Coronavirus **personal experiences** thread

Ha no different guy. Actually I gave him a Thrunite pocket thrower when we had him over for dinner. He was blown away when I shined my W30 LEP and Imalent MS18 outside and I realized I have some lights I haven’t used in ages. Guy loves to hunt and wants to take me out “spotting deer*. Seems like an excellent excuse to bust out some flashlights

Sound like a fun thing to do, I have forgotten about mine as well.

Huh… I thought they already came with spots.

Wonder how you get ’em to stay still long enough…

Reminds me of the Beavis and Butthead episode where the dude was bench pressing and asked them to “spot him.” And they were like “uhh… there you are. Uh huh huh” (pointing at him)

(Good stuff at 2 minutes)

Careful, spotlighting deer is illegal in a lot of states.
All the Best,
Jeff

Thanks Jeff, I did not know that as a matter of fact. He said where he lives in hillbilly land it’s allowed. I should probably confirm that (:

Haven’t hunted in decades now but it used to be that you couldn’t shine deer in our hillbilly area for a certain period around hunting season. The current law is that you can’t do it after 10 PM starting today until the end of the year. From Jan to now it is fine. Now that I am in the city I occasionally have shined fox to move them away from my dogs. Have no idea if that is actually legal or not.

Think back to late winter and early spring. In the US, as I recall, action was taken in Feb. to limit incoming passengers from certain countries. By mid-March we entered into a full-blown shutdown, with people staying home and only going out if necessary. This lasted through April. Yet by mid May the US allegedly had been the site of 1/4 of all the Covid deaths worldwide even though the US has less than 5% of the world’s population. This just doesn’t make sense. Any rational thinker should be able to see that it doesn’t add up, that something’s wrong with this scenario.

If the US population had gone its merry way, with no shutdown and no precautions, I could understand folks saying that the high number of deaths attributed to Covid in the US was due to our careless attitudes. But we did take precautions. Almost all nonessential businesses shut down for more than a month, people became careful, etc. Even most of those who argued against shutdown and masks were actually participating (while they groused). Meanwhile, Sweden didn’t shut down and took much less drastic precautions, yet they didn’t fare any worse than the US during spring.

I can’t pin down with absolute proof that the high US mortality was due to this, that, or the other thing. But I am reasonably confident that it wasn’t due to incompetent mismanagement on our part. What relative mismanagment there may have been was not of such magnitude that it could logically make such a humongous difference. So it seems obvious to me that the reason (or combination of reasons) must include some shenanigans on someone’s part. And again, no one can prove with certainty the who or the why. But most definitely and obviously, something about the situation stinks to high heaven. Somehow, we’ve ‘been had,’ because without some person or persons pulling a ‘fast one’ there should be no way whatsoever for 5% of the people, while huddling in their homes listening to the drumbeat of Covid fear in March and April, to suffer 25% of the casualties. It belies common sense and reason.

About vaccines —- as an example, many of us got the first shingles vaccine when it came out. It gave moderate protection but far from complete protection.
A few years later, a new and much more protective vaccine came out and there are long waiting lists for it as it’s scarce.

There are a lot of different coronavirus vaccines being brought forward. With adequate recordkeeping we’ll eventually know which ones are moderately protective and which ones are good enough to merit a second round of vaccinations to get better coverage.

It’s a great experiment that will involve hundreds of thousands of people over a long span of time.

Federal aid per COVID-19 case

“A great experiment,” all right, and I decline to be the guinea pig. :slight_smile:

[quote]

There were no significant differences between those who tested positive versus negative when it came to shopping, gathering with fewer than 10 people in a home, going to an office, going to a gym, going to a salon, using public transportation or attending religious gatherings, according to the study.
However, people who tested positive, the data showed, were more likely to have reported dining at a restaurant in the two weeks before they started to feel sick.

The study comes with some limitations ….

And here’s the problem:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/

Rexlion

I don’t know where you’re getting that. Many deaths in other parts of the world were Covid deaths. They were simply never tested or confirmed. Covid confirmed deaths does NOT equal ALL Covid deaths.

I’m convinced that most of the world had been infected before they knew what hit them and attributed most of the deaths to flu and other diseases.

That’s the problem, more testing = more CONFIRMED cases.

Sweden’s average is 6.6% and US is 2.9%, ratio of deaths to total cases.

Sweden’s population is 10.1M and US is 331.4 Million people.

Sweden provides free health care for all; in US it’s everyman for himself, good luck if you are poor and can’t afford it or don’t have a job with medical insurance benefits.

