But he was not alone, Bolsonaro in Brazil, Modi in India, Johnson in Britain, etc. — Manuel

I did not read the article, but I saw a headline suggesting that maybe Trump gave courage to those guys instead of the other way around, or even as convergent stupidity. I always just assumed they were following dummy, but that could just be my "Merica First!" training. LOL!

Posters from the UK here can say if this is the case. I suspect that Trump didn't help in the cases of Brazil and Britain.

Not sure about India.

But when it comes to places like Germany, France and the like, I think they're rebelling despite what Trump said.

I was just looking at some live streams on RT and in France some people are nuts. These anti-vaxers are insane. I understand a small minority of people have legitimate issues with vaccines, but this is overblown.

Yes. And to think, those who are just now at the end of their rope with lock downs and whatnot, well, they'd still have plenty of rope left had their predecessors played ball. Anyway, we're preaching to the choir. I'm just glad my family and I are "relatively" well situated, remote and self-sufficient.

:100:

The WHO acknowledges that the lab leak hypothesis is a possibility.

The head of the World Health Organization acknowledged it was premature to rule out a potential link between the COVID-19 pandemic and a laboratory leak, and he said Thursday he is asking China to be more transparent as scientists search for the origins of the coronavirus.

In a rare departure from his usual deference to powerful member countries, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said getting access to raw data had been a challenge for the international team that traveled to China earlier this year to investigate the source of COVID-19.

Tedros told reporters that the U.N. health agency based in Geneva is "asking actually China to be transparent, open and cooperate, especially on the information, raw data that we asked for at the early days of the pandemic."

He said there had been a "premature push" to rule out the theory that the virus might have escaped from a Chinese government lab in Wuhan — undermining WHO's own March report, which concluded that a laboratory leak was "extremely unlikely."

"I was a lab technician myself, I'm an immunologist, and I have worked in the lab, and lab accidents happen," Tedros said. "It's common."

Admitting that you were earlier wrong is a sign of strength in my view.

This got China to be shocked and angry:

Zeng Yixin, the vice minister of China’s National Health Commission (NHC), told reporters he was “shocked” by the plan to investigate the lab leak hypothesis and said “it is impossible for us to accept such an origin-tracing plan.”

According to the Associated Press, Zeng dismissed the theory as a rumor “that runs counter to common sense and science.”

Responding to the WHO’s earlier statement about the investigation being hampered by the lack of raw data from Chinese authorities, Zeng reiterated Beijing’s stance that some data could not be completely shared due to privacy concerns.

Zeng insisted that the Wuhan Institute of Virology’s labs have no virus that can directly infect humans and noted that a WHO-led team of experts had visited the lab earlier this year and concluded that a leak was highly unlikely.

The vice minister also dismissed media reports that staff and graduate students at the institute had fallen sick due to the virus and then transmitted it to others.

Interesting to see what the outcome is of this...

And it may be true, that is it may be what really happened. It's unlikely we'll know, though who knows if some information leaks. It's also a good way to beat on China. I'm not defending them here, not Pro or Anti - but with the situation in Taiwan being so delicate, I think other countries ought to be careful here in making accusation, even if they are true.

The thing is, would any state ever admit that they're the ones responsible for a pandemic?

The thing is, would any state ever admit that they're the ones responsible for a pandemic? — Manuel

I guess Norway could... and then lose their Sovereign Wealth Fund (from Oil Revenue) by paying Corona-related indemnities.

And unfortunately for finding at how the Corona-pandemic broke out will not be helped by the following kind of discourse in the US:

(BBC) Trump gloated at a rally in Ohio on Saturday evening, and said he had been proved right.

He spoke of his belief that the coronavirus was scientifically engineered, in a laboratory in the Chinese city of Wuhan."I said it comes out of Wuhan - it comes out of the lab," he told his supporters, men and women dressed in red Make America Great Again hats, gathered at the rally, southwest of Cleveland.

Nevermind how wrong Trump was about the pandemic and how disastrous the response of his administration was at the pandemic outbreak.

Americans, as usual, make everything a domestic political issue. They do that even with things that happened in another country on another continent. And if you then try talk about that event (that happened in Asia) you are either a Trumpist Republican or a liberal supporter of the Democrats. :roll:

:lol:

Yes. That is a problem with many Americans which is quite unfortunate. Obviously the US is far from "a city on a hill", nor paradise, it has serious problems with poverty and violence and it is also a big country.

But many Americans just really don't seem to care about the world outside the US. What happens in Europe, South America, Asia or wherever else just doesn't matter much. It's as you say, only if it directly affects domestic politics that many get riled up.

It's not that anybody should know European or Japanese politics inside out or anything like that, but to have a general interest in the world should not be seen as exotic.

Of course, there are exceptions to this, but I think it is broadly speaking true. And getting confrontational with China can literally be suicidal. Let's hope things don't get completely out of hand...

But many Americans just really don't seem to care about the world outside the US. — Manuel

This sounds like something you heard and now you're repeating it.

American private aid

No, it's been my experience.

