News Worldwide impact of the novel coronavirus (covid-19)

[Friday]

@Friday I read the article you shared. I am foggy brained so can you simplfy the information in laymen terms.

As soon as MY brain is working well enough, will do! I’ve only got the attention span of a brain damaged gnat with ADHD at the moment. Halfway into writing anything I bore myself and stop <rolleyes> It will pass. Until then, my own voice irks me.

 

[ladee]

@Friday, never mind. I realized I belong to National Geographic and I will go back and read it again. I'm sure you have more to do than drag out crayolas and posterboard for the 'slow to get it' crowd.

 

[ladee]

@Friday, We cross posted which speaks to the urgency of both of us taking a 'time out'.

 

[DharmaGirl]

'First of all you got my name wrong.

Ok, this is one of the best comebacks to that I've ever heard. It will be my new go-to comeback. I'm sorry she was so rude, and I'm finding the people here who don't take precautions often are rude and angry. I don't even want to go to the little grocery stores here.

 

[ladee]

@DharmaGirl you sharing that the folks who are anti vac are rude and angry. That is what I picked up from the girl. But I see it as their fear. 'what if' they are wrong but have taken such a hard stance it would cost them too much to change their mind.

They don't consider the ultimate cost of possibly losing their lives, they only see it as an ego loss or loss of peer support. Being shunned. It is mob mentality and the rest of us have to learn how,in our own ways, of dealing with them if they cross our paths in a personal way.

I have been using the ' not my name' thing for many years. Hope it helps. It helps for us to not take it so personally. Regardless of who is doing the name calling.

 

[DharmaGirl]

That's a really good way of looking at it @ladee. I know they frighten me with their talk of civil war and yelling (yes, actually yelling) about how people don't want to work because they are making so much on unemployment and food stamps. It's easier to yell at how unjust it is if you don't believe the virus has an effect. This effect has been devastating for many financially, unemployment or not, and physically for many folks. I wasn't seeing that they are as afraid as I am, for a different reason.

 

[lostforgottensoul]

Went to get an MRI yesterday and on their door they their sign said "we recommend that you wear a mask". First time I've seen that. It has always been you are required to wear a mask. Interesting.

 

[coraxxx]

Most puzzling discussion with a friend

"I don’t want the vaccine because I don’t know.
— So I’m telling you we’ve got the Pfizer and Moderna ones here, so it’s good, it works, it’s super peer reviewed and they all pass all the clinical trials required by any vaccine, and they also should be reasonably efficient against variants.
— Yeah, but other friends tell me otherwise so. So I don’t know. You all are defending stuff and obsessing reading that university thingie since months [John Hopkins’s stats], I just don’t want to obsess with it.
— I think you should. You can read the science articles. They’re all there.
— Yes but I can’t understand them. So I don’t know. Perhaps you can so it’s okay for you, of course you do what you want and believe in.
— But for you?
— I just don’t want anything inside of my body. I don’t know.
— But the coronavirus also gets inside of your body?!
— Yeah but it isn’t the same!"

It really annoys me since she’s a good friend. She wears a mask wherever it’s required and she doesn’t think corona doesn’t exist or that we shouldn’t do anything with it. But she’s scared by the vaccine.

Some people of round my age (29) have told me they didn’t want to have a vaccine since they didn’t really need them and others would do it instead of them, so it would be okay. So basically they’re saying they’re just waiting for anyone else to take a risk and endangering the whole immunity against this thing because they don’t want to take a risk lower than actually catching the thing or a variant that is more likely to hit them than elderly people since older ones did take the vaccine. We can see the shift in the casualties already.

It’s just such ding-dong logic based on the most selfish thing. And a wrong selfish calculation. It’s everyone’s interest, yours included! And I don’t know if it’s because it’s my field (the arts) that people tend to be more like disorganized libertarians (however the political anarchists I know all did get the vaccine) or if it’s found everywhere.

And I hate this so much because it’s because of people like my father who spread stupid articles that people like my friend first become hesitant and then get stuck there, because they don’t believe they have the capacity to read information correctly. And it’s true it’s very complex. And it’s true I cannot guarantee myself that I fully understand the mechanisms of the different vaccines, so I don’t understand all the mechanisms of my phone. When you live in a structured society you just can’t hope to fully understand anything.

