'History will judge the hysteria'

ora_43

Tue, Aug 18 2020, 2:06 pm

What bugs me most, though, is the attitude that people want the situation to be bad.

For goodness sake. Nobody wants the situation to be bad, OK? It is not in anyone's interest - not mine, not the scientists who disagree with this guy, not yours, not the Prime Minister's - to keep doing social distancing if we don't have to, just to prove a point. If it turns out that the mortality rate is really 0.001% and the piles of bodies in Italy, Spain, New York, Mexico, etc, were all due to unrelated causes, the pro-maskers will be dancing in the streets along with the anti-maskers.

I don't understand how so many people talk like this. Are they not thinking before they speak, or are they just that cynical? It's just such a cold thing to say.

Or maybe they aren't cynical enough. Hello, if the government wants to do a 180-degree change in policy, they can find plenty of ways to sell it to the public that don't involve saying "we were wrong." The virus is less virulent now for Reasons. Our tremendously amazing doctors - and, more importantly, politicians - managed to bring the mortality rate down through the power of Science, and now there's nothing to be afraid of. It was the other guy's fault. Etc, etc.

southernbubby

Tue, Aug 18 2020, 2:28 pm

ora_43 wrote:

1. It's exciting that Sweden's death rate seems to have come to a halt, but OTOH, the death rate in many countries has been dropping. Herd immunity? Or something else? A bit soon to tell.

2. Can we not lose the judgement already? Nobody but mouth-breathing cretins has been claiming to know The Truth About the Virus since day #1. There were (and are) a lot of unknowns.

If future people are smart, they won't look back and say "how did they not just magically know that the death rate would drop and that herd immunity would be easy to achieve? so stupid" They'll say "wow, must have been tough back in the days when it took months to test new medicines."

3. I don't get why he's assuming that mortality rates with masks are the same as mortality rates without masks. Research suggests that's not true, IOW, that mortality rates are low in part because masks -> milder cases. Similarly, weird that as an expert he doesn't even address the issue of more virulent strains - how would deliberately spreading the virus, something even Sweden didn't do, not be hugely risky in that respect? That's basically exactly what took the Spanish flu from bad to horrific.

4. It's also odd to just assume Israel would have the survival rates Sweden does if we followed Swedish policy, when several very important factors are different. Overcrowded ICUs being a huge one. Population density being another. Sweden is one case study; NYC and northern Italy are others.

I have a crazy theory. Do people, such as Israelis, Jamaicans, other closer to the equator, have better survival rates because they get more sunlight?

ora_43

Tue, Aug 18 2020, 2:47 pm

southernbubby wrote:

I have a crazy theory. Do people, such as Israelis, Jamaicans, other closer to the equator, have better survival rates because they get more sunlight?

Not so crazy, there could be a connection between high vitamin D levels and better outcomes (which might also partially explain higher mortality for darker-skinned people in some parts of the world).

#BestBubby

Wed, Aug 19 2020, 1:54 pm

ora_43 wrote:

The Biased News Media certainly wanted it as bad as possible. Certain Parties benefited.

southernbubby

Wed, Aug 19 2020, 2:03 pm

#BestBubby wrote:

The Biased News Media certainly wanted it as bad as possible. Certain Parties benefited.

Obviously if it bleeds, it leads but the exact opposite approach would be to err on the side of saying that it wasn't a big deal or hiding any Corona news behind sports and entertainment.
OTOH, a lab somewhere in Texas, somehow failed to report 3000 negative tests which would make an enormous difference in the percentage testing positive. When the mistake was discovered, the town's children rejoiced at the news that the schools were opening. So who made the error and why. Meanwhile the media reported the falsely high percentage rate. Should they have made something up?