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~*Official #COVID-19 Thread of Doom*~ Revenge of Omicron Prime


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28 minutes ago, BloodyHell said:

I mean, people were directly attacked last year for saying it came from a lab. So that's definitely part of it. 

They weren’t attacked for saying it came from a lab, they were attacked for saying it came from a lab without proof.  That’s a difference that needs to be stated.

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It does indeed matter if it came from a lab. Once again, if it came from a lab it means the virus itself was known about well before the time it was acknowledged and the virus sequence was made public. Those are precious weeks and months lost to policy makers, to the medical community, to vaccine manufacturers. We could be talking about 100-150k people just in the US who would likely be alive if the vaccines had hit the market in October instead of December.

 

A wholly natural spread is quite different. We can implement better procedures to prevent outbreaks even in the case of lab escapes, but we can’t do much about somebody eating an infected animal and becoming the transitional human for that virus.

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15 minutes ago, sblfilms said:

It does indeed matter if it came from a lab. Once again, if it came from a lab it means the virus itself was known about well before the time it was acknowledged and the virus sequence was made public. Those are precious weeks and months lost to policy makers, to the medical community, to vaccine manufacturers. We could be talking about 100-150k people just in the US who would likely be alive if the vaccines had hit the market in October instead of December.

 

A wholly natural spread is quite different. We can implement better procedures to prevent outbreaks even in the case of lab escapes, but we can’t do much about somebody eating an infected animal and becoming the transitional human for that virus.


This reminds me of the show Monsters Inside Me where they talk to people who had weird illnesses or infections. The hook in SO MANY episodes is shit like, “then I remembered I went swimming in a vernal pool in India two days before my lungs started filling up with something that looked like chocolate milk,” or, “then I remembered that live freshwater crab I ate at a Vietnamese wet market three days before I started pissing ecto cooler and lost 12 pounds in 36 hours.”

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21 minutes ago, sblfilms said:

It does indeed matter if it came from a lab. Once again, if it came from a lab it means the virus itself was known about well before the time it was acknowledged and the virus sequence was made public. Those are precious weeks and months lost to policy makers, to the medical community, to vaccine manufacturers. We could be talking about 100-150k people just in the US who would likely be alive if the vaccines had hit the market in October instead of December.

 

A wholly natural spread is quite different. We can implement better procedures to prevent outbreaks even in the case of lab escapes, but we can’t do much about somebody eating an infected animal and becoming the transitional human for that virus.

So what difference does it make going forward? What exactly can be done differently going forward? What if we never actually find out where the virus started, even if the CCP was forthcoming in investigations?

 

And further lab or natural doesn't change the abysmal american response and leadership. Lab or natural the trump administration dropped the ball here which certainly could have made a difference early on. Correct masking guidance early on could have saved lives. Non denial early on could have saved lives.

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There's way too much discussion on what if it's a lab leak (uncommon but happens) vs natural origin (common) but it's just a distraction by right wingers who want to bash china and drum up racism. Instead of conjecture in the media on what the cause was, we should be more focused on what we can do now to prevent future outbreaks regardless of origin. Let (relatively) dispassionate scientific investigation take place and once we get a better understanding then we can work from there. Until then, it doesn't matter. This doesn't excuse the opacity of the CCP when it comes to the investigation by any means, but that's not the discussion.

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“DC should be a state because politics”

 

“Nations shouldn’t use politics in regards to possible lab leak by adversarial nations”

 

THESE THINGS MAKE SENSE :p 

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I'm not saying don't use politics, as the CCP is engaging in politics by limiting research into the origins of the virus, but the certainty and idle speculation without new evidence of the lab leak theory is concerning and can make the scientific job of finding answers far more difficult.

 

The baseline assumption should be that it is zoonotic in origin, like so so so many other viruses and diseases, and you would need significant evidence to overcome that assumption (and most data I've seen so far points to this origin anyway). I'm fine with an investigation, but I think it is secondary in the public interest to preparing for the next pandemic. The right wing beating the drum of "china did it to hurt trump" or whatever doesn't help answer any questions and in fact may hinder investigations into the origin (and again is to distract from the culpability of the right wing political apparatus in the response)

 

 

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8 minutes ago, Joe said:

It definitely matters if it was a lab leak. Just sucks that right-wing shitheads have hijacked that topic to the point where it almost makes you seem like an asshole for questioning it.

