covid Why Did It Take So Long to Accept the Facts About Covid?

[Aethelwine]

1 hour ago, Arielle Popstar said:

Just sticking to the guidelines set out by the Health agencies and relevant scientific papers as political stuff just gets threads closed, so not going there.

That seems a bit like asking for a conversation about why the living room is so full and then telling people they can't talk about the elephant.

[LittleMe Jewell]

7 minutes ago, Aethelwine said:

That seems a bit like asking for a conversation about why the living room is so full and then telling people they can't talk about the elephant.

What elephant?
 

 

 

Edited May 10, 2021 by LittleMe Jewell

[Aethelwine]

 

[FairreLilette]

On 5/9/2021 at 10:50 AM, Phil Deakins said:

Australia and new Zealand were on top of it pretty much from the start. Some other countries were a little slow to get going, but the U.S. had managed to put a very immature person in the White House, and, for quite a long time, he promoted the false idea that covid is no big deal and it will go away soon, so, for way too long, people in the U.S. didn't take it as seriously as they should. That was my view from the other side of the pond.

I gotta disagree here, Phil... as each state is different here and California was the first to go into lockdown in March of 2020.  First of all, to Arielle, I heard about airborne transmission here in California in early 2020 and I already told you that in the other thread but as what seems usual with you and I, you just ignore what I say or get very forgetful.  So, I really see no need to go over it again.  As far as Trump, he wanted things open for Easter of 2020, that and some other things I don't want to list all at the moment but we still got real news here in California, mostly through our governor as well as all the full articles you could read down south there.   If you think everyone was listening to Trump...lol.  You all from other countries give him way more power to upset you than he does me.  I had ways to filter him out.  Trump is a polemic and he works like a shock jock.  My California Governor was in charge of California, btw, not Trump.  Oh, and California was first to go into lockdown in the Western World; New Zealand and Australia were after California.  

Edited May 11, 2021 by FairreLilette

[Paul Hexem]

15 hours ago, cunomar said:

Imagine "There was a murder in New York today so we are going to incarcerate everyone in New York until the facts are established and never mind that the consequences of that will be far greater than the cause"

Even once everyone accepted covid was deadly millions refused to temporarily give up some freedom for the greater good .

World leaders should have admitted they don't know and begged citizens for their help instead of pushing rules to rebel against . "if you won't do it for your country or yourself do it for your mother , your friends' grandmother , a neighbours unborn child , you have the power to save a life you can be a hero by doing nothing at all"

 

14 hours ago, Phil Deakins said:

@cunomar

The problem with that is that the degree of self-centredness in the world's human population ranges from zero to total. There are people who are not self-centered at all, and there are people who are totally self-centered. Most people are varying degrees in between those two extremes. Regardless of what the world leaders did, some people will suit themselves, according to their level of self-centredness. We have seen it all the way through the pandemic, and we are still seeing it.

World leaders can't make people do things. People will do what they (we) want to do. Many, perhaps most, accept and abide by the rules, knowing that it's for the good of all. Others do what they want to do, whatever the rules are.

I wasn't gonna say anything, but @cunomarmakes a fair point. I've been affected by laws that only ever punished the innocent people and did nothing to actually solve any problems. When you tell people "I'm going to take your [whatever], because someone else, somewhere else, used or might use their [whatever] incorrectly.", you gotta expect people will lash out at you.

I'd argue that the way the practices were forced had as much to do with non-compliance as people's self-centeredness.

[Drayke Newall]

9 hours ago, FairreLilette said:

Oh, and California was first to go into lockdown in the Western World; New Zealand and Australia were after California.  

Not true and also irrelevant. Italy had lockdown orders given to some municipalities (equivalent to states in a country) on the 21 Feb and national on the 9th March. France had lockdown orders on the 17th March (before California).

Whilst California did a stay at home order on the 17th March, Australia also didn't have the need to do as such any earlier as most cases at the time were from people returning from home and all of whom where placed in quarantine facilities in isolated Northern Territory and Christmas Island.

Australia entered a lockdown on 24th March to 15th May.

Additionally, whilst California had a stay at home order declared on the 17th, Australia had already closed borders to most countries that had been seeing infections prior to the 17th March like Italy, France etc. Conversely, California was still receiving thousands of people through their airports from infected countries and states.

On the 20th March Australia closed its borders to ALL countries in and out and still have that restriction in place with the majority of people happy for it to remain in place for the next year. On the 19th March - 24th March all states also closed all borders to every other state, isolating the virus from spreading not only from external sources but internal.

Due to this early action (barring Victoria) all states in Australia have had relative normalcy since around June last year if not earlier.

