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Post by miscmisc on Oct 13, 2020 13:41:19 GMT 1
Thanks for sharing how you've been. False negative is very rare but possible, so you can't definitely say you weren't infected. But Covid-19 really plays with your mind too, so it's really hard to know. But I act like I've never been infected anyway, so on some level it doesn't really matter. I expect the whole thing to get gradually resolved next year, so we should hang in there for a bit more. Sure, no problem. Somehow it does feel like taking a bit of a load off. I hope all of you are doing well, despite all the shit going on around us. Newly updated measures/rules for the Netherlands will be announced tonight. Since infections have been ballooning these past few weeks, expectations are we're getting something close to a lockdown without actually calling it that. Meanwhile an 89 year old Dutch woman has passed away after getting infected a second time, which apparently is the first time this has happened. It needs to be mentioned that aside from her advanced age, she was suffering from a rare form of bone marrow cancer and her immune system was compromised. nos.nl/artikel/2352120-nederlandse-vrouw-overlijdt-na-tweede-besmetting-met-coronavirus.htmlYes, the Dutch numbers have been worrisome. The fatality curve doesn't look good either even though it's still very low. The way the Dutch cases increased does seem like a typical case of one super-spreading event leading to another, creating numerous clusters in that chain of events, primarily due to the lack of preventive measures. The whole point of social distancing and mask-wearing is to put the permanent downward pressure on the potential of exponential increase like that, under the assumption that it can happen randomly anytime, anywhere. If that downward pressure is not strong enough, the chain of clusters can explode into a huge regional outbreak in the blinking of an eye. There seems to be some kind of a threshold, and the less social distancing and mask wearing, the lower the threshold = the weaker what I would call the social immunity is. "Lockdown without actually calling it that" might indeed become a trend in much of Europe. Well, lockdown usually does work fortunately, albeit at a huge cost. Stay safe, although I'm pretty sure you're really not the type of a person who ever needs to be reminded, lol. As for that woman, yes, there are bound to be some very rare cases of weirdness. But we have to think of whether it is frequent enough to actually matter. |
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Post by miscmisc on Oct 13, 2020 14:23:13 GMT 1
It may be premature to say this, and they have made a number of mistakes in their handling of the Covid-19 crisis like any other country, but this pandemic must have all but cemented Germany's place as the leader of Europe. At least that will be the perception.
Germany's political system and geo-economic situation is actually not very well-suited to tackle a major epidemic like this. Countries like France and the UK are actually better-suited, and so is even Italy (but not Spain). Yet Germany has done significantly better than any other major European country so far.
I'm not really praising Germany, though. That's about the MINIMUM you should expect from your government in a good world. It rather magnifies the incompetence of others.
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Post by miscmisc on Oct 13, 2020 16:03:52 GMT 1
Both-sides-ism of an epic scale. Very much on Romney brand.  Who knew this presidential election has been actually Donald Trump vs. Keith Olbermann. What a vapid, pathetic, useless "moderate" conservative. |
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Post by miscmisc on Oct 13, 2020 17:03:09 GMT 1
Again, I think the problem with the UK's Covid-19 policies is that they are based substantially on misguided notions about this virus. It's not just the cabinet, but the advisory board (or whatever they call it) as well.
You almost get the impression that their guideline hasn't been updated since March. I don't know how that's possible in a scientifically advanced country like Britain, but I guess it is what it is. When I see debates in the UK, I often think BOTH sides are wrong because they seem to subtly but crucially misunderstand the nature of this viral disease and how it spreads, and that the "differences" between the two sides (not necessarily but usually Tories vs. Labour) are almost irrelevant from the public health point of view.
I mean, for example, Labour accusing the government of not implementing a policy in a more effective way when said policy is probably useless to begin with. Stuff like that, even though Labour does sound more realistic and somewhat in tune with the latest consensus among the researchers and scientists around the globe.
Why does the discussion in the UK often sound so different from the ones in Germany, Japan etc.? I mean, all of my knowledge on the UK policies comes from the Guardian and Financial Times (politically biased, I know), so maybe I've missed something, but it feels as if they aren't talking about the same virus as the one that I got.
Of course, it is possible that those British scientists/politicians are right, and the others are wrong. Such is the nature of viral diseases, where things appear so random.
But I doubt it.
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Post by miscmisc on Oct 14, 2020 2:46:08 GMT 1
...says a racist.
This guy's like a textbook example of a "some of my friends are black" racist, lol. So, yeah, let's hurt him more and "be divisive" by calling him what he is.
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Post by miscmisc on Oct 14, 2020 3:23:42 GMT 1
From the new Dutch measures:
What discussion exactly? On their effectiveness? Unless the Dutch politicians/bureaucrats/scientists know something that the rest of us don't, what "discussion" on that exactly?
On the administrative procedure? Why would it be difficult when they can introduce other super-restrictive measures pretty easily like that?
I really, really don't get all this profoundly stupid tapdance around masks in some countries. Would it kill for them to make it simple? If they don't think they work on balance, stop tapdancing and just don't bother. Sweden was at least straightforward about that.
"Well, maybe they sort of work, but we don't know, but then Germans are saying they do, so maybe, I don't know, maybe we should kind of sort of advise our people to maybe wear them just in sorta kinda case" and so on and on like they have something stuck up their ass.
