• abraxas@lemmy.ml
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              1 year ago

              COVID-19 had the 5th worst death toll of any pandemic in human history, and is in the top 10 of global population lost. And that was with modern medicine and (with some Republican political exceptions) reasonably aggressive global response.

              COVID-19 was bad, worse than most people seem to remember. I’ve got a pandemic-trained MCE expert in my family. Everyone saw it coming when they saw the numbers, and it happened worse than expected. Hospitals overflowing capacity from just critical cases. Tent hospitals being built. They fucking activated the mass-grave contracts to store the bodies. For the first time in nearly a century. Bet you didn’t know that. OEMS doesn’t publish actions like that because they don’t want to cause further panic. It comes through a private email to paramedics (and, fwiw I thought this part silly, sent under a pseudonym that only people in the field would recognize)

              For the record (not that I think you actually care about facts, but I’m putting this up there for neutral observers), the deadliness of a pandemic is not primarily driven by its death rate. Only an ignorant person would look to that first. A virus with a 0.1% death rate could end humankind. Many viruses with high death rates have less of an impact. Potentially more important factors are the spread rate (influenced by the incubation rate and contagiousness window), and immunity rates (both inherent immunity and acquired immunity). That COVID-19 was a COVID family of illness (cold family, no known cures, treatments, or immunization paths) made it worse.

                • abraxas@lemmy.ml
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                  1 year ago

                  Just look at Florida’s and Texas’ response compared to New York and California

                  Texas had the 3rd highest mortality rate, and Florida the 18th. Expected death rates should be relative to population density. Florida is 13th and Texas is 13th. Both states are dramatically over-represented per capita in US COVID deaths. Your numbers defend my side.

                  NY has the 7th highest population density and is past the middle of the pack in terms of deaths. California has the 11th highest population density and was middle of the pack.

                  The highest death states (other than the one you tried to use for your argument) were Oklahoma and Alabama. Both fairly low in population density. Care to read off the other high-death-toll states? West Virginia, Mississippi, Wyoming, Tennessee, Nevada, Arizona…

                  In fact, I’ll take a step further. In swing states (like Florida), the death rate of Republicans was comfortably higher than of Democrats. It led to conspiracy theories that we were secretly creating and spreading the disease, not the fact that they had literal fucking parties to spread it on purpose.

                  If the masks and vaxxes make you city rats feel safe then more power to you, but there was KO reason that stuff needed to be part of a global response

                  The reason we needed it for a global response is that if you didn’t do it, it spread to everyone and killed them. Vaccination and prevention only works when universally embraced and/or mandated. Both parties were in full agreement about that until the moment Trump started telling people to drink lysol and bleach instead (and there was a huge uptick in that!). Did you drink lysol at his suggestion?

                • abraxas@lemmy.ml
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                  1 year ago

                  And how many more committed suicide during lock downs?

                  Suicide rates go down during national emergencies. COVID-19 was no exception. Certain categories increased, but overall suicide rates went down due to COVID, not up.

                  How many children’s learning was negatively affect by distance learning? How many developed eye-strain staring at screens all day?

                  You’re right. Eye strain is definitely more important than millions of deaths.

                  How many who were going to die anyways had to die alone cuz of social distancing? And

                  This was the proper response by hospitals using their expertise, not something Biden demanded. Now you’re literally complaining about the effect of a global pandemic, not a country’s response to it.

                  And you can look up for yourself the developmental issues masking had on children, who rely on facial recognition to learn how to function in the world and communicate with others.

                  Sure, and also the children of mothers who caught COVID. When schools reopened, COVID spread like wildfire and caused just as many educational and developmental delays as entire classes were stuck at home sick. Consistently, your replies are acting like everything this pandemic did can be laid at the feet of the government that tried to respond to it, as if “no response” would mean nobody would have gotten sick, that the medical establishments (that supported government response) would have done things more to your liking.

                  I want to make crystal clear, COVID terrified the experts worse than it terrified the government. Those of us with advanced warning had stocked pantries before the lockdown was even someone’s bright idea.

                  And all those who died of covid were likely going to die of covid no matter what because they had comorbities, were elderly, or were obese and no amount of masking, vaxxing, or distancing was going to stop it because none of those things have been shown to stop the spread of the virus anyways.

                  This is filled with lies. You realize “obese” starts at a few pounds overweight, and obese people don’t deserve to die either.

                  And you say masks weren’t effective? Studies showed community mask usage caused a 70% drop in spread.. And that’s just paper/cloth masks, the weakest mask you can get. If we had enough N95’s for everyone and people didn’t throw fucking “let’s spread COVID parties” (yes, they actually fucking did), then the death toll would have been far lower. No, YOU wearing a mask isn’t going to stop YOU from getting COVID. Everyone around you wearing a mask is going to stop you from getting COVID. If you don’t think that’s a good reason to wear a mask, you’re a selfish prick.

                  vaxxing, or distancing was going to stop it because none of those things have been shown to stop the spread of the virus anyways.

                  Natural immunity didn’t happen; by the 6 month mark most COVID patients have little protection against reinfection. Terrifyingly, people are just not keeping immunity to COVID. SOMETHING stopped the spread of the virus. And it wasn’t something natural. Had no action been taken, COVID would have as many cases and casualties now as it did in 2020. Vaccines pushed the immunity rate to the magic 97% mark, where “herd immunity” starts to overcome the spread rate. Of course, now that people aren’t getting boosters, the spread rate is going up. Luckily the new mutations don’t spread as well as the original.

