Regardless, it seems academic if your loved one is dead or dying. — James Riley

However sad that may be, policy should not be determined by emotions.

Compare that question with the inconvenience of distancing, masking and vaxxing. — James Riley

Much has been said about the effectiveness, side-effects and potential dangers of those things.

The body needs contact with others to maintain a healthy immune system, for example. The thing that ensures the vast majority of people are absolutely safe from covid AND other diseases.

Further, masks were never made for prolonged and daily use and ironically the way they are being used now also forms a potential risk to the immune and respiratory systems.

This discussion has been had probably a dozen of times in this thread alone - lets not have it again. I understand your part of the argument, and I have hopes you understand mine. My bottomline is, people need to decide for themselves in this uncertain time what risks they are willing to accept and which ones they aren't.

However sad that may be, policy should not be determined by emotions. — Tzeentch

:100: :clap:

Much has been said about the effectiveness, side-effects and potential dangers of those things. — Tzeentch

I'm sure that if people paid attention to directions on how to do it, any adverse side-effects would be ameliorated. Especially if everyone played ball. The time would be short. But yeah, I get it. You can't get people to distance or use a mask properly if you can't get them to participate in the first place.

However sad that may be, policy should not be determined by emotions. — Tzeentch

Why not?

Because emotions are very subjective and can inhibit one's ability for rational thought. Governance and policy are about forcing people to do things. In my eyes, those things don't mix.

emotions are very subjective — Tzeentch

VERY subjective? (sorry for the capital fonts, I still have to figure out Italics). Arent rational thoughts subjective too?

They sure are.

Then why base your policy on rational thoughts?

To maintain a degree of legitimacy I suppose.

Cant you maintain a degree of decency when you base your policies on love?

Policy, or law, is a fancy word we use to disguise impositions made by governments through threats of violence. That to me is irreconcilable with love.

Maybe we are drifting a bit off-topic.

Policy, or law, is a fancy word we use to disguise impositions made by governments through threats of violence. That to me is irreconcillabe with love — Tzeentch

There is indeed little love involved there. :heart: But now we are indeed drifting off. How much I like drifting off I dont think its appropiate...

Emotion = giving a fuck.

So policy is based on whether, on aggregate, we give more of a fuck about Granny staying alive, or going to the disco.

And other emotional considerations.

Emotion = giving a fuck. — unenlightened

Trouble is though...

https://youtu.be/kgAJntmfdGo

Emotional policy-making doesn't have any means of separating the immediacy of an image of a dying Granny from the dry, almost bureaucratic, listing of the next thousand child deaths in Africa.

Hence billions on boosters, and an unprecedented cut in foreign aid.

Trouble is though... — Isaac

There is indeed a deal of trouble - the troubled feelings are widespread.

People have the wrong emotions, obviously. 'Wrong' rationally, that is. I call it "irrational self-interest" My granny is more important than your Granny; indeed my night out is more important than your granny. But if rationality thinks it has a handle on something other than what people feel is important - something objective and rational then it is mistaken. One might feel that child deaths are more important than granny deaths, but try telling Granny that! One might have recourse to abstractions like 'equality' and 'justice', but the privileged tend to have recourse more to 'freedom'. if there were some arbitration available, or some god...

So policy is based on whether, on aggregate, we give more of a fuck about Granny staying alive, or going to the disco. — unenlightened

:death: :party: :100:

I prefer grannies staying alive. But what about them preffering going to a disco? What if that emotion is considered? Is it worse, because selfish? Is being selfish bad? What about the feeling of people (like md but I must take the juice if I wanna go abroad so I will take it) who dont wanna take it because of a gut feeling they have?

This data does not report cause of death, and as such represents all deaths in people with laboratory-confirmed COVID-19, not just those caused by COVID-19. — UK Government reporting on SARS-Cov-2 related deaths

"Caused" is a fun word.

Our world has people in it with conditions that, should they contract the virus, will kill them -- not the virus, but the "co-morbidity". Obesity. Diabetes. Respiratory illnesses.

Of course, if they don't get Covid, maybe those things don't kill them. Not this year, anyway.

Cause of death? In a vacuum? Or in the actual world where there are people for whom Covid is more dangerous than it is for others?

