Sick until proven healthy

For philosophical reflections on the COVID-19 pandemic. How can philosophy help us to understand it, to combat it and to survive it?

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Gary Childress
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Re: Gary (or, anyone)

Post by Gary Childress »

henry quirk wrote: Thu May 14, 2020 3:13 am
Gary Childress wrote: Thu May 14, 2020 3:03 am
As I've conceded, with hindsight, it's possible that the lockdown was unnecessary. That doesn't mean the CDC and WHO weren't acting on good faith with bad information.
You read, actually read, everything at the link I posted?

Do yourself a favor: read it all, top to bottom.

Don't skim, and as the mood strikes, access the embedded links (essentially, the citations for the piece).
Unfortunately, I don't have the time. What specifically would you like to highlight from the webpage?
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Re: Sick until proven healthy

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henry quirk wrote: Wed May 13, 2020 5:58 pm
Here's what we got...

20,946,445 dead, all over the world, since 1-1-20, from everything (minus beer virus).

291,519 dead, all over the world, since 1-1-20, from, we're told, beer virus.

Nearly 21 million deaths and we keep rockin' & rollin'.

Nearly 300,000, we shut down the juke, close up the bar, go home and go to bed, cuz, baby, the party is over (actually we shut the party down well before the 300,000 mark).

bamboozled: us
Henry, with all due respect, you are using math the wrong way. I don't blame you for it, I blame your stupid American educators who are too stupid to teach something non-stupid to their grade 3 students (That's the highest academic grade you achieved, isn't it?) I am sure you had at least 2000 bible quotes memorized by then, though, which beats your European counterparts of grade three students by a long shot.

The 21 million deaths you quoted are taken from the whole world's every possible cause of death.

The 300,000 is taken not of the whole world's but of a select few, namely, 3,000,000 total number of infected people or so, depending when you looked at the Covid 19 charts the last time.

The 300,000 would be from the whole world, IF and ONLY IF everyone in the whole world had Covid 19. According to the recent chart showings, then extrapolation should show that of 7,000,000,000 people, (300,000/3,000,000)*7,000,000,000 should die which is 300,000*3500, which is more than 1,000,000,000 people should die of Covid. I hope you agree that one billion people are more than 100 million people. (Assuming that it would take 20 months to get everyone infected in the world, which is very likely if there were no quaranteening and no isolation practices.)

If you say to this, which you will, "yeah, but those are the weaklings, and the strong will survive", then I have no argument against that. I am a humanitarian, and you are a... non-communistic anarchistic libertarian. You beleive in chaos ruled only by the force of personal weaponry one is able to amass.

However, our world views and world intentions for our fellow men are not the question here. I just wanted to show you pertinent to the question, where the convicning of your argument breaks down by my using no more than simple, grade 2 math.
Gloominary
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Re: lost causes

Post by Gloominary »

henry quirk wrote: Wed May 13, 2020 11:40 pm
Gloominary wrote: Wed May 13, 2020 9:48 pm
Arising_uk wrote: Wed May 13, 2020 9:59 am The response will vary by country and Brazil can afford to I guess as their over 60s are what 9% of the total whereas the states have 16 odd percent. I guess it boils down to how well ones health services could cope. Over here it was clear that allowing the virus to have free rein would have collapsed ours. Unless a vaccine is discovered there will in the long run be as many dying as there would have under a free rein response. The whole point was to slow the curve so our health service would cope. That and that no government would having to bury a few million bodies all at once.
The vast majority of hospitals around the world aren't overwhelmed, including in places like Sweden, South Korea and Japan, which didn't lockdown.

