The supposed recent "spike" in COVID-19 cases is total bs.

Moderators: Elvis, DrVolin, Jeff

Re: The supposed recent "spike" in COVID-19 cases is total b

Postby Belligerent Savant » Sat Nov 21, 2020 6:11 pm

.

Dr.Evil -

Indeed, after i shared that graphic, what I suspected may be the case -- the figures presented in the graphic are potentially misleading or unverifiable since a source was not provided -- is bearing itself out, at least with respect to the 2020 death count; I also haven't yet been able to corroborate the 2020 figure, though the numbers for prior years appear to be accurate.

Still, one of the core points here is: have the extent of lockdown measures been justified for a virus that maintains a very high survival rate (over 99%) for those at lower risk? And to what extent have lockdown measures themselves caused excess death?

Below is an excerpt I came across online, citing JAMA figures:

A recent study in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that COVID-19 was documented as a cause of death in 67% of excess deaths between March and July in the U.S. But the researchers also identified increased mortality rates due to heart disease, as well as two spikes for deaths related to Alzheimer’s disease/dementia. Some people are delaying medical treatments for fear of getting infected with the coronavirus.

Another JAMA study found that the 2020 excess death rate is higher in the U.S. than in other countries hard-hit by COVID-19. That difference is likely the result of multiple factors, including inconsistent public health guidance, a decentralized and sometimes conflicting governmental response, and disruptions triggered by the pandemic.

Last edited by Belligerent Savant on Sat Nov 21, 2020 6:30 pm, edited 1 time in total.
User avatar
Belligerent Savant
 
Posts: 5572
Joined: Mon Oct 05, 2009 11:58 pm
Location: North Atlantic.
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: The supposed recent "spike" in COVID-19 cases is total b

Postby Blue » Sat Nov 21, 2020 6:19 pm

You are some sick mother fuckers to post this bogus shit here while the death toll mounts in the US.
User avatar
Blue
 
Posts: 725
Joined: Fri Nov 13, 2009 1:39 am
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: The supposed recent "spike" in COVID-19 cases is total b

Postby DrEvil » Sat Nov 21, 2020 7:02 pm

@BelSav: you keep saying survival rate, but that's misleading. Just surviving it isn't the same as everything being good. Many people come out of it with much worse health. You also keep referring to "those at lower risk", completely ignoring that being at low risk doesn't make you any less contagious. The more we ease up the easier it will be for the virus to spread to all of those who are at risk.

If you yourself are not at risk, good for you. I can't say the same, and it kinda pisses me off seeing so many people doing their damnedest to get me killed.
"I only read American. I want my fantasy pure." - Dave
User avatar
DrEvil
 
Posts: 4142
Joined: Mon Mar 22, 2010 1:37 pm
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: The supposed recent "spike" in COVID-19 cases is total b

Postby Belligerent Savant » Sat Nov 21, 2020 7:27 pm

.
"Many come out of it with much worse health"

-- Where do you get this info? Many (if under 70 and/or without comorbidities) are asymptomatic, or otherwise minimally symptomatic.

Anecdotally, most of the people i know that tested positive indicated no lingering issues weeks later. This includes 2 family members over 70.
Unfortunately, i also know a few -- spread across geographies, including internationally -- that didn't make it.
Of those few instances, most had lingering/underlying illnesses.

Are there exceptions? Of course. But i'd be interested in any citations of your quoted comment above.

EDIT to add: truly sorry to hear you, or anyone here or elsewhere, is more at risk. I can fully understand and appreciate the elevated concern it may bring.

It remains the case, however, that all signs point to govts using this virus as carte blanche imperative to push forth excessive/fascistic measures.

The hope is that this is all just temporary. Once this virus is under control, they'll rescind the harsh measures.

Increasingly, it looks to be a fool's notion to believe these measures will only be temporary. Unfortunately, it appears this is only Phase 1.

--------------------------------------

Edit 2: it's best I take a sabbatical for a bit from RI. Seems i've touched a few nerves -- understandably so -- and also need to hit the 'pause button' more broadly on this topic and focus my downtime energies elsewhere.

