Mega-Thread: Coronavirus Pandemic

[Poopymonster]

Oh please, the reason we see 'only' another 130k deaths is because the lockdown an social distancing work. If we had not done that we would have exceeded that prediction. It is easy to restart the economy, it is impossible to revive the dead.

some states are reFusing to Let it be repOrted a Real number of covID deAths. Which will screw the numbers.

[Cynep]

We already tried the herd imunity option (Sweden did), it isn't working.

/start devil's advocate mode
Yes, Sweden should have done what another West European country with similar population did, full force lockdowns. That would lead to them having case and deaths count of Belgium! Would've been much better! ... oh wait...
/end devil's advocate

Seriously, what's working except full quarantine like New Zealand or Donetsk People's Republic?

[Poopymonster]

Yes, social distancing and other measures work, exponential growth has been stopped; that's precisely my point - prevention paradox.

Now instead of a horrible plague we have socially polarizing intrusive measures and approaching economic crisis. Herd immunity unachievable before the vaccine, the vaccine unrealistic this year. We'll have a steady trickle of death for months and months while people can't live their former lives, no end of social distancing in sight. One problem was prevented, another one is being created. I'm not saying it was better to let millions die, but some people will.

Oh, and before the global economy will have its "easy restart", children born during the crisis will go to school. Boomers, millennials, zoomers... this new generation will be called paupers. I claim copyright, a generation of paupers.

Around puberty they will be Quaranteens.

[Tuor]

/start devil's advocate mode
Yes, Sweden should have done what another West European country with similar population did, full force lockdowns. That would lead to them having case and deaths count of Belgium! Would've been much better! ... oh wait...
/end devil's advocate

Seriously, what's working except full quarantine like New Zealand or Donetsk People's Republic?

cast /corrosive mode

Or... You could have tried and instead of turning into something like Belgium (they already reduced the daily cases by 3/4) you could actually have gotten something like Norway...

... But who knows... YOU DIDN'T EVEN TRIED DOING SO.

cast /corrosive mode off

[Acidbaron]

/start devil's advocate mode
Yes, Sweden should have done what another West European country with similar population did, full force lockdowns. That would lead to them having case and deaths count of Belgium! Would've been much better! ... oh wait...
/end devil's advocate

Seriously, what's working except full quarantine like New Zealand or Donetsk People's Republic?

Similar population and situation is being very generous with certain freedoms, if not stating incorrectly comparing the both.
Our reporting is also far more detailed than other nations, while we can argue we might over report. You read about that here and that is me not even speaking of the population density or the age of the population or that a large part of the deaths are to be found in nursing homes, numbers that previously other governments did not include in their counting.

The whole issue with that anti-lockdown argument is, the first decide to ignore models that predict the outcome as they see them portray a catastrophic situation so they write it off as unrealistic and so the only other way to proof that argument right is the gamble with a lot of lives. Than again all we really have to do is look at Italy, suddenly that first hardest hit nation in Europe is all but forgotten when buffoons make the argument of how ineffective a lockdown actually is.

- - - Updated - - -

cast /corrosive mode

Or... You could have tried and instead of turning into something like Belgium (they already reduced the daily cases by 3/4) you could actually have gotten something like Norway...

... But who knows... YOU DIDN'T EVEN TRIED DOING SO.

cast /corrosive mode off

I would like to see some actual data comparisons with other nations also including all possible casualties of the virus, i guess it would be a rude awakening for some.
The UK for example was off by what a number of 10K of 40K? When the predictions started to include nursing homes.

[Tuor]

On next 2nd of May, the State of Emergency in portugal is going to be replaced by the less restrictive State of Calamity, this is the plan to return to the economy.

I always translate stuff, sadly for me, its a picture and i'm not going to translate it at all. Some people here can speak Spanish, i believe those will understand.

[Puupi]

On next 2nd of May, the State of Emergency in portugal is going to be replaced by the less restrictive State of Calamity, this is the plan to return to the economy.

