Wuhan Coronavirus: Megathread - Got too big

[UntimelyDhelmise]

Can someone tell me why intelligent people like using case numbers as proof of anything?
My understanding is that there's different methodology to case numbers in different states/countries, so already you can't compare apples to apples. Secondly, that tests are prone to false positives and false negatives, diluting the usefulness of case numbers even more. And lastly most people are asymptomatic so you're more likely to be tested if you are very sick, which makes the case fatality rate look higher than it is.

Am I wrong about any of this? Gotten into so many arguments and not one person has had any argument except to repeat the case fatality rate like its gospel. I genuinely want to hear why I am wrong, I feel like I'm going crazy.

Decades of a rotting education system that tells people to just believe what the higher-ups tell them, never question anything and always give in to their fears for starters...

 

[HTTP Error 404]

Early on in the Chinese Flu thing, I mentioned to a friend who has minor TDS that I didn't want to wear a mask, because in part "It's not my responsibility to keep other people safe in public" and "you can't have a reasonable expectation of going outside and having 0 chance of catching a cold."

He is STILL, to this DAY, freaking out on me about that. The idea of me not taking responsibility for other people's safety was unthinkable to him.

The other friend who has MAJOR TDS hasn't talked about COVID... he's too busy dropping hints that if Biden wins, he's going to join some uprising and I'm on his short list of people to kill for betraying the party. (With nothing more than someone telling him I'm a Trump supporter, despite being a Democrat for decades, he's convinced himself that I'm some sort of white nationalist neo-nazi who wants to go out and march for the 9th Reich. It's been amazing to watch. Even the minorTDS friend is getting weirded out from majorTDS friend.)


My take on all this is that none of these "leaders" want to be the one who takes the risk and opens things back up. Be it the elected leaders, the un-elected goons, or the businessmen. So they want some form of cover, be it a vaccine or whatnot, that will give them a shield to hide behind.

They want the science-priests to declare the pandemic over, that there is no more risk and thus no one can blame them if anyone ever dies again. They're not going to let us out of lockdown until the science-priests announce a cure for death, or we forcibly drag them out of their positions of power.

And that's dismissing the idea that some of these people are intentionally sabotaging the US economy as part of some sort of Marxist Insurrection / plot to harm Trump's reelection chances. Which I absolutely believe is part of the thinking behind all this.

 

[Kiwi Lime Pie]

So in the last few weeks, I've been seeing a lot more of our more elderly customers in the store. And boy, they've been happy to see me, like to the point of saying they don't care about COVID, they just want someone to hug them (old women seem to be oddly fond of hugging grocery store workers; I don't really get it, but I've learned to just go along with it). A lot of them are pretty much at the point of the "this last 4-5 months have been miserable and I'm gonna live my life my way" kinda attitude.

Do any of them come at different times, or have they largely reverted back to their usual days/times for shopping? Here, some seniors discovered that certain days of the week have fewer people in the stores and have adjusted their schedule accordingly. For example, someone I know discovered their preferred store is much less crowded on Tuesday mornings and have made that their new day for shopping trips.

Regardless, I'm not surprised. Senior citizens tend to be a rather lonely age group and have a strong desire to interact with others if there's nobody to interact with at home.

I'm not sure where I saw it now to try to find a link to it, but someone was questioning the uptick in mental health issues in younger individuals. As others have said throughout this thread, humans are generally social creatures and restricting them from in-person interaction for months at a time is simply unhealthy. @I can't imagine's story about senior grocery shoppers is a prime example of that.

Can someone tell me why intelligent people like using case numbers as proof of anything?

It's likely a combination of:

• The lack of critical thinking or analytical skills, and
• The simplistic belief that a higher number of total cases has to be a bad thing in and of itself.

And, yes, there are intelligent people that unfortunately lack the ability to think critically or understand simple concepts such as rates of change over time.

 

[Evilronald]

Early on in the Chinese Flu thing, I mentioned to a friend who has minor TDS that I didn't want to wear a mask, because in part "It's not my responsibility to keep other people safe in public" and "you can't have a reasonable expectation of going outside and having 0 chance of catching a cold."

