What will be the end game?

[hk blues]

1 hour ago, DaveB said:

Some info from an old curmudgeon: when I was a kid in the 50s (yep...I'm OLD), I lined up in the cafeteria at school with every other kid in the school and got a MANDATORY smallpox vaccination, polio shot, and a measles and mumps shot.  Wasn't any noise about rights or other whining - get it or leave school.  That's it.  Now, my parents were the generation that had just gone through WWII...during which there was a MANDATORY draft and there was MADATORY food and gas rationing.  They took that in stride the same reason they took the vaccines in stride - a sense that they have a greater obligation to the country as a whole, and it trumps individual focus.  As a reslult - no more smallpox, no more polio, and measels was rare until people started listening to a bizarre misinformation campaign about the vaccine causing autism...and lo and behold, up popped new measels out breaks.  A nice study in cause and effect.

I think COVID is around forever.  The basic mask and social distance stuff is classic deterrent to infection going back over 100 years.  See the masks in Spanish Flu phots?  There's a reason doctors wear masks in surgery.  Is it 100% effective?  Nope...nothing human related ever is.  But it behooves us to do it to try and minimize the impacts as much as possible.  Even the best vaccines are 5% ineffective, so for some folks it ain't gonna work.  But the rest can drive down the spread a lot and cut off the human petri dish the virus thrives in.  If you refuse to get it for whatever reason - then Darwin was right and the gene pool will benefit ultimately.  But it is the height of arrogance and selfishness to seque into the follow on thought that because you don't want to take measures, neither should anyone else, and it is your "right" to run around and potentially infect everyone else.

As for lock downs...I don't think anyone believes they will eradicate the disease.  I think governments are really focused on keeping the number of inevitble infections low enough that the medical infrastructure doesn't get completely overwhelmed.  Kind of a nasty thought to show up at a hospital with a heart problem and get told all the beds are full with COVID patients.  I'm really tired of Philippine sudden knee jerk reactions and ultimate lockdowns and travel restrictions - but I'm sympathetic.  It just wouldn't take much to completely blow away the entire country's medical complex and since they can't afford a population's worth of vaccine, they are stressing the old fallbacks.  I suspect some day they will get to the point where vaccinations are finally dispersed to enough people to remove that threat, even if there are still some people getting sick, and they'll then lift a lot of restrictions.  But not being one of the "rich countries", they are ways off before they get there.

Can't argue with much of that, if any.  

The only thing I'd add is to tag onto that last sentence is that there is a fair degree of resistance to vaccines here, and to authority in general - the two are perhaps connected.  I must say that the level of resistance seems to be breaking down though, which is a good thing in my opinion.  When measures are in place to reward those vaccinated, or penalise those not, the resistance will drop further.  

[scott h]

2 hours ago, OnMyWay said:

 

[OnMyWay]

56 minutes ago, hk blues said:

When measures are in place to reward those vaccinated, or penalise those not, the resistance will drop further.  

Reward is one way to do it.  Penalize is the complete opposite tactic.  I understand why many are against the government mandating something such as a vaccine.  Especially when the vaccines are not fully tested and approved yet.  The government has given many people valid reasons to distrust.  Recently and historically.

I have a Jewish friend in New York.  He is fully vaccinated and believes in vaccination.  Some of the other stuff in New York, not so much.  He posted this today.

[Guy F.]

8 minutes ago, OnMyWay said:

Reward is one way to do it.  Penalize is the complete opposite tactic.  I understand why many are against the government mandating something such as a vaccine.  Especially when the vaccines are not fully tested and approved yet.  The government has given many people valid reasons to distrust.  Recently and historically.

I have a Jewish friend in New York.  He is fully vaccinated and believes in vaccination.  Some of the other stuff in New York, not so much.  He posted this today.

I wonder if there is such a thing as a free country, since carrying a driver's license or passport makes one a slave.

[OnMyWay]

25 minutes ago, Guy F. said:

I wonder if there is such a thing as a free country, since carrying a driver's license or passport makes one a slave.

That is the big question.  Where do you draw the line?  Voter ID?  You really don't need any of those physical objects because the technology exists to have all the information about you encoded  in a microchip which is then implanted in you.  The implant is safe and effective, without unsightly tattoos and barcodes.  The government(s) will know exactly where you are at all times, in case they need to "reach out and touch you".  Criminal history, voter registrations, medical history, registered weapons, family info, etc., on and on.  Instead of having to ask you if you are vaccinated, a resto will have a red light and siren go off if you walk thru the door unvaccinated.

[RBM]

20 hours ago, hk blues said:

Whatever way we cut it, excess deaths are being recorded pretty much everywhere so something is causing that.  If it's not Covid, I wonder what it is?

Actually HK, was watching a video from Doc Campbell a week or so ago in which he showed statistics, deaths in the UK had decreased compared to the yearly average. Sorry cannot remember the time periods.

Its just so much, especially here, seems to be blamed on covid, these people in their 80s plus, while I do accept covid sadly contributed to their unfortunate demise, if not covid pneumonia, influenza or what ever which would not of resulted in any publicity.  

[OnMyWay]

19 hours ago, BrettGC said:

Edit:  Never mind, that just shows the deaths directly attributable to COVD against the normal average rates. 

I think you misunderstood it.  It says ALL deaths compared to average deaths.

 

 

[OnMyWay]

1 hour ago, RBM said:

deaths in the UK had decreased compared to the yearly average. Sorry cannot remember the time periods.

It is in the graph here.  E.G., week ending May 1, 19% less than average.

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/excess-mortality-p-scores?country=~GBR

[Snowy79]

1 hour ago, OnMyWay said:

It is in the graph here.  E.G., week ending May 1, 19% less than average.

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/excess-mortality-p-scores?country=~GBR

My interpretation of it and I may be wrong is a 12% increase if you click on the table.  I just had a 10 second look as busy trying to help a student answer school questions. 

[hk blues]

4 hours ago, RBM said:

Actually HK, was watching a video from Doc Campbell a week or so ago in which he showed statistics, deaths in the UK had decreased compared to the yearly average. Sorry cannot remember the time periods.

Its just so much, especially here, seems to be blamed on covid, these people in their 80s plus, while I do accept covid sadly contributed to their unfortunate demise, if not covid pneumonia, influenza or what ever which would not of resulted in any publicity.  

 

2 hours ago, OnMyWay said:

It is in the graph here.  E.G., week ending May 1, 19% less than average.

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/excess-mortality-p-scores?country=~GBR

 

37 minutes ago, Snowy79 said:

My interpretation of it and I may be wrong is a 12% increase if you click on the table.  I just had a 10 second look as busy trying to help a student answer school questions. 

"The number of weekly excess deaths recorded in England and Wales was 1151 for the week ending August 6, 2021. In the middle of April, at the height of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic there were almost 12 thousand excess deaths a week recorded in England and Wales. It was not until two months later, in the week ending June 19, that the number of deaths began to be lower than the five year average for the corresponding week.

In 2020, there were over 695 thousand deaths in the United Kingdom, making that year the deadliest since 1918, at the height of the Spanish influenza pandemic".

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1131428/excess-deaths-in-england-and-wales/