Covid-19 Thread

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6 minutes ago, EvanG said:

 

And you're a selfish prick. I've seen you whine about being called the ''forum idiot'' by many posters on here, but you only have yourself to blame for that. 
Everytime someone debunks all the nonesense you post on here with actual evidence, like SoulMonster did three posts ago, you either don't react at all or you respond with some vague post without addressing what was actually said. You do this all the time. You are either a fucking troll or the dumbest person on here. Or maybe both.

I've already adressed soulmonster's data. he then posted the same articles again. I'm not going to repeat myself.

you're far too invested in my character. you know things I said years ago, you know how I acted years ago, you think you know my posting style, and so on, and so on.

very creepy.

or, are you in love with me by chance? In that case I'll have to disappoint you; I'm a happy married heterosexual.

[EvanG]

6 minutes ago, action said:

I've already adressed soulmonster's data. he then posted the same articles again. I'm not going to repeat myself.

you're far too invested in my character. you know things I said years ago, you know how I acted years ago, you think you know my posting style, and so on, and so on.

very creepy.

or, are you in love with me by chance? In that case I'll have to disappoint you; I'm a happy married heterosexual.

No, you didn't. You never respond to what people actually say because you can't. Give it up already. Go back to that other GnR forum complaining about the posters of MYGNR and how terrible the mods are here. That's all you're good for.

Edited December 8, 2022 by EvanG

[SoulMonster]

52 minutes ago, Scream of the Butterfly said:

If the probability that I will catch covid and infect other people (much less vulnerable people) within a certain time frame is let's say 0.0001 and getting vaccinated reduces it by 20% to 0.00008, then, no, it's still not enough for me to get vaccinated. I don't know what the actual probability is (which varies from person to person) but I do know that it is so small that reducing it by 20% or even 40% isn't of much significance.

Of course it is of significance if we can reduce the spread of a pandemic by 20%. It might not be significant to you, but it surely is to our health care response, especially early in a pandemic, when many vulnerable still hasn't received full protection from vaccines, when hospitals are getting overburdened with people in isolation, when the logistics of manufacturing and delivering vaccines is still being scaled, etc etc. Together with other measures like social distancing and face masks, it provides a vital countermeasure to a very virulent disease.

 

54 minutes ago, Scream of the Butterfly said:

It's been almost three years and I haven't infected one single person (although I have myself been infected by a vaccinated person).

How on earth would you even know? 

 

58 minutes ago, Scream of the Butterfly said:

 I get the feeling that you operate under the false premise that the probability of any unvaccinated person spreading the disease at any given time is 100% and that vaccines reduce it to 80% but that of course isn't the case.

Actually, the real numbers for early variants were in the range of 40-60% reduction in transmission, now with Omicron it is down to 20-40%. Still, this is extremely important when it comes to managing a pandemic.

 

1 hour ago, Scream of the Butterfly said:

If you really think this is about protecting other people, shouldn't you be getting a booster shot every two months or even more frequently considering the protection against transmission apparently wanes in a matter of weeks?

You could even get one every day! Or live in isolation on a mountain top! There is so much we can do to save others! This is part of national pandemic management and different countries will have different advice and recommendations on who gets boosters and how frequently, where the overall immunity in society plays a big factor together with factors like economy. Personally, I will follow the recommendations I receive.

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@SoulMonster and me more or less have come to a partial agreement, on the numbers with regards to the efficiency of the vaccines, with regards to reducing transmissability. Its between 20-40% for the latest variants. WIth earlier ones it was higher, but that was the past. There is little use in staying in the past, except for learning from our mistakes.

So, a 20%-40% efficiency, when it comes to reducing transmissability of the virus, after being vaccinated.

we have thus identified the "net gain", so to speak as 20%-40%.

But, what is missing here, is the "net loss", the flipside of the coin so to speak.

Because, science agrees, and it's written in the prescription of the vaccines themselves, that the vaccines have potentially deadly side effects. This "net loss" can be put in numbers also. I don't know the numbers, and I'm not sure I'll find them, because this is a field that has yet to be thoroughly scientifically investigated. But, let's say, I don't know, 5% of the vaccinated people DIE because of the vaccines, from the side effects.

What does that mean?

