Moderators: Elvis, DrVolin, Jeff
by Sounder » Thu May 07, 2020 5:26 am
How many times do you need to see the same song and dance before you stop treating muddy water as solid ground?
by 0_0 » Thu May 07, 2020 5:31 am
by Wombaticus Rex » Thu May 07, 2020 11:57 am
Many countries (and members of their press media) have marvelled at Sweden's relaxed strategy in the face of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic: schools and most workplaces have remained open, and police officers were not checking one's errands in the street. Severe critics have described it as Sweden sacrificing its (elderly) citizens to quickly reach herd immunity. The death toll has surpassed our three closest neighbours, Denmark, Norway, and Finland, but the mortality remains lower than in the UK, Spain, and Belgium.
It has become clear that a hard lockdown does not protect old and frail people living in care homes—a population the lockdown was designed to protect. Neither does it decrease mortality from COVID-19, which is evident when comparing the UK's experience with that of other European countries.
PCR testing and some straightforward assumptions indicate that, as of April 29, 2020, more than half a million people in Stockholm county, Sweden, which is about 20–25% of the population, have been infected (Hansson D, Swedish Public Health Agency, personal communication). 98–99% of these people are probably unaware or uncertain of having had the infection; they either had symptoms that were severe, but not severe enough for them to go to a hospital and get tested, or no symptoms at all. Serology testing is now supporting these assumptions.4
These facts have led me to the following conclusions. Everyone will be exposed to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2, and most people will become infected. COVID-19 is spreading like wildfire in all countries, but we do not see it—it almost always spreads from younger people with no or weak symptoms to other people who will also have mild symptoms. This is the real pandemic, but it goes on beneath the surface, and is probably at its peak now in many European countries. There is very little we can do to prevent this spread: a lockdown might delay severe cases for a while, but once restrictions are eased, cases will reappear. I expect that when we count the number of deaths from COVID-19 in each country in 1 year from now, the figures will be similar, regardless of measures taken.
Measures to flatten the curve might have an effect, but a lockdown only pushes the severe cases into the future —it will not prevent them.
Admittedly, countries have managed to slow down spread so as not to overburden health-care systems, and, yes, effective drugs that save lives might soon be developed, but this pandemic is swift, and those drugs have to be developed, tested, and marketed quickly. Much hope is put in vaccines, but they will take time, and with the unclear protective immunological response to infection, it is not certain that vaccines will be very effective.
In summary, COVID-19 is a disease that is highly infectious and spreads rapidly through society. It is often quite symptomless and might pass unnoticed, but it also causes severe disease, and even death, in a proportion of the population, and our most important task is not to stop spread, which is all but futile, but to concentrate on giving the unfortunate victims optimal care.
I declare no competing interests.
by liminalOyster » Thu May 07, 2020 3:21 pm
Wombaticus Rex » Thu May 07, 2020 11:57 am wrote:https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)31035-7/fulltextMany countries (and members of their press media) have marvelled at Sweden's relaxed strategy in the face of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic: schools and most workplaces have remained open, and police officers were not checking one's errands in the street. Severe critics have described it as Sweden sacrificing its (elderly) citizens to quickly reach herd immunity. The death toll has surpassed our three closest neighbours, Denmark, Norway, and Finland, but the mortality remains lower than in the UK, Spain, and Belgium.
It has become clear that a hard lockdown does not protect old and frail people living in care homes—a population the lockdown was designed to protect. Neither does it decrease mortality from COVID-19, which is evident when comparing the UK's experience with that of other European countries.
PCR testing and some straightforward assumptions indicate that, as of April 29, 2020, more than half a million people in Stockholm county, Sweden, which is about 20–25% of the population, have been infected (Hansson D, Swedish Public Health Agency, personal communication). 98–99% of these people are probably unaware or uncertain of having had the infection; they either had symptoms that were severe, but not severe enough for them to go to a hospital and get tested, or no symptoms at all. Serology testing is now supporting these assumptions.4
These facts have led me to the following conclusions. Everyone will be exposed to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2, and most people will become infected. COVID-19 is spreading like wildfire in all countries, but we do not see it—it almost always spreads from younger people with no or weak symptoms to other people who will also have mild symptoms. This is the real pandemic, but it goes on beneath the surface, and is probably at its peak now in many European countries. There is very little we can do to prevent this spread: a lockdown might delay severe cases for a while, but once restrictions are eased, cases will reappear. I expect that when we count the number of deaths from COVID-19 in each country in 1 year from now, the figures will be similar, regardless of measures taken.
