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Novel Coronavirus COVID-19


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First I think the term lockdown needs to be defined. I have colleagues in the Philippines and they had real lockdown, meaning they couldn’t leave the house except to get groceries once a week at a designated time. 
 

Closing bars and restaurants, cancelling concerts and sporting events, and limiting the amount of people in indoor spaces while mandating masks is not lockdown. 
 

Also the “rules” are going to keep changing as new information about the virus and treatments keeps coming in. When the virus flares up, restrictions will increase, when it calms down, restrictions will be reduced. And so on until a vaccine or effective treatment is found. 

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1 hour ago, Weezy1973 said:

First I think the term lockdown needs to be defined. I have colleagues in the Philippines and they had real lockdown, meaning they couldn’t leave the house except to get groceries once a week at a designated time. 
 

Closing bars and restaurants, cancelling concerts and sporting events, and limiting the amount of people in indoor spaces while mandating masks is not lockdown. 

Bingo! 

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6 hours ago, clia said:

 She just seems to want to be as vague as possible so no one can hold her to anything while she unilaterally decides who is allowed to run their business or do their job.  (Although I recognize my state isn't alone in this -- I read yesterday that Disney has to lay off 28,000 workers because Governor Newsome won't tell them when they can open in CA.)  

While you DO have a point, it's noteworthy that many of these jobs are in FL:

"... almost 6,500 workers based at Disney World, but there are also layoffs at other Disney locations in Central Florida, including at Disney Vacation Club in Celebration, and at Orlando International Airport."

While I wouldn't call Disney the world's best corporate citizen, to their credit in this crisis they furloughed (with pay) many of these workers, while their parks lost huge amounts of money. Obviously that can't continue forever. They did state the CA restrictions exacerbated the issue, which is probably true.

I think the new normal is going to be signficantly fewer people in these parks even AFTER there's a vaccine as I doubt the elderly (those not in denial about their risks) will be going any time soon. Some parents will bring along kids, others won't even though the kid's risk is low. (A vaccine for kids will take longer.) Disney will of course have to adjust to people's behavior to remain profitable, etc.

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Ruby Slippers

During the pandemic, Disney issued a $1.5 billion dividend to shareholders, execs kept bonuses and returned to regular base pay in August.

Dozens of evil corporations have done and continue doing similar. 

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11 hours ago, mark clemson said:

I think the new normal is going to be signficantly fewer people in these parks even AFTER there's a vaccine as I doubt the elderly (those not in denial about their risks) will be going any time soon.

I think the sooner some come to the realisation that the old "normal" is not coming back, the better they will be.
Some of these jobs and businesses are finished, done, caput... and flexibility is now required.
If you have a small bar/club that packs hundreds in on a Saturday night to listen to live music and drink, and you need hundreds of bodies in to make a profit, then that I guess is NEVER coming back in that format anyway.
We in the UK are well on the path of a second wave.
There is resistance but in the face of increasing number of cases, hospitalisations and deaths in recent weeks, there is little else that can be done but to lock down again...
They seem determined to keep schools open but that i guess will be at the expense of the hospitality/service/retail  industries.

~90% of the UK population have never had the virus according to antibody studies... herd immunity is therefore not really an option.

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4 hours ago, elaine567 said:

I think the sooner some come to the realisation that the old "normal" is not coming back, the better they will be.
Some of these jobs and businesses are finished, done, caput... and flexibility is now required.
If you have a small bar/club that packs hundreds in on a Saturday night to listen to live music and drink, and you need hundreds of bodies in to make a profit, then that I guess is NEVER coming back in that format anyway.
We in the UK are well on the path of a second wave.
There is resistance but in the face of increasing number of cases, hospitalisations and deaths in recent weeks, there is little else that can be done but to lock down again...
They seem determined to keep schools open but that i guess will be at the expense of the hospitality/service/retail  industries.

~90% of the UK population have never had the virus according to antibody studies... herd immunity is therefore not really an option.

