U.S. to close..

[valhalla360]

Originally Posted by goboatingnow

the citizenry of western nations have been peddled " security in leu of freedom" for a decade or more , look at Trump, brexit etc , all fear mongering

Only thing I would note, is your examples are all on one side of the political spectrum. Both sides love the fear mongering demagoguery game.

[capn_billl]

Originally Posted by Woodland Hills

Apparently 1/2 measures are worse than doing nothing at all......

That is a universal truth.

[Pelagic]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

We shall see I guess. God help us.

Yes, ...it's a strange feeling of helplessness that I've never felt before.....even in the middle of a Storm.

I guess that is because I knew it would eventually end

[capn_billl]

Originally Posted by NevilleCat

Ouch!
A bit harsh maybe?
I prefer to think of it as a population who is willing and prepared to accept a temporary loss of personal freedoms for the sake of the greater populous.
Perhaps a population that is willing to believe, (or give the benefit of doubt) that their leaders are at least trying to work for them and, even if they have no experience in the situation, might possibly be clumsily trying to do the right thing on balance.
America has a deeply ingrained and admirable emphasis on personal freedoms, but this attitude is not ideal in a pandemic situation when it is taken so literally as to compromise the safety of the general population.

In a free country, you have the freedom to live in your basement, and buy, and wear a 1 micron mask everywhere you go if you choose.

How is "freedom" stopping you from protecting yourself?

[valhalla360]

Originally Posted by Pelagic

No assumptions here, but the logical reason would be that something has changed since March
... Possibilities:

1.... This virus has acted outside the box of their standard thinking and early assumptions proved wrong

2.... That has caused a general lack of confidence in their ability to analyze.

3..... Maybe they have found a few cases where the virus has mutated into something more sinister and deadly. That terrifies them!

I am afraid we may see more desperate social rules with new closures, as leaders try to micromanage unknowns

1....The virus has acted pretty much the way new viruses act. Other than massive media coverage of every minute detail (with accompanying distortions), the virus has followed a predictable path.

2....I do agree with this but that's mostly because they have played along with the fear mongering aspect and our leaders have done a poor job of targeting responses.

3....Possible but I don't see it getting hidden for more than a couple days in the current atmosphere before it leaks out and no way the media would let that slip by...just too good for the Ratings to be the first to report it.

As far as new rules...I think the "leaders" emptied the clip already and this isn't a just a US thing. There have been protests and refusals to play along in many countries. Sure China can bring in the military and weld your front door shut but that simply isn't going to happen in most countries.

[Pelagic]

Originally Posted by Singularity

>2,300 years ago it was recorded that someone said "there's nothing new under the sun." Invariably this was a reference to scale-invariant patterns in nature. This concept is mirrored in multiple belief systems in unattached cultures, having apparently been independently recognized. So if we can agree that logic itself is the relationship of elements of a pattern to other elements of a pattern, then, to say
"something has changed since March"
is to say, "um, we neglected to recognize logic in the first place. We failed to recognize a pattern."

The persistent 'call for more evidence' is no less than an admission that "um, we don't see the pattern, we don't see the logic of this thing." Indeed, what is the difference between someone who can see the patterns and someone who is a BS artist/sophist. On this I give many "science deniers" credit--not for their ultimate behavior--but at least for their capacity to recognize a BSr.

I started typing out an example of how the immune system functions that will end up taking up an entire screen here...that I can post if interested. But the immune system is organized with elements essentially the same as how societies are organized to respond to a pandemic. Simply put, Eastern-minded countries have responded similar to how the immune system functions. Western-minded countries have responded as though they are following the advice of either people ignorant of basic patterns of nature, or, are classical sociopaths (even if increasingly normalized in modern society).

So here's the thing about your pandemic-is-war metaphor, which easily gains traction. I don't think many people here would like a reality where a doctor gets to decide if a person ought/ought not receive excessive societal resources to keep them alive. Plainly, there are many younger people whose existence in the society is akin to a parasitic load on the system...drawing more communal resources on a good day than is justifiable for the health of the society (based on modern metrics buttressed by cross-cultural historical experience)...which is how parasites and cancers act against the body. In simple terms, at times we'd resuscitate 200yo grandma 15 times before we'd so much as book an appointment for a lot of young lawyers, stock brokers, etc. In other words, people who say that they want the law of the jungle probably would not survive it. <---itself an ancient pattern...get it?

Wow!
I think we agree that in times of Pandemics or War,
Fear forces the populace to turn for comfort towards the medical Experts or Generals, until that fog of war clears and they realise it was only a crap shoot

[capn_billl]

Originally Posted by Copacabana

Me too. None in my circle of friends have gotten the virus, but I attribute this to their being careful and smart. My girlfriend's ex-in-laws, however, have almost all been sick. They have the "carry on as usual" attitude...

I'm not sure the US will have another "lockdown" (if they ever really had one), but I hope that mask use will become mandatory under the Biden government. This is going to be tough as wearing a mask has become so political under Trump.

Brazil, with all the poverty-related problems that contribute to the spread, has been slowly bringing the numbers down through mask use, social distancing and government measures. Everyone wears a mask outside the house and it's paying off.

FAKE news, studies show very little difference in mask wearing by party.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/...-mask-map.html

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tan...er-businesses/

Unless you are wearing at least an M-95, a porous cloth face covering is just virtue signaling. SCIENCE.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by valhalla360

Only thing I would note, is your examples are all on one side of the political spectrum. Both sides love the fear mongering demagoguery game.

That's what happens in polarized societies. it's awful. In the U.S. you just can't hear any voice of reason Politicized sludge on both sides of the issue Truth, leave alone nuance, is simpy out the window . . . .

