Coronavirus Sars-CoV-2/Covid-19 Megathread

[Syt]

Austria plans to remove all Covid measures by June 30th.

Also:

[The Larch]

We're eliminating mandatory masks on public transport next week. They'll still be mandatory in pharmacies, hospitals and the like, AFAIK.

[The Brain]

Also:

Source?

[Valmy]

Well I guess Sweden is ultimately redeemed.

Bulgaria and the rest of the Orthodox World seems like they are in a hurry to destroy themselves as fast as possible.

[Legbiter]

The U.S. Energy Department has concluded that the Covid pandemic most likely arose from a lab leak.

WASHINGTON—The U.S. Energy Department has concluded that the Covid pandemic most likely arose from a laboratory leak, according to a classified intelligence report recently provided to the White House and key members of Congress.

The Energy Department's conclusion is the result of new intelligence and is significant because the agency has considerable scientific expertise and oversees a network of U.S. national laboratories, some of which conduct advanced biological research.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/covid-origin-china-lab-leak-807b7b0a?st=cwnnavokr2i1d2e

[HVC]

Why's the energy department overseeing laboratories conducting biological research?

[Admiral Yi]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8LX8MQMrag

Woody Harrelson gives anti-vax rant on SNL.

[Grey Fox]

Blocked in Canada. Was it funny?

[Admiral Yi]

Blocked in Canada. Was it funny?

The part I watched was not funny.  "Imagine drug cartels ran the world and forced you to take their drugs and stay inside."

[Admiral Yi]

Say "anti-vax rant" 10X real quick.

[Valmy]

My experience of the pandemic was obviously a lot different from Woody's.

At no point was I ever forced to stay inside. It was only ever recommended.

Obviously I am very sympathetic to small businesses that were unable to open or unable to open at full capacity for months on end. I feel like, especially in some places, this was way overdone. Once it was clear being outside made transmission unlikely, outside venues should have been cleared but I get the caution.

But at no point were cops walking the streets forcing us inside. In late 2020 me and my family took a trip to Colorado and in March 2021 we took a trip to Arizona. In the summer of 2020 we went to the beach. Now you notice they were all outdoorsy vacations because we learned that the danger of transmission was pretty much zero outside thanks to the massive nationwide experiment the country did after the murder of George Floyd.

I have to say driving around the country in that era, in the small towns you would barely know a pandemic was going on. In Dalhart Texas, which had been pretty hard hit by the pandemic, nobody was wearing masks and everybody was going out as usual. And that was New Years 2021.

I think for most of the country the shut downs only lasted for a few months in the Spring of 2020. When the Fall came I think most of the country re-opened and that was that. Even in Austin, a very blue city, this was mostly true. Sure major festivals still didn't happen and every once in a while when the pandemic would flare up temporarily we would have short little periods of caution but nothing too onerous. By the Fall everybody was back in the (American) football stadium watching Tom Herman fail at being the UT Football head coach.

And this was all well before the vaccine was even available. So the whole idea that this thing was, for much of the country anyway, some kind of deal where we were forced to stay in our homes without vaccines is a damn lie. Trying to re-imagine this whole era as some kind of police state that forced everybody to stay home and take vaccines is really annoying. I don't know how anybody who lived through it would believe that but I am amazed at how much social media brainwashes people into believing the narratives over their own experience.

However, I guess it is possible Woody lives in a part of the country that was much more hardcore. That that actually was reflective of his experience. But I think for the overwhelming majority of us, this kind of nonsense should fall flat.

[Admiral Yi]

Regardless of what your shut down experience was saying Big Pharma were the ones forcing you to stay inside is pure nutter butter bar.

[mongers]

So if the H5N1 Bird flu  develops sustained human-human* transmission, do we start a new thread or make it a continuation of this one?



* which could make it as big a deal as Covid-19.

[Valmy]

So if the H5N1 Bird flu  develops sustained human-human* transmission, do we start a new thread or make it a continuation of this one?



* which could make it as big a deal as Covid-19.

New thread.

The next pandemic will be a rough one as I think people are really over it at this point. Getting people to shut down again so soon after the last one just isn't going to happen.

At least we had several decades after the last one, to point most people didn't even remember the 1957 flu pandemic.

[Josquius]

Hopefully the next one comes as we get to a stage of fond rose tinted memories of covid and lockdown themed parties.