                  Its clear you’ve spent the last 3 years with your head buried in the sand

                  Would you have the balls to tell that to specialists who specialize in pandemic response? Prove you’re not a troll, and admit that if the supermajority of actual experts disagree with you, maybe you’re the one in the wrong.

                • BelieveRevolt [he/him]@hexbear.net
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                  1 year ago

                  Do they have a right to live in a society that takes pandemics seriously so they don’t end up socially murdered?

                  And all those who died of covid were likely going to die of covid no matter what

                  Your answer to that question is no, apparently hitler-detector pigpoop

        • CaptFeather@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago

          negative side effects that masking, isolating, and the vax have been shown to have

          Such as?

            • CaptFeather@lemm.ee
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              1 year ago

              Lmao. My man I have, and I’m asking you to clarify because I have not seen any of these so-called negative effects from wearing masks and taking the vaccine. Such a cop out answer. It’s almost always a sign that you are talking out your ass if you aren’t willing to clearly state your point.

                • CaptFeather@lemm.ee
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                  1 year ago

                  Lmao. I have done tons of reading on the vaccine you ignorant slut. What I’ve concluded: this is by far the safest vaccine in human history, this is the most well documented vaccine in human history, and it’s the single most widely researched and developed vaccine in human history. Do you know what typically takes vaccines years to get through testing? Finding and test subjects, both of which the COVID vaccine had in abundance. It’s been 3 years - where are the supposed negative side effects from the vaccine? In all of human history, every vaccine every manufactured has had every single possible side effects emerge within 6 fucking weeks. Go look this shit up and stop projecting lmao

            • abraxas@lemmy.ml
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              1 year ago

              Funny how you don’t have a real rebuttal so you’ve resorted to childish drawings of pig shit

              “Funny how you don’t have a real rebuttal so you’ve resorted to childish drawings of pig shit”

              You realize, to the rest of us, the far-right “do the research” bullshit is actually worse and more childish than actual drawings of pig shit, right?

                • abraxas@lemmy.ml
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                  1 year ago

                  “Doing you’re(sic) own research” is a dogwhistle of far right anti-intellectualism. It’s saying “fuck facts, it’s all a big conspiracy”.

                  following narratives pushed by MSM like sheep and responding with pictures of feces when presented with an opposing point of view?

                  With all due respect, his reply to you was dramatically more effective than me sending you facts and being reasonable and polite.

                  Says more about you than it does about me

                  It sure does. That I’m stupid enough to think that I can convince flat-earthers that the world is round merely because I’ve made a point of becoming educated, reading studies, and applying my scientific background to separate the conspiracy theories from the chaff.

      • abraxas@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        The right to infect and kill my neighbors so we don’t have to get our cheeks a little sweaty from a mask. Obviously.

        • CaptFeather@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago

          Okay, how was there an attempt at taking away both of these things? Because I can’t think of any. Also if free press took a hit during the pandemic no one told Fox News because they’ve been spouting their vile lies the entire time lmal

            • CaptFeather@lemm.ee
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              1 year ago

              I think it’s a great example because they’re the single biggest source of conservative misinformation lmao. If the press was being silenced by some left-wing conspiracy don’t you think Fox would have been a major target for them??

              Ignoring the fact that Rogan is an ignorant dumbass who does absolutely no fact checking, did Malone back any of his claims up or were they all just from his mouth? Because Malone was not the “literal inventor” of mRNA vaccines. It was a huge collaborative effort that he played a part in along with hundreds of other researchers over decades. But you already know this cause you do your own research instead of just taking people’s word for it right?

                • CaptFeather@lemm.ee
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                  1 year ago

                  it was primarily leftist sheep who were the ones begging for government to shut down conservative voices or any voices that disagreed even the slightest with the narrative being pushed by left wing medias during the height of the pandemic.

                  Thats because conservatives were and still are actively spreading lies!! Fucking of course we want that shit to stop.

                  I don’t think anybody believes that Dr. Malone invented the mRNA vaccine by himself in his basement with a toy chem kit from amazon

                  Lmao He sure as fuck believes it (his Twitter profile even stated that he invented it when he was 28 lmao), and I think you did too until I called you out. Why else would you have called him the “literal inventor” of mRNA technology? All he did was help prove that it was possible, by the way. There’s been so much more R&D since then that it’s basically different technology now. What you’re saying is like if the inventor of the wheel claimed that they invented cars. Go look up what his past coworkers have to say about him! One of them stated his brilliance, but also added that he’s extremely stubborn and refuses to budge on things he perceives as correct even when shown differently. He’s a just a narcissist.

                • Honytawk@lemmy.zip
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                  1 year ago

                  Dude, if there was an US government conspiracy against media, then it wouldn’t happen in other countries.

                  But the same anti-scientific morons that cry about putting on masks could be found all over the world.

        • Honytawk@lemmy.zip
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          1 year ago

          I saw plenty of jackasses using their free speech to spread misinformation, like the vaccines not working and the mask not being necessary.

    • Honytawk@lemmy.zip
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      1 year ago

      You do know it was only a <2% death rate because of the pandemic response, right?

      It would have been even lower if jackasses like you didn’t think they knew more about a virus than the actual scientists who dedicated their lives to researching stuff like that.