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You have some interesting thoughts. But: > 0. COVID-19 was mostly harmless. Even more so than Douglas Adam's books. At the beginning of the pandemic, I found

You have some interesting thoughts. But: > 0. COVID-19 was mostly harmless. Even more so than Douglas Adam's books. At the beginning of the pandemic, I found out that my father and his partner had COVID. He lived, at the time, about 12 hours drive from me. Where he lived, his support network was thin (to say the least) - the little family he had nearby needed to keep away because they were responsible for caring for my cousin with a severely weakened immune system. His friends, sadly, also contracted COVID around the same time. I called him twice a day, and each call he was worse than the last. I decided to rent an AirBnB nearby. My partner and I packed up the dog and everything we needed and drove overnight to get there. We masked up, and got supplies at Walmart. We brought them to my Dad’s house and left them on the patio - retreated a safe distance - and my Dad came to retrieve them. He was in an awful condition, and his partner was worse. For the next week I came to their porch every few hours, and called my dad, and we spoke with what little breath he had. He dictated his last will and testament to me. I delivered pedialyte, meal replacement shakes, pulse oximeters, anything to help them make it through. I forced them to get up and move around a little from time to time, and took notes on their condition. They wouldn’t let me in the house. One day, before I arrived with supplies, my Dad told me they had called an ambulance for his partner. They took his partner to the local hospital… and the hospital turned him away because they had no beds. They essentially sent my Dad’s partner home to die. By some miraculous turn of events, they survived. They have issues walking and breathing to this day, but they survived. It’s one of the more agonizing, awful things I’ve ever had to watch. COVID-19 wasn’t harmless; it killed millions. I saw it up close. Especially early on, it was virulent and deadly, and very nearly took my parents from me. It did end up taking a lot of people in my extended social network. They died agonizing deaths. How dare you paint it as “mostly harmless.”

rob_c 2y ago
> How dare you paint it as “mostly harmless.” Yes I am sorry for your loss. Now let's get to the point. Because I understand statistics and am making sweeping statements I can and will make them from an objective viewpoint. Please do NOT sensor proven facts. I don't care for bible thumping tora humping nonsense that does not match reality. I'll take 2k years of religion and raise you 50 years of tech, oled TVs and microprocessors. I know someone who ended up hospitalised and several years later does from complications due to a winter flu, doesn't mean we shut down society _every year_. CV19 was a novel virus introduced into an existing population without any pre-existing immunity. This meant we will see complications, deaths at every age group and people's lives ruined by something that most 4yo, 25yo and 68yo will simply shake off. Again the statement of millions dead _DOES NOT_ match the real world where several developed nations with populations sub 1B did not have dead numbers into the 10M+ of healthy individuals. People died yes. This is expected. It is an illness. People die of staph infections. Life is unfair. That _DOES NOT_ mean that this is equivalent to small pox. It's not a bioweapon it just meant the subpopulations who we identified really early (2020) should have isolated or accepted their risk. The rest of society should not bend for the risk (again high survivability even in at risk groups). If it did we wouldn't sell guns, scissors or cross the road.
- drewbug01 2y ago
  > Yes I am sorry for your loss. Now let's get to the point I hope that people do not treat you with the callousness with which you treat others. > Because I understand statistics and am making sweeping statements I can and will make them from an objective viewpoint. Please do NOT sensor proven facts. I don't care for bible thumping tora humping nonsense that does not match reality. I'll take 2k years of religion and raise you 50 years of tech, oled TVs and microprocessors. My friend, you are speaking gibberish. I literally have no idea what you are trying to say. Maybe check your house for a gas leak, or something. I don’t mean it in a dismissive way - I quite literally cannot make heads or tails of what you’re saying here. > Again the statement of millions dead _DOES NOT_ match the real world The dead are dead whether you like it or not. Sounds like the pandemic didn’t affect you personally. Be grateful for that, and be kinder to others.
  - rob_c 2y ago
    > be kinder to others. You effectively told me to shut up because of the way you feel when talking about facts. This is the ultimate in anti-intellectual, dishonest and selfish statements. Check yourself before engaging in conversations about FACTS.
    - drewbug01 2y ago
      > You effectively told me to shut up because of the way you feel when talking about facts. You waltzed into a thread about the CIA suddenly changing their tune about where COVID came from; and started making assertions that it wasn’t that bad. I shared a deeply personal story about exactly how bad it was, from my vantage point. I expressed outrage at your dismissal of the suffering and many deaths that occurred. “How dare you” isn’t the same as “shut up.” But it is a strong suggestion that you’re being uncharitable. > Check yourself before engaging in conversations about FACTS. I scrolled through your comment history and based on some recent arguments with the mods, it sounds like you’ve have a bone to pick with people on this site. Log off and touch grass, man.
      - 2y ago

rob_c 2y ago

> How dare you paint it as “mostly harmless.” Yes I am sorry for your loss. Now let's get to the point. Because I understand statistics and am making sweeping statements I can and will make them from an objective viewpoint. Please do NOT sensor proven facts. I don't care for bible thumping tora humping nonsense that does not match reality. I'll take 2k years of religion and raise you 50 years of tech, oled TVs and microprocessors. I know someone who ended up hospitalised and several years later does from complications due to a winter flu, doesn't mean we shut down society _every year_. CV19 was a novel virus introduced into an existing population without any pre-existing immunity. This meant we will see complications, deaths at every age group and people's lives ruined by something that most 4yo, 25yo and 68yo will simply shake off. Again the statement of millions dead _DOES NOT_ match the real world where several developed nations with populations sub 1B did not have dead numbers into the 10M+ of healthy individuals. People died yes. This is expected. It is an illness. People die of staph infections. Life is unfair. That _DOES NOT_ mean that this is equivalent to small pox. It's not a bioweapon it just meant the subpopulations who we identified really early (2020) should have isolated or accepted their risk. The rest of society should not bend for the risk (again high survivability even in at risk groups). If it did we wouldn't sell guns, scissors or cross the road.

drewbug01 2y ago
> Yes I am sorry for your loss. Now let's get to the point I hope that people do not treat you with the callousness with which you treat others. > Because I understand statistics and am making sweeping statements I can and will make them from an objective viewpoint. Please do NOT sensor proven facts. I don't care for bible thumping tora humping nonsense that does not match reality. I'll take 2k years of religion and raise you 50 years of tech, oled TVs and microprocessors. My friend, you are speaking gibberish. I literally have no idea what you are trying to say. Maybe check your house for a gas leak, or something. I don’t mean it in a dismissive way - I quite literally cannot make heads or tails of what you’re saying here. > Again the statement of millions dead _DOES NOT_ match the real world The dead are dead whether you like it or not. Sounds like the pandemic didn’t affect you personally. Be grateful for that, and be kinder to others.
- rob_c 2y ago
  > be kinder to others. You effectively told me to shut up because of the way you feel when talking about facts. This is the ultimate in anti-intellectual, dishonest and selfish statements. Check yourself before engaging in conversations about FACTS.
  - drewbug01 2y ago
    > You effectively told me to shut up because of the way you feel when talking about facts. You waltzed into a thread about the CIA suddenly changing their tune about where COVID came from; and started making assertions that it wasn’t that bad. I shared a deeply personal story about exactly how bad it was, from my vantage point. I expressed outrage at your dismissal of the suffering and many deaths that occurred. “How dare you” isn’t the same as “shut up.” But it is a strong suggestion that you’re being uncharitable. > Check yourself before engaging in conversations about FACTS. I scrolled through your comment history and based on some recent arguments with the mods, it sounds like you’ve have a bone to pick with people on this site. Log off and touch grass, man.
    - 2y ago