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Originally posted by JAYNEZTOWN:
I think Sweden is fucked

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Shocking Study Finds Coronavirus Mutations That Are Much Deadlier Than The Original

A group of researchers at Zhejiang University, a top-flight research university situated in Hangzhou, the capital of the eastern coastal Chinese province of Zhejiang, have made what just might be remembered as a critical breakthrough in our understanding of the wide range of symptoms that patients face.

Studies have suggested that as up to half of those who have been infected with the virus might be "asymptomatic", a categorization that includes those who experienced extremely mild symptoms, often resembling a bad cold or a mild fever. Now, this team of scientists has discovered 31 new mutated strains of the virus that might explain the stubbornly high mortality rates in parts of Europe and New York.

According to the South China Morning Post, some of the mutant strains exhibited a much more dangerous capacity to invade human cells, implying that certain strains might be much more lethal than others. What's more, these strains were found to be "genetically similar" to samples isolated in New York and places like Italy in Europe.

Critically, the study, led by Professor Li Lanjuan, the first Chinese academic to recommend a complete shutdown to fight the virus, showed for the first time a probable link between the type of strain that infects a patient and the level of brutality of the symptoms they face.

This is nothing short of a breakthrough - though it's being underplayed in the American press, probably because health journalists are grappling with a confusing paradox: Dr. Fauci said last month that there was "no evidence" of deadly mutations, yet these researchers have found exactly that - though of course this research has yet to be replicated or peer reviewed.

"Sars-CoV-2 has acquired mutations capable of substantially changing its pathogenicity," Li and her team wrote in their non-peer-reviewed paper which was published by the preprint service medRxiv.org, another top research for non-peer-reviewed research, along with the Lancet.

Li took an unusual approach to investigate the virus mutation. She analysed the viral strains isolated from 11 randomly chosen Covid-19 patients from Hangzhou in the eastern province of Zhejiang, and then tested how efficiently they could infect and kill cells.

The deadliest mutations in the Zhejiang patients had also been found in most patients across Europe, while the milder strains were the predominant varieties found in parts of the United States, such as Washington state, according to their paper.

A separate study had found that New York strains had been imported from Europe. The death rate in New York was similar to that in many European countries, if not worse.

But the weaker mutation did not mean a lower risk for everybody, according to Li’s study. In Zhejiang, two patients in their 30s and 50s who contracted the weaker strain became severely ill. Although both survived in the end, the elder patient needed treatment in an intensive care unit.

Li's study involved a notably small number of strains, only a few dozen were investigated, as opposed to hundreds or thousands of strains in some major studies of new viruses. However, she still managed to find what appears to be a definite link that could shed new light - or unearth new complications in the quest to finding a cure or a vaccine. Li's team attributed these "functional changes" in the different strains to variations in the "viral-spike protein" - aka the "spikes" on the "ball" used to represent SARS-CoV-2.

Li’s team detected more than 30 mutations. Among them 19 mutations – or about 60 per cent – were new.

They found some of these mutations could lead to functional changes in the virus’ spike protein, a unique structure over the viral envelope enabling the coronavirus to bind with human cells. Computer simulation predicted that these mutations would increase its infectivity.

The fact that such unexpectedly intense variations could arise from a sample of fewer than a dozen patients means the genetic variability of this virus might be much higher than initially expected. And it may have mutated since the outbreak began, which of course could create complications in the quest for a vaccine. Most alarmingly, some of the mutated strains carried as much as 270x the viral load as the weakest strains.

To verify the theory, Li and colleagues infected cells with strains carrying different mutations. The most aggressive strains could generate 270 times as much viral load as the weakest type. These strains also killed the cells the fastest.

It was an unexpected result from fewer than a dozen patients, “indicating that the true diversity of the viral strains is still largely underappreciated,” Li wrote in the paper.

It's just the latest reminder of how much we don't know about this virus. The projection that a virus could take 18 months to 2 years to develop is based on not much more than guesswork inspired by wishful thinking. Because of this, waiting until a vaccine or cure is in hand could lead us to wait much longer than many were expecting.

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New Coronavirus Study Claims Outbreak Will Last Longer Than 2 Years [until] 2/3rds Of Humanity Infected



It's been a while since we saw a study projecting an extremely dire endgame for the coronavirus outbreak.

Yet, as the battle over whether to reopen immediately or wait a few more weeks becomes almost universally-partisan, a non-peer-reviewed study out of the midwest projected that the virus could kick around for another 2 years, and that the outbreak won't subside until more than 60% of the global population is immune, Bloomberg reports.