Measures to flatten the curve might have an effect, but a lockdown only pushes the severe cases into the future —it will not prevent them.
Admittedly, countries have managed to slow down spread so as not to overburden health-care systems, and, yes, effective drugs that save lives might soon be developed, but this pandemic is swift, and those drugs have to be developed, tested, and marketed quickly. Much hope is put in vaccines, but they will take time, and with the unclear protective immunological response to infection, it is not certain that vaccines will be very effective.
In summary, COVID-19 is a disease that is highly infectious and spreads rapidly through society. It is often quite symptomless and might pass unnoticed, but it also causes severe disease, and even death, in a proportion of the population, and our most important task is not to stop spread, which is all but futile, but to concentrate on giving the unfortunate victims optimal care.
I declare no competing interests.
Members of the Strategic and Technical Advisory Group for Infectious Hazards (STAG-IH)
Giesecke, Johan
Johan Giesecke trained as an infectious disease clinician in Stockholm, Sweden during the 1980’s, and from his work with AIDS patients he became interested in the epidemiology of infectious diseases. He received an MSc in epidemiology from London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in 1992, and then worked as a Senior Lecturer at the school for a few years. After this he became State Epidemiologist for Sweden (1995 to 2005) and during a one-year sabbatical 1999-2000 he led the group working on the revision of the International Health Regulations at WHO HQ. From 2005 to 2014 he was the first Chief Scientist of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC).
Professor Giesecke has written a textbook on infectious disease epidemiology, and now teaches on this subject as a professor emeritus at the Karolinska Institute Medical University in Stockholm.
by JackRiddler » Thu May 07, 2020 4:28 pm
by liminalOyster » Thu May 07, 2020 4:29 pm
As in the AIDS epidemic, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, is a fixture on the nightly news. The two men have a complicated history. In the 1980s, Mr. Kramer blamed Dr. Fauci for the federal government’s slow response to AIDS, calling him a murderer and an “incompetent idiot.”
But the adversaries developed a grudging friendship, and Dr. Fauci helped get Mr. Kramer into a lifesaving experimental drug trial after Mr. Kramer had a liver transplant.
“We are friends again,” Mr. Kramer said in an email. “I’m feeling sorry for how he’s being treated. I emailed him this, but his one line answer was, ‘Hunker down.’”http://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/28/nyregion/coronavirus-larry-kramer-aids.html
by Elvis » Thu May 07, 2020 7:38 pm
by Iamwhomiam » Fri May 08, 2020 1:08 pm
by 0_0 » Fri May 08, 2020 3:42 pm
We now know far more about Covid19 – the Lockdown should end
Gavin Phillips
"This is the largest interference with personal liberty in our history” - Lord Sumption
Virtually overnight our world has turned into a wasteland of closed towns, deserted streets and a few people scuttling along with masks and stricken faces. It’s a place bereft of imagination, the light sucked out; a padded cell in Psych Ward B.
The so-called new normal is anything but normal. On March 23rd, when Boris Johnson declared a lockdown in the UK, it was a beyond surreal moment for me. With no debate, our freedoms, social life and jobs were gone.
The reasons given for the lockdown were to try and save lives, slow the spread of this virus and limit the impact on the NHS. It sounds good until you start to pose searching questions. Confining people to their homes and a complete loss of social life comes with its own set of serious problems. Focusing on Covid-19 means other people needing operations are postponed for months.
We had heard about other so-called Pandemics that had turned out to be nothing of the sort, Swine flu being one example. What was different about Covid-19? Johnson had seemed to be going the way of putting in some mitigation recommendations, like social distancing, hand washing and isolating of the elderly. Then he changed his mind.
The reason were the numbers of possible deaths that could occur if a full lockdown was not implemented. The numbers came from a Prof Neil Ferguson of Imperial College, London.
Ferguson had told the government that according to his computer model, over 500,000 people would die in the UK if they did nothing, 250,000 people would die if he continued with lesser mitigation in place, but allowing businesses to stay open as usual. With a full lockdown, deaths would be 20,000 or less, and the impact to the NHS would be kept to a minimum.
What immediately struck me was that Ferguson’s computer model is just that, it’s an estimate based on certain data. His projections could be totally wrong, we’ve all heard the expression, garbage in, garbage out. Why on earth would Johnson decide to implement such drastic measures based on a theoretical computer model?
It was also disturbing to find out that Ferguson has a lot of form for making highly exaggerated claims with his computer models.
