With notable exceptions.

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Exceptions is right, many in this nation had to wait for another war to be free.

War is always counterproductive when compared to being free with a just and peaceful existence but at times, absolutely necessary.

 

As my uncle William A. "Sam" Houston, Gunnery Sgt. USMC Ret. Served in WWII Pacific Theater, Korea, and Vietnam. As the old gunny once told me "War is the failure of diplomacy". He was pretty much an antiwar guy.

 

I have relatives who are sick with it... very nasty virus

 

Exceptions is right, many in this nation had to wait for another war to be free.

Unfortunately our grandchildren will have to fight for their freedom as well. Natural forces tend to reduce, never expand, our freedoms over time until we either give up willingly or fight to reclaim them for another few generations.

“Concentrated power is not rendered harmless by the good intentions of those who create it.”
― Milton Friedman

 

So much for the WHO report.

After leaving Wuhan, some international team members qualified their verdict on the laboratory. They lacked the authority, expertise or access to conduct a full examination of the WIV or any other research facility, several said publicly or to the Journal.

Several said that they hadn’t been able to see the raw data or original safety, personnel, experiment and animal-breeding logs—which many other scientists say are necessary elements of a full investigation.

“It’s just a great coup by China,” said Daniel Lucey, a clinical professor of medicine at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth who also teaches at Georgetown University.

https://apple.news/ACeTFQgPdRNuGUAYOTFWNrA

 

So much for the WHO report.



https://apple.news/ACeTFQgPdRNuGUAYOTFWNrA

China is never going to open its doors to this kind of investigation. Its government is run in the most opaque possible way, and the gates to access all pertinent information in this regard are controlled by a group of paranoid, zealous control freaks.

 

Yup. They had a year to come up with a plausible hypothesis that more-or-less exonerates the assets that matter to them and throws some expendables under the bus. "Look away, nothing to see here."

 

What I find frustrating, is that it's quite possible that the true cause of this mess is as mundane as the WHO's report. But that said truth is being hidden simply for secrecy's sake...

 

About data and transparency...

https://www.thenation.com/article/society/gates-covid-data-ihme/

2020 has put final nails in the cofin of scientific community as far as I am concerned. Everyone has an agenda and it is NOT pursuit of knowledge or betterment of mankind (forgive me, that is peoplekind for the woke)

 

2020 has put final nails in the cofin of scientific community as far as I am concerned.

What is extremely sad, IMHO, is that ordinary people have lost their faith in science due to their perception of scientists in general... we, as humans, lack the ability (and the willingness) of separating the wheat from the chaff in this sort of situation.... if we're not being afflicted by intellectual laziness, then it's willful ignorance that ails us.

​

 

About data and transparency...

https://www.thenation.com/article/society/gates-covid-data-ihme/

2020 has put final nails in the cofin of scientific community as far as I am concerned. Everyone has an agenda and it is NOT pursuit of knowledge or betterment of mankind (forgive me, that is peoplekind for the woke)

One facet of science is that there is no mechanism to prevent people from pretending to be "scientific", like the IHME. There's no penalty for bad behavior.

This is good when it allows all voices to participate in science regardless of (often useless) credentials. As long as the tools of science are used properly, anyone can contribute. But it's very bad when agenda-driven powers use the trappings of science – white coats, glassware with bubbling colored liquids – to give a patina of authority to their misleading stories.

The press, and an informed public in general, could do their job and always ask, "Where is the peer review?" before even listening or publishing the alleged study. Supposedly scientific works should be viewed as mere advertising until subjected to rigorous peer review.

 

About data and transparency...

https://www.thenation.com/article/society/gates-covid-data-ihme/

2020 has put final nails in the cofin of scientific community as far as I am concerned. Everyone has an agenda and it is NOT pursuit of knowledge or betterment of mankind (forgive me, that is peoplekind for the woke)

This is not the entire scientific community, IMO this is more of the mathmagician modeling community that once again showed their excellence in predicting the past using X model and projected that into another set of failed future predictions. The fallacy of pretty numbers and charts that have little or no predictive value.

 

The media should learn to reject out of hand anything that cannot, at least in theory, be reproduced elsewhere. It's one of the fundamental requirements of "science".

These models where the process, and maybe even the data, is held as proprietary, are BS. They're products for sale and should be judged as such. It's like all those stock-charting guys you can find that pretend to read the tea leaves and predict the future price movements based on past patterns. It's all a load of crap and for the most part they are properly ignored by the media.

 

This is not the entire scientific community, IMO this is more of the mathmagician modeling community that once again showed their excellence in predicting the past using X model and projected that into another set of failed future predictions. The fallacy of pretty numbers and charts that have little or no predictive value.

That was the point in a way. Lancet is a "respected" scientific journal. Peer reviewed. Giving a platform to what? Pretty numbers and charts? Why? Where is the rest of scientific community to speak against this? We have been told time and time again that last years measures have been based on science...

 

We have been told time and time again that last years measures have been based on science...

And I think we have... albeit incomplete science has been used. I think most of the measures taken and even the predictions that have been made have been reasonable considering the available data at the moment. This whole pandemic has been for scientists and the medical community like tuning a servo mechanism... at times they've overcompensated, and other times they've been lagging... but I'm optimistic, because we're getting better at it with time IMO.

 

https://www.npr.org/2021/03/19/9786...now-space-students-3-feet-apart-rather-than-6

The change is momentous because in many places around the country, the 6-foot guidance has been interpreted as requiring schools to operate on part-time or hybrid schedules to reduce class sizes. A 3-foot rule would allow many more schools to open in person full time.

The revision was spurred by some new research, including a study published March 10 in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases, which looked at schools in Massachusetts, where districts were given a choice of distancing students either 6 or 3 feet apart, and where the majority of districts also required universal masking. The study included more than a half-million students who attended school in person last fall.

 

Why Is All COVID-19 News Bad News?

https://www.nber.org/papers/w28110

We analyze the tone of COVID-19 related English-language news articles written since January 1, 2020. Ninety one percent of stories by U.S. major media outlets are negative in tone versus fifty four percent for non-U.S. major sources and sixty five percent for scientific journals. The negativity of the U.S. major media is notable even in areas with positive scientific developments including school re-openings and vaccine trials. Media negativity is unresponsive to changing trends in new COVID-19 cases or the political leanings of the audience. U.S. major media readers strongly prefer negative stories about COVID-19, and negative stories in general. Stories of increasing COVID-19 cases outnumber stories of decreasing cases by a factor of 5.5 even during periods when new cases are declining.

 

And it still isn't enough to save the newspaper business, which may be more permanently killed by the pandemic than bars and restaurants. People are still going to eat and drink. Read a newspaper? Not so much.

 

Why Is All COVID-19 News Bad News?

https://www.nber.org/papers/w28110

Fear sells...

 

The good news is that I and a few people on my street are vaccinated against the virus.
I selected a vaccination place that just opened then I got booked into it very soon and there was no lineup.
It didn't hurt and today is a few days later and the spot is only slightly bruised.

Of course the number of new cases is rising because some people foolishly are afraid of getting the vaccine and have given up protecting themselves and others. They are spreading the virus around.