Meanwhile out here in the boonies, masks are still recommended but not compulsory, and (thatâs kinda new actually) when I went do the groceries yesterday evening, a good third of the storeâs patrons were wearing them. People here are suddenly freaking out because the entire region hit a record high of 5 new cases, and one guy died 2 days ago.
1 Like
Because Iâm a single dude who lives alone, and works a solo outdoor job, I can mostly not wear a mask. The trick is to avoid people like theyâve got the plague.
oh, wait.
4 Likes
Man, I was on a flight recently, and the amount of Covidiots was astounding. A guy literally removed his mask just to sneeze, not even into a tissue or his arm.
Out here in the boonies laughing at the city rats going apeshit on each other over paper / cloth masks against a virus with a +94% survival rate. Three old fat people died from Corona (yeah, right) in my state yesterday and it makes major headlines. The Flu, diabetes, and coronary disease have filed copyright claims. Drug gang violence and automobile accidents could not be reached for comment.
2 Likes
And rightly so. 6% death rate is no laughing matter.
4 Likes
We also donât have a vaccine or any natural immunity against it. Couple that with a near 2 week incubation period and you have a pretty god damn deadly virus.
3 Likes
Itâs mostly harmless in places like NMCCW and I live in, because the population is so sparse that the virus just canât get a foothold. But most people who live in big cities and overcrowded countries donât choose to be piled up one on top of the other, and the virus becomes a real risk for them.
If I lived in a big city and you came up to my face unmasked, because you decided that 1 chance out of 17 of dying is an acceptable risk to impose on me, Iâd kick the living shit ouf of you and then some.
Hereâs an amusing thing a Finnish friend said to me the other day, to lighten up the mood: the guy is a drinking buddy. We meet regularly at my local bar. One evening he was quite drunk, and started complaining about social distancing, telling me it was a disaster for the Finns. I asked him how so, and he replied: âWell, weâre supposed to keep 2 meters away from each other. Thatâs terrible: before the virus, we Finns maintained a 5 meter distance!â
2 Likes
I heard one similar from AvE on youtube(great channel by the way). Anybody that puts someone else at risk from their own negligence or downright stupidity certainly deserves a little percussive maintenance
The next week or two will probably see a steep rise in cases here. We had a bunch of anti-maskers protesting/demonstrating/parading for their chosen political candidate. 
We will be making a large supply run this week to try and increase the interval a little more. More groceries means less dumb-dumbs to potentially have contact with.
1 Like
Hasnât Melbourne been under lockdown for like 3 months?
1 Like
Thatâs also current best (worst) estimate for those who are 70+. The rates are much lower for those who are younger:
Infection fatality ratio:
0-19 years: 0.00003
20-49 years: 0.0002
50-69 years: 0.005
70+ years: 0.054
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/planning-scenarios.html
1 Like
Whatever the gravity, nobody whoâs sick or could be reasonably expected to be sick has any right to impose a risk on anyone else.
As far as Iâm concerned, that applies to COVID19, as well as the flu, the common cold or stomach flu. Iâve bashed quite a few teeth of people who had the gall to come up to me, shake my hand hello, then answer âNot so well, I have a coldâ after I asked how they were doing. How dare they! And that was waaay before the coronavirus was even a glint in the Chinese cavebatâs eye.
4 Likes
we started lockdown on February 31st, no leaving the house unless for 1-hour exercise, work (if you canât from home) or grocery shopping. all shops were still open.
things got better and we could go out to see others again, but masks, social distancing and working/school from home were still in order. you were still only meant to leave for the 4 main reasons.
a week later we had a spike due to people not taking enough precaution, this time everything besides grocery stores and pharmacies was closed (and gas stations, Liquor stores) we were not allowed to go further than 5km away from our house unless it was for work or an emergency/taking care of someone outside the 5km. we also had a 9pm-5 am curfew (besides the exception of the work/care) you needed documents to prove you are outside for work now.
come October, we had made our rolling weekly average less than 5 cases and the curfew was taken away, a 25km radius was now added and people could visit 1 house other than their home.
last week we have now been allowed to see regular shops open again, borders to rural victoria open up tonight and hopefully, boarders soon will follow.
