The Covid scam

Grunt

Member
Yes I said it. SCAM.

Everyone panicked. The Government damn near killed this country by shutting it down. Now that the truth is starting to slowly leak out they are doubling down. The Government is worried that if the serfs learn the truth they will turn on the Government.

The majority of people who caught this virus showed no symptoms.
The death rate is greatly exaggerated. Because millions of people who caught the virus didn't show symptoms they aren't included in the death rate calculations. If 100 people feel sick and get tested, then 10 of those people die we have a 10% death rate. But if 10,000 people who caught the virus didn't feel sick and didn't get tested or died then we have a death rate of 0.1% That's right there with the seasonal flu.
 

WrongHanded

Well-known member
Hindsight is..... you know.

When it started, no one really knew what the R0 Factor was, or the mortality rate. So, yeah, we could have done nothing and it would have killed maybe less 1% of the population. Or maybe more, considering how few ventilators were available, and how many have needed them. Plus the lack of PPE for healthcare workers may have had many of them heading for this hills and abandoning their jobs at the sights of a tsunami of infected people flooding the hospitals.

On the other hand, the R0 and mortality rate could have been much higher (we didn't know). At which point it could well have decimated the population. So they played it on the safe side. And in that scenario, if they hadn't, everyone would be outraged.....or dead.

So I respect your right to have an opinion. I just don't think it's the right opinion to have. It's kind of like saying, "Well I guess all those security lights and cameras, the good locks on the doors, and the home defense plan my family had was a waste of time and money because we never got attacked." It's better to plan for the worst, than to be caught flat footed.

And as far as the word "scam" goes, you tell that to the people who've lost loved ones and see what they think.
 

climbnjump

Active member
The death rate is greatly exaggerated. Because millions of people who caught the virus didn't show symptoms they aren't included in the death rate calculations.

That isn't the only reason the death rate is exaggerated. The VAST majority of folks who died were already on death's door either to due to age or their "comorbidity conditions".

Minnesota publishes pretty good statistics on their situation. You can peruse the stats here:

As of June 11, there have been 1249 deaths attributed to COVID-19. Of that number, 780 were of age 80 or over or 63.2%. If you also include those aged 70-79, the number becomes 1023 or 81.9% of the total. The breakdown of how many of the folks in the 70+ group also had complicating factors isn't broken out, however.

Only 85 of the 1249 were under the age of 60, so that's 6.8% of the total deaths.

But there have been only 25 deaths in the under 50 age group so that's only 2% of the total deaths. But this same age group accounts for 18,871 of the 29,316 positive cases which comes to 64.4%.

So think about that... 64.4% of positive cases results in 2% of the deaths. And it is probably safe to assume that most of those in the 2% category had serious underlying issues.

Which would mean that almost all normally healthy people under age 50 have about as much risk of dying from COVID-19 as being killed in a car accident or any of the other normal risks that we all assume every single day that we are alive.

What this can tell us is that it is pretty dumb to be preventing people under 50 from being kept from returning to work, etc. And the risk is still small in the group between 50 and retirement age. Give them the option of returning or not. And of course, ANYONE in ANY age group with underlying complicating issues should still stay home. But the rest of us should be free to return to normal activities.

The incredible financial damage being done to the economy, society and individuals as a result of being locked down vastly outweighs the risks of opening back up.
 

Grunt

Member
That isn't the only reason the death rate is exaggerated. The VAST majority of folks who died were already on death's door either to due to age or their "comorbidity conditions".

Minnesota publishes pretty good statistics on their situation. You can peruse the stats here:

As of June 11, there have been 1249 deaths attributed to COVID-19. Of that number, 780 were of age 80 or over or 63.2%. If you also include those aged 70-79, the number becomes 1023 or 81.9% of the total. The breakdown of how many of the folks in the 70+ group also had complicating factors isn't broken out, however.

Only 85 of the 1249 were under the age of 60, so that's 6.8% of the total deaths.

But there have been only 25 deaths in the under 50 age group so that's only 2% of the total deaths. But this same age group accounts for 18,871 of the 29,316 positive cases which comes to 64.4%.

So think about that... 64.4% of positive cases results in 2% of the deaths. And it is probably safe to assume that most of those in the 2% category had serious underlying issues.

Which would mean that almost all normally healthy people under age 50 have about as much risk of dying from COVID-19 as being killed in a car accident or any of the other normal risks that we all assume every single day that we are alive.

