COVID-19

[taxi1]

As nuanced as it may or may not be, you decline to directly address it’s premise and perspective over and over.

No, I've been clear. You pose it as a trade between lives and business activity. I pose it as a smart or not-smart response to the pandemic. There are too many other countries that have reduced both the body count and the impact to everyday life to assert that we had to play it out the way we have.

I get it. It's a cultural thing. Being required to wear masks or to get a vaccine runs deeply counter to a big element of the country. Got it.

Where I call bull#$% is when the opposition is rationalized by arguing that vaccines don't work anyway, or masks and other NPIs don't work anyway, etc. Lots of posts about how vaccinated are catching the virus too, ignoring the fact that ICUs are crammed full with the unvaccinated. Just plain wrong.

Better to just say we don't like being told what to do, and we accept the consequences of our choices. And since this is a contagion pandemic and not just a choice to not wear a bike helmet or to drink 5 Big Gulps per day, we accept the consequences imposed on the rest of the community by our choices.

 

[Python]

No, I've been clear. You pose it as a trade between lives and business activity. I pose it as a smart or not-smart response to the pandemic. There are too many other countries that have reduced both the body count and the impact to everyday life to assert that we had to play it out the way we have.

I get it. It's a cultural thing. Being required to wear masks or to get a vaccine runs deeply counter to a big element of the country. Got it.

Where I call bull#$% is when the opposition is rationalized by arguing that vaccines don't work anyway, or masks and other NPIs don't work anyway, etc. Lots of posts about how vaccinated are catching the virus too, ignoring the fact that ICUs are crammed full with the unvaccinated. Just plain wrong.

Better to just say we don't like being told what to do, and we accept the consequences of our choices. And since this is a contagion pandemic and not just a choice to not wear a bike helmet or to drink 5 Big Gulps per day, we accept the consequences imposed on the rest of the community by our choices.

I think the disconnect with you is two fold

1) you reduce it to just business activity. You not only dismiss, but you ignore the severe damage done to children by schools being closed, the increase in depression, suicide, domestic violence, divorce, in-flight altercations, and other major societal decay caused by the responses to the pandemic. Obviously the loss of business activity and people’s livelihoods, and the increase in poverty and hunger are severe, but you really do downplay of the other side of the “trade.”

2) you discount the fact that this virus simply isn’t scary. If you’re under 55 and don’t have commorbidities, this virus is nothing to fear except for the tiniest fractions of a percent. Hospitals being overrun on a national scale never came close to happening. Pretty much everybody that gets the disease gets over it. These are not reasons to cause all the damage in point 1 above. Protect the vulnerable. Let everyone else live their lives. The response to the pandemic wasn’t worth it for the sheer harmlessness of the virus in the aggregate. Show me a virus that severely threatens people of all ages and fitness levels on a regular basis, and I’ll show you somebody who is screaming for lockdowns, masks, vaccines, and curfews until it’s under control.

Points 1 and 2. That’s the disconnect.

edit: I’m not some lunatic. I am one of those that is pro vaccine and pro this vaccine. I can find middle ground. But let’s apply some common sense here.

 

[Treetop Flyer]

It's not totalitarianism to pass a public health policy bill to influence aggregate behavior, just like it's not totalitarianism to encourage people to buy homes by giving them tax writeoffs.

What bill are you referring to?

 

[Treetop Flyer]

I think the disconnect with you is two fold

1) you reduce it to just business activity. You not only dismiss, but you ignore the severe damage done to children by schools being closed, the increase in depression, suicide, domestic violence, divorce, in-flight altercations, and other major societal decay caused by the responses to the pandemic. Obviously the loss of business activity and people’s livelihoods, and the increase in poverty and hunger are severe, but you really do downplay of the other side of the “trade.”

