Everything you know about Covid is wrong

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This topic contains 86 replies, has 11 voices, and was last updated by  Unseen 1 year, 11 months ago.

Viewing 15 posts - 31 through 45 (of 87 total)
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  • #46731

    Davis
    Moderator

    Unseen if you want to play devils advocate then just transparently play devils advocate. Pretending you believe something outrageous will simply make me doubt the sincerity of what you say next.

    #46733

    Belle Rose
    Participant

    @davis

    Right? This is so UNlike Unseen! It’s like we’ve never seen him before 😂

    #46736

    Unseen
    Participant
    #46737

    Unseen
    Participant

    @davis

    Ideas are ideas and what you or I or anyone else says is beside the point. The point is what I said.

    BTW, don’t interpret anything I post as an indication of what I believe one way or the other, sincerely or insincerely. Trusting what I say to be sincere is very beside the point. Whether what I say is a sincere expression, or not, has nothing to do with its truth value.

    #46741

    Davis
    Moderator

    Ideas are ideas and what you or I or anyone else says is beside the point. The point is what I said.

    BTW, don’t interpret anything I post as an indication of what I believe one way or the other, sincerely or insincerely. Trusting what I say to be sincere is very beside the point. Whether what I say is a sincere expression, or not, has nothing to do with its truth value.

    Nah. Hard to take someone seriously when they may be fucking around with you. If you want to play devils advocate, just say so. There is value to knowing someone’s actual position, beyond simply debating the points they are making (or pretending to make).

    #46742

    Belle Rose
    Participant

    @unseen, I read that newsweek article you linked. It lacked substance and detail. It failed to state specifically what the author believed were the mistakes that we made.

    What specific mistakes do you think they made?

    #46752

    PopeBeanie
    Moderator

    There’s so much misinformation spread by new social media that misleads millions or even billions of people who have trouble thinking and investigating for themselves, my first take on this thread has been to just skim it. In my mind, that’s the bigger story, and the real crisis that goes beyond just the topic of how we’ve succeeded and failed against Covid. To be honest, Unseen, what came to mind while skimming was the old cliche in commentaries that suggest preposterous claims while presenting them as questions or meme-able doubts and cynicism, as in “I’m just asking the question…”.

    It’s been increasingly burdensome in the past few decades to cut through the bullshit! Clickbaiting is the self-serving norm. While I only have some clues how to understand why humanity fails to self-reflect on its own flaws, gravitating  toward the lemmings marching off cliffs approach rather than taking a breath, admitting that none of us are perfect in our ways of thinking while drawing and/or pushing conclusions with insufficient evidence, and perhaps most importantly (imo), not being able to make reasonable, educated guesses (at least tentatively) about which schooled and experienced experts seem to be making the most sense, versus which may be charlatans acting in self-interest.

    I was encouraged by the suggestion that Unseen may not necessarily be committing to some of the same beliefs as those presented. E.g., my personal belief is that SARS-CoV-2, even if it came from a lab leak, originally came from bats and already had the ability to infect animals other than bats. That’s important because I believe very strongly that we as a species will need to improve our research and expertise in order to better prepare for the next pandemic-causing pathogens. During climate changes and novel, geographical intermixing of animal breeds, including humans in close contact scenarios, the threat of diseases will keep increasing, whether or not a lab leak or actual bad actors enable the most critical species-crossing jumps.

    Seriously, Covid-19 is just one anecdote in the larger scheme of potential pandemics and how we succeed or fail in preventing one or in dealing with one after it has taken hold. Blame games are just sideshows.

    #46753

    jakelafort
    Participant

    Pope gets an A plus, gold star, banana split at Friendly’s.

    Our sentiments align. We as a species just don’t learn. Same patterns endlessly except that some of the old crap is accentuated and made worse by modern dynamics. I have been so struck by Ukraine and how it is same old BS blame game. It is never how do we as a civilization move past this unspeakable barbarity. How do we work together to address the most glaring issues?

    I am stopping myself so that a rant does not follow…

    #46755

    Unseen
    Participant

    @unseen, I read that newsweek article you linked. It lacked substance and detail. It failed to state specifically what the author believed were the mistakes that we made. What specific mistakes do you think they made?

    Confusing messaging over time. At first, the “experts” thought masking was pointless, even silly.

    But then they changed their tune and everyone had to mask up.

    Now it turns out they were probably right in the beginning.

    The Spectator quotes Cochrane Library

    This week there was an update to a Cochrane review, which studies the way physical interventions can interrupt or reduce the spread of respiratory viruses. The review, which Tom Jefferson is the lead author of, looks at evidence from 78 randomised trials with over 610,000 participants. In other words, this review is exactly the sort of higher-quality evidence you want when making healthcare decisions.

    The review’s fifth update looked at handwashing, antiseptic use, social distancing and barriers such as masks, gloves, gowns and visors.

