Coronavirus Open Thread 2021

A group of scientists discovered ancient viruses frozen in two ice samples taken from the Tibetan Plateau in China, and most of them are unlike anything ever seen before.

again

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What’s up with Canada?

A member of Parliament Suspended from Twitter for sharing a mainstream news report.

I used to worship the openness and culture of Canada.

Though I lived in the states, I grew up listening to CBC Northern Shortwave Service on
11720 and 9626 Mhz from the Studios in Toronto M5W 1E6 and transmitters in Sackville New Brunswick. My first LP bought as a kid was Royal Canadian Air Farce comedy album.

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Say what?! :rofl:

Guy

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Canada … who cares :rofl::rofl:

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He was posting dangerous misinformation. He was rightly suspended.

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I’m listening to some rebellious news organization podcast in Canada right now and they
just said that it’s not “your dad’s cbc anymore.”

Exactly what was false about his statement?

The British government have ruled out mass vaccination for teens, on the basis of a risk-benefit analysis (about the first time they’ve even bothered to do so - so props to them for that, at least). The lack of safety data in that age group, with no demonstrable benefit to the individual, does not justify the risk.

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I’m not anti-vaccination by any means (due to get my second dose today, actually), but which part of the tweet do you consider “dangerous misinformation”? His tweet was apparently this:

The combination of vaccine injuries and the extremely low risk that COVID poses to the young have convinced ministers in the UK to do the right thing. Where is this common sense in Canada?

This seems to contain three assertions:

  1. Some people are injured after receiving vaccines.
  2. Young people have an extremely low risk from COVID.
  3. The combination of these two factors has led the UK government to opt against wholesale vaccination of young people.

Assertion 1 appears correct - a (very) small number of people appear to be injured by vaccines. Assertion 2 also appears correct - the direct risk to young people from COVID is very low. Assertion 3 has also been reported by Reuters. Which of those do you object to? In any case, is it really Twitter’s role to be the arbiter of truth on any of those?

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Just like this forum, Twitter is a private forum. They can do what they want. Don’t like it -‘create your own.

Interesting, though, that Twitter has decided to interpret a truthful reporting of facts, and a statement of opinion, as a violation of its terms of service. Same sort of thing on YouTube.

One has to wonder what the unwritten rules are, and who is making those rules, no?

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Anything that doesn’t generate revenue or kills known sources of revenue is against terms of service. For any online service including this one :slight_smile:

Truth is just entertainment

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The Olympics is turning out to be the new Diamond Princess for Japan. With 87 accumulated cases so far in the Olympics village already, before the official opening ceremony takes place. At least most athletes are pretty young, and most likely only their performance would suffer, both on the field and off…

Irrelevant to what I wrote, but thanks for your, uh, contribution. :yawning_face:

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That was spread around a lot yesterday. Shapiro, like him or hate him, has been probably the most consistent media voice related to vaccinations that I know of.

That is an odd correction because he didn’t simply cite the number, he walked through why it was correct and why he wasn’t worried about it.


This post has been flying around the internet - I guess the poster (I confirmed that he really posted it) has been held up as being an expert voice on this recently.

I do like predictions on this kind of thing. If it’s likely that every unvaccinated person in the US (currently 51% of the population) is going to get covid in the next month and “most” of the people who get it are going to be hospitalized, then the entire health care system is about to crash considering that the country has less than 1m hospital beds to host the nearly 170m people who are about to be impacted. Places like Taiwan who have lower rates of vaccination will have zero chance and this probably is end game.

Or this guy is lying.

It should be easy enough to determine which is which in another few weeks.

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Where does he make the prediction that it’s likely that every unvaccinated person in the US is going to get Covid in the next month and most who get it are going to be hospitalised?

I can’t see either of those claims in the quote you’ve provided.

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That could be applied to all kinds of things.

The telephone company is private, don’t like it, make your own!

The bank is private, don’t like it, make your own!

Etc.

Much like these utilities and services, Twitter is an indispensable tool for a business or politician today.

Sounds subversive!

That’s what I was thinking. It’s true that cases are still high worldwide. Hospitalisations, though, are pretty low. And deaths are very low, both in absolute terms and relative to other causes of death.

As @Terry_B said, though, we’ll know if the apocalypse is nigh when the apocalypse arrives. Or doesn’t.

If anyone is prophesying the apocalypse.

Well, the whole COVID charade has been characterized by messages which play on people’s fears without (usually) explicitly stating falsehoods. It’s easy to make people see content that isn’t there with choice phrasing and imagery. The clear implication of that stark white-on-black message is along the lines of “you’re gonna get COVID and you’re gonna die with a tube stuck down your windpipe, you heathen vaccine-denier”. The bit after “you’re gonna get COVID” doesn’t need to be explicit because people have already been primed with the message “the Delta variant is gonna kill you dead”.

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I’ve found the whole thing interesting, confusing, and disappointing in equal measures.

I haven’t had a noticeable virus of any sort since February last year. The next flu season will be breathtaking.

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