Technically it has been 9 months of lockdown, but sometimes lighter than others. I have completed an entire certification since then and finished half a diploma⊠I set foot in the actual school like 2 dozen times.
2 Likes
I would suspect Corona is just the beginning. Several medieval diseases are making a comeback due to homelessness and poor sanitation in our major cities. Corona virus wonât touch the mortality numbers of the Black Death, but the next pandemic could.
2 Likes
I read somewhere that promiscuity, overpopulation, and widespread deforestation are going to bring out and spread unknown diseases that had so fair stayed hidden in the jungle and confined to animals for millenia, at the rate of one pandemic every 10 years, and that the coronavirus is just the first virus that actually managed to make it (if you discount the Spanish Flu 100 years ago, which was essentially the same thing).
We came close with SRAS, MERS, Ebola and a few other recent outbreaks, but COVID19 is the first one that went fully out of control in recent times, and itâs gonna happen again more and more often.
Those wonât be medieval diseases, but totally brand-new ones that humanity has never been exposed to, worryingly.
2 Likes
I think a lot of it comes down to authoritarian and anti authoritarian personal values
A flu vaccine is a measurable good thing,
If you Mandate it, I just went from 90% likely to get it to 50% at best
Some one call that selfish
Others would call making someone else do something to benefit them selfish
Drunk driving is bad, so letâs mandate the prohibition of alcohol, itâs a good thing, or are you saying you WANT people drinking and driving?
I think the is part of the core issue of a lot of political hot button issues
Abortion, guns, drugs, COVID-19 etc
In a bit of a nutshell
You can have Safe and protected slavery or dangerous and chaotic freedom
I donât think either is truely 100% correct but it creates a divide
3 Likes
Yep, people are weird.
2 Likes
He says to a group of people shoving experimental tech into their bodies for fun
4 Likes
This is far too easy, in my eyes.
Like I mentioned before, I know I would not be able to live as free in the US like I do here - as high as the freedom to own guns is held there, you might not even be free to fuck who you like, quite literally. Or free to roam the streets, looking just very different than the rest of the population. Or get a nice glowing silicone implant in your wrist. Or whatever.
So, okay, we are not free to have guns here, but we have a lot more freedom in several other topics - and, since those topics are more important for me personally than gun owning, I am more free here than I would be in the States.
It is just too easy to say that for safety, you have to take away freedom - there are cases where this applies, like guns, yes, but it is just not fitting for every case. And there are even cases where simple rules provide more freedom for everybody.
You could as well say, letâs ban driving. Both would be similarly stupid, because driving is okay (and safe âenoughâ) and drinking is okay, itâs just the combination of both that is a problem. Similar argument would be ârape is bad, so letâs ban sexâ. One thing doesnât lead to the other, in most cases⊠
3 Likes
Vaccination is a benefit to individuals when everybody else is vaccinated. It starts to stop being effective when even a single digit percentage of the population refuses it.
Thatâs what Americans fail to grasp: theyâre born and raised in such an utra-me-first society that they even reject stuff that is good for them as individuals if it doesnât come to them directly. Same for covid masks, education or health coverage: theyâre so short-sighted they donât realize theyâre shooting themselves in the foot on all those subjects.
7 Likes
The point is that theyâre preventable deaths. Preventable. Easy peasy, just everybody wear a mask and put some limits on the opening conditions of a few types of high risk businesses. Do that for a few months until weâve properly distributed a vaccine, then weâre good. Itâs not rocket surgery.
We canât go around killing the elderly with our criminal negligence just because weâre too lazy or donât think itâs a big deal. If someone is not willing to do that then they have decided to take an active role in propogating an irrefutably deadly virus. Itâs that simple.
Side note: fatality is not the whole picture. If weâre quoting the CDC, hereâs another one from them about the long term health effects for people who survive the virus:
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/long-term-effects.html
5 Likes