COVID-19 in your part of the world

[Mischief Maker]

Fer fuck's sake, how may thousands more people need to die because former Playboy playmate Jenny McCarthy needed something to blame for her child's autism?

[kid aphex]

Fer fuck's sake, how may thousands more people need to die because former Playboy playmate Jenny McCarthy needed something to blame for her child's autism?

How many more of our rights need to be infringed upon because people are spineless pussies, ignorant of history?

[kid aphex]

The thing is, as has been said numerous times before, your rights end where someone else's begin, and vice-versa; you might not have an issue with getting vaccinated for smallpox, but others do, and in refusing to do so put not only themselves but those around them at risk. This goes double for Covid-19; as you say, the mortality rate isn't what makes it a threat, it's the fact that it can proliferate so easily and frequently do so without symptoms, thus making it far more likely to eventually find the victims that it can kill if enough isn't done to slow or stop its spread.

I understand this. There’s no easy answer, as far as I’m concerned. My position is based on my principles and reason.
It makes no sense to me to sacrifice the rights of citizens, up-end economies, re-make the norms and standards of society, for the sake of a mild virus that threatens our elderly. It’s unreasonable.
Forced vaccinations are just one of many lines they’re attempting to cross in an effort to transition to a much more dystopic world they’re designing.
Read Klaus Schwab’s book, “The Great Reset”
Actually read it.

The underlying question, which of course goes beyond just our response to disease, is at what point the actions of an individual or group go beyond simply exercising their rights and cross over into reckless disregard for the well-being of others, to the point that the authorities would be justified in getting involved. It's not a question there's a single hard-and-fast answer to, but I find that a lot of "I know better than those eggheads" arguments have put little or no effort into taking their effect on other people with the same rights as them into consideration.

In the case of COVID-19, I’ve considered what it would be like if I were elderly and infirmed and I can honestly it wouldn’t change my opinion about any of this. That’s why they’re principles.

I could go into a diatribe here about how governments are simply tools whose actions and their effects reflect the aims and values of those operating them, but that would frankly go beyond the scope of this topic; what I'll note instead is that when you talk about institutions being "compromised", in the case of the pandemic you're not only talking about a single government, or even all the governments, but pretty much the entire global scientific community as well, which has been informing the actions said governments have been taking.

In doing so you wander into, among other things, an even farther-reaching variation of the "moon landing was faked" (or, more recently, "the election was stolen") quandary, namely the notion that a hoax was successfully pulled off which would require literally millions of people, in every country, including nearly every credentialed expert on the subject, to be "in on the con" to take away our rights and unwilling to spill the beans. And if that's possible, you can propose nearly any scenario you can dream up and the "rot" can go as deep as you like, since the lack of hard evidence now becomes "proof" of your proposed scenario.

Not really.
It’s naive to suggest such coordination would be impossible to achieve, and hand-waving to compare it to something like “the faked moon landing”.

The best parallel I can offer as an example is the lipid hypothesis.

If you’re not familiar, the lipid hypothesis is the theory that postulates a link between cholesterol levels and cardiovascular disease.
Popularized by Ancel Keys in the 40’s, it became the de-facto explanation for the increasing rates of heart disease in the US and remains so today.
This is all despite the fact it’s bullshit.

So... how does the a theory that’s complete bullshit become and remain the standardized medical TRUTH of multiple generations?


The industrial food industry benefitted tremendously from the Lipid Hypothesis... did they have a hand in it?
The sugar industry also benefitted tremendously from the lipid hypothesis... were they part of the “conspiracy”?
What about all the doctors who prescribed poor quality, low-fat diets and statin drugs to their patients for decades? Are they involved in the conspiracy?

The simple reality is that sometimes lies are beneficial to those in power, and the people beneath them maintain those lies out of a combination of ignorance and laziness, or simply because so many human beings are spineless and prefer to appeal to authority, despite it’s long track record of being wrong.

[Mischief Maker]

Fer fuck's sake, how may thousands more people need to die because former Playboy playmate Jenny McCarthy needed something to blame for her child's autism?

How many more of our rights need to be infringed upon because people are spineless pussies, ignorant of history?

You know what REALLY helps your immune system recognize the Covid-19 spike protein for a rapid response? Machismo!

And how dare you accuse me of being ignorant of history, I remember Jenny McCarthy's centerfold with photographic recall!

