Forum: Story Recommendations

You gotta remember that most of the do-over stories are written by people who have looked back on the things they did (and didn't do) with regrets.

This is true of almost any "Period Piece". And the best ones tend to be from people who have actually lived through the period they are talking about. Either that, or have done a lot of research into the period.

And the 2000's? What is there really interesting there? We already had porn on demand, 24-7 access to almost anything sexual, birth control available in Junior High by just asking for it.

Now I might see such at this point into the early 1990's, but not to the 2000's. In fact, to most authors I would imagine that is a rather "dead period", in which nothing of real interest happens to write around. Kind of like talking about most of the 1960's. It is largely just like the 1950's, until the last year or two.

Let's see, in September of 1969 I had just started second grade in lovely San Diego. I do remember the long straight hair, peasant skirts and peace beads on the high school kids. Of course being a military brat my hair was high and tight and I wore button-up shirts.

And as you say, California.

Try that in most areas of the country back then, and you likely would have had a different reception if you had long hair.

I remember California then also. And I also remember Idaho and Oregon. Where one of the first things my grandfather did when I was dropped off with him for the summer was get me a crew cut.

An era where some military members in the Reserves or Guard were sometimes actually allowed to wear "short hair wigs", as being military was not popular, so some would grow their hair out a bit, and hide it under a wig during drill weekends.

Well, except for Kennedy, Martin King, the Beatles, cars, mini-skirts. Mini-skirts and cars!. Color TV. Building a fall-out shelter. Viet Nam. The draft.

Actually, the Kennedy Administration was little different than that of Ike. Same culture, same general trends.

And the Early Beatles were big in pop music, but culturally they had no real impact larger than say Elvis or Holley until Revolver and Sgt. Pepper. Until the late 1960's, you could compare 1966 to 1961 and other than different movies and a few more TV shows now in color (Get Smart, Gilligan's Island, F-Troop), not much had really changed.

And "Mini Skirts" were not even original to the 1960's, that actually started in the 1940's. And it was not until the very end of the decade with the "Microskirt" that it was really much different than what had been around for well over a decade before that.

Fallout shelters, the Draft, Dr. King, that was all 50's dude. Dr. King first rose to national prominence in the 1955 Montgomery Bus Strike. Elvis was drafted in 1956.

Major debate over Vietnam started in the late 1960's after almost 20 years of conflict there. As I said, most people really can not tell the difference, and very often mix the two together and do not even realize it. You are thinking those are all 1960's, but those all started in the 1950's (or earlier).

Heck, not even Vietnam was original to the 1960's. Truman got us involved there in 1950 (and we actually first got involved under FDR in the 1940's). And Color TV also started in the 1950's. It did not become "Big" until 1965 when NBC became the "Peacock Network", but it had already been around for over a decade by then. Superman, Cisco Kid, Bonanza, and Lone Ranger were all color shows back in the 1950's.

And Fallout Shelters were very much a 1950's thing. By the 1960's they were already a joke, as ICBMs had largely made them pointless.

At the height of the Cold War in the 1960s, the District of Columbia prepared hundreds of fallout shelters. "Very much a 1950's thing" indeed.

You are talking specific events, I am talking culture. If you are unable to tell the difference, there is no help for it.

Do you see the current Corona problems as an event or a (small?) shift in culture.

Actually, I largely do not. Oh, it will have events that follow, but it also is not the first time such has happened. One only has to look back 100 years to see that.

Yes, it will likely be another 2 years. Which I have been saying since this first started. And when it is all said and done, we will likely see more changes.

Right now the economy is in the tank. Do we continue into a depression, or will it rush into a new era of prosperity? Once again, impossible to predict at this time. But at one extreme, look back 100 years. Last time when people finally started to group together again the "Roaring 20's" was the result.

At this time, it is still going on, so impossible to see what it will ultimately mean. You can not equate a single event with a change in culture. The assassinations of Lincoln and Kennedy did not change the culture itself. The "space race" and all it did changed culture, but the actual accomplishment of the feat did not.

And you can not really track the change of a culture from inside a possible change. Ultimately, 9-11 did have some minor changes, but overall they were actually very minor compared to everything else that was going on at the time.

