Coronavirus outbreak - From China to the World.

[swabian]

excuse me. please delete.

[EmperorBatman999]

It's that precise sort of attitude that keeps the vaccine skeptics from getting vaccinated. They see the fixation the pro-vaccine crowd has with forcing all people to make the same medical decision. And calling people "plebs" just shows this sort of arrogance, so naturally you have people bristling against that.

The actual safety and efficacy of the vaccine is, at this point, highly questionable. It has been proven that the vaccine cannot do anything it was promised, with the exception of possibly reducing severity of symptoms. It does not prevent infection and it does not prevent transmissibility. It only can reduce symptoms, and even that is dubious. The vaccine is also dangerous, particularly for young people and children, who are susceptible to heart and circulatory problems as a consequence of the vaccine. The pharmaceutical companies and their governmental allies have concealed this evidence through a campaign of denialism, which only makes the situation worse and more perplexing. It is a stupid and selfish proposition to force all people, particularly young people, to take the vaccine when it actually exposes them to more risk than an actual infection would, and the side-effects (particularly heart and cardiovascular problems) could potential last and cripple these people for a lifetime, long after the pandemic has passed.

I am not vaccinated but a friend of mine the same age was and we both became sick at the same time (I got sick off him before he had strong symptoms). I met with him a few days before Christmas, but he didn't know he was sick. Three days later, we were both fully ill with Omicron, and had the same set of symptoms (strong cold, nothing worse) for the same period of time. Taking our case example, the vaccine made no significant difference in our outcomes.

Get the vaccine, it's your choice, if you think the benefits outweigh any potential harms, but don't make me or anyone else do it.

Edit: Swab, you might want to put an expletive warning on that Youtube link.^

[Infidel144]

Get the vaccine, it's your choice, if you think the benefits outweigh any potential harms, but don't make me or anyone else do it.

Recent polling shows what the National Socialist Democrat Party wants:

– Fifty-nine percent (59%) of Democratic voters would favor a government policy requiring that citizens remain confined to their homes at all times, except for emergencies, if they refuse to get a COVID-19 vaccine. Such a proposal is opposed by 61% of all likely voters, including 79% of Republicans and 71% of unaffiliated voters.

– Forty-five percent (45%) of Democrats would favor governments requiring citizens to temporarily live in designated facilities or locations if they refuse to get a COVID-19 vaccine. Such a policy would be opposed by a strong majority (71%) of all voters, with 78% of Republicans and 64% of unaffiliated voters saying they would Strongly Oppose putting the unvaccinated in “designated facilities.”


– While about two-thirds (66%) of likely voters would be against governments using digital devices to track unvaccinated people to ensure that they are quarantined or socially distancing from others, 47% of Democrats favor a government tracking program for those who won’t get the COVID-19 vaccine.


How far are Democrats willing to go in punishing the unvaccinated? Twenty-nine percent (29%) of Democratic voters would support temporarily removing parents’ custody of their children if parents refuse to take the COVID-19 vaccine. That’s much more than twice the level of support in the rest of the electorate – seven percent (7%) of Republicans and 11% of unaffiliated voters – for such a policy.



– Nearly half (48%) of Democratic voters think federal and state governments should be able to fine or imprison individuals who publicly question the efficacy of the existing COVID-19 vaccines on social media, television, radio, or in online or digital publications. Only 27% of all voters – including just 14% of Republicans and 18% of unaffiliated voters – favor criminal punishment of vaccine critics.

