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The General [Coronavirus] Discussion Thread 4.0

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Posts

  • tbloxhamtbloxham Registered User regular
    Hawaii is having good results by requiring 14 days quarantine for travelers and enforcing it. Alaska could do the same.

    Honestly, every state should do this, or at least insist you have taken a test within 24 hours of travel and present a negative result within 24 hours of arrival or something. Like, California should close its borders across the mountains at least. One of the most effective ways to slow this down is to limit long distance mobility as much as possible so that outbreaks are local, not general which will allow resources to be focused on affected regions to quickly cut off infection chains.

    But this requires a cohesive federal response to support the states which we aren’t getting.

    "That is cool" - Abraham Lincoln
  • Captain InertiaCaptain Inertia Registered User regular
    It’s a lot easier to do this in Hawaii

  • Giggles_FunsworthGiggles_Funsworth Blight on Discourse Bay Area SprawlRegistered User regular
    Hakkekage wrote: »
    Fencingsax wrote: »
    Circulating shared air is worse than new air.

    I think the best thing to do would be to keep the windows closed and the AC aimed at the ceiling so it gently falls to the floor and cools the space. Would probably still create turbulence in places with low ceilings though.
    What? No. You’re drawing the wrong conclusion from the AC/restaurant study, which is not the impact of air currents per se but the impact of AC in enclosed windowless spaces where people gather for extended periods of time.

    The reason for open windows is to provide gently circulating air that scatter droplets and lessen the chance that large enough infectious material makes it from one person’s holes to another persons holes. Fresh air currents are not comparable to AC currents. AC currents, as in the restaurant example, are consistent, direct, and focused. That directs particles in a particular direction for a sustained time period for the individuals seated—again over TIME—in its path. Whereas fresh air circulating through a window is neither forceful nor consistent. And even if it were—let’s say you’re dining out in a hurricane idk—it would not have the same effect as AC, which is fixed and literally designed to fill the room with air.

    I think you're misunderstanding what I'm suggesting wrt AC use. I'm saying you eliminate the air currents at the level humans are at in the room. Keep them above their heads where they won't carry shit. Wrt windows I've always lived in places with fairly regular sustained wind and buildings designed to funnel it around the interior for the most part so that's probably coloring my analysis. It's frequently more forceful than what would come out of an AC unit.

  • HakkekageHakkekage Space Whore Academy summa cum laudeRegistered User regular
    Hakkekage wrote: »
    Fencingsax wrote: »
    Circulating shared air is worse than new air.

    I think the best thing to do would be to keep the windows closed and the AC aimed at the ceiling so it gently falls to the floor and cools the space. Would probably still create turbulence in places with low ceilings though.
    What? No. You’re drawing the wrong conclusion from the AC/restaurant study, which is not the impact of air currents per se but the impact of AC in enclosed windowless spaces where people gather for extended periods of time.

    The reason for open windows is to provide gently circulating air that scatter droplets and lessen the chance that large enough infectious material makes it from one person’s holes to another persons holes. Fresh air currents are not comparable to AC currents. AC currents, as in the restaurant example, are consistent, direct, and focused. That directs particles in a particular direction for a sustained time period for the individuals seated—again over TIME—in its path. Whereas fresh air circulating through a window is neither forceful nor consistent. And even if it were—let’s say you’re dining out in a hurricane idk—it would not have the same effect as AC, which is fixed and literally designed to fill the room with air.

    I think you're misunderstanding what I'm suggesting wrt AC use. I'm saying you eliminate the air currents at the level humans are at in the room. Keep them above their heads where they won't carry shit. Wrt windows I've always lived in places with fairly regular sustained wind and buildings designed to funnel it around the interior for the most part so that's probably coloring my analysis. It's frequently more forceful than what would come out of an AC unit.

    You're misunderstanding the importance of the current rather than the importance of the circulation.

    The issue is not so much the pathways of air that carry droplets but more the density of viral particles in the air which heightens the risk that an infected person in the room will infect others. Again these are all degrees of risk within the riskiest category--prolonged indoor contact in close quarters--so the main issue to be concerned about is the closed system, NOT that a droplet may be carried to the other end of the room because of a stream of air through the window.

    Some more reading material: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/05/that-office-ac-system-is-great-at-recirculating-viruses.html?utm_source=tw

    3DS: 2165 - 6538 - 3417
    NNID: Hakkekage
  • HonkHonk Honk is this poster. Registered User, __BANNED USERS regular
    Sweden has a right wing crank who is going against the international expert advice and trying to make it a point of national pride. Science and medicine hasn’t confirmed that population-level sustained immunity exists, because some viruses either don’t or offer limited immunity. Hell, some piggback on antibodies and cause a stronger infection next time.

    It’s Mengele-level mad science. I really don’t give a fuck for the “I’m Swedish and I think” nationalism, becuase science and nature don’t care that one band of apes drew a line on a map and declared themselves different from the neighboring apes.

    Being “ultimately right” doesn’t matter. It is about how we behave while we collect hard data and develop treatments, not which nation made a lucky bet.

    I’m going to at least call out the right-wing crank part as being objectively wrong.

    PSN: Honkalot
  • CelestialBadgerCelestialBadger Registered User regular
    It’s a lot easier to do this in Hawaii

    Alaska could do it too because you either need to cross the Canadian border or get in a plane to fly to Alaska.