Let's hope, for all of us, that both this virus and respective govt overreach measures will subside in the months to come.
User avatar
Belligerent Savant
 
Posts: 5572
Joined: Mon Oct 05, 2009 11:58 pm
Location: North Atlantic.
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: The supposed recent "spike" in COVID-19 cases is total b

Postby stickdog99 » Sun Nov 22, 2020 3:49 am

Blue » 21 Nov 2020 22:19 wrote:You are some sick mother fuckers to post this bogus shit here while the death toll mounts in the US.


Who is you?

No excess current overall deaths in the USA as we saw earlier this year.

Image

The above chart is straight from the CDC.

And I think it's pretty sick to make your mind up about something this important without examining all the relevant data.

If you would like to provide the data that have convinced you that US residents are dying far more than usual right now and that US hospitals are overflowing with ICU patients right now, I'd love to see them.
stickdog99
 
Posts: 6559
Joined: Tue Jul 12, 2005 5:42 am
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: The supposed recent "spike" in COVID-19 cases is total b

Postby conniption » Sun Nov 22, 2020 4:53 am

thehighwire

False Positive Covid Tests Will Extend Unjustified Lockdowns, Fauci Admits ‘Miniscule’ Accuracy

By Jefferey Jaxen
November 9, 2020

Whether you live in the USA or most of Europe, one thing remains true: Covid-19 testing regimes are being aggressively pushed onto populations.

Masked populations in some countries have been told (again) they cannot leave their homes. Economies and personal lives remain stunted and manipulated by government edicts. The ticket to a ‘new normal’ freedom has been dangled: A PCR Covid test.

In February, according to NPR, an internal review at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) confirmed Covid tests could be wrong 33% of the time – but CDC sent them out across the country anyway.

But that’s not the whole story of the CDC’s issues with quality control. Timothy Stenzel, director of the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) Office of InVitro Diagnostics and Radiological Health, visited the CDC’s respiratory disease lab and found sloppy lab protocols.

Months latter, Stenzel’s own agency was disgraced as they approved tests for Emergency Use Authorization without even the most basic vetting. The FDA’s policy required only that companies attest their product was valid and labeled as unapproved. The result was a flood of 170 tests—many from China, which only complicated the problem.

That’s bad, but here’s the real story. The ‘mainstream’ narrative was allowed to change on August 29th, when the NY Times published Your Coronavirus Test Is Positive. Maybe It Shouldn’t Be.

The article touched on ideas that, up until then, were only considered to be spread by ‘conspiracy theorists’ peddling censorable ‘misinformation.’ The issues: false positives and no way of determining the amount of virus in someone’s body. The test provides little if any sense of how contagious a person may be. If they even have the virus to begin with!

The polymerase chain reaction (or PCR test), amplifies viral RNA using multiple cycles to produce a detectable amount. The cycle threshold (CT) value is the number of cycles necessary to spot the virus. The false positives come down to a question of testing cycles.

From the NY Times: “Most tests set the limit at 40, a few at 37…The C.D.C.’s own calculations suggest that it is extremely difficult to detect any live virus in a sample above a threshold of 33 cycles. Officials at some state labs said the C.D.C. had not asked them to note threshold values or to share them with contact-tracing organizations.”

Dr. Anthony Fauci recently echoed the previous findings, long-reported by the independent media and other lone voices. Despite open knowledge of false positives from high testing cycles, Dr. Fauci made the unfathomable claim that it’s now “Sorta evolving into a bit of a standard.” Why is he now openly admitting what has been known for years?

Fauci added, “If you get a cycle threshold of 35 or more that the chances of it being replication competent are miniscule.” Got that, minuscule. Fauci didn’t stop there. “You almost never can culture virus from a 37 threshold cycle. So I think if someone does come in with a 37…38, even 36, ya gotta say, ya know, it’s just dead nucleotides. Period.”

Even a Fauci admits any PCR results above 35 cycles are false – which is probably most of the UK results driving policy. Listen to Fauci from July saying you can’t culture live virus above 35, it’s just dead RNA – and yet UI bases lockdywn in this fraud. pic.twitter.com/iumVKoLdEy
— Jeff Nelson (@vegsource) November 2, 2020


After hearing Fauci, the next logical question for populations being held under lock and key is: What cycle thresholds are being run on the current Covid tests?

Investigative journalist Jon Rappoport writes, “What Fauci failed to say on the video is: the FDA, which authorizes the test for public use, recommends the test should be run up to 40 cycles. Not 35. Therefore, all labs in the US that follow the FDA guideline are knowingly or unknowingly participating in fraud.”

