Can we finally put the “it’s like the flu” nonsense to rest?
That depends on what you mean by that. As more data comes in, the death rate is looking quite a bit "like the flu". However, other aspects of this virus are not like the flu, such as the rate of contagion. The entire point of the economic halt was NOT to prevent the virus from spreading. It will spread. It will come back in the fall.
We’ve had people on this forum contract the virus and die, the prime minister of the UK in intensive care, members of the government in Italy, Iran, and elsewhere seriously ill. I don’t know anyone personally who has died, but through other people: one person in my dad’s work died, another in my mum’s workplace, someone at the post office, one relation of my cousin, and a family member of someone in a Glasgow church.
It is tragic when anyone dies. I've knows two people (not counting Zing) that have died from this. But what is the point of this statement? Fear? Do we ignore the facts and hide? Do we watch our civilization crumble because we are scared? There are net effects to policy. It is not the case that public policies are 100% correct or 100% incorrect.
I don’t remember hearing of anyone dying of the flu ever.
I do. My son's friend died of the flu. Small boy.
I understand it does happen every year, mainly with very old people, but clearly this virus is on a completely different scale.
In some ways, yes. But in others, no. And as more data comes out, we should re-evaluate our positions. That is only healthy.
Not to mention growing worries about long term health impacts on those who survive the disease, that we may need to live with as a society for years to come.
We can't hide from it. There is a high probability that you will get this at some point. You may have already had it. It seems like the vast majority of people don't even know they had it. If you never get it, the reason will be that everyone else has gotten it and is providing you with herd immunity.
I absolutely agree with people who say China has got questions to answer, even reparations may be in order.
Yeah, I am not sure how we can handle this. Just walking away from debt obligations might cause other issues (net effects)
Everything I hear tends to support the idea that this virus escaped from a laboratory. In either case the Chinese authorities were criminally negligent, We also need to hold our own governments to account. The fact this started in China doesn’t absolve our own governments of responsibility for their failure to prepare and poor response to the crisis.
And there are reports (from the US Senate, no less) that we were funding the research. I will wait for more information on this, however.