Travelling to the UK during this pandemic.

[hullexile]

It's a stupid statement that can be made true depending on what you want to portray...You can find plenty of people who believe the virus is nothing or even a hoax like many Trump supporters and there are others who are perhaps more concerned than they need to be like the picture below.



Some of these comparisons are idiotic like the Spanish Flu. How can you compare death rates of different eras? Nutrition, treatment, medical access etc... were so different. The same goes with each country's response. If you take a densely populated country like Vietnam with restricted medical access. It makes a lot of sense to try to avoid high levels of infections whereas a western country with a lower density can afford to be less strict with consequences that will likely be less severe.

And in the end, it goes back to the same moral choice. ls it acceptable to let a significant amount of people catch the disease and possibly die in order to allow the majority to live a more normal life. If you are in the rich, strong, healthy category, it's a lot easier to accept the deaths and health consequences of outliers as your risk is much much lower. The answer to these questions is not in questionable numbers and statistics though they are meant to help.

I agree it is a moral choice but that choice is not without serious, fatal, consequences. Obviously this is most evident when the country's leader is in the "it's just the flu" camp as with Brazil and USA for example. However even at the individual level it has serious implications when, for example, people refuse to wear masks or social distance because their freedom is at risk and it is only like the common cold if I catch it.

It is not just a pathetic internet argument, lives are at stake. Science should lead us not politics or personal self interest.

[Aramis]

I agree it is a moral choice but that choice is not without serious, fatal, consequences. Obviously this is most evident when the country's leader is in the "it's just the flu" camp as with Brazil and USA for example. However even at the individual level it has serious implications when, for example, people refuse to wear masks or social distance because their freedom is at risk and it is only like the common cold if I catch it.

It is not just a pathetic internet argument, lives are at stake. Science should lead us not politics or personal self interest.

Science has its limitations and also has to be interpreted. There are epidemiologists and virologist that come to different conclusions. Lives are at stake regardless of the choices that are made. The future lives of children, the lives of those who won't have enough food, the lives of those who can't cope with the challenges, the lives of those who aren't getting their treatment because of this. At some point there are sacrifices that must be made by a number of people. Who will be making the sacrifice and how much of a sacrifice will it be. It is a fact that there will always be people dying of diseases and accidents, how much money, effort and restrictions are we willing to expend and accept to save one life, 1000 lives, 1 million lives. There is nothing simple about making decisions when it comes to this crisis and anyone that thinks they have the answer is either uber arrogant or a fool and no solution will come from posting pages and pages or statistics and counter argument on an internet forum.

[civil_servant]

Science has its limitations...

What's the alternative? Can you post your response without using science?

[Sage]

Less lethal than many believe. Evidence on what people believe? I would say it is a lot more lethal than many believe. What is important is what the majority of experts tell us not people on the internet.

The evidence is all around, this thread is specifically about questioning the sanity of travelling to the UK because of the perceived level of risk.

But this debate is not about proving belief or otherwise it's about countering the natural proclivity to fear the unknown by demonstrating that more is in fact known than one may think, if you just read between the lines a little.

[Sage]

Proof/evidence please.

Follow the data in this thread it's spelled out in plain terms.

[Sage]

It's a stupid statement that can be made true depending on what you want to portray...You can find plenty of people who believe the virus is nothing or even a hoax like many Trump supporters and there are others who are perhaps more concerned than they need to be like the picture below.



Some of these comparisons are idiotic like the Spanish Flu. How can you compare death rates of different eras? Nutrition, treatment, medical access etc... were so different. The same goes with each country's response. If you take a densely populated country like Vietnam with restricted medical access. It makes a lot of sense to try to avoid high levels of infections whereas a western country with a lower density can afford to be less strict with consequences that will likely be less severe.

