The official COVID-19/Coronavirus Discussion Thread...aka I hope I don't get the Rona

[TheNightKing]

Except that many of the people that were actually following the science were called the idiots, and the ones calling them the idiots are the same folks defending officials that indirectly admit they don't think you're smart enough to make your own decisions.

To be fair, the people claiming to be following the science were only half right too.

 

[ChicagoFigure]

To be fair, the people claiming to be following the science were only half right too.

No, no....the officials weren't "half right". They blatantly and intentionally misled. They knew what was correct all along.

 

[TheNightKing]

No, no....the officials weren't "half right". They blatantly and intentionally misled. They knew what was correct all along.

I’m not trying to defend them because I was fairly neutral on vaccine mandates, but not everything was misleading.

At this point it is what it is though. I concede the point.

 

[ChicagoFigure]

I’m not trying to defend them because I was fairly neutral on vaccine mandates, but not everything was misleading.

At this point it is what it is though. I concede the point.

Lol @ "not everything was misleading"

Just the thing that led to stricter, longer lockdowns, business closures and job losses oh and "pandemic of the unvaccinated".

 

[TheNightKing]

Lol @ "not everything was misleading"

Just the thing that led to stricter, longer lockdowns, business closures and job losses oh and "pandemic of the unvaccinated".

Do you think they had incentive to be intentionally misleading? Like they would gain money or power by doing so?

 

[ChicagoFigure]

Do you think they had incentive to be intentionally misleading? Like they would gain money or power by doing so?

Idk bro do u think politicians lie for ulterior motives that never benefit the ppl they claim to care about?

 

[TheNightKing]

Idk bro do u think politicians lie for ulterior motives that never benefit the ppl they claim to care about?

I’m talking about the scientists that gave the recommendations.

But to your point, it typically benefits themselves in some way. So I’m wondering what you think the incentive was to mislead people into lockdowns and taking the vaccine and wearing masks.

 

[ChicagoFigure]

I’m talking about the scientists that gave the recommendations.

But to your point, it typically benefits them in some way. So I’m wondering what you think the incentive was to mislead people in this case.

Fauci was the head of NIH and led the COVID response. NIH just accepted a settlement this year from Pfizer/biontech for royalties close to $1 billion for COVID shots 2020-2023.

That's a good place to start.

 

[TheNightKing]

Fauci was the head of NIH and led the COVID response. NIH just accepted a settlement this year from Pfizer/biontech for royalties close to $1 billion for COVID shots 2020-2023.

That's a good place to start.

I was just curious. Was there ever any proof he was paid off?

And what about lockdowns? Seems like that would be counterintuitive to the money incentive for the corporate donors.

 

[ChicagoFigure]

I was just curious. Was there ever any proof he was paid off?

There's no proof Fauci specifically was paid but that's not the point. He's a government official and was acting on behalf of the government. The government receives that money. They are intertwined.

And what about lockdowns? Seems like that would be counterintuitive to the money incentive for the corporate donors.

The lockdowns benefited big companies way more than small businesses. Almost half of small businesses had to close temporarily. None of the big box retailers did. The PPP loans mostly went to big businesses and small businesses were left with crumbs. Remember how the Republicans fought oversight of disbursement of funds? Do u think its bc they wanted to protect small businesses?

 

[TheNightKing]

There's no proof Fauci specifically was paid but that's not the point. He's a government official and was acting on behalf of the government. The government receives that money. They are intertwined.

The lockdowns benefited big companies way more than small businesses. Almost half of small businesses had to close temporarily. None of the big box retailers did. The PPP loans mostly went to big businesses and small businesses were left with crumbs. Remember how the Republicans fought oversight of disbursement of funds? Do u think its bc they wanted to protect small businesses?

So politicians wanted the government to have more money for…?

And retailers’ motive was to majorly disrupt their businesses and lose money just to squash small businesses?

 

[ChicagoFigure]

So politicians wanted the government to have more money for…?

The NIH receives funding that compensates salaries and grants for research by institutions and various deals tied to Big pharma. The more money that comes their way, the larger the agency gets, the more money comes their way. Just bc the money isn't going directly into Fauci's pockets doesn't mean he doesn't directly benefit in other ways. His salary is almost $500k btw.

And retailers’ motive was to majorly disrupt their businesses and lose money just to squash small businesses?

The disruption was only a hiccup for big retailers in the short term. For example, big retailers threatened fines for suppliers to meet their demands which led to independent stores having empty shelves far longer. Some suppliers were bought outright leaving independents with no suppliers at all. Don't forget the excessive price hikes that were justified by supply chain crisis. Big retailers made record profits bc of lockdowns, small businesses struggled to stay afloat.

 

[LurkerSix]

Yall ever think that the lockdowns got strict because officials got fed up that people wouldnt do the basic shit they asked. We had overnight virus experts just appear and tell people it was ok, all cuz they wanted to eat at restaurants and not be home. A lot of this shit was because we had adults acting like spoiled kids.

Those be the same people that want people to bailed them out after they get themselves in some avoidable shit.

