COVID19 Factors We Should Consider/Current Events

[Shiva Kaul]

Wearing a mask costs almost nothing.

Masks are useful in many scenarios. But if you recognize minute, diffuse (even psychological) benefits, then you must recognize minute, diffuse (even psychological) harms.

[cmdrfunk]

To debate the efficacy of masks is to accept the premise that slowing the spread is beneficial to humanity. I have not seen proof of this, on the contrary, I have seen evidence that attempts at slowing the spread is catastrophic to humanity. More people may die from coronavirus alone as a result of these actions.

Virus-linked hunger tied to 10,000 child deaths each month, UN finds. Virus-linked hunger tied to 10,000 child deaths each month, UN finds | PBS NewsHour

By the way, this was warned of in like April and we shut down the economy anyway so we chose to kill and maim these children while many were making mocking jokes about people not wanting to destroy the economy to save "Wall Street" demonstrated their complete lack of knowledge of just what an economy is.


"Further, more than 550,000 additional children each month are being struck by what is called wasting, according to the U.N. — malnutrition that manifests in spindly limbs and distended bellies."

The newly elected progressive St. Louis County prosecutor ran on a promise to re-investigate the Michael Brown case. He did, and shockingly, ‘hands up don’t shoot’ is still a lie. New video on no charges for the cop. Again. & Again The Cop Who Shot Michael Brown Is Exonerated Again (& Again) | Hands Up Don’t Shoot Is Still a Lie

[George Christiansen]

I dislike Fauci, but Jordan is not much better than all the democrats interviewing Barr, or even democrats interviewing Fauci. They are simply focused "gotcha" questions to only get their point across. Fauci said crowds should be banned... the states with protests should run with that and squash it... but they won't because they....

This is why so called conservatives lose even when they win: they let the democrats dictate the game that will be played and the rules of playing it. This "See he won't really answer the question!!" is just a variation of "Look who's the REAL racist!" or any number of other stupid games Democrats get their junior partners in Government Inc. to play.

Why are you against masks?

They are not just some neutral inconvenience triggering a bunch of people to rebel simply because they are mandated....although that is a factor.

There is as much evidence that they increase risk as that they mitigate it, they have other risk factors aside from the Covid specific ones, and they have a definite negative social effect.

[Matt Jackson]

Isn’t it about time someone like you had something to say about it?

###

What a fantastic post, and I hope you post more.

What is becoming more apparent to me is that trying to "red-pill the normies" is a fruitless task, and it's even more difficult to speak to classic liberals about this. Do you agree? What is our alternative?

[Eric Schexnayder]

1. What sense of spirituality is that? The Church of Jesus Christ and the Latter Day Bottom Half of Your Own Face? Your spiritual cost literally doesn't matter. We're talking about people losing their livelihoods and dying.

2. I can still hang out with people with the bottom half of my face covered. If I'm on a date that's going well I'll def take the mask off at that point, but that is a much smaller, calculated instance of risk.

3. I'm making my own decisions. It's just smarter to wear a mask at this point. If I didn't believe it was a smarter decision for all the reasons I explained in detail I wouldn't do it.

1) “For the greater good.” Okay. Ignore the individual’s freedoms and rights because the majority are scared (read: deliberately misinformed to incite fear). When someone decides that your cost doesn’t matter will you see everyone else’s argument here?

2) So, you’re a hypocrite. Everyone should wear masks to prevent the spread, but when it’s an inconvenient cock-block for you, all bets are off?

3) Wear away. No one is stopping you and you don’t have to convince anyone why you do it. But don’t impose it on others because “it’s just smarter”.

[Mark Rippetoe]

Look, Gods, the pandemic is over. Herd immunity is here. The disease is so mild that it is asymptomatic in the majority of those infected. It's not as bad as measels, mumps, or chickenpox. The people who actually die from COVID-19 were dying anyway, and that's why Governors Cuomo, Whitmer, et al decided to place infected people in rest homes -- to thin the herd of those people, who were on the public dime (unless you have a better explanation -- I haven't seen one). Masks are now irrelevant to the disease, and probably always were. Yet your position on the subject is that since it's just a small thing, it's better to just obey so we can all just get along. After all, it's just a minor inconvenience, and why should individual preferences have anything to do with the welfare of The Collective? That's what's really important, right? It's no big deal, just wear the fucking mask, it's such a small thing and you need to put your ego aside and just cooperate.

