General COVID-19 Talk #4 MOD Warning

[SFKingshomer]

Because of variants. The virus could mutate to become deadlier and also could mutate to where the vaccines don't work or are less effective. The fire is almost out. This is not the time to stoke it or throw gasoline all over it


We are almost there. People need to chill for like 2 more months and we should be all good

No offense but people are tired of the "2 more months" because it started with "2 weeks to flatten the curve". A big reason why people are taking it less serious by the day is Fauci and his continuous flip flopping on what's true and what's not.

 

[Sol]

Because of variants. The virus could mutate to become deadlier and also could mutate to where the vaccines don't work or are less effective. The fire is almost out. This is not the time to stoke it or throw gasoline all over it


We are almost there. People need to chill for like 2 more months and we should be all good

People have been hearing that nonstop (only X amount of time) and then that gets completely blown past. Nevertheless this isn't anything I want to argue about. Hindsight is hindsight anyways. Lets just get this shit going already. I'll never forget being at my ATM at chase waiting behind 2 dudes and the first guy said something under his breath about his bank total. He had like 30 dollars left in his account. And the random guy behind him told him that he's also going to be withdrawing his last 20. That shit hit me hard. They both lost their jobs due to the shutdown.

 

[Lt Dan]

People have been hearing that nonstop (only X amount of time) and then that gets completely blown past. Nevertheless this isn't anything I want to argue about. Hindsight is hindsight anyways. Lets just get this shit going already. I'll never forget being at my ATM at chase waiting behind 2 dudes and the first guy said something under his breath about his bank total. He had like 30 dollars left in his account. And the random guy behind him told him that he's also going to be withdrawing his last 20. That shit hit me hard.

then why did you reply?

No offense but people are tired of the "2 more months" because it started with "2 weeks to flatten the curve". A big reason why people are taking it less serious by the day is Fauci and his continuous flip flopping on what's true and what's not.

I will bet any amount of money that Fauci's predictions over the last year would have been far more accurate than any you made

 

[Sol]

then why did you reply?

Im not arguing...?

 

[SFKingshomer]

then why did you reply?



I will bet any amount of money that Fauci's predictions over the last year would have been far more accurate than any you made

I'd hope so, he's an alleged doctor. Still moved goal posts and he shouldn't be relied upon for anything.

 

[Lt Dan]

I'd hope so, he's an alleged doctor. Still moved goal posts and he shouldn't be relied upon for anything.

Predicting what novel viruses will do is an imperfect science. The same happens in most walks of life when we are dealing with new unknowns
When they landed on the moon, NASA scientists were right and wrong about a great many things.

Your criticisms are pretty comical. I am willing to bet you have been wrong thousands of times in your professional as well as your personal life. We all have, including Fauci

 

[SFKingshomer]

Predicting what novel viruses will do is an imperfect science. The same happens in most walks of life when we are dealing with new unknowns
When they landed on the moon, NASA scientists were right and wrong about a great many things.

Your criticisms are pretty comical. I am willing to bet you have been wrong thousands of times in your professional as well as your personal life. We all have, including Fauci

He's a doctor and people are supposed to believe what he says. He seems pretty clueless to me and many others. Basically nothing more than a meme at this point.

 

[Lt Dan]

He's a doctor and people are supposed to believe what he says. He seems pretty clueless to me and many others. Basically nothing more than a meme at this point.

But yet, you can't do better than a persona you see as clueless

 

[Bandit]

Fauci: Graduated first in his class at Cornell Medical.
Random guy on HFboards: "he's an alleged doctor."

 

[SFKingshomer]

But yet, you can't do better than a persona you see as clueless

I never said I could lol. When you're a face on TV, people trust that what you say is the truth. When you move goal posts then people tend to not trust a damn word out of your mouth....pretty simple.

