What on Earth is going on in the world today? It's gone mad

[Horsa]

I disagree with what was said about people with dementia always needing to see their families even in these situations. During the last few months Dad got to the point where he didn't know who we were anymore. He told me he didn't want me in his house. He kicked me & Mother out. He didn't want Mother in the house at times. He thought I was just a woman who was a friend of Mother's who argued with him. He thought Mother was someone else's wife. He thought Mother was his carer. We couldn't cope with him because he was doing dangerous things but we were trying very hard to get carers we couldn't. I don't know how I'd have coped if it wasn't for my colleagues. They helped me a great deal. My Managers helped me a great deal too. It really got me & Mother down. We went to the Dr.'s. He sent us for help with our emotional well-being. We were told that if we hadn't been depressed we'd have something seriously wrong with us. We had to learn new things, be creative & meet normal people or we'd get like him. Working in heritage preservation meant there's a creative side of my job. Before lockdown, my Managers got me to do a lot of work on the creative side of my job & a lot on the musically vocal side of my job. When lockdown started a lot of the jobs I was given were on the archiving training & historical research side of the job with just a couple of creative jobs.. (I also got told I shouldn't have argued with Dad but just agreed with him but I couldn't because some or the things he was doing were very dangerous.) My colleagues have also helped me feel more confident.

 

[Kieran]

I disagree with what was said about people with dementia always needing to see their families even in these situations. During the last few months Dad got to the point where he didn't know who we were anymore. He told me he didn't want me in his house. He kicked me & Mother out. He didn't want Mother in the house at times. He thought I was just a woman who was a friend of Mother's who argued with him. He thought Mother was someone else's wife. He thought Mother was his carer. We couldn't cope with him because he was doing dangerous things but we were trying very hard to get carers we couldn't. I don't know how I'd have coped if it wasn't for my colleagues. They helped me a great deal. My Managers helped me a great deal too. It really got me & Mother down. We went to the Dr.'s. He sent us for help with our emotional well-being. We were told that if we hadn't been depressed we'd have something seriously wrong with us. We had to learn new things, be creative & meet normal people or we'd get like him. Working in heritage preservation meant there's a creative side of my job. Before lockdown, my Managers got me to do a lot of work on the creative side of my job & a lot on the musically vocal side of my job. When lockdown started a lot of the jobs I was given were on the archiving training & historical research side of the job with just a couple of creative jobs.. (I also got told I shouldn't have argued with Dad but just agreed with him but I couldn't because some or the things he was doing were very dangerous.) My colleagues have also helped me feel more confident.

It's a horrible condition, Horsa, and I have great sympathy with you, while recognising some of the details, if not the extremes, from my own dad's battle with dementia - "battle" even being an inappropriate term because of course, it's nigh well impossible to get a person with dementia to remember this hideous fact of their own lives. If they battle at all, it's generally with everyone around them, and their own miserable frustration with not knowing what's happening to them.

But this wasn't the point I was making, and I probably should have been clearer. I have two friends who are nurses working in different nursing homes, and another friend who I mentioned above, her mother survived Covid, and all three are witness to the same thing, which is that dementia patients who are able to recognise and welcome family have all gone downhill more rapidly than they should through the loss of seeing familiar faces and through depression at being alone, and this is an effect of being isolated by lockdowns due to Covid. We saw it with my own dad, who still recognised us until the final six months or so, but if there was a prolonged lockdown for whatever reason back then, his condition deteriorated rapidly, through lack of loving contact and stimulation. He used to talk to us endlessly about his youth, but even his long term memory would be greatly lessened by longer bouts of depressed isolation. The doctors told us this was to be expected with this condition.

It's very sad to see, and both nurses have told me it has them in tears seeing how these elderly people are fading away through loss of contact...

