I'm so tired of covid denial and the antiloxxer brigade. Yet these people are everywhere (on social media, which is hell anyway). They are singularly frustrating because they effect a facade of scientific rigour. In truth it's based on the kind of speculation they accuse their opponents of engaging in. So they are also hypocrites. They like to argue they are rational and that their opponents are fear mongering. Yet the only fear I see is their hysterical predictions that everyone is going to a) lose their job b) lose their mind or c) lose their life - but not from covid.
Now to be fair the consequences from lockdown are profound. This is obvious. But as I've argud before they are not because of lockdown; they are a consequence of an inadequate economic system that is intrinsically fragile. Now, more than ever, we have a golden opportunity to address that. Fortunately the BLM protests are helping with that since they correctly diagnose the systemic issues behind racist policing (tautology, all policing is racist).
Unfortunately the deniers don't want to engage in that discourse; therefore they are spreading fear and not taking their own position seriously. If you genuinely cared about the consequences of lockdown then you would certainly recognise they exist as a product of capitalism. How many people suffered mental health and economic stress as a result of the banking crisis? How many do so every day because their job is precarious, their wages low, and their living conditions lacking - all while the keepers of capitalism do nothing. They can't do anything. Capitalism is prone to crisis, this situation has revealed this. You, the denier, should acknowledge this. To do otherwise is to betray your own ignorance and demonstrate that you aren't an honest interlocutor.
But they persist. fetching up outliers and cranks. Portraying them as brave vanguards; mavericks that buck the trend like a modern day Galileo. This is disingenuous. Galileo lived at a time when knowledge was lacking, understanding and tools likewise. Since such times we have built an exponentially increasing body of knowledge and technology with which to examine the world. It is reasonable enough to point to such people, but to do so without evidence backing it up is fallacious. Yet they do this all the time. Peter Hitchens is a prime example.
Saddest of all though is their utter refusal to engage. I have been blocked by several of these people (including, I am pleased to say, Mr Hitchens). I use anonymity on social media, to these clowns that is reason enough to dismiss questions put to them. In actuality it just demonstrates their fragility; their unwillingness to be open and be scrutinised. That alone should be enough to set off the alarm bells.
357 more deaths today reported. This figure or thereabouts seems dangerously stubborn, immune to government. But then that government is immune to action. Nothing is improving which means everything is declining. The R rate is between 0.7 and 1 which in and of itself is a problem. Government cannot claim success with a rate like that. How can we move out of lockdown in these circumstances? I take no pleasure in that, I want this to end, but it's not ending. It's slowly threatening to peak again, and this time there will be no putting pandora back in her box. We had one chance I fear.
In fact, according to this the R rate in this region (southwest) is actually 1, highest in the country:
They blew it. We die to spare their blushes. Disgraceful.
Class War
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