Merci @gallois
Thankfully Jeremy Clarkson, while often to the point, is not in charge of shooting anyone…
gallois wrote:
People do and will look at TV news and see a person lying on his death bed about to pass away saying “i was wrong not to be vaccinated, I thought I was too young to die of Covid”
You know what is worse? I saw a report from Romania where they interviewed people like that (the thought alone how reporters got into a covid ward is disugsting but anyhow) and those guys STILL were convinced they were the victim of a Bill Gates led campaign.
In BG, where they now loose around 250 per day even their president Radev appears not to be too keen on vaccinations. I talked to intelligent, well educated folks who would rather die than take the vaccine… for some of them their wish now is sadly reality.
gallois wrote:
People who lost family will always remember who they thought was to blame.
I have lost plenty of people but who really is to blame? Is it black and white?
I am very sad and very angry. Every day I get news of people who died, mainly in Bulgaria. In my mother in law’s appartment block, a whole family died and they run out of space for necrologs at the front door. Why? One of our friends was told (wrongly) that she can’t get vaccinated because she had a low immune system, by the time a doctor of less conspiracy driven attitude could tell her, she was in hospital and she is now dead. Her brother and sister in law are dead too. Several others whom I knew by sight are gone, in their 40ties and 50ties. None of them were obese. I hear that even now that they get 250 dead every 24 hours, people will not vaccinate because for over a year they have been told it was “dangerous”. Out of one other family, only one friend got through because I persuaded him to take a vaccination.
Here at home, people whom folks look at fail to vaccinate themselves for various reasons. Several are now violently ill, quite a few will die. Switzerland is not yet in a situation where hospitals overflow, but Austria, where I have friends too (all vaccinated) is. Who is to blame? Their government tried everything and some to get people to vaccinate, but short of making it compulsory, what can you do with those who refuse?
I think more important than assigning blame is to learn and try to do better next time. As you said before, if there is an aftermath one day, armies of sociologists and psychologists will have work for decades figuring out where we went wrong and others went right.
gallois wrote:
Only the 2nd of these will be recorded in history books.
I am not sure of that. I have a hunch the whole plague and how it spread will occupy quite a lot of books.
Graham wrote:
The population of BG is 7 million. 250 Covid-19 deaths per day is 0.00357% of the population. That same number would have to be reported every day for 280 consecutive days before it added up to 1% of the population.
You know, you might actually get that, seeing how the things are going. Last week, it was 1200, every day more than the day before. In one week. tens of thousands are in critical condition in hospital. If the diagram we can draw goes on exponentially, we will end up with 1000 per day in a week or so? Maybe that is more significant then?
I really hope you will be spared the experience, but once someone of your own acquaintance or family is part of the statistics, maybe if someone you know lives in an area where they have to carry the dead in lorries, you may well change your statistical approach.
Graham wrote:
There’s no getting away from the fact that, while it kills mostly the elderly, the non-elderly that it kills usually have underlying health conditions and those that feature heavily in the statistics are mostly lifestyle-related.
And by the looks of it, that is ok with you. They are old, so let’s ship them off to the cemeteries? Why treat them at all, it’s their time? You know what, that actually happens there, it’s called triage. For the sake of all the docs here, I hope none of you will ever have to take this kind of decision.
Yesterday we were told that for October, excess mortality was 50% in BG. This month, it will be a lot more. Maybe that is a statistical value you can get some meaning out of…
Graham wrote:
There’s no getting away from the fact that, while it kills mostly the elderly, the non-elderly that it kills usually have underlying health conditions and those that feature heavily in the statistics are mostly lifestyle-related. But it still kills very small numbers relative to how many it infects.
the statistical data you are quoting might be accurate.
but in my view you are drawing the very wrong conclusions from it.
(we would have to analyse the empirical and logical structure of it and argue about it but here peter would come in on us…)
no matter wether the " very small numbers" the virus kills or seriously affects are elderly or non-elderly,
these are HUMAN BEINGS !!
and their dying or suffering could be (or have been) prevented (to a good percentage) by scientific methods and democratic engagement
and most probable by the necessary (scientifcally and – this is for you: statistically justified) political steps at the right time.
fact is also that the number of symptomatic covid infected people
is very seriously endangering our health system (in austria).
we would not be in that situation if we had 85% of adults vaccinated in austria.
HUMAN BEINGS getting triaged in our icu units not “very small numbers”.
The claim that 99% of the people are unaffected or not critically affected by Covid is simply crazy
Not particularly crazy. Covid, if let loose (no vaccine, no restrictions etc, no hospitals etc) will only kill 2% of the population. Proper hospital care will alone probably save 80-90% of that 2%.
The probability of getting very sick and dying is very small. But, more than large enough for the health care system to collapse. That’s were we started, and that’s were we are now.
Mooney_Driver wrote:
And by the looks of it, that is ok with you.
