General Coronavirus (COVID-19) chat

[Diatribe]

Yep, it's all a conspiracy orchestrated by the massive global newspaper industry, they're in it with the Teletext conglomerates and the League of Typewriter Repairmen.

Gotcha, you mean a la Saddam Hussain's non existent weapons of mass destruction ready to be launched on major European cities in less time than it takes for the Sun, Mail et al to print up their next headline. But 'ang on, didn't it subsequently transpire that Iraq's most modern weaponry were WW1 Lee Enfield rifles welded on to open back trucks.

 

[Anju]

I think its possible there's have been an overreaction, Coronavirus may well have been around since time immemorial and only recently diagnosed as such. A similar analogy would be AIDS, where prior to the early 1980's it was erroneously diagnosed as Pneumonia et al. Had the likes of Rock Hudson, Liberace died a few yrs. earlier, their death certificates would have been stamped Pneumonia. What is now occurring is unprecedented and there have been many other fatal diseases/viruses around in the last 100 yrs. since the so called Spanish Flue. Incidentally, it was named the Spanish Flue because Spain was one of the few countries around at the time with an uncensored media that was actually reporting their true death toll.

As previously stated, this is a big story for the media and it is in their interest to create mass hysteria and run it as long as possible. Creating fear in people definitely helps sell newspapers and upgrade their TV ratings. After all, what have they normally got to report on, who's going to win the next Big Brother extravaganza , the Queen has a cold, Prince Harry is unhappy with his marriage, Donald Trump is sporting a new wig et al. It also coincides with a deep economic recession, which will become known as the Coronavirus recession, as opposed to yet another capitalist fuck up by the elite few running the economy,, thereby enabling the status quo of the financial system to survive relatively unscathed.

Maybe scam is too harsh a word, but convenient nevertheless.

This is ridiculous fantasy borderline conspiraloon rubbish. How do reduced ad revenues help the media. How is the costly minefield of reporting on a global pandemic better than being able to cover Trump's hair misadventures. How does people being forced into lockdown poverty, creating the very real prospect of mass civil unrest benefit capitalism. How does turning a situation where parts of the world are suffering borderline recession into a global depression help capitalism.

Claiming that the virus might have been around for a long time is just reality defying nonsense.

 

[Cid]

Gotcha, you mean a la Saddam Hussain's non existent weapons of mass destruction ready to be launched on major European cities in less time than it takes for the Sun, Mail et al to print up their next headline. But 'ang on, didn't it subsequently transpire that Iraq's most modern weaponry were WW1 Lee Enfield rifles welded on to open back trucks.

If you want to take a shit shower on stuff like this, please go to the other bits of the politics forum.

 

[Diatribe]

Ha, don’t think you quite get this place do you?

You're right, I'm in a quandary as to whether its a forum for serious discussion, or an arena for pissing contests

 

[Cid]

You're right, I'm in a quandary as to whether its a forum for serious discussion, or an arena for pissing contests

I dunno, you’ve yet to try the former.

 

[Diatribe]

.

Claiming that the virus might have been around for a long time is just reality defying nonsense.

I presume you're a bacteriologist in which case maybe you can enlighten me as to why when reporting symptoms of this virus which is allegedly threatening the world with Armageddon, people are simply being told to stay home and isolate themselves. That's the sort of advice I'd expect to receive when suffering from a common cold, not a life threatening virus

Apart from the 24/7 media bombardment of death statistics reading akin to Steve Smith's batting average against England, do you actually personally know of anyone who has died from Coronavirus (I'll include in this those on the periphery of your life ). My business is in the precious metals/antiques field, a consequence of which involves dealing with a wide ranging section of society and I can categorically state that I haven't heard of, never mind known, of one single person suffering from Coronavirus, let alone dying from the aforementioned. Before I again get misquoted, this doesn't of course mean they're aren't any, of which there undoubtedly are, but merely that I haven't personally heard of, or known any.

 

[wayward bob]

You're right, I'm in a quandary as to whether its a forum for serious discussion, or an arena for pissing contests

this thread is a chat thread if you want to get your arse properly handed to you there are other threads available

 

[Supine]

I presume you're a bacteriologist in which case maybe you can enlighten me as to why when reporting symptoms of this virus which is allegedly threatening the world with Armageddon, people are simply being told to stay home and isolate themselves. That's the sort of advice I'd expect to receive when suffering from a common cold, not a life threatening virus

Apart from the 24/7 media bombardment of death statistics reading akin to Steve Smith's batting average against England, do you actually personally know of anyone who has died from Coronavirus (I'll include in this those on the periphery of your life ). My business is in the precious metals/antiques field, a consequence of which involves dealing with a wide ranging section of society and I can categorically state that I haven't heard of, never mind known, of one single person suffering from Coronavirus, let alone dying from the aforementioned. Before I again get misquoted, this doesn't of course mean they're aren't any, of which there undoubtedly are, but merely that I haven't heard of, or known any.

