COVID & AFL 2021

[bing181 9,328]

16 minutes ago, Youngwilliam said:

Or the 398,000 of all infected 1 health person dies. 

Apart from being BS, this is just confirmation bias. You blindly trot out whatever you want no matter how dodgy your sources are when it supports your POV, yet everything else is supposedly suspect.

[Hellish Inferno 992]

If only we could force those choosing to remian unvaccinated to be put into a simulated reality where Covid-19 happened and no vaccine was developed.

I reckon they'd go in thinking this will be great I can experience freedom again, but then come crashing down when the reality hits.

[Hellish Inferno 992]

1 hour ago, Youngwilliam said:

Covid has brought out the worst in society, shown us all how much we can be selfish. 

Yes it has, but I'd like to balance with this.

Margaret Thatcher once said there is no such thing as society.

I'd suggest that the pandemic has shown in fact there is such a thing. Notwithstanding the few, the vast majority of us have been willing to make huge sacrifices on a personal level, all for the wellbeing of not just family and friends but for literally everyone. If that doesn't prove that society exists, then I don't know what does. 

[Foopy on the telly 529]

32 minutes ago, Youngwilliam said:

It's funny because you want people to come together and unite to fight covid but in the same breath you hit out with name calling because you can't understand why they have a different opinion. Maybe there is no helping people to your opinion because they have come through Covid on a different path.

But everyone all with the same opinion means the world is full of robots. Almost like a supreme race?

Mate, this isn’t about subjective opinion. That’s fine, everyone’s different. Open slather.

But we’re talking about facts here. Which for some reason you’re disputing, assumably because it somehow makes you feel quirky and different. It doesn’t. I mean the 398,000 thing, are you kidding me? That’s a [censored] take, surely. And don’t attack the sources people provide when you’ve shown absolutely none of your own.

I’ve lost count of the glass houses you’ve shown to have, mate.

[1964_2 2,357]

The last phase of the Norm Smith curse, is rather than getting a summer to discuss and enjoy the drought breaking flag, the celebrations are partly diluted by Covid, and anti-vax’ers. 

In more positive news, after our back-to-back flag, the curse will be completely done, and it will be a full summer of pure demons celebrations! 

 

[Demonstone 22,792]

[Rab D Nesbitt 8,433]

I can see this all playing out again in six months or so when booster shots are required once the effectiveness of the initial shots begins to wane. 

Rather than lockdowns being the cause of suicides I think the virus has just magnified areas of our society that have been chronically underfunded or ignored as a result of bad political policy for a long time. Private nursing homes and suicide rates are two that have stood out. 

[DubDee 26,113]

11 hours ago, Youngwilliam said:

And the selfish part in me doesn't care if you believe me or not. If I backed the wrong horse in this then there is no impact on you I am vaccinated  If you backed the wrong pony then by the time your lot work it out we are all screwed anyway. Maybe for our sake you won't realise you are just the product, not the player. Only the rich get to play.

Wrong. It is proven that vaccinated people transmit the virus less, resulting in less people in hospital and dead. Also, once we reduce the transmission significantly and have everyone vaccinated, we can attempt to eradicate the disease like we did with polio etc.  much harder with covid but its the only way.  So if you chose to not get vaccinated, you are impacting us all including your own family. Hopefully you and yours do not get sick and end up in hospital.

[Youngwilliam 381]

9 minutes ago, DubDee said:

Wrong. It is proven that vaccinated people transmit the virus less, resulting in less people in hospital and dead. Also, once we reduce the transmission significantly and have everyone vaccinated, we can attempt to eradicate the disease like we did with polio etc.  much harder with covid but its the only way.  So if you chose to not get vaccinated, you are impacting us all including your own family. Hopefully you and yours do not get sick and end up in hospital.

You even highlighted what I said but it looks like you still think I'm not vaccinated...? Huh!!?

[Cards13 9,117]

14 hours ago, Youngwilliam said:

I think it's funny, science was about throwing in a theory and wanting others to challenge your theory. Scientists welcomed other scientists to challenge their theory because that is how progress is achieved. 

But heaven fobid if you challenge Covid or Climate science. You get ousted and called a denier. Cancelled even. 

So Liam is going to throw himself into economic prison, that's his decision. 

Its always better to entice or persuad people to take the vaccine with good arguments. Forcing people to take something is always going to bring division. Governments have not always done what's best for everyone.

