Almost everyone overestimates Covid risk

They're not scared, they're just getting their kicks.

Mostly they are socially inept, lonely, and it gives them a sense of group identity to run around fighting a danger.

Bullet_Proof wrote:

I stated that we dont care that you belittle us. Yet your subsequent post shows you dont listen. You kept hammering home that you will belittle us if we have an opinion that you dont approve of.

Im actually happy to see that youre human and not perfect like the rest of us.

How can the policies that I advocate for be harmful? Harmful to who?

I have always proclaimed: if you Harambe want the vaccine, if your granny wants the vaccine, by all means. The people who dont want it, thats our choice. If we die because of it, thats on us.

But the people who have the vaccine are protected..

Your example case is a hospital. People in a hospital are regularly around very sick people. The hospital has policies to prevent employees from spreading viruses to these already very sick people.

People have a choice not to be vaccinated just as a hospital has a choice to fire unvaccinated employees to protect their patients.

This so incredible straightforward that I am shocked you used it as an example. A hospital is one of the places where a vaccine mandate makes the most sense.

Such an obvious self-own deserves a little belittlement, but I suspect I may be feeding a humiliation kink here.

Stoppit Smith wrote:

Nope.

I actually blame Dr. Fauci and the CDC.

Masks, social distancing and other mitigating measures should not have gone away until most were vaccinated.

Starting schools unmasked without socially distanced seats drove us into this current phase.

They should have never made masks optional.

I agree in blaming Dr. Fauci and the CDC, but for very different reasons.

The current phase started well before the start of school, so blaming on that is ridiculous.

There has yet to be much proof at all about the effectiveness of cloth masks. If people wanted actual mask protection, they'd be wearing N95 masks. They are widely available now, but not encouraged at all by public health authorities.

As far as mandating masks, you're just not going to get the general public to comply. The ship sailed on that a long time ago.

seattle prattle wrote:

And you need to understand that the longer the virus is allowed to persist, the greater likelihood of yet more variants developing.

Wow, "the longer the virus is allowed to persist". It's obvious now, and really was obvious from the very beginning to those that understand respiratory diseases, that the virus will persist forever, regardless of what anyone does.

asdfghj wrote:

seattle prattle wrote:

And you need to understand that the longer the virus is allowed to persist, the greater likelihood of yet more variants developing.

Wow, "the longer the virus is allowed to persist". It's obvious now, and really was obvious from the very beginning to those that understand respiratory diseases, that the virus will persist forever, regardless of what anyone does.

Yes just like those other respiratory virus that stuck around with high infections rates: Measles, smallpox, SARS1, MERS.

Bullet_Proof wrote:

All thanks to people like you. Who cling to "safety". Safety is not a value. Its an instinct. Freedom is a value.

Society should value freedom.

Quite right.

Society should value my freedom to drink and drive.

Society should value my freedom to set fires in the wilderness.

Society should value my freedom to shoot guns into crowds.

What do you value more, safety or freedom?

The Unkle wrote:

Tommy want wingy wrote:

It’s hilarious that USA accounts for such large portion of the world deaths. Lower class and lower middle class people registered for Facebook and Twitter for the first time only about five to ten years ago and are fed lies about the virus and supposed treatments. Some of it from Trump media and Russia trolls and so there’s so much division it’s hilarious

I believe the deaths are greatly overstated as given the demographics of the group (age and health pre Covid) the vast majority of these folks would have been gone by now if Covid never appeared.

It's a little troubling that you accept these large number of deaths as being accurate and find it "hilarious"

And that you still buy into the Russians did it nonsense

Oh Unkle

Stoppit Smith wrote:

dodge ball wrote:

The same could be said for heart disease, traffic accident, old age, hurricane, earthquake, wild fires.

I'll address this and the differences.

Heart disease -- genetic, potentially chronic but not communicable.

Traffic accident -- possible, potentially avoidable, not intentional but not communicable

Old age- inevitable, genetic (as far as traits) but not communicable (nobody is catching my balding head)

Hurricane, earthquake, wildfire ( natural, devastating...but not transmissible

Covid is different that it's highly transmissible through any RNA exchange

Hope this helps.

You're wasting your time. Anyone who doesn't understand this by now is either too stupid to or is just intentionally tuning out truth.

The whole personal responsibility angle on COVID is just a way of getting people to accept that our capitalist economic requires the supremacy of capital to public health. In other words, people have to get sick and die because profits are more important. Getting people to accept this and internalize it as being their responsibility is key for capitalists.

