My grandmother within a week of catching Covid-19 last week during an outbreak at her care home. She would have turned 100 years old this spring. Fuckin sucks.

Total lockdown planned for after Christmas. People are going to die and damage is going to be in the billions from riots and clashes with police on NYE. I say that with no justifying and no apologism, just a statement of fact. It's the party night of the year for many people and many (very dumb) people will insist on it come what may.

-edit- Just saw that for the first time since it started, the Covid-19 death toll in the USA exceeded 9/11.

Germany will have a hard lockdown from the 2020-12-16 to ... 2020-01-10 for now. I cannot say that I am surprised.

I was speaking on Discord with an Australian guy a few days ago and he said that in his part of the country everything was pretty much back to normal - hardly any new cases. He was talking about how local metal bands had started to play live shows again.

Goddammit, why can't people here in America be smarter and less stubborn? Every time I hear about a country that's waged a successful war against the virus, I get jealous of countries with more powerful governments than the US and become more disgusted with humanity for not wanting to take simple steps to help things get back to normal.

Indeed, extremely thankful that people behaved here in NZ too given live shows are such a major hobby for me. We still had many unfortunate losses in terms of all the cancellations and postponements happening, but April & May were the only months where I had no shows to go to at all (though socially distanced seated shows started to become a thing at the end of May). 3 out of 4 shows I went to during a 2nd period of restrictions in late August/early September were seated. The 4th was a private event with the venue setting a lowered capacity of 80. The rest have been as normal, and I don't usually use public transport so the one time I was required to wear a mask so far was when I got a chest x-ray.

It's really something else. There are still so many people who somehow believe that the whole thing is mostly media hysteria, and blown out of proportion for clicks and press. It's baffling to say the least.

At least in a country with a well-handled pandemic response, that kind of skepticism is more understandable, because if the situation has been handled well, the terrible consequences of the pandemic don't make themselves apparent. It's the dilemma that if the response is extremely efficient, there will be no problems, and people will criticise the defensive measures for having been excessive on the grounds that they worked... It's still ignorant, but it's a whole different level of idiocy and stubbornness to insist the same, when the disastrous consequences of a severely botched pandemic response are blatantly shown.

That's the kind of low level silliness we've had in the UK - "lockdown clearly works, so why do we need a lockdown ?!", and all sorts of people on the left and right of the media complaining the the lockdown is fascist government control / stalinist government control.

The inevitable result is a lessening of controls, and cue spike in cases as people go to the pub / go shopping / etc, cue "useless government" complaints.

I live in a small area so luckily when I go shopping its not really a huge deal. Hopefully.

There are 20 confirmed cases at my job (luckily I stay away from every department), and just recently both my parents caught it. Shit's fucked here.

My Canadian buddy was claiming 2k every single month. His parents' income tax is basically 50% but man, 2k every month? What the fuck did we get again that one time?



This country's freedom is directly proportional to the stubbornness of its people, perhaps because of it. There should be an IQ requirement for reproduction...

The American government is historically very, very good at giving people the illusion of freedom without that freedom actually existing. If we were actually free, then we wouldn't have to worry about going bankrupt if we're in a car accident or get cancer. If we were free, we could take proper precautions against the virus without fear of our employers firing us for missing too much time at work. The fact that public education is so systematically, deliberately underfunded and broken has done nothing but lead to a nation of unintelligent, unthinking drones that somehow still fucking think that the pandemic is overblown and Covid is no worse than the flu. Trump being president when it started is also a major, major reason this got as bad as it's gotten, because he immediately politicized the virus and called it a Democratic hoax, which his idiot followers ate up as expected. Then he and Jared Kushner intentionally didn't do anything as the virus spread more because they figured it'd mainly affect urban, heavily Democratic cities, which would give him an advantage in the election. Here we are 10 months later, with 315,000+ confirmed deaths (and certainly tons and tons more that are uncounted), a laughable fucking joke of a relief bill about to pass that won't do a fucking thing for the regular person, and the eventual insanity that will come with trying to get this stupid fucking population that thinks Bill Gates filled the vaccine with mind controlling 5G waves vaccinated.

US Culture is seriously fucked up and it will take a tremendous effort to get out of it. When you have a single way of thinking on politics, they will make sure that people aligns with that, so the status quo won't change, ever.

It's unbelievable that a country so rich as the US has such poor healthcare, public education and brutally high crime rates. I mean, there's no excuse! Money can't be the problem, it's a matter of political will to keep the US undermined, to make their citizens badly educated, have miserable health and be killed, assaulted, robbed, raped, etc among them.

Once the vast majority of Americans realizes that and starts to riot, things will eventually change. For such incompetent and unified political class to rule with such freedom to do as they please and let people to suffer, starve (yes, in America people starves) and fucking die just because they are not up to do something about it, they need a quiet, non-thinking population to feed them. What the US needs is a French Revolution; gallows and guillotines for all corrupt, useless motherfuckers that keep America rotting.