    It wouldn’t be possible at, say, the New York/New Jersey border because there are no choke points.

  • Jealous DevaJealous Deva Registered User regular
    edited May 2020
    It’s a lot easier to do this in Hawaii

    Alaska could do it too because you either need to cross the Canadian border or get in a plane to fly to Alaska.

    It wouldn’t be possible at, say, the New York/New Jersey border because there are no choke points.

    Yeah. This is a bit harder for alaska but it already has a de facto closed land border with the rest of the US so it would be mainly a matter of airport screenings. It would be impossible generally in the continental US. Like we had people from ongoing outbreak areas in western nc driving to Tennessee because stores were open, even if you assume Tenessee was ready to open, which it wasn’t, I can’t imagine the manpower that would be required to stop people from outbreak areas in nc crossing the border. Checkpoints along dozens of roads along the nc -tenn border? More checkpoints along dozens of roads along the Tennessee-va border to keep people from just driving 20 minutes out of the way through Virginia? ID checks in all businesses in Tennessee(which requires buy-in from business owners turning away cash and pissing off customers, and is likely to be very inconsistent )?

    The other thing is that spread happens quickly in non--infected areas. Wilkes county nc went from 10 cases to 450 cases in 2 weeks due to a single super speader event at a meat processing facility (which also spilled over at least a couple of hundred cases into surrounding counties that were previously at near zero case levels).

    Jealous Deva on
  • OrcaOrca Also known as Espressosaurus WrexRegistered User regular
    It's still possible in California. The roads in/out have checkpoints for agricultural products. Beef those up and you're good to go.

  • PhillisherePhillishere Registered User regular
    edited May 2020
    Honk wrote: »
    Sweden has a right wing crank who is going against the international expert advice and trying to make it a point of national pride. Science and medicine hasn’t confirmed that population-level sustained immunity exists, because some viruses either don’t or offer limited immunity. Hell, some piggback on antibodies and cause a stronger infection next time.

    It’s Mengele-level mad science. I really don’t give a fuck for the “I’m Swedish and I think” nationalism, becuase science and nature don’t care that one band of apes drew a line on a map and declared themselves different from the neighboring apes.

    Being “ultimately right” doesn’t matter. It is about how we behave while we collect hard data and develop treatments, not which nation made a lucky bet.

    I’m going to at least call out the right-wing crank part as being objectively wrong.

    He’s right wing, and he is basing his policy on unproven science - aka crank science. That’s objectively the definition of a crank, or a quack if you prefer since this is medicine.

    Herd immunity is a wishful fantasy until the science comes in. Your repeated appeals to objectivity only work when discussing actual proven facts.

    “Muh Herd Immunity!” is global right wing nonsense. Some viruses work that way and some don’t.

    This one may work that way, but the “Some Don’t” list includes other coronaviruses, and there are physical characteristics of this virus that are making researchers worry that it is also in that category.

    It may even be right - stopped clocks and all - but is based on the magical thinking that if we all just “Go through it” it will be over.

    Standard issue right wing hard man nonsense married to crank science, but it seems to have some people’s nationalism boner throbbing to defend their nation, so it is achieving its prime purpose.

    Phillishere on
  • RedTideRedTide Registered User regular
    It’s a lot easier to do this in Hawaii

    Alaska could do it too because you either need to cross the Canadian border or get in a plane to fly to Alaska.

    It wouldn’t be possible at, say, the New York/New Jersey border because there are no choke points.

    Actually New Jersey is probably the easiest state in the lower 48 to isolate. The Northern Border with New York state is relatively short and is the only one that isn't geographically defined by a body of water. All of NYC/Pennsylvania or Delaware requires crossing a bridge to come over.

    RedTide#1907 on Battle.net
    Come Overwatch with meeeee
  • AbsoluteZeroAbsoluteZero The new film by Quentin Koopantino Registered User regular
    In other news, I finally managed to get some yeast today. All the hoarders must have bought their fill.

    cs6f034fsffl.jpg
  • HevachHevach Registered User regular
    edited May 2020
    In other news, I finally managed to get some yeast today. All the hoarders must have bought their fill.

    The shelves are generally full of bread again and making it from scratch is actually hard to master. Except for those who came to enjoy it as a hobby or have already mastered it the demand for yeast has probably gone back to normal.

    Hevach on
  • Captain InertiaCaptain Inertia Registered User regular
    RedTide wrote: »
    It’s a lot easier to do this in Hawaii

    Alaska could do it too because you either need to cross the Canadian border or get in a plane to fly to Alaska.

    It wouldn’t be possible at, say, the New York/New Jersey border because there are no choke points.

    Actually New Jersey is probably the easiest state in the lower 48 to isolate. The Northern Border with New York state is relatively short and is the only one that isn't geographically defined by a body of water. All of NYC/Pennsylvania or Delaware requires crossing a bridge to come over.

    Those are probably all low volume bridges too eh

    :razz:

  • PhillisherePhillishere Registered User regular
    edited May 2020
    Honk wrote: »
    Sweden has a right wing crank who is going against the international expert advice and trying to make it a point of national pride. Science and medicine hasn’t confirmed that population-level sustained immunity exists, because some viruses either don’t or offer limited immunity. Hell, some piggback on antibodies and cause a stronger infection next time.

