Coronavirus (COVID-19) Outbreak

[Guest]

1 minute ago, RandoEFC said:

By how much? Less than a thousand and that's being generous for me. Roughly 1% of people might have died anyway, I wouldn't even say that much. That's not enough to cede ground to the anti-sciencers I'm afraid. It's a method of counting that includes a small but acceptable and insignificant possibility of error which is quite common in statistical analysis.

Apparently there were around 89000 deaths where covid was mentioned on the certificate and 87000 where it was an underlying cause so yeah you are right. Not a lot. Certainly not enough to not take it seriously as some are saying.

[nudge+]

Can't speak for the UK, but in Germany, Robert Koch Institut reports the total number of deaths "with covid" and "of covid" bundled together. Most federal states, on the other hand, report deaths in those two categories separately. The percentage of those who had tested positive but died of other causes varied from 9 to 18% in reports from selected federal states' local health offices in mid December (data from Bayern, Baden-Württemberg, Hamburg and NRW).

[Guest]

@RandoEFC its quite easy to see how people can get the wrong information though. I'm not sure if it is being tackled the right way though. Removing misinformation is ok. However providing people with the right information is important. Maybe there does need to be more phone ins where people can ask these questions. 

 

[RandoEFC+]

18 minutes ago, Gunnersauraus said:

@RandoEFC its quite easy to see how people can get the wrong information though. I'm not sure if it is being tackled the right way though. Removing misinformation is ok. However providing people with the right information is important. Maybe there does need to be more phone ins where people can ask these questions. 

 

There is much more to it than this. First off, the right information is out there, literally everywhere. I haven't had to read an academic paper to relay what I told you, it's on Sky News and the BBC literally every day for the past year. If you're curious about the different measures that I described you can look it up pretty easily and find the information I posted above. I follow a lot of news and politics stuff on Twitter so maybe I know a bit more than the average Joe but the people who spout the shite we're talking about have chosen to commit to the conspiracy that the mainstream media, or the 'lamestream' media as many of them call it, are complicit in the con. Don't ask them what the conspirators' motivation is, because they can't name it. They've been given the information and rejected it. This isn't like Brexit, where the right information was drowned out by the shouting of lies and false rhetoric by a number of prominent and reputable public figures to the point that you could understand why a lot of people voted for the option of something that was clearly worse. This is people rejecting cold, hard facts that every reputable source is in agreement on. And there are plenty of phone-ins where people ring in with this nonsense and get taken apart. More of them prefer Twitter and Reddit where they can block people who rip them to shreds with science and evidence or hide in a sub-reddit of like-minded dangerous individuals, that's the bigger problem.

I honestly wouldn't waste your time and energy worrying about these people. Give them the facts, that's all you can do, if they reject the facts then it's time to move on and it's on them if life teaches them the hard way the lesson of listening to science and people who actually know things.

I am interested to know, though, what the take of the world's leading psychologists is on why people end up in this hole. I'm yet to see a convincing explanation but the best one so far is that people in the Western world especially have just lived such a comfortable life and taken it for granted for so long that they're simply incapable of processing this lose-lose scenario where lockdown is terrible, but not having lockdown would have even more terrible consequences.

[Mpache]

About time! @El Profesor

 

[Mpache]

And another!

 

[SchalkeUK]

24 hours after the jab and no effects - ill or otherwise.  Even by 5am I was able to roll over in bed and lay on the arm without any difficulty - this is probably the easiest injection I have ever had to cope with - and believe me the ones I got in the 50's for the Far East and Christmas Island were sometimes very difficult to deal with.  TOTALLY POSITIVE SO FAR.

[Machado]

Things are looking pretty grim over here. Several reports of medical staff describing hospitals as war zones, saying people are completely burned out working 100+ hours a week. We test more than most but we have the 2nd most new daily cases per capita in the world now.

[The Artful Dodger]

Can definitely see the increased transmission of this thing, know loads of people who've got it now, including people extremely cautious about it all. Thankfully nobody very ill but shows how infectious this strain is.

 

[The Artful Dodger]

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/jan/18/who-just-25-covid-vaccine-doses-administered-in-low-income-countries

 

'“It’s not right that younger healthier adults in rich countries are vaccinated before health workers and older people in poorer countries,” he said.'

