the U.K just put in a harsh six month lockdown. there are 2 ways to stop it. the people join together and simply go about their business. Or, let the government kill all small business and non government dependent until communism is ushered in

curious how many people died from the flu and pneumonia in 2020? anybody know?

We see theese stupid things here too, one guy in charge of a highly involved department in dealing with this pandemic even excuses his behaviour as a necessary travel, it has upset a lot of people and it looks like his vacation will be longer than planned for.

It is six weeks, not six months.

The various states in Aust have different penalties - a week ago a couple flew into Melbourne from Sydney (which currently has an outbreak) and were told that they'd need to be tested and quarantined for 14 days. They fled and were later tracked down in a country town - each one was issued a $19,000 fine!

Here's a 6 month comparison of 2019 to 2020 in Australia

flu cases (resized).JPG

All air travel needs to be suspended and ground movement restricted. Toronto has had 20+ covid positive flights land since Dec 15. This virus spreads too easily and cannot be contained until people stop moving it around. Once regions can get stabilized businesses can reopen and we can protect our elderly population who account for more than 80% of the deaths.

Geez dude - Tell that to the 1,860,000 people that have died already or to the 18,420 that died in the past 7 days and 353,730 total deaths in the US. Tell that to the people JUST in this thread that have had family or people they know die.

Where's the compassion, empathy or humility in theses times??? Some are fortunate to have a job that will pay you to stay home but many do not. Not everyone has the means to overcome not having a paycheck or a way to provide food for there family. Instead of making cocky, arrogant and sarcastic posts like these count yourself and family lucky because it may get worse.

I believe they are doing this to prevent the swamping of their hospital system. Here is what is happening in LA: https://abc7news.com/los-angeles-hospitals-la-hospital-waiting-times-covid-19-coronavirus/9363901/

Don't wanna read the article, here is a summary:

Ambulances are being told not to transport trauma patients - victims of heart attacks, gunshot wounds, car crashes - to the hospital if they can't be resuscitated in the field.

Patients who aren't facing a life-threatening emergency are waiting 12-18 hours in waiting rooms just to be seen in the ER.

Ambulances are waiting for hours just to offload patients at hospitals.

Hospitals are running out of oxygen.

Hospitals are setting up cots in parking lots to take in patients.

Over winter break, I noticed on Facebook that so many people I know were travelling with their families. They were all over the place. Florida, Arizona, Colorado, you name it. Many of these families were also posting pictures of themselves in crowded settings. I swear, we are our own worst enemies. It's one thing arguing against lockdowns, but how do you possibly justify taking a vacation that exposes you to so many people during the most deadly wave of the pandemic?

Some people may not get this until Hospitals cant handle people anymore, and Body Bags pile up on the streets.
THEN they will complain for others to do something.

We have become even more of a ME ME ME society and the "it won't happen to me" attitude.

And we wonder why the rest of the world hates Americans?

Or was your post rhetorical.

Remember back in February when we saw the pictures of hospitals in Spain and Italy unable to cope with the sheer number of patients? People dying in corridors, bodies needing to be stored in refrigerated trucks because the morgues are full?

That's what the new stricter measures brought in in the UK are trying to stop.

The number of infected people is rising rapidly, significantly more people are infected than in the first wave in March when we didn't know much about the virus. There is no excuse now for not following the guidelines, in fact if the guidelines had been followed from the start, we wouldn't have to endure such strict measures now.

Another factor to take in to account why the hospitals are much fuller now is that we have learnt how to treat this better than in March.
Typically back in March there was a worse than 50/50 chance of you surviving if you actually had to be admitted in to hospital, meaning that beds were constantly being freed up as the corpses instead went to the morgue.
Patients have a better chance of recovery now, and consequently spend longer in hospital and require more ICU staff and resources, that is why the hospitals are more likely to get overran now.

Currently we have 146 patients (of those 14 are in ICU)in my hospital being treated for Covid, more than back in March when all elective cases ground to a halt for us to deal with this. We are still running Emergency, Trauma, Cancer, T&O, Urology, Gynae, ENT lists, but are unlikely to be able to continue this for more than a week or 2, before we only be able to run Emergency and Trauma lists, as staff will be needed elsewhere.

It's easy to blame the government (whichever country you are in) for not having stricter measures, or any other reason, but realistically every single person needs to take personal responsibility for their actions. Rather than trying to bend and push the rules in place, why not take the view of limiting your own social contact without being told to. No one, NO ONE, NEEDS to go to a restaurant, NO ONE NEEDS to go on holiday, NO ONE NEEDS to go to a bar, get a grip people - and wear a mask.

