> 0. COVID-19 was mostly harmless. Even more so than Douglas Adam's books.
At the beginning of the pandemic, I found out that my father and his partner had COVID. He lived, at the time, about 12 hours drive from me. Where he lived, his support network was thin (to say the least) - the little family he had nearby needed to keep away because they were responsible for caring for my cousin with a severely weakened immune system. His friends, sadly, also contracted COVID around the same time.
I called him twice a day, and each call he was worse than the last. I decided to rent an AirBnB nearby. My partner and I packed up the dog and everything we needed and drove overnight to get there.
We masked up, and got supplies at Walmart. We brought them to my Dad’s house and left them on the patio - retreated a safe distance - and my Dad came to retrieve them. He was in an awful condition, and his partner was worse.
For the next week I came to their porch every few hours, and called my dad, and we spoke with what little breath he had. He dictated his last will and testament to me. I delivered pedialyte, meal replacement shakes, pulse oximeters, anything to help them make it through. I forced them to get up and move around a little from time to time, and took notes on their condition. They wouldn’t let me in the house.
One day, before I arrived with supplies, my Dad told me they had called an ambulance for his partner. They took his partner to the local hospital… and the hospital turned him away because they had no beds. They essentially sent my Dad’s partner home to die.
By some miraculous turn of events, they survived. They have issues walking and breathing to this day, but they survived.
It’s one of the more agonizing, awful things I’ve ever had to watch. COVID-19 wasn’t harmless; it killed millions. I saw it up close. Especially early on, it was virulent and deadly, and very nearly took my parents from me. It did end up taking a lot of people in my extended social network. They died agonizing deaths.
How dare you paint it as “mostly harmless.”
Yes I am sorry for your loss. Now let's get to the point.
Because I understand statistics and am making sweeping statements I can and will make them from an objective viewpoint. Please do NOT sensor proven facts. I don't care for bible thumping tora humping nonsense that does not match reality. I'll take 2k years of religion and raise you 50 years of tech, oled TVs and microprocessors.
I know someone who ended up hospitalised and several years later does from complications due to a winter flu, doesn't mean we shut down society _every year_.
CV19 was a novel virus introduced into an existing population without any pre-existing immunity. This meant we will see complications, deaths at every age group and people's lives ruined by something that most 4yo, 25yo and 68yo will simply shake off.
Again the statement of millions dead _DOES NOT_ match the real world where several developed nations with populations sub 1B did not have dead numbers into the 10M+ of healthy individuals.
People died yes. This is expected. It is an illness. People die of staph infections. Life is unfair.
That _DOES NOT_ mean that this is equivalent to small pox. It's not a bioweapon it just meant the subpopulations who we identified really early (2020) should have isolated or accepted their risk.
The rest of society should not bend for the risk (again high survivability even in at risk groups). If it did we wouldn't sell guns, scissors or cross the road.
I hope that people do not treat you with the callousness with which you treat others.
> Because I understand statistics and am making sweeping statements I can and will make them from an objective viewpoint. Please do NOT sensor proven facts. I don't care for bible thumping tora humping nonsense that does not match reality. I'll take 2k years of religion and raise you 50 years of tech, oled TVs and microprocessors.
My friend, you are speaking gibberish. I literally have no idea what you are trying to say. Maybe check your house for a gas leak, or something. I don’t mean it in a dismissive way - I quite literally cannot make heads or tails of what you’re saying here.
> Again the statement of millions dead _DOES NOT_ match the real world
The dead are dead whether you like it or not. Sounds like the pandemic didn’t affect you personally. Be grateful for that, and be kinder to others.
You effectively told me to shut up because of the way you feel when talking about facts. This is the ultimate in anti-intellectual, dishonest and selfish statements.
Check yourself before engaging in conversations about FACTS.
You waltzed into a thread about the CIA suddenly changing their tune about where COVID came from; and started making assertions that it wasn’t that bad.
I shared a deeply personal story about exactly how bad it was, from my vantage point. I expressed outrage at your dismissal of the suffering and many deaths that occurred. “How dare you” isn’t the same as “shut up.” But it is a strong suggestion that you’re being uncharitable.
> Check yourself before engaging in conversations about FACTS.
I scrolled through your comment history and based on some recent arguments with the mods, it sounds like you’ve have a bone to pick with people on this site.
Log off and touch grass, man.
I'm telling you facts because for 4+ years nobody listens.
I've been correct in calling every detail about CV19 because I was involved and shut out of the early criticisms of the modelling based on the data. I'm correct and I'm just shouting into the void so that I can go away and rest easy that "I told you so", I tried ignoring it but frankly shouting until blue in the face helps my conscience easier.
