kwlf wrote:
We need to pay for media, and hold them to account if they report untruths. We need to demand more from our politicians, and vote them out if they are not upholding basic standards of competency and probity. And we need to value expertise, whilst respecting those who express uncertainty about those things that are not yet written in stone.
The problem is that even the paid media are often backed by people with a political agenda. Personally I have stopped reading any Swiss newspaper, as there is none there worth reading anymore, let alone pay for them.
kwlf wrote:
There’s no point in trusting those who are untrustworthy, but I see no way for society to function that does not involve putting some faith in authorities.
This is exactly the quagmire society is sliding into and which Covid has demonstrated beyond any issue before it, even though the issues were there. As for authorities, their credibility gets underminded systematically by those who wish to attack them and with the internet and with fake news media they do have all the platforms they need to do that.
I find it massively alarming that in many of todays countries you will find numbers approaching half of the population who live in a totally different factual world than the other half. That is extremely dangerous for the functioning of society and it is a potential source of disfunction of the country as a whole. Corona has proven that this is a massive problem, but seeing the more and more hostile environment in which e.g political parties fight each other to the death rather than seeking compromise, things may go very wrong.
Mooney_Driver wrote:
In other words, we have for the time being got to assume that the vaccine won’t work for the new strains, just as they don’t for the flu.
No – it’s more like exactly the other way round! For the time being it is much more likely that the vaccine works also for this strain – as it does for the >100 others that haven been identified until summer.
That was exactly my point in the earlier post: “They have found a new strain (that even has gene deletions on the spike protein – whatever that is…)” does sound much less frightening if one knows that this is not the second strain (and thus the first mutation), but most probably something like the 200th strain they discovered (it has been about 140 until August and the publications have some time lag…).
In other words, we have for the time being got to assume that the vaccine won’t work for the new strains, just as they don’t for the flu.
Probably good to mention that the reason flu vaccines “don’t work” is very often not due to changes in the airborne virus that causes the infection, but due to growth-substrate induced genetic changes in the virus used for vaccination (i.e. the egg-cultivated viruses).
It’s much easier to control & match for genetic changes with mRNA that it is with the classic egg substrate method.
T28 wrote:
It’s much easier to control & match for genetic changes with mRNA that it is with the classic egg substrate method.
Good point. I wonder if we will also get mRNA based Influenza vaccines in the future. The technology as such is promising.
One of the things I find fascinating with these long running discussions is to go back to page one and see what some of us were saying then. It is surprising for various reasons how much views change over time and as more information becomes available, and who had polished their crystal ball the best.
Moderna’s vaccine is to have several more and more severe side effect than Pfizer. The worse a medicine taste, the better it works I guess 
The BBC doesn’t mention this but WSJ does.
What does this mean?
Fuji_Abound wrote:
One of the things I find fascinating with these long running discussions is to go back to page one and see what some of us were saying then. It is surprising for various reasons how much views change over time and as more information becomes available, and who had polished their crystal ball the best.
Not page one but in my first post on February 28 I wrote this:
Mooney_Driver wrote:
But things may get much worse before they get better and the economy will take a huge beating. I would not be surprised if public transport will get restricted or shut down as well as international travel restricted. And a lot more events will take either a massive beating or be cancelled out altogether.In the end, while I believe it is not productive for doctors now to shout horror figures like a 30 % wipe out of the population into the press, it may well be one of the most disruptive outbreaks since the Spanish flu 100 years ago. Not necessarily due to mortality figures but due to the impact prevention efforts have.