That, there is a 5% chance of a perfectly healthy person dying, and a 20%-40% reduction in infection (an infection, that in itself only has a very, very small chance of being deadly).

If soulmonster had paid attention to his philosophy lessons during his curriculum, he would remember the notion of "moral calculus", as detailed in "utilitarism". Look it up in one of your handbooks that are gathering dust somewhere beneath all those books on statistics

[SoulMonster]

7 minutes ago, action said:

@SoulMonster and me more or less have come to a partial agreement, on the numbers with regards to the efficiency of the vaccines, with regards to reducing transmissability. Its between 20-40% for the latest variants. WIth earlier ones it was higher, but that was the past. There is little use in staying in the past, except for learning from our mistakes.

So, a 20%-40% efficiency, when it comes to reducing transmissability of the virus, after being vaccinated.

we have thus identified the "net gain", so to speak as 20%-40%.

But, what is missing here, is the "net loss", the flipside of the coin so to speak.

Because, science agrees, and it's written in the prescription of the vaccines themselves, that the vaccines have potentially deadly side effects. This "net loss" can be put in numbers also. I don't know the numbers, and I'm not sure I'll find them, because this is a field that has yet to be thoroughly scientifically investigated. But, let's say, I don't know, 5% of the vaccinated people DIE because of the vaccines, from the side effects.

What does that mean?

That, there is a 5% chance of a perfectly healthy person dying, and a 20%-40% reduction in infection (an infection, that in itself only has a very, very small chance of being deadly).

5%!? 

The VAERS system in the US, which collects reported, possible, side effects of medicines, has, I believe, less than 10,000 deaths. But this is reported deaths not confirmed to be caused by the vaccines, just happening closely after vaccination. Obviously, the majority of such reported deaths were not caused by the vaccination. Basically, correlation not causality. Most experts, I am sure, would think the real number to be well less than 100. 

And this is from a few hundred million doses delivered! So your 5% is utterly ridiculous. 

Still, let's look at the number of lives saved for comparison. I linked to a study earlier which concluded that more than 20 million lives have been saved globally because of vaccines. Let's say that 10% of that is in the US. That's 2 million lives saved. 

So to save these 2 million people less than 100 died from side effects. Worth in in my opinion. 

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11 minutes ago, SoulMonster said:

 

Still, let's look at the number of lives saved for comparison. I linked to a study earlier which concluded that more than 20 million lives have been saved globally because of vaccines. Let's say that 10% of that is in the US. That's 2 million lives saved. 

So to save these 2 million people less than 100 died from side effects. Worth in in my opinion. 

the logical fallacy you make, is that we're talking about my individual body as a source of infection of others, after being vaccinated or not., but when identifying net gain you're using the numbers in relation to the whole population

Great that 20 (or 2) million lives are saved by being vaccinated, but of course the number of lives AN INDIVIDUAL has saved by being vaccinated, is but a fraction of that.

You can not, on the one hand, claim that 20 million of lives are saved (thus, picking the numbers with regards to the whole population), and then look at individual risk of dying from the vaccines.

A more correct approach would be, to identify the chance that I will die from the vaccine (and this chance is real, it's just undefined at this moment), and juxtapose this to the lives "I" have saved from being vaccinated. Taking in account that I will have infected 20-40 % LESS people, and taking in account that infection-death rates are very low (2% I believe), then you will understand that, even with a low chance of dying from the vaccine, the net gain is far too little to negate the risk of me dying from the vaccine

Edited December 8, 2022 by action

[action]

also, I'm an antisocial fella, so I don't meet many people anyway

[SoulMonster]

1 hour ago, action said:

the logical fallacy you make, is that we're talking about my individual body as a source of infection of others, after being vaccinated or not., but when identifying net gain you're using the numbers in relation to the whole population

Then just divide by capita, you numbnut 

 

1 hour ago, action said:

Great that 20 (or 2) million lives are saved by being vaccinated, but of course the number of lives AN INDIVIDUAL has saved by being vaccinated, is but a fraction of that.

Yes, of course. And similarly, the individual likelihood of dying from the vaccination can also be looked at per capita by taking the total number of deaths by side effect (<100) and dividing per the number of inoculations (>200 million?). 

1 hour ago, action said:

You can not, on the one hand, claim that 20 million of lives are saved (thus, picking the numbers with regards to the whole population), and then look at individual risk of dying from the vaccines.