In the 2001 foot and mouth epidemic millions of cows and other livestock were killed and burned based on his models. But Professor Michael Thrusfield, an expert in animal diseases, said Ferguson’s models were ‘not fit for purpose’ (2006) and ‘seriously flawed’ (2012).
The 2009 Swine Flu outbreak turned out to be one of the most overhyped non pandemics in the history of medicine. Ferguson got that one wrong as well, saying it would probably kill 65,000 people in the UK, but in fact 457 people died.
I looked for other expert opinions. One of the world’s top Epidemiologists is Sweden’s Dr. [Professor] Johan Giesecke. Sweden is one of a few countries who went with a different approach to the virus.
Giesecke and his medical team recommended that the elderly and sick should isolate themselves. They recommended social distancing. But restaurants, coffee shops and most businesses would be open as usual.
In an interview on April 16th with Freddie Sayers of Unherd TV, Giesecke explained the reasoning behind Sweden’s approach:
Q. Is it correct to call it herd immunity and is that the Swedish strategy?
Giesecke: It’s not the strategy, but it’s a by-product of the strategy. The strategy is to protect the old and the frail, try to minimize their risk of becoming infected and taking care of them if they get infected. If you do that the way we’re doing it, you would probably get herd immunity in the end, but that’s a by-product, its not the main reason to do it.
Q. What was your impression of that (Ferguson’s) paper?
Giesecke: I think it’s not very good… it rests on the assumptions, and the assumptions in that article have been heavily criticised… The paper was never published scientifically, it’s not peer reviewed, which a scientific paper should be. It’s just an internal departmental report from Imperial.
Q. It’s your impression that it was overly pessimistic?
Giesecke:Yes, oh yes, very much so.
Sweden has also helped us in another unforeseen way, by putting Ferguson’s computer model to a real-world test. Ferguson had predicted that with lighter mitigation measures in place, the same as Sweden, the UK would see 250,000 dead. Sweden has a population of just over 10 million, 1/6th that of the UK.
So according to Ferguson, Sweden’s death rate should be going through the roof right now, at around 35,000+, but its 3,175 as of May 8th. The one thing you can say about Ferguson is this, he stays true to his form.
[A Swedish research group from the University of Upsalla actually applied the Imperial Model to Sweden, and found it predicted 40,000 deaths “shortly after May 1st, you can read about that here. – Ed.]
DO WE ACTUALLY KNOW HOW MANY PEOPLE ARE DYING OF COVID-19?
Every day the media blasts us with the numbers of people who have died from Covid-19, but it’s very misleading. Journalist Peter Hitchens was one of the first professionals to pose serious questions about whether the lockdown was the right path, and also to question how COVID-19 deaths were being recorded.
Both in the UK and the USA, it has been openly admitted by health officials that anyone dying *with* COVID-19, is being categorized as having died *of* it. Its crucially important that we understand the difference. The fact is that at least 90% of the deaths from COVID-19 are for patients who were already suffering with other serious illnesses. So, if someone dies of a heart attack and they test positive for Covid-19, that is counted as a Covid-19 death.
Let’s look at this in another way. Every year in the UK people die from Flu. The 2014/15 was one of the worst flu years, killing 44,000 people in the UK. Once again though, the vast majority of them had other serious health issues. We had another bad flu year in 2018 with a different strain, named ‘Aussie’ Flu.
This raises other important questions about the accuracy of the reported COVID-19 deaths. Did anyone die of regular Flu during March/April 2020? Or is everyone who had flu like symptoms and died, being counted as dying with COVID-19? Pneumonia is more serious than flu; once again, are all pneumonia related deaths being lumped in with COVID-19 deaths?
This puts the Covid-19 deaths, and how dangerous it is, into a much clearer perspective. It looks like Covid-19 is no deadlier than a bad flu year. This is an opinion shared by several top epidemiologists and other experts, like Dr Sucharit Bhakdi, a specialist in microbiology, who used to work at the Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz, Germany, Dr John Ioannidis Professor of Medicine, of Health Research and Policy and of Biomedical Data Science, at Stanford University School. (see OffGuardian here and here)
Doctors in the US are also seeing this skewing of Covid related deaths.
Dr. Dan Erickson said in a recent interview:
"What’s interesting to me to is, when someone dies in this country right now they’re not talking about the high blood pressure, the diabetes, the stroke. They say did they die from COVID. We’ve been to hundreds of autopsies. You don’t talk about one thing, you talk about co-morbidities… COVID was part of it, it’s not the reason they died folks."
