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Hard to take such a reply seriously since Japan never had lockdown and is doing fine without it. Anyway I wholly agree the GP, the West had gone crazy in both

Hard to take such a reply seriously since Japan never had lockdown and is doing fine without it. Anyway I wholly agree the GP, the West had gone crazy in both the handling of the pandemic and how heavy handed it is with opposition against the ambient madness. And now governments know they can get away with such power tripping without any consequence, situation will continue going worst and worst on the freedom front.

sellyme 5y ago
> is doing fine without it. 17,000 deaths may be a lot better than some other countries, but I certainly wouldn't describe it as "doing fine" compared to the near-zero death counts in regions that imposed fast and strict lockdowns.
- chitowneats 5y ago
  I'm actually astonished people still believe "fast and strict" lockdowns work, or that they actually happened anywhere. Edit because rate limiting: In any "lockdown" situation, a large percentage of the population must, by definition, exist in the world to enforce the lockdown, deliver food, keep critical services running, tend to the sick, etc. The desirability and feasibility of a "fast and strict" lockdown is a fantasy of the laptop class and/or authoritarian propaganda. Closing borders before there is community spread, a la Australia and NZ, is a separate issue. Those were not "fast". The borders to those countries have been closed since early 2020. In the case of Australia, their citizens cannot even leave without a special permit that is almost never approved. There is currently no end in sight to their "fast and strict" lockdown. In fact, they have increased restrictions in the last several months in an attempt to prevent interstate spread within the country.
  - belltaco 5y ago
    Explain Australia and New Zealand.
    - Mandatum 5y ago
      Australia has an outbreak right now. New Zealand is currently around the 10-20/day cases mark contained to their largest city which remains in hard lockdown. The rest of the country has eased restrictions. The delta variant has proven very difficult, the state of Victoria in Australia which really pushed the lockdown strtategy has given up. They're now pushing for vaccination in hopes of easing restrictions further. They remain in lockdown as a larger outbreak would overwhelm the healthcare system. Similar case for New Zealand - they have a capacity of less than 250 ICU beds for COVID for 5 million people. The risks are much, much worse if the outbreak spreads.
      - LAC-Tech 5y ago
        > Similar case for New Zealand - they have a capacity of less than 250 ICU beds for COVID for 5 million people. The risks are much, much worse if the outbreak spreads. NZ has had sustained mass immigration for years, and the population grows incredibly fast. All the infrastructure is designed for a country with 80% of the population level we have now, and I don't see it getting better.
  - sellyme 5y ago
    > I'm actually astonished people still believe "fast and strict" lockdowns work, or that they actually happened anywhere. I live in Adelaide, a city of over a million people that has done two strict lockdowns (at 17 and 6 cases respectively), and neither of them lasted more than a week. Both of them completely eradicated the virus from the state, and we've had 0 COVID-related deaths in over a year. Looking at the absolute disasters happening everywhere else that doesn't react as quickly (even just over in Sydney) shows exactly how well those have worked. > Closing borders before there is community spread, a la Australia and NZ, is a separate issue. For the record, we actually didn't do this - borders we only unilaterally closed after community spread had occurred. It was only after eradicating the virus from the community in early 2020 that it became a primary line of defence against further spread. > Those were not "fast". The borders to those countries have been closed since early 2020. By "fast" I meant reacting quickly, not that the lockdown was over quickly. However usually those are the same thing - it's a hell of a lot easier to eradicate the virus when you start at 10 cases instead of 10,000. Conflating closed international borders with a lockdown is somewhat confusing. Australia and New Zealand closing their borders to countries that couldn't successfully restrict COVID spread has had virtually no impact on anyone's day-to-day life. > There is currently no end in sight to their "fast and strict" lockdown. Only 2 Australian states are currently locked down (Victoria and New South Wales), and describing NSW's as "fast" or "strict" would be downright laughable.
    - vikingerik 5y ago
      What is the exit strategy going forward for Adelaide or NZ? Is there any, or are you going to keep the borders closed or quarantine every incoming traveler forever throughout the rest of human society? When does this end? "Until Covid goes away" isn't an answer if Covid never goes away.
      - sellyme 5y ago
        > What is the exit strategy going forward for Adelaide or NZ? Right now the magic number for Australia is getting 80% of the population vaccinated, at which point the current COVID-zero approach will be abandoned. I believe New Zealand has a similar approach, although I'm not sure on the exact number they're targeting.
- tasogare 5y ago
  Literally ten times less than the deaths due to tobacco each year in that country. Yet I see cigarettes sold everywhere.
  - AaronFriel 5y ago
