Coronavirus Outbreak...

[oxmixmudd]

Oops. It sounds like you have missed all the news for the last 6 months. There are a bunch of discussions in theologyweb that you also appeared to have forgotten or missed. Sorry to have to share the actual good news that makes you feel so miserable.

I had forgotten the level of ignorance you bring to any discussion about covid. The BS in your response is in trying to play off the majority of the covid deaths to what are small percentage exceptions.

The issue of people going untreated due to restrictions or fear is not trivial, but neither does it add up to 1.3 million deaths that would otherwise not have occurred.

[oxmixmudd]

You're talking to people who think diseases are cured by politics and not scientific discovery.

From a man that thinks the photos from the capitol and the Washington monument on the inauguration have been doctored. MM, you don't have a clue when it comes to even the most basic science. The statement above is nothing more than a projection of who you are onto those that can see how lacking you are. YOU are the one that follows pseudo science and quacks and whose opinions are based on nonsense rather than science.

The only thing you have going for you on this front is a complete lack of awareness of your own incompetence, either that or the capacity to tell bald faced lies without even the slightest pang of conscience.

[Starlight]

The only thing you have going for you on this front is a complete lack of awareness of your own incompetence, either that or the capacity to tell bald faced lies without even the slightest pang of conscience.

I always struggle to tell which it is when dealing with MM and Rogue.

And then I realize it's probably just both.

[mikewhitney]

I had forgotten the level of ignorance you bring to any discussion about covid. The BS in your response is in trying to play off the majority of the covid deaths to what are small percentage exceptions.

The issue of people going untreated due to restrictions or fear is not trivial, but neither does it add up to 1.3 million deaths that would otherwise not have occurred.

If the 2 million number were real (despite the idiot Ferguson's succession of failed calculations for mad-cow and bird flu and others), the infection would have already been spread to us all before the quarantines in March. You simply are not thinking things through here.

We saw all the media lies. it started with supposed videos of people collapsing in Wuhan. This has not been the true in the US or any other country. We have seen fake hospital activity on news reports. We have seen countries that are just fine without shutting down. We saw news reports of excessive deaths in Dallas County, for example. But when we looked at the county statistics, there was not any significant increased death rate. At some point you have to realize that the government is either stupid. (It is kind of late to have failed to recognize this.) Or they are acting intentionally against us.

[Starlight]

We saw all the media lies, it started with supposed videos of people collapsing in Wuhan.

I have Chinese relatives through marriage who sent through a photo of someone collapsed on their street in China. They didn't get it off the news, they took the picture themselves.

We have seen countries that are just fine without shutting down.

We have???

The closest we've seen is that (a) some countries managed to close their borders in time to prevent its arrival, or (b) some countries managed through extensive mask use, social distancing, and contact tracing to keep the number of infections lowish.

The vast majority of countries around the world on all continents seem to have opted for ~1-3 month shutdowns in response to spikes in the levels of the virus.

At some point you have to realize that the government is either stupid. (It is kind of late to have failed to recognize this.) Or they are acting intentionally against us.

Politicians from two different parties in any given country can barely ever agree on anything. Politicians in different countries rarely ever communicate. Yet you somehow think it's even remotely plausible that politicians from basically every country and party in the world simultaneously got together and agreed to fake a global pandemic and all lie about the cases and death rates? That's just insane. The level of coordination required would be like nothing we've ever seen before, and none of them would have a motive to do it, and every single one of them would have motive to get famous by revealing that conspiracy. It would simply never happen.

I understand you think the US government is corrupt. That's fair enough. It is. However, what you're implying is that every other government in every other country is corrupt and deeply so. And they're just not. The government of my small country is really democratic, really responsive, really full of just normal folks, and really not corrupt at all. It's a bunch of well-intentioned run-of-the-mill do-gooders. They're simply not going to be part of some international conspiracy. Nor are the average doctors and nurses in the hospitals here who treated the patients with covid. Nor are the scientists here. It's one thing to think the US might be running some sort of internal political scam. Nixon did, Reagan did. It's a whole other thing when you start implying the politicians of other countries are all complicit in it. They've just got no reason to be, it makes absolutely no sense at all.

[Mountain Man]

From a man that thinks the photos from the capitol and the Washington monument on the inauguration have been doctored. MM...

