Do you think we will see another pandemic on the same scale or worse than COVID-19 in your lifetime?
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- By the end of 2026, how useful do you think agentic/multi-agent AI systems will actually be in your daily work or personal projects? Posted on March 11th, 2026 | 27 comments
Probably worse... (Score:5, Interesting)
...this one isn't even that lethal
It seems we dodged a bullet with SARS which was likely worse than COVID-19 and that was only 17 years ago (not to mention MERS which is even more lethal but thankfully not very communicable)
Instead of spending billions on military endeavors perhaps we could spend some more on broad-spectrum antivirals, rapid viral testing, monitoring systems, rapid/safe effective vaccines
Also, while we're at it, perhaps it's not a terrible idea to proactively vaccinate bats with crude vaccines for any virus we identify in their population to reduce the likelihood of needing the above technology... (it's better than attempting to kill them off which would likely be more difficult and dangerous for our already semi-decimated ecosystems...)
Re:Probably worse... (Score:4, Interesting)
We dodged the bullet with SARS - if I remember correctly - because the "infectious" and the "showing symptoms" phases pretty much coincided. Strategy: Avoid contact with people showing symptoms.
As for innoculating bats, the only bats people needed to worry about were those being kept in close proximity to other animals - specifically, by farmers. Direct exposure to bats was apparently not enough to cause infection. It will be difficult to test further because the Chinese are not letting the WHO teams into the area, possibly because they are assuming some asshole politicians will twist whatever results emerge and use it against them.
Re: Probably worse... (Score:2)
Fair play for twisting results they reported to the WHO
Limitations of vaccines (Score:2)
Your closing about divisive nationalistic politicians blocking crucial international cooperation was especially insightful, and there were several typical examples of that kind of narrow thinking later in the discussion. Alas, I can't give you the mod point. Never get one to give. (Maybe it's just because I so often join in discussions?)
Having read at least one book about Ebola and a couple about the Spanish flu, I have some far-from-expert opinions on various aspects of this topic. Perhaps the most importa
Re: Probably worse... (Score:2)
Covid is spreading easy and is less deadly because it infects the throat. In the throat the immune system can fight it without the risk of dying. Deadlines and infectiousness are thereby related.
Now Ebola would have been a different story
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No, SARS1 was deadly, and killed people quickly. Deadly viruses spread less. The less dangerous the virus, the further it spreads. This is even true for HIV. Deadly? very. Transmisability? Very low, has to be close sexual or blood contact. Low transmissability combined with the 1~5 years it takes to kill someone makes it particular bad.
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Paradoxically, a more lethal virus may have a lower death toll. Viruses that kill their host off too quickly tend not to spread far. See ebola for an example.
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It's not that great an example still, as ebola killed a fuckton of people too.
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Is a fuckton bigger than a boatload? Smaller than a shitload?
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Once we get into metric fuckloads I get confused.
It's rather simple. Vladimir Putin for example is exactly one metric fuckload, whereas Donald Trump is exactly one imperial fuckload.
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Re:Probably worse... (Score:4, Insightful)
The TOTAL death rate from Ebola in ALL the time it has been known is about the same SARS/CoVid19 kills worldwide in 5 DAYS.
When it comes to epidemics and medial statistics in general it a good idea to stand back and see things very clinically, so at the risk
of sounding like some inhumane monster, 50000 dead is a tragedy but as these things go it is not "a fuckton of people"
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Plague Inc. is a fun game to play. :D
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I enjoyed it when I first got it but it quickly became irritating because I couldn't pause it and had to play it through. I haven't played it again in several years in part because of no "checkpoint" or save game at the current configuration option. Perhaps it's there now.
[John]
Re:Probably worse... (Score:5, Informative)
Ebola also is primarily transmitted through bodily fluids. Since it does not primarily live in lung and nasal passages, it is not spread by airborne droplets. As such, it is VERY unlikely to spread significantly outside the developing world where care for even the very sick is done in the home and by untrained/unprotected individuals.
The developed world has gotten rid of most of the major disease vectors in humans (bodily fluids, water, and food) with increased sanitation and professionalized medical care. The only disease vector it has been unable to eliminate is airborne droplets, which is why we are so worried about respiratory diseases that spread in that manner.