2) you discount the fact that this virus simply isn’t scary. If you’re under 55 and don’t have commorbidities, this virus is nothing to fear except for the tiniest fractions of a percent. Hospitals being overrun on a national scale never came close to happening. Pretty much everybody that gets the disease gets over it. These are not reasons to cause all the damage in point 1 above. Protect the vulnerable. Let everyone else live their lives. The response to the pandemic wasn’t worth it for the sheer harmlessness of the virus in the aggregate. Show me a virus that severely threatens people of all ages and fitness levels on a regular basis, and I’ll show you somebody who is screaming for lockdowns, masks, vaccines, and curfews until it’s under control.

Points 1 and 2. That’s the disconnect.

edit: I’m not some lunatic. I am one of those that is pro vaccine and pro this vaccine. I can find middle ground. But let’s apply some common sense here.

You have to remember that for a certain subset of the population, covid has become a hobby/virtue signal to show how much they care and how enlightened they are. Taxi1 is a perfect example of this.

He’s doing the right thing in his mind because the restrictions never impacted him in a significant way. The damage to society, children, liberty, our way of life are irrelevant.

 

[taxi1]

1) you reduce it to just business activity.

I'm being terse, I get your point.

To my point, which you are dodging, there are too many other countries that haven't felt the impact that we have, in deaths or in the items you listed in your point (1), because they handled the pandemic differently.

Idaho is the lowest vaccinated state and their attitude towards the virus has been closest to what you argue. They've also been in a state of crisis care for a month. That is no coincidence.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that if the other states had followed Idaho's lead regarding vaccine rates and attitude, we'd be following their lead regarding hospitals in crisis. They've run the experiment for us.

 

[HAL Pilot]

There's been quite a few posts here where people have brushed off 720,000 dead as no big deal. I missed your calling them out.

A lot more than that have died protecting the same freedoms that you Coronobros and your ineffectual ridiculous mandates/restrictions are taking away.

 

[taxi1]

edit: I’m not some lunatic.

By the way, props to you for not arguing the vaccines don't work, etc.

 

[scoolbubba]

What bill are you referring to?

Oooo that's a bingo.

 

[Mirage]

No. You should probably read the post you quoted.

As for the various vices you posted:
-Smoking cigarettes is outlawed in most public indoor spaces.
-Bartenders can kick customers out if they are visibly drunk, and many are told not to serve any more drinks to them.
-There are many places with local ordinances against certain ingredients like trans fat. But with > 70% of the country overweight or obese, we're not doing a good enough job in this area wrt public health policy.
-Driving cars is legal, but you have to wear a seatbelt, you cannot text and drive, you have to pass a test to get a license, and you have to be insured.

You're not really doing a great job illustrating why COVID-19 vaccination requirements are some special thing that the government cannot mandate to reduce aggregate risk.

It's not totalitarianism to pass a public health policy bill to influence aggregate behavior, just like it's not totalitarianism to encourage people to buy homes by giving them tax writeoffs.

You're completely missing my point. You said that unvaccinated folks should not be able to receive medical care because your daughters health should come before theirs. Should your daughters health also come before a smoker with cancer, a driver who was in an accident, or an obese person with heart disease? Where is your line where folks can accept risk, experience the consequences, and still receive care?

And with respect to totalitarianism and govt regulations aimed squarely at protecting people from themselves, where's the line? All the laws you quoted are aimed at protecting other people, except for the seatbelt law, which imho is also a BS law. The only way the vax mandate would protect other people is if we mandate boosters every 3 months forever.

Edited to add one last thing. Comparing forcing people to inject something in their bodies to using tax write-offs to influence behavior is the most absurd comparison I've heard since the last time I read one of Brett's posts.

 

[Randy Daytona]

Happened to see this in Vanity Fair of all places.

