have resulted in a positive test too. So a couple of things 1). I never feared this virus because I don’t fit into the categories of those at risk. I am not saying that to brag but just that I know the stats and I would not call myself someone with weak constitution. 2). If you have health issues this virus can do a number on you especially diabetics and every other co-morbidity related to obesity. I see this in the post covid patients I am working with. 3). I still believe that lockdowns and a myopic focus on Covid is destructive. My kids are still not in school and miss the social contact, people are losing their jobs, suicides up, people not seeking help when they have had a CVA or MI due to fear of covid at the ER, and the list goes on. 4). The fear is palpable in people and unfortunately these people, including public health officials, are reinforcing the environment that we have to live in. 5). Have to let the virus take its course and people held responsible for their own health. Can’t see how we got to a point where asymptomatic healthy people have to walk around as if they are contagious. We have never done this in our lives before. The vaccine was supposed to be the solution but the bar keeps being moved.
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Here's an angle:
I want to get COVID.
I want my 46 year old wife to get Covid
I want my 74 year old mother to get covid.
And I'll nurse her through it, ( and I'll do it with all the effort and vigour of her life depending on it - another geater pursuit I can't think of). If she dies, then she's still the greatest mum that ever lived. Throughout all my years my life has been littered with people dying before the age of 70. People I've loved. Good people. Great mothers and fathers of my friends and family when I was a kid. 50 years of knowing and coping with "unjust" and premature deaths. Some might posit it's a part of life. Most of them had no comorbidities.
The science is clear - there is an astounding, overwhelming chance that one will live after one gets covid, so why not bring it on and be released from the shackles of fear?
Can I request it?
Because at the point of recovery, (like the 99% of those already infected) all the shill from the media and leaders ceases to affect me. All the fear and dread that they relentlessly conveyed, (and continue to), for a year ceases to be important. Ceases to be "life saving". Life can then go on oblivious to them demanding that we cower and grovel and ask and acquiesce to every non sensical illogical order and dictate. Every single reigning in of personal life.
So bring it on. Can one pay to get infected so as to remove the fear of the most overrated cause of death that's ever afflicted humans? Many have paid everything just because they were commanded to hide from it.
"That's what the vaccine is for dumbkopff" I hear you say. But the vaccine comes with it's own terms and conditions not to mention other "settled" scientific questions:
1 vaccination or many?
Can still spread after vaccinated?
Do covid recoverers need a vaccine?
Safe for kids, babies?
Safe for pregnant women?
Side effects?
Overloading an immune system already equipped to deal with covid proteins?
What's to stop 2020 type living even with total vaccination? - that one I can answer, a politician's pen and a parliamentary order never seen before. Just like from March 2020.Or do I cower in fear, unsure whether or not to let mum drive to the supermarket as that is realistically more likely to kill her than a virus whose "cure" ruins more lives than the actual pathogen.
Always stand up to bully's, confront them head on. And covid is one big bully, certainly portrayed to be.
Fuck the fear🙂
Who's with me?😉
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No mask required supermarket (Florida) doing well
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Some random muddled thoughts:
I don’t come with many solutions, but I sense there are an increasing number of people who assume there’s some sort of perfect (or perhaps a better word is: quick) solution to this whole thing: particularly that we should just let Covid spread and be done with it.
I’ve been intrigued for months by the implicit economic and consumer behaviour theories that some people (and posters) have that you can somehow wall off circa 25% (the elderly, “at risk”, fat bastards, etc) of the population and that economic, employment, and social life will just somehow magically carry on for the rest of the population, and that there’s no possible interaction or overlaps there across the groups.
Sure, the spending of the elderly and other groups doesn’t drop away to zero if they are magically walled off, but like the stereotypical marketing grad who only wants to focus on the young cool crowd; it does assume away their discretionary spending in a local economy. Not to mention social connections (yet)...
Anyone that thinks you can either:
(a) ‘wall off the elderly’ and at risk, and/or
(b) let survival of the fittest run through the elderly and at risk population groups etc... and somehow, say, save the tourism and hospitality industries (as but two major employing industries of young people) has never looked twice at the average cruise ship clientele, package tour group, or a suburban cafe crowd on a weekday. Among others.
(Some days I wonder if some of the Tourism Associations have even noticed their clientele, based on some of the public commentary I’ve seen.)
