Just lost my best friend turned 69 last week. Having a glass of wine with his wife Sunday night on back porch. Gasp once and gone. No covid connection. The kindest man I have ever known. Fullest life you could ever hope for. He would never want to see the world economically destroyed to protect the elderly. He (and I) would also not want you or the government to decide what level of risk was appropriate for our remaining life. Its called freedom. Freedom to decide your own fate and appropriate level of risk. Yes don't want to be a burden or risk to health care professionals but not going to be locked away in a "low risk" death camp deprived of any interaction with the rest of the world either. Just a perspective from the other side of 65. I am much more frightened by the prospect of economic political damage to future generations than my own mortality.
Go ahead, exercise your freedom, but don't decide MY fate and MY risk level for me. Wear a mask when required to do so, social distance where possible while going about your life, and wash your hands. It's my economy too, and I don't want it shut down a second time because people are hell-bent on "freedom".
This is long-winded but believe it is worth the effort The word of the day is “Experts”. During the last few months, all we hear from our leaders, politicians and the press is that we should trust and follow “the experts”, “the science” and “data”. Yesterday, May 6th, at the press conference held by the Governor of Illinois, a question was asked about the guidelines and phases. The Governor said that these were not his guidelines and phases, they were the recommendations of the experts. This is the same person that has been criticizing the Executive Branch of the United States for “passing the buck” and not taking responsibilities. However, this is exactly what the Governor of Illinois did. Now for the word “experts”. There is no doubt that doctors Birx and Fauci are highly skilled professionals. There is no doubt that they are highly intelligent and intellectual individuals, however, I take exception with them being experts in this pandemic. To form my foundation for my hypothesis, I want to give an example. I would suggest that farmers are highly skilled in their field and they became highly skilled by their experience, formal education, and hands on trial and error. Most successful farmers grew up working the fields, i.e. family farms. They have had the advantage of transferring information from one generation to the next to learn. Now to get more precise. A corn farmer in Illinois would be in my opinion an expert on the growing of corn in the state of Illinois. A wheat farmer in Kansas would be an expert in growing wheat in Kansas. Although skills from both types of farming are transferable, their knowledge would not be identical. There is the crop they are growing, the soil, the weather, and other conditions that could vary. I would suggest that a corn farmer in Illinois would have difficulty growing corn in Tennessee or Kentucky because of these variables. Now our Pandemic experts, we have been told that the last time a similar pandemic occurred was in the early twentieth century (1917), i.e. Spanish Flu. I don’t think there are any doctors/scientists still around who can give us advice on what actually happened first hand. We also know from what is happening now that different conclusions can be drawn from the same event so even written or historical data can be called into question. Many of the questions asked by the press are answered with the phase “we don’t know, it’s never happened before”, or “we don’t know enough about this virus “, which leads me to believe that they are not sure how to deal with this pandemic. They are learning, just like us. You can get a different answer or opinion from every so-called expert For example, will it mutate, do we build an immunity, will it come back? I believe the US and the rest of the world is being used in a controlled experiment.(as controlled as possible) The people running the experiment know if they put in place stay home, wash your hands, wear a mask , these variables will be eliminated and will give them the opportunity to study other variables in their experiments. I however do not believe that they are truly considering the many other variables that will control how society comes out of this pandemic. There are snippets about these other variables but there is no forceful questions and answers on these. Examples of these variables that are not being addressed are psychological, psychiatric, and the actual financial burdens on families and society. With the exception of the financial burden to our families by closing the economy since this is the first time this has happened, there is plenty of research on family and friend separation to our wellbeing. I watched with interest the lady in Texas being scolded for being “selfish” by the judge and being asked to admit that and apologize for opening her salon. I agree with the woman’s response that she would not apologize for opening because it is her responsibility to provide for her children, not the states responsibility. We now have over 30 million workers, over one fifth of the working population being paid/subsidized by taxpayer money. This is unamerican. This is not how our country was founded. People came here to build their own future on their own without government giving them a hand out. (With the exception of land) We have in less than two months possibly corrupted the entire American experiment. I do not doubt that social distancing, washing hands and all other safety precautions will help with less deaths and sickness, however hurricanes, tornadoes, wars, mass flooding, did not deter the original settlers from inhabiting the continent of the Americas. Columbus even lost his main ship during his first exploration but this didn’t deter him from coming back three more times. I truly believe that we will learn from this experiment. To suggest that these people are “experts” in this pandemic is a false statement because we are all learning at the same time. We will make mistakes and people will be hurt or lose their lives but that should not stop us from continuing with our way of life! As a side note, my wife and I were in our early 20’s when this unknown, terrifying disease called AIDS was discovered. It was terrifying to most young people at the time. Businesses were not closed, schools were not closed, etc., people were dying but life went on. I think people from that era know someone who was affected by the AIDs virus. Forty years later we don’t even talk about AIDS that much. I understand that Dr. Birx is an expert because she has been studying the AIDS virus since the 1980’s. I would like her to comment on the comparisons of how we dealt with AIDS and how we are dealing with this pandemic. Would she have recommended in the early 1980’s that we close down the country/world to solve the problem? Just a question. Last question for people to ponder. Something my wife and I discussed this morning. “Why do we always save the women and children?” Not the men, not the old or feeble. We do not advocate for any loss of life, we are in our sixties and both have parents in their 80’s or 90’s. I truly believe we are doing an injustice to our young people by not preparing and giving them the proper tools to manage or govern our society in the future.