Regardless of whether you can do that or not, no one actually did that. What I did was compare the number of deaths saved by vaccination to the number of deaths caused by vaccination, because you expressed concern that vaccination wasn't worth it, and showed you that the numbers are definitely in favor of vaccination even with a few deaths from side effect. Of course you don't appreciate numbers being so solidly against you, so you came up with something really silly:

1 hour ago, action said:

A more correct approach would be, to identify the chance that I will die from the vaccine (and this chance is real, it's just undefined at this moment), and juxtapose this to the lives "I" have saved from being vaccinated. Taking in account that I will have infected 20-40 % LESS people, and taking in account that infection-death rates are very low (2% I believe), then you will understand that, even with a low chance of dying from the vaccine, the net gain is far too little to negate the risk of me dying from the vaccine

Only more correct for the arbitrary, and changing, argument of yours 

And of course the likelihood of dying from the vaccine isn't "undefined", I "defined" it in my previous post, you just need to take the number of deaths and divide per inoculation or vaccinated person. 

As for calculating the number of lives you have saved, that is much harder to do. And why would you? Protecting others is just one side of why people get vaccinated, we also do it to reduce our own chance of severe illness. Which leads us back to the assumption that about 2 mill has been saved in the US but only less than 100 have died from the vaccines. Dividing per capita then gives the benefit of vaccination on an individual level. 

But just to humour you we can look at the individual effects of reducing transmission isolated. Two million were saved by, what, 50 million vaccinated? That's one person saved per 25 people vaccinated. Then you have to weigh that up against the individual chance of dying from side-effects which is <100/50,000,000, or practically zero: 0.000002. 

But what does it matter? You have already straight up stated that other people dying isn't your problem  

[Scream of the Butterfly]

1 hour ago, SoulMonster said:

Of course it is of significance if we can reduce the spread of a pandemic by 20%. It might not be significant to you, but it surely is to our health care response, especially early in a pandemic, when many vulnerable still hasn't received full protection from vaccines, when hospitals are getting overburdened with people in isolation, when the logistics of manufacturing and delivering vaccines is still being scaled, etc etc. Together with other measures like social distancing and face masks, it provides a vital countermeasure to a very virulent disease.

The same benefit could easily be achieved by temporarily reducing the number of social contacts 20% below the number of social contacts of the vaccinated person (if it's not already there) and then we'd be even. But no doubt you and some others would still hold on to your holier than thou mindset without any rational basis whatsoever.

 

2 hours ago, SoulMonster said:

How on earth would you even know? 

How on earth would I even know what? Are you implying that at some point in time I was an asymptomatic carrier and infected some people who were also entirely asymptomatic so that nobody knows about it? That doesn't seem very likely and at any rate an outbreak that doesn't involve any symptoms for anybody involved doesn't sound like anything to be too concerned about.

[SoulMonster]

8 hours ago, Scream of the Butterfly said:

The same benefit could easily be achieved by temporarily reducing the number of social contacts 20% below the number of social contacts of the vaccinated person (if it's not already there) and then we'd be even.

Easily? Social distancing is not necessarily easy. The recommendations during the first period of Covid-19 were definitely to practise social distancing, and it helps, but can only do so much to reduce spread because you can only go so far when it comes to social distancing. The strategy opted for by almost every government, was to do a combination of vaccination and social distancing to reduce the spread sufficiently to keep the pandemic under as much control as possible. Asking people to social distance even more to not have to vaccinate themselves, seems like a hopeless strategy considering the minimum of human interactions that is required to make society go round and the serious implications this would have on companies, travel, and just basic human sociality. It is this strategy of fighting transmission with different measures where each separately, incrementally add to the total reduction of transmission that adds meters onto the "wall of immunity".

 

8 hours ago, Scream of the Butterfly said:

But no doubt you and some others would still hold on to your holier than thou mindset without any rational basis whatsoever.

If you want to reduce spread of Covid-19, then it is rational to get vaccinated since it reduces the risk of transmitting current variants by 20-40%. It simply is  If you don't care about the disease and whether we reduce the transmission or not, then it is not rational to get vaccinated. So how rational it is, really comes down to what type of person you are. 