From Henry Quirk's link:
Countries without curfews and contact bans, such as Japan, South Korea or Sweden, have not experienced a more negative course of events than other countries. Sweden was even praised by the WHO and now benefits from higher immunity compared to lockdown countries.
The fear of a shortage of ventilators was unjustified. According to lung specialists, the invasive ventilation (intubation) of Covid19 patients, which is partly done out of fear of spreading the virus, is in fact often counterproductive and damaging to the lungs.
Many clinics in Europe and the US remained strongly underutilized or almost empty during the Covid19 peak and in some cases had to send staff home. Numerous operations and therapies were cancelled, including some organ transplants and cancer screenings.
Several media were caught trying to dramatize the situation in hospitals, sometimes even with manipulative images and videos. In general, the unprofessional reporting of many media maximized fear and panic in the population.
https://swprs.org/a-swiss-doctor-on-covid-19/

Also, consider this:
150,000 Brits will die an 'avoidable death' during coronavirus pandemic through depression, domestic violence and suicides.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... cides.html

And these:
Big Business Has All the Advantages in the Pandemic
Even now, some of them are hiring and expanding while small companies are getting crushed.
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/artic ... e-pandemic
A total of 81% of the global workforce of 3.3 billion people have had their workplace fully or partly closed.
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-52199888
New Zealand domestic violence services to get $200m as lockdown takes toll.
Nation has one of the highest rates of sexual and domestic violence in the developed world and rates have risen during coronavirus.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/ ... takes-toll
Pandemic lockdown increases child abuse risk.
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-05- ... abuse.html
It's not just civil liberties.
Many other charter rights have been violated in Covid19 pandemic.
https://nationalpost.com/news/its-not-j ... 9-pandemic
Denmark rushes through emergency coronavirus law.
Denmark's parliament on Thursday night unanimously passed an emergency coronavirus law which gives health authorities powers to force testing, treatment and quarantine with the backing of the police.
As well as enforcing quarantine measures, the law also allows the authorities to force people to be vaccinated, even though there is currently no vaccination for the virus.
https://www.thelocal.dk/20200313/denmar ... avirus-law
Gloom, my friend, I think you and me are talkin' to the willfully deaf & blind.
I know what you mean friend.
I post more for lurkers on the fence and us than I do for the other side.
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Re: Sick until proven healthy

Post by -1- »

Gloominary wrote: Wed May 13, 2020 5:15 pm I'm not telling us what we can and can't do.
I'm saying we (as in we the people, not just the technocrats) should weigh all the costs against the benefit (assuming there is one) of lockdown, before we lockdown and during lockdown if we decide to go through with it.
If the costs outweigh the benefit then it should be lifted ASAP.
What are the benefits and what are the costs?

One billion lives against a sluggish economy?

Then you reject the validity of just wars? Because WWII saved much fewer than one billion souls (there were only about ten million Jews left over when Hitler finished with his termination program of the Jews) yet it cost much more than than what the sluggish economy costs us.

That's A.

B. is that the lives saved are not the only benefit. There is a rejuvenation of Earth's nature.

There are more benefits. People learn to appreciate their freedom once the mandatory six-foot social distancing is lifted.

So... you must put a metric to this, if you want to weigh the costs against the benefits. You can measure dollar against dollar; lives against lives; pigs against pigs; chicken against chicken; or lbs of meat against lbs of meat (of any kind); or oxygen against oxygen; but you can't measure oxygen against dollars, lbs of meats against human lives, and stupidigy against housing projects.

Your entire argument breaks down when someone takes you to task, "Okay, so we must weigh the benefits against the costs. How do you propose we do that?"

So I ask you, Gloominary: how do you measure the cost of human lives and suffering against the benefit of no loss of production? Please answer.
Gloominary
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Re: Sick until proven healthy

Post by Gloominary »

All things being equal, I trust well organized militias more than a well organized government, for the militias are made up of we the people, as opposed to the elite.
The people share more interests with each other than they do with the elite.
When bureaucrats and megacorps are more terrified of the people than vice versa, we'll have decent government.
Last edited by Gloominary on Thu May 14, 2020 4:31 am, edited 1 time in total.
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henry quirk
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Re: lost causes

Post by henry quirk »

I know what you mean friend.
I post more for lurkers on the fence and us than I do for the other side.


