It's kind of dominated our lives this year and fortunately for me I live in a country that, at least from a boots on the ground perspective, hasn't been to harsh on their citizens as far as lockdowns and restrictions are concerned. We also have one of the lowest death counts of any nation in the world.
I live in Vietnam and the thing that doesn't make sense to me when I look at the death counts elsewhere in the world is strange because...
- The medical care in Vietnam is perfectly adequate, but it certainly isn't world-class
- We were open for several weeks after other countries had already started to panic and had closed their borders
- We only had the sort of lockdown the USA and other countries are dealing with for about a month.. we have NONE at the moment
- We share a border with China... 800 miles of it
- There is a relatively massive migrant Chinese work force employed here at any given time
- Chinese people constitute a very large portion of the overall tourism mix here
- This is a very densely populated country. There are nearly 100 million people here and the country is roughly the size of Texas
- Except for that one month of lockdown, we have never had a mask mandate
So how is it possible that Vietnam has 35 deaths from Covid and the United States has 200,000?
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I'm not writing this to lecture anyone on what the "truth" is as far as any of this is concerned - Social media is absolutely inundated with people arguing about what the government is telling us and for me, I tend to gravitate towards non-government information anyway ever since working for the federal government 20 some odd years ago. They are not to be trusted. We used to lie about stuff that I couldn't even see the benefit in lying about so when i see something as big as this I immediately presume they are not telling us the truth.
I also at one point was watching Sweden with great interest because they were basically the only modern western country that refused to go down the same path as everyone else did as far as shutting down society was concerned. Depending on the news source it seems that their strategy is either praised for working or derided for being a failure. It kind of depends on if the herd immunity thing ends up being the key for overcoming any virus as is the opinion of many medical experts and it will be interesting to see the long-term affects of them having a different strategy than basically all of the rest of the western world.
Whether or not that is true I can appreciate a country's leaders expecting their population to exercise caution to protect themselves rather than relying on the government to force people to do so. I'm very liberty oriented and feel as though it SHOULD be an individual's responsibility to exercise the amount of caution they feel is necessary for themselves. In sort of a morbid way I find it a bit amusing that I live in one of the few communist countries in the world and I have dramatically more freedom than my friends and family back in the United States and Europe.
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Then of course there is the theory out there that this really isn't as big as the media makes it sound but when Covid came to USA it was an opportunity to score political points against Donald Trump. This one sounds possible and there is a ton of information out there that clearly points to deaths being attributed to Covid even though it was many other things that actually killed the person.
There are multiple officials on the record saying that even when people die who were on hospice care, they would have their cause of death attributed to Covid (hospice care is where you have resigned yourself to the fact that you are going to die and are not longer fighting for example, cancer, and instead just have drugs to make your death as painless as possible.) There is also the doctor caught on tape joking about how someone died in a motorcycle crash and his death was categorized as a Covid death.
There are a myriad of stories where testing centers were returning near 100% infection rates and it wasn't until a spotlight was put on them about the near impossibility of this being true that they altered their stories.
Then of course there are the memes that I am not going to bother verifying their data (because knowing if it is true isn't going to change anything) about how the overall deaths in the United States from all causes is right on pace with being the same as it would be any other year.
While I do listen to some Bitchute guys about the "other side" of the story here I really don't get too worked up about it because I think that doing so about something that you cannot control or change is a waste of precious time.
Basically, without "deep diving" too much all I have to do is look around at my current surroundings before I start to feel that there is definitely a lot of bad information out there and sadly, I think our governments might be in on it. How is it that I live in a country that has very little money and infrastructure, has had almost no lockdown protocols for all of 2020, yet we have almost no Covid death at all?
So what do you think? I don't talk to many people these days that feel as though our current global strategy is a good one and if you are one of those people I would love to hear what you have to say about it. I'm not trying to start an argument, especially not about Trump; I'd just like to have any information that you know, preferably memes, that might tell me something I don't already know.
Ockham's razor suggests that Vietnam has had good results because its approach was effective. While it's a poor country, it does have the ability to mobilize millions of people to tackle a crisis. You'll know more about this than me, but one detail that struck me was that the government even supplied Korean food to Korean travelers who were quarantined.
I don't buy the genetics excuse. The virus started by spreading fast in China, but China eradicated it anyway. In the US, 1 in 1000 black people have died from Covid-19, while African countries that are used to dealing with epidemics are doing fine.