Again, these are not people interested in the truth, they just want to bash China (but not over Hong Kong or the uighers, they don't care about that stuff, it is to them good actually)

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They 100% should be investigating whether or not it was a lab leak... why? Because the truth matters. It's that simple.

 

That said, they're never going to know for sure. You know the Chinese government has probably scrubbed that lab of any and every shred of concrete anything... and everyone who knows anything has been shipped off to nowhere to never be heard from again.

 

I do think the lab leak theory is very plausible and have from the very beginning. The whole thing was such an emergency, that we had to focus all of our energy on solving the problem as it existed, not looking backwards. Now is the time to start looking backwards.

 

I just hate how it's all become so political. Fox News is trying to dunk on liberals because suddenly the idea that it escaped from a lab is some sort of gotcha?

 

They're a bunch of hypocritical mewling fuckwads and they can all eat shit forever. Regardless of the origins of the virus, the GOP and right wing media reponse to the virus is responsible for hundreds of thousands of American deaths. HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS. They can take their moral indignity and shove it up their fucking asses. I'm fucking done with any and all of them. They lost the right to have a fucking opinion on any of this. BLOOD SOAKED MURDERERS.

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I love all of these weasel worded, have to read it 3 times carefully to even understand what the fuck they are talking about salaciously headlined articles on Fox News about the State Department did this, and this guy did that, and look at these controversial things that happened and why was this done that way... and then all of the fucking cockroaches pull on each others dicks in the comments about corruption and socialism and Biden Biden Biden blah blah blah but all of the fucking people they are talking, and all of the things they are reporting on where all done on trumps watch by people trump appointed.

 

SHUT THE FUCK UP MURDERERS.

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I like how now they've moved past what is even revealed in the email and are running headlines like...

 

"Psaki says she can't see Biden firing Fauci despite emails that were made public"

 

WHAT SPECIFIC FUCKING EMAILS? WHAT EXACTLY ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT? Why does every article just skip past the actual information and just bombard us with multiple thousands of words of total word-salad nonsensical nonsense purposefully crafted to manipulate?

 

Yesterday they had a headline that said something like...

 

(paraphrase but close) "Rand Paul calls for investigation into Fauci emails as his book is pulled from stores"

 

But his book wasn't pulled from stores because of the emails at all. It was some sort of timing issue and they didn't want it advertised early or some crap like that. It had nothing to do with any of the recent controversy and was pulled from amazon prior. It had nothing to do with fuckall nothing, but they got their stupid fucking headline out of it.

 

When the news is about "emails" and not what is actual in the emails, that is the first sign that they are grasping at straws... but none of that matters because they know their core audience doesn't care. They're so desperate for a win that all they have to do is sorta nod at some sort of impropriety and then never speak of it again, and then just kinda pretend like there was some sort of HUGE breakthrough scandal, when in reality there is nothing at all there.

 

And then they bitch and moan about how left wing news orgs aren't covering the story and it's like, yeah, because there is no fucking news. Nothing newsworthy happened.

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6 minutes ago, ort said:

I miss the old school Strangers With Candy/Daily Show/Colbert Report version of Stephen Colbert.

Yeah, I still like his show, but he's a little bit of a democrat dick sucker now. You'll never hear a negative word about a single democrat from him.

 

I also hate how the whole 99% survivability thing keeps getting thrown around. 1% means 330,000 dead, assuming everyone is exposed at some point. The fact that they think that's just dandy makes my skin crawl.

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I was a Stephen Colbert mega-fan. Big fan... and I still catch his show fairly regularly... but it feels more and more like straight up propaganda every day.

 

The way he covered the pandemic frequently leaves a really bad taste in my mouth. Making cartoon characters dance around and make fun of people while hundreds of thousands are dying and the world is suffering? I dunno, he frequently crosses a line into kinda gross territory. More interested in scoring points on his rivals than trying to make the world a better place or shine a light on real problems. He's just playing politics... I don't want another partisan cheerleader who will elevate the volume on "news" that makes his side look good and diminish "news" that makes his side look bad. I'm just over it.

 

Colbert used to have a mean subversive edge and he was after everyone. Yes, he was a big lefty in disguise, but his schtick was always more about tearing down the whole system, and now he feels like just another left wing mouth piece.

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5 hours ago, b_m_b_m_b_m said:

Again, these are not people interested in the truth, they just want to bash China (but not over Hong Kong or the uighers, they don't care about that stuff, it is to them good actually)

Didn't Pompeo impose sanctions on China due to China's treatment of the Uyghurs? I think both sides of the aisle are pretty united in their "China bad" messaging. 