So, there is a vaccine on the way. The first vaccine for any coronavirus that has ever been developed, the shortest time from synthesis to production of any vaccine in history with no long-term efficacy or safety record at all, a process that normally takes years if not decades. You, of course, will insist that everybody must take this vaccine -- for the common good of The Collective, since it's just a small thing, a trivial matter, and no big burden on any individual. It's just a shot, after all. And you of course realize that, like a mask, a big "V" tattooed on your forehead as a symbol of your having happily been vaccinated will be a symbol of your concern for The Collective, a good thing, to be rewarded with pats on the head from your betters for the rest of your life.

(Just so you'll know, I am not not anti-vaccine, I'm just anti-bullshit. I think anti-vaxxers are fools, and when their children get sick I hope they enjoy their unnecessary suffering. I've personally had every vaccine that has ever applied to me, and some that don't. I have had the flu shot every year for the past 30 years. But I will not get this one.)

Read Shiva's comment several times. What do you think masks are doing to kids younger than 25? What do you think this "social distancing" bullshit is doing to their perceptions of normal human interactions? I had a 17-year-old kid tell me the other day that she wasn't going to touch my plate because she wasn't going to get Covid from me -- a 17-year-old kid, a member of a demographic that doesn't get it anyway and for whom the death rate from COVID-19 is ZERO, is afraid to do her job and throw away a styrofoam plate of chicken bones. I walk around without a mask, and no one has said a word to me about it, but that's not always the case for everybody else, and this insanity is producing very serious effects within society. It's not a small thing. Not at all.

The media has done this to us. Look at this magnificent piece of propaganda: COVID-19 survivors may lose hearing, sense of smell, and taste

Fear, you see, controls behavior, and control cannot be maintained without fear. According to a "report" from the UK, of 121 people who were so sick with COVID-19 that they were admitted to hospital (in the UK, you're not admitted to "a hospital" or "the hospital"), 8 of them developed tinnitus (which I have had for years and which has not affected my quality of life), and 8 developed "a loss of hearing" -- no word on the degree of hearing loss or its duration. All upper respiratory diseases can produce these effects, so it's it not specific to the deadly-and-yet-novel SARS-Cov-2 pandemic currently sterilizing the surface of the planet of all human life. So a total of 6.6% of a cohort of people so sick from a largely asymptomatic disease that they had to be hospitalized developed some unspecified degree of hearing loss that may have persisted for some time after they left "hospital." It doesn't take much careful thought to see what is going on here. Blindness is next, here in about a week.

POLL FINDS AMERICANS BELIEVE 9% OF... - Unbiased America | Facebook

And then, just for the hell of it, put this into Google and see what they hand you: poll: how many people do you think have died of COVID? - Google Search

See what's happened? Masks helped them do it to us. It's just a little thing, I know, but Truth is the gutted corpse here. You can believe absolutely nothing you read or see in the media, nothing said by any elected official, and damned little of what your friends tell you. Not a small thing.

[Jovan Dragisic]

They have been suspiciously quiet for a while now. What's interesting to me is how everybody that is still pro-panic sounds exactly like the guy quoted below. It's a combination of chicken little/listen to the overlords/listen to the experts BS they've been spouting from day one. If four and a half months of evidence hasn't changed anyones mind it's not even worth arguing with them.

