Coronavirus COVID-19

[dingformung]

9 minutes ago, drome said:

You sound like a facist.

You are making fascists seem pretty harmless.

[zkom]

I've had quite a few vaccinations. Can't even remember them all. Around 10 maybe? All other went without side effects but yellow fever vax gave me 4 days of fever reaching 40C (104F), but I'd still rather have the vax than risk getting the yellow fever.

When I was getting the yellow fever vax the doctor also considered giving me the cholera vax but then decided that it's probably not necessary. When I found myself in a country going through a cholera epidemic I started to regret that I didn't get that one also. Finally I got the hell out of there because they started to consider closing down the borders.

[Limo]

25 minutes ago, drome said:

You sound like a facist.

Thank you. This is a first for me.

It’s probably deserved, too. My patience with and understanding for anti vaxxers and other conspiracy nuts such as yourself has completely evaporated away over the past year and I sincerely hope we can come up with a way to take away their ability to spread their misinformation and lies.

[dcom]

I'll reiterate.

People who oppose vaccinations do so mostly because they lack even the most basic knowledge of how science works; due to their lack of knowledge they are unable to evaluate said knowledge, leading to overestimation when self-evaluating their knowledge on the subject, and a lot of times this leads to illusory superiority - they think their knowledge is unsurpassed because they've read things that they falsely believe to be true (because they don't know enough to differentiate between valid and invalid information) and can regurgitate them at will (or link to them and tell everyone to do their own research - like the stereotypical vegan they'll never miss an opportunity to cause acute facepalming by letting everyone know). This is the gist of the Dunning-Kruger effect, and anti-vaxxers are the textbook example.

Each day way, WAY more people die from adverse effects from over-the-counter pharmaceuticals (deemed safe decades ago and used by millions of people daily) compared to people getting side-effects, let alone dying from COVID-19 vaccinations. Globally, two million people have died from COVID-19, more than 17,5 % (that's 350,000 human beings) of them in the US alone; globally, over 17 million people have already been vaccinated, and statistically speaking the adverse (side-)effects and/or deaths are not even a blip on the radar - understanding that will require a basic grasp of statistics, which is mostly - alas - too much to ask from a lot of people.

Edited January 8, 2021 by dcom

[Extralife]

9 minutes ago, dcom said:

understanding that will require a basic grasp of statistics, which is a lot of the time - alas - too much to ask from a lot of people.

This might be the thing that irritates me most about many of my American peers.

[Limo]

38 minutes ago, Extralife said:

This might be the thing that irritates me most about many of my peers.

FTFY.

This is fine, btw. But if you don’t understand something, you should listen to the people who do.

You shouldn’t get a platform where you can broadcast your ignorance to millions of people.

[EdamAnchorman]

1 hour ago, rhmilo said:

But if you don’t understand something, you should listen to the people who do.

You shouldn’t get a platform where you can broadcast your ignorance to millions of people.

We have a problem with this in America with the widespread exceptionalism and entitlement that has been bred into my generation (born 1981) and younger.  We were raised to think we're #1 and special and never wrong.

[chenGOD]

23 minutes ago, randomsummer said:

We have a problem with this in America with the widespread exceptionalism and entitlement that has been bred into my generation (born 1981) and younger.  We were raised to think we're #1 and special and never wrong.

You're not wrong there.

[zero]

@bupkis my take regarding the hostility you received is that you posted that FB stuff without offering any sort of explanation as to why you were posting it. it is unsubstantiated heresay that implies the vaccine killed that guy, when no one knows for sure that is the case. I can see why someone would conclude that you were posting this to somehow warn us about the dangers of the vaccine, when in fact you followed up and clarified this is not what you intended. maybe next time a 1 or 2 liner commenting on a link you post may be good to clarify your intentions? it can even be filled with cynicism/sarcasm/snark, as that is the watmm way...

@rhmilo maybe would've been better to ask him to clarify first before launching into attack mode? I'm with you that anyone doubting the validity of the vaccine is not at all helping the current crisis, but it seems he wasn't intending to promote this line of thought. it wasn't totally obvious to me either at first why he posted that, but I get it now after he posted a follow up. 

[brian trageskin]

[dcom]

4 minutes ago, brian trageskin said:

You have captured my essence, even guessed right that I have glasses and partiality towards bowties. What an honour.

Edited January 8, 2021 by dcom

[Limo]

34 minutes ago, zero said:

maybe would've been better to ask him to clarify first before launching into attack mode?

Nope. He had already posted that god awful NY Mag article (the one that barfed up a whole bunch of irrelevant “gee isn’t it a coincidence” garbage to suggest COVID-19 is man made and virus research labs spread death and disease. So he’d made his position absolutely clear even before he posted crap off Facebook - and then following it up with all sorts of disingenuous “other sources” and “just asking questions” nonsense.

[Braintree]

4 hours ago, dcom said:

I'll reiterate.