 

[ChicagoFigure]

Yall ever think that the lockdowns got strict because officials got fed up that people wouldnt do the basic shit they asked. We had overnight virus experts just appear and tell people it was ok, all cuz they wanted to eat at restaurants and not be home. A lot of this shit was because we had adults acting like spoiled kids.

Those be the same people that want people to bailed them out after they get themselves in some avoidable shit.

No

The lockdowns did more harm than good

 

[400Degreez]

No

The lockdowns did more harm than good

What are your numbers of people catching covid or not if we never had lockdowns?

 

[ChicagoFigure]

What are your numbers of people catching covid or not if we never had lockdowns?

U gotta compare to other countries. For instance Sweden mostly had recommendations no strict lockdown rules or mandates (including masks). Elementary schools and after school sports/activities stayed open without pause. They never restricted travel. Everything was voluntary.

Their stance was all that was accomplished by lockdowns was delaying the inevitable but with heavy economic and social costs added to the back end of the crisis. They predicted learning loss in kids and mental crisis in the general population.

With the pandemic over it turned out they suffered the least excess deaths of all Europe. While the world looked at them as the oddball conducting a 'dangerous experiment ' they thought they were the only normal mfs in Europe who was doing it right and everyone else was acting irrationally.

Think about it, if you're told to shelter in place, can't even go out in public to beaches/parks (where the virus is weakest) u stay inside, isolated, eat more, stress more, drink/smoke more. Lockdowns were making u stressed and unhealthy, thus MORE SUSCEPTIBLE to severe infection. It's common sense.

 

[ChicagoFigure]

U gotta compare to other countries. For instance Sweden mostly had recommendations no strict lockdown rules or mandates (including masks). Elementary schools and after school sports/activities stayed open without pause. They never restricted travel. Everything was voluntary.

Their stance was all that was accomplished by lockdowns was delaying the inevitable but with heavy economic and social costs added to the back end of the crisis.

With the pandemic over it turned out they suffered the least excess deaths of all Europe. While the world looked at them as the oddball conducting a 'dangerous experiment ' they thought they were the only normal mfs in Europe who was doing it right and everyone else was acting irrationally.

^^^ add to this as I've brought up in this thread a long time ago public health scientists and epidemiologists tried suggesting the same approach here in the states (Google great Barrington declaration) and got censored. Leaked emails between Fauci and Collins was saying they needed to be dealt with....but had no problems with businesses offering u donuts and fries for your shots.

 

[LurkerSix]

Kinda a bad comparison since Sweden is a lot smaller than America, & have better healthcare as a whole.

Sweden didnt enforce lockdowns and encourage people to work from home and stay inside especially if they were feeling sick. Because of that most of their covid death happened early in the pandemic. It mainly killed their elderly then eventually tapered off. They didnt make it through it unscathed.

Again, a lot of this was accomplished in Sweden, because their country isnt filled with & largely run by dick heads. I'm sure a bunch of their population voluntarily did a lot of the things our country was forced to mandate because people refused to listen. I mean the vaccination rate for Swedish kids went up in 2020, ours went down.

Here are some links and quotes you guys wont read

As COVID-19 data piles up, did Sweden’s anti-lockdown approach have it right all along?

thehub.ca

“One reason why Sweden got through the pandemic in a much better shape than many scholars, journalists, and politicians expected was that (these people) only thought in terms of strict government controls or business as usual. They failed to consider a third option: that people adapt voluntarily when they realize that lives are at stake,” writes Johan Norberg, the author of the Cato report.

In terms of cumulative COVID-19 deaths, Sweden ended up in the middle of the pack in Europe with 2,322 COVID-19 deaths per million people.
That compares favourably to the United States and the United Kingdom, both of which suffered more than 3,300 deaths per million people, and unfavourably to other Nordic countries, which were all below 2,000 deaths per million people.

While North American schoolchildren suffered significant learning loss after enduring virtual education during waves of infections, a recent study found that Swedish children are on track when it comes to literacy metrics and concluded that “open schools benefitted Swedish primary school students.”

And while research has shown that American kids fell behind on their regular vaccinations when the focus in health care shifted to COVID-19 in 2020, the vaccination rate for Swedish children was actually up in 2020.

Sweden’s early spike of infections resulted in a wave of critical press from around the world but, according to cumulative COVID-19 statistics, most countries that imposed harsh lockdowns seem to have only delayed those deaths.

Sweden’s excess death rate spiked in 2020, as the virus swept through nursing homes in the country. By 2022, the numbers had levelled out as the omicron variant of the virus blanketed the globe.

“The other countries managed to delay some deaths, but now, three years after, we end up at around the same place,” said Preben Aavitsland, a Norwegian epidemiologist.

Although some press reports suggested that Swedish decision-makers regretted the path the country took, it wasn’t actually the case.

“It’s not like that at all, we still think the strategy is good, but there are always improvements you can make, especially when you have the benefit of hindsight,” said Anders Tegnell, Sweden’s state epidemiologist, in response to these reports.