    Someone else smoking largely doesn't affect me, and I would hope Japan has also aggressively (like the US) curtailed smoking in public places like restaurants and other public accommodations. Someone else defying lockdown, test & trace, mask, or vaccine mandates can affect me, especially prior to when I was able to get the vaccine. That's the difference.
    - ghoward 5y ago
      If someone smokes close to you, it does affect you in about the same way as someone with COVID. Likewise, someone with COVID far away affects you about as much as someone smoking far from you.
    - docmars 5y ago
      Were all the frequent ads and articles about second-hand smoke over the last 2 decades or so being alarmist?
  - sellyme 5y ago
    Yep, and I'm also 100% in support of legislation aiming at reducing tobacco consumption, such as plain packaging laws and advertising bans. I'm not sure if Japan are already doing those or not though.
  - belltaco 5y ago
    Cigarettes are available to every adult. Imagine if every adult in Japan was exposed to covid before vaccinations. Use that number of estimated deaths, not 17k. Why do people always use real death numbers after all the lockdowns, masking and social distancing is applied, for comparison to other death causes, including flu? It's extremely misleading. Death toll would be way higher than 17k especially with the more older population in Japan compared to other countries. Not to mention hospital overcrowding leading to higher fatality rates compared to now and even highet non covid deaths due to lack of emergency medical care.
- AmericanChopper 5y ago
  About 60,000,000 people die every year, which is absolutely fine. Everybody who’s alive today will eventually die. Everybody who’s born in the future will also die. Everybody who gets to live will also get sick occasionally. Most of them will eventually get so sick that they can’t continue living. Nothing can be done to prevent this. It is just a fundamental fact of life. If you believe that it is the governments duty to extend lifespans and prevent illness at literally any cost, then there is literally no level of tyranny that you won’t tolerate. Why should you be free to choose your own diet? Why should you be free to choose for yourself how much you want to exercise? More people die every year from making those choices badly than anything else. Why should you be allowed to leave your house for anything except the most essential purposes? The outside world has so many things that are liable to kill you. “Oh but x number of people will die” is just a fear based argument that dismisses all other considerations. 100% of people will die. If you believe liberty is important on any level, then you would believe people should generally be able to decide for themselves what risks they want to take with their lives. If you believe in democracy on any level then people should certainly be free to discuss what risk decisions they should be denied by the government making them on their behalf. The fact that we’re debating whether we should be allowed to leave our houses is somewhat shocking. The fact a significant number of people believe we shouldn’t even be allowed to discuss this is a more dystopian reality than I could have previously imagined.
  - sellyme 5y ago
    > If you believe that it is the governments duty to extend lifespans and prevent illness at literally any cost I do not. The cost of fast and strict lockdowns is very minimal. It's when you wait to enact a proper lockdown that it becomes very very expensive, because it suddenly takes six months to finish instead of six days. > More people die every year from making those choices [diet, exercise] badly than anything else. Yep, which is most countries tax things like sugar more heavily than they do vegetables, and why your health insurance is cheaper if you're in good physical health. We already have restrictions to incentivise good habits there. > If you believe liberty is important on any level, then you would believe people should generally be able to decide for themselves what risks they want to take with their lives. I'm fine with people deciding what risks they want to take with their own lives, I'm not fine with them deciding what risks they want to take with the lives of anyone who happens to come into contact with them.
soraminazuki 5y ago
I overall agree with your takes on individual freedom, but the situation in Japan isn't all sunshine and roses like you make it seem. > Japan never had lockdown and is doing fine without it Japan does have an emergency lockdown, it's just that it's not legally enforceable. However, people who have disregarded the lockdown have and will be subject to intense public shaming and bashing. Additionally, the Covid situation in Japan is far from being okay. The government and IOC's insistence on proceeding with the Olympics despite the slow vaccine rollouts have resulted in a surge of new cases and is continuing to put strain on the health care system [1]. The situation is so bad that the current prime minister is quitting over this. https://stopcovid19.metro.tokyo.lg.jp/en/ https://stopcovid19.metro.tokyo.lg.jp/en/
Goodthim 5y ago
You totally missed the chance to mention the word 'sheep'. Trust me I would stand up for my rights if I would not totally align with mask Mandates and co. And yes mask waearing is for me similar to a car safety belt. I just wanted to clarify this because it Sounds sometimes that no one agrees but only follow blindly. That's bullshit. I was more surprised that our politicians actually went so far. But I also watched docus about sars outbreak and you can see how little we knew back than. It actually transmitted through vents from one Tower to two others!