It's going to get way worse. I am sitting in the middle of the epicenter of this pandemic as we speak, with ambulances lined up sitting outside hospitals waiting for hours to unload patients. It's terrible. If it comes off like arrogant, I am just happy that I am making it through all this and trying to keep a positive attitude making it thru an entire year being productive instead of sitting home crying like I could do any year with all the other disasters that claim lives and bring hardship on people.

I've had some terrible years laid up where I couldn't do anything and lost everything I had worked for while you were probably out making money and having a ball. Where was the empathy then? I didn't need it or want it. But you just keep on judging me and downvoting every post I make and all will be normal. Same as it ever was.

Why even comment that only a small percentage get sick then? That is one of the reasons why we are in the predicament we are in. The "its no big deal" statements like this are dismissive and downplays the urgency of the Pandemic. Gloating while pointing fingers at people decimated by this is ponderous. Some people may not be as lucky as you. Its not just arrogant - its ignorant, small and petty.

No one knows your situation. Similarly you don't know everyone else's.

I've upvoted you many times before and downvoted you as well when you make bone-headed posts. There's nothing wrong with joking around and having fun but this topic is much different than any other in the forum. Posts that are downplaying or insensitive aren't taken well.

A BLAST from the past:

Remember when?

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/are-you-buying-flu-masks-or-concerned

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/will-coronavirus-stop-you-from-attending-tpf

This is false, it's a 6 week lockdown. My sister and her family live outside of London, the virus outbreak there is bad now, everyone is happily staying at home so they don't get sick anyway. The UK survived being bombed by the Nazis for 57 days, I think they can handle a little lockdown until the infection rate drops and more vaccines are distributed.

Thanks for fighting the good fight, Odin! I hear ya! Life gives you lemons... Some people will do the right thing, some will do what’s right for them, and some are just plain stupid and open up college campuses! I have empathy for the people genetically superior to me that will never get sick, eat butter everyday, drink 1L of whiskey everyday, and still live to 100! They will have to work until 95 to be able to retire with how much is being spent on this fiasco. Worse yet, they will think they can’t afford a kid while in their 20s or maybe never have kids which weakens entire race. Our race is destined to become large blobs with small brains and dexterous fingers.. Wall-E has us pegged.
Realistically, in our system, somebody has to be the bad guy. Actuaries will tell you, all people are actually not valued equally. My future contribution to the US economy is considerably lower then a 22 year old- how much should they spend, suffer to keep me around? Multiply that by 20m and maybe people will start understanding what GDP and national debt actually mean. We eventually reopen in 2022- even that is iffy- people will party for weeks. Then the money will run out and the taxes will rise. As New York found out, the rich have the means to leave. The 2020s are looking scarily like the 1920s.

Because it is true. Testing positive does not equate to getting sick. It has also been pointed out in certain states that hospitals get money when they reach a threshold of deaths caused by the virus and many deaths that were not were reported as so. But people are dying in large numbers from it and that is a fact.

If you want something to compare it to, how bout the 1918 pandemic. Where 50+ million were dead by the end of the second wave with a much smaller world population at the time. So far, this is nowhere near that in scale.

So let me ask you this. Do you spend your whole life mourning and pointing fingers every time there is a disaster or major catastrophe or even a car accident that takes a life? Or do you try to keep living as best you can? Or do you have some other agenda at this time? I just don't know why some people who know nothing about another's situation think they can tell them how they should feel, and get all bent or throw insults when they don't agree with them. One thing you will notice, I don't dissect every post I don't agree with and try to discredit it. I will agree it is a tough time for many, but I'm going to try to live my life as best I can and keep a positive attitude until it is my time to go.

Exactly.

His attitude keeps changing from flippant to concerned throughout this discussion. He was pretty concerned when he thought his ex was going to die from it in the spring. I skim past most of his posts in this thread now.

Prepublication study on long haul covid. Most still had not returned to normal even after 6 months:

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.12.24.20248802v2

Yes I was. And it took a lot out of me. I was also very concerned when covid hit the senior center where my 98 year old mother is and she came thru without a positive test. I was also very concerned when it hit there again last week, but they got a hold on it before it spread. I am still concerned that it may and probably will again. I am also concerned that my daughter is in England so far from home. The fact they all came through and are doing fine is part of what made last year great at least for me. Anybody that has come thru this or had a loved one recover should have a reason to celebrate. You see it on the news every day.

I'm ecstatic now, but that could change any minute with a phone call. I just can't sit around here down in the dumps waiting for it to happen.

