How to deal with a friend who thinks COVID 19 is a hoax

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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Belinda
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Re: How to deal with a friend who thinks COVID 19 is a hoax

Post by Belinda »

Immanuel Can wrote: Sat Oct 10, 2020 3:19 pm
commonsense wrote: Sat Oct 10, 2020 3:07 pm
Immanuel Can wrote: Sun Oct 04, 2020 11:29 pm That may be so. But this OP asks "how to," not "how will goofballs respond..."
Ask your friend to consider 34 cases of COVID-positive attendees at a WH superspreader event.
Like, say, a riot, or protest in Portland, Seattle, New York or Dallas?
Then explain to him that, fake media or not, there are images of the president’s shoulders heaving to inhale, and voice recordings of the president talking hoarsely while coughing and pausing to breath, and Twitter postings consistent with mental alterations due to steroid euphoria—all indications of a serious respiratory sickness.
Problem: you might be right, but we don't know if you are. As the old saying goes, "Correspondence is not causality." The president could have contracted something from his pet gerbil, for all we know. So that's not going to do the trick.

So we need better evidence.
You won't get covid or other infectious disease from pet gerbils but you should be careful to wash your hands after handling farm animals and especially those poor souls in factory farms.

I'd wash my hands after handling Mr Trump.
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Immanuel Can
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Re: How to deal with a friend who thinks COVID 19 is a hoax

Post by Immanuel Can »

Belinda wrote: Sat Oct 10, 2020 3:42 pm You won't get covid or other infectious disease from pet gerbils but you should be careful to wash your hands after handling farm animals and especially those poor souls in factory farms.
Let me reassure you...we have no information to the effect that D. Trump has a gerbil. Nor do I propose that we do. Rather, there are many possible causes, occasions and transmitters of COVID, and we cannot rationally deduce from the mere fact that D. Trump contracted COVID which one of the many he got it from.

That's the point. Correlation is not causality.
commonsense
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Re: How to deal with a friend who thinks COVID 19 is a hoax

Post by commonsense »

Immanuel Can wrote: Sat Oct 10, 2020 3:40 pm
commonsense wrote: Sat Oct 10, 2020 3:35 pm Protests are likened to WH events in what way?
You asked about "super spreader" events. Riots are certainly that.
So the evidence is strong that the president contracted Coronavirus from his gerbil and went on to infect 33 others.
No: the evidence is weak that the COVID the president got was contracted through any particular event we can identify. We actually don't know if he got it from one of his aides, or off a surface in Airforce 1, or from an accidental contact in the street. So we aren't going to convince anybody sensible by saying, "Well, the president got COVID after a WH event, so WH events cause COVID." That's going afoul of the correlation-causality fallacy.
That’s fine. I should amend my advice to my friend to say that he and millions of others can be infected with COVID from—well we have no idea who/what/where from. So you could get it from anywhere, completely unknown.
commonsense
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Re: How to deal with a friend who thinks COVID 19 is a hoax

Post by commonsense »

Actually I asked about any WH events and protests.
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Immanuel Can
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Re: How to deal with a friend who thinks COVID 19 is a hoax

Post by Immanuel Can »

commonsense wrote: Sat Oct 10, 2020 4:39 pm That’s fine. I should amend my advice to my friend to say that he and millions of others can be infected with COVID from—well we have no idea who/what/where from. So you could get it from anywhere, completely unknown.
We can venture to say that people, or plausibly some animals, need to be in close contact to pass it. But that's about all we can safely say. It can apparently adhere to surfaces for some time, can be sprayed in vapour, can be passed by physical touch...and we don't know how many other ways, but we think there are limits. That's the truth at present.

So no, not "completely unknown," but rather, "only approximately identified at present."
commonsense
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Re: How to deal with a friend who thinks COVID 19 is a hoax

Post by commonsense »

Rioters probably don’t meet the criteria for close contact because of their brief closeness with each other. Anyway, no sane person supports rioters. Although there’s been rioting, the overwhelming majority of people were not rioters. The same as the overwhelming majority of anti-mask protesters, even those who were armed with assault rifles, weren’t rioters.
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Immanuel Can
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Re: How to deal with a friend who thinks COVID 19 is a hoax

Post by Immanuel Can »

commonsense wrote: Sat Oct 10, 2020 4:51 pm Rioters probably don’t meet the criteria for close contact because of their brief closeness with each other.
Yeah, they do. "Brief" doesn't entail "none." There's no reason why a "brief" excursion to the WH, or a "brief" encounter with a mob shouldn't be equally capable of transmitting viruses; and the latter is much more plausibly a case of transmission, since the locale itself is not sanitary, and the contacts are unrestrained.
commonsense
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Re: How to deal with a friend who thinks COVID 19 is a hoax

Post by commonsense »

Immanuel Can wrote: Sat Oct 10, 2020 5:07 pm
commonsense wrote: Sat Oct 10, 2020 4:51 pm Rioters probably don’t meet the criteria for close contact because of their brief closeness with each other.
Yeah, they do. "Brief" doesn't entail "none." There's no reason why a "brief" excursion to the WH, or a "brief" encounter with a mob shouldn't be equally capable of transmitting viruses; and the latter is much more plausibly a case of transmission, since the locale itself is not sanitary, and the contacts are unrestrained.
I mostly agree. I was not sure what it is, but by “brief” I was referring to CDC having defined something like 5 minutes of being closer than 6 feet as being a close contact. I don’t think rioters would do that.

I don’t think Trump would fit that criteria even at a superspreader event. The audience, however, was in close contact throughout the speeches. Then, too, there was handshaking without hand sanitizing.