According to the following article (which is a recent one), experts think a vaccine will be found and made widely available by mid 2021.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-51665497

Let's say a vaccine were found, and made widely available in 9 months time or so.  Obviously there has to be a period of time where distancing measures continue, to allow for widespread vaccination of the population.  Inevitably there will be a percentage of people it doesn't work for.  There's not going to be an entirely perfect vaccine that guarantees an end to anybody having Covid-19...but once we have widespread vaccination that is effective for the majority of people in place, then I think those who argue that we should nonetheless remain in this "new normal" will face serious challenges.  As they should.  The sort of restrictions that have been placed on people over the past few months are not something that should be considered lightly, and there is nothing "normal" about imposing such restrictions on a naturally gregarious, highly intelligent species such as human beings. 

Many of us have been complying in good faith, because we want to do our bit to limit the spread of this virus and protect our more vulnerable loved ones from it.  However, I can't be the only one who feels somewhat concerned and mistrustful when I hear enthusiastic proclamations about how this "new normal is here to stay" and why we should forget about ever again visiting bars to listen to live music.  No, screw that.  I don't care so much for me...but I think of my younger relatives, and of friends' kids who have really sacrificed a lot over the past few months.  At a time in their life when they would normally be out having fun, forming new friendships and relationships - not to mention starting university without having to worry about being imprisoned in halls of residence due to an outbreak of the virus - instead they're having to worry about people complaining to the police if they dare to meet their friends in a park or on the street.  It absolutely sucks for them.  Then of course there are all the businesses who need to get back in operation without having to worry about being shut down again at a moment's notice.

Every time there's word of a possible vaccine, it's a light at the end of the tunnel for the people who are being really hard hit by these measures.  People are desperate to get back to normal, and they're entitled to get back to normal once we get to a point where the majority of the population has been successfully vaccinated...and if we're at that point in a year's time, you might have to find a new normal of your own which involves letting go of the notion that you can use this virus as an excuse to impose eternal draconian restrictions on other people's lives and their ability to make a living.  I think anybody who tries to keep restricting others past the point when the majority are successfully vaccinated will - and absolutely should - find themselves with a fight on their hands.  And I say that as somebody who has been very careful about social distancing well before the measures were even brought into place.

Edited by Libby1
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mark clemson
6 hours ago, elaine567 said:

I think the sooner some come to the realisation that the old "normal" is not coming back, the better they will be.

Yes, that is a fair point. I think Libby1 makes a good case that something approximating the old normal will probably be back sooner or later. Young people just don't get that sick. I think eventually, with immunizations and so forth, this will eventually be seen as similar to the flu. May take 10 years, though, as lots of people won't want to risk getting aging parents sick, etc.

In the MUCH longer term I think the susceptible eventually die out of the gene pool. But that's the VERY long term (to us humans).

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My ancestors survived the Black Plague and the Spanish flu, we can get through this!

I don't know about young people not getting sick. News reports all over Europe are saying the bulk of the infections have gone from the old to the 18-29, and now it seems it's spreading to the age group of the middle-aged folks 30-45, so every age group is probably gonna get it. There's even babies being born with the virus. 

Quote

In the MUCH longer term I think the susceptible eventually die out of the gene pool. But that's the VERY long term (to us humans).

Well, most people are unhealthy one way or another and it's not like they're not part of the gene pool. I doubt covid-19 will change that.

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mark clemson
12 minutes ago, Azincourt said:

My ancestors survived the Black Plague and the Spanish flu, we can get through this!

Not ALL of them.

But yes, we will get through this. With a more or less 2% death rate and many of those being in older people (possibly due to "weakened" T cells) this is by no means a threat to our species, at least currently.

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6 hours ago, elaine567 said:

We in the UK are well on the path of a second wave.
There is resistance but in the face of increasing number of cases, hospitalisations and deaths in recent weeks, there is little else that can be done but to lock down again...
They seem determined to keep schools open but that i guess will be at the expense of the hospitality/service/retail  industries.