So you don't know anyone affected. Well fucking done.

 

[weepiper]

Great, that's two threads now that have just become the Diatribe show.

 

[keybored]

Who’s the Viz character thst uses too many words?

Surely related.

 

[keybored]

I presume you're a bacteriologist

Would a virologist be more useful?

 

[2hats]

I presume you're a bacteriologist in which case maybe you can enlighten me as to why when reporting symptoms of this virus which is allegedly threatening the world with Armageddon, people are simply being told to stay home and isolate themselves. That's the sort of advice I'd expect to receive when suffering from a common cold, not a life threatening virus

Bacteria. Virus. You understand the difference?
You realise that a virus isn't living and needs a naive host to propagate? (That if everyone globally were able to isolate individually or by household, stay home inside for three weeks, this shitshow would completely stop).
Next you'll be telling us that you don't understand what soap does to the virion's lipid capsid.

But 'ang on, didn't it subsequently transpire that Iraq's most modern weaponry were WW1 Lee Enfield rifles welded on to open back trucks.

No. Iraq manufactured tabun, sarin and mustard gas. The Iraqi military possessed 9K52 Luna-M, Al-Samoud (SA-2 derived) and Scud B (R17) missiles.

Coronavirus may well have been around since time immemorial and only recently diagnosed as such.

Coronaviridae (the viral family) have been around for at least tens of thousands of years (molecular clock dating analyses of RNA polymerase indicate a common ancestor at that point in time).

SARS-CoV-2 has been around for maybe a year or two at most in the original chiroptine host species. In humans for under 6 months.

 

[SheilaNaGig]

Surely related.
View attachment 206073

That’s the fella.

 

[Anju]

[

I presume you're a bacteriologist in which case maybe you can enlighten me as to why when reporting symptoms of this virus which is allegedly threatening the world with Armageddon, people are simply being told to stay home and isolate themselves. That's the sort of advice I'd expect to receive when suffering from a common cold, not a life threatening virus

Apart from the 24/7 media bombardment of death statistics reading akin to Steve Smith's batting average against England, do you actually personally know of anyone who has died from Coronavirus (I'll include in this those on the periphery of your life ). My business is in the precious metals/antiques field, a consequence of which involves dealing with a wide ranging section of society and I can categorically state that I haven't heard of, never mind known, of one single person suffering from Coronavirus, let alone dying from the aforementioned. Before I again get misquoted, this doesn't of course mean they're aren't any, of which there undoubtedly are, but merely that I haven't personally heard of, or known any.

It's a virus not scarlet fever.

Yes, my wife's cousin in Guyana passed away 3 days ago after contracting it while caring for his wife while she recovered from it. That's in a country with just a handful of reported cases. However that's not relevant to as not knowing anyone with the virus doesn't mean anything as the infection numbers are still low as a percentage of population.

Anyway, you had no reply to my other points so whatever.

Eta. They are telling people to stay home because they can't treat everyone.

 

[SheilaNaGig]

Coronaviridae (the viral family) have been around for at least tens of thousands of years (molecular clock dating analyses of RNA polymerase indicate a common ancestor at that point in time).

I’m curious to know what the common ancestor was.

 

[SheilaNaGig]

That’s the fella.

Except there’s not much logic involved,

 

[editor]

Gotcha, you mean a la Saddam Hussain's non existent weapons of mass destruction ready to be launched on major European cities in less time than it takes for the Sun, Mail et al to print up their next headline. But 'ang on, didn't it subsequently transpire that Iraq's most modern weaponry were WW1 Lee Enfield rifles welded on to open back trucks.

Textbook conspiraloonery.

9. Using previous conspiracies as evidence to support their claims.
This argument invokes scandals like the Birmingham Six, the Bologna station bombings, the Zinoviev letter and so on in order to try and demonstrate that their conspiracy theory should be accorded some weight (because it’s “happened before”.) They do not pause to reflect that the conspiracies they are touting are almost always far more unlikely and complicated than the real-life conspiracies with which they make comparison, or that the fact that something might potentially happen does not, in and of itself, make it anything other than extremely unlikely.

