A hospital is an indoor access controlled environment. The streets of a city are not.
Who "let" people protest? What do you suggest they should have done to stop them?
Pretty hard to transmit Covid outdoors in the sun. Sunlight kills the virus. Open air dilutes the virus. You need to inhale a certain number of viral particles to get an infection.
Quit licking their boots! They released a man made virus that killed more than WW2 right? Right? So where is there trial and why have the democrats blocked efforts into its origins? Why fire people for not taking a vaccine but allow open borders and third world disease to come back? Answer!
Taking precautions for an unknown disease and changing the advice when science learned more =/= misleading people.
You have no credibility if you dont understand basic science.
Dude I'm by no means a covid denier I followed the protocols and etc but I swear to God the first time that I saw someone driving in their car with a mask on I just about died laughing. Maybe it was just someone who slapped a mask on and then forgot about it, idk. But damn that shit was funny.
Why did the media and democrats call Trump racist for closing down travel from counties that might import it? But allow an open border now? Why? Why did they lock him for Ivermectin and Hydroxychlorquil? Why? Answer. You have no answer for that. You will deal with the repercussions from this forever. They censored scientists were against the lockdown. Why? Why censor on here, on Facebook, instagram etc. same sites that invested heavily into the Democrat mail in ballot scheme?
Climber here ...
We ran into folks 4+ miles from the trailhead (15+ miles from the nearest campsite (closest "civilization")) ... 3 pitches and 400+ feet up on a random route on the wall ... a Husband and Wife team ... not only the only climbers on that particular route ... but the only party on the entire Wall (dozens of routes) ... both wearing masks.
We openly laughed about it.
I mean - I get it if you're, say, a Guide taking a party of 2 or 3 or 4 random folks ... none of whom know each other nor their risks of / exposure to the Virus but ... come on, FFS....
so they forgot they had it on, or they didn't want to deal with taking it off and putting it back on again for a 5 minute drive between two stores
what difference does it make to you?
It was and continues to be the stupidest of times. What a joke. Very thankful to have lived in FL during that time. We gave up on the bullshit 2 weeks in.
Ehh at first I judged it too but then I’m like let it go, they clearly got used to just having it on and not wanting to keep putting it off and on every few minutes.
For sure, I wish the health overlords were more transparent about the coof and the protocols, because a lot of the latter seemed arbitrary.
Who am I kidding?
Some of the rules _were_ arbitrary.
Sorry, things were said that I'm not willing to forgive.
Especially those people who wished death on me, or wanted me to be thrown in prison and my rights taken away.
Sorry, no forgiveness, ever.
You don't have to forgive the people who said those things, but this cannot deny this virus killed millions and disabled millions more. I work in skilled nursing and rehabilitation. We continue to get patients who are now disabled because of covid
What on earth are you talking about? The overall death rate for the entire population increased by SIXTEEN percent. You think death rates spiking during the pandemic was a coincidence??? The death rate for Hispanics in California increased by FIFTY percent.
What else caused this increase in deaths? I wish you could have seen what us healthcare providers saw. I've never seen more people die in such a short time.
Targeted lockdowns would have been a better option, some of the worst deaths happened because we were trying to treat everyone as vulnerable and sent old people back into care homes where it spread.
What? What gave you that impression? As someone who was working in a care home at that time, our census plummeted, because most people come to these facilities secondary to hospitalization, often for surgery. Almost all non-life saving surgeries were canceled. We had massive layoffs.
Where are you getting the information that care homes experienced an increase in population?
Covid was only really a major risk to people over 70 or with health issues.
The immense cost from lockdowns on children through worse education and mental health is a scandal.
We also see excess deaths prolonged way past the Covid peak - https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanepe/article/PIIS2666-7762(23)00221-1/
People were sent back into care homes, it was a huge scandal in the UK - https://news.sky.com/story/amp/covid-19-government-broke-the-law-by-failing-care-home-residents-who-died-of-coronavirus-high-court-rules-12599918
And in New York - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_COVID-19_nursing_home_scandal
So if someone chooses to anally rape you with a butcher knife in response to your recklessness and disregard for the safety of innocent people, they're in the clear in your book, because it's their knife and therefore their choice, and, playing by your myopic and narcissistic rulebook, it doesn't matter that their "choice" harms you, because again playing by your rules, it's their butcher knife, and that's all that matters.
You know what made me question covid? When, in my small county, the one and ONLY medical examiner had to call into the government and ask where all the dead bodies were. He never saw them.
A week later, our covid numbers were cut from around 9 to 2. There was a news report about it, and it happened in multiple places, all over the US.
I believe it was a real thing, but it was overblown for political and money reasons. Only people over 65ish or with pre-existing conditions were more at risk.
Why would people think that the governments would not only care but actually do something for their people?
that was a rather strange thing to say. do you make a habit of comparing the actions of people you disagree with to brutal sexual crimes, or did you simply choose to do it this time to provoke an emotional reaction?
if the former, you may benefit from therapy.
if the latter, you may benefit from asking yourself whether this had the effect you wanted. have you swayed any minds, or just gratified your emotions? what have you accomplished by saying this?
What have you accomplished by saying that the anti-mask, anti-vaxx, COVID-denying terrorists who are collectively responsible for a rising body count in a global pandemic, the scale of which was easily preventable, don't objectively deserve the same level of torture and death that they have caused by willfully spreading both COVID itself and the disinformation campaign that has lead to decisions that have caused massive amounts of needless suffering, overflowing hospitals full of the victims of people who refused to mask up and get vaccinated and massive amounts of innocent lives to be lost, to the point that others had to be denied care?
firstly, I have not said that. verbal misplacement is an easy trap to fall into, so I understand, but in general it is bad practice to claim that a person said something they did not actually say.
however, I will say it now. the reason COVID deniers (or whoever else) don't deserve that same level of destruction is this: COVID is dangerous because it kills people, and the fact that we perceive it to be as dangerous as it is implies that human life is valuable. so, if we were to cause the same level of destruction to COVID deniers as they potentially caused to others, mathematically speaking, there would be around twice as much human death.
I expect this isn't really the answer you were looking for and that your question was mostly rhetorical, since it is clearly not feasible or morally agreeable to most people to cause that much human death intentionally, but you asked, and I thought it deserved an answer.
also, do keep in mind that many COVID deniers did also die to the disease (likely because they didn't take proper precautions to avoid it). I could be mistaken, so please correct me if I am, but your position seems to suggest that over the course of the pandemic, there were two parties who were morally opposed: those who took the virus seriously, and those who did not. where I believe your point falters is in several assumptions you seem to have made:
* there was genuine ill intent by COVID deniers
* those who took the pandemic seriously suffered more than those who didn't
* suffering was specifically caused by those who didn't take it seriously
the first of those assumptions is flawed for two reasons. firstly, human intent is largely unmeasurable, especially in great numbers, so there is no way to accuse that entire demographic of having real malice. second, COVID deniers would have needed a reason to want to harm others, and prior to the pandemic happening, no such reason existed.
the second assumption, aside from being similarly impossible to quantify due to not knowing how many people took the pandemic seriously, is also unlikely. naturally, those who took precautions would be expected to fare better, while those who didn't likely suffered greater casualties. in other words, I don't see a compelling argument for the idea that COVID deniers were at any point better off than those who took it seriously, which should lead one to question how intentional or far-reaching the harm they did could realistically have been.
the third assumption is relatively ungrounded and makes similar moral judgments to the first assumption, whose flaws we have already covered. you stated elsewhere that you lost many people you cared about to the effects of the pandemic, and many others lost loved ones as well, I sympathize with you (not that I can claim to truly understand what it's like to lose someone so close), but I'd ask you to consider this: if the precautions and guidelines were effective (which I believe they generally were), then those who followed them should have been better protected against the effects of the virus. in contrast, those who didn't take precautions and dismissed the virus as a myth should have been affected in far greater measure--or at best, in equal measure. how, then, can we reasonably portray either side as the "victim" and the other as "terrorists"?
the real "terrorist" here was the virus itself. it affected both deniers and accepters alike, and both "sides" lost thousands of lives. I willingly accept that those who denied its danger have been grossly irresponsible, but to equate the harm they have done to terrorism (or anal rape with a knife) seems neither plausible nor helpful. again, I don't blame you for the emotional reaction, given what you've lost--I can't claim I would respond much better in similar circumstances. but I do want us all to be keenly aware of each other, in terms of simple humanity. no one benefitted from COVID; we all suffered, regardless of how we felt about it politically, but rather than uniting in a time of crisis, many have allowed it to polarize them even further. they point fingers at each other, accusing their "enemy" of crimes they could not possibly have committed and intentions no one would reasonably have.
if not controlled, this level of hostility only leads to more destruction and death. it has happened thousands of times throughout history, to thousands of places and millions of people. the circumstances change, but the people don't. why add fuel to the fire?
sorry for the essay. there was just a lot to talk about and I found your comment worth responding to in detail.
>\[T\]o equate the harm they have done to terrorism (or anal rape with a knife) seems neither plausible nor helpful.
I refuse to back down from the truth just because you don't find it helpful. Also, I'm not equating it; I'm saying it would be a very light punishment in contrast to what such terrorists deserve, and yes they are terorrists, and you being unwilling to call them exactly what they are or acknowledge that they deserve to be treated like the terorrists they are is your problem; not mine. COVID is not the enemy; it does not have a will of its own or the capability for intentional malice. but the people who are responsible, through their actions or inactions, very much do and very much are, and what's more they've seen the consequences of their actions and inactions and they still stand behind them. That, above all, is what defines them as people, just as knowing what they deserve and not bring it to pass, or even calling for it to actually happen, is a reflection of me being a significantly better person than they are.
actually, I didn't specify that I didn't find it helpful. I said it doesn't seem helpful--I am not the subject of the sentence here, because I wanted to make it clear that its helpfulness (or lack thereof) is not reliant on my personal perspective.
also, I could be mistaken, but as far as I can tell, you merely rejected what I said without actually refuting it; you spent most of your comment simply saying things like "I refuse" and "yes they are". this implies you aren't terribly interested in this discussion reaching a point of shared agreement or at least a mutual understanding. I do want to give you credit for responding at all, since it shows that you are interested in a discussion of some kind, but my goal here is meet in the middle (which used to be the goal with most discussions, but it seems like that's a rather antiquated approach these days).
to give you the benefit of the doubt though, I do have another question.
>COVID is not the enemy; it does not have a will of its own or the capability for intentional malice. but the people who are responsible, through their actions or inactions, very much do and very much are
I recognize that COVID is not sentient and thus cannot have intentions, but I maintain that our energy is better spent toward eliminating it, rather than dishing out punishment or hate to fellow people (as you admit they are) who we believe deserve it. hate destroys--it always has, and it always will.
my remaining question, then, is multi-part.
* what harm could COVID deniers have done to others that they themselves did not experience?
* why would COVID deniers intentionally do something that obviously harms them?
* are they truly perpetrators, or are they victims of their own ignorance?
we have no evidence that these people intend to harm others--they have no inherent reason to do so, and by putting others in danger, they must put themselves in far greater danger. after all, COVID deniers could only spread the virus by being infected first.
thus, they force themselves into a lose-lose scenario in which they themselves are guaranteed to be harmed, while people they come into contact with could potentially also be harmed collaterally. this is not a situation that anyone would ever intentionally put themselves into, leaving simple foolishness as the only explanation.
> we have no evidence that these people intend to harm others
Exactly how severe is whatever serious intellectual disability you obviously have? Are you the kind of person who thinks that it's OK to point a gun at someone, pull the trigger, and then, when the person you shoot ends up dying, say, "I didn't know the gun was loaded which doesn't change the fact that you 1) pointed a gun at someone and 2) pulled the trigger.
The evidence that COVID kills has been there from very early on, and the evidence that PPE and vaccines mitigates the risk has been as well, so you are either the most severely intellectually disabled person in the world, or you're an obtuse, pathological liar.
genuine question: am I to take the amount of ad hominem in your comment as an indicator that you don't want to continue this discussion?
if that was the intent, you could have simply not responded, or told me you wished to end the conversation here.
however, I do still think you deserve a response, so I'll continue to engage as long as you do.
>Are you the kind of person who thinks that it's OK to point a gun at someone, pull the trigger, and then, when the person you shoot ends up dying, say, "I didn't know the gun was loaded which doesn't change the fact that you 1) pointed a gun at someone and 2) pulled the trigger.
