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Shanghai Disney shuts: Visitors unable to leave without negative Covid test

bbc.com

241–250 of 307 posts

Re: Shanghai Disney shuts: Visitors unable to leave without negative Covid test

#241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here in the Netherlands, it may not be policy, but a large number of people just don't care anymore. People with symptoms like coughing and changing tone of voice are still going to school, work and parties. No one wears masks except for some tourists or other foreigners. When planning an event, not a single moment is thought about COVID.

I don't care anymore because I've eyeballed that on average 5 people are dying per day (1825 per year) [1], and it doesn't seem to be changing. That's less than flu season (which is more like 3000 to 5000 per year). I don't have sources for the flu. I read it somewhere, I might be underestimating or overestimating a bit. And of course, all those deaths are horrible, and I feel that pain when I contemplate that for a…

> 1. Do I lock myself down for 2 years, and fight preventing long Covid and 2% deaths population wide?

It was never as high as 2% in the first place. The numbers were inflated because we didn't have enough tests to go around, so only the people who we were already pretty sure were infected were tested.

Re: Shanghai Disney shuts: Visitors unable to leave without negative Covid test

#242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According research (just google is and look at the actual papers and the data set in them and how it was calculated), with the exception of properly worn high grade medical PPE, neither does masking. Universal masking is little more than pointless hysterical hype. Flimsy reused surgical masks, bandanas and home made cloth masks only look f-good in mathematical projections, never in the actual real world results. No I…

This again? The masks are to prevent _you_ from spewing infections agents all over the place. The masks are not to protect you. The masks are intended to protect other people from you.

That was the early messaging when only low quality masks were available and we didn’t know it was an aerosol virus.

Re: Shanghai Disney shuts: Visitors unable to leave without negative Covid test

#243
post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lockdowns certainly can stop geometric rise of an infection and it can make sense if you don't want to have people who might have been saved dying in hospital corridors due to lack of capacity but IMHO it doesn't make any sense whatsoever as a long term solution if the lockdown is not globally coordinated to eradicate the microbe at once. If the lockdown is not global, it will keep coming back. That's why I wonder wh…

If a disease arises with a much higher fatality rate, lockdowns are still pretty much our only tool to deal with it. Eradication or not, we’re not going to survive a 35% IFR virus with business-as-usual plus hand washing and masks. China will locally eradicate it, and here in the US well… I dunno. It’s not looking great.

The biggest casualty of covid is the trust in health authorities. Unnecessary lockdowns (assuming those even work which is really not clear given the absence of inflection point in cases when they were introduced in europe) will just lead to even more distrust.

Also high IFR viruses usually have high symptoms. Much easier to contain a disease when you can tell people are sick. People feeling sick will also travel and spread less. What made covid so widespread is that it was so mild to so many people. So there is a kind of bell curve of deadliness vs infectiousness. So not really convinced by those argument of what if covid was so much deadlier. You would need a virus with zero symptom while you are infectious, and then that kills you, like an airborne HIV. Anything is possible but with ifs...

Re: Shanghai Disney shuts: Visitors unable to leave without negative Covid test

#245
post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

one country that doesn't gets mentioned is Pakistan, it has a population of 200m+ with heavily dense cities, there were no lockdowns, people prayed in congregations in Mosques 5 times a day with no social distancing and no masks.

Pakistan is one of the dangerous and dirty places on the planet. I highly doubt they can even reliably count births and deaths. Someone on a podcast I watched recently said he saw doctors reusing syringes after stabbing them into an Irish Spring soap bar. I seriously doubt they even have Covid tests.

The point that people are making here is that all the time we are made to believe that the masks, lockdowns etc are necessary to keep the exponential propagation spiraling out of control

The default talking point and narrative is that even if masks were only 0.1% effective that tiny effect exponentially compounds and over time and leads to lives saved.

Then you have Pakistan where no measures are taken yet the there is no exponential spiraling out of control

Re: Shanghai Disney shuts: Visitors unable to leave without negative Covid test

#246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a disease arises with a much higher fatality rate, lockdowns are still pretty much our only tool to deal with it. Eradication or not, we’re not going to survive a 35% IFR virus with business-as-usual plus hand washing and masks. China will locally eradicate it, and here in the US well… I dunno. It’s not looking great.

