COVID-19 Rant

[Alex]

Honestly, I am not surprised by his reactions to everything going on. It is really what I'd expect from a man (and I use the term loosely here) with his background.

[pennywise37]

on the news they pretty much said they can't figure out how if it's going up or down or what the cause of it is? uh my only thing i got to say is uh you morons it's the fxng  stupid moronic idiotic people who refuse to wear face masks and than there's the riots as well that's the cause right there you moron. but sadly they didn't hear me when i screamed it at the tv

[Alex]

I was reading an interesting article about how wither you wear masks and follow social distancing in the US very much breaks down along voter lines, with people who support trump being far less likely to follow them. I would find it highly ironic if things roll on until the US election if he were to lose it because his supporters were too ill to get up and vote and couldn't do postal votes either.

[pennywise37]

i was just talking to a friend of mine who Supports him and the reason he does is he says Trump stood up for the truck drivers cause that's what he is, i've known this guy for 29 years. and i said to myself i really doubt he did any of that but i kept quiet, now i dunno if i'm right or wrong, but i have a hard time believing Trump caring about anyone but himself.

he also was saying that a friend of his died in a motorcycle accident some months back and that they listed him as having Covid-19 and there was this guy who was 99 years old who they also said that about even though neither had the virus just so the hospitals can get more money. i dunno if any of this is true but i haven't heard that has anyone?

i didn't get further into it on why i don't like him cause it's not worth it and he decided to change subjects really quickly and so i did. he did say that he didn't like Biden and i said i don't like him either i don't like either of them i said i dunno who would be a better choice but neither of them are a good choice.

[Alex]

I don't know enough about Biden to comment on him or his fitness for office, although I'd be tempted to say if trump doesn't like him then he can't be all that bad. On a serious note, when it comes to elections I normally look at the party manifestos and how they compare to what each party traditionally stands for, then work out what the likely policies they will enact would mean for me and mine. Since you never really know what election promises will be kept and which ones will be conveniently forgotten it is still a bit of a crap shoot. All you can do it tilt the odds a bit in your favour with some research, or do as most people do and vote for a single party their whole lives without ever really understanding why.

[lester1/2jr]

kind of moot after weeks of protests with hundreds of thousands of people in the streets though

[Jim H]

I was reading an interesting article about how wither you wear masks and follow social distancing in the US very much breaks down along voter lines, with people who support trump being far less likely to follow them. I would find it highly ironic if things roll on until the US election if he were to lose it because his supporters were too ill to get up and vote and couldn't do postal votes either.

The adherence is quite a bit higher among Democrats, but something like 80% of Americans are doing social distancing to varying extents and like 75% wear masks at least part of the time.  So really a lot of people in both parties are doing it.

[pennywise37]

but not enough though cause we are getting more cases every day now i dunno about here in ohio not yet anyways,  but having these idiots go  to church sure ain't helping either, now i'm not saying everyone who goes to church is an idiot not at all, only the ones who are going during a pandemic. the smart ones are doing it online and at home.

we don't have a curfew where i live but than i live in BFE and not in a city. so i am lucky that way & there's no protesting here at all and again i'm lucky that way too

[Alex]

People had been complaining that the regional newspaper had stopped printing the numbers of new cases in this area, but was still covering the numbers in other places. It was then pointed out to the complainers that the reason for this was because their hadn't been any new cases around here.

[pennywise37]

that's a good thing i think. i dunno how many there have been around here where i live as far as i know it's not that many

[pacman000]

Blitz testing isn't the answer. Random sampling is — and this is how to do it: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/blitz-testing-isn-t-the-answer-random-sampling-is-and-this-is-how-to-do-it/ar-BB15Fk7b?ocid=msedgntp

[pennywise37]

there was a video that i was watching i think it was it was maybe seth meyer last night? i forget which one that really p**sed me off and it had some old bag and i don't all old women old bag's but when someone p**ses me off like this woman did i call them that, actually i have quite a few other names to call her as well. anyways she was wearing of course a trump shirt and a make america worse again hat as i like to call it. 

and she was i think at Congress saying how she's got rights blah blah blah and so forth on how she shouldn't be forced to wear a mask etc... ya know look it up i don't remember it all but here's the thing what is so bad in wearing a mask? i hate going wearing them too but if i end up getting and are stupid enough to go out or i  don't know i have it i could give it to someone else. why are people acting like 5 year olds and refusing to wear one? here's the thing if you want to survive and not get it just wear one, but if you can't if it's medical think of someway to do safety make some kind of cover to protect yourself.

or look for an alternative online they prolly sell something somewhere i'm guessing. but take precautions. i always hated those damn hats of make america great again it sucks now cause of who's president and yet none of those morons realize how far he's tanked this country. if they want to make it great again get another president that is an actual leader and who will follow the actual law. and who isn't a con man trying to con people and who actually cares weather people live or dies.

