Corona virus

There has been plenty of politics and other things that would normally be considered inflammatory under forum rules. It has remained largely civil though, and the topic is relevant to people everywhere to varying degrees. I don't see them locking this unless it gets really out of hand in here.

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Exile009 wrote:

Regarding the herd immunity strategy that the UK in particular is leaning on, this video makes for a pretty decent breakdown of how it's meant to work and what the assumptions are - https://youtu.be/OQg2XLdpPEo

Tbh, I seriously doubt they'll even have the political capital to push it through, never mind if it could even actually work or not.

We are all leaning on herd immunity.

The only difference between the UK and most of the other EU country's is the rate at which were trying to achieve it.

The only strategie being applied currently is making the inflex point faster and spreading out the curve, but the total amount of infections remains the same and so do the baseline fatalities.

Beyond the obvious testing of anti virales and attempting alpha work on a vacine which is probably due in like a year and a half at best given procedures for health safety.
Only work around to that is giving it to patients which are beyond help in a last resort effort and seeing how it works out, but everybody else will have to wait.


Peace,

-Boem-

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Boem wrote:

@scrotie, your leaning to hard on the totalitarian angle

No, because I recognize that the "economic angle" is a subset of the totalitarian angle.

Yesterday the governor of Nevada closed all non-essential businesses, including Las Vegas casinos. This wasn't a choice of customers; it wasn't the market. It was a government official on a power trip, Thanos snapping the economy of major city at his own whim.

Banning of "non-essential" businesses begs the question of whether or not the government considers your business essential or not. When the case is borderline the government will decide, and when an operating business delves into business the government doesn't like the government will question whether it's "essential" or not. In short, the state of Nevada's economy now follows the Chinese "communist" model.

Ultimately, a moratorium on an entire industry all but requires government backing. In much the same way a monopoly needs government to suppress competition to win without being competitive, an industry standdown, voluntary though it may be at first, requires government to prevent new businesses from filling the vacuum. Don't be fooled into thinking it's okay because a few big corporations sign on before government gets involved — it was their plan for government to get involved in the first place, to solidify their oligopoly.

Some sad clinical thinking in this thread, sadly remember people even doctors are crying now.

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Boem wrote:

We are all leaning on herd immunity.

Infecting millions of people with the virus; that's not a thing...

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

No, because I recognize that the "economic angle" is a subset of the totalitarian angle.

Yesterday the governor of Nevada closed all non-essential businesses, including Las Vegas casinos. This wasn't a choice of customers; it wasn't the market. It was a government official on a power trip, Thanos snapping the economy of major city at his own whim.

I didn't notice, too busy looking at that $1 trillion government bailout.

So I found out why Australia's schools are still open. This is really sad.

We're trying to copy the Singapore model. And indeed, schools stayed open there. But: the borders closed *very* quickly; the army assisted locked-down people; students were tested for temperature regularly; and Singapore, unlike Australia, is itty-bitty and has a largely obedient populace used to draconian laws.

So our Great Leader tried to copy that, and all he could manage was 'keep the schools open' because we acted FAR too late to do any of the rest. We're STILL at gatherings of a 100 or less indoors as 'fine'. Parents are actually being told to keep distance between themselves and their own kids. Somehow. We are so amazingly fucked.

And if you do fall ill with obvious symptoms, our Covid-19 clinics are a joke, testing only if you've travelled and/or had direct exposure to a known infected one, because that's totally how community transmission works. They're woefully understaffed and under-equipped. There is no real distancing between people waiting to go in and most aren't even wearing masks yet. I've now personally known people with all the symptoms to be turned away from testing because they didn't fit one of the above two conditions. Most alarmingly, at no point before you get into the little testing area (which can take hours) do they go down the queue asking if you're at risk of serious complications. That is unspeakably bad.

I should be asleep but I can't shut down. I think I'm on my fourth wind now. Not doing what little immune system I have any favours but as long as I'm locked away, that shouldn't be too much of a problem. I will sleep a whole day sooner or later...and so what? What is something as trivial as night and day when you're stuck inside and your main interaction is people around the world?

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I hope you can get some rest.

Here's a tweet thread from a young man stricken with Covid-19 and quarantined in a hospital https://twitter.com/DavidLat/status/1239997293086027778

Wow, that's really helpful. Thank you. This guy is clearly healthy AF, and it's wrecked his shit hard. I mean, yeah. It'd probably just kill me. Period. But it's strangely reassuring to see proof that it isn't discriminating somehow. Sometimes, in my deeper darker moments, I can almost convince myself that Covid-19 actively hates me, is actively seeking me out for culling. How ludicrous is that!?

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

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Boem wrote:

@scrotie, your leaning to hard on the totalitarian angle

No, because I recognize that the "economic angle" is a subset of the totalitarian angle.

Yesterday the governor of Nevada closed all non-essential businesses, including Las Vegas casinos. This wasn't a choice of customers; it wasn't the market. It was a government official on a power trip, Thanos snapping the economy of major city at his own whim.

Banning of "non-essential" businesses begs the question of whether or not the government considers your business essential or not. When the case is borderline the government will decide, and when an operating business delves into business the government doesn't like the government will question whether it's "essential" or not. In short, the state of Nevada's economy now follows the Chinese "communist" model.

Ultimately, a moratorium on an entire industry all but requires government backing. In much the same way a monopoly needs government to suppress competition to win without being competitive, an industry standdown, voluntary though it may be at first, requires government to prevent new businesses from filling the vacuum. Don't be fooled into thinking it's okay because a few big corporations sign on before government gets involved — it was their plan for government to get involved in the first place, to solidify their oligopoly.

Your woefully ignoring that people elected that governor to his position.

His power is still derived from the people which means it isn't totalitarian.
People will follow his orders because he has a mandate to give them.

It also means that if they push to hard and they lose the backing of the people that they will revolt or ignore the orders.

The current situation is interesting exactly because it makes a liberal society act like a totalitarian regime with the only difference being that it is done by choice instead of by fiat.
And it is this "choice" element that makes it exactly different to a totalitarian regime.

Even if they utilize law-enforcement to impose the current rules, if the elected officials haven't been corruptly mandated with their position this would still not be a totalitarian situation.

The liberal society's can show their cohesion in a moment like this by voluntarely acting in the best interest of the whole without losing sight of the choice element in their situation.
It's because of this that most of liberal society's are taking some time before going all in with rules, they don't have the totalitarian levers that a country like china has they need to wait on the people to ask for the rules to be imposed out of concern for the whole.

I think thats a beautifull thing, i also don't think like i mentioned earlier that people will forget that choice element or freedom when this is all over.

Peace,

-Boem-