Just the Facts, the Crown virus.

[Paul_H]

Sure scary that the freest countries are giving it up so fast. Australia is doing some head bashing and skull fracturing right now. I keep hearing politicians  talk about a reset and I don't like what I see right now. Maybe part of the reset is deleting the Constitutions of these free countries seeing a lot of folks are willing to do so.
Here are a couple fellas looking after Granny

74 Yr Old Woman Tackled And Pepper Sprayed By Australia Police - YouTube

[HemlockKing]

A freedom comment got me to wondering if there is a freedom rating for countries so I googled it, results that were found from Freedom index by country 2021.

The ten countries with the highest human freedom indexes (the freest countries in the world) are:

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[Southside]

China is #3 on the list.  NZ came out last week and told schools to call the poice if "un jabbed" show up at the school.  Anyone can make some snappy graphs and create lists, saw it on the internet so it must be true.  

[SwampDonkey]

Perception is everything. There's no place I'd rather live than where I am. It ain't half bad when I know there are far worst places. :D

[Paul_H]

Perception reminds me of the frog in the pot of water and set on the fire. "ah,the water's fine "

[HemlockKing]

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[Ianab]

Please remember this isn't the political thread  :-\

[Stephen1]

How to spread Covid in one easy lesson....

Find your Sister is living in Auckland, where Covid is currently circulating, and is feeling sick.
Drive 4 hours each way, bypassing border controls for all but "essential" workers, and bring her "home'.
Don't get vaccinated...
Don't use the contract tracing app on your phone, or even the manual sign in.
Infect the rest of your family.
Ignore the requests to get tested when the virus shows up in the town waste water for a week.
Go to the pharmacy 3 times in 3 days for "flu" medicine.
Call ambulance when Dad can't breath, but refuse a test until the police arrive and tell you it's a Public Health Order.
Now all 6 people in the house have tested positive...

Good news? 3 of them are children, but haven't been at school or kindy, and are probably going to be OK. The hospital patient is well enough to go home.

I don't wish them harm, but they did everything they could to spread the virus. Like, we know that the virus is eventually going to reach here, but it didn't need that sort of knucklehead help. Of course their names haven't been made public, but it's a small town, so it's not a secret. But I'm not rushing round there with torches and pitchforks. Just disappointed.

We are now at 81% fully vaccinated, and 90% have had at least one shot. At 90% fully vaccinated restrictions are supposed to ease. But chances are there will still be cases, and some deaths. But we are in that messy almost vaccinated / need to open up businesses area.

Summer should help too, less virus transmission and all that.

Ianab, That is why we will never eradicate this disease. We will never stop the spread. I believed Larry Brilliant last year when I heard his TED talk on calling a pandemic and the worst thing we could do was lock down the world. The  human suffering and economic destruction will be felt for a very long time. It will be far worse that a few people dying from the disease.

[HemlockKing]

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ObTAOvgd_JE

Thought this was a good video by Dr. Campbell 

[BradMarks]

The numbers from today's paper in our county. 67% vaccinated, which includes one or two or maybe even three shots at this point.  About 8% of the county population has had it, and just less than .001% (1 in a 1000) of the total population has died from it (351 deaths of 377,000). So, generalizing, about 30,000 cases, just over 1.2% mortality rate for those who have had it.  And current hospital rates are showing 15-20% are vaxxed, 80-85% are not. Just the facts. 

[SwampDonkey]

Perception reminds me of the frog in the pot of water and set on the fire. "ah,the water's fine "

I figure it hasn't gotten bad enough yet, because you're voting for the same people to be in charge. ;)

[Paul_H]

Tell me how I voted because what you're implying is off the mark in fact not even close. I wrote an email to my MP telling him why I wouldn't vote for him. Vote split be danged

[SwampDonkey]

Tell me how I voted because what you're implying is off the mark in fact not even close

Figure of speech. Since I see the same ones running things: we, you, them, us, me all together keep voting for the wrong people when the ballots are tallied up.  ;)

[Paul_H]

True and why it's more important than ever to get involved in ones local community and even in our own neighbourhoods.

