re: OT: Corona Panic 2020

I don’t think it’s a conspiracy. I think politicians are covering their arse, evidence be damned. It’s a lot easier to spin an excessively strong response than a weak one, especially if you royally fricked up the identification and testing phase.

I think media is feeding the public hysteria to get clicks.

ETA: basically, everyone involved is responding to their personal incentives.

I think y'all are talking over the relevant talking points. It is semantics... basically.

Coronavirus isnt a hoax.
The WHO is a joke. But not a hoax.
The CDC is not a hoax.
The FDA is not a hoax.
Fema is not a hoax.

There is not a global media.
However, the US liberal media absolutely synchronizes their talking points. Not only are they agenda driven, they collude for a clear message.

When national polling has ranked media approval down with congressional approval, there is an obvious dissatisfaction and distrust of the media.

Back to the coronavirus,is a coordinated media message the worst thing in the world? Absolutely not. In the end, facts and written/published word expose everything. People are smart enough to make judgment on who to listen to for serious journalisming.

The only reason to respond to your talking points is to clarify that the US liberal media absolutely collude for a clear direction and message.

quote:

---

Maybe that’s overly cynical, but I have zero faith in our elected officials.

---

It’s going to devolve into even more of a cover your arse scenario because nobody will want to be the first one to ease up things and risk the backlash if it goes bad.

quote:

---

ETA: The CDC already clearly and massively fricked up with the testing situation. Their (and the FDA’s) handling of that is indefensible no matter where you stand on Coronavirus.

---

I agree with everything you said, but this isn't entirely true. Maybe if the buffoon in the White House had responded better and more quickly instead of worrying about his re-election and calling it a democratic hoax, maybe their response would be better. Maybe if this administration didn't effectively end the pandemic response team, they would respond better. Maybe he needs to take another look at his 2021 budget and remove the cuts he's planned for the CDC. Although I'm not sure Trump even knows where he is half the time.

We can thank both parties for stopping his idiotic planned cuts to the CDC up until now. That still doesn't do anything for pandemic response team that is gone.

quote:

---

One of these days I'm going to bed someone that's a lot smarter than me to explain how more testing really affects anything.

---

It’s not so much more testing as it is more intelligent testing. It’s really both, but more intelligent would have worked.

You don’t just test the really sick people. You test a random sample of the entire population and you do so at regular intervals. That helps you:

1) identify infected people who are asymptomatic and are spreading it without knowing

2) identify hotspots early so you can be more aggressive in those areas without destroying others unnecessarily

3) get a better handle on how many asymptomatic infected people there actually are so you can get a better idea of mortality, how many beds we’ll need, etc. We basically have no idea of this number right now, so we have no idea how far above or below hospital capacity we will be, what percentage of people are already infected/recovered, and how many people are likely to die.

4) identify infected healthcare workers who are spreading it within hospitals and care centers.

Along with other reasons. Basically, the US has deprived itself of the ability to make informed decisions.

Testing people who are already sick is logically the least efficient use of available testing supplies. It’s not like we have a treatment.

quote:

---

I agree with everything you said, but this isn't entirely true. Maybe if the buffoon in the White House had responded better and more quickly instead of worrying about his re-election and calling it a democratic hoax, maybe their response would be better.

---

I’m not a Trump fan, but he did not create a faulty test.

quote:

---

So you want to make people get tested whether they want it or not?

---

Just wait until masks are mandatory in public spaces.

quote:

---

So you want to make people get tested whether they want it or not?

---

Don’t think that would be necessary. Just stand outside of a grocery store and you’ll get plenty of volunteers.

quote:

---

You wouldn't know this without antibody testing.

---

Agreed, but you would have a much better idea than we have now.

quote:

---

Those were obvious from the get go. Travel hubs. Facilities with more admissions or COVID-19 related visits.

---

I’m talking much more granular. Like individual apartment buildings, offices, etc.

quote:

---

How often to you plan on testing us? You think testing me today will help tomorrow if I'm infected tomorrow and asymptomatic? So I should test again on Friday?

---

You don’t have to test the same exact people over and over. You just need to get to a certain sample size.

This is really just basic statistical sampling. The part about finding infected people is a byproduct of gathering more information.

