The health thread

minimum of three cups a day here...

Quote from JAN

did UK Man finally get the tea out of the custom clearance???? Nothing like a good cup of tea together with a Marlboro copy fag from Paraguay, made of old dried random plants!!!! Hahaha!

Six months after it was sent I was informed to go to Buenos Aires to collect it...as long as I paid up some ridiculous amount of money first. All so fucking farcical I had to laugh. Needless to say I never went.....would love to have told them to shove it up CFK's fat arse.

I have three coffees just at breakfast, My tea drinking is mostly carried out in the afternoon and late evening.

Quote from Splinter

A huge mug of tea first thing, then coffee till lunchtime and a cuppa later in the day. However,Taragui English Breakfast and International have gone awol, so we're drinking the standard Taragui which is more than passable.

Taragui is what we always drink. The tea bags needs five minutes to reach acceptable strength best using two if you use a large mug. Their loose tea is pretty good as long as you use one spoon for every cup and one for the pot.

I was born in 56 so remember it well.

There's been a few of these epidemics during my time. Some worse than this one but without anywhere near the same reaction we're seeing now.

Quote from JAN

now we are 5 months into this whole chinese/Communist virus story........so we can start to get a picture of it and look at numbers.

I was one of the most apocalypse and pessimistic from the start, and UK Man one of the most relaxed.

Today I need to start move my opinion towards him, because the numbers and facts already now tells us: this is not the end of the world!

A few number facts: 281.000 have died worldwide of the Chinese virus.....in 5 months..... globally half a million people die because of flu per year!!!!! So the total deaths is similar to those of a flu!!!! (With the precautions, lockdowns etc.)

300 have died in Argentina.....thats 0.00068% of the population!!!!! In Sweden, one of the most open countries in the world, without any real restrictions, 0.03% of population have died!!!!

These casualties are laughable......both of them!!!! If Argentina would in worst case end up with the same death rate as Sweden, 13.000 persons would die of the virus......nothing!!!! And specially since most would be in the risk group anyway, just like the 84 year old that died in villa 31 last week! She would have falled of her rocking chair or pinched her finger with a knitting needle and died anyway.

The facts are the reality that we are in now...and that tells us it's time to chill out and move on!!!!!!

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I am going to play devil's advocate.

You compare 281,000 deaths (so far) from COVID-19 and half a million flu deaths.

Firstly, the 500,000 flu deaths could be as low as 250,000 because the annual rate is broad. So, if you are willing to compare with 500,000 you must also make the concession it could be 250,000. Let's for arguments sake take the mean of those two numbers, which would be 375,000.

Ok, so there an average of 375,000 flu deaths each year. COVID-19 is already on its way to surpassing that number and we're only now starting the fifth month of the year. Maybe we could say, "so what, 500,000 COVID-19 deaths is not drastically different to flu either way, so why the global panic"? Well, it is at least logical to assume the number would have been higher without lockdown meausres, no? That's certainly the obvious argument isn't it?

Let's take a completely lowball number, like 0.00068% and extrapolate it across a population (you compared the whole population, not those infected). 8 billion people in the world, 0.00068% of them is only 54,400. COVID-19 has already killed more than that, so we can now confirm that the virus has a higher mortality rate than 0.00068%. So, the argument to Argentina's numbers would be that the country being in lockdown stopped the virus from reaching its normal mortality rate (but again, you shouldn't be comparing an entire population, just those infected).

Now, that was arguing the point and showing there are two ways to look at this. Having said that, I am more inclined to your point of view and agree with you. It is becoming increasingly clear COVID-19 won't be killing vastly more numbers than seasonal flu. The only question is whether it would have killed many more without lockdown measures.

More interesting for me is the obvious situation where we are being sold the notion of overrun health systems when that does not seem to be the case. Yes, there are COVID-19 hospitals in badly affected countries that are overrun. Of course. However, in those same nations there are other hospitals half empty. Also, it is also looking like the mortality rate has been overestimated by a high magnitute. I argued this months ago but I am still unsure if this is because the lockdown measures worked or just because this virus is not as deadly. I am more inclined towards the latter. How many millions must have had this virus and recovered already?

Another thing I don't like is the fact COVID-19 is being put as a cause of death when it was only a factor. For example, someone dies of a heart attack and a test shows they had COVID... the virus is put as the cause of death. I don't think the virus is as deadly as we initially thought but I am not sure about what would have happened if it was left to run free.

I heard an interesting fact yesterday:

The average age of those who die of COVID-19 is higher than the world's average life expectancy age.

Quote from Semigoodlooking

The average age of those who die of COVID-19 is higher than the world's average life expectancy age.

So older people are no longer needed??? If this virus mutates and starts effecting the young, what happens then???

The world has not heard the last of covid-19.

Quote from daniel

So older people are no longer needed??? If this virus mutates and starts effecting the young, what happens then???

The world has not heard the last of covid-19.

One question mark is the same as three, I get the question regardless.

The point is not whether they are needed or not. I could make an argument that no person is needed and every person is needed. What difference does it make?

Whether people are needed or not is besides the point.

If one part of the population is clearly vulnerable compared to others, all efforts should be made to help that part of the population. Instead, we "help" all the population when "all" of them don't need help, only some of them do. Resources, time, money, effort goes on protecting all when it could be better used helping some. However, when there was a push towards focusing on isolating just the vulnerable population, there was outcry because it was discrimination.

Quote from JAN

So my point: it can really be it's better to self expose to the virus at a certain point, because it looks like we all gonna get it at some point!

I do not believe their is sufficient data to support this.