sellyme 5y ago

> is doing fine without it. 17,000 deaths may be a lot better than some other countries, but I certainly wouldn't describe it as "doing fine" compared to the near-zero death counts in regions that imposed fast and strict lockdowns.

chitowneats 5y ago
I'm actually astonished people still believe "fast and strict" lockdowns work, or that they actually happened anywhere. Edit because rate limiting: In any "lockdown" situation, a large percentage of the population must, by definition, exist in the world to enforce the lockdown, deliver food, keep critical services running, tend to the sick, etc. The desirability and feasibility of a "fast and strict" lockdown is a fantasy of the laptop class and/or authoritarian propaganda. Closing borders before there is community spread, a la Australia and NZ, is a separate issue. Those were not "fast". The borders to those countries have been closed since early 2020. In the case of Australia, their citizens cannot even leave without a special permit that is almost never approved. There is currently no end in sight to their "fast and strict" lockdown. In fact, they have increased restrictions in the last several months in an attempt to prevent interstate spread within the country.
- belltaco 5y ago
  Explain Australia and New Zealand.
  - Mandatum 5y ago
    Australia has an outbreak right now. New Zealand is currently around the 10-20/day cases mark contained to their largest city which remains in hard lockdown. The rest of the country has eased restrictions. The delta variant has proven very difficult, the state of Victoria in Australia which really pushed the lockdown strtategy has given up. They're now pushing for vaccination in hopes of easing restrictions further. They remain in lockdown as a larger outbreak would overwhelm the healthcare system. Similar case for New Zealand - they have a capacity of less than 250 ICU beds for COVID for 5 million people. The risks are much, much worse if the outbreak spreads.
    - LAC-Tech 5y ago
      > Similar case for New Zealand - they have a capacity of less than 250 ICU beds for COVID for 5 million people. The risks are much, much worse if the outbreak spreads. NZ has had sustained mass immigration for years, and the population grows incredibly fast. All the infrastructure is designed for a country with 80% of the population level we have now, and I don't see it getting better.
- sellyme 5y ago
  > I'm actually astonished people still believe "fast and strict" lockdowns work, or that they actually happened anywhere. I live in Adelaide, a city of over a million people that has done two strict lockdowns (at 17 and 6 cases respectively), and neither of them lasted more than a week. Both of them completely eradicated the virus from the state, and we've had 0 COVID-related deaths in over a year. Looking at the absolute disasters happening everywhere else that doesn't react as quickly (even just over in Sydney) shows exactly how well those have worked. > Closing borders before there is community spread, a la Australia and NZ, is a separate issue. For the record, we actually didn't do this - borders we only unilaterally closed after community spread had occurred. It was only after eradicating the virus from the community in early 2020 that it became a primary line of defence against further spread. > Those were not "fast". The borders to those countries have been closed since early 2020. By "fast" I meant reacting quickly, not that the lockdown was over quickly. However usually those are the same thing - it's a hell of a lot easier to eradicate the virus when you start at 10 cases instead of 10,000. Conflating closed international borders with a lockdown is somewhat confusing. Australia and New Zealand closing their borders to countries that couldn't successfully restrict COVID spread has had virtually no impact on anyone's day-to-day life. > There is currently no end in sight to their "fast and strict" lockdown. Only 2 Australian states are currently locked down (Victoria and New South Wales), and describing NSW's as "fast" or "strict" would be downright laughable.
  - vikingerik 5y ago
    What is the exit strategy going forward for Adelaide or NZ? Is there any, or are you going to keep the borders closed or quarantine every incoming traveler forever throughout the rest of human society? When does this end? "Until Covid goes away" isn't an answer if Covid never goes away.
    - sellyme 5y ago
      > What is the exit strategy going forward for Adelaide or NZ? Right now the magic number for Australia is getting 80% of the population vaccinated, at which point the current COVID-zero approach will be abandoned. I believe New Zealand has a similar approach, although I'm not sure on the exact number they're targeting.
tasogare 5y ago
Literally ten times less than the deaths due to tobacco each year in that country. Yet I see cigarettes sold everywhere.
- AaronFriel 5y ago
  Someone else smoking largely doesn't affect me, and I would hope Japan has also aggressively (like the US) curtailed smoking in public places like restaurants and other public accommodations. Someone else defying lockdown, test & trace, mask, or vaccine mandates can affect me, especially prior to when I was able to get the vaccine. That's the difference.
  - ghoward 5y ago