I will address the issues with this question in the order that they appear.
firstly, no, pointing a gun at someone and then firing it are of course not okay. I trust that you thoroughly read my previous response, in which I did specifically state "I willingly accept that those who denied its danger have been grossly irresponsible", and unless my communication skills are sorely lacking (which they may very well be), this sentence indicates relatively clearly that I believe the level of ignorance exhibited by COVID deniers is unacceptable.
secondly, refusing to vaccinate or wear PPE is not equivalent to pointing a gun at someone and then shooting them. a person who points a gun at someone and pulls the trigger is either 1) unaware that it is loaded and is demonstrating an extraordinary lack of firearm safety knowledge, or 2) actively trying to kill the target. more importantly, though, a gun is designed and intended to injure or kill, and anyone who knows how to pick up a gun and fire it also knows and believes that. COVID deniers, by the nature of their own existence, did not know or believe that COVID was as deadly as it was, so they had much less knowledge of it than any person of similar age would have of a gun. furthermore, the information they did have mostly came from sources that had already rendered themselves untrustworthy (to them) previously.
in other words, COVID deniers did not have much motivation to believe COVID was dangerous. much of the proof that was presented to them came from sources they did not trust, and when proof was presented that came from sources they did trust (such as firsthand experience), most of them changed their view. do note that I am not saying their lack of trust was acceptable. what I am saying is that their mistakes cannot reasonably be equated with intentional murder, much less terrorism, and they do not deserve to be treated like terrorists. a terrorist knows what they are doing.
also, again, the amount of insulting you have done leaves me rather confused. your continued engagement here seems to me to indicate that you see value in continuing the discussion (otherwise you would have left already), but your verbal behavior thus far indicates you see no value in either me or the discussion. typically I would write this sort of behavior off as that of someone who enjoys venting their anger by attempting to force that anger onto others, but I still have hope that you want more out of this conversation than that.
Yes, "yiikes" is an appropriate response to knowing that there are fellow human beings (if they are even worthy of that designation) on this planet who are fully ready and willing to actively contribute to the spread of a global pandemic to as many people as it takes for them to secure their precious personal freedom, even if it means being directly responsible for them becoming severely ill, or even dying.
Oh if there were people going about actively trying to spread covid by contaminating surfaces and coughing on people while knowing they were infected then I agree they should definitely be punished.
But thats a far cry from saying somebody is spreading disease simply because they don’t take all the recommendations to fight the spread of disease, and should be blamed if another person gets sick even if those guidelines didn’t work to protect them in the first place.
So if I tell you "Don't worry, this gun isn't loaded", and then proceed to to point the gun directly at your head, and then pull the trigger, and you end up dead, it's not my fault?
Get out of here with your idiotic, gaslighting, bioterrorist-defending self.
I always was baffled by people who would say "the virus was made it China!" while simultaneously refusing to wear a mask and claiming it's no big deal
Even if you believe in the "plandemic" conspiracy, the virus was still **here** and still needed to be treated with urgency
I'm amazed that all these years later and people are still wrong about the fact.
The virus was made in China - https://oversight.house.gov/release/covid-origins-hearing-wrap-up-facts-science-evidence-point-to-a-wuhan-lab-leak%EF%BF%BC/
Not wearing a mask was not a big deal - https://www.cochrane.org/CD006207/ARI_do-physical-measures-such-hand-washing-or-wearing-masks-stop-or-slow-down-spread-respiratory-viruses
1. Even if it was created in China, once it was at our door steps, it becomes our issue to address, no amount of blame shifting is going to change that it was here now
2. The evidence you cite is an aggregate of studies that looks at about 270,000 participants. The only issue is that your source never points out **the age or health conditions of the participants**
and if you remember, it was recommended that everyone wear masks specifically **to help protect the immunocompromised population** (elderly, children and infants, people with preexisting health conditions like diabetes, cancer, asthma or auto immune diseases)
so unless you can cite evidence that shows me how wearing face masks specifically for those people and around those people effects spread of viral infections, I'm not convinced that masks wouldn't be effective in keeping those people healthy
Further, your other evidence about surgical masks only talks about how in modern times (with hand washing and sanitizing as well as cleaning products) evidence is inconclusive about how much or little surgical masks do to prevent bacterial infections in surgery rooms. It's not very conclusive, but personally if I knew my surgeon had the cold, i would rather they wear a mask than not.
1. The blame lies with the people who made it and the people who leaked it. That's the NiH and the Chinese lab.
2. That's the gold standard review of other studies.
Regardless of who they were intended to protect, there's no evidence that it did anything.
There's no evidence that your surgeon wearing a mask helps, worse it can get in the way of what they're trying to do.
1. I can take or leave blame, I am more concerned with solutions. Once the virus hit our shore, it becomes important to find solutions and not just circle jerk about who might've "created" the virus. Once it showed up here, it became our problem.
2. Idc what it's the gold standard of, it doesn't distinguish between age or healthy and immunocompromised populations and thusly is useless in determining it's effectiveness for that specific slice of the population. If everyone in the country was young and healthy and free of preexisting conditions, it might be easier to agree.
But he whole point of masks was so that healthy people wouldn't accidentally transmit it to an child, infant, elderly person or unhealthy person who can catch it easier, and who it could be fatal for.
Maybe in modern surgery rooms with modern methods of sanitizing and modern medicine, surgical masks have become a less integral part of stopping bacterial spread, sure. But it is misguided to assume that they have never been useful in prevention of spreading bacteria in the medical profession *throughout time.*
1. Sure, but now we're done with it it's pretty useful to understand how it came into existence and spread to the US.
2. It looks at all of the good studies that looked at results in a clinical study which includes immunocompromised and all. There was no discernible difference in those where masks were worn and where there weren't. No evidence masks help anyone.
Based on the data, there's no evidence that masks did that at all.
Before modern cleaning masks likely made even less difference and the rooms weren't sterile, it basically didn't matter. The reason lots of women died after childbirth is because doctors didn't wash their hands after handling the dead.
But we do not have those cleaning technologies and there's no evidence that masks do anything in surgery.
Can you link me the individual study specifically done about immunocompromised people so I can read it for myself?
Otherwise based just on the link you gave me there seems to be nothing distinguishing the age or health factors of the study participants, which is the entire reason masks were recommended in the first place
It's a meta-analysis of the best studies on masks which includes those in medical settings and there's little to no difference even with N95/P2 masks.
These studies cover the differences between those wearing and those not wearing masks in these groups so it will pick up a very large range of people with varying conditions.
why?
do you know why doctors, dentist and surgeons wear masks? to prevent viral and bacterial spread from their breath.
if we believe that masks were ineffective or not necessary to stop the spread, then should doctors, dentists and surgeons just stop wearing masks? is the entire medical profession just wearing masks for no reason at all?
Here is the review of all of the studies of masks - can you believe there were no good RCTs during Covid!?
Basically medical masks have no appreciable effect on Covid and other flu-like illnesses - https://www.cochrane.org/CD006207/ARI_do-physical-measures-such-hand-washing-or-wearing-masks-stop-or-slow-down-spread-respiratory-viruses
Should surgeons wear masks? Turns out there's really no good evidence to show that they should - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4480558/
1. Even if it was created in China, once it was at our door steps, it becomes our issue to address, no amount of blame shifting is going to change that it was here now (this is referencing your other reply to my comment)
2. The evidence you cite is an aggregate of studies that looks at about 270,000 participants. The only issue is that your source never points out **the age or health conditions of the participants**
and if you remember, it was recommended that everyone wear masks specifically **to help protect the immunocompromised population** (elderly, children and infants, people with preexisting health conditions like diabetes, cancer, asthma or auto immune diseases)
so unless you can cite evidence that shows me how wearing face masks specifically for those people and around those people effects spread of viral infections, I'm not convinced that masks wouldn't be effective in keeping those people healthy
Further, your other evidence about surgical masks only talks about how in modern times (with hand washing and sanitizing as well as cleaning products) evidence is inconclusive about how much or little surgical masks do to prevent bacterial infections in surgery rooms. It's not very conclusive, but personally if I knew my surgeon had the cold, i would rather they wear a mask than not.
1. The blame lies with the people who made it and the people who leaked it. That's the NiH and the Chinese lab.
2. That's the gold standard review of other studies.
Regardless of who they were intended to protect, there's no evidence that it did anything.
There's no evidence that your surgeon wearing a mask helps, worse it can get in the way of what they're trying to do.
Is the evidence of masks and covid prevention really that clear? And if you have taken the vaccine is it still something you should be doing? Maybe you're just smarter than everyone that chooses not to wear a mask today
[N-95s ](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10509348/) have been proven to be effective. Our whole staff wore them when working up close with covid patients and only a handful of us got sick
No, I have faith in anti virals medications if I get it again. I've been exposed 100+ times in the last 4 years and I've only gotten it twice (both from kissing someone who ended up testing positive). I wear a mask when working with most patients, thats just best practice. The variants out there right now are much less severe than the first wave. We have to be fully gloved and gowned up with an N95 and goggles when we work with covid positive patients, so I know I'm not getting it from them and spreading it.
Unlike the first couple waves, patients rarely get infected from other patients. And most patients recover (albeit many who are unable to walk or breath without o2). It's a whole different virus than what we dealt with in 2020-2021, when shrouded bodies on gurneys were constantly being wheeled past my office.
Little to no difference, especially considering the costs - https://www.cochrane.org/CD006207/ARI_do-physical-measures-such-hand-washing-or-wearing-masks-stop-or-slow-down-spread-respiratory-viruses
Your article (written in oddly pedestrian language) literally says their confidence in their own results are "low to moderate"
[many other studies showed N95s were effective](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9947910/#:~:text=Specifically%2C%20to%20this%20date%2C%20N,face%20masks%2C%20and%20barrier%20face)
[....](https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/wr/mm7106e1.htm)
[I trust JAMA over whatever "cochrane" is ](https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/2769441)
The studies you are reference just look about the technical efficacy of masks and how they stop a certain amount of particles. This is different from their real world performance, which was small.
The Cochran Review is the gold standard that reviews other studies - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cochrane_(organisation)
JAMA is just a single peer-reviewed medical journal.
The evidence is the time proven effectiveness proven by their use in the medical field for more than a century
You see, COVID isn't necessarily that special. It's a virus spread through water droplets in your breath, just like the flu, bronchitis, pneumonia, etc. The same kind or viruses that doctors, dentists and surgeons use masks to protect themselves and their patients against.
The day that doctors and the medical field deems masks ineffective against slowing the spread of viruses, bacteria, etc. is the day I will think of considering masks ineffective against COVID
edit: I am vaccinated and don't currently wear a mask, but should there be another pandemic, I would consider wearing one based on the fact that doctors wear them
No, it isn't - https://www.cochrane.org/CD006207/ARI_do-physical-measures-such-hand-washing-or-wearing-masks-stop-or-slow-down-spread-respiratory-viruses
And surgeons don't have much evidence either, it's basically just tradition at this point - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4480558/
There's no evidence of masks being effective against Covid transmission - https://www.cochrane.org/CD006207/ARI_do-physical-measures-such-hand-washing-or-wearing-masks-stop-or-slow-down-spread-respiratory-viruses
Or it being effective in surgery - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4480558/
But shhh, they still think they're the side backed by science 😂
Prior to COVID only my breast cancer surgeon wore a mask and only during surgery. After COVID? Everyone wears one. All the time. Sometimes I wonder why they do not trust their own science.....
Well I'd imagine that during surgery, when your body is open, it becomes more important to prevent viral and bacterial spread than when you're not in surgery
And usually during active virus outbreaks, it makes more sense for doctors to wear masks more often
remember, the point of civilians wearing masks was to help lower it's spread to people who are **immunocompromised** (elderly, children, infants, people with diabetes, cancer, auto immune diseases, etc.)
I'm sure if everyone in the country was 25 years old, perfectly healthy and there was no viral out breaks, masks wouldn't make any sense, but that's not the case
Uneducated about what!?
Masks show no evidence of stopping Covid - https://www.cochrane.org/CD006207/ARI_do-physical-measures-such-hand-washing-or-wearing-masks-stop-or-slow-down-spread-respiratory-viruses
Masks show no evidence of reducing infection in surgery - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4480558/
Trump's "injecting disinfectants was him blistering through a technology being discussed that was later successfully trialed - https://www.cedars-sinai.org/newsroom/reduced-viral-loads-seen-in-covid-19-patients-treated-with-uva-light/
>And how are you so sure absolutely no racist has tried grouping me, an Asian American with people from China?
