Coronavirus: COVID-19

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Lord Dakier
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Re: Coronavirus: COVID-19

Post by Lord Dakier » Tue, 28. Dec 21, 03:25

greypanther wrote:
Mon, 27. Dec 21, 13:07
Lord Dakier wrote:
Mon, 27. Dec 21, 02:09
Like the fuss with Covid for those who aren't sick, frail, elderly or overweight.
That sounds like the attitude I see every day: " I am alright Jack, who cares about anyone else? "

I sincerely hope I am wrong. :(
It's not about caring for anyone else. We have 90% of the adult population vaccinated in the UK against Alpha and Delta, which make up over 75% of all Covid cases. The vaccine protection is apparently reduced with Omicron. 90% of the population are vaccinated with over 90% efficacy, they 'apparently' reduce transmission and we have more cases than ever before. Just with basic maths you can prove that the vaccines aren't as strong as advertised. This isn't me suggesting people not to take it. For my age range last I checked a couple months back 107 people had died without pre-existing medical conditions, I can tell you some of them where in things like car crashes or accidents. In the UK right now you can be vaccinated, but have Covid and enter a football stadium, but not be vaccinated, not have Covid and still have to prove it (I've actually seen this happen too).

It all reeks of misinformation by our government. The so-called experts have been wrong and I for the life of me do not see how people can't scrutinise them. 60% herd immunity required, then 80%, now everyone needs to be vaccinated, now we all need boosters because efficacy has dropped to 65-85% with Omicron (which is <25k in UK compared to 120k total).

Pfizer charging $22 per vaccine which cost less than $1 to make is just the icing on the cake, as someone who's worked in purchasing you'd be hung, drawn and quartered for buying at that mark-up. Obviously during this pandemic we've also seen the rich have gotten significantly richer while everyone else has become poorer.

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red assassin
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Re: Coronavirus: COVID-19

Post by red assassin » Tue, 28. Dec 21, 12:26

1) Things change. Alpha, beta, delta and omicron variants have all been more infectious than the original strain and previous variants, and later variants have started exhibiting some level of immune escape as well. Obviously this means that a control measure which works with some efficacy level against the original strain is less effective against later strains, and results have been updated to reflect this. We've also removed nearly all of the other control measures we used earlier in the pandemic when cases were spiking. I don't know what you're expecting.

2) Omicron now accounts for about 90% of PCRs processed in labs which can check for S Gene Target Failure, which is a good and relatively fast check for omicron:
Image
(note that results still take some time to process, and fewer tests were conducted over Christmas anyway, which accounts for the dip in total positives in the last couple of days)
There are also hundreds of thousands of fully sequenced and confirmed omicron cases at this point - data just takes time to process and omicron has spiked extremely quickly.
[1]

2) "24.4% of the UK population were at risk due to a record of at least one underlying health condition, including 8.3% of school-aged children, 19.6% of working-aged adults, and 66.2% of individuals aged 70 years or more. [...] The population at risk of severe COVID-19 (defined as either aged ≥70 years, or younger with an underlying health condition) comprises 18.5 million individuals in the UK, including a considerable proportion of school-aged and working-aged individuals." [2] "Well, only over a quarter of the UK's population are really in danger and the rest of the population only occasionally die" is not as reassuring as you think it is. Further, if the less at risk population get it and spread it, they're obviously more likely to give it to the at risk population.

3) Death rates are contingent on having good hospital care. If cases rise to the point that's no longer possible, a much larger proportion of people who are currently hospitalised with it will die. Further, what do you think happens to people with severe non-covid health issues when the hospitals are full of covid patients?

4) Death is not the only adverse outcome. "An estimated 1.2 million people living in private households in the UK (1.9% of the population) were experiencing self-reported long COVID [...] symptoms adversely affected the day-to-day activities of 775,000 people (64% of those with self-reported long COVID), with 232,000 (19%) reporting that their ability to undertake their day-to-day activities had been “limited a lot”" [3]

5) Vaccine per-dose costs don't account for research and development costs, nor for the cost of building new production facilities if needed. [4] This said, rich countries should definitely have imposed measures to allow bulk vaccine access to poorer countries, which might have helped reduce global case counts and therefore the risk of new variants developing. These could be patent waivers, cost price caps, etc.
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Re: Coronavirus: COVID-19

Post by Mailo » Tue, 28. Dec 21, 18:34

Lord Dakier wrote:
Tue, 28. Dec 21, 03:25
The so-called experts have been wrong and I for the life of me do not see how people can't scrutinise them. 60% herd immunity required, then 80%, now everyone needs to be vaccinated, now we all need boosters because efficacy has dropped to 65-85% with Omicron (which is <25k in UK compared to 120k total).
This lie does not become any more true by repeating it often.
Most of these complaints come down to this:
- A car is hurtling towards a solid wall at 100 mph.
- Scientists say "We need to slow down to avoid a crash where we all die. If we brake now, and hard, noone will be injured."
- Government dithers around for a bit and then applies some pressure on brakes.
- The car slows down, but not enough and hits the wall at 30mph, most passengers are injured.
- Media cry "Fake news, so-called experts got it wrong again, noone died, braking was totally not necessary, we should have sped up instead, then we would all have been at the wall even earlier."