Tegnell said that, in retrospect, he would have done more to protect nursing homes and provide testing kits.

Norberg, the author of the Cato report, argued that Sweden’s unique division of power when it comes to governmental agencies may have been a key factor.

The directors-general of these agencies are independent of the government and have set terms, meaning they aren’t replaced when the government changes. It’s extremely rare for the government to replace the head of one of these agencies before the term ends.

It gives the agencies more power and, Norberg argues, it also gives the politicians an alibi if the advice is controversial.

Aavitsland, the Norwegian epidemiologist, argues that Sweden’s method became a cudgel against politicians and health experts who were under intense pressure during a global crisis.

 

[LurkerSix]

Was too much for this all to fit
This study compares mortality rates in a country with the strictest lockdown (Norway) to Sweden

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1876034123003714

Discussion​

Both COVID-19 related deaths and excess deaths yield biased estimates of the real number of COVID-19 deaths in Norway and Sweden. Mortality displacement, dry tinder effect and using COVID-19 related deaths all introduces bias. Here we try to adjust for these sources of bias. In 2022 (30 months after the pandemic started), the cumulative mortality of COVID-19 was about 35% higher in Sweden than in Norway; i.e., 3915 of 15102 COVID-19 deaths in Sweden could have been prevented, if there had been a lockdown as in Norway until population were vaccinated (or 2025 more deaths would have occurred in Norway). At the end of 2022 (33 months after the pandemic started) COVID-19 mortality was still 28% higher in Sweden.
This study is a natural experiment of the effect of a very strict lockdown in Norway to mitigate the spread of SARS-CoV-2 virus: border controls, each time an individual was diagnosed with COVID-19, there were local lockdowns and tracking of virus. In contrast, Sweden did not close borders, did not track virus when virus was detected, schools closing and working from home were not mandatory. Norway opened after about 15 months when most old and adult people were vaccinated. Note that we study the simultaneous effect of both a stricter lockdown and vaccination before the virus were widely disseminated in the population.

The Swedish strategy on mitigating the COVID-19 disease received international attention and criticism, notably because the reported COVID-19 mortality rates in Sweden in the beginning were much higher than in comparable countries such as Finland, Norway and Denmark. The similarity of Norway and Sweden with regard to COVID-19 risk factors, socioeconomics and demographics, life expectancy and comorbidity, governmental and administrative systems, health care service, education and other potential confounding variables [12], [13], [14], [15] indeed provide an interesting case study to explore how the more intense mitigation measures in Norway and the less intense measures in Sweden contributed to the countries’ mortality patterns.
The direct cost of the Norwegian pandemic AND lockdown (excluding all medical costs) is calculated to be about 250 billion Norwegian crowns (corresponding to 23 billion €), or about 4300 € per citizen [19]. It can be questioned if this was justified when it did not prevent more than 2025 COVID-19 deaths (11 million € per prevented death), and only delayed the pandemic by slightly more than a year.

By using time-varying excess mortality rates and comparing to COVID-19 death rates, one may adjust for mortality displacement. Our method to adjust for mortality displacement is intuitive. Here the peak of the excess mortality comes simultaneously with the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic. However, the absolute differences between the two curves depends on the level of the dry tinder effect, the level of the mortality displacement and the frequency of testing for the virus. The latter you can estimate and adjust for, while there is no method to calculate and adjust for the dry tinder effect and mortality displacement. We have argued that both effects should be completely incorporated in the calculations. However, when comparing estimates in Norway and Sweden, one must have in mind that the estimated RR would probably have been different if the pandemic had arrived at another time.
Furthermore, this analysis does not rely on statical modelling involving multiple assumptions. Calculations are transparent. Statistical modelling has so far focused on extrapolating the trends before 2020 [16], [17], [18]. We show that the change in expected mortality and excess mortality after 12–18 months with high mortality of COVID-19, primarily depends on what happened after 2020 (mortality displacement).
Mutations of virus during the follow-up may confound the analyses. It is generally assumed that new mutations were less fatal, but more contagious [22], [23]. Our MRR estimates relies on an intricate interaction between the number of individuals been infected and natural immunity to COVID-19 in the population. If for example the delta virus infected less people and were more fatal in 2020, infection with omicron in 2021 may affect more people, but the case fatality rate was lower, and this may yield a higher excess mortality as well as lower.

 

[ChicagoFigure]

Was too much for this all to fit
This study compares mortality rates in a country with the strictest lockdown (Norway) to Sweden

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1876034123003714

One locked down hard (Norway), the other left it to be voluntary (Sweden). This screen shot from your study states cumulative excess mortality during study period are the similar. This means there was pretty much no difference in outcomes as far as excess deaths.

So not only were the lockdowns more or less ineffective in the grand scheme, but Sweden also didn't have to face the economic and social drawbacks that come with enforcing them.

Also in one of the paragraphs above from where I screenshot, it stated one of the limits of the study was how Sweden counted COVID deaths. People who died WITH covid but not DUE to covid were counted as COVID deaths but those were the only #s they had to go by.