Pandemic threat? Anyone else concerned?

[sebastiantombs]

There's an article on Fox talking about a new strain of the CCP Virus that is capable of penetrating masks and not being neutralized by hand washing. Not a very encouraging sign.

 

[BobRegnar]

Experts can't agree either. There are opinions, and yes, they are all opinions, all over the map. The only ones we are "allowed" to accept are the ones backed by the dems. There's the politics for you.

Young mothers are tasered, arrested and marched away for not wearing a mask while sitting outside. OUTSIDE and not near other people. There's some more politics for you.

It's obvious now even to the less skeptical that the fear campaign to force obedience and engender panic is all political bullshit.

 

[tigerwillow1]

The only thing worse than COVID-19 is Biden-20

Whether this statement is correct or not, I don't think it belongs in this thread and will contribute to killing whatever usefulness it may have. Over in the presidential election thread, it fits right in.

With covid having been totally politicized and being used as a political weapon, with all of the associated propaganda and disinformation, it's admittedly difficult to keep the actual disease separate from the politics. I have to keep telling myself that we're all being played, and try hard to not fall for it.

 

[tigerwillow1]

Looks like testing is becoming widely available, at least in my neck of the woods. I just got this email from a local urgent-care type of business.

We are offering a rapid COVID-19 test for asymptomatic patients who:

Need a test to return to school
Need a test for work
Want to know their status so they can visit loved ones
Recently traveled
Plan to travel

Appointments required, they don't take walk-ins.

 

[Arjun]

I don't know what to say at this point, The United Nations was always an organization in question. This pandemic only makes matters worse for them

 

[Oceanslider]

I don't know what to say at this point, The United Nations was always an organization in question. This pandemic only makes matters worse for them

The problem with the UN is that it puts tyrant repressive nations on the same footing as good nations.

 

[Arjun]

Bezos has intel

 

[Arjun]

Uploaded 6 months ago


Too much irony here, WHO would acknowledge this, right?

 

[Arjun]

They really want this to be the new normal

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[BobRegnar]

And yet another scientist who strays off the narative...

Former Chief Science Officer for Pfizer Says "Second Wave" Faked on False-Positive COVID Tests, "Pandemic Is Over" - Global Research

First published by Global Research on September 24, 2020, this analysis of former Pfizer V-P Michael Yeadon has been the object of censorship. In a stunning development, a former Chief Science Officer for the pharmaceutical giant Pfizer says “there is no science to suggest a second wave should...

bit.ly

 

[Frankenscript]

And yet another scientist who strays off the narative...

Former Chief Science Officer for Pfizer Says "Second Wave" Faked on False-Positive COVID Tests, "Pandemic Is Over" - Global Research

First published by Global Research on September 24, 2020, this analysis of former Pfizer V-P Michael Yeadon has been the object of censorship. In a stunning development, a former Chief Science Officer for the pharmaceutical giant Pfizer says “there is no science to suggest a second wave should...

bit.ly

And yet, the drive through testing clinic I drove past on Friday had lines stretching for blocks due to sick people coming in for testing. Hmmm.

The social distancing and mask usage has prevented the nightmare scenario so far; the lower death rate is because people are taking it seriously to a greater extent than before and doing a much better job of protecting the most vulnerable.

Recent relaxation of restrictions around the country is sure to spawn a death spike if people slack off. It's ok if people don't believe me; data will be available soon enough. Let's watch Florida and Indiana...

Sent from my ONEPLUS A6013 using Tapatalk

 

[BobRegnar]

The social distancing and mask usage has prevented the nightmare scenario so far; the lower death rate is because people are taking it seriously to a greater extent than before and doing a much better job of protecting the most vulnerable.

This is just a ridiculous twisting of the narrative to fit the circumstances. If the rates were increasing you would say people aren't taking it seriously enough, like all those "super spreader" mob riots, But BLM/Antifa seem to have inexplicable immunity.

Your first statement there is the same as saying "The social distancing and mask usage has prevented" elephant stampedes. And would be just as valid.

 

[Frankenscript]

This is just a ridiculous twisting of the narrative to fit the circumstances. If the rates were increasing you would say people aren't taking it seriously enough, like all those "super spreader" mob riots, But BLM/Antifa seem to have inexplicable immunity.