    It’s Mengele-level mad science. I really don’t give a fuck for the “I’m Swedish and I think” nationalism, becuase science and nature don’t care that one band of apes drew a line on a map and declared themselves different from the neighboring apes.

    Being “ultimately right” doesn’t matter. It is about how we behave while we collect hard data and develop treatments, not which nation made a lucky bet.

    I’m going to at least call out the right-wing crank part as being objectively wrong.

    He’s right wing, and he is basing his policy on unproven science - aka crank science. That’s objectively the definition of a crank, or a quack if you prefer since this is medicine.

    Herd immunity is a wishful fantasy until the science comes in. Your repeated appeals to objectivity only work when discussing actual proven facts.

    “Muh Herd Immunity!” is global right wing nonsense. Some viruses work that way and some don’t.

    This one may work that way, but the “Some Don’t” list includes other coronaviruses, and there are physical characteristics of this virus that are making researchers worry that it is also in that category.

    It may even be right - stopped clocks and all - but is based on the magical thinking that if we all just “Go through it” it will be over.

    Standard issue right wing hard man nonsense married to crank science, but it seems to have some people’s nationalism boner throbbing to defend their nation, so it is achieving its prime purpose.

    I think it is important to drill down on why the right is so focused on herd immunity as a response. One of the global characteristics of the modern right-wing politicians is that they have devoted their lives to dismantling the administrative state. They want lower taxes, lower aid to vulnerable citizens, lower protections for workers, and greater freedom of business (aka the politician's donors) to control their workers' lives.

    Herd immunity flows from these ideas, not any actual science. Actually responding to this virus requires massive state coordination, but that also means there's a is critical role for the administrative state. That's counter to their ideas, so they have latched onto the response that the best course of action is to do nothing.

    Which is also their response to poverty, climate change, and racist attacks on minority citizens. It's politics not science.

    The fact that some right wingers have degrees in science and act as mouthpieces for these ideas is just weaponizing appeals to authority. Money buys a lot of opinions in our world.

    Phillishere on
  • durandal4532durandal4532 Registered User regular
    Prior to the discussions surrounding COVID-19 I had always heard herd immunity used as a way of talking about how if 95% of people got immunized for a thing, then the 5% of folks who couldn't because of an allergy or immunodeficiency were protected because of how hard it would be for the virus to actually get transmitted, since everyone else is immune thanks to the vaccine. So they don't have immunity, but the population as a whole won't allow say measles to transmit anyway so it doesn't matter.

    If the only way to become immune to a virus is to actually get it, herd immunity seems to require infecting your entire population and then having a ton of them die.

    And we don't know how long immunity lasts or even definitively how that immunity works, so it's even less useful.

    Take a moment to donate what you can to Critical Resistance and Black Lives Matter.
  • MovitzMovitz Registered User regular
    Honk wrote: »
    Sweden has a right wing crank who is going against the international expert advice and trying to make it a point of national pride. Science and medicine hasn’t confirmed that population-level sustained immunity exists, because some viruses either don’t or offer limited immunity. Hell, some piggback on antibodies and cause a stronger infection next time.

    It’s Mengele-level mad science. I really don’t give a fuck for the “I’m Swedish and I think” nationalism, becuase science and nature don’t care that one band of apes drew a line on a map and declared themselves different from the neighboring apes.

    Being “ultimately right” doesn’t matter. It is about how we behave while we collect hard data and develop treatments, not which nation made a lucky bet.

    I’m going to at least call out the right-wing crank part as being objectively wrong.

    He’s right wing, and he is basing his policy on unproven science - aka crank science. That’s objectively the definition of a crank, or a quack if you prefer since this is medicine.

    Herd immunity is a wishful fantasy until the science comes in. Your repeated appeals to objectivity only work when discussing actual proven facts.

    “Muh Herd Immunity!” is global right wing nonsense. Some viruses work that way and some don’t.

    This one may work that way, but the “Some Don’t” list includes other coronaviruses, and there are physical characteristics of this virus that are making researchers worry that it is also in that category.

    It may even be right - stopped clocks and all - but is based on the magical thinking that if we all just “Go through it” it will be over.

    Standard issue right wing hard man nonsense married to crank science, but it seems to have some people’s nationalism boner throbbing to defend their nation, so it is achieving its prime purpose.

    Dude, not everything is a right wing conspiracy.

    To reiterate, there has never been any official line of aiming for herd immunity in Sweden. A bunch of people not associated with the government has been speculating wildly (on both sides of the herd immunity issue) but for some reason the right wing in the US picked up on the pro-immunity arguments (again, from non-official sources) and made it into a speaking point. And people now seem pissed at an insignificant country on the edge of the world because of it.

    This whole discussion started back in the other thread because I disagreed that Sweden was boasting of being a success story. Nowhere have I seen Swedish officials doing this.
    I also said that the othering and whataboutism aimed at Sweden seems to be mostly for making political points at the domestic arenas around the world.

    For the record, I have absolutely no stake in this game and my boner is throbbing for other things thank you very much. I think the smartest for most countries would have been to do like Denmark, Germany etc and:
    (A) Shut down for a while.
    (B) Look at spread patterns.
    (C) Open up society to a level where people can stand the limitations on everyday life in the long-term. And keep hospitals from being overwhelmed.