Classes started this week at my uni. I’ve spent a crazy week with new Year 0 students, returning second years and final year students at various time all panicking about some Covid-related issue. Our lecture slots are 2 hours, but easily 25% of that is taken up just reassuring the students that we (as staff; obvs I can’t speak on behalf of management) are doing everything we can to make things the best we can for them, while keeping them - and ourselves - safe. But we all know it’s coming. Luckily most of our students are commuters, so not separated from their families, like some places. 

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5 minutes ago, mark clemson said:

Not ALL of them.

Well, by definition... the younger ones who hadn’t yet bred must have, or they wouldn’t be ancestors (the line would have died out with them). It’s possible that, say, a couple of older people who’d already bred died, and their existing offspring went on to survive and breed down the line to produce @Azincourt, but I don’t imagine those were who @Azincourtwas referring to. 
 

(sorry @mark clemson - my inner pedant couldn’t help itself 🤣)

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mark clemson
6 minutes ago, Prudence V said:

(sorry @mark clemson - my inner pedant couldn’t help itself 🤣)

No worries - your point is (technically) valid + I think you know what I meant. 🙂

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11 hours ago, Ruby Slippers said:

During the pandemic, Disney issued a $1.5 billion dividend to shareholders, execs kept bonuses and returned to regular base pay in August.

So the people who own the company got paid by the company. How is that evil again?

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1 hour ago, mark clemson said:

Yes, that is a fair point. I think Libby1 makes a good case that something approximating the old normal will probably be back sooner or later.

Not necessarily.  Not if people don't push for it.  There has been a fair bit of coverage here of Viktor Orban's government using Covid as an excuse to draft in all sorts of disproportionate - in some cases entirely unrelated - legislation in keeping with his authoritarian approach.  Meantime  here in the UK, the government was initially taken aback by just how compliant the British public was with lockdown...but now they're getting more than used to the notion of being able to encroach on people's rights without following the usual democratic processes.  And, moreoever, being roundly applauded by a fair amount of the British public for doing so.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/coronavirus-restrictions-tory-backbench-anger-b514858.html#comments

When people talk about everybody needing to get used to a new normal and accepting it as being permanent, I'm reminded of this:

'Ordinary,' said Aunt Lydia, 'is what you are used to. This may not seem ordinary to you now, but after a time it will. It will become ordinary'

Democracy has been under threat for some time.  Well before covid-19 came along.  However, the people  who are (rightly) quick to decry the authoritarianism of people like Orban have been a little less forward in questioning authoritarianism in the time of covid-19.  A state of affairs which at least some left leaning journalists have demonstrated concern about:

The pandemic is a major public health emergency that makes restraints on liberties inevitable. Such restraints ought, however, to be proportionate. And they should involve measures that work. In Britain, the government has grievously mishandled virtually every plan to reduce Covid-19 infection rates, from inadequate PPE to a catastrophic policy towards care homes to the debacle of test and trace. It has combined such failures with the imposition of more authoritarian regulations, which seem less about bolstering the wider coronavirus strategy than about compensating for its failures...

Requiring people to wear masks in shops or on public transport is proportionate (and the opposition to it pathetic, not heroic). But allowing the police to detain anyone they have “reasonable grounds” to suspect is “potentially infectious” (as the Coronavirus Act does), or imposing £10,000 fines for organising protests, or making mass surveillance easier, should more than give us pause. As last week’s report of the parliamentary select committee on human rights puts it: “It is unacceptable that many thousands of people are being fined” when “regulations contain unclear and ambiguous language”, the police “do not fully understand their powers” and a “significant percentage of prosecutions have been shown to be wrongly charged”.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/sep/27/where-is-the-voice-of-the-left-as-libertarians-annex-the-covid-19-debate

I don't think it's a great idea for anybody to complacently accept these undemocratic developments as a "new normal" we should all just get used to.

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Ruby Slippers
46 minutes ago, Libby1 said:

I don't think it's a great idea for anybody to complacently accept these undemocratic developments as a "new normal" we should all just get used to.