Also, Dr. John A Lee, a retired professor of pathology and NHS consultant pathologist, has written some excellent articles for The Spectator. Dr. Lee has raised similar concerns about how we are defining the amount of people actually dying of Covid-19.
He also questions the lack of science behind the Lockdown, saying in an interview for Spiked on April 17,
"It is only an assumption that the lockdown is having a big effect on the virus spread, but this is not a known scientific fact. As far as I can see, Sweden, despite not having anywhere near as severe a lockdown as we have had, actually has a very similar curve to ours. And Sweden’s death rate per hundred thousand people is roughly half of ours at the moment.”
We cannot even trust that the number of Covid19 deaths that are reported daily as actually having died in the previous 24-hrs. There could be a lag of several weeks in the reporting.
A recent OffGuardian article covers this. In one example for April 10th, it was reported that 980 people had died from Covid19.
But in reality, there had been just 117 “Covid19 related deaths”, with about 90 additional deaths in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, for a total of 204. The other 776 had died sometime between March 5th and April 8th.
DEATHS AND SERIOUS SOCIAL ISSUES BECAUSE OF THE LOCKDOWN
An article in the Telegraph on April 9th by Fraser Nelson said that ministers were becoming concerned about the number of people who would die because of the Lockdown, early estimates put it around 150,000. Another article referred to the massive drop in A&E patients, quote, a 29 per cent year-on-year drop in A&E use, including a 50 per cent drop in heart attack attendances.
People who are having heart attacks are either too afraid to go to A&E because they think they might catch Covid-19, or think it’s overloaded with Covid-19 patients. The list is long for seriously ill people who have been side-lined by the total focus of the NHS on Covid-19.
All surgeries, except life-threatening, have been postponed. Most cancer treatments have been postponed, dialysis disrupted or put off. Domestic abuse is up 30% to 50%, suicides, divorces, bankruptcies, the list is very long.
There are 100’s of NHS medical centres around the UK. Most of them are not seeing patients. Where do the sick people go to see a doctor?
I think the psychological damage to millions of people, forced into isolation for weeks and months, will only be fully understood in the next 12 to 18 months.
FREEDOMS STRIPPED AND UNPRECEDENTED POLICE POWERS: WE NOW HAVE A POLICE STATE LIGHT
Literally overnight our freedoms have been removed. You are only allowed to go out for one form of exercise a day or to buy food or prescriptions. You are encouraged not to go to work, supposedly only key workers (identified by the government) are supposed to work.
For the first time in our history, every person can be randomly stopped by Police to see if their journey is considered necessary.
Sunbathing, sitting on a park bench, groups of 3 or more can be questioned and possibly fined. Car trips longer than a few miles to go for exercise can be considered unnecessary, after all, you can simply get exercise walking around your block of flats, right?
On Twitter there are many videos showing Police overreach. In one video, a family with some children were sitting in a communal grass area by their block of flats. The Police came to fine them for sitting in that area.
The damage the Police have done to their own reputation within their communities will be felt in the coming months and years.
ABSURD RULES THAT MAKE NO SENSE
We are all supposed to be social distancing, staying 2 metres apart, but people can cram onto packed subway trains. Plumbers, electricians and other contractors can come to your home and make repairs, but we cannot visit family or friends who are not in our household. It’s not only blatant stupidity, it also affects us emotionally, being distant from loved ones for months.
Now we are forced to stand in queues to pick up the most menial of items at supermarkets. Walking around a supermarket is like trying to work an obstacle course, as you dodge people to try to keep the social distancing rule. People treat you as if you may have the Bubonic Plague and often cross the street to avoid you.
Park benches have red tape around them to stop people from sitting on them. It’s virtually impossible for a virus to be spread from a park bench with sunlight and rain on it daily. Viruses do not survive outside in warmer weather, but still the madness continues.
YELLOW JOURNALISM
Yellow Journalism is a label for newspapers that print cheap sensationalized headlines to get more sales, instead of well researched investigative pieces, that is the hallmark of real journalism.
Leading up to the occurrence of Covid-19 and onwards, the press in the UK have strived to make Yellow Journalism their raison d’etre. They have stoked up the public’s hysteria to manic levels with the worst gutter non-journalism I have ever seen.
It was a race to the bottom of tabloid trash, each paper trying to outdo the other with hyped up headlines, while whipping the public into a frenzy. All of them predicting a virtual armageddon, a new Black Death that will kill untold millions.