You didn't just share a story you took offence to my position and tried to shut it down. Again, not approaching discourse honestly and openly. Please learn to be wrong. I know I can be. But again not when I'm stating hammer and nail facts. The earth is round, sky blue and water wet. Not the Orwellian everyone has a story type "facts". Words have meanings, please don't let that get lost for the sake of future generations.
Again mostly harmless is met with, the worst story I personally have is discomfort and complications. This unfortunately is not deaths by the millions of healthy people. But it is obviously real, it's just a different thing.
If it were fruitless you wouldn't have engaged from an aggressive stance and I wouldn't be telling you why your wrong. Cognitive dissodence does hurt when it breaks but it's all for the better :)
For what it’s worth: I continued to engage because I used to be like you - argumentative, hyper assured of my own intelligence, and certain I was correct about everything. I wish someone had pointed out earlier that I was being a massive asshole.
Hence, trying to politely engage with you a bit. I feel like it’s the kind thing to do.
I'm going to engage in good faith still again and see if we can get past the point of it being uncomfortable for you.
I made a statement aligned with the indisputable reality that COVID did not lead to huge amounts of deaths among the healthy working age population.
Ironically the USA gives us a very good example of this. Their jab rates are close to 50% across multiple age brackets. If COVID was really really bad we would expect to see many more Americans dead than say in the UK where the jab rate hit >80% in most age groups.
This is not a statement about treatment efficacy or safety. This is a statement that we should be expecting to see many more dead without treatment if the treatment were essential comparing 2 relatively comparable subs populations.
This result given the population sizes can also be deemed to be ignorant of the health care model adopted.
This is also not a statement that COVID didn't kill. This is also not a statement that COVID didn't mame. This isn't a statement that water isn't wet or that the vaccine caused autism.
You told me about the worst experience of your relative. It's is unfortunate for them. I did not wish them ill. I did not deny that this happened. You demanded that I change my statement because of their and your experience.
I'm sorry that they may have suffered in the real world not being fair. But let's be clear NO, I will not change a statement of fact.
Again, I'm not wishing them ill, but there is a world of difference between suffering and an uncomfortable hospital visit and death. This fact does not mean I am wishing ill will upon anyone.
I'm not being argumentative, I'm being corrective. Yes I was insulted by being shut down for feelings, but that is a philosophical line I will never cross based on the last 4 years. Feelings too are important, I'm not saying they're not, but they don't solely define reality.
I think we've been able to reach this point without name calling again so in good faith I'll wish you a good day, week, year and life and too to those you love and care for.
100% expected fatalities above about 70 and hospitals struggling for oxygen supplies. Yes it was not that bad.
No that’s not an exaggeration, that’s why lockdown 1 happened.
After that is just memeing from both sides about microchips and death walkers without masks on.
The it wasn’t that bad is honestly true. Again it was a novel virus introduced into a population with no immunity, but frankly keeping the economy going would have been better than paying people to stay at home and worry.
The cost is starting to come home to roost if we’re not careful and the socioeconomic results of a global depression could genuinely kill more, displace more and lead to political turmoil and violence.
That is not worth just telling gran I’m sorry, the rest of us can go outside but we recommend you don’t.
Again practicing lecturer in applied stats talking so I understand the gritty details of the models and projections.
> So... I'm not certain this is a development worth trusting. Maybe it really did originate from a lab! But the real goal of the constant back-and-forth over where it came from is not about finding the truth; that much seems quite obvious to me.
0. COVID-19 was mostly harmless. Even more so than Douglas Adam's books. 1. China reacted asif they'd accidentally released a bioweapon. 2. China did what it does best, shut the F up on the world stage. 3. Everyone saw China's reaction because this isn't the 1950s and the internet exists. 4. The developed nations freaked out until there was data, hence the first set of lockdowns in Europe very quickly. 5. 2-3 years later after media pantomime, sectarian politics, holier than though preaching from everyone, the WHO declared the "emergency" over.
Some countries achieved 80%+ vaccination rates, didn't see 20% die. Some only achieved 50% and didn't see 50% death rates.
We now have a serious economic tab to be paid because of the BS pushed by developed countries in a panic that might have been less dramatic had there been information available from day 1.
China _has_ hidden and or destroyed a lot of "evidence" making certain discussions mute. (Again they are good at this let's not pretend otherwise).
Western countries, who, _like china_, jumped on a "who can punch themselves hardest with policy?" approach to this unknown now want someone else to blame.
Aka because we can pin a small significance and serious fault on China being a bad neighbour. (Snooze to the sensible this isn't news, china is very private about internal policy and now even more so) We are choosing to blame them for everything to get motivation up to get them to pay the bill...
This unfortunately was clear winter of 2020 and is clear now, it's just taken 4-5yr for politics to go through it's "he said she said" cycle. And I'm not referring to the US or UK political cycles this is the slow bi-partizan we all need someone to blame rather than be introspective and realise __"We should have handled this better"__.