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41 minutes ago, SilentWorld said:

Didn't Pompeo impose sanctions on China due to China's treatment of the Uyghurs? I think both sides of the aisle are pretty united in their "China bad" messaging. 

I think he tried but it went no where with Trump.

merlin_182256231_1efca9a7-15a4-4577-8d9a
WWW.NYTIMES.COM

The finding by the Trump administration is the strongest denunciation by any government of China’s actions and follows a Biden campaign statement with the same declaration.

Mr. Pompeo, State Department lawyers and other officials had debated for months over the determination, but the matter had gained urgency in the Trump administration’s final days. As was common with most China policy, the issue of Xinjiang had long pitted administration officials against one another: Mr. Pompeo and other national security aides advocated tough measures against Beijing, while President Trump and top economic advisers brushed aside the concerns.

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1 hour ago, SilentWorld said:

Didn't Pompeo impose sanctions on China due to China's treatment of the Uyghurs? I think both sides of the aisle are pretty united in their "China bad" messaging. 

 

1 hour ago, SimpleG said:

I think he tried but it went no where with Trump.

merlin_182256231_1efca9a7-15a4-4577-8d9a
WWW.NYTIMES.COM

The finding by the Trump administration is the strongest denunciation by any government of China’s actions and follows a Biden campaign statement with the same declaration.

Mr. Pompeo, State Department lawyers and other officials had debated for months over the determination, but the matter had gained urgency in the Trump administration’s final days. As was common with most China policy, the issue of Xinjiang had long pitted administration officials against one another: Mr. Pompeo and other national security aides advocated tough measures against Beijing, while President Trump and top economic advisers brushed aside the concerns.

Most conservatives don't care about this because the uighurs are Muslim and that bigotry trumps anti China rhetoric

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8 minutes ago, b_m_b_m_b_m said:

Most conservatives don't care about this

Most Americans dont care about this. We could have 4 terms of the most progressive Left presidency this country has known and nothing will change, no one will step on Chinas toes. This is a genocide that is fueled by the worlds greed . There is no liberation of Dachau for these people

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Oregon is lifting all restrictions when we reach a 70% vaccination rate (I'm assuming with adults), which could be as little as two weeks away 

 

Personally I'd be okay with lifting them now, since we're rapidly reaching the point where the only adults who haven't been vaccinated are those who can't or don't want to be.

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16 minutes ago, Fizzzzle said:

Oregon is lifting all restrictions when we reach a 70% vaccination rate (I'm assuming with adults), which could be as little as two weeks away 

 

Personally I'd be okay with lifting them now, since we're rapidly reaching the point where the only adults who haven't been vaccinated are those who can't or don't want to be.

 

Currently at 67%. Just need an additional 126,000 people to get their first dose.

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2 minutes ago, Fizzzzle said:

Oregon is lifting all restrictions when we reach a 70% vaccination rate (I'm assuming with adults), which could be as little as two weeks away 

 

Personally I'd be okay with lifting them now, since we're rapidly reaching the point where the only adults who haven't been vaccinated are those who can't or don't want to be.

PA is the same.  They're lifting the mask mandate at 70% fully vaccinated or on June 28th, whichever comes first.  

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59 minutes ago, PaladinSolo said:

NY is lifting its mask mandate in schools on the 7th unless the CDC advises it to do otherwise, which is great for me cause wearing a mask in the 90 degree heat sucked balls last year, but theres also a lot of chuds in the district i work at, lol.

 

Oh man, being in a school in the summer sucks. 90% of our schools (everything built before 2015, basically) have no air conditioning since our year runs from Sept 1 to June 30 (when it's generally 20C or cooler (70F). But sometimes right at the end of the year (or start) you get a few really hot days, and it's torture. But then for us in IT, we spend most of the summer inside those schools doing all the projects and big repairs we can't do when the kids are in. So many hot days in classrooms...fortunately there is no dress code once kids leave.

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The "delta" variant now appears to be starting a new wave in the UK -- largely in part due to how ineffective 1 dose is against it (~30%), and how much more transmissible it is when compared to previous variants.

 

Noticing that the Delta variant represents at least 25% of the cases in Ontario right now -- and is expected to become the dominant strain here by the end of the month.

 

I'm glad our quarantine system has been so effective

Mr Bean Thumbs Up GIF

It looks like out reopening plans based on a 1-dose strategy are likely to be reworked.

Joe Biden Reaction GIF by GIPHY News

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5 hours ago, Joe said:

Not waiting to give the second dose for the long win?!

