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Originally posted by bigdeal:

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Originally posted by chellim1:
The battle for Michigan is heating up:

Michigan House Rejects Lockdown Extension, Votes To Sue Gov. Whitmer Instead

Ya get the idea that Whitmer's shot at VP has flown right out the window. I'm thinking her future as governor is likely very questionable at this point as well.

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Originally posted by lastmanstanding:
Hopefully the people of Michigan will choose more wisely next time.

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Originally posted by GWbiker:
Any one here remember the Hong Kong Flue of 1969. 1,000,000 deaths world wide and around 100,000 in the US.

I lived in Miami then and I don't remember any Media generated panic, no small businesses closed and no orders to stay at home.

Why all the panic this time around.

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Originally posted by az4783054:
It's odd that the 'cold and flu season' came and went with little fanfare.

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Why all the panic this time around.

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Originally posted by Jimbo54:

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Originally posted by GWbiker:
Any one here remember the Hong Kong Flue of 1969. 1,000,000 deaths world wide and around 100,000 in the US.

I lived in Miami then and I don't remember any Media generated panic, no small businesses closed and no orders to stay at home.

Why all the panic this time around.

Yeah, I remember but I was stationed at Ft. Ord at the time and they were more worried about a return of the meningitis outbreak that occurred earlier on the post than the flu. I was a young buck at the time and never gave it a thought.

Jim

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Originally posted by old rugged cross:
How much has anyone thought about how all this is going to get paid for. I know most think money falls from the sky or grows on trees. But it does not.

Take a minute and just think about it.

Unemployment, stimulus, pp, is just the tip of the iceberg.

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Originally posted by BansheeOne:
While the debate isn't anywhere near as much politicized as in the US over here in Germany, the state of farspread unamity was officially ended this week in a parliamentary debate. It's not like there weren't degrees of different approaches before, mostly between the states; while for the first weeks it used to be a competition for the hardest restrictions, it now seems to turn into one for the fastest lifting of them as people start to get fed up. It's not something following party lines, or even camps within parties though.

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The Corona Divide

Germans Split Over Lifting of Lockdown

A growing number of people in Germany are resisting lockdown measures imposed to contain the coronavirus. The rift between those who support the measures and those who are critical of them is growing.

01.05.2020, 18.50 Uhr

By Felix Bohr, Uwe Buse, Anna Clauß, Markus Feldenkirchen, Barbara Hardinghaus, Wolfgang Höbel, Guido Kleinhubbert, Martin Knobbe, Julia Koch, Dialika Neufeld, Christopher Piltz, Max Polonyi, Andreas Wassermann and Alfred Weinzierl

Last weekend, Christopher Lauer tweeted a photograph from a popular Berlin park. It showed hundreds of people sitting close together under the sunny sky, with little in the way of social distancing. He captioned it: "There's nothing really to add to this photo from Weinsbergspark in Berlin. From just now.” Lauer was one of the most prominent faces of the Pirate Party several years back and today he’s active as an online influencer, with almost 45,000 followers on Twitter. "My tweet got a ton of shares,” Lauer says. More than a quarter-million people viewed the photo, and almost 1,000 commented on it.

It sparked an aggressive debate between those who have been adhering to the measures imposed by the government to stop the spread of the novel coronavirus and people who have grown tired of the restrictions. "Berlin police, please clean this up at once ,” one user demanded. Another wrote that irresponsible people would ultimately harm everyone. "It’s so terrible.” A number of posters used it as an opportunity to vent, with comments like: "Just drop a bomb and be done with it,” or, "They can just go fuck themselves” or "Shithole Berlin.”

Soon enough, the opposing camp weighed in. "What’s the problem as long as the numbers stay as low as they are?” asked one user. Another wrote that people just aren’t going to allow themselves to be locked up forever. "It’s high time more people went out and got their lives back.” Another accused Lauer of acting like a Nazi neighborhood "Blockwart” with a "Stasi mentality,” a reference to the East German secret police.

Raw Debate

It was a raw debate, but it is one that is being carried out all over Germany and beyond at the moment. The coronavirus measures are not only forcing people to keep a distance - they’re also creating distances between people who used to be close. Lauer says he tweeted the photo out of resignation. Since March 14, he says, he has only left home to go shopping and for walks. He always wears a face mask. And he says he was stunned when he saw all the people in the park. "I limit my movement and take the pandemic seriously and they’re sitting in the park drinking beer?”