COVID appears to have been a perfect storm for creating a global pandemic (similar to the 1918 flu). It is lethal enough to kill a lot of people, but no so lethal that it kills before it can spread. We will undoubtedly see more SARS-like illnesses in our lifetimes, but I'm not certain we will see another pandemic with such global spread. That may very well be more of a once a century event.
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For the next couple of decades at least we will have decent testing infrastructure available, making it much more difficult for a pandemic to start. People have been spooked enough by COVID that it will take a while to forget the lessons. After that couple of decades, medical technology should have advanced sufficiently to be able to produce mass testing in very short order, even if we have given up on the preparedness.
I do not believe that there will be a pandemic ever again until civilization collapses.
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The lessons may have been forgotten, but compare COVID-19 to previous epidemics.
With AIDS it took years to even accept that it is caused by HIV.
For the Spanish Flu in 1918-1920 and the Avian Flu in 1957-1958, the only defence was hygiene. No treatments became available, and there was no vaccine.
The lessons of those were practically forgotten in the West, and yet here we are a year later, seemingly at the brink of effective vaccination.
I stand by my prediction of this being the last pandemic until civilizati
Re: Probably worse... (Score:2)
The Asians won the other ones, didn't they? At least, they held off the Americans anyway, which was surely the objective.
Oh, you probably mean Japan... OK. Hardly "Asians" as a whole, since most (all?) other Asians were also fighting the Japanese.
Re:Probably worse... (Score:5, Informative)
I'm hoping that we learn from this like east Asian countries did.
Look at South Korea. They had experience with SARS and as soon as COVID-19 hit they had an effective lockdown and an extremely effective test & trace system ready to go. Recovered very quickly with the minimum possible economic hit.
In Europe and the US we completely botched the response. Too many countries voted for idiots who couldn't organize a piss-up in a brewery and even the ones with competent leadership were simply not prepared well enough.
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I doubt it. Look at all the idiots still claiming this is "just the flu", death rates are low and there is nothing to worry about. Every one of these people is a massive threat to everybody else.
We may get lucky and all the "covidiots" get killed or massively maimed in the next pandemic, and _then_ the rest will have a good chance to get though the one after the next one with minimal casualties.
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Respectfully, we need to be honest about how well the lessons from South Korea (Land Area 38,502 mi^2) can be applied to a country as large as the United States (Land Area 3,800,000 mi^2). The US did institute lockdowns, and it was a mistake. The vast majority (>95%) of cases were isolated to 5 major metros when we took "15 days to
Re: Probably worse... (Score:2)
... China is as big as the USA... and their actions sound pretty similar to how you describe the USA's. The difference, then, is how individuals acted and the widespread precautions like masks and washing.
Re:Probably worse... (Score:5, Insightful)
The U.S. Federal Government doesn't have the authority to lock down the way South Korea and other countries did.
Biden's national mask mandate? He says he's going to ask state governors to do it. And if they don't, he'll go to mayors and local officials and ask instead. That's because this is the United States of America.
But keep blaming Trump. At the start he said he'd leave it to the states. That was his only choice and he was honest about it. Biden promised something he can't deliver.
The restrictions on what the the president and preseident-elect can force is indeed the same.
However, there's a world of difference between trying to lead the states etc towards a sensible policy, compared to politicizing it then openly mocking the more sensible approaches. Unfortunately, some sizable fraction of the populace is now convinced that the sensible approach is now Evil because the Red vs Blue foodfight, so might not be able to be lead anymore. And I agree, mandating it at the federal level is right out, because the (otherwise usually ignored) 10th amendment.
What was gained from that choice to politicize? As far as I can tell, mostly just extra division: if "they" want it, then "we" don't, so there's another line of argument to have, yay! Wow, that's a useful "gain" to have.
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Re:Probably worse... (Score:5, Insightful)
A national leader could have had consistent messaging, could have attempted to nationally coordinate resource allocation, could have attempted to work with local authorities, and could have attempted to avoid politicization of the crisis.
I don't know that Biden would have attempted that, or if attempted if it would have been successful.
The Canadian national and regional governance structure is very different than that of the USA, but there have been similar levels of inter-party hostility and demonization over the past few decades. I have been pleasantly surprised at the high level of inter-governmental and inter-party cooperation and low level of political grandstanding and brinkmanship (with some notable exceptions - I'm looking at you BC NDP and New Brunswick PCs for calling unnecessary elections!), so it is at least possible to work together for the common good.