Most of the rest of the complaints are due to not understanding how science works, and that the virus we have today is not the one that was around beginning of 2020.
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Re: Coronavirus: COVID-19

Post by Tycow » Tue, 4. Jan 22, 11:30

Lord Dakier wrote:
Mon, 27. Dec 21, 02:09
Tycow wrote:
Fri, 24. Dec 21, 23:19
Alan Phipps wrote:
Fri, 24. Dec 21, 16:50
We were told only last week that there were plenty to go round for everybody, so where did they all go?
Almost like it was BS! :D
Like the fuss with Covid for those who aren't sick, frail, elderly or overweight.
Agree to disagree on that, I'm afraid.

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Re: Coronavirus: COVID-19

Post by mr.WHO » Tue, 4. Jan 22, 12:59

What COVID epidemic taught me is that modern media are trash, they serve you clickbait at best, fear porn and propaganda at worst.

Funny enough, I found myself charmed by MS Edge feature of the main page, where you have news agregate (msn.com?), you can block articles from providers you don't like.
During COVID I started to block more and more trash media and Edge somehow started to serve much more balanced and moderate articles that normaly would be buried under the flood of trash.

Recently I compared the filterd and unfiltered news feed and it's really abhorent.

Last but not least, turn off any opinion articles - at this point they are nothing more than gossip & circleje*k with zero value.

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Re: Coronavirus: COVID-19

Post by Ketraar » Tue, 4. Jan 22, 15:00

Ah sounds like a great feature, block anything that doesn't agree with you and challenges opinions. Imagine having to deal with stuff you don't like.

Thanks for the hint I will start creating my opinion bubble immediately now, very nice!

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Re: Coronavirus: COVID-19

Post by mr.WHO » Tue, 4. Jan 22, 15:36

Ketraar wrote:
Tue, 4. Jan 22, 15:00
Ah sounds like a great feature, block anything that doesn't agree with you and challenges opinions. Imagine having to deal with stuff you don't like.
I'm well aware of confirmation bias bubble.

The thing I mentioned is more like spam filter.

Seriously there is no value in trash like "Celebrity X said Y about Covid" or "List of 20 things about anything, number 3 will suprise you".
Last but not least fear porn doesn't make you challenge your opinion, just terrorize you to comply.

Again, somehow blocking the providers that use too angry or emontional headers (basically clickbaits) makes good results in giving more balanced and moderate outlook.
This was even admited multiple times by YT and Facebook that outrage culture is somehow abused algorytmically, so there is nothing bad in countering it by manual block.

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Re: Coronavirus: COVID-19

Post by Alan Phipps » Tue, 4. Jan 22, 16:50

@ mr.WHO: If you mean always to check the reliability and integrity of sources of information that you might pay heed to and maybe act upon, then I'm 100% with you. The sources I use don't necessarily have to agree with or please me, they just need to be demonstrably relevant, unbiased and trustworthy. On that basis alone there are several browser headline sources that I filter out based on their histories of overt bias, misinformation and pointless grandstanding.

That said, I do not agree with your all-encompassing statement here: "modern media are trash" - I just prefer to be more selective about the media sources that I consult.

Bringing this back to topic, I find such action particularly important when relating to Covid pandemic information.
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Re: Coronavirus: COVID-19

Post by mr.WHO » Tue, 4. Jan 22, 18:35

The problem is that most of people do not have time, will nor ability to get into article sources to verify them.
Hell, most people are not willing to go beyond the header and first few lines of the article.

That's even more serious now with COVID.
Just like junk food can affect your physical health, junk news can affect your mental health.
I do realize saying "all media are trash" is like saying "all foods are fast foods", but when you go to the street, the main fast foods are the most flashy ones.

I really hit me hard when one day I went to my old news site, that doesn't allow you to filter the publishers.
It was all doom & gloom with 99% of articles about COVID and climate changes (and it wasn't a special day, like save the Earth or something).
I had serious problem to tell the difference, if it's a news site or some kind of doom cult and it was the biggest web portal in my country, not some niche site.

I can realy see people going nuts, if they are fed with such news composition every single day.