Indeed, aggression seem to be spreading faster than the virus itself, and it has the potential to divide society. Frustration over the length of the lockdown and limitations on public life and the economic, social and psychological consequences they are having is growing. At the same time, people who have obediently followed the rules are also getting more aggressive out of despair over the stubbornness of many who aren’t following them.

Compared to many other countries, Germany is doing well in the fight against the coronavirus. The German approach has been praised as exemplary by the international media and the mortality rate is low here compared to other countries. And so far, at least, the health-care system has not become overwhelmed, as some had feared would be the case.

Not only that, but compared to countries like France, Italy or Spain, where permission is necessary to be able to leave one's home, the measures in Germany have been rather moderate. And the restrictions currently in place are being relaxed by the week.

Yet while there was broad acceptance of the new rules during the first weeks of the crisis, people are now asking whether those rules went way too far. And whether it was all worth it – the collapse of the economy, the potential demise of entire industries, the overburdening of families and the psychological consequences of all the restrictions. Recent days have seen rallies, demonstration, petitions and lawsuits. A growing number of skeptics are voicing their opinions, both experts and those simply looking for attention. "We can already see that the mood in the populace is shifting,” says Friedrich Merz, a candidate for the chair of the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party.

Among the critics are publicity-hounds like Boris Palmer, the well-known Green Party mayor of the town of Tübingen, who declared: "It could be in Germany that we’re saving people who would have died in six months anyway because of their age and pre-existing conditions.” And then there’s famous German theater director Frank Castorf, who said he didn’t need to have a "teary-eyed" Chancellor Angela Merkel preaching to him about how "I have to wash my hands." He also said he would like to see more resistance to the policies across the country.

But such criticism is also coming from millions of people who aren't quite as full of bombast and who have good reasons for their desperation. This applies especially to those who have been most affected by the restrictions: artists, restaurant owners, parents, but also doctors and psychologists who have warned against neglecting sick people who don’t have the coronavirus.

Silent Resistance

And then there is the silent resistance of many people who say they agree with the measures in surveys, but who have long since abandoned the rules on social distancing and bans on meeting people from outside their households in their everyday lives. The mobility of Germans is rising sharply, as is the number of people who are meeting up with friends and acquaintances.

The political debate, meanwhile, has been divided into two groups: There is the group open to a more risky approach, led by North Rhine-Westphalia Governor Armin Laschet, and those in favor of more discipline” led by Chancellor Merkel and Bavarian Governor Markus Söder. But this rift also runs through all swaths of society, with politicians, journalists, neighborhoods, friends and family all arguing with each other. A divide created by the coronavirus runs through the entire country.

Germany’s most prominent and likely most influential virologist, Christian Drosten, has experienced this shift in the social climate first hand. Even as some are celbrating him as a kind of curly-haired demigod, others see him as being the main culprit for their misery. Britain’s Guardian newspaper even reported that he has even been emailed death threats.

Drosten, though, insists that he won't stop issuing warnings, saying he wants to prevent the country from ruining the progress that has been made by the social distancing rules. His colleague Melanie Brinkmann at the Helmholtz Center for Infection Research is likewise worried about the potential consequences of the more casual approach to the coronavirus that many in Germany are now adopting. "The government has sent the wrong message with the loosening of measures,” Brinkmann says. She fears that people "are no longer taking the virus as seriously.”

[...]

Growing Protests

Protests against the coronavirus containment measures have been held in many places in Germany in recent days. People have been demonstrating every Saturday afternoon at Berlin’s Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz since March 28 in front of the theater there, calling it a "hygiene protest,” even though it has nothing to do with washing hands. The protesters believe the measures currently in place violate the German constitution.

It began as a protest among left-wing activists, Berlin artists and people who had occupied the Volksbühne theater on the square in an effort to oust its director. But then the far-right, neo-Nazis and others of their ilk began attending.

At one recent protest, a grandfather could be seen playing the national anthem on his harmonica. There was also an elderly woman who said she would like to see her grandchildren in France again. Other protesters carried copies of the German constitution under their arms. Most weren’t wearing masks.

The growing anger could also be observed in Stuttgart, where the initiative Querdenken 711 has been organizing protests against the coronavirus containment measures for three weeks. They are protesting against face mask requirements, travel restrictions and bans on social gatherings. In the beginning, around 30 demonstrators turned up, but this Saturday, organizer Michael Ballweg is expecting more than 3,000 protesters.