Not trying to pile on here but we're all mandated to vaccinate our children, for the good of them and all the other kids, this has brought down the mortality rate significantly. The idea of the vaccine for covid is the same principle. 

You are right follow the money, and the politicians want every one vaccinated not just for the good of the people and to bring down the mortality rate for covid but the flow on affect it has on the medical infrastructure. Ambulances, hospitals, mental health services, having to pay people to stay at home while out of work.. its all a huge burden on the financial systems of State of Fed governments so yes they want us all to get the vaccine as it will cost them less money.

Climate science is agreed upon by almost all scientists by the way - https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/oct/19/case-closed-999-of-scientists-agree-climate-emergency-caused-by-humans

[Lord Nev 13,512]

13 hours ago, Youngwilliam said:

Covid has brought out the worst in society, shown us all how much we can be selfish.

Ha. Read that again.

  

13 hours ago, Youngwilliam said:

US gov pays Pfizer to work on vaccine

Not factually correct. They received advanced orders but accepted 0 funding for the work.

  

13 hours ago, Youngwilliam said:

then charges it back to the government at 700% the cost.

Not factually correct. They currently charge the US $19.50 per dose. Most of their other other vaccines cost between $150-200.

They're making between 20-30% per dose. Not sure where you've got "700%" from other than just making it up or a QAnon board.

  

13 hours ago, Youngwilliam said:

And why are we not donating the vaccines to the likes of India and Brazil, surely they need it more than us? They are getting ravaged by the virus after all. Why not help the countries with the worst health systems first?

You may want to look more into those particular two countries, notable the Brazilian president who could be charged.

India is a more complicated picture, but ironically given the angle you're trying to take they have a huge problem with vaccine hesitancy rather than vaccine supply.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-56345591

[Lord Nev 13,512]

11 hours ago, Youngwilliam said:

Cool story, come see me when you have to comfort your teenage child after their friends and friends of their friends have taken their own lives due to this pandemic.

So, it would be great to get this pandemic over with then yeah? Guess what our best way of getting there is...

[Lord Nev 13,512]

13 hours ago, Youngwilliam said:

I am vaxxed too, never said I wasn't. But taking away someone's livelihood to protect the unhealthy and old is going too far.

 

11 hours ago, Youngwilliam said:

Cool story, come see me when you have to comfort your teenage child after their friends and friends of their friends have taken their own lives due to this pandemic.

Mate, you're swinging so wildly that you're landing a few blows on yourself...

[dieter 3,325]

3 hours ago, Rab D Nesbitt said:

I can see this all playing out again in six months or so when booster shots are required once the effectiveness of the initial shots begins to wane. 

Rather than lockdowns being the cause of suicides I think the virus has just magnified areas of our society that have been chronically underfunded or ignored as a result of bad political policy for a long time. Private nursing homes and suicide rates are two that have stood out. 

Apparently suicide rates are DOWN in Victoria.

[Diamond_Jim 12,624]

2022 season will be interesting as players catch covid as some undoubtedly will.

(Essendon CEO just reported to have a mild version).

Who will be deemed to be close contacts. Will the rules for testing and isolation be the same in each State.

Do you organise indoor training in limited groups. What mix of players makes up a group.

The questions go on........

[Cards13 9,117]

NHL has just postponed 3 games for the Ottawa Senators who still have 10 players in covid "protocols". 99.9 of players and staff are vaccinated in the NHL.

[binman 43,709]

19 hours ago, Hellish Inferno said:

I'd suggest that the pandemic has shown in fact there is such a thing. Notwithstanding the few, the vast majority of us have been willing to make huge sacrifices on a personal level, all for the wellbeing of not just family and friends but for literally everyone. If that doesn't prove that society exists, then I don't know what does. 

Agree.

I love the fact that i am lucky to live in a country where the overwhelming majority of people are prepared to honor their social contract obligations.

Sure there are a very, very tiny minority of people who want to have their cake and eat it too - that's to say enjoy all the benefits of living here (eg universal health care, representative government, opportunity to vote, relatively effective public transport systems, functioning infrastructure, ok education system, etc etc) but not prepared to honour their social contract.

But that's part of the price we pay - in any community there will always be such people.

I'd add that a related modern phenomena is conflating the views of a very noisy minority with majority public sentiment. The white noise of social media, the targeted trolling, the publicity stunts etc etc serve a specific purpose - to create this very illusion. And i have to say those strategies are very effective at doing just that. 

But those of us who choose to honor the social contract - the overwhelming majority - should refuse to buy into the illusion. Don't engage. And certainly don't allow ourselves to be fooled by the illusion. The tiny mob don't speak for us.