If it continues on another two years with governments arbitrarily closing businesses in the name of fighting the pandemic, a full on depression is all but inevitable.

Here is the funniest thing. This will burn itself out in about that much time, no matter what the government does or not. It all has to do with herd immunity numbers. And when you are talking about an emergent disease where the entire world is a "virgin field", that will simply take time.

And the vaccine is so rushed, I am still watching to see some real numbers from that. Especially once it starts to be put into hundreds of thousands of people. Myself, I do not think that is going to be a real factor. This is why I still look to the Spanish Flu to estimate timelines. Which had no vaccine.

Do you see the current Corona problems as an event or a (small?) shift in culture

It's given a huge boost to on-line shopping, matched by an equal decline in high street shops. And it's hastened the decline in cash and the growth of big data.

But worst of all, it's made mask-wearing the new normal. I can see that becoming a permanent part of society, with people getting their masks out for winter cold and flu season. And the vast majority of masks I see are mainly a fashion statement, not being medical quality.

AJ

But worst of all, it's made mask-wearing the new normal. I can see that becoming a permanent part of society, with people getting their masks out for winter cold and flu season. And the vast majority of masks I see are mainly a fashion statement, not being medical quality.

They are literally worthless for stopping the spread of the disease. And I do not think it will last long after the government requirements are dropped.

Expect a few months for the requirements to stop, then you are going to start seeing establishments banning their use. Retail will probably be first, then following to other establishments.

They are literally worthless for stopping the spread of the disease.

That depends on what type of mask is being worn. There are virtually no masks around that are as good as a full medical mask but that doesn't make them worthless.

Some of you seem to think it's all or nothing. If the mask doesn't work 100% you don't think it's worth wearing. That's not logical thinking.

It's a percentages game. A 3 layer mask that seals around the face will have a much higher percentage effectiveness in reducing the risk of either catching or spreading the disease than a one layer mask with no effective seal or a bandana (which are effectively useless) or wearing nothing at all.

What kind of mask provides the best protection from covid?

D:S: But they are great for identifying which people will cave the fastest and follow stupid rules enacted for stupid reasons.

It's also great for identifying the people who are stupid enough to put their health at greater risk by choosing not to wear a mask as a "political statement" when wearing a mask is such a low cost thing to do for the potential increased protection for your health and those around you.

It's your opinion, D.S,. that the rules about wearing a mask are stupid and enacted for stupid reasons but here in Aus where wearing a mask didn't get turned into a political battle, we have almost completely eliminated the virus (for now) by simply wearing masks, using hand hygiene, social distancing, working from home where possible and so on.

Nobody here is talking about wearing a mask being stupid. We're all looking at USA and shaking our heads in dismay.

When the dust settles, I'll not be surprised when it's revealed that is was hand discipline and hygiene along with distancing that was the cause or reduction rather that the cloth masks.

That, people not contacting many others, and other factors.

And these masks were not even new or unique now. They have been used since the Middle Ages, with equal results. It was common in 1919 with the Spanish Flu. It was a huge craze, even "designer masks". Some cities made it mandatory, one public health official in San Francisco even shot a man who refused to wear one.

But it did not become a trend, once it was over it ended. And still over 50 million died, over 650,000 in the US. It was worthless 101 years ago, it is equally worthless today. Myself, I really do not care one way or another. But it also is stupid to think it really does any good unless you have the disease. And if you do, you should be at home and not putting others at risk.

It is like over a decade ago when that TB patient flew to the US and did not wear a mask. The mask was not for the other passengers, their wearing it would not matter. It was for HIM to wear, to reduce the risk he infected others. And unless the mask is enough to prevent the transmission, it does little good.

I still remember the 2007 TB incident. The plane landed and a lot of people screamed because he had his rights violated, being yanked off of a plane and slapped into quarantine. His rights were violated, he was threatened with prison and fines, he ignored the advice of his doctor and did not wear a mask or inform the air crew.

And in 13 years, not much has changed. At one time, "quarantine" was real, and breaking it could land a person in jail. Today, "civil rights" and "personal freedom" are more important. So we wear silly masks that do nothing and think we are making a difference.

Now excuse me as I slap a "I am Charlie Hebdo" sticker on my car.