 

[Lt Dan]

I never said I could lol. When you're a face on TV, people trust that what you say is the truth. When you move goal posts then people tend to not trust a damn word out of your mouth....pretty simple.

plain and simple. everyone has been wrong about how deadly this would be

This is the CDC's prediction from Mid March of last year

Worst-Case Estimates for U.S. Coronavirus Deaths (Published 2020)

Between 160 million and 214 million people in the United States could be infected over the course of the epidemic As many as 200,000 to 1.7 million people could die.

Should we not trust anything the CDC says now, because their estimates ended up being high?
Or were mitigation measure more effective that they thought?


Now dig up Elon Musk's and Gate's early tweets

Should we not trust anything Elon Musk says now because he was wrong?

 

[Fishhead]

No offense but people are tired of the "2 more months" because it started with "2 weeks to flatten the curve". A big reason why people are taking it less serious by the day is Fauci and his continuous flip flopping on what's true and what's not.

This is something that's totally understandable. The problem was with the 2 weeks to flatten the curve statement - anyone who understands viruses knows that's not how it works. When this whole thing started scientists really didn't know what to expect, so they aren't even going to offer answers. Someone untrained wouldn't be equipped to understand, just like I can't understand a damn thing Shakespeare wrote. There isn't a politician or leader alive that got there by forecasting doom and gloom. They certainly aren't going to come out and say "hey, if this gets out of control it could be a year before things get better so be prepared to hunker down for 6 months." So they tell you something less damaging in the short term and adjust if they need to. All that does is confuse people and screw things up in the long term. But if you come out and say "Look, based on past pandemics and how transmissable this thing is, we are in real trouble", then you can spur a panic and all kinds of shit can happen. It's a no win situation, and depending on the individual everyone will look at it from a different angle.

The other thing that confuses people is the fact that science isn't absolute. It's not like flipping a card and seeing if it's black or red. Things are dynamic, and they change as knowledge deepens. People also have a difficult time understanding things like mutations and variants. Can a 4th surge be likely in a midwestern state but not in California? Absolutely. It's like "well, coach told me to go to the point" when someone is wide open in the slot. People have to adapt, but that takes a lot of thinking an effort. For the most part people just want to know that if I do A, then B will happen. That's impossible to say with a virus, so people get frustrated. Throw in the media that gets people the information, who likely learn what they know from poor internet sources, and you get what we have today.

If you go with common sense, the way to beat any infection, virus, or vector is by stopping it's transmission. It doesn't matter what it is, if you stop it, you win. So you should do everything you can - masks, distancing, etc. to do so. It doesn't matter if you know if it's effective or not, you just do it just in case. That's a really hard sell for those who don't want to hear that, but it's common sense. It's not foolproof, it might not be effective in all situations, and it's not going to be 100%. Humans want absolutes, but there are very few of those in the world. It's why the pandemic has been a shitshow. It's the ultimate inconvenience and people hate that, I certainly do.

 

[Lt Dan]

This is something that's totally understandable. The problem was with the 2 weeks to flatten the curve statement - anyone who understands viruses knows that's not how it works. When this whole thing started scientists really didn't know what to expect, so they aren't even going to offer answers. Someone untrained wouldn't be equipped to understand, just like I can't understand a damn thing Shakespeare wrote. There isn't a politician or leader alive that got there by forecasting doom and gloom. They certainly aren't going to come out and say "hey, if this gets out of control it could be a year before things get better so be prepared to hunker down for 6 months." So they tell you something less damaging in the short term and adjust if they need to. All that does is confuse people and screw things up in the long term. But if you come out and say "Look, based on past pandemics and how transmissable this thing is, we are in real trouble", then you can spur a panic and all kinds of shit can happen. It's a no win situation, and depending on the individual everyone will look at it from a different angle.

The other thing that confuses people is the fact that science isn't absolute. It's not like flipping a card and seeing if it's black or red. Things are dynamic, and they change as knowledge deepens. People also have a difficult time understanding things like mutations and variants. Can a 4th surge be likely in a midwestern state but not in California? Absolutely. It's like "well, coach told me to go to the point" when someone is wide open in the slot. People have to adapt, but that takes a lot of thinking an effort. For the most part people just want to know that if I do A, then B will happen. That's impossible to say with a virus, so people get frustrated. Throw in the media that gets people the information, who likely learn what they know from poor internet sources, and you get what we have today.