According to the research from the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, the coronavirus pandemic is likely to last as long as two years and won’t be controlled until about two-thirds of the world’s population is immune.

The report was written by CIDRAP director Michael Osterholm and medical director Kristen Moore, Tulane University public health historian John Barry, and Harvard epidemiologist Marc Lipsitch, whose name has appeared on other important coronavirus research and commentary.

Furthermore, because so many of those infected by the virus are asymptomatic or mostly asymptomatic, lockdowns and other aggressive measures might not be enough to stamp it out completely. This 'invisibility' is what makes SARS-CoV-2 such a challenging virus to contain.

This might help explain why Sweden's approach has been so popular, while offering perhaps the best argument yet for why states might as well reopen. According to the researchers, the virus will likely keep on coming in waves perhaps until the end of 2022, or even longer, as drug companies scramble to develop a vaccine, or a cure.

Because of its ability to spread from person to person without the presence of symptoms, the virus will likely be much harder to control than the flu. The virus is deadlier than the flu, too - and certain mutated strains have been found to be significantly more virulent.

According to the report, people might actually be at their most infectious before symptoms even start to appear.

"Risk communication messaging from government officials should incorporate the concept that this pandemic will not be over soon," they said, “and that people need to be prepared for possible periodic resurgences of disease over the next two years."

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There Is No Exit From COVID-19, Only Containment

Authored by M.K.Bhadrakumar via The Indian Punchline blog,

From this point, the buck stops with the Modi government, as the country trudges along the Covid highway. The political move to tap into the residual spirit of Indian federalism in our highly polarised polity helped so far, as the central government could inject into its decisions a look of national consensus. Whereas, the central government took all major decisions and most minor decisions.

However, the physical or material conditions vary from state to state while on the other hand, the time is approaching for the central government to make a thorny decision — when or how to restart the economy that was shut down almost overnight.

Clearly, an economy of India’s size won’t start back up simply because the government so decided. The refrain is that the restart will be gradual. But the devil lies in the details. Under what circumstances will businesses be allowed to reopen? It seems certain regions and businesses / industries may be put on a fast track. The MSME sector, which employs 12 crore workers need special attention.

However, defining a yardstick will be difficult because the economy is a complex web of supply chains and interlocking pieces with a dynamics of their own. In an interview with the BBC Radio last week, the owner of Mahindra & Mahindra said he just couldn’t see any possibility of his company becoming operational before May 2021, since, amongst other things, it doesn’t make sense to make cars without the numerous suppliers and sales outlets first reviving and, importantly, until consumer confidence revives.

Clearly, epidemiologists’ recommendations or the government’s decisions will not be the last word. If a manufacturer in Chennai depends on a part made in Ahmedabad, for example, where the virus is still spreading, a government fiat to start production becomes meaningless. Simply put, it is going to take much longer to thaw the economy than it took to freeze it.

Then, there is the co-relation between a phased reopening of the economy and public health benchmarks. The best that can be said about the lockdown is that it probably slowed down the spread of the virus. But we’re chasing a chimera here. The authenticity of the figures available is in serious doubt. No one is to blame because tracking the coronavirus is difficult in such abnormal conditions of lockout.

Today’s New York Times reported that the coronavirus death toll in the US is actually far higher than reported. The FT also came out with a stunning report today that Britain’s actual death toll could be plausibly in the region of 41000, as against hospital death data that show 17,337 people having died.

The plain truth is that there is no “exit strategy” possible out of the lockdown in the absence of a vaccine or a proven therapy.

“We will have to learn to live with the virus,” French Prime Minister Édouard Philippe put it starkly on April 28, while outlining his plan to start reopening the country at the National Assembly in Paris, until a vaccine or effective treatment is available.

This stark reality ought to leave with the Indian states a free hand to develop their own road maps and decide either to persist in lockdown or pull themselves out in different ways and at different speed. What cannot be overlooked is that all this is taking place under the threat of a second global wave or outbreak — a disaster scenario.

Epidemics come in waves. In the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918, the deadliest in history, the first wave was nothing in comparison with the virulent second wave, which left a horrific trail. No doubt, this is a Catch-22 situation — whether suppressing the virus further to stall a repeat outbreak or the lifting of restrictions quicker to limit the economic fallout should take precedence. The biggest risk is that you open too fast, too broadly.

