Coronavirus Crisis: Main Thread

[mentalgongfu2]

Still, nobody I have talked to actually knows anybody who has died of COVID-19 in either state.

My friend Amy's Dad died of COVID at the end of April He was an art teacher. Perfectly fine health prior to the pandemic. He got ill, was hospitalized for a week before being put on a respirator, and passed a few days later. I find no solace in knowing someone who lost a loved one "proving" it is a real thing, and I don't think I would feel more confident in its existence if I knew more.

[liminalOyster]

A family member had it on the East Coast. An acquaintance died of it on the West Coast. Another in New Orleans. I can count at least 40 (low-balling, actually) people within my extended social networks who tested positive between, say, 6 major cities. Obviously I did not speak to or communicate with them all but AFAIK, some were only sick for a week or two while I do know that others are still experiencing it's after-syndrome, painfully. I also had a student who tested positive but don't knowi more than that. Further, as an apparent sheeple, I'm 99.99999% convinced that the biographic pieces in my local paper about people in my city and their grieving families are legitimate.

I'm sad that places where various containment measure were implemented and worked pretty well are being used to essentially call into question the reality of the impacts of the virus in a banana republic like the one where I live. I'm at least 75% on the side, politically, of those here who are wary and wise about how this thing is being used but it's really surreal to see people calling it a hoax.

[stickdog99]

Still, nobody I have talked to actually knows anybody who has died of COVID-19 in either state.

My friend Amy's Dad died of COVID at the end of April He was an art teacher. Perfectly fine health prior to the pandemic. He got ill, was hospitalized for a week before being put on a respirator, and passed a few days later. I find no solace in knowing someone who lost a loved one "proving" it is a real thing, and I don't think I would feel more confident in its existence if I knew more.

I think you are reading a little more into my post than I meant to convey. I am not demanding to know people who have died of COVID-19. I accept that it is a real thing that many people are dying of COVID-19. I just think that even the best governmental responses to this crisis are unhelpful as well as perfectly representative of "socialize the costs while privatizing the gain" mentality of the US political system as a whole.

Here's a post I made about 50 days ago:

Thought experiment: Imagine that we did not live in an oligarchy in which every crisis, no matter how horrific, was always used as yet another means to transfer even more wealth from the 99.9% to the 0.1%. What would a rational response to COVID-19 from a representative democratic government entail?

1. Like all other first world governments, this government would have guaranteed healthcare to all its citizens decades ago in order to save trillions as well as to prepare the healthcare infrastructure necessary to respond to inevitable health crises such as flu pandemics.

2. This government would have moved to ramp up US production and manufacture of all necessary healthcare supplies such as masks, viral particle trapping air filters, gowns, and ventilators years ago. At the first sign of the COVID-19 pandemic, this government would have provided grants to develop and manufacture millions of tests and antivirals in response to an impending COVID-19 crisis.

3. This government would have utilized its vast military capabilities to do something useful for its citizenry for once by readying mobile MASH units to be deployed to any localities that experience spikes in COVID-19 victims that overwhelm these localities' hospital capacities. Strict protocols would have been put in place to test anyone who sees any healthcare professional for any reason. Those who test positive for COVID-19 would have be asked to isolate themselves in special, perhaps newly erected field hospitals equipped with all the necessary respirators and ventilators and creature comforts for the duration of their infectiousness at no cost to them. To promote compliance with this edict, each person who agreed to this isolation would be given $200 per day spent in isolation, and each who refused isolation would be fined $200 per day. Furthermore, those who fully recovered and now enjoyed COVID-19 immunity would then be offered high paying jobs providing healthcare services for the duration of the crisis.

4. Of course, it goes without saying that any "economic stimulus" package considered by our beneficent fantasy government would first and foremost provide immediate relief to all citizens whose lives are economically threatened by this crisis in the form of free food, free utilities, free rent, free internet access, and covered mortgage payments at least for the entire duration of the crisis. At the barest minimum, all evictions, foreclosures, and utility cutoffs would be immediately suspended. Businesses would be eligible for billions in monthly emergency relief only if they demonstrated that they were following best practices in all of their employee policies during the crisis and only if they could document that they used these bailout funds to pay and/or retain their current employees.