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You don't have to go too far to look for examples of countries that did better than the US in the pandemic.
I'd say most if not all countries in the world did better than the US in managing the pandemic.
And many showed spectacular ability at communicating to the public. (Just as a few like the US showed spectacular incompetence)
Re: Probably worse... (Score:2)
This seems to also be true in the UK. The English leader (the PM) has done a pretty shitty job of communicating, while the Scottish leader has been remarkably good and consistent... Or so I'm told.
We should move parliament to Edinburgh and have the Scots run the country for a while.
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Authority, no. But control of the purse strings is frequently used to strongly suggest a path of action in some unrelated area. Don't institute a mask requirement - fix your own bridges and roads for the next four years or prepare to lose a military base. Of course that would mean certain members of Congress would have to do the right thing as well, and that's been hard for most Republicans to handle for the last few years. Sadly, most of them didn't get voted out of office.
Leading by good example is also
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I figure I can bash my own party if I want to. Just because you feel the comment is toxic doesn't mean it isn't true. It also doesn't mean all members of my party or awful or toxic. I'm pretty proud of Sen. Romney and a small number of others standing up against Trump, but they're in the minority. McConnell and Graham are obstructionist and the batch that just voted in lockstep to keep Trump in office without a qualm really made an error in judgment. Not saying Pence would have been better at handling a vir
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Too many countries voted for idiots who couldn't organize a piss-up in a brewery and even the ones with competent leadership were simply not prepared well enough.
The U.S. Federal Government doesn't have the authority to lock down the way South Korea and other countries did.
Yes, they do. The founding fathers in fact did just that several times back before we had modern medicine.
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The US Federal Government could have easily used the commerce clause just like they did when they forced states to increase the drinking age to 21. Simply state no more federal funds going to any of the state hospitals would make them shape up very quickly.
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The Federal government has the authority to lock down interstate travel, enforce a mask mandate, etc. And, of course, the federal government can use the power of the purse to force states to do their bidding. How many states want to be quarantined and cut off from federal assistance because they didn't have a mask mandate?
Re: Probably worse... (Score:2)
> We were told that human to human spread was not possible.
Where did you hear that? Its the first time I've heard it claimed.
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well, at least for ferrets...so far :)
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Re: Probably worse... (Score:2)
Is that true? The more important aspect is the delay between catching it and the effects...the incubation period iinm. That's if there are any effects/symptoms at all. ...that's more relevant than how many people who've caught it end up dying, which is how I interpret "deadly".
Those who are presymptomatic, or even asymptomatic, are the way it spreads rapidly.
But the solution is insurance? (Score:2)
I regard yours as the first real post, and the fake FP (by AC, as usual) should be moved to the bottom somewhere. However I think it should have been moderated Informative rather than Interesting. Also, you didn't mention Ebola, which remains quite threatening, and more so if WHO gets more broken.
At least for the economic part of the pandemics, we need pandemic insurance. That would divide the problem and let the government focus on the medical problem, which is the MOST important part.
One model would be no
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Also, while we're at it, perhaps it's not a terrible idea to proactively vaccinate bats with crude vaccines for any virus we identify in their population to reduce the likelihood of needing the above technology... (it's better than attempting to kill them off which would likely be more difficult and dangerous for our already semi-decimated ecosystems...)
Or just ban selling bats from wildlife markets, which China should have done decades ago. Don't delude yourself with dogma from the CCP trying to dodge culpability: in all likelihood, this came from wet markets.
Re: Probably worse... (Score:2)
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No (Score:3)
'cos this one's gonna kill me.
I'm in an age-group where the lethality is pretty high and I do tick one of the "higher risk" boxes. Still, so far I've avoided it and maybe "they" will find a fix for it in time.
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Also, there ar
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In the 1940s physicists lost their innocence in the Manhattan Project by playing with very dangerous things that multiply themselves. Biologists are going to experience the same in the 21st century. My worry is that the published Viral Genome of Coronavirus is an Information Basilisk. Something that is dangerous simply by knowing it. I know, free speech, right to know, whatever. Bioweapons are easier to make in some terrorist backyard than nukes, and I am pretty sure this here would have given some towelhea
Meant to say "Yes", didn't you? Bioweapons count. (Score:2)
Mod parent up? Important and heavy aspect, but so lightly touched... You kept the Subject but you are the first person to mention bioweapons. But so softly.
