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"It could be worse", is the response I suppose. And there's more to it than that--the Spanish flu victims tended to be young, and the COVID victims tend to be old, and losing young people has to hurt more. But then, much less was known about disease in 1918, and it was accepted that people were going to die of mysterious causes, as they always had. Now we expect that everything is going to be understood, and every disease has a cause and a defense. So if something new comes along and kills lots of people, it's an affront to science. AIDS was the same in its day, but now that's pretty well explained.
you make an excellent point someone dying at 25 is much more tragic than someone at 80. hell if you asked someone back then if someone dying of 80 was sad they would say " wow they lived a full life we don't have many people that live to 80"
loss of years is much worse than someone dying at 75 who might have lost 5 years instead of 55 years of lost life from dying early.
I am sorry the Spanish flu is being compared but it was much worse taking into account the population back then and mostly young people dying. some died 12 hours after they got the Spanish flu. i know the covid numbers are inflated. the flu did not disappear last year it was labeled covid . since the covid tests are flawed anything over 10 cycles can create false positives. the maker of the test even said the test was flawed. they might of been labeling the flu as covid by accident too. notice the symptoms are so similar that mistake would not be hard to make.
they want to vaccinated 5 to11 year old when they don't even get covid. at the very least do not vaccinate anyone under 18. the risk versus benefit is very different than someone over 65.
I was only looking at it from a literal perspective in terms of numbers.
If i were to dig into deeper, I think we are already there in terms of impact on society. Unfortunately all we need is some time and the numbers will make this official. We might even already be there if there is a significant undercount.
Back in early 2020 I spent some of my (now available) free time researching the history of some of the earlier pandemics, particularly Spanish Flu. Without going into too much detail, a lot of what we are seeing today has already played out in some form 103 years ago.
One parallel i'm waiting to see unfold is how Covid ends and how it compares with SF.
did you watch any Spanish flu documentaries? that is pretty scary stuff they were going door to door picking up dead bodies. I think I would even be scared.
you make an excellent point someone dying at 25 is much more tragic than someone at 80. hell if you asked someone back then if someone dying of 80 was sad they would say " wow they lived a full life we don't have many people that live to 80"
loss of years is much worse than someone dying at 75 who might have lost 5 years instead of 55 years of lost life from dying early.
I am sorry the Spanish flu is being compared but it was much worse taking into account the population back then and mostly young people dying. some died 12 hours after they got the Spanish flu. i know the covid numbers are inflated. the flu did not disappear last year it was labeled covid . since the covid tests are flawed anything over 10 cycles can create false positives. the maker of the test even said the test was flawed. they might of been labeling the flu as covid by accident too. notice the symptoms are so similar that mistake would not be hard to make.
they want to vaccinated 5 to11 year old when they don't even get covid. at the very least do not vaccinate anyone under 18. the risk versus benefit is very different than someone over 65.
you make an excellent point someone dying at 25 is much more tragic than someone at 80. hell if you asked someone back then if someone dying of 80 was sad they would say " wow they lived a full life we don't have many people that live to 80"
loss of years is much worse than someone dying at 75 who might have lost 5 years instead of 55 years of lost life from dying early.
I am sorry the Spanish flu is being compared but it was much worse taking into account the population back then and mostly young people dying. some died 12 hours after they got the Spanish flu. i know the covid numbers are inflated. the flu did not disappear last year it was labeled covid . since the covid tests are flawed anything over 10 cycles can create false positives. the maker of the test even said the test was flawed. they might of been labeling the flu as covid by accident too. notice the symptoms are so similar that mistake would not be hard to make.
Average life expectancy in the US around the time of the Spanish Flu was like 53. The 30-year-olds were middle-aged, and 80-year-olds were thin on the ground. This is another version of the "COVID isn't that bad 'cuz it just weeds out the old and infirm" talking point. What's your cut-off age for caring?
Quote:
Originally Posted by justyouraveragetenant
they want to vaccinated 5 to11 year old when they don't even get covid. at the very least do not vaccinate anyone under 18. the risk versus benefit is very different than someone over 65.
That’s a travel ban for non-US citizens to enter the United States. Canadians still can’t cross the border by car. They can only fly in. I can drive to Canada. I just need to upload an image of my vaccination card to the ArriveCAN web portal and show them the results of a PCR test taken within 72 hours. I can do the test at the Walgreens drive thru a half mile from my house.
The US accepts rapid tests. My sister got hers at the airport in Vancouver before flying here the other day. She’s waiting for her results from Quest Diagnostics on the PCR test she did yesterday so she can fly home on Wednesday. My brother in law has 30 cases of wine that have been stranded in a locker in Washington State since the land border crossing closed 18 months ago. He’ll finally be able to start bringing his wine up in November.
Looks like we’re going to do Christmas in Vancouver this year after skipping last year.