It’s not a question of whether it’s ok with me or not. It’s what’s happening. Shouting and raging that it shouldn’t be so won’t change it, nor is it worth imposing tyranny and close government control of personal behaviour in a futile attempt to prevent it.
Mooney_Driver wrote:
Yesterday we were told that for October, excess mortality was 50% in BG. This month, it will be a lot more. Maybe that is a statistical value you can get some meaning out of…
That’s a high number. However, it’s not unexpected. Bulgaria is a relatively poor country with, it seems, social attitudes that work against widespread vaccine uptake. It also has a relatively poor healthcare system – particularly in rural areas – and low life expectancy, by EU standards.
Governments are demonstrably failing their citizens by clinging to (and selling) the idea that they can control the virus. If they were doing a better job there would be some very simple messaging going on: “We’re all going to get it eventually. Get vaccinated and stack the odds in your favour. Nothing we can do can stop the virus spreading.”
Graham wrote:
better job there would be some very simple messaging going on: “We’re all going to get it eventually. Get vaccinated and stack the odds in your favour. Nothing we can do can stop the virus spreading.”
what you seem to “forget or overlook..” is the part of the message where every government in a modern democracy is responsible and committed (required by the constitution) to PROTECT its own people….
“nothing can be done to stop the virus spreading but we will do everything to protect and take care of our people no matter what.”
we cannot “stop” the virus from spreading but we can and must control it (as best as we can) to minimize deaths and sufferings.
thats the whole point.
LeSving wrote:
The probability of getting very sick and dying is very small. But, more than large enough for the health care system to collapse. That’s were we started, and that’s were we are now.
And of course there is the tiny detail that in the moment that it is overloaded, the death and severe illness figures will rise as a consequence.
Graham wrote:
However, it’s not unexpected.
Well, in the beginning when their government they had then consisted of some very level headed people, they fared better than most of us. How? The answer was clear: Leadership. Their then PM, a former military man and later boss of the firebrigades, assisted by their surgeon general did a fantastic job by comparison in terms of what they told the population and how they did. They practically sat out the first wave. However, economical results led them to be displaced and several caretaker governments plus an anti vaxxer president turned things around the bad way. They stopped “green corridors” for vaccinations without PPR and were generally critical and disorganized. It took 2 re-elections to form now a government (as we speak). When vaccines came on the market, there was a clear lack of leadership by their front people informing, educating and making vaccination attractive. And in a vaccum of power, conspiracy theories and distrust will cause havoc.
Graham wrote:
It also has a relatively poor healthcare system
Statistics don’t keep up with reality again. Things change fast. 10 years ago, their health care system was awful. Today, it is on par with most southern European countries, even not yet fully there. Lots of private clinics, a lot of EU money went into the existing hospitals. I can give you some insights I don’t want to share here, but lets say for certain things, they are VERY competent indeed. That they can’t deal with a pandemic once it is at this stage, well, they are not better or worse off than Bergamo was in the first wave. Or Lugano for that matter.
Graham wrote:
“We’re all going to get it eventually. Get vaccinated and stack the odds in your favour. Nothing we can do can stop the virus spreading.”
Absolutely. Get that message across is what I call leadership. Forming solidarity within the people, debunk rubbish with proper information, stop fingerpointing but getting people on board. And yes, governments all over Europe have failed miserably at that.
And who is exercising tyranny over whom in those countries where we have 60-70% vaccinated and still need to resort to lockdowns is a question of point of view. In Austria, not many people look at their government when talking of tyranny, but of the 30% or so who refuse to be part of the solution instead of the problem.
The words in the US Constitution are:
“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”
(My bold)
The word promote was chosen very carefully. It does not imply a duty for government to protect the population, only to form conditions for people to take care of themselves. The guys who wrote this knew where it goes when you expect government to protect and provide, and they knew exactly what they were doing.
cpt_om_sky wrote:
we cannot “stop” the virus from spreading but we can and must control it (to a certain exent) to minimize deaths and sufferings.
thats the whole point.
Clearly, where we are now Graham has it right: The days of the chance of stopping the virus were over in March 2020, maybe even earlier. So now, it is a question of getting the effects to a level which can be dealt with. And the way to do that is via vaccination. That a large part of the population will eventually get it and the only thing they can do is to vaccinate is clear.
In a rational society and in countries which are led by people whom the population trusts a simple message like this can do the job. unfortunately, this is not what most countries in Europe are.
Silvaire wrote:
It does not imply a duty for government to protect the population, only to form conditions for people to take care of themselves.
It also calls to form a common defense. Which is what was needed against this particular crisis.
And while CDC and the military were quick to reach into the drawers to took out the plans for pandemic response, unfortunately they had to contend with a person whose only promotion of Welfare was for his own.
Unfortunately, that is what happened almost everywhere.
I recall a discussion I had with someone early on. His only comment was: Imagine Ronald Reagan handling this, going on national TV with his wife and call for the people to make a common effort to fight this pandemic. Yep, a very different vision of what really happened.