President Biden’s strongest supporters are most likely to endorse the harshest punishments against those who won’t get the COVID-19 vaccine. Among voters who have a Very Favorable impression of Biden, 51% are in favor of government putting the unvaccinated in “designated facilities,” and 54% favor imposing fines or prison sentences on vaccine critics. By contrast, among voters who have a Very Unfavorable view of Biden, 95% are against “designated facilities” for the unvaccinated and 93% are against criminal punishment for vaccine critics.

https://www.rasmussenreports.com/pub...t_unvaccinated

[EmperorBatman999]

Recent polling shows what the National Socialist Democrat Party wants:




https://www.rasmussenreports.com/pub...t_unvaccinated

These extreme positions further reinforce my suspicion that COVID paranoia is a mental illness that elicits extreme inhumane and sociopathic socio-political positions. I am deeply upset that the margins for the opposition (mostly in 70s percentages) are actually this low. Even more people should oppose these proposals most strongly.

Of course, this mental illness has been fostered by the media, political, and medical establishments, who have basically spent the last two years black-pilling Blue voters into thinking that the world is ending, that we can never expect normalcy again, and that it is all the Right's/Unvaccinated's fault. For the health of society, anyone generating this amount of fear and paranoia from the political left needs to held to account.

[PointOfViewGun]

It's that precise sort of attitude that keeps the vaccine skeptics from getting vaccinated. They see the fixation the pro-vaccine crowd has with forcing all people to make the same medical decision. And calling people "plebs" just shows this sort of arrogance, so naturally you have people bristling against that.

It's amazing to find validity in the idea that public health decisions are to be made based other people's attitudes. There is absolutely no logic to it. Only pride.

The actual safety and efficacy of the vaccine is, at this point, highly questionable. It has been proven that the vaccine cannot do anything it was promised, with the exception of possibly reducing severity of symptoms. It does not prevent infection and it does not prevent transmissibility. It only can reduce symptoms, and even that is dubious. The vaccine is also dangerous, particularly for young people and children, who are susceptible to heart and circulatory problems as a consequence of the vaccine. The pharmaceutical companies and their governmental allies have concealed this evidence through a campaign of denialism, which only makes the situation worse and more perplexing. It is a stupid and selfish proposition to force all people, particularly young people, to take the vaccine when it actually exposes them to more risk than an actual infection would, and the side-effects (particularly heart and cardiovascular problems) could potential last and cripple these people for a lifetime, long after the pandemic has passed.

The actual safety and efficacy of the vaccines are pretty well documented. Just because they do not live up to the falsely self-perceived promises doesn't take away from their immense value. Lying about them didn't change that at any point in this pandemic. It won't change anything now. In fact, we have exposed a lack of understanding what vaccines in general are unrelated to COVID vaccines.

I am not vaccinated but a friend of mine the same age was and we both became sick at the same time (I got sick off him before he had strong symptoms). I met with him a few days before Christmas, but he didn't know he was sick. Three days later, we were both fully ill with Omicron, and had the same set of symptoms (strong cold, nothing worse) for the same period of time. Taking our case example, the vaccine made no significant difference in our outcomes.

Get the vaccine, it's your choice, if you think the benefits outweigh any potential harms, but don't make me or anyone else do it.

Oh the irony. Claiming vaccine efficacy is based on dubious circumstances while relying on personal anecdotes...

[antaeus]

Certainly the one key thing that has come out of this pandemic has been new understandings on how we manage the way different political realities have masqueraded as pandemic responses. When pandemics have been war-gamed prior to 2020, they tended to see civil unrest arise as a result of pandemic based disruptions. While this has happened occasionally, exercises haven't been the best at predicting the individualist vs collectivist debate that has come to frame the response so thoroughly as to create different realities.

To be fair to EmperorBatman, perhaps had there been better anticipation of the political component of the pandemic response, that had been more empathetic towards contrary perspectives, many sceptics could have been talked around earlier rather than pushed into what often seems like contrarianism out of principle. There will always be a demographic who will never go along with anything their society does as a collective and throw out memes that honour their individualism all day. But from what I can see, the vast majority of people who have since been labelled anti-vax or anti-covid or deniers or what ever, have made rational decisions within their social and political frameworks - and have perhaps been pushed to that point and dug their heels in, rather than been understood because those leading the response have also dug their heels in.