With a few exceptions, there has been no serious questioning of the governments continued path with the lockdown. The BBC has been the absolute worst, a servile and obedient government servant that simply re-writes press releases.
If there is one small positive to come out of this appalling lockdown, at least the public now recognizes just how pitiful the mainstream media have become.
FINAL THOUGHTS
We are being manipulated with emotional blackmail. Stay home, save lives and protect the NHS. It’s an insidious mind game repeated ad nauseum to keep people quiet, compliant and unquestioning.
We started lockdown because it was an unknown virus, now we know it’s nothing more serious than other viruses we have endured over 100’s of years; it’s time to end it.
Sweden’s epidemiologist Prof Giesecke made an interesting statement during his interview. When discussing the number of deaths each country will have from Covid-19, he said, paraphrasing, let’s talk in a year from now and see where we are.
I’m pretty certain he is referring to not only the deaths from Covid-19, but deaths from the Lockdown. Sweden will not suffer at all in this respect.
It’s a tragedy when anyone dies, whether it be from (most often with) Covid-19, the flu, a heart attack and many other reasons. We need to get back to seeing our loved ones, get back to work so we can feed our family and many aspects of our lives.
The NHS needs to start performing much-needed surgeries and helping others who have been side-lined in the last 2 months. Remember, the lockdown is costing lives, how many, we don’t know yet. The lockdown needs to be lifted in stages, as experts have stated, but it should be started immediately and should never return.
by dada » Fri May 08, 2020 5:32 pm
Virtually overnight our world has turned into a wasteland of closed towns, deserted streets and a few people scuttling along with masks and stricken faces. It’s a place bereft of imagination, the light sucked out; a padded cell in Psych Ward B.
by Elvis » Fri May 08, 2020 6:08 pm
Who controls the Covid-19 narrative?
People with no expertise are deciding what can be said about the pandemic
BY Douglas Murray
May 8, 2020
We have heard a lot in recent years about ‘fake news’. A concept that is not only ill-defined but was weaponised from the outset so that it has come to mean little more than: ‘News I do not like or agree with.’
Yet, if we agree that there is at least one particular societal health-hazard included in the definition (that is, news which is wholly or partially fraudulent), then we ought also to recognise that the concept has a number of counterparts that are equally capable of demeaning the public discourse. Foremost among these is something that does not even have a name. But if it did, it might be ‘fake gatekeeping’. Although ‘erroneous gatekeeping’ might be more accurate.
I am thinking of those people who present themselves as referees of the era: keepers of the narrative. People who weigh up stories and events and pronounce not just what is right and wrong, but what is discussable and what is not — who allow themselves to declare what is and is not off limits.
The media plays a significant role in such activities, as do politicians. But so too do other actors, including university departments and think-tanks. And the problem with assuming the role of arbiter is that you must have 100% accuracy in your choice of targets. When you draw a line, it should be absolutely correct.
Otherwise there is an obvious danger. If you declare something to be untrue which turns out to be true, or if you claim something to be a ‘conspiracy theory’ when it should in fact simply be deemed ‘a theory’, then you don’t only diminish your own standing. If what you have labelled a conspiracy theory turns out to be true — or even within the realms of the possible — then it diminishes the ability of wider society to determine what is true and false. It casts doubt on the standing of other conspiracy-theories. And it tarnishes the concept of truth.
During the early weeks of the Corona virus pandemic, there was a fair amount of this erroneous narrative-gatekeeping. Outside of a relatively narrow group of experts, few public figures or institutions were warning people about the likelihood of the events that we are all now living through. And many of those who were focused on other problems — especially those individuals and institutions that seek relevance in order to secure funding – have had to do a sharp pivot.
Some are aware that they cannot become virologists in ultra-quick time, or have their views on pandemics suddenly listened to. But they can continue to attempt to decide where the parameters of reasonable discussion ought to sit. And it is here that a further erosion in trust between the public and self-identified experts is at risk of occurring.
A report by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue in London presents a fine example of what can happen when people pivot onto something they do not know about. The ISD has done work in recent years in what has become known as ‘the online space’, especially the issue of online extremism. When the Coronavirus came along, the ISD chose, like similar organisations, to try to keep relevant. In the ISD’s case this included publishing an online paper on alleged Covid-19 disinformation. It explained that this was part of a series of briefings from ISD’s Digital Research Unit which aimed to:…expose how technology platforms are being used to promote disinformation, hate, extremism and authoritarianism in the context of COVID-19. It is based on ISD’s mixture of natural language processing, network analysis and ethnographic online research. This briefing focuses on the way far-right groups and individuals are mobilising around COVID-19 in the US. The first briefing in the series can be found on ISD’s website.