Yep
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henry quirk
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Re: Sick until proven healthy

Post by henry quirk »

Gloominary wrote: Thu May 14, 2020 4:27 am All things being equal, I trust well organized militias more than a well organized government, for the militias are made up of we the people, as opposed to the elite.
When bureaucrats and megacorps are more terrified of the people than vice versa, we'll have decent government.
small & under heel
Ansiktsburk
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Re: Sick until proven healthy

Post by Ansiktsburk »

henry quirk wrote: Wed May 13, 2020 5:58 pm
Ansiktsburk wrote: Wed May 13, 2020 5:19 pm
Gloominary wrote: Tue May 12, 2020 4:04 pm
Hardly anyone has died with Covid in unlocked Sweden.
What like 0.03%?
It's a fucking a joke.
On top of that almost all of them were old with terminal illnesses who would've died anyway.
And on top of that, a lot of them weren't actually tested for the virus, they were believed to have Covid.

It is interesting tho how in Sweden it's the left that's taking a more laissez faire approach to this virus than the right.
We have dead by the thousands, our neighbours by the hundreds. And its not only people that are about to die, that dies. And even if you don’t die, the one who gets it full out will be very, very ill for a long time, and that includes younger persons. This shit is well worth avoiding. If there is to be a flock immunity, I dont wanna be a part of that flock.
Here's what we got...

20,946,445 dead, all over the world, since 1-1-20, from everything (minus beer virus).

291,519 dead, all over the world, since 1-1-20, from, we're told, beer virus.

Nearly 21 million deaths and we keep rockin' & rollin'.

Nearly 300,000, we shut down the juke, close up the bar, go home and go to bed, cuz, baby, the party is over (actually we shut the party down well before the 300,000 mark).

bamboozled: us
And every single murder is an even smaller part of the number of deaths. But we care about those.

When 3000 died in a skyscraper in NY people cared a great deal.
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henry quirk
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"When 3000 died in a skyscraper in NY people cared a great deal."

Post by henry quirk »

Terrible events stir us, especially when reported on 24/7.

A little over 700 people have been shot dead in Chicago since the beginning of this year. Aside from the families and friends of the dead, who else cares? No one. Why? Cuz them shootin' deaths aren't of particular interest to reporters and the organizations they work for.


every single murder is an even smaller part of the number of deaths. But we care about those.

Not really. We read the paper, cluck disapprovingly at the crime section, and go about our business. We don't insist our towns, cities, nations, lockdown. We don't.
Gary Childress
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Re: "When 3000 died in a skyscraper in NY people cared a great deal."

Post by Gary Childress »

henry quirk wrote: Thu May 14, 2020 2:00 pm Terrible events stir us, especially when reported on 24/7.

A little over 700 people have been shot dead in Chicago since the beginning of this year. Aside from the families and friends of the dead, who else cares? No one. Why? Cuz them shootin' deaths aren't of particular interest to reporters and the organizations they work for.


every single murder is an even smaller part of the number of deaths. But we care about those.

Not really. We read the paper, cluck disapprovingly at the crime section, and go about our business. We don't insist our towns, cities, nations, lockdown. We don't.
Perhaps we don't care because we don't think it can happen to us. But when something affects us, then we think differently.
Gloominary
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Re: Sick until proven healthy

Post by Gloominary »