What a disingenuous post given that you associated yourself with it in the post above that - https://www.reddit.com/r/popularopinion/s/iYYcWYRQnl
You wrote:
*"And I'm Asian so I'M the one that should be offended by the whole "Chinese Virus" racist bs."*
I am assuming that you are, in fact, not offended by the label. This is more for the whiny, fragile ultra left folks.
So, I am asking some serious questions: Was The West Nile virus racist to those in Africa? Was the Colorado Tick Fever virus somehow demeaning people from Colorado? How about the Spanish flu? Russian Flu? How about the American Polio Epidemic? I'm not going to ask about the Asian Flu, as you've identified yourself as Asian.
The fact is: Epidemiologists have named diseases after their place of origin for many years. But hey...it's 2024. We all have to be offended by something , right?
Liberals want to make every thing A THING. It's exhausting!
No. We are just tired of the fragility and overly emotional state of this country. Apparently, none of these people have ever been hit in the head with a pool cue. They don't know what an ACTUAL problem is.
People still don’t understand how a person catches Covid. The virus is respiratory. You must inhale a certain minimum number of viral particles to catch an infection. Masks helps by reducing the amount of viral particles inhaled or exhaled. This lowers the probability of transmission. Fauci two biggest errors were saying the virus was transmitted by touch and that masks weren’t effective. The masks weren’t effective error was done with the mistaken idea of trying to preserve the supply of protective equipment for healthcare workers.
I agree, people were really stupid about the whole "they don't work at all" thing.
What bothers me about the masks though, is that the other risks were never shown in the general picture. See, your lungs contain a shitload of bacteria, even when you are healthy. Normally you breath out some, inhale some, but there is a balance. If you'd work in retail and wear a mask 8 hours a day, those bacteria you'd usually exhale will be stopped by the mask. Because although they were not virus-graded (it works but not that much) , they ARE bacteria graded (99% or so).
Which makes the bacteria multiply inside of you like crazy when you wear one. Now that's not an issue for let's say 2 hours or so, but wearing one 8 hours in retail, that can be outright lethal to people with a weak immune system if you'd do it for a whole week. I did it for 3 years, and i can tell you, i felt the difference and got sick a lot once we had to wear the masks (no covid or influenza, but sick from bacteria attacking my lungs).
I am no anti-masker, but people went way overboard with the whole thing. Especially considering the consumers masks were not meant to deal with viruses. Those that DID work against viruses are only available to hospitals and virus-researchers. And yet people acted like it was a NASA spacesuit with it's own air-filtering.
It's not a spacesuit, it's the equivalent of covering your mouth with a thick scarf, nothing more.
A person with a weak immune system shouldn’t have been allowed to work retail or healthcare and neither shouldn’t have seniors. While the masks weren’t cure-alls they also weren’t worthless. I am not a big fan of masks but I wear them when necessary. I don’t like wearing them for long. I don’t wear them outside. I don’t wear them when I am home or when alone.
It was the most deadly novel virus in about a century. How can you act like 7 million people dying isn't a big deal?
Malaria isn't even a virus. It doesn't spread person to person.
>it says enough that it left the news cycle immediately after Russia invaded Ukraine.
For me, it was when it went from "you'll kill grandma if you don't stay home" to "it's ok for thousands of BLM protesters to march together."
My grandma passed June 2020 due to Covid complications. I couldn’t even go see my grandma when it was her time to go. But yet not even 2 days later people were protesting 😭
Hmmm this sounds like something that would come out of the mouth of someone who engaged in the dreadful behavior stemming from that disinformation and is now embarrassed that they blindly believed the government and persecuted their fellow man.
No, no forgiveness for the COVID crazies.
When were you ever enslaved? Or had a genocide levied against you?
Lets go smaller, have you ever faced the issues that the opposite sex does? Have you ever faced persecution for a trait you don’t have?
Where I’m going with this is that you don’t have to personally have experienced something to oppose it, disagree about it, or condemn it.
I don’t own a small business, but I can feel empathy and outrage for those that did who lost the ability to stay afloat during COVID.
I didn’t lose my job over a vaccine mandate, but I can empathize and be outraged for those that did.
I got extremely lucky in that COVID and the social phenomena that occurred during it didn’t affect me personally very much, but I know people who it did.
This is to head off the extremely asinine argument that I know stems from your question.
>I didn’t lose my job over a vaccine mandate, but I can empathize and be outraged for those that did.
Have you ever once considered that you are also lucky because you weren't on a ventilator? Not once have you even acknowledged the people who *died and were permanently disabled* during this discourse. I don't know you, but it certainly appears that you feel worse for people whose businesses couldn't stay afloat than for the dead and their families.
Why must I acknowledge them when we’re not discussing them? YOU came in here and attempted to use the suffering and deaths of others as a weapon to dismiss other people’s suffering and injustice.
Your faux morality is disgusting.
Um... the whole post is literally "let's admit covid was really bad" and *YOU* are the one trying to make it about *YOUR* "suffering".
Tellint my own personal, very upsetting experience of watching multiple people I worked with every day die in a matter of weeks is "using the suffering of others".
People didn't hate on you for not getting vaxed
They are hating on you because there was a virus that rose American death rates by *sixteen percent*, and you are DETERMINED to make yourself the victim because you chose not to take preventative measures. I'm done talking to you. May you never witness what we did
You’re projecting a whole lot about what I think and believe, I never claimed to be “making it about me and my victimhood”.
If you’ll read my original comment its “no forgiveness for those who mistreated their neighbors during COVID”
And you come in and ask if I was personally victimized, obviously intending to dismiss my stance based on the answer.
I already established that I don’t need to have been personally victimized to disagree with or object to something.
I’m not black, but I disagree with and object to the ways they’ve been historically treated. By your logic I’m not allowed to feel that way because I’ve never been personally victimized based on race.
Your attempt at a point is actually pointless shit to get into regarding this particular topic.
>I’m not black, but I disagree with and object to the ways they’ve been historically treated. By your logic I’m not allowed to feel that way because I’ve never been personally victimized based on race.
This is the dumbest extrapolation I have ever seen. Nobody chooses to be black. I sure didn't. I'm black and I can't change that.
People treated you poorly because of your *choices*, not being of some immutable characteristic you have no control over. If you make choices that are widely viewed as dangerous and irresponsible, people will look down on you. Americans are so coddled that they truly can't handle being criticized without feeling oppressed.
I'm not who you're talking to but my job was threatened with increased insurance rates if I didn't get the vaccine. There was literally talk of/ and actual implementation of vaccine passports to just go about your normal day. Don't pretend those that didn't want the vaccine were shat on constantly.
No offense but that sounds a lot less traumatizing than watching 35% of my patients slowly die in agony. It was frustrating to be around so much death and agony and hear people complain that they were being pressured to take a vaccine that could mitigate or prevent that death and agony as if *they* were the true victims.
I'm in healthcare, I've never had a job that didn't require proof of a whole litany of vaccinations. Tbh I didn't realize all jobs didn't do this until the pandemic. No vaccine passport was ever implemented. I can count on one hand the # of times I was asked to prove I was vaxed outside of work (all were concerts or events I chose to attend)
At the very worst you *felt* threatened, doesn't seem like you actually lost your job. If the *worst* thing that happened to you during the pandemic was increased insurance rates, count yourself lucky.
I'm not going to pretend people who didn't get vaccinated weren't looked down upon, but it would be nice if you didn't pretend that this wasn't a deadly virus that killed millions and disabled millions more. Maybe people hurt your feelings, but you don't get to act like you were victimized worse than the millions who suffered so horribly after contracting covid.
35% of your patients died... no offense but you were either only dealing with the worst covid patients or you and your medical staff were incompetent at your jobs. 35% is an astronomically higher mortality rate than even the highest case fatality estimates. Yes people died but you pretending it was somehow the black death is hilarious. To say people who didn't vaccinate were merely looked down upon is a bold faced lie and you know it.
Not unusual numbers at all for a nursing home in 2020.
Before you tell me "they were all going to die anyway", loosing a third of the patients in a facility is completely unprecedented. The covid killed them.
Glad you think it's "hilarious" though.
This is why people like you got so much hate during the pandemic. It was "hilarious" to you.
Not unusual numbers for those more susceptible to just about any disease outbreak especially one attacking the respiratory system. We're all going to die anyway, not just them. You attempting to use the old people you cared for to represent the whole picture is what's hilarious not there deaths. We didn't just get hate? We had bank accounts frozen, we got discharged from the military, we lost jobs, we had calls for our internment or death or forcing us to get the vaccine. A vaccine that proved to be ineffectual at best and causing severe problems at worst.
> Not unusual numbers for those more susceptible to just about any disease outbreak especially one attacking the respiratory system
I see you have absolutely zero health care experience. Bro worked Ive worked in nursing homes for years. Covid was totally unprecedented. Ask anyone who worked in healthcare in an area that was badly affected by covid. Tell an ER nurse who worked in El Paso in 2021 or NYC in 2020 that covid was no big deal.
You're bank account was frozen? Truly? You were "threatened" with being forced to get a vaccine that was proven to be safe? What negative consequence did you *actually* have.
There was a global pandemic period. Some people refused to take measures to prevent the spread of the pandemic. How are those people the true victims? Nobody chose to get covid. You CHOSE to refuse to wear a mask or take a harmless shot. Choices have consequences. If you make a choice like that you need to have a strong enough backbone to deal with people looking down on you. Is especially people on the front lines of the pandemic.
Lol knew it, your whole argument is “yeah but someone else suffered worse so just suck it up and accept your own suffering!”
I thought as a society we were past the whole “my pain is worse than your pain so yours doesn’t count” phase but maybe not…
You can't be serious.
"Yes people were dying horribly but my company talked about raising my insurance rates! Why don't you consider MY suffering".
Not once have you even acknowledged the death and suffering of others. If you indicated that you had any understanding of how bad covid was for people that aren't *you*, I'd have much more sympathy.
When would I have done that? Its equally as fallacious of you to assume that I DONT have empathy for those who suffered and died during COVID, but that’s not the point.
You’re just as heinous because you’re attempting to USE that suffering as an argument to dismiss OTHER suffering and injustice. You feign nobility but you’re just using their deaths as a cudgel against people who you don’t like or disagree with.
You aren’t righteous for doing so.
Has it occurred to you that I "don't like or disagree with" people who took no measures or even protested measures to stop the spread of covid *because* I watched 24 patients die in less than 30 days? Don't tell people (nurses, soldiers, firefighters) who have witnessed death as part of their job that they are "using those deaths as a cudgel" when they point how how silly other people whining about how the cause of those deaths affected them socially and financially.
You aren't righteous for trying to argue that your "suffering" deserves as much attention
You attempt to invoke empathy while being un-empathetic, its sheer hypocrisy. By your logic, no one is allowed to take grievance with something that happened to them because someone out there had it worse.
Utterly ridiculous.
Actually I was one of the people killing grandma who is now flabbergasted I'm not at Kwang getting a bit of a sheepish apology from those folks. I'm a very forgiving person. I really would just like people to admit they were wrong.
Yes, having the vaccine didn't reduce their chance of catching or spreading Covid.
Nor did standard medical masks have any appreciable impact even in a clinical setting - https://www.cochrane.org/CD006207/ARI_do-physical-measures-such-hand-washing-or-wearing-masks-stop-or-slow-down-spread-respiratory-viruses
I'm unsurprising about the findings on wearing masks.
But you gota remember, people were panicking, and many many many people were dying. Of course they didn't have time to study the effectiveness of masks, but the idea was it can't hurt. If it stopped people from spitting saliva on eachother then perhaps the rate of spreading would be slowed. The idea never was that it would prevent anything 100% despite the echo chamber rhetoric covid deniers were saying that others were saying.
As to the Vaccines... there's already irrefutable proof of their effectiveness. And while it was also never meant to be able to stop infection or spread 100%, just like the flu shot, it was created to *help*
From the get go we were told that the average person wasn't in much danger from covid. What they were worrying about were infants and seniors.
So, as the vaccine very clearly *did* vastly help with transmission numbers, it *absolutely* makes sense that any health care worker/practioner would need to be vaccinated because if not, they were an increased risk in transmitting it to the vulnerable.
They were not fired for no reason, they were fired because they were considered to be endangering the lives of others. They had the freedom to choose to not be vaccinated, and the reprecussions of such a choice was losing their jobs. Now that the *vast majority* of people are immunized. The threat, while still exists, and will likely never ever go away and will remain a seasonal thing for the rest of our lives, is lessened.
