BF2S Forums Pandemic thread

i don't care about the presidential election. you're welcome to elect who you want.

i predict another peak in june/july, if the country goes ahead and re-opens without states taking any initiative and disobeying trump.

If one person dies after a politician agrees to open up the economy, the image of that dead person will be weaponized by people like you, people that demand total safety in everything, for the rest of that politicians career.

nice try in trying to pre-empt criticism when the death rate inevitably increases again. it won't be one person though, will it? it will be 10,000s, if not more, all thrown into mass graves so that your political side could press ahead, not the other side. funny how you're already shifting on the issue so that it can be portrayed as 'democrat fear', 'democrats opportunistically blaming trump', 'unreasonable liberals unfairly blaming trump'.

the simple fact is that you have the worst outcome of any nation in the world already as a direct consequence of trump's actions (or lack thereof). and the nation will have the same debates and will be faced with the same choices all over again.

good luck.

There's a very large segment of the population that would do you physical harm if you started voicing your opinion.

weird how often your sort of person wants to resort to violence, isn't it? i thought you were the 'reasonable' side? Team Reason? against emotions and emotion-led behaviour? which was for women? odd. a sign of poor lower-class origins and frustrated incoherence, in any case.

btw, please do some reading on what vaccines are. the idea that any virus that mutates is pointless to develop vaccines for is laughably illiterate.

Last edited by uziq (2020-05-05 08:53:45)

SuperJail Warden wrote:

There is no way in hell Trump wins in a landslide. You sound stupid when you say stuff like that. The Trump presidency is damn near irredeemable.

You're also probably not going to see another raise for a decade. Maybe a clawback even.

viruses do not spread exponentially. it's a lie. people self-organize and spontaneously adapt their behaviour about 2 weeks after realizing there's a virus lurking. just look at the swine flu epidemic of 2009. americans contained it easily.

Larssen wrote:

Jay, yes certainly the quarantine has economic consequences for countless individuals. But covid-19 is literally killing people. I hope you understand which fate is worse.

What I find most ridiculous is that you've now shifted to say that people are taking action hence the virus spread isn't so bad at all because it'll never spread uncontrollably, or something. That action was government action. You opposed government doing anything from the very start.

You want to see how people's reflexes hold up to pandemic? Pick literally ANY pandemic in history. Best if you pick one with a similar mortality rate. Not your made up BS rate but the one we know now to be true: around 2%. Which by the way would go up significantly if there were too many sick people to treat, something you also keep ignoring.

I've made the point before but you have your head so far up your libertarian ass you are wholly incapable of approaching any problem with reason if the answer is anywhere close to government or organised action.

Sweden seems to have done pretty well, no? Did the government force them to shut down or did they say "hey, keep as much distance from each other as possible"? Education works, Larssen. This didn't require every Western government to suddenly outdo themselves trying to be as much like authoritarian China as possible. It got real stupid, real fast.

And even so Sweden's position was one of luxury, far trailing the worst hit countries in daily case numbers. Its population density (even in cities) also being much lower, nowhere near comparable to say New York.

The total quarantines were blunt policy instruments only used because the situation had already spiralled out of control. It's all you can do if it is projected cases will imminently overrun your hospitals. You have tens of thousands of dead in New York alone to prove that point.

Last edited by Larssen (2020-05-05 10:04:23)

Larssen wrote:

And even so Sweden's position was one of luxury, far trailing the worst hit countries in daily case numbers. Its population density (even in cities) also being much lower, nowhere near comparable to say New York.

The total quarantines were blunt policy instruments only used because the situation had already spiralled out of control. It's all you can do if it is projected cases will imminently overrun your hospitals. You have tens of thousands of dead in New York alone to prove that point.

I think it's pretty safe to say that both you and uzique have led incredibly soft and danger-free lives if you think a 0.1% chance at dying from a disease is something to get worked up about and worth panicking over. I feel sorry for both of you.

Jay wrote:

Larssen wrote:

And even so Sweden's position was one of luxury, far trailing the worst hit countries in daily case numbers. Its population density (even in cities) also being much lower, nowhere near comparable to say New York.

