The worst responses to the coronavirus

[Zetetic]

Wouldn't you trust the accumulation of hundreds of years of scientific knowledge

The knowledge that "it's sometimes possible to develop very safe vaccines" doesn't tell you very much about whether to trust something that happens to be labelled "vaccine".

[bgmnts]

The knowledge that "it's sometimes possible to develop very safe vaccines" doesn't tell you very much about whether to trust something that happens to be labelled "vaccine".

Right but out of the two options between regulated, approved vaccine and obscure anti-medicine proposed by increasingly deranged tinfoilers, which is the most reasonable option...?

[Zetetic]

That's not really where we started though, is it? Where we started was the claim that "basic biology, physics and chemistry" should guide people to the right choice.

As your last couple of posts betray though, it's not really at all about reasoning through the natural sciences or the like, it's almost entirely about who you find worthy of your trust.

[Poirots BigGarlickyCorpse]

Christ's sake Zetetic people can google all these things and use reading comprehension which they learned at school and their alleged intelligence to evaluate which source is more likely to be reliable: the Centre for Disease Control, the World Health Organisation, the Health Service Executive, or Mary off of Facebook who thinks this whole lockdown thing is to strip away our constitutional rights and only cites "They're saying now" as a source. What's the point of playing this ridiculous game.

[chveik]

hmm yes i really wonder why people have stopped to trust their government/institutions

[mothman]

Wouldn't you trust the accumulation of hundreds of years of scientific knowledge over some weird gimps who gobble down horse dewormer or whatever?

Well, you'd think so, wouldn't you? And yet, here we are.

[Zetetic]

In the spirit of scientific enquiry, best not to think about it I guess.

[Drygate]

Mary off of Facebook who thinks this whole lockdown thing is to strip away our constitutional rights and only cites "They're saying now" as a source. What's the point of playing this ridiculous game.

It's not only Mary who is saying maybe there are other options, though, is it?

Is everyone who doesn't follow the official line just a Facebook nutter?

That's why people are getting drawn in. Because people who previously were credible are making statements that question or oppose the official line.

[katzenjammer]

It's not only Mary who is saying maybe there are other options, though, is it?

No, you've also got Lawrence Fox, Julia Hartley Brewer and Right Said Fred

Is everyone who doesn't follow the official line just a Facebook nutter?

No, there are twitter and instagram nutters too

That's why people are getting drawn in. Because people who previously were credible are making statements that question or oppose the official line.

What do you think the bold bit implies?

[Fambo Number Mive]

Drygate, what would you have liked to have seen happen instead of the lockdowns in 2020 and 2021? Because I don't really see what alternative there was.

As I've said, I do feel much more should have been done to support people during lockdown, but the alternative would have been the total collapse of the health service and even longer delays to non COVID care. We'd also have had a total collapse of the food supply chain with so many people off sick, leading to almost totally empty supermarkets.

Look at what is happening in the USA at the moment - hospitals are trying to find patients beds in other states because their ICU beds are filling up with COVID patients, and that is with a vaccine. Imagine what things would have been like if they'd faced the same issue without a vaccine.

Some inpatients in Oklahoma are being transferred as far as South Dakota to find an ICU bed, for example.

In Nebraska, a doctor had to call 23 hospitals before finding an ICU bed for a patient with COVID:https://www.newsweek.com/nebraska-doctor-calls-23-hospitals-before-finding-icu-bed-covid-patient-1626184

[Zetetic]

In Nebraska, a doctor had to call 23 hospitals before finding an ICU bed for a patient with COVID

Christ, that's the sort of bed scarcity that in the UK you'd usually associate with finding someone to torture a child to death.

[Drygate]

No, you've also got Lawrence Fox, Julia Hartley Brewer and Right Said Fred
No, there are twitter and instagram nutters too

What do you think the bold bit implies?

I meant medical doctors and people with impressive qualifications.

I'm not saying those people should've been listened to. I'm saying that I can understand why people have listened to them and that it's not only media and social media personalities that have been speaking about controversial covid topics. It's not only random on social media.

[MojoJojo]

Christ, that's the sort of bed scarcity that in the UK you'd usually associate with finding someone to torture a child to death.

I can't make sense of this. Is there something about the UK that means it's particularly hard to find someone to torture a child to death?

[Zetetic]

Yeah, we're very dependent on commissioning scarce placements from private providers - often you'll have to torture children to death in completely inappropriate settings like A&E departments or Paediatric wards.

(For example.)

[katzenjammer]

I meant medical doctors and people with impressive qualifications.

Oh like this guy?

There are hundreds of thousands of doctors in the UK, it's hardly surprising some of them are dickheads.

[Drygate]

I'm not saying I agree with them. I'm saying some of the people making bad decisions might've been listening to qualified people, rather than just following the advice of people on facebook etc.

A quick google finds this site which lists doctors and people who seem at face value like they might know what they're talking about. Imagine if one of those people were your trusted family doctor then they started spouting that stuff. Maybe you might believe them?

[Drygate]

Drygate, what would you have liked to have seen happen instead of the lockdowns in 2020 and 2021? Because I don't really see what alternative there was.