The one that blew my mind was the law in much of the UK that says you're not allowed to get in your own car, by yourself, and drive to see your own family members who want you to visit. Downright foreboding.

In my view, anyone should be free to travel in their own contained vehicle to see family members who are OK with it no matter what condition they're in. 

This kind of restriction would never be tolerated where I live in the U.S. I'm shocked that British people go along with this. It's possible a lot of people defy it.

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Nah, it's not just the UK. Other European citizens aren't allowed to go visit their families. Like,  visits to take place inside of retirement homes?  Not allowed. First they were lenient about it as much as possible and allowed the patient to be on the window while her son was outside of the building right under her window, and he could only stay there for an hour, but now no one is allowed to visit their families who are living in a community for the elderly.

Yeah, well, we have nearly 5 million infected and over 200 000 dead over the virus, so I'm gonna go on a limb and say the Europeans play it smart but you know, my freedom and all..

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5 minutes ago, Ruby Slippers said:

The one that blew my mind was the law in much of the UK that says you're not allowed to get in your own car, by yourself, and drive to see your own family members who want you to visit. Downright foreboding.

In my view, anyone should be free to travel in their own contained vehicle to see family members who are OK with it no matter what condition they're in. 

This kind of restriction would never be tolerated where I live in the U.S. I'm shocked that British people go along with this. It's possible a lot of people defy it.

A government adviser breaching that rule some months ago, while he was showing symptoms of covid-19, was the cause of a big scandal.  One of the early issues was that people were getting in campervans and driving off to spend lockdown in more remote areas as a sort of "lockdown holiday".  The result was that local stores would soon be emptied, and local residents had concerns about the visitors getting ill and ending up using scarce medical resources.  There was very widespread support for these early restrictions, because people were concerned about the NHS being placed under far more pressure than it was equipped to handle.  So the tag-line was very much "stay home - protect the NHS."  To a degree that, as I say, surprised the government who were being pretty blase about things in the early stages.  Boris Johnson would boast about shaking people's hands and so on.  Now of course they're all about fining people £10,000 for engaging in the same kind of behaviour they were defending one of their own advisors for just a few months ago.

When people say "we all have to get used to a new normal, things will never be the same again" it reminds me of the Handmaid's tale.

'Ordinary,' said Aunt Lydia, 'is what you are used to. This may not seem ordinary to you now, but after a time it will. It will become ordinary'

Not that I think we're about to enter a period of Handmaid's Tale type dystopia.  I do, however, think that when people tell us to get used to the New Normal they're telling us to wave goodbye to democracy as we know it, and say hello to soft authoritarianism.  There seems to be a growing public appetite for soft authoritarianism, and I don't think it's just a reaction to covid-19 either. 

 

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SincereOnlineGuy
1 hour ago, Ruby Slippers said:

 

In my view, anyone should be free to travel in their own contained vehicle to see family members who are OK with it no matter what condition they're in. 

This kind of restriction would never be tolerated where I live in the U.S. 

Uh, what are you talking about?

 

Maybe google  "MADD" and do a little light reading...

 

You're way off.

 

 

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GorillaTheater
7 minutes ago, SincereOnlineGuy said:

Uh, what are you talking about?

 

Maybe google  "MADD" and do a little light reading...

 

You're way off.

 

 

You .... you thought Ruby was talking about driving drunk?

Good one, SOG.

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Yeah, that happened in several European Countries. When the first few cases were being discovered, some big brain people had the idea to head out to their parents and grandparents villages and small towns, and that only resulted in bringing the infections with them from their point of origin, or catching the virus on the way to grandma's village, and then infecting everyone in the village.

There's a village in Spain called Zahara de la Sierra where everyone is infected with covid-19 and people are only allowed to come out of the house to go to the grocery store. I heard there's even armed military whose jobs is to stand outside of these people's homes to make sure they only come out to buy foodstuff etc.