The total quarantines were blunt policy instruments only used because the situation had already spiralled out of control. It's all you can do if it is projected cases will imminently overrun your hospitals. You have tens of thousands of dead in New York alone to prove that point.

I think it's pretty safe to say that both you and uzique have led incredibly soft and danger-free lives if you think a 0.1% chance at dying from a disease is something to get worked up about and worth panicking over. I feel sorry for both of you.

the current death rate is nearer to 2% globally.

can you stop fudging basic details? it doesn't help.

i've already said many times that i approve of the measures not because of the threat to myself, but because of the threat to my relatives, elderly and otherwise. i'm happy to lockdown for the sake of the health service and for others. it's not an alien and strange concept in europe.

not panicking, nope.

your talk would be very different if you had become more severely ill. everyone here knows it. you think like a weathervane.

Last edited by uziq (2020-05-05 10:18:27)

jay's the sort of guy who would get weepy and sentimental at this place:



but thinks nothing about that many people dying from covid-19 in 4 months.

he doesn't care about frontline medical workers dying. the loss of experience and knowledge that it represents when heart surgeons, senior consultants, ICU nurses etc. contract a disease and die. what sort of damage is incurred when they die, and a loss of public investment (to be coldly economic about it).

in his hierarchy the 'heroes' of public service who 'put their lives on the line' are, of course, soldiers, police (who are pussies!), firefighters. no health workers. to say nothing of poor public service workers, train and bus drivers, etc. who are disproportionately dying in droves (the poor asked for it! they breed too much and are stupid!) convenient, isn't it?

Last edited by uziq (2020-05-05 10:25:35)

Larssen wrote:

Have you been sniffing the alt-right glue again? 'Soft life'? Is this the 'liberals are feminine' argument? For all you know I'm that 7ft boulder crushing giant you imagined Dilbert to be Jay, but let's move on from this. I have no interest in your childlike demeanor and my-dad-can-beat-up-your-dad argument.

I can't speak for the US but over here healthcare is considered an essential service. Let's just forget human cost for a minute - the annihilation of that service by way of covid-19 would not only destroy what people consider a basic right, it would bankrupt an entire industry.

Now let's consider human cost. When people read the stats on world war 2 or visit the graves/monuments/camps and such here they're often left speechless by the sheer amount of people that were pushed through the meatgrinder. For many European countries the death toll of unrestrained covid-19 would exceed the number of dead in all 6 years of WW2, both as a percentage of population and in totals, often by far. In less than a year.

How you can think of that as acceptable is beyond me.

Except it wouldn't and that's what I've been trying to drill into your thick skull. The initial projections were wildly pessimistic. Everything that has come after has shown that the mortality rate experienced by Germany and South Korea is the norm, not the exception. For those countries with high death totals, such as the US, the mortality rate is constant, but the total number of infected is the variable. The disease is already widespread here, to the point that at least 25% of New York City, and 20%+ of the surrounding areas have already been infected. And if you haven't been paying attention, coronavirus has only been one component in the vast majority of these deaths. Co-mortalities are just as important. You and you're "not one death" mantra, well, many of these people didn't have all that much longer to live anyway. That is the harsh reality.

I'm sure your national health service would tell you that extending the life of an 80 year old from 80 to 80.5, if it cost ten million dollars, would not be worth it from a societal standpoint. There are in fact values placed on human life by every health service. You are willing to pay any cost to save a life, well you are in fact sacrificing other peoples lives. You are asking the young and healthy to sacrifice their life in order to save the old and the sick. Seems rather selfish on the part of the old and unhealthy, now doesn't it? You probably think that you're being altruistic with your own life, but you're just being foolish.

uziq wrote:

not panicking, nope.

On that, the same people who are accusing epidemiologists ("#*& the epidemiologists!"), virologists, and those in support of lockdowns of panicking are in fact themselves panicking.

"We're moving to a police state over a little flu! 90% of citizens are effectively prisoners now! AAAAH!"

"The economy!" As if doing nothing and letting a novel respiratory virus run its natural course unabated wouldn't have been rugged hell on the economy.