Every step of the way in the pandemic in the US, outcomes have been dictated by capital. Shutdowns came too late and reopening came to early, resulting in outcomes for states that tried to stop big outbreaks being not much better than those that had minimal measure in place. That was because it was deemed more important to recover a few weeks of profits than to keep thousands from getting sick and dying.

The Delta variant exists in large part due to patent monopolies and the political influence of large drug makers. India was very slow to get vaccines even though the country has a very large and sophisticated vaccine manufacturing industry and public health sector that has very strong experience with mass vaccination efforts (polio most recently). But India could not afford the vaccines because the West out bid them to get the first batches. This happened because of patent monopolies. Had the vaccines been open sourced, India would have been able to have a mass vaccination program that would have beat out (or at least mitigated) the emergence of the Delta variant. Even post-Delta, the third world is largely without vaccines and only gets what is donated from the West, which is often interrupted for booster campaigns.

Then, there is the political monopolization of the vaccines by the mRNA manufacturers. There are a number of vaccines that are superior to the mRNA vaccines because they are much easier to manufacture and do not require freezing. Researchers got to the point of testing a DNA vax in macaques and found it to be effective against COVID. DNA is easier to manufacture and does not require freezing. But by the time the paper was published on the results in macaques, the US government had decided to put billions into the mRNA vaxes. The DNA vaxes never went anywhere. Other low cost vaxes have faced very long odds as all the government funding went to the mRNA vaxes.

Even things that are very simple and effective have been completely blown off because they do not serve the interests of the capitalists. We are coming up on the second anniversary of the pandemic and you still cannot get a real N95 or better mask in the US unless you are a health care provider. This is because no one is willing to invest in the expansion of production for the manufacturer of N95s because of the likelihood that demand will crash when the pandemic ends. Same problems have existed for low cost at home COVID tests. And ventilation systems can go a long way in making indoor activities safer. But no one will invest in ventilation improvements because they will have no value post-pandemic.

Instead, people are told that it is their responsibility to manage COVID. High risk individuals must either find a cure for their high blood pressure or diabetes or live as a hermit. Everyone else is expected to just roll the dice and see whether they get a severe case or end up with long COVID. It is just a risk that has to be accepted like driving a car.

980098 wrote:

Democrats NEED Bogeyman. Their platform sucks that bad.

There is some truth in this statement. Republicans are even more consumed with boogie man. Covid denial, Fauci is evil, Biden stole the election, yet he is senile. Trump is a benevolent savior from pediphiles. Literally EVERYONE is trying to supress their media, yelled loudly by their media. Basically the Republican platform has become "We hate liberals".

It is sad for us moderates who are now political party orphans because of a huge number of irrational people who cannot see the flaws of their own party or their own hypocrisy.

BoogieCan wrote:

980098 wrote:

Democrats NEED Bogeyman. Their platform sucks that bad.

There is some truth in this statement. Republicans are even more consumed with boogie man. Covid denial, Fauci is evil, Biden stole the election, yet he is senile. Trump is a benevolent savior from pediphiles. Literally EVERYONE is trying to supress their media, yelled loudly by their media. Basically the Republican platform has become "We hate liberals".

It is sad for us moderates who are now political party orphans because of a huge number of irrational people who cannot see the flaws of their own party or their own hypocrisy.

PEOPLE want boogeymen. It's far easier to believe in a cause if you think there are villains and heroes on their respective sides.

This is rarely the case.

Wait. Over 0.2% of the population has actually died from COVID. So, what percentage has been hospitalized?

One list had 220,000 hospitalizations. Given that 700,000 have died of COVID, at least, that is too low. The death rate for those hospitalized for COVID has ranged from 9.3% to 19.7% in the study below. So, we might think 5-10 times are hospitalized for every death. Of course, many deaths occur at home. But it's not unreasonable to guess 1% have been hospitalized for COVID, given the death rate and that there have apparently been over 100 million infections.

"What trends for in-hospital mortality by age among hospitalized patients with SARS-CoV-2–positive tests are evident between March 1 and November 21, 2020?

Findings This cohort study of 503 409 patients from 209 US acute care hospitals found a decrease in in-hospital mortality among patients with SARS-CoV-2–positive tests. Mortality rates were 10.6% in March, increased to 19.7% in April, and decreased to 9.3% in November."