As for whether it is a holier-then-thou attitude to argue in favor of vaccination: Well, I think getting vaccinated both to protect ourselves and others, should be the default behaviour. It should go without saying that we are willig to tolerate a little pinprick and a perhaps a couple of days of harmless discomfort if it can not only better our own chances if we get sick, but also protect others. It is such an obvious thing to do that it shouldn't require any defense or argumentation. Hence, it is not we who get vaccinated who are holier-then-thou, but those that for reasons that can best be described as selfish or ignorant decide to not get vaccinated, the antivaxxers, who are the problem.

 

8 hours ago, Scream of the Butterfly said:

Are you implying that at some point in time I was an asymptomatic carrier and infected some people who were also entirely asymptomatic so that nobody knows about it? That doesn't seem very likely and at any rate an outbreak that doesn't involve any symptoms for anybody involved doesn't sound like anything to be too concerned about.

I just assumed that during these last two years there has been at least one time where you have been amongst other people while having some undiagnosed respiratory illness, whether that is at home among family, while travelling on a bus or plane, at work before leaving home, etc. I mean, only these last 6 months that has happened to me at least four times. I wouldn't be surprised if I had Covid-19 at least one of these times. So it is quite possible I have infected others with Covid-19. 

Edited December 9, 2022 by SoulMonster

[SoulMonster]

On the topic of antivaxxers, this study from May this year shows that in the US alone, 319,000 people could have been saved if just everybody had gotten vaccinated: Vaccinations - Global Epidemics

Out of these 319,000 deaths, most of them chose to not get vaccinated out of sheer ignorance and selfishness. Only a minority didn't get vaccinated because they were allergic to the vaccine, because the vaccine wasn't available to them, or for other health reasons.

319,000 deaths. Ponder that. That's blood on the hands of those who deliberately lie, twist or misinform the public about Covid-19, whether it is lies about the real mortality, lies about side effect prevalence, lies about the safety of the vaccines, lies about the content of the vaccines, lies about the vaccine's effect on transmission, etc.

Some people take the position of antivaxxers almost as a political statement, for tribal reasons, to be contrary, because where they are in their lives it is in vogue to fight everything that comes from the government, or pharma, they don't care about facts and science as long as they can keep that group belonging happening; some just don't have the intellectual capacity to realize the implications of a serious pandemic, maybe before it is too late: The true toll of the antivax movement | Financial Times

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people who cling to science are the most afraid of disease and dying. That's because science does not understand the concept of death. It's as unexplored as what's inside a black hole.

Science has a way of quantifying reality, putting everything in numbers and statistics. When, for example, you have a statistic that says "a 20-40% chance of less transmissions", then immediately this is accepted as truth, because it's numbers. Numbers, people reason, can never be wrong.

We see, in our society, that everything is getting quantified, in an attempt to remove randomness and spontaneity. Postmen are being tracked, by speed of delivery, distance driven, etc. Working people need to check in and out, to track how long they're at the office. At airports, body temperature is tracked before entering a plane. A doctor takes blood, and measures cholesterol, to see which medicine to prescribe. Children at school get points for their work at school.

Why is that, this need to quantify everything?

Most of these numbers, at best, give a distorted and inaccurate image of reality. The accuracy of the numbers, is dependent on the quality of the measurement, and the relevance of the numbers in relation to what you're trying to prove. For example, a normal body temperature does not guarantee the person is covid free, and a hot temperature does not guarantee a person has covid. Bad points at school does not mean your kid is stupid.

People should realise, science is inherently inaccurate. See the double slit experiment: yes and no can exist at the same time

[Sisyphus]

Well? It is mind blowing how the dangers of covid-19 dissipated once it was removed from under the microscope and the media moved on to other things.

The fear campaign has run it's course and people are no longer interested. But covid-19 didn't disappear. There are huge number of people still getting infected each day and there are many casualties directly or indirectly connected with the disease. But there's no apocalypse. 

I don't believe the countires with lower vaccination rates are still facing lockdowns. Would be interesting to know if the surges around the globe are even related to vaccinaton rates... I'm guessing not so much. 

Once the magnifying glass was removed covid-19 became what it always had been - another version of the flu with a striking name and the most elaborate marketing strategy the world has ever seen. 

Of course the believers will claim the number of cases is significantly lower than it was a year ago. Fair enough. But how many people are actually getting tested?