 

[Kieran]

Following on from this, it's worth pointing out that the caution relating to care homes is because the research shows that most of the outbreaks were caused by workers coming in to the care homes. Take New York for example, the recent record is pretty good because care workers are being extensively tested. There are examples everywhere in the United States showing that where mask wearing is combined with the use of masks the spread of the virus is substantially reduced. What I don't get is why this successfully employed strategy is not consensus. Just look at Far Eastern countries that do this as a matter of course. It's truly bizarre. I was a huge supporter of lockdowns in March-April. But as I said then this was supposed to enable countries to build capacity to test, trace and isolate. Lockdowns with no strategy to ramp up capacity is just economic destruction with no plan as far as I'm concerned. It's insanity. I think with proper procedures we shouldn't have lockdowns anymore. Why is this so hard for some countries to implement? There are African countries with substantially less resources that seem to be on top of this. It's quite shocking what we're seeing around the world. It's inexcusable

I agree with this, and I think a huge opportunity was lost in the space between the first lockdowns in March/April and now, to build up hospital resources and capacities, and to create a culture where we can be more rigorous in tracking and tracing the virus. In Ireland we sometimes feel we're merely reacting, but not taking action quickly enough. As for the masks, we began to wear them in June, indoors only, but I would think this isn't a hardship. It makes logical sense that if you wear a mask, you spread fewer germs - we've known this forever in polite society, where we always cover our face when we sneeze - especially indoors where there maybe poor air circulation, but also, have it ready outdoors in case you suddenly find yourself in too confined a space, surrounded by people...

 

[Horsa]

It's a horrible condition, Horsa, and I have great sympathy with you, while recognising some of the details, if not the extremes, from my own dad's battle with dementia - "battle" even being an inappropriate term because of course, it's nigh well impossible to get a person with dementia to remember this hideous fact of their own lives. If they battle at all, it's generally with everyone around them, and their own miserable frustration with not knowing what's happening to them.

But this wasn't the point I was making, and I probably should have been clearer. I have two friends who are nurses working in different nursing homes, and another friend who I mentioned above, her mother survived Covid, and all three are witness to the same thing, which is that dementia patients who are able to recognise and welcome family have all gone downhill more rapidly than they should through the loss of seeing familiar faces and through depression at being alone, and this is an effect of being isolated by lockdowns due to Covid. We saw it with my own dad, who still recognised us until the final six months or so, but if there was a prolonged lockdown for whatever reason back then, his condition deteriorated rapidly, through lack of loving contact and stimulation. He used to talk to us endlessly about his youth, but even his long term memory would be greatly lessened by longer bouts of depressed isolation. The doctors told us this was to be expected with this condition.

It's very sad to see, and both nurses have told me it has them in tears seeing how these elderly people are fading away through loss of contact...

It is indeed, Kieran. I'm very sorry that you had to see your Father suffer from this horrendous condition. You lose them before they die. They get very argumentative. They get paranoid. (Dad was mis-diagnosed as a Schizophrenic a couple of months before he was diagnosed with dementia.) They do dangerous things. They're away with the fairies a lot of the time then they get to the point where they don't recognise you. They have good days when you think they'll go back to how they were before but they don't & they have less & less good days as time goes on. It's very hard for their family to know what to do. It must be frustrating for them too though.

I'm very sorry. I didn't make the statement in response to what you said but to all the statements about dementia sufferers especially needing to see their families when not all dementia sufferers know their families. I didn't really read all of your statement. You made yourself clear enough. (I'm very sorry. The subject of dementia is still a sore point to me. I got over-emotional & let my emotions get in the way of my judgement.) Ha! Though dementia sufferers are suffering the same condition it hits different people different ways & these sufferers would have benefited from seeing their families. Dad heard about this virus & thought he had it but it was I.P.F. asbestosis & C.O.P.D. he had so I had to keep away from him the last couple of weeks as I had flu-like symptoms because of his I.P.F. anyway. He didn't have this virus. We know because it didn't get put on his death certificate.

 

[Kieran]

It is indeed, Kieran. I'm very sorry that you had to see your Father suffer from this horrendous condition. You lose them before they die. They get very argumentative. They get paranoid. (Dad was mis-diagnosed as a Schizophrenic a couple of months before he was diagnosed with dementia.) They do dangerous things. They're away with the fairies a lot of the time then they get to the point where they don't recognise you. They have good days when you think they'll go back to how they were before but they don't & they have less & less good days as time goes on. It's very hard for their family to know what to do. It must be frustrating for them too though.