[Mortificator]

If you spend time studying Covid you’ll learn that there are a myriad of ways to lessen the severity of the disease by boosting your immune system with changes in diet, exercise and supplementation; ways that are (scientifically) far superior to simply “wearing a mask”

Yeah I don't know why anyone working with airborne infectious agents wears a mask instead of dieting and doing some burpees. Just ignorant, I guess.

[GaijinPunch]

If you spend time studying Covid you’ll learn that there are a myriad of ways to lessen the severity of the disease by boosting your immune system with changes in diet, exercise and supplementation; ways that are (scientifically) far superior to simply “wearing a mask”

Yeah I don't know why anyone working with airborne infectious agents wears a mask instead of dieting and doing some burpees. Just ignorant, I guess.

Pull ups, you pussy.

[kid aphex]

If you spend time studying Covid you’ll learn that there are a myriad of ways to lessen the severity of the disease by boosting your immune system with changes in diet, exercise and supplementation; ways that are (scientifically) far superior to simply “wearing a mask”

Yeah I don't know why anyone working with airborne infectious agents wears a mask instead of dieting and doing some burpees. Just ignorant, I guess.

Pull ups, you pussy.

Plenty of scientific information out there about how COVID severity correlates directly with metabolic dysfunction, but I’m sure you both know all about that and are just poking fun.

[kid aphex]

Oh, and speaking of the lipid hypothesis, here’s a study published just a few days ago advocating low-carb, high-fat diets to lessen COVID severity!

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-86747-5

For anyone interested

[GaijinPunch]

Plenty of scientific information out there about how COVID severity correlates directly with metabolic dysfunction, but I’m sure you both know all about that and are just poking fun.

Yes, of course, but we also know there is scientific evidence that says you should wear a fucking mask.

[BulletMagnet]

In the case of COVID-19, I’ve considered what it would be like if I were elderly and infirmed and I can honestly it wouldn’t change my opinion about any of this. That’s why they’re principles.

Having principles is fine, and your (welcome) acknowledgement that this is not a simple subject to parse suggests that you can at least understand how others might come to a different conclusion than you (though I am doing my best to ignore your characterization of them as "spineless").

That being said, I would hope that you would also acknowledge that very few principles are so ironclad on their own merits that they should never be reconsidered to any degree under any circumstances; obviously being too willing to compromise on your principles means you don't really have any, but at the same time, as others here have said, if you're 100 percent convinced that your default perspective is always the right one no matter what's happening, you might need a second look at how you got there.

Every single right we're guaranteed under the law (speaking as a US citizen, at least) is not absolute, and comes with limits baked in: speech, religion, assembly, you name it, because without them the "your rights end where mine begin" principle ceases to exist, and the only people with any actual rights are the ones most able to violate everyone else's without consequence. Moreover, during crises and other such times some of these rights are sometimes curbed further; you, me, and anyone else we ask could easily come up with numerous instances where we believe, with good reason, that such curbs on our freedoms were invoked in bad faith and should not have happened, but I would guess that very few folks would posit that every single such instance automatically falls under that category.

I suppose the key question I'm trying to ask here is, do you at least acknowledge the possibility that mandatory administration of the various Covid vaccines might not be part of a larger-scale effort to take our freedoms away? From there, is your right to not be vaccinated truly a hill worth dying on, or indirectly sentencing someone else to die on?

It’s naive to suggest such coordination would be impossible to achieve, and hand-waving to compare it to something like “the faked moon landing”.

Earlier on in the pandemic there was a joke that Nintendo was secretly behind the outbreak, using the ensuing stay-at-home orders to drive sales of its latest Animal Crossing release through the roof; going by your innate assumption that any industry or institution in a position to take some degree of advantage of a major shift should be labeled an active participant in driving said shift, were the folks who told that joke onto something? Again, when countless millions of otherwise-unconnected people worldwide are supposedly "in the loop" and uniformly refusing to say anything to anyone about it, who's to say where the outer limits of the "reset" might lie?

EDIT: As it turns out, your insinuation that you can ignore mask mandates and other guidelines as long as you keep healthy in other ways puts you in some pretty elite company.

[Mischief Maker]

This thread.

[Koa Zo]

Mask use has precipitously declined in non-urban areas of Pennsylvania and there can be a distinct atmopshere of hatred and latent violence toward those who wear masks.
I wasn't entirely sure how to characterize the feeling of latent violence, last night it became all too clear.