He is STILL, to this DAY, freaking out on me about that. The idea of me not taking responsibility for other people's safety was unthinkable to him.

The other friend who has MAJOR TDS hasn't talked about COVID... he's too busy dropping hints that if Biden wins, he's going to join some uprising and I'm on his short list of people to kill for betraying the party. (With nothing more than someone telling him I'm a Trump supporter, despite being a Democrat for decades, he's convinced himself that I'm some sort of white nationalist neo-nazi who wants to go out and march for the 9th Reich. It's been amazing to watch. Even the minorTDS friend is getting weirded out from majorTDS friend.)


My take on all this is that none of these "leaders" want to be the one who takes the risk and opens things back up. Be it the elected leaders, the un-elected goons, or the businessmen. So they want some form of cover, be it a vaccine or whatnot, that will give them a shield to hide behind.

They want the science-priests to declare the pandemic over, that there is no more risk and thus no one can blame them if anyone ever dies again. They're not going to let us out of lockdown until the science-priests announce a cure for death, or we forcibly drag them out of their positions of power.

And that's dismissing the idea that some of these people are intentionally sabotaging the US economy as part of some sort of Marxist Insurrection / plot to harm Trump's reelection chances. Which I absolutely believe is part of the thinking behind all this.

That’s very true, I think that it’s a purely political calculation. There’s no risk in staying closed because everyone else is doing it. But if they open and things go bad they’re fucked. You’d think someone like Doug Ducey, who’s a republican and term limited, would have the courage to. But that bitch is such a coward he can even mandate masks himself. He just gave cities the power to mandate them and 97 percent of towns in AZ mandated them. It’s really pathetic, and making me contemplate whether I might have to get more involved in local politics. We need to go back to the America of “do it at your own risk” instead of “you owe it to the collective to do what we mandate to protect them from a disease they themselves could take precautions against.”

 

[Slimy Time]

The only thing that really matters is the hospitalization rate and the death rate. If both of those numbers are on the decline--which they are-- the case number itself is practically a moot point, or rather something that's a bit ridiculous to panic over. The same train of thought goes for the people who love to tout that America is #1 in deaths. It's not because there's no fucking way that China only had as few deaths as they reported (4600 deaths with a complete flatline in March? Fuck off.) but the important part is that comparing the number of deaths in the U.S. to the number of deaths in somewhere like Bulgaria is what a clinically-retarded person would do.

Oh, you mean Bulgaria didn't have 200,000 deaths, effectively wiping out ~3% of its population with a virus that has a mortality rate that's >0.1%? You don't fucking say. I don't know why it's surprising to anyone that the third most-populated country in the world would have the second-highest (fuck you china) rate of COVID-related deaths, and I'm not surprised that India's is so low because Indians have fucking indestructible immune systems due to their living conditions and the fact that they basically eat nothing but fire.

I'm convinced that you could give those fuckers two days of rest and a bowl of chicken soup, which they're going to drown in curry powder, and they could get over AIDs like it's a bad case of the sniffles.

This - big numbers of detected infection rate make good panic news. You open the newspaper or go onto your preferred online news source, and there is a big number of detected infected people, how scary. Or they try to highlight the death/hospitalisation rate as a scary number which is in fact a) on the decline and b) made of fossilised dinosaurs or people who have fucked immune systems because of underlying diseases or health problems. Oh man, this guy had a fucked heart, then he caught this virus which caused his already fucked heart to give out, got to put it down as a coronavirus death.

These death rates to me are highly suspect. This isn't SARS or MERS, which are diseases worth panicking about if you get them (1/10 and 3/10 mortality rate), this virus at this point it time is like a shittier version of the flu, weakens you enough that any serious underlying heath problem you have gets that push to off you. Otherwise, the overwhelming majority of healthy people will fight it off.

 

[I can't imagine]

Do any of them come at different times, or have they largely reverted back to their usual days/times for shopping? Here, some seniors discovered that certain days of the week have fewer people in the stores and have adjusted their schedule accordingly. For example, someone I know discovered their preferred store is much less crowded on Tuesday mornings and have made that their new day for shopping trips.

Regardless, I'm not surprised. Senior citizens tend to be a rather lonely age group and have a strong desire to interact with others if there's nobody to interact with at home.