People under 50, without health conditions, in the UK do not need a vaccine as a matter of urgency, we should be back of the queue.

[Stan]

Over 4m first doses given in UK. 450k 2nd doses given. 

If these vaccination hubs that have opened up around UK have been successful from today, I'd expect those figures to rocket up. 

[Guest]

4 hours ago, The Artful Dodger said:

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/jan/18/who-just-25-covid-vaccine-doses-administered-in-low-income-countries

 

'“It’s not right that younger healthier adults in rich countries are vaccinated before health workers and older people in poorer countries,” he said.'

People under 50, without health conditions, in the UK do not need a vaccine as a matter of urgency, we should be back of the queue.

I agree . It's wrong. The aim should be to vaccinate people most at need. The right wing will say we should look after our own.

I was reading something then other day. The right wing always say we shouldn't give foreign aid we should look after our own. But when  it came to feeding starving kids it was the left wing that were campaigning for it. So who do they mean by looking after our own??

[Stan]

Just now, Gunnersauraus said:

I agree . It's wrong. The aim should be to vaccinate people most at need. The right wing will say we should look after our own.

I was reading something then other day. The right wing always say we shouldn't give foreign aid we should look after our own. But when  it came to feeding starving kids it was the left wing that were campaigning for it. So who do they mean by looking after our own??

The rich folk.

[Guest]

@Stan @The Artful Dodger my auntie said that the rich countries are paying for the vaccine and poor countries are getting it for free so it's fair we we get it first. Even if we dont need it so much. Seems abit inhumane to me and also experts say it is will keep the virus around for longer. Thoughts?

Edited January 18, 2021 by Guest

[Stan]

4 minutes ago, Gunnersauraus said:

@Stan @The Artful Dodger my auntie said that the rich countries are paying for the vaccine and poor countries are getting it for free so it's fair we we get it first. Even if we dont need it so much. Seems abit inhumane to me and also experts say it is will keep the virus around for longer. Thoughts?

Nothing is ever free and those countries will be used by the others for some reason or other.

 

[Guest]

1 minute ago, Stan said:

Nothing is ever free and those countries will be used by the others for some reason or other.

 

Also it's very inhumane. Its not the their fault they live in a poor country. 

[Guest]

@Stan Personally I find the lack of concern upsetting. I can undertand why someone would think that. But to have no real concern is an issue for me. There are lots of reasons why countries are poorer that go back thousands of years. What is certain though is it isnt a person who has had no educations fault they are poor. The human race has a moral ethical responsibility to look after each other 

[The Artful Dodger]

I don’t have an issue with people who need it getting it but nobody under 50 (obvious exceptions) needs this vaccine desperately, especially at the expense of people who do.

[Danny]

3 hours ago, Gunnersauraus said:

@Stan @The Artful Dodger my auntie said that the rich countries are paying for the vaccine and poor countries are getting it for free so it's fair we we get it first. Even if we dont need it so much. Seems abit inhumane to me and also experts say it is will keep the virus around for longer. Thoughts?

Understand why we are a rich country and then work out what’s fair.

[Guest]

11 minutes ago, Danny said:

Understand why we are a rich country and then work out what’s fair.

Well perhaps you can tell me so I can tell her. 

I'm pretty certain rich countries push small countries around which makes then poorer. It can be done with bad trade deals etc. 

At the end of the day it's not some one in Africa who has no chance of education and no chance of working themselves out of poverty that they are poor. 

It doesnt matter anyway because experts have said that if we dont vaccinate the vulnerable in poor countries before invulnerable people in rich countries it will spread more anyway. However even if it were true can we really say its fair to save the lives of thousands at the cost of hundreds of thousands just because we have the money. 

[Danny]

17 minutes ago, Gunnersauraus said:

Well perhaps you can tell me so I can tell her. 

I'm pretty certain rich countries push small countries around which makes then poorer. It can be done with bad trade deals etc. 

At the end of the day it's not some one in Africa who has no chance of education and no chance of working themselves out of poverty that they are poor. 

It doesnt matter anyway because experts have said that if we dont vaccinate the vulnerable in poor countries before invulnerable people in rich countries it will spread more anyway. However even if it were true can we really say its fair to save the lives of thousands at the cost of hundreds of thousands just because we have the money. 

