7 ms·

So, this is the recommendation, last sentence of the article: “If leaders really cared about people, the clearly rational and ethical thing to do would be to f

by jpster 6y ago

So, this is the recommendation, last sentence of the article: “If leaders really cared about people, the clearly rational and ethical thing to do would be to fully end the unsupportable government mandates. Continuing pandemic mandates is not just destroying people’s lives and livelihoods. It is killing people.” But...what shall we do about the deadly, novel airborne pathogen?

tinus_hn 6y ago
> Deadly, novel airborne pathogen > not from a virus with an “infection fatality rate” of 0.15-0.2% across all age groups, and 0.03 to 0.04% in those under 70 years old. (This means, 99.96% of nearly everyone who gets the virus lives.) Not if the statistics in this article are to be believed. If you don’t believe the statistics, argue about that. Otherwise your argument is baseless.
- comicjk 6y ago
  These "statistics" are not credible. More than 0.1% of all Americans (340k) have already died of COVID-19. If the IFR were 0.15-0.2%, more than half of the population would have been infected already and the spread would be pretty much over. Instead, seroprevalence shows that about 20% of Americans have been infected, meaning we have 600k or so deaths to go in the absence of controls. As for "99.96% of nearly everyone who gets the virus lives" this is weaseling even given their low IFR estimates. It deliberately excludes those most likely to die! This doesn't look like good faith. An article about the harms of isolation doesn't have to, and shouldn't, minimize the facts in this way.
- jpster 6y ago
  Are you saying that a novel airborne pathogen that killed 343,000 Americans this year should not be described as “deadly”?
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - just-juan-post 6y ago
    Minnesota lawmakers say coronavirus deaths could be inflated by 40% after reviewing death certificates https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/coronavirus-death-certificates-minnesota-inflated https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/coronavirus-death-ce... The Grand County coroner is calling attention to the way the state health department is classifying some deaths. The coroner, Brenda Bock, says two of their five deaths related to COVID-19 were people who died of gunshot wounds. https://denver.cbslocal.com/2020/12/15/grand-county-covid-deaths/ https://denver.cbslocal.com/2020/12/15/grand-county-covid-de... I could post more but take a look at these.
    - jpster 6y ago
      Meanwhile, this reporting suggests that the Covid death figure is actually underreported: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/21/world/coronavirus-missing-deaths.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/21/world/coronav...
      - Felony_Fred 6y ago
        Meanwhile, multiple sources suggest that they are vastly inflated ; " ... That, of course, can mean anything from having had a recent positive COVID-19 test (which may or may not have been accurate) to having tested positive months earlier to simply having been declared positive based on symptoms (with hospitals facing strong financial incentives to claim COVID-19 deaths). For the sake of argument, however, let us assume that the CDC’s numbers are valid. Out of those 164,280 deaths, the CDC calculates that just six percent of them, or 9,857, were caused solely by COVID-19. “For deaths with conditions or causes in addition to COVID-19, on average, there were 2.6 additional conditions or causes per death,” the agency says. In other words, 94 percent of those who died with COVID-19 already had two or more other serious health issues such as hypertension or diabetes." [0] [0] ; https://thenewamerican.com/cdc-fewer-than-10-000-americans-have-died-from-covid-19-alone/ https://thenewamerican.com/cdc-fewer-than-10-000-americans-h...
        r00fus 6y ago
        Yes, death by pneumonia caused by COVID means it’s not “solely COVID”. This line of reasoning is specious at best, disinformation at worst.
  - Felony_Fred 6y ago
    How many of these people would have died in the next year without the intervention of Covid ? The general idea is that lockdowns are doing way more harm than they prevent. As acknowledged by the WHO and many others ; " “We in the World Health Organization do not advocate lockdowns as the primary means of control of this virus,” Dr. David Nabarro said to The Spectator’s Andrew Neil. “The only time we believe a lockdown is justified is to buy you time to reorganize, regroup, rebalance your resources, protect your health workers who are exhausted, but by and large, we’d rather not do it.” " [0]. " ... thousands of medical health experts signed their names to a petition calling for the end of coronavirus lockdowns, citing the “irreparable damage” they’ve caused. "As infectious disease epidemiologists and public