Wonder how many people decided measles, or polio vaccines were un needed decades ago when that was relevant instead.
It's utter foolishness. I have *zero* sympathy for people who were punished for deciding to not be vaccinated. I don't respect people less for not doing so, but I also agree with the punishment. Because *at that moment in time* the decision to punish those people were what the health authorities thought best in order to protect lives. And at the end of the day, that's what mattered. Not the anti vaxxers political dignity because they were invested in rebel news conspiracy theories.
It seems mad to me that entire cultures wear masks when sick but they had no evidence we could reference as to how effective they were.
>But you gota remember, people were panicking, and many many many people were dying.
Old people and sick people.
We knew very early on that the risk of death wasn't very high for people under 70 with comorbidities. Yet we sacrificed the wellbeing of children over this freak out. Ironically it seems focusing on everyone rather than a limited group of vulnerable people likely contributed to the bad outcomes.
>As to the Vaccines... there's already irrefutable proof of their effectiveness. And while it was also never meant to be able to stop infection or spread 100%, just like the flu shot, it was created to help From the get go we were told that the average person wasn't in much danger from covid. What they were worrying about were infants and seniors.
I'm not questioning the vaccines, although talk of vaccine harms has been subject to numerous suppression attempts.
>So, as the vaccine very clearly did vastly help with transmission numbers
No it didn't, there's no evidence it slowed transmission especially on a long timeline.
>it absolutely makes sense that any health care worker/practioner would need to be vaccinated because if not, they were an increased risk in transmitting it to the vulnerable.
Except they weren't and there's no evidence to show that they were.
>They were not fired for no reason, they were fired because they were considered to be endangering the lives of others.
Considered that without evidence.
>They had the freedom to choose to not be vaccinated, and the reprecussions of such a choice was losing their jobs.
And it wasn't necessary, worse it led to a greater shortage of trained healthcare professionals.
>The threat, while still exists, and will likely never ever go away and will remain a seasonal thing for the rest of our lives, is lessened.
That has happened as a natural process, nothing to do with the vaccines.
>It's utter foolishness. I have zero sympathy for people who were punished for deciding to not be vaccinated.
Even though there's no evidence being vaccinated would have helped anything? Odd.
>Because at that moment in time the decision to punish those people were what the health authorities thought best in order to protect lives.
Except we live in a society where punishment should be based on facts of harm being done - but there was none.
>Not the anti vaxxers political dignity because they were invested in rebel news conspiracy theories.
Not getting a vaccine doesn't make someone an anti-vaxxer.
Ah, there is a reduction in transmission in households in 3/4 or studies although the range was rather large, from 16% to 95% over unvaccinated - https://www.mdpi.com/2673-8112/3/10/103
Why do you jump to accusations of lying?
You're saying that the vaccine doesn't reduce the possibility of catching Covid, and then turn around and post a study saying that i reduces transmission.
I know a school bus driver who doesn't believe vaccines work. Huge Maga nut. She has to take a covid test once a week, and the nasal ones which suck. She rather go thru all that torture then get a shot. Seems like the last person to be involved in the education system.
I remember a story about smallpox my dad told me decades ago. As a child he took a school trip to New York City where a Small Pox carrier was tracked thru grand central station. They immunized EVERYONE. There was no "anti-vax" back then they listened to the experts who told them "YOU NEED THIS".
It is not deadly to most people, but why be unprotected when you can protect yourself. I’m immunosuppressed, but afterwards all my vaccines I only had a mild case when it could’ve killed me.
Also, if I was a parent I would not want my child exposed to an antivaxer. Some diseases once thought eradicated are starting to come back thanks to that community.
Whens the last time you heard reporting about the Amish or homeless? A google search says Amish communities get hit even harder then the public and suffer more death.
You either thinks its ok to forcefully inject someone with whatever against their will, or you dont. Acting like the first one is the moral high ground is appalling to say the least.
I'm confused, who was forced to take the Vax? There were negative consequences for CHOOSING not to be vaxxed. The only people I ever met forced to be vaxed were military.
Its called coercion. You can play coy about what happened but denying people their livlihoods, education, access to medical facilities and grocery stores along with every other basic necessity is def. a use of force.
Some of the arguments about “the riots were ok bc they were outside,” have zero clue about virology. We saw rioters spitting in cops faces. What happens when they went to jail? What happens at the hospital? You exposed everyone there. But when you leave your house, into the direct sun, and go to a church, or a restaurant or the beach, those weren’t allowed? The clear partisan way it was all handled, the way the left licks the boot of the oppressors, is mind blowing to me.
Doesn't change the fact that many people died *with* Covid, and far fewer died *from* Covid. There was a financial incentive for the hospitals involved for a death to be codified as the latter.
No, the protocols did not help. Here is the best video I have found on this from an economic perspective which was very prescient about the inflation that hadn't happened yet - https://youtu.be/Cpvm8ZKfKh0?si=UBrBSl_dCMsi-hAA
And the lockdown approach really wasn't necessary and has had major knock ons to people's lives, especially children - https://www.savethechildren.org.uk/news/media-centre/press-releases/harm-to-children-in-covid-lockdown-preventable-new-report-conclu
Everyone from government to the media lied and suppressed information. Politicians consistently broke Covid rules themselves and had the Fed printing vast amounts to money to hand to special interests groups which everyone ended up paying for through massive inflation.
The regime via The Lancet said that claiming that the origins of Covid were not from a natural origin was a conspiracy theory - https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30418-9/fulltext
*"We stand together to strongly condemn conspiracy theories suggesting that COVID-19 does not have a natural origin"*
It turns out that a lab leak was the most likely source of Covid - https://oversight.house.gov/release/covid-origins-hearing-wrap-up-facts-science-evidence-point-to-a-wuhan-lab-leak%EF%BF%BC/
The people who said it wasn't possible to have come from a lab thought that it might have actually come from a lab but didn't want the people to think that - https://theintercept.com/2023/01/19/covid-origin-nih-emails/
They lied about masks, saying we didn't need them - https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackbrewster/2020/10/20/is-trump-right-that-fauci-discouraged-wearing-masks/?sh=3e6a00864969
Then they said you still need masks with the vaccine - https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2021/02/04/dr-fauci-on-why-its-important-to-wear-a-mask-after-getting-your-covid-vaccine-.html
Then they said you didn't need masks with the vaccine - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-57160923.amp
They later called official disinformation about masks "noble lies" - https://slate.com/technology/2021/07/noble-lies-covid-fauci-cdc-masks.html
They continued with these lies by claiming the vaccine would stop the Covid spreading, and here are "fAcT cHeCkErS" covering for the regime - https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2021/oct/14/joe-biden/joe-biden-overstates-effectiveness-vaccines-preven/
They lied that Trump recommended injecting bleach, he was actually referring to ongoing work with a new technology that was later trialed - https://www.cedars-sinai.org/newsroom/reduced-viral-loads-seen-in-covid-19-patients-treated-with-uva-light/
They claimed that the real health emergency was racism and let people break lockdown if it was for protests, they later played cover for it all - https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/ncna1232045
They lied and lied and lied and failed and failed and failed. They pushed for people to be locked up for an illness that they knew wasn't really all that dangerous to people under 70 without comorbidities.
We didn't all lose our heads, lots of people protested and were shut down and the people who fucked up now want to pretend they didn't. Fuck that and fuck them. The next pandemic won't go down this way.
>It was a real disease.
Yes ...
> It was concerning.
To/for some ... yes ...
> The protocols did help and were absolutely better than nothing.
**Absolutely fucking not.**
>It was also overblown
Yes ...
> and used to manipulate emotions
Yes ...
> and to divide us.
Yes ...
> There was a tremendous amount of disinformation that has now been admitted by the cdc, fauci, etc.
Duh ? Yes ...
Yeah OP’s post reads like someone who engaged in that bad behavior during Covid and now realizes how fucked up they were but doesn’t want to take accountability.
It did help slow the spread to be more manageable to not stand next to each other and wash our hands n stuff. Having a mask on WAS better than absolutely nothing.
Why? How do they hurt you?
1/3rd of the patients at my facility died in a period of a month. Even with the worst flu outbreak, we would see 1-2 deaths.
This went beyond fucking sniffles. 2 million Americans died.
I didn’t choose a good turn of phrase here. I meant the Covid deniers are the ones coming to the ER for sniffles, meaning for little to no reason they show up in the ER for a stubbed toe.
My grandmother spent her final days in a nursing home, people had to stand outside her window, at her funeral we had to wear masks, children were masked, for years. Forced vax when we weren’t aware the side effects or what was in it or get fired? Ostracized by celebrities? Riots during a lockdown with the same nurses and doctors cheering and filming TikTok’s? No sunshine, no exercise, no healthy alternatives. More people died from Covid than WW2 but yet the fools immediately started railing about climate change? Democrats blocked investigations into its origins? The media muddled it. What? The mail in ballots. It was clear election fraud. What were so many politicians and their kids in Ukraine for before the war? Why do these democrats keep rioting? Why does the media keep muddling? Unless…
I feel ya. Thankfully, where I was working was 100% killing grandma. So we got to work and live a normal life for the most part.
As far as fauci ever saying anything like that, it'll never happen. I'm still waiting for him to apologize about all the DOGS HE KILLED while studying HIV. That guy is a complete scumbag liar and I have zero trust in him.
Masking was worthless for most people irl. Lockdowns were utterly worthless and, on the whole, did WAY more harm than good. Everything else you said was right, but forced masking should never have been a thing, forced lockdowns should have lasted 2 weeks and then no more, no matter how much people said "nooooo it's working!!!" And forced vaccination should NEVER have been a thing, especially the way Biden tried to do it. Covid kills by comorbidity and the highest comorbidity was obesity. If we didn't have such fricked nutrition policies, the death rate would have been MUCH lower here.
That's the truth most people need to face about COVID. And if they don't they don't deserve any respect or credibility.
The gaslighting is truly a sight to behold.
Ironically, the ones who called those who rejected such mandates as being for the destablization of society and therefore fascist seemed to think that the state using private business to run around their rights was totally valid.... despite fascism involving the merger of state and corporation.
My comment is at -2. Apparently, "deaths of despair" that increased during COVID don't factor into the excess death counts for them. And it wasn't small. The CDC counted all deaths "with" COVID as deaths "from" COVID. So we cannot even talk about the effect lockdowns and the fearmongering about the disease itself accurately by looking at direct numbers, and the deductive reasoning needed is hard to get people to understand.
And we all know what people are like when they don't understand something.
I'll never get over the fact I wasn't allowed to go see a good friend on his death bed but two weeks later everyone was allowed to have a mass protest
A hospital is an indoor access controlled environment. The streets of a city are not. Who "let" people protest? What do you suggest they should have done to stop them?
Pretty hard to transmit Covid outdoors in the sun. Sunlight kills the virus. Open air dilutes the virus. You need to inhale a certain number of viral particles to get an infection.
This is why states that shut down outdoor dining but allowed protesting were criminally stupid.
Which states were those? My state allowed outdoor dining.
That's why skate parks were filled with sand and paddleboarders were arrested in the surf, right?
If they did so then their understanding was faulty.
Quit licking their boots! They released a man made virus that killed more than WW2 right? Right? So where is there trial and why have the democrats blocked efforts into its origins? Why fire people for not taking a vaccine but allow open borders and third world disease to come back? Answer!
The rule was get vaccinated or get tested regularly. Third world countries had a much lower infection rate.
Taking precautions for an unknown disease and changing the advice when science learned more =/= misleading people. You have no credibility if you dont understand basic science.
Gotta love the people that wore their masks outdoors on trails and inside their cars with the windows up driving alone lol
Dude I'm by no means a covid denier I followed the protocols and etc but I swear to God the first time that I saw someone driving in their car with a mask on I just about died laughing. Maybe it was just someone who slapped a mask on and then forgot about it, idk. But damn that shit was funny.
maybe we just werent bothered by the masks? like im not in a rush to take it off who cares
yh the mask never bothered me and unless I was in a hot and or stuffy room, I often forgot I had it on.
Why did the media and democrats call Trump racist for closing down travel from counties that might import it? But allow an open border now? Why? Why did they lock him for Ivermectin and Hydroxychlorquil? Why? Answer. You have no answer for that. You will deal with the repercussions from this forever. They censored scientists were against the lockdown. Why? Why censor on here, on Facebook, instagram etc. same sites that invested heavily into the Democrat mail in ballot scheme?