While I don't fully trust China, I do think that Covid-19 was just a zoonotic accident at a moderately nasty level. The only thing it really proved is that China was suspiciously ready to deal with it. Or not so suspicious, when you consider their neighborhood and their lack of refrigerators (until recently). Don't forget that the live markets in China f
Missing option: I'm from the Congo. (Score:2)
Aka "Been there. Done that. We've had Ebola, AIDS, Malaria, you name it. Yet still we live. So about all your scared cats and your Covid ..."
(Not me. Somebody I know is from there.)
And the Congo is the worse for it (Score:2)
Lack of restraint of these diseases, AIDS, malaria, ebola, is one of the reasons that Congo and other African countries are poorer than other countries. Diseases like this absolutely inflict economic damage as well as direct damage to people.
Disease control via sanitation and other public health measures is one of the reasons for economic prosperity. Simple as that.
--PeterM
Recency Bias (Score:3)
Plague is only a concern right now because of receny bias [wikipedia.org].Ii think the other 3 horsemen will be much more of an issue in the near future.
It depends on how long my lifetime is (Score:2)
If the current pandemic kills me, then I will not see another pandemic like it in my lifetime.
I think I already had this one, so maybe I am OK for now, but immunity seems to wear off quite quickly, according to doctors.
Volcanoes are something we should watch (Score:2)
But on average there is a volcano causing a 1 to 3 year-long winter every two centuries, causing widespread famines. There are plenty of historical precedents. If this happened now it would have horrific consequences and there's very little we can do to prepare for something like that besides stockpili
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We know how to deal with pandemics, ...
I'm not sure if we [in the West] have learned how to deal with pandemics. Some Asian countries (eg Singapore) have done well recently. The one 'western' country to do well has been New Zealand.
What worries me is how long it will be before governments decide "there has not been a pandemic in the last X years so we can cut the pandemic budget". Do not think that they will not do that -- many of them are stupid enough to do so :-(
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And New Zealand is, very literally, an outlier.
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Oh, we definitely know how to deal with pandemics, it's not that difficult. We just don't want to.
In some ways it's understandable, after 70+ years of smooth sailing got everyone used to not having any restrictions or making any sacrifices to the lifestyle. Something like this literally hasn't happened in our or our parents' lives. And I can get people who aren't allowed to work but aren't properly supported.
What I just don't understand how having a party cold be important enough to risk infecting the parti
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Something like this literally hasn't happened in our or our parents' lives.
Woodstock was held during the Hong Kong flu pandemic [cdc.gov].
The difference was there wasn't national cable news or social media to fuel paranoia and animosity.
As for power-hungry politicians, mandates breed animosity, especially when they seem arbitrary and capricious. Only can have 6 people over for Thanksgiving, regardless of apartment / house size? Supporting protests for $riteous_cause while condemning religious gatherings and closing outdoor spaces like beaches and parks? Separating businesses (and even goi
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And if it happens to be Yellowstone, we're all screwed. It won't matter where you happen to live on this rock.
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If this happens, the Japanese will be sad. They've been betting on a Godzilla-type event for over six decades now.
Not in my case (Score:2)
No: Because Covid-19 is far worse that it appears (Score:2)
Something like 80% of people who have had Covid have long term health effects, even if they were asymptomatic. Let's assume, in a way similar to smoking, we estimate it takes 5 years off your life, on average.. We're at 10,000,000 cases here, give or take... that means we've lost about 5,000,000 years of human experience... if we let it keep going until everyone in the US has it, we're talking about 1.5 BILLION years of life lost.
Re: No: Because Covid-19 is far worse that it appe (Score:2)
Re: No: Because Covid-19 is far worse that it appe (Score:2)
In the current pandemic most of the life lost are years at the end of a long life.
The net total value of these years to society is negative, all things (eco and emo) considered.
The pandemic would actually increase total value to society were it not for the costs of combatting it.
Yes, and it'll be called politics (Score:2)
Oh wait, we're already there. Dang.