Your first statement there is the same as saying "The social distancing and mask usage has prevented" elephant stampedes. And would be just as valid.

Horse hockey.

There's a lot of data supporting my view.

For example, read up a few pages in the thread, and an article was posted that reported that seasonal flu prevalence is down remarkably, by a factor of 5-10x what's normal for this time of year. This is something where there is a lot of historical data; the reasonable explanation for the historical low prevalence of flu is the fact that we're all walking around with masks and not interacting with each other as much. Flu and COVID-19 spread via the same means: droplets and particles that come out of our mouths and noses. Cover those up, reduce gatherings in particular indoor ones with weak ventilation, and BAM the respiratory viruses don't spread as well as usual. The measures have been holding down flu; the same 5-10x improvement is what we've been seeing for COVID-19. Don't believe those numbers? Look at Sweden side-by-side with Norway or Finland. Sweden didn't do much at first and had a 10x case and death rate.

Outdoor protests, including BLM AND ANTI-LOCKDOWN gatherings, spread relatively little disease. In part because people wore masks (at least for the BLM ones), and in part because people tend not to be near any one person for long (who might be shedding virus). But sit at the ballpark next to the same infected person for 2 hours and you are at high risk.

I'm not the one twisting the narrative. It's objective fact that when things opened up state by state for the summer, cases increased a few weeks to a month later once the chain reaction kicked in, and deaths increased a few weeks after that. This is what you expect with a respiratory virus like we are dealing with. Then people get scared and start taking more measures, whether or not the gov't requires it, and things tamp down for a while. The young are the first to go out again, and they are low risk... cases pop up again but deaths stay low. But they spread it around and sooner or later grandma gets sick.

This thread went through the same argument back in mid June. Cases were increasing in Georgia then, but the Governor was trumpeting low death rates. They were calling it a "casedemic" as I recall. Then by late July and into August death rates tripled and people started taking more measures. Over time, gradually, the case rate and death rate have dropped. Or look at Florida, where at the beginning of summer the nutbag Governor opened everything up and said COME ON DOWN! THE WATER'S FINE (ok, my words, but his sentiment). All of a sudden a month or two later the hospitals were full up and even the Floridian Republicans on this forum were asking what the hell was going on. Florida STILL averages around a hundred deaths a day; the gov't didn't play hardball so it's still COVID-city down there. And given the Governor has now basically prevented local measures from going into place, in a bald-faced attempt to create a sense of normalcy in the run-up to the election, mark my words another spike of cases will happen by the beginning of November and deaths by the end of November. You can bet Desantis timed his measures so that the deaths wouldn't have time to hit before the election. People can ignore cases; they pay attention to deaths. The same shenanigans are going on here in Indiana.

The one saving grace is that while governments are self-serving, individual people do learn over time. I know a bunch of old folks who aren't falling for the "everything's fine" routine.

 

[Arjun]

They want a second lockdown so that everyone will submit their votes via mail this election year. Politics before life

 

[BobRegnar]

And given the Governor has now basically prevented local measures from going into place, in a bald-faced attempt to create a sense of normalcy in the run-up to the election,

If by that you mean Gov. DeSantis takes seriously the words and meaning of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution and recognizes Americans are free people who can't be imprisoned indefinitely to feed a bunch of tin-pot dictators' egos and political futures, good for him! He knows he's elected by and works for the people.

You are free to live in your level A hazmat suit and stay ten feet away from any living thing for as long as you choose to live that way. But you don't get to force me to do that with you. You've made your arguments and I'm not persuaded.

 

[Arjun]

Viruses have been around for billions of years; the size of a brain doesn't dictate intelligence. These viruses have adapted.

"The paper, which has not been peer-reviewed, said people with the strain, known as the D614G mutation, had higher loads of virus — suggesting it is more contagious."

Coronavirus mutation emerges that may bypass mask-wearing, hand-washing protections

A new COVID-19 mutation appears to be even more contagious, according to a study — and experts say it could be a response by the virus to defeat masks and other social-distancing efforts.

www.foxnews.com

Again, this is going to be just like the common cold and seasonal flu, looking forward to the day at which we can all finally take our masks off. People with Autoimmune diseases should get the vaccine first. The same can be set for the older people that recently took the pneumonia vaccine.