    For some reason Sweden jumped directly to (C) and the elderly is paying for it now. So not good.
    Most other EU countries are just now arriving at (C), in many cases sans dead elderly which is obviously a better outcome.

  • BurnageBurnage Registered User regular
    edited May 2020
    Prior to the discussions surrounding COVID-19 I had always heard herd immunity used as a way of talking about how if 95% of people got immunized for a thing, then the 5% of folks who couldn't because of an allergy or immunodeficiency were protected because of how hard it would be for the virus to actually get transmitted, since everyone else is immune thanks to the vaccine. So they don't have immunity, but the population as a whole won't allow say measles to transmit anyway so it doesn't matter.

    If the only way to become immune to a virus is to actually get it, herd immunity seems to require infecting your entire population and then having a ton of them die.

    And we don't know how long immunity lasts or even definitively how that immunity works, so it's even less useful.

    This is part of the confusion surrounding usage of "herd immunity" related to Covid, I think. As far as I understand, it's a pretty standard and well accepted epidemiological concept.

    But: it's an end point. It's not a strategy. Trying to get to a herd immunity stage as quickly as possible by letting a disease burn through the population as quickly as possible is a political decision, not a scientific one.

    Burnage on
  • CelestialBadgerCelestialBadger Registered User regular
    Hevach wrote: »
    In other news, I finally managed to get some yeast today. All the hoarders must have bought their fill.

    The shelves are generally full of bread again and making it from scratch is actually hard to master. Except for those who came to enjoy it as a hobby or have already mastered it the demand for yeast has probably gone back to normal.

    I’m really good at making bread and bake it often (as well as home-made pizza crust.) I hope yeast comes back into the shop soon because I haven’t been able to get it for 2 months!

  • CelestialBadgerCelestialBadger Registered User regular
    RedTide wrote: »
    It’s a lot easier to do this in Hawaii

    Alaska could do it too because you either need to cross the Canadian border or get in a plane to fly to Alaska.

    It wouldn’t be possible at, say, the New York/New Jersey border because there are no choke points.

    Actually New Jersey is probably the easiest state in the lower 48 to isolate. The Northern Border with New York state is relatively short and is the only one that isn't geographically defined by a body of water. All of NYC/Pennsylvania or Delaware requires crossing a bridge to come over.

    These are not customs checkpoints . They’d have to create roadblocks and I think Republicans and libertarians would spontaneously combust at the very thought.

  • PhillisherePhillishere Registered User regular
    edited May 2020
    Movitz wrote: »
    Honk wrote: »
    Sweden has a right wing crank who is going against the international expert advice and trying to make it a point of national pride. Science and medicine hasn’t confirmed that population-level sustained immunity exists, because some viruses either don’t or offer limited immunity. Hell, some piggback on antibodies and cause a stronger infection next time.

    It’s Mengele-level mad science. I really don’t give a fuck for the “I’m Swedish and I think” nationalism, becuase science and nature don’t care that one band of apes drew a line on a map and declared themselves different from the neighboring apes.

    Being “ultimately right” doesn’t matter. It is about how we behave while we collect hard data and develop treatments, not which nation made a lucky bet.

    I’m going to at least call out the right-wing crank part as being objectively wrong.

    He’s right wing, and he is basing his policy on unproven science - aka crank science. That’s objectively the definition of a crank, or a quack if you prefer since this is medicine.

    Herd immunity is a wishful fantasy until the science comes in. Your repeated appeals to objectivity only work when discussing actual proven facts.

    “Muh Herd Immunity!” is global right wing nonsense. Some viruses work that way and some don’t.

    This one may work that way, but the “Some Don’t” list includes other coronaviruses, and there are physical characteristics of this virus that are making researchers worry that it is also in that category.

    It may even be right - stopped clocks and all - but is based on the magical thinking that if we all just “Go through it” it will be over.

    Standard issue right wing hard man nonsense married to crank science, but it seems to have some people’s nationalism boner throbbing to defend their nation, so it is achieving its prime purpose.

    Dude, not everything is a right wing conspiracy.

    To reiterate, there has never been any official line of aiming for herd immunity in Sweden. A bunch of people not associated with the government has been speculating wildly (on both sides of the herd immunity issue) but for some reason the right wing in the US picked up on the pro-immunity arguments (again, from non-official sources) and made it into a speaking point. And people now seem pissed at an insignificant country on the edge of the world because of it.

    This whole discussion started back in the other thread because I disagreed that Sweden was boasting of being a success story. Nowhere have I seen Swedish officials doing this.
    I also said that the othering and whataboutism aimed at Sweden seems to be mostly for making political points at the domestic arenas around the world.

    For the record, I have absolutely no stake in this game and my boner is throbbing for other things thank you very much. I think the smartest for most countries would have been to do like Denmark, Germany etc and:
    (A) Shut down for a while.
    (B) Look at spread patterns.
    (C) Open up society to a level where people can stand the limitations on everyday life in the long-term. And keep hospitals from being overwhelmed.

    For some reason Sweden jumped directly to (C) and the elderly is paying for it now. So not good.
    Most other EU countries are just now arriving at (C), in many cases sans dead elderly which is obviously a better outcome.

    Sweden has a right wing government that has ridden an anti-immigrant backlash to power and used that power to slowly dismantle worker protections and cut back on benefits. The official line is less herd immunity and more that the Swedish are culturally special and do not need the same response, but it's the same deal.