Was mainly referring to theft and exploitation but the long and short of it is that many countries around the globe you considering 3rd world are so because of colonialism (not just British either).

[Guest]

19 minutes ago, Danny said:

Was mainly referring to theft and exploitation but the long and short of it is that many countries around the globe you considering 3rd world are so because of colonialism (not just British either).

Some people (not me) would argue that those countries were undeveloped before colonisation. So although they are still poor they would have been poorer without it.

???

[The Artful Dodger]

Forget the moral question of why countries are poorer,  why do I a healthy 31 year old with barely any risk of serious illness or death need  a vaccine over a health worker in Bangladesh or an 80 year old in Mali? I don't. Vaccines should be given to people in order of vulnerability, not wealth.

I'm not religious but it's things like this that make me think, if there is a god, nearly all of us are damned.

Edited January 19, 2021 by The Artful Dodger

[Honey Honey]

14 minutes ago, The Artful Dodger said:

Forget the moral question of why countries are poorer,  why do I a healthy 31 year old with barely any risk of serious illness or death need  a vaccine over a health worker in Bangladesh or an 80 year old in Mali? I don't. Vaccines should be given to people in order of vulnerability, not wealth.

I'm not religious but it's things like this that make me think, if there is a god, nearly all of us are damned.

Agree to an extent however geography may well be an important factor. Where the virus is most prevalent it is most likely to mutate and spread beyond. In effect the age hierarchy might not be the most ethical or the best way to reduce death.

Allowing the virus to rip through under 50s could be a catastrophic mistake.

One of the potential downsides to vacinnating first is that it could just come back mutated in a years time from somewhere else on the planet.

Would under 40s in hot spots be willing to remain in lockdown until we have over 50s everywhere in the world vaccinated? 

[RandoEFC+]

It's not up for debate. Not an opinion, simply a fact, that vulnerable people and health care workers in other countries should get the vaccine first. I expect nothing from the US or UK under current leadership but hopefully there will at least be some compassion from the EU or somewhere else.

I know what the arguments will be. "The sooner we can get Brexit done Britain vaccinated, the sooner we can get the economy up and running again and that will put us in a better position to help our friends around the world. No questions, thanks." The media will just take that as an answer and then not ask about it when we do fuck all to help. This argument actually has some value and I'd take it if I believed that we'd take advantage of our position as the early "leaders" of vaccination among major nations by using our head-start to start forming a plan to help poorer countries at least get started on their vulnerable groups. I don't think the pressure is there though nationwide because we obviously need to "look after our own (unless they're undernourished and impoverished children)".

It's really disappointing. If only some of those that call themselves 'world leaders' would actually act like world leaders instead of just looking after their own interests. There's been an increase in hubristic nationalism over the past decade and leaders who want to call themselves and their country 'great'. In the UK, many of us fetishise Churchill as a modern Great British hero, none more than the current Prime Minister. My parents' generation have grown up believing that Churchill was great because he made Britain win the war, because he allowed post-imperialist Britain to believe that we're still just somehow great for being British. World War 2 wasn't about Britain, it was about civilised society saying no to Hitler's values and Churchill's greatness derives from his position as one of or the key figurehead of this movement. Any leader of note who led a concerted effort towards global vaccination would instantly go down as the greatest leader I've seen in my lifetime. The lack of a coordinated global strategy in this day and age has been pretty abysmal throughout the pandemic. More or less every major country has curled up in its shell and just tried to wait it out. The WHO haven't really helped with mixed messaging throughout. It won't happen in my lifetime but at some point humanity is going to have to accept the next phase of globalism which is to start looking at the whole world as 'the hive' instead of just your own country. 

We'll come out the other side of this pandemic eventually, but one area of lasting damage has been the loss of 2 years' serious conversation about climate change. Covid-19 has been almost like a test run for how the world faces a global crisis and we've failed miserably by failing to collaborate with each other effectively. Climate change is the next global crisis that requires international coordination to overcome instead of individual countries making empty promises about "net-zero by 2050" designed for political gain over practical solutions. We need to sort our shit out because you can't vaccinate against a climate crisis once you've shit the bed and let it run riot throughout the world like you can with a virus.