Dude, that's 10 million confirmed cases. If you read any news, it's calculated that many more people have had COvid who never knew they had it. And just like many other viruses out there, especially cold and flu, it affects everyone differently. The US has one of the unhealthiest populations of any developed nation, so that increases our deaths and complications, and we travel more than any other populace, just look at the amount of flights in the US on any given pre covid day. In my mind, a true pandemic is one where regardless of underlying health conditions and any other factor, everyone who gets it has the same symptoms and death rates, especially if that death rate is above 1% or greater. Considering that most of the healthy working age people who get it have flu like symptoms, total lockdowns are useless. Unless you can guarantee that every human in the world would quarantine for 2-3 weeks (which WILL NEVER HAPPEN), full lockdowns are a waste of time. Protect the elderly, protect the sick, limit large gatherings (of course no mention of the huge Biden celebrations that happened last weekend and were probably the reason for the huge recent spikes), and let everyone else who's chances of dying are miniscule go about life and work as close to normal as possible-I got no problem wearing a mask. Wearing a mask is like wearing a condom or a seatbelt-it makes sense, if you want to go that route. US death rates:
- Heart disease: 655,381
- Cancer: 599,274
- Accidents (unintentional injuries): 167,127
- Chronic lower respiratory diseases: 159,486
- Stroke (cerebrovascular diseases): 147,810
- Alzheimer’s disease: 122,019
- Diabetes: 84,946
- Influenza and pneumonia: 59,120
- Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome, and nephrosis: 51,386
- Intentional self-harm (suicide): 48,344
Just being alive is a risk and we all take chances everyday we wake up.
Originally Posted by irongoat
Where did I advocate for lockdowns?
If you read any news (other than only the one you want to hear) it's calculated that many more people die of COVID than is reported.
The Biden celebrations were not a good thing (even if in all the shots I saw on TV of the gatherings most people were at least wearing masks, unlike at the tRUMP rallies) and no one has said they were. Nonetheless, since the typical incubation period is as much as 14 days, there's no way they are the underlying cause for recent spikes. It's only been a week.
I didn't realize that you were the person in charge of saying what a pandemic is. Just so you know, according to the World Health Organization, a pandemic is defined as “an epidemic occurring worldwide, or over a very wide area, crossing international boundaries and usually affecting a large number of people”. The classical definition includes nothing about population immunity, virology or disease severity.
The reason for the huge recent spikes is stupidity and irresponsibility and criminal neglect by the tRUMP administration.
So what is your point about the other death statistics? We take those things seriously, don't we? We try to prevent them, don't we? Are we supposed to ignore COVID because people also die of other things?