COVID-19 Rant

[Trevor]

The lady who lost her husband is now in the hospital with COVID pneumonia in both lungs.
And our coach's wife died from it this morning.

I made a post on FB lamenting about how many friends I've buried this year, and simply begged people to get the shot.
And of course the anti-vaxxers and the ivermectin champions have taken over the comments.

I truly hate what America has become these days.

That's very sad to read 

I made another booking (my fourth attempt at getting a jab) for the 20th September: I'm home 90% of the time so I guess I should be OK.

There are rumblings from our government that shots will soon be made mandatory and several companies like the Discovery insurance company have already started with making getting vaccinated the rule, i.e. no jab, no job.

[bob]

masks have now been re-required to wear in my town by law

of course, places aren't going to kick out those who aren't complying with the law -- just as they did before masks were mandatory


all this is making me more nervous about going back to work

[A_Dubya]

When these anti vaccine people keep dying from COVID related reasons, how does it not sway the herd to think that "hey, maybe they're wrong about not taking the recommended precautions!?!"

[zelmo73]

When these anti vaccine people keep dying from COVID related reasons, how does it not sway the herd to think that "hey, maybe they're wrong about not taking the recommended precautions!?!"

Perhaps because the "herd" is smarter than you think and can recognize propaganda when they see it?

CNN tried various ways of rubbing in the 200,000 figure. Their best effort was an infographic blaring, "US COVID-19 deaths are equal to having the 9/11 attacks every day for 66 days."

Here's a less biased, but less catchy, comparison: 2020's attributed COVID-19 deaths were equivalent to having another 2017-2018 flu and pneumonia season boosted by 13 percent.

The CDC estimated that about 177,000 Americans died during the 2017-2018 flu season, from either the flu itself or by complications of pneumonia. (The CDC never made a public announcement about this number, but you can count it yourself from data on its site, as I did in the chart below.) That was a bad year, noted at the time, but mostly by medical professionals. Those with good memories will recall seeing more "Wash Your Hands" and "Cough Into Your Elbows" posters.

Still, nobody remembers a panic. Just as nobody remembers mask mandates or political leaders shutting down small businesses and locking the healthy in their homes. Because, of course, none of that happened.

https://nypost.com/2020/10/17/how-the-media-is-misreporting-covid-19s-death-toll-in-america/

[Alex]

I wonder how much higher the death toll would have been had they not shut down.

Guess we'll never know the true figure but thanks for letting us know that through the hard work, the increase in fatalities was kept down to 13%.

[Rev. Powell]

It's funny how the NY Post columnist (Briggs) accuses CNN of cherry-picking metaphors to exaggerate the pandemic, but doesn't acknowledge the irony of picking a comparison he carefully fashioned to minimize the pandemic. It's hard to argue 200,000 lives lost are no big deal, nothing to concern ourselves with, but he apparently enjoys the challenge.

Alex makes a good point. The Covid death numbers would have gone much higher if we hadn't taken precautions. You can't honestly compare no-precaution flu deaths to strong-precaution Covid deaths.

Also, Briggs' totally-less-biased statistic compares all of the particularly deadly 2017-2018 flu season to Covid deaths from Jan 1, 2020 to October 17, 2020. Now, almost a year later, Covid deaths are up to 648,000. If we generously assumed that terrible 2017-18 flu season had continued for a hypothetical second season and killed an additional 177K people in 2021, we'd be comparing 354K flu deaths to 648K, and it would be 83% worse. It all depends on how you frame the numbers, which Briggs knows well.

Flu is seasonal: it disappears every year and comes back later. Covid kills people year-round and won't go away (because we can't get enough damn people vaccinated).

Weak effort from a statistician who thinks he's entitled to propagandize because he caught "the other side" propagandizing. I'm not surprised to learn that his co-authors, Jay W. Richards and Douglas Axe, are advocates of intelligent design (i.e., evolution deniers). They should stay in their crazy lane.

I don't care what the media says, I only care what the doctors say.

[claws]

Encyclopedia of American Loons

Love it 

[Rev. Powell]

Just got a text from a friend saying she had to cancel our plans next week so she can attend the funeral of her anti-vaxxer uncle in Cincinnati who just died of... you know what.

[Alex]

It has been working through my younger brother's family. It started with his son and they'd all to isolate. His wife caught it 9 days ago and he has had to stay in one room in the house thanks to his compromised immune system (he had a kidney transplant in his 20's). Today he found out he has it now, so feeling rather worried about him. Fortunately he was at least able to get the vaccine so we are hopeful he'll be fine.

[RCMerchant]

^ I hope you folks come through all this ok.

[bob]

When these anti vaccine people keep dying from COVID related reasons, how does it not sway the herd to think that "hey, maybe they're wrong about not taking the recommended precautions!?!"

Perhaps because the "herd" is smarter than you think and can recognize propaganda when they see it?

CNN tried various ways of rubbing in the 200,000 figure. Their best effort was an infographic blaring, "US COVID-19 deaths are equal to having the 9/11 attacks every day for 66 days."

Here's a less biased, but less catchy, comparison: 2020's attributed COVID-19 deaths were equivalent to having another 2017-2018 flu and pneumonia season boosted by 13 percent.

The CDC estimated that about 177,000 Americans died during the 2017-2018 flu season, from either the flu itself or by complications of pneumonia. (The CDC never made a public announcement about this number, but you can count it yourself from data on its site, as I did in the chart below.) That was a bad year, noted at the time, but mostly by medical professionals. Those with good memories will recall seeing more "Wash Your Hands" and "Cough Into Your Elbows" posters.

Still, nobody remembers a panic. Just as nobody remembers mask mandates or political leaders shutting down small businesses and locking the healthy in their homes. Because, of course, none of that happened.

https://nypost.com/2020/10/17/how-the-media-is-misreporting-covid-19s-death-toll-in-america/

[pennywise37]

i watched a video on you tube tonight where this redneck was going off on how stupid people are for taking the horse meds. honestly by the title he used i was expecting him to for it but i was thankfully wrong and he actually had me laughing on how he was telling people how stupid they are.  we gotta have some laughs if we can these days it doesn't happen that often sadly

[bob]

masks have now been re-required to wear in my town by law

of course, places aren't going to kick out those who aren't complying with the law -- just as they did before masks were mandatory


all this is making me more nervous about going back to work

I'm getting some work done on my vehicle currently

the only people wearing a mask are me and someone else who is in the waiting room

[Alex]

Ever coughed in a room filled with unmasked people? You get some interesting reactions.

[pennywise37]

i had a response on how many booster shows are we gonna have to get 20? i said well maybe we will if dumb f... are gonna refuse to get the vaccine i said and you forget we already did have a pandemic before when they said something on how we will have another one. i said the last one we had was in (1918)  so yes we've had one before and we no doubt will have another one in 100 years or so. i also said what about the flu shots? you've no doubt had over 20 of those i'm sure i have as well in fact i'm prolly due to have one this year as well

guys what is the difference between getting those once a year and getting a shot for a vaccine to stay alive? one can't kill you if you don't take it is what i think and one can if you don't or rather the virus can kill you if you don't get it is just what i mean

did you guys see this? https://news.yahoo.com/arizona-father-stormed-school-zip-132940911.html?fr=sycsrp_catchall
isn't it F... up?