[Alex]

Despite a global death toll of nearly 450,000 and most of the planet shutting down for months, 7% of Britons do not believe there is any evidence coronavirus actually exists.

The finding, based on surveys of 2,254 UK residents aged between 16 and 75 carried out by King's College London and Ipsos Mori, was part of a wider study on conspiracy theories surrounding Covid-19.

It found that 30% of Britons believe coronavirus was created in a laboratory, while the same figure believe the actual death toll is being reduced or hidden by authorities.

Thirteen per cent said the pandemic was part of a global effort to force people to get vaccinated, while 28% believe most people in the UK have had coronavirus without realising it.

The study also found that people who rely on social media for information about coronavirus are more likely to believe conspiracy theories and breach lockdown rules.

More than one in 20 (8%) think the symptoms that most individuals blame on Covid-19 appear to be connected to 5G network radiation – a false conspiracy that is thought to have motivated a number of mobile mast attacks across the country during lockdown.

Of those who believe this theory, 60% said they get their information from YouTube, compared with 14% who think that it is false.

On Facebook, the number stands at 54% among believers, versus 20% of non-believers.

Among those who believe there is no hard evidence that the virus exists, 56% use Facebook as their key information source, almost three times higher than the proportion of people who do not believe such a thing (20%).

The findings also suggest a link between those who have broken lockdown rules and use social media for details about coronavirus as well.

Three in 10 people who wrongly believe that 5G is causing Covid-19 symptoms have gone outside despite suspecting they may have the virus, compared with just 4% among those who reject this belief.

People who admitted going outside with possible symptoms are more than three times as likely as those who have not to get a fair amount or great deal of their information about the virus from YouTube.

Meanwhile, 55% of Facebook-reliant users said they took the risk, compared with 21% who did not.

The results indicate a similar trend among those having friends or family over during lockdown, as well as failing to stick with two-metre distancing rules.

Professor Bobby Duffy, director of the Policy Institute at King's College London, said: "These sort of associations cannot prove that misinformation on social media platforms causes belief in conspiracies, lower trust and a greater likelihood of breaking the rules, but they point to a toxic mix between underlying beliefs and misleading information that can have real effects on how people behave, even during a pandemic."

A YouTube spokeswoman said they were "committed to providing timely and helpful information about Covid-19" and "quickly remove videos violating" their policies.

Facebook said they had removed hundreds of thousands of Covid-19-related pieces of misinformation "that could lead to imminent harm".

[zombie no.one]

"People who admitted going outside with possible symptoms are more than three times as likely as those who have not to get a fair amount or great deal of their information about the virus from YouTube."

 "People who admitted"...."more than"... "likely"... "fair amount or great deal"

this could just be the vaguest statistic I think I've ever read, lol

edit - I even missed "possible"...wow.

I suppose you can't help being a bit vague about a virus whose symptoms range from 'absolutely nothing', to 'death'

and apparently it now seems to have acquired a sense of racism and is affecting black people more than whites... really great timing there!

[Alex]

I am curious as to what the reasons for it affecting some groups more than others. Is it just that in some way, something in their genetic make-up makes them more vulnerable to it, or are they simply more likely to suffer more because a higher percentage come from deprived backgrounds. Doubtless, someone, somewhere will come up with a conspiracy theory that it has been engineered to target such parts of the population.

I wonder what the real death toll of this pandemic really is? Since not everyone who dies will be tested, it will be impossible to gauge. The closest way I think we will have is to look at the expected, normal death rate and cross-reference against what we are really having, but that also will have errors in it. You will, for example, have people who would have lived had medical services been available, but as they have been busy dealing with other matters. Japan has had as an example a 0.3% increase in deaths over what would be expected, while Ecuador has had a 108% increase. Interestingly Serbia reports a 5% decrease in deaths at this time.