The coronavirus doesn't care what people think of it

Philosophically, the coronavirus (novel coronavirus, actually, since COVID is a new version) has some interesting aspects. Most obviously, the virus is teaching us something important.

It doesn't give a shit what people think of it. It just does what it is designed to do by evolution -- spread between individuals whenever it has a chance. 

You can't pray your way out of getting it. You can't wish your way out of getting it. You can't positive-think your way out of getting it.

The only way to protect yourself is to avoid contact with the virus. Wear a mask. Physically distance from other people. Wash your hands often. Don't touch your face. You know, familiar advice.

Which a whole lot of Americans are ignoring, along with other clueless people around the world. People who believe they are smarter than a dumb virus, even though it's obvious that from the chart above, the virus has the upper hand in the United States right now.

Americans aren't very scientifically literate. And we have a president, Donald Trump, who takes pride in ignoring science, facts, and experts. 

So this country had a moderate decline in COVID cases after a peak in early April. Then people got complacent, figuring they knew more that public health experts, and now we're suffering from a steep unswing in cases. Also, in deaths.

It isn't a coincidence that the United States also is one of the most religious countries in the world. Denial of facts about the physical world goes hand-in-hand with an embrace of fantasies about God, heaven, and such. Too many Americans consider that belief has a magical power.

Actually, it doesn't. Only in the human mind do beliefs have an influence. Nature couldn't care less what people believe. Nature just does what comes naturally: act in accord with the laws of nature.

The coronavirus is immune to human thought. It can only be controlled by preventing its spread through specific physical actions, not by wishing it away. The same is true of global warming.

What's hugely disturbing is how badly the United States is doing at controlling COVID in comparison to Europe,

That's because we never had a unified national response owing to the incompetence and uncaring'ness of Trump, combined with governors and mayors who failed to maintain stay home/shelter in place orders for a long enough time. 

UPDATE: Just came across this tweet that supports what I said above.

So even though the European Union has more people than the United States, our cases have been skyrocketing whiie Europe only has a modest uptick. 

Perhaps some good will come of this. Maybe it will dawn on Americans that science is our best way of understanding the world around us, not religion or other fantasies. Maybe...

Comments

[S]

Well, you know, “if we stopped testing there wouldn’t be as many cases”.

OMG, we are sooooo stupid as a nation. It’s embarrassing. Actually, it’s sad. It’s very sad because it’s life or death.

Choose life ffs. I mean, if India with all its crowded cities and insane numbers of people and poverty has an incredibly lower fatality rate from COVID than we do, either they have some sort of genetic advantage over us OR they have a certain amount of common sense that we Americans can’t even begin to appreciate.

India was the hardest hit with the Spanish flu, though. Wiped out 12-17 million people. I think they learned their lesson.

[s*]

Here in Holland we do tests also..
Now they say how many contaminations there are.(infections)
Not how much reall ilness there are.
So it looks like there is more then before..,but that is not true.
The contamination is more,not the real ilnesses.
Lots of people have ''a good imune system''so it's alright..

[Sonia]

Other Jen, your writing style has always been very masculine.

How’s MP? Are they selling Petaluma? Do they really need it?

GSD just turned 666. He’s only got a couple of years left... you know, all the stress.

[Spence Tepper]

The original statistics have largely been supported over time.

Covid 19 is ten times more contagious than H1N1 and five times deadlier.

So it spreads easily, and the more it spreads, the lower the death rate appears to be, on an exploding denominator of infection. But the deaths are still climbing as the infection still continues to spread.

Unfortunately, in the absence of a vaccine, crowd or herd immunity alone has been disproven as an effective solutio. The antibodies of post covid patients aren't strong enough to destroy the virus and prevent reinfection.

Until a vaccine is created, social distancing, masks, and other precautions, including lock down where infection rates are high, are our only current means to reliably limit what is looking to be hundreds of thousands of additional unnecessary and avoidable deaths.

So please be cautious, and do your part.

https://thehealthcareblog.com/blog/2020/05/05/the-problem-with-herd-immunity-as-a-covid-19-strategy/

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-04-herd-immunity-isnt-covid-.html

https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/studies-report-rapid-loss-of-covid-19-antibodies-67650

https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2020/4/28/21237922/antibody-test-covid-19-immunity

[Um]

IF ... one reasons that the %% of the people that die of corona is less than 1% of those infected and these too are mostly over 65 years old and that they are going to die anyway soon .... THAN ... one could consider the actions of the governments ... NON SENSES ... as some people say.