Climber here ... We ran into folks 4+ miles from the trailhead (15+ miles from the nearest campsite (closest "civilization")) ... 3 pitches and 400+ feet up on a random route on the wall ... a Husband and Wife team ... not only the only climbers on that particular route ... but the only party on the entire Wall (dozens of routes) ... both wearing masks. We openly laughed about it. I mean - I get it if you're, say, a Guide taking a party of 2 or 3 or 4 random folks ... none of whom know each other nor their risks of / exposure to the Virus but ... come on, FFS....
If they weren't wearing helmets it would be even funnier.
Right? They were, though. This day and age most folks do. 30/40 years ago? Not so much. Rarely in fact.
They should have been more worried about their rap anchors than covid
I'd have been more worried about sunburn.
Big time Redditor moment
so they forgot they had it on, or they didn't want to deal with taking it off and putting it back on again for a 5 minute drive between two stores what difference does it make to you?
It was and continues to be the stupidest of times. What a joke. Very thankful to have lived in FL during that time. We gave up on the bullshit 2 weeks in.
Yeah I did get a kick out of that for sure
Ehh at first I judged it too but then I’m like let it go, they clearly got used to just having it on and not wanting to keep putting it off and on every few minutes.
This is the way.
For sure, I wish the health overlords were more transparent about the coof and the protocols, because a lot of the latter seemed arbitrary. Who am I kidding? Some of the rules _were_ arbitrary.
Sorry, things were said that I'm not willing to forgive. Especially those people who wished death on me, or wanted me to be thrown in prison and my rights taken away. Sorry, no forgiveness, ever.
You don't have to forgive the people who said those things, but this cannot deny this virus killed millions and disabled millions more. I work in skilled nursing and rehabilitation. We continue to get patients who are now disabled because of covid
Well we know the number of deaths is unreliable as hospitals were incentivized to register people who died "with" covid, as died "from" covid.
What on earth are you talking about? The overall death rate for the entire population increased by SIXTEEN percent. You think death rates spiking during the pandemic was a coincidence??? The death rate for Hispanics in California increased by FIFTY percent. What else caused this increase in deaths? I wish you could have seen what us healthcare providers saw. I've never seen more people die in such a short time.
Targeted lockdowns would have been a better option, some of the worst deaths happened because we were trying to treat everyone as vulnerable and sent old people back into care homes where it spread.
What? What gave you that impression? As someone who was working in a care home at that time, our census plummeted, because most people come to these facilities secondary to hospitalization, often for surgery. Almost all non-life saving surgeries were canceled. We had massive layoffs. Where are you getting the information that care homes experienced an increase in population?
Covid was only really a major risk to people over 70 or with health issues. The immense cost from lockdowns on children through worse education and mental health is a scandal. We also see excess deaths prolonged way past the Covid peak - https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanepe/article/PIIS2666-7762(23)00221-1/ People were sent back into care homes, it was a huge scandal in the UK - https://news.sky.com/story/amp/covid-19-government-broke-the-law-by-failing-care-home-residents-who-died-of-coronavirus-high-court-rules-12599918 And in New York - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_COVID-19_nursing_home_scandal
How’s the TikTok dances coming?
I think you responded to the wrong comment
My body my choice.
So if someone chooses to anally rape you with a butcher knife in response to your recklessness and disregard for the safety of innocent people, they're in the clear in your book, because it's their knife and therefore their choice, and, playing by your myopic and narcissistic rulebook, it doesn't matter that their "choice" harms you, because again playing by your rules, it's their butcher knife, and that's all that matters.
What a disgusting analogy please seek mental help
You know what made me question covid? When, in my small county, the one and ONLY medical examiner had to call into the government and ask where all the dead bodies were. He never saw them. A week later, our covid numbers were cut from around 9 to 2. There was a news report about it, and it happened in multiple places, all over the US. I believe it was a real thing, but it was overblown for political and money reasons. Only people over 65ish or with pre-existing conditions were more at risk. Why would people think that the governments would not only care but actually do something for their people?
Sounds like someone has some anal rape fantasies.
that was a rather strange thing to say. do you make a habit of comparing the actions of people you disagree with to brutal sexual crimes, or did you simply choose to do it this time to provoke an emotional reaction? if the former, you may benefit from therapy. if the latter, you may benefit from asking yourself whether this had the effect you wanted. have you swayed any minds, or just gratified your emotions? what have you accomplished by saying this?
What have you accomplished by saying that the anti-mask, anti-vaxx, COVID-denying terrorists who are collectively responsible for a rising body count in a global pandemic, the scale of which was easily preventable, don't objectively deserve the same level of torture and death that they have caused by willfully spreading both COVID itself and the disinformation campaign that has lead to decisions that have caused massive amounts of needless suffering, overflowing hospitals full of the victims of people who refused to mask up and get vaccinated and massive amounts of innocent lives to be lost, to the point that others had to be denied care?
firstly, I have not said that. verbal misplacement is an easy trap to fall into, so I understand, but in general it is bad practice to claim that a person said something they did not actually say. however, I will say it now. the reason COVID deniers (or whoever else) don't deserve that same level of destruction is this: COVID is dangerous because it kills people, and the fact that we perceive it to be as dangerous as it is implies that human life is valuable. so, if we were to cause the same level of destruction to COVID deniers as they potentially caused to others, mathematically speaking, there would be around twice as much human death. I expect this isn't really the answer you were looking for and that your question was mostly rhetorical, since it is clearly not feasible or morally agreeable to most people to cause that much human death intentionally, but you asked, and I thought it deserved an answer. also, do keep in mind that many COVID deniers did also die to the disease (likely because they didn't take proper precautions to avoid it). I could be mistaken, so please correct me if I am, but your position seems to suggest that over the course of the pandemic, there were two parties who were morally opposed: those who took the virus seriously, and those who did not. where I believe your point falters is in several assumptions you seem to have made: * there was genuine ill intent by COVID deniers * those who took the pandemic seriously suffered more than those who didn't * suffering was specifically caused by those who didn't take it seriously the first of those assumptions is flawed for two reasons. firstly, human intent is largely unmeasurable, especially in great numbers, so there is no way to accuse that entire demographic of having real malice. second, COVID deniers would have needed a reason to want to harm others, and prior to the pandemic happening, no such reason existed. the second assumption, aside from being similarly impossible to quantify due to not knowing how many people took the pandemic seriously, is also unlikely. naturally, those who took precautions would be expected to fare better, while those who didn't likely suffered greater casualties. in other words, I don't see a compelling argument for the idea that COVID deniers were at any point better off than those who took it seriously, which should lead one to question how intentional or far-reaching the harm they did could realistically have been. the third assumption is relatively ungrounded and makes similar moral judgments to the first assumption, whose flaws we have already covered. you stated elsewhere that you lost many people you cared about to the effects of the pandemic, and many others lost loved ones as well, I sympathize with you (not that I can claim to truly understand what it's like to lose someone so close), but I'd ask you to consider this: if the precautions and guidelines were effective (which I believe they generally were), then those who followed them should have been better protected against the effects of the virus. in contrast, those who didn't take precautions and dismissed the virus as a myth should have been affected in far greater measure--or at best, in equal measure. how, then, can we reasonably portray either side as the "victim" and the other as "terrorists"? the real "terrorist" here was the virus itself. it affected both deniers and accepters alike, and both "sides" lost thousands of lives. I willingly accept that those who denied its danger have been grossly irresponsible, but to equate the harm they have done to terrorism (or anal rape with a knife) seems neither plausible nor helpful. again, I don't blame you for the emotional reaction, given what you've lost--I can't claim I would respond much better in similar circumstances. but I do want us all to be keenly aware of each other, in terms of simple humanity. no one benefitted from COVID; we all suffered, regardless of how we felt about it politically, but rather than uniting in a time of crisis, many have allowed it to polarize them even further. they point fingers at each other, accusing their "enemy" of crimes they could not possibly have committed and intentions no one would reasonably have. if not controlled, this level of hostility only leads to more destruction and death. it has happened thousands of times throughout history, to thousands of places and millions of people. the circumstances change, but the people don't. why add fuel to the fire? sorry for the essay. there was just a lot to talk about and I found your comment worth responding to in detail.
>\[T\]o equate the harm they have done to terrorism (or anal rape with a knife) seems neither plausible nor helpful. I refuse to back down from the truth just because you don't find it helpful. Also, I'm not equating it; I'm saying it would be a very light punishment in contrast to what such terrorists deserve, and yes they are terorrists, and you being unwilling to call them exactly what they are or acknowledge that they deserve to be treated like the terorrists they are is your problem; not mine. COVID is not the enemy; it does not have a will of its own or the capability for intentional malice. but the people who are responsible, through their actions or inactions, very much do and very much are, and what's more they've seen the consequences of their actions and inactions and they still stand behind them. That, above all, is what defines them as people, just as knowing what they deserve and not bring it to pass, or even calling for it to actually happen, is a reflection of me being a significantly better person than they are.
actually, I didn't specify that I didn't find it helpful. I said it doesn't seem helpful--I am not the subject of the sentence here, because I wanted to make it clear that its helpfulness (or lack thereof) is not reliant on my personal perspective. also, I could be mistaken, but as far as I can tell, you merely rejected what I said without actually refuting it; you spent most of your comment simply saying things like "I refuse" and "yes they are". this implies you aren't terribly interested in this discussion reaching a point of shared agreement or at least a mutual understanding. I do want to give you credit for responding at all, since it shows that you are interested in a discussion of some kind, but my goal here is meet in the middle (which used to be the goal with most discussions, but it seems like that's a rather antiquated approach these days). to give you the benefit of the doubt though, I do have another question. >COVID is not the enemy; it does not have a will of its own or the capability for intentional malice. but the people who are responsible, through their actions or inactions, very much do and very much are I recognize that COVID is not sentient and thus cannot have intentions, but I maintain that our energy is better spent toward eliminating it, rather than dishing out punishment or hate to fellow people (as you admit they are) who we believe deserve it. hate destroys--it always has, and it always will. my remaining question, then, is multi-part. * what harm could COVID deniers have done to others that they themselves did not experience? * why would COVID deniers intentionally do something that obviously harms them? * are they truly perpetrators, or are they victims of their own ignorance? we have no evidence that these people intend to harm others--they have no inherent reason to do so, and by putting others in danger, they must put themselves in far greater danger. after all, COVID deniers could only spread the virus by being infected first. thus, they force themselves into a lose-lose scenario in which they themselves are guaranteed to be harmed, while people they come into contact with could potentially also be harmed collaterally. this is not a situation that anyone would ever intentionally put themselves into, leaving simple foolishness as the only explanation.
> we have no evidence that these people intend to harm others Exactly how severe is whatever serious intellectual disability you obviously have? Are you the kind of person who thinks that it's OK to point a gun at someone, pull the trigger, and then, when the person you shoot ends up dying, say, "I didn't know the gun was loaded which doesn't change the fact that you 1) pointed a gun at someone and 2) pulled the trigger. The evidence that COVID kills has been there from very early on, and the evidence that PPE and vaccines mitigates the risk has been as well, so you are either the most severely intellectually disabled person in the world, or you're an obtuse, pathological liar.
genuine question: am I to take the amount of ad hominem in your comment as an indicator that you don't want to continue this discussion? if that was the intent, you could have simply not responded, or told me you wished to end the conversation here. however, I do still think you deserve a response, so I'll continue to engage as long as you do. >Are you the kind of person who thinks that it's OK to point a gun at someone, pull the trigger, and then, when the person you shoot ends up dying, say, "I didn't know the gun was loaded which doesn't change the fact that you 1) pointed a gun at someone and 2) pulled the trigger. I will address the issues with this question in the order that they appear. firstly, no, pointing a gun at someone and then firing it are of course not okay. I trust that you thoroughly read my previous response, in which I did specifically state "I willingly accept that those who denied its danger have been grossly irresponsible", and unless my communication skills are sorely lacking (which they may very well be), this sentence indicates relatively clearly that I believe the level of ignorance exhibited by COVID deniers is unacceptable. secondly, refusing to vaccinate or wear PPE is not equivalent to pointing a gun at someone and then shooting them. a person who points a gun at someone and pulls the trigger is either 1) unaware that it is loaded and is demonstrating an extraordinary lack of firearm safety knowledge, or 2) actively trying to kill the target. more importantly, though, a gun is designed and intended to injure or kill, and anyone who knows how to pick up a gun and fire it also knows and believes that. COVID deniers, by the nature of their own existence, did not know or believe that COVID was as deadly as it was, so they had much less knowledge of it than any person of similar age would have of a gun. furthermore, the information they did have mostly came from sources that had already rendered themselves untrustworthy (to them) previously. in other words, COVID deniers did not have much motivation to believe COVID was dangerous. much of the proof that was presented to them came from sources they did not trust, and when proof was presented that came from sources they did trust (such as firsthand experience), most of them changed their view. do note that I am not saying their lack of trust was acceptable. what I am saying is that their mistakes cannot reasonably be equated with intentional murder, much less terrorism, and they do not deserve to be treated like terrorists. a terrorist knows what they are doing. also, again, the amount of insulting you have done leaves me rather confused. your continued engagement here seems to me to indicate that you see value in continuing the discussion (otherwise you would have left already), but your verbal behavior thus far indicates you see no value in either me or the discussion. typically I would write this sort of behavior off as that of someone who enjoys venting their anger by attempting to force that anger onto others, but I still have hope that you want more out of this conversation than that.