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2778237

By the way, Florida now lists over 55,000 COVID deaths. It was at 40,000 on August 1. So, it had 15,000 COVID deaths in just two months.

It's ok. Let republicans run around with no masks and no vaccines. Within the next 3 years the amount of living republicans will decrease enough to have a democratic president and democratic government forever.

Light the blue touch paper wrote:

Rubbish. I am double vaxed, wear a mask at work and am currently holed up due to COVID.

If what I have had is "mild symptoms" due to the protection of he vaccine, I pity any of the poor fool anti-vaxers when they get it. The last 72 hours has been utter hell and my O2 levels got so low at one point I was on the verge of calling an ambulance.

So no pal, the estimates of the risk are not over-hyped; unlike your confidence in your own understanding of that risk. Perhaps, if you started deeply investigating issues before quoting a simple news article and mouthing off about politics you'd get on better in life and would look like less of an idiot

This is such a narcissistic take. Just because you were vaccinated and got sick doesn't mean if you weren't vaccinated it would have been even worse. My kids tested positive from Covid last year before the release of the vaccine and with missed one day of running and no symptoms. My wife and I didn't catch it from them. I got Covid a few months later from work (an essential worker) and had a mild symptoms and missed about a week running. Presumably my wife didn't catch it from me, was unvaccinated and got it a few months ago with mild symptoms.

Just because that was our experience I don't get my panties in a wad downplaying others' experiences. At some point we have to stop assuming that we know the motivations of people on both sides of this issue.

I was all for using Covid as a rationale for getting rid of Trump knowing full well that the right would then use it to try and get rid of Biden. To me it was a risk worth taking. But now it seems that was a risk not worth taking as we've created a political genie that we can't get back in the bottle.

Here are some takeaways from what I've seen in our current state of affairs concerning Covid.

- We know that liberals/conservatives vastly over/under state the risks of Covid. This isn't because they're idiots. It's because it's just the way their mind's work. This is why people, on both sides of the political spectrum, don't trust what we are hearing.

- Last year we where told that Natural Immunity only provides 90 days of immunity. Today my daughter was just sent home from school due to an exposure. Over a year later we were told that her positive test from Covid last year still only provided 90 days of immunity and she has to quarantine for 10 days. We all know, even Harambe, that Natural Immunity provides longer more durable immunity than 90 days and yet we're still as ignorant today about this as we were last year. This is why people, on both sides of the political spectrum, don't trust what we are hearing.

- We know that the vaccine does not prevent people from catching or spreading the virus yet there are many policy makers who still stick to that claim. This is why people, on both sides of the political spectrum, don't trust what we are hearing.

- We hear everyday about anecdotal cases of unvaccinated people contracting Covid, hospitalized or died, that wished they would have listened to our policy makers. We know that people have been injured; fallen ill or died, from the vaccine but haven't heard their stories. This is why people, on both sides of the political spectrum, don't trust what we are hearing.

- We know that doctors/medical researchers who don't toe the line on our current Covid policy can be sanctioned by their regulatory entities. This is why people, on both sides of the political spectrum, don't trust what we are hearing.

Skepticism is what drives science. We have to keep searching for answers or we won't get them. So far from what I can tell we are fighting this virus using only half our brain and most definitely not following the scientific method. Policy is driven by a poorly executed desire to modify behavior. We know that this is not working. Attempting to leverage moral high ground, shaming, mandating, ostracizing to get our diverse population to acquiesce is not working and, newsflash, it never will.

So we have to find another way. I appreciate LRC for allowing the Harambes and Uncles of LRC for pushing the edges of our search for answers but I abhor our policy makers efforts to control our skepticism.

Please do not compare me with Harambe in any aspect of what we do.

He pushes the establishment lies that I debunk.

In reality, I believe you have done more to advance the causes of vaccination, masking, and other establishment prescribed anti-Covid measures than anyone on this board. You are like a straight man, so transparently incorrect and misguided, you give reason to pages and pages of reasonable rebuttals, all of which refute your lies and misinformation,

Keep up the good work. Brother.

I have a sibling who was in better shape than just about anyone on this board and he has long COVID. He lost 35lbs that he did not have to loose, he can only sleep 3 - 4 hours a night at most, continuous tinnitus, gets 1-2 migraines a week, can’t run over 1 mile @ 10min pace without his heart rate spiking to 175BPM, developed cataracts (surgery tomorrow AM to correct)…he is active duty military and has no underlying issues but please by all means keep telling me how little risk there is.