Well, that's a lie. I never once claimed that the inauguration day photos were "doctored". That you then hypocritically accuse me of having "the capacity to tell bald faced lies without even the slightest pang of conscience" is, sadly, not unexpected coming from you. I wish I could say you know better, but I really don't think you do.

[Mountain Man]

We saw all the media lies. it started with supposed videos of people collapsing in Wuhan. This has not been the true in the US or any other country. We have seen fake hospital activity on news reports. We have seen countries that are just fine without shutting down. We saw news reports of excessive deaths in Dallas County, for example. But when we looked at the county statistics, there was not any significant increased death rate.

What about the reports from just a month or two ago claiming that Texas hospitals were being overwhelmed with China flu cases and had to bring in refrigerator trucks because the morgues were proving inadequate, only to later learn that, actually the hospitals were never close to being overwhelmed, and that the refrigerator trucks had been ordered by paranoid government officials and were eventually sent away without ever being used.

[oxmixmudd]

Well, that's a lie. I never once claimed that the inauguration day photos were "doctored". That you then hypocritically accuse me of having "the capacity to tell bald faced lies without even the slightest pang of conscience" is, sadly, not unexpected coming from you. I wish I could say you know better, but I really don't think you do.

You argued with me for pages and pages that the photos from the Washington monument showing large gaps at the time another picture from the capitol was taken where perspective lessened the visibility of those gaps were not taken at the same time - that the gaps revealed from the washington momument side were from some other time or event - despite me going to extensive lengths to show that simply was not the case. Even that the use of pictures showing those gaps was some sort of fakery by the park service.

And you were not the only one making those arguments. You were just the last one still trying to argue the case after I posted the mathematics of perspective and color coded analysis of each section from both perspectives.

Whether or not you used the word 'doctored' to describe the timestamp manipulation or substitution from another event or time to explain how they were not the same is irrelavent to the absolute inane and blockhead denial that carried you through that discussion.

The same blockheaded denial that has carried you through every COVID discussion on these pages.

[casaba]

Hello,

I am stepping in a bit late here, but within the last two pages I see the claim that only 6% of deaths attributed to Covid-19 are in fact due to Covid-19 and that the rest are expected deaths we get from the flu and all other diseases.

I see one very simple piece of evidence that suggests (dare I say proves?) that Covid-19 has in fact killed more than the 220K attributed so far. Here are the CDC numbers for how many Americans have died each week this year. You can see that since late March, 10,000 to 20,000 more people have died each week than is expected (i.e., average from previous years, scaled by population growth). Can we once an for all put the bed the idea that less than 200K people have died from Covid-19? Or is someone going to try to argue that the limited shutdowns have somehow causes the excess deaths?

Figure 1 from https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/...cid=mm6942e2_w

[Mountain Man]

You argued with me for pages and pages that the photos from the Washington monument showing large gaps at the time another picture from the capitol was taken where perspective lessened the visibility of those gaps were not taken at the same time - that the gaps revealed from the washington momument side were from some other time or event - despite me going to extensive lengths to show that simply was not the case. Even that the use of pictures showing those gaps was some sort of fakery by the park service.

Anybody who cares is welcome to review the thread in question and see for themselves that you're lying. Not once did I ever say that any photos were doctored or subjected to "fakery". If you have anything further to say on that topic then feel free to post it in the appropriate thread, and I will respond if I feel it is worth my time and attention.

[oxmixmudd]

Anybody who cares is welcome to review the thread in question and see for themselves that you're lying. Not once did I ever say that any photos were doctored or subjected to "fakery". If you have anything further to say on that topic then feel free to post it in the appropriate thread, and I will respond if I feel it is worth my time and attention.

you argeued for pages that the pictures from the monument showing massive gaps were not the same time (or event) as the one from the behind the podium. But they were LABLED as nearly the same time and day. That WAS the conspiracy idiocy you were arguing FOR. So you can paint your inane and blockheaded denial however you want, I chose the word 'doctored ' to describe the sort of deception you were arguing FOR. It was and always will be an inane and blockheaded denial that those photos were of the same event and time fueled by the absolute idiocy coming out of the white house and pro trump nutters.

The point being this is but one example of your incapacity to understand or be moved by science, highlighting the irony of you trying to claim others far more competent than you do not understand or are not persuaded by science.