Gary Childress wrote: Thu May 14, 2020 2:11 am
Gloominary wrote: Wed May 13, 2020 5:15 pm You're minimizing the seriousness of domestic violence.
Just like you're minimizing the seriousness of a disease which is almost sure death (and a pretty horrible one at that) for the sick and very elderly if they get it.
Not the way you did.
I said most people that died, died with Covid, not of it, which's true, they were 70+ with multiple severe diseases, I didn't say we can't reopen the economy because Mr. Burns won't make it to his 110th birthday?
It's all about cost-benefit as you say. Do we cater to the needs of controlling domestic violence (something that can also possibly be addressed with heightened police awareness and media campaigns during the crisis) or do we cater to the needs of those vulnerable to the disease? Our policy-makers chose the latter. It's also possible that domestic violence was left out of the equation and an unforeseen negative externality.
Sweden has a population of 10 million.
Roughly 90 thousand Swedes die every year (and bear in mind that figure tends to increase every year irrespective of whatever new viruses are introduced because Sweden's population is both aging and growing, like the rest of the 1st world's pop).
We're told 3000 people died with Covid.
Most of them would've died anyway.
Many of them were assumed to have Covid, they weren't actually tested for it, and there were financial incentives for diagnosing Covid.

So how many people actually died of Covid?
Let's be generous and say 1000.
And of those 1000, how many could've been saved had Sweden locked down?
While Sweden has more deaths with Covid than some of its neighbors, like Denmark and Norway, it has less deaths than others, like Belgium and the Netherlands, altho Denmark and Norway are more similar to Sweden than Belgium and the Netherlands.
Let's be generous and say 500 could've been saved.

So 500 lives, but how many old people die because they've been jailed in their rooms, unable to go out, unable to see their family and friends?
Depressed, frightened, lonely?
Are we able to save a single life without sacrificing another?

How many more will die in Denmark and Norway when their economies are partly or fully reopened than in Sweden for Sweden will've achieved herd immunity sooner?
150,000 Brits will die an 'avoidable death' during coronavirus pandemic through depression, domestic violence and suicides.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... cides.html

So perhaps Sweden could've saved about 500 lives without sacrificing as many or more old people in the process, but how many more people in general would've died an 'avoidable death' had Sweden locked down?
The UK's population is about seven times larger than Sweden, so if 150 thousand Brits will die an avoidable death due to lockdown, perhaps about 20 thousand would've died an avoidable death in Sweden had they locked down.
20 000, compared to 500.
These are measures you take to prevent the spread of the bubonic plague, not a flu that's not much (if at all) more deadly than seasonal flus.

Plunging the economy into a recession/depression + declaring lockdown/martial law is just about the worst thing a government can do to its people short of directly mass murdering them, I mean do I really have to explain to people why that is?
A recession/depression + lockdown/martial law aren't arbitrary, a massive increase in bankruptcies/unemployment, a massive reduction in quality of life/standard of living leads to a massive reduction in life expectancy and consolidation of wealth and power by a tiny few.
You don't plunge the economy into a recession/depression and declare lockdown/martial law in Sweden to save 500 (or rather give 500 people a tiny extension of their lives, since most of them only had a few months or years left) or 5000 people for that matter, even 50 thousand is debatable, now if it was 500 thousand or 5 million, sure, then I'd probably concede.
Presumably, the WHO and CDC did the math, probably based on what little info they had at the time from the Chinese and they made the decision that a lockdown was the better course. Should everyone have waited to see how devastating the disease was or wasn't before locking down? then it would conceivably be too late. We all know that hindsight is 20/20.

Was the lockdown necessary? I don't know. I don't know what would have happened in the US had states not locked down. It seems like common sense that the number of cases as well as deaths would have risen. By how much, who knows. You mention Sweden. Maybe Sweden proves that a lockdown was unnecessary or maybe there are factors that make Sweden a bad example for comparison.
There was never any cause for alarm.

Thousands of people, the vast majority of them old with multiple severe illnesses, were dying in places like New York, Northern Italy and Wuhan this year like they do every year, the only difference was this year some of them had Covid, and some of them had the common cold, some of them had seasonal flu, some of them had urinary tract infection, etcetera, it's not like all of them had Covid.

They should've known the infection death rate wasn't 3.4%.
Vulnerable people (70+ with multiple severe illnesses) represent a tiny % of the pop, perhaps 1%, so if 1000 show up at the doctors office with a new illness on top of their old ones, and some of them quickly recover, some of them have to be hospitalized and 3.4% die, odds are 99 thousand nonvulnerable people (young, middle age and old people in decent shape) have also been infected, but never showed up to the doctor's office, which means the infection death rate is actually 0.034%.