We got a new strain of it over here which is perhaps considerably more contagious so that's fantastic. It's like a dry run for Brexit - no-one wants to let anyone or anything off the island!

Do not listen to journalists, listen to virologists:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/21/european-experts-urge-caution-over-new-covid-mutation-uk

Well yeah, the spread is chiefly due to government mismanagement here. It has at least forced them to abandon the insanity of pretending the virus doesn't exist just because its Christmas. The chief downside is that blaming a new variant is just another way of ducking responsibility for the general situation allowing the lessons to remain unlearnt.

Our lot are certainly receiving a shock with the French saying 'non' and shutting the border. Turns out it's perfectly possible to simply say 'no' and close the border when there's a problem.

Feel for the lorry drivers though - being stuck on an airfield in December waiting for a ship must be pretty grim.

But we were supposed to close the border on you!

Can't help but feel that it's the season finale of the UK

Ottawa has our lowest number of Covid patients in hospital since July, and a whopping goose egg in Intensive Care. But still, BOHICA - lockdown’s back on Dec 26. Not a chance in hell that bumbling fascist Ford is getting my vote next election; when (if?) that’s ever allowed.

I live in Sault Ste. Marie, and since the start of the pandemic, IN THE ENTIRE REGION OF ALGOMA, we have had 63 confirmed cases total, and as far as I know, only 1 hospitalization, and 0 ICU admissions. I believe currently, we only have 3 active confirmed cases (and one is in our jail, which I guess could mean an outbreak is coming).

However, regardless of my stance on Doug Ford (or him repeatedly saying 'My friends, my friends' in pressers), I am all for the lockdown. I know of at least 15-20 people that have travelled home for the Holidays from Southern Ontario hotzones. I've seen on my instagram stories, them partying with 0 social distancing. Our restaurants and bars have been PACKED full of people going for brunch and dinner with their friends and families from out of town. I feel like it's the best thing for our small community to do so that we don't become overwhelmed in the new year.

Will these people still be having house parties? Yeah, absolutely. But hopefully some of the people will be a bit smarter about it, and it'll stop people from potentially infecting people at non-essential businesses, who may pass it along to more and more customers/patrons.

Again, not really looking to get into a huge political debate here - I totally respect your opinion and stance on it (and I've never voted for Ford, and probably never would). Just my (actually medically diagnosed) germaphobia speaking.

Haha yes, Ford’s “my friends” has gotten even more irritating than Joe Biden calling everyone “folks”. You are not regular guys!!!
As for Covid, well, if you’re happy basing major government policy on anecdotal evidence and scary hypotheticals, okay fill your boots. I’d still prefer this most recent iron fist be shoved right back up the Premier’s arse.

Very much this. I'm not sure though if it really is this simple though. However you make a great point really.

My mom's side of the family has a big gathering every Christmas Eve and this will be the first time in my life that I'm missing it. My mom and brothers won't be able to come up for it due to my older brother and his girlfriend contracting COVID and several folks in my extended family haven't taken it very seriously. Gonna be a quiet night this year.

Accidentally opened the thread to the first page instead of clicking "last post," and oh my this didn't age well.

The whole first page of this thread aged like milk, lol. I don't remember without checking if I posted then or not but I had the same mindset early on. SARS, bird flu, swine flu, ebola, every few years it felt like there was a new bubonic plague coming that never really happened so pattern recognition told me this would be the same. I've since spent the last ten months eating crow.

I thought the same way. I don't think anyone really knew the scope of this. There was never any reason prior to 2020 to think a virus would have this far reaching an impact. It just wasn't something we'd really considered.

I'll never make a "disease of the year" joke again.

Looks like quite a few people dropped that opinion on the floor, but somehow I was the only one to step in it

Not the only one, just the first one...

The average age of Covid deaths in Sweden is 83, while I think in America it's 65 or 66 (correct me if I am wrong). Clearly lifestyle and diet play a big role in outcome. Interestingly we have seen that smokers (current, not former) tend to fare better (in Spain, China, Sweden, and France). haven't heard more about it, but it seems to be similar to how smoking cigarettes helps at high altitudes.

Looking at the death rate I think it is safe to say it actually is like a very bad flu, and certainly not as bad as the 1918 flu which killed, what, 3% of the world's population? Just interesting to think about when people say it's 'just like the flu' (I mean it's a pretty meaningless statement, there is a lot of variation in how bad a flu is/can be).

An Australian friend who lives in China (in Wuxi in Jiangsu Province to be exact, because I know how much people love specifics) has just gone into total lockdown like China did at the beginning of the pandemic. Reason? A returning Chinese citizen who had been to Egypt tested positive for it in the city. Would be interesting to see the negative effects of the Chinese lockdowns (of which I am certain there are many), but the Chinese government is such a steaming pile of shit we'll never know.