"We don't want your government handouts" out-of-work libertarians and otherwise puff their chests and proudly proclaim, while big businesses have no such reservations about claiming. In other arguments, some of these very same businesses are staunchly defended for being 'self-made success stories.'

Sunny weekend in New York City raises social-distancing enforcement concerns 5/4
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/sunny … 2020-05-04

New Yorkers flocked to parks and outdoor spaces this past weekend as the mercury topped 70 degrees Fahrenheit in the city, but the crowds raise serious questions about how officials will enforce stay-at-home orders for weeks to come.

"I thought this was America!"

US infection rate rising outside New York as states open up 5/5
https://www.kansascity.com/entertainmen … 04221.html

Take the New York metropolitan area’s progress against the coronavirus out of the equation and the numbers show the rest of the U.S. is moving in the wrong direction, with the infection rate rising even as states move to lift their lockdowns, an Associated Press analysis found Tuesday.

Scientists warn those numbers will only grow as governors and local officials across the country ease their stay-at-home restrictions and reopen businesses.

Meanwhile, Britain’s official coronavirus death toll, at more than 29,000, surpassed that of Italy to become the highest in Europe and second-highest in the world behind the United States.

In the U.S., some states took continued steps to lift the lockdown restrictions that have thrown millions out of work, even as the country recorded thousands of new infections and deaths every day. Public health experts warned the easing could result in tens of thousands of additional deaths.

New Jersey Schools Closed Rest of Academic Year; New York on Brink of 20,000 Deaths 5/5
https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/w … k/2400767/

States across the country have kickstarted their reopenings in the face of much uncertainty; to date, the virus has killed nearly 70,000 people in the U.S. and infected at least 1.1 million people

NYPD are wearing black bands across their badges. But they're just a bunch of larping goofs who could easily be killed with a hand grenade, boasts Jay smugly, who way back at the start of this thread uttered such garbage as "you must be loving this," spending much of the rest in denial, getting sick himself (still happy for him that he didn't, afaik, lose immediate family despite the likely fact ("die in a fire") that he'd probably be overjoyed if some of us lost ours), raging out, then returning once more in reinforced denial.

@jay: I didn't know that police in New York City were under threat of regular hand grenade attacks. You should email them about your concern as a hardened combat veteran. How you could have easily killed them.

New Studies Add to Evidence that Children May Transmit the Coronavirus - Experts said the new data suggest that cases could soar in many U.S. communities if schools reopen soon. 5/5
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/05/heal … chool.html

"Mountains out of molehills. Just a bunch of quivering cowards. We need to reopen schools before the end of the academic year to save face or whatever. Here, read an article comparing this to a flu from the 60s, and another comparing it to mad cow disease. From a real libertarian source, not some silly news publication or fake news from conniving college scientists."

Don't have to do any sort of gymnastics if you just walk around the problem.

Potentially positive development from fake scientists crying wolf from their silly colleges:

A human monoclonal antibody blocking SARS-CoV-2 infection 5/4
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-16256-y

tl;dr

Scientists Have Discovered An Antibody That Stops Coronavirus From Infecting Cells 5/4
https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-m … ing-cells/

uziq wrote:

it's going to be fun watching jay slowly unravel and cavil and do his usual mental gymnastics (if such a lumbering intelligence can be called 'gymnastic').

What gymnastics? I fully accept that more people will get sick and die. There is literally nothing realistic that could be done to prevent it at this point. The best we could do was buy some time until additional hospital space was made available and PPE became more widespread. Now they've added additional testing to the mix as well. Would've been nice if it was available six weeks ago, but that ship sailed.

A further quarantine is pointless. The virus isn't going away. People are already ignoring it and going about their day and treating the orders with contempt. Your breezy talk of 18 months in quarantine waiting on a vaccine was never even a remote possibility. People are antsy, and politicians are politicians. They're going to do what the majority wants, and the majority wants to get on with their life, sickness be damned. Even the nurse that drew my blood for antibodies said she wished that she had a positive test so she could get on with her life.

Last edited by Jay (2020-05-05 14:05:24)