Revisionism in action?

It was all discussed here
https://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/thread/241751/coronavirus-covid-19-discussion-thread/669/

The latest theory on how Covid escaped the lab (possibly, not proven) was from US gain of function research being moved to Wuhan to avoid US regulations.
There were congressional hearings about this.

Masks, social distancing, lockdowns were all proven to slow down the spread, the evidence is in that thread. Many studies were done comparing the spread of the virus in different countries, correlations made with different measures, different living situations, different demographics, different population density. And all the opposites (ignoring lockdowns, social distancing, etc) have shown to increase the spread of the virus.
(It's not so much standing apart that stops you from getting it, it's having less people together, discouraging people from getting together, either by making masks mandatory, limiting occupancy, better ventilation, that slowed down the spread)

Never did anyone claim that one measure (like masks or vaccines) would make you immune to catching covid. The point of the vaccines was to give people a head start on beating the virus. It doesn't make you immune, it gives your immune system a heads-up of the virus so it can counter the virus faster. Just like the flu shot doesn't prevent catching the flu, it helps you deal with the flu. (and survive the flu for older people)

The vaccines saved many lives. See New Zealand which kept the virus at bay the longest with strict measures, then lifted restrictions after vaccinations and still has the lowest death toll from Covid over all.

Ofcourse there were many shady things going on with the vaccines, like the latest post in that thread.


Interesting that it's all coming up again with Trump returning... Disinformation wars starting all over.

Seriously Pi?  Plus, talk of Putin belongs in the Russia-Ukraine thread :)

I don't fucking know "how many lives" saved those "vaccines", probably NONE, but they were real CRAP 

🥴

Repeating debunked claims doesn't make it true, shouting about something doesn't make it a fact.

Also nobody knows where COVID originated from, it's a pointless debate at this stage, we'll likely never know.

Anyway...

How bout those Polio and Childhood Vaccines, the things the original post were talking about, things far more dangerous than COVID. How the fuck did we get side-tracked by COVID for pages? I'll say again, it looks like a very intentional misdirect to avoid criticism of people in Trump's admin because they know it's a lot easier to attack COVID vaccines (even if stupid) than it is to attack things like Polio vaccines.

I guess the question is why does that have anything to do with effectively combating the virus.  Whether it started in China, US, Russia it really does not matter.  If I was an enemy of the US and I released a virus and noticed that almost half of the US population thought doing nothing to combat the virus is the right response, I would consider that as a win.  Meaning that half of the US population is more concerned about a bunch of rumors than actually effectively fighting the virus with well known science but instead a bunch of junk they read from the net. 

Think about it this way, as multiple places were researching to combat the virus, the CDC giving out guidelines to help slow its progress and help our healthcare facilities to not be overwhelmed by sick people, conservatives were doing everything they could think of to find a way to do nothing.  They complained about mask, social distancing, vax, children not able to attend school you name it but when some internet rumor goes viral about some horse dewormer medicine to fight the virus, they jump on that without any real studies on the matter.  

Back to discussing US Politics........

It was only a matter of time:

Senate Democrats push plan to abolish Electoral College

"Three Democratic senators unveiled a constitutional amendment to abolish the Electoral College system Monday, just more than a month after President-elect Trump stunned the Democrats by sweeping all seven battleground states, knocking off three Senate Democratic incumbents in the process.

Sens. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii,) Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Peter Welch (D-Vt.), three leading progressive Senate voices, say it’s time to “restore democracy” by allowing for the direct election of presidents through the popular vote alone.

The senators are troubled that the Electoral College has twice elected a candidate who didn’t win the popular vote in the past 19 years. In both those instances, a Republican captured the White House — George W. Bush in the 2000 election and Trump in the 2016 election.

“In an election, the person who gets the most votes should win. It’s that simple,” Schatz said. “No one’s vote should count for more based on where they live. The Electoral College is outdated and it’s undemocratic. It’s time to end it.”

To be sure, Trump would have still won the 2024 election if it had been decided by popular vote.

He collected 77,300,739 votes compared to Vice President Harris’s 75,014,534

But many Democrats think that they would have had a better chance to beat Trump if they had a reason to focus on running up the margin of Harris’s victory in populous Democratic strongholds such as California, Illinois and New York.

Democrats felt all the more demoralized by Harris’s loss because she dramatically outspent Trump, raising $1 billion for her campaign while a super PAC supporting her, Future Forward, raised nearly another $1 billion.

Harris lost in all seven of the presidential battleground states, including the three states that made up the “blue wall”: Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin."

https://www.yahoo.com/news/senate-democrats-push-plan-abolish-234722343.html

The rightosphere immediately started transvestigating for excuses following the news that the latest school shooting, which took place at Abundant Life Christian School, a private religious school in Madison, WI, was perpetrated by a girl.

It is extremely disturbing lately how quickly right wingers jump to accusing every shooter of being trans without zero evidence, I saw people photoshopped the shooter with shorter hair to somehow show that she must be trans within hours. It's very clearly becoming an attempt to paint trans people as the enemy, to say that trans people are dangerous individuals and are a danger to your kids, it's very reminiscent of how the Nazis turned the public against the Jews, in the same way the Republicans are trying to paint trans folk as the enemy.