Finally, we keep hearing about long-term effects of Covid but there isn't a lot of science behind it. I'll check PubMed again next month (next year!) and see if there are more studies regarding it, but right now (scientifically at least) it's looking somewhat skeptical. (By scientific I mean going by peer-reviewed studies, not on hearsay or personal accounts.)

My mom just got vaccinated. I don't want to speak too soon, but I think I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.

In 1918, living conditions and hygiene were mostly appalling and few people could opt for social distance. They barely even knew what a virus was at the time and misdiagnosed what was causing it. Antivirals and antibiotics hadn't been invented yet. The majority of those deaths were due to secondary bacterial infections/pneumonia. So the virus with a 10% mortality rate in 1918 didn't need to be as 'bad' as the one achieving 2% today. If you put COVID-19 in 1918, it's that much more contagious so pneumonia would kill even more, although it otherwise kills an older demographic.

Do not forget WW1, even though the trenches were not a main hot spot, the war had taken its toll on the societies on the whole.

I cannot stress this enough, but it is interesting to read books about the Spanish Flu; I read two at the beginning of the pandemic. The idiots make a reappearance and a good portion of the mistakes were made again. But, each virus is unique. The problem with the current one is how the main transmission of infected droplets appears at a point in which the person does not appear to have symptoms. If such a thing would have happened in 1918, it would have had wrecked havoc on the societies. A flu is very easy thing to diagnose: you have cough, fever etc., you are someone who spreads the virus. Covid-19 is different. Once you show symptoms the degree in which a person is spreading the virus is actually already in decline.

Both accounts are true. People who have been feeding healthy over time develop a better immune system.

The other thing has been "proven", at least empirically. Long time or recurrent smokers tolerate Covid better. Nicotine, when assimilated to the point the same body produces it when its consumption drops, it weakens covid. At the hospital here we've seen it as a strikingly clear trend; from all interns, the smokers have got Covid never developed the worst symptoms and went thru it with a certain ease.

We understand tho, the reason of keeping this quiet; if suddenly all media states that "smoking kills Covid", it'll lead to a far worst scenario in the mid term. It won't bring any good either; only in heavy or long time smokers we've seen this effect. Social smokers or people who got just recently into it gets affected as everybody else.

^Unless I'm missing something, claims of smokers being much less likely to develop severe Covid-19 symptoms are based of a single study whose results were published in news websites before peer-review. It's not as simple as that: https://theconversation.com/does-nicoti ... rus-137488

I'm not talking about that study. I'm talking about what we've observed in the hospital, fighting against Covid for months (it'll be a year in march here). Other hospitals have observed the same pattern.

I had a mind-boggling encounter with a virus denier today on Discord who said that he didn't want to be a "pussy" cowering in fear of a "cold virus". He said he wanted to be "brave", comparing himself to the soldiers who stormed the beach at Normandy and prevailed, despite overwhelming odds against them. When pointed out that this was not a good comparison, he said "I'm comparing my american spirit to fellow Americans spirits" (poor English skills preserved).

Seriously, what do you even say to these people? Is there anything that can be said?

That bus driver's name? Albert Einstein.

Lord of Diamonds - Lol at that story. Thank you for sharing.

And no, I don’t think there’s anything that can be said to whoever that was. Either, he’s young and stupid (which I know from experience there’s no cure for), or he’s older and set in his ways and that’s definitely not a debate worth getting into.

Which, also, there is no cure for 99% of the time.

He was quite young. 17, in fact. He said he did not fear the virus because his entire family had it and survived. To which I responded that I didn't fear the virus either but:

"I wanna go out again!"

"OK, put a mask and respect social distancing so we can put this thing behind us ASAP."

"No I don't wanna! *tantrums*"

...reminds me of my kid, who wants to go play outside. But he doesn't want to wear his coat. So he doesn't go outside and gets upset about it. But surprisingly, he doesn't throw as big a tantrum as some supposed adults asked to wear a mask out of consideration for others.

...

In other, related news, apparently sovereign citizens are a thing in Quebec. There is a video circulating of plaguebearers going into a police station and distributing "documents". According to them, "the people" (who, exactly?) have passed an emergency order to the Constitution (big mumbo jumbo of words meaning nothing) and "the Commonwealth court" (no such court in Quebec) and "the judge" of said court have thus forbidden the wearing of mask as it's a crime against humanity, and apparently they expect cops to arrest Legault and his accomplices. And if cops don't comply, "they" will arrest them as accomplices. They also distribute documents to fellow morons, giving them cues as to what to msay to cops if they are arrested for illegal gathering or not wearing a mask, thinking a few magic words makes the law not apply to them.

It's crazytown out there.