[rant mode]
The Social Security Administration was intended to provide a basic income for the elders who had worked their whole life and grew old, but now had no job, no pension, no income. This came about after the economic effects of the pandemic of 1918-1920 caused a spiraling downturn into the great depression of 1930. At that time those in charge decided that society should provide some funds to help the old folks.

The question for today is what kind of society does the US want? Do we want to upgrade to the basic medical care standard of living enjoyed by the rest of the developed world, or continue in the dog-eat-dog Lord of the Flies lifestyle of the rich and famous?
[/rant]

No, no problem at all with more testing!

More tests equals to:

- more possibility to diagnose cases (symptomatic or not), which leads to…

- more possibility to avoid contaminations in several places (schools, nursing homes, sports clubs, enterprises, …you name it), and…

- more possibility to refrain the virus from spreading to groups of risk, what means…

- more possibility to avoid deaths, internments in the ICU and health systems overcharge, and, last but not least,

  • more possibilities to “reopen” or “resume” economy, society, culture, sports, and life in general in a more safe and “fearless” way.

So please stop the idea that testing more is no good! The big numbers are only bad in case the countries’ leaderships are incapable of being transparent to the citizens, are incapable of providing healtchare and conditions, or are just…incapable.

I feared about my country’s national healtcare system, which has been fragile for a while, but it adapted to the situation even with difficulties and losses, the citizens complied with the norms to prevent more spreading, and since March 1800 died in a 10 million people country.


To all:

- stay safe,

- stay healthy (mentally and physically),

- don’t go crazy,

- go out and get some sunshine if possible,

- keep the social distancing,

- wash your hands, specially before taking some boogers from the nose, or taking a piece of food from the teeth,

- don’t be a selfish moron and think only about your “freedom”, ’cause the others also have it, and…

  • use a F**KING MASK whenever you want, whenever it is demanded, and whenever the context doesn’t provide enough breathing safety for you and for others!!!

That way…you’ll/ we’ll all be able to stop complaining about this situation,’cause the spreading will decrease and with it all the “fears”, “hoaxes”, “fake news”, and whatever you want to complain about…

:beer:

Atlanta — Georgia’s governor, who has opposed local mask mandates and even sued over one in Atlanta, has signed a new executive order that allows local governments to enact mask requirements to help fight the coronavirus pandemic

This is one reason why American deaths are at a higher rate than others. Without a national coherent approach to stopping the spread it was like having a peeing section in a public pool.

Anyone surprised at the numbers in the USA infected with Covid-19 or dead is not informed about what has been going on since the virus came to this country. No serious actions were taken by the federal government until too late to stop the spread. Experts are telling us that we could have saved a majority of the people who have died if federal action had been taken just a few weeks earlier than it was taken.

But the federal government actions taken were woefully inadequate. There was never a full border shutdown for travelers from China or anywhere else, and the partial restrictions on travelers from Europe didn’t start until many people had already come in on flights from Europe and spread the virus all over the eastern seaboard.

In addition, there was never a full shutdown of businesses and people gathering without social distancing and masking. Many people were mingling in homes and at outdoor events, going to churches en masse, and going to political rallies protesting the restrictions without masking and maintaining social distancing. Many people were going to work in crowded factories/meat packing plants/etc.

Testing has always been far less than necessary to know who is infected, and contact tracing has been only done on a limited basis in certain locations - not the national program needed to find out where the virus is and isolate those people who are infected. There was no national standardization of testing - so the states all do testing differently, making interpretation of the data and policy planning difficult. There are still many locations without adequate testing for all who need testing because they are sick.

We now are learning that data on infections and deaths are being suppressed by the federal and state governments for political reasons - making effective prevention and contact tracing even more impossible. Once a “recovery plan” was issued by the federal government, the highest officials in the country immediately began telling state governments to ignore it and relax their restrictions. And many states and local governments did that, and opened while the infection rates were still high and not declining. And federal officials were setting an example of not wearing masks and not social distancing - and the public followed their example.

There is no mystery about why so many have been infected and so many are dead in the USA.

I never said: that testing is a bad thing. I’m saying just the opposite. Testing is good for treatment, but it’s not always the best indication of actual facts when making comparisons, because it’s not complete and it differs from place to place, country to country. If you think I’m saying to people not to get tested then maybe you’ve had one to many :beer: :slight_smile:

I think it’s fair to say data is being manipulated both ways for political reasons. Suppressed in some areas and exaggerated in others.