Sucks for the primarily young people that work in those parts of the tourism and hospitality sectors - somehow they won’t lose their jobs when the 65+ and Fat Bastards stay at home?? Absolutely, you “haven’t deprived them of their freedom”, but bad luck for their day job. Arguably, there’s no ideal outcome there either way.
Sweden tried a version of it early on, card spending still dropped by 28%. The threshold for a number of the population for discretionary spending is unlikely to be the mortality rate that is seen as the significant metric by some TSF posters. There’s certainly substitution effects going on in the various national economies. But, I’d say a significant number of people in countries with community transmission will base decisions like “shall we go out for dinner” on ‘are we likely to get sick if we do’, not ‘well, statistically I probably won’t die...’
How many people will do that? Some, yep - not all people, but enough to put the thin profit margins in many industries at risk. The substitution effect is also reduced if tradies can’t go into the homes of the 65+ and Fat Bastard to do the booming kitchen or bathroom reno trade. Etcetera.
About Sweden... just under a year ago it was all the rage, and some people were joking about wanting to move there. Sweden seems to have been quietly forgotten about, along with other lines like “but more people die in car crashes [than with unrestricted Covid transmission]”. I don’t agree with some of the details of “lockdowns” and travel approaches etc. But I wonder if some of the absolute opponents might do better to stick to a classic principled libertarian-based opposition, rather than jumping from one spurious claim to another.
One thought about the “we need to develop herd immunity (without/before vaccines) crowd”. Presumably the wider the spread of Covid, statistically the greater the chances of new mutations like B1.1.7 and B1.351?
Maybe that won’t matter much and any future mutations will be “just” minor mutations. Or maybe it will change things substantially just as the science boffins had their vaccines on track. Let’s hope not.
Mental health has rightly been a concern through this whole journey. I get the mental health pressures of young people “denied socialising”, kids not seeing their mates (I’ve seen that at home), and certainly the employment pressures etc.
However, I think there are also mental health implications of separation from the elderly/at risk. Let alone the impact of attending Granny’s funeral so soon after the funeral for their mate “Slim” in a herd immunity/“let it spread” approach.
Yes he ate too many pies, but you did quite like the bloke.
I don’t see there being any low-harm options there. Because viruses suck, and not seeing your mates sucks - but there’s not yet a solution to both that doesn’t involve some form of lockdown/border restrictions for a time.
I think there is genuine cause for optimism for about six to nine months time, I’m confident that vaccines, rapid tests, etc will get us to a point where Covid does become more manageable like “seasonal flu” and life finds some sort of new normal. I think the genie is irretrievably out of the bottle on new ways of work, which is a good thing too.
tl;dr: Covid sucks. Lockdowns and travel restrictions suck. But I don’t have much love for the current alternatives either. Bring on vaccines and new medical discoveries.
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@winger I briefly glanced at one article in which they were saying maybe the first Pfizer is good enough but it’s presented as a 2 dosage vaccine. Who knows. I get the second in early March. If people are having problems, or more covid symptoms, it is with the second dose apparently.
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One of my biggest concerns is the longer the lockdown the more ‘acccepted’ it becomes that indoors in your home is safe, outdoors is dangerous.
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@mikethesnow said in Coronavirus - Overall:
One of my biggest concerns is the longer the lockdown the more ‘acccepted’ it becomes that indoors in your home is safe, outdoors is dangerous.
I get this. I don’t want to be in a perpetual mask wearing society.
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@donsteppa Top post/rant/series of muddled thoughts.
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@donsteppa good points as always. Walling off the elderly or vulnerable could be voluntary though. Has anyone ever asked the elderly about their preferences for locking down?
My fear for the whole covid thing has been not the virus, but the observable behaviour of political leaders, media and the undeniable wealth and business transfer to huge corporations at the expense of small business.
The authoritarian approach, police enforcement and hefty fines used to enforce the restrictions on personal movement and freedom has been an ominous hammer on a population whose collective goodwill and overall compliance have made lockdowns a success. The people have slowed covid, not the politicians.
I accept the current procedures as one way of successfully dealing with and delaying covid transmission but will continue to question the roles and decisions of governments during all this. The virus hasn't changed our lives, government reactions have.
One day the virus will be gone from our lives but will the governments ever be?