[Gary_C]

I don't want to get into trouble here as I again feel this topic has gone astray again. But what I will say is opposition to the mandate should not be the best argument against getting vaccinated.

[Southside]

You are correct Gary, it is a medical choice made by the individual, which ironically is what created the opposition to the mandate. 

[Ianab]

I understand that argument, but if the virus is spreading out of control, people are going to react to that, with or without a mandate. 

Right now our town / province isn't under any increased alert level. Everything is open (although some number restrictions etc). But town is pretty dead. Many people aren't going out as there is still some uncertainty about the local cases. It's just natural caution. If no more cases appear over the week, then everyone will relax and go back to normal. 

The main economic disruption here in NZ has been to tourism. But that was going to stop no matter what you called the disease outbreak. Insurance Companies would have called it a "known risk" and not covered it under your travel insurance. Need 2 weeks ICU care in a foreign country? You are on your own with that. Would you have planned a vacation to Italy in the early stages of the outbreak? Of course not. 

[Ianab]

Are you suggesting that it would be better to leave ones family member in harms way because a politician told you so? 

Thing is she actually DID put her family in real harms way by ignoring health advice. 


She caught Covid, her 3 kids caught Covid, and her husband needed hospital care for it. 


Now I'm glad he's now out of hospital, and hope they all recover, and sure as heck hope they haven't passed it on to others in our community that are more at risk. 


Now if she had been vaccinated, and gone to Auckland to look after her Sister, still caught Covid there, been tested and isolated at home there, I would have lots more sympathy. Instead they ignore pretty much EVERY measure to limit the virus spread. Yeah, that will show the "man". 


There is "freedom" and there is stupidity. 

[Southside]

Ian, everyone is going to catch Covid, nothing anyone can do to prevent that.  

[SwampDonkey]

Cody a.k.a WranglerStar recently got COVID and is just coming around enough to let everyone know. Anyone who follows his channel already knows. But here's his experience in the first part of the video.  There's other stuff that snowballed and he talked about later in the video, but the first part is his COVID experience.

The End... - YouTube

[BradMarks]

Not to argue Southside, as I am with you, Doc Henderson also, but I really don't think everyone will get Covid as you say. As I stated a little earlier (and the death count here is actually 321, not 351 as I erred) we've had 8% of the county population afflicted(diagnosed) so far in a year and a half of dealing with this. How that can morph to 100% would be quite the jump from 8%. 

[Southside]

We have no natural immunity to the virus and the jabs don't prevent infection. Those numbers don't represent every person as many will never be tested, and false positives/negatives/asymptomatic cases skew the statistics. 

Getting it, with or without the jab, dosen't mean one will seek treatment, so it never gets recorded.  

[Ianab]

Ian, everyone is going to catch Covid, nothing anyone can do to prevent that.  

Everyone is going to be exposed to Covid at some point. The vaccine isn't 100% effective, but it improves your odds of not being infected. Better vaccines are in the pipeline targeted more at the Delta variant. 
Better treatments are also being released that seem to work pretty well at keeping victims out of hospital (and presumably with less long term effects).
So there is certainly a plus side to delaying infections. It might be inevitable, but if it's After a vaccine booster and I can get a pack of Molin-whatsamacallit, then odds are better. 

[SwampDonkey]

Progress on herd immunity thus far and mention of unvaccinated lock downs underway in Austria.

Disappointments - YouTube

[kantuckid]

A freedom comment got me to wondering if there is a freedom rating for countries so I googled it, results that were found from Freedom index by country 2021.

The ten countries with the highest human freedom indexes (the freest countries in the world) are:

IMO, to a certain extent, the freedom index is sort of like those blurbs that tell me where to live, go on vacation, shop, not shop, best brands, best ice cream, etc., etc., etc...