Given that extremists of all kinds, from the far-Left and far-Right to religious extremists are likely to try to use this moment and its aftermath to further their own political and religious ends, it seems worth trying to identify the games that they are playing. The better to warn people away from such bad actors and purveyors of disinformation.
The reason why the public may be especially susceptible right now is in part because in the wake of a relatively little thought about challenge, we don’t yet have the societal muscles to deal with it. We need to work our way through this exceptionally carefully.
Unfortunately, on this occasion, the would-be gatekeepers have not developed the requisite muscles either. The ISD briefing says that a far-Right online community has “mobilised” to “advance a range of… conspiracy theories relating to COVID-19”. As well as anti-Semitic tropes, the ISD lists as other ‘conspiracy theories’: the idea that this is a deep-state plot; the idea that it is a cover for celebrity arrests; and that the virus was developed in a Chinese laboratory. It should not be hard to spot which of these conspiracies listed is the odd-one out. Of the last, ‘bioweapon’ conspiracy the ISD says:This theory is part of a wider right-wing conspiracy which some QAnon supporters have adopted. It claims that COVID-19 didn’t emerge from a food market in Wuhan but was rather engineered in a nearby laboratory and then released, either deliberately or accidentally. The main piece of evidence to support this claim is that China’s only Biosafety Level 4 lab (the maximum safety level used to deal with highly dangerous pathogens) is also located in Wuhan, and conservative media has repeatedly highlighted the connection, despite experts saying that there is absolutely no scientific evidence that the genome is man-made.
Here is the problem. The ISD’s analysis attempts to put the idea that the virus originated in the Wuhan laboratory into the basket of ‘conspiracy theories’. But only weeks after the publication of the ISD’s paper a report put together by concerned Western governments keeps the possibility that the virus leaked from the laboratory in Wuhan on the table. At a time when the 5-Eyes intelligence network continues to investigate and take seriously the possibility that the virus leaked from the laboratory (whether deliberately or otherwise) why should this idea be deemed a ‘conspiracy theory’?
Of course, the ISD’s paper is not alone in trying to make this claim. But it is symptomatic of a problem which we must weigh up alongside the problem of fake-news. That is, the problem of faked authority. In particular, the problem that arises when non-experts decide what is and what is not permissible to say. Of course, it is their right to do so. But to allow it without challenge is to ignore the wider societal damage that is done when such inexact pronouncements are made. When the term ‘conspiracy theory’ is watered-down or made redundant as a term by being used of things that may be true, then we’re in trouble. It shuts down interrogation.
People who have been told that something is a ‘conspiracy theory’ only to learn that major western governments are looking into the exact same thing, might be forgiven for being more sceptical in future about the way in which ‘conspiracy theory’ is used as a gatekeeping term. In future, they may be far more sceptical of the term whenever it is used. At the far end of this some people may even decide that other ‘conspiracy theories’ are in fact true or at least plausible.
We all know the damage that can be done by the dissemination of false facts. But we should begin to consider whether equal damage is not done by those who try to stop people from considering questions that not only can be looked into, but must be.
by PufPuf93 » Fri May 08, 2020 6:41 pm
by Sounder » Fri May 08, 2020 7:02 pm
We are being manipulated with emotional blackmail. Stay home, save lives and protect the NHS. It’s an insidious mind game repeated ad nauseum to keep people quiet, compliant and unquestioning.
We started lockdown because it was an unknown virus, now we know it’s nothing more serious than other viruses we have endured over 100’s of years; it’s time to end it.
Sweden’s epidemiologist Prof Giesecke made an interesting statement during his interview. When discussing the number of deaths each country will have from Covid-19, he said, paraphrasing, let’s talk in a year from now and see where we are.
I’m pretty certain he is referring to not only the deaths from Covid-19, but deaths from the Lockdown. Sweden will not suffer at all in this respect.
It’s a tragedy when anyone dies, whether it be from (most often with) Covid-19, the flu, a heart attack and many other reasons. We need to get back to seeing our loved ones, get back to work so we can feed our family and many aspects of our lives.
by 0_0 » Fri May 08, 2020 9:13 pm
by Grizzly » Fri May 08, 2020 11:34 pm
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