    That's the situation. It's not a secret and not a conspiracy. It's just Sweden following the global populist pattern.

    Ultimately, the Sweden in the popular imagination got hijacked by the anti-immigrant backlash. That backlash is now killing thousands of Swedes unnecessarily, because that's what happens when right-wing populism meets a crisis.

    Another similarity, the virus is hitting the immigrant community in Sweden a lot harder
    .

    Phillishere on
  • PhillisherePhillishere Registered User regular
    edited May 2020
    Burnage wrote: »
    Prior to the discussions surrounding COVID-19 I had always heard herd immunity used as a way of talking about how if 95% of people got immunized for a thing, then the 5% of folks who couldn't because of an allergy or immunodeficiency were protected because of how hard it would be for the virus to actually get transmitted, since everyone else is immune thanks to the vaccine. So they don't have immunity, but the population as a whole won't allow say measles to transmit anyway so it doesn't matter.

    If the only way to become immune to a virus is to actually get it, herd immunity seems to require infecting your entire population and then having a ton of them die.

    And we don't know how long immunity lasts or even definitively how that immunity works, so it's even less useful.

    This is part of the confusion surrounding usage of "herd immunity" related to Covid, I think. As far as I understand, it's a pretty standard and well accepted epidemiological concept.

    But: it's an end point. It's not a strategy. Trying to get to a herd immunity stage as quickly as possible by letting a disease burn through the population as quickly as possible is a political decision, not a scientific one.

    No, it is not a standard epidemiological concept to assume herd immunity through natural processes. The standard epidemiological concept is to look at the behavior of each virus in isolation and form a response based on what you know at the moment, with various levels of caution that can be de-escalated as we know more.

    Here's a really good paper outlining the mechanisms where some viruses can trigger an immune response that causes tissue damage
    . That includes viruses whose damage is based on interactions with existing antibodies.

    The epidemiologists and virologists I've read discuss herd immunity as something that evolves over a generation or two in the presence of a novel virus. It's only the politicians who have latched onto the basic concept of immunity and are treating it as a magic bullet that will evolve over the next few weeks or months.

    Phillishere on
  • NobeardNobeard North Carolina: Failed StateRegistered User regular
    One thing I have learned from this pandemic is that I am constantly swapping fluids with random people all the godsdamn time. Stand in any line, ever? Might as well be kissing everyone in about a 6 foot radius.

  • madparrotmadparrot Registered User regular
    I drive part time for a living, and over the past month and a half I've been smoked by more people going 100m/h (160kph) than in the rest of my life combined.

    Some Mad Max shit going on out here

  • MovitzMovitz Registered User regular
    edited May 2020
    Movitz wrote: »
    Honk wrote: »
    Sweden has a right wing crank who is going against the international expert advice and trying to make it a point of national pride. Science and medicine hasn’t confirmed that population-level sustained immunity exists, because some viruses either don’t or offer limited immunity. Hell, some piggback on antibodies and cause a stronger infection next time.

    It’s Mengele-level mad science. I really don’t give a fuck for the “I’m Swedish and I think” nationalism, becuase science and nature don’t care that one band of apes drew a line on a map and declared themselves different from the neighboring apes.

    Being “ultimately right” doesn’t matter. It is about how we behave while we collect hard data and develop treatments, not which nation made a lucky bet.

    I’m going to at least call out the right-wing crank part as being objectively wrong.

    He’s right wing, and he is basing his policy on unproven science - aka crank science. That’s objectively the definition of a crank, or a quack if you prefer since this is medicine.

    Herd immunity is a wishful fantasy until the science comes in. Your repeated appeals to objectivity only work when discussing actual proven facts.

    “Muh Herd Immunity!” is global right wing nonsense. Some viruses work that way and some don’t.

    This one may work that way, but the “Some Don’t” list includes other coronaviruses, and there are physical characteristics of this virus that are making researchers worry that it is also in that category.

    It may even be right - stopped clocks and all - but is based on the magical thinking that if we all just “Go through it” it will be over.

    Standard issue right wing hard man nonsense married to crank science, but it seems to have some people’s nationalism boner throbbing to defend their nation, so it is achieving its prime purpose.

    Dude, not everything is a right wing conspiracy.

    To reiterate, there has never been any official line of aiming for herd immunity in Sweden. A bunch of people not associated with the government has been speculating wildly (on both sides of the herd immunity issue) but for some reason the right wing in the US picked up on the pro-immunity arguments (again, from non-official sources) and made it into a speaking point. And people now seem pissed at an insignificant country on the edge of the world because of it.

    This whole discussion started back in the other thread because I disagreed that Sweden was boasting of being a success story. Nowhere have I seen Swedish officials doing this.
    I also said that the othering and whataboutism aimed at Sweden seems to be mostly for making political points at the domestic arenas around the world.

    For the record, I have absolutely no stake in this game and my boner is throbbing for other things thank you very much. I think the smartest for most countries would have been to do like Denmark, Germany etc and:
    (A) Shut down for a while.
    (B) Look at spread patterns.
    (C) Open up society to a level where people can stand the limitations on everyday life in the long-term. And keep hospitals from being overwhelmed.

    For some reason Sweden jumped directly to (C) and the elderly is paying for it now. So not good.
    Most other EU countries are just now arriving at (C), in many cases sans dead elderly which is obviously a better outcome.