I understand mistrusting the government. I don't understand that a disease has become a topic of political debate. I even received three flyers from a pro-corona campaign - more than from any other cause. The corona virus has shown that certain governments we thought were effective are dysfunctional. The US and the UK are run by leaders who think they can change reality through positive thinking.
Sweden put one mad scientist in charge, and something similar happened here in the Netherlands. The virus response is guided by research scientists, who have a natural tendency to wait and see what happens. Now we're having a second wave, and masks are still a matter of debate at the highest level. The understaffed regional health authorities are overwhelmed and can't do contact tracing anymore. Hospitals are scaling back regular health care. From the beginning, the strategy has been to keep the pandemic at a moderate level, not to eradicate it. Because we're a sophisticated Western country, we won't listen to the WHO or Asian doctors with SARS experience who tell us that's a crazy idea.
There's also one thing I should write a post about: Corona isn't like the flu where you die or recover. Surviving patients tend to have horrible chest pain, reduced long function, brain fog and other symptoms that may last for the rest of their life.
Thanks for answering pal, it is nice to get different perspectives from around the world that are not tainted by media opinions and for some strange reason, their political objectives that seem to overpower any and all logic.
I thought the Netherlands went down the road of a similar style of lockdown as most of the rest of Europe. Is that not the case?
As far as I'm concerned...I'm more inclined to believe the opposite of what my government says and don't have much more respect for other governments around the globe🙃
Welcome to the upside down world, or what I like to call - mirror world :)
i'm with you @angryman as i tend to believe the same. I just wonder if anyone is telling the truth right now. It is equally as likely that Vietnam is lying about their death counts to try to make themselves look good as well.
Well I can only tell you my side of the story as to form an opinion and mine is opinionated by myself ofcourse :D
I work in a hospital in Holland which I also consider a developed country in terms of healthcare. In our first covid wave in March I was also one of those masked up people and a lot took my by surprise in the field. I was expecting elderly people as patients but it turned out to be a mix of all kinds of ages. Also people who seemed relatively young (as in...an age where you normally dont die from the flu) turn bad in minutes, shooting bloodclots and gasping for air. On the department I worked on I guess only 30% of all the people we saw walked out, and the rest was body bag.
Maybe these were people with underlying conditions which didnt have complaints from their unknown stuff as yet. Possible. Maybe they were in general a lot less healthy than we all thought. Also possible.
But is seems that covid is striking some groups harder than others and maybe it is in the genetics. I had a brother who was visiting. His brother was in my ICU and another brother was in another icu across the country. Both parents died from covid. They had all seen each other. Why is brother 3 still alive and kicking with no symptoms? Does he have something different 'written'in his code which makes him less prone to it?
And why Vietnam is not hit? (apart from that vietnam is an awesome country. I visited last year and was most impressed). Maybe it has something to do in the genetics as well? Why do Chinese people get more drunk from alcohol? Genetics.
Why do Dutchies grow taller than the average Spanish person? Genetics
And all of these sequences are ofcourse finetuned with what we eat and do over the years to ourselves and what we passed on to the next generation. Maybe this is also what happens to covid. Some are more prone to it than others and maybe Vietnamese have the good genes? I don't know.
That is also the problem I guess with it. Because it is so 'new' we are all still erperimenting with it and fighting symptoms in stead of finding out where it comes from.
That is the medical side it from my behalf. On terms of what the news presents to you that is just dramatic. Numbers and sensation that is what is all is about, and it is sickening. So in those terms...yes covid is very real, but what the media tells you on how what and where...even I have my doubts with those.
what a fantastic response. It is nice to hear from some one that actually witnessed stuff going on in their actual life rather than something on the news. 30% survival rate in Holland? That seem like a crazy number.
Lol what else could I say, first of all meme source is google. another thing is that I could not even understand the situation, like India and U.S. are in some kind of competition to rush to the top on covid cases but many other countries near china even has been so good keeping covid out. here the life turned out to be normal just
mask as been important to carry out and now it feels like a part of mouth only :p
Anyways I want to now come to Vietnam, this year's travel plans are in vain.
anyways keep flourishing :)
thanks for responding with a meme pal. I do love them
We are preparing for a second lockdown at midnight here in Malaysia. New cases spiked up to 500 per day. The total cases right now is around 17,000. This all happened after an election in Sabah recently where politicians and voters refused to be quarantined for 14 days after returning to Peninsula Malaysia. I have also started seeing some people on the streets refusing to comply with wearing masks or maintaining a safe distance from each other. There are many overweight and people with underlying health complications such as diabetes, high blood pressure and etc. in Malaysia due to our oily as well as meat based heavy diet. Lack of exercise too exacerbated health problems.