5. This government would quickly move to employ as many currently unemployed people as possible in socially useful jobs such as free grocery delivery to the elderly, free COVID-19 testing for anyone who wants it, and even socially useful projects such as community solar power installation, affordable housing construction, long overdue infrastructure repair, free internet installation, and free online computer training classes. As a condition of employment, all new government workers with any contact with the public or other workers would be continually tested for COVID-19 and would be required to wear free masks during the performance of any work requirements that force them to come into contact with others.

Now consider how our governmental response to this entire crisis (at least in the USA) has been diametrically opposed to anything any rational system of governance would advise beyond, "We order you to stay at home and wear masks when you go outside."

At least in my locality, some free testing locations have finally been set up. But nothing has been done to promote testing or to promote the subsequent quarantining of those who test positive. Nothing has been done to provide emergency medical coverage for those who test positive. If you test positive, you are just sent home and told keep hiding at your home as you already were doing, if you were following the law.

312 intensive care beds and 375 acute care beds have been added to handle increased need for a city with a population of roughly 1 million. However, at no time during this entire crisis to date has bed capacity for acute or intensive care ever exceeded 50% of previously available beds. With these beds consistently well under capacity, it could be argued that current social distancing measures have flattened the curve too much at the expense of thousands of small business as well as at the expense of other healthcare concerns that have been put on the back burner. For example, I know of two terminal individuals who were given of a choice between forgoing life extending treatment and staying with their families or continuing treatment in complete isolation. I am by no means certain that the current situation is so dire that such policies needed to be put into effect.

The curve does not seem to have reached its peak in San Francisco and may not reach its peak for some time. Of course, San Franciscans tend to be good liberals who do whatever we are told, and we were already about as socially distant as you can get in an urban area. If you compare California to Louisiana (where people have comparatively ignored social distancing regulations), Louisiana's curve has already been on a clear downward slope for a month, while California's curve is far more ambiguous.

But the biggest takeaway to me is that all the bailouts have gone in the pockets of the elite while everything that has been done to mitigate this crisis has been put on the backs of the rest of us at the behest of the elite. And this is just the start, IMHO. What else will the ruling class try to foist on us using this crisis as their excuse while holding millions of our livelihoods hostage until we acquiesce?

[0_0]

In the city where i live they followed the global script and immediately built a big emergency facility for all the covid patients that were sure to appear. Now like in a lot of places they're dismantling it again. It has never been used. Millions wasted! Meanwhile we're still in lockdown with bizarre rules on every aspect of everyday life. That is the surreal aspect to me. And i'm not saying it's a hoax, but look at for example Australia in lockdown after 98 deaths with covid, my own country in lockdown because of 5000 deaths with covid with an average age of 82 (higher than the general average age of death of 81) when no measures were taken or media-panic happened in 2018 when there were 8000 excess flu deaths, or take India where they are now predicting famines of biblical proportions due to the lockdown:

Cases overview
India
Confirmed
21.700
Recovered
4.325
Deaths
686 ( a small number still compared to the 450,000 TB and 10,000-odd malaria deaths recorded every year)

The current population of India is 1,377,418,724

Or take where it allegedly all started, China:
less than 5000 deaths with covid on 1,439,323,776 people and contrast that to 1,6 millions chinese dying every year prematurely because of air pollution

And take into account what government officials are telling you themselves:



and you can justifiably state that it might as well be a total hoax that is justifying this fascistic powergrab and incursion on freedom on a worldwide scale that is unprecedented in history.

[0_0]

I'm sure you've all heard about this:

President queries Tanzania coronavirus kits after goat test

The president said he had instructed Tanzanian security forces to check the quality of the kits. They had randomly obtained several non-human samples, including from a pawpaw, a goat and a sheep, but had assigned them human names and ages.

These samples were then submitted to Tanzania’s laboratory to test for the coronavirus, with the lab technicians left deliberately unaware of their origins.

Samples from the pawpaw and the goat tested positive for COVID-19, the president said, adding this meant it was likely that some people were being tested positive when in fact they were not infected by the coronavirus.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-tanzania/president-queries-tanzania-coronavirus-kits-after-goat-test-id

Now let me be the first to point out that this took place in an African laboratory in an African country, and stuff like this obviously would never be possible in a civilized country like for example the US or the UK, but still it's an interesting bit of news!