Less in the afternoon and evening, more in the morning. Though as a rule elderly shoppers tend to be early risers anyway, so it's not that big of a shift from the norm. Tuesdays are probably the most common day since it's the least busy morning, but it's a bit spread out.

I'm not sure where I saw it now to try to find a link to it, but someone was questioning the uptick in mental health issues in younger individuals. As others have said throughout this thread, humans are generally social creatures and restricting them from in-person interaction for months at a time is simply unhealthy. @I can't imagine's story about senior grocery shoppers is a prime example of that.

Here's an interesting brief that discusses the mental health effects of COVID 19. A good chunk is about the effects of social isolation on mental health and substance abuse, but it also covers some other topics.

 

[Sweetpeaa]

Early on in the Chinese Flu thing, I mentioned to a friend who has minor TDS that I didn't want to wear a mask, because in part "It's not my responsibility to keep other people safe in public" and "you can't have a reasonable expectation of going outside and having 0 chance of catching a cold."

He is STILL, to this DAY, freaking out on me about that. The idea of me not taking responsibility for other people's safety was unthinkable to him.

The other friend who has MAJOR TDS hasn't talked about COVID... he's too busy dropping hints that if Biden wins, he's going to join some uprising and I'm on his short list of people to kill for betraying the party. (With nothing more than someone telling him I'm a Trump supporter, despite being a Democrat for decades, he's convinced himself that I'm some sort of white nationalist neo-nazi who wants to go out and march for the 9th Reich. It's been amazing to watch. Even the minorTDS friend is getting weirded out from majorTDS friend.)


My take on all this is that none of these "leaders" want to be the one who takes the risk and opens things back up. Be it the elected leaders, the un-elected goons, or the businessmen. So they want some form of cover, be it a vaccine or whatnot, that will give them a shield to hide behind.

They want the science-priests to declare the pandemic over, that there is no more risk and thus no one can blame them if anyone ever dies again. They're not going to let us out of lockdown until the science-priests announce a cure for death, or we forcibly drag them out of their positions of power.

And that's dismissing the idea that some of these people are intentionally sabotaging the US economy as part of some sort of Marxist Insurrection / plot to harm Trump's reelection chances. Which I absolutely believe is part of the thinking behind all this.

If Joe Biden wins he threatens to put your entire country in lock down once again. That really sucks. Instead mask compliance should be enforced as much as the stubborn idiots don't like it and complain about their pesky Asthma.

 

[Slimy Time]

Here's an interesting brief that discusses the mental health effects of COVID 19. A good chunk is about the effects of social isolation on mental health and substance abuse, but it also covers some other topics.

This reminds me of that teenager who offed herself within a day or two of the lockdowns starting due to social isolation. Imo that and the economic effects is going to be far more wide reaching in impact post Coronavirus. Dickhead Faucci and others are saying that this will continue till the end of 2021. Part of me thinks this is why so many people are still freaking the fuck out about this virus. They are socially isolated, have limited contact and have this doomer news shoved in their face 24/7 with little else to talk about.

 

[UntimelyDhelmise]

This reminds me of that teenager who offed herself within a day or two of the lockdowns starting due to social isolation. Imo that and the economic effects is going to be far more wide reaching in impact post Coronavirus. Dickhead Faucci and others are saying that this will continue till the end of 2021. Part of me thinks this is why so many people are still freaking the fuck out about this virus. They are socially isolated, have limited contact and have this doomer news shoved in their face 24/7 with little else to talk about.

It's all part of the fearmongering plan. Notice how you can't go to any major news location or website without COVID this cases that being on the front page with its own dedicated section at all times. They realized before the riots started that people started to not give a fuck anymore and return to normal so they doubled down on their efforts to maintain that panic. Of which I strongly believe is the exact aim with all the forced mask bullshit. They serve as a constant, 24/7 reminder wherever you go that the Chink virus exists so you better be scared and do what the "experts" say to keep you safe.

Remember how the narrative sneakily shifted from just washing your hands and how masks were useless, to all of the sudden masks becoming this almighty savior who's donning must be enforced into the very public conscience? It's because they realized washing hands wasn't fear-inducing enough.

