The problem with having instilled vast, society-level fear is that it’s the opposite of herd immunity: it makes it easier to whip up new fear.
Fear sells newspapers. The media is cheering for a “second wave” because it’s good for their top lines.
This is what we have taught the media to do by obsessively clicking on this panic porn and disaster narrative. Businesses respond to incentives in predictable ways.
There is no great mystery here on why the media is acting in the manner that it is. It’s just dollars and cents.
Watch for those who get angry over people postingACTUAL data(versus forecasts and doom). Watch them get angrier and angrier as the Covid decline begins to gain steam.
They don’t want to admit that they’ve been lied to. They don’t want to admit that they’ve allowed that lie to completely control their lives. It is a tough pill to swallow – I get it.
For those under 84, the risk is now no worse than a bad flu year.
The study says the disruption to lessons will have a negative impact on the future skills of the workforce.
The research group, including academics from Cambridge and Bristol universities, says it will cost billions in a reduced growth rate.
Getting pupils back to school must be a priority, says the study.
The report is from an inter-disciplinary group of experts, convened by the Royal Society to measure the long-term impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.
It says there is a “huge base of evidence” showing that earnings are linked to education and skills – and that losing so much time in school will have negative economic consequences.
“Around a quarter of the entire workforce will have lower skills, with a consequently lower growth rate,” says the research.
Evidence of long-term damage from reduced schooling included studies in Argentina, where year groups affected by prolonged strikes were found to have reduced average earnings into mid-life, of 1.9% for women and 3.2% for men.
The researchers call for the safe return to school to be a top priority and for clear plans to minimise the risk of any further disruptions.
“We know how damaging it is for children to miss out on school,” said Simon Burgess, professor of economics at the University of Bristol.
This damage will not be evenly spread from the pandemic, says the study, with those already disadvantaged likely to be among those who have missed out most from trying to study at home, rather than face-to-face in the classroom.
“Children from low-income households in particular are more likely to lack the resources – space, equipment, home support – to engage fully with remote learning,” said Anna Vignoles, professor of education at the University of Cambridge.
Surgeons wear masks in the operating room to protect themselves from splashes of blood or other bodily fluids, and to prevent inadvertently sneezing or spitting into an open wound — NOT to prevent spreading respiratory droplets into the lungs of the patient!
I realize this is a radical idea, but perhaps sticking a pump into the spokes of the wheels of the economy and then paying dearly for the damage is not actually sound economic policy. Perhaps, in fact, it encourages more stupid policy in the future by deferring the costs of bad policy.
“Who should get what government stimulus poured into their trough?” seems to be the big question today.
I have a plan. It’s gonna sound crazy:
What if we let the private sector pay people to go to work and provide goods and services that other people want?
South Park once did an episode about the smug citizens who bought Priuses and then looked down their noses at drivers of pickup trucks and SUVs. They would pontificate to each other about how great they are, helping the environment – and what selfish jerks everyone else was. They would then bend over and sniff their own farts.
The same applies today to the ‘mandatory mask’ crowd. They make sure to tell you how awesome they are and how they are doing it FOR others…because they are such great people and they care FOR you…implying you are too stupid to care for yourself:
Nice deep breath, Melissa. Sniff those farts!! Get high on your own odoriferous gasses!
Not enough? Go down there and grab another sniff with Julie!
Oooohhhhh….yesss! Sniff those putrid emanations! You love that! Go get another big huff of fart!Look how AWESOME and CARING you are!
Num num num num. Tasty right? Oooh wait! Gregory Thompson wants to do some double-sniffs with you as well! Maybe swap farts? Go get a deep breath with him….
Ooohhhh…that’s the good stuff, right?? Clearly you are getting very high on your own farts now: yammering about Covid amputations? Crazy, right?? Clearly you are sniffing those high-grade farts now. Keep sniffing those sulfur bombs:
OH YEAH!!!! GIMME MORE!! One final stream of consciousness, diarrhea of the mouth, high-as-a-kite on my own farts and smugness (and probably CO2 from wearing a mask)….here it comes…..
Wow. Rick James on his longest cocaine binge could not have blabbered more crap if he tried! Everyone is SO selfish and SO reckless – except you, of course. Thank god you are here to lecture us all on the Righteous Path. You and the other fart sniffers. Look at you all – stewing and wallowing in your own smug fart cloud. So enlightened and noble! Gee, I wish I wore a mask too!
Cane-wielding, mandatory mask nannies like Melissa Johnson of Lampasas Texas – who spend their entire day ranting about selfish grandma killers refusing to wear masks – are often themselves wearing flimsy 50 cent masks. If the risks are that real, why don’t you just wear a Tyvek suit and snorkel mask, genius?
If people like Melissa Johnson of Lampasas Texas were ACTUALLY scared, they’d procure the best PPE possible for themselves, instead of attacking everyone else under the delusion that their own life rests in the hands of strangers.
If I was that scared, I’d have no problem buying high-dollar PPE equipment.
But it’s not about that, is it? It’s the fact that many #Karens like Melissa Johnson and Bruce Haywood absolutely RELISH the opportunity to bully/boycott/snitch, while being praised for it by other virtue signalers.
Thus, the percentage of overall capacity that’s covid is 12.98%. So this would seem to be yet another breathlessly predicted crisis that failed to materialize.
Where are those Chicken Littles shrieking about “hospitals being overrun”? Yeah, that’s what I thought.
You might want to listen to the people who actually run the hospitals – and not some panicked, cherry-picked 27 year old doctor who has to walk back his hysterical comments. This is not their first rodeo – but it IS the first one many of you have watched. Keep that in mind.