[Pelagic]

Originally Posted by valhalla360

1....The virus has acted pretty much the way new viruses act. Other than massive media coverage of every minute detail (with accompanying distortions), the virus has followed a predictable path.

2....I do agree with this but that's mostly because they have played along with the fear mongering aspect and our leaders have done a poor job of targeting responses.

3....Possible but I don't see it getting hidden for more than a couple days in the current atmosphere before it leaks out and no way the media would let that slip by...just too good for the Ratings to be the first to report it.

As far as new rules...I think the "leaders" emptied the clip already and this isn't a just a US thing. There have been protests and refusals to play along in many countries. Sure China can bring in the military and weld your front door shut but that simply isn't going to happen in most countries.

Ok, if COVID19 has acted like the others, why has their been such a discrepancy in expert advice.

Why not a solidarity of opinion amongst the medical profession?

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by capn_billl

FAKE news, studies show very little difference in mask wearing by party.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/...-mask-map.html

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tan...er-businesses/

Unless you are wearing at least an M-95, a porous cloth face covering is just virtue signaling. SCIENCE.

The science is inconclusive. There are other studies which show masking to be quite useful in reducing viral load. If you dig around you can find them.

We don't have conclusive scientific proof about the efficacy of ANY of the possible measures. Masking is one of the lowest cost measures we can take (not NO cost). Seems like a good idea to me.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by valhalla360

The exact percentage may change a bit but as with most extremist positions, the hard core anti-vac make up a small percentage of the population. Vast majority of kids heading off to school are vaccinated as evidence they aren't the majority of the population.

In the short term, of course, people are concerned that corners have been cut to get a vaccine out fast but as I indicated 6 months after the vaccine is out and these nervous folks get to the head of the line, unless there are lots of major side effects, I expect most of them to get over it. (If there are major side effects, it's not an issue as the vaccine will be pulled anyway).

Assuming the 90% effectiveness holds up, in large part, you won't be transmitting the virus. Of course, it's more nuanced than a simple yes or no.

It's possible you are in the 10% where it's not effective and you do catch it. But if 90% of the population has been vaccinated or had the disease prior, 81% of the population won't be transmitting the virus (because they are immune). That means you have (in simplistic terms) an 81% lower chance of being exposed. If you aren't exposed, you can't transmit it. This is the basic idea behind herd immunity. At some point, so few at risk individuals are being exposed to it, the virus can't find enough new hosts to survive in the population. Of course, we do need to consider the long term immunity but by the time that becomes an issue (if it becomes an issue), we will likely have things back under control and annual vaccines (similar to the flu) will be in the works, so it becomes a lower level issue similar to the flu.

90% effectiveness is HUGE. Such a vaccine will snuff out the pandemic very quickly.

Please don't forget that herd immunity is NOT binary. Every single immune person is one less pathway for spreading the virus. If we think full herd immunity happens at 50% or 60% or so, that does not take away from the huge effect of vaccinating 15% or 20%, especially if we manage to identify and vaccinate those people with the disproportionate amount of contacts first. Epidemiologists say the 80/20 Rule applies also to infections -- 20% of the population account for 80% of contacts outside of their own families. You vaccinate those 20% and you're already mostly there. If it's really 90% effective, then you only need to vaccinate roughly half as many people as you do with flu vaccines, which are around 50% effective. Vaccinate those people PLUS the vulnerable first, and the game is totally changed.

This is FANTASTIC news, unexpectedly good news. Of course we've got a few more hoops to jump through, but if it turns out the way it looks now, this thing will be over by this time next year, and by next summer the pandemic should already be well in retreat.

[Lake-Effect]

Originally Posted by capn_billl

Unless you are wearing at least an M-95 [mask], a porous cloth face covering is just virtue signaling. SCIENCE.

Repeating that sort of misinformation is also a signal.

The point is that cloth masks greatly reduce the emission and spread of viruses from those who are infected yet asymptomatic*. NURSERY SCHOOL.


* cos no person who knows they have COVID from a test or from symptoms would knowingly go out in public while they're sick... would they?

[capn_billl]

Originally Posted by AA3JY

Exactly my point and intent of this ‘thread..

What happened to the quarantine procedure that was in place since the Black plague 1000 years ago?

1. Ship anchors off shore

2. Customs boards to inspect vessel, and check for sick crew. (testing is used for any questionable symptoms).

3. Once the ship is cleared medically you are allowed onshore.

Pretty easy isn't it?

Why did we suddenly change this?

Sure a pause until we had an effective test, but we have several tests NOW that can give quick results.

Why the cruising bans?

[Singularity]

Originally Posted by Pelagic

...until that fog of war clears and they realise it was only a crap shoot

One man's law of unintended consequences is always another man's I-told-you-so.

People like leaders who offer simple solutions to complicated problems...people don't like leaders who "talk with big words and stuff" and they certainly don't like to be told that their individual worldview was wrong, unsophisticated, etc. Recall Machiavelli's observation that "when neither their property nor their honor is touched the majority of men live content."

So the I-told-you-so people often suffer a fate dependent on the honor status of the ignorant...at least in populations where honor is linked to rugged individualism vs collectivism. A single biological organism by default operates collectively...and it's collectivism that allows so-called rugged individualists to survive in the first place...not that it's easy to get a so-called rugged individualist to understand this.

Wouldn't it be grand if rugged individualists could instantly have all the benefits of collectivism taken away from them...

[kmacdonald]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

That's what happens in polarized societies. it's awful. In the U.S. you just can't hear any voice of reason Politicized sludge on both sides of the issue Truth, leave alone nuance, is simpy out the window . . . .

Yes, exactly.