If you go with common sense, the way to beat any infection, virus, or vector is by stopping it's transmission. It doesn't matter what it is, if you stop it, you win. So you should do everything you can - masks, distancing, etc. to do so. It doesn't matter if you know if it's effective or not, you just do it just in case. That's a really hard sell for those who don't want to hear that, but it's common sense. It's not foolproof, it might not be effective in all situations, and it's not going to be 100%. Humans want absolutes, but there are very few of those in the world. It's why the pandemic has been a shitshow. It's the ultimate inconvenience and people hate that, I certainly do.

well said my roly poly friend

 

[Bandit]

This is something that's totally understandable. The problem was with the 2 weeks to flatten the curve statement - anyone who understands viruses knows that's not how it works. When this whole thing started scientists really didn't know what to expect, so they aren't even going to offer answers. Someone untrained wouldn't be equipped to understand, just like I can't understand a damn thing Shakespeare wrote. There isn't a politician or leader alive that got there by forecasting doom and gloom. They certainly aren't going to come out and say "hey, if this gets out of control it could be a year before things get better so be prepared to hunker down for 6 months." So they tell you something less damaging in the short term and adjust if they need to. All that does is confuse people and screw things up in the long term. But if you come out and say "Look, based on past pandemics and how transmissable this thing is, we are in real trouble", then you can spur a panic and all kinds of shit can happen. It's a no win situation, and depending on the individual everyone will look at it from a different angle.

The other thing that confuses people is the fact that science isn't absolute. It's not like flipping a card and seeing if it's black or red. Things are dynamic, and they change as knowledge deepens. People also have a difficult time understanding things like mutations and variants. Can a 4th surge be likely in a midwestern state but not in California? Absolutely. It's like "well, coach told me to go to the point" when someone is wide open in the slot. People have to adapt, but that takes a lot of thinking an effort. For the most part people just want to know that if I do A, then B will happen. That's impossible to say with a virus, so people get frustrated. Throw in the media that gets people the information, who likely learn what they know from poor internet sources, and you get what we have today.

If you go with common sense, the way to beat any infection, virus, or vector is by stopping it's transmission. It doesn't matter what it is, if you stop it, you win. So you should do everything you can - masks, distancing, etc. to do so. It doesn't matter if you know if it's effective or not, you just do it just in case. That's a really hard sell for those who don't want to hear that, but it's common sense. It's not foolproof, it might not be effective in all situations, and it's not going to be 100%. Humans want absolutes, but there are very few of those in the world. It's why the pandemic has been a shitshow. It's the ultimate inconvenience and people hate that, I certainly do.

Great post.

 

[Bandit]

plain and simple. everyone has been wrong about how deadly this would be

This is the CDC's prediction from Mid March of last year

Worst-Case Estimates for U.S. Coronavirus Deaths (Published 2020)


View attachment 425213
Should we not trust anything the CDC says now, because their estimates ended up being high?
Or were mitigation measure more effective that they thought?


Now dig up Elon Musk's and Gate's early tweets

View attachment 425218

Should we not trust anything Elon Musk says now because he was wrong?

One thing I know for sure, never trust Ted Nugent: Ted Nugent, who once dismissed COVID-19, sickened by virus

 

[Lt Dan]

One thing I know for sure, never trust Ted Nugent: Ted Nugent, who once dismissed COVID-19, sickened by virus

Ted had too much of the Wang Dang Sweet Poontang in his youth

 

[Maynard]

This is something that's totally understandable. The problem was with the 2 weeks to flatten the curve statement - anyone who understands viruses knows that's not how it works. When this whole thing started scientists really didn't know what to expect, so they aren't even going to offer answers. Someone untrained wouldn't be equipped to understand, just like I can't understand a damn thing Shakespeare wrote. There isn't a politician or leader alive that got there by forecasting doom and gloom. They certainly aren't going to come out and say "hey, if this gets out of control it could be a year before things get better so be prepared to hunker down for 6 months." So they tell you something less damaging in the short term and adjust if they need to. All that does is confuse people and screw things up in the long term. But if you come out and say "Look, based on past pandemics and how transmissable this thing is, we are in real trouble", then you can spur a panic and all kinds of shit can happen. It's a no win situation, and depending on the individual everyone will look at it from a different angle.