The NY Times investigation confirmed that officials at the Wadsworth Center, New York’s state lab identified positive tests based on a threshold of 40 cycles. Likewise in Massachusetts, “from 85 to 90 percent of people who tested positive in July with a cycle threshold of 40 would have been deemed negative if the threshold were 30 cycles,” writes the NY Times.

This is not just an American phenomenon. In August in the U.K., Tom Jefferson, Carl Heneghan and others at the Centre for Evidence Based Medicine asked Are you infectious if you have a positive PCR test result for COVID-19?

The team cited several studies and concluded, “limited data of variable quality that PCR results per se are unlikely to predict viral culture from human samples….The relation with infectiousness is unclear and more data are needed on this. If this is not understood, PCR results may lead to restrictions for large groups of people who do not present an infection risk.”

On two separate occasions, Jefferson and Heneghan attempted to warn UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson against the lockdown strategy. They called for a national program of testing quality control to ensure accurate, precise and consistent results, among other common sense ideas. The two had said they searched in vain for evidence that the tests in use in the UK have been independently validated. They further called for transparency around data showing how sensitive the laboratory processes have been.

In the UK, the reality of false positives is urgent. Johnson and his gaggle of tone deaf officials are rolling out mandatory testing for all residents of four towns and counting. The DailyMail reports, “around 1,000 soldiers will be deployed” to force more than 100,000 people to get tested. Those who have questioned the move are being banned from social media.

After looking at the mass testing proposal in Liverpool, Bristol public health consultant Angela Raffle told The Guardian, “Experience with screening tells us that if you embark on a screening programme without having carefully evaluated it first, without a proper quality-assured pathway, without certainty of test performance in field settings, without full information for participants, and without the means to ensure that the intervention needed for those with positive results does indeed take place, the result is an expensive mess that does more harm than good,”

With mortality rates well below anything seen at the height of the ‘first wave,’ mass testing programs are sure to artificially inflate [false] cases. This will give the government its much-needed excuse to continue the unscientific, harmful and inhuman lockdown treatments of their populations. Expect multilevel revolt in the weeks…or maybe even days…as civil disobedience escalates.

Jefferey Jaxen is a researcher, investigative journalist, writer and host of the Jaxen Report on the front lines of society's shift towards health freedom and higher consciousness.

https://thehighwire.com/false-positive- ... -accuracy/
conniption
 
Posts: 2480
Joined: Sun Nov 11, 2012 10:01 pm
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: The supposed recent "spike" in COVID-19 cases is total b

Postby DrEvil » Sun Nov 22, 2020 11:25 am

Belligerent Savant » Sun Nov 22, 2020 1:27 am wrote:.
"Many come out of it with much worse health"

-- Where do you get this info? Many (if under 70 and/or without comorbidities) are asymptomatic, or otherwise minimally symptomatic.

Anecdotally, most of the people i know that tested positive indicated no lingering issues weeks later. This includes 2 family members over 70.
Unfortunately, i also know a few -- spread across geographies, including internationally -- that didn't make it.
Of those few instances, most had lingering/underlying illnesses.

Are there exceptions? Of course. But i'd be interested in any citations of your quoted comment above.


Here's one early look at heart damage from the Scientific American:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/arti ... -symptoms/

And brain damage:
https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/the ... 0100821133

Also, anecdotally the only person I personally know who contracted covid died.

EDIT to add: truly sorry to hear you, or anyone here or elsewhere, is more at risk. I can fully understand and appreciate the elevated concern it may bring.

It remains the case, however, that all signs point to govts using this virus as carte blanche imperative to push forth excessive/fascistic measures.

The hope is that this is all just temporary. Once this virus is under control, they'll rescind the harsh measures.

Increasingly, it looks to be a fool's notion to believe these measures will only be temporary. Unfortunately, it appears this is only Phase 1.


Why? The goal has always been pretty clear: maintain various measures until an effective vaccine is in place, which hasn't happened yet. Nothing mysterious about it.

--------------------------------------

Edit 2: it's best I take a sabbatical for a bit from RI. Seems i've touched a few nerves -- understandably so -- and also need to hit the 'pause button' more broadly on this topic and focus my downtime energies elsewhere.

Let's hope, for all of us, that both this virus and respective govt overreach measures will subside in the months to come.