Average life expectancy in the US around the time of the Spanish Flu was like 53. The 30-year-olds were middle-aged, and 80-year-olds were thin on the ground. This is another version of the "COVID isn't that bad 'cuz it just weeds out the old and infirm" talking point. What's your cut-off age for caring?
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If COVID-19 had hit the United States in 1918, the mortality rate would have been much higher than now. Probably higher than the Spanish flu. Trump would have certainly died of it. His blood oxygen level had gotten down to 60 before they choppered him to Walter Reed. They didn’t have mechanical ventilators. No vaccines. No remdesivir. We probably would have lost at least 1% of the population. The worst in the United States is Mississippi at 1:320. The Spanish flu killed 0.64% of the population so about double Mississippi or New Jersey.
The “kids don’t get COVID” thing is a nutty claim. A 4 year old died of it in August in Riverside CA last month as the youngest death. The Delta variant changed the kid mortality picture.
To be fair, the US population in 1920 was about 1/3 of the US population today.
There are flaws in the peer review system, but it is the gold-standard for verifying and accepting the results of scientific study. Ask anyone who works anywhere near scientific research. They will be able to tell you all the problems with the system, but it's a lot better than anecdotes and Facebook and YouTube, where no attempt at all is made to remove confirmation bias. The general idea is that once an idea has significant peer-reviewed research supporting an idea, the standard of proof against that idea becomes better, peer-reviewed research refuting the idea. Specifically for vaccines, the results are the gold standard of medical research: double blinded studies. This removes almost all of the confounding factors that made earlier research inconclusive and unconvincing. All three approved vaccines were resounding successes.
Of course, if you don't believe that the trial was conducted fairly or trust the people doing the trial AND the people approving the vaccine, no amount of data will convince you otherwise. It is always possible to doubt everything. That is an unassailable position, that no amount of logic or reasoning could possible overcome. If it were something that had little to no impact on society, like say evolution vs. creation, the debate about what to do about it wouldn't be important. For something like a public health crisis, where the course of action depends on the results of scientific study, decisions have to be made.
I appreciate that some people are apprehensive about the vaccine. I appreciate that some people think an off-label use of a anti-parasitic drug is a better treatment. Without stronger evidence, I will not think either of those things are true. Furthermore, I don't think honestly believing something to be true exempts you from having to comply with the rules of society. You can honestly believe that 150 MPH is a safe speed, but if you try to go that fast you will likely be arrested. And sure, you can say that if you think 150 MPH you can drive 65 MPH or 40 MPH or whatever feels safe. That's not the way it works, that's not the way it should work. If you think it is, that is a fundamental disagreement.
And to be perfectly clear, there is not yet any requirement to be vaccinated. There are simply restrictions on what you can do if you are not vaccinated.
I've completed Methods I and II and know the merits and limitations of research. The fact that some don't agree with your position or the position of some government agencies in no way implies that they don't understand or accept the scientific method it just means they look at individual studies and disagree with your assembly of the facts and the application of those facts to public policy. There are many well informed highly educated people who can believe in science and still not agree that there is enough evidence available showing benefit to the public that justifies forced inoculations as there are many flaws in the application of policies, all or most of which are generally justified to pointing to "science" with no real data that would specifically support the implementation of those policies. There is much debate and much room for debate since science has not given us hard answers and when civil liberties are at stake very high standards should be held. And creating a false equivalency that legitimate thought is expressed solely on CNN or Fox and thereby any opposing opinions must be coming from FB or Youtube is not a logical or legitimate argument. There are many arguments and analyses out there from well respected scientists that can be found in books and in media which run contrary to some of the policies being implemented. In fact, given the amount of information that FB and Youtube are censoring makes one wonder what they are trying to hide.When you blatantly suppress opposing thought from highly credentialed people and also contradictory thought from certain government officials, you undermine the honest and open communications philosophy that would strengthen public debate and any ensuing public education measures rather than weaken it as has been the case.
And there are indeed requirements that have been established. If you are limiting a person's livelihood or opportunity to sustain their lives, they are requirements whether you wish to acknowledge that or not. We will disagree all day and night on all of this and there are many medical, philosophical, constitutional and ethical aspects to address. This doesn't mean that those who disagree with you are either less informed, less educated, or less entitled to be heard nor does it mean the opposing arguments are without merit. Oh, and continually pretending to be more intelligent or informed than all those who disagree doesn't make it so nor does it do anything to solve problems or reach agreement. If you think that forcing opinions on people of equal of inferior intellect on people is a "smart" approach to problems you may not be as smart as you think you are. Demanding full agreement on issues seems to be a trend among certain ideologically driven people and this approach is harming not helping us.
I will also add that sitting on this board daily casting continual aspersions on the intellect, patriotism, or education of opposing viewpoints and name calling groups of people then crying when someone name-calls you back, do not constitute logical arguments or give you more credibility. It is just pathetic.