And in the end, it goes back to the same moral choice. ls it acceptable to let a significant amount of people catch the disease and possibly die in order to allow the majority to live a more normal life. If you are in the rich, strong, healthy category, it's a lot easier to accept the deaths and health consequences of outliers as your risk is much much lower. The answer to these questions is not in questionable numbers and statistics though they are meant to help.

In striking martial arts, there are 2 main streams - Hard and soft. The soft styles take the fundamental position that any opponent may be armed with a deadly weapon and and thus one cannot afford the risk of being hit. The hard styles take the view that being hit is inevitable and thus you must train to withstand those blows.

There is truth in both, but in reality neither style sticks religiously to one approach, they tweak and adapt (to the degree that they can). And so should it be with covid.

Many people like to attempt to polarise the debate into mask or anti-mask, lockdown or anti lockdown, when in reality, very very few are religious zealots.

What is occurring here on Geo is debating what tweaks to make to those approaches, non of us are 'either or' in a similar way to how covid does not affect only one race/socio-economic group/demographic.

[hullexile]

The evidence is all around, this thread is specifically about questioning the sanity of travelling to the UK because of the perceived level of risk.

But this debate is not about proving belief or otherwise it's about countering the natural proclivity to fear the unknown by demonstrating that more is in fact known than one may think, if you just read between the lines a little.

I don't think you get to determine what the debate is about. You made a statement, which you have made a few times in different ways. You take the extreme (people who are perhaps irrationally scared) and use this to characterize others,

I wouldn't travel to the UK for fun at the moment but I would if the trip was required or I considered it important. I am guessing the vast majority of people would fit in this middle ground.

[Sage]

There is nothing simple about making decisions when it comes to this crisis and anyone that thinks they have the answer is either uber arrogant or a fool and no solution will come from posting pages and pages or statistics and counter argument on an internet forum.

That you suggest there is AN answer rather than many answers points to a lack of appreciation of alternate positions. We're not addressing a single issue but a mutifaceted one that requires many decisions both small and large; so it would be ludicrous to suggest that none of those decisions could be made any better.

So what do you think this forum is for? Or any forum? Or debate in general? It serves a much wider purpose than the narrow box you attempt to force it into. But then you know that already otherwise you wouldn't be here.

[Sage]

You take the extreme (people who are perhaps irrationally scared) and use this to characterize others,

I wouldn't travel to the UK for fun at the moment but I would if the trip was required or I considered it important. I am guessing the vast majority of people would fit in this middle ground.

Do you consider yourself extreme Hull?

So no, your assertion is off the mark. I take views that display an overtly pessimistic view off the data and show them why that degree of pessimism is unjustified.

Case in point, your accusation in this thread that I used: "highly selective statistics such as choosing 23 days that just happen to be the lowest for many months and ignoring the 41,000 other deaths"

That you sought to drag the argument back to 41,000 deaths is compelling evidence (in the context of the discussion at the time) that you're unwilling to update your view of covid in light of it's health impact on the population as a whole today.

In the workforce this is described as an inability to adapt to changing conditions.

In the wider population, fear of the unknown is a lot more of a thing than 'joy at the unknown'
In the UK data, deaths are very accurate now and yet infections are massively underestimated - so it's obvious that the central narrative will misrepresent the reality. Anyone who refuse's to see that will be inclined to twist the debate into intangible concepts rather than focus on the more nebulous data that gives a truer picture.

41,000 deaths per 440K cases is a big problem. 41,000 deaths out of 5 million, whilst still a big problem, is a lot less significant one.

In 9 months in the UK, a population of 5m people would deliver 46,000 deaths normally. If the people dying of covid are the same ones as those who would be dying of other causes (as is the case with the vast majority), then the net change in our society is much much less dramatic than deaths vs infections suggests.

Excess deaths thus gives a better gauge, but 'the media' (people generally) seem to have largely ceased referencing excess deaths now that the picture they paint is a lot less headline grabbing - more evidence of pessimism.

[Aramis]

Here have fun with that one.

https://news.yahoo.com/not-head-surv...191502462.html