No need to pull your punches on my account. I know I take this stuff more personally than I should, but that's no reason for anyone to tip-toe around my delicate sensibilities. I had a fainting couch installed just in case.
"I only read American. I want my fantasy pure." - Dave
User avatar
DrEvil
 
Posts: 4142
Joined: Mon Mar 22, 2010 1:37 pm
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: The supposed recent "spike" in COVID-19 cases is total b

Postby Belligerent Savant » Sun Nov 22, 2020 1:09 pm

.

You've inspired me to return for a one-time reprieve of my self-imposed exile, Dr. Evil. I'm sure others here will be pleased.. [insert green sarcasm font].

First, with respect to these claims that COVID causes long-term damage: nothing can be said definitively at this point. It'll be at least a year or more before any such assessment can be made, and even then, it will be a challenge to isolate the issues specifically to COVID.

Despite the claims of the 2 articles you cited there is no demonstrable indication, or long-term case study available, of the health issues mentioned for the majority of "cases". Remember, you typed: "Many come out of it with much worse health". There's currenty no evidence of this.

Neither of the links provided offer an explicit link to COVID as the primary cause for the ailments mentioned. We are provided no detail as to pre-existing or underlying condtions of the patients referenced. Moreover, the manner in which these patients were treated, particularly during the first few months of this virus outbreak -- and the related stress/anxiety by the patients -- could have all contributed to these additional symptoms. Neither article offers anything more than isolated examples, and neither article can tie them specifically to COVID.

This very much remains TBD, and perhaps there'll be more information in the coming year on this topic, but to call back my own anecdotal observations: living near the NYC area, I know friends and family that have tested positive. I've yet to obtain any word from any of them that they have lingering issues. Easily more than half were asymptomatic. As mentioned, my wife works in an urgent care facility within ~25 miles of NYC. There have been no more than a handful of calls, at best, related to lingering issues -- but again, there could be any number of reasons for these issues outside of COVID itself.

In any case, the potential for lingering issues apply with just about every virus or serious ailment.

Lastly, with respect to this:

The goal has always been pretty clear: maintain various measures until an effective vaccine is in place, which hasn't happened yet. Nothing mysterious about it.


Actually, that has NOT always been the goal. The goal, initially, was to "flatten the curve". The curve has been f'ing FLAT, despite BS/misleading narratives attempting to indicate otherwise (See stickdog's contributions to this thread, which have yet to be challenged). The goalposts have since been moved to EXTENDED and excessive lockdowns, and now -- reportedly -- it's waiting for a would-be vaccine. An mRNA vaccine that has been fast-tracked. It's risky to take any vaccine that's been pushed through this quickly, but in this instance, we must also consider that mRNA vaccines have never before been authorized for distribution to humans.

Despite this -- and here, we must credit the onslaught of media/govt propaganda; Edward Barnays would be proud -- individuals will be lining up to be injected with this vaccine as soon as it's available, despite caution from a number of doctors and physicians warning against taking such a vaccine when first made available (such caution is largely suppressed, of course).

All for a virus that -- Yes, i will repeat this once more, because it's a critical data point -- has over a 99% SURVIVAL RATE for those under 70, and almost 95% for those over 70 (per the CDC).

If one opts to take the vaccine, fine: it's their choice. But there's been numerous indications that vaccines will be MANDATED. This should be a non-starter topic for any human maintaining autonomous thought.

(As a reminder, my position from the onset has been a balanced approach to mitigate spread: self-quarantine for those at risk, keep distance, minimal mandates. Take necessary precautions. The 'across-the-board' lockdown/curfew/mandates approach has been and will be devastating for years, even if they changed course today.)

Up until fairly recently most humans didn't make it past 40, on average. How do you think those humans would have responded to this reported crisis?

I imagine a portion of the population would be ok with hermetically-sealed enclosures to avoid interaction with the elements. Amazing, how some humans have attempted, incrementally over time, to remove themselves from risk and harm (a futile endeavor, that). Denial of death is a serious drug. The conditioning mechanisms put in place over the years, especially with the advent of cable TV, the internet, and social media, is formidable.


Living in a perpetual state of imposed fear is no way to live.


Good luck with it, folks.

Relevant cross-post:

Belligerent Savant » Sun Nov 22, 2020 12:25 pm wrote:.


