ROFL yes I'll take expert opinion on that.

Here is a little something for you.

Without looking it up, write down how likely you thought it was that you would have to be hospitalized if you got the original strain of covid.

Now look it up.

Now just for bonus points include what you think your percentage chance of catching covid was.

Did you become a denialist, or just someone who happened to know what the numbers are?

Hey, I'd be willing to engage but could you translate that into English from stoner?

It's even harder when people are out to deliberately trying to deceive you.

For me the important number is what is the risk if you are actually infected with Covid.
Most people had it completely wrong.

https://fee.org/articles/ameri...

Now on the personal level there is no way to make the risk calculation if you don't start from the right point, not to mention the fact that co morbidity was a suppressed statistic as well.

Unfortunately it hasn't gotten the hype that solar and wind have. I guess there were never enough politically connected people who stood to profit from it.

Correct. This is not about science at all, but about interest groups seizing the mantle of science and replacing it with propaganda.
It's no different than tetra ethyl lead being promoted as safe or sugars as the foundation of good nutrition.

And yes I am aware that this is about the virologist disputing the obvious truth. If you can't see that this is little more than a way to control the reaction and dampen resentment you aren't bothering to open your eyes.

The only remaining issue is when will the people who knowingly got up and lied about everything from the origin, to the effectiveness of masks, to the vaccines effectiveness and the need for lockdowns be held accountable. I know I won't hold my breath for the nomenklatura to pay a price for the damage they did.

Hell I'd even be more interested if it had physical keys instead of a touch pad.
There is just so much on the current generation of phones, that I have no desire for at all. I would just like my phone to focus on being a phone first, not a supercomputer / Twonky* in my pocket.

*If you don't know what a Twonky is
https://archive.org/details/tw...
and for those that like to read
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Couldn't find the short story by Henry Kuttner but I believe it's included in his best of collection. If you don't know the author his/her/their (Henry Kuttner = Lewis Padgett+ C.L. Moore) work is well worth reading

Then who is to say that milk from a bean isn't milk?

In what world is criticizing China, Russian propaganda?

I suppose that old Chinese saying "The thief screams crook" is applicable here.

With their quarantine policy. Instead of building natural immunity and herd immunity for the country, they had a giant reservoir of people who only had the vaccine immunity.

The problem with the vaccine immunity was the virus mutated to damn quickly.

The lesson China is helping teach the world is that mask mandates, vaccine mandates and mandatory quarantines are bad ideas. Especially quarantines as the disease doesn't go away, it just waits for victims.

Experts ?
A dentist is punished for going on Safari in Africa, has his home and business mobbed, just who is the expert?
Don Lemon says what are a woman's prime years he winds up taking days off likely until people forget he exists.
Taylor Lorenz cries on camera about being doxxed, before you can blink, she is doxxing not only a woman but her entire family, all covered in the WaPo.

People do have a right to disagree, and what's more they have the right to articulate that disagreement without being the victim of rent a mobs.

And they want to give you advice on how to protect yourself online?
Well if they really wanted to help people have a better online experience they could render one of the worlds most notorious cyber bullies unemployed. It's a small step but at least it would be a positive. They could also change up their editorial policies to stop inciting hatred and violence but I won't hold my breath for that one either.

Anyway you're a fool if take any scientific or technical reporting/tutorials/advice from a newspaper. Ignoring the fact that they have a nearly impossible to pierce liability shield when it comes to getting it wrong and causing actual harm, most of what you see is bought and paid for by their advertisers who really don't have your interests as even a secondary concern. At best you getting value from the story or the products they push is a tertiary if that concern.

Speaking of Taylor Lorenz and cyberbullying, they do completely miss just how much more important anonymity has become in the era of cancel culture. Not surprising seeing as they are people doing the cancelling.

This will likely raise the level of discourse at least until people right scrapers for the AIs so they can flood the forums.

Not that people with bad positions and reasoning don't do that already with the idea that, he who has the most posts wins. After you start to have forum flooding AIs run by people who can't acknowledge they are wrong and will do anything they can to see bad policy implemented. (Hey Al Gore made nearly half a billion dollars by scaring a generation of kids), you will probably see AI's summarizing the forum discussions nobody wants to go near, because even before AIs they were more toxic than Palestine OH.