China has lifted their quarantine and other restrictions. There is media on the ground that shows this. Initially I thought their numbers were fraudulent, but based on evidence it seems they're legitimate.

quote:

---

You have stated that there is a conspiracy being perpetrated by the heads of the media companies. One so powerful, that heads of state are powerless to stand up to them. And have in turn had to take massive hits to their economies. Which, when put like that, makes no fricking sense... but that is in essence what you are saying.

Now, there is no doubt that some in the media are going to use this to take shots at Trump. Shots they may not have taken if Obama was in office. Yet, most of it is petty. The majority of people who hated Trump with every fiber in their bodies, will feed on any news story blaming Trump.

Yet, you are attempting to blame the media for the response of almost every world leader. Do you not see the mental stretch you are making here?

Remember who, how, why... you have to answer these questions when proposing a Conspiracy Theory.

---

No, I didn't. You're talking out your arse and making shite up.

It's not a conspiracy, it's simply PR, PC, CYA, and follow the leader peer pressure/media pressure/public pressure shite.

Macron, Trudeau, Morrison, Merkel, and Jinping didn't have some backroom meeting with George Soros, Jeff Bezos, Michael Bloomberg, Stan Hubbard, Carlos Slim, Time Warner, and the Cox Family, and hash out some devious plan to unleash a virus and exploit it to take down Donald Trump at the expense of their economies.

That's fricking retarded and you're a moron for suggesting anyone is remotely inferring that.

You are clearly so naive to the power of the media it's absurd. I mean, the piece of shite movie, "Contagion", shot up to #1 rental worldwide for about a week, for Christ sake, simply because the media did freaking talk-show panels with "experts" asking if it was actually possible.



If this virus were in danger of killing 20+ million young and healthy people around the globe, then yeah, the steps that were taken would have been justified.

But this thing is going to very likely be under 1 million elderly and unhealthy people, out of nearly 7 goddamn billion. And because of it's remarkable contagion rate and long incubation period, it was never going to be contained, stopped, or even slowed.

Once all the bans and distancing are lifted, and everyone goes back to work, we're going to get hit with another wave. And next season, another wave. And next season, another wave. And it's going to be just another typical seasonal virus with a typical flu level mortality rate.


The proof is in the pudding already. When Trump shut down travel from China and Italy, he was the first to do travel bans, and our media lambasted him as a racist for doing it. Saying he's the one exploiting this "minor virus" just so he can impose his racist bans.

Very few countries had done anything yet, and several of them were parroting what our media said, that Trump was going too far.

But then, when our media flipped it's script and started claiming this thing was a global pandemic going to kill millions and Trump hadn't done enough, only THEN did other countries around the world begin shutting down travel in and out, and following our lead on limiting crowd size/gathering, and ultimately social distancing and non-essential work stoppage.

There was no planning. No conspiracy. It was simply public relations, media/public pressure, fear of cancel culture, and world leaders trying to not be one-upped by anybody in their impression of care and concern for their people.

"You mean you haven't banned travel to/from China and Italy yet to try and protect us from getting exposed to this apparent apocalyptic deadly virus? But that boob of a leader, Trump, has? What kind of a leader are you?"

"You mean you haven't installed a social distancing mandate yet and shut down businesses for 30 days to try and prevent us from being exposed yet? But the US has? Sure sounds like they care about their people more than you do. Maybe we elected the wrong person to lead our country!"


You seriously don't think this type of shite happened or was considered?

The US media is claiming this thing is going to kill millions, and you don't think other media organizations around the world are watching and following suit?

And you don't think other world leaders are listening to world media trot out "experts" claiming this thing is going to be the next plague of history, and look what all these other countries are doing to combat it, so why aren't we?


Right now there are 800,000 confirmed cases (although full testing would easily show tens of millions have it or have had it and recovered already), 173,000 confirmed recovered, and 39,000 deaths worldwide in 3 months.

Even if we multiplied each one by a compounding 3x each of the next 3 months up to 12 months (which would be an astounding growth rate that no "experts" have even predicted), we'd be looking at....

21.6 million cases and 1.05 million deaths.

Barely double the typical flu. So yes, countries around the world have screwed their economies, and we have temporarily hosed ours, for something that is maybe... MAYBE, twice as bad as the typical flu in the worse case scenario.

And you're trying to tell us nothing but "experts" were behind it all and it was totally reasonable, rational, and legit? That world leaders were just following what "experts" told them?

That it had nothing to do with CYA and media/public pressure? Or world leaders seeing us and other countries do something and simply following suit?

SMH, so naive and deluded.