People who oppose vaccinations do so mostly because they lack even the most basic knowledge of how science works; due to their lack of knowledge they are unable to evaluate said knowledge, leading to overestimation when self-evaluating their knowledge on the subject, and a lot of times this leads to illusory superiority - they think their knowledge is unsurpassed because they've read things that they falsely believe to be true (because they don't know enough to differentiate between valid and invalid information) and can regurgitate them at will (or link to them and tell everyone to do their own research - like the stereotypical vegan they'll never miss an opportunity to cause acute facepalming by letting everyone know).

For future reference, this is exactly where I stopped reading what you had to say. Just take that critique and put it in your pocket.

[zero]

10 minutes ago, rhmilo said:

Nope. He had already posted that god awful NY Mag article (the one that barfed up a whole bunch of irrelevant “gee isn’t it a coincidence” garbage to suggest COVID-19 is man made and virus research labs spread death and disease. So he’d made his position absolutely clear even before he posted crap off Facebook - and then following it up with all sorts of disingenuous “other sources” and “just asking questions” nonsense.

ok fair enough. I hadn't really been following, nor read, what he had posted previously, and didn't realize there was a trend here.

indeed, anyone promoting false flag conspiracy type stuff that may hinder us all to get past this pandemic, should be prepared to take on opposition and criticism.

[dcom]

22 minutes ago, Braintree said:

For future reference, this is exactly where I stopped reading what you had to say. Just take that critique and put it in your pocket.

I'm painfully aware that my attempts at humour often miss their mark, thank you.

Edited January 8, 2021 by dcom

[Braintree]

21 minutes ago, zero said:

39 minutes ago, rhmilo said:

Nope. He had already posted that god awful NY Mag article (the one that barfed up a whole bunch of irrelevant “gee isn’t it a coincidence” garbage to suggest COVID-19 is man made and virus research labs spread death and disease. So he’d made his position absolutely clear even before he posted crap off Facebook - and then following it up with all sorts of disingenuous “other sources” and “just asking questions” nonsense.

ok fair enough. I hadn't really been following, nor read, what he had posted previously, and didn't realize there was a trend here.

indeed, anyone promoting false flag conspiracy type stuff that may hinder us all to get past this pandemic, should be prepared to take on opposition and criticism.

The thread has been pretty rife with that "is it or isn't it??? i don no u make up ur own mind" stuff which is why I asked them directly.

[Cryptowen]

Quote

we're totally going to end the lockdown on January 11th you guys

i know we've pushed it back three times already but we're serious this time

Quote

lol wait actually we're extending it again & implementing a curfew

it's times like these when i feel like i need to turn to a great work of art to properly express my feelings

Spoiler

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KeoAMwNfdHc

 

[zero]

another article highlighting the fact that healthcare workers here in the US are sadly refusing to take the vaccine:

https://apnews.com/article/coronavirus-vaccine-health-workers-676e03a99badfd5ce3a6cfafe383f6af

Quote

Medical journals have published extensive data on the vaccines, and the Food and Drug Administration has made its analysis public. But misinformation about the shots has spread wildly online, including falsehoods that they cause fertility problems.

my own sister is a nurse, was offered the vaccine already, and refused it. when I asked her why, her response more or less matched some of what is said in the above article - wait until more have had it first, and then get it in a few months time. she is definitely not a pro-trumper, not anti-vaxxer, and not on social media. I just don't fucking get it...

[danshoebridge]

It's funny because in my hospital in Oxford, UK everyone seems super keen. Huge backlog of staff trying to get it, I think my turn is up next week.

As with any widespread health intervention in the millions, there will be people with adverse effects. Aside from a significant number of people getting flu-jab type fevers there will be a smaller but not zero number of people with more serious side effects and statistically some people will die. It's entirely possible the guy in the FB article died as a result of the jab, immune thrombocytopenia is an identified (extremely rare) side effect of this type of vaccine...or it could have been something unrelated.

In the end its all playing the numbers, here in the UK 1,000+ people are dying of Covid every day and all the local hospitals here are approaching around 50% of ALL beds now taken up by Covid patients (with a huge knock on for people getting treatment for anything else). Options at this point are either endless lockdown, widespread vaccination, or mortality / morbidity from Covid a huge order of magnitude worse than even the most extreme antivaxx scenarios.

[Guest]

12 hours ago, rhmilo said:

one of the tens of thousands (maybe hundreds of thousands) of people who were vaccinated had some sort of medical issue sometime after the injection. Well d’uh.

I’m willing to bet there’s also a couple of dozen people who sprained their ankle in the weeks after being vaccinated. So what?

Either you really don’t understand this, in which case you are too uninformed to be posting anything about the vaccine in the first place, or you do, in which case you’re trolling and fear mongering. Either way you should piss off. There is tons of solid, dependable information on this vaccine (that has been a decade in the making, btw) out there and it really is very, very easy to find.