The tiny mob don't even speak for each other - there is no unifying narrative. Just a grab bag of disparate  grievances. And for that reason the tiny mob will ultimately dwindle to a sad gathering in a phone box (a non 5g one). 

Bottom line is we are approaching 90% double vax rate for people over 12 in Victoria, and we will get to that figure nationally early next year.

Let's say half of the remaining 10% have not been vaxed - but not because they are anti vax as such (eg apathy, health reasons, religious views, hesitant, cultural, cognitive issues etc etc).

That leaves 5% who might genuinely be considered anti vax. So, 5 in every hundred. The very definition of a minority view. 

The mandate question is harder to quantify becuase we don't have the concreteness of the vax rate as reliable measure of sentiment.

We do know from countries like Germany that without mandates double vax rates will plateau in the mid 60s (sadly  for a country i love and have people there i love, they are in for a hellacious winter). And becuase of this most people in Australia understand the logic of mandates.  And the majority of Australian support mandates. This is evidenced by a number of polls that show the MAJORITY of Australian support mandates. 

Australia has one of the most effective democratic system in the world. Not perfect of course, but by any measure we have opportunities to influence public policy decisions that people in most other democracies could only dream of - and people in totalitarian countries can't even dream of.

The noisy minority have the freedom to take their fight to the ballot box and make their case.

And the overwhelming majority can also make their call at the ballot box. And we will.  

 

 

Edited November 16, 2021 by binman

[dieter 3,325]

24 minutes ago, binman said:

Agree.

I love the fact that i am lucky to live in a country where the overwhelming majority of people are prepared to honor their social contract obligations.

Sure there are a very, very tiny minority of people who want to have their cake and eat it too - that's to say enjoy all the benefits of living here (eg universal health care, representative government, opportunity to vote, relatively effective public transport systems, functioning infrastructure, ok education system, etc etc) but not prepared to honour their social contract.

But that's part of the price we pay - in any community there will always be such people.

I'd add that a related modern phenomena is conflating the views of a very noisy minority with majority public sentiment. The white noise of social media, the targeted trolling, the publicity stunts etc etc serve a specific purpose - to create this very illusion. And i have to say those strategies are very effective at doing just that. 

But those of us who choose to honor the social contract - the overwhelming majority - should refuse to buy into the illusion. Don't engage. And certainly don't allow ourselves to be fooled by the illusion. The tiny mob don't speak for us.

The tiny mob don't even speak for each other - there is no unifying narrative. Just a grab bag of disparate  grievances. And for that reason the tiny mob will ultimately dwindle to a sad gathering in a phone box (a non 5g one). 

Bottom line is we are approaching 90% double vax rate for people over 12 in Victoria, and we will get to that figure nationally early next year.

Let's say half of the remaining 10% have not been vaxed - but not because they are anti vax as such (eg apathy, health reasons, religious views, hesitant, cultural, cognitive issues etc etc).

That leaves 5% who might genuinely be considered anti vax. So, 5 in every hundred. The very definition of a minority view. 

The mandate question is harder to quantify becuase we don't have the concreteness of the vax rate as reliable measure of sentiment.

We do know from countries like Germany that without mandates double vax rates will plateau in the mid 60s (sadly  for a country i love and have people there i love, they are in for a hellacious winter). And becuase of this most people in Australia understand the logic of mandates.  And the majority of Australian support mandates. This is evidenced by a number of polls that show the MAJORITY of Australian support mandates. 

Australia has one of the most effective democratic system in the world. Not perfect of course, but by any measure we have opportunities to influence public policy decisions that people in most other democracies could only dream of - and people in totalitarian countries can't even dream of.

The noisy minority have the freedom to take their fight to the ballot box and make their case.

And the overwhelming majority can also make their call at the ballot box. And we will.  

 

 

Well said. 

[Trisul 664]

Can we just get to the burning of the heretics please?  I have an imminent candlelight supper to host.

 

[Dante 2,739]

On 11/15/2021 at 5:27 PM, CYB said:

Foolish by Liam. Those who applaud him for having the guts to stand by his principles should also realise that the reason why we have these mandates is that people don't always know what is good for them and important decisions like these are best taken out of their hands. It is the reason why there are laws that require you to be 18+ to drink, gamble, vote and drive.

There are no alternatives to the vaccine. We could have either endured upto somewhere between 500K-1M deaths (In Aus alone) or locked down until a vaccine has been developed. Im glad Dan did what he did and despite the massive mental toll i and others have taken, understand the decision.