In Major Shift, NIH Admits Funding Risky Virus Research in Wuhan
A spokesman for Dr. Fauci says he has been “entirely truthful,” but a new letter belatedly acknowledging the National Institutes of Health’s support for virus-enhancing research adds more heat to the ongoing debate over whether a lab leak could have sparked the pandemic.
BY KATHERINE EBAN
OCTOBER 22, 2021

In Major Shift, NIH Admits Funding Risky Virus Research in Wuhan

A spokesman for Dr. Fauci says he has been “entirely truthful,” but a new letter belatedly acknowledging the National Institutes of Health’s support for virus-enhancing research adds more heat to the ongoing debate over whether a lab leak could have sparked the pandemic.

www.vanityfair.com

 

[Python]

I'm being terse, I get your point.

To my point, which you are dodging, there are too many other countries that haven't felt the impact that we have, in deaths or in the items you listed in your point (1), because they handled the pandemic differently.

Idaho is the lowest vaccinated state and their attitude towards the virus has been closest to what you argue. They've also been in a state of crisis care for a month. That is no coincidence.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that if the other states had followed Idaho's lead regarding vaccine rates and attitude, we'd be following their lead regarding hospitals in crisis. They've run the experiment for us.

Care to give a response to point 2, particularly in the context of point 1? Noticed you dodged it completely. Looking for a specific response, not a one word brush over.

Point 2 is the explanation to how I’m not dodging your points.

 

[scoolbubba]

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that if the other states had followed Idaho's lead regarding vaccine rates and attitude, we'd be following their lead regarding hospitals in crisis. They've run the experiment for us.

What experiment was California running? Their rates of death/million are statistically similar to Idaho's.

 

[Flash]

With so many dead, it’s almost as if this virus was engineered to cause more harm. But we sure are told that isn’t the case - a bat and a pangolin had sex in a Wuhan wet market, way more plausible.

Sort of like the Black Death, the Spanish Flu smallpox and even rabies, all of them obviously genetically engineered to be as deadly as possible by the NIH, Wuhan Lab, Big Pharma, the Illuminati, Bill Gates, George Soros and Dr. Fauci.

 

[wink]

Sort of like the Black Death, the Spanish Flu smallpox and even rabies, all of them obviously genetically engineered to be as deadly as possible by the NIH, Wuhan Lab, Big Pharma, the Illuminati, Bill Gates, George Soros and Dr. Fauci.

Number of fatalities is hardly evidence of gain of function research. I suspect @Hair Warrior was being as facetious as you. Just wondering, only for clarity since we have no proof, are you still of the natural occurring camp or do you accept the probability of a lab creation?

 

[SlickAg]

I think the disconnect with you is two fold

1) you reduce it to just business activity. You not only dismiss, but you ignore the severe damage done to children by schools being closed, the increase in depression, suicide, domestic violence, divorce, in-flight altercations, and other major societal decay caused by the responses to the pandemic. Obviously the loss of business activity and people’s livelihoods, and the increase in poverty and hunger are severe, but you really do downplay of the other side of the “trade.”

2) you discount the fact that this virus simply isn’t scary. If you’re under 55 and don’t have commorbidities, this virus is nothing to fear except for the tiniest fractions of a percent. Hospitals being overrun on a national scale never came close to happening. Pretty much everybody that gets the disease gets over it. These are not reasons to cause all the damage in point 1 above. Protect the vulnerable. Let everyone else live their lives. The response to the pandemic wasn’t worth it for the sheer harmlessness of the virus in the aggregate. Show me a virus that severely threatens people of all ages and fitness levels on a regular basis, and I’ll show you somebody who is screaming for lockdowns, masks, vaccines, and curfews until it’s under control.

Points 1 and 2. That’s the disconnect.

edit: I’m not some lunatic. I am one of those that is pro vaccine and pro this vaccine. I can find middle ground. But let’s apply some common sense here.

I think you’ll get a kick out of this letter to the editor, as it drives home one of the points you mentioned above.

I can’t fathom how people still live like this.

Dear Care and Feeding: How Do I Get Over My Daughter’s Severe Lapse in Judgment?

slate.com