I always translate stuff, sadly for me, its a picture and i'm not going to translate it at all. Some people here can speak Spanish, i believe those will understand.

I don't speak Spanish, Portuguese or any other Romance language yet understanding written Portuguese is easy as fuck.

[Forogil]

We already tried the herd imunity option (Sweden did), it isn't working.
We already tried lockdowns, it does help containning the virus, but it commes with nasty economical side effects.
We already tried just to focus on economy (Belarus), and its not good.

Sweden isn't going for herd immunity but using different measures as explained by Dr. Ryan from WHO, and strangely enough the reported deaths per million are currently similar in US, Italy, and Sweden.
(The US seem to have an upward trend, and obviously Italy have had lots of deaths for quite some time.)

Thus I don't see that your second point is true, as non-lockdown without excessive testing and contact tracing seems to work as well/as badly as lockdown without excessive testing and contact tracing; at least in many countries.

And both Italy and the US are now thinking of lifting their lockdown, because it's hard to sustain for the time needed, what will happen then?

BTW: That was reported deaths, and according to https://www.economist.com/graphic-de...ross-countries the true numbers for Italy were at least initially double the reported ones whereas Sweden and NY had close to correct numbers, we will not know whether that it still the case until a few weeks from now.

My country is doing quite well with testing, guess what??? After a month and a half in lockdown the stupid virus still gives kicks (spiking), same shit in Switzerland, actually same shit everywhere, besides Czech Republic. Without hard measures we not going anywhere. A month and a half has passed by, and now we have no other option then slowly start going back to economy.

Exactly. Lockdowns aren't doing enough in the short term that they can be active.

Some estimate that R is a bit below one in Portugal (right?), but I don't see the daily deaths decreasing that way.

Most countries, including mine, did that at the beggining, they just lost control. That includes most of Europe, contact tracing is part of a phase 2 pandemic, we already on phase 3.

Well, it's the key part of containment phase, and next phase is mitigation where it may be skipped (unless countries try to go back to suppress and contain).
Mitigation just aims to keep numbers sufficiently low for a long period of time (yes, until vaccine or that herd immunity), and then a lockdown isn't a solution as it doesn't work for a long time.

Having repeated lockdowns as the UK seem so to aim for has the problem that R currently isn't that much below 1; and without any measures it is about 3 - so to get an average below 1 the lockdowns will have to be in place for perhaps 80% of the time for a long term - and I don't see how that can be sustained; or lots of other measures are needed during non-lockdown; and then it becomes more difficult to reimpose the lockdown.

We have no other option left other then risking, there are a lot of people running out of food just because they can't afford to buy food because they lost their jobs. Life isn't binary, isn't just black and white, there are other important variables. I asked this to Phaelix, will you die from a virus, or will you die from being hungry?? Like i said, life isn't binary, so most countries are doing something betwin.

I agree that it isn't binary; and my point is that countries just seemed to have reacted to look strong without real planning.
(Or the countries were unsure and acted out of caution.)

[Cynep]

The whole issue with that anti-lockdown argument is, the first decide to ignore models that predict the outcome as they see them portray a catastrophic situation so they write it off as unrealistic and so the only other way to proof that argument right is the gamble with a lot of lives. Than again all we really have to do is look at Italy, suddenly that first hardest hit nation in Europe is all but forgotten when buffoons make the argument of how ineffective a lockdown actually is.

I'm not fighting you on this, lockdowns are effective, they do flatten the curve, so the curve fits under the threshold of healthcare capability. Italy got cheapshotted, they had a full-blown epidemic going on while WHO was still singing that nothing's happening; so Italy had to do drastic measures.

But if you flatten the wave too much, it will last forever while your country remains paralyzed forever. Triage has to happen at macro level, and different countries choose different routes. Jury is still out on this.

[Forogil]

I'm not fighting you on this, lockdowns are effective, they do flatten the curve, so the curve fits under the threshold of healthcare capability. Italy got cheapshotted, they had a full-blown epidemic going on while WHO was still singing that nothing's happening; so Italy had to do drastic measures.