[8bitagent]

I've re-read the last 20 pages in this thread, as well as seen way too much argument on social media...

can we look at this as SHROEDINGER's VIRUS?

Why can't someone say Covid is mutating in strange ways and creating waves of mass death and sickness...yet ALSO say how it will be used by all venn diagrams of political sides and extremes, corporations, governments etc to usher in the worst imaginable future that would make Alex Jones and David Icke blush?

The media is going full force on conflating honest left leaning people noticing positive environmental effects and worrying about a fast tracked vaccine and measures of control/corporate consolidation taking advantage of the virus WITH "far right violent extremists taking advantage of the covid era". The elite on all sides secretly want an economic collapse, civil war, even a world war with China. All the crazy shit we all talked about in the halcyon days of RI is cracking open and everyone is having a different response.

Just the fact a large portion of American Covid deaths are people of color highlighting systemic inequality in the health system doesnt mean Im a classist for saying people should go vegan in the wake of meat plants wiping out so many workers. All sides of the political debate kind of have a point and noone wants to admit it

[0_0]

Why can't someone say Covid is mutating in strange ways and creating waves of mass death and sicknes

just lol.. you know what is creating waves of death and sickness right now? dnr's orders for elderly and people with learning disabilities, abandonment of all protocols, hospitals turned into covid-only centers, fear and panic, crazy procedures, economic collapse, lockdown while people are starving, wrong and invasive treatments, financial incentives for wrong and invasive treatments, the need for waves of death and sickness by officials to justify all this, shutting down of services, people not getting the help they need all of a sudden, social isolation, loss of hope

[8bitagent]

For those here who eschew masks because you are not convinced they are effective in reducing the transmission of COVID-19, I'm curious - what scientific "authority" or agency would you simply believe (accept, take at face value, etc) if they were to say that yes, indeed - proper masks are a demonstrably effective means to help reduce transmission of COVID-19 in a community.

The WHO and CDC and state officials begged people NOT to wear masks til a few weeks ago. The WHO said there was "no evidence" of person to person transmission. Now the "conspiracies" questioning the Chinese lab sample destruction and paying off WHO to lie is coming out even in the mainstream media.

Now that pretty well in shape NBC News epidemiologist doctor battling for his life in a NYC hospital is saying he got it airborne in the eyes...yet NOONE is wearing protective goggles. The virus seems to be mutating in weird ass ways, its airborne in some ways and people are getting it even if they didnt leave their house. Yet many people are also counted as Covid deaths from unrelated stuff. Its a hall of mirrors and nothing makes sense

[0_0]

8bitagent , have u ever wondered if maybe the reason why Covid presents such "wildly bizarre and different symptoms to different people, geographic, areas, etc" is that there are wildly different circumstances and causes killing people in different ways in different areas, that are now all being counted as covid deaths to form this narrative of a one new vius pandemic? Wouldn't that be the most logical conclusion? And haven't official sources admitted as much for a while now? Like here for example:



and here:

[8bitagent]

8bitagent , have u ever wondered if maybe the reason why Covid presents such "wildly bizarre and different symptoms to different people, geographic, areas, etc" is that there are wildly different circumstances and causes killing people in different ways in different areas, that are now all being counted as covid deaths to form this narrative of a one new vius pandemic? Wouldn't that be the most logical conclusion? And haven't official sources admitted as much for a while now? Like here for example:



and here:

Yes. If you have mild Covid and near recovery but get hit by a bus, thats a Covid case. I was saying this on reddit months ago and called a nutjob. This is why its making me really bummed lifelong "progressives" like me are being called dangerous "right wing conspiracy nuts" by even my friends, media etc.

I mean Today we learned 9/11 was by Saudi govt, the economy will collapse & UFOS are real...oh and world war with China and a civil war in America may be around the corner. In the mainstream news. Today. Fuck. I agree with you...but Im also reading about mutations...but I dont know what to believe

[liminalOyster]

Japan suicides decline as Covid-19 lockdown causes shift in stress factors
April’s 20% drop compared with a year earlier may be the result of delays to start of school year, less commuting and more time with family

Thu 14 May 2020 00.30 EDTLast modified on Thu 14 May 2020 01.26 EDT

The suicide rate in Japan fell by 20% in April compared with the same time last year, the biggest drop in five years, despite fears the coronavirus pandemic would cause increased stress and many prevention helplines were either not operating or short-staffed.