Certainly, the countries that have managed Covid best, at this point (if you exclude geography) are those in which trust in government and public systems is high. There is nothing inherently different about the individuals in those societies - other than more people listen to each other and heels have been less dug-in.

[Prodromos]

One thing they don’t warn people enough about is, the sudden onset of understanding aboriginal Australian is a possible early Covid symptom.

Where's the translator for all the Americans living in Australia? This is anti-American discrimination.

[antaeus]

Where's the translator for all the Americans living in Australia? This is anti-American discrimination.

"Despite its similarities to English in vocabulary, it has a distinct syntactic structure and grammar and is a language in its own right. "

Translated into American English: Mostly same words. Often different structures and meanings. Sorry for my accent.

Interestingly, it appears that Lord Thesaurian seems to have fallen into what is one of the main problems for speakers of Kriol: That amongst English speakers and because of the vocabulary overlap, there is an assumption that Kriol speakers speak English, but badly - when in fact the language has a full vocabulary and structure of it's own. Which can lead to all the usual assumptions where meanings are mistaken. This is a problem for native creole and pidgin speakers all around the world.

But hey. Good for a laugh tho right guys?!

[Cope]

"Despite its similarities to English in vocabulary, it has a distinct syntactic structure and grammar and is a language in its own right. "

Translated into American English: Mostly same words. Often different structures and meanings. Sorry for my accent.

Interestingly, it appears that Lord Thesaurian seems to have fallen into what is one of the main problems for speakers of Kriol: That amongst English speakers and because of the vocabulary overlap, there is an assumption that Kriol speakers speak English, but badly - when in fact the language has a full vocabulary and structure of it's own. Which can lead to all the usual assumptions where meanings are mistaken. This is a problem for native creole and pidgin speakers all around the world.

But hey. Good for a laugh tho right guys?!

Heaven forbid that the information was imparted without being read in English first. It's almost as if announcements can be made solely in a particular language.

[EmperorBatman999]

It's amazing to find validity in the idea that public health decisions are to be made based other people's attitudes. There is absolutely no logic to it. Only pride.

We can say the same about the attitude of the pro-mandate crowd that have been fooled into thinking the vaccine is the world's sole salvation, and that they must impose their own medical decision on the objectors.

It's quite funny that the only thing keeping up the barrage of vaccine propaganda, and mandate rhetoric and policy, is the pride of the pharmaceutical companies and their governmental allies, all of whom cannot admit that relying on the vaccine to get us out of the pandemic was like leaning on a fractured stick for a cane. Rather than admit the shortcomings and that the vaccine is not what they said it'd be, they have to continue yelling at and beating people to comply and get the vaccine.

The actual safety and efficacy of the vaccines are pretty well documented. Just because they do not live up to the falsely self-perceived promises doesn't take away from their immense value. Lying about them didn't change that at any point in this pandemic. It won't change anything now. In fact, we have exposed a lack of understanding what vaccines in general are unrelated to COVID vaccines.

It fails to do the key things necessary to halt the pandemic. It must either create robust immunity without requiring contact with the full virus, or and perhaps more importantly, it needs to prevent transmissibility in the vaccinated-and-ill. In the context of these failings, the "test or vaccine" policy, or even the worse, the universal mandates, are a folly because the proof of vaccination does not equate to proof of safety. Therefore, the vaccinated are still potentially dangerous.

The transmissibility issue essentially renders any collectivist argument for vaccination moot. It protects me, it does not make me safe towards you, and I can still give it to you if I'm not careful. The only way to guarantee that I am safe is for me to experience a complete recovery after full contact.

Oh the irony. Claiming vaccine efficacy is based on dubious circumstances while relying on personal anecdotes...

Anecdote and empirical experience can act as a more reliable guide for decision-making than relying on statistics alone. I personally got sick off a vaccinated person, and I know many others who got sick following contact with a positive and vaccinated person. That tells me not to trust the vaccine, nor to trust the people who have it.

[Cyclops]

But hey. Good for a laugh tho right guys?!