I'm very sorry. I didn't make the statement in response to what you said but to all the statements about dementia sufferers especially needing to see their families when not all dementia sufferers know their families. I didn't really read all of your statement. You made yourself clear enough. (I'm very sorry. The subject of dementia is still a sore point to me. I got over-emotional & let my emotions get in the way of my judgement.) Ha! Though dementia sufferers are suffering the same condition it hits different people different ways & these sufferers would have benefited from seeing their families. Dad heard about this virus & thought he had it but it was I.P.F. asbestosis & C.O.P.D. he had so I had to keep away from him the last couple of weeks as I had flu-like symptoms because of his I.P.F. anyway. He didn't have this virus. We know because it didn't get put on his death certificate.

There's absolutely no apology needed, and as you know, dementia sufferers are heading in only one direction, and the anxious question is, how quickly, or how slowly. Can it be managed, and how? The temper changes, where the normally mild become infected by terrible flashes of anger, are almost impossible for both parties to handle. Another tragedy is that even when they're docile and enjoying your company, they don't get the pleasure of remembering this, which I found to be horrible for them. We might have had a great day with my dad - and the memory stays with us still - but he'd have forgotten it by that evening. There were funny incidences too, which reminded us that sometimes even dark humour is a necessary sanctuary.

One horrible thing for him was, and this may sound macabre and in a way it is macabre, but on the day he was diagnosed and told to his face that he had Alzheimers, he was hugely upset. He took to his bed weeping, and for days afterwards he was shattered and unable to control himself - but he couldn't remember why. It's a horrible disease, and as I say, you have my sympathy and support in dealing with it. The poor victim of this disease has absolutely no control over themselves and as you say, they do dangerous things.

As for their decline in nursing homes through loss of familiar contact and stimulation, of course there's nothing can be done there, which in a vague way might be a consolation to families, because it's not like they abandoned their loved ones, they simply have no choice. It's a necessary parting, but one that hastens the dementia sufferers decline. Covid comes with many costs, and the greater ones, I believe, will certainly not be ones directly caused by catching the virus itself..

 

[Horsa]

There's absolutely no apology needed, and as you know, dementia sufferers are heading in only one direction, and the anxious question is, how quickly, or how slowly. Can it be managed, and how? The temper changes, where the normally mild become infected by terrible flashes of anger, are almost impossible for both parties to handle. Another tragedy is that even when they're docile and enjoying your company, they don't get the pleasure of remembering this, which I found to be horrible for them. We might have had a great day with my dad - and the memory stays with us still - but he'd have forgotten it by that evening. There were funny incidences too, which reminded us that sometimes even dark humour is a necessary sanctuary.

One horrible thing for him was, and this may sound macabre and in a way it is macabre, but on the day he was diagnosed and told to his face that he had Alzheimers, he was hugely upset. He took to his bed weeping, and for days afterwards he was shattered and unable to control himself - but he couldn't remember why. It's a horrible disease, and as I say, you have my sympathy and support in dealing with it. The poor victim of this disease has absolutely no control over themselves and as you say, they do dangerous things.

As for their decline in nursing homes through loss of familiar contact and stimulation, of course there's nothing can be done there, which in a vague way might be a consolation to families, because it's not like they abandoned their loved ones, they simply have no choice. It's a necessary parting, but one that hastens the dementia sufferers decline. Covid comes with many costs, and the greater ones, I believe, will certainly not be ones directly caused by catching the virus itself..

I know. Dad wouldn't go to the Dr.'s. It was only when I took Mother to the Dr.'s about her emotional well-being & explained why she was feeling the way she did that the Dr. got Dad in & tested him. Dad didn't know what dementia was. He knew his Dad went senile so when the Dr. asked Mother if there was any history of dementia in the family he just told Dad he'd got like his Dad. (I'm just hoping I don't get like it.) My friends Dad had been really argumentative for years so must have thought everyone was against him but didn't know that he was causing the arguments. They do funny things. Dad didn't want carers & refused them when the hospital asked us if we wanted them. He didn't want to go into a care home either so we had to try to stop him from doing dangerous things. We were kept up until late at night & woke up very early in the morning when we could sleep wondering what he'd been doing while we were in bed.