The warning from Germany on lockdown easing conveys a sombre message. Only a week since the easing began in Germany with the reopening of shops (with all conceivable precautions put in place with characteristic Teutonic efficiency and thoroughness), it appears that Berlin may have to re-tighten its lockdown because the virus is spreading too fast.

The virus reproduction rate – measuring how many the average person with Covid-19 infects – increased to 1.0. (Any value above 1.0 is seen as leading to exponential increase in infections.) Chancellor Angela Merkel is on record that a rise to 1.2 ( of the so-called “RE number”) could mean hospitals reach a crisis point in July: “If we get to 1.2 people, so everyone is infecting 20 per cent more, out of five people one infects two and the rest one, then we will reach the limit of our healthcare system in July”.

Remember, this is one of the richest countries in the world — and a social democracy with a well developed healthcare system. It is a worrying sign. Surely, there are many variables swirling in the ether, and epidemiology is a complex business.

The bottom line is that with no vaccine or cure insight, the government will have to decide how many deaths would be acceptable to restore a shattered economy. If the “RE” number lifts after an easing of restrictions on 3rd May and we’re forced to back-pedal, the economic damage will be amplified, leave aside the potential to demoralise the public’s resolve.

Mass testing of asymptomatic people appears to be the defining measure of success globally in tackling the virus, but in India, we lack the infrastructure for it. Time and testing are key and the longer a quarantine can be extended the better, and the more testing made available, the easier it would be to properly calibrate a reopening and respond to any new outbreak. No doubt, waiting until comprehensive testing provides a better map of where the infection has spread.

Devi Sridhar, the chair of global public health at Edinburgh Medical School and director of the Global Health Governance program, recently tweeted on the three options open. Sridhar wrote:

“There are few short-term options.

1: Let the virus go and thousands die.

2: Lockdown and release cycles which will destroy economy and society.

3: Aggressive test, trace, isolate strategy supported with soft physical distancing.”

Having said that, the horrifying twin-reality still remains to be that an end to lockdown will by no means represent a return to normality, and, equally, a second, far more destructive wave is virtually an unavoidable possibility, notwithstanding the infection-reducing social distancing as a “new normal” in our daily life.

Under the circumstances, while dampening public expectations may not be the best option in politics, public morale is best sustained on the basis of transparent, realistic communication. This is a long haul. Make no mistake that in the absence of a safe and effective vaccine and/or a safe and effective drug to eliminate the COVID-19 infection once it has occurred, our narrative narrows down to a containment strategy attuned to Indian conditions, quintessentially - which, by no means, becomes an exit strategy. [/qiote]

https://www.zerohedge.com/health/there-no-exit-covid-19-only-containme
nt



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Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake

#WEARAMASK

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As of 8pm 5/21
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As of 8pm 5/19
cases 40,857
deaths 1,970

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cases 37,566
deaths 1,913

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cases 38,451
deaths 1,839

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cases 37974
deaths 1821

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As of 8pm 5/15
cases 37,303
deaths 1,793

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As of 8pm 5/14
cases 36,259
deaths 1,755

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As of 8pm 5/13
cases 35,329
deaths 1,709

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cases 34,428
deaths 1,659

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cases 33,180
deaths 1,613

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cases 32,258
deaths 1,569

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As of 8pm 5/9
cases 31,677
deaths 1,530

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As of 8pm 5/8
cases 31,197
deaths 1,512

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cases 30,296
deaths 1,468

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cases 29,427
deaths 1,418

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As of 8pm 5/5
cases 1,367
deaths 28,644

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cases 27,815
deaths 1,313

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cases 26,217
deaths 1,256

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As of 8pm 5/2
cases 25,662
deaths 1229

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As of 12pm* 5/1
cases 24894*
deaths 1209*

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https://www.foxnews.com/world/who-sweden-which-avoided-mass-coronaviru
s-lockdowns-should-be-model-for-the-world

Ryan, who serves as executive director of WHO's Emergencies Program, praised Sweden's health care system and credited it with making all the right moves from the beginning of the outbreak.

"They've been doing the testing, they've ramped up their capacity to do intensive care quite significantly," he added. "And their health system has always remained within its capacity to respond to the number of cases that they've been experiencing."

"Sweden has put in place a very strong public policy around social distancing, around caring and protecting for people in long term care facilities and many other things," he said.

“What it has done differently is it has very much relied on its relationship with its citizenry and the ability and willingness of citizens to implement physical distancing and to self-regulate."