It's this attitude that makes people think less and less of masks, and even in a way stigmatizes them completely unnecessarily. It's all been just strategically wrong. What they should've done, if they thought that masks work to some degree, even only slightly like 10% reduction of cases (which wouldn't be nothing ESPECIALLY given the randomness of this disease that we are dealing with), was to normalize them, making masks a no-big deal. These governments have absolutely failed at that, and it's too late now.
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Post by miscmisc on Oct 14, 2020 3:58:59 GMT 1
You can swiftly suppress the viruses with a lockdown. Of course. The viruses need human contacts. A lockdown drastically reduces them.
But it comes with a huge economic/social cost, isn't sustainable, and wouldn't address the real problems at all.
Most countries cannot do what China and Vietnam do. And the same goes with the New Zealand model, which might not work as well for countries that aren't as highly isolated as New Zealand. It's too late for most countries to replicate the South Korean model (their initial success was the key to all the subsequent policies and measures). We don't even know yet if the Japanese model works even for Japan on the long-term basis. And there's the Swedish model. It is a model with a strategy and theory (not "herd immunity", mind you) behind it, but obviously I wouldn't recommend it to anyone now.
No model is fool-proof. Nothing is even remotely close to being perfect.
But you gotta have something better and coherent than THAT, man. I'm not really speaking to any specific country, but you know.
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Post by miscmisc on Oct 14, 2020 4:18:11 GMT 1
One thing about Belgium is that we were able to pretend all these years that the absence of a functioning central government didn't actually matter, especially since Brussels is in many ways a supra-national city.
The pandemic showed that it matters. That's hardly THE reason for Belgium's plight with Covid-19 so far, but it is probably a reason.
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Post by miscmisc on Oct 14, 2020 4:31:25 GMT 1
This man has gone even crazier.
This is what the professionals call the "Let's win votes by hugely insulting the demographic that I've been struggling with" strategy. The success rate is 0%, but Donald Trump is a miracle boy.
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Post by miscmisc on Oct 14, 2020 4:41:51 GMT 1
All the pundits who said Trump getting Covi'd would help him gain "empathy" votes should simply stop talking about America altogether. Let the foreign-born ones like me handle it, for crying out loud.
They genuinely couldn't hear millions and millions of American voices all across the country going, Jesus Christ, what a fucking dumbass.
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Post by miscmisc on Oct 14, 2020 5:00:10 GMT 1
This is a story about an immigrant's son who had to overcome racism, while making friends with such charming working-class people as the future political editor of the Spectator, to find the inner strength for the sheer determination and grit to manage his billionaire father-in-law's enormous investment fund. [fart] How touching. [/fart] While Boris Johnson Sinks, Rishi Sunak Is on the Risewww.nytimes.com/2020/10/13/world/europe/uk-boris-johnson-rishi-sunak.html |
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Post by miscmisc on Oct 14, 2020 6:03:42 GMT 1
The stupidest, most backward thing about the United States of America is that the Supreme Court has such enormous *political* power. That just completely goes against the modern notion of judiciary in a democratic state. It's fucking medieval.
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Post by miscmisc on Oct 14, 2020 12:30:16 GMT 1
What I've learned in this pandemic is that much of epidemiology had been a joke. Look at Britain. Look at the US, the two leading countries in that field.
They have been miserable.
And that's NOT just because of the government or "freedom-loving" people. Their scientists/scholars made a complete ass of themselves too.
Boris Johnson talked about The Science. And that holy grail has turned out to be a fucking piece of garbage.
I was always led to believe that epidemiology in Japan was a joke. In fact it probably was. But that didn't matter, did it? Those "joke" scientists and researchers who had been complete nobodies internationally figured out much of what we now know about this virus - things that so many countries in the world still refuse/fail to incorporate into their policies for some reason - pretty much in one month through the most primitive way possible - contact-tracing to analyze how clusters were formed. No fancy computer simulation.
Even if Japan gets Covid-fucked in the third wave in the near future, their findings and theories will stand, since what the Japanese government has been doing isn't entirely based on their recommendations and theories in actuality.
They earned that knowledge with their feet, while those "leading epidemiologists" in Europe and the US were arguing over whether a sneeze was enough to infect others, which sounds so stupid in hindsight. Those nobodies in Japan were already talking about 3C's while these geniuses were refusing to believe the airborne transmission was possible.
And I still see those "leading epidemiologists" in Europe talking about sanitation, physical distance, while only "recommending" masks and not even mentioning ventilation at all. And they are still talking about fucking R0, the useless variable.
Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
SARS-CoV-2 don't care about their sanitation theater. Because they don't bother to move from one person to another by way of any object; They prefer DIRECT flights, and that's how they usually travel. No fucking transit.
The emperors have no clothes. Their credibility has been shot. They will be useless once again in the second wave. We'll get through it regardless of what they say.
Hopefully the next generation of epidemiologists will learn from the mistake, be humble, and be actually fucking useful in the next pandemic.
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Post by miscmisc on Oct 14, 2020 13:33:45 GMT 1
Girls are fucking weird.
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Post by miscmisc on Oct 14, 2020 13:43:10 GMT 1
Happy Birthday to AOC, though!
As you probably know, I'm a fan. Lots of leftists seem to have been "disappointed" at her over her going mainstream = too "liberal" but I'm not one of them.
I love street-smart types. Her being leftist is a huge icing on the cake. Exceptionally talented.
When I was in New York, I met so, so, so many smart, bright Puerto Rican girls like her. I loved them. They were the best.
AOC represents them.
She will be 35 in 2024, baby.
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