He whose name must not be mentioned! (Score:3)
Wow. I'm amazed. An entire discussion with more than 30 comments and no mention of he whose name must not be mentioned. Are we actually on the road to recovery? Please, no more drama. Pretty please with milk and sugar on it.
What I was actually looking for was he-whose-name-must-not-be-mentioned claiming that he had saved Social Security and Medicare because so many old people were dying now. With the assistance of Covid-19, of course.
Now if you can come up with a worse bid for a Funny mod point... Go ahead. I double dare ya.
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Nope. We all just take the temporary respite to do some breathing. The real problem persists and is not going to go away. That they found a particularly unpalatable figurehead this time does not mean they will not select somebody as bad or worse next time. Remember how close this was.
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ACK, but now I favor "He whose name need not be mentioned" as the new reference. He's now irrelevant, not terrifying.
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I like it. Probably the worst thing you can do to him. Excellent.
"my lifetime" (Score:2)
No doubt one will happen, but at 62, the odds of it happening in my lifetime are a lot lower than most here...
Once in a century (Score:3)
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A data set of two. Great work Watson.
I have heard others give a list of pandemics and this "one per century" conclusion too. The problem is how do you pick which points of meaning. I think we can agree at least on Covid-19, 1918 Spanish Flu, and the Black Death. We now have an amazing data set of three, which would suggest the rate of pandemics grows exponentially which is interesting because that's generally how population grows, following something like the growth stage of a bacteria growth curve. Ultimat
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We were fortunate to dodge the Bird flu, the first SARS, and MERS.
To some degree because of rapid action of governments in coordination through the WHO that were able to contain them quickly and avoid their spread.
Unfortunately with COVID-19 that didn't happen. It's likely there will be more of these (watch Pandemic on Netflix, a documentary that was warning about these scenarios well before the present pandemic).
Re: Once in a century (Score:2)
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There were other pandemics in the 20th century [visualcapitalist.com]. The next deadliest is HIV/AIDS that has so far has had a death toll about on the order of magnitude of Spanish Flu. There were a few other flu pandemics with total death tolls about where COVID-19 is at now. As a total non-expert making wild speculations, we were much more internationally mobile in 2019 than in the 50s or 60s, which almost certainly increased the spread of this pandemic. The Spanish Flu is thought to have originated in the USA and was spread w
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Luck (Score:2)
The world is more interconnected than it has ever been -- it's only been in the last couple of decades that "normal people" can routinely take vacations in other continents. There are VERY few parts of the planet left that are more than a 48-hour trip away from any other random part of the world. Virusses don't care about borders.
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We've been lucky that Ebola or Marlburg never made it into the subway system of a major metropolis yet,
Do you frequently touch the blood of strangers you meet on the subway? Sir, might I recommend against this?
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Ebola is not that bad. But think Ebola with airborne infection, a week delay until symptoms start, but infectious after a day or two. The human race would not stand a chance.
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Ebola is not that bad. But think Ebola with airborne infection, a week delay until symptoms start, but infectious after a day or two. The human race would not stand a chance.
Well, half of the human race wouldn't stand a chance.
It would be like a Thanos scenario.
My lifetime? (Score:2)
Yes. And it will be genetically engineered (Score:2)
Because as climate change makes more of the planet uninhabitable and the population grows, someone will built a 'long term solution' and kill a whole lot of humanity off. The tools to do it keep getting stronger and more accessible. It's inevitable.
Within twenty years and engineered (Score:2)
This is probably the biggest natural plague in my lifetime. It just won't matter though, once viruses become weaponized. Some people think Covid-19 was lab-created but I don't buy. A useful virus weapon needs to be highly lethal to the target and controllable by the aggressor. Covid-19 is far far from either goal. The nasty plagues to come will be mistakes: highly lethal but not as controllable as expected.
because we're idiots (Score:2)
We're not going to learn any lessons or change our behavior from this pandemic. When the next one comes along, we'll let that one run out of control too.
Anthrax-Leprosy-Mu (Score:2)
"Soaply" Mocenigo is hard at work, funded by....who knows?
Pandemics... (Score:2)
Come in 4 varieties : ...