I've completed Methods I and II and know the merits and limitations of research. The fact that some don't agree with your position or the position of some government agencies in no way implies that they don't understand or accept the scientific method it just means they look at individual studies and disagree with your assembly of the facts and the application of those facts to public policy.
I've never said you don't understand or accept the scientific method. You don't seem to be applying it to this particular debate, however. In a science-informed debate, once someone presents evidence, the two rebuttals are either:
1) Criticism of why that specific research is flawed
2) Evidence of similar veracity that contradicts the research
Anything outside of that isn't productive discussion. You can 'disagree with my assembly of the facts', but unless you cite specifically what the problems are, what your solution to those problems are, and why your solutions are better, you are reasoning is effectively 'because I said so'.
That being said, once you move beyond the specifics of the facts in question, the choice of what to do isn't a scientific one, but rather a social and political one. This distinction is something that has been frustratingly absent from the 'believe science' crowd. It is one thing to say, "the Moderna/Pfizer/J+J vaccines are safe and effective" and that is a scientific question that has been answered in a scientific way with a resounding "yes". If you believe otherwise and think that point is important enough for you to want me to agree with you, you will need to present significantly more compelling evidence than you have so far.
It is, however, another to say, "so everyone must take these vaccines". That is not a scientific question, and the scientific method isn't particularly useful for answering that question. I can point to studies that say, if you take the vaccine your risk of severe illness and death are decreased, or studies that say if everyone takes the vaccine the overall risk of death and illness are decreased, but those are different questions.
Quote:
Originally Posted by bostongymjunkie
There are many well informed highly educated people who can believe in science and still not agree that there is enough evidence available showing benefit to the public that justifies forced inoculations as there are many flaws in the application of policies, all or most of which are generally justified to pointing to "science" with no real data that would specifically support the implementation of those policies. There is much debate and much room for debate since science has not given us hard answers and when civil liberties are at stake very high standards should be held. And creating a false equivalency that legitimate thought is expressed solely on CNN or Fox and thereby any opposing opinions must be coming from FB or Youtube is not a logical or legitimate argument. There are many arguments and analyses out there from well respected scientists that can be found in books and in media which run contrary to some of the policies being implemented. In fact, given the amount of information that FB and Youtube are censoring makes one wonder what they are trying to hide.When you blatantly suppress opposing thought from highly credentialed people and also contradictory thought from certain government officials, you undermine the honest and open communications philosophy that would strengthen public debate and any ensuing public education measures rather than weaken it as has been the case.
When it comes to science, Facebook and YouTube span the gambit in quality from way better than CNN/FOX to far, far worse. I'm not, nor would I ever, suggest that popular media outlets are the only acceptable sources of scientific information. For better or worse, I would say peer-reviewed journals are the only acceptable source of scientific information. And even those need to be approached skeptically. If you don't have any trust in peer-reviewed journals, there is little hope of convincing you of anything.
Quote:
Originally Posted by bostongymjunkie
And there are indeed requirements that have been established. If you are limiting a person's livelihood or opportunity to sustain their lives, they are requirements whether you wish to acknowledge that or not. We will disagree all day and night on all of this and there are many medical, philosophical, constitutional and ethical aspects to address. This doesn't mean that those who disagree with you are either less informed, less educated, or less entitled to be heard nor does it mean the opposing arguments are without merit. Oh, and continually pretending to be more intelligent or informed than all those who disagree doesn't make it so nor does it do anything to solve problems or reach agreement. If you think that forcing opinions on people of equal of inferior intellect on people is a "smart" approach to problems you may not be as smart as you think you are. Demanding full agreement on issues seems to be a trend among certain ideologically driven people and this approach is harming not helping us.
I never said that people who disagree are not as smart or that their viewpoints don't deserve to be heard. In a collective society, though, dissent from a majority opinion does not always shield you from having to comply with that majority opinion. There are exceptions and the boundaries of those exceptions are always going to be a topic of debate. I accept that we may have a difference of opinion on this particular issue, but that doesn't mean that I will relent and just do what you think is best because I can't convince you otherwise.
Last edited by jayrandom; 09-21-2021 at 06:53 AM..
If COVID-19 had hit the United States in 1918, the mortality rate would have been much higher than now. Probably higher than the Spanish flu. Trump would have certainly died of it. His blood oxygen level had gotten down to 60 before they choppered him to Walter Reed. They didn’t have mechanical ventilators. No vaccines. No remdesivir. We probably would have lost at least 1% of the population. The worst in the United States is Mississippi at 1:320. The Spanish flu killed 0.64% of the population so about double Mississippi or New Jersey.
The “kids don’t get COVID” thing is a nutty claim. A 4 year old died of it in August in Riverside CA last month as the youngest death. The Delta variant changed the kid mortality picture.
I love this perspective, by the way. I'm already seeing a bit of the relativism creeping in re: Covid, as in, "well, at least it's not as bad as the Spanish Flu was" (on a % population basis).
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