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Japan considers downgrading Covid-19 to same level as seasonal flu

coronavirus

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#1 Daniel Cooper

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Posted 24 January 2023 - 04:58 PM


More signs that covid-19 is starting to peter out.
 
Japan considers downgrading Covid-19 to same level as seasonal flu

What will people find to worry about when covid is no longer a major concern?

 

Even more interesting, how many people will stay locked down and masked up long after the emergency is past (which one can reasonably argue is now)?

 

 


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#2 Mind

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Posted 24 January 2023 - 05:41 PM

Several countries have already beat Japan to the punch (as highlighted in a couple other threads), including China.

 

I predict the U.S. and the UK will be the last to give up on the COVID hysteria.


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#3 pamojja

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Posted 26 January 2023 - 12:27 PM

Also Austria, the only country which already had mandatory mRNA vaccination for the whole adult population written in law and then canceled, is downgrading it soon to endemic status with no special requirements anymore.


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#4 Hip

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Posted 27 January 2023 - 03:35 PM

If some countries now consider COVID to be comparable to the seasonal flu, that is only as a result of the fact that the vaccines reduced the death rate by about 20 fold, or 2000% if you prefer.

 

The vaccines saved the day, even though the unhinged antivaxers, who are more like terrorists than civilised people, managed to freak out the Prime Minister of New Zealand so badly that she resigned. She was so stressed out by all the death threats and personal attacks on her, that she could no longer continue the job. 

 

Jacinda Ardern did a marvellous job of keeping COVID out of New Zealand almost entirely, only relaxing the restrictions when everyone was vaccinated. 

 

 

If as a society we let the irrational voices of the scientifically illiterate set the agenda, just because of their aggression, we will find that talented, sensitive people will no longer want to do the top jobs in society, and so we will then get thicker skinned, but maybe less competent and less caring, people in charge.

 

This is the problem with letting the unhinged scientifically illiterate intimidate our officials. We have seen such intimidation of officials take place on this very forum. 

 

The same fate can occur with forums. If the scientifically challenged take over a forum, drowning out reasoned scientific voices by posting sensationalist anger-bating articles, then the scientific types will go elsewhere (as has largely happened on Longecity during the pandemic). 

 

 

 


Edited by Hip, 27 January 2023 - 03:41 PM.

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#5 Mind

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Posted 27 January 2023 - 06:03 PM

This is the problem with letting the unhinged scientifically illiterate intimidate our officials. We have seen such intimidation of officials take place on this very forum. 

 

The same fate can occur with forums. If the scientifically challenged take over a forum, drowning out reasoned scientific voices by posting sensationalist anger-bating articles, then the scientific types will go elsewhere (as has largely happened on Longecity during the pandemic). 

 

When public officials lie, they should be held to account. It is one of the basic tenets of civil society.

 

Since when is posting peer-reviewed research unhinged and unreasonable? Every time someone posts peer-reviewed research you disagree with, you go into unhinged ad hominem attacks. You have left a trail of blistering insults throughout the forum discussions.


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#6 Hip

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Posted 27 January 2023 - 07:02 PM

Every time someone posts peer-reviewed research you disagree with, you go into unhinged ad hominem attacks. You have left a trail of blistering insults throughout the forum discussions.

 

You have to communicate with people using their language. Many people do not understand science, so with them, you cannot use the language of science. You have to use more emotive rebukes. 

 

This is especially true of people who read sensationalist rage-baiting websites and articles. Such people are filled with anger, often unjustified anger, because they have been emotionally manipulated by the media they read. They are often easily manipulated emotionally because they don't have a strong grounding in science.    

 

Such people are beyond the language of reason, because blind anger clouds their mind. It's no good therefore having a civilised scientific debate with such people. 

 

How do we deal with aggressive and intimidating antivaxers and antimaskers, that have been riled up by rage-baiting media? How do we deal with people who send death threats to officials? Do you think reasoned scientific debate is going to stop such people? Reason will not work with them; you have to use stronger words and stronger actions.

 

Rage baiting has become endemic on the Internet, because it gets the gullible to read these websites, which then brings in ad revenue. It's a very cynical business.

 

 

 

 

People can also be beyond scientific reason if they have an ideology or personal agenda that they consider more important than anything else. Many people have a secret agenda; your personal one is your libertarian beliefs. You are against coercion to be vaccinated, and against mask mandates, lockdowns and other such imposed rules because you believe nobody should be told what to do.

 

Even if someone's personal choices leads to the death of others, you still belief that person has the right to those choices. The right to kill others, in effect.

 

You select articles and studies which support your libertarian beliefs. So you have started out with a libertarian conclusion to begin with, and just cherry pick the studies and articles you post to promote your conclusion.

 

I have nothing against libertarian per se; lots of people have their own personal philosophies which inform their views. However, when the philosophy is considered more important than the science, then reasoned debate breaks down. 

 

 

 

 


Edited by Hip, 27 January 2023 - 07:08 PM.

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#7 Mind

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Posted 27 January 2023 - 07:14 PM

The contention that Japan has downgraded their pandemic response because of the COVID injections does not align with the data.

 

Japan had three large waves of COVID AFTER they had widespread injections. The vast majority of the COVID cases and deaths the country has experienced came AFTER the widespread injection campaign. The data is there for everyone to see.

