from above As best anyone can tell, the idea of locking down when faced with a new virus emerged in the US and the UK around 2005-2006. It started with a small group of fanatics who dissented from traditional public health. They posited that they could manage a virus by dictating people’s behavior: how closely they stood next to each other, where they travelled, what events they attended, where they sat and for how long. They pushed the idea of closures and restrictions, which they branded “nonpharmaceutical interventions” through “targeted layered containment.” What they proposed was medieval in practice but with a veneer of computer science and epidemiology.
“Believing in science,” it turns out, is much more about believing than it is about science. It is hardly surprising that it has become a new religion to people who threw away Christianity or Judaism before realizing they needed to believe in something. Invoking “science” with religious fervor as the reason certain precepts are beyond question is, I think, more dangerous to society than my own desire to wait and see how safe the vaccine is.
But I’m open to persuasion. Go ahead, change my mind.
I've already had my Weyland-Yutani vaccination. I'm both in a high risk group and in close contact with extreme risk age people I give a darn about. Nevermind the teens, they'll live. But a 4-15% preventable risk of death? Or 3-12%? That's well worth mitigating risk.
That's my considered judgment on aircraft design, too. If there's a 5% chance the wings fall off, I go back & fracking fix that.
71 people died in the Governor's State the other day from Pooh's Breath. Not one from flu. In a rational world, aka Science Fiction, not Cuomo's Empire, that's a great sign we've turned the corner despite the more than ten thousand slaughtered by Cuomo's whims last year ruining the data.
Makes you wonder if Governors get a cash bonus for number of fatalities? ( that would explain a Lot )
Turning the corner means not that the danger is over, it means fewer of my acquaintance will die of Covid-19 this year, and more from heart attacks, strokes, and cancer.
In fact, because of the reduction in preventive medicine, MORE of my acquaintance will die from cancer and organ failure than before the Chinese lied about this biowar agent a year & a half ago.
Since the CCP are lying Fu&%$, we may never know if it was corruption, selling lab animals to a Wet Market owned by Party Leaders, ( and the filth allowed by the Owners who run the police and health dept. ) Or a deliberate release by Xi regime to end the counter-revolution. ( which Worked, so that's my guess ) In either case it is obviously a (Fauci involved with funding) Bat Virus from the Biological Warfare Lab in Wuhan.
But... If you're 30? And haven't had a sniffle in a year & a half? Your judgment call on taking a new experimental vaccine is fine by me. I recommend it, but if you're in the 0.004% fatal & 0.010% seriously ill demographic, I understand you wanting to be cautious.
Unless you're in a position like me, where I may want to deliver fudge and attention to an Elder in need. Or if you're a health care worker. Or Teacher, Or delivery professional, Or...
One thing still true, no matter what politicians say, is there are high & low risk groups independent of age & obesity risk factors.
Teachers, Dealing with filthy little germ factories. Mail Carriers, ( and the millions moving the packages you never see ) who are the Prime Plague risk folk. Nurses/Doctors/Med Techs, in contact with sick people.
And Politicians, famously poor judges of risk factors, scientifically ignorant, in close contact with the public, and often unwanted intimate contact with staff. It's amazing so few are killed each year!
Next plague, we might want to use them as a control group.
One statistic that you don't see is the % who get a positive test and are not hospitalized. The news dwells on the unfortunate folks who are under 70 and die or have permanently damaged lungs, etc.
In other news, the numbers clearly show that the #1 Preventable Cause of death ( old age isn't yet preventable ) is allowing yourself to be ruled by Leftists.
Quitting smoking, and a sensible diet appear to be the #2 & 3 things you can do to prevent premature death.
While reading a novel, where there's a biological warfare attack on Chicago, it occurred to me that there are teams at Ft. Detrick & Langley who are following the Ongoing 2019 Wuhan biowar assault on the planet.
I often wish I could be a fly on the wall for the Presidential Briefings where the New Guy is filled in on things like Area 51,the Stargate, the Cthulu cult in Des Moines that holds the barrier between dimensions closed... Stuff like that. ( wonderfully parodied on the tv series Stargate SG1...)
I'm betting they don't tell the New Guy about some of the freaky stuff, until & unless they really need to, so they can get nuclear weapons release for a Zombie outbreak ( "meteor strike in Russia?" ) or prevent total freakout. ( " every 7 months, at midnight, ghosts roam the West Wing. It's just a hologram projector a mad scientist built into a window and it's booby trapped, so we just let it run and schedule a campaign trip for that night. Sorta a tradition now. No need to worry. " )
And since Bill & Barry trashed and politicized the "intelligence community" I also bet there are " no need to know" sub groups working without their boss's knowledge. That's been true since at least WW2. ( Manhattan Project and the FBI/OSS internal feud ... And the Brits since at least WW1 with Room 40 & Enigma )
I really doubt Just Joe got any briefing on the Wuhan biowar investigation. He's a Temp, and his Faction would interfere, so, I sure wouldn't tell him. But there are still patriots in our Services, despite the Ongoing corruption.
And while you're being careful, avoid this guy and other folk with medical degrees that haven't had a patient or done actual research their entire adult life.
True, the world needs some bureaucrats. They aren't the best source of medical advice.
There was little doubt that Pooh's Breath was engineered. The only question was if it was released accidentally, then exploited by the most murderous dictatorship the world has ever known, or deliberately released to both stop the counter-revolution and wreck the rest of the planet.
I'm still learning towards the second. Pooh's Breath is just too convenient.