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... Sweden isn't the US. More than half of Sweden's residences house just one person. A quarter of Sweden's workers work from home, a third of them do in Stockholm, and 90% do for the largest companies. It has no large metropolises. Its very largest city, Stockholm, has about 1M people, the same size as San Jose, California. 90% of Swedes say they're socially isolating due to SARS-COV-2.

With all that going for it, Sweden, with a population of 1M has over 2,100 deaths, and heading sharply up. Norway, with a similar setting to Sweden and a population of 0.5M has 200 deaths, or less than 1/5 of Sweden's on a per capita basis and slowly increasing. And Los Angeles County, with a vastly different culture and 10M inhabitants, has 800 deaths or quite a bit less than half of Sweden, on a per capita basis, on a similar slope with Norway.

Social isolation works.

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When I think of a poor third world country, India never comes to mind, and it's certainly not a country I'm ever bringing up.

I lost my last high paying job because the management wanted to take my salary and pay 10 people with much more higher education than I ever got to work in their Chennai branch. One of the guys who was from India and lived here a few years to learn as much as he could and go back to teach his people more about the business (His name was Harish, and I called him by his name, but everybody else called him Harry), told me all about life back home. If you were making $6,000 per year (back around 2007) you were living like a king. Money went a lot farther. You could buy a car for $5,000. We both smoked, and he told me a pack of cigarettes back home was $0.20, when around that time because of tax increases here we were starting to see $6.00 per pack.

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Originally posted by 1KIKI:

Also, I noticed you had nothing to say about the good treatment and vaccine news, despite the fact that it could lead more quickly to a more normal life for everyone, and you too, of course. I almost think you were disappointed that the maximum number of old and 'weak' people might not be cleared out of your way.

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JACK:
Meanwhile, in Sweden...

2,669 Coomph deaths in a population of 10,230,000.

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Originally posted by 1KIKI:

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JACK:
Meanwhile, in Sweden...

2,669 Coomph deaths in a population of 10,230,000.

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2,669 dead out of 22,082 infected. What do you calculate will be the deaths if a mere 10% of the population is infected?

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Meanwhile, you have yet to explain how anything to do with Sweden has anything to do with the US.

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"Remdesivir Is Probably Worthless" - A Trauma Surgeon Exposes "Drug Company's Shenanigans"
Sat, 05/02/2020 - 20:55

Markets got very excited (briefly) this week about a study finding a Gilead Sciences drug helped coronavirus patients heal a little more quickly.

But that was all the trial found: remdesivir isn’t the miracle cure that will get us all out of lockdowns tomorrow, unfortunately.

Worse, as Bloomberg's Faye Flam writes, the trial was rushed to get quick FDA approval, without getting helpful information on what kinds of patients it helps or hurts the most; and now that the study is over, we’ve forever lost a chance to help doctors treat virus patients better.

All of which raises a significant number of questions and Acute Care Surgeon (and Asst Professor of Surgery at Wash U.) Mark Hoofnagle warns "I am truly sorry to say, Remdesivir is probably worthless..."

In an excellent Twitter thread, Hoofnagle details what he calls "some fascinating drug company shenanigans."

First, the pre-test probability that an infused, small-molecule inhibitor of a virus would improve mortality in symptomatic patients was already pretty low. Unfortunately, antivirals work poorly in acute disease. This has to do with their mechanism of action, and host response.

Antivirals usually target some aspect of viral replication/assembly/transmission. Remdesivir is a clever pharmacologic prodrug that inhibits a key piece of RNA viruses that mammals don’t have - the RNA-dependent RNA polymerase, and inhibits viral replication.

Unfortunately, by the time you are symptomatic with a virus, you are usually already high/peak viral load. So, when you give an antiviral to someone who is already ill, the damage from the virus is largely done.

It’s there in big numbers and in the cells.

Consistent with this, the Lancet paper on the remdesivir trial in China shows no impact on viral load clinically.

Pick your metaphor. The cat is out of the bag. The damage is done. At this point the host response to virus is activated, and your body is suppressing replication through a variety of mechanisms (which also make you feel terrible).

So how could inhibiting RDRP after the fact help? The answer is, it probably doesnt. It certainly didn’t in this trial - no difference, not even a trend in mortality, but in subgroup analysis maybe shortened disease duration in early/mild disease.

Now, critics of stupid drugs that should never have been stockpiled by govts say, “sounds like Tamiflu!”

Yes. This is the same as Tamiflu, which also maybe shortens flu by a day, but otherwise is a largely useless antiviral (and actually harmful with bad side effect profile).