    If someone smokes close to you, it does affect you in about the same way as someone with COVID. Likewise, someone with COVID far away affects you about as much as someone smoking far from you.
  - docmars 5y ago
    Were all the frequent ads and articles about second-hand smoke over the last 2 decades or so being alarmist?
- sellyme 5y ago
  Yep, and I'm also 100% in support of legislation aiming at reducing tobacco consumption, such as plain packaging laws and advertising bans. I'm not sure if Japan are already doing those or not though.
- belltaco 5y ago
  Cigarettes are available to every adult. Imagine if every adult in Japan was exposed to covid before vaccinations. Use that number of estimated deaths, not 17k. Why do people always use real death numbers after all the lockdowns, masking and social distancing is applied, for comparison to other death causes, including flu? It's extremely misleading. Death toll would be way higher than 17k especially with the more older population in Japan compared to other countries. Not to mention hospital overcrowding leading to higher fatality rates compared to now and even highet non covid deaths due to lack of emergency medical care.
AmericanChopper 5y ago
About 60,000,000 people die every year, which is absolutely fine. Everybody who’s alive today will eventually die. Everybody who’s born in the future will also die. Everybody who gets to live will also get sick occasionally. Most of them will eventually get so sick that they can’t continue living. Nothing can be done to prevent this. It is just a fundamental fact of life. If you believe that it is the governments duty to extend lifespans and prevent illness at literally any cost, then there is literally no level of tyranny that you won’t tolerate. Why should you be free to choose your own diet? Why should you be free to choose for yourself how much you want to exercise? More people die every year from making those choices badly than anything else. Why should you be allowed to leave your house for anything except the most essential purposes? The outside world has so many things that are liable to kill you. “Oh but x number of people will die” is just a fear based argument that dismisses all other considerations. 100% of people will die. If you believe liberty is important on any level, then you would believe people should generally be able to decide for themselves what risks they want to take with their lives. If you believe in democracy on any level then people should certainly be free to discuss what risk decisions they should be denied by the government making them on their behalf. The fact that we’re debating whether we should be allowed to leave our houses is somewhat shocking. The fact a significant number of people believe we shouldn’t even be allowed to discuss this is a more dystopian reality than I could have previously imagined.
- sellyme 5y ago
  > If you believe that it is the governments duty to extend lifespans and prevent illness at literally any cost I do not. The cost of fast and strict lockdowns is very minimal. It's when you wait to enact a proper lockdown that it becomes very very expensive, because it suddenly takes six months to finish instead of six days. > More people die every year from making those choices [diet, exercise] badly than anything else. Yep, which is most countries tax things like sugar more heavily than they do vegetables, and why your health insurance is cheaper if you're in good physical health. We already have restrictions to incentivise good habits there. > If you believe liberty is important on any level, then you would believe people should generally be able to decide for themselves what risks they want to take with their lives. I'm fine with people deciding what risks they want to take with their own lives, I'm not fine with them deciding what risks they want to take with the lives of anyone who happens to come into contact with them.

soraminazuki 5y ago

I overall agree with your takes on individual freedom, but the situation in Japan isn't all sunshine and roses like you make it seem. > Japan never had lockdown and is doing fine without it Japan does have an emergency lockdown, it's just that it's not legally enforceable. However, people who have disregarded the lockdown have and will be subject to intense public shaming and bashing. Additionally, the Covid situation in Japan is far from being okay. The government and IOC's insistence on proceeding with the Olympics despite the slow vaccine rollouts have resulted in a surge of new cases and is continuing to put strain on the health care system [1]. The situation is so bad that the current prime minister is quitting over this. https://stopcovid19.metro.tokyo.lg.jp/en/ https://stopcovid19.metro.tokyo.lg.jp/en/

Goodthim 5y ago

You totally missed the chance to mention the word 'sheep'. Trust me I would stand up for my rights if I would not totally align with mask Mandates and co. And yes mask waearing is for me similar to a car safety belt. I just wanted to clarify this because it Sounds sometimes that no one agrees but only follow blindly. That's bullshit. I was more surprised that our politicians actually went so far. But I also watched docus about sars outbreak and you can see how little we knew back than. It actually transmitted through vents from one Tower to two others!