mtcan wrote:
You clearly don't think through your dumbass world views.
I’ve only been skimming the thread since it’s really blown up again the last few weeks, but between you, Yogi, Maddog, and a couple others, I’ve lost count of how many times anyone who disagrees with your viewpoint has been called a dumbass, moron, miserable etc.
There are plenty of much more intelligent and well educated people than you or I that feel the lockdowns have done and continue to do more damage than they are preventing, and that protecting the vulnerable while allowing others to continue working, socializing, and going to school is the correct strategy and overall more beneficial health wise to society.
https://gbdeclaration.org/
Adopting measures to protect the vulnerable should be the central aim of public health responses to COVID-19. By way of example, nursing homes should use staff with acquired immunity and perform frequent PCR testing of other staff and all visitors. Staff rotation should be minimized. Retired people living at home should have groceries and other essentials delivered to their home. When possible, they should meet family members outside rather than inside. A comprehensive and detailed list of measures, including approaches to multi-generational households, can be implemented, and is well within the scope and capability of public health professionals.
Those who are not vulnerable should immediately be allowed to resume life as normal. Simple hygiene measures, such as hand washing and staying home when sick should be practiced by everyone to reduce the herd immunity threshold. Schools and universities should be open for in-person teaching. Extracurricular activities, such as sports, should be resumed. Young low-risk adults should work normally, rather than from home. Restaurants and other businesses should open. Arts, music, sport and other cultural activities should resume. People who are more at risk may participate if they wish, while society as a whole enjoys the protection conferred upon the vulnerable by those who have built up herd immunity.
Whether or not you agree with them, and there are plenty of smart people on both sides, can we at least agree that some of these people probably aren’t dumbasses?
Dr. Martin Kulldorff, professor of medicine at Harvard University, a biostatistician, and epidemiologist with expertise in detecting and monitoring infectious disease outbreaks and vaccine safety evaluations.
Dr. Sunetra Gupta, professor at Oxford University, an epidemiologist with expertise in immunology, vaccine development, and mathematical modeling of infectious diseases.
Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, professor at Stanford University Medical School, a physician, epidemiologist, health economist, and public health policy expert focusing on infectious diseases and vulnerable populations.
Dr. Alexander Walker, principal at World Health Information Science Consultants, former Chair of Epidemiology, Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health, USA
Dr. Andrius Kavaliunas, epidemiologist and assistant professor at Karolinska Institute, Sweden
Dr. Angus Dalgleish, oncologist, infectious disease expert and professor, St. George’s Hospital Medical School, University of London, England
And several others that are most likely much more educated on the topic than most of us arguing back and forth on Real Gm
And just for some Canadian content, an example of a Canadian Doctor who changed his mind regarding the effect of lockdowns as we have learned more about COVID
https://edmontonjournal.com/opinion/columnists/david-staples-lockdowns-will-cause-10-times-more-harm-to-human-health-than-covid-19-itself-says-infectious-disease-expert
The harm caused by lockdowns is much worse than the disease of COVID-19. That’s the argument from numerous public health officials and economists around the world, including an Alberta expert in infectious disease and critical care, Dr. Ari Joffe of the Stollery Children’s Hospital and the University of Alberta.
“I’m truly worried the (lockdown) approach is going to devastate economies and the future for our children and our grandchildren,” says Joffe, who has practised at the Stollery for 25 years and has now written a review paper on the impacts of the lockdown.
The cost of lockdowns in Canada is at least 10 times higher than the benefit in terms of population health and well-being, he estimates, at least if you account for numerous variables such as economic recession, social isolation and impacts on life expectancy, education and the full gamut of health-care priorities.
If you look at the issue worldwide, lockdowns will cause at least five times and, more likely, as much as 50 times more harm than benefit.
In the early days of the pandemic, Joffe joined with 14 other leading Canadians with medical expertise in infectious disease and critical care to co-sign a National Post column pushing hard for public health measures, including stringent lockdowns of school, non-essential business and restaurants.
Canada and the rest of the world are now in the early phases of what will likely be the worst pandemic of acute respiratory infections in 100 years,” they wrote.
Canada was ramping up health-care capacity, but the physicians warned our hospitals could soon be overwhelmed, as had been seen in China, Italy and Spain: “It is time for the provinces and federal government to use their authority to mandate an Italy/Spain-type shutdown.”
Joffe says he supported lockdowns because at first it was feared that the highly-infectious disease would hit everyone hard, killing two or three of every 100 people infected.
Joffe worried he might well be exposed to the disease at work and bring it home to his family.
But the expected surge of child and young adult COVID-19 patients at the Stollery never came, he says, nor was there any major wave of ICU cases in Alberta
The risk to children from influenza each year is greater than the risk of COVID-19, he says. If an individual is less than 65 and has no co-morbidities their COVID risk is also low. The focus should be on protecting people over the age of 65, he says, while also respecting their right to live as they choose.
Hopefully for everyone’s sake Canada is able to get access to enough vaccine to make the argument moot at some point soon, but at best that’s not going to be for several months. Until then, there is no real way to know for sure which is the best way to handle this thing and acting like its black and white either way is ridiculous. Being on one side of that fence vs the other doesn’t make someone a moron.
With all that being said, the disclaimer being I think it’s ok to believe anyone at the far extreme either way is kind of a moron (anything from the “virus doesn’t exist, Bill Gates is using it to control us” to “going outside is a death wish, everyone should be locked in their home for the next 6 months”