 

[Honka Honka Burning Love]

Can someone tell me why intelligent people like using case numbers as proof of anything?

Because CONSOME PANIC AND BE AFRAID FOR NEXT PANIC is the new normal.

If Joe Biden wins he threatens to put your entire country in lock down once again. That really sucks. Instead mask compliance should be enforced as much as the stubborn idiots don't like it and complain about their pesky Asthma.

That's not gonna move the Overton Window towards Authoritarianism at fucking all is it?

 

[The Nothingness]

Good to hear the petition made it past the minimum number, hope the challenge fails.

This lockdown is getting more and more unpopular at least in my county, I've seen a lot more signs like this one pop up on lawns:
View attachment 1593627
If you don't get the reference, it's from the "Pure Michigan" tourist ad campaign.

More and more businesses have been hurting the longer this goes on. My local movie theater, which has been independent for 60+ years, have been forced to sell popcorn and other concessions to help stay in business. I stopped by and I donated what I could.

The lockdown has also screwed with the med school I'm going to. They've pretty much cancelled the gross anatomy lab and moved all of anatomy to online learning for the summer and they keep saying they're working on a way to put it back in place. At least there is some in person classes now, but they force you to fill out a health screening form every time you go on campus for any reason. If you don't you may get disenrolled and get a letter of unprofessional conduct placed in your record. Just absolutely insane for a lockdown that should have been over in April.

It seems that on Twitter, residents in NC are also getting sick of our governor reopening the state at a snail's pace. He even has been given his own hashtag, #KingRoy.

 

[afternoon_tea]

Kinda an interesting thing I've noticed. As I've mentioned on here, I work in a grocery store. Grocery stores get a lot of repeat business, as you would imagine, so you get to know and be acquainted with regular customers after a while. The older folks are the ones who tend to shop the most often, and they're the most gregarious, usually because they don't have as much contact with other people outside of their trips to the store and whatnot.

When the lockdowns happened, they stopped coming out, since the experts and all that. Their kids had to shop for them or they'd get neighbors to do it or something. Meanwhile, they're sitting at home doing not much of anything. This kept going on for months, pretty much up until school started a few weeks ago. Not as many people around to do the shopping for them, so they started coming back out.

So in the last few weeks, I've been seeing a lot more of our more elderly customers in the store. And boy, they've been happy to see me, like to the point of saying they don't care about COVID, they just want someone to hug them (old women seem to be oddly fond of hugging grocery store workers; I don't really get it, but I've learned to just go along with it). A lot of them are pretty much at the point of the "this last 4-5 months have been miserable and I'm gonna live my life my way" kinda attitude.

Reflecting on it put in perspective how much the commitment to preserving dear old granny's life adversely affected granny's actual quality of life.

Yeah, this started happening at my store towards the end of July. You can tell for a lot of the older customers their daily trip to the store are a big part of their social life. They come in and chat with workers and the other old timer regulars. It's been so nice to see them again.

Some of them just told me they were sick of this shit and life is too short to stay cooped up for the rest of their lives.

Maybe it's because internet socializing is so ingrained in a lot of younger people, but it seems like they can't grasp why the isolation is so hard on people. I'm pretty introverted and even I feel a huge lack now that my friends only want to Zoom or whatever the fuck.

Is it just cope or do people really believe that "virtual" socializing should be enough to satisfy people's social needs? I see a lot of my friends say they're ok with being locked down forever, but they don't really seem ok, they kind of seem like they're losing their minds but don't want to admit it because saying anything less than positive about lockdowns is "wrongthink" in their social circles.

 

[I can't imagine]

Maybe it's because internet socializing is so ingrained in a lot of younger people, but it seems like they can't grasp why the isolation is so hard on people. I'm pretty introverted and even I feel a huge lack now that my friends only want to Zoom or whatever the fuck.

Is it just cope or do people really believe that "virtual" socializing should be enough to satisfy people's social needs? I see a lot of my friends say they're ok with being locked down forever, but they don't really seem ok, they kind of seem like they're losing their minds but don't want to admit it because saying anything less than positive about lockdowns is "wrongthink" in their social circles.