health scientists, we have grave concerns about the damaging physical and mental health impacts of the prevailing COVID-19 policies, and recommend an approach we call Focused Protection,” read the petition, known as the Great Barrington Declaration. "Current lockdown policies are producing devastating effects on short and long-term public health." " [1] [0] ; https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=915&v=x8oH7cBxgwE&feature=youtu.be https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=915&v=x8oH7cBxgwE&feature=yo... [1] ; https://gbdeclaration.org/ https://gbdeclaration.org/ See also ; Years of potential life lost https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Years_of_potential_life_lost https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Years_of_potential_life_lost COVID-19, unemployment, and suicide https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpsy/article/PIIS2215-0 https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpsy/article/PIIS2215-0...
  - tinus_hn 6y ago
    Every year from all people in the US aged between 75 and 85 about 5% dies. 85 and up it’s about 13%. A lot of things are deadly to old people, a tenth of that is a minor part and it is certainly debatable whether asking these people to live in isolation for a year is worth that 10% less chance of dying. Compare also the 480000 US deaths yearly from tobacco, which could be prevented much easier than corona. But anyway, it is impossible to debate weighing these statistics and measures in a civil manner so I’ll excuse myself and you can just echo around with your fellow lockdown fans.
    - rualca 6y ago
      > Every year from all people in the US aged between 75 and 85 about 5% dies. Keep in mind that right now covid-19 is the leading cause of death in the US. https://www.webmd.com/lung/news/20201217/covid-19-ranks-as-a-leading-cause-of-death-inus https://www.webmd.com/lung/news/20201217/covid-19-ranks-as-a... Unlike cancer and heart disease, covid19 can be prevented or even erradicated with small behavioral changes.
      - throwaway201103 6y ago
        I think the evidence is that it cannot. COVID has been spiking here since November and everyone is wearing masks. I'm not sure what more could be done. Complete lockdown is, like any extreme measure, not practically possible. People need to eat, essential things need to get done.
        rualca 6y ago
        > I think the evidence is that it cannot. Only if you if you intentionally ignore reality. Spain decimated it's spread rate during the first lockdown, running down their 800 daily deaths down to zero in amout a month of lockdown. Every single time a restrictive lockdown was imposed for over 3 weeks, spread and death rates dropped to a fraction of their initial rate. > I'm not sure what more could be done. The US is renowned for doing barely anything. Politically the US even rejects the use of facial masks. That's telling.
    - 6y ago
proc0 6y ago
How about actively sanitizing areas, and only quarantining the vulnerable, while only shutting down controlled areas with evidence of the virus? Is that not safe enough for these numbers? The real question is: why is this "safe" side shoving down their "solution" down everyone else's throat? At what point does coercion becoming a solution? "DO AS I SAY OR ELSE", is really the problem here, and not the virus. People are surviving, and are building antibodies, this is not an apocalyptical virus that we have to completely shutdown and obey.
- rualca 6y ago
  > (...) and only quarantining the vulnerable, (...) Because the epidemic spreads by infecting everyone, and the more widespread it becomes the more saturated health services will be and the more likely is that the more vulnerable elements of society will be affected. And the odds that you are infected drop radically from almost certain to highly unlikely if everyone around you just acts responsibly and just follows basic precautions such as wearing a mask, washing their hands, practice social distancing, and whenever possible practice social isolation. Think about it for a second. What do you think is the attack vector of, say, nursing homes? Do you believe it's the senior citizens who are already confind there, or everyone else who they are in contact with?
  - proc0 6y ago
    > everyone else who they are in contact with? That is not a quarantine. Quarantining the vulnerable means they don't come in contact with anyone who may be in contact with the general public. Are the options really shut everything down OR millions of people die? We're supposed to think there is high risk everywhere, while the ones who made the rules are constantly breaking them. Efforts could have gone into instant detection of the virus in an environment, and effective measures to quickly quarantine people in targeted areas, you know more creative solutions that actually don't destroy the lives who are not really at risk.