If WHO was singing that nothing was happening it was because Italy hadn't detected the early cases.

February 20th Italy had reported 4 cases, and the epidemic had already been spreading for weeks.
If the Italians couldn't see those cases themselves, how could WHO see them?

[PhaelixWW]

you are making the assumption that all unexplained excess deaths are down to Coronavirus? Ridiculous. Where is your evidence that that is the case? Naughty assumptions are naughty. The excess deaths are caused by people who really need medical care refusing to access hospital services and as a result people are dying from heart attacks etc who otherwise wouldn't if the lockdown scaremongerers hadn't got their way.

The sheer fucking hypocrisy in this is staggering. You demand evidence for why the excess deaths should be assumed to be due to the global pandemic, yet you're assuming that there's some heart-attack epidemic instead.

Nah, bruv.

If you look at the actual BHF data cited by your source, there are only about 9k heart attack patients per month. That's a tiny fraction of the 2.1 million hospital visits you quoted. Even if every single one of those ~5k non-visits during the last 5 weeks ended up dying of a heart-attack, you'd still come nowhere close to the 15k or so excess death unaccounted for.

And yet, even with a lockdown, the more acute the heart-attack, the more likely the patient would be go to the hospital anyway, which means you can't come close to apportioning all non-visits to deaths. The 50% not going are almost certainly the 50% least likely to die.

On top of that, it's exceedingly likely that many people who might have otherwise come in for a heart-attack treatment might already be dead or admitted to an ICU for COVID-19. That doesn't mean that they're not legitimately COVID-19 patients, though.

Clear enough?

Crystal.

[Pohut]

Sweden failed at elderly care homes. If to be cynical but yet correct about it we are overrepresented among that part of the population. The working, producing and spending demographics did not get hit that hard.
As I said cynical but to argue against the economic part of your argument.
Needless to say it was not the intention, if we hadn't failed with the care homes it would be a lot easier to proclaim our path as the more sane one.

Presuming it's very unlikely we have a effective vaccine any time soon the 2and wave will hit us way less so overall we gave to wait with any verdicts about the final best way on how this pandemic should have been dealt with in terms of life and economy .

Swedes finally showed the planet that they are the true vikings and can claim that title ahead of every other Nordic nation. They brought back Ättestupa. And it is working really well.

[Remilia]

On next 2nd of May, the State of Emergency in portugal is going to be replaced by the less restrictive State of Calamity, this is the plan to return to the economy.

I always translate stuff, sadly for me, its a picture and i'm not going to translate it at all. Some people here can speak Spanish, i believe those will understand.

State of Calamity sounds way worse than Emergency. Wat.

[Puupi]

They brought back Ättestupa. And it is working really well.

Yep, it's morbid.

- - - Updated - - -

State of Calamity sounds way worse than Emergency. Wat.

It does.

Maybe their next step lower is State of Armageddon.

[Cynep]

I have another way to word this anti-vaxxerlockdown argument: it would be overwhelmingly accepted on this forum that fighting slavery is good, right? Fighting slavery and having a small chance to die, is better than supporting people enslaved en masse, yes?

However, when it's a disease, sitting under lockdown at home like cattle in pens, for a very long time, while everything slowly deteriorates, is somehow so much better than having a small chance to die, that people are ridiculed for advocating for relaxed measures?

And before you start enumerating varieties of fruit, my analogy compares very similar choices: a chance to die for a chance of better life (for everyone) vs. life in much poorer conditions for everyone except the very top.

[Mayhem]

What, you'll remember that I said that such charts weren't really good for most comparisons, that at best they were useful at only the most generic of comparisons?

I mean, I'm not even using the chart to show a comparison at all. It was just the only chart I could easily find that showed Europe as a whole. I even made a specific effort to highlight only the European line. And I'm only showing the chart to show that the European rate as a whole hasn't noticeably gone down much yet. Specific areas are doing better, and specific areas are doing worse. But trying to evaluate Europe as a whole in any meaningful way is just difficult, especially now that there are vast differences in the way the different countries are handling this pandemic.