Excess mortality is excess mortality, whatever the mechanism between here and there.

Excess mortality is excess mortality, whatever the mechanism between here and there. — Srap Tasmaner

I disagree (surprised?). The mechanism is where we direct our response and as such our analysis of things like cost-effectiveness and plausibility. At what cost 7 million boosters? At what cost a tax on sweet and fatty foods?

It matters a lot which of the contributory factors we try to eliminate. Could you really say that an efficient way of handling public health is to maintain a population with a very high level of completely preventable life threatening diseases and then have to commit to mass vaccinations of every novel virus to keep them alive? Or is it more efficient to invest in community healthcare, sporting facilities, restrict sales of unhealthy foods etc and next decade not have such a vulnerable population in the first place?

Excess mortality is excess mortality, whatever the mechanism between here and there. — Srap Tasmaner

:100: As I said a long time ago, it doesn't matter which straw broke a camel's back.

Should some of those other straws not been on there? Maybe, but we have the freedom to put them on without having to worry about some other turd throwing his on too.

P.S. As we say in the law, "You take your victim as you find him."

we have the freedom to put them on without having to worry about some other turd throwing his on too. — James Riley

So your freedom to eat junk food trumps my freedom to avoid prophylactic medicine as I choose? Why?

So your freedom to eat junk food trumps my freedom to avoid prophylactic medicine as I choose? Why? — Isaac

Because people smarter than you say so.

Our world has people in it with conditions that, should they contract the virus, will kill them -- not the virus, but the "co-morbidity". Obesity. Diabetes. Respiratory illnesses. — Srap Tasmaner

Then the flu must be included too. And weak résistance. Vaccinations in the past have reduced that resistance.

So your freedom to eat junk food trumps my freedom to avoid prophylactic medicine as I choose? Why? — Isaac

Belay my last. Here's a better answer to your question: You are free to avoid prophylactic medicine all you want: just keep your filthy fucking virus off my ass if you get it. How's that? Oh, and the burden of proof on what broke my back is not on me. Society has placed it on you. Now go get a shot or whine like a little bitch when you are treated like a pariah.

Is inept rage your only mode of response?

Is inept rage your only mode of response? — Tzeentch

I'm not Fauci with his polite "I don't know how to explain to you that you should care about other people." I'm more of the rage guy when dealing with inept incompetent hucksters peddling shit on the internet.

Is inept rage your only mode of response? — Tzeentch

No, it's not. I will try to tone it down. Thank you for the reminder.

You are free to avoid prophylactic medicine all you want: just keep your filthy fucking virus off my ass if you get it. How's that? — James Riley

I fully intend to. I mask, I socially distance, I wash my hands. I don't see what that's got to do with the question of public health policy. The question was why should your right to fast food trump my right to avoid prophylactics? If you do in fact revert to your previous answer I'd need some citation to support it, unless, of course, you're just some inept incompetent huckster peddling shit on the internet.

The question was why should your right to fast food trump my right to avoid prophylactics? — Isaac

It doesn't. As I said, you can avoid all you want. But you do NOT have the right to spread your filthy disease to me if you get it, especially when you're avoiding government requests from people that are smarter than you. You don't get to absolve yourself of murder just because I have a comorbidity, self-induced or not.

I don't see what that's got to do with the question of public health policy. — Isaac

I will add this, regarding the prophylactic issue: Society, and people in it that are smarter than you, with infinitely more experience than you will ever have, have determined that, while it is entirely possible that you could drive under the influence of alcohol, you are, prophylactically, forbidden from doing so. You may not like it. You may think everyone else would be fine if they just stayed out of your way. But society has decided to make the pariah. That's what we do.

...of murder... — James Riley

Good job dialing down the rage.

Same apply to all avoiding these measures?

Or these https://www.gov.uk/government/news/healthy-eating-guidance-published-for-the-early-years-sector

Or https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/ng70/chapter/Recommendations

All recommendations by people smarter than you for behaviour to avoid potentially fatal risks to others.

They all murderers too?

Do you honestly think your life is so saintly I couldn't find a half dozen things you do which risk others and which people smarter than you have recommended to avoid?