I mean what's so special about new viruses?
This wasn't the first new virus to come along in the last century.
Thousands or millions of wet markets exist in the 3rd world, where bats and critters we'd never consume are consumed by the millions or billions.
Viruses mutate and occasionally pass from one species to another.

Government and the media massively exaggerate the deadliness of viruses every few years, so why should we take them seriously this time?
If they exaggerated the deadliness of viruses by dozens of times before, they're probably exaggerating the deadliness of this virus by dozens of times now.

We haven't had a severe flu that killed 1 or 5% of the population since the Spanish flu, which was caused by H1N1, swine flu, a seasonal flu, which's relatively harmless now, and times were different back then, there was much more malnutrition, poor sanitation, poverty, a world war going on.
Gloominary
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Re: "When 3000 died in a skyscraper in NY people cared a great deal."

Post by Gloominary »

Gary Childress wrote: Thu May 14, 2020 3:56 pm
henry quirk wrote: Thu May 14, 2020 2:00 pm Terrible events stir us, especially when reported on 24/7.

A little over 700 people have been shot dead in Chicago since the beginning of this year. Aside from the families and friends of the dead, who else cares? No one. Why? Cuz them shootin' deaths aren't of particular interest to reporters and the organizations they work for.


every single murder is an even smaller part of the number of deaths. But we care about those.

Not really. We read the paper, cluck disapprovingly at the crime section, and go about our business. We don't insist our towns, cities, nations, lockdown. We don't.
Perhaps we don't care because we don't think it can happen to us. But when something affects us, then we think differently.
The same could be said of bankruptcy, unemployment, domestic violence and suicide.
Gloominary
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Re: Sick until proven healthy

Post by Gloominary »

henry quirk wrote: Thu May 14, 2020 4:30 am
Gloominary wrote: Thu May 14, 2020 4:27 am All things being equal, I trust well organized militias more than a well organized government, for the militias are made up of we the people, as opposed to the elite.
When bureaucrats and megacorps are more terrified of the people than vice versa, we'll have decent government.
small & under heel
I agree with libertarians about lots of things, but not everything, I don't subscribe to any single ideology.
Gary Childress
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Re: Sick until proven healthy

Post by Gary Childress »

Gloominary wrote: Thu May 14, 2020 5:17 pm
Gary Childress wrote: Thu May 14, 2020 2:11 am
Gloominary wrote: Wed May 13, 2020 5:15 pm You're minimizing the seriousness of domestic violence.
Just like you're minimizing the seriousness of a disease which is almost sure death (and a pretty horrible one at that) for the sick and very elderly if they get it.
Not the way you did.
I said most people that died, died with Covid, not of it, which's true, they were 70+ with multiple severe diseases, I didn't say we can't reopen the economy because Mr. Burns won't make it to his 110th birthday?
Not sure how I "minimized the seriousness" of domestic violence by my words but if they offend you, then I apologize.
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henry quirk
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Re: Sick until proven healthy

Post by henry quirk »

Gloominary wrote: Thu May 14, 2020 6:02 pm
henry quirk wrote: Thu May 14, 2020 4:30 am
Gloominary wrote: Thu May 14, 2020 4:27 am All things being equal, I trust well organized militias more than a well organized government, for the militias are made up of we the people, as opposed to the elite.
When bureaucrats and megacorps are more terrified of the people than vice versa, we'll have decent government.
small & under heel
I agree with libertarians about lots of things, but not everything, I don't subscribe to any single ideology.
me: I'm an awful natural rights libertarian (selfish anarchist by inclination; wrong-headed minarchist by way of reason).

I'm as close-minded and ideological as a body can be (which is to say: I have a perspective and I'm stickin' to it).
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