Portuguese Court Rules PCR Tests “Unreliable” & Quarantines “Unlawful”

Important legal decision faces total media blackout in Western world


An appeals court in Portugal has ruled that the PCR process is not a reliable test for Sars-Cov-2, and therefore any enforced quarantine based on those test results is unlawful.

Further, the ruling suggested that any forced quarantine applied to healthy people could be a violation of their fundamental right to liberty.

Most importantly, the judges ruled that a single positive PCR test cannot be used as an effective diagnosis of infection.

The specifics of the case concern four tourists entering the country from Germany – all of whom are anonymous in the transcript of the case – who were quarantined by the regional health authority. Of the four, only one had tested positive for the virus, whilst the other three were deemed simply of “high infection risk” based on proximity to the positive individual. All four had, in the previous 72 hours, tested negative for the virus before departing from Germany.

In their ruling, judges Margarida Ramos de Almeida and Ana Paramés referred to several scientific studies. Most notably this study by Jaafar et al., which found that – when running PCR tests with 35 cycles or more – the accuracy dropped to 3%, meaning up to 97% of positive results could be false positives.

The ruling goes on to conclude that, based on the science they read, any PCR test using over 25 cycles is totally unreliable. Governments and private labs have been very tight-lipped about the exact number of cycles they run when PCR testing, but it is known to sometimes be as high as 45. Even fearmonger-in-chief Anthony Fauci has publicly stated anything over 35 is totally unusable.

You can read the complete ruling in the original Portuguese here, and translated into English here. There’s also a good write up on it on Great Game India, plus a Portuguese professor sent a long email about the case to Lockdown Sceptics.

*

The media reaction to this case has been entirely predictable – they have not mentioned it. At all. Anywhere. Ever.

The ruling was published on November 11th, and has been referenced by many alt-news sites since…but the mainstream outlets are maintaining a complete blackout on it.

The reddit Covid19 board actually removed the post, because it was “not a reliable source”, despite relying on the official court documents:

Lookout for a forced and disingenuous “fact-check” on this issue from Health Feedback or some other “non-partisan” outlet in the near future. But until they find some poor shlub to lend their name to it, the media blackout will continue.

Whatever they say, this is a victory for common sense over authoritarianism and hysteria.



https://off-guardian.org/2020/11/20/por ... -unlawful/
User avatar
Belligerent Savant
 
Posts: 5572
Joined: Mon Oct 05, 2009 11:58 pm
Location: North Atlantic.
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: The supposed recent "spike" in COVID-19 cases is total b

Postby Harvey » Sun Nov 22, 2020 2:51 pm

Members threatening to leave because they feel personally insulted by the nature of the debate, or taking time off because others don't seem to understand the essential character of discussion. I feel we have a perfect macrocosm of the censorship debate occuring outside our little teacup. As intended by 24/7 media propagandists. Divide and rule.

Try not to take it all so personally guys and gals. If we can't discuss sensitive topics here, then who the fuck can? And where the hell can they do it? The free flow of ideas has seldom been as important.

And while we spoke of many things, fools and kings
This he said to me
"The greatest thing
You'll ever learn
Is just to love
And be loved
In return"


Eden Ahbez
User avatar
Harvey
 
Posts: 4200
Joined: Mon May 09, 2011 4:49 am
Blog: View Blog (20)

Re: The supposed recent "spike" in COVID-19 cases is total b

Postby stickdog99 » Sun Nov 22, 2020 3:04 pm

DrEvil » 22 Nov 2020 15:25 wrote:Here's one early look at heart damage from the Scientific American:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/arti ... -symptoms/

And brain damage:
https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/the ... 0100821133


None of these are longitudinal studies of recovered COVID-19 patients. While I am not dismissing any (basically anecdotal) claims of significant long term effects. I have yet to see a single convincing scientific study demonstrating them in a large percentage of recovered patients. Have you see one?

