And now we have the Marburg virus. I'm starting to get the feeling this planet just doesn't like us!

Rikkitic:

 

And now we have the Marburg virus. I'm starting to get the feeling this planet just doesn't like us!

 

 

 

It seems almost every week that we are bombarded by media outlets about some "devastating new catastrophe" that's about to envelope the world. In the days before the internet this sort of thing happened but was over before we heard about it. Now we all get to "worry" about it in real time.

I just pretty well ignore these sorts of stories and when and only when it appears just down the road from me so to speak will I get concerned about it. Not worth the effort thinking about right now. As a good example the article references Ebola, while that was devastating for some it had no impact on the average kiwi here in New Zealand. 

Rikkitic:

 

And now we have the Marburg virus. I'm starting to get the feeling this planet just doesn't like us!

 

 

 

Cant say that it doesnt have many good reasons to not like.

tdgeek:

 

mkissin:

Great that you have that control, but many people don’t. What about the shop worker that can’t control ventilation, or the masking use/enforcement for patrons? This is an entirely complex situation, and trivialising it isn’t helping anyone. Rugged individual responsibility is IMO not the way through here.

 

Fair points, that leaves lockdowns as the solution? Id like to see the current mask rules as enforceable, then I guess we get another protest(s)

 

Its not trivialising the issue, its the reality. We want to be protected against Covid and we also want easy freedom, you cant have both

 

A neighbour just came back from holiday to Malaysia. He spent about a month there. Chatted with him about the Covid situation there. He observed that most people were still wearing masks everywhere. He said he felt immense social pressure to wear masks too.

This is true even at the airport. So people who looked like they were from Europe or North America also wear masks.

Malaysia reported only about 3,000 cases daily and it has a population of about 30 million people. It looks like wearing masks might have something to do with the fewer cases.

https://covidnow.moh.gov.my/cases/ 

BillyFieldman:

 

It looks like wearing masks might have something to do with the fewer cases.

 

Who'd have thought, right?

richms:

 

Rikkitic:

 

And now we have the Marburg virus. I'm starting to get the feeling this planet just doesn't like us!

 

 

Cant say that it doesn't have many good reasons to not like.

 

I don't like us, considering we have been killing the planet exponentially since the beginning of the Industrial age. So I don't blame the planet for slapping our bottoms quite severely with virus's and bacteria.

Till we find another Goldilocks Zone with a habitable planet, and that will require several leaps in space propulsion technology, we are stuck with Earth (Terra) in this Goldilocks Zone called Sol.

FineWine:

 

I don't like us, considering we have been killing the planet exponentially since the beginning of the Industrial age. So I don't blame the planet for slapping our bottoms quite severely with virus's and bacteria.

 

We've been doing it since we stopped being hunter gatherers.  it's just that we couldn't produce enough food to feed billions of people to really have an impact. 

But once  we started rotating crops, creating dedicated farms, and experimenting with synthetic fertilizers, we've gone from 1-8 billion people since 1800... all needing to be housed and fed and provided with jobs and entertainment.....

But in the grand scheme of things the planet doesn't care,

if we screw it up , there will likely be enough non-human life left on the plant to quite happily recolonise and remove most examples of human "progress" in a thousand years or so....

The planet has endured a number of Mass Extinction Events and being in the goldilocks zone "life finds a way"

Death toll for covid has dropped by over 600 cases due them reclassifying how they record the deaths.

"a change to the way COVID deaths are reported. The Ministry of Health will now focus on deaths caused by COVID-19 or where the illness was a contributing factor. Previously, all deaths were reported among people who died within 28 days of having a COVID-19 infection."

https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2022/07/covid-19-live-updates-director-general-dr-ashley-bloomfield-to-provide-update-on-response.html

"A year on from ‘Freedom Day’, government messaging promoting a sense of the pandemic being over is having the opposite effect, experts say"

 

Data from the Office for National Statistics for the UK shows that social distancing peaked in January and February 2021, when the country endured its deadliest wave of Covid, then dropped steadily to the lowest level recorded in July this year. More than 90% of adults said they had worn a mask outside the home in the week before “Freedom Day”, and while this briefly fell into the 80s that autumn, it bounced back up when Omicron arrived and plan B measures called for more face coverings, working from home and Covid passports for certain events. From February 2022, UK mask use fell substantially, down to 35% early this month, the lowest since June 2020.

 

How ‘living with Covid’ is helping keep England’s infections stubbornly high | Coronavirus | The Guardian

On a slightly related note, I heard an item on RNZ whilst driving about NZ's reaction to the AIDS/HIV arrival in NZ in the eighties. I didn't actually hear the item but it made me wonder how something like that would go in this post-truth world.

Oh it's just a cold and so on.

Sigh. 

Technofreak: ... It seems almost every week that we are bombarded by media outlets about some "devastating new catastrophe" that's about to envelope the world. In the days before the internet this sort of thing happened but was over before we heard about it. Now we all get to "worry" about it in real time. ...

"In the days before the internet" we also travelled less & shorter distances & we certainly also shipped less stuff across the oceans. Also, back in the day things took longer / happened at a slower speed. It is very easy to underestimate the speed at which events can occur. Your comment reminds me on this quiz:

Take a sport stadium & place a single drop of water in it. If the quantity of water doubles every day (and of course stays within the stadium), when will the stadium be half full?

When Covid cases are spiking in New Zealand, this photo or current and future leaders in NZ is poor form IMO. They were all crammed in and removed their masks for the photo doesn't appear to be setting a good example. They could have left their masks on or done it outside on the stairs, and socially distanced more. 

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/pm-jacinda-ardern-photographed-maskless-with-100-plus-crowd/V4UEQFRUB5TFVF7ER4Z2IHOHQQ/?utm_campaign=nzh_tw&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Twitter&utm_campaign=nzh_tw# 

Jase2985:

 

Death toll for covid has dropped by over 600 cases due them reclassifying how they record the deaths.

 

"a change to the way COVID deaths are reported. The Ministry of Health will now focus on deaths caused by COVID-19 or where the illness was a contributing factor. Previously, all deaths were reported among people who died within 28 days of having a COVID-19 infection."

 

https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2022/07/covid-19-live-updates-director-general-dr-ashley-bloomfield-to-provide-update-on-response.html

 

A slight clarification.  That applies to reporting total deaths.  From below, the increase in deaths reported in the daily updates will still include "additional deaths with COVID-19"?

https://www.health.govt.nz/news-media/news-items/10424-community-cases-788-hospitalisations-20-icu-21-deaths 

While we continue to report additional deaths with COVID-19 in the daily updates, the focus on reporting total COVID-19 deaths will shift to cases where COVID-19 is either the underlying or a contributing cause of a death. 

I thought they were already doing it this way. 

mattwnz:

 

I thought they were already doing it this way. 

 

Nope, until yesterday _any_ death with a covid positive test within the last 28 days was considered a 'covid death'.

So in effect the virus just got 33% less-deadly.