It's also great for identifying the people who are stupid enough to put their health at greater risk by choosing not to wear a mask as a "political statement" when wearing a mask is such a low cost thing to do for the potential increased protection for your health and those around you.

Bad assumption, I simply think it is silly because I see what most people use. Dust masks, great for sawdust but worthless for a disease. Or all these silly fashion masks, that are just as worthless.

And yea, I have been in a medical unit for the last 8 years. And my wife has been a nurse for over 20. 90% of the mask uses are really just placebos. Designed to make people feel better, but not actually doing anything of use.

Of more effect is simply washing your hands frequently, much more effective than wearing worthless masks.

I saw a scientific study a while back claiming that masks were 60-90% effective in protecting a carrier from transmitting covid, depending on the type (double layer of cotton 60%, medical mask 90%) and 10-30% effective in stop someone from being infected (same mask criteria). However those laboratory tests have probably since been superseded by discoveries of more methods of tranmission (aerosols?) so the figures should be taken as optimistic.

AJ

The insistence on them is mainly due to the risk of asymptomatic carriers.

This chinese study of 10,000,000 people in Wuhan itself says no asymptomatic spread.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-19802-w

So I'd say, if the mask is poor in protecting the wearer and a person who isn't showing any symptom doesn't infect others, then what's the point of masks for people with no symptoms?

Quarantine those who show symptoms and be done with it.

NO! Everyone with a cold or allergies will have Covid-like symptoms. People can have allergy symptoms for two months. It's not right to lock them down.

No, they will not. Allergies do not cause an increase in body temperature. And no 2 months, more like 2 days. What, you think somebody would order a quarantine without actually checking for COVID antibodies?

What type of allergies are you talking about. IF pollen, I would tend to agree. But what happens if somebody is allergic to dog or cat hair and the family had that type of pet? The allergy would last for a long time.

They still do not cause a fever. No matter how long such an attack lasts, or what the cause is.

I myself have mold allergies. And guess what, we are entering the "wet season" here in Oregon, and it has been giving me fits for over a month now. My nose runs all the time, and I sneeze a lot.

But guess what? No fever. Fever is the symptom of some kind of infection, not simple allergies.

You'd trust a Chinese covid-related study?

UK schools are mostly open and covid has spread like wildfire in children of secondary school age, virtually all asymptomatic.

AJ

You'd trust a Chinese covid-related study?

Western governments have made it exceedingly hard to trust anything they tell us about Covid19. You can participate in a 100,000 people protest packed like sardines and that would be OK, Covid19 respects protesters and doesn't infect them, but god forbid you go to church or have more than 10 people at your son's birthday because that would cause a catastrophe.

Who would you trust? Is there a higher authority in the US than the CDC? How about John Hopkins center?

Both of them among too many sources tell us that Covid isn't particularly deadly.

CDC Mortality numbers: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/planning-scenarios.html (under 70 it's as deadly as the regular flu).

John Hopkins excessive deaths: https://web.archive.org/web/20201122214034/https://www.jhunewsletter.com/article/2020/11/a-closer-look-at-u-s-deaths-due-to-covid-19

Every graph of excessive deaths in every country on earth shows no excessive deaths for 2020. What kind of deadly pandemic is that where no additional people die?

China is not doing a lockdown. Taiwan, Japan, Singapore all, no lockdowns. They're fine.

Yes, SARS-CoV-2 is highly dangerous to old men. Those should be protected. No argument there.

But for the rest of us, women of all ages, and men under 70, it's not exactly a big deal. I fully supported universal mask wearing and social/physical distancing before July when we didn't know much about the virus. But now, six months later, it's becoming ridiculous to support total lockdowns. Masking is becoming an iffy thing too. In the west, in flu season, Covid19 has soared despite lockdowns and mask wearing and every other precaution. The numbers are very similar in jurisdictions that had hard lockdowns and jurisdictions that were very lax, so why bother destroying the economy since the results in the end are the same.

And the fact that PCR machines aren't supposed to be used for detecting those type of viruses and having other kinds of test produce positive infection results even when not in contact with a human, don't inspire any confidence that we're being told the truth.