Fortunately, side effects of remdesivir did not seem severe in this trial with only about 3x as many patients stopping than placebo, some rashes, nothing life threatening.
Where do the Shenanigans come in?

Well, remember how maybe this Chinese trial showed a shortened course in a subset of patients? Like tamiflu? But didn’t change mortality?

Well a month ago the NIAID

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trial changed their endpoints to remove death and instead look at dz duration.

No really.

They changed the destination half way through the race to match the only positive outcome of another trial, that they (or Gilead at least) certainly had a copy of the paper once it was submitted to Lancet.

Shenanigans! Get a broom!

Since NIH remdesivir trial is in the news...

was there an explanation about why the primary outcome (now positive) was changed last month to 'time until clinical recovery?' @matthewherper https://t.co/fCTc1EGI1d pic.twitter.com/W1hAACnO1r
— Walid Gellad, MD MPH (@walidgellad) April 29, 2020

This is like declaring a race and then when you realize you’re not going to win, declaring the destination was actually wherever you are standing at the moment.

Then, even more fishy, *the same day* as this Lancet trial is released, Gilead and NIAID claim a “positive trial” and they’ve “shortened the course of the disease significantly”. Notably, the mortality benefit did not reach significance.

By the end of the day, reports that FDA is going to emergently approve remdesivir for treatment of COVID.

Gilead gets what they want. No one will want to be in a control arm in further trials and they will argue all future trials must be non-inferiority.

Before we have the answer whether this drug actually changes anyone’s destiny, it’s going to become the gold standard therapy. We will likely now never know if (the unlikely possibility) it changes mortality.

Absolute genius. You have to salute them. On the day a negative trial of their drug is reported, based on a press release they took over the news cycle, and with some midstream edits to their endpoints their now “positive” trial wins them FDA approval and a halted trial.

It’s an infusion, once symptomatic, you need an admission, a test, etc., really even symptoms are probably too late a goal for such a therapy to work. Prophylaxis (like Gilead’s Truvada/PreP) would be better - but unworkable in its current form.

Either way, a big win for Gilead, but I’m unimpressed with any if the evidence presented so far that this is a game changer.

* * *

How long before Hoofnagle is banned from Twitter?

Hoofnagle is not alone in his skepticism.

Naked Capitalism's Yves Smith exclaims, it is disturbing to watch the push to con the public into seeing remdesivir as the only promising treatment for coronavirus, and points to a new study that found and tested 47 old drugs that might treat the coronavirus: Results show promising leads and a whole new way to fight COVID-19

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SIX:You can't compare one 500 square mile patch to another adjacent 500 square mile patch in the US.

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JACK:
How do you know that 10% or more haven't already been infected?

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Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Meh...

My state is re-opening. The weather is nice. Work is getting done.

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Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
I already said I wasn't going to throw the first stone.

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Originally posted by 1KIKI:
JACK, you've been clear that nothing short of 100M dead in the US is no big deal. That puts you in a completely ignorable category on the topic of whether or not this is a 'nothingburger'.

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Finally, whether or not you stay healthy is immaterial to me at this point. I sure do hope you don't go making other people sick, including your brother, strangers in the store, random passersby ...

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:

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Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
I already said I wasn't going to throw the first stone.

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I have no idea what this refers to.

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SIX: I already said I wasn't going to throw the first stone.

SIGNY: I have no idea what this refers to.

SIX: This refers to the growing sentiment among people that we're facing a tyrannical government that is overstepping its boundaries (yanno, taking advantage of a situation, as you like to put it).

I've got both family and friends telling me that there is a revolution coming. Believe it or not, I'm the voice of reason here and I tell them that they're full of shit. We're a far cry from having nearly enough people with their backs against the wall, which is what it would take for a revolution to start. And none of them certainly are going to be a part of it when they have money in the bank and Netflix shows to binge watch.

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I tell them to get back to me in 6 to 9 months when the unemployment runs out and they shut everything down again for the winter and people are forced to stay at home with zero income, eventually leading to being put out on the streets with no food. Until then, there will be no revolution. And none of them are going to be the first ones to throw the stones.

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SIGNY: But you've made it abundantly clear that you wouldn't care if KIKI, or BRENDA, or I died from Covid-19,

SIX: I'd be sad for a day or two. But life goes on. It's not as if I haven't already dealt with a lot of deaths in my life already. It's a part of life. This situation that we're in now doesn't change that.

SIGNY: and there are prolly a lot of people here that you would prefer croaked.