And, of course, being put on a mechanical ventilator (in many cases unnecessarily) is going to have some severe effects in and of itself. Right?
stickdog99
 
Posts: 6559
Joined: Tue Jul 12, 2005 5:42 am
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: The supposed recent "spike" in COVID-19 cases is total b

Postby DrEvil » Sun Nov 22, 2020 3:12 pm

^^Nope. We simply don't know how bad (or not) long term effects will be because there hasn't been enough time to observe it. The problem is we can't just hope that there will be no significant long term effects when there are indications that there are, and even with long term effects in only a small percentage that's a lot of people simply because of the number of cases.
"I only read American. I want my fantasy pure." - Dave
User avatar
DrEvil
 
Posts: 4142
Joined: Mon Mar 22, 2010 1:37 pm
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: The supposed recent "spike" in COVID-19 cases is total b

Postby stickdog99 » Sun Nov 22, 2020 3:18 pm

Harvey » 22 Nov 2020 18:51 wrote:Members threatening to leave because they feel personally insulted by the nature of the debate, or taking time off because others don't seem to understand the essential character of discussion. I feel we have a perfect macrocosm of the censorship debate occuring outside our little teacup. As intended by 24/7 media propagandists. Divide and rule.

Try not to take it all so personally guys and gals. If we can't discuss sensitive topics here, then who the fuck can? And where the hell can they do it? The free flow of ideas has seldom been as important.



I agree. I often come here to spitball ideas as well as to evaluate counterarguments respectfully. The more controversial an idea is (for example, 9/11 MIHOP), the more important it is for us not to censor ourselves when discussing and evaluating it.
stickdog99
 
Posts: 6559
Joined: Tue Jul 12, 2005 5:42 am
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: The supposed recent "spike" in COVID-19 cases is total b

Postby DrEvil » Sun Nov 22, 2020 3:36 pm

Belligerent Savant » Sun Nov 22, 2020 7:09 pm wrote:.

You've inspired me to return for a one-time reprieve of my self-imposed exile, Dr. Evil. I'm sure others here will be pleased.. [insert green sarcasm font].


Oh joy! :)

First, with respect to these claims that COVID causes long-term damage: nothing can be said definitively at this point. It'll be at least a year or more before any such assessment can be made, and even then, it will be a challenge to isolate the issues specifically to COVID.


Yeah, pretty much, but it needs to be looked into. We can't just hope there will be no long term effects.

Despite the claims of the 2 articles you cited there is no demonstrable indication, or long-term case study available, of the health issues mentioned for the majority of "cases". Remember, you typed: "Many come out of it with much worse health". There's currenty no evidence of this.


"Many" is of course subjective, but considering the number of cases even a small percentage translates to a lot of people.

Neither of the links provided offer an explicit link to COVID as the primary cause for the ailments mentioned. We are provided no detail as to pre-existing or underlying condtions of the patients referenced. Moreover, the manner in which these patients were treated, particularly during the first few months of this virus outbreak -- and the related stress/anxiety by the patients -- could have all contributed to these additional symptoms. Neither article offers anything more than isolated examples, and neither article can tie them specifically to COVID.

This very much remains TBD, and perhaps there'll be more information in the coming year on this topic, but to call back my own anecdotal observations: living near the NYC area, I know friends and family that have tested positive. I've yet to obtain any word from any of them that they have lingering issues. Easily more than half were asymptomatic. As mentioned, my wife works in an urgent care facility within ~25 miles of NYC. There have been no more than a handful of calls, at best, related to lingering issues -- but again, there could be any number of reasons for these issues outside of COVID itself.

In any case, the potential for lingering issues apply with just about every virus or serious ailment.

Lastly, with respect to this:

The goal has always been pretty clear: maintain various measures until an effective vaccine is in place, which hasn't happened yet. Nothing mysterious about it.


Actually, that has NOT always been the goal. The goal, initially, was to "flatten the curve". The curve has been f'ing FLAT, despite BS/misleading narratives attempting to indicate otherwise (See stickdog's contributions to this thread, which have yet to be challenged). The goalposts have since been moved to EXTENDED and excessive lockdowns, and now -- reportedly -- it's waiting for a would-be vaccine. An mRNA vaccine that has been fast-tracked. It's risky to take any vaccine that's been pushed through this quickly, but in this instance, we must also consider that mRNA vaccines have never before been authorized for distribution to humans.


That's just one of the many, many vaccines being developed, and yes, that was the goal. Flatten the curve at first to avoid overwhelming hospitals and then mitigate as necessary until a permanent solution (read: vaccine) was in place. No one expected it to just stop on its own after the first lockdowns.