It's always hard for me to really figure out things like this, since my job, by necessity, requires me to deal in person with people all the time.

I think it works to a point, but it can only ever work as a temporary solution. Anyone who's ever been in a long-distance relationship (either with a romantic partner or a friend) can tell you that you can only keep that going for so long before it stops feeling like a real relationship. Younger millenials and zoomers are probably better equipped to handle it than those in the 30+ range, but they're still humans. I don't think we've changed that much as a society where any significant percentage of people feel comfortable with shunning human contact for any significant period of time.

 

[Sothis]

The most horrifying thing about the pandemic in Melbourne is how much people mindlessly worship the government. As much as they want to say that they don't trust the government, they're the first people to piss their pants if they break a rule and get caught. I remember before masks were mandatory no one wore them, no one wanted to wear them and no one gave a shit if people didn't wear them. But once the rule was enforced people started going out of their way to rat out anyone who didn't wear one. They see no problem in turning people in for not following the rules and it honestly feels like people completely forgot their mentality before the mandatory mask rule. The way people here see no problem doing a complete 180 like that scares the shit out of me. Doesn't matter if its your family, friends or neighbour people have no problem turning you in and the amount of entitlement these people have after bragging about ratting people out is crazy (though I've always felt there was a problem here with people ratting others out over petty things). People here need handholding fucking constantly, need others to think for them and have this awful "authority good must obey" mentality which results in them attacking anyone that deviates from this and it's driving me crazy but I think that mentality stems from these retards having it too good for too long.

One of the worst things that has happened here so far is how much they're trying to cover up suicides that have happened in the lockdown. The government preaches non stop about mental health being important during the pandemic, but they see no problem covering up and sugarcoating suicides and other mental health related incidents that have happened in the lockdown. People that actually point out how insane the lockdown conditions are just attacked and demonised by everyone, especially the media. The most disgusting example I can think of from the top of my head is Victoria’s Assistant Police Commissioner Luke Cornelius saying condemning protesters and calling them "selfish" (because forcing people into house arrest for 23 hours a day isn't?), “tin foil hat brigade” and batshit crazy" (very professional!) I'm not really part of the "ACAB" "cops are pigs" group but this guy honestly looks like one.

Spoiler: gross

This extreme lockdown is really starting to fuck with my head, and I'm sure many others feel the same. I feel like it's never going to end as having under 5 cases a day for close to a month sounds fucking insane and impossible to me. Victoria is essentially a police state at this point. And to enforce these horrendous lockdown rules until they find a cure is unreasonable and crazy. So many people have lost jobs permanently (especially small businesses) because their services are 'non-essential' (but apparently fucking DOG GROOMING is an essential service for some godforsaken reason as they're returning to work soon) but people don't give a fuck because they don't actually have a business and don't experience the effects and they're all shut up by free government handouts. Fuck the economy am I right?

Call me a conspiracy theorist, but I feel like there's something a lot more sinister going on behind the scenes with the lockdown in Victoria, and I'm especially sceptical as government here all worship the CCP and prioritise chinks over their own citizens. I wouldn't be surprised if Dan Andrews had someone whispering in his ear either.

When will Victorians learn that they're the laughing stock of the world at the moment?

 

[Kiwi Lime Pie]

Is it just cope or do people really believe that "virtual" socializing should be enough to satisfy people's social needs? I see a lot of my friends say they're ok with being locked down forever, but they don't really seem ok, they kind of seem like they're losing their minds but don't want to admit it because saying anything less than positive about lockdowns is "wrongthink" in their social circles.

Younger millenials and zoomers are probably better equipped to handle it than those in the 30+ range, but they're still humans. I don't think we've changed that much as a society where any significant percentage of people feel comfortable with shunning human contact for any significant period of time.

I agree with @I can't imagine. Younger individuals seem to prefer text or chat-based interactions where as those in Generation X or older prefer good old fashioned interaction in the form of phone calls or face-to-face encounters. While people in any age group might be OK with -- or accepting of -- limited periods of isolation from others, the truth is people start to be impacted negatively when they can't interact with others for extended periods. Sometimes, the impact is on a subconscious level that they don't even realize it.