    Sweden has a right wing government that has ridden an anti-immigrant backlash to power
    and used that power to slowly dismantle worker protections and cut back on benefits. The official line is less herd immunity and more that the Swedish are culturally special and do not need the same response, but it's the same deal.

    That's the situation. It's not a secret and not a conspiracy. It's just Sweden following the global populist pattern.

    Ultimately, the Sweden in the popular imagination got hijacked by the anti-immigrant backlash. That backlash is now killing thousands of Swedes unnecessarily, because that's what happens when right-wing populism meets a crisis.

    Another similarity, the virus is hitting the immigrant community in Sweden a lot harder
    .

    What, no. While global populism is a god damn plague on the political landscape so far the Swedish populists have been kept out of the government. They got 17.5 % of the votes and all other parties have vowed to never cooperate with them. Though one of the biggest opposition parties has now taken back that promise so we'll see how that goes. The current government are Democrats together with the Green party with the support from Centrists and Liberals.

    That linked article actually ends with the authors stating that the populists don't have any real governing power.

    Though I agree the populist fuckers have been allowed to own the political discussion and set the agenda in way too many countries, Sweden definitely included.

    Movitz on
  • PhillisherePhillishere Registered User regular
    Nobeard wrote: »
    One thing I have learned from this pandemic is that I am constantly swapping fluids with random people all the godsdamn time. Stand in any line, ever? Might as well be kissing everyone in about a 6 foot radius.

    In general, this isn't actually a bad thing. Swapping low levels of germs is actually how real population immunity is built up.

    Just doesn't work with all viruses, and absolutely doesn't work with novel viruses. It's why you need a public health workforce.

    Hell, the entire reason the United States has a public health workforce was the realization during WWI that just letting things run their course led to a population so ravaged by disease and malnutrition that it could barely produce enough suitable recruits to fight the war.

  • [Expletive deleted][Expletive deleted] The mediocre doctor NorwayRegistered User regular
    Movitz wrote: »
    Honk wrote: »
    Sweden has a right wing crank who is going against the international expert advice and trying to make it a point of national pride. Science and medicine hasn’t confirmed that population-level sustained immunity exists, because some viruses either don’t or offer limited immunity. Hell, some piggback on antibodies and cause a stronger infection next time.

    It’s Mengele-level mad science. I really don’t give a fuck for the “I’m Swedish and I think” nationalism, becuase science and nature don’t care that one band of apes drew a line on a map and declared themselves different from the neighboring apes.

    Being “ultimately right” doesn’t matter. It is about how we behave while we collect hard data and develop treatments, not which nation made a lucky bet.

    I’m going to at least call out the right-wing crank part as being objectively wrong.

    He’s right wing, and he is basing his policy on unproven science - aka crank science. That’s objectively the definition of a crank, or a quack if you prefer since this is medicine.

    Herd immunity is a wishful fantasy until the science comes in. Your repeated appeals to objectivity only work when discussing actual proven facts.

    “Muh Herd Immunity!” is global right wing nonsense. Some viruses work that way and some don’t.

    This one may work that way, but the “Some Don’t” list includes other coronaviruses, and there are physical characteristics of this virus that are making researchers worry that it is also in that category.

    It may even be right - stopped clocks and all - but is based on the magical thinking that if we all just “Go through it” it will be over.

    Standard issue right wing hard man nonsense married to crank science, but it seems to have some people’s nationalism boner throbbing to defend their nation, so it is achieving its prime purpose.

    Dude, not everything is a right wing conspiracy.

    To reiterate, there has never been any official line of aiming for herd immunity in Sweden. A bunch of people not associated with the government has been speculating wildly (on both sides of the herd immunity issue) but for some reason the right wing in the US picked up on the pro-immunity arguments (again, from non-official sources) and made it into a speaking point. And people now seem pissed at an insignificant country on the edge of the world because of it.

    This whole discussion started back in the other thread because I disagreed that Sweden was boasting of being a success story. Nowhere have I seen Swedish officials doing this.
    I also said that the othering and whataboutism aimed at Sweden seems to be mostly for making political points at the domestic arenas around the world.

    For the record, I have absolutely no stake in this game and my boner is throbbing for other things thank you very much. I think the smartest for most countries would have been to do like Denmark, Germany etc and:
    (A) Shut down for a while.
    (B) Look at spread patterns.
    (C) Open up society to a level where people can stand the limitations on everyday life in the long-term. And keep hospitals from being overwhelmed.

    For some reason Sweden jumped directly to (C) and the elderly is paying for it now. So not good.
    Most other EU countries are just now arriving at (C), in many cases sans dead elderly which is obviously a better outcome.

    Sweden has a right wing government that has ridden an anti-immigrant backlash to power and used that power to slowly dismantle worker protections and cut back on benefits. The official line is less herd immunity and more that the Swedish are culturally special and do not need the same response, but it's the same deal.

    That's the situation. It's not a secret and not a conspiracy. It's just Sweden following the global populist pattern.

    Ultimately, the Sweden in the popular imagination got hijacked by the anti-immigrant backlash. That backlash is now killing thousands of Swedes unnecessarily, because that's what happens when right-wing populism meets a crisis.

    Another similarity, the virus is hitting the immigrant community in Sweden a lot harder
    .