But still, many kinds of lies and illogical thinking you can spot even if you don’t understand the biological mechanism. So I can’t know exactly what is true but I can filter out what is wrong.

And I think many people struggle with this. They want to understand it all, or understand nothing. So no effort in trying to understand some of the actual thing, because somehow you hit your own limitations? And so they prefer to stick to an explanation that is simpler to get even if by many aspects it’s illogical or factually wrong? I’m really fascinated by the mechanisms of this thing. My father didn’t use to be an idiot, 20 years ago. He was in his opinions quite like anyone else. My friend, I know she isn’t stupid at all. But she’s intimidated by the tonality and the facade of science. It’s true it’s somewhat intimidating because of the lingo. So I guess than in some sense we failed to make that more accessible.

 

[ladee]

But therein lies personal responsibility @ruborcoraxxx, do you think? What is wrong with people?? If they don't understand then why are they not asking dr's or pharmacists to explain things to them in laymen terms? If that is their excuse.

Anyone that has ever eaten at McDonalds has put 'unknown' ingredients in their bodies!!! If they have ever eaten a hotdog, cringe, they have no idea what they just put in their bodies. Many many things in grocery stores have things in them that no one bothers to check. I personally am sick of this excuse for selfishness.

I try not to argue with people, but I have started saying 'ignorance is not an excuse!' and if they get upset, I tell them I am upset at the amount of people THEY are putting in danger with their selfishness. I feel we have nothing to lose by being more blunt with people about this.

And saying education is a panacea for ignorance. I wasn't real crazy about people before Covid. Isolation from ignorance. Yes, I tick that box!!

 

[Friday]

Some people of round my age (29)

Something your cohort has had to deal with that nooooo other generation has, is all your parents raising you during the (later debunked 6 ways from Sunday) autism vaccine scare.

It had been debunked by the time my kid was born… but I didn’t know that. It was a HUGE hot-topic in parenting land. And in some parts of the country, still is, sadly enough.

I was super duper lucky because I’d spent half my life in countries where the super deadly illnesses everyone here (in my generation) doesn’t blink at, because they were all but eradicated during my parents generation… people are flat out terrified of. Because vaccines are rare. And the illnesses that cause so many childhood deaths, still kill kids by grave load. So their parents will hike for days overland with their families to get to clinics we were flying or hiking vaccines into.

So I made the decisionI would rather have an autistic child, than a dead child.

Even working those epidemics? It was STILL a hard choice for me. To look at my vibrant amazing interactive baby boy, and know I might be taking away all of his chances at life. (Sure, HFA is populated by amazing people living amazing lives, doing amazing things; but my cousin is LOW functioning autism. Yes, I’ve buried babies and toddlers, but I was also raised with my cousin, and know that heartbreak.).

As a parent, who only knew what the news media put out there? It was like being given a choice to either play Russian roulette & spin a loaded barrel and shoot my baby in the head (depending on luck alone that he didn’t die of a totally preventable illness), and grabbing him up by the feet and swinging his head at a wall, hoping for minor if any brain damage, and not turning him into my cousin.

The flooding relief at starting school and finding out all that gut wrenching decision making was totally wasted? Still doesn’t remove the fact that all our kids grew UP with that parental anxiety. It took over a decade for the vaccine debunking to filter its way out of academia into the general pop… and I still know people that’s new info for, or who don’t believe… because trust, once broken, isn’t easily mended. So it makes total sense that a generation who grew up with parents afraid of the water? Would themselves at least mistrust, if not outright fear the water. It’s reeeeeally effing difficult to keep your fears from your kids, even when you’re trying. And even when YOU manage it? They’re still surrounded by family, friends parents, neighbors, etc, for whom it’s a HOT HOT TOPIC. And other people are never as careful around your kids, and what they absorb like sponges, as you are.

I know veeeeeery very few people in their late teens to early thirties who didn’t pick up on the vaccine scare of the 90’s and early aughts. Even if they’ve since then been educated to their eyeballs, those kinds of ripple effects from fear/anxiety/broken trust …linger.