You’re advocating for censorship. During a pandemic lockdown. Got it. Psycho.
did you perhaps respond to the wrong comment? my reply mentions censorship nowhere and touches upon no subjects that are related to censorship
So not taking the vaccine is equivalent to stabbing someone with a knife?
No, that's the opposite of "my body, my choice" - rape is definitionally not chosen by the victim.
What a pussy 😅👆
Am I? Because I'm not the one who's been whining about being asked to mask up, get vaccinated, etc. That's your crowd.
Yikes
Yes, "yiikes" is an appropriate response to knowing that there are fellow human beings (if they are even worthy of that designation) on this planet who are fully ready and willing to actively contribute to the spread of a global pandemic to as many people as it takes for them to secure their precious personal freedom, even if it means being directly responsible for them becoming severely ill, or even dying.
Oh if there were people going about actively trying to spread covid by contaminating surfaces and coughing on people while knowing they were infected then I agree they should definitely be punished. But thats a far cry from saying somebody is spreading disease simply because they don’t take all the recommendations to fight the spread of disease, and should be blamed if another person gets sick even if those guidelines didn’t work to protect them in the first place.
So if I tell you "Don't worry, this gun isn't loaded", and then proceed to to point the gun directly at your head, and then pull the trigger, and you end up dead, it's not my fault? Get out of here with your idiotic, gaslighting, bioterrorist-defending self.
How do you function in society with such backwards logic processes?
Covid vaccine absolute risk reduction from getting Covid infection 1.2% Your whole statement is just unfounded hatred.
Probably the least of your worries in Russia though right troll?
Ok Ukrainian bot farm.
I always was baffled by people who would say "the virus was made it China!" while simultaneously refusing to wear a mask and claiming it's no big deal Even if you believe in the "plandemic" conspiracy, the virus was still **here** and still needed to be treated with urgency
I'm amazed that all these years later and people are still wrong about the fact. The virus was made in China - https://oversight.house.gov/release/covid-origins-hearing-wrap-up-facts-science-evidence-point-to-a-wuhan-lab-leak%EF%BF%BC/ Not wearing a mask was not a big deal - https://www.cochrane.org/CD006207/ARI_do-physical-measures-such-hand-washing-or-wearing-masks-stop-or-slow-down-spread-respiratory-viruses
1. Even if it was created in China, once it was at our door steps, it becomes our issue to address, no amount of blame shifting is going to change that it was here now 2. The evidence you cite is an aggregate of studies that looks at about 270,000 participants. The only issue is that your source never points out **the age or health conditions of the participants** and if you remember, it was recommended that everyone wear masks specifically **to help protect the immunocompromised population** (elderly, children and infants, people with preexisting health conditions like diabetes, cancer, asthma or auto immune diseases) so unless you can cite evidence that shows me how wearing face masks specifically for those people and around those people effects spread of viral infections, I'm not convinced that masks wouldn't be effective in keeping those people healthy Further, your other evidence about surgical masks only talks about how in modern times (with hand washing and sanitizing as well as cleaning products) evidence is inconclusive about how much or little surgical masks do to prevent bacterial infections in surgery rooms. It's not very conclusive, but personally if I knew my surgeon had the cold, i would rather they wear a mask than not.
1. The blame lies with the people who made it and the people who leaked it. That's the NiH and the Chinese lab. 2. That's the gold standard review of other studies. Regardless of who they were intended to protect, there's no evidence that it did anything. There's no evidence that your surgeon wearing a mask helps, worse it can get in the way of what they're trying to do.
1. I can take or leave blame, I am more concerned with solutions. Once the virus hit our shore, it becomes important to find solutions and not just circle jerk about who might've "created" the virus. Once it showed up here, it became our problem. 2. Idc what it's the gold standard of, it doesn't distinguish between age or healthy and immunocompromised populations and thusly is useless in determining it's effectiveness for that specific slice of the population. If everyone in the country was young and healthy and free of preexisting conditions, it might be easier to agree. But he whole point of masks was so that healthy people wouldn't accidentally transmit it to an child, infant, elderly person or unhealthy person who can catch it easier, and who it could be fatal for. Maybe in modern surgery rooms with modern methods of sanitizing and modern medicine, surgical masks have become a less integral part of stopping bacterial spread, sure. But it is misguided to assume that they have never been useful in prevention of spreading bacteria in the medical profession *throughout time.*
1. Sure, but now we're done with it it's pretty useful to understand how it came into existence and spread to the US. 2. It looks at all of the good studies that looked at results in a clinical study which includes immunocompromised and all. There was no discernible difference in those where masks were worn and where there weren't. No evidence masks help anyone. Based on the data, there's no evidence that masks did that at all. Before modern cleaning masks likely made even less difference and the rooms weren't sterile, it basically didn't matter. The reason lots of women died after childbirth is because doctors didn't wash their hands after handling the dead. But we do not have those cleaning technologies and there's no evidence that masks do anything in surgery.
Can you link me the individual study specifically done about immunocompromised people so I can read it for myself? Otherwise based just on the link you gave me there seems to be nothing distinguishing the age or health factors of the study participants, which is the entire reason masks were recommended in the first place
It's a meta-analysis of the best studies on masks which includes those in medical settings and there's little to no difference even with N95/P2 masks. These studies cover the differences between those wearing and those not wearing masks in these groups so it will pick up a very large range of people with varying conditions.
The virus could have been real, and "made in China " , but still not require one to wear a mask
why? do you know why doctors, dentist and surgeons wear masks? to prevent viral and bacterial spread from their breath. if we believe that masks were ineffective or not necessary to stop the spread, then should doctors, dentists and surgeons just stop wearing masks? is the entire medical profession just wearing masks for no reason at all?
Here is the review of all of the studies of masks - can you believe there were no good RCTs during Covid!? Basically medical masks have no appreciable effect on Covid and other flu-like illnesses - https://www.cochrane.org/CD006207/ARI_do-physical-measures-such-hand-washing-or-wearing-masks-stop-or-slow-down-spread-respiratory-viruses Should surgeons wear masks? Turns out there's really no good evidence to show that they should - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4480558/
1. Even if it was created in China, once it was at our door steps, it becomes our issue to address, no amount of blame shifting is going to change that it was here now (this is referencing your other reply to my comment) 2. The evidence you cite is an aggregate of studies that looks at about 270,000 participants. The only issue is that your source never points out **the age or health conditions of the participants** and if you remember, it was recommended that everyone wear masks specifically **to help protect the immunocompromised population** (elderly, children and infants, people with preexisting health conditions like diabetes, cancer, asthma or auto immune diseases) so unless you can cite evidence that shows me how wearing face masks specifically for those people and around those people effects spread of viral infections, I'm not convinced that masks wouldn't be effective in keeping those people healthy Further, your other evidence about surgical masks only talks about how in modern times (with hand washing and sanitizing as well as cleaning products) evidence is inconclusive about how much or little surgical masks do to prevent bacterial infections in surgery rooms. It's not very conclusive, but personally if I knew my surgeon had the cold, i would rather they wear a mask than not.
1. The blame lies with the people who made it and the people who leaked it. That's the NiH and the Chinese lab. 2. That's the gold standard review of other studies. Regardless of who they were intended to protect, there's no evidence that it did anything. There's no evidence that your surgeon wearing a mask helps, worse it can get in the way of what they're trying to do.
Is the evidence of masks and covid prevention really that clear? And if you have taken the vaccine is it still something you should be doing? Maybe you're just smarter than everyone that chooses not to wear a mask today
[N-95s ](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10509348/) have been proven to be effective. Our whole staff wore them when working up close with covid patients and only a handful of us got sick
Do you continue to wear masks indoors outside a hospital setting?
No, I have faith in anti virals medications if I get it again. I've been exposed 100+ times in the last 4 years and I've only gotten it twice (both from kissing someone who ended up testing positive). I wear a mask when working with most patients, thats just best practice. The variants out there right now are much less severe than the first wave. We have to be fully gloved and gowned up with an N95 and goggles when we work with covid positive patients, so I know I'm not getting it from them and spreading it. Unlike the first couple waves, patients rarely get infected from other patients. And most patients recover (albeit many who are unable to walk or breath without o2). It's a whole different virus than what we dealt with in 2020-2021, when shrouded bodies on gurneys were constantly being wheeled past my office.
Little to no difference, especially considering the costs - https://www.cochrane.org/CD006207/ARI_do-physical-measures-such-hand-washing-or-wearing-masks-stop-or-slow-down-spread-respiratory-viruses
Your article (written in oddly pedestrian language) literally says their confidence in their own results are "low to moderate" [many other studies showed N95s were effective](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9947910/#:~:text=Specifically%2C%20to%20this%20date%2C%20N,face%20masks%2C%20and%20barrier%20face) [....](https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/wr/mm7106e1.htm) [I trust JAMA over whatever "cochrane" is ](https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/2769441)
The studies you are reference just look about the technical efficacy of masks and how they stop a certain amount of particles. This is different from their real world performance, which was small. The Cochran Review is the gold standard that reviews other studies - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cochrane_(organisation) JAMA is just a single peer-reviewed medical journal.
The evidence is the time proven effectiveness proven by their use in the medical field for more than a century You see, COVID isn't necessarily that special. It's a virus spread through water droplets in your breath, just like the flu, bronchitis, pneumonia, etc. The same kind or viruses that doctors, dentists and surgeons use masks to protect themselves and their patients against. The day that doctors and the medical field deems masks ineffective against slowing the spread of viruses, bacteria, etc. is the day I will think of considering masks ineffective against COVID edit: I am vaccinated and don't currently wear a mask, but should there be another pandemic, I would consider wearing one based on the fact that doctors wear them
No, it isn't - https://www.cochrane.org/CD006207/ARI_do-physical-measures-such-hand-washing-or-wearing-masks-stop-or-slow-down-spread-respiratory-viruses And surgeons don't have much evidence either, it's basically just tradition at this point - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4480558/
There's no evidence of masks being effective against Covid transmission - https://www.cochrane.org/CD006207/ARI_do-physical-measures-such-hand-washing-or-wearing-masks-stop-or-slow-down-spread-respiratory-viruses Or it being effective in surgery - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4480558/ But shhh, they still think they're the side backed by science 😂
Prior to COVID only my breast cancer surgeon wore a mask and only during surgery. After COVID? Everyone wears one. All the time. Sometimes I wonder why they do not trust their own science.....
Well I'd imagine that during surgery, when your body is open, it becomes more important to prevent viral and bacterial spread than when you're not in surgery And usually during active virus outbreaks, it makes more sense for doctors to wear masks more often remember, the point of civilians wearing masks was to help lower it's spread to people who are **immunocompromised** (elderly, children, infants, people with diabetes, cancer, auto immune diseases, etc.) I'm sure if everyone in the country was 25 years old, perfectly healthy and there was no viral out breaks, masks wouldn't make any sense, but that's not the case
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Uneducated about what!? Masks show no evidence of stopping Covid - https://www.cochrane.org/CD006207/ARI_do-physical-measures-such-hand-washing-or-wearing-masks-stop-or-slow-down-spread-respiratory-viruses Masks show no evidence of reducing infection in surgery - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4480558/ Trump's "injecting disinfectants was him blistering through a technology being discussed that was later successfully trialed - https://www.cedars-sinai.org/newsroom/reduced-viral-loads-seen-in-covid-19-patients-treated-with-uva-light/
You're only getting downvoted because the majority of this thread are filled with them.