    You're wrong on the Swedish government.

    The Swedish PM is not from Sverigedemokratene ("Swedish Democrats", the far-right populists) but from Sveriges socialdemokratiska arbetareparti ("The Swedish Social Democratic Labour Party") who are left-wing (really, really left wing by US standards).

    Sic transit gloria mundi.
  • JragghenJragghen Registered User regular
    Coffee shop had multiple people in line, close to one another, no masks, 5 people sitting, no masks. Seating is less dense than usual, but yeah.

    A couple other people have come in while wearing masks, but all in all this is leaving me rather conflicted.

  • RedTideRedTide Registered User regular
    RedTide wrote: »
    It’s a lot easier to do this in Hawaii

    Alaska could do it too because you either need to cross the Canadian border or get in a plane to fly to Alaska.

    It wouldn’t be possible at, say, the New York/New Jersey border because there are no choke points.

    Actually New Jersey is probably the easiest state in the lower 48 to isolate. The Northern Border with New York state is relatively short and is the only one that isn't geographically defined by a body of water. All of NYC/Pennsylvania or Delaware requires crossing a bridge to come over.

    Those are probably all low volume bridges too eh

    :razz:

    If the point is isolating a geographic area then the difference between closing the world's busiest bridge and the world's slowest is a handful of concrete barriers and a few more cops.

    RedTide#1907 on Battle.net
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  • Commander ZoomCommander Zoom Registered User regular
    Nobeard wrote: »
    One thing I have learned from this pandemic is that I am constantly swapping fluids with random people all the godsdamn time. Stand in any line, ever? Might as well be kissing everyone in about a 6 foot radius.

    In general, this isn't actually a bad thing. Swapping low levels of germs is actually how real population immunity is built up.

    Just doesn't work with all viruses, and absolutely doesn't work with novel viruses. It's why you need a public health workforce.

    Hell, the entire reason the United States has a public health workforce was the realization during WWI that just letting things run their course led to a population so ravaged by disease and malnutrition that it could barely produce enough suitable recruits to fight the war.

    To say nothing of quality of life...
    No, really. Nothing is said about that. :(

  • Dark_SideDark_Side Registered User regular
    edited May 2020
    Jragghen wrote: »
    Coffee shop had multiple people in line, close to one another, no masks, 5 people sitting, no masks. Seating is less dense than usual, but yeah.

    A couple other people have come in while wearing masks, but all in all this is leaving me rather conflicted.

    I'm seeing it all over Denver, now, people have just given up on wearing masks or bothering to distance at all. I was disc golfing in CO Springs yesterday and there were groups of 4 or more dudes out playing together. Granted the virus numbers have continued to stay either steady or slightly decline in CO...but I don't think we'll really know how big a problem people giving up on social distancing is here until early to mid June.

    Dark_Side on
  • shrykeshryke Member of the Beast Registered User regular
    edited May 2020
    I asked this before but is there a link on exactly what Sweden did that was wrong and whether or not is was some deliberate attempt and how that's linked to right-wing populism?

    Cause there's a lot of people saying that but I can't find anything to back it up.

    The only thing I can find is stuff saying they adopted a less strict approach to lockdown.

    shryke on
  • [Expletive deleted][Expletive deleted] The mediocre doctor NorwayRegistered User regular
    shryke wrote: »
    I asked this before but is there a link on exactly what Sweden did that was wrong and whether or not is was some deliberate attempt and how that's linked to right-wing populism?

    Cause there's a lot of people saying that but I can't find anything to back it up.

    The only thing I can find is stuff saying they adopted a less strict approach to lockdown.

    Frankly, a lot of it seems to stem from @Phillishere 's confusion of the Swedish PM's actual party (Labour Party) for the far-right populist and not in-power Swedish Democrats.

    Sic transit gloria mundi.
  • shrykeshryke Member of the Beast Registered User regular
    Honk wrote: »
    Sweden has a right wing crank who is going against the international expert advice and trying to make it a point of national pride. Science and medicine hasn’t confirmed that population-level sustained immunity exists, because some viruses either don’t or offer limited immunity. Hell, some piggback on antibodies and cause a stronger infection next time.

    It’s Mengele-level mad science. I really don’t give a fuck for the “I’m Swedish and I think” nationalism, becuase science and nature don’t care that one band of apes drew a line on a map and declared themselves different from the neighboring apes.

    Being “ultimately right” doesn’t matter. It is about how we behave while we collect hard data and develop treatments, not which nation made a lucky bet.

    I’m going to at least call out the right-wing crank part as being objectively wrong.

    He’s right wing, and he is basing his policy on unproven science - aka crank science. That’s objectively the definition of a crank, or a quack if you prefer since this is medicine.

    Herd immunity is a wishful fantasy until the science comes in. Your repeated appeals to objectivity only work when discussing actual proven facts.

    “Muh Herd Immunity!” is global right wing nonsense. Some viruses work that way and some don’t.

    This one may work that way, but the “Some Don’t” list includes other coronaviruses, and there are physical characteristics of this virus that are making researchers worry that it is also in that category.

    It may even be right - stopped clocks and all - but is based on the magical thinking that if we all just “Go through it” it will be over.

    Standard issue right wing hard man nonsense married to crank science, but it seems to have some people’s nationalism boner throbbing to defend their nation, so it is achieving its prime purpose.