The other thing that confuses people is the fact that science isn't absolute. It's not like flipping a card and seeing if it's black or red. Things are dynamic, and they change as knowledge deepens. People also have a difficult time understanding things like mutations and variants. Can a 4th surge be likely in a midwestern state but not in California? Absolutely. It's like "well, coach told me to go to the point" when someone is wide open in the slot. People have to adapt, but that takes a lot of thinking an effort. For the most part people just want to know that if I do A, then B will happen. That's impossible to say with a virus, so people get frustrated. Throw in the media that gets people the information, who likely learn what they know from poor internet sources, and you get what we have today.

If you go with common sense, the way to beat any infection, virus, or vector is by stopping it's transmission. It doesn't matter what it is, if you stop it, you win. So you should do everything you can - masks, distancing, etc. to do so. It doesn't matter if you know if it's effective or not, you just do it just in case. That's a really hard sell for those who don't want to hear that, but it's common sense. It's not foolproof, it might not be effective in all situations, and it's not going to be 100%. Humans want absolutes, but there are very few of those in the world. It's why the pandemic has been a shitshow. It's the ultimate inconvenience and people hate that, I certainly do.

This fantastic post is being wasted on dopes whose biggest complaint is their restaurant menu is changed.

 

[Master Yoda]

This is something that's totally understandable. The problem was with the 2 weeks to flatten the curve statement - anyone who understands viruses knows that's not how it works. When this whole thing started scientists really didn't know what to expect, so they aren't even going to offer answers. Someone untrained wouldn't be equipped to understand, just like I can't understand a damn thing Shakespeare wrote. There isn't a politician or leader alive that got there by forecasting doom and gloom. They certainly aren't going to come out and say "hey, if this gets out of control it could be a year before things get better so be prepared to hunker down for 6 months." So they tell you something less damaging in the short term and adjust if they need to. All that does is confuse people and screw things up in the long term. But if you come out and say "Look, based on past pandemics and how transmissable this thing is, we are in real trouble", then you can spur a panic and all kinds of shit can happen. It's a no win situation, and depending on the individual everyone will look at it from a different angle.

The other thing that confuses people is the fact that science isn't absolute. It's not like flipping a card and seeing if it's black or red. Things are dynamic, and they change as knowledge deepens. People also have a difficult time understanding things like mutations and variants. Can a 4th surge be likely in a midwestern state but not in California? Absolutely. It's like "well, coach told me to go to the point" when someone is wide open in the slot. People have to adapt, but that takes a lot of thinking an effort. For the most part people just want to know that if I do A, then B will happen. That's impossible to say with a virus, so people get frustrated. Throw in the media that gets people the information, who likely learn what they know from poor internet sources, and you get what we have today.

If you go with common sense, the way to beat any infection, virus, or vector is by stopping it's transmission. It doesn't matter what it is, if you stop it, you win. So you should do everything you can - masks, distancing, etc. to do so. It doesn't matter if you know if it's effective or not, you just do it just in case. That's a really hard sell for those who don't want to hear that, but it's common sense. It's not foolproof, it might not be effective in all situations, and it's not going to be 100%. Humans want absolutes, but there are very few of those in the world. It's why the pandemic has been a shitshow. It's the ultimate inconvenience and people hate that, I certainly do.

Problem for me with these "experts" is they've been telling people to trust the science. They tell me they knew masks would be effective from the beginning, but they just lied. It's 2 weeks for flattening the curve, but they knew it was probably going to be a lot longer. You can't open your restaurant even outdoors, but they can shoot a movie and cater food and eat together. You can't gather in a crowd of more than 6 people unless you're protesting. None of this is really based on science, just being dishonest and hypocritical.