That's why I switcher to news portal that allow you to manually block what you don't want:
Clickbait titles that have very little or no relation to article content? - off to the blocking list.
Titles that try to raise emotions or urgency? - off to the blocking list (seriously, every single spam/phishing trainings tells you to ignore such titles, yet, somehow, no one is telling you to treat such news like unwanted spam/phishing?).
Opinion pieces? - very few opinions age well or have any relevance beyond current, ultra-short news cycle - off to the block list.
Anything related to pop-culture, celebrities and gossip? - burn it with fire.

Having these 4 simple rules into the algorythm really improved the news quality even on sublects that I don't like/disagree.

Bubble bias is dangerous thing, but so do the sensory/emotional overload and spam news flood.

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Re: Coronavirus: COVID-19

Post by Tamina » Wed, 5. Jan 22, 18:41

mr.WHO wrote:
Tue, 4. Jan 22, 12:59
What COVID epidemic taught me is that modern media are trash, they serve you clickbait at best, fear porn and propaganda at worst.

Funny enough, I found myself charmed by MS Edge feature of the main page, where you have news agregate (msn.com?), you can block articles from providers you don't like.
During COVID I started to block more and more trash media and Edge somehow started to serve much more balanced and moderate articles that normaly would be buried under the flood of trash.

Recently I compared the filterd and unfiltered news feed and it's really abhorent.

Last but not least, turn off any opinion articles - at this point they are nothing more than gossip & circleje*k with zero value.
I am using news.google.com and you can do the same there. The list of my blocked media sites has grown huge. The "Health" section is effectively reduced to a couple of tiny websites that I am too lazy to block and figured it would be easier to just not look there for any useful information :D
Btw. have you hard of this superfruit, kept secret by doctors, that makes you thin in a couple of days and cures Corona?

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Re: Coronavirus: COVID-19

Post by felter » Sun, 29. May 22, 12:58

So for the past two+ years I have been pretty strict, most of it has been staying away from society. As time got on, I started to allow my sister to visit and come into the home with one simple rule, masks must be worn in the house. My sister complained about this with the BS we don't take risks we don't go places we can catch it, which I know is BS. So she has been doing our shopping every Tuesday and Friday, but last Tuesday I get a phone call from her, I've got covid, she says.

Which is great, so much for the, we don't take chances. Turns out she was at her dentist on the Monday, and it turns out they had Covid, and they had phoned her to tell her that she was probably infected. The thing is on Monday night she was in my house visiting my mother, and she had stopped wearing a mask she would quickly put it on if I appeared, but I'm not stupid I noticed, and I would complain, but I got ignored as everything is fine.

Friday, my Mother was acting strange just not fully with it, and it was just getting worse as time went on she didn't eat her dinner, so I did a Covid test, low and behold she tested positive. Friday night was a long one, she was up and down all night doing things she shouldn't be doing. Saturday when I finally saw her she was sitting in her night clothes, and she just looked at me, and she would not talk to me or anything I ended up phoning for an Ambulance she was so agitated the Ambulance ask me to go with them which with her being Covid positive they don't normally do. So all day yesterday, I spent the day in the one and last place I ever wanted to spend any time in it's called the red zone, the area in the Hospital where suspected covid cases are admitted to hospital.

The hospital confirmed she was Covid positive, and she is now in the hospital's covid ward. She is 90 years young and has now caught covid after I spent all this time protecting her and myself from it, just because of my idiot of a sister and her unwillingness to wear a simple mask for that short time she spent in the house, she has now passed Covid onto our mother.

Fortunately, both of us are fully vaccinated which seems to be helping her, the worst of it seems to be that it has screwed up her diabetes, she has a slight cough, but it's not persistent, and her heart rate is all over the place. I was on the phone to the covid ward just a short while ago, and she is doing better she has had something to eat, and she is talking again, so finger crossed she will keep improving.

I keep saying this is not over, and this just shows it to be so. And a side note, I'm testing negative, which has surprised me.

Meanwhile, Hong Kong are currently having a bad time of it right now, with their highest rates of infections and deaths since it all began. An interesting fact that is coming out of there, is that 30% of those dying have been vaccinated, which all just shows the vaccine may protect you, but there is no guarantee that it will save you.
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Re: Coronavirus: COVID-19

Post by Gavrushka » Mon, 30. May 22, 13:57

Really do hope your mum is out of hospital soon, Felter. No, Covid is not over in the same way as other endemic diseases aren't over, but it is still too virulent for us to drop our guard fully. Now it's down to individual choice, there are gonna be people with Covid who will knowingly spread it. Thus is the society in which we live. :(
“Man, my poor head is battered,” Ed said.

“That explains its unusual shape,” Styanar said, grinning openly now. “Although it does little to illuminate just why your jowls are so flaccid or why you have quite so many chins.”