In Finland, we are experiencing delays on vaccinations, and having fears that the mutated virus will begin spreading more aggressively.

At the same time, because of increased mask usage, gathering restrictions etc, we now have a decrease in new cases. Authorities see that as a good reason to relieve restrictions. I think this is comparable to fire fighters stopping their work after the fire is not spreading very violently.

I wanted to downvote this, not because of you, but because of the awful results. I'm entering my 2nd month post-covid and have two of three symptoms.

Now, if those bombs only killed 2%- how long would they have put up with even rationing? I made this point hundreds of pages ago.
UK and EU did harsh lockdowns and kept telling their citizens “it’s only another 6 weeks.” - for nine months! Not so little a lockdown.
I’ll probably be completely wrong, but I think we will see a sizable decrease when 30% of population even has one dose of vaccine. Wouldn’t it be more efficient to dose more then do a second dose for any?

Anyway, it’s all fun and games with conspiracists, until they get positions of power.. https://www.wisn.com/article/wife-of-accused-vaccine-saboteur-corroborates-conspiracy-theorist-claims-in-divorce-records/35123980
Yeah Wisconsin!! We are either winning Super Bowls or destroying one's hope in mankind. Scary thing is this guy is very educated. Are the powers that be correct or this guy? People say lockdowns are harmless, I’d say this guy locked down for far too long. The divorce probably isn’t helping either.

So proud of my state!

https://www.kansas.com/news/coronavirus/article248267560.html

My wife lost 3 family members due to COVID this last week! They were not close, but deaths all the same from this f%$#ing thing!

Well this is no good. Some evidence that the South African variant could make the vaccines less effective.

“The new variant has mutated a part of the spike protein that our antibodies bind to, to try to clear the virus itself, so this is concerning,”

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/01/05/south-africa-covid-variant-appears-to-obviate-antibody-drugs-dr-scott-gottlieb-says.html

TBD how bad this is for current 1.0 gen of vaccines out there. (If it drops the effectively from 90%+ to 60-70% I could live with that). I am optimistic that it wouldn’t be too hard to manufacture a gen 2.0...but getting it into the arms of the populace is the hitch.

No, because the virus could become resistant to the vaccine.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/covid-vaccine-two-shots-undermine-efforts/

Average age covid death in America. Over 80. Lets give 600$ of funny money to every person with a heartbeat including fetuses . That will make people ok with us taking their rights and jobs away

How many Georgians are going to get sick or die because they didn't trust the USPS to deliver a very important piece of mail?

Reported cases per 100,000 residents by county since last week.

georgia (resized).PNG

This morning hundreds of thousands gathered shoulder to shoulder with no masks, to show the country.

You clearly don't live in the UK, they haven't been under a harsh lockdown. I Zoom with my sister every couple weeks, while a lot of people have been working from home, the Pubs and restaurants have still been open all along and people weren't taking it very seriously.

Ignoring all the nuts things you just said, what of your rights have been taken away?

For your viewing pleasure. Lots of nice T & A. You can tell which ones are the biker...ahem..chicks, and which ones are paid models

Yeah, screw Covid as we see 367,472 people in this country have died to date.

Screen Shot 2021-01-06 at 8.23.11 AM (resized).png

In August we were averaging around 1100 new cases per day. But some said there was too much testing going on.

Screen Shot 2021-01-06 at 1.52.07 PM (resized).png

how many covid cases would we have in this country if hospitals were not paid for a positive but were fined?

Can I offer you some jelly beans?

You seem like one of those conspiracy guys. I find them fascinating. I worked with one once, she seemed so normal until she went on a rant about 5g and then the flood gates opened man she was nuts. I check out her facebook feed for the lols know and then, its like something in her brain is just not wired right.

What was your point for posting this without the explanation that it's a schematic for a guitar pedal, but morons think it's a vaccine chip?

Your phone, tablet, web/audio, searches, YouTube, Gmail, Facebook etc. are the ones tracking people not the vaccine or government. Google had 12-14 DNS servers tracking my IP through the net the last I checked. Facebook alters what your feed is by what you like, comment on and where you are located. They know the last several websites you were on prior to getting on Facebook. Its a "Micro-reality" or bubble of information and posts. People are opting to brows using a VPN to keep from being tracked.

I thought conspiracy theories were not allowed? I don't get why this is seen as ok. This is highly inflammatory and trolling both of which are against the general forum rules.

I’d guess paradoxically more cases. Covid spreads whether we test or not. If you fine hospitals for testing they are likely to stop doing it. But then infected people won’t know it, be less likely to isolate, and consequently spread it round more.