Originally Posted by
Niall_Quinn
As I stated, I was as fooled as the next guy until the data arrived. Though tbf, my initial gut reaction was this was nothing new, and I should go with my gut reaction more. But Italy swayed it for me, until I found out the specific circumstances related to that outbreak.
What should be done? We should have done what was already set down as established protocol which, when you think about it, absent the panic, is just as much common sense as science.
Identify the vulnerable. We had the Italian data to assist with that. Isolate them. And then carry on as normal. No lockdown, no social distancing, let everyone catch the damn thing and develop immunity, as we have done with all viruses, always.
The social distancing, again common sense minus the panic, is unnecessary because this virus is not airborne. The most recent study shows that sufficient viral loading only occurs after prolonged close proximity to an infected person.
Particular attention should have been paid to care homes. They should have had priority support, including PPE and extra, qualified staff as required.
I can see why the politicians were to scared to go with the established protocol, having been panicked by the absurd predictions coming out of Imperial College (with their long-standing track record of absurd predictions). Too much of a political risk should a stopped clock like Imperial be right for a change. So I'm not against the lockdown, even though in hindsight it was the worst possible response. But it should have been lifted much sooner, before it started to do even more damage than the virus itself. The real impact on our health will come from the lockdown, not the virus. We've all stupidly run our immune systems down, run our general health down, increased our anxiety levels and probably fucked up our diets, sleep patterns, all manner of irregularities. This will explode in a wave of infections and related illnesses once the lockdown lifts and then on into the future, to be exacerbated by the coming economic crisis.
The biggest health risk from COVID19 will come from the vaccine, which will probably kill a great number of people in the coming years and decades. A virtually untested vaccine pumped into the world's population? Even if the damn thing is as safe as their other junk, millions will develop complications.
Another risk from the virus is to our civil liberties. The state has just implemented a new alert system in tandem with a magical R0 measurement that they can't possibly ever know on a snapshot basis, because that's not how it works. This will allow them to open and close society as they see fit. Or parts of it, such as a Toxteth for example. Social distancing, tracing, tracking, monitoring, the two tier infected/ non-infected, vaccinated/non-vaccinated society. The cashless society. The social score.
The crazy environmental agendas that will kill even more people.
It has all been done before, minus the high-tech, in miserable periods of history, China's great and murderous revolution, Stalin's Russia, Hitler's Germany, and plus-tech in modern China. To think it couldn't happen here is naive in the extreme, like saying our bastards are more humanitarian than their bastards. Us being the bastards that dropped atom bombs and killed half a million kids in Iraq when we stole their medicine (the bombing came after). Our bastards work just as hard.
I was worried about the virus itself because it initially seemed there were two viruses on the loose. But that turned out to be a bunch of crap from the media again who had attributed almost every symptom imaginable to SARS-COV-19. In the end, once the actual symptoms list had been established, it was plain there was only a single virus and multiple strains. The virus itself seems to be engineered, with 12 HIV nucleotide sequences inserted for gain of function (multiple ways to invade the cell as opposed to SARS-COV-2 which had only one), first developed in a US lab until that was shut down and Fauci had the project move to China and the Wuhan lab. Early reports in China spoke of a female researcher who had become infected and then spread the infection to at least 25 other individuals who in turn spread it to the wet market. The chance of it originating in the wet market itself has long since been ruled out by impartial scientists who note that half the initial cases had no connection at all with the wet market - a basic consideration in tracing the origins on an outbreak.
The biggest physical threat posed by the virus is acute respiratory distress syndrome, a potentially fatal complication that can develop in patients with significantly impaired immune systems or elderly patients with one or several existing chronic or acute medical conditions. Also the injury suffered should intubation be required to assist respiration, which can be significant and long lasting. Otherwise, physical distress can range all the way from severe flu like symptoms to no symptoms at all, with the vast majority of patients making a full recovery with no after effects.
I'm not worried about this particular virus now, although I'm worried for the older people I know who have medical issues, I'm more worried about the next one. SARS-COV-19 is about as dangerous as seasonal influenza, which in itself is dangerous to elderly people with pre-existing conditions. In the US, there are more deaths by suicide, and ten times as many from heart disease and cancer respectively. Diseases that are with us every day without the need for our societies to be shut down.
So no, the data is in and the virus (already quietly downgraded weeks ago btw) is not a major threat by itself. But in conjunction with the lockdown and the consequences that will arise, the virus has triggered a massive threat to public health and personal liberties.
Everything is subject to change, of course, and more data is coming in all the time. It's mostly being ignored because there are probably 1,001 different agendas playing off the back of this pandemic now. Trying to view it through that fog is a nightmare, but if you keep fixed on the numbers then at least one clear perspective can be obtained.
Reply With Quote
