Covid is a true killer. So far it's killed the flu, cancer, heart disease - it killed the ability to think, logic & common sense. It killed the economy, the working class, & millions of jobs. It killed millions of businesses, human connection, love and compassion.
Of course, if the opposite were true, conspiracy theorists would be claiming that covid is the most dangerous virus ever and part of a plot to kill everyone.
Back during the SARS and MERS days, that's what some conspiracy theorists were claiming when the government response was slow.
Covid deniers and conspiracy theorists have been attacking the death figures since this started. It's an "official" figure so they start with the premise that it can't be true and work from there. Typically relying on incredulity and "I don't understand it" as the basis of their denial.
So, a year of lockdowns, mask mandates, social distancing, work from home, quarantines, limited public transport, no concerts, no galleries, no mass events, all to keep the death rate low.
Reaction now: death rate is too low.
I think you're giving them too much credit.
As we've been seeing, no conspiracy theorist seems to be able to actually explain what their beliefs are.
This is because most don't actually have any. They're just parroting what their told from conspiracy mongers on twitter/youtube/bitchute/parler.
Some individuals have decided that there is "something fishy" about this whole pandemic. Not just this pandemic, but often similar events and situations. This is because they harbour irrational personal beliefs, such as, a heightened fear of authority or an extreme discomfort that we are not always in control. Irrational beliefs are just that, irrational, and as such bypass normal reasoning and critical thinking. As a result these individuals will be absolutely "certain" something is going on, but can rarely explain what that something is, even to themselves. Likewise these individuals will gravitate towards disinformation, not because it's true, but because it does something more important to them, it validates that belief. Conversely they try to attack or discredit sources (media, science, etc) that refute their beliefs. When other people challenge these views, it's often seen as a personal attack, because the beliefs on which the views are based are personal beliefs.
No one wants to admit to this, but when we have threads which suggest everyone from Satan, to the "NWO", to secret Communists are all part of the same interchangeable plot, it's pretty inescapable.
I think your numbers for excess deaths in Ireland in 2020 are probably about right. We didn't have many excess deaths for 2020. If you search for the monthly deaths you will see that we had 3,500 deaths in April 2020 vs a max of about 2,500 in April of prev 5 years. Deaths then went back down to normal over May & June 2020, and stayed down till December. The obvious explanation for deaths returning to normal from about June would be because of our lockdowns, masks, social distancing, etc. I haven't time to look up the numbers now but there should be some excess deaths from the end of Dec 2020, and then many in Jan & Feb 2021.
So we probably got off lightly. However if you were in any doubt as to what would have happened if we had no lockdown, or a half hearted one, you just have to look at the US experience - https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/excess_deaths.htm
From that page, see below for weekly deaths from all causes in the US, for last 4 years. The orange line is the threshold for excess deaths (ie. above what would be expected), and peaks in winter. You can see they had excess deaths for a few weeks in Jan 2018, but then the next time was in Mar 2020, and it stayed like that for a full year, till spring 2021, and the cumulative excess deaths (above the orange line) comes to about 400,000 people (presumably from Covid). Deaths returning closer to normal this past few months is likely as a result of vaccinations. See the page I linked to above for a clearer picture.
Again, you're dodging the questions I laid out for you. I explained why you didn't answer any of them. I repeated all of them for you in direct clear terms.
You are dodging them because you can't answer them. You can't answer them because your believes don't have much behind them.
You and your fellow conspiracy theorists have been demonstrating this for the last 200 pages. You demonstrate this every time you dodge the questions.
The questions are still there for you to answer.
Answer them now please.
Or explain why you are dodging them.
You are dodging questions and now you are engaging in whataboutery (and I suspect the victim card will come out shortly)
You're the one making the claim that the figures are wrong (according to you). Fine. In that case, what are the correct figures and what's your methodology? If you can't address that there's nothing to discuss
Likewise if you believe something nefarious or untoward or conspiratorial is going on with Covid, fine. What is it? If you can't provide anything coherent, there's nothing to discuss
Finally the topic, if you believe measures will be permanent, outline which ones specifically and why they will remain permanent.
Don't know where you are pulling twitter from. I think you are the one that needs to grow a spine, rather than demanding answers and then when you get one, you call "your opinion doesn't count - you aren't qualified". Sorry, u can't have the best of both worlds. In a proper debate, you would have driven through a stop sign here and failed your driving test on the spot.
You need to chill out a bit if people are going to take your comments seriously.
Yes you are dodging. You've refused to answer my very clear questions several times. You still are.
I asked you to explain why we should take your informed, untrained opinion (Which, let's be honest, you were just told from twitter.) over the conclusions of trained experts. You did not explain this. You did not answer or respond to this question. You ignored it and ran away.
I asked you to explain why you believe experts are using the incorrect numbers. I asked you if you believed they were lying or if they were just wrong. You did not answer this. You did not acknowledge it. You ignored it and ran away. "I already said that people don't like admitting they are wrong" is not an answer to this question. It's vague bullshit you think sounds clever. It's meaningless.
I asked you the same question that been asked for the last 200 pages: What measures do you believe are going to be permanent.
Again, you ran away.
If you believe that you've answered these questions, quote where you did so. Or alternatively answer them directly now.
Or alternatively, grow a spine, grow up and admit why you're ignoring them.
Or you can do what every other cosnpiracy theorist has done so far: Throw a strop about how mean people are being to you, then have a big dramatic exit from the thread.
I am not dodging anything King Mob.
It's ok for you to ask questions and then when you get an answer, you pull the "unqualified" card. If I don't attempt an answer, I am running away from the question. Good luck with that.
