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South Dakota nurse says many dying patients still insist Covid-19 'not real'

thehill.com

211–220 of 521 posts

Re: South Dakota nurse says many dying patients still insist Covid-19 'not real'

#211
post #162
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That everyone who voted for Trump is a white supremacist. I've seen that attitude quite a bit on this site in the days after the election, and I've seen journalists call minorities white supremacists because they didn't vote for Biden. Some people just refuse to believe that he's anything but a wannabe Hitler, and use that as an excuse to say that they have no reason to try and come together as a country.

Intention matters less than material consequences. Consider the fact that this last year was the worst for hate crimes for at least a decade. If a whole group of people is propping up a leader who literally and almost exclusively enacts white supremacist policies, and uses white supremacist rhetoric/dogwhistles, what else could you call them?

>a leader who literally and almost exclusively enacts white supremacist policies, and uses white supremacist rhetoric/dogwhistles

This is where the rift is. This is not true. Yes, some could take that sort of interpretation of what he's saying, and that sort of interpretation being taken by lots of white supremacists regardless of intention, does mean something. But it doesn't mean much, at least, I don't see why we'd expect that to be any significant effect. Just to bring an example, at least, ime the most common "but he said.." claim. The "fine people on both sides" quote. Many misunderstand what he was actually saying there and actually what happened - the event started with a wide range of people on the right, a general conservative gathering seeming thing. It was organized by white supremacists, which lots attending did not realize until some time passed and they started getting uncomfortable and leaving, by the time people were chanting slurs and all, it went full on neo-nazi rally. Trump clearly did denounce that, and what happened that night, and was speaking to the normal people who had attended in the beginning and left later.

Re: South Dakota nurse says many dying patients still insist Covid-19 'not real'

#212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's actually the state governments that's at fault here. Not the specifically the people. Let me tell you I was in back-country Oregon recently, some of the MOST republican places within Oregon, not going to name drop the county. Anyway, the Oregon state government is very much democratic (cause you know Portland). But because of that, even the republican counties are under a mask order. And the extremely red counti…

> the state has the power and push to get people to do it > this is why we need Biden in office You know Biden is running for national office, right? Not state government?

Im not sure why this is downvoted, especially on a site like HN. If you had a CEO that was anti tracking CAC and just said, doing marketing is enough. The corporate culture of employees would drift toward not tracking CAC (cost of acquisition), even though none of the employees are obligated to buy into that.

The thing that is lost on the national vs state debate is that the presidents role in a our state powered republic is mostly a sales job. Selling culture, building confidence, recruiting domestic and abroad. Having a new culture changes things whether you agree with the change or not. It's not a political statement, it's how the country works.

Re: South Dakota nurse says many dying patients still insist Covid-19 'not real'

#213
post #26

Yes, the pandemic fatigue is real. Yes, it would be wonderful to hang out with my friends in person, or to drive 100 miles crossing the border to go visit my children. But the reason this is lasting so long, and things are shutting back down is because people are ignoring the truth. You can talk about the economy all day long, but the fact of the matter is that if we all would’ve taken this seriously and shut everyth…

> But the reason this is lasting so long, and things are shutting back down is because people are ignoring the truth. You can talk about the economy all day long, but the fact of the matter is that if we all would’ve taken this seriously and shut everything down, we would be through the worst of it already.

This is untrue to the point where it hurts. The reason it's lasting so long is because covid-19 is a highly infection virus that's already out in the wild, and it's going to spread despite our best efforts to contain it until a vaccine is invented and deployed or until we reach herd immunity.

We are not gods. We can't wave our hand at biology and make the virus disappear. We must take all necessary and sane precautions, and accept the consequences of our life.

Re: South Dakota nurse says many dying patients still insist Covid-19 'not real'

#214

My wife and I just moved from Orange County, CA to Detroit, MI this last August. We decided to drive the northern route. Heading through Vegas, Utah, Yellowstone and Montana. Then onward through the plains of North Dakota and Minnesota. Turning north we entered Wisconsin and finally the UP (Upper Peninsula) of Michigan. After a few days exploring we turned south to Detroit. In Vegas the concern for masks started to w…

It's actually the state governments that's at fault here. Not the specifically the people. Let me tell you I was in back-country Oregon recently, some of the MOST republican places within Oregon, not going to name drop the county. Anyway, the Oregon state government is very much democratic (cause you know Portland). But because of that, even the republican counties are under a mask order. And the extremely red counti…

Oregon’s cases are skyrocketing:

https://covid-19.direct/state/OR

Much of this is in Portland:

https://covid-19.direct/county/OR/Multnomah

Re: South Dakota nurse says many dying patients still insist Covid-19 'not real'

#215
post #77

Politics seems to be a factor here, but I wonder how much of this has to do with popular culture. Over the last 20 years we've been bombarded with metric tons of Apocalypse porn, a lot of it focused on killer viruses. Most of those movies are unrealistic to put it mildly. Zombies. Deserted cities. Rotting corpses on sidewalks. Visible, palpable nauseating death. This pandemic is nothing like those movies. I know of n…

I don't know stuff has been pretty apocalyptic the past 9 months. In San Jose a normally busy clean commercial street was boarded up on every store front with graffiti on most boards(BLM riots/protests). Trash was everywhere. Everyone was wearing masks. In NYC in April mobile morgue trucks flooded the city as the dead exceeded the capacity of the city's morgues. Drive by some parking lots and see hundreds of cars waiting to get covid tests. During the spring many stores in major metro areas ran out of basic supplies like paper towels/tiolet paper, cleaners, meat. A friend of mine had to wait 3 hours to get toilet paper at a target(3/20). In Italy and Europe busy tourist areas were empty and soldiers were patrolling the plazas with rifles. This stuff is like nothing I have ever seen in my life and my parents and grandparents lives as well.