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@catogrande said in Coronavirus - Overall:
@mikethesnow said in Coronavirus - Overall:
One of my biggest concerns is the longer the lockdown the more ‘acccepted’ it becomes that indoors in your home is safe, outdoors is dangerous.
I get this. I don’t want to be in a perpetual mask wearing society.
But you get to wear theatrical capes and rather sick throwing daggers! Hugo Weaving was well before his time.
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@siam said in Coronavirus - Overall:
@donsteppa good points as always. Walling off the elderly or vulnerable could be voluntary though. Has anyone ever asked the elderly about their preferences for locking down?
My fear for the whole covid thing has been not the virus, but the observable behaviour of political leaders, media and the undeniable wealth and business transfer to huge corporations at the expense of small business.
The authoritarian approach, police enforcement and hefty fines used to enforce the restrictions on personal movement and freedom has been an ominous hammer on a population whose collective goodwill and overall compliance have made lockdowns a success. The people have slowed covid, not the politicians.
I accept the current procedures as one way of successfully dealing with and delaying covid transmission but will continue to question the roles and decisions of governments during all this. The virus hasn't changed our lives, government reactions have.
One day the virus will be gone from our lives but will the governments ever be?
This virus is going nowhere
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@siam said in Coronavirus - Overall:
Walling off the elderly or vulnerable could be voluntary though. Has anyone ever asked the elderly about their preferences for locking down?
It could be and should be. Have we ever had law abiding healthy people confined in this way before during peace times. Yet we all got by well enough. Now out of control nanny states are running rampant. And almost 12 months later we don't really seem to be any better off. Temporary restrictions are starting to have a permanent look. And someone with a sore throat (confirmed as Covid with tests that aren't 100%) = lock the country down again just in case
My view has always been
Govts to once again respect our right and freedoms except (maybe) have restrictions on the sick with symptoms (like a high temperature of coughing non stop). And people collectively need to understand. Give Govts to much power and they will go crazy. It seems to be the nature of the beast.
Education.Lots of it. And then start trusting people to do whats best not treating everyone like naughty children
Provide money to support the vulnerable. Say free vaccines if they want to do this. Or home deliveries. Even free vitamin / herbal supplements or water purifiers etc
Investigate more fully (and fairly) some of these (cheap) treatments like hydroxychloroquine or Ivermectin.
Do a sensible risk cost assessment. And accept that Govt's can't ever save and protect everyone -
@siam said in Coronavirus - Overall:
@donsteppa good points as always. Walling off the elderly or vulnerable could be voluntary though. Has anyone ever asked the elderly about their preferences for locking down?
My fear for the whole covid thing has been not the virus, but the observable behaviour of political leaders, media and the undeniable wealth and business transfer to huge corporations at the expense of small business.
The authoritarian approach, police enforcement and hefty fines used to enforce the restrictions on personal movement and freedom has been an ominous hammer on a population whose collective goodwill and overall compliance have made lockdowns a success. The people have slowed covid, not the politicians.
I accept the current procedures as one way of successfully dealing with and delaying covid transmission but will continue to question the roles and decisions of governments during all this. The virus hasn't changed our lives, government reactions have.
One day the virus will be gone from our lives but will the governments ever be?
Whilst I lean towards your side of this, what has been staggering to me is the level of public support for the hammer approach taken. Witness the political domination of NZ, QLD, WA, and even Dan bloody Andrews in VIC.
Unfortunately, this appears to be what we want.
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UK road toll 2018: 1770
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/reported-road-casualties-in-great-britain-provisional-estimates-year-ending-june-2018#:~:text=Statistics on reported road casualties,severities%2C a decrease of 6%25UK COVID 19 death toll since 15 February 2020 (close enough to exactly one year): 120,365
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so what is happening with the CV of late?
Seems the majority of the world, numbers are dropping off, even Mexico and Brazil seem to have passed thier peak, India, well who knows about thier numbers which are looking superb as well, and I doubt they are getting vaccines to the swathes of vulnerable people ( I realise in some of these countries the true numbers of infected/dead are likely much higher)
Can understand the massive drop off in infections and deaths in the likes of the UK, US with massive vaccine roll outs, but overall is the virus itself petering out, or mutated to become less infectious or deadly so it is able to survive?