Prodromos is poking fun at himself, he can take a joke and give one. The other one? Who knows.

...

Anecdote and empirical experience can act as a more reliable guide for decision-making than relying on statistics alone. I personally got sick off a vaccinated person, and I know many others who got sick following contact with a positive and vaccinated person. That tells me not to trust the vaccine, nor to trust the people who have it.

There was a Legalist scholar in the Warring States Period called Han Feizi (had to Google the name big shame job) who recounted the story of a peasant who saw a rabbit run into a tree stump and break its neck: the peasant concluded he could give up farming and just wait by the tree each day for his endless supply of anecdotal evidence.

[Lord Thesaurian]

Where's the translator for all the Americans living in Australia? This is anti-American discrimination.

Indeed. And the Brits? Or are they grandfathered in, like Italians vis a vis Spanish or Portuguese?

[Basilius]

Reading Emperor Batman's posts are a wild ride.

The transmissibility issue essentially renders any collectivist argument for vaccination moot.

The chief value of the vaccines is predicated on the fact that they drastically improve mortality outcomes, which is not only good for it's own sake, but also has other knock-on effects on the economy, health care system, and general productivity of any society with a highly vaccinated population. A highly vaccinated society would also be able to reach herd immunity where lockdowns and masks are no longer necessary.

While the vaccine doesn't directly decrease transmissibility, you're ignoring the indirect decrease of transmissibility that stems from the shorter lifecycle the virus has in a vaccinated host, the less intense symptoms which contribute to spreading, the weaker state of the virus if it does spread, and the prepared immune system of a newly infected host, which further compounds these factors. So yes, the vaccine does decrease transmissibility, albeit indirectly.

Your claims that the vaccine is unsafe and not effective, or at least dubiously so, are simply wrong but no amount of evidence will change your mind. The chief data point here, for those of you who aren't radicalized, is that the vast majority of hospitalizations and deaths from COVID are from the unvaccinated population.

And regarding the lovely conspiracy theorizing, I mean, yes, it could be that (left-leaning) governments, the media, think takes, the health care system, and your local doctor are all against you to profit the pharmaceutical companies and "control" you, or whatever. But it can also be that we're in a global pandemic and getting vaccinated is a very good idea.

FWIW, I agree you have a right not to be vaccinated. People in a free society have a right to do stupid things. But if you want to claim that what you're doing isn't stupid, well, then you have your work cut out for you.

[Cyclops]

The question of whether political powers during a pandemic represent a threat to the operation of a representative political system is valid: we had a pretty clumsy bill put up (the gist of which state politicians wanted more say over medical decisions during a pandemic, it was a really immature hissy fit). It was amended and IIRC parts were sunsetted. As first proposed it allowed politicians too much say over actions during a crisis when specific medical advice and decision making is important.

The attack on the scientific community is mostly from the usual idiots, which tries to spin the horrific state of US public health into "all doctors are evil".

[Coughdrop addict]

I've found that taking the most petulant, selfish, and childish option is the best way to explain the collective right-wing thinking and behavior over Covid vaccination.

In the time it took for the Covid vaccines to be developed conservatives became convinced that the virus was a hoax because Trump/right-wing media/Russian propaganda said so by appealing to their victimhood fetishism and calling everything a communist plot. Because the lockdowns, masks, and social distancing were inconveniences for them, and the idea of suffering a little inconvenience to help others is alien to conservatism, conservatives eagerly swallowed these lies and assumed that all of it was part of a plot against them. So when the vaccine did become available, they assumed that it was part of the plot too.

[EmperorBatman999]

Reading Emperor Batman's posts are a wild ride.



The chief value of the vaccines is predicated on the fact that they drastically improve mortality outcomes, which is not only good for it's own sake, but also has other knock-on effects on the economy, health care system, and general productivity of any society with a highly vaccinated population. A highly vaccinated society would also be able to reach herd immunity where lockdowns and masks are no longer necessary.