I agree with your last paragraph.

 

[calitennis127]

What Federberg doesn’t understand is that Third World Countries are not afflicted by white leftists either going crazy about Trump or indulging in another insane superstition (like Russian collusion). That’s why the numbers aren’t as high there. Third World Countries do not have a political axe to grind so they aren’t lying to blow up the numbers. Like I said, the CDC is just a Democratic Party political organization juicing the Covid numbers to make Trump look bad. 220,000 people did not actually die of Covid in the United States.

As for “what works,” the countries that have taken the Fauci approach (Italy, Germany, France) have all seen a sharp rise in cases recently. The lockdown approach was ill-conceived from the start. There are a plethora of new cases in this places that did it the Moxie-Federberg-Tented way, while Sweden is sitting pretty. As Professor Gupta said, all the lockdowns do is delay the inevitable spread of this mild virus:

 

[Horsa]

Thanks to the virus rates going back up we're having our freedom taken back off us again from bonfire night.

I'm not shocked about this. I expected it as soon as Boris Johnson allowed pubs to reopen as some people who can't handle alcohol insist on drinking & can't follow the simplest instructions when they've had an alcoholic drink so I knew the virus rates would go up. I also expected it because people aren't respecting other people's personal space & they're not wearing facial coverings properly when they should.

Mind you, the 1st time we went into lockdown I was worried about how to tell Dad he wasn't allowed out as he had dementia & I was worried that me & Mother were going to go crazy staying in the house 24/7 with Dad. Then I had to keep away from Dad as I had coughs, sneezes & a sore throat & he had I.P.F. so as I got bread, milk, pot noodles, ham, butter, coffee, tea, drinking chocolate, snack shots & I had a cool bag & a spare kettle I took myself in my room out of his way. The day I was due to come back down I was shouted down 1st thing in the morning as Dad collapsed. The next day I took the phone call saying he wasn't going to make it then the 1 to say he'd gone. I spent the rest of lockdown discussing new house rules, notifying people who needed to know, sorting funeral arrangements out, giving inquest statements (which was the hardest thing I've ever had to do. Coroners questions are very hard.) writing letters & filling in wills & probate solicitors forms as well as other forms, sorting out Dad's things, shopping & doing work so this time I might get a chance to do things I want to do. I moaned about lockdown last time because I needed to phone people who weren't in the office. It was horrendous getting flowers for his funeral as all the florists were closed & we had to find a phone number. Florists were doing artificial flowers only. Saying that I did some baking. I'm not classing knitting a scarf, making hats, weaving table mats & doing glass & ceramic painting as what I want to do because it's work though I do want to do those jobs too.

 

[Moxie]

Well, this is true, and we all should be on guard against reporting anecdotal stories as if they've been laboratory tested, but from what I'm hearing in Madrid, and not just from my sister but her sporty hunky sons, is that people wearing masks in 40 degrees heat outdoors is causing them problems because they're feeling choked up, removing the masks to gasp for air. This isn't just people of my sisters age but also young sporty bucks. This is not healthy if you're battling a respiratory virus. Wearing masks outdoors is not seen as being necessary in most places, and certainly not in such heat.

It's October now, so it's not 40 degrees in Spain now. But I wore a mask outdoors all summer here, and I know you know it gets that hot here. Just walking around, it's not uncomfortable, and certainly doesn't leave you "gasping for air." You notion that it's unhealthy is your opinion, and I don't share it. When I run with a mask on, yes, it's uncomfortable, and I do have to stop sooner than usual, and I do stop to take it off, where safe, and catch some air. But in general terms, as far as wearing a mask outdoors, I think it should depend sensibly on the situation. In densely populated cities, like Madrid, Barcelona and NYC (and Dublin,) I think people should wear a mask outside of the home. If you're walking on a trail, on a beach or anywhere where there are not a lot of people and there is good air circulation, you can take the mask off, IMO.