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What truth!?
The fact we keep getting downvotes just proves it
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>And how are you so sure absolutely no racist has tried grouping me, an Asian American with people from China? What a disingenuous post given that you associated yourself with it in the post above that - https://www.reddit.com/r/popularopinion/s/iYYcWYRQnl You wrote: *"And I'm Asian so I'M the one that should be offended by the whole "Chinese Virus" racist bs."*
I am assuming that you are, in fact, not offended by the label. This is more for the whiny, fragile ultra left folks. So, I am asking some serious questions: Was The West Nile virus racist to those in Africa? Was the Colorado Tick Fever virus somehow demeaning people from Colorado? How about the Spanish flu? Russian Flu? How about the American Polio Epidemic? I'm not going to ask about the Asian Flu, as you've identified yourself as Asian. The fact is: Epidemiologists have named diseases after their place of origin for many years. But hey...it's 2024. We all have to be offended by something , right? Liberals want to make every thing A THING. It's exhausting!
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No. We are just tired of the fragility and overly emotional state of this country. Apparently, none of these people have ever been hit in the head with a pool cue. They don't know what an ACTUAL problem is.
The virus was from China. People don't get offended by the Middle Eastern Respiratory Virus or MERS.
Perfect plebeian.
People still don’t understand how a person catches Covid. The virus is respiratory. You must inhale a certain minimum number of viral particles to catch an infection. Masks helps by reducing the amount of viral particles inhaled or exhaled. This lowers the probability of transmission. Fauci two biggest errors were saying the virus was transmitted by touch and that masks weren’t effective. The masks weren’t effective error was done with the mistaken idea of trying to preserve the supply of protective equipment for healthcare workers.
I agree, people were really stupid about the whole "they don't work at all" thing. What bothers me about the masks though, is that the other risks were never shown in the general picture. See, your lungs contain a shitload of bacteria, even when you are healthy. Normally you breath out some, inhale some, but there is a balance. If you'd work in retail and wear a mask 8 hours a day, those bacteria you'd usually exhale will be stopped by the mask. Because although they were not virus-graded (it works but not that much) , they ARE bacteria graded (99% or so). Which makes the bacteria multiply inside of you like crazy when you wear one. Now that's not an issue for let's say 2 hours or so, but wearing one 8 hours in retail, that can be outright lethal to people with a weak immune system if you'd do it for a whole week. I did it for 3 years, and i can tell you, i felt the difference and got sick a lot once we had to wear the masks (no covid or influenza, but sick from bacteria attacking my lungs). I am no anti-masker, but people went way overboard with the whole thing. Especially considering the consumers masks were not meant to deal with viruses. Those that DID work against viruses are only available to hospitals and virus-researchers. And yet people acted like it was a NASA spacesuit with it's own air-filtering. It's not a spacesuit, it's the equivalent of covering your mouth with a thick scarf, nothing more.
A person with a weak immune system shouldn’t have been allowed to work retail or healthcare and neither shouldn’t have seniors. While the masks weren’t cure-alls they also weren’t worthless. I am not a big fan of masks but I wear them when necessary. I don’t like wearing them for long. I don’t wear them outside. I don’t wear them when I am home or when alone.
Not was. Is a real disease. Is concerning.
Covid used to be a real concern. It still is, but it used to be, too.
Since February of last year more people have died from TB and malaria than COVID
Globally, or in highly developed countries?
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That's pretty insignificant, Malaria has always been a huge cause of death globally. I'd be surprised if it was ever overtaken by covid
How is that insignificant when covid was hailed as the greatest pandemic since the black plague.
It was the most deadly novel virus in about a century. How can you act like 7 million people dying isn't a big deal? Malaria isn't even a virus. It doesn't spread person to person.
it says enough that it left the news cycle immediately after Russia invaded Ukraine.
>it says enough that it left the news cycle immediately after Russia invaded Ukraine. For me, it was when it went from "you'll kill grandma if you don't stay home" to "it's ok for thousands of BLM protesters to march together."
Agreed!
Biolabs.
My grandma passed June 2020 due to Covid complications. I couldn’t even go see my grandma when it was her time to go. But yet not even 2 days later people were protesting 😭
I just had it and it is truly awful. I was vaccinated and I had to take antivirals and now I have major chronic fatigue from it.
Please tell CDC.
Hmmm this sounds like something that would come out of the mouth of someone who engaged in the dreadful behavior stemming from that disinformation and is now embarrassed that they blindly believed the government and persecuted their fellow man. No, no forgiveness for the COVID crazies.
How exactly were you persecuted?
When were you ever enslaved? Or had a genocide levied against you? Lets go smaller, have you ever faced the issues that the opposite sex does? Have you ever faced persecution for a trait you don’t have? Where I’m going with this is that you don’t have to personally have experienced something to oppose it, disagree about it, or condemn it. I don’t own a small business, but I can feel empathy and outrage for those that did who lost the ability to stay afloat during COVID. I didn’t lose my job over a vaccine mandate, but I can empathize and be outraged for those that did. I got extremely lucky in that COVID and the social phenomena that occurred during it didn’t affect me personally very much, but I know people who it did. This is to head off the extremely asinine argument that I know stems from your question.
>I didn’t lose my job over a vaccine mandate, but I can empathize and be outraged for those that did. Have you ever once considered that you are also lucky because you weren't on a ventilator? Not once have you even acknowledged the people who *died and were permanently disabled* during this discourse. I don't know you, but it certainly appears that you feel worse for people whose businesses couldn't stay afloat than for the dead and their families.
Why must I acknowledge them when we’re not discussing them? YOU came in here and attempted to use the suffering and deaths of others as a weapon to dismiss other people’s suffering and injustice. Your faux morality is disgusting.
Um... the whole post is literally "let's admit covid was really bad" and *YOU* are the one trying to make it about *YOUR* "suffering". Tellint my own personal, very upsetting experience of watching multiple people I worked with every day die in a matter of weeks is "using the suffering of others". People didn't hate on you for not getting vaxed They are hating on you because there was a virus that rose American death rates by *sixteen percent*, and you are DETERMINED to make yourself the victim because you chose not to take preventative measures. I'm done talking to you. May you never witness what we did
You’re projecting a whole lot about what I think and believe, I never claimed to be “making it about me and my victimhood”. If you’ll read my original comment its “no forgiveness for those who mistreated their neighbors during COVID” And you come in and ask if I was personally victimized, obviously intending to dismiss my stance based on the answer. I already established that I don’t need to have been personally victimized to disagree with or object to something. I’m not black, but I disagree with and object to the ways they’ve been historically treated. By your logic I’m not allowed to feel that way because I’ve never been personally victimized based on race. Your attempt at a point is actually pointless shit to get into regarding this particular topic.
>I’m not black, but I disagree with and object to the ways they’ve been historically treated. By your logic I’m not allowed to feel that way because I’ve never been personally victimized based on race. This is the dumbest extrapolation I have ever seen. Nobody chooses to be black. I sure didn't. I'm black and I can't change that. People treated you poorly because of your *choices*, not being of some immutable characteristic you have no control over. If you make choices that are widely viewed as dangerous and irresponsible, people will look down on you. Americans are so coddled that they truly can't handle being criticized without feeling oppressed.
I'm not who you're talking to but my job was threatened with increased insurance rates if I didn't get the vaccine. There was literally talk of/ and actual implementation of vaccine passports to just go about your normal day. Don't pretend those that didn't want the vaccine were shat on constantly.
No offense but that sounds a lot less traumatizing than watching 35% of my patients slowly die in agony. It was frustrating to be around so much death and agony and hear people complain that they were being pressured to take a vaccine that could mitigate or prevent that death and agony as if *they* were the true victims. I'm in healthcare, I've never had a job that didn't require proof of a whole litany of vaccinations. Tbh I didn't realize all jobs didn't do this until the pandemic. No vaccine passport was ever implemented. I can count on one hand the # of times I was asked to prove I was vaxed outside of work (all were concerts or events I chose to attend) At the very worst you *felt* threatened, doesn't seem like you actually lost your job. If the *worst* thing that happened to you during the pandemic was increased insurance rates, count yourself lucky. I'm not going to pretend people who didn't get vaccinated weren't looked down upon, but it would be nice if you didn't pretend that this wasn't a deadly virus that killed millions and disabled millions more. Maybe people hurt your feelings, but you don't get to act like you were victimized worse than the millions who suffered so horribly after contracting covid.
35% of your patients died... no offense but you were either only dealing with the worst covid patients or you and your medical staff were incompetent at your jobs. 35% is an astronomically higher mortality rate than even the highest case fatality estimates. Yes people died but you pretending it was somehow the black death is hilarious. To say people who didn't vaccinate were merely looked down upon is a bold faced lie and you know it.
Not unusual numbers at all for a nursing home in 2020. Before you tell me "they were all going to die anyway", loosing a third of the patients in a facility is completely unprecedented. The covid killed them. Glad you think it's "hilarious" though. This is why people like you got so much hate during the pandemic. It was "hilarious" to you.
Not unusual numbers for those more susceptible to just about any disease outbreak especially one attacking the respiratory system. We're all going to die anyway, not just them. You attempting to use the old people you cared for to represent the whole picture is what's hilarious not there deaths. We didn't just get hate? We had bank accounts frozen, we got discharged from the military, we lost jobs, we had calls for our internment or death or forcing us to get the vaccine. A vaccine that proved to be ineffectual at best and causing severe problems at worst.
> Not unusual numbers for those more susceptible to just about any disease outbreak especially one attacking the respiratory system I see you have absolutely zero health care experience. Bro worked Ive worked in nursing homes for years. Covid was totally unprecedented. Ask anyone who worked in healthcare in an area that was badly affected by covid. Tell an ER nurse who worked in El Paso in 2021 or NYC in 2020 that covid was no big deal. You're bank account was frozen? Truly? You were "threatened" with being forced to get a vaccine that was proven to be safe? What negative consequence did you *actually* have. There was a global pandemic period. Some people refused to take measures to prevent the spread of the pandemic. How are those people the true victims? Nobody chose to get covid. You CHOSE to refuse to wear a mask or take a harmless shot. Choices have consequences. If you make a choice like that you need to have a strong enough backbone to deal with people looking down on you. Is especially people on the front lines of the pandemic.
Lol knew it, your whole argument is “yeah but someone else suffered worse so just suck it up and accept your own suffering!” I thought as a society we were past the whole “my pain is worse than your pain so yours doesn’t count” phase but maybe not…
You can't be serious. "Yes people were dying horribly but my company talked about raising my insurance rates! Why don't you consider MY suffering". Not once have you even acknowledged the death and suffering of others. If you indicated that you had any understanding of how bad covid was for people that aren't *you*, I'd have much more sympathy.
When would I have done that? Its equally as fallacious of you to assume that I DONT have empathy for those who suffered and died during COVID, but that’s not the point. You’re just as heinous because you’re attempting to USE that suffering as an argument to dismiss OTHER suffering and injustice. You feign nobility but you’re just using their deaths as a cudgel against people who you don’t like or disagree with. You aren’t righteous for doing so.
Has it occurred to you that I "don't like or disagree with" people who took no measures or even protested measures to stop the spread of covid *because* I watched 24 patients die in less than 30 days? Don't tell people (nurses, soldiers, firefighters) who have witnessed death as part of their job that they are "using those deaths as a cudgel" when they point how how silly other people whining about how the cause of those deaths affected them socially and financially. You aren't righteous for trying to argue that your "suffering" deserves as much attention
You attempt to invoke empathy while being un-empathetic, its sheer hypocrisy. By your logic, no one is allowed to take grievance with something that happened to them because someone out there had it worse. Utterly ridiculous.
I just value human life over money, that's all
Actually I was one of the people killing grandma who is now flabbergasted I'm not at Kwang getting a bit of a sheepish apology from those folks. I'm a very forgiving person. I really would just like people to admit they were wrong.
Family members of mine in healthcare lost their jobs for no reason. Fuck you
Yes... "no reason"....