Despite this -- and here, we must credit the onslaught of media/govt propaganda; Edward Barnays would be proud -- individuals will be lining up to be injected with this vaccine as soon as it's available, despite caution from a number of doctors and physicians warning against taking such a vaccine when first made available (such caution is largely suppressed, of course).

All for a virus that -- Yes, i will repeat this once more, because it's a critical data point -- has over a 99% SURVIVAL RATE for those under 70, and almost 95% for those over 70 (per the CDC).


Almost 95% survival rate for those over 70. That's 36,6 million Americans with a 1 in 20 chance of dying if they catch it. I don't know about you, but those odds suck in my opinion.

If one opts to take the vaccine, fine: it's their choice. But there's been numerous indications that vaccines will be MANDATED. This should be a non-starter topic for any human maintaining autonomous thought.

(As a reminder, my position from the onset has been a balanced approach to mitigate spread: self-quarantine for those at risk, keep distance, minimal mandates. Take necessary precautions. The 'across-the-board' lockdown/curfew/mandates approach has been and will be devastating for years, even if they changed course today.)

Up until fairly recently most humans didn't make it past 40, on average. How do you think those humans would have responded to this reported crisis?


Not really true. Child mortality was sky high, to the point were people simply assumed that some of their children would die before age 5. Those who made it through childhood could expect to live well past 40. Anyway, what kind of argument is that? Are you saying old people should shrug and drop dead because people used to die at a younger age in the past?

Also: self-quarantine for those at risk. That's 36 million elderly plus who knows how many with compromised immune systems or other risk-factors. Let's say something like 40-50 million Americans. Should they all just suck it up and lock themselves inside so everyone else can get on with their lives?

I imagine a portion of the population would be ok with hermetically-sealed enclosures to avoid interaction with the elements. Amazing, how some humans have attempted, incrementally over time, to remove themselves from risk and harm (a futile endeavor, that). Denial of death is a serious drug. The conditioning mechanisms put in place over the years, especially with the advent of cable TV, the internet, and social media, is formidable.


Living in a perpetual state of imposed fear is no way to live.


Good luck with it, folks.

Relevant cross-post:

...snip...



For many people the question isn't about living in fear, it's about living at all.
"I only read American. I want my fantasy pure." - Dave
User avatar
DrEvil
 
Posts: 4142
Joined: Mon Mar 22, 2010 1:37 pm
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: The supposed recent "spike" in COVID-19 cases is total b

Postby stickdog99 » Sun Nov 22, 2020 3:47 pm

DrEvil » 22 Nov 2020 19:12 wrote:^^Nope. We simply don't know how bad (or not) long term effects will be because there hasn't been enough time to observe it. The problem is we can't just hope that there will be no significant long term effects when there are indications that there are, and even with long term effects in only a small percentage that's a lot of people simply because of the number of cases.


It's also a lot of scare mongering based on anecdotal evidence. Certainly we should be cautious and keep monitoring this carefully, but we currently have no evidence that the long-term effects of people who recover from COVID-19 infection are any worse than those of people who recover from pneumonia. Do we?

My issue is not to dismiss the potential severity of COVID-19 so much as it is to suggest that the numbers of deaths and especially cases have been severely overestimated by shitty COVID-19 tests (given emergency approval and purchased by our federal government in the hundreds of millions) that have such low specificity that they should never be used on asymptomatic individuals. and whose questionable results should not be included in any official tracking of COVID-19 cases or COVID-19-related hospitalizations or deaths.

And I desperately want to hear the counterarguments to my legitimate concerns. Does anyone here have any?
Last edited by stickdog99 on Sun Nov 22, 2020 3:52 pm, edited 1 time in total.
stickdog99
 
Posts: 6559
Joined: Tue Jul 12, 2005 5:42 am
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: The supposed recent "spike" in COVID-19 cases is total b

Postby stickdog99 » Sun Nov 22, 2020 3:51 pm

DrEvil » 22 Nov 2020 19:36 wrote:For many people the question isn't about living in fear, it's about living at all.


That's a pithy rejoinder. But. like everything we see in all of our corporate media outlets, it has nothing to do with quantifying actual risk and everything to do with inflating perceived risk. Can you do any better?
stickdog99
 
Posts: 6559
Joined: Tue Jul 12, 2005 5:42 am
Blog: View Blog (0)

PreviousNext

Return to General Discussion

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 33 guests