Now, I apologise if you feel I was insensitive because as I said in the following paragraph, I wasn't saying these things to be indelicate or insensitive, and I'm very mindful of how our personal situations are, and how many friends and family are in this terrible situation - and it is terrible, and her death was of course unfortunate - I certainly didn't say it wasn't. I'm rooting for all our elderly that they'll be safe, I know so many people who have parents and grandparents in this exact age group and I wish them many more happy hears among their loved ones.

But this unfortunately is the science with regards to Covid - that "had she been 27, she’d almost certainly be fine." If we're to discuss this honestly on an open forum, we need to be able to say this, and I agree that that - as I said in my post - the cause of her death was Covid, but her age was a factor which left her more vulnerable to it. My point in mentioning my friends mother who survived it is the same point I made in a previous post, which is that even among the elderly, there is a good chance they'll survive an encounter with this terrible virus.

I know you're not an insensitive person, but I also don't see the point of saying, "if she'd been 27...." The point is that she wouldn't have died if she hadn't gone to hospital in that unfortunate span of time. Just because someone is old, or has other co-occuring health issues doesn't make it OK that they died of COVID-19. It still has taken people before their time. I know we're discussing a couple of issues here, specifically, i.e., how much we get on with life in the midst of COVID (pre-vaccine,) and how cases are counted, amongst them. That is why I specifically mentioned her age. She was perfectly hale, in compos mentis, and living well on her own. She just died of COVID. You can't swear what would have happened, in the early days with a more virulent strain, had she been 27, but picking 27 is also a bit cheap. What if she'd been 67, like my friend's brother who died in LA in Jan? Would that have been more tragic?

I would hope there's nobody who thinks Covid isn't a thing, although we all know these people exist. We can't help them. How to live with it is the question - I think Dr. Gupta gave a reasonable example of how, and why we have to. We come to terms with its existence, the possibilities of catching it, how to avoid, who are more vulnerable, and we get on with things. We don't lockdown for flu, even though the mortality rates there are more staggering than most people knew before Covid. For the elderly and vulnerable, we do what they always tried to do in my dads nursing home, which was lockdowns every few weeks because some threatening bug or other was in the home, so we try cocoon the elderly and vulnerable more often, and the rest of society gets on with it, as we used to.

I think we're more or less on the same page about how to proceed forward, reasonably, while protecting the most vulnerable. I still think we have to observe the new protocols as is reasonable, (mask-wearing, distancing, general precautions about not having large gatherings, either indoors or outdoors,) so it's not exactly as we "used to," but I do think we have to go on with life.

 

[Kieran]

It's October now, so it's not 40 degrees in Spain now. But I wore a mask outdoors all summer here, and I know you know it gets that hot here. Just walking around, it's not uncomfortable, and certainly doesn't leave you "gasping for air." You notion that it's unhealthy is your opinion, and I don't share it. When I run with a mask on, yes, it's uncomfortable, and I do have to stop sooner than usual, and I do stop to take it off, where safe, and catch some air. But in general terms, as far as wearing a mask outdoors, I think it should depend sensibly on the situation. In densely populated cities, like Madrid, Barcelona and NYC (and Dublin,) I think people should wear a mask outside of the home. If you're walking on a trail, on a beach or anywhere where there are not a lot of people and there is good air circulation, you can take the mask off, IMO.

Well, it seems this line of conversation hit a dead end, but I agree with your final few words regarding wearing masks outdoors, that if there is nobody close, take it off. I said the same in my post above, though I put it the other way around: don’t wear masks outdoors unless somebody gets too close.

I know you're not an insensitive person, but I also don't see the point of saying, "if she'd been 27...." The point is that she wouldn't have died if she hadn't gone to hospital in that unfortunate span of time. Just because someone is old, or has other co-occuring health issues doesn't make it OK that they died of COVID-19. It still has taken people before their time. I know we're discussing a couple of issues here, specifically, i.e., how much we get on with life in the midst of COVID (pre-vaccine,) and how cases are counted, amongst them. That is why I specifically mentioned her age. She was perfectly hale, in compos mentis, and living well on her own. She just died of COVID. You can't swear what would have happened, in the early days with a more virulent strain, had she been 27, but picking 27 is also a bit cheap. What if she'd been 67, like my friend's brother who died in LA in Jan? Would that have been more tragic?

