Coronavirus outbreak - From China to the World.

[Cope]

Public health measures borrowed from the Chinese Communist Party.



As it turns out, it wasn't a particularly "effective policy" either.

[Lord Thesaurian]

Public health measures borrowed from the Chinese Communist Party.

As it turns out, it wasn't a particularly "effective policy" either.

We were warned.

Experience hath shewn that even under the best forms of government, those with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.

When once a Republic is corrupted, there is no possibility of remedying any of the growing evils but by removing the corruption and restoring its lost principles; every other correction is either useless or a new evil.

[Coughdrop addict]

You know what else the Chinese Communist Party endorses? Breathing. So if you're not turning blue you're a communist, correct?

Reaching for what someone long dead said about the political situation of their time and trying to apply it as a "gotcha" argument to current issues is a weak appeal to authority that exposes one's argument as utterly lacking any standing. By the way, Washington had quarantines and lockdowns in the continental army to prevent smallpox from running wild. Does that mean Washington was a communist?

It has nothing to do with freedom or you being persecuted for whatever the reason you are told everyone is mean to you today. The reason the lockdowns were so opposed on the right, often to the point of violence, is that conservatism has no concern for the wider society or anyone but the self, and the modern conservative has led such an easy, carefree life that he thinks mild inconvenience is suffering and oppression.

It's really no different than a child having a tantrum in a store aisle, throwing themselves on the ground and screaming that their parents are mean for not buying them a new toy they want. The child is unable to understand things like staying on a budget for the good of the rest of the family and for themselves, and usually has everything they want handed to them with no effort on their part. So they cannot imagine why their parents are not immediately giving them what they want other than they're just bad people being mean for it's own sake. Though unlike the lockdown children, real children eventually grow out of it.

[Cope]

You know what else the Chinese Communist Party endorses? Breathing. So if you're not turning blue you're a communist, correct?

Reaching for what someone long dead said about the political situation of their time and trying to apply it as a "gotcha" argument to current issues is a weak appeal to authority that exposes one's argument as utterly lacking any standing. By the way, Washington had quarantines and lockdowns in the continental army to prevent smallpox from running wild. Does that mean Washington was a communist?

Fortunately I appealed to the comments of a world leading epidemiologist who functionally admitted that his C19 response was borrowed from the CCP and so draconian he didn't initially believe that it would be accepted in Europe.

It has nothing to do with freedom or you being persecuted for whatever the reason you are told everyone is mean to you today. The reason the lockdowns were so opposed on the right, often to the point of violence, is that conservatism has no concern for the wider society or anyone but the self, and the modern conservative has led such an easy, carefree life that he thinks mild inconvenience is suffering and oppression.

Setting aside the partisan caricature, surely this expectation of collective responsibility will be applied to the BLM demonstrators of 2020 who contributed to "positive abnormal" C19 growth rates?

It's really no different than a child having a tantrum in a store aisle, throwing themselves on the ground and screaming that their parents are mean for not buying them a new toy they want. The child is unable to understand things like staying on a budget for the good of the rest of the family and for themselves, and usually has everything they want handed to them with no effort on their part. So they cannot imagine why their parents are not immediately giving them what they want other than they're just bad people being mean for it's own sake. Though unlike the lockdown children, real children eventually grow out of it.

I think we've entered the twilight zone when liberals are using poor budgeting analogies to chastise conservatives.

[PointOfViewGun]

As I said from day one:

This seems to be the second paper from the same group. For their first paper they were criticized:

Fact check: Working paper isn't proof COVID-19 restrictions don't work, experts say

But this paper is not nearly as authoritative as many discussing it purport, as it was not peer-reviewed and doesn't represent an expert consensus on the subject of lockdowns.

Many public health experts have criticized the methodology and conclusions of the paper, which was conducted by economists rather than researchers with more extensive training in the complex dynamics at play in a pandemic. Other peer-reviewed papers have concluded lockdowns are an effective pandemic countermeasure.

It's also inaccurate to attribute the report to Johns Hopkins, which did not endorse the paper.

Skimming through the paper I have seen a lot of logic jumps that disregard a multitude of factors to downgrade a complex situation into a simple one. I wouldn't be surprised if their second paper produce similar criticisms from the experts as USA Today pointed about the first one.

[Ludicus]

The eternal Covid discussion,

A-Literature-Review-and-Meta-Analysis-of-the-Effects-of LOCKDOWNS ON COVID-19 MORTALITY...

The counter argument. Open PDF for the full article
Comment on 'A Literature Review and Meta-Analysis of the ...

--


Dra. Birx, a polemical figure

Deborah Birx's unseen fight to stop Trump's covid falsehoods

Birx devotes much of the book to “silent spread,” the idea that from the earliest days of the pandemic the virus was being transmitted among people who had no symptoms of infection, allowing it to rapidly spread undetected. She comes across as a Cassandra-like figure, not believed by even the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention until months into the pandemic.
Not long into her tenure, the White House communications team limited her appearances on national television, which TV-obsessed Trump might see and fume over. Committed to spreading her message of masking indoors, limiting the size of social gatherings and testing widely, Birx instead took numerous interviews on local news. When, in August 2020, she was granted an exception to do an interview on CNN, she warned the American people that the virus was “extraordinarily widespread.”
The next morning the president called her. “Who did this? Who in Comms let you do this?” she recounts him asking. He then accused Birx of spreading “fake news” and repeated the lie he wanted her to abide by: that the virus was under control.
The question at the heart of “Silent Invasion” (though Birx does not explicitly frame the book this way) is how a morally grounded and competent person like Birx made sense of her place in the administration of such a morally bankrupt and incompetent president.
Birx maintains that in many cases the actions the administration took to combat the pandemic were at odds with Trump’s fact-denying, inflammatory remarks.