The other unspoken, slighty tangential topic here, is that mRNA technology (used in the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines) is a modern medical breakthrough. People do not realise what this technology is going to do for incurable diseases (think cancer, autoimmune conditions and chronic illnesses) in the next 10-20 years. The fact that COVID-19 bought this to the forefront is one of the very few positive benefits of COVID (WFH is the only other one i can think of). 

Wow, I'm glad you know what's good for people 

and Wow, where did you get that assumption from, Norman I haven't got a clue Swann

[La Dee-vina Comedia 16,906]

16 hours ago, binman said:

Agree.

I love the fact that i am lucky to live in a country where the overwhelming majority of people are prepared to honor their social contract obligations.

Sure there are a very, very tiny minority of people who want to have their cake and eat it too - that's to say enjoy all the benefits of living here (eg universal health care, representative government, opportunity to vote, relatively effective public transport systems, functioning infrastructure, ok education system, etc etc) but not prepared to honour their social contract.

But that's part of the price we pay - in any community there will always be such people.

I'd add that a related modern phenomena is conflating the views of a very noisy minority with majority public sentiment. The white noise of social media, the targeted trolling, the publicity stunts etc etc serve a specific purpose - to create this very illusion. And i have to say those strategies are very effective at doing just that. 

But those of us who choose to honor the social contract - the overwhelming majority - should refuse to buy into the illusion. Don't engage. And certainly don't allow ourselves to be fooled by the illusion. The tiny mob don't speak for us.

The tiny mob don't even speak for each other - there is no unifying narrative. Just a grab bag of disparate  grievances. And for that reason the tiny mob will ultimately dwindle to a sad gathering in a phone box (a non 5g one). 

Bottom line is we are approaching 90% double vax rate for people over 12 in Victoria, and we will get to that figure nationally early next year.

Let's say half of the remaining 10% have not been vaxed - but not because they are anti vax as such (eg apathy, health reasons, religious views, hesitant, cultural, cognitive issues etc etc).

That leaves 5% who might genuinely be considered anti vax. So, 5 in every hundred. The very definition of a minority view. 

The mandate question is harder to quantify becuase we don't have the concreteness of the vax rate as reliable measure of sentiment.

We do know from countries like Germany that without mandates double vax rates will plateau in the mid 60s (sadly  for a country i love and have people there i love, they are in for a hellacious winter). And becuase of this most people in Australia understand the logic of mandates.  And the majority of Australian support mandates. This is evidenced by a number of polls that show the MAJORITY of Australian support mandates. 

Australia has one of the most effective democratic system in the world. Not perfect of course, but by any measure we have opportunities to influence public policy decisions that people in most other democracies could only dream of - and people in totalitarian countries can't even dream of.

The noisy minority have the freedom to take their fight to the ballot box and make their case.

And the overwhelming majority can also make their call at the ballot box. And we will.  

 

 

I agree with all of this. I'm also suspicious that the loud voices who choose to protest against, well, almost anything, might be Lenin's "useful idiots" who are unwittingly allowing themselves to be used by international actors of bad faith in order to disrupt successful democracies.

[Gawndy the Great 9,011]

13 hours ago, Dante said:

Wow, I'm glad you know what's good for people 

and Wow, where did you get that assumption from, Norman I haven't got a clue Swann

I’m not in public office but it doesn’t take much effort to see how misinformed the public is and how they make really silly decisions based off youtube videos and ‘unqualified professionals’. If their actions only affected themselves then I couldn’t give a rats [censored] what they did. However when their actions have implications to the rest of society then yes, I welcome the vaccine mandates that many corporations, governments etc have made to protect the broader community.

Information on global deaths to date in countries that didn’t take as much as a hardline approach as Ausyralia are there for all to see. Modelled deaths in Aus is not an exact science so  agree it’s a bit harder to get precise but it’s all in the public domain as worst cast outcomes.
 

My point is not on the number of deaths - the point is that vaccines have undeniably proved that they can prevent unnecessary deaths due to covid. So even if you have a strong immune system, or are young and in good health and COVID will most likely not effect you in any significant way, the young single mother who you  brush shoulders with in the supermarket recovering from breast cancer or the teenager working at the Maccas counter who has chronic asthma is not as fortunate and relies on everybody getting vaccinated to ensure their livelihood.