Man, this is like some boring science fiction dystopia, everyone's face covered up like the Earth's oxygen no longer breathable, and everyone's running away from everyone. Except young people. Young people are dimwitted and hang together in groups of 10+ people because I'm pretty sure they want to get infected so they don't have to go to school.

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SincereOnlineGuy
On 9/30/2020 at 4:49 AM, clia said:

I just don't understand locking down everyone, when it is readily apparent by now who is most at risk.  It seems to me that we should do everything we can to protect the people at risk, and let everyone else get on with their lives if they so choose -- again, assuming hospitals can handle it.  (Where I am at, hospitals have very few COVID-19 patients right now.  Some don't have any at all and haven't had any for weeks.)  And sure, if you want some reasonable capacity limits, masks, social distancing, hand washing, fine.  I have no issue with improvements to hygiene or masks if you are in a crowd or indoors.  Heck, I love not having a table or person crammed right next to me at a restaurant.    

It's been awhile since I ran the numbers in my county, so I did it this morning out of curiosity.

The overall CFR (case fatality rate) for my county is 6.8%.  That is number of confirmed cases/deaths.  We were hit very hard back in March/April and it was impossible to get a test unless you were really ill through most of March and April (not to mention the number of mild/asymptomatic people who never got tested), so the actual number of cases is likely much, much higher, which would bring this percentage down.  But I'm going to just work with the number of confirmed cases.  Below you can see how this CFR differs by age, which I think is important.

Death distribution by age (number of confirmed cases by age / total number of confirmed cases):

Under 20 = 0 deaths

20-29 = 2 deaths

30-39 = 10 deaths

Over age 40 = 98.9% of deaths

Over age 50 = 96.5% of deaths

Over age 60 = 91.8% of deaths

Over age 70 = 77.5% of deaths

Over age 80 = 52.5% of deaths

Case fatality rate by age (number of confirmed cases by age / total number of cases by age):

Under 20 = 0%

20-29 = 0.04%

30-39 = 0.47%

40-49 = 1.2%

50-59 = 2.0%

60-69 = 7.5%

70-79 = 18.2%

80-89 = 33.8%

90-99 = 45.2%

100+ = 64%

So, the older you are, the more deadly it will be.  We should make sure those people are able to be safe (if they want to be) -- which is something we did not do at all in my state in March/April, as you can see from the numbers.  This is true for a number of the states that got hit in March/April and a huge part of why the number of deaths are so high in the USA.  We did not protect our older population -- we needlessly exposed them to COVID-19.  I think we know better now, but the reality still is that if you are older and/or in poor health, you are always at more of a risk when you catch a virus -- this isn't something novel to COVID-19.    

But for younger people, it is less deadly than the flu.    

(And yes, I understand that there are some people who have ongoing health issues after having COVID-19, but that is true of any respiratory illness.)  

At this point, we have a much better understanding of how to treat it, we are running hundreds of thousands of tests each day to try to find it (at what I understand are levels of sensitivity that are detecting it when it isn't even contagious anymore), and PPE is not an issue in most places to my knowledge.  It just doesn't make sense to me to treat it like this is March and we had no idea what this was, how to treat it, how deadly it was, etc.    

Maybe your logic will clear-up if you recognize that COVID-19 is a CONSTANT... and not the 'variable' that the human perception likes to imagine.

 

The variable involved IS HUMANS.

 

(there is no  "second wave"...   there will be no "third wave"  - as Covid is a "CONSTANT"  )  (more like a fire than like Algebra)

 

Places where HUMANS are moving all over, with minimal restriction, are the places where COVID is more prevalent (not by accident).

Places in the outback, which are presently not seeing as much Covid as are densely populated places are largely that way because vast numbers of humans have reduced their impulses to go to or through those places (be it through common sense choices, or government mandates).

 

Once you put (what for now we still call) "normalcy"  back in place, HUMANS (which are the only variable here)  will resume running willy-nilly through the hinterlands and spreading COVID everywhere they go.

 

So how about you take your detailed statistical analysis and chronicle by age group just who is MOVING  more steadily around your society.