Later she explains, “If I was guilty of one thing during my tenure at the White House, it is that, for too long, I clung to the notion that reasonable, intelligent people would eventually see the light.” This is an important insight into herself (though it remains unclear what made her think Trump was a reasonable person).
Not everyone will agree with Brix’s ethical analysis. And there were points in the book when I wished she had delved deeper into her moral reasoning.

[Ukiah]

[conon394]

XI got himself an ugly problem. His zero COVID lock downs did actually make sense when COVID was really new and not fully understood. But at this point with vaccines, treatments and well understood best care practices and a population that would likely be totally on board with making and social distance... the policy is utterly nonsensical. Unless that is if it the vain ego driven thing you get from a dictatorship. Comes on admit your home grown vaccines suck and just buy better ones for at least your high at risk population over 60 and move along like the rest of the world.

[Coughdrop addict]

XI got himself an ugly problem. His zero COVID lock downs did actually make sense when COVID was really new and not fully understood. But at this point with vaccines, treatments and well understood best care practices and a population that would likely be totally on board with making and social distance... the policy is utterly nonsensical. Unless that is if it the vain ego driven thing you get from a dictatorship. Comes on admit your home grown vaccines suck and just buy better ones for at least your high at risk population over 60 and move along like the rest of the world.

And admit he has made a mistake? That any plan he came up with could be anything less than flawless? Not an option for Xi, because if he did such a thing his power would be threatened and he could lose his leadership, his money, and likely his life.

[swabian]

And admit he has made a mistake? That any plan he came up with could be anything less than flawless? Not an option for Xi, because if he did such a thing his power would be threatened and he could lose his leadership, his money, and likely his life.

That's the most important thing for Xi to note: he cannot go back now. Everyone in his empire is more or less affetced by the virus, it spreads to the last corner. At the same time it fuels democratic revolutionaries. Wherever the virus is spread, there is reasons to serious uprising. This is something the entire Chinese population can agree about. The millions of policemen who are executing this draconian crap are probably having someone in their family or post-family circle that suffers from these measures. They are considering.

Now, if Xi simply retreats from that he would reaffirm and validate all that anger and pain among his subjects. This is a unique, historical situation of systemic danger the Chinese government is suffering.

Should we even hope China discovers democracy and implements it? Oh well...

[Cyclops]

Any MCGA hats in Shanghai?

[conon394]

Any MCGA hats in Shanghai?

No I think you just need wave about one Xi's books, ideal has got history there you know.

[Lord Thesaurian]

The Chinese government continues to insist lockdowns are effective and necessary, and the anti-lockdown protestors are dangerous nutcases that threaten all of society. Sound familiar?

[irontaino]

"We want haircuts" vs "we want our basic human rights".

[Lord Thesaurian]

The Chinese want the same thing everyone wants. Freedom to go about their lives, work and fraternize with their friends and family, without nonsensical and unscientific political repression that has destroyed the economy and impoverished thousands of people. The primary difference is the response of the western liberal establishment to anti-lockdown protests in China vs the West.

[conon394]

The Chinese government continues to insist lockdowns are effective and necessary, and the anti-lockdown protestors are dangerous nutcases that threaten all of society. Sound familiar?

No.

There are effective when you admitter them like china and you population buys into masks and contact tracing and distancing and quarantines.

In the event you have a novel virus. No clear ideal of its effects and mortality. No standard treatment plans. No new anti viral treatments. and No really good vaccines. Than China's plan is actually quite sensible. Its not any more because none of those conditions exist or should exist in China now.

[Lord Thesaurian]

Not sure what you mean. Existing research before the pandemic, including from the WHO, had concluded lockdowns are an ineffective and costly way to combat viral outbreaks, not to mention the mountain of evidence since then indicating lockdowns had no effect on Covid mortality. Western governments did lockdowns for the same reason the Chinese communist government did: politics. Of course, once western elites sheepishly throw up their hands and ask the public to pardon their asinine and corrupt incompetence, they’re evidently free to criticize the Chinese government for continuing the same approach.

[PointOfViewGun]

Not sure what you mean. Existing research before the pandemic, including from the WHO, had concluded lockdowns are an ineffective and costly way to combat viral outbreaks, not to mention the mountain of evidence since then indicating lockdowns had no effect on Covid mortality. Western governments did lockdowns for the same reason the Chinese communist government did: politics. Of course, once western elites sheepishly throw up their hands and ask the public to pardon their asinine and corrupt incompetence, they’re evidently free to criticize the Chinese government for continuing the same approach.

Yet, countries that implemented lockdowns properly showed that they work immensely as common sense dictates they do. Studies that either ignore or illogically dismiss cases like New Zealand or those avoid discussing the immense difference between Nordic countries that utilized different strategies sure do paint a favorable picture for your position. Where politics actually played is to hurt effectiveness of lockdown measures, not to implement them.

[Lord Thesaurian]

I’m sure the CCP would agree their properly implemented lockdowns are working quite well. The Chinese people, sadly, lack your common sense. Too bad foreign forces are hurting the effectiveness of the lockdowns with their politics.

[PointOfViewGun]

I’m sure the CCP would agree their properly implemented lockdowns are working quite well. The Chinese people, sadly, lack your common sense. Too bad foreign forces are hurting the effectiveness of the lockdowns with their politics.

Do you apply the same logic to medicine? Take too much of a drug, get poisoned and declare that the drug you took is useless?