And just the other day, there was this:
Health expert pushes back on Texas governor's herd immunity claim
“There is no way on God’s green earth that Texas is anywhere even close to herd immunity," Osterholm told The New York Times
......
“Anybody who will tell you exactly what the level of herd immunity is is also likely to want to sell you a bridge," Osterholm said.

So if nobody knows when we will achieve herd immunity, how does he know Texas hasn't? I'm not arguing Texas has herd immunity but he just said he doesn't really know but also says definitively Texas hasn't.
I understand science can change with new information, but they act like what they're saying is undeniable and we must trust their expertise. Well, if all of this is so new and things can change at any time, that's just saying these experts don't really know either and are just making educated guesses, so don't say trust the science when science is constantly changing.

When they tell me I need to keep wearing masks and keep social distancing even after being vaccinated, I'm not sure where the science is there. They say, "because of the variants", but the numbers so far tell me that even with the variants, the chances of me getting hospitalized from Covid is extremely low if I'm fully vaccinated. And if these variants really are so vastly different that the vaccine really isn't effective, then we're screwed and we're probably looking at another year of lockdowns anyways.

And I think you bring up a good point about messaging. I think part of the problem was with messaging and the way they said these things. In a way, it's damned if you do and damned if you don't because now a lot of people don't trust Fauci and other health experts. I think people would've been more receptive to the message if they came out and just said, "we don't really know if this is going to work, but we think this may be effective", instead of "our studies show that this works, and we must do this for public safety". And the constant negativity from the media, even on news that are seemingly positive, doesn't help with messaging. I understand people having a better safe than sorry mindset, but people in general hate being told what to do, and the government has been telling them what they can and can't do for over a year. Their messaging won't convince people on the fence about getting the vaccine, and that's not helping us get to the finish line either.

 

[Sol]

This fantastic post is being wasted on dopes whose biggest complaint is their restaurant menu is changed.

I like that that the random comment I made for levity was taken out of context, ya dope.

 

[SFKingshomer]

Texas cases are going down despite everything being open and packed.

 

[Bandit]

Problem for me with these "experts" is they've been telling people to trust the science. They tell me they knew masks would be effective from the beginning, but they just lied. It's 2 weeks for flattening the curve, but they knew it was probably going to be a lot longer. You can't open your restaurant even outdoors, but they can shoot a movie and cater food and eat together. You can't gather in a crowd of more than 6 people unless you're protesting. None of this is really based on science, just being dishonest and hypocritical.

And just the other day, there was this:
Health expert pushes back on Texas governor's herd immunity claim
“There is no way on God’s green earth that Texas is anywhere even close to herd immunity," Osterholm told The New York Times
......
“Anybody who will tell you exactly what the level of herd immunity is is also likely to want to sell you a bridge," Osterholm said.

So if nobody knows when we will achieve herd immunity, how does he know Texas hasn't? I'm not arguing Texas has herd immunity but he just said he doesn't really know but also says definitively Texas hasn't.
I understand science can change with new information, but they act like what they're saying is undeniable and we must trust their expertise. Well, if all of this is so new and things can change at any time, that's just saying these experts don't really know either and are just making educated guesses, so don't say trust the science when science is constantly changing.

When they tell me I need to keep wearing masks and keep social distancing even after being vaccinated, I'm not sure where the science is there. They say, "because of the variants", but the numbers so far tell me that even with the variants, the chances of me getting hospitalized from Covid is extremely low if I'm fully vaccinated. And if these variants really are so vastly different that the vaccine really isn't effective, then we're screwed and we're probably looking at another year of lockdowns anyways.

