Coronavirus - Part Two.

[melthebell 863]

26 minutes ago, Chekhov said:

The Left's Covid failure - UnHerd

 

Interesting essay on how the Left's attitude to Covid suppression with a very good analysis of the Left's support of COVID measures, and in particular reasons as to why they seem to support interventions that [negatively] affect the working class most,

 

Extract :

As writers who have always positioned ourselves on the Left, we are disturbed at this turn of events. Is there really no progressive criticism to be made about the quarantining of healthy individuals, when the latest research suggests there is a vanishingly small difference in terms of transmission between the vaccinated and the unvaccinated? The Left’s response to Covid now appears as part of a broader crisis in Left-wing politics and thought — one which has been going on for three decades at least. So it’s important to identify the process through which this has taken shape.

In sum, decades of political polarisation instantly politicised a public health issue, without allowing any discussion as to what a coherent Left response would be. At the same time, the Left’s position distanced it from any kind of working-class base, since low-income workers were the most severely affected by the socio-economic impacts of continued lockdown policies, and were also those most likely to be out working while the laptop class benefitted from Zoom. These same political fault lines emerged during the vaccine roll-out, and now during the Covid passports phase. Resistance associates with the Right, while those on the mainstream Left are generally supportive of both measures. Opposition is demonised as a confused mixture of anti-science irrationalism and individualistic libertarianism.

Errrm yeah, right

[top4718 838]

3 hours ago, onewheeldave said:

On the positive side, when it comes to covid, improving the health and habits of the general population should be an absolute priority.

 

That would also help minimise many of the 'lifestyle diseases' like type 2 diabetes, obesity, CHD etc, which are leading 'underlying conditions' that greatly increase morbidity with covid.

 

Whether anything the govt come out with in terms of 'apps' and wristbands will be of much use seems doubtful, but, even if it gets some of the sheep to walk a bit more and think about the amount of junk they put into themselves, it should help.

 

Hopefully it will bring into the covid debate that which has been severely lacking- a focus on the how our nations abysmal public health has been a huge contributing factor in the covid mortality statistics.

 

In essence this is probably a reasonable idea but it could also be a way to shoo in more control under the banner of health, for now its treats for compliance it could just as easily be penalties for non compliance.

[Carbuncle 0]

2 hours ago, Chekhov said:

Not that travel restrictions have achieved anything at all anyway, other then inconveniencing millions of people and pandering to fear and ignorance.

Even AUS couldn't keep out the Delta variant, and, in any case, vaccines are effective at stopping serious illness with all known variants of Covid. These are just facts.

I am not sure the UK's travel restrictions have achieved a great deal but they could have. In March 2020, the UK imported thousands of cases of covid amongst the tourists returning from Italy, France and Spain (according to COGS, the covid genomic sequencers. Had there been restrictions in place, covid in the UK would not have been stopped but it would have been delayed. Bearing in mind a week's delay in the first lockdown is estimated to have cost ten or twenty thousand lives that delay would have been very valuable. We could also have delayed delta's rise in the UK with travel restrictions with the effect that we would have been further advanced in the vaccination programme before we faced the full force of delta.

 

Australia is a clear case of the value of travel restrictions. They managed to delay having a significant epidemic until their vaccination programme was well advanced and saved a lot of lives as a result.

[top4718 838]

As most on here will know Sheffield United's John Fleck sadly collapsed on the pitch last night and looked to be in some distress, it may not be connected but this is the 3rd player in a short period of time (there are more in world football) that have collapsed, we've also had the death of a fan at a Stoke City game and fans collapsing at Luton Town, Salford, two fans at WBA v Bristol City and another at the Salford  Dagenham FA cup tie all in the space of a few weeks.

 

It could of course be just a coincidence that these have occurred after the wholesale administering of a vaccine with links to myocarditis but if I was a betting man........................................

 

Get well soon John Fleck.

Edited November 24, 2021 by top4718

[Axel 22]

 

A new study just in ...

 

" Abstract 10712: Mrna COVID Vaccines Dramatically Increase Endothelial Inflammatory Markers and ACS Risk as Measured by the PULS Cardiac Test: a Warning "

Link:

 

  https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/circ.144.suppl_1.10712

[Chekhov 488]

29 minutes ago, melthebell said:

Errrm yeah, right

I note you have not attempted to debate their points.

But what about this :

 

 

But why has the mainstream Left ended up supporting practically all Covid measures? How did such a simplistic view of the relationship between health and the economy emerge, one which makes a mockery of decades of (Left-leaning) social science research showing just how closely wealth and health outcomes are connected? Why did the Left ignore the massive increase in inequalities, the attack on the poor, on poor countries, on women and children, the cruel treatment of the elderly, and the huge increase in wealth for the richest individuals and corporations resulting from these policies?

 

Personally I think the answer (as to why the Left have come out overwhelmingly in favour of suppression policies) is because the Left do not want to admit that government power is limited. If they admit that the government cannot (on balance) do much to alleviate the suffering of the population from Covid (other than vaccines, which are arguably not - mainly- within a government's power), there is an inference that governments cannot do much else to change or improve society either....