 

Typically, after a vaccination campaign, cases and deaths should go down, or be nearly eliminated. The exact opposite occurred in Japan (and Israel, Singapore, Taiwan, South Korea, and many other countries).

 

So many countries are now downgrading their response because COVID was always similar to a bad flu season. This is according to very careful peer-reviewed research based upon seroprevalence prior to the vaccination campaigns. This is research that is not disputed and has not been retracted.


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#8 Hip

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Posted 27 January 2023 - 08:24 PM

So many countries are now downgrading their response because COVID was always similar to a bad flu season.  

 

If the global COVID death toll is no different to seasonal flu, how come seasonal flu kills about 294 to 518 thousand each year across the global, whereas the global excess deaths during the pandemic years of 2020 and 2021 amounted to 15 million? So that's about 7.5 million deaths per year during the pandemic.

 

Last time I checked, 7.5 million deaths was a lot larger than 0.5 million.


Edited by Hip, 27 January 2023 - 08:25 PM.

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#9 Daniel Cooper

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Posted 27 January 2023 - 09:52 PM

If some countries now consider COVID to be comparable to the seasonal flu, that is only as a result of the fact that the vaccines reduced the death rate by about 20 fold, or 2000% if you prefer.

 

So it could not possibly be that the virus has become less lethal as it has mutated with time as all prior viral pandemics have done in human history?  We can only put down the lower death rates to a vaccine that the US Health and Human Services now says needs to be boosted every two months?


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#10 Hip

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Posted 27 January 2023 - 09:57 PM

So it could not possibly be that the virus has become less lethal as it has mutated with time as all prior viral pandemics have done in human history?  We can only put down the lower death rates to a vaccine that the US Health and Human Services now says needs to be boosted every two months?

 

Omicron infection is about 3 times less lethal than delta, according to figures I read. So the virus has become less lethal. There is a natural tendency for viruses to evolve into less lethal forms in populated regions, because it is in the virus's interests to do so.

 

But omicron is also more transmissible, so the number of deaths saved by its lower lethality might be counterbalanced by the higher number of COVID cases it causes. 


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#11 Daniel Cooper

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Posted 27 January 2023 - 10:20 PM

Omicron infection is about 3 times less lethal than delta, according to figures I read. So the virus has become less lethal. There is a natural tendency for viruses to evolve into less lethal forms in populated regions, because it is in the virus's interests to do so.

 

But omicron is also more transmissible, so the number of deaths saved by its lower lethality might be counterbalanced by the higher number of COVID cases it causes. 

 

I can tell you in my area (US state) that almost no one has gotten a booster past the first two, and only about half the population got both boosters in the first place.

 

Presumably the effectiveness of those first shoots in Q2/Q3 of 2021 have long since waned to almost nothing by now.

 

And yet, infection rates and death rates are at very low levels.

 

By all appearances almost everyone in the state has now contracted the virus whether they were ever vaccinated or not, and a broad based natural immunity coupled with the milder variant is now keeping the infection rates and the lethality of the virus low.  And this is going to be how things are going to be going forward. Almost nobody is getting boosted. The percentages are negligible. People are getting periodically reinfected and these infections are mild. Irrespective of the study that shows 2nd infections to be particularly deadly - the numbers just don't bear that out where I am.

 

This is really a puzzling psychological study. What I described above is how pandemics wind down and end - always. This is how these things have worked for millennia upon millennia. But, some of us just don't want to let this virus go. Perhaps all the masks, and the lockdowns, and the rituals gave meaning to some people's lives. I don't know but some sharp PhD candidate in human psychology will one day write one hell of a thesis on this.

 

Are there really people on this forum that just aren't psychologically prepared for covid to be over? You have to wonder.


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#12 Hip

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Posted 28 January 2023 - 12:50 AM

I can tell you in my area (US state) that almost no one has gotten a booster past the first two, and only about half the population got both boosters in the first place.


It's only the older section of the population that gets boosters in the UK.

 

In the UK, only people 50 and over are invited to get a yearly booster. And if you are elderly, then you get invited for twice yearly boosters.

 

Presumably the same occurs in your state.


 

 

Are there really people on this forum that just aren't psychologically prepared for covid to be over?  

 

COVID will never be over for the 65 million long COVID patients throughout the world, whose lives have been placed on pause, and who are living in misery unable to work or socialise much, until such time as a cure for long COVID is discovered (which might take many decades).

 

It's looking like long COVID is just ME/CFS, but caused by a different virus to the usual viruses that trigger ME/CFS. But science is still clueless as to the cause of ME/CFS, even though we know it is virally triggered. 

 

 

 

Neither will COVID ever be over for the 17 million regular ME/CFS patients around the world (such as myself).

 

I got substantially and permanently worse after catching COVID in April 2022.  

 

Surveys have shown that it is common for ME/CFS patients to get worse after COVID. And any subsequent COVID reinfections may make ME/CFS patients even worse still.

 

All my friends and family around me have given up with precautions (except vaccines). So I have no protection from getting further infections. The COVID vaccines are not very effective at preventing long COVID, so I am just resigned to the fact that when I get COVID once again, which is inevitable, I will likely have an ever further reduction in health.

 

I am not blaming people for not following precautions (such as masks or testing). They think the pandemic is over, and they just want to get back to normal.

 

It may be over for them. Although each time the catch COVID again, they are risking joining the ever increasing number of people imprisoned with long COVID.

 

 

 


Edited by Hip, 28 January 2023 - 12:52 AM.

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