So, yeah, okay, feel free to remember that.

So just like in the US?

[jonnysensible]

I have another way to word this anti-vaxxerlockdown argument: it would be overwhelmingly accepted on this forum that fighting slavery is good, right? Fighting slavery and having a small chance to die, is better than supporting people enslaved en masse, yes?

However, when it's a disease, sitting under lockdown at home like cattle in pens, for a very long time, while everything slowly deteriorates, is somehow so much better than having a small chance to die, that people are ridiculed for advocating for relaxed measures?

And before you start enumerating varieties of fruit, my analogy compares very similar choices: a chance to die for a chance of better life (for everyone) vs. life in much poorer conditions for everyone except the very top.

comparing sitting infront of the tv watching simpsons reruns to slavery is pretty sad. Being a princess about lockdown and presenting it as a binary choice is also complete bullshit.

Offtopic : Did you switch to the metric system today? lol. Or am I geographically misplacing you.

[Zantos]

I have another way to word this anti-vaxxerlockdown argument: it would be overwhelmingly accepted on this forum that fighting slavery is good, right? Fighting slavery and having a small chance to die, is better than supporting people enslaved en masse, yes?

However, when it's a disease, sitting under lockdown at home like cattle in pens, for a very long time, while everything slowly deteriorates, is somehow so much better than having a small chance to die, that people are ridiculed for advocating for relaxed measures?

First of all, this is not like slavery. So drop that steaming pile at the door.
Second of all. small chance right now. Its only small right now because at the moment, we can fight it somewhat effectively. If we suddenly went from 1mil cases to 2 or 3 million in the course of a month, do you Really think we could keep that number so low? Heck no. And that is the entire point

Lock down so you can minimize how many are getting sick at a time. Its like in the movie 300. You take that massive army and get them to run through that tiny, narrow pass, and it becomes manageable. If you were to suddenly make that pass bigger, it becomes less manageable. Too big and the numbers would over whelm.

Get it? keep the numbers going in low and manageable while you can. Equating lives to slavery shows you really have nothing of substance to stand on in an argument.

[Crissi]

yeah, comparing forced unpaid labor, which often came with cruelty, to being forced to stay home is absolutely ridiculous and a slap in the face to actual current day slaves.

Also, comparing something thats easily spread through the community vs something thats not is silly

[Acidbaron]

I have another way to word this anti-vaxxerlockdown argument: it would be overwhelmingly accepted on this forum that fighting slavery is good, right? Fighting slavery and having a small chance to die, is better than supporting people enslaved en masse, yes?

However, when it's a disease, sitting under lockdown at home like cattle in pens, for a very long time, while everything slowly deteriorates, is somehow so much better than having a small chance to die, that people are ridiculed for advocating for relaxed measures?

And before you start enumerating varieties of fruit, my analogy compares very similar choices: a chance to die for a chance of better life (for everyone) vs. life in much poorer conditions for everyone except the very top.

As others have said comparing to slavery is not just wrong it also actually rather insulting to history. Your travel is restricted to ensure the safety of yourself and others, this is not comparable to being stuck on a barge rowing till your body gives out and being tossed overboard or stripped completely naked to be sold below the price of cattle.

Better yet it does not even serve the same purpose, eventually the lockdown will be lifted and your freedom would be returned. Slavery unlike what hollywood would have made you believe was not a chance to die for a better live, you lived the life your master deemed you deserved to serve them and then you died. You have been watching Gladiator one too many times if you believed getting free was an option for many.

The mortality rate of this disease is also vastly misrepresented, because people believe 1% is low. The 1% what is not low if you start apply it to your own nation population is when you have access to healthcare and this is a repository illness that will quickly swamp your system and bring it to its knees.

I would think twice before making such statements.