- Re: Don't worry -- you've got your wish now, as have all others keen to lock everyone up nm Archived Message
Posted by Sinister Burt
on December 21, 2020, 2:02 pm, in reply to "Re: Don't worry -- you've got your wish now, as have all others keen to lock everyone up nm"
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"So building extra hospitals isn't feasible? (At a fraction of the costs of a lockdown.) " Like boris' 50 extra hopsitals? we can't build them quickly enough can we? (I'd love more new hospitals (as needed), but we needed to have started them about 5 years ago to help now (same goes for the extra nurses/doctors we need to staff them). The 'nightingales' were just for show, a big red herring - we didn;t have enough staff in the actual non-temporary hospitals let alone to staff them - if we did have we could maybe have avoided sending covid into the care homes - or cancelling cancer appointments for that matter - it was the disease and subsequent filling hospitals that caused the cancer appointment problem, not the lockdown as far as i can tell. "What is "the science" you're hiding behind? Scientsist (like Fauci) telling people masks don't work, then when it becomes compulsory they miraculously do work; WHO saying lockdowns are not recommended, then suddenly they are. All regulations regarding masks (eg not wearing them for longer than short amounts of time for construction workers) all completely thrown out the window. Vaccines, which according to pre-Covid science, take years of trials to be safe, now can be fixed up in a matter of months. Tell me, is this "science"? Or do you pick and choose which of "science" you like? " It's just a phrase really ('here comes the science') but as with journalism and politicians, you make a judgement according to previous experience with people, institutions, interests, relevant authority etc - add in some cognitive biases and you're good to go - it's not a science (hah) - i'm just a probably wrong human like the rest of us here. I'm less inclined to blindly believe scientists who are employed directly by government/state (eg fauci, whitty etc), and as we've seen, they've tended to be behind the more independent scientists in calling for restrictions for obvious reasons (bread/butter etc) - eg on masks, there was already plenty of indication in the available research that precautionary mask use would likely be of benefit for covid spread long before it was embraced by our govenrment and their tame scientists - probably delayed by more sparkling 'insights' from 'behavioral' science's influence in SAGE (there are some scientists i'm not too sure about). As to the specific claim of extra deaths, upon googling, maybe i was remebering the 'testimony' by the dreaded Neil Ferguson, as reported here: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/10/uk-coronavirus-lockdown-20000-lives-boris-johnson-neil-ferguson Not a study as such (maybe what i was remembering was one I couldn't find), but it's sort of self evident: count the reduction that occured when lockdown started and apply that backwards a few weeks - with the exponential growth happening at that time that adds up to about 20,000 deaths. (i could ask what's the science you're hiding behind? and are any of them not connected in some way to dodgy rich people and fossil fuel companies? - but i won't  ) "Sure, and by the same token are you not skeptical of this government, the World Bank, and loads of other "austerity driven" governments who normally put economies first somehow caring about elderly and vulnerable people that they're willing to destroy those economies?" Of course i'm sceptical of all of those - i've just been critiquing why their previous austerity and neoliberalsism are a major reason we've done so badly in the pandemic - not just here, across the 'developed'(/neoliberal) world (and this government and their mps seem pretty sceptical about covid responses generally really - i'm sceptical of some of their 'superman-like' scepticism, knowing whose interests they serve). Whether these neoliberals are pushing for restrictions against the virus or trying their hardest not to (like seemingly usa/uk/sweden?), doesn't stop them all being the same economic ideology. Even being a neoliberal, it's not difficult to see that if loads of your people die and hospitals collapse under the strain, there's a high chance the economnic cost will be worse and less fixable than damage from some preventative lockdowns (they just close their eyes, do the state intervention they've previously pooh-poohed, then open their eyes and carry on pretending neoliberalism is totally funcitonal like they usually do) - plus i'm sure on both sides they're rubbing their hands at the huge excuse for more austerity/upwards redistribution down the line (not to mention vaccine-patent exploitation and the rest). To give the token back, why aren't you more sceptical of johnson's government (in as much as they've tried to drag their feet and at least initially, seemed to want to go full herd immunity)? and why not more scepticism of sweden's authorities (given recent numbers/statements), or trump's people? Or for that matter, why not more sceptical about the GBD, given the financial/political connections? (these are rhetorical questions/strawmen i guess - you didn;t stan for any of those specifically) "Even in the spring/summer, we had many empty Nightingale hospitals. The excess cancer deaths came about mostly because people were not getting their appointments, tests, etc. There wasn't staff for the nightingales - it was for show (cos china did it, we had to too). The care homes filled up because the hospitals did, same reason the cancer appointments were stopped. The only way to fix that would have been to have less people in the hospitals in the first place, by locking down earlier (albeit in some places the preparation turned out to not be needed which probably contributed to the problem (meaning deaths) - undoubtedly some of the public health response was responsible for some of the deaths (eg mass DNRs) - none of that can be blamed on the lockdown though - locking down earlier would still have stopped this being needed if it stopped the hospitals filling up (which is the contention) Yes, shielding the old and vulnerable does make far more sense. Yes, they are, on the whole, not so involved in the economy. It's a fact of life. Half the spring deaths occurred in care homes -- which were not being properly safeguarded. In fact, they moved sick elderly patients into them to make way for anticipated Covid patients. Of course, you're not arguing we do this, but my point is that the lockdown didn't keep the old and vulnerable safe. As for the 'let them be infected'. `Them' refers to the general (young) population, as far as I understood." Shielding the old/vulnerable is a good idea in simple terms, but is it viable in the situation we're in? The responses by 'the science' suggest not to me. I'll let you read the article that i was going to badly summarise from memory for details if you like (I've run out of free time): https://www.sciencemediacentre.org/expert-reaction-to-barrington-declaration-an-open-letter-arguing-against-lockdown-policies-and-for-focused-protection/ The lockdown didn;t keep the old safe because covid riddled people were sent there due to the hospitals being full - plus they mass signed DNRs on a load of people. It also didn;t keep people safe because it was too little too late. What say you about sweden now? (and you could answer my questions on the end of the last post if you want). I might not respond as long next time though as i'm going to be busy for the rest of the day. Nice arguing with you though 
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