The poster you quoted just seems overly idealistic, which makes sense since he's 25. The ones I am really worried about are all those people who finally have a reason to stop any hint of non-virtual fun other people might like to have sometime in the future. You know, the ones telling us how we have become too relaxed about the pandemic. Jesus Christ, I remember a speech by Terence McKenna, he was raving about how the advent of the internet will finally permit us all to spend our lives on isolated patches of land, communicating with everybody purely online. All these social retards think that the time for this kind of utopia has finally arrived. So the entire digital marketing world - and by extension, the entirety of the media landscape - is trying to push the idea of the "new normal" and "working from home" in order to sell as much bullshit merchandise to their prime demographic - the social retard utopists. As if all those parents stuck in condos with their out of control offspring are eager to not have the option to run away to the office for at least half the day. But as I said, we have pretty much started to completely ignore everything where I live. Keep in mind that the whole thing started here about a month before it did in America, and that the digital industry is stronger where you live, but I give it no more than two months before things revert to something resembling normal life in your part of the world.

[NoGodsNoSpotters]

Implicit in your entire post is the notion that the government is right and must make this decision for us because only They know what is best. Additionally, you’re not really arguing for or against masks here, and you’ve not made any important points. You’re basically saying we should comply because “it’s not that big of a deal”.

I'm arguing that masks are a common sense precaution against respiratory disease, and preferable to economically costly measures. See point 2: "It's not exactly rocket science to figure out why a mask would help protect yourself and others against coronavirus. Covid-19 is a respiratory disease that you catch by breathing shit in, and spread by breathing shit out. You don't need to cite any scientific studies to figure out that putting a filter in front of the thing you use to breath will help reduce the chances of both, even if that filter is imperfect, and in any event, certainly can do no physical harm. At worst, a mask does nothing, but common sense indicates that they would help." Nothing at all to do with the government.

The government has lost control and lost trust. If masks are so important, why didn't we start with that instead of hitting the lockdown panic button? Why are we even trying to "slow the spread" or whatever when Sweden and others have done the opposite with great success. Why should you or I listen to these idiots anymore? When someone is panicking you don't indulge them, you either slap some sense into them or leave them behind.

1. Telling people not to wear masks was a transparent ploy to save limited supplies for frontline medical professionals. Right or wrong (and I heavily lean towards wrong in this case, due to the total erosion of public trust this kind of inconsistent messaging creates), this was the intention behind the action. Seems like there's probably a reason medical professionals want to wear them, and common sense reasoning backs up why they would have some beneficial effect.

2. Government vacillation based on fear mongering and political polarization has lead to an inconsistent implementation of response strategies. Whether or not you believe it was worth the economic costs, some countries have had success with lockdowns in terms of case numbers, because they implemented them effectively for that purpose. We implemented them ineffectively, and got the worst of both worlds, high case numbers and economic disaster. We are now in the position of having to deal with that reality. Whatever strategy is taken, the absolute worst thing a response can be is inconsistent, because this renders it ineffective in achieving any of its goals, and leaves us only with the costs.

3. I don't personally fear the physical effects of Covid. What I do fear is that another spike in cases will create more hysteria and lead to another lockdown when vacillating politicians again cave to public pressure. In the interest of preventing this from happening, I believe it is in our best interests to keep case numbers as low as possible, via taking such precautions as do not cause economic harm, which includes mask wearing. I'd much rather be able to go to work and the gym in a mask than be stuck at home with my life on hold again.

4. This has nothing to do with the government telling me to do this, I simply believe it's the smarter move given the circumstances. Refusing to wear masks because the government told you to do it is just as stupid as wearing a mask because the government told you to do. I don't need to involve the government's recommendation at all to come to my own conclusions. I do not care about ideology in this issue, I care about the tangible effects this will have on peoples' lives.

I am having this discussion because I see a lot of people lumping masks in with the rest of the government's inconsistent response, and using it as a political symbol in response to this. This is misguided, and will lead to yet more inconsistency in the public response to the issue, which as we've already seen, leads to the worst of both worlds in results. I have a vested interest in trying to get people to agree with my view on this, because the results of their compounded actions will ultimately have an effect on me.

[Shiva Kaul]

yet more inconsistency in the public response to the issue, which as we've already seen, leads to the worst of both worlds in results.

Lockdown is brainlessly, devastatingly *uniform*. It prevents individuals from minimizing (the sum of all) risks based on their own circumstances.

[Yngvi]

At least we can depend on Russia to leave our videos uncensored:

How Communists Take Over Countries (1964)


This is not about the virus. Masks will not protect anyone in our current pandemic.