People spending more time at home with their families, fewer people were commuting to work and delays to the start of the school year are seen as factors in the fall.

In April, 1,455 people took their lives in Japan, 359 fewer than in April 2019. Suicide has been on a downward trend in Japan since peaking at more than 34,000 cases annually in 2003. Last year saw just over 20,000, and the large drop last month came at a time when there were fears of a fresh spike.

New coronavirus infections reached their peak in mid-April in Japan at more than 500 a day, leading the government to declare a state of emergency on 16 April, though the restrictions were less strict than those of other countries.

The stay-at-home measures affected suicide prevention organisations, with about 40% of them either shut down or working reduced hours, leading to worries about vulnerable people.

Amid the decline in suicide of recent years, there has been an increase among children, with bullying and other problems at school a frequently cited cause. The start of the academic year, in April in Japan, is a particularly stressful time for some, but its postponement due to the pandemic may have saved lives, at least temporarily.

“School is a pressure for some young people, but this April there is no such pressure,” said Yukio Saito, a former head of telephone counselling service the Japanese Federation of Inochi-no-Denwa. “At home with their families, they feel safe.”

As for adults, at times of national crisis and disasters, “traditionally, people don’t think about suicide”, said Saito, pointing to a drop in cases in 2011, the year of the giant earthquake, tsunami and nuclear meltdowns at Fukushima.

A large drop in the number of people commuting to offices, where they often work long hours, is also being seen as another contributing factor in the lower suicide rate.

However, economic and work pressures are factors. The year after the 1997 Asian financial crisis saw a record rise of nearly 35%. A prolonged economic downturn caused by the pandemic could lead to a rebound in cases, said Saito, who also served as chair of the Japanese Association for Suicide Prevention.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/ ... ss-factors

[JackRiddler]

.

The recategorization thesis fails completely on the test of explaining excess death levels through April. (As we proceed with measures, excess death increasingly may come to be due to other causes.)

Try it on: The contagion is real, people are dying, the measures can still be wrong, the contagion can still be the pretext for insane, pre-planned visions (of disaster capitalism or authoritarian desire), the numbers can be either undercounted and overcounted given various incentives and artifactual reasons, models can be either exaggerated and understated, and if you're too lazy to sort through at least a mix of different empirical approaches to the problems you end up wasting other peoples' time for nothing.

Neither of you is even looking at the data, your learning methodology seems to be to make salad as you please out of stuff you heard, or think you heard, or like to exaggerate, and then to repeat that a few dozen times as if it had been fact. (That often works with art, by the way.)

Strangely for such general skeptics I see credulity here regarding spectacularized (second-hand) media accounts of all the varieties of death. The rule seems to be that all corporate media is lies, except for clickbait headlines that fit my idea of the moment. All analysis is disinfo, unless it fits what I already prefer.

.

[0_0]

Jack, i don't know who you're addressing, but i disagree strongly with you. Excess deaths to me would seem to be a logical consequence of basically shutting down all healthcare that was not covid-related for months on end, changing of protocols, wrong and invasive treatments, abandonment of care homes by scared employees and the sudden general chaos and panic around healthcare. As far as the recategorization goes, that's not a thesis, it's what officials are telling you they're doing straight up.

[JackRiddler]

No it's not. It's what you cobble together out of second-hand claims about what "officials tell you they're doing," with perfect resistance to considering any other combination. Everything is going to lead you to an actual virus causing nothing and killing no one, because that's the stance you've decided on, and you know this because luckily you're the smartest and pretty near only conscious person here. Your role here is analogous to those claiming there were no planes at the WTC on 9/11.

[0_0]

Let's try to resist getting personal and ad hominem, shall we? I've linked two clips, one of Dr. Ngozi Ezike (director of the Illinois Department of Public Health) and one of Dr. Deborah Brix (the Coronavirus Response Coordinator for the White House) among others, telling you that even if the cause of death is clearly something else they count it as covid-deaths. And for the record i do believe there is a virus, but it's so overblown you might as well call it a scam, as i've said before.