Virtual socializing has its benefits and advantages, but it can't entirely meet people's socialization needs.

Someone earlier mentioned Joe Biden. I'm not sure I like the idea of him imposing nationwide restrictions of any form. Different states have different needs when it comes to COVID. What would work in Montana won't work in California, and vice versa. If anything, it would be best to come up with a list of best practices and encourage states to implement them in a way that's most appropriate for them. Also, there's the partisanship factor. Dems that would applaud Biden for his desire to implement national COVID policies would brand Trump a dictator if he were to implement the exact same policies tomorrow.

Between the ongoing restrictions and endless protests, 2020 has been a very frustrating year for normies that simply want to get through life one day at a time without drama.

 

[FatalTater]

Tinfoil hat time - I have a feeling from sniffing around here and there that if the public at large stops wearing masks, social distancing, whatever else the powers that be tell us to, then things will get worse. Not that the illness will get worse, but the dictators will get crazier. It's one of the most frustrating things, that it doesn't matter if we don't fear germs, if the places we want to go are closed we can't go there. If the factories that make the stuff we want aren't open then the workers can't get paid and the items won't be on the shelves. What decides if those places open? Rules made up by politicians.

Flu season should be fun.

 

[Evilronald]

Tinfoil hat time - I have a feeling from sniffing around here and there that if the public at large stops wearing masks, social distancing, whatever else the powers that be tell us to, then things will get worse. Not that the illness will get worse, but the dictators will get crazier. It's one of the most frustrating things, that it doesn't matter if we don't fear germs, if the places we want to go are closed we can't go there. If the factories that make the stuff we want aren't open then the workers can't get paid and the items won't be on the shelves. What decides if those places open? Rules made up by politicians.

Flu season should be fun.

They don’t make movies like this anymore, but this is legit how the people in power see the rest of us. “They outnumber us 100 to 1 and if they ever figure that out, there goes our way of life.”

 

[gd7]

When will Victorians learn that they're the laughing stock of the world at the moment?

Never, because they've deluded themselves into think their awful policies are good.
Sounds like you need to move to neighboring states ASAP, Victoria is a lost cause. Just don't vote for the same people.

 

[Xerxes IX]

I agree with @I can't imagine. Younger individuals seem to prefer text or chat-based interactions where as those in Generation X or older prefer good old fashioned interaction in the form of phone calls or face-to-face encounters. While people in any age group might be OK with -- or accepting of -- limited periods of isolation from others, the truth is people start to be impacted negatively when they can't interact with others for extended periods. Sometimes, the impact is on a subconscious level that they don't even realize it.

Virtual socializing has its benefits and advantages, but it can't entirely meet people's socialization needs.

Someone earlier mentioned Joe Biden. I'm not sure I like the idea of him imposing nationwide restrictions of any form. Different states have different needs when it comes to COVID. What would work in Montana won't work in California, and vice versa. If anything, it would be best to come up with a list of best practices and encourage states to implement them in a way that's most appropriate for them. Also, there's the partisanship factor. Dems that would applaud Biden for his desire to implement national COVID policies would brand Trump a dictator if he were to implement the exact same policies tomorrow.

Between the ongoing restrictions and endless protests, 2020 has been a very frustrating year for normies that simply want to get through life one day at a time without drama.

I was thinking of this today. There's also a difference in the amounts and I guess, quality, of interaction between these age groups. Older people don't talk to their friends or see them all the time, but when they do they often meet face to face and often share a meal or do another social activity together. Younger people are constantly talking to their friends via text/social media, but these constant interactions are less substantial and can be as little as "sharing meme images back and forth".

 

[Drain Todger]

I have a confession to make. I did sperg a lot about COVID from the very start. I got myself banned from multiple forums, and made an ass of myself on here, and so forth. But the honest truth is that I was afraid.

My parents are in their sixties, in a susceptible age group. My coworkers and many of my IRL friends are older folks, too. Based on what I saw happening in Wuhan and the epidemiological reports I was seeing, I thought a couple million people were going to die in the US. I thought I was going to lose a lot of friends and family to this disease.

I am honestly relieved that it turned out to be less severe than I thought.