SIX: Now you're just being bitchy. You know I'm not Wishy or Second or T. I don't go around wishing death on other people or goading them into killing themselves.

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SIGNY: That would all be a "nothingburger" to you, and just the cost of keeping this dystopian economy alive for a few more years. Do youknow what was on the gate of many Nazi concentration camps, SIX? Arbeit macht frie. ("Work makes you free")

SIX: So?

Work is good for you. Especially if your a man.

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SIX: Why do you suppose so many men who retire usually die a few years after they stop working?

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SIGNY: I wasn't kidding or exaggerating when I said you were being fascist.

SIX: Don't give a shit, because you're full of shit.

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SIGNY: But hey, everyone is entitled to their ideology. I hope the best for you, your family, and your state.

SIX: I'm sure you do.

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SIGNY: I hope the governor and his staff took the time to make some practical preparations in case the virus spins out of control in your state, and isn't just throwing bodies onto the bonfire. Good luck. We'll be watching your state to see how things turn out.

SIX: Don't just watch mine. By this time two weeks from now yours will be among the few hold-outs on the lock-downs. Haven't you been paying attention at all to the news?

Do Right, Be Right. :)

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SIX: I already said I wasn't going to throw the first stone.

SIGNY: I have no idea what this refers to.

SIX: This refers to the growing sentiment among people that we're facing a tyrannical government that is overstepping its boundaries (yanno, taking advantage of a situation, as you like to put it).

I've got both family and friends telling me that there is a revolution coming. Believe it or not, I'm the voice of reason here and I tell them that they're full of shit. We're a far cry from having nearly enough people with their backs against the wall, which is what it would take for a revolution to start. And none of them certainly are going to be a part of it when they have money in the bank and Netflix shows to binge watch.

SIGNY: True

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SIX: I tell them to get back to me in 6 to 9 months when the unemployment runs out and they shut everything down again for the winter and people are forced to stay at home with zero income, eventually leading to being put out on the streets with no food. Until then, there will be no revolution. And none of them are going to be the first ones to throw the stones.

SIGNY: The Romans had it figured out: bread and circuses. But you can't take away the bread. Nothing foments revolution like hungry people who expect better.

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SIGNY: But you've made it abundantly clear that you wouldn't care if KIKI, or BRENDA, or I died from Covid-19,

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SIX: I'd be sad for a day or two. But life goes on. It's not as if I haven't already dealt with a lot of deaths in my life already. It's a part of life. This situation that we're in now doesn't change that.

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SIGNY: and there are prolly a lot of people here that you would prefer croaked.

SIX: Now you're just being bitchy. You know I'm not Wishy or Second or T. I don't go around wishing death on other people or goading them into killing themselves.

Well then, same here.

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SIGNY: That would all be a "nothingburger" to you, and just the cost of keeping this dystopian economy alive for a few more years. Do youknow what was on the gate of many Nazi concentration camps, SIX? Arbeit macht frie. ("Work makes you free")

SIX: So?

Work is good for you. Especially if your a man.

SIGNY: Knowing that you can earn your way is good for everybody. But that means that society values what you do and is willing to pay you a decent wage to do it. "Do you want fries with that?" is not a job, it's wasting time.

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SIX: Why do you suppose so many men who retire usually die a few years after they stop working?

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SIGNY: They do?

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SIGNY: If work really makes you free, then concentration camp prisoners and slaves must REALLY have been free. Because, damn, they were working hard!

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SIGNY: I wasn't kidding or exaggerating when I said you were being fascist.

SIX: Don't give a shit, because you're full of shit.

SIGNY: No, you just obviously don't know history.

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SIGNY: But hey, everyone is entitled to their ideology. I hope the best for you, your family, and your state.

SIX: I'm sure you do.

Actually, I do. I bear you no ill will.

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SIGNY: I hope the governor and his staff took the time to make some practical preparations in case the virus spins out of control in your state, and isn't just throwing bodies onto the bonfire. Good luck. We'll be watching your state to see how things turn out.

SIX: Don't just watch mine. By this time two weeks from now yours will be among the few hold-outs on the lock-downs. Haven't you been paying attention at all to the news?

I know Newsom's criteria for opening up are completely unworkable, starting with his first premise of two weeks of declining deaths and cases.

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Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
There is nuance. And plenty of it. 1/3rd of the world population gone is only a step in the right direction from the much larger problem of overpopulation. Keep pretending that isn't the case if it makes you feel like a good person. Because when the famine wars break out when there truly isn't enough to go around, those people aren't going to look back too fondly upon any of us when we could have done something about it.