On my way back to civilization from a day out hiking in a state forest I stopped for gas and beer in a little shitburg strip known as Shippensburg PA. The type of town where opiate sales and the Dollar General Store are the biggest economic drivers. This is the type of town where black people still need to "know their place", mask wearers now apparently too.
At the mega gas station/junk food store it was packed this Saturday night - of the perhaps 50 people I could observe, maybe 8 had masks.
A crew of Menonite or Amish young men stood hanging out blocking half of the main entrance doors. One of them noticed me put on my mask before I got out of my car, then they all turned, and their attention and gaze strictly stuck to me as I got out of my car - I ignored them and went to a side door - but glanced back over before entering and they were still staring and seemed puffed up at having deflected me away from the entrance they were guarding.

At the side door three 20-something meth-types were in front of me and looked back to hold the door then saw I was wearing a mask and let the door close instead of holding it as was their intention when they looked back to see if anyone was coming in behind them.

Inside I felt and met the stares of big proud-boy farm and construction type guys who were grabbing their 12 packs of Yuengling, the discerning white supremecist's beer of choice in PA.

Standing in line; a dozen people all maskless, were tight together and effectively on each other's heels. I worried for a second that an anti-masker would get in line behind me and breathe down my neck - coincidentally the sole black person on the entire property, also wearing a mask, got behind me and left some buffer space.

On my way out the door, one of the maskless proud-boy wanna-bes with his Yuengling, looked back saw my mask and let the door close - but I had made eye contact and he lurched back and grabbed the door and said sorry. I chuckled "Thanks!" and we looked at each other with a friendly regard and the suspicion was gone from his look - he regarded me like a fellow human in that moment.

The Amish crew was still loitering (as they do on saturday nights at the local junk food mega-store.) and they watched the whole door interaction and stared as I shot them a glance.

Next to my car and clusted around my front bumper and path to my driver's door a gang or teenage or early-20s cigarette addicts puffed away - one guy in particular was watching me as I approached, the others took notice as he was staring and also turned their attention to me. They made space for me to get to my door but that's where I again felt a latent violence. They wanted to fuck with me that was clear. And as I slipped into my car seat the main dude who was staring blew his cloud of nicotine fix at me. They were all looking for my reaction, the Amish punks were all still starring too. I just backed out and tried to laugh it off to myself. But as I drove away and the nicotine addict's smoke lingered in my car, I decided I pussed out and should have challenged them - but what would that have produced?

This is every day here.
At the supermarket I've seen the single maskless guy who stares back at people wanting a confrontation or challenge. I've had to again stop getting take-out from little rural grills and pizza shops. The patrons make it clear who belongs there and who doesn't. The masked aren't welcomed.

[SuperPang]

Very evocative story, thanks.

Are you absolutely sure it wasn't the Biden 2020 hat though?

[Mischief Maker]

Menonite Jay and Silent Bob

We live in deeply stupid times.

[GaijinPunch]

PA Amish sound a lot more hardcore than Illinois Amish. The latter just sell really fucking good donuts and (I imagine) really fucking bad gospel CDs.

[Koa Zo]

Are you absolutely sure it wasn't the Biden 2020 hat though?

I don't outwardly support political figures, so no. What a silly thought. Though, granted, in these people's depraved minds wearing a mask to protect others from viruses is a political statement.

PA Amish sound a lot more hardcore than Illinois Amish. The latter just sell really fucking good donuts and (I imagine) really fucking bad gospel CDs.

I'm not sure if they're allowed to sing. Are they? not that I really care.
I used to admire the Amish/Menonite when growing up around here. Now I just see them as another backwards inbred supressed critical thinking cult. Knowing how they abuse their animals and stiffle their women and have little regard or knowledge of proper sanitation and refrigeration at their market stalls etc, I now appreciate seeing the youngins with iphones - they'll hopefully learn to see outside the cult.

[vol.2]

It sounds a pretty hairy situation. Sucks that happened. The whole north west portion of MD is pretty similar in tone to that area. Lots of clan. Still have cross-burning incidents to scare off minorities when they move in. Truck-nut country they call it.

[Koa Zo]

Menonite Jay and Silent Bob

We live in deeply stupid times.

There is a movie to be made there.
We can only wonder what they get into when they ride their bikes home.