And I think you bring up a good point about messaging. I think part of the problem was with messaging and the way they said these things. In a way, it's damned if you do and damned if you don't because now a lot of people don't trust Fauci and other health experts. I think people would've been more receptive to the message if they came out and just said, "we don't really know if this is going to work, but we think this may be effective", instead of "our studies show that this works, and we must do this for public safety". And the constant negativity from the media, even on news that are seemingly positive, doesn't help with messaging. I understand people having a better safe than sorry mindset, but people in general hate being told what to do, and the government has been telling them what they can and can't do for over a year. Their messaging won't convince people on the fence about getting the vaccine, and that's not helping us get to the finish line either.

There's absolutely no chance the public would react well to "We're not sure but we're taking our best guess." A huge percentage of the population refused to listen even when they were told definitively what to do and we ended up with 6 months of "The Great Toilet Paper Scavenger Hunt" becasue people are dumb, selfish, and prone to panic. It's hard to take, but even the experts don't always know everything about everything, but they are still light years above the average clown who did a couple google searches and think their opinion should count just as much. Those people are so far out of their depth it's like standing in the middle of a formula 1 track staring directly at the wall and all they hear is a loud noise and see a blur for a split second. They have no idea what's going because they don't even understand what they're looking at.

 

[Master Yoda]

There's absolutely no chance the public would react well to "We're not sure but we're taking our best guess." A huge percentage of the population refused to listen even when they were told definitively what to do and we ended up with 6 months of "The Great Toilet Paper Scavenger Hunt" becasue people are dumb, selfish, and prone to panic. It's hard to take, but even the experts don't always know everything about everything, but they are still light years above the average clown who did a couple google searches and think their opinion should count just as much. Those people are so far out of their depth it's like standing in the middle of a formula 1 track staring directly at the wall and all they hear is a loud noise and see a blur for a split second. They have no idea what's going because they don't even understand what they're looking at.

Maybe I remember it differently, because the vast majority of the people were on-board for the initial "bend the curve" lockdown whether they made fun of the toilet paper bs or not. Sure the initial reaction would have been worse, but the way it turned out, people don't really follow recommendations AND there's a lot of public mistrust. Whereas if they had gone the other route, people still don't really follow recommendations but maybe there's a small chance of people still having trust in the experts. If they had thought about more than just the next 2 weeks, the latter was the better option.

 

[Gjwrams]

Predicting what novel viruses will do is an imperfect science. The same happens in most walks of life when we are dealing with new unknowns
When they landed on the moon, NASA scientists were right and wrong about a great many things.

Your criticisms are pretty comical. I am willing to bet you have been wrong thousands of times in your professional as well as your personal life. We all have, including Fauci

Lt. Dan...Careful. You might start another "conversation"

 

[Bandit]

Maybe I remember it differently, because the vast majority of the people were on-board for the initial "bend the curve" lockdown whether they made fun of the toilet paper bs or not. Sure the initial reaction would have been worse, but the way it turned out, people don't really follow recommendations AND there's a lot of public mistrust. Whereas if they had gone the other route, people still don't really follow recommendations but maybe there's a small chance of people still having trust in the experts. If they had thought about more than just the next 2 weeks, the latter was the better option.

I don't know, the vast majority of people who mistrust would do so regardless. Lack of education allows the science deniers and conspiracy whackos to run wild. The Nuge is a perfect example. No amount of "we're doing our best here" would change that guy's mind or pull his head out of his ass, whereas a person with a reasonable education and understanding of how complex a problem dealing with a pandemic is recognizes it's an impossible standard to expect a 100% perfect response with no mistakes right out of the gate.

 

[Fishhead]

Texas cases are going down despite everything being open and packed.

Not really, it's quite the opposite. On April 1, Texas had 410 new cases and a rolling 7 day of 557. A few days ago it was 3,341 new cases and a 7 day of 3,863. They had over 4500 cases yesterday, they are starting to rise at pretty good clip. They had 82 deaths yesterday and it's been rising, higher than us despite having 10 million less people.

About 3 weeks after lifting restrictions cases started rising again, which makes sense. I'm pretty sure they only opened areas with lower case rates, which is saving them right now. Had everywhere opened they would be spiking.