Here in Canada my sister-in-law went to the testing center and after registering her name and saw how many are in front of her, left without doing the test. She was called the next day and told that she tested positive. She didn't even do the test. It seems random and artificial.

Covid is definitely more deadly than the flu, specifically for the elderly and lung patients.

I already said that. Look at the graphs you linked to, and see the visual tricks. Like a graph of deaths that starts at 50,000 and reaches 65,000 the bump looks enormous when you zoom in on it that way. But if the graph started at 0, then it's just a blip. It's lying or exaggeration by statistics.

Every source of information has its own biases. But when you correlate various sources and apply some logic, SARS-CoV-2 is not as significant as it's being painted to be. How many people die in the US every year? for population level maintenance, fertility must be around 2.1%, so about 2.1% of the population die every year. The US is what? 330,000,000? at 2.1% death rate that's 6,930,000 average deaths per year. As of today, according to Our World in Data 300,479 death with covid in the US. That's a 4.3% of the total average deaths. And remember, those 300,000 death are 'with covid', so much of them are not due to covid to make the number almost meaningless.

There are some very powerful parties in our world exaggerating it for their own agendas. The whole Davos complex is pushing hard to make covid way more than it is. They are very influential in the west and that's why we have these policies being pushed down our throats. In China and Russia where the Davos people have little to no influence, it's not being made into a big deal.

Check their website: https://www.weforum.org/great-reset/

They call covid19 their 'Opportunity'. So they have a vested interest in making sure that you take it seriously enough to allow them to shape your life. Do you know for sure that they don't finance Our World In Data?

Covid is definitely more deadly than the flu, specifically for the elderly and lung patients.

Hmmm, not really.

COVID is what everybody went through with the Spanish Flu, and what many worried about with the Swine Flu. And in reality, it is not significantly more deadly than the common annual flu.

But what it is is more virulent. This means that more people will catch it. Let's just use some numbers for comparison.

Say the annual flue will affect 10% of a population of 1,000 people, and 10% of those infected die. That will mean 100 will get infected, and 10 will die.

Now COVID is highly virulent, but actually no more fatal. But because it spreads so damned easily, say this time 25% of the people will catch it, but still with the 10% death rate.

That means 250 will get the virus, and 25 will die. No more deadly, but the increase in spreading will inflate the numbers.

This is what caused many to go into a panic mode a few years ago over H1N1, and what caused to many to die 100 years ago. This thing just spreads so damned fast, that with a great number infected, of course the number who die will go up, even if the percentage who die to it is unchanged (or even in fact lower).

Maybe the death rate percentage isn't higher (which I can't confirm nor deny) but the fact that it spreads so much easier makes it more deadly by definition.

Nope.

What is more deadly, a .357 fired into your forehead, or a ladder?

Well, quite obviously a .357 is more deadly if fired at your forehead, very few survive that. But more people die from falling off of ladders.

"More deadly" is simply the chance of death if you fall under a cause of death. It has nothing to do with the total number of deaths.

Cars are more deadly than airplanes, but your odds of survival in an airplane crash are significantly lower than if you are in a car crash.

10% of 1,000 is no more deadly than 10% of 2,500. It is still only 10%. This is what far too many people simply can not understand, and causes confusion and misinformation.

And FYI, this is not something I just started talking about. I have been warning people for well over 15 years that a "Second Spanish Flu" was coming, and we have spent an almost unbelievable amount of time in history without a global pandemic.

And it's funny. In other forums people that told me a decade ago told me it would never happen. And now that it has, they scream all kinds of nonsense. I am not any kind of conspiracy theorist (the opposite in fact), I simply analyze past events, and postulate what will happen based upon them. I have actually been aware this would happen since 1994, it was only a matter of time.

But if this was actually "more deadly", then the irony is that the actual death tolls would be lower. Another fact most people simply can not comprehend.

I have been warning people for well over 15 years that a "Second Spanish Flu" was coming, and we have spent an almost unbelievable amount of time in history without a global pandemic.

I'm hoping that the lessons learned from Covid will help us defend from a more serious pandemic. While I have argued against people who try to dismiss Covid as trivial, I fully agree with the argument that Covid is not as serious as a global pandemic could be.