    I think it is important to drill down on why the right is so focused on herd immunity as a response. One of the global characteristics of the modern right-wing politicians is that they have devoted their lives to dismantling the administrative state. They want lower taxes, lower aid to vulnerable citizens, lower protections for workers, and greater freedom of business (aka the politician's donors) to control their workers' lives.

    Herd immunity flows from these ideas, not any actual science. Actually responding to this virus requires massive state coordination, but that also means there's a is critical role for the administrative state. That's counter to their ideas, so they have latched onto the response that the best course of action is to do nothing.

    Which is also their response to poverty, climate change, and racist attacks on minority citizens. It's politics not science.

    The fact that some right wingers have degrees in science and act as mouthpieces for these ideas is just weaponizing appeals to authority. Money buys a lot of opinions in our world.

    Right-wingers love herd immunity because it's a strategy that suggests they don't need to do anything and it will solve itself. The fundamental thing that makes all these authoritarians so bad at this is that they want simple solutions that don't involve bad news or hard work. They are terrified of being embarrassed or seen as weak so they seek out strategies and "solutions" that avoid those things. Denial and "herd immunity" are both attractive because they let you say "we're gonna be fine and I don't have to do anything".

  • JragghenJragghen Registered User regular
    I think a lot of people may have confused American right wingers pointing to Sweden going "see? THEY didn't shut down and they're doing great!" As Swedish right-wingers doing so.

  • Captain InertiaCaptain Inertia Registered User regular
    Nobeard wrote: »
    One thing I have learned from this pandemic is that I am constantly swapping fluids with random people all the godsdamn time. Stand in any line, ever? Might as well be kissing everyone in about a 6 foot radius.

    Smelling a fart is getting poo particles on your face

  • MovitzMovitz Registered User regular
    edited May 2020
    shryke wrote: »
    I asked this before but is there a link on exactly what Sweden did that was wrong and whether or not is was some deliberate attempt and how that's linked to right-wing populism?

    Cause there's a lot of people saying that but I can't find anything to back it up.

    The only thing I can find is stuff saying they adopted a less strict approach to lockdown.

    The biggest mistake (and it is a really big one) was to rely on the protective routines currently in place for the elderly care teams. 66% of the death toll in Sweden is from elderly with some sort of assistance and it is very likely that they contracted the virus from their caregivers.

    The right-wing link seems to be something coming out of the US and I've only encountered it here on these forums.

    I mostly follow Danish, Swedish, UK and to some degree German news outlets. It has never been mentioned there, or I've missed it.

    These are statistics from Sweden. It's in Swedish for obvious reasons, unfortunately.

    https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/09f821667ce64bf7be6f9f87457ed9aa

    Edit: If anyone is actually interested in numbers look click on "Avlidna/dag" for deceased per day. And also look at "Avlidna per åldersgrupp" for deceased per age bracket.

    Movitz on
  • shrykeshryke Member of the Beast Registered User regular
    The US is quickly approaching 100k deaths.

    Trump, today, is golfing with a bunch of buddies while not wear a mask.
    https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/23/politics/trump-golf-course-sterling-virginia/index.html

    His laziness and lack of work ethic and vanity is going to continue to make it hard to convince people staying in lockdown is needed.

  • UrsusUrsus Registered User regular
    Sweden isn’t run by the far right. Sweden is currently run by the Social Democrats, a party that is as close to the ideal left-of-center as you can get.

    Furthermore the Swedish welfare state hasn’t been weakened by the far right (SD party), but the previous blue alliance (non-crazy right, think corporate wing of the gop without the derp)Government from 06-14. If anything, the SD party have been running on going back to the halcyon (imaginary) days in the glorious past where folkhemmet reigned supreme.

    Now before the pandemic the SD did poll higher than everyone else, so it is likely/possible they win a plurality in thenext election, and then we will see what other parts of the Swedish right will join them in government.

  • Gnome-InterruptusGnome-Interruptus Registered User regular
    Burnage wrote: »
    Prior to the discussions surrounding COVID-19 I had always heard herd immunity used as a way of talking about how if 95% of people got immunized for a thing, then the 5% of folks who couldn't because of an allergy or immunodeficiency were protected because of how hard it would be for the virus to actually get transmitted, since everyone else is immune thanks to the vaccine. So they don't have immunity, but the population as a whole won't allow say measles to transmit anyway so it doesn't matter.

    If the only way to become immune to a virus is to actually get it, herd immunity seems to require infecting your entire population and then having a ton of them die.

    And we don't know how long immunity lasts or even definitively how that immunity works, so it's even less useful.

    This is part of the confusion surrounding usage of "herd immunity" related to Covid, I think. As far as I understand, it's a pretty standard and well accepted epidemiological concept.

    But: it's an end point. It's not a strategy. Trying to get to a herd immunity stage as quickly as possible by letting a disease burn through the population as quickly as possible is a political decision, not a scientific one.

    Herd Immunity is the end point

    The strategy they are trying to implement is Survival of the Fittest

    But if they say it out loud or the reporters call it that, it won’t be accepted by the public as easily

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  • DouglasDangerDouglasDanger PennsylvaniaRegistered User regular
    Trump has been campaigning against the lockdown since the beginning, and has repeatedly encouraging right wing terrorists to threaten their state government representatives lives

This discussion has been closed.