Edited May 11, 2021 by Drayke Newall

[FairreLilette]

2 hours ago, Drayke Newall said:

Not true and also irrelevant. Italy had lockdown orders given to some municipalities (equivalent to states in a country) on the 21 Feb and national on the 9th March. France had lockdown orders on the 17th March (before California).

Whilst California did a stay at home order on the 17th March, Australia also didn't have the need to do as such any earlier as most cases at the time were from people returning from home and all of whom where placed in quarantine facilities in isolated Northern Territory and Christmas Island.

Australia entered a lockdown on 24th March to 15th May.

Additionally, whilst California had a stay at home order declared on the 17th, Australia had already closed borders to most countries that had been seeing infections prior to the 17th March like Italy, France etc. Conversely, California was still receiving thousands of people through their airports from infected countries and states.

On the 20th March Australia closed its borders to ALL countries in and out and still have that restriction in place with the majority of people happy for it to remain in place for the next year. On the 19th March - 24th March all states also closed all borders to every other state, isolating the virus from spreading not only from external sources but internal.

Due to this early action (barring Victoria) all states in Australia have had relative normalcy since around June last year if not earlier.

I read two different websites that had different information. 

I believe the problem with California and it's re-opening was largely due to not shutting down domestic travel for the Thanksgiving holiday in November of 2020 which caused a huge spike in coronavirus cases that California locked down much stricter in November of 2020 again.  It was in so many ways unnecessary to allow the travel to continue.  People can conference on Skype or whatever.  

California was the first to lockdown in the United States then is probably what the website meant.  But what is relevant is it wasn't Trump and it wasn't Trump's call.  Each Governor and the local mayors were the ones in charge of each state.   California went into lockdown because of our California governor.  Our governor issued the lockdown, not Trump, and it was up to each state's governor to issue the lockdowns, not Trump.   

Edited May 11, 2021 by FairreLilette

[Ceka Cianci]

50 minutes ago, FairreLilette said:

I read two different websites that had different information. 

I believe the problem with California and it's re-opening was largely due to not shutting down domestic travel for the Thanksgiving holiday in November of 2020 which caused a huge spike in coronavirus cases that California locked down much stricter in November of 2020 again.  It was in so many ways unnecessary to allow the travel to continue.  People can conference on Skype or whatever.  

California was the first to lockdown in the United States then is probably what the website meant.  But what is relevant is it wasn't Trump and it wasn't Trump's call.  Each Governor and the local mayors were the ones in charge of each state.   California went into lockdown because of our California governor.  Our governor issued the lockdown, not Trump, and it was up to each state's governor to issue the lockdowns, not Trump.   

The President doesn't have that kind of power over the states..

Also, I thought it was more a travel thing when Thanksgiving came around, where if you left the state of California, you had to be in quarantine for so many days to come back in..

Something like that

[FairreLilette]

6 minutes ago, Ceka Cianci said:

The President doesn't have that kind of power over the states..

Also, I thought it was more a travel thing when Thanksgiving came around, where if you left the state of California, you had to be in quarantine for so many days to come back in..

Something like that

Yes, but it wasn't watched or regulated.  We had safer-at-home orders at that time (different from stay-at-home orders) which more or less left it volunteer for Thanksgiving.  But, many people said ef-it to safer-at-home and got together with family and did not quarantine after Thanksgiving.  Some may but many I know did not.  Much of after travel quarantine was called "self-quarantine" a do-it-yourself kind of thing.

Edited May 11, 2021 by FairreLilette

[Luna Bliss]

An interesting issue you brought up, @FairreLiletteand @Ceka Cianci -- just how much influence does a president have over the States in the U.S.?

I'd say a Republican president who is a Populist (as Trump was) has an undue amount of influence over the States governed by Republican officials.  We saw Trump dump a bunch of officials in his cabinet who wouldn't tow the line, for example -- evidence of undue pressure. And Trump and the party made it difficult for State officials to get elected if they didn't follow the party whims.

But more than the way in which a President can have undue influence over lockdowns in each State and so affect the outcome of pandemics, what are other ways a President could have undue influence in a pandemic situation when a Populist?