What this can tell us is that it is pretty dumb to be preventing people under 50 from being kept from returning to work, etc. And the risk is still small in the group between 50 and retirement age. Give them the option of returning or not. And of course, ANYONE in ANY age group with underlying complicating issues should still stay home. But the rest of us should be free to return to normal activities.

The incredible financial damage being done to the economy, society and individuals as a result of being locked down vastly outweighs the risks of opening back up.

Exactly.

On another forum I'm on there was someone back in March that said by the end of April everyone would know someone who died of the KungFlu. He was a bit off. I don't personally know anyone who's caught it. Nor does my buddy and he knows a lot of people.

Thankfully I'm broken and retired and my checks roll in every month like clockwork. However the working man has been hurt badly. My son worked in high end restaurants. He hasn't worked since they shut down Washington State. Thankfully his wife has a decent Government job. I've still been sending them money every month. They have my grandson and namesake to take care of.

I know people here that are really struggling. My wife and I are donating at least $500 a month to the local food bank right now. That's real money, we get no tax deductions from it.

The Government Class is in full "cover our ass" mode right now. The smart ones know they screwed up. But they really don't care as their checks never stopped. The stupid ones, and that's most of them, are just doing the chicken little routine. But they're loving it. They have more power over people's lives right now than they ever dreamed of.
 

climbnjump

Active member
It's kind of like saying, "Well I guess all those security lights and cameras, the good locks on the doors, and the home defense plan my family had was a waste of time and money because we never got attacked." It's better to plan for the worst, than to be caught flat footed.

I will respectfully disagree with your analogy. No one forced you spend money on your security system and your home defense plan probably didn't cost you anything. Millions of people have been FORCED out of work and face severe financial hardship and ruination due to the poor decisions made by politicians at the beginning of this debacle.

It's better to plan for the worst, than to be caught flat footed.

PLANNING for the worst is certainly prudent. But IMPLEMENTING for the worst without weighing the COSTS of doing so is just plain stupid. I'm going to assume that your security system cost you a few thousand dollars. Would you have still installed it if it cost, say, $50,000 or $100,000 or more? Maybe, depending on how much you are planning to protect.

Now, if there is no COST to implementing for the worst right off the bat, well then go ahead. But in the case of the shutdowns, the costs have been huge and will reverberate for years beyond this one.

And as far as the word "scam" goes, you tell that to the people who've lost loved ones and see what they think.

It is always tragic to lose a loved one whether it is from this virus or any other cause. But what is still unknown is how many deaths that the shutdowns will be responsible for that aren't caused by the virus itself.

There have already been reports of increases in opioid OD deaths and suicides. In some areas of the country there have been increases in domestic abuse and child abuse - both having very long lasting effects. And with various cancers still being a leading cause of death, are we going to see a spike in cancer deaths because the closing down of medical facilities have delayed treatments or diagnoses? Each one of those deaths will also be tragic but there will be no press coverage or daily tally of them.

In the end, we're all dying - it's just the timelines that are different. If this whole debacle can bring home anything positive, perhaps it's just the simple reminder to be a positive influence on those you encounter on your journey.
 

WrongHanded

Well-known member
I will respectfully disagree with your analogy. No one forced you spend money on your security system and your home defense plan probably didn't cost you anything. Millions of people have been FORCED out of work and face severe financial hardship and ruination due to the poor decisions made by politicians at the beginning of this debacle.

PLANNING for the worst is certainly prudent. But IMPLEMENTING for the worst without weighing the COSTS of doing so is just plain stupid. I'm going to assume that your security system cost you a few thousand dollars. Would you have still installed it if it cost, say, $50,000 or $100,000 or more? Maybe, depending on how much you are planning to protect.

Now, if there is no COST to implementing for the worst right off the bat, well then go ahead. But in the case of the shutdowns, the costs have been huge and will reverberate for years beyond this one.

It is always tragic to lose a loved one whether it is from this virus or any other cause. But what is still unknown is how many deaths that the shutdowns will be responsible for that aren't caused by the virus itself.

There have already been reports of increases in opioid OD deaths and suicides. In some areas of the country there have been increases in domestic abuse and child abuse - both having very long lasting effects. And with various cancers still being a leading cause of death, are we going to see a spike in cancer deaths because the closing down of medical facilities have delayed treatments or diagnoses? Each one of those deaths will also be tragic but there will be no press coverage or daily tally of them.