 

[Frankenscript]

(snip)
With covid having been totally politicized and being used as a political weapon, with all of the associated propaganda and disinformation, it's admittedly difficult to keep the actual disease separate from the politics. I have to keep telling myself that we're all being played, and try hard to not fall for it.

One of the more interesting-to-me things that's going on during the pandemic is that I've observed here and other places that Trump supporters seem remarkably suspicious of the vaccines in development, despite the fact that Trump has been playing up the possibility of a safe and effective vaccine before the election.

Here's an article that discusses progress on some of the vaccines and the process they might go through to get emergency approval. While Politico definitely slants left, the facts reported here are objectively verifiable through numerous sources.

Top FDA vaccine official says vaccine guidance may never be released

The battle over the FDA guidance comes amid concerns that political pressure will prompt the agency to greenlight a vaccine based on thin evidence.

www.politico.com

I think anyone would agree that Trump wants the announcement of a safe effective vaccine approved BEFORE the election to help his chances. But can this happen without rushing things?

You'll find in multiple sources (the Politico article, but also elsehwere) that Pfizer is a little more than halfway through dosing the planned study cohorts (vaccine and placebo). Based on what I've heard (some public things, some not so public though ) the vaccine trial has already accumulated enough data to show efficacy, with further data collection going on to pin down just how effective it is. However, safety for any new vaccine and in particular ones where new methodology is used (like Pfizer's mRNA vaccine, first of its kind) requires collecting data for two full months following administration of the vaccine. This is just normal procedure. So, if they decided that they had enough efficacy data today, they would still need to collect safety data for another two months before being able to generate the reports needed to support an EUA. This means end of November is the soonest the FDA would have the data in-hand to render a decision on the EUA.

Faced with public suspicion about a "rushed vaccine" the FDA is trying to put into place guidelines around how the EUA process will work. These standards, which were worked on starting before the summer, would help with confidence and also provide benchmarks that must be followed for safety, given the "rushed" nature of the effort to produce a vaccine. The clinical trials going on are well-designed and are expected to produce high-quality data that is very reliable. There's no reason to suspect problems with them.

It all comes down to having time to do proper safety data collection, and the process used to allow that to continue. I leave it to you all to make your own decisions about what to trust.

 

[tigerwillow1]

One of the more interesting-to-me things that's going on during the pandemic is that I've observed here and other places that Trump supporters seem remarkably suspicious of the vaccines in development, despite the fact that Trump has been playing up the possibility of a safe and effective vaccine before the election.

I'd rather that you hadn't made the association between me, Trump supporter, and suspicious of covid vaccine. No biggie, it's just that I feel the need to go on record denying any association. For the Trump supporter part, I'll try an analogy not meant specifically for me but as a general statement:

• Question: Would you rather have your home robbed or die in a car wreck?
• Answer: I'll take having my home robbed.
• Conclusion: So you admit you support robbing homes.
• Reality: "None of the above" would have been the choice had it been available.

For the vaccine part I'll say for myself as an example I decided to never get a flu shot long before Trump was in the picture politically. My attitude is the same for the covid vaccine. Nothing to do with covid, nothing to do with Trump.

 

[Frankenscript]

Hi tigerwillow1, please accept my apologies for making the association. I thought you had made some other comments, that now that I looked back, these actually should have been attributed to jessie.slimer. He said:

"But we are expected to keep quiet and listen to the experts. We can't even test reliably for the virus, but a vaccine is right around the corner? "

My feeble brain conflated that plus your comment about us all being played.

Anyway, we are being played for sure, though we probably here on the forum would split into multiple different camps about who is playing who

I think I need to work on a movie treatment where aliens land somewhere remote, and by happenstance they encounter at the same time a reporter crew from MSNBC and a reporter crew from FoxNews, and the only knowledge the world has of the aliens is what they get from these two sources. The world gets two very different impressions of what is happening and what the facts are. The ending probably writes itself; the aliens leave in disgust having not found intelligent life, and sanitize the planet so that maybe something useful can grow here...

 

[Arjun]

This pandemic can only be mitigated by the each of us. Don't rely on political figures.