POPULIST LEADERS & COVID RESPONSE
Frenk listed four common attributes of various populist leaders who have mishandled the pandemic: First, “the tendency to underestimate or dismiss expertise,” because “experts are considered part of the corrupt elites that the populist leader is going to defend people from”; second, “the distrust of science” and of the sort of “independent, critical thinking” that populist leaders with authoritarian inclinations dislike; third, the impulse to divide citizens between the “good people embodied by the populist leader” and “the corrupt elites,” even going so far as to politicize public-health measures such as mask wearing, rather than instilling in the public “a sense of shared destiny”; and fourth, the instinct to “trap themselves in a narrative” and then “refuse to acknowledge that they were wrong” and correct course, blaming others instead. The governments that have performed best against COVID-19, by contrast, have implemented policies “informed by science and by expertise and by political leaders who unify the country.”
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/05/covid-19-lays-bare-price-populism/618838/

And of course, populism easily spreads into fascism according to some scholars.  Takeaway -- don't vote for a candidate who is a populist!  When our next pandemic comes a Populist president would spell disaster.

Edited May 11, 2021 by Luna Bliss

[Rowan Amore]

12 minutes ago, Luna Bliss said:

An interesting issue you brought up, @FairreLiletteand @Ceka Cianci -- just how much influence does a president have over the States in the U.S.?

I'd say a Republican president who is a Populist (as Trump was) has an undue amount of influence over the States governed by Republican officials.  We saw Trump dump a bunch of officials in his cabinet who wouldn't tow the line, for example -- evidence of undue pressure. And Trump and the party made it difficult for state officials to get elected if they didn't follow the party whims.

But more than the way in which a President can have undue influence over lockdowns in each states and so affect the outcome of pandemics, what are other ways a President could have undue influence in a pandemic situation when a Populist?

POPULIST LEADERS & COVID RESPONSE
Frenk listed four common attributes of various populist leaders who have mishandled the pandemic: First, “the tendency to underestimate or dismiss expertise,” because “experts are considered part of the corrupt elites that the populist leader is going to defend people from”; second, “the distrust of science” and of the sort of “independent, critical thinking” that populist leaders with authoritarian inclinations dislike; third, the impulse to divide citizens between the “good people embodied by the populist leader” and “the corrupt elites,” even going so far as to politicize public-health measures such as mask wearing, rather than instilling in the public “a sense of shared destiny”; and fourth, the instinct to “trap themselves in a narrative” and then “refuse to acknowledge that they were wrong” and correct course, blaming others instead. The governments that have performed best against COVID-19, by contrast, have implemented policies “informed by science and by expertise and by political leaders who unify the country.”
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/05/covid-19-lays-bare-price-populism/618838/

And of course, populism easily spreads into fascism according to some scholars.  Takeaway -- don't vote for a candidate who is a populist!  When our next pandemic comes a Populist president would spell disaster.

I live in a predominantly red state.  Our governor is Republican.  He, for the most part, ignored the white house and followed the recommendations of the health officials.  His handling of the pandemic, in my opinion, has been exemplary.  Politicians need to stop following party line and start following their conscience.  And the science.  I may not agree with other policies of our governor, but on the pandemic, I'm behind him 100% regardless of his affiliation.  The one and only thing he didn't do soon enough was the mask mandate.  He did but then rescinded it after complaints.  He did eventually put one in place, however.

[Arielle Popstar]

13 hours ago, FairreLilette said:

I gotta disagree here, Phil... as each state is different here and California was the first to go into lockdown in March of 2020.  First of all, to Arielle, I heard about airborne transmission here in California in early 2020 and I already told you that in the other thread but as what seems usual with you and I, you just ignore what I say or get very forgetful.  So, I really see no need to go over it again.  As far as Trump, he wanted things open for Easter of 2020, that and some other things I don't want to list all at the moment but we still got real news here in California, mostly through our governor as well as all the full articles you could read down south there.   If you think everyone was listening to Trump...lol.  You all from other countries give him way more power to upset you than he does me.  I had ways to filter him out.  Trump is a polemic and he works like a shock jock.  My California Governor was in charge of California, btw, not Trump.  Oh, and California was first to go into lockdown in the Western World; New Zealand and Australia were after California.  

Well if you said something to me couched inside the response to someone else, then that could be as I mostly just ignore posts that are predominantly off-topic/political. When I did respond to you in the other thread, your answering posts were mostly personally abusive anyway so yes, like you do with Trump, I just filtered you out without blocking you. 

[Ceka Cianci]

26 minutes ago, Luna Bliss said:

An interesting issue you brought up, @FairreLiletteand @Ceka Cianci -- just how much influence does a president have over the States in the U.S.?

I'd say a Republican president who is a Populist (as Trump was) has an undue amount of influence over the States governed by Republican officials.  We saw Trump dump a bunch of officials in his cabinet who wouldn't tow the line, for example -- evidence of undue pressure. And Trump and the party made it difficult for State officials to get elected if they didn't follow the party whims.

But more than the way in which a President can have undue influence over lockdowns in each State and so affect the outcome of pandemics, what are other ways a President could have undue influence in a pandemic situation when a Populist?