Not trying to be funny but a long time ago I remember reading that Malaysia has the largest problem with obesity of any south east Asian country. I used to travel there a lot and the food is really tasty! That might be part of it.
Thank you for your compliments. I agree with your comments. The national sport of Malaysia is neither badminton nor diving. It's eating! 🤣
As per India, government were strict at the starting and even people were following the rules very obediently. But over some time, issues start to raise as unemployment was and is at peak right now. Due to unemployment, there is a huge risk of thiefs, chain snatchers and a lot of fraud. The people over here followed all the orders precisely just for barely two months and then again everything is like there is no corona.
I remember reading about it and actually asked @praditya to clarify what was going on in India. The international news always tries to make any country that isn't doing exactly what their country is doing look bad but I totally understand the implications of not allowing a population to work and therefore not have money. I think that was a big part of the reason why Vietnam likely wont lock down again at all even if things get bad because people have to eat, and once the government takes away their ability to do that, worse things than disease can be the end result.
I didn't really believe it was a huge deal at first, then I had a couple of friends that I have met on here that got it or had a family member that got it and I have a different opinion now. My parents are high risk, so my theory is why take the chance. They have quite a bit more wisdom they need to impart to me before they leave this place so if I can do a small part to keep them around longer, why not. I think there are a lot of unknowns and there is probably a lot of miss-information out there. Personally, I'd rather live with knowing I might have been duped (and maybe even controlled) than live with the regret that I could have done something more and I didn't.
Fair points and i totally understand where you are coming from.
The thing that really gets me is the massive disparity of deaths between various countries and the rather shady things we hear about numbers manipulation.... Also that the media isn't covering that even though if they were doing their jobs that is exactly what they should be doing.
Also fair points. I know several cases where a death has been reported as Covid when it really probably wasn't. I am sure it is happening quite often.
Covid is a scam. A joke.
There are certainly a lot of people that feel that way. I tend to believe this as well but this is only because we have been lied to from the start. At least one good thing came from this - a lot of distrust of the government and international bodies was sewn because of this - and i believe more people should believe that their govts and especially the media, can not be trusted.
You're just spitting facts gooddream!!!
My comment turned into a somewhat lengthy post. Please check it out - The real world is a global wargame - But you are not a player.
Well, in Libya, the average person is taking it way to easy until one of their family catches COVID. I don't know about other countries, but the spread rate here is alarming and the medical care is almost non-existent (outside of big cities, it's unreliable.) Luckily, no one of my close family caught it yet, but I'm sure it's a matter of when, not if.
The reason I say that, is because people here don't take the caution they need. There are even people I know who believe that COVID is all a big lie. (I agree that we're being lied to in some way, but not on the existence/spread of the illness itself.)
It's a custom in Libya to handshake upon meeting, (sometimes you'd handshake someone you met 3 hours ago.) That custom started disappearing because of COVID, but we still feel bad when we don't handshake and some don't want to do that but still do it to not make the other person feel bad. (I mean, what are the chances of either of us having COVID right now, right?)
I still think we in Libya could survive this, I think the covid-death rate isn't that bad here but I'm not sure about the validity of the announced numbers.
Thanks for the response. It's nice to get a real perspective from someone that is actually there, because we aint gonna get the truth from the news. For a while here they were suggesting that people don't shake hands so we just fist bumped for a while - which was fine with me because I kind of prefer that.
I feel ya about changing your mind about it once a family member catches it. From my own personal experience my grandfather, who had been dying from various things for many years and had given up on life many years ago, died this year and the country coroner tried to attribute it to Covid. My uncles sued and they changed the death certificate. My mother was also not allowed to attend her own father's funeral, which was so tragic.
It was nice to see that the even though they were told not to, the retired military ensemble from the VFW turned up to give him a 7 gun salute (he was in the Army long ago) and local law enforcement said they would not try to stop them.