If we get a disease that spreads as fast as Covid with a significantly higher mortality rate, we could be in real trouble. But if the danger is recognised early and precautions we have learned through Covid are put in place then we have a chance.

I fully agree with the argument that Covid is not as serious as a global pandemic could be.

'Experts' have revised their estimate of R0 from 5 down to 3 so yes, it could have been worse. But with new mutations still appearing, there's still time for everything to go south.

AJ

Mutations are just as likely to go in the direction of being less infectious and less deadly as more.

Actually, the disease lessening is much more likely.

Random mutations do not tend to make a virus any more deadly, doing so is actually not in the best self-interest of a disease. The best for them is actually to be to have a true asymptomatic effect on everybody and to kill nobody.

The biggest one everybody fears is that a virus becomes airborne. And since this already is, no real worry there. But most times first you get a mutation that makes it asymptomatic, then it simply dies off. Either that, or it gets a mutation and no longer affects humans and jumps to another carrier.

If we get a disease that spreads as fast as Covid with a significantly higher mortality rate, we could be in real trouble.

Here is the beauty of that. The higher the mortality rate, quite often the lower the final death count is. This is just the nature of diseases.

The ones with the highest mortality rate also tend to spread very quickly. Look no farther than Ebola to see that. But the trick there is that because it is so deadly, you do not have "walking wounded" going around that can spread it as quickly to others.

Yes, ebola has a death rate in the 70-90% rate, but it also tends to infect and kill a lot less people than much less fatal diseases. It literally "burns out" before very long.

But as far as "learning the lessons", that all depends on how long it is until this is repeated again. At one time, this was common. Less than 100 years ago actually. Today, it is even less than a cultural memory so nobody knows how to behave in such a situation.

That entirely depends on the length of time you're contagious and can infect others before you die. If there's a 90% chance of dying but it takes 3 months to actually die... and it gets worse if you have no symptoms for the first month.

OK, please name that disease.

I will give you one even better. One that has a 100% mortality rate. Of which nobody has been cured of, ever. And it is not some super-secret disease, I know everybody has heard of it.

You see, that is not how it works. "3 months to die" is pure horseshit. This is a virus, it can not even replicate on its own. It jumps into the body, tries to replicate itself as much as it can. That's it.

Now, if you ever want to come on back down and talk about real world, then fine. I will be more than happy to do that. But if all you can do is spin around conspiracy theory nonsense and invent diseases then there really is no point in continuing.

It's a hypothetical scenario to illustrate that the time from being contagious until you die is an important factor.

OK, great. Write it up as science fiction then. I deal in real life when discussing real life topics. I do not play that game of "Well, if XX and YYY, then you would get ZZZ!"

Not sure how long you have been monitoring things like this, but I have been doing it for decades.

The holy grail of weaponized diseases is something with the lethality of ebola, with a long incubation period during the latter stages of which it is communicable and easily spread, hopefully via aerosol...perhaps a targeted transmission vector of a common pest native to enemy territory not present or at least uncommon in the area those developing the weapon are from..

Actually, no. In fact, that is the exact opposite of what is wanted.

The "Holy Grail" would actually be one that incapacitates people infected quickly, not be incredibly fatal, and not spread very far or fast. With as short of an incubation period as possible.

The idea of what you are talking about defies military sense. The idea of a "weaponized disease" is that you want the thing to hit fast, hard, then go away. An absolutely perfect "biological weapon" is to be able to infect others and spread within 24-72 hours, and not be incredibly fatal. This is because you want to target a specific area. WHere the people infected are then so sick they will not be going anywhere.

You do not want it galivanting all over the countryside, infecting your own side or allies. What you are talking about is 100% guaranteed to do exactly that, the last thing you would ever want.

Oh, that is long a common trope of some Cold War fiction, but that is not reality. And to make it worse, you do not want a "native pest" as the vector. That only guarantees the thing will remain in the area even longer. No, you want to use something in fact that can barely survive in the region. That has no natural protections from other things that will eat that vector.

The why should be obvious. You have to be able to help ensure you can get rid of the thing afterwards. Otherwise, you yourself can no longer put the location to use. In that case, might as well just drop a damned nuke and be done with it.