by jpster 6y ago

tinus_hn 6y ago

> Deadly, novel airborne pathogen > not from a virus with an “infection fatality rate” of 0.15-0.2% across all age groups, and 0.03 to 0.04% in those under 70 years old. (This means, 99.96% of nearly everyone who gets the virus lives.) Not if the statistics in this article are to be believed. If you don’t believe the statistics, argue about that. Otherwise your argument is baseless.

comicjk 6y ago
These "statistics" are not credible. More than 0.1% of all Americans (340k) have already died of COVID-19. If the IFR were 0.15-0.2%, more than half of the population would have been infected already and the spread would be pretty much over. Instead, seroprevalence shows that about 20% of Americans have been infected, meaning we have 600k or so deaths to go in the absence of controls. As for "99.96% of nearly everyone who gets the virus lives" this is weaseling even given their low IFR estimates. It deliberately excludes those most likely to die! This doesn't look like good faith. An article about the harms of isolation doesn't have to, and shouldn't, minimize the facts in this way.
jpster 6y ago
Are you saying that a novel airborne pathogen that killed 343,000 Americans this year should not be described as “deadly”?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- just-juan-post 6y ago
  Minnesota lawmakers say coronavirus deaths could be inflated by 40% after reviewing death certificates https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/coronavirus-death-certificates-minnesota-inflated https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/coronavirus-death-ce... The Grand County coroner is calling attention to the way the state health department is classifying some deaths. The coroner, Brenda Bock, says two of their five deaths related to COVID-19 were people who died of gunshot wounds. https://denver.cbslocal.com/2020/12/15/grand-county-covid-deaths/ https://denver.cbslocal.com/2020/12/15/grand-county-covid-de... I could post more but take a look at these.
  - jpster 6y ago
    Meanwhile, this reporting suggests that the Covid death figure is actually underreported: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/21/world/coronavirus-missing-deaths.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/21/world/coronav...
    - Felony_Fred 6y ago
      Meanwhile, multiple sources suggest that they are vastly inflated ; " ... That, of course, can mean anything from having had a recent positive COVID-19 test (which may or may not have been accurate) to having tested positive months earlier to simply having been declared positive based on symptoms (with hospitals facing strong financial incentives to claim COVID-19 deaths). For the sake of argument, however, let us assume that the CDC’s numbers are valid. Out of those 164,280 deaths, the CDC calculates that just six percent of them, or 9,857, were caused solely by COVID-19. “For deaths with conditions or causes in addition to COVID-19, on average, there were 2.6 additional conditions or causes per death,” the agency says. In other words, 94 percent of those who died with COVID-19 already had two or more other serious health issues such as hypertension or diabetes." [0] [0] ; https://thenewamerican.com/cdc-fewer-than-10-000-americans-have-died-from-covid-19-alone/ https://thenewamerican.com/cdc-fewer-than-10-000-americans-h...
      - r00fus 6y ago
        Yes, death by pneumonia caused by COVID means it’s not “solely COVID”. This line of reasoning is specious at best, disinformation at worst.
- Felony_Fred 6y ago
  How many of these people would have died in the next year without the intervention of Covid ? The general idea is that lockdowns are doing way more harm than they prevent. As acknowledged by the WHO and many others ; " “We in the World Health Organization do not advocate lockdowns as the primary means of control of this virus,” Dr. David Nabarro said to The Spectator’s Andrew Neil. “The only time we believe a lockdown is justified is to buy you time to reorganize, regroup, rebalance your resources, protect your health workers who are exhausted, but by and large, we’d rather not do it.” " [0]. " ... thousands of medical health experts signed their names to a petition calling for the end of coronavirus lockdowns, citing the “irreparable damage” they’ve caused. "As infectious disease epidemiologists and public health scientists, we have grave concerns about the damaging physical and mental health impacts of the prevailing COVID-19 policies, and recommend an approach we call Focused Protection,” read the petition, known as the Great Barrington Declaration. "Current lockdown policies are producing devastating effects on short and long-term public health." " [1] [0] ; https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=915&v=x8oH7cBxgwE&feature=youtu.be https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=915&v=x8oH7cBxgwE&feature=yo... [1] ; https://gbdeclaration.org/ https://gbdeclaration.org/ See also ; Years of potential life lost https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Years_of_potential_life_lost https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Years_of_potential_life_lost COVID-19, unemployment, and suicide https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpsy/article/PIIS2215-0 https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpsy/article/PIIS2215-0...
- tinus_hn 6y ago
  Every year from all people in the US aged between 75 and 85 about 5% dies. 85 and up it’s about 13%. A lot of things are deadly to old people, a tenth of that is a minor part and it is certainly debatable whether asking these people to live in isolation for a year is worth that 10% less chance of dying. Compare also the 480000 US deaths yearly from tobacco, which could be prevented much easier than corona. But anyway, it is impossible to debate weighing these statistics and measures in a civil manner so I’ll excuse myself and you can just echo around with your fellow lockdown fans.
  - rualca 6y ago
    > Every year from all people in the US aged between 75 and 85 about 5% dies. Keep in mind that right now covid-19 is the leading cause of death in the US. https://www.webmd.com/lung/news/20201217/covid-19-ranks-as-a-leading-cause-of-death-inus https://www.webmd.com/lung/news/20201217/covid-19-ranks-as-a... Unlike cancer and heart disease, covid19 can be prevented or even erradicated with small behavioral changes.
    - throwaway201103 6y ago
      I think the evidence is that it cannot. COVID has been spiking here since November and everyone is wearing masks. I'm not sure what more could be done. Complete lockdown is, like any extreme measure, not practically possible. People need to eat, essential things need to get done.
      - rualca 6y ago
        > I think the evidence is that it cannot. Only if you if you intentionally ignore reality. Spain decimated it's spread rate during the first lockdown, running down their 800 daily deaths down to zero in amout a month of lockdown. Every single time a restrictive lockdown was imposed for over 3 weeks, spread and death rates dropped to a fraction of their initial rate. > I'm not sure what more could be done. The US is renowned for doing barely anything. Politically the US even rejects the use of facial masks. That's telling.
  - 6y ago

