Neither natural nor man-made. It’s all made up ... Viruses, Including "Lab Leak" Scenarios Do Not Exist - It's All Made up. Mark and Samantha Bailey
Not locking down would also have great economic and social cost. There is no such thing as a “free” pandemic, as I’m sure you are aware (but some others seem to think otherwise). The best thing is to strike a balance, and look around and see what other leading democracies are doing. I think we got it mostly right, despite Trumps nuttery. Unfortunately the nuttery caused some deaths that didn’t have to happen. Whether they are economic negatives are unknown. If we are being brutally honest many deaths we’d attribute as “caused” by RW misinformation may not be economic negatives. Although there are probably participants in the economy who were lost too. Basically the difference between a right wing “news” consuming retiree vs a blue collar worker. The blue collar worker is a longer term loss to the economy, esp in an extremely tight labor market. I recall studies of the 1917 flu pandemic covered some of this, and the data from back then showed cities that took stronger quarantine measures recovered better over the long term than those who didn’t. Of course the lesson from that history doesn’t mean going full nutso like China is good, esp as China’s actions likely caused permanent shifting of their supply chain.
So many Trump tropes. Remember when Trump banned travel, to China, and Democrats called him a xenophobe ? And then weeks later they were accusing him of not panicking enough. Truth is, Trump was almost background noise in 2020. The fake Chinese fear porn videos, along with nonstop and feverish media gaslighting created a tsunami of panic that made lockdowns inevitable.
Again, lab leak appeals to the demented imagination of an organ-melting toxin that spreads from person to person, like a virus is supposed to. The perfect storm. Maximum lethality + maximum spread.
Yeah that balance was Sweden. Who just happens to have one of the lowest excess mortality rates in Europe from the start of the pandemic through 2022.
I have in numerous posts. Excess deaths are still staggeringly high throughout much of the world, especially in highly vaccinated and mask-compliant countries.
You know, the biggest problem Trump had was his own big mouth. He talked too much for too long, and he didn’t choose his words carefully. He was constantly praising himself on what a wonderful job he was doing, and attacking groups he shouldn’t have. If Trump had stayed away from the camera, stopped praising dictators. And attacking our allies then he might have won re-election.
That’s not proof the vaccine didn’t save lives, but I’ll bite. Name five countries that had high vaccination rates that also had high death rates because of the vaccine.
I could (re)dredge up a dozen highly vaccinated countries that suffered high excess deaths through 2022. But I’d be foolish believe that would convince you that vaccines had anything to do with it. Working against you, the fact that you are vaccinated makes that hard for you to bear. I do know people who’ve come to the discomfiting conclusion, but not many.
Trump is an idiot and can't help himself. Hope he gets indicted and can't run again. Can we stop nominating idiots? Been that way since 2016. Just awful human beings by both sides being put forward.
Under Biden we’re on the verge of WWIII and possibly thermonuclear extinction. But at least no more mean tweets!
Notice the shift from covid deaths to excess mortality rates. Sweden had 2320 covid deaths per million population. Norway had 946, Finland had 1609.
Excess deaths are excess deaths. Which frankly is the best way to judge covid measures by countries. Shutting down a lot of businesses caused a lot of collateral deaths. Sweden better than pretty much every other European Country says a lot. I figured there would be the typical pushback...
