This new variant has been called "mild."
I hope this proves to be true, and is not used as an excuse for another lockdown.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-diseas...
I hope this proves to be true, and is not used as an excuse for another lockdown.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-diseas...
It's common sense that in order to stop the spread of highly contagious respiratory viruses, having folks stay away from one another for a bit works... if people follow the lockdown, which too many don't. If anything, politicians are hesitant to invoke a lockdown due to the vocal minority's tantrums over them.
People don't like them, the same way that people don't like wearing masks. But most understand the value of both. And it's not like the local government is gaining anything from slowing down the local economy and annoying its citizens--aside from trying to save lives and put less stress on the healthcare system and its already overtaxed workers.
Please don't shoot this messenger. I'm just providing context that tends to be missed elsewhere.
p.s. fwiw, there were these in the past week or so:
https://apnews.com/article/coronavirus-pandemic-science-heal...
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20211122-could-mrna-make-...
Both of those certain raise a reasonable eyebrow.
But speaking for myself, the fact that early on there were such a ridiculous number of deaths in retirement homes (primarily in NY, NJ, PA and CA) never smelled right to me. We had data - openly mentioned in the media - about Italy and the elderly and yet the same thing happened here? It's been all down hill since then.
We can’t convince an idiot minority to spend five minutes getting a shot. We’re supposed to trust them to confine themselves at home?
It's - by definition - is a pandemic of everybody. Anyone who suggests otherwise is suspect. Those ppl fuel the discontent. The fact that they're allowed to furthers the divide.
The phrase that comes to mind is: "Divided we fall." An absolute truth if there ever was one.
But you know who didn't take it seriously? The staff who worked there and brought COVID in, which ended up killing her.
There's no way of isolating them without isolating their staff, their families, everyone they interact with. With a virus as contagious as COVID, there doesn't appear to be a way to target portions of the population effectively.
It’s a lot simpler than that. Weilding political power is psychologically addictive, perhaps even more so than recreational drugs. Like drugs, the user will always want to come back for another hit, and thus politicians will use every excuse and rationalization to continue to use emergency powers.
The initial lockdowns penalized many small businesses (small shops, hairdressers) that could not operate and benefited large online retailers and chains like Walmart that were declared exempt, that got extra business.
The lockdowns also justified large-scale payout of benefits, that were funded by increasing the money supply. This benefited the owners of limited-supply assets (stocks, real estate, even the f*cking crypto) at the expense of people with cash savings and those with fixed/slowly changing income (most salaried employees).
Since most members of government are major real estate owners and stock investors, they absolutely had benefited from the lockdown-related economic measures more than an average salaried employee.
It is also notable that the effects of increasing the money supply are delayed. We are starting to see the inevitable rise of inflation over a year after the start of the pandemic. It will take a long time for it to taper down, and we are yet to see how it will affect the average quality of life (i.e. salary/expense ratio).
History will tell.
I’m not following the logic here. As opposed to lockdowns we should.. let everyone die so those who live could go outside a couple months earlier?
Though I'm impressed they're literally making the "lockdowns are being driven by Big Delivery Service" argument.
They have obvious ulterior motives. Political motives, or ass-covering. If they don't do a lockdown they will be utterly attacked by the opposition for 'not being proactive enough' no matter if there is only one more death.
I believe this is the principal motive, health being a distant second. Remember, governments act first to get votes, second to help population.
I guess someone like Putin doesn't have to be worried about being unelected, so they were able to go soft on the virus in Russia. But, I don't think that turned out well for them.
shocked? no.
disgusted? yes.
the ideal politician is one that works towards societies best interests, not one that maximizes time-in-office and career security.
That isn't to say that one can't have one without the other, only to emphasize the fact that no political office was ever won on the promise of a lengthy career and self-interest.
The alternative (an autocracy) doesn’t work out any better, so even though our system has flaws, it is still better than the alternative.
If you don't order a lockdown and it was needed then lots of people die, this is very bad.
If you do order a lockdown and it wasn't needed then you can say that you were just being safe. And it's hard to even tell when a lockdown wasn't needed because the very act of doing it changes the result and leads to less cases. The lockdown was successful!
It's always easy to say "We did it to save lives" and few people will hold you to account for it.
Government is made out of multitudes of personalities and conflicting interests. There are those that care, there are those that don't care, there are scientists, there are people who are knowledgeable of the proper action and there are those who are emotional and everything in between exists as well.
It is a hodge podge of motives. Classifying government action in a singular light as if it was one ulterior ass covering agenda is a lie people tell themselves when they need something to blame.
If you present that person with a cloud of information from a bunch of different conflicting sources it actually incentivises ass-covering even more.
You say "ulterior ass covering agenda" but an Agenda is entirely the opposite of what an ass-coverer has.
When you don't know what you should do, you pick safe option that nobody is going to blame you for.
Additionally my statement itself doesn't refute ass covering. All I am saying is that the government is too complex to classify it as a singular entity out to cover it's own ass.
Several things cause me to disagree with you. Some of the most best science is being done by people who are part of or have high influence in the government. There are definitely people up there who view the problem as a situation that needs to be resolved rather then an every man for himself type of deal you seem to characterize it as.
As I said, the government is a hodge podge of both. This has both benefits and downsides.
An example of a government that tries to act as a singular entity is China. In terms of stopping covid in its' tracks China done better than the hodge podge government that makes up US democracy. However, in terms of stopping covid from spreading out of Wuhan, Chinas' ass covering is what screwed up the world. There's good and bad to either methodology and It's too complicated to characterize.
On some level many of us simply don't give a shit about the fact that the virus can slaughter millions. We just don't think it will affect us and we don't want to be locked down. It's like a heroin addict. He knows the reality of his addiction but he needs to make up a reality to justify shoving one more injection into his veins, just one more.
On the other hand, if you are even slightly sceptical that the same authoritarians might be using lockdowns to make public protest illegal and overstep civil liberties you are a conspiracy-believing, alt-right moron.
I’d argue the reason governments obsess over marginally effective at best measures like masks is that they give society the opportunity to wag their fingers and exercise the usual moral authoritarianism at their neighbours instead of blaming the politicians for their various inadequacies throughout the pandemic (including in the UK’s case running the NHS into the ground with cuts a decade before in their usual miserly short-sightedness).
The problem is that some steps are more conspicuous than others and that doesn't always align with efficacy. An obvious example is wearing a mask vs. washing your hands. They're both effective measures, but one can be seen by anyone and the other happens in the privacy of your bathroom, so one gets politicized and over-emphasized even if they're both of similar importance.
It works the same way for politicians. If things are going poorly, they're expected to do something. But their incentive is to do things that are conspicuous, even if they have a high cost and therefore a low cost/benefit ratio.
Almost any kind of mandate falls into this category because the cost/benefit for doing that thing is going to depend on individual characteristics. "Stay at home" may be a better strategy for someone who lives with amiable people than someone who lives alone and suffers from depression, or who lives with an abuser, but blanket mandates don't distinguish them. And yet when cases spike, Something Must Be Done.
19% of britons are in favor of eternal curfews. It seems very likely that some percentage also desire lockdowns
https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2014/02/14/277058739...
Sometimes out of ignorance, sometimes out of "I'll pick one at random".
>There is currently no information to suggest that symptoms associated with Omicron are different from those from other variants. Initial reported infections were among university students—younger individuals who tend to have more mild disease—but understanding the level of severity of the Omicron variant will take days to several weeks.
To the point about lockdowns, nobody in govt in the UK is looking for an excuse for another. The exact opposite is true in fact.