proc0 6y ago

How about actively sanitizing areas, and only quarantining the vulnerable, while only shutting down controlled areas with evidence of the virus? Is that not safe enough for these numbers? The real question is: why is this "safe" side shoving down their "solution" down everyone else's throat? At what point does coercion becoming a solution? "DO AS I SAY OR ELSE", is really the problem here, and not the virus. People are surviving, and are building antibodies, this is not an apocalyptical virus that we have to completely shutdown and obey.

rualca 6y ago
> (...) and only quarantining the vulnerable, (...) Because the epidemic spreads by infecting everyone, and the more widespread it becomes the more saturated health services will be and the more likely is that the more vulnerable elements of society will be affected. And the odds that you are infected drop radically from almost certain to highly unlikely if everyone around you just acts responsibly and just follows basic precautions such as wearing a mask, washing their hands, practice social distancing, and whenever possible practice social isolation. Think about it for a second. What do you think is the attack vector of, say, nursing homes? Do you believe it's the senior citizens who are already confind there, or everyone else who they are in contact with?
- proc0 6y ago
  > everyone else who they are in contact with? That is not a quarantine. Quarantining the vulnerable means they don't come in contact with anyone who may be in contact with the general public. Are the options really shut everything down OR millions of people die? We're supposed to think there is high risk everywhere, while the ones who made the rules are constantly breaking them. Efforts could have gone into instant detection of the virus in an environment, and effective measures to quickly quarantine people in targeted areas, you know more creative solutions that actually don't destroy the lives who are not really at risk.