@rhmilo I am definitely open to the possibility and even likelihood that this mans death was not linked to the vaccine. However I disagree with your analogy about a sprained ankle. His wife said he was healthy and he was hospitalized three days after taking the vaccination and developed a rare condition that lead to his stroke and death. Saying that this is in the same ballpark as spraining an ankle seems like it is misleading to me. I think that you and others make interesting points about how important statistical context is. But if this guys death is linked to the vaccine it still seems significant. It is a treatment that is intended to prevent respiratory illness and I feel like even one death is unacceptable. And no one has commented on that intercept article about how legislation was passed in april in America so that pharma companies do not have to pay damages if people have severe medical issues from being vaccinated.

7 hours ago, rhmilo said:

 So he’d made his position absolutely clear even before he posted crap off Facebook

My previous two posts are the only ones where I take a position. Literally in all of the other ones I link and describe a source and this is not the same thing as taking a position. I did this on purpose. The whole reason why I have become interested in the coronavirus and the policies that were put into place to combat it has to do with some of the unintended consequences of these policies. There was a significant spike in drug overdoses in America from may 2019 to may 2020 and three of those months were lockdown months.

https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2020/p1218-overdose-deaths-covid-19.html

Quote

Over 81,000 drug overdose deaths occurred in the United States in the 12 months ending in May 2020, the highest number of overdose deaths ever recorded in a 12-month period, according to recent provisional data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

While overdose deaths were already increasing in the months preceding the 2019 novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, the latest numbers suggest an acceleration of overdose deaths during the pandemic.

“The disruption to daily life due to the COVID-19 pandemic has hit those with substance use disorder hard,” said CDC Director Robert Redfield, M.D. “As we continue the fight to end this pandemic, it’s important to not lose sight of different groups being affected in other ways. We need to take care of people suffering from unintended consequences.”

Synthetic opioids (primarily illicitly manufactured fentanyl) appear to be the primary driver of the increases in overdose deaths, increasing 38.4 percent from the 12-month period leading up to June 2019 compared with the 12-month period leading up to May 2020. During this time period:

I realize that questioning lockdowns is not the most popular opinion but they clearly did a significant amount of damage. I am worried that these lockdowns were a death sentence to people who suffer from mental illness and addiction. Over the past few weeks I have read this entire thread and the user @drome was the only user who actually questioned the lockdowns in relationship with mental health. This user asked a basic question in a way that seems to me to not have been antagonistic at all and after that I read a bunch of posts that were mocking this user for being a trump supporter. This is why I was careful not to make my position clear to try and broaden the discussion. I do not intend to promote false flag conspiracies. By the way mental illness and addiction are not the only thing that were made worse by the lockdowns. It will probably take many many years to fully understand the consequences of the lockdowns but I feel reasonably sure that the negative effects were probably close to zero for people who have wealth and the people who only have income or government support or are homeless got the worst of it.

7 hours ago, zero said:

indeed, anyone promoting false flag conspiracy type stuff that may hinder us all to get past this pandemic, should be prepared to take on opposition and criticism.

I am open to having my mind changed and welcome criticism but that is something different then calling someone a nut and telling them to piss off that they are ignorant and saying that they should stop posting here I do not believe that I have broken any rules of this forum

[Hugh Mughnus]

One of my staff I’m in close contact with daily just tested positive. So far he’s doing well, no real symptoms afaik. Wondering if I’ve got it though. 

[ignatius]

1 hour ago, Hugh Mughnus said:

One of my staff I’m in close contact with daily just tested positive. So far he’s doing well, no real symptoms afaik. Wondering if I’ve got it though. 

wait a few days then get tested. i think they say wait 5 days at least. some people don't show symptoms for up to 10 days

[Hugh Mughnus]

9 minutes ago, ignatius said:

wait a few days then get tested. i think they say wait 5 days at least. some people don't show symptoms for up to 10 days

For sure - so far me and my gf have no symptoms and I wouldn’t expect any for a while. I’m worried but there’s not much I can do right? We have very intensive sanitizing and other measures for covid at work so I’m probably ok... 

[may be rude]

1 hour ago, Hugh Mughnus said:

I’m worried but there’s not much I can do right? We have very intensive sanitizing and other measures for covid at work so I’m probably ok... 

you're probably ok. but i think you mentioned previously some concern about your vulnerability so i will say that vitamin c and d could help, if you were to have contracted it. there's a correlation between vitamin d deficiency and severe symptoms of covid. vitamin c gives you the general immune boost, which can help your system tamp down on it. also zinc. 

Edited January 9, 2021 by very honest

[Hugh Mughnus]

19 minutes ago, very honest said:

you're probably ok. but i think you mentioned previously some concern about your vulnerability so i will say that vitamin c and d could help, if you were to have contracted it. there's a correlation between vitamin d deficiency and severe symptoms of covid. vitamin c gives you the general immune boost, which can help your system tamp down on it. also zinc. 

Thank you - actually I didn’t think of getting a head start on potential infection with some vitamins. I’m definitely vitamin d deficient so I should start on that at least. I’ve got some vitamin c/zinc gummies here too. Fingers crossed I don’t need any of that tbh but just in case I think I’ll start a bit of a regimen.