The birdemic is indeed a deadly plague, and apparently engineered by a (recently revived) Dr Evil - because the banner headlines are trumpeting that it has already (after 'just' a few months) killed (including thousands of deliberately-misallocated deaths) nearly THIRTY THOUSAND PEOPLE in the UK (alone!).
(Well - admittedly this is less than 0.0005 (0.05%) of the population; but if you say the number in a sufficiently Loud and Portentous manner, it sounds terrifying... or, at least, it is terrifying to dishonest people who will not think - which, apparently, is nearly everybody.)
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As a Canadian who has spent time living in the UK, and also in both "Blue" and "Red" America over the years, it surprises me not that the Americans are beginning en masse to thumb their noses at the would-be Big Brother types. This is even happening in deep-blue California.
Canada, on the other hand, is populated almost entirely by people who seem relieved and even enthusiastic about the prospect of jettisoning all those tiresome and useless "rights". An ample supply of Netflix, pot, and porn has been graciously provided by those hastily constructing our Brave New World. Meanwhile, they quickly seized our guns and shuttered our churches (again, with the enthusiastic collusion of most church "leaders").
There was a time when I agreed with Bruce in principle but had a feeling that perhaps his views were a touch exaggerated. I no longer have that feeling.
Are they destroying the food supply in the UK too? I keep seeing stories and hearing farmer reports in the US that we have an excess of poultry, cattle and dairy. Supposedly because people aren’t eating out (I guess they don’t eat at home?)
At the same time it has been harder to get meat in the grocery stores.
I think that there are dishonest people out there is droves, but, in this case, I think that the real reason people are terrified is because they don't think. I would go further and say that they can't think. Most people are too stupid and lazy. Hey, but I'm not supposed to say that am I because as we know apparent stupidity isn't really that at all. In every case, it is down to a raw deal in life that people like me have inflicted on them.
Barry
@Andrew It seems likely that food is not wasted nearly as much at home as in a restaurant. Also, supply chains are quite complex, where food going to restaurants can't just seamlessly be sent to a grocery store.
I'm reminded of a Brian Regan joke—
"Sometimes you'll be out on the highway, you see two big giant trucks loaded up with logs, and they pass each other on the highway. I don't understand that. I mean, if they need logs over there, and they need 'em over there... you'd think a phone call would save 'em a whole lot of trouble."
The modern economy is an unintuitive machine and I'm not sure healthy mind should even try to make too much sense of it.
A rare moment of honesty from the BBC:
"Nearly 10% of people aged over 80 will die in [any given] year, Prof Sir David Spiegelhalter at the University of Cambridge points out, and the risk of them dying if infected with [the birdemic] is almost exactly the same."
https://www.bbc.com/news/health-51979654.508
@WJT: what he's saying is that their risk of dying in the next year has approximately doubled.
He also argues that the same is true of young people: their risk is doubled too. But then their risk is tiny anyway.
@Nova The events of the past few days have made me glad to live in California for once. In Canada I heard that most of the country is as you describe, but Quebec ended the lockdown thanks to Radio Quebec's consistent ridicule and critique of the government? The U.S. corporate controlled media has been desperately trying to distract everyone since the California protests with stories about killer wasps, UFOs, and stuff like that.
@d - I'm pretty sure that by the end of this year, if not before, there will be a Lot more than tens of thousands dead from the response to the virus.
EDFree is correct about California. The cops are slowly but surely realizing that arresting tens of thousands of people for non-crimes is impractical.
CA politicians have revealed they are equal parts stupid and evil. Did the Governor not think that incarcerating non criminal citizens while giving public funds to illegal invaders would NOT result in a massive public outcry?
We still have social strivers who are meekly continuing with the lockdown order, but as Dr. Charlton has repeatedly asserted, damnation is self chosen.
Well, motivation is the thing. If people are motivated to rebel because of thwarted hedonism, or because they think they can get away with it en masse; that will not suffice. This is a sterner test but a spiritual and individual test.
@Sean - Thank you for the reply. Just trying to understand it all.
Right now, locally (tonight), we could not buy any poultry at the supermarket. Two weeks ago there was a tiny bit, tonight there is none.
At the same time I see news stories that large numbers of hens are being slaughtered because something-something blah blah supply chain.
So could be, as you say, just a stupidly complex and inefficient system - but I also wonder if it is not purposeful evil - like the lockdown - rather than merely total incompetence.
The worst thing about this whole episode is that it has revealed how craven and stupid our whole society has become and how craven, stupid and venal our elected unrepresentatives are. We routinely see astounding and sinister vignettes like the UK couple caught on a drone cam walking their dog on a hillside somewhere. Or the one out of India were the couple has sneaked off into the bush for private time and a drone interrupts them. They jump up and onto their motorcycle. The video informs us that the authorities got his license number and that they would be dealt with. It couldn't possibly be more Orwellian. Except we all get to watch. And learn.
@Avro G
"Except we get to watch." Orwellian and Bradburyian.
@dearieme, I don't think that's what he's saying.
Take the over-80 population. 10% were already going to die this year, even if there had been no birdemic. Let's refer to these people as the "Doomed."
Take the sub-population of over-80s who test positive for the birdemic. 10% of them die. What percent of those who die-with-birdemic were Doomed? Only if the answer is "none of them" will deaths double in that age group. If the answer is "all of them," total deaths in that age group will not change at all. Of course neither of those answers is medically plausible, but given that those who die tend to be those with serious comorbidities, I think we can safely assume that a *lot* of them (much closer to 100% than to 0%) were Doomed anyway.
"Protinus en subiit funestrae cladis imago / Fecit in Angliaco quam Libitina solo" - John Milton's Elegy III (on the death of Lancelot Andrewes), lines 3-4, which Douglas Bush translates, "lo, there came a vision of the calamitous mortality that Libitina wrought on English soil", with a footnote: "The ancient Italian goddess of corpses, equivalent to Death. In London during 1625 the plague cost over 35,000 lives." Complete Poetical Works (1965), pages 17-18. I'm not sure where he gets that total or the (likely) population of London - or England - in 1625 (and have not (yet?) tried to look into this). But it struck me as interesting 'matter' for various comparisons and contrasts... (in an interesting poem I had somehow never read before, with its depiction of Heaven by the 17-year-old Milton).
David Llewellyn Dodds
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