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Originally posted by captaincrunch:

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Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
There is nuance. And plenty of it. 1/3rd of the world population gone is only a step in the right direction from the much larger problem of overpopulation. Keep pretending that isn't the case if it makes you feel like a good person. Because when the famine wars break out when there truly isn't enough to go around, those people aren't going to look back too fondly upon any of us when we could have done something about it.

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This cracks me up. You don't give a sh*t about old people dying by the tens of thousands but you seemingly suddenly care about famine? Why? Trying to impress a girl?

lol

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Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
This refers to the growing sentiment among people that we're facing a tyrannical government that is overstepping its boundaries (yanno, taking advantage of a situation, as you like to put it).

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Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
I've got both family and friends telling me that there is a revolution coming. Believe it or not, I'm the voice of reason here and I tell them that they're full of shit. We're a far cry from having nearly enough people with their backs against the wall, which is what it would take for a revolution to start. And none of them certainly are going to be a part of it when they have money in the bank and Netflix shows to binge watch.

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Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
I tell them to get back to me in 6 to 9 months when the unemployment runs out and they shut everything down again for the winter and people are forced to stay at home with zero income, eventually leading to being put out on the streets with no food. Until then, there will be no revolution. And none of them are going to be the first ones to throw the stones.

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Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
I'd be sad for a day or two. But life goes on.

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Originally posted by captaincrunch:

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Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
This refers to the growing sentiment among people that we're facing a tyrannical government that is overstepping its boundaries (yanno, taking advantage of a situation, as you like to put it).

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You're talkikng about the current government no doubt.

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SIGNY: That [many deaths, death of those close to you] would all be a "nothingburger" to you, and just the cost of keeping this dystopian economy alive for a few more years. Do youknow what was on the gate of many Nazi concentration camps, SIX? Arbeit macht frie. ("Work makes you free")

SIX: So? Work is good for you. Especially if your a man.

SIGNY: Knowing that you can earn your way is good for everybody. But that means that society values what you do and is willing to pay you a decent wage to do it. "Do you want fries with that?" is not a job, it's wasting time.

SIX: My point was that you seem to be taking a quote out of Wishy's playbook here and using shit Nazis say to call me a Nazi. The only problem here is that the slogan your referencing happens not to be a bad one just because Nazis used it in a bad way.

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As for the wage and/or type of job? You don't get to talk about that. You and your husband are sitting pretty right now after lifetime of working good jobs. I've been laid off of more good jobs than you had. I've also worked 5 times as many shitty jobs than you ever worked.

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:

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SIGNY: That [many deaths, death of those close to you] would all be a "nothingburger" to you, and just the cost of keeping this dystopian economy alive for a few more years. Do youknow what was on the gate of many Nazi concentration camps, SIX? Arbeit macht frie. ("Work makes you free")

SIX: So? Work is good for you. Especially if your a man.

SIGNY: Knowing that you can earn your way is good for everybody. But that means that society values what you do and is willing to pay you a decent wage to do it. "Do you want fries with that?" is not a job, it's wasting time.

SIX: My point was that you seem to be taking a quote out of Wishy's playbook here and using shit Nazis say to call me a Nazi. The only problem here is that the slogan your referencing happens not to be a bad one just because Nazis used it in a bad way.

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You've made several statements that, when tied together, sure make you SOUND like a fascist.

The first is your overwhelming desire to get "the economy" going, come hell, high water, or 100 million dead.

You framed it as "concern" for the average person, but if you don't care whether or not they live or die, then your "concern" for them and their lives is fake. Or at least, it comes off sounding like WISHY: She's so concerned about people not being "free" that she's willing to kill everyone except 100 people.

Your statements make it sound as if you're more concerned about "the economy" ... businesses openings and closings, banks, corporations, GDP numbers, stock prices ... than you are about "the people" underneath who actually make it function.

Are you?

Are you more concerned about "the economy" than about "the people" who make it function?

Because I've asked you more than once to clarify your goal(s), and you didn't. So it STILL sounds as if you're more than willing to sacrifice an awful lot of real people for some abstract business benefit.

But let's assume that you're not a fascist. (not Nazi, fascist. There's a difference. A fascist thinks that everything ... people, government, the economy ... should be bent for the good of corporations.)


Let's assume [despite your statements to the contrary] that you really ARE, in someway, concerned about people in general and their lives and well-being. It's hard to measure "state of mind" except in anything other than death by suicide, drug overdose, alcoholism. It's hard to measure "well being" by any measure other than death by starvation or exposure, where basic biological needs are no longer being met.