Alarming numbers are easy to produce as long as you shove a cotton-tipped plastic swab into every nose on the planet. 
 

Edited December 19, 2022 by Sisyphus

[SoulMonster]

1 hour ago, Sisyphus said:

Well? It is mind blowing how the dangers of covid-19 dissipated once it was removed from under the microscope and the media moved on to other things.

It is only natural that the media gets fatigue from talking about one single subject that has dominated the news for such a long time. Also as most people have been vaccinated and the disease is much less of a concern (although, old people keep dying, of course).

 

1 hour ago, Sisyphus said:

Once the magnifying glass was removed covid-19 became what it always had been - another version of the flu with a striking name and the most elaborate marketing strategy the world has ever seen. 

It isn't a "another version of the flu" both because it isn't technically a flu virus and because it was so much more deadly than the seasonal flu.

 

1 hour ago, Sisyphus said:

Of course the believers will claim the number of cases is significantly lower than it was a year ago. Fair enough. But how many people are actually getting tested?

Cases of what? Here in Norway I think the number of infections have increased a lot because we have stopped wearing facial masks and stopped socially distancing. But it's okay, because almost everyone is well protected through vaccinations and previous infections. We have managed to lower the mortality rate substantially and we don't have to impose various restrictions any more. On that topic, can you remember that you argued fiercely that the social restrictions would be kept even as the disease become less deadly? Well, you were obviously wrong.

As for cases of mortality, people still die from Covid-19 here in Norway, but now only those that are weak and old. 

[Coma16]

Well said @Sisyphus one of the (many) narratives that the educated idiots supported lockdowns was that our hospitals were over capacity. Well guess what? Nothing changed.... in other news, unvaccinated are 72% more likely to get into a traffic collision because they don't like to follow rules 🙄 

[SoulMonster]

4 minutes ago, Coma16 said:

Well said @Sisyphus one of the (many) narratives that the educated idiots supported lockdowns was that our hospitals were over capacity. Well guess what? Nothing changed.... 

Hmm? What happened was that we rolled out the vaccines quickly and this helped reduce the amount of hospitalizations and hence we avoided the situation we saw in parts of Italy in the beginning of the pandemic. Not sure I get your point. Are you saying that we didn't see hospitals being overloaded with patients sick from Covid-19 causing higher deaths as the result?

[SoulMonster]

7 minutes ago, Coma16 said:

. in other news, unvaccinated are 72% more likely to get into a traffic collision because they don't like to follow rules 🙄 

Hahah: People who skipped their COVID vaccine are at higher risk of traffic accidents, according to a new study | Fortune

[dontdamnmeuyi2015]

Numbers are up in Dallas due to lack of getting the booster and flu shots.

 

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22 hours ago, SoulMonster said:

It is only natural that the media gets fatigue from talking about one single subject that has dominated the news for such a long time. Also as most people have been vaccinated and the disease is much less of a concern (although, old people keep dying, of course).

 

It isn't a "another version of the flu" both because it isn't technically a flu virus and because it was so much more deadly than the seasonal flu.

 

Cases of what? Here in Norway I think the number of infections have increased a lot because we have stopped wearing facial masks and stopped socially distancing. But it's okay, because almost everyone is well protected through vaccinations and previous infections. We have managed to lower the mortality rate substantially and we don't have to impose various restrictions any more. On that topic, can you remember that you argued fiercely that the social restrictions would be kept even as the disease become less deadly? Well, you were obviously wrong.

As for cases of mortality, people still die from Covid-19 here in Norway, but now only those that are weak and old. 

what's wrong with "fiercely argueing" something, while being wrong afterwards? You're in the same boat, chap.

the following posts of yours, where you fiercely argued the contrary, have not aged well

On 2/23/2020 at 8:21 PM, SoulMonster said:

If this scares you, listen to this: there is another flu outbreak happening right now that has caused tens of thousands of lives this year. The common flu. Brace yourselves. 

 

On 2/23/2020 at 9:31 PM, SoulMonster said:

The number infected does not grow exponentially, at all. You are scaremongering. 

 

On 2/25/2020 at 10:45 AM, SoulMonster said:

Yes it does, and the virus doesn't behave like that. In fact, and going by the graphs on the very webpage he listed, the number of cases is now slowing down while the number of fatalities represent a linear line.