Turbot Just read your post. Not going to cover all questions but you stated we did not close down businesses for aides. That was because you do not get aides from passing some one in the store like you can the corona virus. You posted about farmers and corn. Those farmers from early days will not grow corn as well as modern day farmers. All things change. Sorry find little useful information in this post. Hope all will be cool and stay safe.
Huh.... A doctor's own perspective. Very interesting. I AM assuming he actually IS a doctor, I understand that.
I do not think you got my post. Regarding AIDS, now we know that, however 40 years ago we did not know this. It took many years of research to educate us. As for farmers, I wasn’t comparing modern to old farmers, I was comparing farmers that grow different crops.
He's a chiropractor. Which means he has nothing to do with Covid-19. Which also means his practice is probably on hold. Which means that's probably his concern.
Long read, but well worthwhile. I appreciate you taking the time to post. I agree with many of your points. Here's a long read of my own in return Regarding "experts". I can't resist posting about the esteemed Neil Ferguson of Imperial College, London. This is the guy who: 2001 - Recommended all cattle, sheep and pigs should be culled due to Foot and Mouth Disease. Cost the UK £10 Billion. Later admits his modelling was severely flawed. (Side note - this was pre-Cancuncare. I was involved in finding landfill space for the carcasses, and ensuring safe disposal). Fucking nightmare explaining to hundreds/thousands of residents why they were being buried almost on their doorstep. 2002 - Predicted up to 50,000 people would die (UK) due to BSE (Mad Cow Disease) - 177 did. US banned UK beef imports ever since. 2005 - Predicted 200 Million people Worldwide could be killed from Bird Flu - 282 did 2009 - Predicted 65,000 UK Deaths from Swine Flu - 457 did 2009 - Predicted Swine Flu would have a fatality rate of 0.3-1.5% - was actually 0.026% Fast forward to March 16 2020 Ferguson predicts 500,000 UK deaths would occur with no measures. 250,000 would die with the Govt's social distancing proposals, with no strict lockdown. That same model also predicted 2.2 Million deaths in the US Facebook was a frenzy with receptors of information spewing their fear. The sceptics and critical thinkers were drowned out. The media took the majority side and exasperated the situation = more ad views and revenue = more shares on Facebook = more ad views and revenue. People bought toilet paper, and everyone miraculously turned into highly qualified epidemiologists. Even though they had never heard of the word two days ago. That very day, Boris Johnson told the UK nation to keep out of pubs, restaurants and other crowded places – and a week later ordered everyone to remain at home except in specific circumstances. The same day, Trump announced new guidelines which seemed to be a 180 on his previous position. Researchers asked to see Ferguson's model. But the computer code was 13 years old, mainly undocumented and almost impossible to analyse by third parties. So where are we now - 8 May 2020. Neil Ferguson has recently resigned his post in disgrace. After ignoring his own social distancing recommendations and having his married (to someone else, exposed as a left wing activist) lover travel half-way across London for some illicit shag fest. The World turned on his predictions, despite him being orders of magnitude wrong multiple times before. This so called 'expert' has a lot to answer for. I expect many other 'experts' do too - except they haven't been found out yet. Yet. Further reading: How One Model Simulated 2.2 Million U.S. Deaths from COVID-19
My chiropractor is open as essential in WI, my wife's is open in IL so I assume in most states they are probably open. But what's your point anyway? He can't have an opinion? Shut up and obey right?
While I will happily abide by the rules and I enjoy social distancing in stores, you decide your own fate and your own risk, and it is your right to stay at home and make that risk 0%. Stop forcing other people to sacrifice because their opinion is different than yours and you aren’t willing to make your own sacrifice for your opinion.