If you were REALLY concerned about people and their lives and livelihood, you would look at deaths caused by Covid-19 and deaths caused by Covid-19 countermeasures, and if the deaths caused by Covid-19 countermeasures exceeded those caused by the virus itself, you would dial back the countermeasures.

That's the only way to look at this: risk v risk. There is a risk of doing something (lockdowns), there is a risk of doing nothing (virus). Using the same endpoint (death) when does one risk overtake the other?

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As for the wage and/or type of job? You don't get to talk about that. You and your husband are sitting pretty right now after lifetime of working good jobs. I've been laid off of more good jobs than you had. I've also worked 5 times as many shitty jobs than you ever worked.

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Now the resentment comes out!!

(a) You have no idea how many shitty jobs hubby and I worked! Babysitting, sweeping the hardware store floor, picking rhubarb, housecleaning, lawnmowing, mason's helper, telephone sales, pin setter at a bowling alley, punch press operator, dishwasher, stockroom help ...

(b) EVERY PERSON that I knew who was in dire straits made MANY critically bad decisions that landed them there.

Our housekeeper, who was so desperate for love she trusted her drug-addicted husband with her paycheck, which got them evicted and landed her and her two children living with us rent-free for a number of months. And then when she brought her druggie husband to our house - he had drug dealers looking for him because he owed them money - caused her to get fired. I could also point to the crappy used Mercedes she bought which was a status symbol until it failed catastrophically, the expensive gifts - like leather jackets- that she bought for her kids (even I didn't have a leather jacket!) etc. Plus, she was drinking on the job. Despite her many problem we kept her on for 10 years and paid her good money, and in all that time she COULD have climbed out of the hole that she was in ... excpet she kept climbing back into it.

Our previous handyman, who we also paid good money. He was a skilled worker, had worked a number of jobs at refineries etc. But apparently one year did not report his OT to the IRSby accident, wound up owing them all kinds of money, and worked for cash only, no benefits, after that because he was afraid of the tax man. He lost DECADES of decent work while he lived with his mom and her retirement, doing odd jobs, until she passed away and he found himself without a home, so he became an itinerant worker until he had a heart attack and had to come back to CA (and its generous benefits) to get heart and hip surgery, thanks to the CA taxpayer.

Our sometime gardener, formerly homeless and friend of our handyman. How he wound up homeless is a lomg story of bad decisions by itself, but he lucked into a sweet deal in Idaho working as a groundskeeper and handyman, where he was given new clothes, a place to stay, and cash money in his pocket. Except he quit that job bc he didn't like the wfe of the RV park owner (she wanted him to fill out a timesheet) and he wound up, back in LA, in taxpayer-paid housing. We sold him our old car for $1, which looked like a POS but ran beautifully, because it's impossible to get a job in LA without one, and he has not taken the written test YET to get his license renewed. I did point out that ralph's (Kroger) was hiring, but he hasn't gone there either.

And then, there is you.

We know your story, YOU know your story: failed to get a degree despite your obvious intelligence, made a number of bad decisions and ... you are where you are.

I could smack every one of those people upside the head for being stupid, including you.

So it's easy to resent people who have done better than you, but you are where you are in life partly because of one bad decision after another.

That's enuf for now.

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Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:

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Originally posted by captaincrunch:

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Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
There is nuance. And plenty of it. 1/3rd of the world population gone is only a step in the right direction from the much larger problem of overpopulation. Keep pretending that isn't the case if it makes you feel like a good person. Because when the famine wars break out when there truly isn't enough to go around, those people aren't going to look back too fondly upon any of us when we could have done something about it.

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This cracks me up. You don't give a sh*t about old people dying by the tens of thousands but you seemingly suddenly care about famine? Why? Trying to impress a girl?

lol

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What makes you think that I care? I'll be the first person to assure you that I don't.

I'm just pointing out hypocrisy and tunnel vision.

Tens of Millions of people dying from hunger now is much better for the world than tens of thousands of old people dying from The Coomph. Especially when the tens of millions that will die of hunger were mostly of the age to have children and the tens of thousands dying from a cough weren't.

But let's not pretend that this is about anybody giving a shit about other people here when they talk about the tens of thousands of old people who are going to die, when by trying to prevent it in the way we're doing will lead to tens of millions of hunger deaths half a world away.

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You realize you sound like second in that last part?

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