POPULIST LEADERS & COVID RESPONSE
Frenk listed four common attributes of various populist leaders who have mishandled the pandemic: First, “the tendency to underestimate or dismiss expertise,” because “experts are considered part of the corrupt elites that the populist leader is going to defend people from”; second, “the distrust of science” and of the sort of “independent, critical thinking” that populist leaders with authoritarian inclinations dislike; third, the impulse to divide citizens between the “good people embodied by the populist leader” and “the corrupt elites,” even going so far as to politicize public-health measures such as mask wearing, rather than instilling in the public “a sense of shared destiny”; and fourth, the instinct to “trap themselves in a narrative” and then “refuse to acknowledge that they were wrong” and correct course, blaming others instead. The governments that have performed best against COVID-19, by contrast, have implemented policies “informed by science and by expertise and by political leaders who unify the country.”
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/05/covid-19-lays-bare-price-populism/618838/

And of course, populism easily spreads into fascism according to some scholars.  Takeaway -- don't vote for a candidate who is a populist!  When our next pandemic comes a Populist president would spell disaster.

I was referring to actual power, not influence.. influence is political games, not law.

[FairreLilette]

4 minutes ago, Arielle Popstar said:

Well if you said something to me couched inside the response to someone else, then that could be as I mostly just ignore posts that are predominantly off-topic/political. When I did respond to you in the other thread, your answering posts were mostly personally abusive anyway so yes, like you do with Trump, I just filtered you out without blocking you. 

I don't think it's abusive to say one is being illogical because I felt there was good reason too as it was going on weeks that you were going on about HCQ and other experimental drugs.  You didn't listen to any of the rebuttals not just mine but just kept posting your stuff over and over like a broken record.  And, you hadn't listened to me before I said you were being illogical.  

[FairreLilette]

And, @Arielle Popstar if you want me to downgrade the comment about calling you illogical, than look at it as I thought you were being unreasonable.  I felt it unreasonable to keep posting the same stuff for endless weeks that many had already debunked but still you kept at it, insisting all those websites were right and everyone else was wrong.  And, I wasn't born yesterday and I do know the media likes to manipulate and sensationalize things.  I think you need to lead your life and stop reading into all that stuff and hanging on every word like your life depends upon it.  You are far better off having a heart-to-heart talk with your doctor about concerns you have.  

Edited May 11, 2021 by FairreLilette

[Arielle Popstar]

1 minute ago, FairreLilette said:

I don't think it's abusive to say one is being illogical because I felt there was good reason too as it was going on weeks that you were going on about HCQ and other experimental drugs.  You didn't listen to any of the rebuttals not just mine but just kept posting your stuff over and over like a broken record.  And, you hadn't listened to me before I said you were being illogical.  

The difference is I backed up my opinions with relevant studies and and the experiences of front line medical doctors. In this forum you often hear people say we should listen to our doctors as they have the knowledge and experience to recommend the best course of treatment, but what they really mean is listen to the doctor that they personally agree with. 

[FairreLilette]

1 minute ago, Arielle Popstar said:

The difference is I backed up my opinions with relevant studies and and the experiences of front line medical doctors. In this forum you often hear people say we should listen to our doctors as they have the knowledge and experience to recommend the best course of treatment, but what they really mean is listen to the doctor that they personally agree with. 

Read what I posted above as we were posting at the same time.  I THINK you are way better off having a heart-to-heart talk with YOUR doctor about concerns you have.  

[Drayke Newall]

2 hours ago, FairreLilette said:

I read two different websites that had different information. 

I believe the problem with California and it's re-opening was largely due to not shutting down domestic travel for the Thanksgiving holiday in November of 2020 which caused a huge spike in coronavirus cases that California locked down much stricter in November of 2020 again.  It was in so many ways unnecessary to allow the travel to continue.  People can conference on Skype or whatever.  

California was the first to lockdown in the United States then is probably what the website meant.  But what is relevant is it wasn't Trump and it wasn't Trump's call.  Each Governor and the local mayors were the ones in charge of each state.   California went into lockdown because of our California governor.  Our governor issued the lockdown, not Trump, and it was up to each state's governor to issue the lockdowns, not Trump.   

I am not sure how the USA works as far as pandemics go, however I would assume based on what I saw on the news and still do (or at least hope) that it is similar to Australia given the closeness of both our governments and political structures. From what you have said it seems this is the case as well.