BUT .... B U T ... then there is one condition .... DO NOT BRING THESE PEOPLE TO THE hospital.

For .... If on the other hand one cares for these people, and one wants them to be looked after ... THAN ..... the government etc should see to it that the virus doesn't spread and passes the thresholds of the doors to the elderly. ... because otherwise the hospitals cannot digest the influx of these terrible sic people and the whole medical structure of a country will crumble.

Yes those to up to 65 hardly have symptoms upon infections .... but that is not important ... they do spread the virus

[Dungeness]

@ The antibodies of post covid patients aren't strong enough to destroy the virus
@ and prevent reinfection.

A S. Korean study identified 160 cases of people testing positive
again after recovering from Covid-19.

https://www.webmd.com/lung/coronavirus-immunity-reinfection#1

[Sonia]

I’ve been watching Pandemic on Netflix. Excellent docuseries. Anyway, seems obvious to me that we could avoid a great deal of virus infections if we just STOP EATING ANIMALS.

I agree with Other Jen on this one—it’s karmic (in the cause and effect sense).

Im going to go ahead and say some pretty inflammatory things here because the selfish ignorance humanity has with regards to food consumption may be a personal choice but it affects Everyone.

I don’t care what you believe in. I don’t care if you believe in a god or not. I almost don’t think it even matters. And like many people I grew up in a household that never questioned whether eating meat was right or wrong.

It’s not even so much about the death of the animals as it is about the TORTURE of the animals. The meat and dairy industries are just sanctioned torture chambers. Do your homework. The farms are full of viruses waiting to wreck havoc on humans. Well, that’s nature’s way of trying to tell us really thick headed humans that torture comes at a price. You may not be the owner of a corporate farming facility and you may not work there but you’re responsible for the torture of all those animals when you buy their products. And there is no such thing as cruelty free leather either.

We poor humans.

What about the animals?! Who speaks up for the animals? Oh, I know, most people somehow think that the suffering of an animal is not as important as the suffering of a human. Well, you know what the Coronavirus thinks about that? It doesn’t give a shit whether you think it’s ok to torture animals or not. It knows you’re going to pay the price regardless.

I have a lot of patience with people’s different belief systems but I’m completely out of patience with the selfish, depraved abuse of all the poor animals. They don’t have a voice of their own. And we as a human race are too stupid to try to understand them and treat them with compassion.

Lovely that you got the best doggie bed on the market for your pooch. But you’re an asshole if you drive through McDonalds and order a hamburger. I’m sorry but this shit has to stop or the next pandemic is going to make COVID-19 look like a hiccup.

[Sonia]

I mean, carnivores in the animal kingdom are far more compassionate than humans. They go for the jugular. They don’t keep their prey cramped in tiny filthy cages for months on end before they eat them. Oh, but we great humans do... and much worse than that.

House cats are one exception. They’re assholes. I mean, sure they’re an internet sensation but they’re real jerks. That cat and mouse game is no game. I kinda they they learned this behavior from humans.

[Sonia]

@Spence

Yes, until there’s a vaccine (and even after) we have to exercise extreme caution. Actually, even with a vaccine we still have to be cautious. To some degree social distancing and masks, hand sanitizers are here to stay. Just because a person gets a flu vaccine doesn’t guarantee they won’t get sick. It doesn’t guarantee they won’t die either (but it certainly lowers the risk for the general population).

However, what about people who refuse to get vaccinated??? That’s a BIG issue and apparently a very sensitive one.

If you get a chance please watch episode 1 of Pandemic. They have all these people about to storm the courthouse in Salem, Oregon (sorry Brian) in outrage over the vaccination bill about to be passed.

It’s an extremely sensitive subject. A few episodes later they go on to show how a lot of people in the DRC were opposed to getting the Ebola vaccine because they believed it was a trick by the western world to actually infect them with the disease...

[Laura]

Representative Clay Higgins, Republican of Louisiana, told CNN that wearing a mask was “part of the dehumanization of the children of God.”

[Sonia]

"More than 200 million animals are killed for food around the world every day – just on land. Including wild-caught and farmed fishes, we get a total closer to 3 billion animals killed daily."

I think that's the real dehumanization of the children of God.

[s*]

We should not be cruel to animals that's for sure.

[Vinny]

if 95% population is wiped out by corona disaster, what would developed countries do - celebrate Eucharist or wait for corona virus 2 or mend their karma / actions.

[Teo]

The coronavirus is affecting our mental health as a nation as much as our physical health.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/05/26/americans-with-depression-anxiety-pandemic/