> China will locally eradicate it You understand that with globalization, this makes no sense, right? It will return, again and again. Economic impact of always going into lockdown will be insane. Another reason for western companies to become less dependent on China in the long term, massive reduction in productivity in the short term.

Particularly given the it is now endemic in so many countries.

Re: Shanghai Disney shuts: Visitors unable to leave without negative Covid test

#247
post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> just so they don’t catch a cold. The people I know who still wear masks and myself wear them so that others don't get our cold, not necessarily to protect ourselves. A form of respect towards co-workers etc.

You have to have a very special mask to clean exhaled breath sufficiently to prevent an aerosol virus with such a high R0.

Surgical masks are enough to help prevent the spread of COVID, it's not about 100% safety which is impossible, but saying that they're not good enough does not seem to be true.

Re: Shanghai Disney shuts: Visitors unable to leave without negative Covid test

#248
post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lockdowns certainly can stop geometric rise of an infection and it can make sense if you don't want to have people who might have been saved dying in hospital corridors due to lack of capacity but IMHO it doesn't make any sense whatsoever as a long term solution if the lockdown is not globally coordinated to eradicate the microbe at once. If the lockdown is not global, it will keep coming back. That's why I wonder wh…

It's simply zero covid working better than the best vaccines which will still lead to millions of deaths at PRC scale and with PRC's relatively lower per capita medical infra. Economically it sucks, but despite disruptions PRC exports booming and moving up the value chain until global slowdown due to UKR war, while being huge producer + cheap RU energy + reserves = slower growth + low inflation, and PRC is still doin…

> It's simply zero covid working better than the best vaccines which will still lead to millions of deaths at PRC scale and with PRC's relatively lower per capita medical infra.

If China was able to logistically handle zero covid, I would be more inclined to agree with you. However, each time a city in China has been locked down, it has been a logistical disaster that almost always resulted in:

- extremely poor quarantine zones in unsanitary conditions (which defeats the purpose of being free of disease). This includes many people who were lucky enough to quarantine in their own homes as even their pets are not allowed to leave, they need to dedicate spaces in their home for their animals to defecate.

- lack of basic necessities; food, heating, water leakage, insect problems, or even lacking a proper indoor building in some cases.

- a lack of professionalism, discipline, or even respect of human decency among the staff. Attaching spikes to entrances to keep people from leaving by force, refusing to allow elderly access to medical care, threatening people with weapons, security bao'ans going on China social media laughing about all the new found power and control they have over the populace, beating people in a show of their power trips.

- questionable policies, such as requiring everyone in a community to come together, line up, for a covid test, which increases the likelihood of getting covid, rather than go door to door.

This has lead to more than just inconveniences, it's lead to death. Which is supposedly the very thing this is all supposed to avoid. The Chinese state has proven by experience, repeatedly, that it cannot logistically handle these strict policies. It is a failure of the zero covid policy and a failure of the Chinese Communist Party to administer its State in a competent manner.

Re: Shanghai Disney shuts: Visitors unable to leave without negative Covid test

#249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I prefer handshakes to make sure someone isn't carrying a knife or dagger. Covid is less of a worry.

Thoroughly washing hands regularly is one of the one behavior I kept after the pandemic. I'm aware that fomites are not the main cause (or even a cause at all) that the disease spreads. Nevertheless, proper hand hygiene seems to be a good idea to me.

Though the more you live in a sterile environment the less your immune system learns to fight pathogens and you may pay it dearly later on.

Re: Shanghai Disney shuts: Visitors unable to leave without negative Covid test

#250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According research (just google is and look at the actual papers and the data set in them and how it was calculated), with the exception of properly worn high grade medical PPE, neither does masking. Universal masking is little more than pointless hysterical hype. Flimsy reused surgical masks, bandanas and home made cloth masks only look f-good in mathematical projections, never in the actual real world results. No I…

> No I am not posting research, look at it yourself, What a surprise. You might be right, but the onus is on you to provide evidence if you are challenging the status quo.

Notably the status quo for decades of research pre-covid was that masks don't work ...

Then in 2020 hysteria broke out, most scientists got scared shtless and you could only publish papers that indicate that masks work even though all the empirical evidence around us show that they don't.

If anything shows how short term scientific consensus is trivially falsifiable as it depends on few influential people.

Good luck trying to get a NIH grant with the hypothesis that masks might no be effective ... It is a no-go hypothesis from the start.

Same with zoonotic vs lab origin.

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