While the vaccine doesn't directly decrease transmissibility, you're ignoring the indirect decrease of transmissibility that stems from the shorter lifecycle the virus has in a vaccinated host, the less intense symptoms which contribute to spreading, the weaker state of the virus if it does spread, and the prepared immune system of a newly infected host, which further compounds these factors. So yes, the vaccine does decrease transmissibility, albeit indirectly.

Your claims that the vaccine is unsafe and not effective, or at least dubiously so, are simply wrong but no amount of evidence will change your mind. The chief data point here, for those of you who aren't radicalized, is that the vast majority of hospitalizations and deaths from COVID are from the unvaccinated population.

And regarding the lovely conspiracy theorizing, I mean, yes, it could be that (left-leaning) governments, the media, think takes, the health care system, and your local doctor are all against you to profit the pharmaceutical companies and "control" you, or whatever. But it can also be that we're in a global pandemic and getting vaccinated is a very good idea.

FWIW, I agree you have a right not to be vaccinated. People in a free society have a right to do stupid things. But if you want to claim that what you're doing isn't stupid, well, then you have your work cut out for you.

My biggest fear and complaint with the vaccine is the mandatory nature of it. If the vaccine was just simply out there, maybe with a positive incentive for taking it but that's it, I wouldn't mind it. It has been the aggressive campaign surrounding its mandatory imposition that has me the most concerned, and it is what causes me to bristle so harshly against it. I think Antaeus is correct in this regard; the vaccine is not inherently bad, it is the campaign to get it out there and into bodies which has generated the reaction and opposition. I wonder how many people got turned away from the vaccine on the principle that it being mandatory was a violation of the right to bodily choice. By making the vaccine mandatory for work and leisure, the vaccine would need to be help to a far greater standard for safety and reliability, which I don't think it reaches, considering the short development period, the flaws in the trialing process, and the VAERS reporting (I know VAERS is the target of suspicion recently, but how was it trustworthy for all previous vaccines but is suddenly discredited now?). We find ourselves dealing with a Trolley Problem; the vaccine could save lives for those who take it, but if it endangers the lives of even a few when we compel everyone to take it, even to save others, does that make us complicit in an intentional murder? Who gets to decide who gets sacrificed for some greater good, if it even pays off at all?

If we were to go further to deconstruct the anti-vaccine response, we could probably find that the medical and governmental authorities started off on the wrong foot by beginning this pandemic with the lockdowns, which then spoiled any other pandemic control initiatives going further. I am of the opinion, too, that lockdowns were a bad idea, or at the least executed in a manner that happened far too late, when the viral count in the global population meant that starving out the virus was no longer possible. Even many members of the international medical community felt that the background consequences of the lockdowns weren't worth it, as indicated by the signatories of the Great Barrington Declaration.

Regarding vaccine efficacy, we can discuss death rates and hospitalizations, but the stated goal of governments and their medical experts has been to flatten the curve and reduce overall infection. At this point, however, we know that breakthrough cases are common, and that these breakthrough cases are contagious while sick. Even if the duration of sickness is shorter, there is still a risk window over multiple days where an infected person with no or minor symptoms is fully capable of spreading the virus. We cannot ignore that. They remain a danger in the workplace, at school, or in commerce. The risk may be shortened, but not outright eliminated. Ultimately, everyone wants to make sure that either sick people can't spread it, or that healthy people can't catch it; the vaccine achieves neither point, indicated by breakout cases. Considering the breakthrough case problem, I don't think we'd have a safe society, even if all adults and older children received two or more vaccines.

I've found that taking the most petulant, selfish, and childish option is the best way to explain the collective right-wing thinking and behavior over Covid vaccination.