This is probably more accurate:

https://www.cfr.org/news-releases/americans-lack-knowledge-international-issues-yet-consider-them-important-finds-new

This is probably more accurate: — Manuel

Oh. That's because they don't need to know.

But many Americans just really don't seem to care about the world outside the US. — Manuel

Well, we should add that many people don't care what happens outside their imminent neighborhood. Americans aren't the only example of this.

Yet a lot people do care what happens in other countries. But then, be you an ardent supporter of Noam Chomsky (and criticize what the US government does) or an ardent Republican (and criticize only what a Democratic US administration does), the main focus is on the US. Thus sometimes the Noam Chomsky type criticism goes simply overboard. The US isn't a culprit in everything bad that happens in the World.

When it comes to the Corona-virus the global response is important. At least with the Biden administration global cooperation is important. I should also add that for example the discussion in the US Congress about the pandemic (or the origins of the pandemic) is very important. A similar discussion in let's say the European Parliament would be quite meaningless: the member states do in the end decide themselves the policies and are far more independent in their actions as various states of the US.

Yes, you're right, I didn't express myself as clearly as I should have.

I get the impression that the average US citizen knows less about the world than a Canadian or European, but I could be way wrong and there are exceptions, of course. Most people mostly care about things around them.

I do notice, however, that news in other countries outside the US have much more info on world affairs than US news does.

I am very much a Chomsky type, but I'm also interested in how other powerful actors wield power.

States are responsible in so far as they are powerful actors in international relations. The US is the most powerful state but that doesn't mean that China or Russia aren't powerful too. This isn't a good guy bad guy view, I think it's just factual.

The current EU is quite a mess. It's not democratic in any meaningful sense of the word and if it doesn't find a way to unite politically I fear it may crumble. Once Biden came in the US was far more effective than many European countries in administering the vaccines. As long as developing countries are significantly behind in vaccinations rate, this will go on and on.

The Coronavirus Paradox

The coronavirus, though it itself doesn't discriminate races, has become a reason to discriminate races.

Like to portray it like that? I'd be sceptical about the reason for "discrimination" being people's skin color. Let me explain.

You see, discrimination is an action done by people on other people. Yet the obvious fact is that every country will address first risk groups. Is that discrimination? If it is according to you, what is wrong with that? Every nation started with the oldest people and left children out (at first). It would be totally different (and horrifying) if COVID-19 would kill infants and little children, but older people would survive it well. Think about how that lockdown would be. The fact is that poorer communities have worse health care services available and poor people have more health issues, which is a major issue with COVID-19. I think that is an universal fact.

As this study put it last year in June 2020:

Under-resourced communities frequently have less access to high quality health care, and suffer from more illnesses that are associated with high mortality, such as diabetes, heart disease, and pulmonary issues (Link and Phelan, 1995; Braveman et al., 2005; Lutfey and Freese, 2005; Adler and Rehkopf, 2008; Elo, 2009; Williams et al., 2010; Oates et al., 2017). Therefore, a higher presence of Covid-19 within this population could be particularly disastrous in terms of mortality. Research examining the relationship between poverty and influenza has demonstrated that vaccinations in particular are less available to residents of poorer counties within the United States, than those who live in more affluent areas (Lee et al., 2011).

In the US povetry and class have this race element in them. And that's why on issues that in other countries would be about wealth and income or class, in the US they become about race. Yet discrimination by race means that the skin color is the primary or sole reason to choose who to care, who to vaccinate, irrelevant of other factors.

To look further into this, here's an investigation about this by the CDC from this July. It tells now that the earlier above study from last year was spot on:

COVID-19 has disproportionately affected non-Hispanic Black or African American (Black) and Hispanic persons in the United States (1,2). In North Carolina during January–September 2020, deaths from COVID-19 were 1.6 times higher among Black persons than among non-Hispanic White persons (3), and the rate of COVID-19 cases among Hispanic persons was 2.3 times higher than that among non-Hispanic persons (4).

Such numbers in deaths does in my view show that you are talking about a risk group. And hence the paper continues:

On January 14, 2021, the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services (NCDHHS) implemented a multipronged strategy to prioritize COVID-19 vaccinations among Black and Hispanic persons. This included mapping communities with larger population proportions of persons aged ≥65 years among these groups, increasing vaccine allocations to providers serving these communities, setting expectations that the share of vaccines administered to Black and Hispanic persons matched or exceeded population proportions, and facilitating community partnerships. From December 14, 2020–January 3, 2021 to March 29–April 6, 2021, the proportion of vaccines administered to Black persons increased from 9.2% to 18.7%, and the proportion administered to Hispanic persons increased from 3.9% to 9.9%, approaching the population proportion aged ≥16 years of these groups (22.3% and 8.0%, respectively). Vaccinating communities most affected by COVID-19 is a national priority.

And do note that after increased efforts the vaccinated increased "approaching the population portion".

So it's quite likely that in the case of any country, also here in Finland, with similar findings that one segment of the population is hit worse than the other, naturally the health officials would (and did) make the same kind of targeting. That targeting, or "discrimination", naturally wasn't done here by race because this country is racially far more homogenous than the state of Maine. There are only a few percent of people of "persons of colour" here. (And with a still working universal welfare system, the differences between the regions isn't so stark as in the US.)