The Chinese Government's reaction to Covid is an extreme example of that. They have even more draconian (and powerful) tools to suppress Covid (by suppressing their population) and they must be seen to use them to bolster the idea of the all powerful state can pretty much do anything. Ironically, even if the conspiracy theorists are wrong and the Chinese did not release Cobvid on the world, their secretive reaction to it, trying (ironically) to suppress the fact of Covid, may well have caused the whole nightmare. Could Covid have been stopped then ? It certainly was not as infectious as it is now (see Diamond Princess, the Delta variant would have spread much faster and thus killed many more on that boat).

24 minutes ago, Carbuncle said:

I am not sure the UK's travel restrictions have achieved a great deal but they could have. In March 2020, the UK imported thousands of cases of covid amongst the tourists returning from Italy, France and Spain (according to COGS, the covid genomic sequencers. Had there been restrictions in place, covid in the UK would not have been stopped but it would have been delayed. Bearing in mind a week's delay in the first lockdown is estimated to have cost ten or twenty thousand lives that delay would have been very valuable. We could also have delayed delta's rise in the UK with travel restrictions with the effect that we would have been further advanced in the vaccination programme before we faced the full force of delta.

 

Australia is a clear case of the value of travel restrictions. They managed to delay having a significant epidemic until their vaccination programme was well advanced and saved a lot of lives as a result.

AUS , and even more NZ, are outliers, they cannot be compared to the UK, or, nee, almost any other country in the world.

But in any case, you seem to be arguing that travel restrictions would have worked if only they'd been stricter. That is exactly the same argument that those in favour of suppression always use about all those type of policies. It is becoming increasingly likely that these suppression policies (as distinct from vaccinating the vulnerable) have achieved much less than they were expected to, and at a greater cost.....

[Carbuncle 0]

7 minutes ago, Chekhov said:

AUS , and even more NZ, are outliers, they cannot be compared to the UK, or, nee, almost any other country in the world.

But in any case, you seem to be arguing that travel restrictions would have worked if only they'd been stricter. That is exactly the same argument that those in favour of suppression always use about all those type of policies. It is becoming increasingly likely that these suppression policies (as distinct from vaccinating the vulnerable) have achieved much less than they were expected to, and at a greater cost.....

I absolutely was not arguing they would have worked better had they been stricter. I was arguing that travel restrictions would have worked better had they been better timed. We have had restrictions on travellers from countries with lower rates of covid which is generally bonkers. We have failed to have restrictions when it could have made a real difference.

[Chekhov 488]

A related point to the left's attitude to Covid would be why those pro-EU people who were so irritated about the idea of having to show government-issued papers to cross international borders after Brexit (a point which I strongly agreed with) are among those most loudly enthusiastic about the idea of having to show government-issued papers in order to go to a pub or a shop.

Oh the irony....

[butlers 261]

A shop ?

[Chekhov 488]

5 hours ago, Carbuncle said:

I absolutely was not arguing they would have worked better had they been stricter. I was arguing that travel restrictions would have worked better had they been better timed. We have had restrictions on travellers from countries with lower rates of covid which is generally bonkers. We have failed to have restrictions when it could have made a real difference.

Isn't that the same thing ? The same restrictions but enforced earlier sound like stricter restrictions to me.

But if you ever want to travel abroad confident you will get back, you want to be VERY careful about espousing this argument that travel restrictions should have been bought in earlier i.e. before the virus was known to be  problem *. Because the obvious conclusion there was we should have stopped all international travel for Swineflu, SARs EBOLA etc etc.

 

* though in actual fact don't they reckon Covid was here as early as January, and I reckon it may well have been earlier than that.

 

5 hours ago, butlers said:

A shop ?

Who knows how far power mad governments would go. If you had told me two years ago they would have told me I could not visit my Mun I would have thought you mad, stark staring mad.

Edited November 24, 2021 by Chekhov

[Delayed 465]

2 hours ago, top4718 said:

As most on here will know Sheffield United's John Fleck sadly collapsed on the pitch last night and looked to be in some distress, it may not be connected but this is the 3rd player in a short period of time (there are more in world football) that have collapsed, we've also had the death of a fan at a Stoke City game and fans collapsing at Luton Town, Salford, two fans at WBA v Bristol City and another at the Salford  Dagenham FA cup tie all in the space of a few weeks.

 

It could of course be just a coincidence that these have occurred after the wholesale administering of a vaccine with links to myocarditis but if I was a betting man........................................

 

Get well soon John Fleck.

You've no idea if it's related to the vaccine or not .

 

Don't try to use an event like that to further your cause without any knowledge of medical history. Footballers collapsing happened plenty before vaccine arrived. 

 

 

[top4718 838]

4 hours ago, Delayed said:

You've no idea if it's related to the vaccine or not .

 

Don't try to use an event like that to further your cause without any knowledge of medical history. Footballers collapsing happened plenty before vaccine arrived. 

 

 

I've football since 1980 and I've never know so many in such a short period, two fans collapsing at one game is rarer than hen's teeth, keep burying your head in the sand and doing what Boris tells you, its for the greater good 🤣🙄