And cisgender women aren't safe either, we've seen multiple times already this year of awful attacks towards cisgender women simply because these lunatics thought they were trans based on nothing but their looks alone, like the boxer in the Olympics, anyone who looks remotely masculine will be attacked by these psychopaths.

Seems we've moved on quite quickly but I'd like to circle back to some of these claims. See, you made a claim and I asked you to provide evidence. Your evidence was then criticized quite thoroughly by pi-guy and then you moved on without ever concluding the discussion. I am of the mind that when having a conversation like this, it does a disservice to the conversational environment to move on before things are settled.

So, I would just like to ask: Do you acknowledge that you are wrong or that you don't have sufficient backing for the claims you are making, or do you have further evidence you would like to present?

Now, I'd like to summarize what I see as the discussions that have been had here just to be entirely clear about what I'd like you to respond to in reference to masks:

Claim 1: "When Covid was over, [the CDC] admitted that only wearing an N95 mask would protect you from it."

As seen in the post that you made above, the CDC did not say that "only wearing an N95 mask would protect you", but instead that there was different levels of efficacy in relation to different types of masks. Pivotally, "Mask B is not as effective as Mask A" is fundamentally different from "Mask B is not effective". 

Do you acknowledge that the CDC did not claim that "only wearing an N95 mask would protect you"?

Claim 2: "Cloth masks were essentially useless against Covid-19."

This one came a bit later, but I think it is quite an important one to circle back on. The first point I mentioned is in regards to the CDC's communication, however this one is more broadly about the efficacy of masks. You spoke about two studies here that I would like to highlight. 

The first is the study discussed by this NY Post article. As evidence by pi-guy's post, this study was methodologically flawed leading to the authors apologizing for the study.

The second is the study discussed in this National Library of Medicine article. This study argues the opposite of what you claim it does, and in fact supports the efficacy of cloth masks. 

Do you acknowledge that the provided studies do not provide ample evidence for the claim that cloth masks (or masks in general) were essentially useless against Covid-19?

1) If you don't have facts, don't make assumptions or create blind statements.
2) Vaccines are backed by science, not random Karens on facebook who did some googling and found fake information.

How the hell do you think vaccines work?

It doesn't make you immune to a viral disease, it doesn't even stop a viral disease... And it was NEVER intended to do that.
And this is the frustrating part... Because blatant -idiots- think the vaccine was a hoax because of that... When in reality, their lack of understanding is the real issue at play here.

A vaccine is designed by taking the protein markers or using a modified/inert/dead virus and exposing it to an individual, that then causes that particular individuals immune system to initiate a "trial and error" response to removing that infection.
That individual then has what is known as "anti-bodies" that are more effective at fighting that particular infection once it has found a way to remove it.

That means when you are exposed to the REAL virus, the viral load will be significantly lower and the length, severity and impact of the infection is dramatically reduced.

That's right... To dumb it down so you can understand it better... A vaccine TRAINS your natural immune system to be more effective.
That's it.  That is literally it. Nothing else to it.

That means a vaccine will -only- ever be as effective as someones natural immune response.

Congratulations, you just did a 101 on vaccines.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with spending public money on health... Government is huge and there is a ton of waste, health? Shouldn't have a cost attributed to it.

My nation (Australia) not only has better health care than the USA, we have better quality care, longer life expectancy... And to top it all off, it also works out cheaper per-capita. - Because we invested heavily in a social health care system early on.

It works.

The only criminals here are anti-vaxxers who are scaring people off from seeking professional medical treatment that can save lives.

The vaccines worked. Your understanding is lacking.

Separate issues and has nothing to do with vaccines, seems like you are trying to formulate a strawman logical fallacy.
But we elect representatives in Government that cover different topics/aspects of society, thus nations should be able to juggle more than one issue at a time.

You are pushing propoganda. The Anti-vax propoganda.

Do you not see your own irony?

Democrats haven't learnt a damn thing have they.

I'm pretty pissed off that AOC was rejected for the House Oversight Committee because Nancy Pelosi, who is currently in a hospital bed with a broken hip and should retire, led a campaign against AOC to instead appoint another fossil who is 74 years old and currently battling fucking oesophageal cancer, I'm sorry but the dude might be dead in a few years, not to mention what the cancer treatment will do to him, when will these old out of touch idiots learn to piss off and pass the torch onto the next generation? Just screams "same old establishment bullshit"

And this after everything AOC has done recently, from her efforts to help elect Kamala to her reaching across the aisle constantly with centrist Democrats lately and they still treat her like an outsider, it feels like her efforts were for nothing, they don't like her when she's a "lefty" and they don't like her when she actually works with them, assholes.

Tried my best. Sorry I couldn’t pull it through everyone - we live to fight another day. ♥️

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@aoc.bsky.social) 17 December 2024 at 17:56