But you’re right—there’s no way to tell.
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Immanuel Can
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Re: How to deal with a friend who thinks COVID 19 is a hoax

Post by Immanuel Can »

commonsense wrote: Sat Oct 10, 2020 5:35 pm I mostly agree. I was not sure what it is, but by “brief” I was referring to CDC having defined something like 5 minutes of being closer than 6 feet as being a close contact. I don’t think rioters would do that.
Yeah, they would.

There's plenty of video showing them behaving in wildly unrestrained ways. They pick up the same things on the streets, they push and jostle each other, they yell in people's faces, chant, sing, and even tackle and hit others...all high-risk behaviours.

You can't expect much caution out of a mob.
commonsense
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Re: How to deal with a friend who thinks COVID 19 is a hoax

Post by commonsense »

Immanuel Can wrote: Sat Oct 10, 2020 5:41 pm
commonsense wrote: Sat Oct 10, 2020 5:35 pm I mostly agree. I was not sure what it is, but by “brief” I was referring to CDC having defined something like 5 minutes of being closer than 6 feet as being a close contact. I don’t think rioters would do that.
Yeah, they would.

There's plenty of video showing them behaving in wildly unrestrained ways. They pick up the same things on the streets, they push and jostle each other, they yell in people's faces, chant, sing, and even tackle and hit others...all high-risk behaviours.

You can't expect much caution out of a mob.
Not out of the White House.
Belinda
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Re: How to deal with a friend who thinks COVID 19 is a hoax

Post by Belinda »

Immanuel Can wrote: Sat Oct 10, 2020 4:22 pm
Belinda wrote: Sat Oct 10, 2020 3:42 pm You won't get covid or other infectious disease from pet gerbils but you should be careful to wash your hands after handling farm animals and especially those poor souls in factory farms.
Let me reassure you...we have no information to the effect that D. Trump has a gerbil. Nor do I propose that we do. Rather, there are many possible causes, occasions and transmitters of COVID, and we cannot rationally deduce from the mere fact that D. Trump contracted COVID which one of the many he got it from.

That's the point. Correlation is not causality.
If I were handling or close to Mr Trump he would not get covid off me as I isolate myself, and I get a monthly diagnostic throat and nose swab all of which have been clear. However Mr T obviously does not keep his distance from other people who do mingle rather a lot.We have not only correlation but also much knowledge about how virus including coronavirus invades and infects its hosts exponentially.
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Immanuel Can
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Re: How to deal with a friend who thinks COVID 19 is a hoax

Post by Immanuel Can »

Belinda wrote: Sat Oct 10, 2020 10:42 pm
Immanuel Can wrote: Sat Oct 10, 2020 4:22 pm That's the point. Correlation is not causality.
If I were handling or close to Mr Trump...
Not relevant, B.
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henry quirk
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Re: How to deal with a friend who thinks COVID 19 is a hoax

Post by henry quirk »

commonsense wrote: Sat Oct 10, 2020 3:07 pm
Immanuel Can wrote: Sun Oct 04, 2020 11:29 pm
henry quirk wrote: Sun Oct 04, 2020 11:10 pm

his evidence won't make a damn bit of difference
That may be so. But this OP asks "how to," not "how will goofballs respond..."
Ask your friend to consider 34 cases of COVID-positive attendees at a WH superspreader event.

Then explain to him that, fake media or not, there are images of the president’s shoulders heaving to inhale, and voice recordings of the president talking hoarsely while coughing and pausing to breath, and Twitter postings consistent with mental alterations due to steroid euphoria—all indications of a serious respiratory sickness.
ORANGE MAN was sick; ORANGE MAN is well

ORANGE MAN: 2020
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attofishpi
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Re: How to deal with a friend who thinks COVID 19 is a hoax

Post by attofishpi »

henry quirk wrote: Wed Oct 14, 2020 2:49 am
commonsense wrote: Sat Oct 10, 2020 3:07 pm
Immanuel Can wrote: Sun Oct 04, 2020 11:29 pm
That may be so. But this OP asks "how to," not "how will goofballs respond..."
Ask your friend to consider 34 cases of COVID-positive attendees at a WH superspreader event.

Then explain to him that, fake media or not, there are images of the president’s shoulders heaving to inhale, and voice recordings of the president talking hoarsely while coughing and pausing to breath, and Twitter postings consistent with mental alterations due to steroid euphoria—all indications of a serious respiratory sickness.
ORANGE MAN was sick; ORANGE MAN is well

ORANGE MAN: 2020
He could set a kid on fire on national TV and would still have all his supporter base...if he burned the bible, that would be a different story.
Belinda
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Re: How to deal with a friend who thinks COVID 19 is a hoax

Post by Belinda »

attofishpi wrote: Thu Oct 15, 2020 3:18 am
henry quirk wrote: Wed Oct 14, 2020 2:49 am
commonsense wrote: Sat Oct 10, 2020 3:07 pm

Ask your friend to consider 34 cases of COVID-positive attendees at a WH superspreader event.

Then explain to him that, fake media or not, there are images of the president’s shoulders heaving to inhale, and voice recordings of the president talking hoarsely while coughing and pausing to breath, and Twitter postings consistent with mental alterations due to steroid euphoria—all indications of a serious respiratory sickness.
ORANGE MAN was sick; ORANGE MAN is well

ORANGE MAN: 2020
He could set a kid on fire on national TV and would still have all his supporter base...if he burned the bible, that would be a different story.
His sexual and financial squalor has not harmed his standing with his devotees. I can't imagine what would remove him.
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