Mooney_Driver wrote on March 3rd:
The problem is, only countries which are totalitarian enough and people have enough fear from retribution can install the drakonian measures needed to really contain this thing. ……..As that is not going to happen, we will have to live with this new virus and more to come for the forseeable future. Maybe in 10 years we have a vaccine or people grow resistent. But up to then, who will take responsibility for the millions which will die in the next years because nation states do not have the balls to impose unpopular measures…
and
Mooney_Driver wrote:
Reaction was way too slow, way too half hearted. People are grumbling about a 2 -4 week curfew, closing borders e.t.c. but that is what would have worked. Switerzland alone has been infected ONLY by Italian carriers and visitors to there for example. Had they closed the border to Italy immediately when this came out and contained all folks who had visited there without exception, they could have managed to hold it in low numbers. Once it spread beyond, the only way to really contain it would have been a TOTAL wartime like closure of all public spaces, businesses, financial markets, public transport, the lot save for a few food stores and hospitals under war time quarantine, that is no more routine checks, operations, e.t.c. Well, they did not have the balls to do that and now the price will explode to a factor not even calculable so far. It is not that there are not planes for that, for biowar for instance, but they are of little use in the closet of governments if they are not implemented.Now, we are going to see a massive recession, probably millions of virus carriers and a virus which has already put the 2008 financial meltdown to shame. A two -four week shutdown would not have done anywhere close to that damage.
Has my attitude changed? Not one yota. Did I expect to see what we see now? In a way yes, but I am totally shocked about the extent of it. I wrote then several times that the people are moaning and throwing tantrums, but now, that up to 60% of populations refuse the vaccine which was here 9 years earlier than I feared, I stand by every word I wrote then. The war on Covid was lost in February. And we shall not get rid of it for a very long time to come, unless governments finally find their collective balls and force people to cooperate. So far, Covid has done everything the Spanish Flu has in terms first/2nd wave and of society and economy but I suppose by the time it is over, Covid will by far have paled that sordid number once the third wave hits fully. Personally, I have no confidence at all that 2021 will be any better than 2020, I fear it may well be much much worse.
Friends of mine in the US speak of 7 years of tribulation before the final reckogning…. I am starting to wonder if they are not right at least in terms of the timespan.
What has chanced in my perception?
Then I trusted the governments in charge to finally reckognize the error of their ways in attacking this or at least not to repeat the same mistakes. What they really did is to sacrifice hundreds of thousands of lifes on the altar of economy and so called personal freedom.
I trusted the population to be capable of seeing the dangers involved and to be compassionate and responsible enough to counteract it. What really happened is that large parts of the population have fallen back into medievel time superstition, denial and egoism driven revolt.
I did not expect to loose this many friends and acquaintances to Covid in one year. So far the number of people who passed I knew well has surpassed a dozen. I fear there will be many more good-byes which can never be said.
I did not expect long covid. At the time, people said who survives it is out of the boonies, now we know differently.
I have totally lost trust in our executive branch, in our governments and also in society. I have been re-enforced in my previous belief that the press has long gone as a news medium and the internet as it stands today is a potentially fatal carrier of misinformation, hatred and supersticion in the form of VT’s and similar. Personally, I expect the Covid crisis to be the trigger of a massive conflict which may well change the shape of society and the world order quite brutally and without a chance of rectification in our lifetime.
Ten years ago, I bought the “Telegraph” and the local “Press and Journal”. I stopped because their content declined. The number of all newspapers sold locally appears much less from the appearance of the shop racks.
The number of owners has declined. This seems to be the case in the US as well.
“I have totally lost trust in our executive branch, in our governments and also in society. I have been re-enforced in my previous belief that the press has long gone as a news medium.”
Not sure about society, but agree with the rest.
This has a bad effect on getting trusted information about Covid-19 prevention to the population.
Mooney_Driver wrote:
So far, Covid has done everything the Spanish Flu has in terms first/2nd wave and of society and economy
It hasn’t. Covid-19 kills the weak and elderly, the second “Spanish Flu” wave killed mostly young and healthy people. which is why…
people are moaning and throwing tantrums
We expect the young(er) to make huge sacrifices, both economic and in their daily lives, mostly for the benefit of the elderly. While there are SOME younger people dying or having long term effects, it is clearly not bad enough to justify the measures taken in their eyes.