Obviously, you want to develop a vaccine for any such weapon, prior to use, and immunize your side. Ideally you want to wipe out your enemy.

Uhhhh, no.

And you do not want to "wipe out your enemy". That is never the goal unless you are talking about a bunch of insane psychopathic lunatics that should never be in any position of authority of anything more than a knitting club.

And eliminating a pest that is native to the region. Impossible. And immunizations are not perfect, for a great many reasons.

And bioweapons can't be traced? Well, obviously the enemy outside of where they are used and who has troops already largely immunized is a pretty freaking good clue who did it.

Oh, and we can tell things like that. In less than a month, when Anthrax started showing up in letters we knew not only exactly which strain of Anthrax had been used, we even knew which lab it had come from. We know what lab it came from, we know where the sample that was used to produce it came from, bioweapons can tell you amazing things because it is all right there in the DNA.

You should re-think that premise. Follow the money to reveal their political bias.

95% of the time, it is not any kind of corruption or payoff, it is simply "spin" and nothing else but. And I have seen it over and over again over the decades.

COVID is a great example. People screamed at the President early on for locking down the country and stopping flights from some places. Threatened to sue, screamed he was a racist, etc.

Then those exact same screamers a few weeks later did the exact same thing in their own districts. I watch most of the last year, and see nothing but spin. "How dare he order schools closed!" "We are closing schools to protect our kids!"

It has not a damned thing to do with money, this is why most people fail to ever see it.

Maybe for that site although I doubt it. You still can't buy off all sources for every country.

Davos has a lot of heads of states and their health ministers on their teams. It's not a matter of 'buying' necessarily. Our Trudeau said it himself about Davos and the plan.

check this link:

https://apps.who.int/gpmb/assets/annual_report/GPMB_annualreport_2019.pdf

That's the WHO's site. In that document, go to page 39 and read the second item under 'Progress indicator(s) by September 2020'.

"including one covering the deliberate release of a lethal respiratory pathogen"

They say 'simulation' but it's miraculously convenient that Covid19 happened right after that report was written.

This is from the mouth of the horse.

Now switch to page 42 of the same document and see who's behind this shit. Fauci is on the list.

The fact remains that there are more deaths than usual with currently the only reasonable suspect being Covid.

Nobody is denying Covid19's existence and its deadliness to some.

I'm arguing that it's being made way more dangerous that it actually is for political reasons. Ask Lazeez, he's Lebanese an he'll tell you about the shenanigans in Lebanese hospitals where they're listing almost every death as Covid19 related because 'somebody' is paying hospitals $30,000 per Covid death. Now why would somebody pay hospitals that much? And what does that kind of motivation do to numbers?

All the links that I provided are to official sources, not some conspiracy theory sites or some unknown people. The people in power are telling you exactly what they're doing. They aim to change everybody's behaviour and control them more than ever. You can choose to see it or turn a blind eye.

Covid causes way more deaths than normally, that was my point.

And that is exactly what I'm questioning. Is it way more deaths or more like little more early deaths. In the average deaths graphs for Canada for example, there was a bump in deaths in spring, and a crater in deaths in late summer early fall. Now, go to the our world in data site and lookup excess deaths for canada and the numbers conveniently stop on the 23rd of August, right before the crater. Why would they hide that?

My whole argument is that those in power want you way more scared of Covid19 than is warranted by its actual effect and they're rigging the numbers.

That's the WHO's site.

Don't mention Taiwan. The Chinese, under whose fiefdom the WHO has fallen, really don't like it.

AJ

They say 'simulation' but it's miraculously convenient that Covid19 happened right after that report was written.

Guess what? These kinds of simulations are going on all the damned time. Why do you think the military was able to adopt to this so easily?

Rather simple really, they have been "gaming" such a scenario for decades. The day before the 1994 Northridge Earthquake, there was even a large exercise in LA to prepare for an earthquake.

Of course, then you have the paranoids who see boogie men around the corner everywhere around them. Of course, for some reason now we seem to live in an era where such is so common I simply shake my head.

Paranoia, the only mental illness that actively tries to spread itself to as many as possible.

Guess what? These kinds of simulations are going on all the damned time.