It sounds a pretty hairy situation. Sucks that happened. The whole north west portion of MD is pretty similar in tone to that area. Lots of clan. Still have cross-burning incidents to scare off minorities when they move in. Truck-nut country they call it.

North-western MD has always made me uncomfortable. I haven't been down that way since they've been emboldened and empowered by the carnival barker ex-pres. Im sure it's way worse.

Truck-nut country...whoo-wee that sums it up pretty well (for those that don't get it, these shit-for-brains grown boys love hanging rubber ball sacks from the trailer-hitch of their trucks).

My expereince is just the tip of an iceberg, some of these people want to kill the other half of the coutry. They openly speak (on AM radio especially but of course elsewhere as well) of anyone against Trump as the enemy and against the USA. Wearing a mask clearly shows you are not on the Trump/Republican train and that you are an enemy of freedumb.
Reading and listening to some of the reaction to the discusion of gun restrictions, it becomes even clearer how these types have fantasies of shooting and killing other human beings. They're just waiting for the good opportunity to do it.

[Blacksheep]

@kid aphex: it's not just the sick and elderly and the (statistically) low case fatality rate when factoring in all age/risk groups.

There's also the long covid syndrome where, after overcoming the acute covid-19, people are left with long-term problems concerning their physical and mental fitness/health. Seems around 20-40% of people experience it after infection, that it can happen even if you/your lifestyle were otherwise healthy and/or you didn't notice any symptoms during the acute phase. And it's not really clear yet how long it can last. Vaccination is very effective at preventing that too.

[P_HAT]

So, Sputnik V, for what it worth, i took a antibodies tests, ~50 days, and i got 160 (in whatever units they measure it), my mom got 120 and my boss (who possible drinked alcohol right after vaccination) got 60. Threshold of "it worked" seems to be >=15

[Steamflogger Boss]

I ran into someone today that believes that covid is fake but so are the conspiracy theories about it. That's some next level wokeness good grief.

[Mischief Maker]

What the hell does "woke" mean anymore?

[Steamflogger Boss]

Seems to have multiple meanings as far as I can tell.

[vol.2]

What the hell does "woke" mean anymore?

I think it's been co-opted by social progressives to mean something like "an embrace of new norms that are sensitive and inclusive" or something like that.

But I'm not a millennial, so maybe my view of it is screwed up.

[chempop]

There's a big difference between the SJW 'woke' and the batshit crazy (probably shouldn't be allowed on the internet) 'WQKE'

On topic, I was a little bummed this week about the J&J getting haulted, news that variants can potentially break through the pfizer vax (though still very effective from what I have read), and then some places like Ontario completely shut down schools again, bleh.

On the plus side, it's been a week since my 2nd dose of pfizer, only had mild flu-ish symptons for 24 hours, so a week from now I'll be inoculated and potentially visiting some of my family which will be nice.

[drauch]

At the expense of enforcing the delusions of anti-vaxxers and the paranoid, my second dose of pfizer done goofed me up. First day was fine, just general soreness, then cold-like symptoms the next day. No biggie. Weirdest thing though, and one of the potential side-effects, my dang ol' lymph node under my arm pit has enflamed to that of a hardboiled egg, tender to the touch. A fairly consistent, dull pain, that supposedly lasts up to 10 days. Anyone else get this lil dollop o' fun?

[GaijinPunch]

At the expense of enforcing the delusions of anti-vaxxers and the paranoid, my second dose of pfizer done goofed me up. First day was fine, just general soreness, then cold-like symptoms the next day. No biggie. Weirdest thing though, and one of the potential side-effects, my dang ol' lymph node under my arm pit has enflamed to that of a hardboiled egg, tender to the touch. A fairly consistent, dull pain, that supposedly lasts up to 10 days. Anyone else get this lil dollop o' fun?

Which chip did you get?

I was scheduled to get J&J today, but obviously that fell through. I did manage to get a Pfizer appointment so got my first one.

[drauch]

Pfizer with the Microsoft chip/Acme barcode.

[vol.2]

Sweet. I got the Pfizer with the Tesla/SpaceX rollout. Musk is pushing the chips in lieu of his high speed rail program.


furrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrk. I'm stuck in a huge covid testing line because I have to go into the office on Monday.

I seriously didn't think I'd still be doing this shit in April '21.

[guigui]

What is that "chip" you are talking about ?