🎓 Doc Freemo 🇳🇱 @freemo@qoto.org

@freeschool agreed

@Pat

Plus the fact that all youve done is delay the pandemic, so it would still happen, AND now youve introduced auto-immune diseases in addition over that time period.

@icedquinn

@Pat

I'd say the same about you if you think people need to wear low-end hazmat equipment for the rest of their lives to prevent a pandemic that would be over in a year or two otherwise otherwise.

Thats not an ok trade off. By those numbers your talking about 8000 people wearing respirators for their entire life to prevent a single death.

@icedquinn

@Pat

It gets even worse when you consider how that plays out long term.. If respirators are effective at best it puts the pandemic on pause, and the pandemic just kicks off when people stop using respirators again (especially since the vaccine is proven now not to stop transmission).

So we are talking about the whole world wearing respirators for the rest of their lives vs not wearing them and having an epidemic that lasts a year or two and then effectively goes down to being less lethal than the flu after that time... So taking that hit over 2 years is by far much more prefered than wearing respirators for the rest of our lives.

@icedquinn

@Pat

Well for starters as I said I dont even think respirators would have prevented the deaths, in fact I suspect they would have increased the death toll as we have discussed.

But even if we assume it would have prevented a million deaths, if that is at the cost of 7 - 8 billion people needing to wear respirators, then yes, that is madness.

@icedquinn

@Pat

Why are you assuming I dont know what a respirator is? What are you on about. Of course I know what they are, who the hell doesnt?

@icedquinn

@Pat

And my statement is the same, requiring people to wear hazmat equipment in order to stay common viruses is absolutely bonkers. YEs people die, and yes its sad, but living your life as a hypocondriac to avoid that fairly low risk of death is not healthy by any measure in my mind.

@icedquinn

@Pat

The study explicitly states that COVID is less lethal than **seasonal flu** not H1N1. It just goes on to compare to H1N1 as well.

I disagree with you though, wearing resperators is beyond bonkers to me. People die.. wash your hands, take some good practices sure, but wearing hazmat, no, lol, just no. You will never find me encouraging people to wear full on respirators out in public as a constant daily thing in order to curtail diseases even if it was effective, when in fact it isnt and causes other far worse problems even if we did (namely auto-immune diseases would be rampant)

@icedquinn

@Pat Even if your right and there was some evidence that respirators could have saved lives the notion that the whole population is going to go around half-dressed in hazmat is absolutely absurd. No one would do it, and no one should be expected to. There are limits to what is reasonable.

@Pat

The evidence doesnt suggest that to be true... but its also irrelevant... What matters is that the following facts are true, anything else is noise. (these are quoted from the scientific literature, specifically quoting a peer reviewed study here):

* The Omicron SARS-CoV-2 variant is more transmissible and less fatal than seasonal influenza.

• The Omicron variant is 1.5 times as transmissible as 2009 H1N1 and causes 90% fewer deaths.

Long story short, the seasonal flu is a bigger risk of killing you at this point than COVID... so lets stop acting like this isnt true.

@icedquinn

@Pat Oh, you are talking about something different... Preliminary numbers are preliminary for a reason. Once they discover people didnt actually die of covid (as the numbers move from preliminary to actual) they are taken off the list and the death count goes down... this is perfectly normal and to be expected and doesnt indicate manipulation.

You need to remember there are **always** two sets of numbers.. preliminary numbers which tend to be higher than the real numbers but are used to determine trends.. then there are the actual numbers which dont come out until months later where the false positives in the preliminary numbers are removed by investigating cause of death. These numbers are almost always lower and more accurate but come out with several months delay.

@Pat

Yes and so was the study. Thats why it was conducted in a region with poor medical facilities, to ensure the numbers dont reflect high-end medical treatment.

To quote the most relevant part of the study: "The previously mentioned analysis shows that Delta and especially Omicron have lower death rates than previous variants."

@icedquinn

@Pat

I literally just quoted you a study that said that was false and that in fact each strain is **less** deadly not more.. .your assumptions are counter factual.

Delta was more contagious **at first** but very quickly became less contagious. Overall its death rate was less than previous strains.

@icedquinn