The passage in the document, if it's on its own and isolated, then yes, I agree, it's something that is regularly done. I've studied biology and biochemistry and I've personally participated in pandemic scenarios and discussions. I was even called a fatalist by a doctor when I asserted that the next pandemic is coming and it's a matter of when.

I'm aware of that.

At the beginning of the pandemic I was all for lockdown, self isolation, masks, hygiene, all of it. After all, that's what you do when dealing with the unknown.

But nine months later, a lot has changed. Way more info has come out. Too many discrepancies have become evident.

That passage along with everything going on paints a grim picture.

I was even called a fatalist by a doctor when I asserted that the next pandemic is coming and it's a matter of when.

And the same with me.

In fact, in one forum I used to participate in (2005), I brought that up and a lot of people got pissed at me and screamed I was fearmongering.

Then earlier this year I brought up the exact same things, even quoted back to those 15 year old posts of mine. And had somebody scream I had no idea what I was talking about, and I was making it up as I went along, and had never said anything like that before.

I just calmly pointed back to posts over a decade where I had said the same things. That we were well overdue, and going almost a century without a major pandemic was an aberration. And when it hit there would be panic because nobody would know how to deal with it on an individual level.

Early this year, my aunt freaked out when I warned her we were only in Phase I, and there would be at least 2 or 3 more waves before this was anywhere close to dying out. The numbers of infected started to drop, deaths dropped, she actually smiled and told me I was wrong.

Then a month later it spiked yet again. Experts are still arguing if we are in an extended Wave 2, or actually in Wave 3. I am still expecting another year, maybe 2 until it is all over. And all the isolation is doing is causing it to drag on longer and longer.

And yes, this will sound brutal. But ultimately, disease is one of the mechanisms of nature to "cull the herd". Yes, it is brutal on the herd, but it is also one of the few ways nature has in dealing with over-population. A lot of the herd will die, but the remainder is stronger when it is done.

And since I have not seen any kind of "human apex predator" evolve to cull out the human herd, that only leaves disease. It sucks, but nature does not care.

I would wonder how they determined it was spreading from child to child rather than all the children being exposed outside of school.

Obviously you have never had kids.

I told my daughter all the time growing up to never share or borrow a comb from another. Yet, in second grade she along with about 2/3 of the girls in her class all got lice. And of course, from sharing combs.

Kids prior to around 10th grade tend to have very little understanding of "cause and effect". This is why you frequently hear about outbreaks of scabies and lice in grade schools, but not so much in High Schools.

As to the trend... Ever since SARS, every cold&flu season there's images in the media of masses of people in Asia wearing masks.

Oh no, it goes way back beyond that. I first went to Japan in the mid-1980's, and mask usage was already common back then. In fact, in Japan it dates way back to ancient times, because of fires and volcanos. In China, it gained popularity in the 1990's because of the rapidly increasing pollution rates.

But it predates COVID, it predates SARS. but it does peak in the Spring, because even basic particle masks filter out most pollen. And per capita, Japan does have among the highest percentage of people who suffer from hay fever in the world.

So if you had to treat an open wound and you had no medical grade masks available, but you did have a 3ply cloth mask that sealed fairly well around your face, would you use it?

If I was dealing with an individual with an open wound, I would be using full PPE, including mask and gloves. And that is because of my training, not only to protect myself, but to protect my patient.

Yes, I am in a medical unit. I worked for years in a CASH (modern iteration of a MASH) as a computer tech. Before going into the ward tents, I put on full PPE including apron, mask, and gloves. Even if I was only checking some wires going to a computer. Because it was my job, and I was in the equivalent of an ICU in a tent.

And yes, I keep a Combat Lifesaver Kit in the back of my vehicle at all times just for this reason. Think of a "First Aid Kit on Steroids", which allows me to do things like needle chest decompressions and nasal phalangeal airways. I even have saline bags still in it, but would only use them for irrigation as they are way past their expiration dates.

So to answer your question, I would not even have done that 2 years ago, let alone now! Hell, when I worked security I even put on gloves before searching somebody I detained. Of course, that has also been SOP for most law enforcement for almost a decade, so the current situation does not even apply.

But you also took what I said and twisted it away from what I actually said. I suggest you go back and read it again.