 

I mean, in Canada's case the one-dose strategy was still the only viable strategy due to having limited supply at the start. Right now we have around 65% of the adult population with at least one dose (and I think around 10% with two doses). If, instead, we only had around 35% with one dose and 30% with two doses, then these variants would be spreading even more. And, fortunately, the single dose is proving highly effective against most of the variants, so far. The Delta variant is of concern, however, and this is why second doses need to continue to ramp up. Fortunately we're administering faster than pretty much anywhere on Earth, but we have a ways to go. 

 

Having said all of this...Canada is still incredibly fortunate. We're basically vaccinating better than almost anywhere else on Earth without domestic production (which couldn't have been created in time for this pandemic), and we're about to become the #1 country in the OECD for first-dose vaccination (only Israel remains above). Compare this to places like Australia, Korea, Japan, and others, and the fact that we have so many vaccinated is a testament to the actions our governments at all levels have taken.

 

The true failures that have allowed the spread are (in order of importance/impact of failure):

  1. Provinces for not enacting zero-COVID strategies, with the exception of the Maritime Bubble
  2. Federal government for not enacting 100% border closures until zero-COVID strategies were in effect / provincial governments not enacting bans on inter-provincial travel
  3. People for being total morons

 

The reason I have #1 and #2 in that order is because people will always get a case through, as seen even in places like Australia or Vietnam, which have the toughest travel and instant-lockdown policies. So even if you have total border closures, cases will still get in sometimes, and if you don't have proper restrictions domestically, then those cases will spread. Obviously we should have (and had) stronger international restrictions, but the total lack of proper zero-COVID strategies domestically is the largest failure of the pandemic. Same with the US. Locking down 80% for 30 or 60 days at a time (every few months) and then easing to 10% lockdown after is better than locking down 50% for over a year. Granted, mistakes that were made initially were because politicians believed that keeping the "economy" going was of utmost importance. But, as we've seen, even if you allow total freedom without any health restrictions, people still won't be out spending and working to their full potential. That's because they are scared of the virus that you've let proliferate! 

 

The best solution was the Australian/Vietnamese/Maritime zero-COVID strategy: lock down until you have zero cases, keep your external and internal borders sealed as best you can, and then open up almost totally when you are at zero. The places that have emulated this have all seen increased economic growth throughout the pandemic, and, more importantly, have seen far less human suffering and loss of life. We didn't know this in the first couple of months, so mistakes then can be forgiven...but we've known for almost a year. Pretty much all politicians that haven't pursued zero-COVID have all those lost lives on their hands.

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Our one dose strategy is very controversial. which is why we are the only country on the planet doing it.  Other developed countries with similar situations (like Western Europe) haven't chosen the same vaccine strategy as Canada has.  In fact, much of Western Europe is vaccinating at roughly the same rate as we are - just in a different way.  One dose was shown to be somewhat effective against the original virus but is estimated to be only 50% effective against the alpha variant, and 30% against the delta variant.  And there is a large percentage of the Canadian population that believes that one dose is somewhat equivalent to two-doses -- due to the messaging that has been done over the last 3 months.

 

The UK, which targeted a one dose strategy (but with a shorter duration between second doses than Canada) is now seeing the potential of a new wave forming -- with new cases roughly doubling over the last few weeks.

 

 

 

Our fundamental challenge, is that we have decided to keep our air borders open (and to some extent, the land borders) -- and keep international flights going.  That is how the alpha variant entered Canada at the beginning of the year, and started the third wave.  And that is how the delta variant entered (probably about a month ago).  The alpha variant represents the vast majority of the cases in Canada at the moment, and in my public health unit at least , the delta variant is quickly becoming dominant.  If these variants had not been imported, life would "largely" be relatively normal.

 

@CitizenVectronI am not sure what a "zero Covid" strategy is for a province?  Can you tell me what that is?  I have been in lockdown since November, where it is literally illegal for me to enter my parents house, (and outside of a period of ~3 weeks) go into a "non-essential" store (which are currently only allowed to only sell food and pharmacy goods).  The restrictions are significantly more restrictive for me visiting my parents who live 2km from me, than it is for someone who wants to visit their parents in Brazil, India or New York.

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Zero COVID is total lockdowns (and borders). Can't even go to any stores except for food and medicine. No other services or stores allowed open, and the government provides relief. Australia is a good example. Our lockdowns in Canada, even the current one in Ontario, aren't nearly as restrictive. 

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