In the time it took for the Covid vaccines to be developed conservatives became convinced that the virus was a hoax because Trump/right-wing media/Russian propaganda said so by appealing to their victimhood fetishism and calling everything a communist plot. Because the lockdowns, masks, and social distancing were inconveniences for them, and the idea of suffering a little inconvenience to help others is alien to conservatism, conservatives eagerly swallowed these lies and assumed that all of it was part of a plot against them. So when the vaccine did become available, they assumed that it was part of the plot too.

It is petulant, selfish, and childish to finger-point and mischaracterize millions of people because they have a different point of view from you.

[Basilius]

My biggest fear and complaint with the vaccine is the mandatory nature of it.

However wrong it is to demonize the vaccine hesitant, and attempt illiberal policies to coerce vaccination, and the policy mistakes of state and federal administrations--which I agree are all bad things--they are simply less bad than the mass devastation that COVID has inflicted on human health, the economy, and people's quality of life. We are literally just waiting for vaccination rates to reach the critical threshold of herd immunity before normality can be achieved, and the unvaccinated are what's preventing that, no matter their justifications. So focusing on the pro-vaccine campaigns over the anti-vaxxer campaigns is just bizarre.

I don't think we'd have a safe society, even if all adults and older children received two or more vaccines.

I just don't understand how you can think that when we have a mirroring case with influenza, which will likely be combined with the COVID jab as annual shots you take at your yearly physical exam. And don't get me wrong, the flu kills tons of people each year, but nothing like COVID simply because we have high vaccination rates.

[EmperorBatman999]

I just don't understand how you can think that when we have a mirroring case with influenza, which will likely be combined with the COVID jab as annual shots you take at your yearly physical exam. And don't get me wrong, the flu kills tons of people each year, but nothing like COVID simply because we have high vaccination rates.

Because the evidence is mounting that the vaccinated are still highly contagious when experiencing breakthrough cases. They are therefore not safe towards others because the vaccine fails to arrest the spread of the virus, merely moderating its severity. And in terms of its severity, it is a danger to several sections of the population, but not everyone. Gibraltar precisely proves the point: although highly vaccinated, it keeps experiencing major outbreaks.

[Infidel144]

By making the vaccine mandatory for work and leisure, the vaccine would need to be help to a far greater standard for safety and reliability, which I don't think it reaches, considering the short development period, the flaws in the trialing process, and the VAERS reporting (I know VAERS is the target of suspicion recently, but how was it trustworthy for all previous vaccines but is suddenly discredited now?).

It is only 'untrustworthy' now because the totalitarian collectivists want to force others to take the vaccine or punish those who do not.
Had Trump won, while the actual 'anti-vaxxers' (as opposed to people who are ignorantly called anti-vaxxers, simply because they do not want to take an experimental vaccine (and they would likely still reject taking it)) would still be against vaccines, the pathetic gutless coward nazis who want to compel it would not be taking it, big pharma would still be evil, the VAERS reporting would be the greatest thing ever, and the MSM would highlight it, no doubt adding it in as some sort of Trump death count...

[Cope]

However wrong it is to demonize the vaccine hesitant, and attempt illiberal policies to coerce vaccination, and the policy mistakes of state and federal administrations--which I agree are all bad things--they are simply less bad than the mass devastation that COVID has inflicted on human health, the economy, and people's quality of life. We are literally just waiting for vaccination rates to reach the critical threshold of herd immunity before normality can be achieved, and the unvaccinated are what's preventing that, no matter their justifications. So focusing on the pro-vaccine campaigns over the anti-vaxxer campaigns is just bizarre.

It is unlikely that herd immunity is possible (at least in the near future) given the current nature of the disease and the efficacy of the vaccines at preventing transmission. Omicron is significantly more transmissible than Delta.

I just don't understand how you can think that when we have a mirroring case with influenza, which will likely be combined with the COVID jab as annual shots you take at your yearly physical exam. And don't get me wrong, the flu kills tons of people each year, but nothing like COVID simply because we have high vaccination rates.

The way that we manage flu is evidence that herd immunity is not always possible. Shots are administered annually to at-risk groups, not the population entire.