Not as infectious in the real world as we thought : Elboa oddly comes in this category as it is so obvious and short incubation the victims don't get far
Not as deadly in the real world as we thought : Swine Flu seems to be in this category it killed a lot but very few of those who got it
Not as Deadly or Infectious as thought : 2006-8 Flu outbreaks
Deadly and Infectious : Spanish Flu was this
There will be another Pandemic in the next 5 years, hopefully it will remain in the first 3 c
Within my lifetime? No (Score:2)
High carb low fat (Score:2)
It's already here.
500 million diabetics and counting. Dwarfs all the wars, Gulags and viruses of the 20th century combined!
Massive fraud beginning with Keys publishing data from 6 countries rather than the 22 he had that showed no correlation. The more we followed the advice the sicker and fatter we became...
Just wondering (Score:2)
Disease is part of life (Score:2)
Disease cannot be controlled, it cannot be contained, and we need to accept that and act accordingly. There will be another pandemic, it will be worse than this one.
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a/c's don't get to vote, you need some form of ID.
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The what of air conditioners don't get to vote?
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[Please read fully, before trigger-moderating. I don't side with what you might think I do.]
Yes, the key cognitive dissonance here is, that we did not react like that to the common cold killing tons of people in 2018 too.
I've got no problem with saying we don't want people to die from Covid, ever if multimorbid and almost already dead already. Might be your granny, alright?
But then we should have done so in 2018 too! (As a comparison, right now, here in Germany, 25000 people died of the common cold in 2018.
Oh, I forgot: (Score:2)
I think we could have BOTH.
We could just be *smart* about it.
Lock down everybody who's at risk of dying or suffering life-changing injuries or suffering such severe symptoms that they fill the hospitals, given our current knowledge, giving them all the amenities they need, including a way to meet people without contact or air exchange. Adapt as you go.
And accept that some people will fall to the imperfection of our knowledge, like every year and with everything, from the cold to cars. And that our knowledge
Pluses of masks and minuses of RNA-based vaccines? (Score:2)
Yours were a thoughtful pair of comments but some parts were unclear. Problems with English or some kind of confusion because you were feeding the troll? Maybe changing the Subject would help you focus your writing? In general I think it's better to ignore the trolls, just like "He whose name need not be mentioned". (At least I hope we stop mentioning the annoying name, but "need not" is different from "must not". I hope the difference is humorous? Irrelevance versus fright.)
You didn't mention masks, and I
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Most people obviously don't realize this, but it's completely impossible to compare the number of cases between covid and any other common infection. Think about it: for what other virus are people lining up in DRIVE-THROUGH TEST STATIONS to get tested, whether they're symptomatic or not? I'm not saying the number of covid "cases" are inflated, but they are comparatively inflated. If we tested for influenza at the same rate, our flu cases would prove much highe
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There's no cognitive dissonance here, you're just missing parts of the picture and making some errors in your reasoning.
Yes, the key cognitive dissonance here is, that we did not react like that to the common cold killing tons of people in 2018 too.
I've got no problem with saying we don't want people to die from Covid, ever if multimorbid and almost already dead already. Might be your granny, alright?
But then we should have done so in 2018 too! (As a comparison, right now, here in Germany, 25000 people died of the common cold in 2018. And we're at roughly 11000 deaths for Covid at the time of writing.)
Or, if we decided we don't give a fuck and let them die for the common cold, then why don't we for Covid?
It's inconsistent.
First of all, we do give a fuck about the regular flu. We develop and vaccinate people to minimize the impact. We tell people to self isolate when they're sick. In some (mainly asian) countries more people wear masks during flu season. This is usually enough to keep the flu from wrecking everything.
You're then using deaths in Germany under very strict anti-covid measures to argue that thes
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Pneumonia is an infection, not a disease. On this one point alone we can pretty much judge that your conclusions are worthless. Not to mention really digging into the stats of those 1-3 millions of deaths. I lost a grandpa a few years back to this statistic. Goes in for something minor, likely picks up a bacteria which can lead to pneumonia, dies a week later. So how many of these people have weakened immune systems from age, habits, or even both. How many of these people die not because they didn't seek me
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SARS had the really big advantage that symptoms and start of being infectious did coincide. That means reaction has to be fast, bit the enemy is clearly visible. The problem with the current one is being infectious long before symptoms become obvious. That is a real killer for any targeted countermeasures.
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Exactly. We won't see one if people stand up and say "No" next time. Every expert who is saying we are overreacting has been banned from every platform. This is fucking insane.