You’re unnecessarily taking this personal. What if she’d been 67? Statistically she’d have a better chance. What if she’d been 27? Statistically she may have felt little or nothing.

We’re discussing the virus here and we’re entitled to discuss it dispassionately. I am sorry to hear about your friend and I agree, if she hasn’t caught Covid then most likely she’d be still alive, but we’re talking at cross purposes about this.

I think we're more or less on the same page about how to proceed forward, reasonably, while protecting the most vulnerable. I still think we have to observe the new protocols as is reasonable, (mask-wearing, distancing, general precautions about not having large gatherings, either indoors or outdoors,) so it's not exactly as we "used to," but I do think we have to go on with life.

I agree with this mostly but I think we will have to get back to what we used to, just like we do during flu season. We may not get there before Christmas but it’s necessary to be working towards it, and rapidly. If that involves social distancing and some restrictions for a bit longer, then that’s fine, but we need to find ways of protecting the vulnerable while not ruining the economy further, or destroying the healthy young...

 

[calitennis127]

Bottom line here. This is the Gupta thought process:

 

[Kieran]

Bottom line here. This is the Gupta thought process:

I don’t agree here about the masks for indoors use, it makes total sense that they would both block and protect from spray, but otherwise I think Dr Gupta and other scientists like her have made a compelling case.

I’d also love to see more governments emphasising the positives with regard to the statistics, also healthy diets, and general ways of improving immunity, and not simply spreading fear and doom. I’ve seen people in supermarkets almost have a panic attack when they see another person down the far end of the aisle. We all know it’s a terrible virus and we should take precautions to avoid it, but we can’t live in a heightened, exaggerated fear of it, in all situations...

 

[calitennis127]

I don’t agree here about the masks for indoors use, it makes total sense that they would both block and protect from spray, but otherwise I think Dr Gupta and other scientists like her have made a compelling case.

I’d also love to see more governments emphasising the positives with regard to the statistics, also healthy diets, and general ways of improving immunity, and not simply spreading fear and doom. I’ve seen people in supermarkets almost have a panic attack when they see another person down the far end of the aisle. We all know it’s a terrible virus and we should take precautions to avoid it, but we can’t live in a heightened, exaggerated fear of it, in all situations...

Why is it such a “terrible virus”? I see no evidence of that except among the very elderly. The CDC has said that people who supposedly die from it have on average 2.6 other serious illnesses and that the survival rate for almost all demographics is above 99%. Clearly what they are doing is doctoring the numbers and lumping non-Covid deaths into the Covid category to make Trump look bad.

So what exactly makes it so “terrible”?

 

[Kieran]

Why is it such a “terrible virus”? I see no evidence of that except among the very elderly. The CDC has said that people who supposedly die from it have on average 2.6 other serious illnesses and that the survival rate for almost all demographics is above 99%. Clearly what they are doing is doctoring the numbers and lumping non-Covid deaths into the Covid category to make Trump look bad.

So what exactly makes it so “terrible”?

It’s a good question until you actually catch a bad dose of it, but I agree, largely the population will ride it out unscathed. I have Polish friend, she’s about 42, her and her boyfriend caught it. She said it’s nasty but against this, she was in bed only for 3 days and is getting stronger. Her boyfriend is still ill and he’s struggling but he has underlying conditions. What’s terrible is that a bad flu wouldn’t affect him nearly as much as Covid is. It can’t be discounted as being just a flu, in that regard, though we may have to live with it in the same way we live with flu, and accept it’s going to take away from us some of our elders and close ones, just as flu does in large numbers. I was talking to a priest friend of mine about four years ago, after my mother passed, and he said he does four or five funerals a week during winter, because winter claims so many elderly people. My mother was only 78 but I got his point.

