The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

Literally no reason for me to vax (given it has no impact o on transmissibility, cuz science), but the hivemind of shitlibs and big tech doofuses here say otherwise.

Please stop talking garbage on here. This isn't facebook.

> Germany masked, distanced, and locked down better than anyone could expect

There was never anything even remotely close to a total lockdown here. Too afraid that telling people not to got to work might hurt the economy.

What Germany got "right" was mostly things done long before the pandemic, e.g. investment in a large number of hospitable beds, as well as public health insurance and flexible sick days guaranteed by law so sick people can actually afford to stay at home.

> They don't even share a porous border with Mexico/South America.

LOL the US border is mostly ocean and the part that is through land is much more controlled than the "borders" in the EU.

> Or how about how everyone was anti mask in the beginning, including the CDC, WHO, and my very liberal coworkers. When I said it would be advisable to wear a mask when in crowded places March, 2020 - I was heckled for not following the science.

Yeah, that was one of the biggest atrocities of the pandemic. Not only is it immorral to give false medical advice, this has also been responsible for more people (rightfully) mistrusting later recommendations. There should be leaders stepping down over this.

> As far as making the vaccines political, well they don't have to be. some research has shown that they don't do very well at stopping spread, so why all the fuss to force people to get vaccinated? just say do it for yourself if you want to, politics removed.

I agree, forcing people to get vaccinated (and that includes excessive restrictions to those not vaccinated) is not the way to go.

I'd wager the problem with ivermectin and other treatments is that Trump mentioned them. I can't stand the guy, but I also can't stand the Sith attitude that you either take a stand 100% against anything he says or 100% in favour. Unfortunately for those in the first camp, there are peer reviewed studies showing promise for some repurposed medicines. Ivermectin for example has been shown to be helpful both as a prophylactic and as a treatment (which I'll try to explain below).

Here is the highest quality meta-analysis of ivermectin for COVID treatment, fully published in a highly respected journal [1]:

"Moderate-certainty evidence finds that large reductions in COVID-19 deaths are possible using ivermectin. Using ivermectin early in the clinical course may reduce numbers progressing to severe disease. The apparent safety and low cost suggest that ivermectin is likely to have a significant impact on the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic globally."

Another paper reports a very lucky event. As COVID swept through French care homes in March 2020, an outbreak of scabies led to an entire care home being prescribed ivermectin. Almost nobody died of COVID. Here's a DeepL translation of the results, shortened for brevity:

"Sixty-nine residents and 52 staff received [ivermectin]: median resident age 90 years (84-94), 78.3% female, 98.6% at least one comorbidity at risk of severe COVID-19. 11 subjects had probable or definite COVID-19 (7/69 residents and 4/52 staff, frequency 10.1%). Among the residents, 90.9% (10/11) had minimal COVID-19, no oxygen or hospitalisation, no deaths. Among the [77 care homes with COVID outbreaks], 45 were included as controls, i.e. 3062 residents (median age 86.2 years, 77.3% women). Among them, 22.6% [95%CI 16.3-28.9] had COVID-19 vs. 1.4% [care home where ivermectin was prescribed] with an attributable mortality of 4.9% [95%CI 3.2-6.5] vs. 0% [care home where ivermectin was prescribed]."

On the balance of probability, ivermectin is effective against COVID-19 both before and during the disease. I've seen anecdotes that it helps with long COVID symptoms in some too, but not read any proper studies, so we might one day add an "after" to "before and during" too. What's more, it's almost as cheap as sugar pills, and among the safest drugs ever invented in terms of side effects (read the quote from the first paper above again). That we're not even trying this in the rich west is the crime of the century. Studies of ivermectin only began in the UK a few months ago, when we already had evidence early last year that it's potentially interesting. You've got to wonder why conversations over repurposed medication are being suppressed.

[1] https://doi.org/10.1097/MJT.0000000000001402

[2] https://doi.org/10.1016/j.annder.2020.09.231 (in French)

You are responding to a conservative commentator who is trying to muddle and make non-scientific conservative positions more palatable and less non-sensical.

I have noticed that wealthy, educated, conservatives (for tax benefits) work hard to justify and provide some vaguely scientific and logical grounding to all kinds of weird conservative talking points. This might be by punching hard at some corner of the liberal/scientific consensus on an issue that is not quite well developed or the audience lacks full detail on. This equalizes both liberal and conservative positions as some what unscientific, while the reality is quite opposite. You will never find rayiner attack conservative talking points, only liberal ones.

You think you are in a scientific discussion, but you are actually participating in a political one.