International COVID-19 Megathread

[DabbingSanta]

Some maps I made this morning based on the latest data from Worldometers. Countries with higher death rates could be a result of (a) underreporting of cases, (b) substandard quality of health care, or (c) increased elderly or high risk population, or perhaps a mix of all three.

[DabbingSanta]

Countries with *still* no official cases include - DPRK, Myanmar, Syria, Libya, Yemen, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan.

And if you believe all that.......

https://www.businessinsider.com/almost-200-north-korean-soldiers-died-coronavirus-2020-3

[DabbingSanta]

Stamp's Law of Statistics.

If governments were keen to have some homogeneous tempate to amass statistics, the comparative diagrams would be much more beautiful. But every one goes in its way

Make of that what you will, these things are a little hard to track

[DabbingSanta]

https://reut.rs/2UuDn9l

Although Ottawa and the provinces have urged Canadians to stay at home, and in some cases put limits on gatherings, Trudeau said too many people were disregarding the advice.

“We’ve all seen the pictures online of people who seem to think they are invincible. Well, you’re not,” Trudeau said.

“Enough is enough. Go home and stay home ... we’re going to make sure this happens, whether by educating people more on the risks or by enforcing the rules if that’s needed,” he told reporters outside his residence, where he has been confined since his wife was diagnosed with the virus.

....

Trudeau is due to speak to the premiers on Monday to coordinate the messaging on self-isolation. All the provinces have imposed some sort of state of emergency.

He also said he would discuss with them what the government could do under the 1988 Emergencies Act, which allows Ottawa to impose strict limits on the movement of people.

Officials said last week the act would be a last resort, but Trudeau reiterated “we haven’t taken anything off the table.”

As I feared, the covid-19 hysteria is going to cause a lot of civil liberty issues moving forward. As Trump said this morning, it will be the reaction that causes the second great depression, not the disease itself.

[DabbingSanta]

Sweden: 0 deaths on July 31st, significant decline in cases and deaths from peak despite no lockdown or mandatory mask rules. Media is totally silent now. It really makes you think and challenge the mainstream narrative.

[DabbingSanta]

That you can quickly end up with herd immunity if you're willing to have a lot of deaths in one go?

No point dragging it out... The lockdowns were originally for "flattening the curve", so that health care systems would not be overwhelmed, not "until there's a vaccine" like everyone is pushing for now.

[DabbingSanta]

Hey guys, lots of great information on here.  We really need an "opinions/discussion from unqualified people" thread for people like me so I don't derail anything productive.  Canada saw a record 7,000 cases yesterday, so we're at about the same level of infection the U.S. was during the summer.  Things are not going so well here despite all the lockdowns and mandates.  One big difference is that a lot of schools are still open, and I've noticed the last couple months that people are not taking the distancing thing so seriously.  I am of the opinion that distancing is probably more effective than mask wearing.  I can't imagine the negative impact all the Black Friday/Christmas shopping will do in places that are still open this week.  S*** is about to hit the fan.

[DabbingSanta]

Looks like we might be entering some sort of twilight zone. Ontario now expecting 10k cases a day in late December. Record high of 1855 set today. 

[DabbingSanta]

Anyone else concerned about the massive spike in reported cases in the United Kingdom?  Over 25,000 cases in one day despite 50% fully vaxxed.  Weekly average 20,000. Here in Canada they would freak out and shut down over that.  Seems like we are stuck in a perpetual cycle.

[DabbingSanta]

Anyone else concerned about the massive spike in reported cases in the United Kingdom?  Over 25,000 cases in one day despite 50% fully vaxxed.  Weekly average 20,000. Here in Canada they would freak out and shut down over that.  Seems like we are stuck in a perpetual cycle.

A bit, the Delta variant is unhelpful, but with the vulnerable being double-jabbed it looks like vaccines have broken the link between infection and serious illness/death. That's the most important thing, so hopefully Covid is just a normal disease now and the UK can return to normal on 19 July. They did expect cases would surge as they reopened, so the lack of a spike in hospitalisations is a great sign.

That's great news.  Hopefully common sense prevails on this side of the pond, and our country opens up soon, even if we see a "fourth wave".  We have very high vaccination rates, probably reach 70% fully vaxxed by end of summer, and COVID cases are down over 90%!  Time to return to full normal.

[DabbingSanta]

Canada is reopening the border to fully vaccinated tourists this summer.

Summary of new policies:

Fully vaccinated U.S. tourists can enter Canada starting August 9
Hotel quarantine policy ending August 9
Fully vaccinated children of Canadians, and other exempt travelers to have amended quarantine starting August 9
Fully vaccinated tourists from all countries can enter September 7
India flight ban extended to August 21
More airports accepting international flights

Source: https://www.cicnews.com/2021/07/canada-announcing-updates-to-border-measures-today-0718648.html

[DabbingSanta]

And Switzerland has banned entry from half the world, which is great, doesn't disrupt plans that I had been making for months and months or anything

we're never going back to normal are we? Every year we're going to have a new scary variant, and lockdowns and travel bans and panics about the vaccine no matter how mild or how many people vaccinated there might be. I'm completely fucking sick of this.

"There's a new wave of COVID so we need to implement the highly damaging policies that failed to stop the last wave of COVID"

It's insane.  What has this world come to??? There's is zero chance we can stop Omnicrap from spreading everywhere.  Who knows how many people came from South Africa to all these other places before the variant was discovered.  It's already too late, might as well just move on with life...