[Mountain Man]

The point being this is but one example of your incapacity to understand or be moved by science, highlighting the irony of you trying to claim others far more competent than you do not understand or are not persuaded by science.

It comes down to this: there is, to pick one example, zero scientific evidence that paper masks and bandanas will do anything to stop or slow the spread of the China flu, and yet you are in favor of government mandated face coverings because you prefer a government solution over anything grounded in scientific reasoning. Heck, you were practically wetting yourself with excitement in one post when I reported that I had been refused entry to a store because I wasn't wearing a mask.

What you exhibit is classic government thinking:

We must do something.
Forcing people to wear worthless face coverings is "something".
Therefore, we must force people to wear worthless face coverings.

Meanwhile, I've had people stare at me with fear and suspicion when they see me walking through an open-air parking lot without a mask. That's how insane things have gotten.

[oxmixmudd]

It comes down to this: there is, to pick one example, zero scientific evidence that paper masks and bandanas will do anything to stop or slow the spread of the China flu,

zero evidence?

https://files.fast.ai/papers/masks_lit_review.pdf

This is a summary review of the evidence IN APRIL:

one nice little summary is this chart:

MaskEfficacy.PNG

As you can see, even a mask that is only 40% effective can push R0 down to 1 or below with 100% participation. And R0 (under intervention) <1 means each infected person spreads it to less than 1 other person, and that means that if it stays below 1, over time it will disappear. Coupled with other mitigations like social distancing and reduced contact in enclosed spaces we don't need the masks ALONE to take R0 (under intervention) below 1. But ANY reduction is helpful. And the larger the percentage of people that wear them, the more effective they are.

So there is plenty of evidence masks help. You simply don't know what that evidence is, don't care what it is, perhaps don't understand it, and certainly are not persuaded by it even when you are shown it.

Which was exactly my point.

and yet you are in favor of government mandated face coverings because you prefer a government solution over anything grounded in scientific reasoning.

I am in favor of wearing masks. I would prefer it if government mandates were not necessary (and in some countries the culture is so strong wrt societal responsibility they are not necessary). However, the reason government mandates are necessary in the US is because of ignorant yet arrogant folks like yourself coupled with the rampant misinformation floating around in Trumpian circles.

Heck, you were practically wetting yourself with excitement in one post when I reported that I had been refused entry to a store because I wasn't wearing a mask.

I was happy that the people running the store were willing to stand up to your ignorance and protect the people inside the store from your foolishness. Your attempt to get in without one simply highlights your ignorance, arrogance, and your lack of concern for your community. 'wetting yourself' is you being you and has no correlation with reality.

What you exhibit is classic government thinking:

We must do something.
Forcing people to wear worthless face coverings is "something".
Therefore, we must force people to wear worthless face coverings.

Meanwhile, I've had people stare at me with fear and suspicion when they see me walking through an open-air parking lot without a mask. That's how insane things have gotten.

As the science shows, they are not worthless. But also - as I have been saying, you are not persuaded by (nor do you likely understand) the science that shows they are not worthless.

Thank you for proving my point.

[Mountain Man]

zero evidence?

https://files.fast.ai/papers/masks_lit_review.pdf

Might want to read your own source. It says, "No randomized controlled trials (RCT) on the use of masks as source control for SARS-CoV-2 has been published," and that a referenced study "did not use COVID-19 patients, and it is not yet known whether seasonal coronavirus behaves the same as SARS-CoV-2."

So all I can I say is thank you for supporting my point.

[Stoic]

Might want to read your own source. It says, "No randomized controlled trials (RCT) on the use of masks as source control for SARS-CoV-2 has been published," and that a referenced study "did not use COVID-19 patients, and it is not yet known whether seasonal coronavirus behaves the same as SARS-CoV-2."

So all I can I say is thank you for supporting my point.

Needless to say (or at least it should be), "no randomized controlled trials" is not the same as "zero scientific evidence".

Randomized controlled trials are one type of scientific evidence. Granted, they are a type which is strongly preferred, but they are also a type that takes a long time to get done.

In the absence of such trials, and given the urgency of the matter, it makes sense to use what other scientific evidence is available, which points to the fact that the virus would spread much less rapidly if everyone wore masks.