And it should be noted that the when officials had to respond to accusations of "systemic racism", it's no wonder they talk about focusing on Blacks and Hispanics, not just "risk groups" in general. Blame it on the public discourse, if you want.

:up: Your post was an eye-opener. Thank you very much indeed. I remember writing a long time ago about how people have this misconception that Thanatos (death) is impartial/fair as evidenced by the following quote,

Pale Death beats equally at the poor man's gate and at the palaces of kings. — Horace

Not so. Any animal documentary on predator-prey dynamics show that the weak and the sick are the first to go if you know what I mean. The same is true for humans - the poor, the very young and the elderly, those at the bottom rung of the social ladder bear the brunt of catastrophic events.

Stan Grant dabbles in some philosophy, and Beatles:

The philosophers who might help us through COVID's dark days of lockdown

Excellent read and so to the point, loved it :sparkle:
Didn't hurt to have George Harrison starting and finishing it. Stan Grant :cool:

"SYDNEY — Thousands of people took to the streets of Sydney and other Australian cities on Saturday to protest lockdown restrictions amid another surge in cases, and police made several arrests after crowds broke through barriers and threw plastic bottles and plants. " -- NPR

Plants?

Big moves from Western states. Governments like France, UK, Germany are starting to institute vaccine certificates, discriminating and privileging on the basis of biology and fitness instead of disease. People in France and UK are protesting this move to no avail. People in Australia are protesting the heavy-handed lockdowns, with many being jailed and fined for doing so. Shitholes, all of them. The descent into tyranny continues.

SYDNEY — Thousands of people took to the streets of Sydney and other Australian cities on Saturday to protest lockdown restrictions amid another surge in cases, and police made several arrests after crowds broke through barriers and threw plastic bottles and plants. " -- NPR

Plants? — frank

Oh hogwash!
@Banno
Has been clear that it is a three day lockdown and then they get on with life.


It sounds like NPR might not be in the know.
Fake news? Only Americans are that naive.

Muttering.....
As we go back to facemasks for the "fully" vaccinated.

I am really getting tired of those saying that Americans did ABC wrong but we (insert desired county other than the USA) did it right!

My position has not waived on this why I say
"Remain humble my friends."

Rant over :sparkle:

The descent into tyranny continues. — NOS4A2

Because it works better. It was inevitable.

Remain humble my friends." — ArguingWAristotleTiff

:up:

Sydney didn't do the lockdown fast enough Tiff. They waited. Then did not lock down hard enough.


But worse, Our pathetic PM failed to procure enough vaccine.


Again, a hard lockdown, early, is effective.

Denmark has had a "corona-passport" for some time now.



Here the politicians, especially those from the Green party, are avid supporters of a corona-passport. Without it you could not go to a restaurant or participate in public events. Only the conservative party has been against it (but they are in the opposition and not in the administration).

Yet a Big problem for the social democrats and Sanna Marin... Finland has a constitution and this legal system that makes it so difficult for the social democrats to pose all the limitations they want! They have had to go back on their restriction on at least two occasions, because certain policies have been deemed unconstitutional or against the law.

Again, a hard lockdown, early, is effective. — Banno

Definitely. It's effective for buying time to get vaccinated. I wish I could say the US learned something from this. I think some states could pull it off, but being connected to all the others brings everyone down. Totalitarianism. That's what's needed.

CDC study shows three-fourths of people infected in Massachusetts covid-19 outbreak were vaccinated

If the virus can spread easily among the vaccinated, the vaccine passports are redundant, as was the moralizing and finger-wagging surrounding the idea. What we know, though, is that governments are willing to treat others as second-class citizens out of fear.

It's OK though because Pfizer's CEO has already made his five and a half million off of the peak share price hit as a result of claiming the vaccine was 90% effective. There can't be that much wealth left in the hands of anyone but a few billionaires, so we're nearly done. No doubt as soon as that important job is finished the left wing will remove their gags to mediate the scrabble over the remaining scraps.

How sick are they getting from it? Are you less sick when vaccinated? Otherwise we can stop vaccinating altogether and combat the pandemic how they did it in the old days.

How sick are they getting from it? Are you less sick when vaccinated? — Benkei

Seems that vaccinated people have less probability to die, but otherwise it looks bleak.

From CNBC:

About three-fourths of people infected in a Massachusetts Covid-19 outbreak were fully vaccinated, according to new data published Friday by the CDC.

The new data, published in the U.S. agency’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, also found that fully vaccinated people who get infected carry as much of the virus in their nose as unvaccinated people.

From Boston.com:

The state has seen a rise in its COVID-19 infection rates in recent weeks, driven, according to Gov. Charlie Baker and public health officials, by the super-contagious Delta variant and gatherings held around the July Fourth holiday.

Provincetown has seen a surge of hundreds of cases, many among fully vaccinated individuals. New data from that outbreak, which showed individuals who were vaccinated were transmitting the virus to other fully vaccinated people, was one of the factors for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention updating its guidelines for indoor mask use earlier this week, the Washington Post reports.

Have to say it.... fuck.

At least the mask makers are happy.