Of course I am unqualified to answer this question. That's why I am on boards.ie and not a higher forum. I'd guess the same goes for you, but that's a shot in the dark on my behalf.
I already said that people don't like admitting they are wrong, there's your answer to all conspiracies.
Same answer to Dohnjoe as above. You don't have to believe in chemtrails, flat earth, global communist conspiracy or any other conspiracy you care to mention, to realise that ego is all contaminating. No-one likes admitting they were wrong, not even a tiny bit wrong.
Asking for an opinion and then saying it doesn't count because you are not an expert is forcing a circular argument. Good luck with your future discussions.
Why are you not addressing the questions?
Doesn't it strike you as a strange coincidence that you believe there is some sort of conspiracy going on with Covid AND at the same time you mysteriously have a problem with the figures AND you can't detail either.
No, sorry, you've dodged my question yet again.
I'm not interested in debating the details of the numbers, since you are not an expert and your interpretation of those numbers is simply not relevant.
Experts disagree with your claim that only 500 people have died due to covid. In reality over 5000 people in Ireland have died from covid. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/ireland/
Why are these experts wrong? Are they lying or are you somehow just better at statistics than them?
If you aren't going to answer my questions, could you at least explain why you are running away from them?
Well, if there are several hundred extra deaths in 2020 than there were in 2019, it would seem on face value that there are several hundred deaths you could attribute to covid. That would also have to account for the ageing population. Short answer, if I were to guess, I would say worst case scenario, about 500 extra deaths in 2020.
I think he's of the stance of: "I don't know the real numbers, I just know they're wrong cause one guy on twitter posted this statistic and I just accepted that without thinking."
Sorry, again you've dodged the questions I asked you. Why did you dodge them?
You are basing your conspiracy on the idea that one set of numbers "looks smaller" to you.
However, you are not trained in statistics, so why would it matter what your untrained opinion of how the numbers look? You already seem to understand this as you know that factors can effect how numbers look.
Why is the possibility you just don't understand complex statistics less likely than the global conspiracy explanation?
So why do you believe experts are lying about the numbers?
Also, could you explain which measures you believe are going to be permanent and why?
Or if not, could you explain why you are ignoring the question?
According to you, how many people have died as a result of Covid in Ireland?
(Please don't try to hide it behind indirect figures, hint at it and leave the "interpretation" up to someone else, evade, dodge, or any of that - we've seen these tactics used every time here. Straight answer please)
No one likes admitting they are wrong. This is a much more likely than any conspiracy theory out there.
How do I know the numbers are incorrect? They look smaller than what we were led to expect.
You have to account for an ageing population as well, which is going to have extra deaths per annum from now on. Here is a source.
Yes, KingMob, there is a possibility I am wrong. I don't claim to be an expert. It would be great if we had a debate involving experts though.
So how do you know that the numbers for covid deaths provided by the government are incorrect?
Isn't it possible that you aren't correctly working out the numbers because you're not actually trained to do so? Isn't it possible that there's factors that effect the real numbers that you aren't aware of because you're not a statistician?
I think that possibility is far more likely than a vast global conspiracy that no one seems able to explain.
Also could you perhaps explain which measures are going to be permanent and why?
We're getting dangerously close to page 200 without an answer to this.
How do I or anyone else on here know? All we can do is work backwards from crude death figures and formulate an estimate.
What are the correct figures for covid deaths?
Figures are here. Not going to get personal about them. Please look at figures without prejudice or emotional judgements.
"Correct" figures are these figures. Not disputing them.
Haha what a crowd of losers. Manic social media addicts who cant understand that theyre the victim of an algorithm.
So is it a genocide now? I thought that no one was dying and governments had to fake all the covid deaths.
Are they now covering up all the genocide occurring from the vaccine while also faking millions of deaths from covid?
In the early days of the pandemic, like in the previous ones, I saw folks claiming that the virus itself was a plot to depopulate the world. This pretty quickly changed when measures started to be introduced and then the deaths started getting downplayed.
I guess we've circled around again.
Again, some people really dont seem to understand what communism is
Anti-vax conspiracy theorists harassing Donohoe
"Yes these people are crazy, but my anti-vax/conspiracy views are sound"
Just picking up on one part of the essay where Australia was being used as an example of proof that lockdowns will be permanent and that they don't work becuse heavy restrictions have been brought back in.
You are aware that Australia has essentially done nothing with their vaccination program. Whilst they did very well initially during the global pandemic in shutting down and limiting cases and deaths that way, they are now still doing the same thing a year and a half later instead of getting vaccines in arms. Countries that have vaccinated their population are well on the way to opening everything back up to what it was like at the beginning of 2020.
Very few things you can't do in the UK now which you could at the beginning of last year.
You know the way you can take the facts on the ground, and mould a theory around them, and fill in all the blanks with stuff you think is likely!
With your way of thinking, where you extrapolate and imagine the bits that you can't see, how would you know the difference between a fake pandemic and a real one? Are you aware of how many real pandemics there have been over the centuries - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pandemic
Do you think the US faked 400,000 excess deaths in 2020? or Brazil is faking large numbers of excess deaths? If they are not faking the numbers then what are people dying of? And what makes you think that if we did what you seem to want (open up everything and act like there is no virus) that we wouldn't have the same results?
What makes you think you're right, and everyone else who is fighting this virus is wrong?
Yup. Empty ranting without any substance.
What measures do you believe are going to be permanent?
What lies do you believe are being told and specifically why are we being told them?
But you have agreed that the vaccine passports aren't going to be permanent because you've admitted that you can't explain why they would be permanent.
Why are you changing your mind now? Why are you still ignoring questions to praise this empty rambling?
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