I would've made more of an effort to protect care homes. Put a proper protective ring around them. Care home issues were known about in Feb 2020 in the US before we locked down so it wasn't a surprise.

We could've had a serious go at making the "Nightingale" hospitals operational instead of setting them up and dismantling them. I know there were issues with staffing but other countries have managed to set up and run temporary covid isolation facilities.

I would've also made a real effort to try and improve the health of the nation. Maybe ban shit food or at least limit its consumption and availability. Run free outdoors exercise classes. Not frighten people so they were afraid to safely go outdoors and exercise. You could've even created an app that banned people with certain health issues from engaging in certain activities like ordering fast food if they were 20% overweight or had a diet related disease. Yes, that's unfair and an insult to our human rights etc. but so were the lockdowns. Some countries banned the sale of booze during their lock downs so it's not totally out there.

We could've made more of an effort to identify, contact, and support people who were at greater risk from covid. Proper sick pay to stay at home, free food deliveries for the vulnerable, etc. Gone way beyond our list of extremely vulnerable people and telling them to stay in, with a shitty food box once a week.

We could've still had the first lockdown but we could've run other measures alongside it. We'd be in a better position today if we had. Even discounting covid, people would've been healthier. Plus if the vaccines hadn't panned out when and how they did, and those measures worked, we wouldn't have been in exactly the same position we were in early 2020. Then if that didn't work, we could've had the further lock downs if they were needed.

All of that would've taken a lot of work and money but it's not like we haven't invested a lot in lockdowns and other schemes (eat out to help out etc).

I can't believe that the lockdowns and current shit show is the best we could've done, or that at the least, other measures weren't worth trying. It's not like lockdowns were tried and tested before covid. They were only introduced late 2019. All previous pandemic advice was not to do them. Maybe they did work without major any side effects, but we could've hedged our bets and tried other things as a back up.

Thankfully I'm not in charge so no one has to listen to me but that's my thoughts on it...

[Kankurette]

People did go out and exercise tbf, I walked like mad. Still do.

[bgmnts]

Banning shit food would have pissed off most of the electorate and the billion pound shit food industry.

[Poirots BigGarlickyCorpse]

Because people who previously were credible are making statements that question or oppose the official line. "they're saying now"

A quick google finds this site

PROTECT CHILDREN! Please share far and wide thank you – Jim Corr

Aahh, immediately it's obvious that the site is tinfoil hat nonsense. Normally I have to go digging through the About section and google the Big Name Authors to find this out.

[Kankurette]

I saw one of those stickers calling people who wear masks 'Karen' and another one saying people who wear masks are cowards. Because going round putting up stickers is so fucking brave.

[frajer]

I've been having to go into town more often lately due to work and based on the dispiriting amount of people who've sacked masks off (75% at least round here), it's definitely not cowardly to stick to your values and keep a mask on.

Wider point that I'm sure has been said already, but I do think there is a genuine amount of "fear of looking silly" that keeps a lot of people from masking up, especially now the mask wearers are in the minority.

[Drygate]

Banning shit food would have pissed off most of the electorate and the billion pound shit food industry.

True. But I would've said that about lock downs in mid 2019. Turns out people and some businesses were OK with them.

[Drygate]

People did go out and exercise tbf, I walked like mad. Still do.

True. But not everyone managed to, or at least some people put on weight.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-57968651#:~:text=More%20than%2040%25%20of%20adults,stone%20(just%20over%203kg).

[Cold Meat Platter]

True. But I would've said that about lock downs in mid 2019. Turns out people and some businesses were OK with them.

I think most folk would have been very pissed off being in lockdown in 2019 considering there was no pandemic then.

[flotemysost]

Banning shit food would have pissed off most of the electorate and the billion pound shit food industry.

Yep, if someone's overweight enough to put them at greater risk of getting seriously ill from covid (not suggesting it's as simple as a direct correlation) then banning burgers for a few weeks isn't going to eliminate that risk, the reasons for obesity are more complex than that.

And if there hadn't been any lockdown last Spring I'd definitely have fancied my chances getting a greasy calorific takeaway delivered over sitting in a restaurant full of other customers.

[evilcommiedictator]

I would have also been very upset about people dying of COVID in 2019, I mean, clearly that's just BIG PHARMA letting its test NOVEL CORONA BEER out a year before the launch date? When BIG FARMA are already on their way to the moon to eat all the cheese and meet up with Epstein?

[George Oscar Bluth II]

Wider point that I'm sure has been said already, but I do think there is a genuine amount of "fear of looking silly" that keeps a lot of people from masking up, especially now the mask wearers are in the minority.

Definitely had a bit of this in Tesco last week, was just me and few of the staff and maybe 25% of customers. At some point there's a tipping point, you assume.

[Drygate]

Interesting read on "noble lies" and their impact on trust in institutions:

https://slate.com/technology/2021/07/noble-lies-covid-fauci-cdc-masks.html

[Drygate]

Surely this is fake news?

https://news.yahoo.com/local-council-shoots-rescue-dogs-195000980.html

The Bourke Shire Council killed the dogs to prevent volunteers from traveling to pick up the animals, in line with their interpretation of COVID-19 restrictions,