“I…” Had she just called him fat? “I am just a different species, that’s all.”

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Re: Coronavirus: COVID-19

Post by felter » Wed, 1. Jun 22, 04:59

I got a Covid positive test, and I'm in a pretty bad place right now.
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Re: Coronavirus: COVID-19

Post by Gavrushka » Sat, 4. Jun 22, 08:55

felter wrote:
Wed, 1. Jun 22, 04:59
I got a Covid positive test, and I'm in a pretty bad place right now.
Damn, Felter, I'm sorry I just spotted this. I appreciate you have underlying health conditions which ain't gonna help, but I wish you (and your mum) a speedy and complete recovery.
“Man, my poor head is battered,” Ed said.

“That explains its unusual shape,” Styanar said, grinning openly now. “Although it does little to illuminate just why your jowls are so flaccid or why you have quite so many chins.”

“I…” Had she just called him fat? “I am just a different species, that’s all.”

“Well nature sure does have a sense of humour then,” Styanar said. “Shall we go inside? It’d not be a good idea for me to be spotted by others.”

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Re: Coronavirus: COVID-19

Post by CBJ » Sat, 4. Jun 22, 11:58

felter wrote:
Wed, 1. Jun 22, 04:59
I got a Covid positive test, and I'm in a pretty bad place right now.
Sorry to hear that, and I hope things improve for you quickly.

It won't be any consolation, but some of us out here are still doing our best to avoid putting vulnerable people at risk.

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Re: Coronavirus: COVID-19

Post by Mailo » Mon, 6. Jun 22, 23:02

felter wrote:
Wed, 1. Jun 22, 04:59
I got a Covid positive test, and I'm in a pretty bad place right now.
Sorry to hear you and your mother are suffering because of inconsiderate people. SInce my wife underwent chemo therapy from 2020 - 2021 and her immune system is rather compromised, you are living my constant fear. I wish you all the best, hopefully you'll both pull through!
I also know the feeling of family being ... "on the other side", my cousin is in a state (Land) level party leadership of the party "Die Basis" ... pretty much a cross between Covid deniers and Putin lovers ... she actively tried her 86 year old mother to not get the vaccine.
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Re: Coronavirus: COVID-19

Post by felter » Tue, 7. Jun 22, 00:18

Thanks guys. I'm actually doing okay now, still a little bit blocked up and some difficulty breathing with a heavy chest, but I've had worse. At the start it was pretty bad painful and uncomfortable, but it never felt out of control. My mother while out of hospital she is pretty much screwed up, doesn't know what she is doing or how to do it, she was getting bad beforehand, but it has got significantly worse. She is also not eating as much as she used to, doesn't seem to have any kind of appetite now, which is maybe a godsend as we are pretty much running out of food. Going to test tomorrow and if I'm clear, going to have to go shopping. Thankfully this all happened after we had been vaccinated, It's scary to think what it would have been like if we hadn't, I don't think she would have survived, while I would have ended up in hospital at the very least., because at one point I was thinking that was going to happen.
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Re: Coronavirus: COVID-19

Post by Tamina » Tue, 7. Jun 22, 00:50

Oh thank god, felter. When you wrote that you got Corona I was very worried about you. The time I got Corona, it was like a 4 to 5 days long very painfull flu - so I am glad to see you back and okay.

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Re: Coronavirus: COVID-19

Post by Gavrushka » Tue, 7. Jun 22, 08:07

What a relief, Felter. Here's to a negative result tomorrow, and to your mum's full recovery. I can only imagine how damned angry you're gonna be tomorrow when you're one of the few still wearing a mask if you manage to get out shopping.
“Man, my poor head is battered,” Ed said.

“That explains its unusual shape,” Styanar said, grinning openly now. “Although it does little to illuminate just why your jowls are so flaccid or why you have quite so many chins.”

“I…” Had she just called him fat? “I am just a different species, that’s all.”

“Well nature sure does have a sense of humour then,” Styanar said. “Shall we go inside? It’d not be a good idea for me to be spotted by others.”

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Re: Coronavirus: COVID-19

Post by Arsaneus » Thu, 8. Sep 22, 10:14

I've finally done it! After being able to avoid covid since it broke out, I finally got it as nobody else seems to care about it anymore in Switzerland, thus unavoidable. First week was pretty bad with fever and feeling terrible.
The problem though is that it messed up my body. I'm now in week 5 and I still feel like a puddle of misery. Brain fog, heart racing after just a little bit of physical activity, breathing issues, sore throat and dizziness. Intensity varies by day but I don't feel safe driving a car anymore which makes life for my wife worse as well.
Luckily I'm in home office, so I can still work and earn my keep but it simply doesn't get better.

I feel really bad for my wife and kids as I'm basically useless to them now.

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