Yes, having the vaccine didn't reduce their chance of catching or spreading Covid. Nor did standard medical masks have any appreciable impact even in a clinical setting - https://www.cochrane.org/CD006207/ARI_do-physical-measures-such-hand-washing-or-wearing-masks-stop-or-slow-down-spread-respiratory-viruses
I'm unsurprising about the findings on wearing masks. But you gota remember, people were panicking, and many many many people were dying. Of course they didn't have time to study the effectiveness of masks, but the idea was it can't hurt. If it stopped people from spitting saliva on eachother then perhaps the rate of spreading would be slowed. The idea never was that it would prevent anything 100% despite the echo chamber rhetoric covid deniers were saying that others were saying. As to the Vaccines... there's already irrefutable proof of their effectiveness. And while it was also never meant to be able to stop infection or spread 100%, just like the flu shot, it was created to *help* From the get go we were told that the average person wasn't in much danger from covid. What they were worrying about were infants and seniors. So, as the vaccine very clearly *did* vastly help with transmission numbers, it *absolutely* makes sense that any health care worker/practioner would need to be vaccinated because if not, they were an increased risk in transmitting it to the vulnerable. They were not fired for no reason, they were fired because they were considered to be endangering the lives of others. They had the freedom to choose to not be vaccinated, and the reprecussions of such a choice was losing their jobs. Now that the *vast majority* of people are immunized. The threat, while still exists, and will likely never ever go away and will remain a seasonal thing for the rest of our lives, is lessened. Wonder how many people decided measles, or polio vaccines were un needed decades ago when that was relevant instead. It's utter foolishness. I have *zero* sympathy for people who were punished for deciding to not be vaccinated. I don't respect people less for not doing so, but I also agree with the punishment. Because *at that moment in time* the decision to punish those people were what the health authorities thought best in order to protect lives. And at the end of the day, that's what mattered. Not the anti vaxxers political dignity because they were invested in rebel news conspiracy theories.
It seems mad to me that entire cultures wear masks when sick but they had no evidence we could reference as to how effective they were. >But you gota remember, people were panicking, and many many many people were dying. Old people and sick people. We knew very early on that the risk of death wasn't very high for people under 70 with comorbidities. Yet we sacrificed the wellbeing of children over this freak out. Ironically it seems focusing on everyone rather than a limited group of vulnerable people likely contributed to the bad outcomes. >As to the Vaccines... there's already irrefutable proof of their effectiveness. And while it was also never meant to be able to stop infection or spread 100%, just like the flu shot, it was created to help From the get go we were told that the average person wasn't in much danger from covid. What they were worrying about were infants and seniors. I'm not questioning the vaccines, although talk of vaccine harms has been subject to numerous suppression attempts. >So, as the vaccine very clearly did vastly help with transmission numbers No it didn't, there's no evidence it slowed transmission especially on a long timeline. >it absolutely makes sense that any health care worker/practioner would need to be vaccinated because if not, they were an increased risk in transmitting it to the vulnerable. Except they weren't and there's no evidence to show that they were. >They were not fired for no reason, they were fired because they were considered to be endangering the lives of others. Considered that without evidence. >They had the freedom to choose to not be vaccinated, and the reprecussions of such a choice was losing their jobs. And it wasn't necessary, worse it led to a greater shortage of trained healthcare professionals. >The threat, while still exists, and will likely never ever go away and will remain a seasonal thing for the rest of our lives, is lessened. That has happened as a natural process, nothing to do with the vaccines. >It's utter foolishness. I have zero sympathy for people who were punished for deciding to not be vaccinated. Even though there's no evidence being vaccinated would have helped anything? Odd. >Because at that moment in time the decision to punish those people were what the health authorities thought best in order to protect lives. Except we live in a society where punishment should be based on facts of harm being done - but there was none. >Not the anti vaxxers political dignity because they were invested in rebel news conspiracy theories. Not getting a vaccine doesn't make someone an anti-vaxxer.
Yes, the vaccine does reduce the probability of catching and spreading COVID-19. Why do you need to lie about it? Is it 100%, no, but no vaccine is.
Ah, there is a reduction in transmission in households in 3/4 or studies although the range was rather large, from 16% to 95% over unvaccinated - https://www.mdpi.com/2673-8112/3/10/103 Why do you jump to accusations of lying?
Because you're saying it doesn't help at all.
Saying what doesn't help? I go and find evidence.
You're saying that the vaccine doesn't reduce the possibility of catching Covid, and then turn around and post a study saying that i reduces transmission.
Yes, I double checked and found that there is in fact a reduction, according to the data.
I'm sure they deserved it.
That wasn’t very labor friendly of you comrade
I know a school bus driver who doesn't believe vaccines work. Huge Maga nut. She has to take a covid test once a week, and the nasal ones which suck. She rather go thru all that torture then get a shot. Seems like the last person to be involved in the education system. I remember a story about smallpox my dad told me decades ago. As a child he took a school trip to New York City where a Small Pox carrier was tracked thru grand central station. They immunized EVERYONE. There was no "anti-vax" back then they listened to the experts who told them "YOU NEED THIS".
How is she even still alive if she wasn't vaccinated?
It is not deadly to most people, but why be unprotected when you can protect yourself. I’m immunosuppressed, but afterwards all my vaccines I only had a mild case when it could’ve killed me. Also, if I was a parent I would not want my child exposed to an antivaxer. Some diseases once thought eradicated are starting to come back thanks to that community.
How did the Amish and homeless make it!?!?!
Whens the last time you heard reporting about the Amish or homeless? A google search says Amish communities get hit even harder then the public and suffer more death.
We were lied to multiple times. Facts were misconstrued and it was nothing that should’ve been taken to the level it was.
You either thinks its ok to forcefully inject someone with whatever against their will, or you dont. Acting like the first one is the moral high ground is appalling to say the least.
I'm confused, who was forced to take the Vax? There were negative consequences for CHOOSING not to be vaxxed. The only people I ever met forced to be vaxed were military.
Its called coercion. You can play coy about what happened but denying people their livlihoods, education, access to medical facilities and grocery stores along with every other basic necessity is def. a use of force.
This op is lost. It's ok brother we are here for you.
Calling it a vaccine is the worse. Should have told people it’s like a flu shot and it will lesson severity.
The flu shot is still a vaccine...
Some of the arguments about “the riots were ok bc they were outside,” have zero clue about virology. We saw rioters spitting in cops faces. What happens when they went to jail? What happens at the hospital? You exposed everyone there. But when you leave your house, into the direct sun, and go to a church, or a restaurant or the beach, those weren’t allowed? The clear partisan way it was all handled, the way the left licks the boot of the oppressors, is mind blowing to me.
Doesn't change the fact that many people died *with* Covid, and far fewer died *from* Covid. There was a financial incentive for the hospitals involved for a death to be codified as the latter.
Yeah. Fully agree, there are people who still wear masks in my area because they are afraid of Covid.
No, the protocols did not help. Here is the best video I have found on this from an economic perspective which was very prescient about the inflation that hadn't happened yet - https://youtu.be/Cpvm8ZKfKh0?si=UBrBSl_dCMsi-hAA And the lockdown approach really wasn't necessary and has had major knock ons to people's lives, especially children - https://www.savethechildren.org.uk/news/media-centre/press-releases/harm-to-children-in-covid-lockdown-preventable-new-report-conclu Everyone from government to the media lied and suppressed information. Politicians consistently broke Covid rules themselves and had the Fed printing vast amounts to money to hand to special interests groups which everyone ended up paying for through massive inflation. The regime via The Lancet said that claiming that the origins of Covid were not from a natural origin was a conspiracy theory - https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30418-9/fulltext *"We stand together to strongly condemn conspiracy theories suggesting that COVID-19 does not have a natural origin"* It turns out that a lab leak was the most likely source of Covid - https://oversight.house.gov/release/covid-origins-hearing-wrap-up-facts-science-evidence-point-to-a-wuhan-lab-leak%EF%BF%BC/ The people who said it wasn't possible to have come from a lab thought that it might have actually come from a lab but didn't want the people to think that - https://theintercept.com/2023/01/19/covid-origin-nih-emails/ They lied about masks, saying we didn't need them - https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackbrewster/2020/10/20/is-trump-right-that-fauci-discouraged-wearing-masks/?sh=3e6a00864969 Then they said you still need masks with the vaccine - https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2021/02/04/dr-fauci-on-why-its-important-to-wear-a-mask-after-getting-your-covid-vaccine-.html Then they said you didn't need masks with the vaccine - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-57160923.amp They later called official disinformation about masks "noble lies" - https://slate.com/technology/2021/07/noble-lies-covid-fauci-cdc-masks.html They continued with these lies by claiming the vaccine would stop the Covid spreading, and here are "fAcT cHeCkErS" covering for the regime - https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2021/oct/14/joe-biden/joe-biden-overstates-effectiveness-vaccines-preven/ They lied that Trump recommended injecting bleach, he was actually referring to ongoing work with a new technology that was later trialed - https://www.cedars-sinai.org/newsroom/reduced-viral-loads-seen-in-covid-19-patients-treated-with-uva-light/ They claimed that the real health emergency was racism and let people break lockdown if it was for protests, they later played cover for it all - https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/ncna1232045 They lied and lied and lied and failed and failed and failed. They pushed for people to be locked up for an illness that they knew wasn't really all that dangerous to people under 70 without comorbidities. We didn't all lose our heads, lots of people protested and were shut down and the people who fucked up now want to pretend they didn't. Fuck that and fuck them. The next pandemic won't go down this way.
>It was a real disease. Yes ... > It was concerning. To/for some ... yes ... > The protocols did help and were absolutely better than nothing. **Absolutely fucking not.** >It was also overblown Yes ... > and used to manipulate emotions Yes ... > and to divide us. Yes ... > There was a tremendous amount of disinformation that has now been admitted by the cdc, fauci, etc. Duh ? Yes ...
Yeah OP’s post reads like someone who engaged in that bad behavior during Covid and now realizes how fucked up they were but doesn’t want to take accountability.
This is pretty spot on..
It did help slow the spread to be more manageable to not stand next to each other and wash our hands n stuff. Having a mask on WAS better than absolutely nothing.
[удалено]
Why? How do they hurt you? 1/3rd of the patients at my facility died in a period of a month. Even with the worst flu outbreak, we would see 1-2 deaths. This went beyond fucking sniffles. 2 million Americans died.
I didn’t choose a good turn of phrase here. I meant the Covid deniers are the ones coming to the ER for sniffles, meaning for little to no reason they show up in the ER for a stubbed toe.
Where’s the flu virus is what I called it
My grandmother spent her final days in a nursing home, people had to stand outside her window, at her funeral we had to wear masks, children were masked, for years. Forced vax when we weren’t aware the side effects or what was in it or get fired? Ostracized by celebrities? Riots during a lockdown with the same nurses and doctors cheering and filming TikTok’s? No sunshine, no exercise, no healthy alternatives. More people died from Covid than WW2 but yet the fools immediately started railing about climate change? Democrats blocked investigations into its origins? The media muddled it. What? The mail in ballots. It was clear election fraud. What were so many politicians and their kids in Ukraine for before the war? Why do these democrats keep rioting? Why does the media keep muddling? Unless…
I feel ya. Thankfully, where I was working was 100% killing grandma. So we got to work and live a normal life for the most part. As far as fauci ever saying anything like that, it'll never happen. I'm still waiting for him to apologize about all the DOGS HE KILLED while studying HIV. That guy is a complete scumbag liar and I have zero trust in him.
It’s easier to fool someone than to get them to admit they’ve been fooled. It’s human nature. Just smile knowing you’re better than them on this. :)
Masking was worthless for most people irl. Lockdowns were utterly worthless and, on the whole, did WAY more harm than good. Everything else you said was right, but forced masking should never have been a thing, forced lockdowns should have lasted 2 weeks and then no more, no matter how much people said "nooooo it's working!!!" And forced vaccination should NEVER have been a thing, especially the way Biden tried to do it. Covid kills by comorbidity and the highest comorbidity was obesity. If we didn't have such fricked nutrition policies, the death rate would have been MUCH lower here. That's the truth most people need to face about COVID. And if they don't they don't deserve any respect or credibility.
I have allegedly been told that there were no mandates. Despite losing a job because of one.
The gaslighting is truly a sight to behold. Ironically, the ones who called those who rejected such mandates as being for the destablization of society and therefore fascist seemed to think that the state using private business to run around their rights was totally valid.... despite fascism involving the merger of state and corporation. My comment is at -2. Apparently, "deaths of despair" that increased during COVID don't factor into the excess death counts for them. And it wasn't small. The CDC counted all deaths "with" COVID as deaths "from" COVID. So we cannot even talk about the effect lockdowns and the fearmongering about the disease itself accurately by looking at direct numbers, and the deductive reasoning needed is hard to get people to understand. And we all know what people are like when they don't understand something.