Covid-19 Discussion (moderated)

Seems that US population is close to herd immunization before the vaccine ( being conservative, around 100 million people must have had the virus so far).

Nothing anyone has done or will do will stop any of this. People who have sequestered and worn masks since day 1 have been infected and countries that were seen as models are still experiencing a second wave and increases across the board.

Meanwhile Japan has had more suicides in a single month than Covid deaths and they are directly attributed to isolation and the breakdown of social norms.

My body, my choice

You're correct that it's not possible to stop this. It is, however, possible to reduce the size and severity of the pandemic and to reduce the size of the second wave.  Which is what other countries who have taken this seriously have done: even with their second wave, they haven't had as many infections, hospitalizations and deaths as the US even on a per capita basis.

And they get their second wave under control, like we have here in Australia. To date we've had 908 deaths in our population of 25 million: with the US population of 328 million, that would be just under 12,000 deaths in your country. 12 THOUSAND. You guys exceeded that in the last week. Your overall number of deaths is 20x ours, a whole order of magnitude greater. Your administration has done nothing to co-ordinate a federal response or collobrate with the states to get this thing under control with unified messaging to reduce confusion.

The above post articulates what I have been meaning to say here for sometime.

Australians generally resent any form of authority or control .

With a convict ancestry and larrikin mentality .

Along with NZ ,Australia has all but eradicated local transmissions of the virus without a vaccine.

There are some who have willfully violated the rules and are rightly treated as pariahs and criminals.

Actually, that's an interesting contradiction: although we like to think of ourselves as anti-establishment larrikins, Australians are actually generally pretty happy to follow government guidelines and wait patiently in queues. We surrendered our guns in the wake of the Port Arthur massacre in 1996, accepted mandatory seatbelt wearing the 1970s, and agreed to vaguely defined counter-terrorism laws after 9/11, just to name a few. We've had compulsory voting at the federal level since 1911 and it was introduced in every state between 1915 and 1942.

Yes, we rejected a National Identity Card in the 1980s over privacy concerns, but the practical reality is that we do actually trust our governments, even if we don't particularly like politicians. We don't hold to this notion that my personal freedom counts above all else like it seems to do in the US - we look after our mates and our neighbours because everyone needs a hand sometimes, and if it's a bit inconvenient, well, we're cool with that.

Y'all r talking 'bout me geez thx!!

thatll get you banned

Australia did nothing America didn’t do.

Australia quickly sealed its borders. When Trump did the same he was scorned as a racist and a xenophobe.

Australia locked down. To date the places in America that chose the harshest lockdowns, ie New York, had the very WORST results.

America is a HUGE place with a tremendous amount of large densely packed cities and a terribly obese population...half of which is high off their minds on drugs....

JFK is the busiest airport on earth. It was always going to spread here.

Short of violating the law and the rights of the citizens here you cannot compel us to comply and Americans simply won’t in many cases.

As we’ve heard over and over again for years: my body, my choice.

Prove it.  Show some actual stats on mis-categorized Covid deaths.  Otherwise, you're the one drinking the talking point Kool Aid.

P.S. A suicide, carried out while suffering from Covid-19, is a valid Covid death, the same way that a "suicide" by jumping off a building that is on fire is correctly classified as being caused by the fire.  If a stage 4 cancer patient commits suicide, it's still a valid casualty of the disease.

Well, it's easy to see you're not getting your facts from any place legit .   Half the country high on drugs?   Obesity is 42%, so...you're closer, but still exaggerating.

On the lame trolling attempts:

Going forward, I'll be summarily blocking any poster with less than 3 months under their belt who comes in here and posts a snarky one-liner, so, don't bother.  It takes 20 times less effort to block than to create new sockpuppets...I'll outlive you all.

I used to wait for 2-3 posts to make sure someone wasn't coming in with an initial joke and then joins the discussion, but that is exceedingly rare on the forums anymore...95 times out of 100, the brand new poster that might be trolling, *is* trolling.

Because too many didn't follow the social distancing and use the mask when it was needed;just look at Trump and all the dozen that were infected because of him!

Suicide while Covid positive is NOT a Covid death that’s ridiculous.

So if trump would have killed himself 2 days after getting Covid because the stress of the presidency was too much for him you believe it’s a valid Covid death classification.

Are you listening to yourself?

Right, has long has you do not harm or infect any one!

The immunization doesn't last years...and even with the vaccine you can still give the virus to other it seem?

100 is not enough,you need 70%?

Trump didn't close his border 100%...only part with China and the virus came from mostly the EU,and Trump was the last one to do so.!

Wrong;closing the border 100% a few weeks before would have saved a lot of life!

but that was only one of the thing that was needed!

In the UK and England specifically, initially anybody who had contracted Covid and then died was classified as a 'Covid death'. So you have/had the virus at any level of severity but are then involved in a road traffic accident for example. This is not any longer the case but it was a foolish move which at the very least caused confusion and cast doubt on the reality of the situation. Such doubts remain with people months later and erodes trust in the government. I will say though that despite facing criticism for this, the hesitant initial response to the outbreak and our current 'tier system', 99.9% of people are simply doing as they are told with a weary resignation. 

So it my body, my choice as long as I don’t hurt another?

Why you DONT SAY?