On Wednesday night, crowds also gathered on the cathedral square in Magdeburg. The Saxony-Anhalt state chapter of the right-wing populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) had called for a protest against the "knee-jerk measures taken by the federal and state governments.” Fifty participants were officially admitted and barriers demarcated the area on the square where it could take place and green crosses were taped on the ground to mark the places where protesters were to stand. But more than 300 people turned up, with most standing outside that area. One man commented that more people will die from cancer that from "the shitty cough, and they’re not doing anything about cancer.” Another man wore a T-shirt warning against the "psycho terror” of Merkel, Drosten and Reiner Haseloff, the state governor.

But it’s not only chronic Merkel-haters or AfD-supporting conspiracy theorists who are expressing their discontent. Many are driven by fear born from concern for their own children, for those who are sick and for their economic livelihoods.

[...]

Waning Support

Governments are now trying to find a compromise. They want to continue fighting the pandemic while at the same time mitigating the collateral damage that battle is causing. It’s still entirely unclear what the outcome of this experiment will be. The only thing that is certain is that the German government itself has played a role in the fact that acceptance of the measures it has imposed is waning and that many Germans are feeling insecure.

The considerations behind the government’s decisions have often remained vague. That is especially conspicuous when the chancellor and her chief of staff, Helge Braun, shift strategies, which has happened often during the crisis. This has resulted in contradictions that have not been resolved and changes in direction that are not explained.

Initially, the majority of politicians at the federal and state level rejected the closure of schools, but then, suddenly, they shifted positions and favored the closures after virologist Drosten read a new study from the U.S. overnight and changed his opinion on the issue. In the beginning, the government also questioned the sense of wearing face masks as a form of protection against infection. Today, the wearing of masks is mandatory across Germany. The government has also changed its announcements about its targets for controlling the pandemic. At first, it was a question of how quickly the number of new infections doubled. Later, it was the so-called reproduction factor or "R” number, which refers how many people each infected person passes the disease on to. Now, Merkel’s cabinet has begun looking at a different figure: The number of new infections. The government has said that the chain of infection can only be traced if that number doesn’t rise too quickly. It’s yet another change that adds to the confusion and feeds distrust among the populace.

These shortcomings play right into the hands of opponents of the measures to contain the coronavirus.The fact that there have only been around 6,000 deaths linked to the coronavirus in Germany has led people like theater director Castorf, for example, to doubt the seriousness of the medical emergency in the country. He laments what he calls an "ideologizing” of politics, which in his opinion is based on scientific advice that is by no means reliable and a worldview he considers questionable.

Such voices could ultimately contribute to the impression held by some that the warnings from the government about the catastrophe have been exaggerated. It is true that an increasing number of Germans are no longer afraid of the disease, even though it is still as aggressive and deadly as it was six weeks ago. Many people think the country has dodged a bullet.

The Prevention Paradox

It’s a phenomenon that is well-known in health research. It’s called the prevention paradox. It states that a preventative measure that has a high health benefit for the overall population often does very little for, or is even harmful to, the individual.

This is particularly true when it comes to controlling pandemics. When fighting an outbreak, it is important that the tough measures are taken at a time when the number of people infected is still low. If this succeeds and the strategy works, then the major health disaster that had been expected doesn't ever materialize. And that would leave many asking whether politicians had gone too far in those prevention efforts.

As such, the very absence of mass deaths can give rise to harsh criticism, particularly if combating the pandemic has serious social and economic consequences.

It’s not just the virus that Germany will likely have to deal with for some time to come, but also this paradox.

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South Korea Says Recovered Coronavirus Patients Who Tested Positive Again Did Not Relapse: Tests Picked Up 'Dead Virus Fragments'
Sinead Baker, Buisness Insider, 4/30/2020

(Excerpt) Scientists said the wave of South Koreans who tested positive for COVID-19 even after they recovered did not have the virus reactivate after going dormant and that they were not reinfected.

South Korea announced in early April that some patients who had recovered from and tested negative for the virus later tested positive again, suggesting that the virus could reactivate or that patient could be reinfected. The country has recorded this happening in 263 patients, The Korea Herald reported.

But the country's infectious-disease experts said on Thursday that the positive test results were likely caused by flaws in the testing process, where the tests picked up remnants of the virus without detecting whether the person was still infected, The Herald reported.

The Herald described the experts as saying that "dead virus fragments" were lingering in patients' bodies after they recovered and that the virus did not appear to be active in the patients.