In the end, we're all dying - it's just the timelines that are different. If this whole debacle can bring home anything positive, perhaps it's just the simple reminder to be a positive influence on those you encounter on your journey.

Let's see here. If you're concerned that people have been financially disadvantaged, bear in mind that one party wanted to bail out individuals and small business. The other wanted to bail out massive corporations. People and small business could have been taken care of better.

My home works on a finite budget. The Federal government has proven year after year that they don't. So they could do more, if they could agree to it. They spend more every year than they take in, and so far it doesn't seem to be a big problem. Fiat currencies are flexible that way. Not to mention that food was still being grown, processed, and distributed. The power was still on, water still running, communications still up. Toiletries and other essentials still being produced. So if the only problem was money, that could easily have been fixed. It all just goes in a big circle. We have an excess of necessities in this country, it's all just comes down to how it's distributed. There is no scarcity of essentials.

Opioid deaths are no concern of mine. I don't do drugs. If you want to tell me the shutdown has resulted in idle hands that have decided to abuse drugs, I'll just tell you that's an area where I firmly believe personal responsibility is key. You're not going to convince me that people overdosing on drugs is due to the shutdown. You might as well tell me poorly made shoelaces are responsible for drug abuse because they break too easily and push people over the edge. There's a shutdown, these people are in financial strife, so they go out to spend money on drugs? Who's really responsible here?

And as far as domestic abuse goes, whilst it's terrible, those situations can't be blamed on the shutdown. They can only be blamed on the abuser, because there simply is no excuse for it. So whilst I can see that the shutdown forced victims to spend more time with their abusers, perhaps there's a fundamental failing in the social care system where minors are concerned. And perhaps abused women need to be honest with themselves and get out. Because if they can't do it for themselves, who's going to do it for them?

As far as hospitals being shutdown, what do you think would have happened if there was no effort to "flatten the curve"? The hospitals wouldn't be overwhelmed? They'd be fully stocked, staffed, and ready for business?

If there's any positive to bring home, it's a simple lesson: When the CDC says stay away from each other as much as possible so you don't transmit a potentially deadly virus, we should ALL take that seriously.

And I'm pretty confident that if the R0 had turned out to be 12, and the death rate was 1 in 10, people would be outraged that the government hadn't done more. And at the time the shutdown began, no one could say those weren't the numbers. No one knew.
 
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Ed Ames

Member
R0 isn’t really relevant. Rt is the measure that matters.

Rt is the reproductive rate in a specific situation. So for example, if you take any communicable disease and introduce it into a population, without the population responding at all, it will have an Rt. Introduce that same disease in a different population and it can have a different Rt. Why? Maybe one population likes to hug and kiss as a casual greeting, or they are a very shouty people,and the other group is reserved loners who do their best to stay away from each other at the best of times.

Masks, lockdowns, et cetera are ways of affecting Rt. That’s the whole point. You have a lockdown and your Rt goes down. People wear masks and Rt goes down. If you can hold Rt below 1 long enough the disease eventually dies off.

We have an idea of what Rt can be without taking steps because that’s what we started with and we saw the growth. We have an idea of what the Rt is like when taking steps because we saw it curve down to basically an Rt of around 1, and now in places like Arizona, Texas, and Florida we’re seeing where the Rt goes when a large percentage of the population gives up on taking steps...back up above 1.

To say, “well, the steps we took worked, so it was a scam, and we should stop taking them” isn’t rational.

So what’s at stake?

At this point more Americans have died of Covid than died in WWI, and we haven’t stopped.

Estimates for infection fatality rate are likewise dependent on the infected population. In a country with an older or less healthy population, the ratecan be as high as 1%, while in other areas the rate appears to be closer to .3%.That means in a population the size of the US you would have a best case of over 900,000 dead, and 3,200,000 dead is a real possibility.

Some 60+% of the US population have underlying health conditions that increase the risks, so assuming we would be on the low end of that range isn’t realistic. So let’s split the difference and say that it’s likely that around 2,000,0000 people will die if we do nothing.