 

[DharmaGirl]

I just don’t want anything inside of my body. I don’t know.
— But the coronavirus also gets inside of your body?!

I've heard this a lot. One person took about 12 different medications a day, plus all sorts of self prescribed herbs and "natural medicine" without wondering about them getting inside her body. I'm sure I've said this before, but I'm going to say it again because it blows my mind: the doctor I had briefly when I moved here told me NOT to get the Covid vaccine because it used nanotechnology. These nanos contained information that marked you and would be used in the future for all stores, pharmacies, doctors, etc...He said he had checked with a friend who works with vaccines and she agreed they used nanos. She's right, they do, but they are used as a delivery system, not a mini computer to keep track of the things you do. So a doctor is giving false info about the vaccines and less than half the population here is vaccinated.

And in some parts of the country, still is, sadly enough.

Raises hand! Our state had an outbreak of measles and another of whooping cough because so many children hadn't been vaccinated. Former President Trump made a reference in 2016 to vaccines causing autism so that just reinforced what people believed.

because they don’t believe they have the capacity to read information correctly. And it’s true it’s very complex.

They are very hard to read, and if you don't understand how to read them you are stuck with a lot of info and no where to think it. I had a friend who would read journal articles and come up with the exact opposite of what the articles said. I read an article he gave me proving one thing, and when I told him I couldn't find how the article supported his thoughts, he told me I had to read between the lines. "It's what they don't say that you should be paying attention to". It made me want to tear my hair out. He made all sorts of medical decisions based on what he read. I wonder if he got the vaccine.

 

[coraxxx]

So a doctor is giving false info about the vaccines and less than half the population here is vaccinated.

Aaaargh! These are the worst!!

I also received, in my letterbox, a pamphlet written by a doctor that was suggesting you to buy the toolkit against corona, with hydro chloroquine, 6 or 10 different vitamin and other supplements, antibiotics (antibiotics!) and another medicine. So at the same time they’re like "oh big pharma is behind the vaccines and it’s for stealing our money" and then… you make the addition of all that was required… nearly 100 dollars. The vaccine is free. And big pharmaceutical companies did deliver doses at a very low price, after prior government sponsoring and negotiation but still, it’s not anything like the above. Plus promoting f*cking antibiotics as a preventive medicine already is nonsense for infectious diseases, so go understand with viral diseases! It does something when you catch an opportunist infection. Overall if people massively used that solution it would just raise the level of resistance of infectious agents. It’s already a horrendous problem, humanity cannot afford having inefficient antibiotics. The world before penicillin wasn’t really nice. I would have died 6 times.

So that thing, even the chloroquin aside, is massively harmful on a personal level (lots of side effects for nothing) and on a scale effect (resistance to antibiotics), much much worse than any kind of risk you could get with the vaccine, even the RNA-based ones.

Yesterday my mom called and she said it would be a solution to suggest inactivated virus based vaccines like the Coronavac, the Sinovac and a new French one they’re developing. I think the Russian one (Sputnik?) is also based on that technology. So no nanostuff or weirdo RNA, they really aren’t as efficient as Moderna, Pfizer or even AstraZeneca, but still it’s absolutely better than nothing. Perhaps the US should step in and develop an inactivated version to breadcrumb all folks who don’t want other sorts. Because it’s better than nothing.

he told me I had to read between the lines. "It's what they don't say that you should be paying attention to". It made me want to tear my hair out.

This ^^^ Yes I makes me want rip out of my skin too! It’s just horrible! But I don’t think it’s because they don’t know how to read, it’s because they don’t want to!!! The father has shared an article saying PFIZER DIDN’T FINISH TRIAL 3 STAGE BLAH BLAH BLAH with a link to the actual official trial logs. And it’s technically true it’s not completely over in the sense there still is research to make for people with immunodepression, children with certain diseases, people with certain rare diseases. But for the general public it’s passed all clinical trials. Then when my mom (yes I have the bonus of seeing my parents arguing with each other on facebook 25 years later) confronted the father he just said "The important is that it isn’t finished, the detail isn’t important." It’s just so stupid.

And I don’t know what to do with stupidity. And bad faith. It’s so enormous you just can’t start anywhere but just throw the entire thing away or ignore it.