 

On 2/25/2020 at 11:25 AM, SoulMonster said:

I wouldn't trust your general practitioner to be well-informed on the specifics of a new virus epidemics. As for what the symptoms are and what causes the deaths, that is pretty well-known and you can read about it here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019–20_coronavirus_outbreak#Epidemiology

Basically, like with influenza, the virus causes respiratory problems that can lead to various issues, especially in people that are already weakened because they have other diseases or are old. The most likely causes of death will be pneumonia and multi-organ failure.

 

On 2/26/2020 at 10:24 PM, SoulMonster said:

Well, you shouldn't. There is no need to. 

 

Are you immunocompromised? Very old? Living in an area with many infected people? If the answer is no to any of these questions then you shouldn't waste one second worrying about this, because you are not in risk of anything! 

 

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22 hours ago, SoulMonster said:

Hahah: People who skipped their COVID vaccine are at higher risk of traffic accidents, according to a new study | Fortune

getting vaccinated was never a rule.

so the argument that anti vaxxers "aren't following the rules" is BS. It wasn't a rule, not then, not now.

a lot of countries, like austria (birthplace of hitler) and germany "threatened" to enforce vaccination mandates, with high financial fines, but it never became law. Sanity prevailed.

[SoulMonster]

2 hours ago, action said:

what's wrong with "fiercely argueing" something, while being wrong afterwards? You're in the same boat, chap.

the following posts of yours, where you fiercely argued the contrary, have not aged well

Nothing wrong with arguing fiercely, but I was pointing out to the guy he turned out to be wrong on that matter. 

Not all of those quotes are wrong, at all. But I was wrong in believing the disease would quickly blow over and that it wouldn't turn out to be anything worse than a flu. When a new virus comes along -- and it will -- I will likely again scoff of the idea that it will turn into anything nasty that will affect us (like it was the case with bird flu, swine flu etc), and argue that it will blow over soon -- and most likely I will be correct. But then, of course, something more serious comes along and I will be dead wrong in my assumptions, as I was with Covid-19. Still, there is some value in quelling fear at a time when people are starting to panic and make ridiculous decisions.

 

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15 minutes ago, SoulMonster said:

Nothing wrong with arguing fiercely, but I was pointing out to the guy he turned out to be wrong on that matter. 

Not all of those quotes are wrong, at all. But I was wrong in believing the disease would quickly blow over and that it wouldn't turn out to be anything worse than a flu. When a new virus comes along -- and it will -- I will likely again scoff of the idea that it will turn into anything nasty that will affect us (like it was the case with bird flu, swine flu etc), and argue that it will blow over soon -- and most likely I will be correct. But then, of course, something more serious comes along and I will be dead wrong in my assumptions, as I was with Covid-19. Still, there is some value in quelling fear at a time when people are starting to panic and make ridiculous decisions.

 

oh, absolutely. I agree with you, that it was important to quell fear at that time. It is the empathic / philosophical thing to do. 

it wasn't, by any means, a scientific statement though. And I told you then, during the initial discussion: absence of scientific data. Experts can't make scientifically sound statements yet. But you wouldn't want to hear about that. You kept referring to a supposed "scientific consensus" at a time when there was barely any data.

While that was, I repeat, an empathic thing to say in order to quell fear, it was also speculation, and not scientifically sound. The message itself was communicated "by" scientists, but it wasn't a scientific statement. Yet, the public accepted it as such, as the scientific truth. Because people are stupid and too trustworthy of scientists. To this very day, no less.

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my attitude during these crazy years was always "I send you forth as a sheep in the midst of wolves, therefore be smart as a serpent, and harmless as a dove" matthew 10:16

whenever someone told me what to do, I agreed with him, then went on to do whatever I wanted.

when someone asked me, are you vaccinated? I lied and told them "I am. And fuck you, my medical file is none of your business."

it was a war out there, those 2 years of apartheid. antivaxxers were excluded from society, all our rights were violated, so I said screw everyone, it's everyone to themselves

[ZoSoRose]

Why do you quote Bible shit to help your bad arguments?

 

 That’s hypothetical

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25 minutes ago, ZoSoRose said:

Why do you quote Bible shit to help your bad arguments?

 

 That’s hypothetical

I guess you mean to say, hypocritical?