Two million people dying, perhaps a million a year over a two year period, would be catastrophic. It would cause all kinds of social issues...people resorting to drugs to cope with family members dying, domestic violence, income loss to families would drive crimes of desperation. Even if you think it’s mostly old people who don’t matter to you, it would be bad. Bad. Businesses closed forever, people losing their homes and means of support, economic hardship, customers afraid to go shopping, violence in the streets because scared people think stupid thoughts. I actually saw someone on a CCW forum honestly asking if they could shoot someone for coughing in their direction because Coronavirus is a lethal weapon so you’ll end up in a world where going out without a mask might get you shot.

All told, everyone agreeing to wear masks and stay home unless absolutely necessary seems like the cheap option. Unfortunately, people aren’t agreeing, so more people will be dying.
 

George P

Well-known member
Over on National Gun Forum and the non-blue S&W Forum, there are many threads, some getting heated, about this, masks, control, etc........some entertaining reading to say the least!
 

Magnum

Well-known member
I live near chicago, a covid hot spot. I know of 1 person who died of the 'rona, my machinists mom- she was 94 and May have died without covid. This has been a scam. I know several people who have had it, most didn't even know it. My brother in law is a local LEO and a diabetic , he's still scared to death that he's going to die of covid and has been working a desk job since this bull crap started. The fact that a mask is required to enter any business is horse poop and a joke really. The shop I work in doesn't require a mask but we're still not letting anyone wait- drop off and leave. Not that my boss or me are at risk but my boss' wife has had a couple kidney transplants and cancer caused by the medications required by the transplants so she is the concern. My wife is a nurse and is exposed to covid patients and has told me the only ones in serious condition are either very over weight or old, everyone else that's positive is there for another reason and being covid positive is just a coincidence.
I'm sick of the BS, if this weren't an election year with a candidate on the left that's a bumbling old fool that couldn't debate a potato we wouldn't be having all this stuff. Seems pretty clear to me.
Yeah, I feel bad for folks who lost loved ones to covid but I don't think anyone on planet earth has died of natural causes in a few months - it's a miracle !
 

Ed Ames

Member
I know several people who have had Covid. None are especially old. One is 34 years old, definitely not overweight. She was vacationing when the outbreak started, and was in Paris while Paris was having their first outbreak. By the time she got to her next stop, London, she was sick. That was in March. Her diagnosis didn’t get any extra fed dollars. Since she’s a dual US/UK citizen she was able to stay and get healthcare London.
In another case, a friend’s entire family (parents, aunts and uncles, siblings) would up sick because once the restaurants reopened they figured everything was fine and went out for a family dinner. None died, but that was weeks ago and none are back to 100% either.

And here’s the kicker: My friend stuck in London didn’t have a serious case, wasn’t hospitalized, but she says that, even three months later, she still has shortness of breath. And that’s not uncommon. Her mild case messed up her lungs in a way that still hasn’t recovered after months.

I understand that you want this to be political, to be made up. To be a scam. Those are familiar problems. That’s a lot less scary than the idea of a disease that nobody is immune to, that kills one out of every 200 people infected, and leaves long term harm in a good percentage of the other 199. A disease that can spread undetected because people become contagious before they show symptoms. A disease that about 50% of the US population has risk factors that make catching it worse.

Not everything in life is political. Some things are real. The sun shines, the galaxy spins, diseases spread and kill, all without any awareness of your political leanings. Seeing real problems as political machinations, especially when the machinations would involve a vast global conspiracy spanning countries that actively dislike each other and have no incentive to cooperate, is just not very sane. Why would the government of basically every country in the world make up something to help a few politicians in the US? If Biden, Pelosi, or whoever you are blaming have such a hold on the leadership of almost all of Europe, Asia, South America, Africa, and more than half the land area of North America, why would they bother holding political office at all? They could just run the world without all the bother of politics.

And I understand that, even if you aren’t really serious about it being a scam/conspiracy, you want to think it doesn’t affect you personally. 1 in 200 is shitty odds when the stakes are death, so you want to see your personal odds as 1 in 2000. That’s human. But how many of you really think it would be OK for your parents to be asked to play Russian Roulette every time they enter a store? If your parents are dead, think back to when they were alive. If that’s something you would be/have been OK with, I’m really sorry for the shitty upbringing you had but not every parent is like that.
 

.44 Associate

Active member
I don't think it's a scam, but I also don't buy into the scare tactics and breathless "but your parents will die!!!" business either. Sadly, everything is a political football these days, and it was essentially inevitable that we would be dividing up along political lines.
 