Of course, another obvious way it’s terrible is the effect it’s had on everything, and this maybe because we just don’t know enough about to agree on a definitive course, and it might also be because in the west we rarely have the difficult discussion about death, and so we’re in a denial of some sort. It’s struck our psyche wrong, it’s terrified us more than inspired us to be cautious about it, and live with it.

 

[calitennis127]

Just to show how wrong the lockdown advocates are, here you go. Germany (like Italy) did everything that Dr. Goofball Fauci and the Democrats are advocating, yet Germany is seeing a sharp rise in cases. Lockdowns don’t work. They’re stupid. The Daily Beast acknowledged the lockdown failure in Italy. Now it’s clear about Germany too:

 

[Kieran]

Just to show how wrong the lockdown advocates are, here you go. Germany (like Italy) did everything that Dr. Goofball Fauci and the Democrats are advocating, yet Germany is seeing a sharp rise in cases. Lockdowns don’t work. They’re stupid. The Daily Beast acknowledged the lockdown failure in Italy. Now it’s clear about Germany too:

I'm not too sure how to read that graph, if I read it right, what he's saying is, the cases are gone from about 18 to 180 in 60 days? This is what we're measuring now in Ireland to enforce lockdown - number of cases, not the number of deaths, which is still quite low. And more importantly, we're not measuring the number of people taking up beds in the hospitals. The cases haven't overrun the hospitals and the deaths are not huge in number. The argument of course being that this proves that lockdown is necessary in order to keep both the numbers of cases and deaths low.

The argument against this is even more simple, which is that the number of cases is irrelevant if they're not overburdening the health system, since most cases result in recovery, and the large majority of cases heal at home. Then the counter-argument against this is that the number of people who've become infected will breed more cases etc.

Sometimes I think the scientists are playing video games with our lives, and thinking theoretically instead of practically, whereas they seemed to be thinking practically at the beginning when the hospitals were overrun, the ICUs were full, the nurses were dropping from exhaustion, and the populace were frightened. None of these things are the case now, the numbers are still miniscule (worldwide too, though we can't trust numbers from certain countries), and so it's difficult to see how to break this culture of listening to only approved experts, when many other experts with an equally long number of initials behind their names are being either silenced, or ignored...

 

[calitennis127]

That’s right, Kieran, and I do think the elephant in the room for all white leftists advocating lockdowns (whether in North America or Europe) is that Trump is president. That makes them perpetually uneasy with a feeling that the world is ending, so the virus has to be bad in their minds.

As to your medical points, I would point out that most “cases” are utterly meaningless and harmless, if not fraudulent. I had a neighbor who tested positive and everyone went crazy. Two days later he said was totally fine and he had just felt mildly sick for two days. This virus is a lot of hype about nothing. It’s just the likes of Tented and Moxie expressing their grief over Trump being president while enjoying the fact that it gives left-wing political leaders the opportunity to boss their populations around arbitrarily in accordance with their idiotic wishes (for example, “yes you can mass protest for BLM but no, you can’t open your business”).

The New York Times actually did a story on false positives of Covid tests, and I think this doctor’s tweet sums things up perfectly:

Your Coronavirus Test Is Positive. Maybe It Shouldn’t Be.​

The usual diagnostic tests may simply be too sensitive and too slow to contain the spread of the virus.


By Apoorva Mandavilli

• Published Aug. 29, 2020

Your Coronavirus Test Is Positive. Maybe It Shouldn’t Be. (Published 2020)

The usual diagnostic tests may simply be too sensitive and too slow to contain the spread of the virus.

www.nytimes.com

 

[Kieran]

That’s right, Kieran, and I do think the elephant in the room for all white leftists advocating lockdowns (whether in North America or Europe) is that Trump is president. That makes them perpetually uneasy with a feeling that the world is ending, so the virus has to be bad in their minds.

As to your medical points, I would point out that most “cases” are utterly meaningless and harmless, if not fraudulent. I had a neighbor who tested positive and everyone went crazy. Two days later he said was totally fine and he had just felt mildly sick for two days. This virus is a lot of hype about nothing. It’s just the likes of Tented and Moxie expressing their grief over Trump being president while enjoying the fact that it gives left-wing political leaders the opportunity to boss their populations around arbitrarily in accordance with their idiotic wishes (for example, “yes you can mass protest for BLM but no, you can’t open your business”).