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mark clemson
2 hours ago, Libby1 said:

Not necessarily.  Not if people don't push for it.  

I don't think it's a great idea for anybody to complacently accept these undemocratic developments as a "new normal" we should all just get used to.

Well, people do what they do. Some see it one way, others a different way. Those who REALLY wish to do something will just take it underground.

For example - in the US, college students seem to be perfectly happy to sit in class with their mask on all day socially distancing, etc. And then on Friday night many of them happily hit the keg party, no mask, and throw it all away on lots of crowded drunken revelry.

And of course, during prohibition we had speakeasy's, illegal drug use and prostitution are perennial issues, etc, etc.

When people REALLY want to do something, they tend to find a way. And in a democracy some politicians will cater to them.

All that said, restrictions certainly CAN BE a slippery slope for governments, so pushing back is SOMETIMES wise. Right now, IMO, no. Obviously some see it differently.

Keeping excessive restrictions after a vaccine becomes available (assuming that happens) is even less likely to fly. Gov'ts (including US states) that push for them will no doubt see even more pushback than they are currently getting.

Speaking for myself, at this point, I'm more worried about (the slim chance of) Trump attempting to become a dictator using brute force than any of these state governors trying via health mandates.

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30 minutes ago, SincereOnlineGuy said:

Maybe your logic will clear-up if you recognize that COVID-19 is a CONSTANT... and not the 'variable' that the human perception likes to imagine.

 

The variable involved IS HUMANS.

 

(there is no  "second wave"...   there will be no "third wave"  - as Covid is a "CONSTANT"  )  (more like a fire than like Algebra)

 

Places where HUMANS are moving all over, with minimal restriction, are the places where COVID is more prevalent (not by accident).

Places in the outback, which are presently not seeing as much Covid as are densely populated places are largely that way because vast numbers of humans have reduced their impulses to go to or through those places (be it through common sense choices, or government mandates).

 

Once you put (what for now we still call) "normalcy"  back in place, HUMANS (which are the only variable here)  will resume running willy-nilly through the hinterlands and spreading COVID everywhere they go.

 

So how about you take your detailed statistical analysis and chronicle by age group just who is MOVING  more steadily around your society.

I'm sorry, I've read this several times and I have no idea what point you are trying to make or what you want me to do.

I agree that the virus is going to act like viruses do and spread.  And, IMO, by shutting things down and ordering people to stay inside, we only deferred that inevitable spread.  We're seeing it all over the place -- reopen and numbers start to climb again.    

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55 minutes ago, mark clemson said:

All that said, restrictions certainly CAN BE a slippery slope for governments, so pushing back is SOMETIMES wise. Right now, IMO, no. Obviously some see it differently.

My pushback is partly against those who are pressing us to accept, as a permanent state of affairs, a "new normal" which empties the future of things many people hold dear (concerts and other types of large gathering).  However primarily it's a pushback against any notion that having in person communication with friends and family is some sort of privilege...as opposed to being a fundamental human right that it's a very serious matter to deprive people of.

 I understand the serious nature of this pandemic, and the importance of taking measures to limit its spread.  But I think we have to be on our guard against any mindset that perceives and treats fundamental human rights as though they're nothing more than the privileges of spoiled children.  

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mark clemson
4 minutes ago, Libby1 said:

My pushback...

Fair enough. Governments need pushback to keep them in check. That said, nothing is permanent, so recognizing that I tend to worry a bit less. Philosophies, practices, regimes, and institutions (both good and bad) ALWAYS come and ALWAYS eventually go. Humanity muddles on despite this. Although each person IS unique and special, it's also true that your and my beliefs and lives mean little in the scheme of things except to us and close ones and as part of the aggregation of our species. There will probably come a time when democracy is seen as a flash in the pan (it's already here in China, I think) AND there will probably come another time when authoritarian regimes are seen as flashes in the pan. Both views are actually accurate as ALL things are ultimately flashes in the pan. And so it is with current COVID responses. This too shall pass.

 

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