Here in Australia the federal government is solely in charge of providing advice to each state and ensuring that the states are supported both federally and financially. This would be things like providing relief, money or equipment to help the Pandemic. Other than that the Federal Government is also responsible for the countries borders as a whole and biosecurity as a whole (no travel in or out). They do not however have the power to force state governments to do x,y,z, only advise them and support them. The Federal government here has a chief medical officer (similar to your one - forget his name) that gives advice as a whole to the community and states.

Each state here is responsible for their own procedures, biosecurity (can lockdown their state borders or people) and also have a chief medical officer to provide advice to the state government and its people. If the federal government advise a lockdown country wide it is discussed in a meeting of all state premiers (similar to your governor) and acted as a whole. This is what happened in Australia March - May. Federal government recommended a country lockdown and all states agreed.

Looking at what we saw over here in how the pandemic was handled in America it looked more like a bunch of school kids trying to play king of the castle with infighting between each state as well as the federal government rather than cohesion which was needed. For the life of me I cannot understand why the US federal government never held a single cohesive meeting between the white house and all state governments on a regular basis to handle it. Though given how fundamentally adverse each party over there is to each other it is not surprising given your parties will not pass bills just because it was proposed from 'x' side despite if the bill is good or not.

Even now you still have states doing one thing and another a different thing with the federal government suggesting something else as well. It is just weird.

[LittleMe Jewell]

56 minutes ago, Rowan Amore said:

I live in a predominantly red state.  Our governor is Republican.  He, for the most part, ignored the white house and followed the recommendations of the health officials.  His handling of the pandemic, in my opinion, has been exemplary.  Politicians need to stop following party line and start following their conscience.  And the science.  I may not agree with other policies of our governor, but on the pandemic, I'm behind him 100% regardless of his affiliation.  The one and only thing he didn't do soon enough was the mask mandate.  He did but then rescinded it after complaints.  He did eventually put one in place, however.

People in general need to stop following the party line and start following their conscience.  

[FairreLilette]

17 minutes ago, Drayke Newall said:

rather than cohesion which

Each state has it's own constitution as well so state's rights are perhaps more entailed than in your country.  Governors later when each was in control of lockdowns then put mayors of each country in charge of their own country as far as certain rules, at least California did, and I felt sorry for the mayor of the county of Los Angeles as we are a county that is called the greater Los Angeles area as the county includes the surrounding suburbs and it's a big county here and probably kind of like New York City.  It was horrendous here.  Perhaps the mayor could have done better.  I don't know.  

Edited May 11, 2021 by FairreLilette

[Arielle Popstar]

38 minutes ago, FairreLilette said:

Read what I posted above as we were posting at the same time.  I THINK you are way better off having a heart-to-heart talk with YOUR doctor about concerns you have.  

Takes too long to reeducate them about nutrition, supplements and exercise. Majority only know about living better chemically, ie pharmaceuticals.

[Drayke Newall]

1 minute ago, FairreLilette said:

Each state has it's own constitution as well so state's rights are perhaps more entailed than in your country.

States over here have the same. As I said, structurally Australia's political system is near identical to America. We just use different terms and it is based on the Westminster system in England so it is slightly different but we have the same levels of government etc.

[FairreLilette]

1 minute ago, Arielle Popstar said:

Takes too long to reeducate them about nutrition, supplements and exercise. Majority only know about living better chemically, ie pharmaceuticals.

My doctor is very open and I've always had good doctors, imo, and sometimes gone to doctors with questions I've written down on a list.  My current doctor I talk to about all my nutrition, supplements I started, and exercise.  He knows all of it.  I keep my doctor informed because I have hereditary high cholesterol and I eat no snacks and eat egg whites only to try to lower it but it's such a stubborn hereditary thing that even with me eating almost no cholesterol, it's still high.  But my doctor knows if I start eating any junk as I will tell him and I did eat a bit of junk for about six weeks after my rl bf moved away so I told my doctor about it and told him that's why I gained a few pounds I didn't want.  Once he caught me with a bag of potato chips as I bought them after exercising and in a hurry to go see him and he said "tell me you aren't eating those?"  LOL  My doctor also recommending boiling all my food.  My doctor believes a healthy diet and exercise are vital to a healthy life.  This is how you establish a good relationship with your doctor.  Your doctor is a part of your support system.  If you don't have one you can talk to easily, find another one perhaps.  

[Rowan Amore]

1 hour ago, Arielle Popstar said:

relevant studies

umm

Edited May 11, 2021 by Rowan Amore

[Rowan Amore]

I've noticed some people post doctors they agree with regardless of whether those doctors are reliable sources.  Quite a few of those doctors have been shown to be conspiracy theorists or just plain quacks.  When the majority of opinions about one doctor are negative, how can anyone in good conscience agree with what they say?  It's illogical.