Ed Ames

Member
The “your parents will die” talk is a direct result of a bunch of people looking at the age/mortality curve, saying “I’m in my twenties, I’m at very low risk of coming to harm, this whole thing doesn’t apply to me, I’m going to throw a Corona party!” And, of course, they don’t come to any harm, but they help spread the disease and cause harm to others. It has happened. A lot of people have never learned to connect dots and figure out consequences of their actions, and so you have people desperately trying to point out what’s should be obvious.

As for everything being political... Reality isn’t political. Reality is just reality. Everything is political only if you are divorced from reality.
 

.44 Associate

Active member
"Reality", these days, is mostly defined by Donald Trump.

Trump goes on TV or Twitter and says something. In this case "Covid is no big deal". That's all it takes. The hard right start looking for evidence that Covid is no big deal and dismissing evidence that it is. The opposite is true of the hard left. And of course it is accompanied by the ever-present obnoxiousnous and tropes, like Republicans accusing Democrats of trying to destroy the economy to "get" Trump, and Democrats claiming to be the party of science and "reality".

Meanwhile, the rest of the country is trying to figure out the actual reality, and throwing up their hands in disgust.
 

Ed Ames

Member
If someone is using Trump as their reference point for reality, that’s a pretty solid indication that they have no connection with reality at all. Trump has never claimed to care about reality. He’s a New York City Democrat who cares about one thing: his personal ability to find and exploit for his own benefit opportunities given to him through social connections.

The problem with figuring out actual reality when dealing with something new, is that you don’t have facts. Nobody has facts, because facts take time to collect. So you’ve got to work from assumptions based on the few preliminary findings you have. The preliminary info that we had at the start of this was that things looked bad, with case fatality rates running 5-10% and things looking severe enough that China felt it necessary to go on full martial law type lockdown. The facts that we’ve gathered in the 7-8 months since it started say that it may be worse than it looked. Case fatality rates of 5-10% have translated into an infection fatality rate of somewhere around .5 to 1%, meaning one death for every 100-200 people who get infected. To contrast that with Influenza, the infection fatality rate of the flu is around 1 death per 1000 infected. So Covid is trending 5-10 times more deadly than influenza. Add in that influenza rarely causes long term heath complications and those seem common with COVID, and the reality - as best we can tell this early in the game - is ugly.
 

Ed Ames

Member
You can’t really debate facts. You can misrepresent them and hope your audience is too gullible to do their own research, but that only works if you have chosen fools for your audience.

Sadly, the US public education system was taken over almost instantly by people who saw (still see) an advantage in a society of fools. Few ever manage to break free of that handicap, but it can be done.
 

WrongHanded

Well-known member
I listen to Fauci. Not to the politicians. If everyone else did the same, there would be no room for "alternative facts". There would be no room for politics. I don't understand why anyone is listening to biased media outlets, or country singers, or anyone else who has a microphone. Listen to the Doc in charge.
 

Magnum

Well-known member
kills one out of every 200 people infected
This is part of the issue. Nobody has that info, absolutely nobody. Reason being that nobody knows how many asymptomatic cases there has been. What if half the people who had it not only had no symptoms but have not been test/will not get tested. We know how many have tested positive and how many they say have died as a result (kind of/ maybe or maybe not) but thats not taking into account the many people who won't be counted so I would conclude whatever number they tell us must be exaggerated as compared to the real number infected which drives the percentage of fatalities down even further.

I'm interested to see what the number of total global deaths are (from all causes ) for 2020 VS previous years, I'm thinking it will not show a drastic difference. They simply don't differentiate between a covid death and a death that happened to be covid positive but the virus played zero factor as a cause of death. That's real and undeniable.

Yes, the virus is real.
Yes, people have died from it.
No, if you get it you'll very likely not even know it and if you do feel ill you probably won't die.

It's election year hysteria the way I see it . the libturds have thrown everything they've got at trump and gotten nowhere and so they politicize this illness to try to harm through fear. The numbers just don't support the drastic measures taken to try to prevent transmission.

Like I mentioned before, my wife is a nurse and we live in Chicagoland. The only people she's seen die from covid were very old /already sick or very out of shape and generally unhealthy. If I saw a young healthy person I know die from it, it would have my attention but it just isn't happening around here.
 
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