The New York Times actually did a story on false positives of Covid tests, and I think this doctor’s tweet sums things up perfectly:

Your Coronavirus Test Is Positive. Maybe It Shouldn’t Be.​

The usual diagnostic tests may simply be too sensitive and too slow to contain the spread of the virus.


By Apoorva Mandavilli

• Published Aug. 29, 2020

Your Coronavirus Test Is Positive. Maybe It Shouldn’t Be. (Published 2020)

The usual diagnostic tests may simply be too sensitive and too slow to contain the spread of the virus.

www.nytimes.com

I don’t see how Trump is a factor in any decisions being made in Europe, brother. Political cowardice, a severe lack of imagination, maybe scientists having too much power over policy, etc would be the big factors here, and maybe many others, but not Trump.

As for what you say about cases, I agree. Not all cases require the same level of treatment, and I don’t think that increased cases should be the cause of the blanket lockdown we have in Ireland, it’s only storing up too much trouble elsewhere. It’s a terrifying thing to see the state have so much control over people’s lives. There are times it’s needed, and maybe this is one of them times, but it doesn’t feel like it, and certainly not politicians of such low calibre as we have in Ireland...

 

[Moxie]

Sometimes I think the scientists are playing video games with our lives, and thinking theoretically instead of practically, whereas they seemed to be thinking practically at the beginning when the hospitals were overrun, the ICUs were full, the nurses were dropping from exhaustion, and the populace were frightened. None of these things are the case now, the numbers are still miniscule (worldwide too, though we can't trust numbers from certain countries), and so it's difficult to see how to break this culture of listening to only approved experts, when many other experts with an equally long number of initials behind their names are being either silenced, or ignored...

It is the job of scientists to think in terms of data and objectively. And somewhat theoretically, too. Obviously they come up with different conclusions, and perhaps you're really referring to the ones who act in an advisory position to people that actually make policy. But it is worth remembering who makes public policy and it's not the scientists. I don't think it's fair to say they are playing "video games" with our lives. And I don't know much about whose voices are being censored. When it's Cali who says it, I don't pay it much mind.

 

[Kieran]

It is the job of scientists to think in terms of data and objectively. And somewhat theoretically, too. Obviously they come up with different conclusions, and perhaps you're really referring to the ones who act in an advisory position to people that actually make policy. But it is worth remembering who makes public policy and it's not the scientists. I don't think it's fair to say they are playing "video games" with our lives. And I don't know much about whose voices are being censored. When it's Cali who says it, I don't pay it much mind.

Well, we would all think that it's the job of scientists to investigate and advise, but the scientists I'm referring to are the ones in Ireland who jump ahead of the government and say things like, "we're going to close the pubs because people aren't following guidelines", or recently the head of our scientific adviser group NPHET was admonished by the government for telling the public that they would have to place the whole country on level 5 restrictions, when most of us were on level 3. The government of course had to remind them that they don't set policy. Varadkar said it's easy for them to place 400,000 people on unemployment when such restrictions will have zero effect on them. However, when these advisers opine freely like this, it has an unsettling effect. This is what happens when people allow power to go to their heads. Especially unelected people.

As for scientists being ignored or censored, well, you've seen the video of Dr. Gupta who is as qualified as the UK government's own advisers and yet when she met Boris she said he didn't reply to her suggestions but it came back to her later that he disagreed with her. This is Michael Levitt, Nobel Prize winner, tweeting about scientists whose views contradict WHO having their content deleted by YouTube. There are other examples which are easy to find, and they're not videos by the likes of David Icke. This is an issue that we all should be concerned about, it isn't simply a left/right thing...

This is a BBC article which quotes YouTube chief exec Susan Wojcicki on their policy to ban any videos that contradict WHO advice:

Coronavirus: YouTube bans 'medically unsubstantiated' content

The Google-owned platform's chief executive says the company is determined to "stamp out" misinformation.

www.bbc.co.uk

“ Anything that would go against World Health Organization recommendations would be a violation of our policy.”