    Given past controversies, it’s worth looking at what the review says about the effects medical or surgical masks have on the way respiratory diseases spread.

    Interestingly, 12 trials in the review, ten in the community and two among healthcare workers, found that wearing masks in the community probably makes little or no difference to influenza-like or Covid-19-like illness transmission. Equally, the review found that masks had no effect on laboratory-confirmed influenza or SARS-CoV-2 outcomes. Five other trials showed no difference between one type of mask over another.

    This is the second update of the review since the start of the pandemic. The first update was delayed by seven months due to unexplained editorial decisions. It was too late when it came out in November 2020 to make a difference to national Covid policy; by then, activism, low-quality observational evidence and government policy had set the agenda for mask mandates, and the damage had been done.

    • This reply was modified 2 years ago by  Unseen.
    #46759

    Belle Rose
    Participant

    @unseen

    Remember: when COVID first hit it was a “novel” virus. Messaging changed over time as the science/data evolved and that’s STILL happening and it’s going to keep happening for quite a while. Some data can’t even be analyzed yet. C’mon Unseen you know this!

    #46760

    jakelafort
    Participant

    The politicization of covid is a major fuck-up.

    When the efficacy of various measures is uncertain the sensible course is to explain guidance and inform public when conclusions have been contradicted. Once having taken sides it degenerates into scurrilous accusations and a medical emergency is more about besmirching the other’s political party than a call to unity. Contrast the exigency of current pandemic with WW2 after Pearl Harbor. Muricans came together. Of course they did. The public felt threatened by an outside danger. And that is how this crisis should have been handled.

    A good prez might have drawn the parallel. A good prez might have portrayed the service to common good as a patriotic duty. A good prez might have assembled the best docs, immunologists, epidemiologists and other specialists to convene so that the consensus might serve as guidance for the executive. Concomitantly a good prez might have admonished the public that science is not a fiat from above and that flexibility is paramount so that the public is prepared to do whatever is necessary and for the common good.

    #46771

    Unseen
    Participant

    @unseen Remember: when COVID first hit it was a “novel” virus. Messaging changed over time as the science/data evolved and that’s STILL happening and it’s going to keep happening for quite a while. Some data can’t even be analyzed yet. C’mon Unseen you know this!

    Even so, the studies are now casting doubt on the efficacy of masks, just like Fauci said in the beginning.

    And now, according to Bill Gates (who made $500,000,000 investing in BionTech having now sold his investment) is saying that the vaccines are shit.

    So now that he’s touting oral sprays, I wonder how much he’s invested.

     

    • This reply was modified 2 years ago by  Unseen.
    #46773

    TheEncogitationer
    Participant

    Unseen and Fellow Unbelievers,

    Yet another thing very wrong with the COVID-19 response was not finding ways to protect those most at risk for contagion without repressing those who aren’t and without destroying entire economies.

    Emperor Xi’s Red China (the source of the outbreak and of murder of the Doctors who revealed the outbreak, never forget) was welding people into their apartments and dwellings. North Korea under Kim Young-un’ and Phillipines Dictator Duterte were responding to COVID-19 curfew-breakers by shooting them dead.

    And the U.S. response was absolutely schizoid. Businesses deemed “non-essential” were padlocked by authorites, yet the Burn, Loot, Murder crowd weren’t required to socially distance or wear masks while they destroyed whole chunks of U.S. Cities.

    And there many reports of members of the powers-that-be who didn’t live by the rules they made made for us plebs, Speaker Nancy Lugosi and San Francisco Mayor London Breed being the ones that first come to mind.

    All of this taken together served to undermine legitimate efforts to fight the pandemic, as well as repress efforts to cure other medical ills and social problems. Wealth and freedom are an indicator of, and very needed aid for, health, so senselessly depriving people of speaking their mind and making a living is not a very good prescription for health problems.

    #46779

    Noel
    Participant

    No one enjoys properly wearing an N95 mask. It blocks the spit and nose goo particles that contain the virus, even though virus particles are small enough to get through. It’s a matter of degree. Masks and vaccines are not digital. Not 0 or 100%. There is a statistical curve and why is this so fucking difficult to understand?

    Thanks Robert: I keep going back to April of 2020. Hospitals overwhelmed with actual COVID patients, funeral homes helping out by storing bodies in their refrigerators, refrigerated trucks parked outside of NYU Medical Center, and a potters field, on a small island in Long Island Sound, filled with dead people who had succumbed to Covid and the system had nowhere to put them so they buried them in a mass grave. Since vaccines haven’t seen any mass graves.

    #46780

    TheEncogitationer
    Participant

    Jake,

    You know who else upheld “Common Good Before Individual Good”?

    I’ll give you a hint: They were slavers who hated Free-Market Capitalism, they wore these well-pressed, spiffy uniforms, and their horrors are within the memory of people living today..

    Be careful what you wish for, Strawman maker. For every Strawman you make, somebody can make a Steelman.

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