Coronavirus, 5G, anti-mask and other conspiracy theories – an essential read for rebutting social media madness

With cell towers serving hospitals being set alight and Facebook feeds overflowing with a relentless stream of unhinged coronavirus conspiracy theories, we thought it would be an appropriate time …

www.brixtonbuzz.com

 

[treelover]

There was always someone like that down the local.

 

[SpookyFrank]

Textbook conspiraloonery.

Coronavirus, 5G, anti-mask and other conspiracy theories – an essential read for rebutting social media madness

With cell towers serving hospitals being set alight and Facebook feeds overflowing with a relentless stream of unhinged coronavirus conspiracy theories, we thought it would be an appropriate time …

www.brixtonbuzz.com

Conspiralunacy, surely?

 

[gentlegreen]

I suppose I'm basically happy that the sun is shining, but it's also particularly sad ...

 

[gentlegreen]

Our new debutante has a whiff of troll about him - likes the sound of his own voice.

 

[SpookyFrank]

There was always someone like that down the local.

Yes but back in the days before the internet, nobody would ever listen to him. Now all the unhinged barflies of all the pubs in all the world are connected together, providing an effectively infinite variety of free-associated funhouse mirror 'theories' and an audience of millions at the same time.

 

[2hats]

I’m curious to know what the common ancestor was.

An original Coronaviridae. Am going to correct myself - even more recent research (DOI: 10.1128/JVI.03273-12), extrapolating the clock analysis through improving modelling of RNA substitution saturation, suggests that Coronaviridae could go back millions of years. Possibly tens of millions of years, or even as much as 300 million years (back to the origins of the original host avine and chiroptine clades).

 

[SpookyFrank]

I’m curious to know what the common ancestor was.

Unlike all known cellular life, viruses do not have a single 'family tree' that traces back to a single point of origin. The potential for hybridisation and recombination means that establishing a phylogeny of even a particular group of related viruses is a non-trivial, potentially impossible task.

 

[Diatribe]

Y


''Your claim that HIV/AIDS is pneumonia by another name is just stupid. I actually can’t be bothered to respond to the rest of your post but you have to know that it’s as easy to pick apart as the first bit has been.''

I also can't be bothered to pick through the rest of your voluminous critique, so I'll just use the above as an example of your misquoting that which I have written. If you care to peruse my ref. to AIDS, you will perceive that I never claimed that it is/was Pneumonia by another name. What I stated was that prior to the early 1980's people were being mistakenly diagnosed as having died from Pneumonia, or some other such ailment when in fact they had actually died from AIDS which at that time hadn't been medically identified. That's a quantum leap from what you are attributing to me as stating.


''Seriously Diatribe if you want to be half as clever as you think you are, you could do worse than sticking around and reading this place. You could really learn some stuff.''

You're probably right, if nothing else, I could sure as hell learn about misquoting,

 

[editor]

<Ed: Emptiness. Like Motorcycle Emptiness but without a tune.

I hope you've learnt somerthing about how not to use the quote function.

 

[editor]

Our new debutante has a whiff of troll about him - likes the sound of his own voice.

He's certainly coming up very, very short when it comes to facts and providing a coherent, credible argument.

 

[two sheds]

Not to mention how to use the Quote function.

Eta: Grrrrrr @ editor

 

[SheilaNaGig]

There was always someone like that down the local.

Well, they do say this place is like a pub. Or so I’ve heard.

 

[SheilaNaGig]

Diatribe

Reading back, you did say that. And no doubt you’re correct inasmuch as prior to HIV/AIDS being recognised as a novel virus people were not diagnosed with it as an underlying predisposing condition. So I stand corrected.

And yes, there is some speculation (on here and elsewhere) that C-19;may have been circulating unnoticed for some time before it was identified. But even if that’s true, it would have been fairly recent and in any case makes no difference to the current situation (a global viral pandemic).

Even if it’s been around for decades (it hasn’t) the situation we’re currently dealing with is a pandemic. The detail (whether it’s swine flu or some other virus altogether) doesn’t make it less of a pandemic.

So your argument (if it’s been round for longer than we realise, then it’s not really as serious as everyone is saying... is that what you’re saying?) makes no sense.

But I may be wrong about what you’re saying.

May I suggest that if you were to drop the high-falutin’ delivery of your ideas and opinions it would be easier to understand what they are.