Americans - Please Wake Up

Chat about non-hiking topics. The least serious of the forums on the site!
MacAttack
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Americans - Please Wake Up

Post by MacAttack » May 9th, 2020, 7:16 am

I have no idea what to do about this, but I can't believe Americans have become so passive & weak & misinformed by the news outlets that we are letting the government control us like this. You can't go the beach. You can't go hiking. It's a sunny 85 degree Saturday. Are you kidding me?

The restrictions maybe made sense when this was new & there was fear of hospitals being overwhelmed. Well the predictions were incredibly wrong & hospitals are closer to empty than full. Check for yourself, https://govstatus.egov.com/OR-OHA-COVID-19.

This isn't a zombie apocalypse. It's a corona virus among the various other virus's we encounter every day, and it's not as terrifying as so many believe. We have immune systems. Sun & fresh air are good for the immune system. Social contact is good for the immune system. Mingling among crowds is good for the immune system. All of the people isolating & wearing masks are going to have the weakest immune system of their lives when they finally take the mask off & mingle among other humans again.

I don't know why I'm typing this...........need to vent somewhere. This is just shameful that this is happening in America...to Americans. The word "Americans" used to mean something.......strong, independent, free. We can make our own decisions. Today it's a country of easily controlled & manipulated sheeple, and I don't know what to do about it, so I just waste time typing.

squidvicious
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Re: Americans - Please Wake Up

Post by squidvicious » May 9th, 2020, 8:06 am

Yeah, that is a weird coincidence of those two totally unrelated facts about people staying home and the hospital numbers not getting as bad as they predicted they might.

Aimless
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Re: Americans - Please Wake Up

Post by Aimless » May 9th, 2020, 9:04 am

I would like to address your post in a more complete manner, but it is filled with so many sweeping generalizations that trying to examine your conclusions in light of the available evidence would require at least a few thousand words and a great many links to extensive articles I fear you would not read anyway.

I doubt it will give you the amount of reassurance you seem to need at the moment, but I have read extensively about the science behind these decisions, watched as governments all around the world, some resembling ours and others wholly unlike us, have grappled with this pandemic, and I've read and heard the testimony of many doctors, nurses, and patients that this disease is unlike anything they have ever experienced, and my conclusion is that however drastic the current restrictions may feel they are essentially the best choice in a field of horrible options. America is not being ruined by bad decisions, but ravaged by a disease that is quite capable of killing as many Americans this year all by itself as will die from all other causes combined.

So, let me just say I am sorry you are feeling so desperate about this situation we all find ourselves in. It is a fairly desperate event. But let me suggest that feelings of desperation are not the best frame of mind in which to make dispassionate judgments that affect life and death. Instead, desperation can lead to grasping at straws and unsound rationalizations.

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Charley
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Re: Americans - Please Wake Up

Post by Charley » May 9th, 2020, 10:18 am

MacAttack wrote:
May 9th, 2020, 7:16 am
This isn't a zombie apocalypse. It's a corona virus among the various other virus's we encounter every day, and it's not as terrifying as so many believe. We have immune systems. Sun & fresh air are good for the immune system. Social contact is good for the immune system. Mingling among crowds is good for the immune system. All of the people isolating & wearing masks are going to have the weakest immune system of their lives when they finally take the mask off & mingle among other humans again.
This is a tough time for sure! And you're right that it's good to get outside. I'm going to go to my backyard and water my garden today while it's so sunny.

But are you a doctor? Do you ever go to a doctor for medical advice? Ever taken any medications prescribed by a doctor? If you already have a doctor you like, maybe you could ask them about Covid. Ask them if it really would be safer for you to come down with this virus, versus spend a period of months in social isolation. I'm not a doctor, but I'm pretty sure that you're wrong about the effect on our immune system. 78,000 deaths in just a few months, and you think that this is just a common cold? Ask a doctor in NYC if this is no big deal.

At any rate, it looks like Trump wants to start having rallies again. Maybe everyone who wants to get Covid should just go get sick together. I'm not sure that'd be good for his re-election (you have to be alive to vote!), or good for the rest of us (we all cross paths in the grocery stores, anyway).
Believe it or not, I barely ever ride a mountain bike.

johnspeth
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Re: Americans - Please Wake Up

Post by johnspeth » May 9th, 2020, 11:14 am

MacAttack wrote:
May 9th, 2020, 7:16 am
The restrictions maybe made sense when this was new & there was fear of hospitals being overwhelmed. Well the predictions were incredibly wrong & hospitals are closer to empty than full. Check for yourself, https://govstatus.egov.com/OR-OHA-COVID-19.
It's important to understand that the state did not make "predictions". It made educated guesses based on models for the purposes of planning and mitigation. It's my opinion that the process worked at limiting deaths here in Oregon. The models are valid. The model inputs have changed over time. That leads to different model outcomes. Models are very useful tools when interpreted correctly. Model interpretation is hazardous if not done correctly. Many of us don't have the math and/or healthcare experience to interpret the models correctly.