Re: South Dakota nurse says many dying patients still insist Covid-19 'not real'

#216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It didn’t solve the problem, meaning, unless you are willing to lock down indefinitely, the virus will come back. So in the pedantic sense you are right, lockdowns work, but clearly are not a solution.

Clearly it is a solution. The problem is that places like Spain stopped their lockdowns. What we really need is a flexible and informed approach, where the stringency of lockdowns is implemented on a sliding scale determined by actual real-time case numbers. Masks and other basic measures should be everywhere and always required and more stringent steps applied proactively as hot spots emerge. This coupled with rapid…

The actual problem with Spain is that they have a decentralised system of contact tracing (which is normally good), but which didn't really get implemented quickly enough.

Madrid in particular did pretty poorly at this.

Additionally, their economy is so dependent on tourism that they felt they needed to open back up to avoid ruination.

This lead to loads more cases, coupled with pandemic fatigue and here we are.

Re: South Dakota nurse says many dying patients still insist Covid-19 'not real'

#217

My friend works in the covid ICU here in Michigan and told me yesterday that she's seeing a dramatic increase in patients who are getting angry at her and still believing that covid is not real. When she asks where they may have caught it, they sometimes say at a wedding with 100 people where no one was wearing masks. I can't imagine how emotionally taxing it was to be a healthcare worker attending to people with cov…

I don’t know how these healthcare workers do it. Why would I put my physical and mental health in danger to save people who are that selfish? I suspect many of them need the job. But those who do it out of a sense of duty are better people than I am I guess.

I’m shocked that people who’s job it is to save sick people actually have to save sick people.

These people took an oath to help people. You can’t pick and choose who you help based on intelligence or even mental illness.

It’s also shocking firefighters have to run into fires. /s

Re: South Dakota nurse says many dying patients still insist Covid-19 'not real'

#218
post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d say the basis in the US is freedoms guaranteed by The Constitution, just like the basis for smoking, drinking, using recreational drugs, having an unhealthy diet, riding a motorcycle, not exercising regularly, etc.

Specifically, what freedoms are those? Where are they enumerated in the text of the Constitution, its amendments, or the corpus of constitutional jurisprudence? Citing “the freedoms guaranteed by The Constitution” is fairly meaningless in the abstract. There are specific protections and rights afforded by the Constitution that have been defined in the actual constitutional text and whose interpretation has been refin…

The constitution on its own doesn't guarantee any freedoms, so we must look to the Bill of Rights. Does mask wearing fall under:

- Freedom of speech? No.

- Freedom of the press? No.

- Freedom of religion? No.

- Freedom of assembly? No.

- Right to petition the government? No.

- Right to bear arms? No.

- Protection against housing soldiers in civilian homes? No.

- Protection against unreasonable search and seizure? No.

- Protection against the issuing of warrants without probable cause? No.

- Protection against trial without indictment? No.

- Protection against double jeopardy? No.

- Protection against self-incrimination? No.

- Protection against property seizure? No.

- Right to a speedy trial? No.

- Right to be informed of charges? No.

- Right to be confronted by witnesses? No.

- Right to call witnesses? No.

- Right to a legal counsel? No.

- Right to trial by jury? No.

- Protection against excessive bail? No.

- Protection against excessive fines? No.

- Protection against cruel and unusual punishment? No.

Re: South Dakota nurse says many dying patients still insist Covid-19 'not real'

#219
post #77

Politics seems to be a factor here, but I wonder how much of this has to do with popular culture. Over the last 20 years we've been bombarded with metric tons of Apocalypse porn, a lot of it focused on killer viruses. Most of those movies are unrealistic to put it mildly. Zombies. Deserted cities. Rotting corpses on sidewalks. Visible, palpable nauseating death. This pandemic is nothing like those movies. I know of n…

Ironically, the notion that the President called the virus a hoax is itself the hoax. He never said that, and you can't quote him saying that. He did call the media's reaction to the virus a hoax, which the media of course then took out of context and reinterpreted in the worst way possible. But in our post-truth world we now have mainstream media taking quotes out of context and reinterpreting them to create their p…

I never said the president called the virus a hoax. I said he sympathizes with and encourages the "hoax" perspective.

And that perspective is that concern about the pandemic is a plot against his presidency just like the Russia investigation was. Go back and watch the speech. It's clear as day. The way he puts the pandemic in the past tense ("We did one of the great jobs..."). The framing of the issue as a foreign invasion. Mission accomplished guys, what's the big deal? This hoopla is just another hoax.

The broader context is important here as well. The speech was delivered in front of a packed auditorium as calls to avoid such gatherings were being made, to little avail.

The president has repeatedly doubled-down on this stance that the pandemic is being blown out of proportion, both in words and actions.

Re: South Dakota nurse says many dying patients still insist Covid-19 'not real'

#220
Tangent, but, since ~2010,

I believed HN was the smartest publicly available forum. It made sense that the users here would go on to be leaders at innovative companies.

Something changed around 2016 and has accelerated since 2018.

Seeing the "COVID denial" comments in this thread is exactly what I'm talking about.

It's just too bad.

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