[binman 43,709]

1 hour ago, La Dee-vina Comedia said:

I agree with all of this. I'm also suspicious that the loud voices who choose to protest against, well, almost anything, might be Lenin's "useful idiots" who are unwittingly allowing themselves to be used by international actors of bad faith in order to disrupt successful democracies.

Indeed.

An interesting element of the most recent 'protests' is that the media have, in the main, reported the protests are about the bill currently before Parliament. 

But are they?

Sure, some people are protesting about that issue, which is totally fair enough. The right to to peaceful protest is a tenet of democracy. 

But you only need to read some of the placards to understand that there any number of other issues people are animated about. At the risk of generalising, i would suggest that many of the 'protesters' have not even read the proposed bill or have little sense of what is in it. 

So people protesting the bill are marching side by side with people with a raft of other agendas, covering concerns about mandates, through to bizarre conspiracy theories and threats of violence. And in doing so are tacitly supporting a range of unhinged, dangerous bad actors. 

These bad actors are the only ones that will remain soon - perhaps that has happened already. Attention seekers that are getting attention. And the attention gives them oxygen.

And it is incredible to think, but it also gives them an international audience of similarly unhinged bad actors (or even more dangerously, not yet unhinged, but ripe for conversion), contributing content and angst to an increasingly dangerous echo chamber.

As you suggest LDVC, these bad actors are also ripe for being manipulated by other, even more dangerous bad actors. 

The tragic irony is that about the only unifying idea these bad actors are rallying behind is a perversion of the concept of freedom. 

But no matter where we stand on the issue of mandates, vaccination or government overreach, we should all be very concerned about the very real threat to our democracy  AND our freedoms these bad actors and the echo chamber they live in represent. 

And i have no doubt there is an orgasnising force behind that threat. One only needs to see the insidious infiltration of Qanon 'ideas' in Australia to understand that.

As anyone who has been to Parliament house knows, if a mob decided to storm it, they would have no problem doing so. Two years ago it was unthinkable that such an event could occur.

With people towing gallows and parking in front of parliament house (and being cheered on members of the tiny mob and bad actors around the world via live streaming and encrypted message boards), reporters being chased, mobs marauding though the streets and closing roads (not to mention desecrating the Shrine of Remembrance) and politicians being threatened with violence publicly (and of course online) is it unthinkable now?

And what if it were to happen.? Or god forbid a politician came to harm. What would our society look like then? What freedoms would we all lose? 

Is that what we want? 

The answer i obviously no - or at the least it is from 99% of us.

So the second question is do we really want to be manipulated by the 1% - and more to the point by the bad actors manipulating that 1%. Because that is exactly what is happening. 

Once example of how we are being manipulated is the coverage of these protests by the media and across social media. Sound bites, noise and fury makes for for great click bait and increased revenue.

But there are nearly 7 million people who live in Victoria and even the most generous estimate have the 'protest' numbers at no more than 10, 000 people early this week (and maybe 1000 yesterday?). That's nothing. If anything, given how motivated the 'protesters' are, it is evidence of how little support there is for their issues.  

Compare these 'protests' to other ones that have got more widespread support. How many people came to the BLM march last year? Or the recent marches about the environment?  Or say the Reconciliation marches back in 2000, when a quarter of a million people marched across the Sydney harbor bridge and nearly as many rallied in Melbourne. 

These are issues that there is widespread support for, hence the turn out. 

 

[Jaded No More 68,972]

11 minutes ago, binman said:

Indeed.

An interesting element of the most recent 'protests' is that the media have, in the main, reported the protests are about the bill currently before Parliament. 

But are they?

Sure, some people are protesting about that issue, which is totally fair enough. The right to to peaceful protest is a tenet of democracy. 

 

 

My favourite is people protesting we live in a dictatorship, ignoring completely the fact that if we did live in a dictatorship, they wouldn't be allowed to protest.

I wish all these "I did my own research" nuffies would open a history book.... or any sort of book.... or learn to read... or get a job... or find a friend... anything productive really.

Edited November 17, 2021 by Jaded No More

[binman 43,709]

11 minutes ago, Jaded No More said:

My favourite is people protesting we live in a dictatorship, ignoring completely the fact that if we did live in a dictatorship, they wouldn't be allowed to protest.

I wish all these "I did my own research" nuffies would open a history book.... or any sort of book.... or learn to read... or get a job... or find a friend... anything productive really.

A Chinese athlete accuses high ranking politician of sexual assault.

And promptly 'disappears' 

Which is how dictatorships roll.