I strongly disagree that this event is not "terrifying", with or without the news reporting. It's terrifying if you're in a high risk group for whom death is a significant risk or even certain. At this point we have no vaccine and no data to support that getting sick solves the problem. So the problem will continue until what's spreading it stops. That sounds terrifying to me.

Would the tone of your rant be different if a corporeal army of invisible killers was roaming America infecting Americans? At least we have a proven mitigation strategy.

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jessbee
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Re: Americans - Please Wake Up

Post by jessbee » May 9th, 2020, 11:41 am

Also the fact that people are freaking out because they can't camp in their favorite campgrounds or visit a specific beach right now speaks to the incredible laziness and lack of resilience some people have.

FFS in Oregon we have an immense amount of public land to spread out on and we are really lucky to live here right now. I've been getting out on local hikes and walks almost every day since this started and it is *easy* to distance from other people. I had to re-plan my leisure activities this year, what a sacrifice. :roll: Not like I'm being drafted to go to war.
Will break trail for beer.

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drm
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Re: Americans - Please Wake Up

Post by drm » May 9th, 2020, 3:01 pm

Since others have addressed the science, I just want to address this part:
The word "Americans" used to mean something
There is nothing unprecedented about what is going on, though many of you have not experienced it in your lifetimes. There were severe restrictions during the pandemic a century ago. And that was also a coronavirus. We "Americans" have faced severe restrictions numerous times in our country's history. And some of those times I think were not justified; this time I think it is. But there is nothing unique to this country about our desire for freedom nor our history of it - or times when we have had a lack of it.

MacAttack
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Re: Americans - Please Wake Up

Post by MacAttack » May 9th, 2020, 3:18 pm

It seems people do not agree with me. :)
Well......I could be persuaded, but I'm just not understanding how taking our rights away....specifically talking about forest & beach access helps anything at all; in fact I hope you could also understand how it may even be more harmful than helpful. Are you going to wear the masks & isolate yourselves for the rest of your lives? Are you waiting for a vaccine?

The so-called "experts" are misleading you. They have no idea what they're doing. They left people sitting in cruise ships, which are known to recirculate the air, pretty much guaranteeing more & more people would get sick. They do not handle the nursing homes in an appropriate manner in my opinion. Fauci's predictions when this started were outrageously wrong. Birx admitted they are being very liberal using Covid as the cause of death on the death certificate.

From the WHO itself there were no cases of airborne transmission. So unless people are on the beach & trails coughing on each other or sneezing on each other then why on earth are you in support of having your freedoms taken away? We are well-informed that there is a serious virus. We can take it from there. We don't need the government closing things on our behalf because we're too stupid to take care of ourselves. All of the people I've encountered are respectful. No strangers have coughed on me or sneezed on me now or at any recent time I can remember.

https://www.who.int/news-room/commentar ... 20reported.
"According to current evidence, COVID-19 virus is primarily transmitted between people through respiratory droplets and contact routes.2-7 In an analysis of 75,465 COVID-19 cases in China, airborne transmission was not reported."

MacAttack
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Re: Americans - Please Wake Up

Post by MacAttack » May 9th, 2020, 3:56 pm


Aimless
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Re: Americans - Please Wake Up

Post by Aimless » May 9th, 2020, 4:26 pm

Thanks for sharing some of your sources of info.

Please understand that WHO did not claim "there were no cases of airborne transmission", only that its analysis of available data did not find that airborne transmission had yet been reported. The WHO article was dated March 29. It represented an analysis of data that been reported by health authorities in China prior to March 29. Since its emergence in China, COVID-19 has spread to practically every nation on earth and medical professionals have been gathering information about it as rapidly as possible. New data are being accumulated every day. If experts 'don't know what they're doing', it is because the necessary work of science requires large amounts of correctly measured data and this virus is so new that they are scrambling to interpret what amounts to preliminary data, because the need for answers far outstrips the pace at which complete data can be collected.

As for Professor Hinckley, he describes himself as "an over-educated Oregonian writing under a pen name", so I have zero idea about his credibility other than what I can glean from that article, which I consider to be very clearly polemics, and not science. The distinction is that science tries to state the observed facts as accurately as possible, while polemics states a premise and argues the truth of the premise, using whatever means the author thinks will be most convincing, including appeals to emotion or prejudice. I can see he makes ample use of those tools in his arguments, which gives me no confidence in his conclusions.

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